Sleeping Policemen (15 page)

The waterline crept over the windshield wipers, past the door handles. It gushed through cracks and seams, gurgling into the interior. Nick imagined it soaking the leather seats, the threadbare carpet, filling Pomeroy's boots, saturating his Wranglers, turning the Stetson the color of sour milk. In his mind he watched as the water lapped past the detective's chin, sluiced into his yawning mouth, engulfed him entirely, the thin wisps of his hair undulating like seaweed. He imagined the caddy spiraling into the quarry's depths, nosing at last into the ancient sludge. Years fled. Algae carpeted the Cadillac, the corpse. The muddy waters sloughed the skin and muscle from Pomeroy's body, transforming him into a grinning skull, a skeleton trapped within a skeleton.

“Sink, damn you, sink.”

Finney's voice brought Nick back into time. The Cadillac still moved, but sluggishly, painfully. It leaned heavily to the right side, as if the shocks on that side had given way. The waterline reached halfway up the windshield and front windows, a quarter way up the back windows. The trunk—the lid ever bobbing—was fully exposed.

The Cadillac ground to a halt; the water stilled. None of them made a sound for a full minute, all staring unbelievingly, helplessly at the car, a beached leviathan.

“No! Nooooo!” Tucker screamed. “No! No!
Nooooo!
” He charged into the icy water, high-stepping the few feet to the Cadillac—the water churning about him as though it were boiling—and slamming into the trunk.

“Sink, motherfucker!” he shrieked, shoving against the bumper, urging the Cadillac deeper. His feet slipped in the quarry slime and he plunged into the water, rising immediately, sputtering, screaming, a primal yodeling of rage.

Finney ran down the embankment, stopping at the water's edge, and shouted, “Tuck! Get back! Get out of there!”

Nick looked at Sue, her green eyes like emeralds in the coming day, and shook his head. “Aw, Jesus,” he said. She took his hand and squeezed. How could things have gone so horribly wrong? He felt as if he'd been torn asunder, as if the pieces of himself had been strewn about the world. Gone was any sense of victory, of might, of right.

His hand returned to the tight lump in his jacket. He knew that when he fingered them, the bills would be hot to the touch, that he would feel heat radiating from them, worming into his chest. But when he did grasp the roll, the bills were as crisp and cool as the leaves of an ancient tome.

Tucker continued to lash at the hump of the Cadillac, rooted into the quarry bottom. Nick squeezed his eyes tightly shut, and in the darkness he saw his life imploding.

He looked to the sky again, spellbound by the dissipation of time. The gray light faded to a dull white, the far horizon tinted with—

—
blood
—

—the rose of the rising sun. Day had arrived. Nick glanced at his wrist, at the watch not there, a force of habit, like brushing your teeth before bed, wiping your shoes on a doormat, hiding your victims at dark. He looked nervously toward the woods. Park rangers could be anywhere. Hell, they found the Aryan's body in the middle of nowhere in less than twelve hours. And what about Evans? Had that been his patrol car he'd seen snaking through Ransom at dawn? Unbidden, an image rose up to claim Nick: the cockroach scooting over the greasy plaster, that hand whistling down upon it. What had Pomeroy said?
The guy's a fucking lunatic, he eats kids like you for breakfast
—

It was time to retreat, time to run, time to get the fuck out of Dodge.

“Finney! Get him out of there!”

Tucker still wailed at the Cadillac, flailing against the sunken weight of its carcass. Finney, in the quarry up to his knees, looked back at Nick and shouted, his voice a barely contained fury, “Get your ass down here and help me! I'm not going to—”

Tucker screamed, a kicked-dog yelp of fear. He whirled away from the car and bolted for the shore, splashing through the water. He tripped, going down to his knees. Never slowing, he regained his footing, already running again. All the while, he screamed, hardly seeming to pause for breath. He collapsed at the shoreline, falling face first into the embankment, only half out of the water. He fell quiet, the scream knocked out of him. Steam rose from his wet clothing. Finney grabbed a wad of his sweatshirt and dragged him out of the water. Tucker rolled over, lying full length in one of the Cadillac's tire tracks, his breath coming in wet heaves.

