Six Crime Stories (12 page)

 

*****

Harsh red neon lit Lee
'
s old room
,
blazing through the window from the flashing sign on a barroom across the street.

The smell of sweat and excrement filled the cramped room. Carver heard a scampering sound and spotted the pink tail of a rat disappearing through a hole in the baseboard.

So this was where Lee had been living. So this was where he had died.

As Carver pushed the door shut
,
Sister Mayhem--still disguised as Leonard--stood in the middle of the room and turned in a slow circle.

"
The place has been well-cleaned
,
"
said Kay
,
"
but no cleanup is ever perfect
,
is it?
"

Carver pulled a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket and tugged them on with a snap.
"
If they missed anything
,
we
'
ll find it.
"

With that
,
the two investigative talents went to work.
As Kay carefully searched the window sills and frames
,
Carver lifted the stained
,
filthy mattress from the bed and set it aside. Next
,
he overturned the box spring and searched the frame...but found nothing.

As Kay moved on to take apart the overhead light fixture
,
Carver searched the medicine cabinet. Then
,
he dropped to the floor
,
looking under the sink and all around the rusty
,
sweating pipes.

While Carver was hunkered down under the sink
,
the rat hole in the baseboard caught his eye
,
and he had an idea.

Untwisting a wire clothes hanger from the closet
,
Carver pushed the hooked end into the hole and fished around until he felt it snag something. When he drew the hanger out
,
it brought a half-chewed wad of paper with it.

Smoothing out the paper
,
Carver saw that he had indeed found a trace of his brother--part of a note in Lee
'
s chicken-scratch handwriting. It was a gnawed fragment
,
ragged and smudged
,
but at least it was something.

The fragment looked as if it had come from the middle of a page. It included no complete thoughts
,
only snippets of sentences.

One of the snippets read
,
"
...too late to change...
"
Below that was
,
"
...get what I deserve...
"
The next line read
,
"
...too ashamed to ask you for help...
"

And then
,
Carver got to the line that broke his heart. The line that told the tale.

"
...forgive me
,
please
,
"
it read
,
"
forgive me when I
'
m gone
,
my beloved brother
,
Carver...
"

Carver
'
s fingers trembled as he realized what he held in his hand. This was no ordinary fragment.

It was part of a letter that Lee had written especially for him. It was part of a letter from Lee to Carver.

And whatever it was meant to tell him
,
all that was left were disconnected pieces:

"
...time running out
,
I know he
'
s coming...
"

"
...dead. I have to pay the price...
"

"
...maybe in the next world...
"

"
...ay for me
,
Carver
,
good...
"

And that was it. Not one word more
,
and nothing written on the other side of the scrap.

Carver wiped away tears with the back of his hand. Somehow
,
he didn
'
t feel better knowing that Lee had been thinking about him near the end. It felt worse
,
much worse
,
because...

Because Carver hadn
'
t been thinking about Lee. Not until after Lee
'
s death.

A sob forced its way from Carver
'
s throat. He reminded himself that Lee had gone bad
,
that he
'
d sunk into a gutter long ago that could have pulled in Carver if he
'
d gotten too close. To survive and stay clean
,
Carver had cut himself off from Lee completely. It had been necessary.

But somehow
,
that didn
'
t make it feel any better. Neither did the fact that Lee had written Carver a note
,
and only a fragment of his words had survived.

"
Is there any more?
"

At the sound of Kay
'
s voice
,
Carver realized Sister Mayhem was standing behind him
,
reading the note fragment. The reminder of his teammate
'
s presence was enough to snap him into action.

Urgently
,
Carver fished in the rat hole with the wire hanger for more of the note. Most of what he pulled out was shredded mush.

But he did find one readable fragment of something that wasn
'
t a letter: a chewed yellow corner of a page
,
roughly three inches square.

A yellow corner with a name printed on it.

"'
Aaron Guidry
,
'"
said Kay.
"
Ring a bell?
"

Carver handed him the yellow fragment.
"
You tell me
,
"
he said.

 

*****

After leaving Lee
'
s apartment
,
Kay found a pay phone and made several strategic calls to sources in her network of agents. Within minutes
,
she
'
d come up with reliable information on Aaron Guidry.

"
Guidry is a traveling preacher
,
"
said Kay.
"
He runs a tent revival that tours the South.
"

Carver frowned.
"
How is Guidry connected to Lee?
"

"
Guidry
'
s revival was in St. Louis when Lee was killed
,
"
said Kay.
"
In fact
,
Guidry and the Dreamboats were in several of the same towns at the same time.
"

Carver clenched his fists. The intersecting paths of the preacher and band
,
combined with the fragment of flyer at the murder scene
,
added up to a break in the case.

"
Where will he be next?
"
said Carver.

"
Baton Rouge
,
Louisiana
,
"
said Kay.
"
The Baton Rouge Fairgrounds
,
to be exact.
"

*****

Hours later, Kay sat at the bar in the dance hall in St. Louis, in character as Leonard of the Dreamboats' road crew. Marty, her boss, sat beside her.

"When I said I wouldn't kill a man," said Kay, "that was before you mentioned the possibility of a
bonus
."

Marty laughed. "I had a feeling you'd say that." He pulled a 45-caliber revolver from a shoulder holster under his leather bomber jacket and banged it down on the bar. "So how are you with one of these, Leonard?"

Kay picked up the gun and flicked out the cylinder. There was a cartridge in every chamber.

With another flick, Kay swung the cylinder back into the gun and spun it around one finger. With one smooth motion, she stopped the spin, cocked the hammer, and took aim at a sign on the wall the whole way across the hall.

"Want a demonstration?" said Kay.

