by Rex Miller
“Nothing good."
“That's for sure."
“Jeezus.” He read the composite sheet of recent missing persons in southern Stobaugh County.
Heather Annenberg. Daughter of a podiatrist. Probable runaway.
Mary Anne Brimer. A married dietician.
John Davis. Another truck driver.
Ernest Jones. A cook. Another Jones. A Johnson.
Bill Judd. A computer programmer.
Jesse Keys. A carpenter and jack-of-all-trades.
Rosa Lotti. Housewife. A kid named Lingle. Thirteen.
Royce Maxwell. Unemployed.
Melba Murphy. College freshman.
Nuyen. Obergoenner, Odum, Olivera, Pyland, Reeves, Robinson, Rothstein, Rudert, Schmitz, Shanda, two Smiths, Sneathern, Stewart, Tewls, Timmons, Wade, Weiss. Which one of you is the face in the window?
Is it you, Royce Odum, twenty-seven, on your way home from representing the Monroe Implement Bowling League in a regional tournament, driving home to tiny Texas Corners after a great 259 game, never reaching your destination, your car found locked and empty in a field? Is it your face plastered there in the window of the rusting, wheelless car—a bloated freaked-out concentration camp photo to frighten your survivors, that look of horror caught on what was once your face in midscream? Is this your skull face, Royce? Talk, ole buddy, and tell me. Whodunit?
But Royce Odum is not talking now. Perhaps later. Later tonight when Eichord has spent a tiring and brutalizing day with the hideous cadavers and the frightening death-camp scenes, and he's back in his bed in the Hubbard City Motel; perhaps he'll be ready for a chat. Maybe while dreaming of Sugar Lake, Jack will spit into a visor and pull his mask on and dive down for a look-see, Royce. Down in the cold, muddy waters of dark Sugar Lake.
Perhaps tonight Jack will swim along through his own bubbles as he circles through the frigid underwater shadows of his childhood friends Whortley Williams and Cabrey Brown, his unforgettable pals of long ago, the bully boys who terrorized him so. And maybe he'll find them, each wearing a twisted chain around their elongated necks, each bloated, rotten body chained to the other and then wired to the roots of a mysterious dream tree, a leftover from the Houtcheson case. And then he'll swim by Royce's car and he'll be ready to say hello—speak to him then from that screaming skullhead and tell him all about it.
And seeing the imaginary and the real murder victims will somehow jar loose the old memory of a phrase—"salt walter taffy"—a combination of a cop's first name, the label of a waxy paper-covered piece of candy he once saw that he misread for salt water cadavers, a particularly gruesome pictorial chapter of a police forensics book, and God knows what childhood nightmare.
Will you speak to him then, Royce Odum? Telling Jack of the final minutes and seconds of your life, and of the monster of a man who took you down with muscles of steel and a neck, chest, leg, forearm, hip, gluteus max, pectorals triceps belly hardened by the cruelest regimen of bench presses, deep knee-bends, power squats, sit-ups, arms curls with stacks of landscape timbers, a thousand then ten thousand reps with the weighted whipsickle through impenetrable vetch, his cumbrous bulk and weight sweating, hardening, melting away, the fat dripping off, the steel tendons and muscles preparing to take you to the edge as you ascend the mountaintop funicular and your car breaks loose from the cables and you plummet down out of the sky toward an unyielding death that waits to flatten you—a final, bloody scream trapped in your throat.
And the dream will be very real and in the morning Jack Eichord will not awaken with a hangover as he has done on so many hundreds of shaking, booze-battered mornings in memory. He will awaken with the taste of taffy and the lingering, distinctive smell of a neoprene wet suit, and the thought of Royce's face in the window to chill him to the core. In his heart he will be afraid yet as he comes awake he will not know why.
“I think we may have ‘em all,” the guy told him. “Fourteen bodies,” and the number 14 stayed in his mind but he couldn't remember why or where or what. He remembered what it was when he got dressed the next morning, picking up the small fourteen-inch cardboard box that he carried everywhere now, the box that was only fourteen inches long, EXACTLY fourteen inches, but it felt like it weighed fourteen pounds. The box he carried the thing he'd made in—that day of his other recent nightmare, when he'd woken up after the blue-eyed Mengele clinic twins and the screaming voice that proved not to be a dream at all—the thing he'd made with his own wittle hacksaw.
