by Ray Garton
Roger said, “I can have a couple of attorneys over here in about fifteen minutes. An affidavit, a deposition—I don’t know the exact legal term, but something like that would help, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, it would,” Falczek said with a firm nod. He turned to Everett. “What about that friend of yours, the woman who writes the books?”
“Tara?” Everett said. “What about her?”
“She’s well-known. Respected. Right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“We need to get her in on this as soon as possible.”
“I’ll call her,” Everett said.
“You can use my phone. Here, I’ve got my cell—”
”That’s okay,” Everett said, patting his pockets for his cell phone. “I don’t remember Tara’s number, but it’s in my cell. Which... I apparently... left in my car. I’ll be right back.” He headed out of the big room.
“You know how to find the door?” Roger said.
“I think so.”
“Out that door and to your left. Go down the hall a ways and around the corner, then keep going until you get to the potted palm. The foyer is just beyond that. Can’t miss it.”
Everett followed the directions almost robotically. He was lost in thought as he exited the rec room, turned left, and headed down the hall.
If Falczek was right, then this was something much bigger than a drug simply becoming unavailable. Everett knew him well enough to know that he didn’t imagine things. If Falczek said it happened, it happened.
He turned left and kept walking as Chloe kept talking to Eli over the radio.
Just beyond the potted palm, Everett found the double front doors to his right. He pulled the one on the right open and started to walk through it, nearly colliding with a man standing on the porch. Everett abruptly halted and took a step back, facing the red-haired man with a newspaper folded over his right hand and held against his abdomen.
Their eyes met and they looked at one another for a moment.
The man extended his right hand with the newspaper draped over it. Protruding from that newspaper was a black cylinder. Everett looked down at it and frowned when he recognized it as a silencer on a gun.
The gun fired twice with rapid, thick spitting sounds: Ffutt-ffutt!
Everett’s jaw went slack as he felt the two bullets enter his body. Then he fell backward into a bottomless black hole.
Chapter 18
Intruder the Second
1.
The main studio of KNWS was usually a pretty calm and sedate, but now it exploded with activity.
Kevin burst into the studio with wide eyes and looked first at Albert, who was still dumfoundedly gawking at Chloe. Then Kevin looked through the glass at Chloe, and although she couldn’t hear his words, she read his lips: What the hell are you doing?
Russ followed Kevin into the studio and his face was so swollen with indignant rage that he looked like someone suffering an allergic reaction to a bee sting.
“Pull the car over and get help, Eli!” Chloe said again, knowing she was about to be taken off the air. As Kevin dashed for Albert’s board, she added, “And anyone who’s had to stop taking Paaxone abruptly should get to a doctor before you—”
At the board, Kevin cut to an office supply store commercial as he angrily said something to Albert, who now looked like a kicked puppy.
Russ flailed his arms as his mouth worked frantically.
Kevin hurried to the news booth and opened the door.
“What the hell are you doing?” he said, wearing an expression of genuine shock and confusion.
“I had to, Kevin,” she said as she took off her headset and stood. “Eli is having withdrawals from Paaxone. He’s out there somewhere and I’m afraid of what he’ll do. He’s been behaving strangely and I’m afraid he’ll—”
”Withdrawals? Where did you get this information? You just announced over the air that Paaxone was making people violent and that Braxton-Carville has deliberately withheld it from people! Do you know what will happen when—”
”It’s true, Kevin!”
“She’s a drunk!” Russ shouted in the next studio. “She’s a crazy drunk and she never should have been allowed to continue working here!”
Chloe looked over Kevin’s shoulder through the open door and saw Sid come into the studio. He was a short, stubby, balding man with a wreath of frizzy, graying brown hair and a face frozen in the kind of grimace that suggested he needed some Maalox.
“What in the name of Christ is going on in here?” he shouted. “The phones are lighting up like the bridge of the starship Enterprise!”
Kevin leaned close to Chloe and lowered his voice as he said, “This was a mistake. I can’t help you out of this one.”
“I’m not asking you to. I had to do it. I think Eli’s driving around somewhere out there, and when he’s in the car, he listens to the station. He’s not answering his cell phone. I had to reach him.”
“You don’t know if the police have found him?”
“No, I don’t.”
In the studio, Russ was throwing a tantrum. “She’s going to destroy this station!” he shouted at Sid. “I told you it was a mistake to keep her on here. She is a drunk, and I’m willing to bet she’s drunk right now.”
Sid rolled his eyes. “Oh, will you shut up and calm down, Russ.” He pointed at the window that looked into the next studio. “Get in there and go back to work, the break’s almost over.”
Russ clenched his fists at his sides. “Sid, if you don’t do something about this, so help me god, I’ll—”
”You’ll what?” Sid got in Russ’s face. “You’ll what, Russ?”
“I’ll go over your head. I’m serious. You’ve got an unstable alcoholic working here in a position that could be damaging to all of us, and—”
Chloe felt a rush of anger and suddenly found herself fed up with Russ Campbell. She shouted, “Oh, shit in your hat, Russ! If it weren’t for your ratings, you’d be out on your ass because nobody here likes you. And I mean nobody.”
