Helmet Head (14 page)
CHAPTER 31
Wild Bill Returns
“They put me on paid leave. I saw the handwriting on the wall and resigned. I must have applied to sixty jurisdictions across the country. Bullard County was the only one that would have me.”
Macy didn’t know what to say so she said nothing. She thought about telling Fagan about Shane. It rose like a sounding whale stopping just beneath the surface. No. He didn’t have the right to know. Not yet. Maybe not ever. For the thousandth time she wondered if she was crazy.
As a nursing student Macy had studied psychology, delved more deeply into it on her own. She devoured the classic texts like
The Mask of Sanity
and
Human Psychology
, compulsively watched
Dr. Phil
,
Addicted
and their endless ilk knowing that this was not “reality,” as advertised in the listings, but show biz. Ginned up conflict to entertain the squares. The quirk of the week club:
Hoarders
,
Dance Moms
,
Big Bitch Texas
,
Bridezillas
. She couldn’t get enough. Watched it in the bar when she was the only one there. Rattled off a list of diagnosis: borderline personality disorder. Schizophrenic. Extreme narcissism. A douchebag. A conniving cunt.
Macy used to think she knew how to size people up. That was before she met Bill. Obviously she didn’t know shit. Still, she had a sense that Fagan was a man of honor, whatever the hell that meant. He’d already had his ass kicked going to her defense. And he was a cop. They were supposed to be men of character, although experience taught her they often were not. She knew outlaw bikers with greater character. Doc and Curtis came to mind.
Wherever bikers gathered they traded stories of cop perfidy. This is what happens, she thought, when you choose an antinomian path. If you set yourself outside the law of course you’ll see the law as the enemy. On the other hand Macy had personally witnessed enough police bad behavior to know there were plenty of bad cops out there.
Lady cops were often the worst, probably because they carried chips on their shoulders and thought they had more to prove. A lady cop stopped Macy once for weaving all over the road. She was a light skinned black woman with laser scars on her buff arms from tat removal. She thought she smelled alcohol on Macy’s breath, threw her to the ground and cuffed her without warning. They never did a breathalyzer or took a blood sample. Macy tried to file a complaint. A judge dismissed the charges. Wild Bill wanted to bushwhack the cop but Macy put the brakes on that.
She’d thought about being a cop for five seconds once, right after she spent ten minutes wondering whether she should join the Army.
The problem, she realized, was not knowing what she wanted in life. What did Macy want? Was it the marriage, the kid, the ranch house in the suburbs? Did she still want to be a nurse or had all the compassion dried up and blow away? No idea. The one thing she knew—she was going to keep this baby.
She became aware of the cop’s beating heart against her ear.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Not your fault.”
“It’s funny how the choices you make, you don’t think anything about at the time, how they come back and affect your life.”
“Yeah,” Fagan said, shifting toward her to ease his arm. “Like stepping on a garden rake.”
“But you weren’t a motorcycle cop before.”
“No,” Fagan said. “But I was always a biker. Got my first bike when I was fourteen. I ride a Yamaha in my spare time.”
“That thing.”
“Helmet Head.”
“I’ve heard about him.”
“Where?”
“Sturgis, two years ago. We were partying with the Outlaws. Said that’s how one of their guys bought it. Wild Bill tore him a new asshole.”
“All these years,” Fagan said, “the story’s been out there.”
“What if it comes back?”
Fagan disentangled himself and sat up. “We won’t be here. Soon as it’s clear we’re leaving. We can take Fred’s bike. We’ll walk if we have to.”
“Can’t you hotwire the truck?”
Fagan grinned and put his pants on. “That’s a big myth that every cop knows how to hotwire a car. I’m sure Wild Bill knows.”
Macy sat up and put on her clothes. The wind howled. Thunder rumbled from afar. A faint whine intruded. At first Macy thought it was a tornado siren but as it waxed she recognized the distinctive rumble.
“That’s Bill’s bike.”
***
CHAPTER 32
The Limbo Rock
Macy was first out the door because Fagan stopped to put on his shoes and strap on his gun belt. As soon as he followed and saw the glow he knew he’d made another bad decision. He ran up to her, seized her by the shoulders and turned her away.
“Go back inside! Don’t look!”
Macy twisted free of his grasp and ran a few steps. She stopped and stared in consternation at the fast approaching fireball. Bike and rider fused together by the flickering blue/green flames the wheeled comet accelerated as it entered the parking lot. Macy stood frozen. Fagan wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her back out of the way as the monstrosity blazed by so hot it singed Macy’s hair.
