The Devil Will Come (7 page)

“Jesus, Earl,
why
?” Gislason’s face is a study in confusion and dismay. “Who owns the damn thing, anyway? The Mayor’s kid, or somebody?”

“It don’t make any difference who owns it. You just remember that it is department policy to leave that—”

“
Charlie Baker 3, we have a report of an armed robbery at the Quik-Save Minimart, corner of Smithfield and Morrissey. Can you respond?
” The dispatcher’s voice is matter-of-fact, as if she has done this a thousand times before, which she has.

Slocum picks the microphone off its hook. “Roger, dispatch. Charlie Baker 3 responding. Should be at the location in two to three minutes. Out.”

He replaces the mike and looks at his partner. “You heard the lady. Let’s roll.”

Gislason looks at him for a moment longer, then turns away and starts the car. “Okay,” he says. “But later on, I want to hear more about this ‘policy’ you were goin’ on about.”

“Yeah, okay, sure. We’ll talk about it later.”

But, for one reason or another, they never do.

* * *

Slocum shrugged uncomfortably. “Maybe not, you know,
everything
— but I told him the important stuff. He knew enough not to mess with the Black Maria. I was real clear on that.”

“But did he understand
why
?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, somebody else could’ve told him. I’m not the only guy on the force he ever talks to, for Chrissake.”

“No, but you’re his partner.”

“Yeah,” Slocum said glumly. “I’m his partner. Or I was.”

Trowbridge sat back, the padded chair creaking under his weight. He opened the shallow drawer underneath his desk top, took out a manila file folder, and flipped it open. It contained old-looking newspaper clippings and a few photographs. Trowbridge took one of the photos and handed it to Slocum.

Slocum found himself looking at a faded black and white picture of three handcuffed men being herded into an old police paddy wagon. Just how old the photo was could be judged by the helmet-like headgear worn by the police officers in the shot. It was the kind of old-fashioned hat associated these days with the silent film era — Charlie Chaplin movies and frantic slapstick featuring the Keystone Kops.

Slocum studied the photo then asked, “What’s this?”

“Thought you’d like to see what an original Black Maria looked like. That’s what they called those wagons, a hundred years ago. Black Marias. They were used to transport prisoners.”

Slocum handed the photograph back. He didn’t say anything, but the question was in his face.

“I came across this folder when I first took over as Chief after Old Man Doyle… died, fourteen years ago,” Trowbridge said. “It wasn’t in the file cabinet with all the other stuff. I found it under the blotter, here.” He tapped the top of his desk. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe he left it for me to find.”

“Was that other stuff in there, too?”

“Most of it. I’ve added some, myself. Apparently, Chief Doyle had spent quite a bit of time putting together a history of the Black Maria’s appearances in this area. According to what he was able to find out, it all goes back quite a ways.”

“How far back we talking about?”

“
1908
.”

“Get outta here.” Slocum ran a slow hand through his hair. “You believe that?”

“I don’t know.” Trowbridge made a face. “But Doyle did, and he’d been a cop a long time. He knew how to dig.”

“1908.” Slocum shook his head. “Jesus.” Then, after a few moments he said, “Wait a second, that can’t be right. I mean, that truck we’ve been seeing, it’s no antique out of 1908. I never got close enough to get the make or model, but it’s just like a thousand other trucks on the road today, except for the paint job.”

“Yeah, I know. But Doyle found out something about that, too.” Trowbridge moved the newspaper clippings aside and pulled out a few sheets of paper that had been underneath. They were lined, torn from some kind of notebook and covered with dense, disciplined handwriting.

“Supposedly, the Black Maria has changed its appearance, over the years,” Trowbridge said. “Back in 1908, around there, it looked a lot like what was in that picture I showed you. But as the design of small trucks underwent modifications over the years, the Black Maria seems to have kept up. There’s no pictures of the thing, of course, but Doyle found some written accounts from several different periods— letters and diaries, stuff like that. The Black Maria is always described as looking like any other truck on the road. The only distinguishing features are the black paint job and the lack of any markings whatever.”

“There’s another thing about it you forgot to mention. I guess it’d be a ‘distinguishing feature,’ too.”

Trowbridge narrowed his eyes, as if he knew what was coming. “What’s that?”

“The kids.”

