On Broken Wings (19 page)

He had the three of them roar up and down the street three times before swooping into parking formation in front of their target. If anyone were home, their arrival would be well announced.

***

Louis and Christine were at the computer. He was helping her to debug a tricky bit of code, and was deep in his habitual analytical trance. The engine sounds failed to reach him. What he did notice was her death grip upon his arm, and then the rictus of terror on her face.

"What's wrong?"

Her throat seemed to be locked. Her lips emitted a wordless hiss. All her muscles had gone rigid. Only then did he hear the roars of the unmuffled engines, waxing and waning in the street outside.

His own heart raced into overdrive at once. Several deep breaths restored his control. He spared only long enough to say, "It'll be all right. Stay here," before bounding down the stairs.

He peered through the front door spyhole to see three large motorcycles bearing three large and unpleasant-looking riders, swooping about in the street in front of his home. He couldn't be sure, but one of them looked familiar...from the Onteora General parking lot.

Dear God. How can this be?

And then:

Can I take them?

He snatched open the coat closet and grabbed his 20-gauge pump shotgun in a single motion. A glance reassured him that it was fully loaded. He clicked the safety off, pumped a round into the chamber, and opened the front door in time to see the riders park their steeds and dismount.

Malcolm Loughlin's voice rang through his head, harsh and heavily inflected.

"Never head into combat until you know what you're ready to do, what you're willing to do, and what you're able to do. Each of the three is a limit on you. If they don't line up straight, you'd better run."

Louis Redmond closed his eyes for the briefest of moments, and sought inside himself for what he knew he would need. It was still there.

***

Christine wanted only to run, but there was nowhere to go. This would be her last stand.

Without willing it, she rose from the desk and went to the window. Tiny, Rollo, and Duffy were striding up the walk to Louis's front door. Her time of freedom was coming to an end.

Louis had gone to face them. Poor, simple, good-natured Louis Redmond would try to reason with them. He had no idea what they were capable of, or of how casually they killed. The man who had given her her life was about to die at her tormentors' hands.

And all she could do was watch.

***

Tiny was startled to see the little twerp come out of the house. He matched Rusty's description to the letter. Typical office worm, about five-seven, looked like he spent his whole life indoors. He probably was a fairy. Perhaps there'd be a little extra fun before they rode back to the barracks with Christine. There'd be plenty of fun afterward, for sure.

He strode up the concrete walk, Rollo and Duffy trailing by about three paces. There was a protocol to these things. As leader, he got first crack at both risks and rewards. Damned little risk here, but it was the principle that counted.

"Can I help you gentlemen?"

So polite. This would be fun.

"Yes, perhaps. Might this be 633 Alexander Avenue?"

The little twerp nodded. "Indeed."

Tiny allowed himself a mocking little bow. "Then you would be able to help us to find our missing friend, who has been seen in this vicinity, entering this house?"

The little twerp said nothing, merely elevating his eyebrows to indicate puzzlement.

"We've been looking for her for quite some time. It seems she left her hospital against medical advice. We're deeply concerned to see that she gets exactly the right treatment." He showed his teeth. "Would you bring her out to us, please?"

The little twerp shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't help you."

Tiny laughed. "Then we'll help ourselves." He started forward, and the little twerp held up a hand as if he were a traffic cop. The absurdity of it was so great that Tiny actually stopped in his tracks.

"This is private property, sir."

It was all Tiny could do to keep from bursting into a fit of giggles.

"How nice."

At the foot of the entranceway steps, he lunged upward and forward, intending to body-check the little faggot out of his path. But the twerp's right hand, which Tiny had not yet seen, came whizzing up from somewhere near Australia, and clutched in it was the barrel of a shotgun.

The stock of the gun smashed across Tiny's face with sledgehammer force, obliterating his vision and pitching him onto his face on the lawn. As he landed, he heard the gun roar twice. Surprise and agony competed for his attention. The blow to his face seemed to have shattered his cheekbone and several of his teeth.

When his vision had returned and his head had cleared enough for him to attempt to rise, a foot landed in the middle of his back with unsubtle force. It was joined by a circle of pressure against the back of his neck that could only be the muzzle of the gun. He made no further movement.

After a moment, the foot came off his back.

"Roll over and sit up. If you move your hands, I'll kill you."

Tiny did as he'd been told, and saw the ruin of Duffy's face a few feet away. Rollo was lying motionless, face up, just beyond Duffy. The head Butcher's bladder cut loose.

"Jesus!"

"I doubt He's interested."

His attention snapped back to the little twerp with the shotgun. The barrel was leveled at his face. The little guy was expressionless.

"Your friends are dead." The voice was hard-edged, but without emotion or inflection. "Can you guess why you're not?"

Tiny shook his head. He could feel urine soaking through his jeans.

"There are more of you, aren't there? About twenty or so?"

Tiny nodded, eyes still on the muzzle of the shotgun.

"Your barracks is out in Woodlawn, behind the Crazy Clown, right? I've been there. You usually get what you want, don't you?"

Tiny nodded again.

"And you get it because you're a bunch of crazy motherfuckers, right? Because you're tougher than nails, you stand together, and nobody in his right mind would try to stand up to you. And you, being the leader, you're the toughest of them all. Right?"

Tiny's attention shifted back to the little man's face. It seemed calm, as if this were a normal afternoon in this corner of Onteora County, with no bodies on anyone's front lawn. But whatever his face said, the edge on his words was something else.

