Susan’s uncle smiled to himself. She was no dummy; she was a nasty little barracuda, always looking out for herself. She had prepared this report ahead of this meeting in anticipation of her election; her speech too was well rehearsed. Anyone who vaguely knew Susan could figure what she was about fairly quickly. Her need for power would make her an excellent leader, but working with her would be like crossing a mine field. If her position became permanent, he would have to be more careful than ever.
“How do you intend to deal with this cowboy?” a white-haired woman from Salem asked.
“I have discovered his name from his grazing permit.” Susan could not help the smug smile on her face. The gathering buzzed at this and even Uncle looked surprised.
“I believe it is best to attend to Ash’s funeral and then take care of this cowboy. I will share this information with the council at the next meeting. During this meeting, I will reveal my plan for his demise. I would like to turn this meeting back to my uncle now.”
Richard Taylor stepped forward. “The county where Ash was murdered is quiet. My sources indicate there has been no report or investigation into our gathering. I believe the cowboy is hoping to fade into the background and lie low. I concur with Susan, we will move on the cowboy after the memorial.” He closed the meeting quickly and somewhat absentmindedly. He knew Susan was good, but this surprised him.
Chapter 15
Father Bob had the name of the baby killer in five keystrokes. It always surprised him how fast the internet was and the volume of information. Unlike a lot of people his age, he had embraced the technology and often had to tear himself away from the computer at night as one factoid led him to another factoid or article or amazing bit of trivia.
Ashley Taylor, nephew of Richard Taylor and heir to the Taylor Casino fortune, had died in a tragic boating accident over the weekend. The obituary, along with a piece in the society page of the Las Vegas Star, was published the day before. Ashley or Ash, as he was known to his friends, was a huge contributor to many charities around Vegas including the Kids’ Club, the Las Vegas Food Drive and Toys for Tykes. He would be sorely missed by Taylor Casinos, as he was vice president of operations. The photo included with the obit was taken straight on and was in black and white, and so the average Joe would not remark on the eyes of poor Mr. Taylor, but Father Bob’s skin went to gooseflesh at the photo. Though much more attractive than the entity, they were one and the same. The society photo showed Ash, wearing sunglasses, helping an attractive blonde woman into a sports car. She glared at the camera as she got into the Porsche. She was in the process of putting her sunglasses on, and so her eyes were uncovered. Father Bob could zoom in on this color shot if he wanted, but he already knew that the gorgeous blonde had eyes without light. The caption below the photo told him what he already knew—Ashley Taylor had a sister, and though she was as short as he was tall, they were of the same cold breed.
Father Bob noticed something else in the photo. Both Ash and Susan had large silver chains on their necks attached to something … the chains disappeared below their respective shirts. Father Bob got up and fetched a spiral binder. He needed to make some notes and figure out where to go from here. He noticed that Ashley Taylor’s funeral would be this Friday, with a public memorial at eleven a.m. at the casino Azteca’s conference room, and a private ceremony would be held later that day at an undisclosed location. Burial would be private also.
Because Ashley had been such a mover and shaker and a great giver to Las Vegas, a spokesperson for Taylor Casinos expected there to be a huge turnout at the public memorial.
Father Bob tapped his fingers; he was already there. A little break from the humdrum country priest life. Some detective work, some sniffing around … there might even be time to gamble a little. He stopped himself. This wasn’t some reality TV show; a man was dead, a very evil man, shot dead by one of his parishioners. And he wasn’t just any evil man, but a coiled, poisonous serpent from a den of serpents. Ashley Taylor, in line to become one of the richest men in the West, had family and resources and he would be missed. There would be retribution; that was something Father Bob would bet on.
Chapter 16
Tom was dragging when he opened the front door of the house. He looked around the living room, but all seemed calm. Farley pushed past him and into the kitchen. Tom could hear him going down the basement steps. “Farley—here!” The Border Collie returned instantly. “Stay.” He didn’t want the dog stepping on broken glass, and besides, dead tired as he was, he should probably make sure the bogeyman was gone for good. He went down the stairs feeling ancient.