“H-h-hear—” he sputtered, his face pale, his lips tinged with blue. “H-h-h—”

“Calm down, Tuck,” Finney said, going down on one knee beside him, patting his chest. “Get your breath, calm down.”

Tucker closed his eyes for several seconds, then said, almost calmly, “I heard something. Down there, inside the car.”

“Heard something?” Nick said, standing over them. “Like what? Water?”

“No, you asshole,” Tucker said, sitting up. He hawked deeply and spat out a thick wad of phlegm. “Like a thump, a knocking—like someone moving around in there, like fucking Pomeroy trying to get out.”

Finney looked up at Nick. “Could have been the car settling.”

“Or something floating around inside Tuck's head.”

“Believe what you want,” Tucker said, getting up. “I heard something. A thump. Like a fist on glass.” He gave the half-sunken car a final, fearful look and pushed past them, heading for the Mercedes. “I'm getting the hell out of here.”

“What do you think, Nicky? Go back in there and check it out?”

Nick looked at the Cadillac and then back at the woods. A thin fog floated through the trees like phantoms. How long before someone discovered the car? A day? An hour?

For the first time in his adult life, Nick wanted to cry, to surrender. To lay down, stare at the quickening sky, and let sobs wrack through him, let everything wash out of him in a great caterwaul of tears. To surrender all of it—

—
the fist-sized wad of money
—

—Sue—

—to concede.

“I'm with Tuck,” he said, walking toward the Mercedes. He heard Finney and Sue follow.

As he opened the passenger door, Sue said, “Wait, I've got towels.”

Tuesday, 7:50 to 8:42 AM

Two days after his seventh birthday Nick Laymon contracted a vicious fever, a heat that devoured his strength and will, that dried his eyes and swelled his lips, which made every move a bright flare of pain. His father camped at his bedside during the four days that the fever raged, sponging Nick's small body every two or three hours, spooning broth and ice cubes into him.

Midway through the third day, the fever peaked, turning the world monstrous. Nick lost all sense of proportion: his father sometimes shrank to the size of a doll; other times his room seemed as vast as the Gulf of Mexico. He woke late that night to see red eels, their bodies pulsing with electricity as they rode the lazy currents of darkness over his father's drawn face. Some time later, he rolled over to find his mother's cool palm pressed to his brow. She smiled and told him they'd be together soon.

As the fever crested, his hands began to inflate like parade balloons, becoming the size of catchers' mitts, of hearse-black Cadillacs. He shrieked at their monstrous size, barely able to lift them. His fever-wracked mind created a litany of torturous tasks, forcing him to thread needles, to pick up dropped pins, to bait minuscule hooks with minuscule worms. He fumbled clumsily, incapable of completing the simplest chores. His mind buckled in the pitch of fever.

Nick recalled very little the next morning, pieces of the fever-induced dreams coming back to him only in snatches over the years, like bits of fluff carried by currents over endless tracts of water. He remembered clearly, though, the oafishly gigantic hands and the sense of despair that spiked through him when he found himself capable of nothing. The dream haunted him through the course of his life, returning—like a junkie's flashback—in moments of anxiety, when it seemed as if the world itself were flying apart. He'd look down in those moments half-expecting to discover his hands grotesquely swollen.

As the Mercedes wound farther into the mountains, Nick stared at his hands, feeling the heat of the long-ago fever, reliving the panic the balloon hands had given him. He had somehow stumbled into a world as hallucinatory and unreliable as the fever-dreams.

The Mercedes downshifted and bore into a steep grade. It had been Finney's idea to flee into the Smokies; they needed time to think, he said. They were in the heart of the mountains, maybe forty miles from the quarry.

Sue reached over and took one of Nick's unswollen hands in hers, squeezing it softly; her fingers stroked his palm. It still amazed Nick how a single touch from Sue could calm his world. He looked over at her; she gave him a quick smile, her eyes flashing. He returned her squeeze.

Finney leaned between their seats. “Stop at the next place you see, somewhere we can get some coffee. We need—”

“
Coffee
! You want
coffee
?” The quarry waters had revived Tucker, jarring him from the catatonia that had gripped him in the minutes after Pomeroy's death. He sat hunched in the corner behind Nick, shivering, his teeth rattling like small bones loose in his mouth. He had wrapped himself in one of Sue's bright beach towels, the word
Cancun
draped across his shoulders.

