“That was close,” the Poison Angel had said calmly; somehow he’d magically transported himself into the front passenger seat.
“What are you doing here?”
“The Council sent me. They are mightily p.o.’d.”
“The Book! I left the Book in the barn!”
Sammael had winked broadly. “Lucky for you, you have friends in low places. Bear in mind, though: this is a one-time only deal. You fuck up again, you’re on your own. Oh, and by the way, you stink to high heaven, as the saying goes. Better get out of those clothes before they arrest you as a health hazard.”
Then he was gone, and in his place, lying on the bucket seat, had been a perfect copy of the Book, identical to it in every aspect but one. This simulacrum was perpetually on fire, bathed in lambent blue flames that flickered and danced like heat lightning across its surface, but like the flames of the burning bush in Exodus, failed to consume it, or even scorch the leather upholstery on which it lay.
3
There were several messages on the answering machine in Skip’s kitchen. The last was from Warren Brobauer, thanking Skip for his work and sacrifice on the family’s behalf, hoping he was recovering from his ordeal, and notifying him that, insofar as the authorities finally seemed to have the situation in hand, his professional services were no longer required.
The apartment, meanwhile, was a wreck. Yellow tape, fingerprint powder, overturned furniture, chalk marks, evidence flags. Maybe the maid could come in a few days early next week, Skip started to tell himself, then remembered suddenly that she was dead—that was her blood in the hallway. And she wasn’t just a maid, anyway—she was Anna. Anna of the warm brown eyes and the thousand-watt smile and the valiant broken English; Anna who’d washed his underpants and scrubbed his toilet for five years; Anna who’d been gunned down and stuffed into a closet like a sack of old clothes. So to hell with Warren and his money and his good wishes, thought Skip—Epstein Investigative Services was in this one for the duration, client or no client.
“I’m going to change my clothes,” he told Pender. “Feel free to help yourself to the good Scotch. It’ll go to waste otherwise.”
“You don’t drink?”
“I can’t,” Skip called over his shoulder as he limped down the hallway. “It’s all the acetaminophen in the Norco I take. My doctor says if I have one drink, even a beer, my poor liver will go belly-up like a dead salmon.”
After washing down two of the aforementioned Norco with a slug of tap water, Skip changed into a clean pair of chinos and a freshly laundered (by Anna!) blue oxford-cloth shirt, and retrieved the kidney holster containing his 9mm Beretta Parabellum from the shoe box on the top shelf of his closet before returning to the kitchen.
“You have a license for that thing?” Pender wanted to know.
“Sure do,” said Skip, clipping the holster to the back of his belt.
“Any good with it?”
“Pretty good. How about you?”
“As far as the Bureau’s concerned, I’m range-qualified,” said Pender. “But you remember those two shots I fired to scare away the buzzards yesterday?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I missed the sky. Twice.”
4
Leaving Marshall County one step ahead of the law, Asmador had driven north, for no particular reason, and after stopping at the Wal-Mart to purchase a complete change of clothes—another denim shirt, another pair of jeans, another denim jacket—he’d spent Friday night in a rustic, trailer court–style motel with detached bungalows just outside of Red Bluff.
The square, low-ceilinged, wood-paneled room had been furnished with twin beds covered with musty old striped blankets, and had smelled of Pine-Sol and mold. Asmador had smelled of sweat and corpse until he treated himself to a long, hot shower. He’d slept poorly, dreaming of soaring vultures outlined against a scarlet sky, and had awakened in the dark. The only light in the room issued from the television, where the image of the Poison Angel grinned out at him from behind what looked like a news anchor’s desk.
“And in news of the Underworld,” Sammael had reported “authorities in the Blasted Land tonight revealed the identity of your next victim.”
Asmador had sat up, openmouthed with astonishment, as the redheaded demon jerked a thumb in the direction of a rectangular inset in the upper-left corner of the screen, where one of the names from Luke Sweet’s fantasy revenge list was written in letters of fire.
