Authors: Caitlin R. Kiernan
“It’s all right, Detective,” the first agent says, and then, to Deacon, “Yes, Mr. Silvey, we have names. I’m Agent Broom and this is Agent Gorman. I’m with the Birmingham office, and Agent Gorman’s from our office, up in Atlanta.”
“Where’s that guy I talked to yesterday? Peterson, wasn’t that his name?”
“He’s still at your home, Mr. Silvey, in case the kidnapper tries to make contact.”
“I already told him, nobody’s going to be making contact with anyone. She’s got what she wants.”
“And how can you be so sure of that, Mr. Silvey?” Agent Gorman asks. He’s older than the Birmingham agent, his red hair going gray at the temples, and he has a long scar just above his left eye.
“Hasn’t anyone told you?” Deacon asks. “I’m a fucking psychic.”
“We’re aware of your work with the police in Atlanta, and with Detective Downs here,” Agent Broom says. His hair is the color of a tea stain, and his small dark eyes remind Deacon of the pet rat he had when he was in college. “I can’t say that I personally buy into the whole extrasensory thing, but there’s no denying you have an impressive record.”
“Are you also aware I’m a drunk?” Deacon asks.
“Yes,” Agent Gorman replies, exchanging impatient glances with the Birmingham agent. “We are. You’d been sober for what, the last year or so?”
“Give or take a month or two,” Deacon replies. “Fortunately, I’m all better now.”
“He gets migraines,” Detective Downs says. “That’s why he drinks.”
“Jesus, man, are you like my fucking den mother now or what?” and Deacon glares past the two agents at Downs’ back.
“I just don’t see any point in you making this shit any harder on yourself than it has to be,” Downs says. “That’s all.”
“Then maybe you can get me something to drink, ’cause a bottle of Jack or Dickle would sure make this a whole lot easier.”
Agent Broom coughs, and Gorman puts his elbows on the table and leans towards Deacon, squinting through the cigarette smoke with his beady rat eyes.
“What I’m still trying to figure out,” he says, “is why you lied to Detective Downs here in the first place, why you told him you thought the killer was a man.”
“Sometimes I’m wrong. I keep telling people that, but nobody ever listens.”
“It’s a pretty big mistake, don’t you think? First, you tell him he’s looking for a white man in his forties with a swastika tattoo. Then you decide, no, it’s really a woman with yellow eyes named—” He stops and looks expectantly at Agent Broom.
“Narcissus Snow,” Broom says.
“Narcissa,” Deacon says.
“Pretty damn big mistake, wouldn’t you say?”
“Think you could do better?” Deacon asks, then adds, “But I was right about the tattoos. She has two, one on each side of her ass. They aren’t swastikas, but I still think I should at least get a half-credit for that.”
“So, why didn’t you tell us about the fight at the bar?” Gorman asks.
“What fight?” Deacon replies and looks at the ashtray so he won’t have to look at Gorman.
“We talked to a friend of yours who tends bar there,” Broom says. “She says there was some kind of trouble Sunday evening, you and some guy with a ponytail and a biker jacket. She said there was a girl with him.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Deacon, you really don’t want to start screwing around with the FBI,” Downs says, and Deacon shrugs his shoulders.
“Gentlemen, I’ve been in a whole hell of a lot of fights,” he says. “I can’t be expected to remember them all.”
Gorman nods his head and leans a little closer. “The description the bartender gave us of the girl was a dead ringer for the chick we found out behind your apartment building.”
“Then why the hell aren’t you talking to her?”
“What was the fight about?” Gorman asks. “We know that’s how you hurt your hand,” and he points to Deacon’s bandaged left hand.
“I broke a glass. That’s how I hurt my hand.”
“Well, at least that’s half true,” Gorman says. “Why are you lying to us, Mr. Silvey? Who are you trying to protect? I’ll tell you, if someone had just kidnapped my pregnant wife, I think I’d try to be a little bit more helpful.”
