The Devil Next Door (2 page)

Intercranial fluid. Jesus, that’s intercranial fluid.

“Please…just don’t move,” he said.

But the kid was moving.

He was holding onto Louis’ ankle tightly, very tightly, convulsing and squirming. Louis bent down, had to put his hands on the kid and the warm, fleshy wetness of that made waves of nausea roll through him.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Louis said, sobbing now, looking wildly around and wondering why no one else was seeing this.

And that’s when madness became horror.

The kid let go of his ankle and threw himself at him.

He was so badly broken and injured he should have been capable of little more than moaning, but he suddenly was filled with life, a demented and diabolic life. His fists came up and wrapped around Louis’ throat with a grip that was vital and strong. He gagged and spit blood, but he hung on, things inside him snapping and popping. His eyes were black and intense, his mouth hooked in a ragged sneer, toothless and hanging with ribbons of blood.

Louis screamed.

None of this could have happened in the first place and surely not this. Mortally wounded kids did not react like this…with rage and ferocity. But that’s what was happening. The kid had him by the throat and it was definitely not some weak half-hearted gesture born of brain trauma. This was something else. The hands were strong, immoveable, crushing Louis’ windpipe with a strength that was frightening. Louis grabbed those moist hands and tried to pry them loose…first gently, not wanting to further hurt the kid, and then with a manic desperation born of utter terror.

Because the kid’s face…it just wasn’t right.

He was insane, possessed, something. Those black eyes were flat and relentless; the swollen face bulging with exertion; the mouth contorted into a bloody blow hole, jagged teeth jutting from his gums.

Louis began to see black dots before his eyes as the pressure increased and his air was shut down. What he did next, he did without thought, out of pure instinct. He lashed out blindly, punching the kid in the face with two or three heavy shots that snapped his head back. It was like punching a bag filled with moist bread dough…his fists literally sank into it. But it worked. The kid fell away, rolled onto his back, shuddered for a moment or two, then went still. Blood still ran from him and that fluid oozed from his smashed head, but that was the only movement.

He was dead.

A couple bluebottle flies seemed to know this, for they lit on his face. A third settling onto his left eyeball, rubbing its forelegs together.

Panting, dizzy, half out of his mind, Louis pulled himself away from the wreckage of the kid. His white short-sleeved dress shirt was untucked, several buttons gone, the front muddled with brilliant red stains. He put a trembling hand to his throat and felt the slick, greasy blood there from the kid’s fingers. The world canted this way, then that. He thought he’d go out cold.

But he didn’t.

Sweat ran down his face, a cold sour-smelling sweat, and he was finally aware of the sidewalk beneath him and the birds singing in the trees and the sun in the sky.

That didn’t just happen,
a voice kept saying in his head.
Dear God, tell me none of that just happened. Tell me I wasn’t attacked by a dying kid and that I had to punch him out to get him off me.

But it
had
happened and the realization settled into him with a weight that almost pressed him to the concrete. He breathed in and out, blinked his eyes, looked around. Same late summer day. Butterflies winging through the grass and flowerbeds. Bees buzzing. Sun hot and yellow in that endless blue sky. Same smell of cut grass and roasting hot dogs, kids laughing and shouting in the distance.

It was the same. It was all the same.

Yet, down deep where the worst intuitions brooded, he knew it was not. Something was wrong. Something had changed. A shadow had fallen over the streets.

A cry twisting in his throat, Louis ran for the Dodge and his cellphone…

2

The police arrived.

Two thick-necked characters in blue uniforms pulled up in a patrol car, parked at the curb, chatted for a moment or two and stepped out. They seemed to be in no hurry. Which was amazing to Louis, because his call to 911 was frantic, bordering on out-and-out hysteria. Still, the cops took their time. They got out, slapped their hats on their pickle jar heads, nodded to each other, and strolled over to the kid’s body.

Standing there, incredulous, Louis just thought,
No, no, take your fucking time…

He didn’t know their names at that juncture, but he’d seen them around. There were less than 15,000 people in Greenlawn, so you pretty much saw all the official muscle in town if you stayed around long enough. One of them was fat with a sheen of sweat under his nose; the other was tall and muscular, the tattoo of a shark on his huge forearm. They stared at the kid’s body and kept staring. There was no remorse or shock at seeing the brutally disfigured body of a teenage boy. If Louis hadn’t known better, he would have associated what was in the cops’ eyes as indifference tinged by mild amusement.

One of them bent down to get a better look, waving a few flies off.

“Watch it,” his partner said. “Don’t step in that blood.”

And Louis was, of course, thinking the same thing. It was a crime scene, after all, and he’d seen enough of those shows. Michelle always made him watch
CSI
with her whether he wanted to or not. So he was thinking that the cop meant, don’t step in the blood, because you’ll screw up the crime scene.

But the fat one just said, “I don’t want you tracking that blood in the cruiser. I just washed the mats.”

Louis widened his eyes, but said nothing.

The fat cop looked over at him. “I’m Officer Shaw and this is Officer Kojozian. You the guy that called? Louis Shears?”

“Yeah, I called,” Louis told him.

“What happened?”

