Valley of Lights (5 page)

I slammed back with my free elbow, but he was expecting this and he caught it; what he wasn't expecting was for me to use his own grip to jerk him forward while I stuck my leg in the way. He went sprawling and hit the garbage-strewn ground like a sack, and when he turned over it was to find that he was facing the empty black eye of my Colt. The noose drew off easily without his weight on the other end of it, and I threw it to one side.

He stared right past the gun, as if it didn't worry him. He was looking at me.

He said, 'You're the cop.'

'Yeah,' I said, stretching the fingers on my other hand. It felt as if it would glow in the dark. 'Now explain to me how you can know that.'

'I told you,' he said. 'I don't like questions.'

'
You
told me?'

His face went slack for a moment, as if he realised too late that he'd made a serious slip; but then he smiled, and shrugged it off. He made as if to rise from the floor, but I kicked his hand from under him. Nothing fierce, just enough to drop him back.

I said, 'Tell me something. How can you live with what you did to that child?'

I hadn't known what response this would provoke. What I got was the return of the smile, spreading wider this time.

I said, 'I know it's not feeding. Because you throw up what you eat.'

The smile died at that. 'You think you know so much,' he said, and I recognised the tone of someone who believed himself to be ultimately untouchable.

'I know there's some kind of trick going on here,' I said, 'and you're going to tell me what it is.'

'Even if I did,' he said, 'you could never prove anything.'

And less than one second later he was gone, leaving me with a look of mocking triumph slowly fading from the face of an empty corpse.

EIGHT

At first I stood there dumbly, unable to believe what I'd just seen for the second time. It was as rapid and as total as if someone had simply pulled a plug. Even though I kept the gun on him as I crouched and felt for a pulse, I knew that there was no way that he could be shamming.

I put the gun away. It wasn't my standard Smith & Wesson but a little Colt Detective Special that I'd picked up for cash a couple of years before and which, as far as I knew, couldn't be traced to me. I'd given it a load of half-charged cartridges which didn't make much more of a kick than a distant backfire, because whilst I hadn't actually set out with anything illegal in mind I'd been wary of getting myself into some kind of corner that I might not be able to explain my way out of.

And here I was.

I hauled the body across the yard and got it up into one of the club's two big garbage hoppers; they were the big, industrial-sized drums that hook onto the back of a collecting truck and get emptied automatically. With any luck he'd be minced and mashed and compacted and finally recycled as the dashboard of a Ford Fairmont, and nobody would ever know. I didn't even think about reporting this. I'd already heard how some of it would sound when I said it out loud.

There was a thump when he hit the bottom of the drum, which was almost empty. I walked out of the alley without looking back and I kept my pace down to the same speed until I was a block away, at which point I started to run. I reached my car about five minutes later, breathless and panting, and then it took me another five to speed up to Roosevelt and the County General with an eye on the mirror for my own people.

I almost didn't make it. I parked with some GSA motor pool cars to get as close as possible to the six-story patient tower, but I couldn't be sure which would be the best exit to cover. I
did
know that they tried to keep the hospital fairly tightly sealed so that the public couldn't simply wander in and out unchecked, but there still had to be service doors and staff exits. I walked along the side towards Emergency Receiving, and suddenly there he was.

He must have known that I was coming, because he was still in his hospital whites with nothing more than an overcoat hastily thrown over. He came running down the wheelchair slope and out into the night, and as soon as he was through the flap doors I was starting after him. He must have seen me because he veered away towards the traffic out on Roosevelt, but I was faster because he was barefoot and I wasn't. If they'd left his soiled old tennis shoes by his bed it might have been a different story, but this way I hit him about halfway across the lot and brought him down. The fall with my weight on top of it drove all the air out of him, but still he tried to struggle from under. I had one of his arms clamped and reached for the other in an attempt to get him cuffed, but he wriggled and fought and so I slammed my fist down between his shoulders with a blow that would have shaken a mahogany table.

He knew that he was cornered. He knew that he was the last of the four from the Paradise, and that there was nowhere else to run. But he was also the strongest and the fittest of all of them, the same kind of build as Mercado only bigger, and he was determined not to stay down. I felt his free elbow come up like a piston into my ribs, and that bought him enough freedom to throw me off and to roll over; but even through the haze of pain I was still hanging onto his wrist, and as he tried to rise I was able to drag him down and hit him around the side of the head on the way. That
really
slowed him, and I got onto his chest and pinned him to the ground as I reached around for the waistband holster in the small of my back where the Detective Special was hidden under my shirt.

