In the Lincoln, Lockwood was too slow as he slammed on the brakes. The light on Eighth Street had turned red a second before they got to it. Lockwood was still fighting his bad depth perception and went squealing through the red light in a four-wheel skid, leaning on the horn as the flow of cross traffic swarmed into the intersection. He crashed into a yellow pickup truck, throwing Malavida into the dash. Fenders crunched and locked as the two vehicles skidded together toward the curb and came to a smoking, shuddering stop. Lockwood threw the car into reverse and floored it. The bumpers were hooked, and the Lincoln's tires smoked and screamed on the hot, sun-cooked pavement. Then, finally, he pulled loose, after dragging the pickup about ten feet into the intersection. People were yelling; horns were honking. Lockwood floored it, driving up onto the sidewalk and around the mess he had caused, then off again in pursuit of the VW van.
Lockwood looked over and saw that Malavida was curled up in pain from the collision. He was doubled over in his seat, holding his stomach. "Great move, Zanzo," he grunted through a clenched jaw.
"Something wrong with traffic lights," Lockwood said.
"He's into the system," Malavida whispered in pain. "He's controlling them."
Suddenly all of the lights ahead of them turned red. The next intersection they hit was the four-lane downtown junction for the Tamiami Trail. The cross-traffic was intense and Lockwood and Malavida sat in frustration at the red light, watching the heavy traffic flow past in front of them, completely blocking their pursuit. Finally, Lockwood slammed his hand down hard on the wheel.
"Now what?" Malavida said as they both scanned the street up ahead. The van was nowhere in sight.
Chapter 40
GROUND ZERO
They were huddled in the basement of the main branch of the Miami-Dade Public Library. The room was too cold and the stone, turn-ofthe-century architecture didn't offer much warmth. Malavida was in bad shape, still bleeding from the opened incision. They couldn't get it to stop.
"Leaking like a Mexican fishing boat," he said through gritted teeth.
Lockwood attempted to put his hand on Mal's forehead to check his temperature but Malavida knocked it away. He looked flushed.
They had been plowing through microfilm for an hour, looking for the obit on Shirley Land. Finally, an article about her death came up on the screen. The date was July 10, 1984. There was a small picture with the article, which was the same one Karen had shown to Malavida. They both leaned in and read the story quickly…
The article gave a brief description of the fire that had burned Shirley to death. There was very little about Shirley Land's personal history.
The article said she was the only daughter of a Baptist minister, who also made a meager living by designing underground bomb shelters in the fifties. It noted that she was survived by a son, Leonard, who was fifteen years old. It went on to say that she had been active in church affairs and that she was being buried at the Old Manatee Cemetery in Bradenton, Florida.
"Dead end," Malavida said. He started shivering and now Lockwood was sure he had developed a fever.
"You gotta go to the hospital, man, before you shake apart and die from infection," Lockwood said, forming one of his first complex sentences since the halon attack.
"Shut up. I'm in this," Malavida said, determined to hang tough. "Your funeral," Lockwood said, then added, "We're down to seeds and stems here."
He knew if he were working a regular investigation for Customs and had time, he would do a full search for Tashay Roberts. He would have choppers searching the Manatee wetlands for The Wind Minstrel's barge. And he would check all the old addresses where Leonard Land had lived, hoping to interview an acquaintance who could give them more information. But he had lost his power base. The cops would arrest both of them on sight and they were out of time. Karen might be dead already. Lockwood knew they had to get some traction and get it fast.
"Sometimes," he said, forcing the words into the right slots in the sentence, "sometimes delusional people will go someplace they feel safe, like home…"
"He won't go back to that bomb site near Tampa," Malavida said. He was now shivering so badly he was having trouble staying on the chair. "We'll never find that Barge again. There's a hundred square miles of swamp he could hide in… We're flicked."
"Maybe here," Lockwood said, pointing to the article about Shirley's burned house in Bradenton, Florida.
