Guilt threatened to destroy her. They had come and taken Little Sister away because of her! They had come and taken Shan and…done things to her. All because I tried to escape. I had to be so damned smart. What’ll they do to her if they think I’m trying to escape again?
Then came the monster’s words. You’re doin’ it again. Thinkin’ of others when ya oughtta be workin’ on a way out.
Kaley felt like arguing, but knew that it was no use. The monster was inexorable. He would continue taunting her from an impossible distance, and she would never be able to touch him or punish him for it. “Not unless I get out of here,” she said. Bonetta looked at her strangely.
That’s the spirit! he said.
Bonetta looked her up and down. “Who’re you talkin’ to?”
Kaley swallowed. “Nobody. Now, come over here and stand by the doorknob.”
“What? Why?”
“Just do it. I’ve got a hairpin here,” she said, improvising before she realized it. She had pulled it out of her hair. In truth, she had no idea how to pick a lock, but as she approached it, she realized that she did. Kaley bent one of her hairpins to be the torsion wrench, and bent the other one so it could act as a rake. She wondered how she knew how to do this.
Because I know how to do it, my precious, said the monster. That’s somethin’ I didn’t count on. I meant for you to fake it, but if you can do what I can do, then go for it.
Kaley wanted to deny it, because it meant that she and the monster were…conjoined. Bonding this empathically with another human being was not a pleasant experience. Emotions were good. They were powerful and fueling, but what emotions the monster had were too intense. The important ones were missing—love, hope, sympathy—and in their place was the most concentrated selfishness. A person must be selfish to some degree in order to take care of oneself, but in this instance…there was too much…it…
Would you say it cloys? asked the monster. A nauseating humor came over her. He saw everything. She was naked before him, and him her. But whereas she had shame, he had none.
Kaley slipped the two hairpins into the lock, and started working on the tumbler. She had never known how a tumbler worked, but for the moment she did. There was more to skills like lock picking than just knowing the names of things and the concepts of a technique—one had to have a certain finesse with the hands, there was muscular control involved, the tiniest of movements from one finger to push this way or correct that way without overcorrecting. Additionally, there was even a pattern of breathing involved in order to help maintain focus, a habit that many skilled people picked up while doing whatever it was they were good at without knowing they were doing it.
What surprised Kaley, and would surprise her for decades to come, was that she didn’t just know the concepts of lock picking. For a time, for that window of her life, her muscles, lungs, and focus were that of an expert picker. She was the monster. He fed her, whether he knew it or not. The monster knew his thieving craft, no one could ever deny him that. And he had drive. A will.
Out of nowhere, Kaley was reminded of an old Star Trek episode. Ricky had been fond of old sci-fi—Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Douglas Adams—and both Kaley and Shan had been subjected to his interests, and made to watch Lost in Space, Battelstar Galactica (the old version), and others with cheesy special effects. In one episode of Star Trek, she recalled the guy with the pointy ears says to the captain of the starship Enterprise, “Jim, madness has no purpose, and no reason.” Then, he ominously adds, “But it may have a goal.”
You were right about that, Mr. Spock, Kaley thought, her hands working furiously at something that felt utterly natural. It does have a goal. She felt the slimy humor of the monster. He had detected her morbid critique, and he relished it. He was closer now. Their Connection felt stronger. Kaley almost reached out for Shannon, to speak with her, to comfort her…and immediately she stopped herself. Or maybe it was the monster stopping her, pulling back on her reins like a rider on a horse. Don’t think that way. That way lies your end. She wasn’t sure if that was her voice, the monster’s, Shan’s or even Nan’s. Either way, it sounded like good advice right now.
Ward yo’ heart, chil’. Definitely Nan that time, but was it really her speaking from the ether or was Kaley just losing her mind?
So lost in thought was she that at first she didn’t really take note of the sharp click! that signaled a finished job. Kaley felt it more than she heard it, and she knew that she had successfully picked all five of the tumbles in the door lock.
