Helmet Head (11 page)
CHAPTER 24
Wotan
An old two-story wood frame house with a listing porch that ran the length of the front. It might have been painted pale green once but now it was gray. The shutters and trim retained their forest green color. All the windows appeared intact and a light glowed softly from a first floor window toward the rear. Three listing wooden steps led up to the porch. At nine o’clock facing the front door a stone chimney anchored one end of the house.
The boys stopped at the bottom of the drive right before it veered toward the old barn, a hundred feet from the house. The barn was gray with double barn doors closed. It looked slightly out of whack as if the ground has shifted, like a Berni Wrightson drawing. It looked like it might topple in a strong breeze. A wrought iron weathercock shrieked intermittently in the wind.
“Well well well,” Wild Bill said getting off his hog. “I do believe we’ve treed the fucker. Doc, you and Curtis come with me. Chainsaw, you and Mad Dog check out the barn.”
“How come we have to check out the barn?” Mad Dog whined.
Wild Bill pointed at him. “Because you’re a pussy. And pussies belong in the barn.”
Doc and Curtis scoped the yard as they’d been trained to do. Doc noticed right away there were no cables to the house—no power lines, no telephone. No generator whine. What was the source of the lighting? He spotted ventilation for the septic tank that was often a rural home’s only option.
The wooden stairs groaned in protest as Wild Bill stomped up to the deck announcing his presence without saying a word. Two old Adirondack chairs sat on the deck. A faded rubber mat said WELCOME. Wild Bill pulled back the screen door and hammered with four ounces of silver on the door.
“HEY MOTHERFUCKER! TIME TO PAY THE PIPER!”
Doc reached past him and tried the door handle. The door was unlocked. The boys poured in, two wide-bodies and a slim body. Immediately before them a set of Mayan steps led to the second floor. The living room was to their left. A hall led straight back to the kitchen whence the soft light glowed. All three stood in the vestibule momentarily silent, unnerved by the ease with which they’d entered.
The house smelled ancient save for a tendril of drool. Something delicious on the stove. Something involving garlic. Their stomachs rumbled. Dust, a faint air freshener whiff of the fifties, the residue of thousands of meals, dirty work boots tromping in and out, the perfume of a young girl’s first prom, a faint odor of cat piss as subsequent owners commenced their long slide into oblivion.
Who knew by what circumstances the house stopped being a home and a working farm and became a derelict, a bum that squats in one place year after year? The bum’s clothes were old but they were clean, frayed around the edges but still worn with dignity.
What had kept it safe from marauding teenagers and meth cooks? Why fear of course.
Kids knew. There were always places like this, surrounded by rumor and “dare-yas.” Then they grew up and set aside childish things like spooks and haunts. Maybe not the bikers. You couldn’t find a more superstitious lot, their bikes festooned with good luck charms, St. Christopher Medals or bells. In their antinomian spirit bikers embraced the ugly and the profane, choosing skulls and bones as their good luck charms. The Grim Reaper, heavy metal, the Grateful Dead. Nazis.
Doc and Curtis had heard the Helmet Head rumors at Sturgis going back fifteen years—part of the dark canon of biker lore that got passed around after midnight. Like the crotch rocket rider who embedded himself in the back of a semi at 120 mph. The trucker drove seventy-five miles before he realized there was a dude hanging from his rear gate by the helmet. The squid broke every bone in his body. The picture of the boneless body embedded in the back of the truck circulated over the internet for months. It was still out there.
“What’s that smell?” Wild Bill said.
It was a miracle he could still smell out of his abused proboscis. Bill and Curtis headed for the kitchen. Doc went into the living room and faced the dark fireplace in which ashes had piled. Above the mantle a stuffed boar’s head glared down, tusks curling like Kaiser Wilhelm’s mustache.
There were no wild boars in Southern Illinois.
A head model with a full bandanna face mask and leather skull cap rested next to three trophies, so oxidized the bronze plaques were unreadable. Doc picked one up and brought it close, standing next to the window to read the script.
PAN AM GOODWILL GAMES 1978
KENDO—FIRST PLACE JUNIORS
HELMUT VON MULVERSTEDT
There was a black and white photo of a tall young man in a kendo uniform, helmet under one arm, a handsome, serious face like that of some twenties matinee idol.
Great. The dude was some kind of sword master.
Doc picked up the cast iron fire poker and crouched as he’d learned to do in Nam. He and Curtis could crouch with the best of them. Crouch for hours. Doc poked around in the charcoal. He fished out a cat’s rib cage and what looked like the remains of a human hand. Something seemed to be written in thick letters on the back of the fireplace wall. It stood out even through multiple layers of soot, like one of those optical illusion moiré patterns that cleverly conceal some message.
Doc stood, grabbed a kitchen match off the mantle and lit it against the stone fireplace. He crouched and held the match up to the back.
WOTAN
Written with a black marker pen.
“Hey Doc,” Curtis called from the kitchen. “Take a look at this shit.”
“Yeah, just a second.”
