by Jon Land
The old Chevy rattled down Alabama’s Route 59 in the general direction of Birmingham, though it would turn off well before nearing that city. Night had come hours before, and the lights of cars streaming in the opposite direction were the only things that told Dreighton Quail anyone else was alive.
The night was his time. It belonged to him.
He slept the days away, and he liked the winter best because then they were the shortest. He pulled off the road and slept in whatever old car he was driving at the time. He was always able to find a spot no one could see while driving past. Old, lonely roads were best, because then if he was seen it would be by a single driver in a totally secluded setting. If the person chose not to approach, that was fine. If he chose to approach, that was fine too.
He’d been branded with many labels over the years of his travels: the Freeway Killer, Dormitory Slasher, Vampire, Gemini, and others. In at least three of the cases other men had been caught and convicted of serial murders a majority of which had been committed by him. Quail’s secret was to sniff out a serial killer in the papers and follow the other’s pattern for a time. Worked like a charm. He could kill all he wanted, safe in the knowledge that someone else would be caught and blamed.
Quail was without peer, unless of course you counted Winston Peet. Quail had almost cried with joy the day Peet had been caught, because it left him alone to cruise the dark underbelly of America with killing on his mind. He feared no man except maybe Kimberlain, and Kimberlain was out of his life now, just a shadow from the past like so many signposts on the many roads he had traveled once and would never travel again.
But the past had many shadows, slippery and dim and clinging to the dusty corners of his mind. He had been beaten as a child in Pennsylvania, beaten bloody by both parents, who felt they were exercising the will of God. He was reduced to a cowering shape that slept under the bed instead of on it. But when he was taken from his parents by the welfare people and adopted by another couple, in another part of the state, what had started out bad got plenty worse.
A few months past his twelfth birthday, they’d caught him fondling himself. The Devil’s work it was. Jesus God, save our boy, save him; show us the way, O Lord, show us the way … It was the hands that had touched and stroked, and thus the hands would have to pay.
Oh yes.
So they dragged him kicking and screaming to the wood stove, with the full intention of forcing those cursed hands into the raging flames. Quail kicked and fought, and, with the hearth doors open, one of his kicks struck a gasoline keg his father used to quicken the fire. It splashed up at him just as the flames reached out. Yes, these shadows still brought back the pain, so awful and unrelenting, along with the screams that followed him to the hospital and beyond.
He had been burned over ninety percent of his upper body, all his hair gone, an ear, his lips, part of his nose. And his face, oh, his face! It simply wasn’t there. Skin grafts did little; the pain was hardly worth it. He didn’t die, and for a long time Quail didn’t understand why that was so.
Months passed and the couple that called themselves his parents took him home. The beatings were replaced by their total avoidance of him. They moved him into the basement behind a locked door, and that became his world. He grew to hate the light and love the dark, because the dark spared him his own reflection. Quail lost track of time, of the months and years passing. But the pain was always there. He grew bigger than the damp bed they gave him and had to curl his knees tighter and tighter to squeeze under the blankets on frigid nights. If he listened hard enough, he could hear them praying for help upstairs, for forgiveness, for salvation.
Quail hated them.
He knew even without the company of others that he was different. It was more than just the hideous features hidden behind the chalk-white masks the doctors had given him. There was wood for the stove in the basement, and Quail could crush fist-size fragments in his hands. There were layers of thick steel piping, and these he bent, then twisted, then ripped apart.
He wasn’t sure why he ventured upstairs that one night in particular; he was sure only that there was something for him beyond this door and the next, something that remained unfinished. The locked cellar door was a simple matter to negotiate: barely a nudge of his shoulder splintered it open. He slid through the house in utter silence, making sure all the doors and windows were locked and tied down. Then he soaked the floors with gasoline from the same keg that had burned him, and tossed one match on the second floor and another on the first. Outside he stayed close enough to the flames to feel their heat in order to make sure he would hear the awful shrieks of the man and woman who had made him what he was.
And just what was that?
He was a traveler of the night who trembled with happiness to hear screams of pain. Not his pain: he had survived all that, he realized, because it was his lot to bring it to others, to grow stronger with each wailing gasp, each final breath of life. Quail barely noticed his huge size—then or now; he only realized there were plenty of doorways he had to duck to pass under and driver’s seats it was impossible to be comfortable in.
He used that first car to start his cruise of the nation’s freeways and back roads, driving by night and sleeping mostly by day, avoiding the sun as much as possible. The flaming corpses he left behind taught him that he had been nothing for so long that he had become nothing. He was starting from scratch, then, on his way to becoming something greater and better. It was killing that made him feel good for the first time, so killing must be the answer he sought, and Quail embraced it. At night, when the lonely and vulnerable were out, walking the highways and huddled in the dark crevices in search of a ride or a friend, Quail would appear. There was never a pattern to the killings besides those that others had begun. He had long lost track of how many had perished by his hand; he knew only that he grew stronger with each death. He couldn’t visualize life without the killing. It was life.
