Xaphan could not move them from place to place on Earth; the rules said that demons could only go from Hell to Earth and vice versa – no gadding about creation, even when their actions were powered by the will of a mortal soul. Therefore, all trips had to go through Hell. A moment later, all three of them were in Chesney's comfortable room in the gale-swept outer circle of Hell; a warm blaze in the fireplace evoking a mellow glow from the wood paneling and the polished inlay on the armchairs. Xaphan took the opportunity to replenish its glass of rum and tuck a couple of fresh Havana cigars into the breast pocket of the wide-lapeled pinstripe suit he favored, cut to lines that had last been fashionable when twelve-cylinder Duesenbergs and drum-magazined Tommy guns had been in vogue.
Chesney was now in his Actionary garb, which not only disguised his face but added a considerable amount of muscle to his chest, shoulders, arms and thighs and gave the impression that his abdomen could have served as a washboard. Melda was dressed in slacks and a favorite cashmere top that always made her feel classy and confident.
"Okay," she said, "let me do the talking."
Denby had not yet turned in the ghost car. He had left it parked at a meter a block from the offices of Baiche, Lobeer, Tresidder. As he reached into his jacket pocket for the keys he caught a flicker of motion from the corner of his eye. Melda McCann was keeping pace with him on his left. He hadn't seen her on the street or heard her catch up with him, but he had been sunk pretty deeply in his own thoughts.
"We need to talk," she said.
He stopped and so did she. "About?" he said.
"About him," she said, pointing to his other side. The policeman turned and saw the Actionary standing, fists on hips. At least this time he doesn't have a smart-ass grin on his face, Denby thought, remembering the bank robber's photograph.
"Where'd you come from?" he asked, then corrected himself. "No, when did you come from?"
"That's another thing we need to talk about," the woman said.
"You're talking to the wrong guy," Denby said. He fished the keys out of his pocket and moved toward the ghost car. "I'm off the case. In fact, there probably is no case now."
"How come?" said Melda.
"Because of this." The policeman had unlocked the car. Now he held up the stationery box and shook it. Fine powder sifted from under the top.
"That would be the book you stole," the woman said.
"Yep. Except somehow it turned to ashes." He paused and seemed to puzzle over something, then he said, "But without even charring the box."
"How about that?" said Melda.
"Here," he handed it to her, "like I say, I'm off the case. Tomorrow morning, I might not even be a cop anymore."
"They're going to fire you?"
"I'm going to say things to the chief that will probably get me fired. Or I might just quit." He opened the car door, paused before getting in and gave both of them a sour look. "I almost forgot to say thanks." Then he slammed the door and put the keys in the ignition.
"We still need to talk," Melda said. The sound of her voice made him jump because now it was coming from right beside him. He turned his head and saw her sitting calmly in the passenger seat. He saw movement in the rearview mirror. Mr Spandex was in the back seat.
"What do you want?" Denby said. "You haven't done enough to me already?"
"We want," the woman said, "to make it up to you."
"How?"
"By including you in."
Denby sat still, one hand on the steering wheel, the other still holding the key in the ignition. He stared through the windshield at the empty city street. "In what?"
"Well, for a start, how about the biggest case of your career?" Melda said.
"How do you know it would be my biggest?"
"Serial killer, mass murderer, skins and stuffs his victims, keeps them around to talk to."
Denby nodded. "That would be it," he said. "Problem is, I'm suspended. It would have to be a citizen's arrest."
"When did you get suspended?" she asked.
"Just now."
"Does anybody know? I mean, the other cops."
"Probably not." The Twenty were still up in the conference room, and neither Hanshaw nor Hoople would be leaving before the silverbacks had finished ripping strips off both their hides.
The woman indicated the microphone hooked below the dashboard. "And that's a police radio, right?"
"Uh huh."
"If you arrest the worst serial killer in the state's history, it would be kind of embarrassing for Police Central to say you were under suspension at the time, right?"
"Kind of."
She put on her seat belt. "Then let's go to 6490 West Furlong Drive and make the arrest."
"I can't go in without a warrant, or without probable cause."
"You'll have all the probable cause you need," she said.
Denby looked in the rearview mirror. "He doesn't have much to say, does he?"
"Don't worry about him," Melda said. "He's the strong, silent type."
Denby gave it a moment's thought, then turned the ignition key.
Delbert Torrance, a forty-seven year-old pharmaceutical sales representative, was driving his Lexus home from one of the get-togethers his employer encouraged him to host at a downtown steak house. He had bought dinner and drinks for three general practitioners who, annually and cumulatively, wrote several hundred thousand dollars worth of prescriptions for products that Torrance's employer produced. The salesman hoped the dinner would increase that total to the one-point-three million mark.