One could no longer see the part that said it was “Made in New Haven, Conn., USA.” It no longer carried the maker's marks or the proud “Winchester Proof Steel.” All that was left said “L1653799,” and the thing was good for only one purpose. Up close, he could point this at four guys all at the same time, and this baby would quell a fucking mutiny. Because anybody could see that this thing Eichord carried in the box was ready to kick some serious ass. Eichord had grown weary of missing what he shot at. He didn't know how weary.
Jack Eichord had that feeling you get when the long double lane of cars is rolling through the tunnel under the river, the traffic bumper to bumper, everybody tailgating, everybody in a hurry, and suddenly somebody way up ahead slams on the brakes for whatever reason and all these vehicles screech to a stop. And you wait. And you know the cars will all start moving pretty soon the way they always do. And a few assholes start honking. Then you turn off the engine and kill your lights and just sit there. Waiting. Wondering what's happened up ahead in the darkness. Realizing for the first time there's a RIVER over your head on the other side of all the concrete and steel. Knowing that there's trouble up ahead. And with each minute that passes, the odds grow greater that the trouble is serious. And you can't help but say to yourself, If trouble had to come, why the hell couldn't it wait until I made it through to the light at the other end?
CHATTANOOGA
Chaingang is in his new used car. Legit wheels. Insulated now by the paper trappings of the real straight world that will protect him from the law's curious gaze. The endless need to steal another ride and more disposal problems that often attend such an acquisition have ceased to exist. He is a citizen. He has rights. Papers. A hugely pregnant wife beside him.
“God,” she says, letting out a quiet moan. She has turned into a little whining noise that he keeps tuned out for the most part. It is getting close to the time. The blood had appeared yesterday. Then a watery, colorless gush that finally thinned to a dribble, and not long after that the serious pains began.
“Just take it easy,” he tells her solicitously, but she seems to have tuned out on him the way he has on her. She only lets out a noise, “Mmmm-mmmmm,” a halfhearted whine that has become her shorthand for okay. She is hurting now at regular intervals for the first time. The pains hit every couple of minutes now. He finds a motel and all but carries her into the room.
“This better?” he asks.
“Jesus,” she says as another pain hits. They last half a minute, or so he thinks, watching her. He removes her clothing and pulls a sheet over her and as an afterthought takes one of the big plastic sheets he keeps in the trunk for emergency body bags. He spreads it down and has her lie back down on top of a blanket over the plastic. This figures to be a mess.
“The pain is"—she winces, biting her lower lip, looking like a disco queen in some dance reverie, then she closes her eyes for a minute—"getting kinda bad."
“No problem,” he says. Solicitous. Paternal. Dr. Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski, Doctor of Death in residence here at Motel Pediatric. All the amenities. Hot and Cold Running Water. Unsterilized equipment with all the latest germs. Color TV and the Movie Channel.
His life has changed. His baby is in this cow's gut. He owns a three-piece suit now that he will put on tomorrow for his urban camouflage. He has lost as much as some men weigh. He owns a maroon used car. He is delivering a baby.
“Oooooooooooh, shit,” she says. He goes over and turns up the volume on the TV. There are no cars beside their
s. The motel is doing a flourishing business. Chaingang has read about delivering babies once while in jail and it is still up there in his data bank. The average length of labor from the first contraction to delivery with a first pregnancy is about twelve hours; this being Sissy's second frog it should pop out of the oven after about eight hours from the first contraction time. The frog is overdue.
Dr. Frankenkong feels the cervix through the vagina. He finds the cervix to be thinned out and dilated to a diameter of about four centimeters. The doctor knows there are 2.54 centimeters to an inch. They have been in the motel for almost four hours and the cervix is now completely dilated. About ten centimeters. Sissy is biting on a washcloth to keep from screaming. Daniel says it is now necessary to tape her mouth shut so “they don't get kicked out.” She nods okay.
He also ties her wrists and swollen ankles to the bed. Sissy is spread-eagled, nude under a sheet, eyes closed, moaning in great pain. Mouth duct-taped shut. Now the eyes open wide in terror.
