Stunts, page 22
“How the hell,” Blue said, stepping off the curb and into the street, “can something burn so badly like that?”
“It’s a law of thermodynamics,” a voice said behind them.
Brian looked and rolled his eyes. “Corky, that hasn’t got anything to do with anything, you jerk.”
Corky, standing on a bus-stop bench, grinned down at them. “No shit. Sounds good, though.”
A sudden gust, and sparks escaped the fire’s column to shower onto the crowd. There were a few muffled screams, the megaphones blared again, and one of the hoses moved down the street, to join two others soaking adjacent buildings.
The stench made their noses wrinkle; Brian’s eyes teared when another gust dropped a pocket of smoke into his face.
“You know what happened?” Blue asked without turning around.
“Arson.”
Rita spun around, nearly taking off Brian’s arm. “What?”
Corky, burrowed into a plaid hunting jacket, nodded. “I was over there before.” He nodded toward the street this side of the dying restaurant. “Cop said someone’s walking along, sees a sheet of fire suddenly shoot up the side wall. Next thing you know, the whole place is going. Gotta be arson.”
“From the outside in?” Brian said, unable to look away.
Gaps in the fire now, nothing but black beyond.
Corky said, “Yep. Cop said must’ve been fifteen, twenty people inside.”
“Oh Jesus,” Rita said weakly and retook Brian’s arm.
Two figures crossed the street toward them, shadows against the fire until Sarra Marlow broke into a run and leapt nimbly onto the bench beside Corky. Greta Rourke stood in front of them, her back to Blue.
“They found three women on the sidewalk right by the door,” Sarra announced, up on her toes, neck craning. “They were just walking by and the door blew out or something. Cut to ribbons, I’ll bet.”
The roof collapsed; a sag in the flames, in the smoke, in the roaring so constant it had become nearly silent. Then it all exploded again, and the crowd fell back, several firemen darted for protection behind their engines, and one of the hoses abruptly shrank to a useless dribble.
“Too bad it’s not the school,” Greta said flatly.
Blue patted her on the head. “This kid,” he said to the others, “is going places.”
She set her heel lightly on his instep. “Touch me again, humanoid, you’ll need hospitalization.”
He laughed.
Sarra tried to convince Corky to walk her closer to the fire, so they could see stuff, maybe bodies. He was a Ploughman, who was going to stop them?
Greta stood on tiptoe and pointed across the street. “There’s Shane. Taking notes, I’ll bet.” When no one said a word, she flicked her fingers along the underside of her chin and trotted over to him.
“The perfect couple,” Blue muttered.
Rita said something Brian couldn’t hear over the noise; he leaned down and asked her to repeat it, looking as he did toward someone who had broken from the crowd and headed toward them, slowly.
“There was a man there this afternoon,” she said, rubbing a hand under her nose. “Weird. I thought he was going to rape me or something.”
“No kidding.”
“A bum, I think. I don’t know. I ran into the kitchen, and the cook runs out, the guy is gone.”
She turned her head, he turned his, and their faces were so close Brian could see the fire tiny and helpless in her eyes.
“C’mon,” Sarra said to Corky. “Just a couple of minutes, okay?”
Then Blue said, “Uh-oh.”
Brian glanced up, saw where he was staring, and turned his head just in time to see June stop in front of them, glare at Rita, and yank off her wool gloves.
“You bitch,” June said, the fire’s shadow taking most of her face. She glared at Brian, looked back to Rita. “I thought you were my friend.”
“What?”
Brian eased a few inches away.
“You know he’s mine,” June said, and slapped her before Blue could grab her arm. “I’ll kill you,” she yelled, turned and ran into the crowd.
Nobody moved.
The fire sighed and settled under the artificial rain.
“Over there?” Corky said into the silence. He took Sarra’s hand. “Sure, let’s go.”
Brian stared at his shoes. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I’ll talk to her or something.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rita said tightly. “She’ll get over it.”