The dinner had involved preprandial drinks at the bar, four bottles of wine, and brandy and liqueurs to toast the doctors' agreement to shill even more avidly for the drug manufacturer. Delbert Torrance was therefore well above the legal limit when, after taking a corner at too high a speed, he over-corrected and scraped paint and trim off three vehicles parked on a residential street. As car alarms sounded and lights flashed, the sales rep – who already had two DUIs on his record – decided that official involvement in the incident could not possibly redound to his benefit. He floored the Lexus and sped off, taking the first corner that put him out of sight of the growing crowd that had come out to see what was causing all the rumpus.
Torrance took another corner, tires screeching, then cut his speed and drove as sedately and carefully in the direction of his home as his alcohol-bathed neurons would permit. Five minutes later, he was on West Furlong Drive, only six blocks from his well-appointed two-story, when his steering began to act up. Way up.
The Lexus pulled to the right, cutting across a lawn and crashing through a six-foot high board fence. Nothing Torrance did had any effect. Even when he spun the wheel to the left, the big car still kept going on its path of destruction. He stood on the brakes but was amazed to find that the car went even faster.
Beyond the tall fence was a big woodframe house on a one-acre lot, with a long driveway that ran all the way along the side of the property to a sizable building in the rear. With both of Torrance's feet stomping futilely on the brake pedal, the Lexus accelerated and struck the corner of what the salesman just had time to recognize as a double-width garage. The car ripped open the garage's painted softwood siding, exposing a room in which several people seemed to be having a party. One of the partiers was flung across the Lexus's hood and ended up with his face pressed against the windshield, staring in at Torrance with a lifeless gaze that made him briefly think of the glass marbles he'd played with as a child – then his airbag went off and left him in a cloud of white powder.
A nondescript sedan with three people in it pulled into the driveway, its headlights illuminating the scene of destruction. Within the party room, a small pot-bellied man was getting up from behind a table where four other people sat holding cards. Aghast, the rising man stared out of the newly made hole in his wall, while the other card players sat motionless.
Torrance staggered out of the wreck. He saw a woman and a man get out of the gray sedan in the driveway
, and heard the woman say, "There, how's that for probable cause?"
Denby handcuffed the shell-shocked taxidermist and put him in the back of the ghost car. Then he found a spare pair of cuffs in the trunk and disposed of the hit-and-run driver in the same way. Only then did he radio in the code for "multiple homicides" and ask for back-up and the scene-of-crime technicians. There was little chance of the suspect skating on this one – a single glance at the photos the SOC techs would take would convince the weirdo's lawyer to plead insanity at the arraignment – but Denby had never been a taker of chances.
Until I went in and stole that book, he thought to himself as he hung up the radio mike and stepped out of the ghost car. He still couldn't account for that. He had acted as if he were in some kind of altered state of consciousness. At that thought, he realized he wanted to talk to the two people who had led him here.
They were over by the Lexus, peeking into the secret room. The place had a strange kind of cozy feel to it, like a Norman Rockwell painting of a scene from a Stephen King novel. He hurried up behind the man and the woman, saying, "Hey, you two, don't contaminate the crime scene."
The muscular guy in the body suit looked as if he was going to say something in return, but the McCann woman put her hand on his arm and said, "Never mind, sweetie, let me handle this."
In the distance, a siren sounded, growing louder. "You've got to get out of here," Denby said.
"We will," said Melda. "But, first, do we have a deal?"
"Depends," said the lieutenant, "on the terms."
The woman leaned against the Lexus and folded her arms. "Pretty simple. We help you fight crime." She gestured with a thumb over her shoulder. "Like so."
"And what do I do in return?"?
"Stop trying to arrest us. Don't steal any more books, that kind of thing." The guy in the costume leaned over and spoke in her ear. She listened then said, "Exactly." To Denby she said, "You'll treat us like, what do you call them, confidential informants?"
"Snitches, we call them. The DA calls them CIs."
"Whatever," said Melda. "Do we have a deal?"
"We're supposed to register all CIs with the district attorney," Denby said.
Her face said, oh, yeah? Her voice said, "And do you?"
The siren was getting closer. The detective had to laugh. "All right," he said. "Deal. Now get out of here."
"We'll meet tomorrow to talk about what to do," Melda said. She told him about the bench in the riverside park where they sometimes met for lunch.
"I want to know everything," Denby said.
"Good luck with that," said Melda. She spoke to Mr Spandex and then they were just not there anymore. A moment later, the Lexus and the shattered garage wall were lit up by blue lights.
SEVEN
Lieutenant Denby presented himself at the office of J. Edgar Hoople, precisely at 8am. John Hanshaw had already arrived. The interview did not go as the chief and the commissioner had planned. Both men had already fielded early-morning calls from the media, wanting comments on the arrest of the man the cable TV news channels were already calling "the Taxidermist."