Trowbridge looked away. “Yeah, I know. The kids.”

“If, like you say, the Black Maria’s been around since 1908….” Slocum did not finish the sentence.

“Yeah.” Trowbridge bent over the file again. “That’s what these clippings are about, mostly. Missing kids. No bodies found, no evidence of foul play, no runaways who come back after a few months on the road. Just kids— gone.” He pulled another sheet out of the file and glanced at it. Then he looked up at Slocum. “Chief Doyle had to make a few guesses. The records aren’t complete, especially the further back you go. But Doyle estimates that, ever since the Black Maria first appeared, the total number of missing kids comes to about… 42.”

“Forty-two kids? And nobody even
noticed
?”

“They weren’t all from here. Doyle found disappearances reported in Derry and Mansfield, too, along with corresponding sightings of the Black Maria. Apparently it… travels the tri-town area.”

“Every six years.”

Trowbridge nodded slowly. “That’s the cycle Doyle found. Going back all the way to 1908.”

“Three kids every time?”

“Looks that way. Three kids, every six years.”

“But never the kids of
cops
,” Slocum said, his voice bitter as day-old coffee.

Trowbridge said nothing.

“Who do you figure it was, way back when, first made that
arrangement
with whoever drives the damn Black Maria? Who was chief of police back in 1908, or whenever it was?”

Trowbridge shook his head. “No idea. But Doyle’s got a note in here that says a cop named Girardeau had his seven year old son disappear in 1914. And he says that’s also the same year that the department starts talking, very quietly, about a ‘hands off’ policy toward the Black Maria.”

“Hell of a bargain, wasn’t it? Those shits can take all the kids they want, for whatever the hell it is they do with ‘em, and the cops ain’t gonna do diddly-squat about it. And in return, the cops’ families are left alone.” Slocum clenched and unclenched his big hands a couple of times. “Year, after year, after year. Talk about a deal with the devil.”

“I got a feeling Old Man Doyle would’ve agreed with you,” Trowbridge said quietly. “In fact, he uses that expression here in the file, ‘deal with the devil.’ It’s one of the last things he wrote.”

“Maybe he wrote it the same night he went home and blew his brains out,” Slocum said.

“Yeah, could be.” Trowbridge closed the file and put it back in his desk. From another drawer he took a bottle of Johnny Walker Red and a glass. “I need a drink,” he said. After a moment’s hesitation he asked Slocum, “You want one?”

“Yeah.” Slocum was looking at the floor.

Trowbridge was just putting another glass out when Slocum continued, “But that don’t mean I’m gonna have one.”

Trowbridge stared at him for a second, then put the second glass away. He poured a couple of ounces of whiskey into his own glass and took a sip.

Without looking up, Slocum said, “You know why Gislason was out there by himself last night?”

“I hear you called in sick. Said you caught the bug that’s been going around. Christ, I hope you’re not blaming—”

“I was
drunk
.”

After a long moment, Trowbridge said carefully, “I thought you were on the wagon.”

“I was.” Slocum seemed to find the old floor tile in front of his chair the most interesting thing in the world. “I fell off. First time in over a year.”

“It happens. The important thing is that you seem to’ve climbed right back on.”

“Yeah, that’s what really matters, I guess.”

“Look, there’s no way you could have known what Gislason was going to run into last night. How could you? Whatever happened, it’s not your fault.”

“I been telling myself the same thing, ever since I got the call this morning from the hospital. So far, it ain’t working too well.”

Trowbridge looked at his glass, which still contained most of the whiskey he’d poured into it. He slowly opened the desk drawer and put the bottle of Johnny Walker back inside. Then he put the glass in there too and closed the drawer.

“Are we missing any kids in town, after last night?” Slocum asked.

“No. I’ve been checking the incoming stuff all day long, and nobody’s reported anything.”

“Good.”

“But they lost one in Mansfield. I saw the bulletin a couple of hours ago. Bonnie Thornton, age nine. Disappeared from her back yard, where she was catching fireflies.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Just one kid missing?” Slocum wasn’t looking down anymore. He was staring at Trowbridge, hard.

“Yeah. So far.”

“That means two more to go. Tonight, or tomorrow night, or maybe later this week.”

Trowbridge produced a sigh that seemed to come from deep inside him. “Yeah, most likely.”

