Something Stirs, page 18
Katie giggled.
“Christ, bitch,” Barnaby said, “mind your own goddamn business, okay? You ain’t nothing but a—”
Scott took a single long step to stand in front of him, cutting him off, making him stare and finally look away.
“Barnaby, zip it. Just … zip it, okay? You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, that’s okay, but in case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve got a problem here. Unless we’re all going nuts, we’re all hearing things. And when we hear things, people die. Three of them.”
“Five.”
He spun around.
They all did.
Laine stood above them, stark as a desert shadow in her black dress, black veil, black shoes belonging on a woman forty years older. So pale her minimal lipstick was a vivid smear of blood, her eyes too deep, her hands clasped white-knuckled at her waist.
The breeze stirred again.
The veil pushed against her face.
“What … what are you talking about, five?” Pancho asked.
“Al told me this morning.” Her voice was flat, but she had to swallow several times. “Last night.”
Scott immediately looked back toward the grave, searching for Jorgen. The detective was gone.
Laine’s voice quivered. “Dale heard.”
“Jesus, Dale?” Katie yelped, then quickly covered her mouth.
“I’m scared, guys,” Tang said, reaching for Barnaby, who sent her to Pancho with an exasperated shove that didn’t touch her.
Blade hustled around them, stopped when Laine held up a hand. It was clear she wasn’t sure about him. He ducked his head, lifted a shoulder. “Who?” he said gently. Smiling. Flipping his collar down as if to prove he was harmless.
Laine looked at Fern. “Mr. Tobin.”
“Jesus,” Fern said, and grabbed Scott’s arm.
“He was with Arlette Bingham, Al said. In the Island. Both of them in one chair.” She took off her hat, a shake of her head that freed her hair.
“How?” Katie asked.
“I don’t know. He didn’t say.” She glanced at Blade, then faced him squarely. “They think, now, your friend was a victim too.”
Blade shrugged. “Know that. Hat Trick Boys don’t fall asleep in the park. Not in the cold.”
“Please?” the Queen said, not quite calling to Murtaugh.
They all talked at once then, demanding answers, asking questions, loudly and quietly. Scott felt it, the fear, and let it roam for a while, confused because he realized he had somehow taken over the Pack, confused because taking over had been the furthest thing from his mind, confused because the Pack, and Blade, and the Queen, and a little kid had heard people dying.
“Please, Blade?” the Queen said.
When he saw the tears in Tang’s eyes, Scott said, “All right,” and they shut up.
Just like that.
Even Barnaby.
It scared him.
But not as much as the faceless dark man had.
He had no idea what to say, and didn’t like the looks he received, the expectation he felt. Hope for a solution, and doubt that he had it. This wasn’t what he wanted. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.
But: “Let’s go home, change, do what we have to do.”
“So why don’t we just go now?” Pancho asked.
Scott gestured down the slope toward Joey’s grave. Men in heavy coats were taking the flowers from the coffin, taking the canopy down. A few yards away a backhoe waited to fill the grave as soon as all the mourners were out of sight, “This isn’t the time. It sure isn’t the place.” He looked at Blade and the Queen. “Will you come? To the Starlite tonight?” Amazingly, there was no protest from the Pack.
Blade nodded, then shook his head quickly, fearfully.
“Hey, it’s all right.” Scott nudged his shoulder, thinking as he did that it was the first time he’d touched him. “It’s on me. But you’ve got to be there, man. We need your help.”
“Rats,” Blade whispered fearfully. “They got—”
“We shall cleanse ourselves at the Mission,” the Queen interrupted. Her eyes were puffed, slow-moving tears on her cheeks. “We shall prepare for our trip to the warm place.”
“Bonita,” Blade said from the corner of his mouth, “this ain’t no—”
The Queen hushed him angrily. Raised a hand in imperious farewell to the Pack. Turned and walked slowly away toward a stand of evergreen floating on its own shadow above the snow. Blade watched her, looked to Scott, and wiped his face again.