"He burned that house down, and we don't have an address. It was twelve years ago…"
"County records! Your computer?" Lockwood said.
"Okay," Malavida answered and then, without warning, he threw up on the stone floor.
When she woke up, she was in a new place. A twenty-foot-square windowless concrete room. She had been unconscious when they brought her here. The last thing she remembered, Leonard Land had held her down on the floor of the van while Bob Shiff pried her mouth open and forced her to swallow two pills.
She was no longer tied. She slowly regained her senses, struggled to her feet, and went to the metal door at the far side of the room… It wouldn't budge. She stood silently in the center of the room and listened. Her entire body was quivering. She then realized that it was absolutely quiet. The quiet was unrelenting. The room was frigid. There were no ventilation ducts except for two small tubes that came into the high ceiling five feet above her head. She put a hand out and touched the concrete, which was extremely cold. For the room to have such cold walls and be so deathly quiet, she suspected it was underground. She remembered her profile of brown rats, written six days and two lifetimes ago. Brown rats lived underground. Was this The Rat's hiding place? She fought back a powerful urge to just sit down and cry. She knew that she had very few tools left to use against him. The only thing she had was her profile on The Rat, gathered with guesswork over the last week. She thought she understood his sickness.
She had to use her ability as a psychologist and apply her knowledge effectively. She needed to buy herself some time.
She looked at her watch. It was 10:30 Sunday night, or at least she thought it was… unless she had slept the night through and it was now Monday morning. She had no sunlight to tell her for certain. She had to assume the pills they had given her would last only four to six hours. They had forced them down her throat sometime around five, so she deduced it was probably Sunday night. In a pinch she might be able to use that. She tried desperately not to let her thoughts ramble or turn to self-pity. She tried not to think about the horrible pain in her mouth. With her tongue, she carefully touched her broken teeth, crying out and almost fainting as she struck the exposed nerves. Then she kneeled down on the floor and prayed to God.
"Dear Lord," she said in a whisper, "forgive my sins. Help me to withstand this pain. Help me to find a clear vision. Lead me out of this darkness. In the name of your Son, Jesus. Amen." And then she sat in the corner farthest from the door and composed her thoughts, steeling herself for whatever would come.
At eleven the door opened and Leonard Land was standing there. The harsh fluorescent lights turned his pale, rash-reddened skin an ugly purple. His grotesque body filled the opening, his ghastly bald features glowering. Then he reached behind him and turned a dimmer rheostat, bringing the lights low so that he was no longer clearly visible, only a huge outline in the doorway. His smell reached across the small room, gagging her.
"Don't stare at me, you bitch, turn your eyes away. You cannot conceive my glory, for you have told many lies." His voice was thin and high and his speech was singsongy.
She struggled to get to her feet, and, once standing, she pressed her back against the cold concrete wall. "I haven't lied to you. I've never met you before."
"You were sent by Shirley. In her likeness, and with her message." He smiled but the smile was leering. "I will use that against you after you become part of the Beast."
Karen listened carefully and finally she nodded. She had to get him to talk. Information was power. She thought he was constructing a woman i
n his mother's likeness but she needed to find out why to gain leverage. "Go on," she said.
"You told me there was one God, one personal glorified being… but you lied."
"I lied?" she said, watching closely.
"You spoke of the Devil, but never defined his glory. He is also Lord, the Anti-Christ. In the numerous chain of prophecies only the closing scenes are hidden… and you will tell me what they are and how to avoid the Journey of Redemption."
"I see," she said. Her legs were quivering with fear, but she tried to hide it from him.
"You told me that the doctrine of the world's conversion and the terminal millennium is a fable of these last days. But you lied about that too. It is written that this doctrine is calculated to lull men into a state of carnal security and causes them to be overtaken by the great day of the Lord as if by a thief in the night," he said.
He was reciting. She could tell by the monotonous phrasing that this was memorized doctrine… but from where? She didn't recognize it.
