Carrion Comfort (64 page)

“Blue Ford following us,” said Leroy at the wheel. “Do it,” said Marvin.

The panel truck bounced across a littered parking lot and down an alley, pausing by a sagging, corrugated tin shed only long enough for Marvin, Saul, Gentry, and one of the G. twins to jump out and hide in the shadows of the open doorway. The truck quickly accelerated down the alley and spun east onto the narrow street. Twenty seconds later a blue Ford with three white men in it roared past.

“This way,” said Marvin and led them across a wasteland of oil drums and metal tailings to a small junkyard where flattened automobiles had been stacked thirty feet high. Marvin and the younger boy clambered up the stack in seconds; Gentry and Saul took quite a bit longer.

“That it, man?” asked Marvin as Saul crawled the last six feet, finally resting on the precarious, rusted summit and leaning against the panting sheriff for support. Marvin handed a small pair of binoculars to the psychiatrist.

Saul cradled his left arm in his open jacket and peered through the lenses. A high, wooden fence enclosed half a city block. To the south, a foundation had been excavated and concrete poured. Two bulldozers, a backhoe, and smaller equipment sat idle. In the center of the remaining space, three mobile home units formed an E with the middle segment missing. Seven government-issue cars and a Bell Telephone van were parked nearby. Micro wave antennae bristled from the center trailer segment. In the open field, a circle of red lights had been set in the ground and a small windsock hung limply from a metal pole.

“Has to be,” said Saul Laski.

As they watched, a man in shirtsleeves came out of the center trailer and briskly walked the twenty yards to one of three port-a-toilets set up near where the cars were parked.

“One of those dudes be the one you like to talk to?” asked Marvin. “Probably,” said Saul. They were almost certainly invisible amid the piles of rusted metal, but Gentry and the others found themselves crouching behind axles, wheels, and flattened hardtops.

Marvin looked at his watch. “About five hours before it gets dark.” he said. “Then we do it.”

“God
damn
it,” snarled Gentry. “Do we have to wait that long?”

As if in answer, a sleek helicopter came in from the north, circled the field once, and settled in the circle of lights. A man in a thick goose-down parka jumped out and ran to the command trailer. Saul took the binoculars back from Marvin and caught a glimpse of Charles Colben’s round face. “That is a man you do
not
want to encounter,” he said. “Wait until he is gone.”

Marvin shrugged. “Let’s get out of here,” said Gentry. “I’m going to look for Natalie by myself.”

“No,” said Saul, his voice muffled by the balaclava. “I will go too.”

“Are you looking for her body?” Saul Laski asked as the two poked through the rubble of yet another half-demolished row house.

Gentry sat down on a three-foot-high wall of bricks. The last of the day’s cloudy light was visible through gaps in the ceiling above them and holes in the roof above that. “Yes,” said Gentry, “I suppose I am.”

“You think Melanie Fuller’s agent killed her and left her body in some place like this?”

Gentry looked down and pulled out the Ruger. It was fully loaded. The safety was off. The action worked smoothly, oiled and reoiled by Gentry that morning. He sighed. “At least that would be a confirmation. Why would the old woman keep her alive, Saul?”

Saul found a block of masonry to sit on. “One of the problems with working with psychotics is that their thought processes are not easily accessible. That is good, I suspect. If everyone understood the working of a psychopath’s mind, we undoubtedly would be closer to insanity ourselves.”

“Are you sure that the Fuller woman is psychotic?”

Saul spread the fingers of his right hand. He had pulled the balaclava up until it made a lumpy stocking cap. “By every definition we have now, she is certifiable. The problem is not that she has retreated into a psychotic’s warped and twisted view of reality, but that her power allows her to confirm and maintain that world.” Saul adjusted his glasses. “Essentially that was the problem with Nazi Germany. A psychosis is like a virus. It can multiply and spread almost at will when it is accepted by the host organism and transmitted freely.”

“Are you saying that Nazi Germany did what it did because of people like your Oberst and Melanie Fuller?”

“Not at all,” said Saul and his voice was as firm as Gentry had ever heard it. “I am not even sure if those people are fully human. I regard them as faulty mutations— victims of an evolution that includes almost a million years of breeding for interpersonal dominance along with other traits. It is not the Obersts or Melanie Fullers or even the Barents or Colbens who create violence-oriented fascist societies.”

“What is it then?”

Saul gestured toward the street visible through shattered window-panes. “The gang members think there are dozens of federal agents involved in this operation. I would guess that Colben is the only one among them who has even a touch of this bizarre mutant ability. The others allow the virus of violence to grow because they are ‘only following orders,’ or are part of a social machine. The Germans were experts at designing and building machines. The death camps were part of a larger death machine. It has not been destroyed, only rebuilt in a different form.”