He was grinning at me.

'I've seen through the trick,' I shouted down at him although there were only inches between us. 'I know what you do. You've got all these different faces but you're the same guy every time.' And the grin became a laugh, and I said 'Am I right?' And then he was laughing so hard that he was bouncing me up and down and I stopped fumbling for the gun and socked him as hard as I could. His head snapped over to one side but he kept on laughing as if the pain was something that he didn't really feel, and I leaned forward and screamed again, '
Am I right?
' into his ear. I was reaching for the gun again as I did it, as certain as I'd ever been of anything that I had to kill him now as he lay here in the last of his shell-bodies, and that if I could only do this one simple thing there would be no more slack corpses ticking over on fresh air and baby food and no more children bleeding to death with pieces of their bodies torn away.

Two hands clamped around my upper arm then, and someone else caught me from the other side. I was suddenly weightless, heaved up to my feet with the blind fury draining out of me as I stood.

'You don't beat up on the patients,' one of the orderlies holding me said. 'That's what they pay
us
for.'

NINE

The Chief looked me in the eye and said, 'Explanations, Alex?'

'I mistook the man, sir.'

'You don't say?'

It was now the next morning, and I was on the carpet in the Chief's office. The Chief was behind his big desk and Lieutenant Michaels was sitting to one side, looking uncomfortable and meeting nobody's eyes. I could almost feel sorry for him; he was the man in the middle with no firm place to stand, while my position at least was absolutely indisputable. I was firmly in the ordure.

I also had the sense of being an exhibit as I stood there to attention with my uniform cap under my arm, because although the Chief's office was fully enclosed and soundproofed its walls were two-thirds glass that looked out into the rest of the department; and the rest of the department, of course, looked in. The whole design was supposed to promote a sense of accessibility, but all that it promoted in me was a feeling of being a small bug on a large white piece of paper. I doubted that there was anybody in the building who didn't by now know what I was here for; and I was certain that there was nobody who'd listen to the true story and believe it.

So I said, 'I was driving by. I saw him coming out at a run with a couple of people on his tail, it seemed reasonable to slow him down a little so that I could find out what was going on.'

'Slow him down a little? From the way the ward orderlies tell it, you were trying to reshape his face.'

'Heat of the moment, sir. All I did was give him a little tap when he started to fight me.'

The Chief sat back, looking at the single sheet of memo paper on his otherwise empty desk; empty, that is, apart from the telephone and the blotter and a family photo and a couple of paperweight-sized bronze trophies whose inscriptions I wasn't close enough to read. The Chief was young for his office, dark and good-looking and with a knack of being able to remember everybody's name without having to grope for it like the rest of us have to. I'd had him classed as a born politician from the first time that I'd seen him.

Looking up from the paper, he said, 'You weren't in uniform.'

Lieutenant Michaels said, 'Sergeant Volchak was off-duty yesterday.'

'Like I said,' I insisted, 'I was only passing. First thing that came into my mind was that we had a junkie trying to make a snatch from the Emergency Room. It's happened before.'

'Whatever the justification,' the Chief said, 'the fact remains that we're on very shaky ground here if we get a complaint. You know I've got to suspend you.'

'I understand that, sir.'

Turning to the Lieutenant, he said, 'What's the situation, Dave? Do we have a complaint here, or what?'

Michaels checked his own notes. Somebody walked by outside, and I resisted the impulse to turn to see who it was.

He said, 'Nothing's been submitted yet, but I think we've got to assume that it's going to happen. Mr...' He searched for a name. 'Mr Woods is news this morning. He was one of the three men found in the Paradise Motel and misdiagnosed as brain-dead.'

He raised, his eyes from his notes to look at me then, I think for the first time.

He added, 'Sergeant Volchak took that call.'

They were both staring at me, now. The Chief said, 'Jesus, Alex,' and I could only shrug, uncomfortably.