“That's okay,” Daniel rumbles gently. He's enjoying himself immensely now. He reaches down and feels a membrane over the fetal head bulging with fluid and he ruptures it by poking it with a finger the size of a steel Monte Cristo #1. Fluid gushes from the vagina running onto the blanket. He has left her plenty of slack and Sissy's knees are in the air.
“Yes,” he says, watching her push again, and he sees the light-colored pubic hair part slightly and the dark hair of the fetus can be seen within the stretched introitus. He senses blood and then he spots a trickle where there is a slight tearing of the vagina. That is his CHILD in there wanting out, and the bitch's hole is not big enough.
The storage banks tell him what to do next. He sees a word that means cut and he can cut—no problem. He even carries surgical scalpels. Sterilized, more or less, he thinks. He has a scalpel that Sissy cannot see—you know, just in case. So many things can go wrong. What if the placenta accidentally implanted low on the uterine wall, just as an example? What then? What if there is a breech and Danny Junior comes out ass-first? What if the umbilical is wrapped around the head? What if a hundred things? What if the motel air-conditioning freezes the kid, or what if it comes out with its ears on backward? What then?
So if the bitch's HOLE is the problem you just make a slightly larger cut but God it's just too tempting isn't it, taking that scalpel and the stupid cunt is spread out here right in front of you on PLASTIC and the TV is LOUD and your KID is in there wanting air and she's an IDIOT you'd be doing her a favor and enough is enough and this is Dr. Bunkowski making his small incision only whoops it just keeps cutting doesn't it that nice easy pressure very delicate there at the vaginal opening the baby's head is there but then the blade is so sharp and it's her fault the bitch strains and arches up as you cut so how can you help it as the blade just keeps going, making that beautiful red, perfectly straight oh God dont you love the way it looks long and straight and opening her right up with that firm and perfectly held scalpel cutting straight up cutting deeply now through the fatty tissue of the abdomen judging it just so mustn't cut baby and cutting her right in half Jesus cutting straight on up the chest slicing right up there and then one left to right for luck and peel that shit open and take the baby just reach on in there and lift it out of that steaming stinking scarlet shit pile of guts and bile and bloody things and beating heart and screaming awful sudden death and agony and terror beyond any mortal experience, that long, straight, deep, perfect slice up the center of what was Sissy fucking Selkirk. Carving her open from poop chute to Morgan Fairchild chest, and those steel-muscled hands reach out in the sudden, violent ebullition of this bright-red moment and peel her back! god how wonderful it is and Chaingang tenderly clears the newborn's mouth and throat as he ties the umbilical close to the belly lifting it out of the dark, beefy placenta and the amniotic membrane, and oh so gently taps the little dead monkey on the bottom of its tiny feet and it goes “wwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah,” and Chaingang's son is alive. Ten fingers, ten toes, a pair of testicles, and a penis, all orifices clear and with a functioning brain. Dr. Bunkowski, he of the first hundred known heart transplants that didn't take—well, not exactly transplants, open heart surgery we can call it, the good doctor has delivered his own child. The wife, ahhhh, that's another story. She doesn't look like she's going to make it.
That's all she wrote for Sissy, it looks like. It was a weird relationship while it lasted. Poor Sissy-girl walking a kind of razor's edge, never knowing when she'd go too far and her violent madman would have to lash out at her and she'd fall across the blade. When you slide down the banister of life you gotta make sure nobody's hidden anything real sharp in there.
STOBAUGH COUNTY
“Mr. Schott?” Both Eichord and the agent flashed shields and IDs. “Special agents. Can we talk to you about the—"
“Oh, shit, betcha wanna talk about them bodies. I knew it. Christ's sake I told Larry, the boy I work with, it's that spooky big sumbitch out there at Hora's. You know that Hora was a weird duck hisself ‘course I don't hold with talking about the dead. I mean rest in peace and whatnot. But he never did associate with nobody ‘round here. Had this woman he lived with out there on that there farm who was playin’ without all fifty-two cards in her deck if you get my drift."
