Something Stirs, page 11
With thumbs hooked into his suspenders, he stepped down off the curb and cocked his head side to side, stepped up again and licked his lips. He was awfully thirsty and his mouth felt filled with grit. He ought to head down to the Starlite, try to cadge a drink, or hit one of the bars, cadge a real damn drink. Celebrate is what he should do. Celebrate until his brains ran out of his ears. What the hell, why not?
A car passed, horn screaming.
He jumped back onto the sidewalk and swallowed, leaned forward and stared at the juncture of store and pavement. It was dark there, dark there all along the street, and he thought he saw something moving.
Creeping. Sneaking. Like a rat. Or a cat.
He swallowed again.
Look at the snow, jackass, look at the snow, no cats there, look at the snow and the trees and the kids having fun.
He did.
A hand gripped his arm and he whimpered, cringed, planted his feet, didn’t want no cop moving him along.
“Damn,” said Blade Murtaugh, “you’re worse than a rabbit, I swear to god.”
Slap twisted his arm free. “Just looking,” he said sullenly, and sniffed. “Just looking.” Sniffed again.
Murtaugh peered closely at him. “When was the last time you ate, you idiot?”
Slap shrugged. What did it matter? He was on his way, all them people looking at his snow.
Murtaugh shoved a roll into his pocket. “Damnit, you gotta eat, man. You don’t eat, you don’t get energy; you don’t get energy, you don’t work.” He snorted. “Shit, you ain’t never getting out of the streets, you look like a zombie. Idiot.”
Yes I am, Slap told him, no words, just a look; I’m getting out and you’re still here.
Blade grunted, and rubbed the back of his neck. “You gonna stay here all night?”
“Might.”
“Idiot.”
Slap grinned and winked.
Murtaugh shoved something else in after the roll and wandered off, muttering to himself, turned around suddenly and came back, put his hand on Slap’s shoulder. “You watch yourself tonight, man, you hear?”
Slap frowned. “What for?”
Blade scratched his neck fiercely. “Don’t know, Mr. Hat Trick. Just got a feeling.” He chuckled.
“Somebody let all the electricity loose.”
“Zap,” Slap said, poking Blade’s stomach with a thumb.
“Right. Zap.” And he walked away again, muttering again, once in a while punching out at the air.
Slap didn’t watch him go. Murtaugh was gone. Slap was still here. Working on it, working on getting out. Murtaugh was history.
Would be better, though, if he wasn’t so scared.
A cruiser floated toward him, a spotlight exploding, pinning him like a moth, turning his head. He held up a hand to protect his eyes and, with a wave to the horse-and-sleigh, the stupid robin, all that beautiful snow, he walked south. Hunched. Tugging his cap low. And when the light snapped off and the cruiser sped up, he managed a two-step and a quiet “Hot damn.” Last time those fuckers mess with him, that’s for sure.
Last time. Next time they’ll be saying yessir and nosir and can I wipe your nose sir. Next time they see him, he’ll be out, up and out.
He nibbled on the roll. Stale, but what the hell.
He crossed the Boulevard and walked along the park’s stone wall, dragging his left hand lightly over the bumps and tiny holes, knowing every one. Ahead, a bunch of kids ran through the entrance. Deep inside he could hear music, figured a jam session, didn’t want to go. They were there sometimes, especially in summer; guys with guitars and saxophones and trumpets and stuff, just playing down by the pond where they didn’t bother nobody. Made a few bucks and moved on. In winter they didn’t stay so long, but they were still in there until their lips and fingers froze.
When he reached the entrance himself, he hesitated. All the lights were on the other side, and he could see heads and faces in the Starlite windows. Licked his lips. Rubbed his stomach. Snapped his suspenders and decided that he had enough liquor at home to last him until Tuesday.
That was the important thing.
He had to last until Tuesday.
All right, then.