"You said the wheat and tares grow together," he continued in the same voice, "and that evil men and the seducers wax worse and worse. You said the inevitable day of cleansing is coming. You told me God had given you the message and told you. how to avoid the Redemptive Journey. You must tell me the secret. I will not walk through the Hall of Sleeping Spiders or take a two-thousand-threehundred-day Journey of Redemption through hell." He lumbered ominously toward her.
"Okay, I will give you the truth," she said quickly.
"It is not so easy," he said and took a syringe out of his pocket. "Before you speak I must place your head on the Beast. The Beast, it is written, will tell the truth. She cannot lie. The Beast will tell me how to avoid the fires of hell."
Karen knew he was completely delusional, lost in some apocalyptic religious struggle. She couldn't quite get a handle on why, but she was out of time. She had to make a move. He took another step toward her.
"Stop!" she commanded in a loud voice and he flinched, throwing a hand up to protect his face almost as if she had hit him. Then he straightened and glowered at her.
"You are not Shirley. I don't have to do what you say."
It sounded to Karen as if he didn't quite believe that. She decided to take her one last shot. "On the Sabbath," she said firmly, "the Lord has commanded all to rest." Her legs were unsteady, her chest heaving, her teeth killing her.
"I don't give a fuck what He wants!" The Wind Minstrel shouted.
"Then you are a fool," she said. "The Lord will not countenance this crime on his special day. He will seek double vengeance against you. He will find you, and He will double the Journey of Redemption." She didn't know what the hell the Journey of Redemption was, but it sure had an effect on Leonard, because he took a step back and covered his ears.
"I will not listen to more of your lies. The Rat hides in daylight. God doesn't know where I am."
"God has seen you. You went to Robbie's in the daylight. God knows all about Robbie; Shirley told him. He's been watching Robbie, waiting. He has followed you here and he knows what you are doing. Do not make the mistake of desecrating the Sabbath. If you do, you will take his full redemptive wrath. The fires he will use on you will burn slowly. You will roast for a thousand years." She was trying to use the same meter; give the content of her words biblical proportion.
He rubbed his eyes and looked undecided. He was still holding the syringe in front of him. Then he moved toward her. She tried to get out of the way but the room was small; he grabbed her arm and threw her back into the wall, then pressed his corpulent body against hers, pinning her. His stench was overpowering. Her stomach leapt and she almost vomited. For a moment she thought he might try to rape her, but then he grabbed her arm, shoved the needle in, and depressed the plunger. She fought for several seconds, knocking the empty syringe out of his hand onto the floor… and then, for the third time that day, she was fast asleep.
Chapter 41
Sarasota County Real Estate Tax Board records indicated that Shirley's property had been sold in 1989 to Joseph Allen. He had died two years ago and the Allen family had put the place up for sale. Because of the bad Sun Coast real-estate market, they had not received an offer, and the house was now boarded up and empty. The lot wasn't technically in Bradenton but lay across the city line in Sarasota, at the end of a lowland island known as Siesta Key. It was only thirty miles south of the mouth of the Little Manatee River where, a few days before, Lockwood, Malavida, and Karen had piloted the rented boat-all three of them still in relative good health. The week that followed had exacted a heavy toll.
Lockwood and Malavida drove the gray Lincoln back across the tip of Florida to the west. They turned north on Interstate 75 and began the two-hour drive up the Gulf Coast. Malavida had been getting progressively worse. Lockwood had to stop the car twice so Mal could lean out and throw up. When Lockwood had tried to convince him to go to a hospital, he flatly refused.
"Listen, Zanzo," he'd said through clenched, shivering jaws, "I'm doing this. Okay? You're just John Q. Dickhead now. You can't order me around. So shut up."
That was the last thing the two had said to each other until they reached the outskirts of Sarasota. Lockwood had the map on his knees as he drove. He turned left on Clark Road and followed the humpbacked two-lane highway across the low wetlands; then he drove over the single-span Stickney Bridge onto Siesta Key.