Deacon takes a last drag off the Camel and adds it to all the other butts piled in the ashtray, but doesn’t look up at Gorman. Too obvious that this man’s baiting him, digging for a rise, and Deacon doesn’t feel like giving him the satisfaction.
“Deacon, maybe it’s time you started thinking about talking to a lawyer,” Downs says.
“Do I look like I know any lawyers?”
“Perhaps it’s time I introduced you to a couple.”
“Listen, Mr. Silvey,” Agent Gorman says and begins tapping a middle finger loudly against the wooden tabletop. “Every hour, every
minute,
that ticks by makes it that less likely we’ll find your wife alive, or that we’ll even find her
dead
.”
“I already told you—” Deacon begins, but Broom interrupts him.
“He’s trying to stress that time is of the essence.”
“Fuck that,” Gorman says. “I’m trying to make this sad sack of shit here understand that if he doesn’t shape up and stop bullshitting us, we’re going to find his wife rotting in a ditch somewhere.”
“No,” Deacon replies calmly, watching Gorman’s tapping finger now instead of the ashtray. The man’s nails are thick and yellow. “I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. I don’t think you’re going to find her at all. I don’t think you’ll ever find a single trace of her.”
“Who’s the girl we got in the hospital?” Gorman asks, and Deacon shakes his head.
“Are you saying you
didn’t
talk to her at the bar Sunday night?”
“No, I’m just saying I don’t know who she is, that’s all. She told me her name was Jane. I think she might have said she was from Providence.”
“Providence, Rhode Island?” asks Agent Broom.
“Yeah, Providence fucking Rhode Island.”
“And who’s your sparring buddy in the leather jacket?” Gorman asks and stops tapping on the table.
“I never caught his name,” Deacon says. “We had a little disagreement over a glass of whiskey, that’s all.”
“So you kicked his ass?”
“What?” Deacon asks. “You think I might have overreacted?” and then he pushes his chair back from the table. It makes an unpleasant scrunking sound, sliding across the floor. Gorman sits up straight again and fidgets with his tie.
“You kicked his ass,” he says, “then called Detective Downs to warn him that your wife’s life was in danger, and then you got into a car with these two people. The same car, by the way—a black 1959 Cadillac with Massachusetts plates—that you showed up in at—”
“Am I under arrest, Agent?”
The two men exchange glances again. “No,” Broom says. “You’re not under arrest, Mr. Silvey. I do want to make it clear that it wouldn’t look very good if you left the city right now. But no, you’re not under arrest.”
“So I’m free to go then?”
“Deacon, I don’t understand why you won’t at least
try,
” Downs says and finally turns around. “Who the fuck are these people that you’re too afraid of them to even give us information that might save your wife and child?”
“I’m not afraid of them. I just don’t know who they are, and my head hurts too much to make up anything interesting.”
“If we want to talk again,” Agent Gorman says, looking over his shoulder at the clock, “we better not have any trouble locating you.”
“Don’t worry,” Deacon says. “I’ll cancel the vacation to Cancún,” and he stands, picks up his pack of cigarettes and the book of matches from The Plaza. “But I’m leaving now, unless someone has a better idea.”
“We didn’t call you in just to bust your balls,” Broom says. “You’ve got enough to worry about. I just wish we could make you believe that we are trying to help.”
“Oh, I believe you are. I imagine that’s exactly what you
think
you’re doing. It’s just that I know better, and I’m tired of playing footsie. It’s easier if I go ahead and give up now.”
“Sounds kind of like the coward’s way out to me,” says Gorman, and Deacon looks him in the eye and nods his head.
“Maybe that’s exactly what it is,” he says. “But that’s really none of your goddamn business, now is it?”
“It’s my business to find a woman who’s been kidnapped and who’s also unfortunate enough to be your wife.”
Deacon takes a step towards the agent, one hand on the corner of the table like he means to shove it out of his way, and then Downs has him by the shoulders, strong hands holding him fast, and Gorman takes a quick step back.
