3
Mike bumped Shamu over the curb and piloted the pig of a car around to the back of the buildings. Lumber Jack’s was a real shit-hole, but well-drinks were cheap there, and the way he felt, his budget for the night needed cheap.
His headache had never given him a moment’s peace. His anger at Frank King and Chaz Welsh had kept the thing alive and roaring. It required a little hair of the dog to get it to shut the fuck up for a while. And he needed to sleep like he needed to breathe.
He turned the ignition off and sat there, head back on the head rest, eyes half closed. That fuckstick Welsh wanted him to cut back on the drinking—and he had promised to—but hell, it was Friday night. Work was done until Monday, and he wasn’t even on call.
He opened his eyes and looked, then had to suppress a grin when he spotted her. Poor little Shannon, he thought. But it was nice someone cared enough to see that he got home okay.
He sighed and opened the door. I should go over there. Just walk up and tap on the window. Tell her thanks, take her to dinner. Tell her she’s barking up the wrong tree. The thing was, Shannon was a beautiful woman, and if she’d just try, she would be a real knock out. She would have her pick of men in a town like Oneka Falls—not that many of them deserved a good woman like Shannon.
Part of him wanted to go over, to skip his nightly worship of the bleary-eyed god of debauchery, or even take the pledge. I should get the hell out of Oneka Falls, go home, pack a bag or two, and just get the fuck out of here. Go somewhere like New York City. I wouldn’t even be missed, not by anyone but Shannon.
He shook his head while his body moved on autopilot, exiting the vehicle, closing the door, hitching his pants, turning toward the back entrance of Lumber Jack’s, and walking inside. He ordered a highball without thinking about anything at all and planted his ass on a stool in front of the bar.
Jack gave him the stink eye as he made Mike’s drink. What did I do to Jack? Mike wracked his brain, but he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been in Lumber Jack’s, let alone the last time he’d gotten pissed there. Jack put the drink in front of him but kept his fat hand on the glass. Mike looked up at him and quirked his eyebrows.
“That’ll be $6.50.”
“Just put her on my tab, Jack.” Mike smiled and reached for the drink, but Jack didn’t lift his hand.
“$6.50, Chief,” he grunted.
Mike cocked his head, baffled. “Look, Jack, if I did something to you, I don’t remember what it was, so how about you just tell me, so I can apologize and we can get the fuck on with the evening? I don’t want to drink somewhere I’m not welcome.”
Jack scoffed, eyeing Mike through narrowed eyes. “You don’t remember? Nothing?”
Mike shook his head. “Can’t even remember the last time I was in here, Jack. God’s truth.”
With his free hand, Jack rubbed his eyes and then squeezed the bridge of his nose. “For God’s sake, Chief. Maybe you should look into getting help.”
Mike sat there, stiff with anger, and waited, staring at Jack with his best cop stare.
“And you can shitcan that badass stare, Mike. I knew you when you was a snot-nosed little punk, and you don’t scare me.”
Mike shrugged and shifted his stare to the highball under Jack’s fat hand.
“Lookit here, Chief. I like you, always have. I like your trade. Both those things, though, they don’t count for fuck-all when you bust up my place, scare off the other customers, break the TV, and then threaten to jerk my liquor license.”
Mike leaned back. “I did all that? That was one fuck of a night, eh?” Mike shook his head. “Let me guess. Tequila?”
Jack nodded, trying to keep a solemn expression, but his twitching lips spoiled the effect. Mike always could turn on the charm when he wanted, when his past behavior required it.
“Never serve me Tequila, Jack. I thought we had an understanding?”
“Threatened to arrest me if I didn’t pour your damn shots,” said Jack, the twitching in his lips growing into a smile.
“Yeah, that sounds like something I’d do,” said Mike, pretending to smile along with Jack. “Well, I tell you what, Jack. Give me a pen and one of those napkins.”
Jack got him a pen and slid a napkin in front of him.