So Louis started to tell his story and as he told it, he started realizing how terribly ridiculous it sounded. The cops just nodded and it was hard to say whether they believed him or not. Their eyes were just dead and gray like puddles of April rain.

“
You get a plate number on that sedan?” Shaw said, scribbling in his little notebook.

“Yeah. ZHB three-oh-one.”

“You got a good memory,” Kojozian said, like he found the idea laughable.

Louis swallowed. “I work with numbers all day. I remember them.”

“You an accountant?”

“No, I’m a—”

“Mathematician?”

“No,” Louis said, sighing. “I’m an account rep which has absolutely nothing to do with what I’ve just told you.”

“Just take it easy,” Shaw told him.

Sure, sure, take it easy. Great idea. Problem was, Louis did
not
feel like taking it easy. After seeing two guys beat a kid’s brains in with baseball bats and then getting himself attacked by the same kid, something which seemed impossible to begin with, taking it easy just wasn’t in him. He needed to shout and rant and maybe even crack the coconuts of these dumb cops together so they would see the light shining in their bovine faces. And maybe after that, a good cry and a good drink.

Shaw had his hands on his hips. “Let me get this straight, Mr. Shears. These guys beat this kid near to death and then when you went to help him…he tried to strangle you?”

“Yes,” Louis said. “Yes. I know how crazy it sounds, but, Christ, I didn’t get all this blood on myself at work. He jumped at me, wrapped his hands around my throat. He was strong…all broken up like this, he was still strong.”

Shaw and Kojozian looked at each other.

“Then what happened? He just died?” Kojozian said.

“No, he wouldn’t let go of me, he was insane or something. He kept trying to strangle me, so I…I mean I…”

“Yes?”

“I…I guess I hit him.”

Kojozian let out a low whistle of disbelief. “Now we’re getting to it.”

Louis gave him a hard look. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

Kojozian shrugged. “You got blood all over yourself. Your fists are bloody. You just admitted you punched out a dying kid…”

Louis laughed. He had to laugh. This whole exchange was ludicrous. “Oh, I get it. You think I assaulted this kid. Well, yeah, that makes perfect fucking sense, doesn’t it? I was bored after work so I beat this kid to death and then I called you guys and made up a story about a gray sedan and two guys with baseball bats. Okay, you got me. Your mind is sharp as a tack, Kojak.”

“That’s
Kojozian,”
he corrected, totally missing the jibe. “And maybe you ought to quit with the mouth…how’s that sound, hotshot?”

“Both of you calm down,” Shaw said. “We don’t think you killed the kid or beat him up, Mr. Shears. It’s just that the whole thing is a little wild.”

Louis was starting to feel like he’d done something wrong. Like maybe he was in the hot seat here. Was this why people in big cities looked the other way when a crime was committed in plain view? They didn’t involve themselves for fear a couple Keystone Cops like these two might try to implicate them in something they were completely innocent of?

“Sure, it’s wild,” Louis said. “I’m just telling you what happened. I wish I could tell you something that makes more sense. Trust me, if I was going to make up a story, I think I could do better than this.”

Shaw nodded. “Sure, sure. Maybe the kid panicked or something. Maybe he thought you were the guy that did it.”

“I wonder why he’d think something like that,” Kojozian said.

Louis was burning inside.

He had half a mind to punch Kojozian right in the nose. And maybe he would have if he wouldn’t have gotten thrown in jail…right after he got out of the hospital, that was. Because if he took a swing at this ape, he would have gotten his ass not only kicked, but pressed and folded. The funny thing was, he had a pretty good idea that Kojozian wanted him to try something like that. The man was baiting him, intimidating him, pushing him. But Louis would not be baited or pushed, not by an animal like Kojozian.

Not that Louis hadn’t known any good cops, because he had. But these two were not in that category.

He made himself breathe very slowly to calm himself. “I’m just telling you what happened, that’s all.”

“Sure,” Shaw said. “Sure.”

Kojozian looked at him and Louis felt a chill run up his spine. Those eyes were just as black and intense as the kid’s when he’d attacked.

Like the eyes of a mad dog.

“So you’re telling us this kid attacked you?” he said. “He don’t look like he’s in much shape to attack anyone.”

“He was.”

Kojozian shook his head. He walked over to the corpse. “Let’s see…compound fractures, split-open head, massive internal injuries…I’m not seeing it, Mr. Shears. I think you’re full of shit. This guy couldn’t have done nothing but die.” And to prove that, apparently, he kicked the corpse. It made a wet thudding sound. “Nope, he’s all busted up inside.” He kicked him again. “Hear that, Mr. Shears? Hear that slopping sound like Jello in a Ziplock bag? That’s his insides and they’re splashing around. People with injuries like that don’t do much attacking. What they do is they puke up blood and shit out their intestines, but that’s about it.”

Louis felt something drop inside of him.

Not only was this offensive and sickening, it was absolutely insane. The kid was dead and this cop was kicking him, saying those awful things. Louis backed away, his head beginning to spin and he wondered if maybe he was in a padded cell somewhere dreaming all this. Because it could not be real. It could not possibly be real.

“What’s a matter?” Kojozian said. “You got a weak stomach?”