It was good. Besides the broken glass and the pools of laundry detergent and various objects stuck in the walls, it was as it should be. He shook his head; the bed was screaming his name. Maybe Cami’s mom could bring her and the kids home. He thought climbing the stairs and calling Cami would be “i-t” for today. He trudged up the stairs. His battle on these steps seemed years ago.
Cami wanted to talk, but Tom told her he needed a nap and she let him go.. Her mom would bring her and the kids home in the afternoon. Tom drank two glasses of cold water at the sink. How long since he had anything other than whiskey or coffee? His throat felt like a scorched paper bag. He fell onto the couch and almost straight away fell asleep; Farley curled up on the floor next to him.
Richard Taylor put the phone down and sighed. He had just finished with the last of Ash’s funeral arrangements. Of course, Ash’s big shiny black coffin would be full of sandbags. Ash would sit cold in the morgue until tomorrow when a private jet would fly him to a lab in New York where he would be cryogenically frozen. All of the members that had the money chose this option, in the hope that their One would bring them back to serve someday. Those that couldn’t afford freezing had some part of their DNA put away in a vault … a tooth, a lock of hair—something.
The Taylor family mausoleum was mostly empty—of Taylors anyway. Since the technology came about in the early ’60s everyone had been frozen. The vaults were not empty of human remains—an empty coffin seemed a terrible waste to the Taylor family, and being in Vegas, in the casino industry, there was always someone that seemed the perfect candidate for that bed with a lid. Susan liked to put them in there alive and tied up. He didn’t like this, always citing the old phrase, “Dead men don’t talk.” But Susan had done this twice before, when he was out of town and had left her and Ash in charge. He never revealed his distaste for the method, as he never wanted Susan to know how much the idea of being entombed alive scared the shit out of him. She liked to drill small air holes in the coffin to ensure the victim didn’t have a quick, suffocating death. Where was the suffering in that? No, she seemed to delight in torture, and driving someone mad was her forte.
He did not like torture, although in his younger days, he had had to participate in it. He felt it must be something to do with his mother, something in her nature that had stuck with him past memory. Once he was leader, he had been able to pass off most of the cruel acts to other, younger members. No one questioned him on this and he would participate in the ceremonies, but was most often an observer.
He hated his father for making him what he was. There had never been any choice. Joining the group was much like being in the mafia; you were either in or you were dead. He could always eat a bulet he supposed. Live in hell or die and go see the real thing. There was a real thing. He had seen it in action, felt its presence and watched its physical manifestation. But evil and its master left him alone. Why bother? He was committed and destined to hell since the night his mother was murdered.
He would not kill himself, because although his life was hell, the real thing would be much worse. Constant despair, like being trapped in a well of darkness, its walls slippery and sharp, illuminated from above by a tiny beam of golden light, so pure and sweet and out of reach. The moans and groans and filth of all eternity would be his ever present companions. He did not like to think of it, but he knew it was waiting for him
and that it was as real as the leather rolling chair he sat in.
Chapter 17
The old cowboy was drinking a cup of coffee and looking out the living room window when a strange car pulled in front of the ranch house. “Somebody is here, Gwen!” His wife was still in her robe; it was five twenty Monday morning, early even for country people. Outside, the ranch dogs were barking at a man that got out of a silver sedan—an older Crown Victoria. “Probably someone lost, looking for the turn to Vegas,” he called to Gwen. “I’ll go talk to him.”
The man looked like he could work at a casino, in the security division. His eyes were encased in reflective sunglasses, his hair short and well kept, his large frame in a gray suit. The dogs snarled and barked at him as he slowly stepped towards Garly.
He started to say hello, but the stranger cut him off. “Garly James?”