Mike wrote:
I, Michael Richards, Chief of O.F.P.D., do hereby swear that no matter what may occur on the premises of Lumber Jack’s Bar and Grill, Jack Laderman is protected by the aegis and auspices of O.F.P.D. and is not to be arrested, threatened, or otherwise bothered by any member of law enforcement working inside the city limits.
“That do her?” he asked, sliding the napkin around so Jack could read it.
“It’s a start,” said Jack, but he lifted his hand away from the highball.
“First sign of trouble, Jack, you have my permission to throw my ass out.”
Jack grunted and walked down to the other end of the bar.
Mike sat, staring at the highball, not touching it, not putting his hand anywhere near it. Maybe Chaz is right, he thought. Fuck, if I can’t even remember being here when I raised a stink like that… Am I blacking out that often? Fear settled into the pit of his stomach like a lump of chilled lead. He tried to count the number of drinks he’d had in the week, but outside of the occasional beer with lunch, and the first couple of drinks each evening, he didn’t have much luck. Maybe I should dry out a little.
“Something wrong with it?” called Jack.
Mike smiled and winked. “Not a thing, Jack. Just letting the anticipation build.”
Jack looked at him like he’d grown a second nose.
Mike grabbed the highball. I’ll leave after this, he promised himself. I’ll go talk to Shannon, go get a meal with her.
4
Becky Lewis—seventeen and oh so innocent—LaBouche found her irresistible. He’d crafted his visage based on his light-hearted conversations with the girl. Becky’s idea of the perfect guy—athletic, tan skin, wind-tossed (even when no wind blew) sun-bleached hair, like a surfer from Southern California—and it resembled the visage he called his “Lee-look” about as much as an elephant resembled a gazelle, but he didn’t mind spending time and energy crafting something special for her. It was the least he could do.
He got out of the silver Subaru WRX he’d purchased for this persona and flipped his shoulder-length hair. The girl’s eyes lingered on him from the upstairs window, and he suppressed a lecherous smile. She was like putty in his hands.
He walked to the front door and rang the bell. Scott Lewis opened the door holding an after-dinner beer. “Hello, Mr. Lewis. Is Becky ready?”
Scott grunted and opened the door wider.
LaBouche had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning at his partner’s tough-guy dad act. He kept his eyes down, and the memory of Lewis saying none of Becky’s boyfriends would meet his gaze almost made him laugh aloud. He walked in and stood in the foyer, waiting for Lewis to say or do something like LaBouche imagined a teenager would.
Lewis closed the door hard and brushed by him on the way to the family room. He sat without inviting LaBouche to, and un-paused the show he was watching on the DVR, some silly thing—a show about guns and shooting. LaBouche had to avert his eyes to avoid broadcasting his amusement. So predictable…always has been—he’s a human, after all.
“Daddy! You don’t watch that crap, so turn it off,” said Becky Lewis from the top of the stairs.
Lewis had the good grace to blush and then he turned off the TV. He didn’t look at LaBouche and it was just as well, LaBouche’s smile refused to die.
“Hi, Becky. You look great!” LaBouche put as much spunk into the last sentence as he could muster, and almost laughed aloud when Lewis spun around to glare at him.
“Oh, so sweet,” Becky said, dripping honey. “Isn’t Lane sweet, Daddy?”
Lewis mumbled something no one could make out.
“Daddy?” asked Becky with an edge to her voice.
LaBouche looked at his shoes. This is hilarious! After all the stories he’s told, after all the interrogations, here he is, brought to heel by his teenaged bitch. A part of him liked Lewis—well, maybe liked was too strong a word, but he sometimes didn’t hate every second they had to spend in each other’s company. “Ready to go?” he asked, doing his best impersonation of a seventeen-year-old love-struck kid.
“Sure,” said Becky, skipping down the stairs.
LaBouche drank her in as she came toward him, staring at her bouncing breasts. She wore a purple halter-top and tight, tight white jeans. He glanced at Lewis out of the corner of his eye. His partner’s face glowed red, and he glowered at LaBouche with obvious distaste. That’s okay, Scotty-boy. If you knew what I had planned for your “little girl,” you’d shoot me on the spot.