"Not necessary." Marty draped his hand over the gun and pushed it down to point at the floor. "I can tell you feel right at home."

Kay grunted. After two weeks of working side by side with Marty--and a tryout tougher than Carver's, with six bruisers trying to break her--was Sister Mayhem finally winning some trust from this outfit?

Suddenly, Sheila Venus spoke up from behind her. "Do you want to change the world, Leonard? Do you want to right wrongs and bring justice to the unjust?"

Kay wondered if Sheila was baiting her--if Sheila was quoting Kay's own mission statement because she knew she was Sister Mayhem. Then, Kay took a long look into Sheila's eyes and decided she hadn't broken her cover.

"Sounds good to me," said Kay. "As long as I still get that bonus."

"Wonderful." Sheila stroked Kay's hair with her crimson nails. "How would you like to go somewhere that doesn't exist?"

"If it doesn't exist," said Kay, "how do we get there?"

"It's not on any map," said Sheila, "but that doesn't mean we don't know where it is." Sheila gave Kay a hug, then released her and strolled away.

 

*****

Later that night, Sister Mayhem and her agents met in secret in an alley not far from the dance hall.

"We're on the trail of something bigger than we imagined," said Kay. "Something that could change the world."

"Not for the better, I'll wager," said Max, the team's hulking muscleman.

"I'll let Sheila and Marty lead me to it," said Kay. "Max and Lillian, you're my backup. Track me with the new belt buckle homing device Gus designed."

"I'll show you how it works, amigos," said Gus...full name Gustavo Morales, the resident electronics wizard.

Sister Mayhem cleared her throat. "Gus and Jack, you'll accompany Carver and Trudy to Louisiana to find Aaron Guidry."

"If he killed Lee," said Jack, "we'll take him down, Carver."

Gus nodded and combed a hand through his wavy black hair. "That
cerdo
, that
pig
, won't know what hit him."

"All I ask," said Carver, "is that I be the one who turns him in to the police."

Kay nodded. "You'll have your justice, Carver. Your brother will be avenged."

 

*****

After the meeting in the alley broke up, Carver and Trudy jumped in a car with Gus and Jack and headed south. Kay returned to the Dreamboats, and her backups Lillian and Max faded into the shadows.

As Carver drove through the reddish dawn toward Baton Rouge, his heart was full of dread. Somewhere in the distance behind him, he knew the Dreamboats were heading in the opposite direction, toward their next gig in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Carver, meanwhile, was heading to face death. It was a terrible thing, hurtling headlong toward his brother's killer...but at least he had Trudy, Gus, and Jack with him. At least he wouldn't have to face death alone.

Not like Lee.

 

*****

As Kay pushed aside tree branches, she caught her first glimpse of the secret city under a starry night sky.

Marty had brought her here from Knoxville, where the Dreamboats were playing a gig. After a wild ride in a pickup truck along winding Tennessee mountain roads, Marty had led her the rest of the way on foot.

Now, at last, Kay saw their destination.

Gazing down from the crest of a hill, she saw rows of barracks and houses by moonlight, arranged like pueblos on a grid of streets and sidewalks. Mammoth industrial buildings sprawled over the rest of the valley, looming like ancient temples to long-forgotten gods. Throughout all of it, soldiers patrolled on foot and in trucks, heavily armed and looking as fierce as any warriors protecting a jungle kingdom.

"Welcome to Oak Ridge," said Marty. "Ever been to a place that doesn't exist?"

"No," said Kay, though that was far from the truth. Her adventures over the years had taken her to many hidden places.

"Not many people know about it," said Marty.

Kay didn't have to pretend to be surprised. For once, she wasn't one of the people in the know. She wondered what was going on at the Oak Ridge facility, if even
she
had never heard of the place. "Sheila knows," she said. "How'd she manage that?"

"She's got informants everywhere," said Marty. "Kind of a network. She's a real queen bee."

The similarity to Sister Mayhem's own organization didn't escape her. "Speaking of Sheila, where is she?"

"You'll see." Marty moved past her, creeping through the trees and brush. "Now follow me, and keep those guns handy."

Kay followed Marty through the dark woods down the hill. At the bottom, they crouched in weeds and waited for a patrol of soldiers to march past on the other side of the chain-link fence. Moments after the soldiers had gone, Marty and Kay climbed over the fence and dropped down on the other side.

Running from shadow to shadow, they slipped through the secret city, dodging one patrol after another. They narrowly avoided being spotted several times before arriving at a huge hangar-like building with corrugated metal walls.

Marty led Kay to a windowless security door midway along the building's length. As Kay stood guard, Marty knocked twice on the door, then twice again, then one final time.

A heavy latch clanked, and the door swung inward. "I'll meet you around front," said Marty as he ducked through the door. "Keep out any visitors, wouldja?"

Sister Mayhem caught a whiff of Sheila's perfume from inside the building before the door closed. That was when she realized Sheila was there.

Sheila had gotten to the base ahead of them and was inside the hangar. She had infiltrated Oak Ridge with feminine wiles or drugs or bribes--or all of the above--and she waited inside with whatever they wanted to steal. Meanwhile, Kay was meant to hold off the heat if Marty and Sheila set off alarms and the soldiers came running.

Sister Mayhem hurried around to the front of the building, which was dominated by a huge garage door. She took up position in the corner where the door met the frame, lurking in the shadow thrown by a nearby streetlamp.

Soon enough, she heard crashing and roaring from inside the building...followed by screaming sirens. The garage door rolled upward, and she jumped from her hiding place into plain sight.

Just then, Kay saw a team of five soldiers running toward her across the pavement with rifles drawn.