As he stepped into the dark, he looked over his shoulder and saw Blade fussing around the florist shop that even this late had a booth outside the door. Blade and his damn flowers; Blade and his damn grass; Blade and his damn ducks and trees.
Hat Trick Boy and his god damn weeds.
Slap laughed and gave Murtaugh a friendly flip of his finger, and ducked quickly, silently, into the brush.
Unlike the alley where he did all his work, his real home was cramped. Several large cardboard boxes torn apart and reassembled into a monk’s cell jammed under a pine tree’s heavy lower boughs and tucked hard into the southwest corner of the park wall. Laurel and boxwood took care of the other sides, cut it off, and the ground was thick with years of needles and leaves falling, settling, and forever smelling damp. It was barely large enough to stand up in, just long enough for him to lie down in, on several layers of blankets stolen from the January Street mission. A tiny window had been cut in one wall, but not for light—for air, and to make sure the cats didn’t sneak up on him without him seeing. He had no candles, no lantern. He didn’t want them.
Everything he required was within reach—can opener, cans, a small apple crate in which he kept his other clothes, taped on one wall a wrinkled photograph of him and Blade after the last game of the last year when anyone knew his real name. He could only see it in daylight; at night he didn’t have to.
He sat on the bed and hugged his knees to his chest.
Tomorrow he would spend the whole day in his private place, making sure his pictures were safe, fixing those that needed fixing, deciding which ones he would take to the man who gave him the card. He smiled.
That part would drive him nuts. That part would make him crazy.
But it would keep him from remembering how scared he was.
The breeze crept down the pine, ticked the needles together.
What would he do with all that money?
Cool air slipped in through the window.
New clothes? A real meal?
A branch scratched against the roof.
He rocked and grinned and hugged his knees more tightly. Nope, no way. A place to live. An apartment.
Three rooms, maybe four, a real bathroom and not the bushes outside, a refrigerator, a stove, a real bed, a chair, his pictures on all the walls or maybe he’d paint a mural, good god clothes in the closets and his name on the mail slot and he’d probably go nuts filling all that great space.
The breeze gusted and the walls trembled.
Blade would come over for dinner.
Bonita would come over and take off all her clothes.
Pebbles fell from the top of the wall and rattled on the roof.
The grin snapped off. His head lowered until it pressed against his knees. His arms began to ache from grabbing his legs so hard.
Hat Trick Boy don’t know if he can do it. Nothing has changed for years, and now all of it changed.
Oh shit.
Something landed on the roof. Something heavy. Something hard.
He looked up, reached up, felt the cardboard sagging. He thought it might be a rock until the sagging moved, and he heard something walking up there. Slowly. Quietly. Stopping at the edge just over the window.
Settling down.
Pine needles ticked.
Slap closed his eyes and prayed it was only some drunk, some kid.
Gonna get out, he prayed, hunched over, slowly falling to his side.
Go away.
He opened one eye and looked toward the window, only the window wasn’t there. Black was there. Blacker than the night. Blacker, and colder, and moving swift when he screamed.
Part Three
WHAT WE LEARNED
Chapter Thirteen
Nobody dreamed.
Nobody screamed.
Nobody died until the giants came.
Chapter Fourteen
Snow in large flakes late Saturday night when most beds were filled, most dreamers trying to seek small comfort in the dark; wet flakes that melted as soon as they touched the ground, soon turning streets and sidewalks and windshields to ice, ice gathering on dead branches, in gutters, on grass; small flakes by false dawn that gathered and spread and fell so thickly the air seemed thick with fog and those who went to church went with heads already bowed.
No sound.
Snow swallowed it.
No wind.
The storm had its own breath and the snow traveled along it in slow spirals and whorls, sharp nails ticking against window panes, gathering on sills, porches losing their first step by Sunday afternoon, their second by night, plows scraping and sanders spitting, an automobile waltzing in slow motion through an empty intersection until it struck, in slow motion, a telephone pole.