Russ’s eyes grew so wide they appeared ready to pop from his head.
“She’s right,” Sid said. “Now get in that studio before I dock your pay.” As Russ stormed out, Sid said, “You’ve got some explaining to do, Chloe.”
Chloe stepped around Kevin and started to leave the news booth.
“What are you going to do?” Kevin said.
“I don’t know,” she said, turning to face him. She leaned against the doorjamb, suddenly feeling exhausted. “If I knew where he was, or where he was going... “
She closed her eyes and thought back over every place she’d gone with Eli, every place she knew he liked. If he wasn’t in the car, then where would he be? Where would he go in such a state? He would be afraid, maybe paranoid. He’d want to go someplace where he felt safe and secure.
Chloe’s eyes popped open as she sucked in a sharp breath. She said, “Butter Creek.”
2.
The day seemed to darken even more than usual as Shaw tried to catch up to the silver Honda Accord on Beacham, as if the smoke in the sky had thickened. Traffic was heavy—it usually was on weekdays in this part of town—and the BOLO was a few cars ahead of them. Shaw spotted a break in oncoming traffic and went around the car in front of them. The BOLO took advantage of the same break and did the same thing.
“What happened to the days when people got the fuck outta the way when they heard a siren behind them?” Shaw said through clenched teeth.
“They’ve gone the way of riceless burritos,” Monk said. “Hey, look, he’s got somebody in the car with him,” Monk said.
“I can see that.”
With oncoming cars up ahead, the BOLO pulled back into the right lane. Shaw did the same. There were still four cars between them.
“The passenger’s leaning out of the window,” Monk said. “A woman. Looks like she’s shouting.” She rolled down her window and leaned her head out. “Screaming. She’s
screaming. I don’t think she’s along for the ride.” Monk got on the radio. She’d already called in the BOLO sighting, and now she added a possible abduction and did her best to describe the passenger. “Blonde female, middle-aged, distressed ...”
As she went on, Shaw kept an eye open for another chance to pass the cars ahead of him. One of them pulled over to the curb in a No Parking zone, and the car behind it followed suit. Peer pressure, Shaw thought.
When Monk replaced the mic on its hook, Shaw said, “They didn’t say anything about a passenger in the initial call, did they?”
“No. He picked her up since he was at Park Marina.”
Up ahead, the Accord turned left on Central Street. Monk grabbed the radio mic again and reported the BOLO’s location and direction.
When the oncoming traffic cleared, Shaw veered back into the left lane and raced past the cars ahead of him. He slipped quickly back into the right lane before turning left on Central.
Two cars ahead, Shaw could see the woman still leaning out the window of the Accord. She frantically waved one arm back and forth now, still screaming. The Accord swerved this way and that. At the next intersection, the BOLO rushed through a green light and turned left on Wyeth.
As Monk called in the location and direction, Shaw said, “Where the hell does he think he’s going?”
“He was acting weird at Park Marina,” Monk said, replacing the mic. “He’s on something. Or drunk.”
Shaw got the light as it turned yellow. A black SUV was headed into the intersection as Shaw spun the wheel to the left. He crossed the SUV’s path with little room to spare as the SUV slammed on its brakes and jerked to a juddery halt.
Up ahead, Shaw saw something that made his heart stop and his blood turn to ice water. A kid—some dumb, unthinking kid who had no clue he was mortal and easy to kill—shot across the road and into traffic on a skateboard, zipping right in front of the speeding Accord.
“Shit!” Monk shouted as she watched the boy zigzag across the busy street. Although other cars slowed down, the Accord didn’t even brake. It kept speeding ahead as if the driver had not even seen the skateboarder.
Shaw and Monk each released an explosion of breath, relieved that the boy
made it to the other side of the street without being hit.
As if in delayed reaction to the skateboarder, the Ford pickup in front of Shaw’s cruiser slammed on its brakes abruptly and came to a stop. Shaw blurted a sound of surprise and hit the brake pedal, but it was too late.
The patrol car slammed into the back of the pickup with a loud crunch of metal.
The cruiser’s airbags exploded in the faces of Shaw and Monk. Both officers began cursing as they slapped the bags out of their way. Monk groped for the radio mic while Shaw got out of the car and looked up ahead at the silver Accord. It turned right at the next intersection with the female passenger still hanging out the window flailing her arms.
A moment later, Shaw bent down and said to Monk, “He’s heading north on Wilder.” He stood again, frustrated and a little angry about losing the BOLO, as the driver of the pickup truck got out.
Shaw hit the top of the cruiser and growled, “Shit.”
3.
Noise. Constant endless noise.
All the sounds around him—the Accord’s engine, Chloe’s voice on the radio, the traffic, the siren behind him, the voice of the woman screaming out the window—clashed with the bone-scraping zapping sounds inside his head and the rushing sound in his ears. The effort required to keep all the sounds separate was exhausting, but he tried as he sped down Beacham.
“Somebody help me!” the woman beside him screamed, still hanging out the window and waving her arm. Her voice was growing hoarse. “He’s crazy! I need help! Somebody help!”