“And bear in mind,” Sammael had added, forming an imaginary pistol with his hand and aiming the forefinger–gun barrel directly at Asmador, “if you fuck up again, things are gonna get mighty hot for you.”
Then he’d pulled the imaginary trigger with his middle finger, and ka-whoooosh! a ball of fire had shot out of his fingertip and through the television screen, heading straight for Asmador, who’d shrieked and thrown up his forearm to shield his eyes.
But the fireball had never arrived, and when he’d uncovered his eyes, the room had been dark again, save for the ghostly afterglow of the television screen, and relatively quiet, save for one last peal of demonic laughter.
5
Charles Mesker’s parents lived on the second floor of a converted motel in a blighted neighborhood only a few blocks from the Boardwalk. Suspicious looking characters loitered under shattered streetlights; a strung-out looking hooker tottered on high heels toward the Buick as it pulled up to the curb, then turned away without explanation.
Skip rang the bell and announced himself as Special Agent Pender, FBI, while the real Pender went around behind the building to make sure Charles didn’t try to sneak out the back way, over one of the second-story balconies. After a minute or two, he rejoined Skip in the entrance lobby, which had the thinnest, drabbest, unhappiest-looking carpet either of them had ever seen. They took the stairs up to the second floor, where Gerald Mesker, white-haired and professorial-looking in a shawl-necked cardigan, met them at the door and asked to see their credentials.
Pender tinned him, introducing Skip as his colleague, Mr. Epstein. Mesker, who’d taught mathematics at UC Santa Cruz from its founding in 1965 to his retirement a few years earlier, ushered them into a low-ceilinged studio apartment and seated them in cheap matching side chairs with low arms and scratchy upholstery. His wife, Helwidge, a round-faced, apple-cheeked Santa’s wife in loose-bottomed granny jeans and a high-necked blouse buttoned to her chin, served them coffee in delicate blue willow china cups and saucers that looked sadly out of place in the sparsely furnished room.
“When did you last see your son Charles?” asked Pender, after some minimal small talk.
“We visited Charlie three weeks before he died,” said Gerald Mesker, seated next to his wife on the convertible sofa that doubled as their marital bed.
“It’s hard to say whether he recognized us or not,” Helwidge Mesker confided in a hoarse whisper. “But I prefer to think he did, and that he knew we still loved him and cared for him.”
“I’m sure he did,” said Pender, taking out his pocket notebook and well-gnawed pencil stub. “By the way, who was his psychiatrist?”
“Dr. Hillovi,” said the professor. “Fredu Hillovi.”
“Do you happen to know how I can get in touch with him?”
Mesker shook his head. “I don’t even know if he survived the fire—I’d read he was badly burned.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Pender’s homely mug was radiant with sympathy as he glanced around the dismal little room. There were two framed photographs of son Charles on the sofa side table. One was of a teenager in a Boy Scout uniform; he had an archer’s bow in one hand and was holding up a blue ribbon in the other. The other was a candid snapshot of a hulking, middle-aged man with a low forehead and a thousand-yard stare. “It must have been quite a strain, financially, keeping Charles in a private facility.”
“Any parent would have done the same,” the professor replied. “We tried caring for him at home, but…” He glanced over at his wife, who sho
ok her head almost imperceptibly. “Let’s just say it didn’t work out. And if you’ve ever seen the facilities the state of California provides, Agent Pender, you’d understand why we made the choices we did.” Choices, he went on to explain, that included heavily mortgaging their home, then renting it out, furnished, to help pay the bills from Meadows Road.
“But you must understand, we don’t regret any of the sacrifices we made for Charlie,” Helwidge added, in a barely audible voice. “In a way, it’s a comfort, knowing that we did everything we could for him. And now that Charlie is finally at peace…” Overcome with emotion, she slumped sideways against her husband, took his hand, and pressed it movingly against her cheek.