Kaley turned the doorknob, and the door parted slightly. She turned and looked at Bonetta, who was wide-eyed and daring to hope. That hope cascaded over Kaley and emboldened her.
Good job, the monster said. She could feel the sinister delight. He was happy that his plan was coming together, not in the saving of her life or anyone else’s. I’m on my way. And, if I’m right about that camera, they are too. Prepare yourself for the fight o’ yer life.
“I’m ready,” Kaley said, both to him and to Bonetta. She looked at the Harper girl and said, “Are you?”
At first, it did not appear so. Bonetta looked at the door, then back at the room that had been their prison. No doubt she was recalling the weapons and superior strength and numbers of their enemies, and weighing that against the thought of possibly remaining here forever.
“Bonetta,” Kaley said, and for the first time found (quite by accident) that she could reach out and change others via her charm. Like a child maturing with its newfound gifts of balance and dexterity, Kaley had stumbled upon a way to manipulate Bonetta’s emotions. She groped for her attachment to her father, to her anger that day on the playground, and fortified Bonetta with it. “Bonetta, if you stay here, you won’t just be a prisoner. You’re a future victim, girl. They gonna kill you. You know that, don’t you?”
Silence in the room. Any moment now, the Oni’s (as Kaley had started thinking of this fucked up family) would be coming down the stairs for them. Finally, the large Harper girl looked back at her and said, “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”
Together, they stepped out of the prison, and into the Rainbow Room.
“Attention all units,” said dispatch. “Five-oh-three reported at the Keegan Corporation on Mansell Road. A stolen yellow Penske truck was taken off the lot. Suspect’s description matches that of Spencer Adam Pelletier, wanted in multiple murders and a shooting that wounded a police officer earlier tonight. All units in the vicinity, please respond. Consider armed and extremely dangerous.”
Officer David Emerson touched the radio on his lapel. “This is one-Adam-four, responding to that five-oh-three. I am in the vicinity and presently conducting a search for the suspect. En route. ETA, four minutes.” He flipped on his siren without listening to dispatch’s confirmation, and turned left quickly at the next stoplight. “I got you, Jack Ching. You’re mine, motherfucker. Gonna have me a mounted jackalope at the center of my living room. You’re fucking mine.”
“Yo! Porter! We got something!”
That was Agent Stone, sticking his head out from the SUV’s driver side. Leon had been standing next to Porter watching the coroners pull out the little girl. A moment of silence had befallen the entire scene, all police officers in the yard and across the street had removed their hats without being told. Most of them had either heard the recording of the girl’s screams (if they had, in fact, been hers, and even if they hadn’t there was no doubt this girl had suffered tremendously) or had heard the others talking about it.
Porter dashed across the street with Leon jogging directly behind. “What’s up?”
“Get in! Mansell Road! He walked into a Penske manufacturing plant and drove right off the fucking lot with one o’ their trucks!”
“A Penske truck?” Leon asked, diving into the back seat. He’d had the volume on his radio turned low while the girl was being pulled out, and hadn’t heard the update.
“Yeah.”
“They have a heading?” Port
er asked. “A visual on him?”
Stone cranked the SUV just as Mortimer hopped in behind him. “Not yet. Two helicopters in the area are sweeping with searchlights.”
Outside, the other officers were getting the same update. Hennessey and his SWAT boys were piling back into their large armored van, ready to be redeployed again elsewhere.
“A big yellow Penske truck?” Leon asked again. “That’s getting sloppy of him. He tossed his phone so he wouldn’t be found, but those Penskes stick out like sore thumbs. He had to know a stolen truck would be reported. He’s either gonna ditch it soon, or…” Or what? Was he leading them someplace? Was he having just that much fun? Leon had flashbacks of seventeen-year-old Colton Harris-Moore, the “Barefoot Bandit,” who had evaded police with such mischievous glee and had left notes and pictures in his wake to taunt them. Some men did strange things in defiance of the law.
