The Night Season (24 page)

CHAPTER

53

By the time
Archie and Flannigan got to Naito Parkway the black glass of the water was above their ankles.

The parkway was flooded, and beyond it Waterfront Park had all but vanished into darkness. It was all underwater, Archie realized. The vast expanse of grass. The promenade. The park benches. The monuments and fountains. Two helicopters hovered over a section of the seawall, shining their spotlights down, and Archie could see the cascade of black water spilling over a fifty-foot section where the emergency levee had given way. The churn they’d heard earlier was ten times louder here.

He could see the aquarium store four doorways up the street, a faint, now- familiar blue glow radiating from within—the tanks must have been powered by a backup generator. A row of sandbags was stacked along the seam where the sidewalk met the buildings, and Archie had to drag a hand along the top of them to keep his feet from going out from under him. Flannigan was close behind. Somewhere a car alarm started blaring.

The glass front door was broken.

“They’re here,” Flannigan whispered.

Archie peered into the store and listened. But if there was something to be heard above the sound of the choppers and the car alarm and the roaring water, Archie couldn’t make it out.

“Elroy?” Archie yelled. “This is the police. The river has breached the seawall. This area is flooding right now. I need you to give me the woman and the boy, so we can get you out of there.”

He directed his flashlight’s beam into the store. The water was bleeding in, finding every means of entry. It covered the store’s floor, reflecting the blue gleam of the aquariums.

Archie drew his gun and stepped over the knives of glass that still held in the doorframe.

The car alarm swelled in volume as Archie turned and looked past Flannigan to see the car in question float by, honking madly, parking lights flashing, half submerged in the water. Then the alarm stopped, the lights extinguished, and the car was gone in the darkness.

He took a step and raised his weapon.

“Susan?” he called.

Aquariums lined every wall, marine worlds encased in blocks of glass. They were fitted with black lights to highlight the neon of the colorful fish and exotic coral. Bright pink rocks. Fish of every size and color, feathery, plump, tiny, long. The tanks bubbled and gurgled. If Archie never saw an aquarium again, it would be too soon.

He took another few steps inside.

“You like fish, Elroy?” he called. “I like fish.” He tried to think of names of fish, and could only come up with the ones he liked to eat. “Salmon. Halibut. Black cod. Filet o’.”

“I like Leopard Wrasse African Blue Stars,” a small voice said.

Archie swung his flashlight in the direction of the voice, and saw Patrick Lifton sitting cross-legged on an orange molded plastic chair in front of a large tank of small red fish. He was wearing dark rain pants and a dark raincoat, but the hood was down. He had something in his lap.

A plastic bucket.

The hairs on the back of Archie’s neck bristled.

The kid appeared to be alone. Out of the corner of his eye, Archie saw Flannigan duck down an aisle to get at the kid from the other side.

“What do you have there, kiddo?” Archie said in as calm a voice as he could manage.

Patrick’s eyes flicked past Archie to a point somewhere behind him. “He wanted another one,” Patrick said.

Archie snapped his flashlight around, tracking the gun after it. But he saw only more fish. They jerked around in their tanks like anxious spectators. “Where is he?” Archie asked Patrick.

“I know you,” Patrick said.

“I’m Archie,” Archie said. “We met in the river.”

The kid blinked in the light, but his eyes didn’t waver. He looked directly at Archie. His eyes were a startling dark green, with a brown rim around the irises.

“I need you to hand me the bucket,” Archie said slowly.

“I can’t,” Patrick whispered.

They didn’t have time for this. Archie needed to find Susan and get her and the kid out of there. What did the parenting books say? Never negotiate? “I have something that belongs to you,” Archie said quickly. “Your Darth Vader figure. You lost him near the river. I found him. I’ll trade you.”

Patrick looked down at the bucket and seemed to hesitate.

Archie put his flashlight under his arm, and extended his hand, and took a step toward the boy.

“Archie,” he heard Susan say from behind him.

If it had been anyone else, he might have reacted differently. He might have secured the boy first before turning around. But it wasn’t anyone else, it was Susan, and Archie acted on instinct, swinging his gun around to his left, following her voice, away from the boy. The flashlight was still pinned under his arm and its beam careened sideways. He dropped it, caught it in his hand, and lifted the light to find Elroy Carey holding Susan in front of him, one arm around her waist, the other hand securing her by a fistful of her hair. The top of her head came to the top of his shoulder. Archie aimed his weapon at Carey’s head.

“He’ll put his hand in the bucket,” Carey said. “If I say so.”

Archie couldn’t see Patrick. The boy was behind him. If Archie turned, it would mean taking his gun off of Carey. “It’s okay, Patrick,” Archie said. “You don’t have to do what he says anymore.”

Susan was limp in Carey’s arms, her head twisted back like a rag doll. “Heil’s dead,” she said. It sounded like an accusation.

