by Alex Jameson
Things were about to get bad.
The clowns didn’t seem to have expected that kind of response; Eric’s chant had incited them enough to charge, and at the sight of them, a few of the clowns dropped whatever they were holding and either ran or put their hands up. Others fought back. He saw Biggie drop a surrendering clown with a spectacular punch to the jaw. An officer grabbed him from behind, but Biggie shook him off with a twist of his hips and ran away.
Sam left his alcove and did his best to stay hidden on his way back to the van, which was now in the midst of the melee. He heard a dull thunk, and a moment later a plume of white smoke fissured into the street. The police had fired tear gas into the brawl.
He got back to the van, its door still open, and peered inside. It was empty; Jake was gone. Sam thought briefly about crawling inside and hiding on the floor, but if he was found he’d be arrested, and that wasn’t an option. He slid the door shut and hurried into the shadows of the nearest alley.
As the tear gas spread, others seemed to have the same idea as Sam. Those who weren’t tackled and detained by the cops scattered in all directions, into alleys and back up the street, chasing clowns or running for their lives. The riot police held their line and continued to advance, handcuffing anyone who had fallen in the street or tried to flee the other way.
Sam slipped silently behind a dumpster. He didn’t know what to do. He could run. He could get out of there and find a car and make a break for Kingston. But Jake was around somewhere. Sam couldn’t just leave him. He secured the tact bag over his shoulder and, crouching low and against the exterior wall of the closest building, he dashed to the end of the alley, glancing left and right.
“Jake?” he hissed.
Someone bumped him roughly from behind and he barely caught himself from falling forward. He spun to face his assailant, turning just in time to see a clown swing a broken bottle toward him. He barely stepped out of its path. The clown swung again; Sam blocked the swing with his forearm, yanked the clown off balance, and elbowed him hard in the face. The clown dropped to the asphalt and groaned. Sam kicked the bottle away and hurried along.
He decided to bear to the right. He was on a street that was parallel to the crime scene. There were fewer streetlights here, and he could barely make out the forms of people running in the shadows. He heard a distant shout, and then a scream. Shaking his head, Sam continued on, clinging close to the shadows and using trashcans and newspaper machines as cover.
He heard a yelp close by as he reached the end of the block, and craned his neck to see where it was coming from. Brian, the kid with glasses from the van, was on his hands and knees on the pavement, trying to crawl away. Blood ran down his forehead. Standing over him was a clown, a large one in green face-paint and white hair. In his hands he held a thick length of chain. He whipped it around again, striking Brian across the back. The kid screamed in pain and went down on his stomach.
Not your fight, Sam told himself. Not your fight.
The clown was in the middle of the street, in plain view. Sam could hear the sounds of men’s voices, presumably cops, not far off.
“Dammit,” he muttered. He dashed out from around his corner. At the same time, Biggie’s voice rang out from the darkness.
“Brian!” Biggie screamed.
He and Eric were close by, dashing from the mouth of a narrow backstreet. Eric had his aluminum bat; he must have run back to the van for it before the fighting started. Maybe they could tell him where Jake had gone. They got there before Sam could. Eric reared back and slammed the clown upside the head with the baseball bat. The clown crumpled beside Brian and lay still. Eric reared back again, the bat high in the air, his eyes maniacal. Sam grabbed the baseball bat and yanked on it. Eric didn’t let go; he had a firm grip and fell to the ground. He glared up at Sam, enraged.
“No,” Sam said forcefully. “You’ll kill him.”
Something that felt like a truck hit Sam from the side. Biggie shouldered him hard, sending him sprawling. Pain shot up and down his side, but he recovered quickly, just as Eric swung sideways at him with the bat.
Instead of stepping back out of its path, he stepped forward, so he was mere inches from Eric’s twisted, seething face. He stopped the trajectory of the bat, pinning it to his side, and took a wide step to his left, using his entire body weight to yank Eric off his feet and back to the street. This time Sam managed to wrench the bat from his grip. He spun it around and with the flat end of the handle, he popped Eric once right between the eyes. The younger man fell backward, dazed, holding his face.