“Yeah,” Porter said. “He must’ve gotten desperate, and he’ll definitely ditch it soon as he can.”
Leon nodded wordlessly.
At his phone, Porter received another update. “Well, shit on me, we may have something here.”
“What is it?”
“Avery Street. You know it?”
Leon had to think for a second. “Yeah…yeah, I think so. Never worked it, but I know it. It’s a really obscure back street, surrounded by some underdeveloped neighborhoods that got foreclosed on. Why?”
“Your boys at Atlanta PD just sent an update, and Interpol’s all over it. The bureau just got it that the APD interviewed a few guys from Keegan, and two of them said that Pelletier stopped and asked them for directions to Avery Street.” Porter tapped the screen on his phone a few times, then looked down in consternation. “The map o’ that place looks screwy.”
“Yeah,” Leon said. “That area’s kind of fucked up. It got zoned weird and divided into different sections, some of which got cut off from other main roads but none of them ever got officially renamed, so there’s a few different streets that look like different streets but essentially are fragments of old Avery Street. A series of neighborhoods got foreclosed on; it wasn’t a priority to rename anything.”
“Why not?”
Leon shrugged. “Nothing gets delivered there anymore. No pizzas, no mail. Almost nobody lives there.”
“Huh,” Porter said, his tongue touching his upper lip thoughtfully.
“What’re you thinking?”
“Probably the same as you,” he said. “A thousand bucks says we find a whole group of Russians taking up residence in at least one house. Stacked up like Mexicans.”
Nobody took that bet.
The rain suddenly started in even harder. It came down in great sheets. Leaning back in his seat, Leon thought about Pat. He thought about Pat’s connection to Pelletier, and how that might come back to haunt him. Leon thought about his sister, Melinda, married to Pat. He wondered how this could negatively affect her once all was said and done. He thought about the vory v zakone and the Rainbow Room. He thought about the screams he’d heard come from those speakers.
13
The neighborhood along Avery Street was one grand Forgotten Place. That was Spencer’s assessment. One of those zones that existed only on a map, but in no one’s memory. He could tell by the buildup of leaves in the gutters, the trash along the sidewalks, and the bent, rusted and graffitied stop sign that no one had bothered to fix.
It had been difficult to find, even with the directions the Keegan worker had given him. There were four different Avery Streets, or at least it seemed so because of a strange engineering anomaly where Avery Street, most likely an old street, had zigzagged around this area and two other streets—Montpelier and Crowe Street—had been laid along it longwise. Like a slinking, wavy snake that had been cut while curling, there were now many different slivers, all of them called Avery Street.
The road was winding and hilly, with unchecked trees choking off some of the sidewalks. Vines grew amongst the branches, and even reached out at the road, as if ready to snatch up some unwary traveler.
The wind was blowing lightly when Spencer stepped down from the truck’s cab and onto the pavement, pocked with potholes. Cracked streets yielded a path for some determined grass. Trees stood sentry on all sides, some firs, one oak, a smattering of beeches. It was clear to Spencer this had once been planned as an upscale neighborhood, but somewhere along the way someone lost it in a bankruptcy, possibly during the big Housing Bubble that ruined everyone. It was new old, or old new; one of the two. Some builder had lost his ass and been forced to stop developing this area, leaving the few planted trees to grow wild and selling the houses for whatever he could get.
Spencer knew the story. He knew it without even having to research it. He knew how they world worked. He understood its ebb and flow, comprehended how its blood flowed through its veins, the way thinking creatures thought, and the way the deck was stacked against almost every single entity trapped in it. The game was the same. Criminals would always take advantage in desperate times. They would squat in houses that sat empty, or else buy them at a steal and turn them into meth labs. Or rape clinics, he thought, smirking.
