Frank woke, nearly leaping from the couch. Hector was clutching his shoulder. "Whoa, Frank, you okay? You were moaning out loud."
Frank gazed at Hector's looming face, the fatigue gone from his eyes, a few crumbs of toast lodged within the coarse hairs of his moustache. The aroma of coffee and eggs wafted in from the kitchen. Frank rubbed his eyes with his forearm. "I-I think I was dreaming," he lied, the image of the bald Jaimie riding the sea of baby Harold Grosses still frighteningly fresh in his mind.
"Why don't you take a quick shower," Hector said, "then have some breakfast. I called the precinct this morning. There was a message from Sam Richards at Strong Medical. He's got Gross under heavy sedation, and wants to see me first thing this morning."
Frank sat up on the couch. The small gust from the blanket blew a piece of paper from the end-table onto the carpet. A phone number in his handwriting met his gaze. "Oh no," he whined, retrieving the paper. "Lindsay's father. I forgot to leave a message for him last night." The sound of bacon spattering came in from the kitchen, the aroma of it making Frank's stomach grumble.
"Why don't you get cleaned up, have something to eat, and we'll start our day."
Frank nodded then moved to the bathroom. He dared not glance a look into the mirror at least until he could wash away some of the morning-mustered wrinkles on his face. He showered, using one of Hector's disposable razors to shave, then came out to the kitchen where Hector and Gloria were seated sipping coffee in front of two cleaned plates.
"Gee, you couldn't wait for me?"
Hector and Gloria smiled, both wishing him a good morning. A 'good' morning it really wasn't though. The few hours of broken sleep he managed hadn't been enough, and his body ached pretty badly from it. Too much activity for a cop only two years away from retirement. He inhaled his food and tossed down two cups of coffee in silence while Hector read the paper and Gloria cleaned up.
Wiping his mouth with a napkin, Frank finally broke the silence. "What time is it, anyway?"
Hector glanced to the digital LED on the microwave. "Seven AM, sharp."
Frank took another sip. "I'd like to call Lindsay's father now."
"It's four in the morning in L.A."
"That means he'll be home."
Before Frank could excuse himself, Hector tossed the NY Daily News in front of him. It had been folded open to reveal a page seven blurb:
Bobby Lindsay Out on Bail
Frank grabbed the paper and read the short story in silence. It told of how Jo-Beth Lindsay and her husband had put up a million in cash for his release, and how Bobby was under high security electronic surveillance. It then went on to give a few details of the murder, which Frank skipped over. It mentioned nothing of his escape.
"It's a small story," Frank said, dropping the paper on the table. "No hindrance to us."
"There's also no mention of the escape Neil Spoke of, nor of Racine and the events in the alley. We're good for now. Seems to me the precinct is trying to keep as much of this out of the press' eye until they can get a grasp on everything."
"Which they won't really do," Frank said, "knowing what we already know."
Hector swallowed some coffee and nodded. It appeared he agreed with Frank. And by the sad look on his face, he must have felt a great deal of confusion and frustration. It could only be expected, given the puzzling situation. He pertained knowledge of a great mystery, a conundrum that he himself unearthed and that nobody else but Frank and perhaps the FBI knew about. Add the discovery of Harold Gross into the equation, and he had something even the big G didn't know anything about. Now, like Frank, he was probably wondering what his next move should be. Could he simply explain to higher-ups everything he had done and found? Yes, that option existed, but then he would be giving up everything he had done to this point. If he decided not to do this, then his only other alternative would be to simply continue on with the investigation, and worry about explaining it all later. An imprudent choice, but more desirable.
It really didn't make a difference, Frank thought. Regardless of Hector's decision, there would be trouble.
"Frank, go ahead and call Lindsay's father now while I help Gloria clean up."
Frank nodded and moved to the living room. He figured that Hector's intentions would be to continue this thing to the very end, which pleased him very much. Good 'ol Hect, tried and true. He picked up the telephone handset and dialed the California number. It rang maybe eight times and Frank was going to give it to ten before a tired sounding man answered. "Ballaro?"
"How did you know it was me?"
"I turned off my machine because I had a feeling you would call at some ungodly hour." He sounded terse, and his slurred words didn't make much sense to Frank. It seemed sleep still had some of the man in its grasp.
"My apologies, Mr Lindsay. We detectives work ungodly hours."
"And I thought you were on vacation. At least that's what your partner said."
"Well I'm supposed to be, but your boy got out on bail, and that put off things a bit." Frank decided not to mention Bobby's breakout. He wanted to see what the elder Lindsay had to say first; although Frank doubted it, maybe Jack knew something about the strange escape, like Neil had surmised.
"Detective, I really don't want to get involved, and I think I've done a pretty good job of keeping my distance up until now. Through it all, I confess I have been following the chain of events, so I still can't believe the truth hasn't gotten out about Carrie."
"What about Carrie?" Frank felt his heart throb with anticipation, telling him that this was going to be alarming.
"You mean you don't know?"
"Know about what?"