Becky walked to her father’s chair and bent to kiss him on the cheek. He never took his eyes off the apparent teenage boy in front of him while LaBouche stared at her ass. “You have her back by eleven,” grumped Lewis.
“Daddy! He’ll have me back by one, just like we agreed.” Becky was quite cute when she pouted.
Smiling a rapacious smile, LaBouche grabbed Becky’s hand and walked her out the door.
It was the last time Scott Lewis ever saw his daughter.
5
Shannon glanced down at her phone. 8:58pm shone from the backlit LCD screen. She nibbled on her lip and thought—for the third time—about going to grab food, but Mike had said he would cut back on his drinking. He’d promised Mr. Welsh he would lay off for a while. What if he makes good on that promise and comes out while you are in the drive-thru line at BurgerWorld? What if he goes somewhere… Silly girl, she chided herself. If Mike made good on his promise, he wouldn’t need looking after. If he packed it in early, she still wouldn’t have the nerve to go up and talk to him, to invite him home for a late supper. He’s probably already eaten in there.
She reached for the ignition, but let her hand fall back to her lap. Nibbling on her lip, she glanced up and down the street again. Shannon reached for the ignition again, and this time turned the key, but only to the accessory position. Her radio blared a dollop of pop music, and she snapped the volume down, eyes averted, blush creeping up her neck. She didn’t want to be looked at, to be noticed, by anyone.
The thing was, she did want to be looked at, to be noticed. She wanted a man to call her “babe” and to be so into her that he wanted to do it with her in public, on the side of the road. She wanted to call him “my love” as he did. It sounded so romantic, so…hot.
She glanced around, shoulders up like she was ashamed, but no one out on the street was looking. Who would give a flip? I could strip naked, and no one would care.
Her stomach growled. It felt like an animal, distinct from herself, that wanted raw meat. Like a wild dog in the woods, hungry, hungry, hungry. She reached for the ignition and started the little car. It wouldn’t hurt to go get a salad from BurgerWorld. If Mike came out and she missed him, well, that just meant he wasn’t drunk, right? That meant he was headed home for the night.
But she knew better, and she hesitated. What if Mike came out, stumbling drunk like he did every night, jumped into his cop car and sped away while she was gone? What would happen if Mike got hurt in a drunken accident? What if he…died?
If that happened, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself. She reached out and snapped off the ignition. She glanced down at her phone. 9:10pm. If he doesn’t come out in fifteen minutes, I’ll go for food, she promised herself.
6
Tobias smiled as the bolts slammed closed on the seclusion room door. Blessed silence, he thought, for at least twelve hours. Still, he could have done without the Haldol injection, but everything had its cost.
He relaxed on the bed and tried to pretend he wasn’t strapped to it with inch-wide leather belts. The walls were painted a faint shade of pink. Probably called cotton candy or coral shell pink…idiots.
To his right, there was one of the narrow windows like those in the activity room. He stared out of it, letting his mind go, letting himself float.
When the pictures flashed before his eyes, he smiled like he was greeting a friend and closed his eyelids.
He was floating near the ceiling, looking down at himself, strapped to the bed. His bed-self was smiling. An insistent tug pulled at him and he didn’t fight it. Reality slipped and lurched, and he was looking down at someone else.
An old man—a naked, shit-covered old man. Tobias recognized him, even after almost twenty years. The guy was a monster—hard to forget—but he had forgotten the man in every important detail. He’d worked hard to forget him.
“You think you can fuck me and get away with it? You think you can betray me like this,” the old man shouted. He jumped up from his bunk and slammed his shoulder into the reinforced metal door of his cell.
A stranger’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Inmate, I’ve just mobilized the ERT. You know how this always goes, so why not make it easy for everyone today?”
“Fuck you! How’s that for easy, you little prick? You fucking Tom. Why don’t you come down here yourself? Scared of little old me?” The old man glanced up at the corner where Tobias floated. He grimaced and waved his hand as if in dismissal. “And get that fucker out of here.”