There had been four sets of perfectly imitated random killings before the Ferryman caught on to his existence and took up the chase. Not only had Kimberlain caught on, but he had even traced Quail back to his Pennsylvania Dutch origins and had found out about the terrible fire that had started it all. And when “the Dutchman,” as he came to be called, continued to elude capture in spite of the killings left in his wake, the word “Flying” was added to his title naming him after the mythical Dutch mariner doomed to sail the seas forever. The roads of America were Quail’s seas and the idea that one man could be responsible for a nationwide reign of terror devoid of pattern or motive was bizarre enough to keep Kimberlain virtually alone in his pursuit. But the Ferryman drew closer and closer. Quail began seeing him in every hitchhiker, in every car he passed or that passed him.
Their confrontation seemed inevitable, and Quail thought it had come when the roadside diner he had entered just before a dawn many months ago was flooded with well-dressed men. He left a number of them broken and unconscious, but the rest overcame him and took him to another town and a motel room where a dark man waited in the shadows. The man told the others to leave the two of them alone. This impressed Quail even before the dark man lauded his skills, his brilliance, said they were things that deserved to be recognized, utilized, rewarded. The dark man said that Kimberlain could be thrown off the track and arrangements made to ease Quail’s cross-country sojourns. Money when needed, refuge if required. There would be a number to call anytime he wanted to. In return there were jobs the dark man would want done for him, tasks deemed impossible by others who had considered them.
Quail didn’t believe in the impossible. And the dark man was offering him a chance to prove he was far, far more than nothing.
Since the first job he had done for the dark man, every other day the Flying Dutchman would make a call to an answering machine. If his services were required, he was referred to another number where the assignment would be detailed. Quail loved the legitimacy the dark man offered him along with much-deserved recognit
ion of his special powers. His anonymity bothered him only because it kept Winston Peet as the most renowned, and thus the greatest, in his field. How unfair. Peet had killed seventeen at most, Quail as many as ten times that number. He carried the news clippings of his killings in the glove compartment of whatever car he was driving at the time the way a young boy stuffs baseball cards into the pockets of his jeans. Since Kimberlain no one had dared believe a single man could be responsible for it all. In that respect, the Dutchman had fallen victim to his own expertise.
Quail figured the time had come for a phone call, so he pulled over at the next gas station he came to and stepped into the phone booth, keeping the door cracked open to keep the light off.
The phone rang twice as always. The answering machine picked up.
Quail smiled. The dark man had work for him again.
Chapter 15
ON THE PLANE back to New York, Kimberlain didn’t bother to hide his surprise when a stewardess handed him an Airophone he thought was reserved for outgoing calls.
“Mr. Kimberlain,” she said, as surprised as he was, “it’s for you.”
Up to that point he had busied himself with considering the aftermath of the attack on Lisa Eiseman by her sabotaged creations. Clearly she needed protection, and just as clearly he was in no position to provide it himself. It was Lisa who suggested the solution.
“Dom Torelli,” she said, and she proceeded to explain who Torelli was and how she knew him. “Torelli’s a king down here,” she finished. “Nobody would ever dare cross him.”
“Whoever’s after you isn’t from down here, and I doubt very much they’re afraid to cross anybody.”
“But Dom has his own island off the coast. It was built as a fortress for his family by his father, and that’s just what it is.”
“Been there often, have you?”
Lisa thought she caught a note of jealousy in Kimberlain’s voice. “Never, but he talks about it plenty—all those times he tried to convince me to go out with him.”
“You’re trying to tell me you never did?”
She nodded. “And I won’t be a hypocrite and say it’s because of what he is and does. He’s a businessman, Jared, and to tell you the truth he reminds me a little of you.”
“You know me that well already?”
“The few hours we’ve shared have been rather intense.” She sighed and forced back a shudder. “Those people who died were my employees, my friends, and the only thing stopping the guilt from setting in is the reality that if it weren’t for you I’d be dead too. When you’re indebted to somebody, you feel you know them better.”
“There’s some truth in that.”
Kimberlain also found himself agreeing with Lisa that Torelli was the best option available. He placed her personally in the young don’s hands, and although he couldn’t say he liked Torelli at first, neither did he dislike him. His interest in Lisa appeared to be as genuine as Kimberlain’s.
The Ferryman accepted the Airophone from the stewardess.
“Yes?”
“How good to hear your voice again, Ferryman.” It was Zeus, and suddenly everything became clear. “I understand you ran into some complications in Atlanta.”
“Calling to claim credit?”
The blind man laughed. “Not this time. But I’m still worried about the loss of five hundred pounds of C-12 plastic explosives. In case you’ve forgotten, that amount could quite easily level a large portion of a major city.”
“They’re about to serve dinner, Zeus, and I really am hungry.”
“I’m surprised the surfacing of the Hashi hasn’t spoiled your appetite.” Zeus paused, then spoke urgently. “Come back to us, Jared.”
“You’re sounding desperate, Zeus.”
“Just trying to do you a favor. Conscience is what your life is about now, these paybacks. I’m merely trying to save you the pain of partial responsibility for the millions of dead when those explosives are set off.”
“Don’t bother trying to pin this on me.”