“What Helwidge was going to say is, she and I will be moving back into our house on the first of June,” Gerald concluded brusquely. “And now it’s getting rather late, so if you don’t mind, can we please get this over with as quickly as possible?”
“Of course,” said Pender, setting down his cup and saucer. “Could I speak to you alone?”
“I don’t think—”
“Please.”
Gerald took his wife’s cup and saucer from her and returned them to the tray along with his own. He patted her knee and started to rise, but she seized his hand again and would not relinquish it. “No, I want to hear,” she told Pender. “Whatever you have to say to my husband, you can say in front of me.”
Pender leaned forward. “There is every reason to believe that your son was not killed at Meadows Road,” he said gently. “We have some very convincing evidence that he escaped with another inmate after the fire. We believe he’s still at large, but highly delusional, and I’m sorry to say, very dangerous.” He gave it a moment to sink in before adding, “So if Charles should happen to show up here, I beg you, for your own safety as well as his and everybody else’s, please call 911.”
Helwidge turned to her husband. “What does he mean, Gerry? Is he saying that Charlie’s…alive? He’s alive?”
Judging by the strained, distracted smile Gerald gave his wife, the irony of their situation had not escaped him. “Apparently,” he said, patting his wife’s hand.
“I’m so…happy,” Helwidge managed to say, the color blanching from her cheeks. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she toppled sideways off the sofa onto the shag-carpeted floor before her husband could catch her.
6
It had never occurred to Asmador that there were libraries with telephone directories in almost every town in America. The library in Marshall City was the one he’d used before, so regardless of the danger, that’s where he’d headed after checking out of the trailer court early Saturday morning.
Asmador had reached the library at 3:45P.M., just before closing time, and headed immediately for the shelves of yellow-and-black telephone books in the back of the main room. After striking out in the Humboldt County directory, the last known address of his next intended victim, he’d been in the process of going through the directories in alphabetical order when the reference librarian called to him from her nearby desk. “Excuse me, sir?”
He’d turned, remembering at the last second to smile at the lady. Humans respond well to smiles, he was learning. “Who, me?”
Yeah, him. She couldn’t help noticing…wondered whether he was aware…internet…happy to be of assistance…
“If it’s not too much trouble.” He’d graced her with another smile, and given her the name of the old friend he was trying to locate. She’d tapped a few keys…waited…waited…waited… and there it was. She’d jotted down the number on an index card and handed it across the desk.
“Great, thanks,” he’d said, as the overhead lights winked off and on twice, signaling five minutes to closing. “Do you know where that area code is?”
“No, but I can…” Her fingers had played lightly across the keys again. “That’s Mendocino County.”
“Far out.” Asmador had thanked her again, with all the warmth he could summon, then added sincerely, “I sure wish I’d’ve known about this Internet thing earlier—imagine all the time and trouble I could have saved.”
When he’d returned to the car, though, Sammael had been waiting for him in the backseat, and the Poison Angel had not been a happy councilor. “What do you think’s going to happen when you finish carrying out your mission and that librarian sees your victim’s name in the newspaper? You think she’s not going to remember you, and give the cops your description? Then the next thing you know, there’s one of those, what do they call them, composite sketches of your ugly puss on the front page of every newspaper and the wall of every police station in the country.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll take care of it.”
“See that you do.”
“I will.”
“You’d better.” With a wink, Sammael had vanished again.
Asmador had sighed. Just try and get the last word in with a demon, he’d told himself, opening the glove compartment and taking out the pistol he’d been using to eliminate ancillary problems on the order of caddies and housemaids. A few minutes later, the reference librarian, a wide-hipped female in a frilly-bosomed white blouse, a taut gray skirt, and sensible heels, had emerged from the library, accompanied by an older, bespectacled female librarian pushing a book cart. Asmador had slouched down behind the wheel as the women opened the back of the book drop at the curb, transferred the books to the cart, and wrestled it back inside.
