It explained the odor.
“You made it!” Elizabeth Harrington called as the vigilante came sprinting down the tunnel. She and the others gripped the bars of their cells anxiously. “Did anyone hear you? How did you do it without being caught?”
“Got lucky,” Hawker said cryptically. He pulled out the collection of keys and went through them until he found the longest, oldest key in the bunch.
The old lock tumbled and the girl’s door swung open on the first try. The other women in the dungeon actually burst out with weak applause. Elizabeth stepped through the door and into Hawker’s arms. Her eyes were shiny. “Thank you,” she said, her voice choked. “Thank you so much.”
Hawker held the girl away from him. Her face was grimy and bits of straw clung to her pale young breasts. “You can thank me by helping me, Elizabeth.”
“Anything. Name it.”
Hawker released her and began to open all the cells, door by door. Speaking to the girl, he said, “I’m going to need you to take charge, Elizabeth. It means you’re going to have to give these girls and the boys orders and make them stick. I’ll lead all of you outside. But, after that, I’ve got to get back in to take care of some unfinished business. You’ll have to keep everyone together. It’s December, and most of you are only half dressed. You’re going to have to lead them to the nearest house for help—and I have no idea how far that is. You’re going to have to find out where you are and call the cops. Also—and this is important—you must keep all these people together until a doctor can have a good look at them. Some of them are going to realize how tough it is going to be to face the world after some of the things that were done to them here. They’re going to try to sneak off like nothing ever happened to them. They’ll tell themselves they can go back to their old lives as long as no one else knows. You can’t let them do that, Elizabeth. It’ll drive them mad. There’s no way they’ll be able to handle it on their own. Understand?”
The girl shook her head slowly. “You know,” she said, “you must be a mind reader. That’s exactly what I had planned—right after I drank about a gallon of water, anyway.”
Hawker hugged her briefly. “Do me a favor and talk to a doctor like a good girl. Okay?” He looked at the others. “Did all of you hear that? That’s all I ask of you. That’s the one way you can repay me for getting you out of here. Deal?”
Everyone nodded, too anxious to get to freedom to talk. Hawker led them quickly to the stairs to the main room of the mansion—but one look told him there was no way they could get out that way. The room was engulfed in flames, and the heat was withering.
The vigilante backtracked to the cellar where he found a coal chute. He forced it open, and suddenly it was winter again. Snow lay upon the ground and the midnight stars glimmered in the black sky.
One by one, he helped the women and boys step through. He got his first look at the outside of the mansion now: a massive four-story gothic structure built of wood. It had oculus portholes in the high gable, sloping dormers, and a black wrought-iron roof cresting. On the ground and second floors, bright orange flames flickered within the tombstone-shaped windows.
Elizabeth Harrington was the last to leave. She stopped and gave Hawker an emotional hug. “Thank you. Thank you so very much,” she said. “I’m going to see you again, aren’t I? I have to see you again.”
“I hope so, Elizabeth. I’d like to make sure you’re doing all right. Until then, though, you can do something for me.”
“Anything, James. I mean that. Absolutely anything you want.”
He kissed her forehead. “I want you to forget my name. Don’t ask me why—it’s too complicated. When you talk to the police, describe me as honestly as you can, but don’t tell them my name.” She started to say something, but Hawker touched his finger to his lips. “Another time, lady. I’ll explain it to you some other time. Go on now. Take care of your friends. Hurry—or you’ll all freeze.”
Hawker didn’t wait for a reply. He ducked back through the coal chute and into the cellar. Smoke boiled from the cracks in the flooring overhead, and the roar of the flames upstairs sounded like a nearby waterful.
The old house was burning like a tinderbox.
Hawker found the area of cellar that contained the vats. He stopped and strained to listen for the music. He heard nothing. The fire overhead made it harder to hear.
He made a random foray down a second corridor, then a third—and that’s where he heard it: the oboe and string cant of a stereo somewhere beyond the wall.
