Ghouls (17 page)

Bard’s lips puckered as if he’d just bitten into a lime. He began to bend back the shiny corners of his desk blotter, unconsciously ruining it. “I ain’t gonna argue with you, ‘cause you’re probably right. So fuck it. I’m gonna go home and eat and worry about it tomorrow.”

Kurt stood up, keys jingling. “I’ll stick close to Belleau Wood till Glen comes on.”

“Good idea… One thing, though. For God’s sake keep on your toes. I’ve already lost one officer, I sure as hell don’t need to lose two.”

“Calm yourself, boss,” Kurt assured. “There’s no way anyone’s going to kill me this close to payday.” He exited the office, just as Bard began to tear pieces off the blotter.

««—»»

On patrol, Kurt faltered at the look of the sky; it reminded him of El Greco’s view of Toledo. Purpled, pregnant clouds piled up on the horizon as a limitless mass. A breeze blew dead and tepid, and dusk continued to slide overhead. He could feel another storm coming, a storm worse than yesterday’s.

The headlights glared out before him, bringing out peripheral trees and bushes and high weeds in crisp-white relief. Shadows clung to the
woodline
, a hulking ebon wall to the left and right. Several white-faced possums congregated at the shoulder, watching incuriously as he passed. A baby marsh rabbit froze in the headlight glare, then dashed across the road like a bullet.

Kurt took the frequent bends of 154 easily, almost enjoying the ride. He lit a cigarette and let the breeze sift his hair and billow his shirt. The radio hissed mutely, not even the dispatcher’s voice to break the calm. Listlessly he wondered what he would do with the rest of his shift.

He glimpsed a far-off glare, and a quick blink of luminous red dots. Without having to think, he looked high down the road, then he tromped the gas and snapped on the revolving blue fireball on the cruiser’s roof. Less than a quarter mile ahead, a vehicle turned out of Belleau Wood entrance number 2.

Thirty-five. Forty. Then fifty miles per hour. Now the wood-line was soaring past on both sides, the blue globe sweeping feverish arcs of light as he sped on. The vehicle vanished around another bend, but reappeared a moment later when he screeched through the turn, breaking sixty. Kurt was closing in, like a pilot on a slow target. He squinted to make the vehicle type (car, truck, van?) and maybe a partial tag. Now that the flashing blue light was obvious, he wondered if the driver would pull over or go for it. With a touch of shame, Kurt hoped for the latter.

The vehicle pulled over. Kurt braked, then came to a full stop. He parked directly behind the vehicle, and three feet into the road, leaving what was known as a proper “sideswipe margin.” Then he “held” the tag number with the dispatcher, grabbed his flashlight, and got out.

The vehicle was a new Chrysler New Yorker, liquid-black, with an atrocious red pinstripe along the side. Kurt’s hopes melted at once. This would be just another routine traffic stop, a drunk or some joker out for a drive, who didn’t realize Belleau Wood was private property.

Kurt took himself through the expected motions, walking up to the car in a slow, gauged stride, and letting his face fall into the typical expression of affect. He popped the
thumbsnap
on his holster and stood immediately behind the open driver’s window. The occupant was just a face to him in the beam of his flash; Kurt noted refinement, and something perhaps scholarly. Curly dark gray hair, gold wire rims, and a short, meticulously trimmed beard with the same salt-
pepperishness
of the hair. The face looked up at Kurt, almost amused in wonder, and there was a grin so subtle it may have been mocking.

“Driver’s license and registration, please,” Kurt said, cold monotone.

“Yes, of course.” The bearded face turned into darkness, then reappeared. A similarly intangible hand offered a Maryland operator’s license and a pink MVA registration certificate. “You must be one of the town policemen,” the driver commented. “Those county fellows all seem to be quite stout about the waist. Terribly fat, some of them… Have I done something wrong?”

Kurt managed not to smile at the crack about the county. He took the cards and said, “That road you just pulled off of, are you aware that it’s private property?”

“Why, yes,” the driver said.

“Then how come you were on it?”

“Because I
own
it. I own the road, the gate posts, the trees, and the accommodating acres, which number in the hundreds.”

Kurt read the tiny laminated license, then matched it to the registration. CHRY 4DR CHARLES RICHARD WILLARD. Kurt handed the cards back instantly. “Sorry, Dr. Willard. I didn’t mean to hassle you. I’m not familiar with your vehicle, and since I’ve never actually met you, I had to check.”

Now Willard’s smile seemed approving. “I understand, Officer, especially with all the nastiness that’s popped up on or around my property as of late. Actually I’m pleased to see that the local police are keeping an eye on Belleau Wood’s outer reaches when my guard isn’t on duty. You may know him— Glen
Rodz
.”

“Yeah, Glen and I have been friends for a long time. I’m Kurt Morris, by the way. I was with Glen yesterday when he found Officer Swaggert’s…hand.”

“Strange business, I’ll tell you,” Willard said, the smile dissolving. “I wish you luck in tracking them down. Why they chose to do their dirty work on my land I’ll never know. I can understand the poaching and beer drinking. That’s gone on for years, I expect it. But this…” Willard shook his head. “Anyway, in case you’re wondering what I’m doing driving around on dirt roads at this hour—my dog seems to have gotten out, a treacherous white French poodle. I’ve been looking for him for several days now, but so far not a trace. I suspect he’s answered the call of the wild. Ah, well. In any case, if you happen to see the little bugger, grab him for me, will you? There’s a reward. He answers to the name Vladimir.”

