by Jack Heath
He rolls off me, and even as I’m coughing and spluttering against the sudden oxygen overdose, I roll onto him and pin down his wrists, one with my hand, one with my knee.
Then someone else grabs the back of my shirt and hauls me off him. The other bodyguard, perhaps. I try to wriggle free, but something hard hits me in the back of the head and then I’m too dizzy to struggle.
‘Quit squirming, Blake,’ someone says. ‘You’re coming with us.’
As the bodyguard picks himself up off the floor, his colleague drags me out of the bedroom.
‘You know I found a human foot in this psycho’s freezer?’ one of the bodyguards says.
‘Holy shit! You, uh, better bag it, I guess. Warner doesn’t want anything illegal left behind.’
‘That’ll take a while. Did you see all the pills in that bedroom?’
The first bodyguard walks into the kitchen while the second drags me into the living area. A plastic bag rustles as one of them wraps up John Johnson’s foot.
Someone pounds on the door, and everyone freezes.
‘Police!’ A woman’s voice, but not Thistle. ‘Open up!’
Warner’s goons look at each other. One of them claps a sweaty palm over my mouth, putting enough pressure on my chin to keep my jaw closed. I swallow the rising tide of vomit.
‘Leave the pills,’ one bodyguard whispers. ‘Go!’
The bodyguards pull me through the kitchen, out the back door and onto the back porch. A smart cop would have sent her partner around the back to see if I’m running. But no one’s out here.
The goons haul me over the knots of weeds in the tiny backyard and through the gap in the rear neighbour’s fence. Somewhere behind us, I can hear wood snapping as the cops break down my door.
I’m dragged through the neighbour’s carport and out onto the sidewalk. A van pulls up alongside us, the door slides open, and I see a thick-necked guy with a goatee cradling a shotgun.
The bodyguards push me into the back. One of them climbs in after me, while the other gets into the cabin with the driver. The guy with the shotgun slams the door, and the van lurches into motion.
‘What’s this about?’ I ask.
‘Shut up,’ says the guy with the gun.
I do. Blood trickles down the back of my neck, making my shirt collar sticky.
The bodyguards looked surprised when the cops showed up, which means that Warner sent them before she knew I was a fugitive. Why? What does she want with me?
The van trundles along for maybe twenty minutes, out of the suburbs and onto a disused highway. We pass a bullet-spattered sign which says WELCOME TO SALVATION HILL. Salvation Hill is one of seven ghost towns scattered around Houston County, abandoned for more than a hundred years. My heart goes a little quicker.
The van pulls over near a Baptist church, the windows missing, the crucifix on the roof knobby with dried bird shit. Other than the church and an empty sawmill, there’s nothing but flat scrubland all the way to the horizon.
Shotgun guy’s finger is on the trigger, so I don’t move as someone opens the door from the outside.
It’s another guy, with another shotgun.
‘Get out,’ he says.
I clamber out of the van. Charlie Warner is holding a spiral-bound notebook and looking at me with bored contempt.
‘Mr Blake,’ she says. ‘We need to talk.’
‘You could have just called me,’ I say. ‘There’s no need for this.’ I gesture at the two guys with shotguns, the two bodyguards and the driver, who is getting out of the van and drawing a pistol. He’s left the keys in the ignition. We must not be staying long.
‘I thought about that,’ Warner says. ‘But I couldn’t decide whether to call your home number or your office at the FBI.’
I don’t have an office, but I get her meaning.
Warner beckons to her goons. One of them presses his shotgun to my spine. If he pulls the trigger, my intestines will burst out like the monster in Alien.
‘Move,’ he says.
We all walk over to the sawmill. There aren’t many of these in Houston anymore—a lot of them went out of business when it became cheaper to import lumber from Belize, and a couple were destroyed in accidental explosions. This one is still in good condition. The floor is polished, gleaming in the setting sun. The glass in the windows is intact. Someone is still using it for something.
As I’m frogmarched through the front door, I see plank after plank of cedar, hickory and mesquite. But my eye is drawn to all the saws. Hacksaws, drag saws, rip saws, teeth glinting in the reflected moonlight.