Sam spun the bat again and turned, holding it aloft as Biggie reared back to punch him. They both paused, ready to swing.
Sam motioned toward Brian. “He’s hurt. Get him out of here.”
Biggie glanced down at his little brother, who writhed in pain in the street. He hesitated.
“You can fight me, or you can get him out of here.” Sam stared him down.
Biggie dropped his fists. He bent, scooped his brother into his large arms, and, after one more glare at Sam, retreated into the darkness.
Sam lowered the bat and let out a long breath. In the street, Eric whimpered, holding his face. Sam tossed the bat away and left him there before the cops could arrive.
“Jake! Jake!” He dashed a block further, passing a dead-end street in which a cop had tased a clown. In the middle of the road, an officer attempted to apprehend a woman who actively continued to kick a downed clown. But he couldn’t find Jake. His instincts told him to get out of there, find a place to hide, wait for all this to blow over and then seek out his brother. But he kept looking.
Two cops rounded a corner ahead of him. He quickly ducked between two shops, hoping they didn’t see him. He dashed down the walkway and found himself in a small parking lot, crouching behind a car. From somewhere behind him, he heard a man grunt, and then the flat thud of a punch. His heart lurched, hoping it was Jake.
He crept out from behind his hiding spot and edged closer. There were two men fighting in the rear of the lot—a clown in oversized red shoes and a short, chubby man in a baseball cap. The clown swung at the man, but one shoe tripped on the other and he lurched forward, his face falling right into the man’s fist. The clown recovered, scrambling away and running down the road, his too-large feet slapping the asphalt. The man, breathing heavily, took off his baseball cap and rubbed his bald head. It wasn’t Jake.
Wait.
Was that…?
No.
Yes.
Sam couldn’t believe his eyes. The man was short, chubby, bald, and had a beard. And he was here, in Columbus, near the scene of the crime. There was no mistaking it.
It was him.
It was Harlan Kidd. He was sure of it.
Sam’s heartbeat quickened as he peered at the man. Yes, that was him. That was the face that he’d sat beside, talked with, joked with.
It was him. There was no doubt.
Sam slung the tact bag from his shoulder and plunged a hand in, digging around until he felt steel. The textured grip. He was already marching toward him before he realized his feet were moving. When he was only a few feet from the guy, he pulled the Glock out from the bag. The man turned toward him. He saw the gun. His eyes widened in confusion and shock. Sam struck him hard with a fist upward, just below his belly button.
“Oomph!”
Then another, downward, into the solar plexus. The man fell to his knees, making a choking sound, trying to draw a breath.
The upward strike, that forces the air out. With a downward one, the lungs try to quickly draw a breath in. In combination, they paralyze the respiratory system for a short while, about a minute—you can’t take a breath in or out. It was like getting the air knocked out of you, times a hundred. Sam knew what it felt like; he’d experienced it himself once. It felt like drowning; like dying.
The chubby man, his eyes still wide, opened his mouth and desperately tried to breathe, but he could only make small raspy r
etching sounds. Sam flipped the Glock in his hand and pistol-whipped the bastard across the face, sending him face-down to the concrete. He grabbed a shoulder and flipped him over, onto his back, and then straddled him.
“You,” he fumed. “You son of a bitch. I’ve been looking for you.”
The guy shook his head, trying to speak, fighting for breath. Blood ran from his lips, dribbled down his chin, just like the egg yolk had in the diner in Tennessee. There was no doubt in Sam’s mind. It was him. He’d come back to watch the clowns and people tear each other apart in the wake of his handiwork.
“Aiden McCreary,” Sam said forcefully, punctuating each syllable. “That was the first. And seven others. You’ve killed eight people, Harlan.”
The man shook his head again. He tried to reach up, to push Sam off. Sam shoved his arms aside and pressed the Glock into his cheek.
“Stop moving,” he ordered. “Yes, I know your name, Harlan. I know about you. My name is—look at me. Look at me!” He grabbed Harlan’s chin with his free hand and forced his head straight. “My name is Sam Asher. You killed my nephew, and now I’m going to kill you.”
