Revolution No.9

by Neil Mcmahon

  “It’s about Coil.”

  Monks wheeled back around. Her smile faded under his stare. She dropped down into the water again, sinking up to her chin.

  He walked to the tub and knelt beside it. She backed away as far from him as she could get.

  “If this is some kind of game, tell me now,” he said. “I’ll walk away and it’s over. But you’d better not lie about my son.”

  “I’m not lying,” she said. Her voice was very small now and her eyes were scared.

  “What is it you know?”

  “He’s okay.”

  Monks gripped the tub’s rim hard.

  “How do you know?” he demanded.

  “I can’t tell you yet.”

  He bristled. “What the hell do you mean, you can’t tell me?”

  But she had recovered some composure, knowing that she held the cards.

  “You have to do things just right, and you can talk to him,” she said.

  “Do what things just right?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “You’ll tell me now, goddamn it!” He lunged toward her and grabbed a fistful of her wet hair, twisting it hard.

  “I don’t know yet. Let me go!”

  Her yelping voice pierced the cloud of anger in his brain. He relaxed his hand and she jerked free.

  Monks took a mental step back. The implications of what she was saying were sinking in.

  More gently, he said, “Are you telling me you’ve been in touch with Freeboot?”

  “He never left me, not for a second,” she whispered. “I could feel him around me all day, and in me all night.”

  Monks was stunned. He had assumed naïvely that she had been getting over her obsession. Instead, it sounded like she was in deeper than ever.

  “And you’ve talked to him?” he said. “Is that how you know about Glenn?”

  She didn’t answer, and her gaze slid away from his.

  “Marguerite,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “If you know where Freeboot is, you have to tell the police. This is very, very serious.”

  “No cops,” she said emphatically. “Nobody else, period. He says it’s between you and him, that you’d understand that.”

  “He sent you to tell me that? He wants to work out some kind of a deal?”

  She nodded, her gaze still averted. And that, Monks thought, was the reason that she had tried to seduce him-on Freeboot’s orders. Monks would be unlikely to go to the police if he had just had sex with his lover’s daughter.

  “Marguerite, you can’t be serious about trusting him again,” Monks said.

  “He’s forgiven me. He needs me.”

  “How can you believe that? Remember what everybody agreed on-you, the police, the counselors? Freeboot used you. That’s all it was. If he says he’s forgiven you, he just wants to use you again.”

  She shook her head almost sadly, and repeated words that he had heard too many times: “You don’t know him.”

  “What about him leaving Motherlode up there to die in the fire? Maybe on purpose?”

  “Bullshit, man, that was an accident,” Marguerite said angrily. “She was passed out and nobody knew it until too late.”

  Monks gave up trying to reason with her.

  “Get dressed,” he said. “We’re going to the sheriffs.”

  “No! I’ll deny it. I’ll say I was just goofing. And then you’re shit out of luck.”

  He hesitated, afraid that she was right.

  “I’ll let you know,” she said again. “Just stay cool.” Then, glaring at him, she slid one arm across her breasts and her other hand between her thighs, in the time-honored gesture of a nude woman covering herself from unwanted eyes.

  “You better get out of here before my mom comes home and sees you hanging around me like this,” she said haughtily.

  Monks stood up, reeling from the dizziness of blood rushing from his head, and made his way back into the house.

  28

  Monks stood in Sara’s kitchen, breathing deeply, trying to get a handle on what to do next. There didn’t seem to be any good choices. He decided to stay out of Marguerite’s way for the moment-give her privacy to come in and get dressed. Then he’d try to talk to her again. He walked into the living room, thinking hard for a line of reasoning that might make her listen, and waiting impatiently for the sounds of her coming inside.

  Instead, he heard a car’s engine starting up.

  He strode to the nearest window and looked out just in time to see her backing the Altima out of the driveway fast. Her right hand was pressed against her ear, as if she were talking on a cell phone.