My skin is crawling. I know why we’re here now.
‘I’m not a cop,’ I say. ‘I helped the FBI out on some kidnapping cases. That’s all.’
‘In what way did you help?’
‘The cops are idiots,’ I say, hoping this will please her. ‘I look at the evidence, I tell them who did it. It’s not hard.’
The driver is unfolding a sheet of plastic on the floor, like the kind painters use. He weighs down one corner with a plastic jug. Yellowish fluid sloshes around inside.
The preparations made, he puts a cigarette in his mouth and fumbles with a lighter. Warner’s eye twitches, but she doesn’t tell him not to light it. She’s practising her self-control.
‘And this role,’ she says. ‘Did it require you to steal a car, or was that your own idea?’
My heart beats a little faster. ‘What car?’
‘The car you sent my boys out to find. The car that turned up with switched plates and Philip Hall’s body in the trunk.’
CHAPTER 21
Irene died in Vermont. Ike died in Canada. Nobody mourned them—in fact, people rejoiced. Why?
No.
No way.
She cannot be saying what I think she’s saying, or else I truly have gone mad.
‘Philip Hall is dead?’ I ask.
‘Don’t you dare pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,’ Charlie Warner says. ‘Would you care to tell me why you sent me to look for a guy you already killed?’
‘I didn’t kill him,’ I say. ‘I didn’t even know he was dead.’
‘I’m confused,’ Warner says. ‘I don’t like being confused.’
I barely hear her. A dead man can’t confess. A dead man can’t exonerate me.
But that barely matters, since I’m about to die. One of the shotgun guys has propped his gun up against the wall and is plugging a circular saw into a wall outlet.
‘I’m as confused as you,’ I say. ‘More so. But we can figure this out.’
‘My theory is that you just can’t help yourself,’ Warner says. ‘You killed Philip Hall for fun, and you tried to set me up to take the blame.’
‘I didn’t. I swear to you.’
But at the same time, I’m remembering how my roommate’s arm disappeared. Later I found blood all over my bed. I know I’m a cannibal, I know I’m a sleepwalker, I know I was hunting Philip Hall, and I know he’s turned up dead. In my car.
I know that I’m crazy. But what if I’m crazier than I thought? What if I did do this?
‘Thirty-five years ago, a young couple moved from Philly to Houston, Texas. Thirty-four years ago, they had a baby boy. Thirty-three years ago—’
She’s done some research. ‘This isn’t about my parents,’ I say.
‘Someone broke into their house. He shot the man in the face and the woman in the chest. If the bullet had been an inch lower, it would have hit the baby she was feeding.’
The saw blade starts whirling. The shotgun guy walks towards me, gripping the handles. My stomach churns.
‘This is not about my parents,’ I say again.
‘The robber fled,’ Warner continues, ‘but no one heard the gunfire. The baby should have starved to death. Yet a week later, the mailman heard him crying. When the cops broke down the door, they found that the baby had eaten most of his mother’s breast—’
‘This isn’t about my fucking parents!’ I s
cream, and throw myself at her. My heart feels like a flaming trash can. My teeth seem too big for my mouth, as though I’m turning into a werewolf.
One of the bodyguards trips me up, and I land face first in the sawdust. It burns my nostrils and makes my eyes water.
‘You’re a mad dog,’ Warner says. ‘And you gotta be put down.’
I can hear the snarling teeth of the saw edging closer.
‘You should have just shot me,’ I whisper.
‘Sorry. But it has to be a painful death. I need people to be afraid of lying to me.’
I scoop up a handful of sawdust.
Warner is quicker than her men. Even as I’m throwing the sawdust at the driver’s face, she’s yelling, ‘Shoot him!’ and throwing herself facedown on the floor, but no one pulls the trigger fast enough. The cloud of sawdust reaches the blazing end of the driver’s cigarette first.
