"What did you think of it?" Melda asked Chesney, as they rolled north toward the city.
"Some of it was based on things that I've really done," he said, "like when I saved you from the muggers. And when I rounded up the dope dealers."
She kept her eyes on the road. "Yeah, but then it got weird. I mean, if you did go to the United Nations, what would you tell them?"
Chesney shrugged. "Stop fighting. Stop hurting people. Figure out what the world really needs, then make it happen."
"Exactly," Melda said. "It's not as if they don't already have people telling them that. They're just not listening, cause they've got other plans."
"Would it make a difference if they thought I was a prophet?"
"It would make some of them want to kill you on the spot – most because they'd think you were a dangerous faker, a few because they'd be afraid you were the real thing."
"I don't want to get killed," Chesney said. He reached over and touched her thigh. "Especially not now."
She covered his hand with hers. "No. So there's that. But then there's the other question: what if it worked? What if it really made the world a better place?"
Chesney put his mind to that question. All he saw was darkness and indistinct shapes. "Would it?" he said. "The Reverend believes this kind of thing has happened before – a new book comes along and changes everything. But did that make things better? Is this a better world than the earlier drafts of the universe?"
"He lets you think he believes that," Melda said. "One thing I know for sure is that he believes that when a new chapter starts, the old world ends, finito, case closed."
"And that doesn't seem to bother him."
"I don't think he believes it would end for him – especially if he's the guy who's writing the next chapter."
"So who's to say," Chesney said, "that it's better for everybody else?"
"Hardacre would say we'd have to take that on faith."
Chesney's face hardened. "I don't do faith. I do numbers. Numbers don't cheat."
"This is going to take some thinking," Melda said.
Lieutenant Denby pulled into a rest area after fifty miles. It was mid-afternoon and there were several cars in the parking area, plus some mobile homes and semi-trailers in the part reserved for heavy vehicles. Kids were playing around one of the picnic tables and a fat-bellied man was walking something on the end of a leash that looked like it ought to be on the end of a mop handle. The policeman rolled past to the end of the cars-only lot and pulled into the last bay. He cut the engine, looked around to see if anyone was likely to walk past him. When he saw nobody coming from any direction, he put the manuscript on his lap, propped against the steering wheel.
The cover page read: The Book of Chesney, with no byline. He reached to turn to the first page of text, but as he did so the four words on the cover changed. Denby blinked and looked again. Now the words were in some strange script he had never seen before. Even as he examined the cursive marks and squiggles, they blurred and changed into some other form of writing, this one with dots and accents above some characters and others individually underlined.
"What the…?" was the lieutenant's response, then the script changed again. He flipped to the first page of text, and saw the same effect. A thought occurred to him, and he put his nose close to the paper and sniffed. Nothing. But still he wondered if the paper might be imbued with some psychotropic substance – he was still leaning toward drugs as the answer to how all those people ended up in their underwear in Civic Plaza without knowing how they got there. And how come there were gaps in his own memory?
As he thought about the drugs issue, the text changed again. Denby dug out his cell phone, turned it into a camera, and took a shot of the first page. A few seconds later, the lines blurred; when they came back into focus they were filled with wedge-shaped characters. Those rang a bell in the lieutenant's mind, something from a college course: Cunieform? he thought. He snapped another picture, then keyed the phone to show him the two photos.
He saw two different scripts. When he looked at the page itself, he saw two parallel wavy lines and stick-figure drawings of a bird, a bee and a human hand. He recognized them as Egyptian hieroglyphics, just in time for them to become a string of zeroes and ones.
Denby dumped the manuscript back on the passenger seat, repocketed his cell phone and started up the ghost car's engine. It was only then that he noticed that the paper wasn't glowing anymore.
It was dinner time when Chesney and Melda got back to his apartment. She fixed them a meal out of whatever she found in the cupboards and refrigerator: beef stroganoff with spicy salsa instead of ketchup in the sour cream sauce, because they were out of ketchup. It didn't taste bad, Chesney thought. Dinners with Melda were becoming another pool of light.
They did the dishes together, then he said, "I was thinking of going crimefighting tonight. If there's any crime left out there."
Melda rinsed a plate. "Maybe you should expand? Take on the terrorists?"
He summoned his assistant and in a moment the demon was hovering beside him, cigar and glass of rum in their usual places. "Xaphan, can I go after terrorists?"
"You mean as a crimefighter?"
"Yes."
The demon puffed reflectively. "Tricky question," it said. "Depends on what definition you use."
"How about people who blow up innocent men, women and children?"
The weasel brows went up and down. "There's a guy a few blocks from here."
Chesney felt a pool of light spread around him. "What's he planning?"