“Do you like being strapped to the bed, inmate? Or is it the little chemical vacation you enjoy?”
Information flooded into Tobias’s mind. The man on the intercom was Max Tember, the OIC of Sing Sing’s SHU. The shit-covered man was a longtime resident.
“Three kinds of convict end up where you’re at, inmate. You aware of that? Protection cases, behavior cases, and mental cases. You’re starting to fit that last category pretty well, inmate. Is that the rep you want to have? Psychotic shit-slinger?”
“Fuck you, Tom.” Despite the tough words, the prisoner sat down on the bed.
“Or is it all an act to keep you out of gen-pop? Are you too much the coward to deal with life in prison?”
The inmate scoffed and spit. At first, Tobias thought the guy was spitting at him, but then he realized it was the camera in the corner behind him that was the target.
“The SHU is hard time, inmate. Locked in that cell for twenty-three out of every twenty-four hours. Showers twice a week. No human contact. Well, unless you classify being held down by the guards as human contact, and knowing you, you just might. You’ve been in the SHU for over a decade, inmate. Don’t you want to go back to gen-pop? Spend a little time outside? Have a few privileges for a change?”
The old man turned his head away from the camera. “My girl likes it better here,” he mumbled.
“What? I couldn’t make that out.”
The guard hadn’t heard it, but Tobias had. His girl? he thought. Inmates don’t have girlfriends, do they?
“So, inmate, what’s it to be? The ERT is stacking up outside your door. You can either get down on your knees, back to the door, with your fingers interlaced behind your head, or you can keep on with what you’re doing. In the first case, you get a rip and a shower, but you will go back to your cell. In the second case, you get a few bruises, hosed off with the high-pressure hose, and strapped in the chair for twelve hours, give or take. Which is it going to be?”
The old guy looked up at the camera, his face a study in wrath. “You know what, Tom? You know what?”
“What is it, inmate?”
“Send those pussy motherfuckers on in here. You tell ‘em to come in swinging, because I’m in here waiting, and I’m a motherfucking killer! You hear me that time, Tom?”
Tember sighed into the intercom microphone. It sounded like a series of shotgun blasts. “Calm down, inmate. You remember what happens when you get yourself all wound up, don’t you?”
“You’re a big fucking man, Tom, safe up there in your little bulletproof tower. When they come back for me, you and I will dance. Why don’
t you come down here so I can check out your steps?”
“Who is this ‘they’ you’re always jabbering about, inmate?”
The prisoner held up his hands and then pretended to zip his lip.
“Just get down on your knees, inmate. Do it the easy way for once. Last chance.”
“You send those faggot fucks on in, Tom. I’ll kill every last one of you bastards. Maybe not today, but someday! You know what I did. I can do it again given half a chance.”
“Execute,” said Tember on the intercom.
The locks on the door rattled, and then the door slid open. Beyond it were six men in body armor. The one in front had a full-length plexiglass riot shield with metal studs protruding through it to the outside face—its built in taser.
“Come on!” The shit-covered man shouted as he danced back away from the door. “Let’s get some, you shitbird motherfuckers! Come get some!”
The man with the shield sniggered and stepped into the room. “You need new material, inmate. Get the fuck down on the ground with your nose in the dirt.”
“Yeah, you make me, Tom! You make me!”
The guard with the shield walked forward without pause, always keeping all his body parts behind the shield, backing the old guy into the corner.
Contrary to his rhetoric, the man didn’t go on the offensive. Instead, he seemed relieved, backed into a corner where he wouldn’t have to fight. It all had the patina of an oft-repeated bit of theater.
Once the guard had him pushed back into the corner, the other five guards crowded into the small cell. As Tobias looked down at their Kevlar helmets, he could catch snatches of their thoughts.
Fucking child abuser, thought one.
Some hard-ass… Big bad man doesn’t want to fight, thought another.
Pressed into the corner, the old man looked up, seeming to glare right into Tobias’s eyes. “Enjoying this, you little fuck?” he asked. “You little brat! You fucking Tom!”
Nightmare Page 12