Minutes later, with the odor of petroleum and decay filling his nostrils and mouth, Lucas heard the distinctive whirring sound of U.S. helicopter gun ships, followed by gunfire. The U.S. Helicopter Cavalry raided the battlefield in a renewed offensive, chasing off the enemy before they could torch the bodies they intended to defile. When ground forces came near enough for Lucas to hear their talk, Lucas patiently waited for them to draw nearer. Choking on the overwhelming odors he'd been subjected to for so long now, Lucas shot a hand out from the wall of dead soldiers, grabbing hold of a live American cavalryman. The act startled the baby-faced kid and his companions where they stood, each reacting, raw-nerve fashion, weapons pointed, bodies shivering at the movement in Lucas's eyes. Finally realizing that the dead man was alive, a medic corporal barked out orders that made frozen men move. They finally dragged Stonecoat's battered body from the carnage of the death heap.
"And put out those damned cigarettes!" the medic added.
Now, here in his apartment, a world and decades away from Viet Nam, Lucas felt it all over again as he sliced away at the brown-paper wrapping of a package that annoyed his every sense—bringing back the enormous dismay and revulsion of war through odor alone. The Texas Cherokee detective tore open the awful "gift" sent him. And there it was... staring back at him...a stack of pancake-shaped decaying pieces of flesh. Human or animal, it was hard to say. A sliced section of spleen, kidney, heart tissue, sliced as he had seen done in autopsy rooms, all mixed in a soupy wash of liquid residue. The decaying organ parts swam about inside a Styrofoam-lined little wood box, looking like a miniature coffin, definitely hand- fashioned.
"Son of a bitch!" Lucas tried to picture someone going to such an extreme effort to target him and to make him ill. Which of his enemies inside or outside of the department would take such pains? Who wanted to make him turn from his Native American red to a pale green? Who had access to autopsy room debris? "Assistant M.E. Patterson? Detective Arnold 'The Itch' Feldman and his buddies?" Lucas asked the empty room. "How big a jerk-off would it take to pull a stunt like this?
"No. Neither man would have the nerve. Then who," he wondered aloud, "and why?"
Lucas then noticed the note jammed between the wood outer box and the inner lining of Styrofoam. Using a pair of medical tweezers, he lifted the brown bile-stained note and opened it to reveal the cryptic message in a shaky hand. It read:
spleen on spleen,
cut true and clean,
kidney for kidney,
bake to a pie,
heart on heart,
piece by piece
I give you art,
food for thought,
and a final piece
for the feast
to grease the way to peace
Lucas studied the tight, pinched handwriting that reeked of agitation, but even as he reread the rhyme, he could get little meaning from it, save that perhaps the author wanted him to dine on the awful contents of the package, using such culinary words as grease, feast, bake, pie, cut, and food for thought. Perhaps a handwriting expert could gather more from the size of the letters, the loops and swirls that deviated from the center line, and the choice of words. However, Lucas's first impulse was to know how the package was delivered and by whom. He got on the phone and called down to the bar below his apartment. Jack Tebo lifted the receiver and barked, "Tebo's!"
"It's me. Jack, Lucas."
"Wha's up, Stoney? Want a six-pack sent up? A sandwich? Special tonight is—"
"No...I want to know if you got a good look at the guy who left that damnable package for me? Did you pay him any attention?"
"I didn't pay her too much attention, no. Rather plain- looking young woman...just got a passing glance at her. Tipped her a couple of bucks, like I said."
"A woman? You saying it was a woman?"
"Had a childlike quality to her eyes, a kind of innocence in there."
"How do you mean?"
"She was kinda vacant, you know, like a kid, but man, Stoney. She was curvaceous, my friend, sexy as they come. Small, but not anorexic, you know."
"Childlike and sexy? Tebo, you could be arrested for that. How old was she?"
"My best guess, she'd have to be in her early twenties, but strange thing..."
"What strange thing?"
"What she was wearing."
"Which was?"
"A uniform."
"Delivery uniform? UPS? Shorts and shirt? What?"
"No, not exactly. She was in a plaid skirt with suspenders over a white blouse and little string tie."