The rider and bike had become a single encrusted organism. In the split instant as it passed and just before it slammed into the side of the bar Fagan saw that the rider had no head.
A half ton of flaming bike and rider slammed into the side of the bar with a deafening report. Fagan sprinted for the bar, leapt the steps in a single bound and ran into the kitchen where he’d spotted a fire extinguisher. He ran back outside to find Macy sitting on the ground, arms around her knees staring at the charred remains blistering the siding. It looked like the scene of a jet fighter crash. Fagan stepped up with the fire extinguisher and within seconds had put it out.
When he looked back Macy was quietly sobbing. He dropped the extinguisher, helped her to her feet and led her back into the bar where he sat her down on the sofa and covered her with the blanket.
“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
“It’s coming back,” she sobbed. “It’s going to kill us. It’s going to kill my baby.”
Fagan sat and put his arm around her. “It’s not coming back.”
Well that’s another great career decision you’ve made, isn’t it?
Sleeping with a suspect/witness/person of interest was always a great idea on the cop shows—in real life not so much. Now what was he supposed to do? Stay and comfort her like a lover or perform his duties like an officer of the law?
Love her? He’d just met her! Sure he found her attractive and felt sorry for her. He liked the way she talked, too, but he was on the job! Their life together stretched before him, an hallucination flickering in blue/green flame.
“It’s coming back and it’s going to kill us,” she blubbered into his chest.
Fagan disentangled himself and stood. “No it’s not. It’s not some mythological creature. It’s just a big man with a lot of body armor.” He tested his radio again. Nothing.
“Stay right there.” He headed for the front door. The bike’s impact had knocked glasses off tables and the custom steins off their shelf. They lay shattered in a field perpendicular to the bar.
Distasteful though it was Fagan had to make sure it was Wild Bill’s body glued to the handlebars and seat. He went outside, down the steps and around to the side of the bar where the reeking mess had left a broad scorch. Smoke curled from the remains, the smell of gasoline, burning rubber and human flesh.
Using a pen light, Fagan approached with gloves on. The bike lay on its side, the body sprawled back but still connected. Fagan spotted the pocket chain and pulled Wild Bill’s fat Harley wallet out from under him. It would have to do for now although later they would take fingerprints if they could.
Fagan wondered how the device had been kept upright and rolling without a head. He shined his pocket light on the black neck stump and that’s where he found the implant.
It was a circuit board no larger than pack of cigarettes with a series of microchips and tiny gaily colored cylinders like you’d find in any radio-controlled toy airplane. It lay flat across the severed top of the spine with wires sinking into the neck. Two AAA batteries lay in tandem.
Fagan thought about taking it out and bagging it but who knew who deep it was sunk or to what else it was connected. Better leave it to the tech guys. One thing he knew. Helmet Head was not just a big guy in body armor. Whoever had engineered this infernal device was some kind of criminal genius. Fagan was a reasonably well-informed guy. He cruised the net and subscribed to the
Wall Street Journal
and
Scientific American
. This was zombie future thriller shit. Nobody was even talking about animating headless corpses.
He flashed on a dark vision: dozens of headless corpses in coveralls carrying pickaxes marching into a mine. Yo-ho. Yo-ho. It’s off to work they go. Headless soldiers marching off to battle. Headless police. Headless Occupiers.
Der Golem
. The murderous clay monolith of Jewish legend.
Fagan touched the star around his neck.
The implant changed everything. It was now a federal matter, and possibly Homeland Security. The technology had frightening implications for terrorism. Which begged the question, how could some freak recluse living in the backwoods of Southern Illinois have developed this shit?
Fagan examined the body more carefully. The pistol was gone. Nor did Wild Bill appear to be carrying any other weapons. Fagan felt a lump in Wild Bill’s black leather vest, ripped it up from his body with a disturbing sound, fished around in an inside pocket and drew forth a black-velvet jewelry box. He opened it.
A one karat brilliant-cut diamond on a gold ring.
It hit Fagan like a jackhammer to the gut.
He thought about pocketing the diamond. It would go a long way toward child support.
Won’t you do the Limbo Rock?
How low can you go
?
Sighing, he replaced the jewelry box in Wild Bill’s pocket. Let the tech boys figure it out.
He thought he heard a muffled shout from the rear of the bar. Thunder rumbled, closer this time like a bully making another pass. Drawing his pistol Fagan approached the back parking lot in time to see the leaves moving as something big disappeared into the forest.