  More red flags went up in Monks’s brain. Marguerite must have pulled her clothes on still wet and gone straight to the car, in a hurry, intent on avoiding him. She didn’t have a cell phone, and Sara always took her own to work.

  His immediate suspicion was that Freeboot had given her one, in order to communicate with him.

  Monks trotted out to the Bronco and took off after her, west on the county road toward the little town of Elk. He left his headlights off, taking the risk in spite of the fog, and drove fast until he spotted her taillights ahead. He dropped back out of sight, accelerating every minute or so to make sure that she was still there ahead of him. From the glimpses he got, she was still talking on the phone, probably paying no attention to her surroundings.

  It was just four miles to the intersection with Highway 1. Marguerite turned north, up the coast toward Fort Bragg. Monks let another vehicle get between them. He turned on his headlights now, trying to blend with the stream of traffic that would be in her rearview mirror, but pushing to stay close enough so that he would notice if she turned off.

  Which she did almost immediately, into the parking lot of the state beach right there at Elk. The move was so fast and sudden that Monks almost missed it. He made the snap judgment to drive on past rather than pull in right behind her, then immediately started fretting that she already had spotted him-that she was turning around and would shake him before he could get back. He slammed on his brakes, skidding on the roadside dirt, and spun the Bronco in a U-turn.

  But when he drove past the beach, he could see the Altima, a dim shape in the otherwise empty parking lot. He cut his lights and pulled over to the roadside again, in a spot where he didn’t think that she would see him even if she was looking. He yanked his binoculars from the glove box and stared at the car through the fog, willing her to do something that would signal her intentions. She might only have come here to get away from the house-make phone calls to friends, or calm herself down, or get high.

  But she might be meeting someone, too, and that someone could be Freeboot.

  Monks got out the 7.65-mm Beretta that he kept in the Bronco, locked in a hidden safe deposit box welded under the console, and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

  She had only been out of his sight for two minutes at most, but he was starting to worry that she might have jumped into a waiting car and sped away. Then the gray swirls of fog parted enough to give him a look at the beach.

  He could just make out a dim shape close to the ocean’s edge. It might have been a rock, but it was human-sized, and he was pretty sure that it was moving. He shoved open the Bronco’s door and ran for the parking lot, staying low.

  There was nobody inside the Altima. But something on the passenger seat caught his eye-a gold chain with a pendant, deep green against the car’s tan upholstery, lying there carelessly, as if it had fallen unnoticed. Monks leaned close. It was not the sort of inexpensive decoration that women sometimes hung from their rearview mirrors. The pendant was the size of a silver dollar, jade or some other green stone, beautifully carved in the shape of a dragon. It looked like a genuine Asian antique.

  A memory flashed into his mind of the morning at the camp when he had seen Hammerhead give something like this to Marguerite. Monks had only gotten a glimpse of it then-had assumed that it was a trinket, and hadn’t thought about it again.
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  But he suspected that this was it, and it was no trinket. Where the hell had Hammerhead gotten it? Had Freeboot been that generous with Motherlode’s money? Did the maquis have a sideline of theft?

  Something troublesome was stirring around in his head. Something about jade…

  He tried the door, but the car was locked. He hesitated, trying to think of a way to get in, but Marguerite was getting farther away every second. He started running to catch her.

  Visibility was down to less than a hundred yards. He wasn’t sure which way she had gone, and there were no clear footprints in the loose sand near the highway. But when he got to the water’s edge, he found a fresh trail heading north. The surf was high, crashing into shore in seething gray-green waves and spraying his face. His loafers filled with sand and slipped on slimy bunches of kelp, quickly tiring his legs.

  Then, in the gloom ahead, he got a glimpse of a hurrying figure.

  He cut inland to stay close to the cover of the dunes, watching her shape vanish and appear again through the gray clouds. He had the sudden eerie sense that he was following a specter through a dream. But to where? There was nothing ahead-only the bluffs at the beach’s end.

