Incubi

Chapter 24

Jack woke up in his clothes. Aw, Jesus, not again. He staggered to the bathroom, groaning, and threw up. Only when he staggered back did he notice Faye sitting there.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Her detached gaze was the worst response he could fathom.

“I broke my promise.”

“You sure did,” she concurred.

“Something happened. I…” Only shreds of memory flitted back. He sat down on the bed and rubbed his eyes. “Somebody told me something about someone. I guess I couldn’t handle it, and I got drunk.”

“It’s that girl, isn’t it? Veronica?”

Jack nodded.

“You were calling out her name in your sleep.”

When Jack Cordesman fucks up, he thought, there are no half measures. How could he explain this? “I’m an alcoholic, Faye. I have been for a while, I guess. When I’m faced with something I can’t deal with, I drink.”

“That’s supposed to be an excuse? How long do you think you can go on like this? This was the second night in a row you’ve had to be brought home. You’re not in control of your own life.”

“I know, I can’t help it.” He said. “I’m a drunk.”

“If that’s what you think, then that’s all you’ll ever be.” Faye got up and walked out of the bedroom.

He followed after her. “Why don’t you give me a chance!”

She turned at the door with her briefcase. “A chance for what?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t know. What are you saying?”

What was he saying? “I thought that when this Triangle thing is over, we might, you know—”

“Don’t even say it, Jack. Three nights ago you told me you still loved Veronica. Now you’re saying you don’t?”

Jack sat down in the middle of the stairs. “I guess I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m trying to get over it, that’s all.”

“So what am I? The consolation prize?”

“That’s not what I mean at all and you fucking know it. You ever been in love, Faye, and have it not work?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Once.”

“And all you had to do was blink and you were over it?”

“No, of course not.”

“How long did it take you?”

She looked at him. Her anger fizzed away. “A year,” she said.

“And if something happened to that person, say he disappeared, say he got in some kind of trouble, wouldn’t you still be concerned about him, even if it happened after the relationship fell apart?”

Her pause drew out. “Yeah, I’d still be concerned.”

“All right, fine. That’s what’s happening with me right now. So why don’t you cut me a little—”

Faye left and slammed the door. Outstanding, he thought, chin in his palm. He went down to the kitchen, drank some orange juice, and threw up again. Then he dialed Craig’s number, to find out what he’d forgotten about last night. Craig’s roommate answered.

“Craig there?”

“No,” she said. Jack could never remember her name; all he knew was that she rented him a room up the street. She sounded distressed. “The police took him,” she said.

“The police? What for? He get in trouble or something?”

“No, they just took him. For questioning, they said.”

“Questioning about what?”

“I don’t know!”

“Calm down, will you. I’m a cop myself. I might be able to help him out. But I need to know who took him.”

“I told you! Police!”

“What kind of police? City cops, state? County?”

“It was those county assholes.”

Jack frowned. “All right, I’ll—”

She hung up. Questioning? he wondered. But before he could make another call, the phone rang.

“Jack? Randy. We got another one.”

“Holy mother of shit,” Jack muttered. He felt faint, sick, and enraged all at once.

“And we’ve also got something else,” Randy added.

“What?”

“Two witnesses.”

“That’s it!” Jan Beck shouted nasally. “There’s too many people in here! Everybody out!” Jack and Randy stood behind three uniforms at the door. She pointed at the uniforms. “Out!” she pointed at Randy. “Out! You too, Captain. Out!”

“You heard the lady,” Jack said. “Everybody out.”

It was a cramped sixth-floor apartment, one bedroom, but nice, in a nice location. Jan Beck needed room to do her thing; Jack had only glimpsed the bedroom, but that’s all he’d needed to show him what he’d already seen twice this week. A room vibrant in red streaks, redecorated in blood, the pale victim lashed to the drenched bed. Red everywhere. Red.