"Sounds like a schoolgirl's uniform...a Catholic schoolgirl's uniform."
"Bingo, now you mention it. Skirt was just above the knees cut high. And man, did she fill out the blouse."
"A cap? Did she wear a cap?"
"She was holding a cap in her hand, yeah. Why? What's got you all fired up? What was in the package? Was the kid 'spose to sing 'Happy Birthday' or do a strip tease for you, Stoney, or what?"
"Early twenties, huh? Little old for a convent girl," muttered Lucas.
"What's got you in such a lather, amigo?"
"The return address and the contents don't exactly jive with one another."
"Yeah, Eunice was curious about that, and she didn't like the look or the smell of the package, but you know Eunice, she just raised her shoulders and told me not to get involved in your affairs. Frankly, I'm curious myself." He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Do you know this girl from the convent?"
"Convent girls aren't in their twenties. Jack, but even so, the answer is no."
'Told Eunice it was none of our business what business you had with a girl from a convent school."
"Jeeze, Tebo, I haven't one damned clue who the girl might be or why anyone from a Catholic school would be sending me disgusting shit through the mail."
"What kinda shit're we talking about, Lucas?"
"Jack, the sender is anonymous, and the contents of the package... well, it's highly unusual."
"Highly unusual?" he repeated.
"Especially for a young woman to be hauling around."
Tebo grunted. "Unusual how?"
"Come on up and see unusual for yourself."
"Give me a few minutes...be right up. Haven't seen a good unusual for some time, bud." Tebo imagined it must be sexy under things.
"I need a witness to this, Jack."
"That bad, huh? Some bitch stalking you, huh?"
"I'm so glad my supposed love life affords you so many fantasies, Jack, but believe me, unless you are the pervert I suspect you are, you'll get no pleasure out of this business." Lucas breathed too deeply, catching up the odors of the package in his nostrils and throat again. His mind wafted back to Nam, but he fought the memories. Choking, he added, "So get up here, will you? I don't want to be alone with this thing any longer."
Finally a serious note came out of Tebo. "That bad, huh?"
"That bad, yes."
CHAPTER 2
TEBO READ THE note and stared at the contents of the package opened in Lucas's kitchen sink. A hefty, barrel chested man in an apron with his tavern's signature-logo T- shirt blazoned and stained across his chest, Tebo sputtered, "Damn, you weren't kidding. Somebody's trying to tell you something... something damned serious, Stoney. This is just sick, man, too sick."
"My own personal psycho-terrorist, it would seem."
"We better not let Eunice hear about this. She gets a whiff of this, and you're outta here, amigo...no pun intended."
"Yeah, when Eunice learns about this, she'll have me kicked out for certain," Lucas conceded. "Look, you were a butcher for a time. Does this soup and sandwich of fleshy cuts look human or animal? If it's animal, I won't have to take this quite so seriously. I'll know for certain it's a hoax."
"Hoax?"
"Bad joke then...cooked up by some of the fools in the department."
Tebo examined the contents more closely, squirming, squinting, puckering his lips, retracting his n
ose, creasing his forehead in a mix of revulsion and thought. His beard bobbing, he said, "Sorry, pal, doesn't look like any animal I ever cut into."
"I was afraid you'd say that. I had the same initial reaction." Lucas stepped from the kitchen and fell into an easy chair. "I've seen autopsy cuts like this, when Chang wants to take a biopsy of an organ, you know. This has the stamp of a medical man behind it."
Tebo, his nose twitching with the odor rising from the sink, followed Lucas into the living room, shaking his head in disbelief, still reeling from the odor left behind in the kitchen. "You know, amigo, I didn't smell any of that stench coming off the package when it was delivered. But like I said, Eunice—she's got a nose on her like a bassett hound— said she didn't like the smell of it. Sure gotta be some sick creep behind this! You ever give any thought to getting into another line of business? Maybe invest in that new location I'm opening on the Rivera Esplanades?"
"Yeah, I can really see you fitting in there with the cappuccino crowd. Look, I gotta call Chang, get his CSI unit over here. Hell, this is human remains.. Damn sure ruined my night. They'll have to go over every inch of this thing."
