I lit a smoke. Too old to be playing long shots. Too black&white for this movie.
Quiet time passed. Name after name. Blank. No match. Rustle of Blossom's papers.
"Luther Swain."
"Burke, I swear I…yes!"
"Give it to me…not the damn list, Blossom, where's the printout?"
"Keep your pants on, boy. I'll get it."
Luther Swain. Only child of Nathaniel and Margaret Swain. Born February 29, 1968. Removed from his home by Social Services November 4, 1976. Department alerted because child had not attended school, parents had not responded to letters. No home telephone. Whip marks from an electrical cord, cigarette burns, severe eye damage from being kept in a dark basement for several months. Father committed to Logansport, the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Child kept in state institution, released to foster care, returned to institution. Finally: Released to mother, August 9, 1979. Family Reunified—Case Closed.
Blossom on her knees, surrounded by a floorful of paper. Watching me.
The Nazi file. Swain, Luther. Answered one of their ads, requested further information. Sent to a PO box in Gary. Called. Matson and two others met him. "Applicant was evasive about personal details. Suspected homosexual. Rejected."
"Is it him?"
"I don't know. He's as close as we got so far. Let's go through the other names, see if there's another match."
No.
143
MIDNIGHT.
"The only address on the Social Services files is more than ten years old. Even the PO box, that's a couple of years dead. No phone listed. Tomorrow, I'll take a look."
"Me too."
"No."
"Burke!"
"Do what I tell you, Blossom."
She leaned over the couch, pearly breasts a soft spill against my face, whispered, "I will. Right now. Like I promised. Let's go to bed. Then you can tell me what to do."
Sure.
144
IN THE BEDROOM. I was lying on my back, two pillows behind my head, smoking. Blossom stood to my left, standing straight as a soldier, thin straps of the blue negligee on her shoulders.
Smiling, her eyes wicked.
"What d'you say, boss?"
"Take that off."
She pulled the straps down. A cloud of wispy blue drifted to her feet.
"Come here." Grinding out the cigarette.
I took her hand, pulled her down to me, kissed her softly. I rolled her onto her back, my face against the dark hollow of her throat. My lips touched a tiny jewel of a nipple. I curled against her, found my place, closed my eyes. She made comfort–sounds against my ear as I drifted away.
145
IT WAS LATE morning when I left. Stopped at the motel. Showered, shaved, put on a dark gray pinstripe suit. Studied the street maps again for a few minutes.
At the center of an intricate web, cross–connected by blood and honor. Virgil, Reba, Lloyd. Virginia and Junior. Blossom and her sister. So much. And, somewhere, a maniac with an axe in his hands, his eye on the hard knots lashing my people together. Me, spinning between the loves. A visitor, welcomed for the gun in my hand.
I passed the Marquette Park Lagoon, turned into a series of dirt roads, watching for the street signs. Past a pizzeria, grocery store, bait shop.
The Lincoln nosed its way into the slough. Termite–haven wood houses with rickety steps up the outside, cloudy plastic sheets covering broken windows. Grungy soot–colored cars dotted the yards. A pickup truck with monster tires, suspension jacked up, Kentucky plates. Satellite dish next to one shack. Barefoot, disinterested children watched.
The sun slanted through the murk—the barren ground defied photosynthesis.
The address was three houses down from where two pieces of barbed–wire–topped fence didn't quite meet. I parked the car, got out. Next door, a thick–bodied beast who looked like he'd been kicked out of a junkyard for antisocial behavior rumbled a greeting, baleful eyes tracking me.
I climbed the steps, knocked. TV sounds from inside. I hit it again.
A scrawny woman opened the door. Pasty skin, lank hair, dull grayish teeth. Somewhere between nineteen and dead.
"What is it?"
"Mrs. Swain?"
"No, I ain't her."
"Well, it's her I need to see. Is she around?"
"Ain't no Mrs. Swain, mister. Not around here."
"Look, it's important that I speak to her. Real important."
"Cain't help you none."
"You sure?" Holding some bills in one hand.
"Mister, Lord knows I'd like some of that money you showin', but I ain't never heard of no Swain people."
"You lived here long?"
Sparkless eyes held mine. "Three years. Three fucking years."
"Did you buy the house then?"
"Buy?" Her laugh was bile–laced mucus. "We rent, mister. Man comes once a month, get his money."
"What's his name?"
"The Man," she said, closing the door in my face.
146
"SUPPOSE I TOLD you there was this kid. Abused kid, really tortured. Burned, locked in a basement for months. Social Services takes him away. His old man goes down to Logansport. Years later, they send him home to his mother. This same kid, he tries to join up with Matson's Nazis. They turn him down, or he spooks, not sure which. You knew about this kid, would you be interested in talking to him? About the killings?"
"I might," Sherwood said. "Should I be?"
"I think so."
"You haven't said enough to get a search warrant."
"If I had his address, maybe I could say enough, a couple of days from now."
"Which means you don t."
"Right."
"Just a name."
"His name, parents' names, date of birth, last known address."
"Which you tried and drew a blank?"
"Yeah."
"Give it to me."
147
I SHARKED AROUND, looking. Blossom at my side, not talking. Knowing I was listening to someone else.