The explosion sucks all the air out of the room with a dark whumph. Even with my eyes squeezed shut and my arms over my face, I can see the light and feel the heat. A hurricane of grit scrapes my skin. Everyone is screaming, except the driver, who probably died instantly.
There’s no time to be dazzled. The others will recover soon, and for all I know, I’ve lit a fuse that will send the whole building up in flames. Sawdust is incredibly flammable.
I scramble out the door and head for the van, tripping and sliding in the dirt. Halfway there, I hear Warner’s voice: ‘Freeze, asshole!’
I keep running. A shotgun booms out across the plains. No dust kicks up, so she must have aimed high. I collide with the van, yank open the door and jump in.
The second shotgun blast hits the van. It sounds like a sudden hailstorm against the panelling. I twist the key, shove my foot down on the accelerator, and then the van is zooming back out onto the road. It’s a full minute before I start breathing again and realise that I have no clue where I’m going.
Philip Hall is dead. I’m wanted for his murder.
But I didn’t do it. The more I think about it, the more impossible it seems. I might be a killer, and I might be losing my mind, but there’s no way I tracked down a wanted fugitive in my sleep, murdered him and concealed his body without knowing about it. I’ve been too goddamn busy.
So how did he get into the trunk of my car?
The body looked very fresh, but I doubt someone put him there in broad daylight while my car was parked near Philip Hall’s house. It must have happened the night before last, while I was destroying Johnson’s bones and cleaning my bed. Someone broke into my trunk and put Hall’s body inside while the car was in my driveway.
Philip Hall wasn’t the kidnapper. Nor was he Robert’s father—Robert’s picture only seemed to resemble Cameron because the boy I met was Robert, not Cameron. But Philip is sure to be blamed for the kidnappings, since the property deed for the warehouse was found conveniently on his desk.
A police helicopter thunders past overhead, the searchlight cutting through the darkness below. The FBI knows I’m nearby, but they must think that I’m on foot. The light sweeps over the van and keeps moving through the shadows on the other side of the highway.
I need to decide. Do I exit the USA, leaving Thistle behind thinking I did something I didn’t do? Or do I stay, and search for the real culprit, risking my freedom and my life?
Houston is as dark as the night sky. Knowing that a killer is out there, somewhere, gives this city a sense of menace. Two killers, actually. Him and me, circling one another in the gloom, like Earth and Theia, headed for a collision that will obliterate one of us.
Blood is running down my lip; my nose was broken when the bodyguard punched me. I bang my fist on the steering wheel, and the keys jingle under the ignition. This would be so much easier if only I knew the identity of the real kidnapper—
And suddenly I do.
Someone who might have met both Robert and Cameron, and noticed the resemblance. Someone who seemed more interested in the FBI’s investigation than any of the other witnesses. Someone whose best years are over, leaving him with money troubles and an addiction to feed. Someone who’s been to my house. Knows where I live.
I take the next exit off the highway, humming ‘Baby, I Ain’t Your Man’.
•
A light is on behind the window.
The apartment block is even worse than I expected. Bricks exposed by peeling paint, roof tiles chipped. Windows graffitied and close enough together that the apartments are either pretty big and have two windows each, or really small with only one. I’m guessing it’s the latter.
You can’t hide two teenage boys and their parents in a space like that. I’m now pretty sure that Robert, Cameron and both their families are dead.
Anger burns behind my jaw. But I can’t tell if it’s for what the killer did to them, or what he’s done to me.
I climb the stairs. It’s tough, with my twisted ankle and my shredded arm. Every step makes my broken nose throb. But I have both my fists and most of my teeth.
The apartment I want is on the first floor. There are two brass locks on the door. Picking them would give him time to hear me, grab a gun, and shoot me as I came in. There’s a good chance there’s a spare key in the dead pot plant by the door, but even if there is, opening the door the usual way poses the same risk, especially if he’s got a chain.
I can hear the thickest strings of an acoustic guitar chiming inside. Doesn’t sound like a recording. The bastard has no idea that I’m coming.
I raise my foot and aim for the hinges. No second chances—I have to give this all I’ve got.