Gentry stood up and walked toward a hole in the rear wall. “Let’s go. We can do the rest of this block before it gets dark.”

They found the scrap of material amid the ashes and charred rafters of two row houses that had burned but were never torn down. “I’m sure it’s from the shirt she was wearing Monday,” said Gentry. He fingered the piece of cloth and used his flashlight to study the carpet of ashes. “Lots of footprints here. It looks like they struggled there, in the corner. This nail could have torn the sleeve of her shirt if she had been thrown up against the wall here.”

“Or if she was being carried over someone’s shoulder,” said Saul. The psychiatrist cradled his left arm with his right hand. His face was very pale.

“Yeah. Let’s look for signs of blood or . . . anything.” The two men searched for twenty minutes in the failing light, but there was nothing else. They were outside, speculating on which way Natalie’s abductor might have gone in the maze of alleys and empty buildings, when the youth named Taylor came running down the street waving at them. Gentry held the Ruger loosely at his side and waited. The boy stopped ten feet from them. “Hey, Marvin wants you two back at the house now. Leroy got one of the dudes from the trailer. He told Marvin where to find the Voodoo Lady.”

“Grumblethorpe,” said Marvin. “She’s in Grumblethorpe.”

“What on earth is a Grumblethorpe?” asked Saul.

Gentry and the psychiatrist stood crowded into the kitchen with thirty other people. More gang members filled the halls and downstairs rooms. Marvin sat at the head of the kitchen table and laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I say— What’s a Grumblethorpe? Then this dude, he tells me where the fuck it is and I say, yeah, I know that place.”

“It’s an old house on the Avenue,” said Leroy. “Real old. It was built when the honkys wore them funny three-sided hats.”

“Whom did you interrogate?” asked Saul. “Huh?” said Leroy. “Which of the guys did you grab?” interpreted Gentry.

Marvin grinned. “Leroy, G. B., and me, we went back when it was getting dark. The chopper was gone, man. So we wait by those toilets ’til dude comes out. He got his piece in this little bitty clip holster on his pants. G. B. and me, we let the dude drop his pants before we say hi. Leroy brought the truck up the side. We let the dude finish his business before we take him with us.”

“Where is he now?” asked Gentry. “Still in Rev Woods’s truck. Why?”

“I want to talk to him.”

“Uh-uh,” said Marvin. “He sleeping now. Dude says he a special agent, video technician. Say he didn’t know nothing about anything. Says he won’t talk to us and we in deep shit, assaulting federal pig an’ all. Leroy and D. B. help him talk. Jackson say dude be all right, but he’s asleep now.”

“And the Fuller woman is in a place called Grumblethorpe on Germantown Avenue,” said Gentry. “The agent was sure?”

“Yeah,” said Marvin. “Old Voodoo Lady been staying with another white broad on Queen Lane. Should’ve thought’ve that. Old white broads stick together.”

“What’s she doing at this Grumblethorpe place then?”

Marvin shrugged. “Federal pig said she had been staying there more and more this week. We figure that’s where the honky monster coming from.”

Gentry shouldered his way through the crowd until he stood next to Marvin. “All right. We know where she is. Let’s go.”

“Not yet,” said Marvin. He turned to say something to Leroy, but Gentry grabbed his shoulder and turned him around.

“To hell with this ‘not yet’ stuff,” said Gentry. “Natalie Preston may still be alive there. Let’s
go
.”

Marvin looked up with cold, blue eyes. “Back off, man. When we do this, we’re going to do it right. Taylor out talking to Eduardo and his boys.

G. R. and G. B. over at the Grumblethorpe place checking it out. Leila and the girls, they’re making sure where all the federal pigs at.”

“I’ll go by myself,” said Gentry and turned away. “No,” said Marvin. “You get close to that place, all the federal pigs recognize you and our surprise be shot to shit. You wait ’til we ready or we leave you here, man.”

Gentry turned back. Marvin stood as the big, white southern sheriff loomed over him. “You’d have to kill me to keep me from going,” said Gentry.

“Yeah,” said Marvin, “that right.”

The tension in the room was palpable. Someone turned on a radio somewhere in the house and in the few seconds before it was cut off, the sound of Motown filled the air.

“Few hours, man,” said Marvin. “I know where you’re coming from. Few hours. We do it together, man.”

Gentry’s huge form relaxed slowly. He held up his right hand and Marvin gripped it, fingers interlaced. “A few hours,” said Gentry.

“Right on, bro,” said Marvin and smiled.

