“Unless you let me out of here right now,” the kid added. “Not very likely.”
“No way I can get you to change your mind?”
“Nope.”
The kid shook his swollen head. “Let me tell you something else about werewolves,” he said. “We ain’t much different from real wolves. We run in packs.”
“Is that so?”
‘Yep. And we can pick up a scent.” He lay a slim finger along the swollen sausage that bisected his face. “Even through a busted nose. And you know what I can smell right now, Sheriff?”
“I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”
“Well… it’s one mean aroma. Motorcycles and blood and misery, all mixed up. There’s twelve of ‘em, and right now they’re real close. I’m number thirteen, you see. We’re like little pieces of a puzzle, and we all fit together. They’re already in your town, Sheriff. I can smell ‘em. They want that missing piece, and you’d better give it to ‘em, or else this quiet little Mayberry of yours is gonna be a slaughterhouse when the full moon rises. If you’ve got an Opie and an Aunt Bee at home, you’d better say your prayers — ”
“I’m a confirmed bachelor,” the sheriff interrupted. “Look… I’m sorry about what happened to you. Soon as I find him, that deputy is going to be in the cell right next to yours. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit here and listen while you spin campfire stories. You might scare a moron like Vin Miller, but you won’t scare me.”
“Even so, Sheriff, you take my advice about those prayers. Not that prayin’ ever helped me any… You know what they say, Even a man who is pure at heart, and says his prayers by night… ”
But the sheriff was already moving away from the cell. “I’ll send the doctor,” he said.
The kid answered, “You send the vet.”
The barber had one in the chair and four waiting. Between them, the men had maybe thirty hairs on their heads. None of them really needed to part with the six bits that they were about to blow. But one of the men was sure that he was in love, and two were widowers who were much too bashful to consider such emotions, and the other was haunted by pure, unadulterated lust.
Sheriff Cole had, at one time or another, experienced all these emotions when it came to the barber. Liz Bentley had a way of getting into a man’s thoughts and staying there. She wasn’t young — though she wasn’t exactly old — and she wasn’t pretty — though she certainly was a long way from ugly — but there was just something about being around Liz Bentley that made a man feel like he should suck in his gut, and that was for damn sure.
Dwight took off his hat as he stepped into the barber shop. One of the customers was jabbering on about Vin Miller and the werewolf, telling how the deputy had single-handedly captured the thing at the banker’s house. “I believe that man is just what he claims to be. I hear he ate Missus Rosewell’s Chihuahua, Speedy Gonzalez, right there in her rose garden. Ate the dog raw, alive and breathin’, yippin’ and kickin’. Now what kind of a man would do that?” He shook his head, as if amazed. “Missus Rosewell saw that poor little creature bark its last and she fainted at the horror of it, I hear tell, and old Vin had to give her mouth-to-mouth reinvigoration. Now that’s a job I wouldn’t have minded one bit!”
“Morning, Sheriff,” the barber said, tipping the storyteller to the lawman’s presence.
The customer shut up instantly. “Morning, Liz,” the sheriff said, distressed that his voice quavered just like a schoolboy’s.
“What can I do for you, Sheriff?”
Dwight’s thumbs worked over the brim of his Smokey Bear hat. “He been in?”
Liz’s long, dark hair danced in a half-dozen mirrors as she shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “First day in three months your deputy’s missed his morning shave.” She winked at her attentive audience. “I just don’t know how I’ll make it through the day without that fifty cent tip of his.”
The men chuckled at that, but Dwight cut them short. “Yeah… well… I need to find him. Any ideas?”
Now the barber winked at Dwight. “Let me tell you about your deputy, Sheriff. I mean, let me give you a woman’s view. You know, women can tell a lot about a man, just by the way he dresses.” Dwight’s fingers dug into the brim of his hat. The lady barber’s eyes were hard on him, and so were the eyes of her balding audience, and he suddenly felt naked.
“Take Vin Miller, for instance. He’s a bantam rooster. Just like a lot of soldiers who lift weights, he picked up what I like to call the uniform trick while he was in the service. He buys his clothes one size too small, hoping that the ladies will swoon over his manly physique.”