"To watch an old Lawrence Welk show on cable, then get to bed," said the demon. At Chesney's look of surprise, it went on, "The guy's ninety-two. Was a bombardier in the Eighth Air Force in 1943 when they set fire to Hamburg. All told, they killed forty thousand and a few more. I can't give you his personal score cause it was a joint enterprise."
Chesney felt the pool of light shrink. "No," he said, "I mean a terrorist who's going to blow up innocent people in the future."
"Which one?" said Xaphan.
"How do I know which terrorist?"
"No, I meant, which future?"
"How many are there?"
"It's a really big number," said the demon. "You don't have the words for it."
The answer raised a question Chesney did not want to explore. It was surrounded by murk. "Are there terrorists planning to blow people up right now?"
"Sure, lots."
"Then let's go after them."
"Can't."
"Why not?"
"They don't live around here." The demon released the cigar as if placing it in an invisible ashtray at about the level of its watch chain then made a small flourish with its free hand. A scroll of paper appeared in its stubbly fingers then unrolled. Xaphan let the screed unwind then said, "There."
The scroll hung in the air while the demon pointed at an indented subparagraph. Chesney bent closer and read, "Territory: the territory shall be limited to the city in which the party of the first part is normally resident, its suburbs and the surrounding district, to a distance not to exceed ten miles beyond the farthest boundary of the city limits."
"I don't remember that part," he said.
"You were kinda excited at the time," Xaphan said, "but you said you wanted to fight crime in the city and that's what got put in the contract."
"So there are no terrorists in the city?"
"Not right now."
"Will there be any in the future?"
"Again," said the demon, "which future?"
Chesney's pool of light had faded. "What about regular crime? Anything going on?"
"There's some bank robbers passing through on their way north."
"Are they robbing a bank here?"
"Nah. They work in the south, live in the north."
Chesney had begun to feel a pool of light; but already it was fading. "But they're criminals. So can I go after them anyway?"
"Sure. They got the loot with 'e
m, so they're commitin' the crime of possession of stolen property. You can nail 'em."
Chesney's pool of light brightened considerably.
Lieutenant Denby had stopped at a drive-in for a burger and fries before returning the ghost car to Police Central. He was passing the building's front side, heading for the ramp that led down to the parking garage, when a latemodel minivan descended from the sky and landed in the curbside no-parking zone at the bottom of the front steps. The vehicle didn't come down at speed, as if it had been dropped from the top of the building, but it hit hard enough to make a hubcap pop off – and certainly hard enough to shake up the four men who were hog-tied in the seats, their seat belts snug around them.
Daubed on the side of the van, in green paint that was still wet and dripping onto the pavement, were the words: Bank robbers from out of town. In smaller print underneath: PS: loot under rear seat.
Denby stopped the ghost car and put on his flashers. Uniformed officers were already coming down the steps. The eyes of the bank robbers were very large. The lieutenant spotted Conyers, the patrol sergeant on night duty, at the top of the steps and said, "Book them, don't let them talk to each other. I'll want to question them first thing tomorrow."
Later, in bed, Chesney said, "I really enjoyed catching those juggers."
"Juggers?" Melda said.
"It's what Xaphan calls bank robbers."
"Mmm," Melda said, snuggling against him, "I could tell you were in a good mood."
"It all went very well." He turned toward her, stroking her belly. "Listen, I said you could be the one to work out what we should do," he said, "but as far as I'm concerned, I'm pretty happy just being a crimefighter."
"When you're happy," she said, "I'm happy." A moment later she said, "But I'm still thinking about it."
She lay there doing just that as his breathing told her he had fallen asleep. She didn't like the idea of Chesney as a prophet, especially if it meant being tied to the Reverend Billy Lee Hardacre. She'd seen him on TV, ripping a strip off some politician or rock star who had gone astray; she'd admit, at least to herself, that she'd sometimes stayed tuned, which made her not much better than any other spectator at a lynching, but that didn't mean she had to like the guy who tied the noose.
On the other hand, Hardacre's show was seen by millions – really, she had no idea of the ratings, but it must be a lot of people if he stayed on the air – and being seen on TV was how you became a celebrity. Maybe she should do some research to see how other prophets ranked in the fame sweepstakes.
Chesney had gone to sleep with a hand resting on her tummy. She put her own over his and thought about what he'd said about being happy just to be a crimefighter. And, she had to admit, to have her in his life. Then she thought about some of the celebrities whose escapades she'd followed on TV or in the tabloids. Were they happy having their private parts photographed getting out of limos and their private doings spread across the pages of magazines?
She was sure that Hardacre wanted to use Chesney and didn't care how it made him feel. Was she falling under the same spell? The question kept her awake while he slept contentedly beside her. She listened to his deep, regular breathing and thought, what's wrong with what we've got?