The wall was made of wood, oddly lined and scrolled. Hawker put his ear to the wood, listening.
The music was louder.
He began to look for an opening frantically. He ran his hands all along the wall, but with no results. He tried finding a way in from another corridor, but lost the location of the room entirely.
What in the hell kind of place was this, anyway? Rooms with no doors, no windows, and sliding-board exits?
One of the women had told him the house was full of trapdoors and secret passages. He had dismissed her as emotionally disturbed.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
Hawker returned to the wooden wall. He could still hear the music. He pushed on the wall and noticed it gave slightly, like a door on rails. He leaned against it with all his weight, and the door began to slide into an invisible pocket in the wall.
Hawker brought the Winchester up, ready to fire, and stepped into the big, antiseptic room. He saw the elaborate film set in the corner … and then he saw Clare Riddock strapped to the table. He was at her side in three long strides. She lay naked, unconscious. Hawker pressed his ear to her chest. Her heart made a feeble drum roll within her, and her skin was cold.
She was in shock, close to death.
Hurriedly Hawker unstrapped her arms, her legs, and grabbed two sheets off a metal cabinet. He spread one of the sheets over her and rolled her into his arms. He would use the other when he got her outside—if he made it outside.
“So you are the man who has been causing me so much trouble,” said a raspy woman’s voice.
Startled, Hawker looked up. The woman was stepping out from behind a wooden cabinet that had been built into the wall. Her huge, piggish face was flushed and her pale hair was in disarray. One of the hamish hands protruded from the baggy sleeve of the black kimono. In it she held a sawed-off 410 shotgun with a stock customized so it was no longer than a revolver. “Yes, you are certainly the man. The auburn hair, the cold blue eyes, the description matches. You were supposed to have been killed, Mr. Hawker.” She patted the shotgun. “But I guess it’s like most everything else. If you want a job done right, you’re better off doing it yourself.”
TWENTY-ONE
She waved the weapon at him and stepped out into the room. “You’re kind of upset about that girl there, aren’t you, dearie?” Her grin implied all things obscene. “Kind of sweet on her, huh? You were worried about her, so you came to the rescue, came barging in like a brave white knight. No, do be honest. Don’t try to deny it. I just came down from my room—it’s directly above this little lounge of mine, by the way. And while I was upstairs, I saw that you had killed several of my men, and you’ve set my fine big house on fire in the process.” She looked up at the smoke curling out of the ceiling as if to underline her accusation. The whole house seemed to creak above them. Queen Faith continued, “You’re not a very good house guest, dearie. I can’t trust you. So drop those two guns you’re carrying and pull that big Blackhawk out of your belt. Drop them all on the floor like a good boy, or I’ll blow the girlie’s fucking head right off.”
Hawker had no choice. He dropped the guns onto the rock floor. As the fat woman fished in her pocket and lit a cigarette, Hawker stepped between her and Clare. As he did, he touched the woman’s neck tenderly. Her skin was deathly cold. He had to get her to a hospital quickly if she was to live. He had no time to spare.
First, though, he had to get past the elephant woman. He said cal
mly, “It wasn’t me that set your house on fire, lady. It was one of your men. That big biker. He turned out to be a regular torch.”
“Yes, I bet,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “And all for what? That scrawny little bitch on the table behind you? She wasn’t worth a tenth of what you destroyed.” The fat woman threw out her arms as if to embrace the house above her. “Do you have any idea where you are, you silly little man? You are in the house built by Dr. Herman W. Mudgett. Why do you look confused? You certainly know the name. No?”
She was right. It took Hawker a moment to remember the name from one of his classes in criminology. Mudgett was one of the most prolific and successful mass murderers in history. He had lived in Chicago around the turn of the century. There he conned a number of construction companies into building a mansion for him. Because various companies were used, no single contractor knew that Mudgett had included secret passages, a crematory furnace, and trapdoors that opened right over vats filled with acid so he could dispose of the bones of his victims that much more efficiently. The estimated number of people Mudgett killed ran well into the hundreds.