Dwight swallowed hard, trying not to think about the tight pants he was wearing. Probably just as well he’d skipped the diner’s lumberjack breakfast special the last couple weeks. He could stand to lose a few of the pounds he’d packed on eating under Vera Marlowe’s watchful eye.
Liz clipped leisurely, taking her time with each one of her customer’s nine hairs. “Anyway,” she continued, “a bantam rooster like Vin Miller doesn’t strut his stuff for just one hen. I hear he’s been leaving big tips all over town. And he’s the type that expects those tips are going to add up to something, sooner or later.”
“You’re gonna make me ask, aren’t you?”
“It’s no big secret,” Liz said. “Seems that Vera called in sick over at the diner this morning. And I hear Vin Miller’s been leaving big tips for her, too.”
Dwight put on his Smokey Bear hat. “How come every time I’ve got a question, you’ve got the answer?”
“Us working girls, we get together and compare notes.” Liz lathered her customer’s neck, flicked open a silver-handled straight razor, and went to work. “And you know how women are, Dwight. We just can’t seem to keep our mouths shut. Especially when a bantam rooster like Vin Miller comes to town.”
“Right.” The sheriff whirled and was out the door before the lady barber could nail him with the biggest wink of all.
THREE
Vin Miller awoke with a smile on his face. He had enjoyed one hell of a night with one hell of a woman. Vera Marlowe hadn’t been at all what he’d expected, but she was something, all the same.
Full of surprises, that was Vera. For one thing, she was a take-charge kind of gal, and Vin was surprised to find that her sexual boldness suited him just fine. For another, he hadn’t had to listen to Dion or Fabian or Bobby Rydell or even Elvis while they’d been at it. The only sounds he’d heard were the standard bedspring symphony and the music of Vera’s moans.
All that moaning didn’t come from Vera, though. She kept a parrot in the kitchen, and when Vera started up, so did the damn bird. Not that Vin had the notion that he was Vera’s first or anything, but he figured that bird must have been witness to a whole lotta moanin’ goin’ on to pick up on it like that.
Now, in the light of morning, it was quiet in the house. Vera was still asleep, her lips all pouty, and she looked more like Carroll Baker than ever. Vin rolled over on his side, all ready to give her a wake-up kiss, and his stomach growled.
That was when he remembered the steaks. Big, thick T-bones. Vera had taken them out of the freezer before they’d adjourned to the bedroom, promising that she’d help him work up an appetite for a big steak and eggs breakfast.
Man oh man, was he ready for that. He rolled out of bed, pulled on his jockeys and tight slacks. Something about last night made him chuckle. Vera Marlowe, the take-charge kind of gal. At least her silk scarves hadn’t left any telltale marks on his wrists or ankles. Vin didn’t know if the whole thing felt particularly right… he only knew that it sure as hell felt a long way from wrong.
What the hell. Maybe he’d go with it, just this once.
Maybe he’d cook Vera’s breakfast.
Barefooted, Vin padded into the kitchen.
He almost slipped in the blood.
Beef blood puddled on yellow linoleum. That’s all it was. Vin breathed a sigh of relief. The blood must have over
flowed the little plate as the steaks thawed, then dribbled off the counter and puddled on the floor. But then Vin saw that it wasn’t a puddle of blood; it was a scrawl.
Three words: LET HIM GO.
Vin shivered. He glanced at the sideboard. The steaks were gone, but the T-bones were still there. Picked clean. Gnawed.
“Jesus Christ.” Vin turned toward the phone, and that was when he saw the open bird cage, the dusting of green and yellow feathers on the kitchen table.
Vera Marlowe’s parrot had moaned its last.
Beyond the table, the back door stood open. Vin moved toward it, afraid of what he might find outside.
He expected that he might see any number of frightening things… but Sheriff Dwight Cole wasn’t one of them.
They were on the kitchen floor, rolling around in the beef blood, when Vera fired Vin Miller’s revolver over their heads.