Lieutenant Denby came into work at seven in the morning. The four bank robbers' rap sheets were on his desk, as he had requested before heading home the night before. So was a blue slip of paper – a message from the chief's office: John Edgar Hoople wanted to see him forthwith. The lieutenant slipped the blue paper under the four files, and turned to the first robber's criminal history. He read the summary, then went through the other three in rapid succession. They told him everything he needed to know, particularly that there were federal warrants out on all of them.
He picked up the phone and called the patrol sergeant. "Did we tell the feebs yet about the four orphans we found on the doorstep last night?"
Conyers said, "Somehow, in all the confusion, nobody made that call."
"Good," said Denby. "Give me an hour."
"Speaking of feebs, J. Edgar Hoohah's looking for you. He came in special early."
"We must have a bad line. I can't make out what you're saying."
"Watch yourself, loot," said the sergeant.
Denby made another call, this one to the sergeant who oversaw the holding cells. He waited five minutes, then went down one floor to the interview rooms. Behind the door to room number three, a heavy-set, balding man who needed a shave put down the paper cup from which he had been drinking coffee and stared straight ahead across the table. Denby sat down in the man's line of vision and studied him for a while.
The suspect's name was Boden. According to the Police Central computer, he had spent his adult life pointing guns at people and relieving them of valuable objects: jewelry, furs, in one instance a shipment of gold coins, but mostly it had been bundles of currency found lying around in bank vaults. He'd done time twice, never snitched to get a reduced sentence; in fact, he was still serving the last three-to-ten he'd been handed, having escaped from a state penitentiary in Louisiana, presumably with the help of a bribable warden.
Denby had brought no files with him, not even a notepad. He finished studying the man and said, "I'm not going to interrogate you. The only thing we could get you for is possession of stolen property and illegally parking in the yellow zone outside. Besides, the feds will be here soon to take you off our hands."
Boden took another sip of the coffee. Denby noticed a tremor in the man's hands. "So," he said, "what's the point?"
"How'd you get here?" The lieutenant could tell from the flicker in the bank robber's gaze that Boden knew he wasn't asking what route they'd taken, coming up from New Orleans, where they'd hit three banks last week. But the man said nothing.
"Listen," Denby said, "this is off the record. I'm not taking notes, there's no recorder running, you can see there are no cameras and no two-way mirror."
Boden looked around, then back at the lieutenant. A series of expressions crossed his jowly face as he wrestled with something in his head. Finally, he said, "Just you and me?"
"Scout's honor."
Boden drained the coffee and crumpled the cup, threw it into a corner. "I gotta tell somebody," he said.
"I know the feeling," Denby said. "There has been some weird shit happening around here, and you just stepped in it."
The bank robber's face went still as he consulted his memory. "We were gassing up at the Texaco," he said. "I go into the store to get some smokes and take a leak. When I come back, Schultzy is paying at the pump with a debit card."
Denby didn't ask whose card it was. He wouldn't be seeing Schultz before the feebs came. "Go on," he said.
"So it's my turn to ride shotgun. I get into the van, shut the door, and all of a sudden we're not there anymore."
"Not there?"
"Not at the gas bar. I mean, it just happened, zip. I'm looking out the windshield and there's no pumps, no lights, nothing. There's like this desert – rocks, dirt, cracks in the ground – but no sun. But it ain't night. You can just see some gray light in the sky, which is all clouded over."
The bank robber swallowed and looked inside his head again. "But not nice clouds," he said, "not fluffy white. These were black and yellowy and just, like, streaming across the sky. Cause there was a wind. I could hear it blowing, throwin' grit against the window, and it was a stinking wind. It started to come through the vents, and it was like… dead things. Old, dead things, all rotted and dried out."
He stopped, his gaze turned inward. Denby said, "Did you see anybody out there?"
Boden came back to the room. "Oh, you better believe it. This guy in a body suit, with a mask on. He had a brush and a bucket of paint and he was painting the side of the van."
"You get a good look at him?"
The man nodded. "He was grinning like an idiot. He was saying something, but I couldn't hear him over the wind. Then he steps back and wham! The desert disappears and we're slam
ming down into the ground outside the cop shop."
"Describe the idiot." Boden did and Denby listened. It was Mr Spandex, all right.
"You know something about this?" Boden said. "Schultzy said there was something on the news a while back about some clown playing Batman."
"Yeah," said the policeman. "We don't know who he is, or what he's up to."
Boden shivered. It was only a little shiver, but in a hardcase like him, Denby thought, the smallest shiver was equal to an ordinary citizen's full-blown fit of the staggering fearfuls. "I tell you one thing for free," the bank robber said, "I don't ever want to see that idiot grin again. Or that place he lives in."
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