"Detective Ballaro..." A pause of silence filtered through the phone. He then took a deep breath and continued, slowly. "My daughter Carrie, C-A-R-R-I-E, was originally born Carey, C-A-R-E-Y. She is really a he. Carey is my son."
"What?" Frank wasn't sure if he understood him correctly. "Are you trying to say that Carrie Lindsay is actually a boy?"
"Born on June 6th, 1984."
"Mr Lindsay, with all due respect—"
"Ballaro, I'll only say this once. Jo-Beth has never been the most stable of people. She wanted a daughter more than anything in the world. When we had another son, and decided on the name Carey, she immediately insisted from day one on raising the child as a girl, dresses, pig tails, even changing the spelling of his name. So it began from the moment we got home from the hospital that Carrie would be a girl. I, as usual, had no say in the matter. Jo-Beth had all the money, an inheritance, and threatened me with it, really went nuts on me day in and day out until I had no choice but to leave eight months later and forgo the dough. Her life revolved around keeping Carey a girl, and I couldn't take it anymore. No amount of money is worth what I went through after Carrie was born. Anyway, I never really knew what came of my family after I left. I moved as far away as I could and started a new life, too embarrassed to ever speak of my past life with Jo-Beth. Of course you could imagine my shock when I heard about the murder."
"Then what about the autopsies? The coroner's report said she'd been raped."
"You want my educated guess? Money speaks. And Jo-Beth has a lot of it. You see, Bobby is the only other person who knows that Carrie is really a girl. He was three at the time of her birth, and I know he remembers because I used to privately talk to him about it. I know how Jo-Beth thinks. She probably threatened to dismantle the inheritance he would receive at thirty if he ever revealed the truth about Carrie—which I'm sure he would do if locked up for life. It would act as a kind of revenge if his mother didn't bail him out. He'd have nothing to lose. And as far as the autopsy goes, well, it's my guess that the coroner is a much richer man now than he was prior to the murder."
Frank's mouth fell open. Hector came over holding a few sheets of paper and sat next to Frank. Frank held up an index finger asking Hector to give him another minute. "Are you trying to say that Jo-Beth bribed the coroner to falsify reports?"
> "Why don't you ask him yourself. I think I've spoken enough."
"Wait..." Frank started, but the Jack Lindsay hung up. Frank thought about redialing, but placed the handset back into the cradle.
"What? What is it?" Hector licked his lips in anticipation.
"You won't believe it. What are those?" Frank nodded to sheets of paper Hector held.
"The other three essays from Sanskrit. What did Lindsay say?"
"I'll tell you on the way to Strong Medical. We have someone else to see there besides Harold Gross."
Chapter Twenty-Four
Bobby Lindsay threw the girl to the floor. She squirmed a bit, but remained in place, and that was good because the Giver didn't have the tolerance for disorder. The Giver better appreciate this gift, Bobby thought. It had really been a nuisance getting her here, the pain in his shoulders still smarting from the dead weight of her body.
Snatching her from the apartment hadn't been so difficult, heck, the doors were open. And with the early morning hours still providing cover, he carried her mostly unseen from the building all the way to the courtyard by the taped-off alley where the Giver had burrowed a tunnel some time ago. Only one person spotted him carrying her into the alley—a homeless guy that had been following him since he slipped from the subway tunnel a few hours back.
An appendage slithered up from the bowels of the tunnel, lending him support as he slid to the bottom. It then cleared the way for him, providing guidance for the two-plus hours it took him to drag the girl to one of the Giver's blue rooms, closing up the tunnels behind him to conceal his path.
He waited here with the girl for another length of time until the pulse finally emerged, its colors swirling upon the walls like a giant kaleidoscope display. The Giver spoke, its voice the usual electronic monotone, echoing throughout the room. "Harbinger, do you have the unit?"
A great fear suddenly consumed Bobby, a feeling of dread pitting his stomach. The unit, the glorious Atmosphere. It...it was gone. Fuck! What did I do with it? The apartment! I placed it on the floor in the cop's apartment when I took the girl!
Bobby stood before the swirling lights on the wall, chest out in attempt to cover up his error. "I brought you something else, Giver."
From beneath the lights a small doorway materialized in the black wall, and the appendage appeared, slithering forth, its segmented chitinous exterior clicking upon the smooth floor. It stopped at Bobby's feet, seemingly in wait for its prize, but there was none.
Bobby ran over to where Jaimie lay and dragged her across the smooth floor to where the appendage flittered. He pushed her down and she groaned incoherently. "Here Giver, a prize for you."
The appendage poked over Jaimie's body, across her chest then into her crotch where it hesitated momentarily, prodded, then pulled away. The voice returned. Subject insufficient for harvesting. Harbinger, do you have the unit?"
Bobby hesitated, then solemnly spoke. "No."
"Recognize failure." The appendage whipped back to its place in the wall.
Bobby strangely felt no love lost for the missing Atmosphere, not like he had when he first obtained it, not even so much as when he toyed with it in the tunnel just prior to abducting Jaimie. He felt only the need for revenge now, revenge against the one who intervened and disrupted his relationship with the Giver. As a result, it seemed the Giver held no respect for him as a Harbinger, had called him a failure. It seemed to be cutting its ties with him, not opting to accept the girl.