Everything was the same, Randy had informed him upon arrival. No forced entry, exit off the balcony. Neighbors on either side had reported hearing a commotion at about 2:15 a.m.

“Susan Lynn,” Randy said in the living room. “Real estate broker, thirty-five. She owns the place.”

“Same kind of rep as the other two?”

“Yeah, only she got around more.” Randy flashed Jack a promo picture the brokerage had given him. Elegant face, short black hair. Big crystal-blue eyes and a pretty mouth.

“I’ve seen this girl,” Jack said.

“Everybody has. She hangs out a lot in the local bars. Every single keep we showed this to has seen her. She made the circuit. Couple places—’Dillo’s, McGuffy’s, Middleton’s — have barred her.”

“For what?”

“Slutting around. It’s bad for business. One night she got plastered at McGuffy’s and started taking off her clothes. Bunch of other places caught her blowing guys in the men’s room.”

“She comes to the Undercroft every now and then.”

“We know, and that’s where we hit pay dirt. She was in the Undercroft last night.”

Very slowly Jack said, “I was there last night too.”

“So we heard. Your pal Craig is down at the station for questioning. He says he saw her leave with two guys after last call.”

“Two guys?”

Randy nodded. “You remember seeing her, Jack?”

Did he? I don’t remember seeing anything last night. “I got fucked up. I don’t even remember what time I left.”

The look on Randy’s face told all. Drunk again, it said. “We should have a good composite in a couple hours.”

“You find out anything about her background?”

“We’re working on it. All we know right now is she’s a local.”

“Same as the other two.”

“Right. And something else — she was a poet.”

A poet? Jack thought. “We found poetry at Rebecca Black’s too.”

“Yeah, some coincidence, huh? Susan Lynn was a bit more serious, though. She’d had some published, local literary mags.”

Jack rubbed a hand over his face. He’d forgotten to shave. “Maybe a coincidence, maybe not. We’ll have to check out what schools they went to, literature courses, poetry classes. It’s all a mutual interest.”

“But Shanna Barrington didn’t write poetry.”

“No, but take a look at what she did do.”

Randy shrugged. “She worked for an advertising firm.”

“Right, and don’t you see a commonality there? Shanna Barrington was the director of the—”

“Art department,” Randy remembered. “I still don’t—”

“Karla Panzram says the killers have some very definite artistic inclinations. So far they’ve murdered three women, and all three also had definite artistic inclinations.”

“I don’t know, Jack. Sounds like you’re digging in shit to me.”

“Maybe,” Jack said. “You dig in shit long enough, though, sometimes you find gold.”

“Make way!” someone shouted. Two techs rushed out bearing a stretcher. On the stretcher lay the familiar dark green transport bag full of the remnants of one Susan Lynn. Jack watched the woman leave her home for the last time. Several more techs came out next, holding boxes of relevant evidence. Last was Jan Beck, in bright red TSD utilities, walking briskly as she snapped off rubber gloves. The gloves were dark scarlet.

“This one looks different,” she said.

“How so?”

“I’m not quite sure yet, sir. Stop by the shop later; I’ll know more then.” She brushed by the uniforms at the door and left.

“Come on,” Randy invited. “Let’s talk to our witnesses.”

But Jack stood spacily in the dark apartment, his eyes wandering. This place didn’t feel like someone’s home at all. It felt like a robbed grave.

Craig looked haggard as he sat beside the composite artist in interview room No. 1. The artist herself, a heavyset woman with a dark ponytail, looked flustered.

“How’s it coming?” Jack asked.

Craig sputtered. The artist said, “It’s not.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Can’t get anything down,” Craig said, laxing back at the table. “I saw them, but I can’t remember what I saw.”

“Come on,” Randy said. “A small bar like the ’Croft, two well-dressed white males sitting with a regular?”

“They pay cash?” Jack asked.

“Yeah. Their tab came to about forty bucks. They paid with small stuff, left a double-saw for tip.”