“No kidding, it’ll be fine,” Fern reassured him. “We practically own the place.”
Without answering, the little man ran off, clumsy in patches of deeper snow, hailing the Queen, who didn’t turn around.
Weird, Scott thought; this is really getting weird.
When he looked away at last, the girls had surrounded Laine and were leading her away. Barnaby was on his way as well, stamping up the hill, shaking his head like a bull who needed to charge and had no target.
“He doesn’t hear,” Pancho said then.
Scott stared. “Say what?”
Pancho took a deep breath. “Eddie knew it. Eddie told Joey, and Joey …”
Scott waited, barely patient. He knew Joey had said something to Panch about Eddie’s death; he’d just never believed it had been important. After all, how could Eddie know, and how could he tell Joey?
“You okay?” Pancho asked as Scott pushed himself up the hill, nearly slipped and threw out a hand for balance.
“Yeah.”
At the road, a single wide-lane blacktop, they walked faster, black creeks of melted snow meeting them on the way. The girls were already gone. Barnaby paused at the open iron gates, kicking at the air before vanishing around the brick wall that marked the cemetery’s boundary. He didn’t look back.
“Saw Jorgen,” Pancho said, chin tucked into his chest.
“Maybe we should tell him.”
“Tell him what? We hear people screaming? He already thinks we’re on dope and stuff, for god’s sake.”
“Stuff?”
Scott laughed. “Shit, okay?”
“Okay.” He poked Scott’s arm. “Okay. But don’t say it again, man, it sounds dumb coming from you.”
Scott wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not, but he was sure about talking to Jorgen. His mother hadn’t believed him about the dark man chasing him, hadn’t believed him about the screaming either when he told her. The cops sure as hell wouldn’t. Why should they?
“Poor Mr. Tobin,” Pancho said when they reached the gates, stepped out to the sidewalk. Fern waited a few yards away, Laine with her. Tang and Katie had already reached the distant corner.
“Yeah,” Scott said.
“Bugs,” Laine said as they joined the girls and headed up the street.
“What?” Fern exaggerated a shudder, but nobody laughed.
Laine ignored the others, looked at Scott. “When the cops found them, they were covered with bugs.”
Fern stopped.
Scott passed her before he realized she wasn’t with him.
“What bugs?” she demanded.
“Hey, Fern, take it easy,” Pancho said.
“What bugs?”
Laine twisted her hat in her hands. “I don’t know. Al said the heat was turned way up, they came out from the walls. Cockroaches, I guess. They were all over the place.”
“Oh, gross.” Pancho grimaced. “Jesus.”
“Beetles,” Fern whispered. “They were beetles.”
Laine shrugged, moved on, Pancho hurrying after.
Scott waited, but Fern didn’t move. And he didn’t like the way she kept looking at the cemetery wall, the gutter, the street—as if waiting for something to jump out and scare her. He tried a smile. It didn’t work.
He held out his hand. She didn’t take it.
“Hey,” he said gently.
“Beetles,” she repeated. “Oh, god, Scott, they’re real.”
He shook his head, took her arm, forced her to move with him. “With heat like that, on a day like this, sure there’s going to be bugs. You think they want to stay outside?”
“Scott—”
“No,” he said. “Fern, look, your beetles, the guy I think keeps following me …”He laughed softly.
“Katie’s giants, for god’s sake. They’re monsters, man, and they don’t exist. Not really. Not that way, anyway.” He pulled her close; she didn’t resist. “Like you said, remember? Kid stuff.” He looked up at the back of Town Hall, feeling the slope pull at his leg. “You grow up, you learn different, right?”
She didn’t answer.
He tugged. “Right?”
She didn’t answer.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Oh man, Blade thought as he walked Bonita Logan to her home; oh man, this ain’t right, this ain’t right.
We’re gonna die, all them rats, Jesus God, we’re gonna die.