Slocum narrowed his eyes suddenly. “Thornton,” he said quietly. “There’s a cop on the Mansfield force, Marty Thornton. Bowls in the tri-city police league.”

Trowbridge looks across the desk at Slocum, his face unreadable.

“Thornton showed me some pictures of his kids, once,” Slocum said. “A boy and a girl. They were both pretty young, if I remember right. Didn’t get their names.”

Trowbridge glanced at the paper in front of him. “Leo, age eleven.” He looked back up at Slocum, and his eyes were scared now. “And Bonnie. She’s nine.”

“
A cop’s kid
.”

Trowbridge nodded, just once. “Yeah.”

“So all bets are off, now, because of what Gislason did last night. No more deal with the devil.”

Trowbridge didn’t say anything, but the answer was clear on his seamed face.

Slocum stood up suddenly, nearly tipping his chair over. “I’ll be in my cruiser tonight,” he said. There was something in his voice that hadn’t been there before. “But any calls that come in about domestic disturbances or fights in one of the bars, shit like that, let one of the other cars take it.” He took a step toward the door. “Now, I got some things to get ready.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Slocum turned back. “Gonna buy me a six-pack, in the long neck bottles. Guess I’ll pick a brand of beer I don’t like, since I’m just gonna pour it out, anyway. Fill those bottles with high-test unleaded, shove a rag in each one, and I’ll have me six Molotov cocktails. And my cousin, Randy, remember him?”

Trowbridge just nodded.

“He likes to do woodworking, got a lathe right in his garage. He’s gonna turn me out three or four long, sharp wooden stakes soon as he gets home from work— he just don’t know it yet.”

“Look, Earl, don’t do something that’s—”

“And I know that St. John’s has a holy water font just inside the front door. Nobody’s likely to be in there this time of day, except maybe for a few old ladies, and they won’t stop me from helping myself to as much holy water as I want. Maybe I’ll buy one of those Sooper Squirter guns the kids like so much, and pour it in there.”

“Slocum, goddam it, listen to—”

“And Al, over at Vann’s Guns, he makes custom ammo to order. I’ve got half a dozen silver dollars I’ve been savin’, and I’m bettin’ Al can melt them down for one of his 10-millimeter bullet molds without much trouble at all, what do you think? Maybe make some shotgun loads, too.”

“Slocum, damn it, I’m
telling
you—”

“
No
!” Slocum held his right hand out, palm forward, just like he was stopping traffic on Main Street. “You’re not tellin’ me shit, Chief, not this time. I’m telling
you
.”

He gestured toward the big window behind Trowbridge. “Come dark, I’m going hunting. I’m going to find the goddam Black Maria, and I’m gonna settle things with that little bastard that drives it. And then I’m gonna open up the back of that truck and take care of whoever — or whatever — is in there, too. When it’s over, assumin’ I’m still alive, you can fire me, or arrest me, or do whatever else you wanna do. I don’t give a shit.”

He brought his big right hand up again, but this time the index finger was leveled straight at Trowbridge’s chest. “But until then, until it’s done— don’t you even
think
about gettin’ in my way.”

Slocum pivoted, yanked open the door of Trowbridge’s office, and headed down the hallway without bothering to shut the door again. He halfway expected to hear the Chief’s voice yelling from behind him, but there was nothing.

Some of Slocum’s fellow officers looked up curiously as he strode by, but after one glance at his face, they just stepped back and let him pass.

A minute later, Slocum was sitting in his cruiser, checking the pump shotgun that was standard equipment for each police vehicle, when the passenger door opened and Trowbridge slid in beside him.

Slocum looked up, cold murder in his eyes. “Look, I
told
you—”

“I’m coming with you.”

Slocum’s mouth froze in mid-rant. Then he shook his head like a punch-drunk boxer trying to answer the bell for the next round. “What did you say?”

“I said I’m coming with you. What are you, crazy
and
deaf?”

“No, I just—”

“Are we going to sit here and yak about it, or are we going to go and do this?”

“Jesus, Chief, I don’t know what to—”

“Will you just fucking
drive
?”

Slocum looked at him for a moment more, then faced forward, started the engine, and headed slowly out of the lot. After turning into the street, however, he hit the gas and got the big car moving faster.