The plan is to storm in, grab him, and make him tell me where the bodies are. If they’re on the premises, then I’ll drag him to the lockup. If they’re not, I’ll beat some other proof of his guilt out of him and drag him just the same.
I was scared of him before. Not now. Now it’s just me and another dead man walking. His fists against mine—assuming I don’t give him time to get to his gun.
The door makes a sound like a thunderclap as it splinters and falls through its frame. I storm in just in time to see Harry Crudup’s head whirl towards the sound, eyes wide. Incredibly, rather than just dropping the guitar, he tries to balance it back on its rubber stand as I run forwards and grab him by the throat. The guitar hits the floor with a boom.
‘Found you,’ I say.
‘What the fuck?’ he rasps. He doesn’t know how I tracked him down. He doesn’t know about Johnson’s address book. He doesn’t know that I finally figured out the connection between the two kids: their music teacher.
He swings a fist at me. I weave around it, get behind him, put my free hand on the back of his bald head, and slam his face down against a nearby table. His heel springs backwards towards my crotch. I snap my knees together to block it, and put my forearm across the back of his neck.
I can’t let myself bite him. Not if he’s going to prove my innocence to Thistle.
‘I’ve got the money,’ he says.
I figured he’d have spent it by now—junkies don’t have much self-restraint. The money is all the evidence I need.
‘Where?’
‘Just don’t hurt me, man,’ he says. ‘Please.’
‘Where?’
He points. I drag him through the door he pointed to and find myself in a tiny bedroom. There’s no sheet on the mattress, nothing but a rusty alarm clock on his bookshelf. I wonder if he rents this place, or if he’s squatting.
Crudup moves towards the bed. I pull him back like a dog on a leash. ‘Just tell me.’
‘Beneath the carpet,’ he says. ‘Under the bed.’
I lift up the mattress with my free hand. Through the chicken-wire bedframe, I can see a lump under the carpet. Too flat for a gun. But it looks too flat for twenty thousand dollars, too.
‘Get it,’ I say.
He crawls under the bed, slips his hand through a slit in the carpet, and digs out a bundle of notes. Thrusts it at me. I don’t take it. It can’t be more than five hu
ndred bucks.
He presses it into my hand. ‘That’s more than I owe,’ he says. ‘And it’s all I got. I swear.’
‘Owe?’
There’s terror in his eyes. ‘You tell Mr Johnson that’s everything I got!’
Does he seriously think I’m here as an enforcer for my ex-roommate?
‘I’m not here about that,’ I say.
He looks baffled.
‘Where did you hide the bodies?’
You could put a billiard ball in his mouth without touching his lips. ‘What bodies?’
‘Cameron Hall! Robert Shea! Larry—’
‘No, Cameron’s alive!’ he says. ‘Some guy found him in a warehouse.’
‘That was Robert Shea!’
‘Okay, Rober Shea found him. Whoever.’
I raise my fist, and he cowers. And that’s when I really know I’ve got the wrong guy. If he had the stomach to kill six people and remove a kidney, he wouldn’t be this scared of a guy like me. And if he wasn’t afraid, he couldn’t make it look that real.
Crudup is innocent, and I’ve run out of suspects. The cops will catch me soon, if Warner’s people don’t first. My life is over.
Crudup is blubbering on the ground, his brown skin gleaming with sweat. It looks almost like pork crackling. This could be my last chance for a decent meal.
‘Please don’t hurt me,’ he sobs.
I crouch down next to him. He’s a big guy, and not too fit. Lots of delicious flab.
‘Please,’ he says again.
I take about two hundred dollars from Johnson’s stash and hand it to him. ‘That’s to fix your door,’ I say. ‘John Johnson is dead. You don’t owe him anything anymore.’
He thinks it’s a trick. The money falls to the floor.
An apology wouldn’t do much good at this point. Wouldn’t lessen his fear, nor the guilt in my stomach. But maybe there’s something else I can give him.
‘But if you’re not in rehab in two days,’ I say, ‘then I’m coming back for you. Got that?’
He just looks at me. I leave.