He knew why Bonita wept as they walked. There wasn’t much he didn’t know about his friends. It pained him to see her that way, head up, gaze straight ahead, tears dripping from her chin. She wouldn’t let him touch her, wipe them away. That was all right. The almost-smile she gave him was enough for the time being. She knew. It was all right. She knew.
His stomach growled.
“You must promise me you’ll go to the Mission,” she said as they headed down the Boulevard.
“I will, I will.”
“There will be a banquet this evening. We must not appear ill-prepared for our guests.”
Oh Bonita, c’mon, just once, knock it off.
The tears stopped.
They kept to the east side of the street so he wouldn’t have to cross the mouth of is alley. There was a uniformed cop in the doorway of Sunset Books, the sidewalk blocked off by sawhorses.
Bugs, Blade thought; Jesus goddamn.
His head itched fiercely under his cap, and he scratched it just as fiercely until, when they reached the park’s wall, the place where Slap had sold his pictures, trying to get out, she grabbed his wrist to make him stop. Then he took her hand and wouldn’t release it, forced her to look at him, forced her to blink, forced her back until she leaned against the stone and, finally, sagged.
“Bonita, this ain’t a game no more.” He tugged her arm once. “We’re not playing no games now. This is real life here, y’know?”
A slow and defeated nod, the trap of a sob in her throat.
“Your ticket out is gone, you know that, right? You know that, he’s gone? Ain’t gonna get you away, ain’t gonna get me away. Slap, he says he’s gonna get out, and he didn’t. And we ain’t, Bonita. We ain’t going nowhere.”
“Those children—”
“—are okay, don’t you worry about that. Okay, for kids.” He could feel her trembling, could see the desperation begin to cloud her big beautiful eyes, eyes that sometimes put him to sleep in the spring because they kept the damn rats away because they were magic. Something like that, anyway. Something like that.
“You gonna be there? Tonight?”
“Blade, I don’t know.” She looked helplessly up the street toward the bookstore. “I didn’t count windows today, you know. It could have been the day.”
God damn. God … damn.
Big house on Long Island, fancy car all filled with leather, and now all he’s got is this—an alley that talks to him, and a crazy goddamn woman who’s crazy one way this minute and another way that minute. Best buddy’s feeding worms. Hell of a thing. He started walking, pulling her along gently. Hell of a thing, and the hell of it was, it didn’t seem any different than any other day, these days. Except the Hat Trick Boys had been reduced by one, the Pack by two, and goddamn frigging Tobin finally got his, and that bitch too. Justice sometimes, but it was sometimes too scary.
She whispered, “Blade,” as they walked. Every fifth step. “Blade.”
Now ain’t that a thing, he thought, shifting his grip to her elbow. Hundred years, the only time she calls me “Blade” is when Slap’s dead and can’t hear it, goddamnit. Jesus. Hell of a thing.
When they reached the old Cape Cod, dollhouse tiny, a door on the side that led to the basement apartment, he stopped her.
Her eyes were still wide. Too wide.
He took her hand, and he kissed it, and the eyes closed a little, and the trembling stopped, and her shoulders rose as she took a slow breath.
“Gotta polish my armor,” he said, holding his breath.
“You do that, Lord Murtaugh.”
He almost laughed his relief.
“Until the banquet hall.”
He grinned and watched her go, the grin snapping off the second the door closed behind her. Then he turned to the front window where he’d seen Calvin Nobbs standing, and watching, and he flipped the old fart the finger, and cackled when Calvin stiffened in rage and raised his cane in return.
Sometimes, he thought, even bad days got good times.
’Course, now he had to go and keep his promise, clean himself up, shave, dust off his coat, and probably have the ladies praying over him the whole goddamn time.
He started off when the front door opened, was a good ten yards past the house when a woman’s voice called to him. Not by name. The voice said, “Sir? Sir? Blade, would you wait, please?”
When he looked around, he saw Erma Volt hurrying as best she could down the stairs, wearing a too-large cardigan and hugging herself. This one he liked. She’d given him odd jobs during the summers, mostly tending the lawn and her shrubs which she never could figure out how to water without rotting the roots.