***
CHAPTER 33
Just One Smoke
Macy huddled on the sofa beneath the blanket thinking,
What have I done? What have I done?
Her world had changed in an instant.
Wild Bill was gone. She searched in vain within herself for some small sign of regret but all she felt was an overwhelming relief. It was as if a throbbing headache that had troubled her forever, which she refused to acknowledge, had suddenly disappeared.
Her euphoria lasted about two seconds before she returned to what she’d just witnessed and the reality of her situation. She was no longer fighting for herself. She was fighting for the baby.
Does that make me a bad person
, she thought. Glad because the father was dead?
No.
Was it better for the child to grow up without a father?
Not necessarily.
She had a replacement all lined up and she asked herself, not for the first time, had she deliberately set out to seduce Officer Fagan in hopes he would take care of Wild Bill? Was that who she was?
Tears filled her eyes. She did not want to be a conniving bitch! She’d never been one to trade on her looks. She was a tomboy, someone who could take a joke, one of the guys. The other Road Dogs had all treated her with respect—even Mad Dog. She felt lost and alone and that made her desperate. Desperation made people do crazy things.
She’d only had five lovers in her entire life. She’d lost her virginity to Shane but the first guy to whom she gave it up was her boyfriend Jack in the back seat of his parents’ ’68 Chrysler. Their affair did not survive the following summer when Jack decamped to D.C. to serve as a Senate aid.
There were a couple guys in college, nothing serious, and then Bill.
It wasn’t like she was Paris Hilton!
She knew all about the biological stupidities that led women to the wrong men. Deep voices, a hairy head, well-hung. Nature didn’t give a shit about lasting marriages or mutual love and respect. Nature’s only interest was propagation of the species. She knew what men were like. It had been so easy to seduce Officer Fagan. No wonder so many women preferred to make a living off their backs. Sure as hell beat nursing school if you liked that sort of thing. She giggled.
She thought briefly of getting on Fred’s bike and getting the hell out of there. She knew how to ride—even had her own bike, if it was still in one piece, back at the trailer park. She doubted she’d make it far. She knew what these roads were like after a wind storm. There’d be trees and limbs all over. She looked at her watch. It had only been three hours since the cop showed up. It seemed like a week.
God she wanted a smoke. Hadn’t had one since she took the test, a week ago. Before that she’d gone through a pack a day. Big whoop. Twenty-one cigarettes. She didn’t drink. She no longer did cocaine or meth. What else could they ask? One fucking cigarette wasn’t going to kill the baby. Considering what kind of day it had been she’d be well within her rights to upend the death’s head corn liquor.
Just one. One lousy cigarette. She sat up on the sofa and scanned the table tops. She got up and shifted through the butts in the ashtray. Those fools smoked a cigarette until their fingers burned. What was she, some junkie sifting through detritus for a fix?
Well yes. She giggled again. What a day! And it wasn’t over yet.
Fred smoked. Fred had cigarettes. She knew for a fact he had pack in his breast pocket. Maybe he had more in his room. She got up, grabbed a flashlight from behind the bar and went into Fred’s room. She felt funny like she didn’t belong. She’d only been in it a couple of times at Fred’s request, when he sent her after something.
The room gave her the willies. A cursory search revealed no cigs. She had to go for the cigs in his breast pocket.
No biggie. She’d already been back there once. Fred was just frozen meat. He wouldn’t begrudge her a cigarette. He never had. He’d been a good friend, a father figure although he wanted to jump her, she could tell. But Fred had always behaved himself and treated her decently, letting her stay when she couldn’t get home. Loaning her money when she was short.
She felt a sob about to break surface and thought this is what it’s like to go crazy. Laughing and sobbing, loathing and loving.
All right. Enough. Straighten up, woman! Get the cig.
She pushed open the door to the warehouse. The only light was what filtered through a single grimy window high up on the wall, the occasional flicker of distant lightning. Reflexively she looked around as she always had, entering the family basement. Shane could be anywhere. Behind the stacked liquor boxes or wedged between the furnace and the wall.
But Shane was gone. AWOL with no forwarding address. He had no idea if she were even alive, let alone where she was. Shane was not the problem. She had to get Shane out of her head, for the sake of the child.
She shook herself and made a gargling noise with her tongue, literally purging herself of fear.
She went up to the freezer, seized the handle and lifted the lid.
Ice cold fingers closed around her wrist like handcuffs.
***