After double-checking to make sure he had a round chambered, Asmador had dropped the pistol into the left inside pocket of his stiff new denim jacket. Leaving the car unlocked in case he needed to make a quick getaway, he’d strolled back to the library entrance and rapped on the automatic glass door, now locked. A few seconds later, he’d seen the reference librarian crossing the darkened room toward the door, shading her eyes to peer through the glass.
“Hi, it’s me,” Asmador had called, waving cheerfully.
Coming closer, she’d recognized him, and smiled apologetically. “We’re closed.”
He’d cupped a hand to his ear to indicate he couldn’t hear, then silently mouthed, “I think I left something” and pointed to the back of the library.
The ruse had worked. Convinced the door was preventing them from hearing each other, the woman had opened it. “What is it, I’ll get it for you.”
“That’s okay, I’ll get it.” Asmador had brushed past her into the dark quiet room. The older woman had been behind the desk, using what looked like a laser gun to check in the books from the outside bin. Asmador had drawn his gun and pointed it at the first librarian. “Is there anybody else here?”
Her eyes had widened, going all soft and round with fear. “No. I mean, yes, there’s—”
He’d put a bullet through the center of her chest, but for some reason it hadn’t dropped her right away. She’d just stood there for a few seconds with a red stain blossoming across the white bosom of her blouse. When she’d finally crumpled, Asmador had strolled over to the checkout desk and leaned across the counter. The other librarian had been on her hands and knees, scuttling toward the telephone at the other end of the desk. Her long gray hair, he’d noticed, was done up in a thick braid coiled into a bun at the back of her head, which had made a tempting bull’s-eye.
But the library was, after all, in the middle of a small city, so instead of risking a second shot, Asmador had vaulted over the counter, grabbed her by the ankles, and yanked her away from the telephone.
“Please don’t shoot me,” she’d begged him, in a shaky, old lady’s voice.
“I won’t,” Asmador had told her—and to her great misfortune he was as good as his word.
7
“That went well, don’t you think,” Pender observed drily, as he and Skip left the motel. Gerald Mesker had chased them out of the apartment before Pender had a chance to ask them about their son’s mental history.
“At least they can still move back into their house,” Skip pointed out. “Because where Charlie�
�s going, they don’t charge for room, board, or psychiatric care.”
“Assuming he lets himself be taken alive.”
Skip shrugged. “Either way, he won’t have to pay any rent,” he said. “So what do you want to do next, track down this Dr. Hillovi?”
“We need to bring Klug up to speed first,” said Pender, who was well aware that by not informing the Santa Cruz detective earlier about the change of suspects, he had probably violated Steve McDougal’s prohibition against stepping on local toes. Still, if Charles Mesker had been at his parents’ house, and Pender had made the pop himself, to the greater glory of the Bureau, not only would he not have been reprimanded, he’d have been a hero. In the FBI, as elsewhere, Pender understood, you pays your money and you takes your chances.
With the aid of his handy cell phone, Pender tracked down Klug to a bar on the municipal wharf. Skip drove the Buick all the way to the end of the wharf, angle-parked in a handicapped zone, and hung his blue placard from the rearview mirror.
Klug was outside the bar, leaning against the board fence surrounding the noisy, noisome sea lion corral, wearing a Popeye Doyle porkpie hat with the brim turned up, and smoking one of his Camel straights. Pender introduced Skip, half-shouting over the grumbling and baying of the sea lions, and mispronouncing the name as Ep-steen.
“That’s Epstein, rhymes with fine.” Skip gave them the short-form correction; the long form included a speech about how you didn’t say Albert Einsteen or Gertrude Steen or drink a steen of beer.
The homicide detective stuck out his hand. “Lloyd Klug, rhymes with bug, mug, drug, and hug.” He’d obviously had a few drinks but sobered up fast when Pender handed him the small, framed snapshot of Charles Mesker—the grown-up, not the Boy Scout—which he’d pocketed on his way out of the Meskers’ apartment.
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