Mister Woods
, I was thinking, and I was wondering if he'd picked the name at random or whether it had any significance from his past. God, how I was bursting to tell them what had really happened, but I could imagine their faces if I did. Somehow I couldn't see the light of understanding dawning as I explained that I'd shot a man, but it wasn't murder, and that the one they were calling Woods now carried the memories and the responsibilities of the Encanto Park torture-killer. The best I could hope for would be a nice new canvas jacket with a lot of straps and buckles down the back. Woods, meanwhile, would be walking around on the outside.

It was the worst interview I'd ever had, but it came to an early end because the Chief had to attend a press conference to report the progress of the investigation over that same Encanto Park business. The word within the service was that the investigation was getting nowhere, with no leads, no evidence, no witnesses, nothing. A search of the records had brought up a number of similar cases in the past, both in Phoenix and in other states and cities, but there was nothing that could be related.

Of course not, I thought.

I got the feeling that the Chief was relieved that my story at least held together, and that as long as it continued to hold together he wasn't about to start poking and testing and trying to make holes. But when he'd gone and I was about to follow him out. Lieutenant Michaels closed the door after him and stood in the way.

He said, 'You got anything else to tell me, Alex?'

'There's no connection, Dave,' I lied. 'How could there be?'

'That's what I've been trying to work out. You've never seen Woods outside of these two occasions?'

'Never.' In one sense, this much was true.

'I just don't get it.'

'It was a straight mistake.'

'You can bullshit the top man, Alex, but don't try it with me, all right? You weren't passing, you were in the parking lot. You were already out of your car. You were on top of a guy who just crawled out of a hospital bed and it took two fit men to haul you off. They're saying you were really trying to do the guy harm.'

I was lucky that they hadn't made it to me five seconds later, by which time I'd have had the gun out from under my shirt; ten seconds, and maybe Woods would have been history. He'd been at the end of the line, with no more bodies prepared and waiting. But now that he was free and walking, I'd no doubt that he'd already have begun to set that situation right.

Michaels said, 'The Chief wants you to see a doctor.'

'A shrink?' I said.

'Will you consider for a minute that he might be right? You've been getting too close to the job. You've got no home life, no social life, and now this. I'm going to make the appointment, and you're going to keep it.'

'Is that an order?'

'You're damn right it is.'

He opened the door to walk out ahead of me, and as he turned away I said, 'What's the story from the hospital?'

He stopped, and wouldn't give me a straight look. 'They're firing a few junior people and saying that a misdiagnosis is what they always suspected,' he said grudgingly, and then he went out.

My suspension was effective immediately, so I had nothing to do other than to drive over to the Sky Harbor station, change out of my uniform, and then go home. I'd already handed over my badge; my service revolver was my own. I've no doubt that I was wrong, but I couldn't shake the feeling as I waited for the elevator to take me down to the ground floor that the sole topic of conversation in the offices and corridors around me was Alex Volchak's unprofessional outburst. It was ridiculous, this wasn't even my building. Most people here didn't know my name.

So now I was supposed to see a shrink. I wouldn't argue, but I also wouldn't go. I had other things to do.

When I stepped out of the elevator, Woods was there.

He was over at the enquiry counter next to the recruitment desk, half turned-away from me but instantly recognisable. He was wearing creased-looking off-white pants and a new shirt with some kind of tropical fruit or flower design all over it. He was leaning forward on the counter, his brawny arms taking his weight, as the desk sergeant laid out forms before him and explained what I assumed would be the complaints procedure in detail. At that same moment three plain clothes people, two young men and a girl, were knocking on an office door by the elevators and one of them called out, 'Come on, or I'll kick it down,' before the door opened and they all walked in laughing. The desk sergeant glanced up from the forms at this, saw and recognised me, and tried wordlessly to point me back towards the holding cell corridor and the rear exit; but Woods had seen him and was already beginning to turn around, and I walked straight over.

It was there as soon as our eyes met; we shared a knowledge that was unique. Woods was leaning on one elbow, smiling pleasantly out of a face that I wouldn't have trusted to tell me the time.

He said to the desk man, 'That's all right, I'm not going to make a scene. I understand that there's nothing personal in this. Isn't that right, Sergeant Volchak?'

'It's okay, Joe,' I told the desk man. He didn't look happy, but he did look relieved and a little puzzled.

Woods said, 'You mistook me for somebody else, right? It happens.'