“They pay hers too?”

Craig nodded.

“What did they drink?”

“The guys drank Patriziers, three apiece. Susan was drinking Cardinals, her usual. She had four of them, and a sandwich.”

“Were any of them smoking? They leave any butts?”

“None of them were smoking. In fact, they were the only group sitting up at the bar that didn’t use their ashtray.”

“How about glasses? Did the guys pour their beers or did they drink out of the bottles?”

“Bottles,” Craig said.

Randy was smirking. “For someone who doesn’t remember anything, you sure remember a lot.”

“I told you, the thing I don’t remember is what they looked like.”

“Come on, they were sitting right up front at the bar. You were serving them for two hours, looking right at them. Did you know her at all?”

“Yeah,” Craig said, tapping a Marlboro. “I knew her pretty well.”

“How well?” Randy interjected.

“Not that well. She’d come in a lot and put the make on me, you know, flirt around.”

“She’d make herself available to you, in other words.”

“Yeah, you could say that. But I never—”

“Right, you never took her up on it, huh? A good-looking woman like that? Never?”

“Never,” Craig said. “I’m just saying I knew her. People come in on a regular basis, you get to know them, you talk to them, you know?”

“Sure,” Randy said. “You talk to her last night?”

“Yeah, I said hello to her.”

“What did she say?”

“The usual shit, how ya doin’, what’s new, that sort of thing.”

“And the two guys were with her then?”

“Yeah.” Craig lit his cigarette, sighing smoke. “And you’re gonna love this. She even introduced me to them.”

Jack and Randy leaned over the table at the same time. Jack said, “You mean you met these two guys?”

“Yeah.”

“She introduce you to them by their names?”

“Yeah.”

“Craig, what were their names?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Jesus Christ!” Randy slammed his fist down on the table. “You saw them but you don’t remember what they looked like! She told you their names but you don’t remember what they were!”

“I remember Susan introducing me to them. I remember shaking their hands and saying nice to meet ya, or something like that.”

“And what did they say?”

Craig slouched. “I don’t remember, man.”

Randy’s face looked pressurized. Jack shifted the angle to cool him off. “Does the ’Croft throw away the empty bottles?”

“We take them twice a week to the recycling plant. All the downtown restaurants and bars do.”

“You still have last night’s bottles?”

“They’re still downstairs, boxed up. We haven’t taken them out yet.”

“Did many other people order Patrizier last night?”

“No, just the two guys with Susan. It’s zero-alcohol beer; not many people buy it. Tastes like German lager, but no buzz.”

“I’ll need those bottles for our evidence people. The prints’ll tell us if we’re dealing with the same two killers, or two new ones. How hard will it be to retrieve those bottles?”

“Easy. They’d be in the last box we stacked last night.”

“Good, I want you to go down to the ’Croft right now with one of our techs. Give him the bottles. Then go home, get some rest.”

“Get some rest?” Randy objected. “We need a composite!”

“Get some rest,” Jack repeated, “think about what you saw, and maybe it’ll come back to you. We’re looking of any details you can give us. Hair color, eye color, moles, scars, anything. Two of the guys we’re looking for are probably tall, well built, and attractive. We know from pubic hair analysis that one is dark blond, the other’s got darker hair. We also know that the same black wig was worn by each of the first two killers. Go home and give it some thought. Maybe some of that will ring some bells.”

Dejected, Craig nodded.

Jack led him out and arranged for TSD to meet him at the ’Croft for the Patrizier bottles. But out in the parking lot, before Craig got into his Alfa, Jack asked, “Was I in the bar last night when the two guys were there?”

“No,” Craig said. “You passed out. I had the cook fill in while I took you home. The two guys came in sometime after that.” Craig donned his shades and looked up. “But…”

“Yeah?”

“I do remember one thing. It was just when I was leaving to take you home. As I was pulling out of the lot, another car was pulling in. The only reason I remember is that it looked like a classy set of wheels, high-buck stuff.”