“Maybe,” Deacon says, his voice grown low and threatening, “you weren’t paying attention. Maybe you missed the part where I really don’t give a shit what happens to me anymore.”
“Let’s go for a walk,” Downs says and is already leading Deacon towards the door. Gorman watches him go, while Agent Broom busies himself with a ballpoint pen and a little black spiral-bound notebook.
“You know better than that,” Downs says, shutting the door after they’ve stepped out into the hallway. “At least I thought you did. Hammond said you were a pretty levelheaded guy, all things considered.”
“I’m not in the mood for good cop–bad cop right now. And I need some water. I’ve got to take some Excedrin.”
“I think there’s a cooler at the end of the hall. But, Deke, you need to know these guys are looking for any excuse to arrest
anyone
right now, you or anybody else.”
Deacon follows the detective down the wide hall, marble floors and walls, frosted glass doors with names and titles printed carefully in gold paint, and the white, white light pouring down from the ceiling is making his headache even worse. There isn’t a cooler at the end of the hallway, but there is a men’s restroom, and Deacon tells Downs that’ll do, just give him a minute, but the cop follows him inside.
“Did you ever think maybe I needed to take a piss?” he asks and fishes a couple of lint-covered tablets from his pants pocket.
“Sorry, but we need to talk someplace I know nobody’s going to be listening. Well, someplace I’m pretty sure nobody’s listening.”
“All these G-men making you nervous?” Deacon asks and dry-swallows the two Excedrin, then bends over to drink from the tap.
“I don’t mind telling you, right now, everything makes me nervous.”
Deacon stares at himself in the mirror above the sink, wipes away the water dripping from his chin. The detective is checking the four stalls behind him to be sure they’re alone, and Deacon runs some more water, splashes a handful across his face. The circles under his eyes have gone as dark as bruises.
“This isn’t only about you and Chance,” Downs says. “And I’m about to tell you some shit that I’m not supposed to, but I think you have a right to know, even if you’re determined to act like a horse’s ass.”
“You ought to know I’m not so good with secrets,” Deacon says, smoothing his hair back and wishing he could have stayed longer with Sadie, wishing he’d said all the things he meant to say.
“Then you’re just going to have to make an exception.”
“I’m not so good at making exceptions, either.”
“Christ in a rusty wheelbarrow, Deacon, will you just shut the hell up and listen to me for a minute or two?”
“I know she’s gone,” Deacon replies, turning away from the mirror, away from the sickly, haggard face frowning back at him. “And I think
you
know that I’m probably right. So what do you have to say that I could possibly want to hear?”
“Maybe nothing,” Downs replies, and leans against a closed stall door. “Not if you’re so certain she’s dead.”
“She’s dead, or I can’t get to her before she dies, and either way it’s the same damned thing.”
“The Feds have been after this psycho for months now. This isn’t the first time they’ve gotten close to her. A few weeks ago, back in September, she killed one of their agents in Atlanta.”
“No shit,” Deacon says and takes out a cigarette, but Downs points at the thank you for not smoking sign on the wall, the sign and a smoke detector, so Deacon curses and puts it back in the pack.
“No shit. They got eighteen murders, all down the East Coast, all with the same MO as that Charles Ellis kid and that guy you led us to in the warehouse. Eighteen, Deacon, and now our three plus a kidnapping, in the past six months alone. Fucking heads in garbage bags, disemboweled corpses, missing organs, bite marks that don’t match human teeth, and that symbol—”
“It’s the moon,” Deacon says.
“What?”
“The symbol. It’s the moon, rising or setting, I’m not sure which. Unless it’s the sun.”
“When’d you figure that out?”
“I didn’t. Sadie Jasper did. That’s why she’s in the hospital right now. She also thinks that Narcissa Snow believes she’s some kind of werewolf—”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell us this already?”
“What difference would it have made? You want to go back in there and tell those two suits that they’re looking for a woman who turns into a monster?”