  She kept on going when she reached them, quickly climbing a tight switchback trail up the cliff face. She was over the top and out of sight by the time he got to the base. He followed, slipping and sliding on the hard, pebbly soil, forcing his aching legs and lungs as hard as he could up the steep trail. Clutching at bunches of sea oats, he pulled himself up the last few feet-

  Just in time to see her jump into a pickup truck that was waiting on the deserted headlands.

  Monks ran forward, pulling out his pistol, but the truck was already moving away. Within a few seconds, it had faded from sight.

  He strode on to where it had been parked, in the faint hope that some clue might remain. There was nothing, not even tire tracks. The spot was desolate, cut off from the highway by dunes, with only the ocean to the west, pounding against the huge ocher rocks, and more headlands to the fog-shrouded north. There was no road in, but the ground was flat, easy for a four-wheeler to manage. No doubt the locals knew how to get on and off the highway. He thought the truck was a Chevy or GMC, but it could have been a Ford or Dodge, or even one of the bigger Toyotas. It was relatively new, light gray or off white. There were thousands like it around.

  The wind was much harsher up here than on the beach, rising from moan to howl as it tore at his clothes and hair. The fog had obscured the process of dusk, and now, suddenly, it was almost dark. He did not think that he had ever felt so alone.

  Hands shoved into his pockets, bracing himself against the blasts of wind, he turned around and started trudging back.

  Then he stopped.

  Jade. Antique Chinese jewelry. Stolen from the victims of one of the Calamity Jane killings.

  He searched his memory for details. He recalled clearly the uproar when the Calamity Jane golf clubs had been discovered, and he knew that the killers had tossed other valuable or personal items into Dumpsters. Like the Chicago woman’s lingerie-that seemed to be their signature. But he was less clear on the jewelry incident. He remembered that he’d been caught up in his own obsession with Freeboot at the time-that he hadn’t even heard about that particular murder until days after it had happened, and that he’d still been too concerned with the aftermath of the fire to worry about the rest of the world.

  That placed it during the time when he had been Freeboot’s prisoner-just when he had seen Hammerhead give the pendant to Marguerite. The victims had lived in Atherton, south of San Francisco, a drive of several hours from the camp.

  His gut took that queasy twist that it did when something in him started to grasp that an already bad situation was much worse than it seemed.

  He started trotting again. He’d have to smash the Altima’s window-the Bronco’s jack would do it. He needed to get hold of that pendant.

  But when he got to the parking lot, the car was gone.

  29

  Monks approached the Bronco warily, fearful of men lying in wait, or even a planted bomb. If it had been Freeboot or his people in the pickup truck, then they had been right here in this area-no telling for how long or how many times. While he’d been following Marguerite, they could have been following him.

  The Beretta was back in his hand, held close to his thigh, a round chambered and ready. His gut and brain both told him that if Freeboot had wanted him taken or killed, it would have happened by now. Back there on the headlands would have been an ideal setup.

  But when it came to Freeboot, Monks would never assume anything ever again.

  Nothing moved except the brush, branch tips and leaves rippling in the wind. The Bronco looked untouched, but he hesitated, fearful of going up in an explosive swirl of flame and jagged metal. Then he clenched his teeth, yanked open the door, and swung himself in. The engine caught instantly and settled into its deep, comforting rumble. He turned up the fan and held his chilly hands over the warm air flooding up through the dash vents.

  Seeing the angry homeless man on TV a couple of weeks ago, spouting rhetoric that sounded like Freeboot’s, had forced Monks to the uneasy conclusion that Freeboot’s plans to incite violence might be more than just talk.

  But Freeboot’s possible involvement in the Calamity Jane murders was a different order of business.

  They think they can hide in their gated communities and nobody can touch them. They’re gonna get spanked hard.

  Marguerite knew that Monks had seen Hammerhead give her the pendant. Monks remembered her reluctant, even frightened response. Did she know where it had come from? Had she accidentally-on-purpose left it in the car for Monks to see? Subconsciously hoping that he would make the connection, and save her again from her helpless submission to Freeboot?