“Is there any detail you can give me about that vehicle?”

“Just that it was big and black. It could’ve been a limo.”

“I hope you’ve got a sense of humor,” Randy said.

“In this business? What do you think?”

Randy opened the door to interview room No. 2. “And I hope you brought plenty of cigarettes,” he added.

What Jack saw sitting at the table made him think of the word “emaciation.” They called them “dock bums” any port city’s equivalent to an alley denizen. Health Services did a good job of taking care of them in this state — shelters, doctors, food — but there was a percentage of this human detritus that simply refused assistance. These people wore their homes on their backs, slept under boat tarps, and ate out of dumpsters. According to statistics, more than fifty percent were chronic schizophrenics.

“Mr. Carlson, this is Captain Cordesman. I’d like you to tell him what you told me a little while ago. Okay?”

The man at the table wore rotten tennis shoes, an oil-smudged dress shirt, and a crinkled black tie with an embroidered half-moon on it. Folded over the next chair was a tattered gray overcoat. The man’s hair, a dull steel-gray, was neatly combed back and longer than Jack’s. The lined, weather-beaten face captured some vague impression of lost power, a Lear of the streets, a proud exile. His teeth were rotten. His left eye showed only cloudy white.

“Do you believe in gods?” Carlson looked up and asked.

“God or gods?” Jack specified.

“It makes no difference.”

“Well, I’m really not sure, Mr. Carlson. But I think so.”

“I would like a cigarette, please.”

Jack slid the man his lighter and a pack of Camels. Carlson removed a cigarette, examined it, then tapped it down. “You should always light the imprinted end when you’re smoking a filterless. The blank end is the end you put in your mouth.”

“Why is that, Mr. Carlson?”

“So if the enemy finds the butts, they won’t know what brand it is. They won’t know if it’s their own people or yours. I know of men who’ve died because they lit the wrong end. The enemy finds the butts, then they know what direction you’re headed. You ever thought of that? That you can give your position away with a cigarette?”

“No, Mr. Carlson, but it’s an interesting point. Were you in the war?”

“I was one of the gods.” Carlson lighted the Camel savoringly, sucking deep. “We rescued twenty-two thousand people in one day. I T.C.’d an Easy Eight. We thought it was all over by then, but we were wrong. I was a captain too.”

This was not going to be easy, Jack realized, but then Randy offered, “Mr. Carlson was a tank commander in World War II. He won the Distinguished Service Cross.”

“Me and my boys had twenty-seven kills. Tigers and Panthers. The Tigers were tough to open, had over a foot of armor up front. Only way you could get them was to hit the turret ring. The Panthers were easy; they were diesel and always leaked at the lines. All you had to do was put one phosphorus round on the back deck.”

“Mr. Carlson was in the unit that liberated Buchenwald,” Randy said.

Jesus, Jack thought. No wonder he’s so screwy.

“It goes back to what I was saying, about gods.”

Gods? “Mr. Carlson, tell me what you saw last night.”

“We’re all points of force,” Carlson answered, smoke drifting smoothly from his nostrils. “Everybody. We got bodies, sure, but inside, we’re all points of force. You can define a point of force as a unit of will. Do you follow me, Captain? What is all of life about? Why are we here? There is a reason; it’s not just an accident, even though that’s what most folks think these days.”

“All right,” Jack ventured. “Why are we here?”

“To prove the nature of our will.”

There was something haunting about this man. He spoke softly but with intense deliberation. There was belief growing deep behind the tattered features and racked body. Jack felt a chill; Carlson seemed to be looking at him with the dead left eye, and seeing something.

“The world is a passion play,” Carlson said, “an eternal drama where each actor represents either graciousness or corruption. Bet that sounds silly to you.”

“No, Mr. Carlson. It doesn’t sound silly at all.”

“Gods,” Carlson repeated.