We passed under railroad tracks, past a stone dam. Huge swastika on quarry rocks. Satan Rules!
Kids.
Two more dead days slipped by until the monster led me there. Through the gate of the Paul Douglas Nature Center Two teardrop–shaped blobs of blacktop joined by a narrow connecting loop like a drooping barbell. Neatly marked parking lines painted in white, slotted between mercury vapor lights suspended high on metal posts. I slid the Lincoln into a space. The park entrance was to my left, past a wooden footbridge. To my right, over Blossom's shoulder, I could see an eight–foot chain link fence, woods behind it.
"Stay here," I told her. "Just stay in the car."
I found a foothold, pulled myself to the top of the fence, dropped down to the other side. Climbed a rise through some underbrush until I got to the top. Abandoned railroad tracks that hadn't seen a train for years, rusting in disgust, connectors broken loose. The other side of the tracks was a copse, black even in daylight. A deep drop–off behind the copse, leading to the streets below. I worked my way down, followed along the edge of the drop–off, feeling my way.
I was at the lakefront in ten minutes. White dunes in the distance. Dunes where the killer had roosted.
I climbed back, emerging out of the copse. Lay down prone on the tracks.
A clear view of the Lincoln. I could see Blossom stretching her slim arms in the front seat. It felt like watching a woman in a window.
Killing ground. Sloping to a perfect pitch for the sniper's song.
I closed my eyes, feeling the sun on my face, darkness at my back. Sucked clean air through my nose, down deep past my stomach. Expanded my chest on the exhale, centering.
Felt for the sniper in my mind. Listened to the child. "I hurt," he said.
Once a child's cry for help. Now a killer's boast.
"He'll be here." Wesley's voice.
148
I WORKED THE ground. No shell casings, no condoms
. Not even a beer can. The spot was virgin, waiting for a rapist. I absently pulled some long green reeds from the earth. Climbed into the car, tossed them on the front seat between us.
On the way out, I checked the sign. The Nature Center closed each night at six.
149
"YOU OKAY?"
"That's his spot, Blossom. It's perfect."
She fingered the green stalks. "You know what these are?"
"No."
"This is a scouring rush. Horsetails, we call them. Prospectors used to use them. You crack them open, like this, see? They're hollow. The story is, you could see tiny flecks of gold, where it was leached up out of the ground if there was any underneath."
I wondered if they leached blood.
150
THE NEXT MORNING, the Lincoln circled the Nature Center in tightening loops, pawing the ground before it moved in.
"When are you going to try it?" Blossom.
I lit a cigarette with the dashboard lighter. "I have to get a call first. There's something I need."
The car phone rang. But it was Sherwood, not the Mole.
I let Blossom ride along to the meet with me. Let the cop know what I knew.
Most of it.
151
THE UNMARKED CAR was positioned at the gate to the beach. I pulled in alongside, got out. Blossom followed. Sherwood fell into step with us.
"Good news and bad news. This Luther Swain, he could be the guy. But he's gone. That address you had, it was the last one on record."
"What about his mother?"
Sherwood pulled out a thick slab of a notebook. "According to DPW records, she left about five years ago. The locals terminated her Welfare grant. The kid stayed on in the house until 1986, when he turned eighteen. They offered him some services: outpatient counseling, group therapy. Even said they'd hook him up with SSI Disability. But one day he just up and disappeared."
"You run them on SSI national?"
"Yeah. Zip. If they were getting checks from the government, we'd have located 'em."
"Tax records? Military? Passport?"
"Blank." His look was measured, just short of offended. "We know how to do it, pal, chase the paper. There's no trail. The kid don't even have a driver's license."
"Fuck." Me.
"Detective, did you by any chance pull this boy's medical records?" Blossom.
"Yes, ma'am. They're in the car." His tired eyes tracked her. "If you're thinking the blood banks, it won't fly. He's got type O."
"No, I was thinking…maybe it's not so strange he doesn't have most kinds of ID, but you'd think, a young man, he'd have a driver's license."
"So?"
"Burke, remember that report you read to me? Something about severe damage to his eyes? Maybe that's why he can't get a driver's license."
"I don't know anything about any reports, I said, the words evenly spaced, like rocks dropping into a pond.
"Me neither," said Sherwood. "We had this report of an attempted break–in at the DPW Building, but I figure, it had to be some kids playing a prank. Real rookie move, toss a rock through the glass. Not the kind you'd expect from any big–time New York heist–man."
Blossom's face flushed.
Back at Sherwood's car, we found the records. Blossom translated the big words. "He'll always have trouble with his vision, especially in daylight."
"He couldn't get a driver's license?" Sherwood.
"Not hardly."
"They got no test for buying a gun," the big man said.
152
I TOLD HIM about the Nature Center We went by to take a look. I showed him what I'd seen. He nodded.
"Wait here."
I saw him talking to a uniformed park ranger. He walked back slow.
"He says they drop the gate every night. Padlock it. Wood gate. Anyone could get through it. Nobody does. Says the kids never park here. They patrol about twice a night. If they'd see someone, they'd chase 'em off. Maybe bust 'em for trespassing, if they were smoking dope."