“You can stop it, right now!” she said.
Vera’s bedside manner still fresh in his mind, Vin did exactly as ordered. Dwight couldn’t help himself. He sucker-punched Vin Miller behind the ear, and the deputy went down like something big and dead.
Vera tossed Vin’s gun onto the kitchen table. “You okay, Dwight?” she asked.
He nodded. “How about you?”
“Well… I’ve been better.” She looked down at Vin Miller and almost laughed, because the musclebound deputy had split his tight pants in the wrestling match. “It’s a shame,” she said wistfully. “Sometimes the best lookin’ broncos are the easiest to break.”
Dwight left that one alone, and Vera went for a robe. The sheriff took the opportunity to phone the jail. There was, of course, good news and bad news.
Deputy Hastings had won three of four checker games, and the prisoner was quiet as could be. That was the good news. The bad news could be shoehorned into two words… more trouble.
Dwight instructed Hastings to collect Vin Miller and lock him up. He cradled the receiver before the elderly deputy could give him an argument, and started for the door just as Vera returned to the kitchen.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked, cinching a black silk robe around her middle.
“To the cemetery,” Dwight said. “A call just came in.”
Vera’s full lips twisted into a formidable frown.
“I’m not kidding, Vera. There’s trouble.”
The big blonde toed the concussed deputy. She pointed at the smeared beef blood on the linoleum floor, and the gnawed steak bones on the counter, and the parrot feathers, which had blown every which way in all the excitement.
“Trouble? What the hell do you call this?”
FOUR
Lily Pine took one look at the sheriff and said, “You look like you’ve gone fifteen rounds with Sonny Liston.”
For the first time Dwight noticed his blood-stained uniform — a casualty of the wrestling match in Vera’s kitchen — and shrugged. “It’s a long story, Lily.”
“I’m sure it’s one of many.” The undertaker’s daughter left no room for a reply before adding, “And I’m equally certain that neither of us has time for it today.”
She started across the cemetery, a thin little thing with pale skin, delicate features, and a bouffant hairdo stiff with Hi-Style hair-spray. Her hair was jet-black, as was her loose turtleneck sweater, her tight toreador pants, her gleaming leather boots… and the barrel of the shotgun locked in her thin-fingered grasp.
“Do you really think we’re gonna need that thing, Lily?”
She stopped short. “The word is that you’ve got a werewolf locked up in your jail, Sheriff.”
“Well… that’s the guy’s story. But, Jesus, Lily, you’re just a tiny little thing. Firing a shotgun would launch you from here to tomorrow. And if you’re worried about werewolves, a scattergun isn’t going to do you any good, anyway. Unless you’ve got silver pellets in those shells, of course.”
The sheriff tried a smile, but Lily Pine cut it short with a grin both knowing and confident. “Okay,” she said, ‘‘now I see what this is about.”
“Huh?”
The undertaker’s daughter thrust the shotgun into the sheriff’s hands, pulled the revolver from his holster, and once again started across the lawn, the handgun cocked and ready.
“Men.” She shook her head. “It’s almost a biological need. They’ve always got to have the biggest gun.”
They stood near the open graves. Five ragged holes in sacred earth. Broken coffins, torn shrouds, shredded clothing. Desecration was too clean a word for it.
And the bones… Dwight was sure that Lily could have identified each one of them. She’d taken her degree in mortuary science, after all. But Dwight didn’t need to know their scientific names, because he could read what they said.
LET HIM GO. There it was, a message spelled out on the green grass, defiling hallowed ground. Letters made of leg bones, and arm bones, spines and fingers and broken ribs still caked with bits of dry flesh…
Lily’s pale lips were a tight line of anger. “Horrible, isn’t it?” She motioned toward the big house where she lived with her father, just fifty yards distant. “Father says that he didn’t hear a thing last night. But to think that they were so close, that they might have broken into the house… I don’t care if they’re not werewolves. Even if they’re only men — ”
“Don’t torture yourself.”