The islet was low and sparsely populated. The road was dark with no streetlamps. They moved along looking for a shell road called Lower Key Road.
After driving for about two miles, Lockwood found it and made a right turn, heading west now toward the Gulf. The road narrowed and finally came to a stop at a crude cul-de-sac. The foliage was dense and reedy. Lockwood looked at his watch: It was 11:45 Sunday night. An almost full moon had climbed out of the eastern sky and hung there like a wedge of pale lime on the edge of dark black glass. Lockwood could see two driveways with mailboxes. He looked over at Malavida, who was slumped against the door of the car. His eyes were open but he was obviously out of the play.
Lockwood got out of the car and stumbled on unsteady legs to the mailboxes. He looked inside both and found nothing except ad brochures. The Allen house was supposed to be at 2464 Lower Key Road. He found an ad brochure with that address "To Occupant" and followed the driveway halfway down until he could see the house. It was a one-story stucco job with a slate roof. It looked like it had once been painted yellow but had faded to an off-white. The roof seemed to lean slightly. The yard was in a losing battle with the dense Florida undergrowth.
Lockwood slowly headed back up the drive to the car. He thought he was moving with slightly better coordination, but he still didn't trust himself to run or throw a punch. Maybe he could still swing a tire iron. He opened the trunk and pulled out the tool, hobbled up to the passenger side of the car, and looked in at Malavida, whose head was leaning against the half-open window.
"Stay here. Call the cops if I'm not back in five minutes."
"I'm coming…" Malavida said and opened the door, but that was as far as he got. He couldn't get out of the car. He tried to put his legs on the ground, but gave up and just slumped back with his head on the seat.
"Like I said, call the cops if I'm not back in five minutes." Lockwood took the phone out of Malavida's pocket, flipped it open, and put it in his hand. Malavida barely held on to it. Lockwood then walked carefully on uncooperative legs toward the house. Before he got ten feet, he heard Malavida's voice.
"Hey, Zanzo…"
Lockwood turned.
"I got your back."
"I can see," Lockwood said, then moved up the drive toward the darkened house.
The house was foreboding. Lockwood searching around slowly, trying desperately not to make any noise. He had been pumping adrenaline for hours to keep going, and now, when he needed an edge, he felt dull and used up. He leaned on the railing of the stucco house for a minute. He could see dust on the front porch. It covered the wood
deck like a sprinkle of fine brown sugar. He could see in the pale moonlight that nobody had been on that porch for a long time. He looked around for the VW. The yard was empty, the house unused. He realized this had been just a long, time-consuming dead end. Karen wasn't here. He had failed her.
He slumped down and sat on the wood steps of the porch and stared at the dense, overgrown foliage. They had come close but they had lost her. He didn't think Karen could still be alive after the chase down Twenty-seventh Avenue. Leonard Land and Satan T. Bone would have to kill her to silence her. He sat there, used up, in the warm night… and then, suddenly, he started to cry. He tried to rein in his emotions, but he couldn't. The tears ran down his cheeks and fell on the tangled grass at his feet.
Lockwood had not cried since he was a ten-year-old boy at the orphanage. He had been pounded silly for showing his tears back then. It was perceived as weakness. In the world he was raised in, the meek didn't inherit the earth-they got the shit kicked out of them. He had not cried when he'd been sentenced to St. Charles Academy five years later or when Claire had divorced him or even when she'd been murdered. Despite the anguish of that loss, he had held himself in strict control. But he could no longer hold back the tears; he was physically and emotionally spent, and they now spilled out in silence.
He struggled to regain control of himself. He knew he was crying for all of them… for Claire and Heather, for Karen, for Larry Heath and Alex Hixon, even for Malavida, who, despite Lockwood's earlier harsh appraisals, had now gained his total respect. What he couldn't, or wouldn't, admit to himself was that he was also crying for John Lockwood, for all he had missed and all he had refused to experience.
Sitting on that Florida porch step after thirty years, John Lockwood finally lowered his guard… and it almost cost him his life.
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