Gentry sat alone on the mattress on the empty second floor, cleaning and oiling the Ruger for the third time that day. The only light came from the hanging lamp with the damaged tiffany shade. Dark stains mottled the surface of the pool table.

Saul Laski came into the circle of light, looked around hesitantly, and came over to where Gentry was sitting.

“Howdy, Saul,” Gentry said without looking up. “Good evening, Sheriff.”

“Seeing as how we’ve been through more than a little bit together, Saul, I’d appreciate it if you’d call me Rob.”

“Done, Rob.”

Gentry snapped the cylinder back in place on the Ruger and spun it. Carefully, with full concentration, he inserted the cartridges one by one.

Saul said, “Marvin is sending the early teams out already. In twos and threes.”

“Good.”

“I’ve decided to go with Taylor’s group . . . the command center,” said Saul. “I suggested it. A distraction.”

Gentry looked up briefly. “All right.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to be there when they get the Fuller woman,” Saul said, “but I don’t think they understand how dangerous Colben can be . . .”

“I understand,” said Gentry. “Did they say how soon it will be?”

“Not long after midnight,” said Saul.

Gentry set the gun aside and pulled the mattress up against the wall like a pillow. He laced his hands behind his head and lay back. “It’s New Year’s Eve,” he said. “Happy New Year.”

Saul took his glasses off and wiped them with a Kleenex. “You got to know Natalie Preston very well, did you not?”

“She was in Charleston for just a few days after you left,” said Gentry. “But yes, I was beginning to get to know her.”

“A remarkable young woman,” said Saul. “She makes one feel as if one has known her for years. A very intelligent and perceptive young person.”

“Yep,” said Gentry. “There is a chance she is alive,” said Saul.

Gentry looked at the ceiling. The shadows there reminded him of the stains on the pool table. “Saul,” he said, “if she’s alive, I’m going to get her out of this nightmare.”

“Yes,” said Saul, “I believe you will. You must excuse me, I am going to get an hour or two of sleep before the revels commence.” He went off to a mattress near the window.

Gentry lay looking at the ceiling for some time. Later, when they came upstairs looking for him, he was ready and waiting.

T
he room was windowless and very cold. It was more of a closet than a room, six feet long, four feet wide, with three stone walls and a thick wooden door. Natalie had slammed and kicked at the door until her fists and feet were bruised, but it had not budged. She knew the thick oak must have massive hinges and bolts on the outside.

The cold had brought her awake. At first the panic had risen in her like vomit, more urgent and painful than the cuts and bruises on her forehead. She immediately remembered crouching behind charred timbers, the world smelling of ashes and fear while the hulking shadow with the scythe shuffled toward her through the darkness. She remembered jumping, throwing the brick she had been clutching, trying to run past the swiftly turning shadow. Hands had closed on her upper arms; she had screamed, kicked wildly. Then the heavy blow to her head, and another blow cutting across her temple and brow, blood flowing into her left eye and the sensation of being lifted, carried. A glimpse of sky, snow, a tilting streetlight, then blackness.

She had awakened to the cold and darkness severe enough to make her wonder for several minutes if she had been blinded. She crawled from a nest of blankets on the stone floor and felt the roughhewn confines of her stone and wood cell. The ceiling was too high to touch. There were cold metal brackets on one wall, as if shelves had once rested there. After several minutes, Natalie was able to make out small bands of lesser darkness at the top and base of the door, not light as such, but an external darkness relieved by at least the hint of reflected light.

Natalie had felt around for the two blankets and crouched shivering in a corner. Her head hurt abysmally and nausea combined with fear to keep her on the verge of being violently sick. All of her life Natalie had admired courage and calmness in emergencies, had aspired to be like her father— quietly competent in situations that would have others babbling uselessly— and instead she crouched hopelessly in a corner, shaking violently and praying to no deity in particular that the honky monster would not return. The room was cold but not with the sub-freezing chill of the out-of-doors; it had the cold, steady clamminess of a cave. Natalie had no idea where she could be. Hours had passed and she was close to dozing, still shivering, when light flickered under the doorway, there came the sound of multiple bolts slamming back, and Melanie Fuller stepped into the room.

Natalie was sure it was Melanie Fuller, although the dancing light from the single candle the old lady held illuminated her face from below and showed a bizarre caricature of humanity: cheeks and eyes gullied with wrinkles, corded neck a mass of wattles, eyes like marbles staring from dark pits, the left eyelid drooping, thinning blue-white hair flying out from a mottled scalp like a nimbus of static electricity. Behind this apparition, Natalie could make out the lean form of the honky monster, hair hanging over a face streaked with dirt and blood. His broken teeth glinted yellowly in the light from the old woman’s candle. His hands were empty and the long white fingers twitched randomly, as if surges of current were passing through his body.