"Christ!" Tebo banged an open palm into the doorway, causing some of Lucas's gun collection, hanging on the adjoining wall, to shake loose and go helter-skelter, barrels tilted, handles swaying.
"Hey, easy! My guns."
"I like having you around, Stoney. You're like insurance in my book, like having a pit bull around, but Eunice...no way I can keep a coroner's van parked outside from Eunice."
"All right, then she knows."
"She'll want you out, bro. And she'll bug me for every detail. Damn these times we live in...all kinda vipers and lunatic snipers coming out of the woodwork everywhere you turn. Can't go out to dinner anymore without packing a weapon."
"Agreed."
"What with you being a cop...amigo, seems doubly foolish of you to've opened that package at all. Hand- delivered, that weird return address. Suppose it was anthrax or some other infectious disease?"
"I suppose you're right, Jack."
'Tell me, Lucas, being Wolf Clan in the Cherokee Nation and all... you got something going with that convent chick on the side that might've, you know, pissed her or the boyfriend off maybe?"
"Hell, no. You know I prefer a mature lady."
"Then what connection do you have to that convent school?"
"None, damn it."
Tebo's frown said he wasn't buying it.
Lucas opened his palms in the universal gesture for confusion. "Look, before I gave any mind to the return address, for just a moment, I thought it might've come from some bastard on the reservation who'd gutted a deer," he confessed.
"Yeah, sure, when you got that first whiff, whew! First thought was reservation road kill cookin', huh?"
It made Lucas laugh. "Thought someone was sending a buffalo burger through the mail," he said to keep the joke rolling.
Tebo laughed lightly, "Hey, don't knock the favorite tourist dish. It's on every menu now 'long with—"
"Spare me, Jack. Don't go there."
Both men had family on the Alabama & Coushatta Indian Reservation near Huntsville. Both had found a life off the reservation. Tebo's family ancestry was Coushatta Comanche, Lucas's Texas-immigrated Cherokee.
"So, you've got no idea who might be behind it?" asked the big man at Lucas's side as he too dropped onto the sofa.
"I suspect it's a joke. Has to be a sick prank."
"Christ, if that's true...Some friends you've got, amigo. You give any thought to it's maybe originating with that prick cousin of yours, Billy Hawk? Or worse yet, his boss?"
"Zachary Roundpoint's too busy with his casinos and Indian mafia networking to play games like this with me. Besides, there's no animosity between us."
'Tell that to Billy Hawk. He still thinks you stole his wife from him."
"Bullshit. Everybody on the res knows she left him because he hooked up with Roundpoint. I had nothing to do with her leaving him. Billy brought that all on himself."
"You told me she wanted him out of the picture, so she and you could ride off into the sunset, man. I don't forget a thing like that."
"I thought I told you to forget that, Jack! I told that to you in confidence, so don't repeat it."
"Confidence? How many others've you told the same story to? Stoney, you light up on beer and peyote, and you sometimes talk, my friend, but I've kept your secret." Tebo began to pace, agitated. "You gotta at least consider that maybe Billy thinks you are after him? Maybe this is his way of striking first, sending a warning, bro. I mean, Tsali, she's not known for diplomacy or discretion, and she is living in your grandfather's house with her girls— the house you bought for the old man."
"She nursed the old man in his final days."
"We all know that, but like Eunice says, your old girlfriend's got it easy because of you, and that can't sit well with Hawk."
Lucas thought, If it is Billy, let the bastard come, but he said, "Come on, Jack, you're beginning to sound like the gossips on the fucking res. That shit with Billy's old water under an old bridge."
"But the woman wanted you to snuff her husband!"
"Shhhh! Can you be any louder? Damn it, Jack, when Tsali came to me with that nonsense, she'd been pushed beyond her limit. It's been a year, and I stopped seeing her, end of story."
Tebo frowned and muttered under his breath as he wiped at his two-day-old stubble. "Seems there's plenty of room between the lines for bad blood, and—"
"Not on my part!"
"—and a desire to avenge family honor, whether—"
"Bullshit!"
"—whether you've sworn off her or not!"