“I can’t help it.” She looked at him, her eyes dark wells of pain. “Guilt is a terrible thing. My mother died while I was away at college. If anything were to happen to my father… well, I just couldn’t deal with it.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“I guess I’m not so tough after all.”
“Shhh.” Dwight waved her off. “Listen.”
In the distance, they heard a low rumble.
Engines.
Motorcycles.
“I told you to let me drive,” Lily said. “You drive too fast.”
Dwight tossed her the keys. “Get the jack out of the trunk for me, will you?”
“It’s faster to walk back to the house. We could take the hearse.”
“Damn potholes.” Dwight kicked the patrol car’s flat tire. “Damn ditch.”
Lily said, “I’m driving, of course.”
“Of course.”
The undertaker’s daughter didn’t crack a smile. “If it’ll make you feel better, you can hold the shotgun.”
FIVE
The banker, Milt Rosewell, daubed his forehead with a rumpled handkerchief. “As I said before, Sheriff, they didn’t really do anything… but if you’d seen them.”
Dwight patted the little man on the shoulder. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight, Milt,” he said. “About twenty minutes ago, twelve guys on motorcycles pulled up in front of the bank — ”
“Right.” The banker pointed at the entranceway. “They came right through those doors. Every one of them with a star tattooed on the back of one hand. And they didn’t actually do anything. Well… that’s not quite right. They asked several questions.”
“Like what?” Lily Pine wanted to know.
“Well… they asked if the moon would be full this evening. I didn’t answer, of course, because I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. And then they asked if I’d even seen what a two-hundred pound timber wolf could do to a rabbit, and I have to admit that I got a little nervous.”
“So they threatened you?” Dwight asked.
“Well, it was obviously more than a question, but I’m not quite sure if I’d say that it was actually a threat.”
Lily sighed. “What are you trying to do, Sheriff? Catch these crazies on some legal technicality? You can’t handle the one you’ve got locked up. How do you expect to handle twelve more?”
“Look, Lily, I appreciate the help and all, but let me handle this by myself, okay?”
‘You want me to take my shotgun and go home, is that it?”
Dwight sighed. All right. Little Miss I-can-drive-
better-than-you-can wanted an answer. Fine. He’d give her an answer.
But before he could, the bank doors swung open, and a redhead wearing a black dress, mourning veil, and sunglasses stepped into the bank. It was Angela Rosewell, the banker’s wife.
“Angela,” the banker said. “Darling… you should be resting.”
“Shut up, Milt. Speedy Gonzalez is dead and he ain’t coming back, so get used to the idea.” Mrs. Rosewell turned to the sheriff. “Are you ready for some good news, Dwight?”
“Sure.”
“I’m dropping the charges,” the banker’s wife said. “So you can let that Chihuahua-eating son of a bitch out of your jail, and maybe we can have a little peace and quiet around here.”
Dwight shook his head. “I can’t do that, Angela. Threats have been made.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Did you ever see Rio Bravo?”
“Yeah,” the banker’s wife said. “Did you ever see The Wild One Meets the Teenage Werewolf”
“There’s no such movie.”
“That’s my point, Dwight.”
Dwight pushed through the banks double doors and started down the deserted street. Things were real quiet. So quiet that if he’d worn spurs, he would have heard them jingle-jangle.
He crossed the street and stopped short in front of Liz Bentley’s barber shop. He wasn’t thinking straight. He was starting to think just as crazy as everybody else in town. Christ, if only he’d managed some sleep in the last forty-eight hours, but those two days had been just as crazy as the weeks — and months — that had come before them.
He sighed. Fine. If he was going to act crazy, he might as well go whole hog. He pushed through the barbershop door. Liz was sitting in the big chair, reading a confessions magazine.
“That silver razor of yours,” Dwight said. “Can I borrow it?”
“Take a load off,” Liz offered, standing up. “I’d consider it my civic duty to do the job for you, Sheriff. I don’t mind telling you that you look pretty shaky. I’m afraid you’d cut your own throat.”
The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists Page 12