'I've heard that it can,' I said. My voice in my own ears sounded flat and neutral, which is the way I wanted it to be.

Woods gathered up his forms, and made a shall we? gesture toward the main doors. As I went ahead of him out onto the sidewalk, I saw him drop the papers into a waste basket before following me.

'You're not making a complaint?' I said, as we moved aside to let a visitor party through.

'Too much trouble,' he said, and I knew then that he'd been waiting for me and that the forms had only been an excuse to hang around. He went on, 'If I want to punish you, I can always find a way.'

'You've got a good case,' I said. 'You could get rich.'

We stopped, just outside the doors but in nobody's way. He said, 'You know I can't use money. Not that kind of money. When I want to move on, it won't travel.'

Small talk. Who'd have believed it?

I said, 'You know you're insane.'

He smiled, slowly. 'That wouldn't explain it,' he said. 'You being insane, that would be something else. Why can't you just accept what you see?'

I said, 'I was supposed to end up like the others, wasn't I?'

'And how would that be?'

'Brain-dead and living on baby food. But for what?'

'Until I came to need another.'

This was like pulling teeth. 'Another what?'

'Another body. of course.' He tapped the side of his head. 'In here, this is me. The rest of it, that's just temporary accommodation. I can wear it or I can throw it away for something else.'

'Can you prove that?'

'You've seen me do it twice, what more proof do you need? Get with it, Alex.'

I said, 'You're enjoying this.'

'Of course I am,' he said. 'I almost never get to talk about my work.'

I studied him in the sunlight, wondering how much of what I was seeing was on the outside and how much came from within. This incarnation - there didn't seem to be any better way of thinking about it - came over as perhaps a dishwasher who worked out with weights in his bedroom to impress the kind of woman who'd never give him a second glance. He could smile and be calling you his pal in one minute, and then be breaking your arm in the next. And he'd probably still be smiling, even then.

I said, 'What
are
you?' And I saw his face turn serious.

'I don't know,' he said. 'I've been around so long, even I don't remember.' And then be said, 'You can't touch me, Alex. Think about it. You can never pin me down.'

'Don't bet on it.'

'I already have. Draw your gun. Blow me away. And then try explaining what you did to your people in there.'

He was already ahead of me. I'd been thinking what would happen if I simply took him now. I could pull my .38 and as good as blow his heart out right there outside the headquarters door, watch him fly backwards and fall to lie drumming his heels on the sidewalk until his nervous system finally got the message and gave in. But we both knew that it wasn't going to happen; he'd already had a night and most of a morning to set up his 'insurance', to finish the work that I'd interrupted the previous evening, and I knew that I'd be wasting my time. Something would fly across the city - I saw it in my mind as something like an invisible bird - and somewhere in another rented room the eyes of a former citizen would open ready for new business.

'Killing the body's the quickest way to do it,' he said. 'You've seen me manage without but I'll be honest with you, Alex, it's a bind.'

Even without that certainty, I doubt that I'd have had the nerve. Not there, not in the knowledge that my own life would be as good as over from that moment. Looking at what he was and what he'd done, perhaps it might have seemed worth the sacrifice; but I'd never thought of myself as any kind of a saint, and I simply wasn't up to it.

'Why tell me?' I said.

'I'm telling you nothing you don't already know,' he said pleasantly, but there was a streak of something way back that might even have been pain. 'And it gets me out of the darkness for a time. Maybe I just need to be appreciated once in a while.'

I said, 'At least go somewhere else,' and immediately I could see that I'd reached him and rubbed somewhere sore. His smile died, and something harder and uglier showed through.

'Don't give me orders,' he said sharply. 'I do what I want.'

One moment later, and his irritating confidence had returned. He said, 'Well, I'll see you around,' and then he turned and walked away from me in the direction of the civic plaza. He might be news this morning, but he obviously wasn't
big
news; I saw one of the radio reporters from KTAR, her recorder slung around her shoulder like a shoeshine box, pass by him without a second glance as she hurried in for the Chief's conference.

There was no point in my trying to follow, not now that he knew me so well. He could as good as disappear, simply dump the body and fly, any time that he wanted to. He was so cocky about it, he didn't even look back.

An invisible bird.

A phoenix, maybe.