The old man stiffened. “Yes, what do you …”
The man pulled a 9mm Beretta and shot him between the eyes. He collapsed, the coffee cup shattering on the walk. A scream came from the house and the big man pulled his shades down and looked over them. Gwen James stood only for a split second staring at him from the kitchen window and disappeared. She was too fast, even for him. A big, black cow dog went for his ankle, and he shot it dead. There were four other dogs circling him. He nodded at his companion in the car and gestured at the dogs. As he strode up the walk, Weasel began putting the dogs away.
The old lady stood shaking behind the china cabinet. She had Garly’s shotgun in her hands, safety off. She hated guns, but Garly insisted she know how to shoot this one, which hung in their bedroom on a rack behind the door. Once a year, after Halloween they would set the old jack-o’-lanterns on the fence posts and have target practice. Once a year wasn’t much practice, but with a shotgun, Garly told her, you just had to be close.
The man came around the corner and his fancy sunglasses must have blinded him a little, because he didn’t see her. She waited until he was three steps past. “Hey!” Her small voice shook. “You bastard!” she cried. It was clear that he hadn’t expected this—his gun sagged in his hand like a white flag. He peered over his shiny glasses at the little old lady with the shotgun aimed at his gut. The moment hung there in suspended animation and time seemed to stop. She pulled the trigger and it was like the day after Halloween again, only it wasn’t pumpkin that splattered Gwen and most of her kitchen.
Weasel was long, tall and skanky with big teeth and glasses. The varmint name fit him so well that his real name had almost been forgotten. He also had a weasel’s quick moves and self-preservation mode. He heard the boom of the shotgun and skittered to the side of the house. One of the dogs he had shot was still alive and making a baying, dying yelp that sounded like a broken record. He was glad, because the sound would give him some cover. He stole a quick glance in the kitchen and yanked back. Old Steve was dead all over the kitchen and the old lady was covered with gore and fallen back against the wall.
Wow! For old Steve to get it like that—from an old lady even—unfucking believable. After all the characters he had taken out—unfucking believable.
Weasel moved silently around the porch and slid through the unlocked sliding glass door. He made his way to the kitchen and took the old dame out. She never even looked up; she had been too busy sobbing, the shotgun cradled in her lap. He found a large rug and pushed what was left of Steve onto it. There was goo and guts and blood everywhere. Weasel gagged when he rolled Steve onto the rug and there was a sloshing sound. More blood and fluids gushed onto the kitchen linoleum, straight through the rug.
Old Steve was close to three hundred pounds and Weasel was almost one hundred fifty. It took all he had to drag Steve down the walkway to the trunk of the car; he bent over holding his knees, gasping for air. As his heart raced, his brain did too—how in the hell would he get this beast into the trunk—how much time did he have before someone showed up—and how pissed would the boss be when she found out what had happened?
Weasel noticed a square point shovel leaning up against the yard fence. He grabbed it and came back to Steve, calculating his next move. He had seen a lot of bad things and done a lot of bad things, but this was messy. He didn’t like getting his hands dirty and much preferred offing people he didn’t know from a distance. It was much more like a video game that way—this was too much like a reality TV show.
Half of three hundred was one fifty and Weasel thought he could get one fifty into the trunk. He raised the shovel. The shotgun blast had almost torn Steve in two. It was mostly backbone and some other stuff (yuck) holding him together now. Weasel could do the math. This was a division problem.
It took him five minutes of hard whacking and five minutes of off and on yakking to divide Steve. When he was done, he grabbed Steve’s feet and pulled him back a bit so he could cut the rug in half. This part was almost as bad as using the shovel. The rug was dripping with blood and other stuff—guts, fluids and bits of flesh—Weasel dry-heaved now as his stomach was beyond empty. His pocketknife was a good one, but it still took a long time to get the job done and Weasel really had to get his hands dirty.
Loading was hard too. Weasel had to wrap the rug around each half of Steve like some kind of gory taco, and even then some parts slipped out of the rug, down the back of the car and onto the dirt. Splat.
