The Devil in Gray
Page 31
Decker said nothing for a moment, but nodded, and coughed.
Changó said, Your gift is well received. Your summons was welcome.
With that, his fiery image began to fade. For a few seconds, through the smoke, Decker could make out an arrangement of twinkling stars, more like a distant constellation than a dwindling god. Then Changó was gone, and there was nothing but the burning couch and the blackened, burning drapes that flapped in the wind.
Major Shroud groaned. Decker walked over to the other side of the room and looked down at him. Major Shroud’s face was blackened and his eyes were rimmed with red.
“—betrayed me,” he complained. “Even my god betrayed me.”
“Nobody betrayed anybody except you, Major Shroud.”
“It was war. That’s what you forget. It was war, and I was doing my duty. The only trouble was, I did it too well.”
“Yes,” Decker said. “You probably did.”
With that, he cocked his Anaconda again and pointed it between Major Shroud’s eyebrows. “Hicks,” he said, “can you walk okay?”
“Yassuh, boss.”
“Go get Sandra and her mom out of the bedroom, would you?”
Hicks limped across the living room and opened the bedroom door. “Come on out, it’s safe now. But hurry.”
He led them out of the door while Decker kept the muzzle of his Anaconda only an inch away from Major Shroud’s forehead, unwavering.
“The South will rise again,” Major Shroud said. “You’ll see.”
“Pity you won’t,” Decker replied, and pulled the trigger.
At that instant the apartment exploded. Decker was flung against the kitchen archway, knocking his head so hard that he saw nothing but a blinding white light. He managed to crawl to the door, and Hicks grabbed hold of his coat collar and dragged him out into the corridor.
“My hat!” he said. “Billy Joe will kill me if I lose my hat!”
They walked out of the apartment building together to find the street already crowded with fire trucks and squad cars and sightseers. When Decker looked back up to his apartment, he saw that flames were waving out of the window like a burning Confederate battle flag, fanned by the early-morning wind.
As he crossed the curb, holding hands with Sandra, a TV floodlight was suddenly switched on, and this was instantly followed by a barrage of camera flashes.
Somebody called out, “Hey—it’s Robert E. Lee! I swear to God, it’s Robert E. Lee!”
Hicks turned to him and grinned, even though his left shoulder was soaked in blood. “They still love you, General Lee.”
As they were surrounded by reporters and police and paramedics, a woman’s voice began to sing “Dixie,” and one by one, others joined in, and as Decker stood in the middle of the crowd, there was nothing he could do but nod and smile and lift his hat in the same respectful way that Robert E. Lee had lifted his hat to his defeated army.
The crowd didn’t sing the popular words about the cotton fields, but the rousing battle hymn written by Albert Pike.
Southrons, hear your country call you!
Up, lest worse than death befall you!
To arms! To arms! To arms! In Dixie!
Lo! All the beacon fires are lighted!
Let all hearts be now united!
To arms! To arms! To arms! In Dixie!
Advance the flag of Dixie!
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Dixie’s land we take our stand,
And live or die for Dixie!
Cab arrived and climbed out of his car. It was obvious by his stripy collar that he had hurriedly pulled his big red sweater over his pajamas. “What happened here, Decker? Why the hell are you dressed up like that?”
Decker gritted his teeth and slowly tugged off his beard. “Long story, Captain.”
Cab looked up at the fire. A turntable ladder was being swiveled around toward the side of the apartment block, and there was a fine spray of water in the wind.
Decker said, “We got him, Captain. You can call up the chief and tell her it’s a wrap.”
Cab sniffed, and then he sneezed. He didn’t have a handkerchief, so Eunice Plummer had to hand him a crumpled tissue. “You’re a good detective, Decker, but don’t ever tell me how you do it. I think I’d come out in hives.”
Three days later, on his first day back to the office, Decker’s phone rang.
“Decker? This is Captain Morello.”
“Well, well, and a very good morning to you, sir.”
“You’re a general now, sir. You don’t have to call me ‘sir.’”
“You saw the news, then. I was going to call you and thank you for everything you did.”
“Lunch would be a very welcome thank-you.”
“So long as you don’t mind making it a threesome. I have another young lady that I have to thank.”
“Should I be jealous?”
Decker thought about it, and smiled, and looked across at Sandra, who was drawing a picture of Changó on the back of a crime-report sheet.
“Yes,” he said. “I think you should.”
Before he took Sandra and Toni Morello for lunch, he stopped off at the cemetery and stood in front of Cathy’s grave, with an armful of white camellias. The breeze blew across the ruffled surface of the James River and made the trees whisper.
“I don’t know where you are now,” he told Cathy, as he laid the flowers on the red marble plaque. “But thanks, sweetheart. Thanks for everything.”
About the Author
Graham Masterton was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1946. He worked as a newspaper reporter before taking over joint editorship of the British editions of Penthouse and Penthouse Forum magazines. His debut novel, The Manitou, was published in 1976 and sold over one million copies in its first six months. It was adapted into the 1978 film starring Tony Curtis, Susan Strasberg, Stella Stevens, Michael Ansara, and Burgess Meredith. Since then, Masterton has written over seventy-five horror novels, thrillers, and historical sagas, as well as published four collections of short stories and edited Scare Care, an anthology of horror stories for the benefit of abused children. He and his wife, Wiescka, have three sons. They live in Cork, Ireland, where Masterton continues to write.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2004 by Graham Masterton
Cover design by Kat Lee
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2558-4
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10038
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