"Harbinger, what is your purpose?"
Bobby felt a familiar clicking sensation in his head. An answer to the question sprang forth. "To seek out Suppliers."
"Harbinger, what will you do if an Outsider discovers you?"
"Kill them." He knew, unequivocally.
"Harbinger, what will you do if an Outsider overcomes you, or escapes?"
"Kill myself."
"Harbinger, find the unit. Seek out new Suppliers." A door appeared at the opposite end of the room, granting him exit.
Bobby felt a sudden need to obey the Giver's command, but as well felt compelled to act otherwise. Perhaps it was the fact that he knew he could not return to the Ballaro apartment and successfully retrieve the Atmosphere. The Outsiders might be there.
As he fathomed his next move, something unforeseen happened.
The girl abruptly arose from her slumber and darted across the room to the exit. Bobby pursued, but she had him by at least ten strides and disappeared through the door the Giver provided. By the time Bobby reached the exit and moved down the hall, she had vanished, escaping through one of many break-offs that intersected the hall near its end. He cursed inside, knowing that the Giver would never approve of this.
But then again, now he had a new purpose: to find the girl. She was his only link to the cop who brought him down.
His only link for revenge.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Eight in the morning approached, a morning drizzle sifted from the sky, and a naked overweight cook named Harry Porter—who had left work just an hour earlier—propelled himself head first at a rat scuttling across the alley floor.
He seized it with both hands just as it made its desperate attempt to disappear beneath a heap of sodden cardboard. The rodent wriggled wildly in his grasp, its whiskered mouth blurting frantic squeals, almost in syncopation to the beat of the music emanating from his walkman headphones.
Harry wailed triumphantly, then opened his mouth and crammed the rat in, tail first, pushing it as far as it would go until only its little vermin face emerged fidgeting from his jaws.
Harry bit down, his front teeth incising the rat's neck. The rat shuddered, its black-bead eyes popping from their sockets like tiny yo-yo's. He then pressed the head in with his fingers and chewed and chewed with great pleasure, buoyantly pressing his jaws up and down on the rodent's tiny bones. It tasted wonderful: as succulent and as appetizing as anything he'd ever prepared in his days as head cook at Frankie's all night diner.
When the rat's bulk finally slipped down into his stomach, he scooted to the back of the alley and leaned against a dumpster. He surprisingly found an erection protruding from somewhere beneath his fat stomach. Feverishly, he gripped it, stroking it in a wild fit, the gristle on his hands lubricating his efforts and bringing him to a state of shivering orgasm in mere moments. Missiles of adrenaline spurted from his nerves, like the semen had from his penis, and he slumped like a discarded hand-puppet, lethargy consuming his mind and muscles in a river of release.
He stayed in this quiet state, licking the blood and semen from his fingers with feline-like consideration. Tears of joy coated his eyes, dampening his vision as he gazed at the strip of rainy night sky between the buildings that formed the alley. A cloaked sun forced its darkened beams upon him as he pondered the simplicity of his old life, and the thrill of his new.
Things were so much better, now that he found the Atmosphere.
Mosquitoes and flies tickled his skin to the point where he again felt himself getting hard. Rejuvenation seeping in, he crouched up, scurried on all fours with animal-like finesse to the spot in the alley where he hid the Atmosphere—behind a wooden crate filled with rotting vegetables. He retrieved it and gazed at it, fascinated, garnering the same impassioned feelings as when he found it on his way home from work, under the el on 190th Street.
Curiosity had been his only stimulus when he first beheld the Atmosphere, and he wondered if it had anything to do with all the police activity on the train platform thirty feet above his head. But in mere seconds he had become instantly fixated with the oddly shaped black object, and he cradled it like a newborn, pacing the empty streets like a mouse in a maze, a man with no direction in mind other than to draw himself nearer to the heart of the intriguing object. It had felt so erotic, so stimulating to run his fingers across the six hollowed prongs that ascended from it like thick black straws. It had felt so warm and soft at his touch, and made the music sound so damn good.
Atmosphere...<
br />
The deep voice resounded in his head like an echo shouted from a distant hilltop, and with unexplained urgency he at once needed to be alone with it, to be the only one to experience its special purpose. The alley had been the nearest place.
In just five minutes he was naked and feeding on the rat, food being his sole passion in life, the object, the Atmosphere, stimulating his devotion to levels previously unfelt in his years as a cook.
Harry scurried to the rear of the alley, crouched in the left corner, next to the dumpster. Working his index finger around the lip of one of the prongs, he explored its smoothness with newfound investigation, allowing his instincts to take over. Abstract colors and shapes formed within his mind, their orgiastic flow sending out signals hinting as to its further intentions. Yes, so much more was to be had from this thing called the Atmosphere, and he shivered with wild anticipation as all its other propensities began to emerge. He moved his fingers quicker and harder across the ebony surface with unprecedented inspiration. He rocked his head to the pulse within his head. He had to—needed to—seek out the source of its desires for him.
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