Randy leaned against the wall. Carlson was crazy, obviously, but why did his madness seem so effervescent? Jack very much wanted to know. He wanted to see this man’s heart, not just the blasted face and blind white eye.

“You got a head here?”

“Sure, Mr. Carlson. Down the hall to the left.”

Carlson got up, joints ticking. Yes, Jack thought. He looks like a conquered king. A corporal at the door led the old man to the rest room.

“He’s been in Crownsville a bunch of times,” Randy explained. “City cops pick him up wandering the docks at night. Carlson gives them the spiel about gods and points of force and all that, so they check him in for a standard psych evaluation. He doesn’t take Social Security and he turned down a disability pension from the Army. I kind of admire him.”

“Me too,” Jack concurred.

“Too bad he’s incompetent to testify.”

Jack lit up and blew smoke. “I don’t care about that. I just want to know what he saw. No word salad, no pink elephants or aliens in his pocket. He doesn’t seem to be story-mixing, and he doesn’t seem schizo, does he?”

“No. And that’s what ticks me.”

“Why?”

“Listen to the rest of his story, Jack.”

Carlson teetered back in, his head held up beneath old flowing hair like a mane: pride in ruins.

“Mr. Carlson, when was the last time you ate?”

“I eat three times a day, son. Be surprised what the downtown restaurants toss out. I probably eat better than you.”

Jack recalled his last TV dinner and was inclined to agree. “How about shelter, Mr. Carlson? We have state and county departments that can find a place for you to live.”

“I got a place to live, son. A fine, fine place.”

“Where?”

“The world,” Carlson said with the vaguest half-smile. He lit another of Jack’s Camels and smoked it very methodically.

Jack looked hard at this human wreck, and the only important thing finally hit him. Carlson, though completely destitute, was completely and honestly happy.

“Let’s get back to what you were saying, about gods.”

Carlson nodded as objectively as a cop talking about a bust. “Gods made the world, gave it to us as a gift. Worst thing is most people don’t care; they think they’re the gifts. Makes me feel bad that folks can be so selfish, take all the beauty for granted, everything. Me, I love it.”

“What, Mr. Carlson?”

“The beauty, the joy. It’s all over the place, everywhere you look. Thing is, when you stop looking, you’re finished.”

Jack wanted to ask what this had to do with anything, but he quickly realized that was Carlson’s point. “I think maybe I know what you mean, Mr. Carlson.”

“Hope so, and your friend there too. All of you. I get to walking. Probably walked thousands of miles in my life. And every step I take”—Carlson looked right at Jack with his dead eye—“every single step is a celebration. Every time I put my food down in graciousness, that’s like saying thank you.”

“Thank you to who? To the gods?”

“Yes, son, to the gods. It’s acknowledgment of the gift. Me, I walk mostly at night ’cause night is better, clearer. I gotta see it all to keep my graciousness real. I gotta be in it — the beauty, the gift. The stars, the sky, the way the water sounds slapping the piers, all that. And especially the moon. Sometimes I think the gods put the moon up there so we’d never forget the gift.”

“So you like to walk the docks at night?”

“That’s right. Where the sea meets the land and all that. Where one gift joins another under the light of the moon.” Carlson stubbed out the butt. “Big things, dark. They had no faces.”

Jack’s forehead crinkled. “What?”

“You believe in the gods, right? Isn’t that what you said?”

“Yes,” Jack told him for lack of anything else.

“And if you believe in the gods, you have to believe in their counterparts, right? Can’t have one without the other. That’s the way it is. Reckoning. A point of force is a unit of will. You believe in one, you believe in both. You believe in the gods, you believe in the devils too.”

“Sure, Mr. Carlson,” Jack said, but he thought: What the hell is this guy talking about?

“That’s what I been trying to tell you, son. That’s what I saw coming down that building last night.” Carlson’s dead eye stared. “I saw devils.”