At last the man sucked in a breath. “What?” he said frantically. “No, I… I’m not who you think I am! Please, I didn’t kill anyone!”
Sam paused. For a moment, he doubted himself. Harlan had a stutter; he’d heard it himself. “What did you say?”
The man gulped. “My name is Joseph! I never killed anyone, I swear! You have the wrong guy, please!”
What? What was going on? He had the wrong guy… Or was this some sort of ploy? Had Harlan been faking his stutter to throw people off his trail? Could he have—?
“Gun!” someone shouted behind him. “Gun!”
Sam didn’t have time to turn. A shot rang out, loud and crisp in the relative silence of the night.
A searing pain tore through Sam’s shoulder. He fell forward. His finger was on the trigger; the Glock went off in his hand, a bullet exploded from the barrel. A second shot.
Sam fell forward on the pavement. The pain in his shoulder was excruciating. He’d never felt anything like it. There was a pressure on his back. Someone pushed his face into the sidewalk. Pain pounded through his nose. Tears blurred his vision.
“Let go of the gun!” someone shouted at him. “Let go of the fucking gun!”
He did. He released the Glock. He tried to speak, but he could only grit his teeth and suck shallow breaths in and out through the pain.
“You have the right to remain silent!” the voice behind him shouted. “Anything you say or do can be held against you…”
“Jesus, he almost shot me! He thought I was the Clown Killer!”
It wasn’t him. The man was still there. Talking to the police. Sam was wrong. It wasn’t Harlan Kidd.
His right arm was twisted behind him. Then his left—the pain that shot through him caused sparks in his vision. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak.
He was only vaguely aware of how cold the metal was as the handcuffs clicked around his wrists.
CHAPTER 33
* * *
Fortunately, maybe miraculously, no one was killed in Columbus that night. When all was said and done, there were thirteen injured, varying from minor scrapes and cuts to contusions, concussions, lacerations, and in one case, a gunshot wound. Three people ended up in intensive care. The police made sixteen arrests.
As far as the crime that had incited the chaos, the police had little to go on. They had a body, and they had around a dozen eyewitness accounts of the murder, but they were highly inconsistent. Some of the witnesses claimed it had been the Clown Killer, no doubt about it. A few of them said they could have sworn it was a woman who did it. Still others weren’t sure; they couldn’t see very well from their vantage points, and it all happened so fast.
It was a stupendous, unmitigated mess, and Reidigger was tired. No, tired wasn’t the right word; not even exhausted. He was drained, depleted. Empty.
He entered the hospital room with Agent Cole behind him. It was just shy of six in the morning; the sun wasn’t even up yet. He flicked the lights on in the room. Sam Asher squinted in the sudden brightness. Reidigger sat on the edge of the bed and sighed.
“Asher, Asher, Asher…” He shook his head. “Imagine, if you would, my surprise when I heard what happened here tonight. I mean, clowns versus cops versus citizens? Is it just me, or has the whole country lost its damn mind?” He clucked his tongue. “Now, imagine my complete and utter lack of surprise when I saw your name among the list of those detained.”
Sam looked away. His wallet, with his credit cards and ID, had been in the tact bag, which the police had confiscated when they arrested him.
Reidigger looked him over. “You look like hell, by the way.” Sam’s nose was freshly swollen, and one eye was bruised anew around the orbital bone where the cop had pressed his face into the sidewalk. His left arm was in a sling.
He’d been shot, but thankfully, the bullet had paased cleanly through the meat of his upper arm. Then he’d been taken to the hospital, where they patched him up, and handcuffed his right arm to the frame of the bed. The morphine dulled the pain a bit, but it still hurt like a bitch. Six years and two warzones and he ended up shot on a street in Ohio. That’s life, isn’t it?
“Asher, this is Agent Cole.” Sam didn’t look up at the woman standing beside his bed; he saw her when she came in. Medium-height, square-jawed, no-nonsense, dirty blonde hair; if she was anything like Reidigger, he didn’t care to know anything more than that about her. “She’s my right-hand… person, on this whole clown thing. You two haven’t had the pleasure yet.”