“We're all fucked,” Tucker continued, “you realize that, don't you? We just fucking
killed
a man and now we're running.” He turned on Finney. “
Where
? Where we running to, Mr. Big Daddy Dick?”

Finney sat back and looked out his window. Tucker's words hung in the air. Nick leaned his head back, closing his eyes. His mind filled with the half-submerged Cadillac. How long before someone found it? A thought emerged, popping to the surface of his mind like flotsam from a sinking liner. He turned in his seat, afraid to ask, asking anyway.

“Finney,” he said slowly, “did you wipe down the glove compartment?”

Finney looked at him, his eyes as gray and dull as slate. He shook his head, a slow twist to the right, then back.

“What?” Tucker shouted, his voice cracking. “You left your goddamned prints in the car? You fucking moron, this is all your fault—”

Nick whirled on Tucker, coming over the seat and grabbing a double fistful of Tucker's damp Hilfiger sweatshirt. Nick yanked him forward, pulling him taut against the shoulder harness.

“This quit being my fault a long time ago! We're all in this, everyfuckingone of us!” Rage throbbed at the center of his forehead, spearing deep into his brain. All he wanted was to feel his fists sinking into Tucker Reed's doughlike flesh. He'd be easy, soft; money did that to you.

Tucker's eyes grew wide and round; his mouth dropped open with a cluck.

Then Finney was between them, talking him down, easing his fingers loose. “Calm down, Nick. Think. We've slogged through the shit, it's over now. Has to be. We turn on each other and we really are fucked. We think this through and we can beat it.” He paused, letting the balm of his words sink in. Nick released the sweatshirt, and Tucker, breathing hard, slumped back in his seat. He grunted and looked away.

“We can ride this out.”

Nick turned around and glowered out the window. “That's what you said yesterday,” he said. “I haven't liked the ride so far.” A crudely painted sign flashed by; Nick caught only a glimpse, something about a two-headed snake. Another right behind it said,
MONKEYS CAPTURED IN VIETNAM
. Fifty yards later another one announced,
BOILED PEANUTS AND POSSUM
.

“There,” Finney said. “Stop there, Sue.”

Sue slowed and pulled into a deserted gravel lot. At the far end a clapboard structure leaned precariously—as if frozen in its decision to collapse—over a perilous abyss. A hand-lettered sign proclaimed it
THE SMOKIN MOUNTAIN—FOOD, BEER
. A sun-bleached
OPEN
sign hung in a fly-specked window.

“Jesus,” Tucker groaned. “Granny Mae Clampett's place.”

Sue coasted to the far side of the building and cut the ignition. A crude cage constructed of scrap lumber and rusting chain-link fence hunkered beside the store; it looked as rickety as the Smokin Mountain.

“Let's get some coffee, lay low for a little while.” Finney stepped out of the car; Tucker, groaning, followed him, the towel trailing him like a multi-colored shroud. They walked to the store, neither one looking back, and disappeared inside, the whole building shaking when the door slammed behind them.

Sue leaned over and kissed Nick softly on the mouth; Nick felt the hint of her tongue and the soft weight of her hand pressing lightly into his lap; then she backed away, pulling her coat tightly around her. They exchanged a silent look and climbed out of the Mercedes. The sun, a flat, red wafer, floated just above the tree line. Nick shivered, knowing it would bring no warmth today.

Coming around the car, he stopped before a sign nailed to the cage:
BEAR CUB
. Something in the cage barked, a coughing rasp of sound. He took Sue's hand and led her to the front.

The cage was hardly bigger than a walk-in closet; it smelled like something rotting. In the far corner huddled a small bear, its matted fur the dusky color of charcoal. A heavy chain led from the cub's neck to a thick tree trunk, smooth and barkless with wear, rising from the back of the cage. Three leafless branches reached pathetically for the sky.

The bear chuffed loudly and, with a ponderous clanking of chain, heaved itself up; it shuffled toward Nick and Sue, its nose poking tentatively at the air. The fur had been worn from both flanks, the skin like pimpled leather. The cub thrust its snout against the fence and snorted loudly, a thick wad of bear snot landing in the gravel. The bear had no eyes; the sockets were bottomless holes, the skin around them smooth and hairless.