“Vladimir. Right,” Kurt said, but to him Willard seemed the very last person to tolerate pets, particularly a poodle.
“If I spot him, I’ll pick him up for you.”

A mounting roar came up behind them, and the sudden flash of headlights crossed with the bright blue throb from Kurt’s cruiser. A car had whipped around the bend, well past the posted speed limit, and was gone down the road before Kurt could blink. He had only time to make the passing vehicle as a dark (probably black) foreign sports car. One he’d seen before. In the corner of his eye, though, he saw Willard wave.

“My wife,” Willard said.

“Pardon?”

“That thoughtful, law-abiding person who just flew by like some winged thing out of Hades was my wife. I must apologize for her driving habits, and I’ll speak to her directly when I get home. One day she’ll learn that Route 154 isn’t her own personal autobahn.”

Kurt didn’t care. “What kind of car was that? A foreign make?”

“Yes,” Willard droned. “A Porsche. Last year’s Christmas present. She whines like the devil at the mere thought of driving an automobile that costs less than forty thousand dollars. But it was what she wanted, so I gave in. Six months from now she’ll be wanting something else.”

“That’s one nice set of wheels,” Kurt remarked as he watched the Porsche’s taillights fade.

“Not quite so nice when you consider the price of a tune-up,” Willard laughed. “Well, I should be going. It was good to meet you, Officer Morris. Have a nice evening.”

“You, too.”

Kurt stood there thinking to himself as Willard drove away. The revolving light on his roof pulsed eerie silent blue into the night, intensifying what he knew now must be fact. He was sure he’d seen the same Porsche parked at Glen’s bungalow the day they’d gotten the new cruiser. Now he knew why Glen had refused to explain his mysterious girlfriend, because she was another man’s wife.

Another set of headlights appeared, this time from the oncoming lane. A vehicle slowed and stopped on the opposite shoulder. Glen
Rodz
got out of his security truck and hustled across the street just as Kurt reached into the cruiser and turned off the light.

“Love that wicked blue light,” Glen said. “You just finish writing someone up?”

Kurt shook his head and stuck a cigarette in his mouth. “I saw some guy turn out of the access road, so I pulled him over. It turned out to be Dr. Willard.”

“No shit? I’ll bet he loved that, getting pulled over for driving on his own land.”

“Yeah, it’s not every day I get to make a dick out of myself in front of one of the richest men in the county.”

“What did you think of him?”

“Seems like an all right guy. Shifty, though. Something shifty about him, but then everybody’s shifty to me nowadays.” Kurt’s face turned orange when he lighted his cigarette. He wanted to mention seeing Willard’s wife pass by, to catch Glen’s reaction, but decided it was none of his business.

“I wonder why Willard was cruising around out here this late,” Glen said.

“He was looking for his dog. Said it got away a couple days back.”

“That’s funny.”

“Why?” Kurt asked.

“Willard doesn’t have a dog. He hasn’t owned a pet since he had Vladimir put to sleep four years ago.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER TEN

Vicky was beginning to think that nature had cursed her. She kept her fingers crossed all night at work, and as closing time approached, she caught herself peeking out the Anvil’s front door every few minutes, to see if the rain had started yet. The sky churned in wait, a black caul, but there was no rain as of 1:59
a.m.

The storm broke at exactly 2
a.m.,
the precise instant Vicky stepped out the front door.

Windblown rain swept her in gales, and for the second night in a row she had to run home through the teeming, wild dark. She swore aloud the entire way, using words that would make even Chief Bard recoil. Splashing along 154, she decided that of all the things she hated, she hated rain the most. By the time she was back at the house, she looked like she’d just been through a car wash, but without a car.

Inside now, she closed the front door like a vault cover, and sealed out the splattering, hissing rain. She turned
drippingly
in darkness, and when she turned on the nearest lamp, she saw that the living room was a repeat of last night, perhaps worse. Drained beer cans lay crushed about the floor. Roach ends filled an ashtray like droppings, and pot smoke lingered stalely everywhere. None of this surprised her, not even the garment she then saw at her feet. Last night it had been a bra, and tonight a pair of evenly faded designer jeans lay in the middle of the floor, like shed skin. At the Anvil, Joanne Sulley had spun her last dance at half past midnight, and had grinned leeringly at Vicky before leaving. Again, she’d come here, while Vicky was at work, and the jeans proved that Joanne was still in the house.

Vicky listened then, to verify what she already knew. Her head began to hurt from forced hearing, at the muffled sounds which filtered down from upstairs. She heard dull, intermittent thumps. The faint but viciously rapid rocking of bedsprings. A cry, a groan, a heated murmur. They were upstairs right now.

Vicky struggled to organize her outrage. Not the outrage of adultery, but the galling fact that Lenny would have his women in the same bed that Vicky had to sleep in. She decided then that she’d sleep on the ironing board before she’d ever sleep in that bed again.

She leaned back against the door, brought a hand to her forehead, and looked up without seeing. Somehow a smile came to her lips, and the relieving thought:
Not much longer.
The unnoticed shavings from her weekly pay were now beginning to grow to something substantial. Soon, another couple of months perhaps, and she’d have enough to take her far away.