  The police had to be contacted immediately. But something deep within Monks resisted, warning him to stay silent-

  Because now he was slammed by the fear that Glenn might be involved in the murders.

  The hypocrisy was terrible. If it had been someone else’s son, Monks would have blown the whistle without hesitation.

  But it was not someone else’s son.

  Whom did he owe more to-CEOs who reaped huge profits by gutting domestic industries, exploiting subsistence labor in Third World countries, even ripping off their own employees and investors, selling out the very real lives of working people-or his own flesh and blood?

  He knuckled his eyes, trying to shake off this insane calculation. Maybe Freeboot was getting into his head.

  A sudden chirping sounded nearby. He tensed, glancing around in bewilderment, thinking a tree frog or locust must have gotten into the vehicle. Then he recognized the coy summons of his cell phone. He kept it in the Bronco when he was traveling, in case of vehicle trouble or other emergencies, but he almost never got called except during investigations.

  Certainly not at a time and place like this.

  He reached into the glove box and got the phone.

  “This is Monks,” he said.

  “Marguerite told you we’d get in touch, man. What part of that don’t you understand?”

  Monks closed his eyes at the sound of Freeboot’s sardonic voice.

  “I wanted to find out what she knows,” Monks said. “For Christ’s sake, we’re talking about my son.”

  “You want your son? You got him. Hey, Coil, it’s your old man.” The last words were a sharp summons, spoken away from the mouthpiece. There came a few seconds’ pause, and a fumbling sound as the phone changed hands.

  “How’s it going, Rasp?” The voice was young, insolent-unquestionably Glenn’s.

  Monks swallowed drily. “Glenn, are you all right?”

  “Number nine,” Glenn crooned mockingly. “Number nine, Number nine-”

  “Okay, get out of here,” Freeboot told Glenn, cutting back in. “Me and your dad got to talk in private.”

  “Freeboot, I don’t hold any grudge,” Monks sa
id. “I don’t have any desire to send you to jail.” Those were lies, but he was making the swift and frightening realization that he was willing to stay quiet about the pendant. “I’ll never tell anybody I heard from you. I just want my son safe.”

  Freeboot answered conversationally, like one old friend catching up with another.

  “You look like you recovered pretty good from your hike. Grew that patch of hair back. Put on a little weight.”

  “All right, you’ve been watching me,” Monks said. “I figured that.”

  “You’ve seen me, too. Within the last two weeks, fifty feet away. Looked right at me.”

  Freeboot waited, letting the point sink in-he had altered his appearance to the point where Monks wouldn’t recognize him. It might not be true, but Monks’s gut told him that it was.

  Freeboot was on the loose and invisible.

  “Now let’s talk about my son,” Freeboot said. “He’s in Sacramento, at that Coulter Hospital, right?”

  Warily, Monks said, “What makes you think that?”

  “Marguerite told me that’s where he got took. Then we helped ourselves to their records. They didn’t exactly give their permission.” Freeboot sounded smug, throwing out another boast-hospital records security and computer firewalls tended to be top-notch.

  Monks winced, wondering if Glenn was involved in this hacking, too. It was no big secret that Mandrake had been taken to Coulter. But then he had been officially discharged and placed in the long-term care ward under a changed name, precisely for fear that Freeboot might come looking for him. Probably the hospital had kept the same ID number or other telltale data, not dreaming that his father would be able to penetrate that far.

  “I want to see him,” Freeboot said. “And they ain’t exactly going to give me visiting privileges, are they? So, being as how you’re the one that took him away, you’re going to give him back. We trade-your kid for mine.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s quit fucking around and get down to business.” Freeboot’s voice was steely now. “Coil’s doing fine. At least, that’s what he thinks. But the truth is, I’m sick of the little shit. He’s whiny and cocky, both-thinks we can’t get along without him because he’s so fucking smart. He’s wrong, dude.”