"Jack!"
"Either on Billy's part or hers."
Lucas pictured the beautiful, young Tsali of his childhood, the one he'd wandered the banks of the Trinity River with, the one he had made love to before leaving for Viet Nam. The one who had rejected him when he chose to live among the whites, marrying his cousin, Billy Hawk, instead. He gave a thought to the short, stocky Billy as well, a henchman now for the local Indian crime boss, Zachary Round- point. "What're you suggesting, Jack?" Lucas stepped back to the kitchen, pointing to the awful package stinking up his sink. "That Tsali could do something like this?"
"A scorned woman, all that, you know."
"I know her too well. Tsali wouldn't do something like this. I know her."
"How well do any of us know what others are capable of, Lucas?"
"Drop it, Jack. Tsali is doing well; I speak to her from time to time. She doesn't hate me. As for Billy, I haven't had any dealings with him whatsoever since he's taken up with Roundpoint's crowd." As much as he grudgingly admired Zach Roundpoint, Lucas's being a Houston police detective prevented any public dealings with the man.
"All right, smart guy, then who?" asked Tebo. "Who's got the cajones to send you something this bloody nasty?"
Lucas took a deep breath of air. "This's more likely the work of those bonehead idiots down at the precinct, testing me."
"Yeah...sure, that's it!" Tebo smiled wide. "When you get in tomorrow, they'll be studying your reaction. You'll see." Tebo laughed, his belly rising and falling. He decided he liked this solution.
"They will've read all the reports to see if I freaked out...see if I called in the bomb squad or a CSI unit, all of it, no doubt."
Both men breathed easier with this notion, and Lucas offered Tebo a beer from the fridge, and together they relaxed a moment, Lucas switching on a Houston Astros game. Tebo lifted the note with the cryptic poem on it.
To the backdrop of the announcer, Tebo mused, "Lousy at poetry, whoever the jerk—or jerks—are. So, you think they got the parts from Chang's crime lab or the morgue?"
"That'd be my guess. Sometimes waste isn't disposed of properly, you know...hear about it all the time. One of those bozos like itchy Arnie Feldman is in the morgue maybe...maybe on legitimate business when he sees this, sneaks the stuff out, wraps i
t up, and sends it to me."
"This's the guy everybody calls The Itch?"
"Yeah."
"Why The Itch? He got a bad case in his BVDs?"
"Well, joke goes that he's never had an itch he didn't scratch. Anyway, to add to the mystery, The Itch hires a little prostitute off the street to dress up in a Catholic school uniform to deliver the package."
"Yeah...yeah!" Tebo's eyes lit up. "She was maybe a hooker or a stripper dressing the part, pal," Tebo said, toasting with his beer. "She was no little kid. Kick-ass body. Had that uniform bulging. Lot of makeup, eyelashes, eyeliner, rouge, lipstick as thick as molasses."
"Gotta be Feldman scratching another itch. He spent a lot of time in vice, knows every prostitute on the street."
After a long silence, Tebo asked, "Suppose you're wrong."
Lucas silently considered this. If it weren't a stupid prank, if it had come from some enemy, it presented a real threat, a warning of some kind, or it could be someone's reaching out, pleading for the Cherokee detective to put an end to his killing again. No way to be sure. Not a clue. To Tebo he simply said, "Got to be a prank."
Lucas's red face somewhat camouflaged his scarred right cheek and neck, until the scar flinched with his consternation, as was the case now. The twinge called to mind how he had gotten the scar in a fiery shootout early in his career as a police officer in Dallas. Now a detective in Houston, he had little desire to relive that day many years before, but he could not escape it either, tattooed as it was on his countenance.
Tebo considered the worried look on his friend's face, and he thought how tall and angular Lucas was even here in his sitting position.
The phone rang, and Lucas grabbed it up as if it might be a lifeline to take his mind away from the package and what it portended.
Dr. Meredyth Sanger, the precinct psychiatrist, gasped out her words. "I need you right away, now, to come over here, Lucas. Can you come over now?"
He heard the desperation in her voice. "What's happened?"
"Something awful... arrived in the mail... can't fathom it."
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