The houses on either side of Avery Street were just short of those large ones that had been such a quick and easy build that they had been the craze in the late 90’s and early 00’s. Not quite McMansions, but pretty big. Yep, definitely pre-Housing Bubble. The American builder had lost his ass in that shit, and then had come a few Russians, ones with the money to answer his prayers since no Americans had the dough to buy any house at that time, much less these.
Avery Street had four houses on either side, but at the cul-de-sac, where it ended, there were two others, those being the most well kept in the neighborhood. The yards looked regularly mown, and the waist-high fences, though as jagged and darkened as a crackhead’s teeth, looked at least sturdy. Only the big brick one at the end of the cul-de-sac had any lights on. However, Spencer did spot a trio of white goons sitting in a swing and in some wicker chairs on the front porch of the house closest to him.
“You ready, partner?” Spencer said, taking his last toke of his cig and tossing it on the ground.
There was no hesitation this time. I’m ready.
The Connection was still felt. Spencer had already gotten used to it. It was refreshing, this new perspective on life. He’d enjoyed tasting the girl’s love for her sister, had found her fear intriguing. “I’m on the move.”
So are we.
He smiled. “There’s a good girl.”
How is it out there with you?
Spencer started moving down the street. “Reminds me of that ol’ Western, A Fistful of Dollars, where Eastwood was in a dying town with two feuding gangs living on each side of a single street. Funny scene. Eastwood walks past the town’s only coffin maker and tells him to get three coffins ready. He shoots four dead, and walks back to the coffin maker and apologizes, saying he ought to have said four coffins.” There was no response from the Voice, but he felt her. He felt her fear, and for a moment he toyed with it. He found it sticky, as sticky as she found his thoughts in general. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna shoot anybody. Least, not yet.”
Spencer nodded and gave a polite wave to the three white boys on the porch. The one sitting in the swing stood up and walked inside, alone. The other two remained seated in their wicker chairs, watching him.
Twenty steps later, a light came on in the upstairs window of the house on his left. Another eight steps, and a light came on in both a downstairs window and an upstairs window of the house beside it. Then, just as the first houses on his right and left were behind him, he heard a door shut. Spencer glanced behind. A man and a woman had stepped out of the front door of the first house on the left and switched on a porch light. The man was bare-chested, and had something in his left hand.
Now I’m stepping into their parlor, Spencer thought. And it’s the prettiest little parlor I ever did spy.
Another light switched on.
Then another. A man stepped out onto the porch of the last house on the right. Inside each house, calls were being made. Avery Street was its own little nook, a rift in the fabric of the space-time continuum, where only a few knew how to venture in and out of safely. Spencer’s sudden appearance was probably a surprise to the inhabitants who probably rarely ever spotted such a bold traveler.
“I don’t know which house you’re in,” he muttered, looking at one of the white fellas who’d wandered out onto his porch and taken a seat. “You there?”
I’m thinking, said the Voice. A few seconds, then, It’s a big brick one, on the front somebody spray-painted L-Ray runs this shit. That’s all I—oh…oh God…
“What is it?” Fear bloomed across his mind, and he liked it. Then, all at once, the Connection was lost. He no longer tasted the fear, the sadness, the shame. Without knowing it, Spencer had started to relish it, much the same way as he’d relished having Tidov dead to rights, but there was a key difference. The sensation that came with the Voice was a little soothing. He felt like a man in a desert who’d been granted a sip of water—the cleanest, purest, coldest glass of water on Earth—and now it was gone. “Partner?” he said. “Partner, you there?”
To his right, one of the men had stepped off of the porch. He was a large man, also wearing no shirt, and his big belly had tattooed letters: Мир ненавидит нас.
“The world hates us,” Spencer said, half in wonder.
“Hey there!” someone called from behind. He glanced over his shoulder, but never stopped walking towards the big brick house. He spotted it from here, L-Ray runz this shit!!!, and never broke stride. “Hey, man! What’s a guy like you doin’ wandering around here at night? Huh? You a Peeping Tom? Eh? A thief? Maybe you’re scouting us out. Is that right?”
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