Brian saw the red blotch on her cheek, and wished he could fly so he could be somewhere else.
Glass exploded dully; a child in the crowd began to cry.
“Changed,” Blue muttered.
Brian frowned. “Huh?”
Blue pointed with his chin at the dark place where June had disappeared and shook his head in confusion. “She’s changed, y’know? And it ain’t just …” A glance at Brian, a look back to the fire. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just nuts.”
Rita’s hands slipped into her jacket pockets.
Brian watched the fire and said nothing; but he had heard that before. Different words, a different place, but he had heard that before.
It’s wrong, his grandmother had said the other day, out there at the station; it’s wrong.
He still didn’t know exactly what she’d meant.
But he knew she was right.
June’s changed.
Something’s wrong.
VIII
HUNTING
Twenty-Nine
1
In Bettin Wells, Wednesday’s dawn was nothing more than a lightening of night. A high overcast provided shadows but no color, and a melancholy breeze only stirred the fringes of open shop awnings. A day for constantly checking the sky, the wind, gauging the minutes left before the clouds lowered, and darkened, and shredded to rain.
By noon, the dark had come but not the rain.
By two, there was more than one prayer to get it over with or bugger off.
Garret Purdy wanted the rain. It would give him the perfect excuse to return to the station, ostensibly for his rain gear, actually to have a cuppa and stall away the rest of his shift listening to Ratty bitch and moan about conditions and wages and the rest of the world’s ills. Most times he didn’t mind working doubles. The extra money came in handy, there were favors he could call in later when they were needed, and they gave him the chance to work at least some of the time on his own, without almighty bleedin’ Ludden playing the grizzled sergeant teaching the raw young recruit.
Not today.
Today he wanted to get back to his flat, strip off his uniform, and fall into bed. Alone. Without dreams. Never again hearing sow MacNair’s screams and wailing, never having to make small talk with that smug Yank everyone knew was plugging Doc Burwin. God, what a hell of a night.
He stopped in at the fish ’n’ chips for some coffee, flirted with Josie’s replacement for a few minutes, then stepped outside and looked up at the clouds.
“Depressing, isn’t it?”
“You don’t know the half of it, Mr. Sholton,” he said, grinning at the landlord. Bill Sholton was on his afternoon stroll, a habit half the town set their lives by. To get his bar legs working normal again was how he put it whenever someone asked. “I feel like I’ve been clubbed and don’t know it.”
Sholton, in a fur-collared bombardier’s flight jacket nearly worn through at the elbows and along the path of the zipper, sighed his sympathy. “Double shift?”
“Aye.”
“You’ll be dead before thirty, son, and what’ll all that money do you then?”
“Pay for a decent funeral.”
The landlord laughed, punched Purdy’s arm lightly, and walked on, arms swinging, face turning side to side as if it were mechanically driven. A bus thumped its front tires over the curb at its stop at the corner, forcing Purdy back a step. He glowered at the driver, who only grinned and shrugged, mimed trouble with the steering, grinned again and drove on with a great show of clashing gears.
Bastard, Purdy thought.
An alley was his next stop, and he grimaced as he stepped into it, poking at the overflowing waste bins with his stick, doing his best to breathe shallowly so the stench wouldn’t make him gag. It almost worked. This was daft. No professor was going to hide in a place like this, for god’s sake. In fact, he thought, as he hurriedly returned to the sidewalk, he doubted they’d ever find the man anyway. Not alive. That wife of his and her lover have already done the poor sod in, that much was as clear as your nose. All the noise, the demands, the staying at the station until dawn and ruining his evening—cover is what all that was. A show for the public. Soon as the body was found—carefully made to look like an accident, no doubt—she and that Yank would be off and running someplace. He knew it. Clear as your nose. A blind man could see it.
He passed the bus chuffing at a red light, crossed to the opposite curb and tried to decide which direction next. No rain yet, but he could smell the damp in the air and knew it wouldn’t be long, so he didn’t want to be too far from the station. Going as far as the Royal John Hotel was definitely out of the question.