Archie couldn’t see if Carey had a weapon. If Archie shot him, he’d have to kill him, or risk him hurting Susan, and he’d have to kill him instantly. SWAT called it “aiming for the apricot.” The apricot was the medulla oblongata—the lower half of the brainstem. It controlled involuntary movement. Done right, Carey wouldn’t even flinch. But Archie wasn’t a marksman. And Carey kept moving, rocking back and forth, shifting his feet. And Susan was so close.

“Did you hear me?” Susan said. “He killed Heil.”

“I know,” Archie said. He kept his gun trained on Carey, along with the flashlight, hoping the light might limit his vision. He needed to buy time for Flannigan to work his way around to the boy.

“You need to help me get everyone out of here, Elroy,” Archie said. “It’s flooding.”

Susan’s body stiffened. Archie thought it was the threat of the flood.

Carey adjusted his grip on her, still rocking, moving in and out of Archie’s sights. “My name’s Roy,” he said. He was hunched over Susan, his chin on her shoulder, their heads pressed close, like a couple posing for a photograph.

Archie’s feet ached from the cold water. Carey and Susan had been there longer. Their feet had probably moved through pain to numbness. It could make Carey clumsy.

“Okay, Roy. My name’s Archie.”

Carey’s attention shifted to a spot behind Archie. “Come here, Sam,” he said.

Archie couldn’t let Carey get the boy. If Archie had ever had an ounce of parental authority, he needed it now. “Stay there, Patrick,” he said.

Archie listened. He could barely make out the sound of the generator powering the tanks. Aquariums gurgled. The water was a few inches deeper now. The whole room flickered with aqua light. It reflected off the water, the metal fixtures, the empty tanks. Archie steadied his weapon and lined the sight right at the center of Carey’s chin. Recoil would push the shot upward, and if Archie had to fire, he wanted to be sure to kill the bastard.

Carey’s lip curled.

“I like the name Elroy,” Susan said. She was talking to Carey, but her gaze was leveled right at Archie. “It’s a good name. Why did your parents choose it?”

What was she talking about?

Carey’s lips peeled back in a strange smile. “My mom named me after my granddad,” he said.

“That column tacked up above your sink,” Susan said. “I wrote that.”

“I know who you are,” Carey said.

“What column?” Archie said.

“About Ralph,” Susan said.

Carey yanked her head back by the hair and examined her face. “You look different than your picture.”

“I dyed my hair.”

Archie’s stomach knotted. “What was your grandfather’s name?” he asked, anticipating the answer.

“Elroy McBee,” Carey said.

“Vanport,” Archie said softly.

Carey’s face clouded. “My grandmother carried my mother and a suitcase for five miles. She lost everything. Her husband. Her house. Strangers took them in. No one remembers.” He looked past Archie at the boy. “Get your ass over here, Sam.”

Archie heard the boy get up off the chair, the soft splash of his rubber rain boots slipping into the water.

“Your name is Patrick Lifton,” Archie called to the kid. “Your dad works at a lumber mill. Your mom works from home building Web sites. You’ve got a black Lab named Fly. They’ve never stopped looking for you, Patrick. They want you to come home.”

“Bring it to me, you little fucker,” Carey snarled. “Or I will hurt you.”

Archie needed to distract Carey, give him something else to focus on other than the boy. “The skeleton from the slough hasn’t been identified,” Archie said. “You don’t know it’s your grandfather.”

“The flood got a lot of kids,” Carey said. “Women. A few couples, that worked the nightshift, died in their beds. There were only three men on the missing list. Two black. The paper said the skeleton was a white man. It’s him.”

“Are they dead?” Patrick asked.

“Who?” Archie said to Patrick, his gun still trained on Carey’s chin. “Your parents? No. They’re fine.”

Patrick’s voice wavered. “The blue-rings.”

Who knew how many murders the kid had witnessed, but he was worried about the octopuses. “No,” Archie said. “No. We saved them.”

Carey’s eyes narrowed. “He’s a liar, Sam. He’ll put you in jail.”

There was the briefest of commotions behind Archie. “Give that back!” the boy called.

“I’ve got the bucket,” Flannigan hollered to Archie. “It’s okay, Patrick,” Archie heard him say to the boy. “I’m a policeman. I’m here to help you.”

Patrick Lifton apparently didn’t buy it. Archie heard a flat splash—the sound of the chair getting knocked over. Then the frantic, spastic splash of small rain boots.

“What’s going on?” Archie called.

“He’s headed for the back door,” Flannigan cried.

Archie had to go after the kid. He had to leave Susan.

Carey’s forehead twitched. His baby face gleamed with sweat. He smiled. He knew where the kid was going, Archie realized. They’d find each other. Just like before.

“For fuck’s sake,” Susan said. “Go get him.”