Mudgett was a murderer. He lived for no other reason. The house he built was designed as a torture chamber to serve his passion.
The obese woman smiled through the cigarette smoke. “Herman Mudgett was my grandfather, dearie. I’m very proud of that. Grandfather did quite well financially, you know. They never traced this Detroit house to him. He used hundreds of aliases, of course. He never even told my mother about it—just me.” She allowed a bawdy wink. “Maybe it’s because I really knew how to please the old man, huh? But he never got nearly the pleasure out of it I did, dearie. So he left the house to me. And I’ve lived here quite happily all these years, chubby Louise Mudgett, who went on to follow in her famous grandfather’s footsteps as the much hated, much feared, but always respected Queen Faith.”
“Charming story,” Hawker said, trying to come up with some last-ditch plan, some final effort at escape. “You’re as insane as he was.”
The woman’s face grew red. “Don’t you dare say a word against me or my family!” she snapped.
“How could I have been so rude?” wondered Hawker. “But you do plan to kill us, don’t you?”
“And what the fuck do you think, you meddlesome bastard? You’ve burned down my beautiful house, so you’re god damn right I’m going to kill you. My only regret is I don’t have time to make your death last a few days instead of just a few seconds.”
Hawker had an idea. He took a step back toward the gurney on which lay the girl. “Then you have no reason to mind if the girl and I die together?”
“Are you trying to make me puke with that sentimental shit!” the obese woman yelled. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn about the two of you dying together.”
Hawker shoveled his arms under the sheeted form of Clare Riddock and lifted her to his chest. “I’m just a sentimental guy,” Hawker replied, putting his right foot against the gurney and shoving with all his strength.
The heavy hospital table rattled like a train as it plowed into the fat woman. She backpedaled into the wall, hitting her head and arms hard against the rock. The 410-gauge went off unexpectedly. It was pointing straight up. The fat woman had just enough time to glare into Hawker’s eyes before the ceiling fell in on her.
The section of flooring had been weakened by the fire, and the shotgun blast was the final touch. Now flames and orange coals rained down on her huge form. Even as Hawker was scrambling to get Clare out of there, he saw clearly how Queen Faith’s pale hair seemed to glow, then burst into bright flame. And he heard the woman’s hideous screams as the kimono caught fire and she became a ponderous, running flare that banged off rock walls as the flames bubbled her pale flesh, then burst it.
Hawker had no desire to see any more. Trying to brush away the burning wood that was now coming down on them, he carried Clare to the coal chute and climbed with her outside.
Hawker remembered little of what happened then. Even weeks later, it would return only in bits and pieces. He remembered how the women he had freed now helped him place Clare Riddock on the ground; how they helped him bundle the sheets around her; how they insisted on caring for his girl until the ambulances arrived … and he remembered how one of the women burst suddenly into tears, and how someone was trying to keep him away, and how the paramedic who arrived tried to give him an injection to calm him after they pulled the sheet over Clare Riddock’s perfect face.…
And then he was walking, walking cold and alone through the December night, somewhere north of Detroit, he didn’t know where—or even care. He saw a phone booth ahead and, magically, there was a quarter in his hand. He dialed Paul McCarthy’s hospital number with exaggerated care, making more of a job of it than it was.
“Hey, Paul, it’s Hawk. Just called to check in.”
McCarthy, no fool, immediately picked up the odd tone in the vigilante’s voice. “What’s wrong, Hawk? Are you in some kind of trouble or something?”
“What kind of trouble could I be in, Paul? We busted Queen Faith good tonight. Took out all the biggies and freed all the little ones. I imagine your people have some uniforms out there now. I think your kidnapping problems are over, old buddy. All Queen Faith’s people have been officially dispatched.”
