Eye of the Burning Man: A Mick Callahan Novel (The Mick Callahan Series) (27 page)

"Good. Then we have a deal?"

"Not necessarily; I said probably and maybe."

"Talk straight, damn it."

"Okay. You'd better think about this, and think about it long and hard. I know I'm stating the obvious, but you're an officer of the law. You're about to cross a line that will completely change your life, and definitely not for the better."

"What do you care?"

I shrugged. "I'm a shrink, remember? It's my curse. And I have crossed a few of those lines myself, in my time. I remember a great line from some movie or another. When you dance with the devil, the devil don't change."

"Thanks for the warning, but I can take care of myself." Fields melted back into the darkness. "You better watch your ass, Callahan," he said as he disappeared, "these boys play hardball."

"I already noticed."

But Fields was gone.

I walked back towards the camp, mind racing.
Is Fancy smart enough to throw me this far off his trail? And if so, why did he bother?

I made my way back to the tent. The party was growing wilder, and I had to move several drunken revelers out of the way. One woman, high enough to be delusional, kept shoving her bare breasts in my face. With a chill, I realized how easy it would be to kill someone in such a madhouse. I paused for a moment, made a major decision in a heartbeat. I opened the cell phone, dialed, and spoke urgently, then folded it and put it back in my pocket with a small, fervent prayer that I was right.

A few moments later, Darlene said: "I tend to agree with Agent Fields." She sat near the campfire, hugging her knees. I sat cross-legged beside her. We were trying not to shout, but still be heard above the perpetual drumming. That brought our faces close together. Improbably, considering the circumstances, I found it difficult to resist kissing her.

"How so?"

"I think Fancy is a brilliant and dangerous man," Darlene said, "who built his own little kingdom right there underground. He even has his own standing army. Mick, he may be worth hundreds of millions of dollars already. He's got an awful lot to lose."

"And Mary may have known some of his secrets?"

"Exactly. My God, that poor girl."

I picked up a large stick and threw it into the fire. Orange and white sparks soared high into the night sky like a colony of butterflies. "That poor girl," I repeated, dully.

Darlene let a few seconds pass. "Mick, what are we going to do now?"

I sat up, startled. "Damn. Where is Jerry?"

"Off shooting pictures again or maybe getting even more stoned. He told me he would stay close to the lit areas. I doubt that Fancy would be interested in him anyway."

"Meaning it's me he wants?"

"Meaning it's
probably
you. Think about it, Mick. Mary didn't say much, but she could have told you everything she knew. You'd be a direct witness, too. Jerry and I have nothing but hearsay. You could really help Fields blow Fancy's operation wide open. He can't have you running around with information like that in your head."

"So why not just shoot me?" An awkward silence followed. "Sorry, I wasn't thinking. But he let me go both times. Why?"

"I don't know. Like you said, the FBI has a fucking camera there, right? Fancy knew all about that, obviously. He couldn't kill us then without the FBI knowing all about it."

"But out here?"

"Out here he can."

"Have you checked on Donato?"

"Good idea, it's been a while. Give me the cell phone. I want to call the hospital and see what's up."

I handed her the small phone clipped to my belt. Darlene went back into the tent in search of something akin to privacy.
Why not just shoot me? Nice one, idiot,
I thought, miserably.
You're just batting a thousand
.

"Mick?"

I looked up. A drunken Jerry was on the other side of the fire, waving his baseball cap. He was staggering through the crowd with a brunette who looked vaguely familiar. I had also noticed her in the tent, earlier in the day, when we had all first arrived. She was now wearing torn cut-off jeans, a tight blue halter, and a pair of large dark glasses. She carried a jug of cheap wine. Jerry waved, while the girl fondled his crotch.

"Jerry!" I called. "Come back here, damn it!"

Jerry held up ten fingers, as if to say "back in ten minutes." He put his hat on, took a swig from her wine bottle, and followed the pretty girl out into the parking area. I wanted to stop him, but estimated the distance and realized I'd never be able to catch up.
Better to stay in one place and let him find his way back.

I checked my watch and noticed the time.
I don't like this, something isn't right.
My gut knotted. Okay, maybe Jerry needed to get laid after all he'd been through. Was that a kind of love, too, the simple celebration of sexuality with a complete stranger? One could argue that it was, but it was only an experience. Isolated people, many of them drunk or stoned, celebrating and coupling with abandon, but for no particular reason:
Existential hedonism
.

Oddly enough, I felt no trace of my disease. I had no wish to break my sobriety and join in. In fact, the hungry mindlessness I saw around me unaccountably filled me with a deep and profound sadness. It occurred to me that Mary, like most humans and perhaps like me, had lived, and died, knowing very little of real love.

A tattooed man began filling his mouth with lighter fluid and spitting fireballs into the air. A drunken crowd cheered him on. The yellow flame looked magnificent in the gathering darkness, almost spiritual. The inky night sky was littered with sparkling stars. I remembered something a famous theologian, perhaps Paul Tillich, had once said about alcohol. He had called it "cheap grace."

Someone tripped and fell against me. I reacted without thinking, grabbed the man by the shirt, rose to my knees and pulled. The figure fell forward, partly into the fire. He began to scream and slap at himself. Several people reached down and pulled him away from the blaze; they rolled him in the dust to help kill the fire.

Everyone started laughing, and the stoned man got to his feet, embarrassed. He was clearly not hurt, but also in no way dangerous. He did not even seem to be aware of what had just transpired, and I'd almost killed him.

Easy, damn it
.