“Good evening, my dear,” said Melanie Fuller. She wore a long nightgown and a thick, cheap robe. Her feet were lost in pink fluffy slippers.

Natalie pulled the blanket tighter around her and said nothing. “Is it chilly in here, dear?” asked the old woman. “I am sorry. If it is any consolation, the entire house is rather cold. I don’t know how people lived in the North before central heating.” She smiled and candlelight gleamed off slick, perfect dentures. “Would you speak with me a minute, dear?”

Natalie considered attacking the woman while she was free to do so, then pushing past her into the dark room beyond. She caught a glimpse of a long, wooden table— certainly an antique— and stone walls beyond that. But between her and the room stood the boy with the demon eyes.

“You brought a picture of me all the way from Charleston to this city, didn’t you, dear?”

Natalie stared.

Melanie Fuller shook her head sadly. “I have no wish to harm you, dear, but if you will not speak to me willingly, I will have to ask Vincent to remonstrate with you.”

Natalie’s heart pounded as she watched the honky monster take a step forward and stop.

“Where did you get the photograph, dear?”

Natalie tried to find enough moisture in her mouth to allow her to speak. “Mr. Hodges.”

“Mr. Hodges gave it to you?” Melanie Fuller’s tone was skeptical. “No. Mrs. Hodges let us go through his slides.”

“Who is us, dear?” The old woman smiled slightly. Candlelight illuminated cheekbones pressing against skin like knife blades under parchment.

Natalie said nothing. “I presume then that ‘us’ includes you and the sheriff,” Melanie Fuller said softly. “Now why on earth would you and a Charleston policeman come all this way to harass an old woman who has done you no harm?”

Natalie felt the anger burning up through her, igniting her limbs with strength, banishing the weakness of terror. “You killed my father!” she screamed. Her back scraped against rough stone as she tried to rise.

The old woman looked puzzled. “Your father? There must be some mistake, dear.”

Natalie shook her head, fighting back the hot tears. “You used your goddamn servant to kill him. For no reason.”

“My servant? Mr. Thorne? I am afraid you are confused, dear.” Natalie would have spit at the blue-haired monster then, but her mouth held no saliva.

“Who else is searching for me?” asked the old woman. “Are you and the sheriff alone? How did you follow me here?”

Natalie forced a laugh; it sounded like seeds rattling in an empty tin. “
Everyone
knows you’re here. We know all about you and the old Nazi and your other friend. You can’t kill people anymore. No matter what you do to me, you’re finished . . .” She stopped because her heart was beating hard enough to hurt her breast.

The old woman looked alarmed for the first time. “Nina?” she said. “Did Nina send you?”

For a second the name meant nothing to Natalie, and then she remembered the third member of the trio Saul Laski had described. She remembered Rob’s description of the murders in the Mansard House. Natalie looked into Melanie Fuller’s wildly dilated eyes and saw madness there. “Yes,” said Natalie firmly, knowing that she might be dooming herself but wanting to strike out at any cost, “Nina sent me. Nina knows where you are.”

The old woman staggered back as if she had been struck in the face. Her mouth sagged in fear. She grasped the doorway for support, looked at the thing she had called Vincent, found no help there, and gasped, “I am tired. We will talk later. Later.” The door crashed shut, bolts slid into place.

Natalie crouched in the darkness and shivered.

Daylight came as thin bands of gray above and below the thick door. Natalie dozed, feverish, her head aching. She awoke with a sense of urgency. She had to relieve herself and there was no place to do, not even a pot. She pounded on the door and shouted until she was hoarse, but there was no response. Finally she found a loose stone in the far corner, clawed at it until it tilted out of the dirt, and used the small niche as a latrine. Finished, she pulled her blankets closer to the door and lay there sobbing.

It was dark again when she awoke with a start. The bolts slammed back and the thick door squeaked open. Vincent stood there alone.

Natalie scrambled backward, feeling for the loose stone to use as a weapon, but the youth was on her in a second, grabbing her hair and tugging her upright. His left arm went around her throat, cutting off her wind and will. Natalie closed her eyes.

The honky monster roughly pulled her out of her cell and half dragged, half pushed her to a steep, narrow stairway. Natalie had time to catch a glimpse of a dark kitchen out of colonial times and a small parlor with a kerosene heater glowing in a tiny fireplace before she was stumbling up the stairway. There was a short, dark hall at the top, and then Vincent shoved her into a room aglow with candlelight.