"You think you're tough? You couldn't stand up to me on your best day. You think you're crazy? I could make you scream your guts out with nothing but my fingernails. And if you disappoint me, I might just look you up and demonstrate."

Tiny locked eyes with the little man, wondering whether to hope that he would live. The guy didn't seem to like it. He brought the business end of the shotgun down to rest on the bridge of Tiny's nose.

"I'm sending you back to your pack. You're going to tell them all about the crazy man who killed their friends. And you're going to convince them to stay the hell away from here. Know why?"

Tiny said nothing.

"Because if you don't convince them, I will look you up, and I will finish you. But not cleanly, the way I did your friends. I'll take my time. I will teach you every way to hurt that the world has ever known. You'll beg me to kill you until your throat turns raw. Do you understand me?"

Tiny nodded.

"Are you going to stay the hell away?"

Tiny nodded again.

"And what about Christine?"

Tiny struggled to find his voice. "She's yours now, man. Just let me up."

"No. Onto your hands and knees."

Tiny complied. The shotgun never left his face.

"Crawl over to your hog and get the fuck out of here. You'll never know when I'm watching you, so don't get clever. I've got garbage to dispose of, and I'm in a foul mood. If I see you again, here or anywhere, it's over."

Tiny did as instructed. When he got to his cycle, he turned back toward the house. The little twerp had gone inside and shut the door. He had not even remained to watch Tiny's departure. Shuddering, running his tongue over his shattered teeth, the Butcher chieftain kicked over the engine and rode away.

***

When Louis reentered the house, he could not find Christine. She was no longer in the office, and nowhere else in the living spaces of the house. After two minutes of rushing about shouting her name, he was hoarse, flushed, and near panic.

She wouldn't have left the house. She'd be too scared of what might be waiting outside. She's probably still too scared to show herself.

He realized that he was still carrying the shotgun. He clicked the safety on, restored it to its place of concealment in the coat closet, and sprinted for the basement stairs.

He found her wedged behind his furnace. She was crouched into as small a huddle as she could manage in the narrow space between the furnace and the wall. Her eyes were wild with fear.

"Chris, you can come out." He did his best to keep his voice low. "It's all right now. They're gone and they won't be back. You can come out."

She gaped at him as if he were a total stranger speaking an alien language for perhaps half a minute. Slowly, she straightened up and squirmed forward out of her place of concealment.

From head to toe she was a mess. Her beautiful white linen suit was smeared with oil and soot. Her pumps were smudged and scuffed. But worst of all was the picture of Hell on her face. Louis's heart clenched in his chest.

She leaped at him.

It was not an attack, but no attack could have been more forceful. She wrapped all her limbs around him and clung to him with manic strength. He lost his balance and toppled backward, but she did not let go. The impact against the concrete floor of the basement emptied his lungs in a rush. She remained atop him, still clutching him for dear life.

The whole length of her body was pressed against him. Each gasp and shiver that ran down her frame shook him as well. He could only clasp her in his arms and wait for her storm to pass.

Her hands went to the buckle on his belt.

He tried to stop her, found that he could not. Against his diminishing resistance, she undid his pants and slid them away, then did the same for his briefs.

She hiked up her skirt with a twist of her hips and impaled herself upon him. The sudden enclosure of his organ by her vaginal passage was like an electric shock. Involuntarily he arched, bucked, and pressed himself into her. In a few moments, she had brought him to that secret place, reached only through a woman's body, where every man is, for a little while, a god.

Thus it was that, at thirty-six years of age, on the gritty concrete floor of his basement, only minutes after committing two homicides, Louis Redmond lost his virginity.

***

At about midnight, a blue Dodge pickup truck entered an alley off a back street on the seedy end of Onteora's commercial district. It was a place where only winos and junkies ever went: dirty, damp, and dark even at high noon. The two derelicts who were there at the time scuttled down to the far end, hid behind a mound of trash, and waited for the intruder to depart.

A short figure in coveralls emerged from the cab, visible only as a silhouette against the darkness. It pulled the tonneau cover back from the workbed and unloaded two large, heavy objects onto the alley floor. When the truck had gone, the two derelicts slunk back to see what the intruder had added to their environment.

The truck's payload had been human bodies. One had a large hole in its chest. The other's head had been all but destroyed.

After they had turned out the pockets of both corpses and found nothing of value, one of the winos spat on the bodies. "Thanks for nothing, stiff."

***

It was after one o'clock when Louis returned from his errand. He went straight to the shower, fighting the urge to plunge into the water fully clothed. He scrubbed long and hard, under a spray as hot and hard as he could stand.

Dear God, forgive me for treating two of Your creations like lumps of offal. Forgive me for killing them. And above all, forgive me for enjoying it so much, if You can.

When he had returned to a state approximating self-possession, he toweled off, made a ball of his soiled clothing, and headed for his bedroom. He found Christine there. She was sitting up in his bed, waiting for him.

She had scrubbed herself clean. There was no makeup on her face. Her scars were plainly visible in the dim light. She let the blanket slide down her chest, revealing her breasts.

He stood in the doorway for a moment, meeting her eyes. He was no longer sure of anything in the world. She waited in silence.

"Is this what you want, Chris?"

She nodded and held out her arms. Without another word, he joined her.

He, who had never known a woman's body before that day, learned from her the heights of carnal love. She, who had been violated innumerable times and subjected to vilenesses that beggared description, learned from him the depths of tenderness. It was dawn before they slept.