Archie took a step back and then turned and ran toward the back of the store, the back door, the boy. He glanced back once, just in time to see Susan elbow Carey hard in the stomach.

CHAPTER

54

Susan had seen
Patrick flee.

She was not going to lose him.

She hit Carey again, her elbow slamming into the soft flesh just under his rib cage. He gasped. She had pointy elbows. People had always told her that. His grip on her hair loosened a bit and she pulled away, squirming out from the deadweight of his meaty arm as he doubled over in pain. She winced at the sting of hair ripping from her scalp as she did.

She scrambled toward the back of the store, pulling empty aquariums from the shelves behind her as she ran. They splashed and some shattered, littering the path behind her with glass.

Carey was lumbering after her, a yarn-sized lock of her raspberry hair still in his fist.

The door at the back of the store was still closing from when Archie had gone through it. Susan threw herself against the door’s metal push bar. It was called a panic bar. Now she knew why.

The door opened onto a back hall leading to another door, this one with a green exit sign and a flashing emergency strobe mounted above it. Susan kept running, her heart pounding. The water wasn’t as deep back here. The strobe light bounced and flickered through the corridor. She waited for the sound of Carey coming through the door behind her, but it didn’t come.

When she got to the emergency exit door and pushed it open, she could hear Archie and Flannigan calling Patrick’s name.

The door opened onto a side street.

She had stumbled drunk down this street before, leaving clubs at two-thirty in the morning, looking for her car when she should have been calling for a cab.

The voices were coming from the east, toward the river, so Susan took a right and headed in that direction. It was pitch-black. If she hadn’t spent her early twenties throwing up on that street, she would have snapped an ankle for sure.

She clomped through the floodwater, trying to ignore the cold biting through her rubber boots.

Carey still hadn’t come through the door.

She considered calling out to Archie, but she didn’t want to scare Patrick if he was still around.

Her clothes were still damp and gooseflesh rose on her arms from the wind.

If she were a kid, where would she go?

Not far. That was for sure. Not in the dark. Not in this weather. Heil had told Susan about the kid’s fort under the bridge. He liked to hide. It was dark enough on that street that you could hide in plain sight. But there was another spot, a big green Dumpster parked next to the kitchen entrance of a bar, where Susan had been surprised more than once by some drunken frat boy with his dick out, peeing against the bricks.

Susan squinted in the darkness, barely making out the hulking shadow of the Dumpster, and headed for it.

“Patrick?” she whispered when she got close. “It’s me.”

She heard Archie yell Patrick’s name again. He was close, where the street met the parkway. Susan could see his flashlight beam cutting through the darkness.

The Dumpster stank, ripe from two days without garbage pickup. Susan put one hand on the slimy, cold metal and thrust the other into the dark emptiness where the back of the Dumpster abutted the building.

“Take my hand,” she whispered.

She waited, her hand outstretched, feeling like an idiot.

Archie’s flashlight beam was getting closer.

She was about to call to Archie, to let him know that she was all right.

Then she felt small cold fingers fold around hers.

She squeezed them. “We need to get out of here,” she said.

Patrick’s form materialized from the darkness. He stepped forward, and she pulled him into her arms.

Archie’s flashlight beam streaked past them, then doubled back and landed on Susan.

She peered into the light.

“I’ve got him,” she said. She scooped up the boy and carried him forward, following the light to Archie. “We’re okay. I don’t know where Carey is.”

At the intersection with Naito, the water was mid-thigh-high and moving fast. Susan had to fight against it to stay upright. Archie took her face in his hands and held it, not saying anything.

He put an arm around her shoulder. “Come with me,” he said. They started wading north. He was leading them toward the Burnside Bridge, she realized. There were rescue crews up there. She could see their emergency lights.

Archie waved his flashlight skyward, signaling them, then toward Flannigan fifty feet ahead, his own halogen glow bobbing in the dark.

They only had a block to go, but the strength of the current made it hard.

Archie tried to take Patrick, but the boy clung to Susan, refusing to let go, and she was secretly pleased not to give him up.

The two helicopters buzzing in circles over the river sent out rings of concentric ripples.

She turned back to look for Carey, half expecting to see him come splashing up behind her.

There was no differentiation between park or street or sidewalk. It was all underwater now. It would take months for the city to recover from this. Maybe years.

“Listen,” Archie said.

She didn’t hear anything but sirens and helicopters. And then, somehow, she did. Low, almost subsonic at first, like a stomach growling, and then, all at once, a vast white noise that seemed to bleed into all five senses. Every hair on Susan’s body stood up.

She couldn’t hear the helicopters or sirens anymore. Only the oncoming water. But she didn’t turn to look. She didn’t want to see it.

There wasn’t any point.

There was no time to run.

Archie wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug, and she put her forehead against the crook of his neck, the boy sandwiched firmly between them. Susan could feel the boy tense.

“Take a breath,” Archie said.

Susan braced herself.