"He'll work with you?"
"On this? Sure. We shut down the parking spots, like I told you. This one won't get patrols."
"How about if a car was going to park in here. Every night. Would he look the other way? Stay down?"
His eyes were someplace else. "What d'you have in mind?"
"Drawing his fire."
He walked a few feet away, back to me. I let him have his silence, waiting.
Sherwood turned to face me. "You're crazy. Crazy as he is. If this boy's the one you want, he's certifiable. Got him a Get Out of Jail Free card behind his past record. Hell, he was on medication right up to the time he cut loose and disappeared."
"I'm not crazy. I'm waiting for a car. Special car. You'll see. It should be able to handle anything he can throw."
"And what's my piece?"
"You got to be in position before dark. Nice and early. I'll park right where the Lincoln is right now. You can work anywhere from the left."
He scanned the terrain. "I was in 'Nam," he said. Absently, under his breath. "Infantry. It looks like that. I could deploy a dozen men in there. Spotlights, the whole works."
I moved close to him, my voice pitched low. "It has to be a deal, Sherwood. A square deal, both sides. You work from the left, okay? Nothing to the right of that point…see, where the tracks make that kind of peak?"
"Who's gonna be on the right?"
"Someone for me. I'm not gonna testify in court, okay? This works, he throws down on me, opens up, I'm out of here. Turn the key and go. Just make sure you fire across, not down."
"What else?"
"Just your own people. You post this on the bulletin board, Officer Revis takes a look, I could have trouble. The way this is, you and your team, you're staking out the place. On a hunch. You be as surprised as anyone else, a car pulls in."
"You want me to risk my badge?"
"Up to you. All I want, you either stay out of here or come in the way I said. Either way."
"When you gonna start?"
"I'll let you know."
153
AT VIRGIL'S HOUSE that night.
"What've you got that you're sure of?"
He brought down an old lever–action .30–30 carbine, the stock burnished with generations of hand–rubbed oil. "This Winchester was my daddy's. He taught me to use it. Before this all started, I was teaching Lloyd. We was going deer hunting, this winter, him and me."
"There's no paper on this?"
"No. I got me an old thirty–ought–six too. The one I was gonna have Lloyd use."
I lit a smoke.
"You started up again?"
I ignored him. "Lloyd, you sure you want to do this? This isn't some bar fight now."
"Yessir."
"'Cause of all the trouble this guy caused you?"
The boy's fists were clenched, voice vibrating, working for control. "Not him. The other one. The one who…"
"I know," I told him.
154
BLOSSOM WAS IN the kitchen with Rebecca, Virginia monopolizing conversation, Junior sitting quiet.
I thought about all Virgil had. Watching him polish the cut–down barrels of a twelve–gauge with emery paper.
"You could walk away from this," I told him.
"Why didn't you?"
I didn't answer him.
Wesley knew.
"He knows I'm coming," I told my brother.
The mountain man jacked a shell into the chamber of his carbine. It made a sharp, clean sound in the living room. His face was set in lines of bone.
"The bear can't leave the woods just 'cause he knows it's hunting season."
155
LATE THAT NIGHT, in bed.
"Do you know why they do it?"
"They?"
"Perverts, freaks, degenerates…whatever you want to call them." Her face was soft, little–girl questions in her eyes. But I felt the long muscles tense in her thigh, testing. Pushing the buttons, watching the screen.
> "What'd your mother call them?" Testing back.
"If they liked to play dress–up, harmless stuff like that…she called them customers. Clients. Somebody wanted to really whale on a woman, really hurt her, he'd know better than to come to my mother's house."
I lit a smoke, buying time. "One way you can tell a country's gone real evil…when the doctors are working the torture chambers. Telling the sadists how much a prisoner can take before he checks out completely. You know what a snuff film is?"
"I heard of them. Just rumors."
"They're no rumors. And they didn't start a couple of years ago. A guy I met in Aftrica told me the Shah of Iran had video cameras in his torture chambers. Idi Amin too. Why do you think Hitler's freaks kept the cameras rolling? There's always been people who get off on pain. Other people's pain. And people who like to watch."
"Everybody has that in them?"
"No. Hell, no. But some do. And we keep breeding them. Monsters."
"Not criminals?"
"Past criminals. I'm a criminal, Blossom. My buddy Pablo, he's a doctor too. A psychiatrist. I asked him once, what I was. He said I'm a contrabandista. An outlaw, you understand?"
She sat up, hands clasping her knees. "Not like them. And not like us either, huh?"
I thought of Virgil, his family. Who's "us" anymore?
"Right on the borderline," I told her.
156
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, on my way to Virgil's, the car phone made its noise.
"What?"
"Place your bets, I'm on the set."
"Prof?"
"No, fool, it's Jesse Jackson."
"Is the thing ready?"
"Have no fear, your ride is here."
"Here?"
"Time to jump, chump. Boston Street, northbound from Thirty–ninth. Cruise it slow, lights down low. When the honeybees swarm, you found the farm. Ask for Cherry."
157
VIRGIL SAT NEXT to me in the Lincoln, Lloyd in the back seat. "He's really here?"
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