By midnight the large flakes had arrived, and those who claimed to know how to tell the weather by a look claimed the storm would soon be over, large flakes didn’t last, the clouds weren’t that thick.
Monday noon was dark; the air was white and still falling.
Schools closed, businesses didn’t bother, only one train stopped at the station, but not for long.
The silence continued except for chains on old tires and the grate of shovels on walks and the blast of a snow-blower that couldn’t quite force its revolving teeth to the ground; Briarwood Heights lost its telephones when ice split a wire, and the South End, for a while, lost its water when a pipe nearly a century old cracked beneath the street and the blacktop collapsed and a geyser erupted, steaming, bellowing, the water freezing immediately as it came down.
Monday night the storm passed.
Tuesday morning had the sun, distant and pale and not a threat to the snow, and by nightfall the plows had gone, the sanders were empty, the shovels put away, the blowers back in the garage.
No sound.
No wind.
The light on Summit Boulevard was sharp and had sharp edges, not cut from the night by razored blades but the blades themselves, colors too garish, too loud, like the sound of frozen heels cracking on the frozen pavement. During the afternoon, city crews had been working, fixing Christmas tree- and star-shaped frames to every other lamppost, winding them with colored bulbs, hoisting a fifteen-foot natural wreath over the entrance to the Rotunda. Strings of lights framed shop and office windows as well, and all the windows of the Starlite, some of them blinking, some of them dull, most of them framing elaborate or simple scenes of the season.
The Salvation Army in front of the theaters—two horns and a drum, tambourine and soprano; a Santa Claus on the corner—a bell and gleaming pot; more pedestrians than usual on a weekday evening, to see the lights and the snow and to catch the sales in the shops now open late every night. Christmas carols. A stray flake or two. No one paying attention to a small headline in the day’s paper, the discovery of a vagrant’s body in Foxriver Park.
From the warmth of the Starlite, Race Jorgen watched them pass the curbside dispensers. He sipped his coffee. He put out his cigarette. He checked his watch and wondered if the Pack was going to show up tonight. He had a feeling they would; it was only seven-thirty. And a second cup later he saw Barnaby Garing come around the corner with Pancho and Tang, start for the diner’s steps and stop when Barnaby saw him and said something to them.
Jorgen smiled.
Within five minutes they were all there, intercepted by Garing, standing on the sidewalk, stomping their feet, making a great show of not wanting to come in. A small herd of horses, breath steaming, streaming, unsure in which direction they should be ready to flee from danger. Pressed close to the diner’s wall, out of the way of the crowds.
He smiled again and slid out of the booth.
They intrigued him, those kids. Anachronisms for the fun of it. But now that their fearless punk leader was gone, it was beyond him why they stayed together. A couple of jocks, a hood, and a one-legged brain; a dumb blonde, an almost overweight redhead, a doctor’s kid, and a frizz-haired orphan living with her dotty grandmother. They lived all over town, families made all levels of income, and the only thing they really had in common was being in the same high school class.
And the murder of Eddie Roman.
Maybe, too, the death of a poor slob named Slap Zubronsky.
Silently he sighed against the anger that had lodged with him most of the day, an anger born of helplessness and a feeling that he ought to know, ought to know what was going on in his town. He had known Slap for several years. A harmless grinning idiot who had once been a sports hero around here when he was much younger. Why the jerk had lived on the street was something the detective didn’t know, and didn’t much care about knowing. But the guy clearly had some kind of talent, and after seeing that Slap wasn’t going to do anything himself, Race had sent one of his friends around to have a look at Slap’s artwork. No obligations, no promises; but the friend had liked what he had seen. Honestly liked it. A chance then for the dope to get back on his feet. A little late, maybe, but what the hell, it was better than the alternative.
Race winced at the thought as he paid his bill and pocketed the change, felt the anger again.