Very patient, she was. She had to be, living with the old fart and the shrew.
“Blade,” she said breathlessly, swiping hair from her eyes, visibly suppressing a shiver though it wasn’t all that cold.
“Ma’am,” he said, touching a finger to his cap.
“I’m worried about Miss Logan.”
He didn’t know what to say.
Erma checked the house, waved to Calvin, who remained stationed in the window. “She’s been having nightmares.”
“Yeah, well—”
“You seem to know her pretty well.” A gathering of the sweater across her neck. “Is she … that is, is there anything I can do?”
He saw it in her eyes, dimmed but not blind, and he half turned to run away. He didn’t want to know who else heard the screaming. Bad enough for the kids. Bad enough for him. But it was too late. Skinny fingers reached for his arm and pulled away, not quite begging, not quite telling. She didn’t have to. So he looked at the house and shook his head.
“Go away,” he told her.
She looked ready to cry.
“Go away,” he said again. “Get away. Can’t stay here, can’t stay there, can’t stay anywhere you stay around here.”
“Blade, surely—”
“You leave her alone, you nigger freak!” Calvin yelled from the doorway. “I’ll call the police!”
Murtaugh grabbed her arm, yanked her close, ignored her fear. “Take him, take the fat one, and you get away, lady. Hat Trick Boy ain’t got blades anymore, can’t stop the puck, can’t use the stick. Take him away before the rats come.”
And he ran.
Thinking that he could spend the night in the alley by the police station, it would be safer; thinking that staying near the cops didn’t do the kid with the greasy hair any good, the kid’s brother was a cop; thinking that in broad daylight, sun out but going down, shadows not yet ready to take over the streets, he could hear the rats massing behind the houses, the stores, down in the sewers; thinking his heart would explode before he got to the Mission and the cleaning and the ladies doing all that praying, and it might not be so bad, hell of a thing, goddamn, if his heart did decide to give it up, stop the race, because then he wouldn’t hear the screaming anymore or the rats or see the shadows that moved against the wind.
Kids hear.
Old people hear.
He ain’t so old yet, he hears, and Bonita.
Slowing down after colliding with a trash can that nearly trips him.
Holding his side as he cut through the park to the Mission.
Hoping he’ll be around to see his ducklings again, come spring.
Wondering what Leg can do about stopping the noise at night.
Nothing.
Hell of a thing.
Hell of a thing, but he knew, he knew, there weren’t nothing anyone could do.
What the hell.
Free meal, warm place to sit, what the hell, he’d seen worse, how bad could it be?
Standing in front of the First Methodist Church, fists in his pockets, humming to himself, swaying side to side, shaking his head because if he went in there, he’d have to come out, fetch Bonita from the house, bring her to the diner. They would talk, and he would hear things, and none of it would matter.
They were going to die.
As sure as he stood here, feeling his bladder begin to loosen, they were all going to die.
Part Four
WHAT WE FORGOT
Chapter Twenty-Three
But in the dark, child,
Something stirs.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Winter rain.
A light fog that rose over the surface of the snow, knee-high, unmoving.
The snow itself bleeding into gutters, slipping off roofs, retreating to ragged islands beneath shrubbery and steps. Snowmen toppling soundlessly. Slush on the Boulevard pushed by sparse traffic into the storm drains or down the western slope into the river.
Winter rain that lasted hard for an hour, a shower for another, a drizzle that threatened to last all night.
“Laine?”
“Dale, not now, okay? I have to go out.”
“I like your horse hair.”
“It’s a ponytail, honey. They call it a ponytail.”
“Who?”
“Me, that’s who. Now beat it, little creep, before I pluck out your freckles.”
“How come you’re wearing that coat? You said you weren’t ever going to wear that coat again. It’s black. I don’t like black, Laine. It’s a spooky coat. How come you’re wearing that spooky coat?”