The light changed.
He walked straight on, nightstick lightly to cap in an automatic salute to an overdressed pair of tourists greeting him and nodding, holding his breath again and checking a second alley.
One more block, he decided; one more block, no bodies found, and he’d turn around. Only an hour left anyway, no sense going halfway to bloody Cardiff.
An old woman scuttled by with her black umbrella already open, and he stepped nimbly away to keep his eyes and cheeks intact, smiling to himself, turning, looking up to look directly into the terror-wide eyes of the bus driver as the bus leapt the curb and pinned Purdy to a lamppost.
A little girl shrieked.
Purdy slapped feebly at the grill with his stick.
A taxi slammed into the back of the bus.
Rupert Flaunter stepped out of a men’s clothing store just as Purdy’s stick fell to the ground, clattered and rolled off the curb. The cleric was momentarily confused, not at all sure what he saw. Then he gaped and ran, shouting for the shopkeeper to call an ambulance. A quick look at the constable, and he dashed into the street, screaming at the cabbie to back up. Without waiting for a response, he threw himself onto the bus, ordering the driver to pull back, man, pull back, in God’s name. But the driver only stared at him, blood on his chin.
“Damn you!” the vicar cried, reached over the barrier and grabbed his shoulder. “Pull back, you damned fool! Pull back! Reverse!”
The driver blinked stupidly, fumbled for the gear shift and yanked it into position. Flaunter watched him, lips moving in silent prayer, grabbing the dashboard as the bus lurched but didn’t move.
“Again!”
The cry of an ambulance.
The bus roared.
Blood dripped into the driver’s lap.
“Again!”
The bus moved a few inches and stalled.
Flaunter cursed and jumped back to the street, dodged a car trying to dodge around the scene, and stopped when he saw Purdy still upright, arms outstretched as if embracing his killer. A moment later the constable’s knees began to sag, and he slid slowly down, as far as lamppost and grill would allow.
His arms didn’t move.
Flaunter hurried around to the other side, elbowing aside a man in rags, until he was able to reach out and touch the side of the policeman’s neck. The man’s eyes were closed, his mouth hung open, and the minister pressed through seeping damp red and couldn’t find a pulse.
The ambulance arrived.
Flaunter closed his eyes—help him, Lord, bring him home—and stepped back, hand trailing away reluctantly, gently, until it dangled at his side.
Sergeant Ludden raced up, and stopped so awkwardly he collided with the bus. “Jesus lord,” he whispered.
Flaunter nodded. Walked away. Barely listened to the bellowed orders. Wiped his fingers across his new jacket, a fair grey blazer whose gold buttons gleamed. Wiped them again. Plucked at his matching new trousers. Paid no attention to the hasty questions flung at him as people passed on the run, barely avoided being hit himself by a car as he crossed to the other side of the High Street and kept walking.
No good to poor Garret, he’d been no good at all.
As he’d been no good to Pris my darling Pris.
A sour taste in his throat that rose swiftly to his mouth, and he spat into the street without thinking.
No one complained.
A siren cried.
By the time he reached the Queen’s Lance his legs were heavy, his eyes moist. Wearily he climbed the steps to the dining patio and dropped onto a bench. Two couples sat behind him, speculating on the accident, there were faces in the windows of the restaurant and the pub. No one spoke to him. No one asked him about the blood streaked across his new blazer.
He stared at the High Street, hands limp on the table, not moving when a tear touched his cheek and fell. At least, he thought, I can still do that much for the man.
One of the couples left, hurrying down the steps while assuring the others that they’d be back with news as soon as they could.
To his right he could see the scene without obstruction, four blocks down—the red of the bus, the black hump of the cab, police at the intersection diverting traffic into the side streets by shouting angrily and thumping bonnets and pointing with caps and sticks. Pedestrians crossed over to join the fringe of the crowd, others left, crossing back. Autumn leaves caught in a black stream, pausing, moving on. Whistles shrill. A second ambulance side-slipping to a halt.