On the radio, Chloe said, “Pull the car over and get help, Eli! And anyone who’s had to stop taking Paaxone abruptly should get to a doctor before you—”
Deep creases cut across Eli’s forehead as he struggled to focus on Chloe’s words. He knew they were important but couldn’t quite remember why. Paaxone... yes, Paaxone! That was what he’d been taking. And now he wasn’t taking it anymore. Yes, that was the problem. One of the problems. Too many problems. He couldn’t keep up with them.
“Jesus Christ, somebody help me!” the woman continued to scream.
“Stop,” Eli said, his voice little more than a whimper. He filled his lungs with air and shouted, “Stop it! Stop it!” He reached over and closed his right hand on the back of her top and pulled, trying to drag her back into the car. It wouldn’t look good when people saw her hanging out the window screaming. People would get the wrong idea. Even worse, the police would get the wrong idea.
The police... the siren ...
He kept pulling on the woman’s top, but she clung to the door and kept shouting and screaming. The back of her blouse tore away with a thin ripping sound.
“He’s gonna rape me!” she screamed. “Help! Rape!”
Eli glanced at the piece of torn material in his hand for just a moment, but it was long enough to make him swerve in the road and almost hit a parked car. He saw the intersection rushing toward him and took a quick left on Central Street, nearly driving up on the sidewalk in the process.
He pressed on the accelerator, hoping to put as much distance between himself and the police as possible. There was a flash of movement in front of him, but it took a moment to register in his static-filled brain. It wasn’t until he was nearing the next intersection that he understood what had just happened, that a boy on a skateboard had zipped across his path and come dangerously close to being hit by the Accord. A shudder of realization passed through him, but that realization came in feelings and vague concepts rather than specific thoughts, which were too painful.
He was out of control and he’d nearly struck a boy in the street and he was only getting worse and he’d forgotten where he was going. Where was he going? Where?
His mind filled with the soothing image of Butter Creek and the surrounding woods... the sound of the water flowing over the rocks... the quiet... the peace ...
To get there, he had to turn right on Wilder. He entered the green-lit intersection and cranked the wheel at the last second. Once on Wilder, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then another. And another.
The woman continued to scream for help as she hung out the window.
But the siren had stopped.
Eli looked in the rearview mirror. The police car was gone. He tried to figure out why they would stop chasing him, but his thoughts were like insects hitting a bug-zapper. Once again, he imagined Butter Creek.
But the woman would not stop screaming.
For whatever reason, the cop car was gone, but if the woman kept screaming, she would draw more, no doubt about it.
He reached over, grabbed the waist of her pants and put all his strength into pulling. She was jerked out of the window and back into the car.
“Sit down and shut up!” he shouted, although he hadn’t meant to shout. His voice sounded alien to him.
She flopped back in the seat with a grunt and turned to him with fear in her face, blood-smeared mouth open, eyes showing a lot of white. Her hair stuck out in windblown spikes and hung in her eyes. She stared at him for a moment, then her lips peeled back over her teeth. She threw herself at him and began to beat him with her small fists.
Eli made a grunting sound and pressed himself against the door to get as far from her as possible. It did no good. She pounded on him repeatedly and he fought to hang on to the steering wheel. The Accord swerved this way and that, nearly veering into oncoming traffic. Eli tried to pull the car over. He slammed into the back of a Volkswagen Beetle in front of a nail salon. The rear of the Accord was still sticking into the street, at an angle to the curb.
He unfastened his seatbelt, turned to her and fumbled around until he could grab her arms and stop the pummeling, then slammed her against the passenger side door. A towering black rage r
ose up in him and his teeth ground together in his head. He was overwhelmed by the urge to pound his fist into her face again and again until the look of terror in her eyes was gone.
He glanced beyond her through the window and saw pedestrians on the sidewalk stopping outside his car. A couple of them bent down to peer into the Accord. One of them produced a cell phone and started to make a call.
He had to get rid of her. Get rid of her and then keep going, just step on the gas until he got to Butter Creek.
Eli let go of her right arm, reached down and opened the door. She fell backward out of the car. He grabbed her legs and shoved her the rest of the way out. She hit the pavement, rolled away from the car and came to a stop at the curb.
A few cries of surprise erupted from the small group that had gathered on the sidewalk as two more people pulled out their cell phones.
Eli pulled the door closed. His hand trembled as he put the car in reverse. Metal crunched as he separated from the parked Volkswagen he’d hit and backed into the street without checking for traffic. Behind him, horns honked and tires squealed against pavement as other drivers avoided collision.
He put the car in drive and slammed his foot onto the accelerator. Although he clutched the steering wheel with both hands, his trembling became convulsions. He drove and drove, trying to focus on the peace he would find at Butter Creek.
4.
“I’m going to the kitchen for some coffee,” Roger said as he got up from the beanbag chair.
Falczek stood at the window, where Everett had been standing earlier. It looked like some kind of horror movie out there—smoke everywhere, darkening the day like the shadow of a giant monster blocking the sun.