Natalie stood in shock, staring. Melanie Fuller lay curled in a fetal position amid a tangle of quilts and blankets on a low rollaway. The room had high ceilings, a single shuttered and draped window, and was lit by at least three dozen candles set on floor, tables, moldings, windowsills, mantel, and in a square around the old lady’s bed. Here and there were the rotting mementos of children long since dead— a broken doll house, a crib with metal bars making it look like the case for some small beast, ancient rag dolls, and a disturbing four-foot-tall mannequin of a boy looking as if it had suffered prolonged exposure to radiation: patches of hair missing and molted, peeling paint on the face looking like pools of subcutaneous blood.

Melanie Fuller rolled over and looked at her. “Do you hear them?” she whispered.

Natalie turned her head. There was no sound but Vincent’s heavy breathing and the pounding of her own heart. She said nothing.

“They say it is almost time,” the old woman hissed. “I sent Anne home in case we need the car.”

Natalie glanced toward the stairway. Vincent blocked her escape. Her eyes moved around the room, searching for a possible weapon. The metal crib was too bulky. The mannequin almost certainly too awkward. If she had a knife, anything sharp, she could go for the old woman’s throat. What would the honky monster do if the Voodoo Lady died? Melanie Fuller looked dead; her skin seemed as blue as her hair in the pulsing light and the old lady’s left eyelid drooped almost shut.

“Tell me what Nina wants,” whispered Melanie Fuller. Her eyes shifted back and forth, seeking Natalie’s gaze. “Nina, tell me what you want. I did not mean to kill you, my darling. Can you hear the voices, dear? They have told me you were coming. They tell me about the fire and the river. I should get dressed, dear, but my clean clothes are at Anne’s and it is far too far to go. I have to rest awhile. Anne will bring them when she comes. You will like Anne, Nina. If you want her, you can have her.”

Natalie stood, panting slightly, with a strange visceral terror rising within her. It might be her last chance. Should she make an effort to brush past Vincent, get down the stairs and find an exit? Or go for the old woman? She looked at Melanie Fuller. The woman smelled of age and baby powder and old sweat. At that second Natalie knew without a doubt that this was the thing responsible for her father’s death. She remembered the last time she had seen her father— hugging a good-bye at the airport two days after Thanksgiving, the soap and tobacco smell of him, his sad eyes and kind smell.

Natalie decided that Melanie Fuller had to die. She tensed her muscles to jump.

“I’m tired of your impertinence, girl!” screamed the old woman. “What are you doing up here? Get back to your duties. You know what Papa does to bad niggers!” The old woman in the bed closed her eyes.

Natalie felt something cleave her skull like an ax. Her mind was on fire. She pivoted, fell forward, tried to regain her balance. Synapses misfired as she staggered around in a palsied dance. She struck the wall, struck it again, and fell back against Vincent. The boy put streaked, filthy hands on her breasts. His breath smelled like carrion. He ripped Natalie’s shirt down the front.

“No, no,” said the old woman from the bed. “Do it downstairs. Take the body back to the house when you are done.” The hag sat up on her elbow and looked at Natalie with one eye open, the other showing only white under a heavy lid. “You lied to me, dear. You don’t have a message from Nina after all.”

Natalie opened her mouth to say something, to scream, but Vincent grabbed her by the hair and clamped a powerful hand over her face. She was dragged from the room, shoved down the steep stairs. Stunned, she tried to crawl away, her hands scrabbling on rough boards. Vincent did not hurry. He took his time coming down the stairs, caught her as she got to her knees, and kicked her brutally in the side.

Natalie rolled against the wall, tried to huddle into a tight, invisible ball. Vincent grabbed her by the hair with both hands and pulled hard.

She rose, screaming, and kicked as hard as she could at his testicles. He easily caught her foot and twisted sharply. Natalie spun but not fast enough; she heard her ankle snap like a dry twig and she fell hard on her hands and left shoulder. Pain surged up her right leg like blue flame.

Natalie looked back just as Vincent pulled the knife from his army jacket and flipped open the long blade. She tried to crawl away, but he reached down, half lifted her by the shirt. The fabric tore again and Vincent ripped at the rest of the material. Natalie kept crawling down the dark hallway, feeling ahead of her for some kind of weapon. There was nothing but cold floorboards.

She rolled onto her back as Vincent stepped forward with a crash of heavy boots, stood straddling her. Natalie turned and bit through filthy denim, feeling her teeth sink deep into his calf muscle. He did not flinch or make a noise. The blade moved in a blur past her ear, cutting her bra strap and leaving a long line of pain down her back.

Natalie let out a gasp, rolled on her back again, and raised her hands in a futile effort to stop the blade’s return.

Outside, the explosions started.