“Wonder if we could talk inside?” Jack said, and the man stepped back as he kept up his running commentary. “He come here I dunno—it's been several years back, I think he was in Veetnam and maybe got shot in the head or whaddyacallit shell shock? Anyway, he took up with this ole gal—she didn't have a front porch onner house if you get me—and man he just never—"
“You said spooky, big man. Who did you mean—the one who worked at Michael Hora's?"
“Yeah. BIG mother. Like to go four hundred pound. Stood about seven feet tall. Fill up a damn doorway. Ask Buddy Retter about him, he seen ‘m load about three or four ton o’ them damn railroad crossties onto a flatbed truck in a couple hours. You couldn't do it with a goddamn FORKLIFT. Strong as a damn OX. Went out there and cleaned out every weed in Hora's pasture with a little old sickle like yea"—he gestured with his hands—"I know where he bought the damn thing ‘n you go over to Western Auto if you wanna hear some stories about that big ole boy. He only come up here about a year ago, I remember saying to Larry, this boy works with me? When he come to town I seen ‘m one day I said to Larry I said—"
“Uh, Mr. Schott, we have a couple of composite drawings of this Mr. Selkirk, the assistant to Mr. Hora that's missing? I wonder if you'd take a look at these and tell us if they resemble the man."
D'Amico was pulling out the drawings.
“Lemme see ‘em,” the voluble man said, pulling a set of spectacles from a case in his pocket. “I don't really need these I only wear ‘em when I wanna SEE somethin."
“Right,” Jack said softly. Schott shook his head.
“Naw. That don't look nothing like ... Ahhhhh, yeah, that's more like it only this here is wrong. It's more of a triangle, and the face was holes not scars. This looks like scars. He didn't look like that. Djew ever see Killer Karl Kemp rassle?"
“Pardon?"
“He looked just like Killer Karl Kemp's back. In the face, I mean. Killer Karl use to work over by Hubbard, an’ we went up there to see him rassle in the amp'theater a coupla times. He had two bullet holes in his back real close together an’ it sorta looked thataway, all puckered up. Coulda been anything made ‘em. I ain't saying they was bullet holes but they LOOKED like the ones in Killer Karl Kemp's back and I know they WAS bullet holes ‘cause I recall when Eddie Rogers shot him. It was over the woman Eddie was livin’ with and they got into a altercation over it and had ‘em a gunfight up in—"
Eichord was finally able to shut the man up, and they got him to agree to meet with the artist in the sheriff's office later and work up a new Identikit drawing.
They talked to two more persons and learned very little of substance and finally they were in the car and heading back to the temporary command post, Tom D'A
mico, Walter Belcher, with one of Bob Andersen's uniformed guys, Gary Ammons, driving them. The radio crackled, and the driver rogered it.
“Task force call for special unit on frequency two."
“Roger, switching to two” He flipped a switch. “Kay zero niner on two, over."
“Is special unit in the vehicle?"
“Affirmative."
“Jack, this is Bob Anderson. Patching a call through from Buckhead, stand by one."
Gary Ammons handed the mike to Eichord, who leaned forward and keyed the press-to-talk switch.
“Eichord standing by, over.” He waited.
“Jack, can you hear me?” It was James Lee.
“That's a rog. Loud and clear, Jimmie."
“Need to talk to you on a land line immediately.” His voice was very cold and businesslike. Jack's first thought was that Chink had just caught the shit from IAD.
“Let me call you in ... oh, five or ten minutes. Where are you?"
“Squad room."
Eichord almost said, What are you doing there? He figured he'd be at a pay phone.
“You want me to call you back at the squad room?” Eichord repeated, knowing Chink would get the point of the question.
“Yeah. Immediately. Soon as you can."
“Ten-four. Out.” The ride took a long six or seven minutes and Jack was outside in a pay telephone calling Buckhead Station and asking for James Lee in homicide.
“Jack, listen. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe something. Listen. Just heard about a mutilation homicide matches your MO there. Did anybody say anything to you about—"
CLIK. BBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
“Hello? Jesus, oh man, HELLO. SHIT.” Click, Tick ... tick ... tick ... tick ... Is he going to call me or is he waiting to get MY call but if I call HIM and my line is busy when he calls ME then he can't get in and...
RIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNG.
“YEAH!"