It made no sense that Slap should be dead. A chance like that—a little money, his own place, an honest-to-god bed to sleep in every night—he wouldn’t do anything to lose it. And though Race thought the guy was several thick slices short of a full loaf, he also knew Slap wasn’t stupid. In fact, “nervous” could have been his goddamn middle name, he was always so jumpy. So why, now of all times, had he decided to sleep in the park instead of an alley, freeze to death, and be eaten by the dogs and cats, and probably a few rats?
It didn’t make sense.
Not to him.
Not after he had seen the condition of the body, and had seen the claw marks, the gouges, the frozen blood, the open mouth.
Put him in a bedroom and he could have been Eddie Roman.
He had pressed for an autopsy, more than the usual casual examination, but he’d been overruled. Shit, he’d been told, the guy was a bum, why waste the money? Froze, snacked on, dump him in potter’s field.
What the hell.
Swallowing against his temper, he stepped outside, pulling on his gloves, buttoning his topcoat, adjusting his muffler. The Pack began to drift away as soon as they noticed him, heads down, behaving so patently unsuspicious that he had to grin.
“Hey,” he called, pausing on the bottom step and leaning on the railing.
They stopped.
“Hey, kids, hang on a minute, okay?”
They didn’t all turn around, and none turned completely, but he noted that the boys managed to put themselves between him and the girls. It happened so slowly, so imperceptibly, he didn’t realize it until it had happened.
A pack, he decided, in more ways than one.
“Christmas shopping already?”
Joey Costello, hands defiantly in his jacket pockets, lifted his chin. “Maybe. So what? You figure we robbed a store or something?”
Jorgen lifted an apologetic hand. “Nope.”
“So?”
“So nothing. I just wondered if you heard about the body. The one in the park, I mean.”
There was no answer, but he could see that they had. He could see as well that the gimp and the one called Katie were nervous, fearful. He frowned. Afraid? Of what?
“You knew the guy, Scott, right?” He kept his voice low, and the gimp moved closer.
People stared as they passed; no one stopped.
A bus hissed and chugged at the corner.
“You knew him?” he asked again.
“Yeah. Yes, sir, I did. He’s Blade’s buddy.”
Jorgen nodded. He knew that too. Two idiots who didn’t really belong on the streets. Only one of them left now. “Have you seen Blade lately?”
Byrns shrugged, shook his head. “But he didn’t do it, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Neither did we,” Joey muttered sullenly.
Jorgen stroked his mustache, took the final step to the pavement, and smiled. “Do what? He fell asleep and froze to death.” He looked straight at Scott. “Right?”
He should have been echoed; it was what he expected. Scott, however, backed away toward the others, Fern taking one arm, Katie holding the other. They turned together and walked away, the rest falling in behind. Like a shield. A wall. Instinct hinted he ought to press after them, keep talking; caution suggested he had plenty of time.
He rolled his shoulders, jutted his chin, started up the street with every intention of going home. A final glance over his shoulder, however, showed him one of the jocks, the tall one, Pancho, trotting after him.
They were the same height, close to the same weight, but Jorgen tensed when he stopped and saw the way the boy’s skin had tightened around his eyes.
“Listen, man,” the kid said, keeping his voice low, a thumb snapped over his shoulder, “you got something to say to us, you say it right, okay? You bring us in, you talk, we talk, but stop the hell following us around.”
Race walked.
The kid walked with him.
“Hey, Pancho, look—”
The boy’s hand came up, stopping just short of jabbing a finger in his chest. “You leave us alone, you find out who killed Eddie. Next time, we get lawyers.”
Well, well, Race thought, the kid’s been watching his TV.
“Okay,” he answered as if it didn’t matter. “No sweat, kid. No problem.”
“Damn right,” Pancho told him.
At the corner he turned down the street, toward his car parked at the curb. Pancho didn’t follow.
“Anything else?” he asked, walking a step backward.
“Nope.”
He waved, winked, turned his back and turned again, waved again, without knowing why and knowing the kid would be royally pissed.