Straightening, Doc felt a sudden pain in his knees, put a hand on the mantle to steady himself. Getting old was a bitch. He carried a daily pill box. Seven little compartments filled with an assortment of gaily colored medications. Shit for his cholesterol, heart, kidneys and prostate. If he took the pills without food they upset his stomach. Come to think of it, he was starving and something savory emanated from the kitchen.
Doc walked back. The boys stood around the refrigerator which was plastered with clipped out news articles held in place with gay little magnets: Scotty dogs, daisies, bluebirds. Curtis pointed to a faded newspaper clip. Doc peeled it off.
VACATION ENDS IN TRAGEDY
June 22, 1987. Dr. Helmut Von Mulverstedt’s dream of an American vacation ended in tragedy Thursday when he lost control of his car on Milton’s Hollow Road, resulting in the deaths of his pregnant wife and two children. Von Mulverstedt himself was paralyzed from the neck down and remains in a coma at Our Lady of the Redeemer Hospital in Paducah. The accident was reported by a motorist at nine forty-five Monday night.
The story skipped to page A13. There was no other clip. It must have fallen down or been destroyed. Doc plucked another news clipping, this one about a headless biker found in the Town of Dunn, 2002. Another in Lake Foster a few years later. The latter clipping held a ketchup stain as if it had been pulled from the garbage.
A photo lay face down half under the fridge. Doc squatted and picked it up. It showed the tall, young, lean, blond father with his lovely young wife and two kids, about three and four, smiling in front of their rental SUV, about to embark on their grand American tour. The rental agency lay in the background. Doc stared hard at the photo.
He handed the photo to Wild Bill. “Who does that look like to you?”
Wild Bill brought the photo in, adjusting for focus. He pulled it back. “No shit!” he said. “How weird is that?”
Curtis took the photo from Wild Bill. “This ain’t no coincidence.”
Doc took the photo back and affixed it to the refrigerator with magnets. Helmet Head’s wife was a dead ringer for Macy. Doc noticed a recipe taped to the freezer door. It was in German. Roast Bavarian boar.
“What’s that smell?” Curtis said sniffing around like a bloodhound.
Wild Bill put his hand on the old gas stove. “Stove’s on.” He looked around, found a homey knitted hot pad in a floral pattern, opened the oven door and slid out the metal shelf holding a covered pot roast. The boys could hardly contain their hunger. Bill literally drooled. Their grumbling bellies competed with the thunder. Wild Bill used two hot pads to hoist the big ceramic-covered blue pot to the stove top and lifted the lid.
Larry’s head had been roasting for an hour and the skin was peeling off in slices. It was a wrinkled coco as if browned in olive oil. The teeth had been removed and the mouth sewn shut. One mustard eye turned toward Doc like a hard-boiled egg.
***
CHAPTER 25
Valk
Chainsaw unlashed the Stihl from the back of his chop, slung it over his shoulder via leather strap and carried his long-barreled magnum in his right hand. Mad Dog held his nine out in front sideways like he’d seen in
Menace II Society
. He’d never killed anyone and he was twitchy as hell. Chainsaw knew it. They all knew it.
Chainsaw liked the risible and obstreperous punk. Mad Dog brought new blood to the group. He followed their orders no matter how disgusting or degrading. He offered his flesh as a canvas for every tattoo artist and body piercer that crossed his path. He had enough silver through his nose, tongue and eyebrow to back the Guatemalan National Bank.
Mad Dog lived to fuck with citizens and cops. He had no grand plan for life. He wanted to brawl, ball, drink and ride. He had “BORN TO RAISE HELL!” inked on his chest in 36 point Gothic. He had a skull with a snake winding through its eye on his left bicep. He had no more sense than a gerbil on acid.
Both Chainsaw’s arms were covered with intricate, multi-colored Japanese-style illustrations of demons, samurai and geisha.
Chainsaw tried to remember when life was that simple. He’d joined the Marines at nineteen, served two tours of duty in Iraq and had one king hell bitch of a time returning to civilian life. Chainsaw had mad skills as a wrench and could operate heavy machinery but he could not seem to hold a job. His temper always got the best of him.
He couldn’t stand stupidity, incompetence or condescension. No matter where he worked there was always some fucker who rubbed him the wrong way, often deliberately. Chainsaw did not seek out confrontation.
It sought him.
He was a beat down magnet. Part of it was the way he looked: Jason Statham’s older brother. You’d think people would leave him alone. He was a perfect visual representation of what he actually was. Part of it was the way he spoke: heavy drawl. Part of it was the blue/black/orange/yellow ink up his arms. The Road Dogs were the closest thing he’d found to family. Chainsaw had worked briefly for a best-selling author, a household name, who maintained a fleet of three dozen classic and sports cars. Chainsaw maintained the fleet. He even helped whip the author’s nineteen-year-old son into shape when the kid got into drugs. Saw took him for a little hike in the Rockies. Just Saw and the boy, ten days in the wilderness. The kid came back a man. The author was eternally grateful. He even dedicated a novel to Chainsaw.
The Lake Harmony Monster
.
But when Saw got the call he quit that job to be with his brothers.
The author’s name was Carl Carruthers. His fictional hero Zach Moorehead represented LOCK, League of Conservationist Kooks, who sought to preserve endangered species. Carruthers took on Japanese whalers, African rhino poachers, even American Indians exercising their tribal rights to cull bald eagles.