The minister’s gaze drifted to his hands, heavy knuckles, fine dark hair, the stumps of his birth defects tinged with dried blood. They were steady. Not a tremble. He supposed he ought to clasp them and say a proper prayer, but the boy was an unrepentant Methodist who more than once had sneered at Flaunter’s collar without appearing to do so.
Nevertheless, his conscience prodded; nevertheless.
His chest rose and fell.
His eyes closed.
He felt his head begin to drift toward the table and there was nothing he could do to stop it; he heard the double crash, the shattering of glass; and he heard a voice calling, “Here, call Doc Burwin,” just before he blacked out.
2
Evan wrapped the bath towel around his waist and sneered at himself in the foggy mirror. The shower hadn’t done him a whole hell of a lot of good. He still looked like death warmed over and felt as though he’d been bludgeoned by a rubber truncheon. He yawned. He scrubbed his teeth with one finger. He grabbed another towel and dried himself off, moved into the bedroom and dressed in fresh clothes that were too stiff for comfort, only marginally better than the clothes he’d worn through the night. No; that was wrong. The truth was, he couldn’t tell because he was still so tired. Once out of the police station just after dawn, he and Addie had decided Paul wasn’t going to be found if he didn’t want to. And they weren’t going to do each other any good by walking around like zombies. In movies they stayed up for days; in real life, lack of sleep made people stupid—so Addie told him, and so he believed. But she wouldn’t come home with him, only squeezed his hand and promised she’d lock her doors and windows. He had done the same. And sleep, blessed or not, knocked him out before he could even pull up the blanket.
The telephone rang as he took a brush to his damp hair. He ignored it because he knew the news couldn’t possibly be good.
It persisted.
“Oh hell.”
He took his time hauling himself up the stairs with one hand, yawned again and lazily picked up the receiver.
“Were you dead?”
He couldn’t help a smile. “Just about.”
“Can you come to the Lance right away? I need you.”
“Say no more.”
He was still not quite awake, but neither had he been so asleep that he hadn’t heard the siren in the background, fading but not quickly.
He grabbed his jacket and keys, locked the door behind him and was in his car and moving before he remembered that he hadn’t taken the time to look around for Paul. The slip made him briefly cold. He blew on his hands one at a time, glanced in the rearview mirror, then suddenly leaned back and up and checked the rear floor. It was empty. He could have been killed. It was empty, but Paul could have been there, waiting with gun or knife.
Lord, he thought, and drove faster, skidded at the fork and ordered himself some calm. Driving like this was going to get him killed.
A jerk of his lips into a sour grin.
A way with words, Kendal; you’ve a hell of a way with words.
He passed the Cross and Sword at speed, slowing as he approached Wellington and saw the flashing lights, the people, and a bus oddly angled off the street just ahead. At the same time, he saw Addie standing at the near curb, semaphoring, then moving back as he pulled into the curb and let his right-side wheels jump over them before he stopped.
“What?” he asked as he slipped out.
When he reached her, she held up a wait a minute finger, took his arm and brought him to a near table, where Reverend Flaunter sat, an untouched glass of sherry in front of him and what looked like a wet handkerchief plastered across his brow. The jacket he wore was striped with blood, though it was clear the injury hadn’t been to him.
There was no need for direction—Evan sat on the opposite bench, Addie beside the minister.
“He had a shock,” she explained.
“I’m fine,” Flaunter insisted gallantly.
“Of course,” she said, and told Evan about Garret Purdy. He couldn’t help looking over his shoulder. “When Rupert passed out, someone called me and the hospital, thinking he’d been hurt too.”
“I told you I’m fine,” Flaunter said, and picked up his glass.
Evan watched him drink, then looked to Addie, who wore a heavy green sweater, her hair loose, no makeup. She didn’t seem tired. “What?” he asked again.