Denby came in and took a seat on a corner of the chief's expansive empty desk. "Here's what you're going to do," he said. "You'll promote me to captain, and place me on permanent special duty. I can call on resources of the Major Crimes Squad, but I won't report to the inspector in charge."
"You're out of your fucking mind," said Hanshaw.
Denby ignored the interruption. "I'll pick my own cases and let you, chief, know when I get a result."
"When we get through with you, you'll be lucky if you can still pick your nose," said Hoople.
Again, Denby just motored on. "The alternative is I go downstairs and tell the media that I'm being fired just after nailing the worst mad-dog killer since Baby Face Nelson. And I'll tell them the reason I'm getting canned is cause I refused to cover up… well, take your choice – how about the kickbacks the two of you personally pocketed when you switched the department's uniform supply contracts to that sweatshop in Malaysia?"
"You can't prove that!" said Hanshaw.
"You're right, I can't." Denby folded his arms and idly kicked one heel against the side of the Chief's desk. "But I bet some eager-beaver reporter could if she dug into it. CNN might even give me a consultant contract to do it myself. You guys think you've covered your tracks, but you aren't smart enough to have done it right." He unfolded his arms and spread his hands. "Now, do you want to give me lots of spare time and a grudge to work on? Or do you just want to let me go on being a good cop?"
"What about Hardacre?"
"I'll take care of him."
"How?"
"I don't know yet." He showed them a reasonable face. "Tell you what, if he comes after us, you can throw me to the wolves – rogue cop, secret drinker, cross-dresser, I don't care. I won't fight you."
The chief looked at the commissioner. Hanshaw said, "What the fuck, we can't fire him today, anyhow."
Hoople looked like a man who would rather have stayed home that morning. He stood up and put on his gold-braided cap. "I don't like it," he said.
"You don't have to," said Hanshaw. "But right now we've got a press conference to do." He turned to Denby. "You are one lucky bastard."
Denby smiled. "It wasn't luck," he said. "And you ain't seen nothing yet."
"Indulge me," the former lieutenant said, when he met Chesney and Melda on the park bench at lunchtime. "I think I've got this figured out."
Chesney looked at Melda. She made a face that said, let's see where it goes. "All right," the actuary said.
The captain laced his fingers together, looked down at them for a moment, then lifted his head. "The future," he said, "is pretty grim. I don't know why – global warming, some problem with genetically modified crops, or maybe we get hit by another rock out of space. But it's bad."
He paused and gave them a look to say, how am I doing so far? But Chesney showed his poker face. Melda was watching some kids rollerblading on the walkway beside the river.
"Okay," Denby continued. "So it's bad, but there's one thing they got going for them – time travel. Somebody from down the line is coming back here. He pretends to be a comic-book hero. He also pretends to be an angel."
"Why pretend?" Melda said.
Denby had an answer. "Because not much information about us has survived. Maybe the only documents they've got are a kid's comic book collection and a Bible, and they figure they're an accurate description of how we lived. And the kind of people we would trust."
He paused again. This time it was Chesney who responded. "Plausible," he said. "Go on."
"The guy in the costume – and maybe he's the angel, too; I haven't seen him – but the guy in the costume is a descendant of yours." He pointed a finger at Chesney. "He looks a little like you, around the mouth and chin, although everything else is different. No offense, but the guy comes ready to rock and roll. You're more the chess club type."
"Poker's my game," Chesney said, "but no offense taken."
The reference to poker seemed to call up some vague association in the policeman's mind, because he paused for a moment as if trying to remember something. Then he shook his head and went back to what he'd been talking about. He said to Melda, "I figure you for the greatgreat-whatever grandmother. That's why he rescued you twice – it had something to do with you two getting together, so that someday, all the way down the line, he would be born."
Melda moved her head in a could-be motion.
"Now," Denby said, "we come to the why. And there, I'm still in the dark. It's got something to do with crime. Maybe if the guy in the costume–"
"He's called the Actionary," Chesney said.
"All right, the Actionary. Maybe if he can prevent some crime here in the city, or maybe take some bad guy out of circulation, that's going to change the future. Maybe it even stops the big bad whatever-it-is from wrecking the world."
"And the angel?" Melda said.
> Denby threw up his hands. "I don't know. Some religious movement, some cult that Hardacre starts – maybe it's got something to do with how the future turns out. The guy's trying to influence it, make it change direction, or kill it in the cradle." He looked at Chesney. "Again, no offense, kid, but I don't see you as any kind of prophet."
"Me neither."
Chesney could tell that Denby was waiting to see if either of them would add something to his scenario. They had agreed that Melda would take the lead in this conversation. The young man had read enough time-travel stories – the Freedom Five had once battled an alien invasion from a future Earth – to know that the concept was full of paradoxes and wild ideas that chased and ate their own tails like demented snakes. But he didn't want to put the policeman off the false trail.
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