Chainsaw tried to read one. He thought the whole thing was ridiculous, but Carruthers was extremely successful so he had to give him that. Carruthers lived in a 15,000 square foot French chateau with an enormous underground garage near Lake Geneva, WI. He also had twelve motorcycles including a Vincent Black Lightning, a Brough Superior, a Flying Merkel and two Excelsior-Hendersons, old school and new.
Saw preferred his Harley.
Chainsaw had been married for three months to a whore named Tiffany. The very thought of her name made him ill.
Tiffany. How could he have been so stupid? Well, drunk and stoned was more like it. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Back in the nineties, at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas.
A pole dancer!
More like a goddamn hooker. Not that Chain had anything against hookers. They were some of the best fucks he’d ever had. But when he caught Tiffany fucking her ex-boyfriend, a bouncer at Griffin’s on Fremont, he beat the dude unconscious and slapped Tiffany around like a handball until a neighbor heard the screaming and called the cops.
Bitch pressed charges and Saw spent six months in lock-up. Took him two more years to get rid of her.
Mad Dog stopped at the closed barn doors and shot Chainsaw a look. The doors slid sideways on rails. He needed direction. Chainsaw gripped his magnum in both hands, assuming a shooter’s stance and nodded toward the door.
Mad Dog pulled on the left barn door which opened slowly with a horrendous shriek. Mad Dog pulled it all the way to the side and crept toward the entrance with his nine on his cheek. Chainsaw approached, grabbed the right door and walked it back. The interior was black as tar. Realizing he was framed against the evening light Chainsaw quickly stepped inside and to the right, back against the inside front wall.
Mad Dog copied Chainsaw. Mad Dog wanted to be Chainsaw. Wild Bill saw it and didn’t like it. Wild Bill thought Mad Dog should want to be Wild Bill. Now they were both in the barn on either side of the door guns pointed at the middle. Something dark huddled in the center of the sawdust-covered floor between the stalls.
Chainsaw stumbled against a heavy tin. He felt behind him along the wall for a switch, found one. A single sixty watt bulb hanging at the end of a frayed fifteen foot cord cast a cold light on something low, black and spiky with the density of a small planet. Helmet Head’s chop. Metal spikes protruded from the fork on either side of the massive front wheel. More spikes formed a Mohawk down the top of the tank. Chainsaw inadvertently shivered. He had an aversion to choppers that looked like ranks of Roman spears or shish kebab skewers. If your ride went down you didn’t want it to stick you like a cocktail olive. It looked like some antediluvian monster left over from an earlier age. A mechanical megalodon or triceratops.
Mad Dog sucked in his breath. It sounded like air brakes. “That’s his bike,” he hissed in a stage whisper.
“No shit, Sherlock. But where’s the big guy?” Saw looked down. A steel gas tank sat against the wall. Through an open stall door he saw a jumble of motorcycles and parts casually tossed like they were children’s toys.
For a second he tensed and shifted, straining to see into every corner. The barn felt empty. Why would the dude hang out in the barn? He wouldn’t. The barn was silent. No snort or pig squeal. No chicken squawk or field mice scurry. Even the animals knew.
The barn was waiting. Maybe it was waiting for them.
Mad Dog approached the bike stealthily like a man sneaking up on a sleeping dog. He vogued into a leaning A-frame two feet away.
“It’s a Valk!” he hissed.
A Honda Valkyrie with a six-cylinder boxer engine.
At some level Chainsaw felt a deep relief. He had feared the bike was an infernal machine powered by the flames of hell. Chainsaw wasn’t a religious person. He didn’t much think about it. But he took it as a given there was a hell and he was probably going there. He was not a reflective man. But every now and then he weighed the good against the bad and found himself wanting.
Grinning, Mad Dog crept forward extending his left hand. He paused inches from the handlebar as if playing charade. Chainsaw held his breath, afraid to speak. Slowly, ever so slowly, Mad Dog stretched his left index finger and touched the handlebar, jerking back as if from a red hot stove.
Nothing happened.
Mad Dog did a little victory dance, going down on one knee to blow on his pistol barrel. He rose, jammed the gun in his pants, looked from Chainsaw to the bike with that country-wide shit-eating grin. He approached the bike shining his grill on Chainsaw. A redneck minstrel show.
Don’t do it
, Chainsaw thought but the words froze in his throat. He couldn’t speak. Something had hold of his larynx and had shut it down, cut off the flow of power and free will. He could only watch in dread fascination like he was watching a theatrical production, once removed from reality.
What would Zach Moorehead do?
Mad Dog gripped the handlebars and swung his right leg over the bike, seating himself on the broad leather saddle. He turned toward Chainsaw arms stretched in bodaciousness. Top of the world, Ma!
A skull-shattering shriek filled the barn. The stall behind Mad Dog slammed open propelled by a size 16 boot as Helmet Head rushed forward with his samurai sword held aloft. Mad Dog didn’t even have time to look. The sword arced out and around too fast for the eye to follow. Mad Dog’s head fell to the sawdust-covered floor with a thump and rolled.
***