“By yourself, Hawk? You did all of that alone? My God, but how? You have to come to the hospital, Hawk. I’ve got to hear all about it. Why don’t you and Clare come over tonight? I can bribe the nurses to let you in—”
“Clare’s dead, Paul,” Hawker interrupted matter-of-factly. “Funny thing is, I’m not even sure how she was killed. I got there too late, you see. I probably could have prevented it, but I just wasn’t in time.”
McCarthy didn’t respond for several seconds. Finally he knew why Hawker’s voice sounded so strange. He said softly, “James, I know how you felt about her. I know that you loved her. I’m sorry.”
Hawker said nothing. He tried to peer through the glass of the phone booth, but his eyes wouldn’t focus for some reason. Everything was blurry.
McCarthy continued, “Maybe you ought to come up for a visit, James—or, hell, I’ll just sign myself out for the night. It would do me good, and you need to talk to someone.”
James Hawker wondered why his snort of laughter sounded so strange and sad. “Can’t risk it, Paul. I’ve got to move fast now. I can’t afford to stick around after an operation.”
“But where can I get in touch with you—”
“You can’t, Paul. You can’t. Maybe someday I’ll get in touch with you.”
As the Detroit detective started to say something else, Hawker hung up the phone. He pushed open the door of the booth and stepped out into the night. He looked at the stars and then at the far-off glow of the burning mansion.
He spit into the snow.
He thought about maybe going to his place in Florida, the little ramshackle house built on stilts in the shallow water of Chokoloskee Bay. That was an idea. He could lie in the sun, fish when he wanted, drink beer and get fat and think about absolutely nothing.
James Hawker nodded as he walked aimlessly into the winter darkness. Yes, he would go to Florida. It was far too cold in Detroit this time of year.…
Turn the page to continue reading from the Hawker series
one
At 4 A.M. three members of a terrorist organization planted bombs beneath the bedroom window and the kitchen window of Chester A. Rutledge’s split-level home in Bethesda, Maryland.
It was a Friday morning, a school day, and at 6:30 A.M. Rutledge’s sixteen-year-old son, Luke, was the first to awaken. He yawned, threw back the covers, and headed immediately for the bathroom in the hope of getting there before his thirteen-year-old sister, Mary Ann, his eleven-year-old sister, Lisa, and his four-year-old brother, Jeffery, whom everyone called J.R.
Mrs. Betty Rutledge was the next to awaken. As she passed the bathroom, she smiled sleepily at her oldest son and blew him a kiss.
She wore a pale gray robe that made her blond hair look flaxen and her blue eyes glow.
“Ham or bacon, Luke?” she asked him.
“Both?”
His mother laughed. “Sure, why not. And what about the eggs?”
“Poached. Four of them.”
“My little boy is growing up.”
Luke Rutledge inspected his face for acne in the mirror. “I wish I could make Dad believe that.”
“Oh, he believes it. He may be trying to postpone it a little, but he believes it. And, whether you think so or not, dear, your father only wants what’s best for you.”
The boy turned away from the mirror and looked carefully at his mother. “I guess I was out of line last night, huh? I should never have yelled at Dad like that. I should never have said those things. It’s just that those three idiots in the Lincoln who hit us—”
“Everyone says things they don’t mean when they’re mad,” his mother interrupted, not wishing to hear the story again.
“But I’ve never talked to him like that before. I’m kind of surprised he … he didn’t smack me or something. Now I sorta wish he had.”
His mother went to him and patted his head down onto her shoulder. “When you love someone, Luke, dear, words can hurt a lot worse than a slap.”
“What I said was that bad?”
The boy’s mother continued to pat his head. “I think what you said hurt him more deeply than you know—or you would never have said it. You and your father are a lot alike, Luke. Neither of you show much emotion, and that just makes it harder on both of you. But don’t worry, dear—if you feel badly about it, just tell him when he gets up. Your father will understand.… He cares for you so. I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”
The boy’s eyes were suddenly glassy. “You really think so?”
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