“Charmed,” Sam muttered.
Reidigger sighed heavily again and rubbed his balding head. “I’m tired, Asher. I mean, I’m fucking drained. My department is sending another half a dozen agents here this morning, and the threat has already been and gone. The Clown Killer is still out there, at large, and we have no idea where he’s headed. And now this mess. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Where do we go from here?” He looked Sam dead in the eye. “If you have information that would help our investigation, I suggest you share it right now.”
“In exchange for what?”
Reidigger laughed derisively. “In exchange? No, no, no. You have no leverage here, Asher. I warned you. I warned you what would happen. I gave you chances, and you ignored me at every turn. No, see, what’s going to happen is, you’re going to jail. I mean, you’ve put, what, two or three guys in the hospital—that we know about? You attacked an innocent man on the street? And with a gun that—I’m just guessing here—will come up unregistered? No, there’s no exchange here. There’s no bargain. Let me be candid: You’re currently facing three charges of assault with a deadly weapon. One charge of attempted murder. Terroristic threats. Withholding information in an open investigation. And just for fun, I might throw in inciting a riot.”
“I didn’t—”
“I don’t care. Right now, I have you so tightly by the balls you could sing like Joan Sutherland. I told you that if you didn’t go home, I would drag you through the dirt. Didn’t I say that? Now, you tell me what you know, and maybe, just maybe, it’ll inspire me not to throw you in the deepest, darkest hole I can find and leave you there.”
Sam adjusted himself on the bed, groaning slightly with the pain in his arm. He was in deep shit, and he knew it, but he forced himself to smirk. “You know I was right, about everything—who the guy is, where he’s from, where he worked. I was right about where he was going. And I know where he’s headed next.” Sam leaned forward. “And I’m not telling you anything.”
Reidigger’s eye twitched. “Now you listen here, you son of a bitch,” he growled.
“Carl.” Agent Cole put a hand on Reidigger’s shoulder.
Sam smirked again. “Carl, huh? Yeah, you look like a Carl.”
Reidigger glared at Cole.
“Mr. Asher,” she said gently. “Please, despite everything that’s
happened, you must want justice for your nephew. And for the other victims. If you know something, or even if you have a lead, a hunch, it’s imperative that you tell us.”
He looked up at her. Her eyes looked kind, despite her straight face and demeanor. He sighed. “Alright. I have a hunch.”
“Yes?”
“You look like a Samantha.”
She made a face and turned away from him, clearly irritated.
“No? Jennifer, then. Or maybe… Barbara? I know, it’s a bit dated, but maybe your parents were the old-school type—”
“Enough!” Reidigger barked. “Where’s your brother?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit, Asher. Where is he?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I lost him in the riot. But he knows where Harlan’s going next. And he’ll be there.”
Reidigger flinched a little when Sam said his name. “Fine. If you won’t tell me, I’ll use you to smoke him out.”
“You can try. He’s not dumb.”
“Alright then. We’re done here.” Reidigger rose and buttoned the top button of his suit jacket. “As soon as the hospital clears you, you’ll be put in the back of a van and tried in a federal court. Then you’ll be convicted and sent to prison. So this is goodbye; have a nice life. Or, life sentence. Same thing, really.”
He motioned for Cole to follow and they headed toward the door.
“Hey, Carl, Cole… wait.”
They paused and turned back to him. “Yeah?”
He looked from Cole to Reidigger and back again. “I just… I just gotta know. Is it Alison?”
“Goodbye, Asher.” They closed the door behind them and walked briskly down the hall. “We need to find Jake,” Reidigger said. “We can start with that bag he was carrying; there must be something in there that will point us in a direction.”
“Sure. I mean, yes, sir.” Cole was distracted. Sam Asher hadn’t at all been what she was expecting; Carl had spoken of him like he was some kind of one-man army, a force to be reckoned with or something. Quite the opposite; he seemed down-to-earth, ordinary, in person.