“God Fucking Almighty!” Rage flowed through him; he was exhausted and he still had an eight-hour drive to Vegas ahead of him.
He grabbed the shovel again and scooped the parts of Steve up like dog turds and flipped them into the trunk on top of the Steve tacos. He paused for a second and then threw the shovel in too.
He removed his suit jacket, (not his best one thank God) and cleaned the back of the car and bumper. The blood had not dried and came off easily. He swabbed his hands as well as he could and then threw the jacket in the trunk with the rest. He slammed the trunk and looked back at the house. Nothing seemed amiss aside from the big, dead rancher on the grass. And the dead dogs. Oh and the rusty, oily trail he had made dragging Steve out—Holy Christ—what a mess! Who would have thought? He would have handled it differently, but he wasn’t in charge, was he? No. Big fat know-it-all Steve had been running things, and boy had he screwed up. Yeah, and he paid for it too.
Weasel drove out on the gravel road fast, dust scudding behind the car. He saw no one, and when he pulled onto the two-lane highway he sighed and relaxed enough to pull out a cigarette. His hands were sticky with blood and worse. He could feel his skin tightening with it as it dried. Once he was on the road to Vegas he would pull off and rinse them with some of the bottled water he had in the backseat. The car was fueled up and he could make it back to the city—barely—he wasn’t going to stop anywhere. God knows what he looked like. Chopping your partner in half was foul work, and seeing the little bits and droplets of stuff on his shoes and pants gave Weasel an idea of his appearance.
His hands were shaking. He lit up the cig and took a big drag. He could feel old Mr. Nicotine going to work almost immediately. He exhaled and checked his rearview. Nobody. Just the way he liked it. He had eight hours to think on how to handle the boss and the two halves of Steve.
Chapter 18
Far away, a phone was ringing. Tom answered it, “Hello?”
There was no voice, just the insistent ring of the phone. It was a 1970s type phone receiver, but without a phone cord, and he knew he was trying to answer a real phone in his dream. It was one of those sleeps where you know you should wake up, but the fog in your brain is so thick and heavy and you are so tired that you don’t care about the consequences. You just want to sleep. The ringing stopped and Tom was slipping back into the comfort of the abyss when it began again. His brain asked the why question and deep inside his skull the gears began to grind. This time he pulled his eyelids open. He was lying on the couch and the afternoon sun streaming through the window was cooking him like a potato. He was covered with sweat, sleeping hard, his face pressed into a couch cushion. He stumble
d to his feet and found a cordless on the TV.
“Hello?” He rubbed his eyes, trying to get them to focus.
“Tom.” It was Father Bob. At first, he couldn’t place the voice, but slowly realization and memory flooded into his tired brain. He began to wake up fast.
“Father. Yes, how are you?” Tom wasn’t sure why the priest was calling so soon.
“Tom, something’s happened.” The priest’s voice had a waver in it.
“Cami and the kids?” Tom’s brain had now come full circle from being dredged in exhausted sleep to heart-stopping alert.
“No. It’s not them. It’s the Jameses—Garly and Gwen.”
Now Tom’s brain went from alert to muddled. “I’m sorry, Father. I just woke out of a dead sleep and I’m not following you.”
“They’re dead. Murdered. I guess Gwen got one of them before they got her, but there is no body.”
“What?”
“There are cops and news crews with helicopters from Reno out there. It’s a huge mess. I had to cancel noon mass to counsel the family. They’re devastated—”
“What!” Tom’s mind was racing, but the pieces were not coming together.
“Are you listening to me?” Father Bob sounded exasperated. Whatever reaction he wanted from Tom, he wasn’t getting it.
Tom stalked around the house with the cordless. He stopped in the kitchen with his eyes on the back porch door. “You think this has something to do with me.” The words were stupidly obvious, but he wanted the priest to deny them, offer some other explanation for this news.
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