“You can stop it, Ferryman. You can stop them. It wasn’t like the Hashi to take such a risk; to come so far over the surface. The risk must be worth it, and if you don’t try to at least find out why, you’ll be as guilty as the rest of us, who shouldn’t have allowed the theft in the first place.”
“Go to hell, Zeus,” Kimberlain said and switched the phone to OFF.
“This is where the murder happened,” Captain Seven explained to Kamanski and Kimberlain. The three of them were standing in the gazebo located direcly opposite Jordan Lime’s bedroom on ground level.
“In case you’ve forgotten, Lime was killed in his bedroom,” Kamanski snapped.
Captain Seven shook his head. “All those negative ions you’re pumping will ruin your liver, David. Chill out and pay attention. He died in his bedroom, but this is where he was killed from.”
“The gazebo was sealed. No one could have gotten inside.”
“Electronically sealed, Herman, and easily bypassed by a dude who knows the how of it, which obviously you don’t. Here, look.” Captain Seven shuffled his sneakered feet across the gazebo’s tile floor to its single entrance. “Basically the only seal you’ve got on this door is this switch,” he said, opening it and pointing at a small piece of plastic wedged against the frame. “Door breaks contact with the switch and, boom, alarm bells start chiming. Correct?”
“Of course. So what?”
“So tell your man to switch on the alarm system after I’m outside and watch. And put a hold on those negative ions, man.”
“Make it fast,” Kamanski said and reached for his walkie-talkie as the captain slid out the door and closed it behind him.
“All set,” Kimberlain called to Seven moments later.
With Captain Seven outside, they heard a slight scraping noise, then the door latch began to jiggle. At last it opened ever so slightly, and they moved close enough to see Seven, still on his knees, pressing something against the plastic switch on the hinged side. Next the door opened enough to let him slither through. The alarm had not sounded.
He crawled inside while what looked to be a very thin steel file stayed pinned against the switch. Then he closed the door again with enough care to trap the file as it was. He rose to his feet and brushed the dirt and dust from his knees.
“No bells,” he said, smiling.
“Okay,” Kamanski granted. “So somebody could get into the gazebo, but they couldn’t get to it over the grounds. Not with our surveillance cameras sweeping constantly.”
“What are they trained for?”
“Motion. If a stray one is found, they automatically search for a security medallion keying them that it’s one of our men. Otherwise the alarm would sound instantly. And don’t try telling me this phantom of yours made off with one of our medallions or made one of his own. Neither is possible.”
“Don’t worry, my phantom wouldn’t have needed a medallion.” Captain Seven paused long enough to wink at the Ferryman. “Your alarms go off every time a bush blows in the breeze, Herman?”
“Of course not.”
“Why? What stops them?”
“The lenses pick up the lack of a heat pattern given off by the needles, leaves, and branches.”
“So a stray bush getting pushed around in the wind wouldn’t make bells.”
“I just told you no.”
Captain Seven got down on his stomach and began to shimmy across the gazebo floor with his elbows supplying the thrust. “Ain’t done this since Nam,” he moaned. “Brings back great memories, let me tell you.”
“Get to the point!” Kamanski ordered.
“Get to your doctor, dude. I’ll take my time.” He gazed up at Kimberlain, who didn’t bother to hide his smile. “Picture me, the back of me anyway, covered in a light coating of natural greens. Maybe it’s even part of my clothes, like sewn in. It’s night here at the Lime estate, and nobody’s home except you weirdos. So I dig myself a hole, not much of one, just e
nough for me to slide under the fence to the other side and then fill everything back in so it won’t be noticed. Are you picturing this, Mr. Negative Ions? Okay, so I’m in now and disguised in a way that’ll keep your cameras from locking in on me. My victim isn’t on the grounds yet, so your guards’ attention is low enough to miss me. I’ve done similar stuff before. I know all the tricks.”
Kamanski was listening now.
“I reach the gazebo and make my way inside as demonstrated a couple of seconds ago. The toughest part is over.”
“You’re still not even close to Lime.”
“I’m as close as I need to be.” Captain Seven climbed back to his feet and moved to the front window of the gazebo, which looked up at Lime’s bedroom. “The killer opened this window just like he opened the door. Everything was in place.”
“For what?”
“Let’s head into the mansion and I’ll show you.”
The two Pro-Tech guards were standing before Jordan Lime’s bedroom when they got there.
“Wanted everything to be just the way it was four nights ago,” the captain explained. “Let’s go inside.”
After they did, Kamanski’s eyes swept about him in shock. “What the hell did you do in here?”
“Made some changes. Like I said, I wanted everything to be just like it was the night of the murder.”
“You disturbed evidence, you ass. Evidence!”
“Put a hold on it, Herman. There was no evidence to disturb, nothing worth anything to the police or the FBI … except what they missed. Let me show you something.” He moved to the window, which was open just as it had been the night Jordan Lime had been killed.
Seven had made sure the bulletproof glass curtains were drawn, and they fluttered slightly in the wind as they had Sunday night. The captain pulled a small container of talcum powder from his pocket, twisted it open, and squeezed the nozzle against the back of the curtain. White dusty particles danced into the air of the room. Seven squeezed the container again, and more joined the first batch.