I rubbed my face and tried to relax. Suddenly Darlene plopped down beside me. She handed over the cell phone. "I left it on," she said. Her face was expressionless and pale in the firelight. Moisture glimmered in her eyes.

"Darlene?"

She didn't answer me. One solitary tear rolled down her cheek. I put an arm around her shoulder.

"Honey? Are you okay?"

"Poor Mary is dead," she said. It took a moment for the words to fully register. I felt my own tears burning. I pinched the bridge of my nose to stop them, held her close. Darlene was trembling.

"I called about Mary first," she said. "The nurse said she died a little while ago. She had a bad reaction to the heavy pain medication. She said again that it was probably a good thing. She called it a mercy."

I felt a wave of rage roll over me and fought back an absurd urge to laugh. I bit my lip to stay silent. "And what did they say about Donato?"

"I called the hospital and your friend Suzanne was there," Darlene said. "I asked her how Larry was doing. They ran into a lot of complications. Peanut told me that he got some fluid in his lungs, and the damned machines were breathing for him. At first he was just too weak to function on his own, but he pulled out of it a few hours ago. The doctors are just amazed. They say it's because he is in such good shape. Peanut says they think he has a better than even chance at a full recovery."

"A different kind of mercy," I said, bitterly.

"Mick, what are we doing out here?"

"I don't know anymore."

"Let's just go home."

I hugged her. "I was thinking the same thing. I want to get you and Jerry back to L.A. on the first flight out of Reno in the morning."

Darlene tensed her shoulders. She looked up. "And you?"

"I have a score to settle," I said.

"Then we both do it."

"I'd rather leave you out of this. I want you to keep your badge."

"You're going after Fancy?"

I didn't answer her, but the lines on my face felt carved. Darlene shook her head. "I'm in this to the finish," she said. "But maybe we ought to put Jerry on a plane. Where is he?"

"He went off with that girl, the one we saw earlier. He said he'd be back, but he's smashed for Christ's sake."

I realized with a start that more than half an hour had passed. I looked through the crowd, but saw no sign of Jerry. Suddenly I noticed a pair of grinning teenaged girls wearing matching bikinis. They were playing with a large digital video camera.

It was Jerry's camera, and the black case lay open on the littered ground. A shiver down my spine.

Just then, the cell phone rang.

"Hello, Mick. How are you?"

It was a woman's voice; artificially intimate, warm and syrupy. Familiar, but I couldn't place her.
The girl Jerry had wandered away with, the one who had playfully grabbed at his crotch?
I covered one ear and tried to listen. I was hoping sounds would give me a clue to her location.

"Who is this?"

She laughed, covered the phone for a moment and then came back on again. "You really don't know, do you?"

"I can barely hear you," I said, truthfully. "Why are you calling me? What do you want?"

"It's what
you
want that counts. Do you want to see your geek friend alive?"

Darlene was tugging at my sleeve. I gently waved her away. She caught the expression on my face.

"Yes," I said, alerting her. "Yes, I want to see Jerry alive."

Darlene jumped to her feet. She palmed her gun and looked around the crowd, as if she suspected we were being watched. The night was turning totally surreal, a sweating dementia in the desert. Seeing no one staring directly at us, she grimaced and shrugged. I thought furiously and decided to stall, got to my feet.

"Are you alone?"

"Did you just say something? I can't hear you." I walked in a circle and moved the phone around, then fiddled with the volume to buy time. "Hold on a second. That's better."

"Stop fucking around and listen to me."

"Okay, okay."

"I want to know if you're alone," the woman said.

"I'm alone."
She can't see me
.

"What happened to the woman who came with you?"

"She's in the tent right now, changing clothes or something. I'm alone, believe me." I tried to speak with my eyes. Catching on, Darlene raced back into the tent. I saw her unbuttoning her blouse as she ran.

"Listen up, Callahan," the woman said. "I'm only gonna to say this once. Any mistakes, your friend is dead. You listening?"

I stopped moving. "Sure, I'm listening."

"I'm going to tell you where to go and what to do. You're gonna follow my directions, okay? Hey, and you will come
alone
."

"Alone."

"If you disobey us, your geek friend is gonna be burned alive tonight. You understand me?"

"I understand."

"Stay on the cell phone and talk to me all the way. Got that?"

"What was that? I lost you."

"I said stay on the phone, goddamn it."

"Okay."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Darlene emerge from the side of the tent, struggling with clothing. She was disguising herself, donning a "hooker" costume; blonde wig, padded bra, and tight pants. She had already applied red lipstick. She looked like a completely different woman. I knew she would try to follow me.

"You there?"

"I'm here."

Darlene walked away from the tent. Her costume blended in with the eccentric crowd. She kept one hand inside her purse, clearly clutching her gun. She nodded and waited for me to move.

"Walk towards the parking area," the voice said.

I started moving and trusted that Darlene would follow from a safe distance. I did not look back. "I'm walking."

"Don't talk to anybody, just move."

"Right."

In fact, I barely noticed the people I passed. They were just colors and shapes in costumes. The air was coated with the sickly-sweet stench of marijuana. I pushed on, clearing a path with one arm while the other clutched the cell phone, moving against the flow of traffic. People were beginning to cluster around the effigy, eager to participate in the climactic moment. I stopped once, to allow an intimidating group of bikers go by. Not a good time to get in a brawl.

I pushed some more people out of the way and passed the spot where I'd had spoken to Agent Fields. I was at the edge of the camp. My mouth went dry at the thought of walking out into the darkness, unarmed and alone. I scanned the horizon as I moved; saw nothing but the indifferent stars and miles of parched, cracked earth.

"Hold it," the voice said.

On a hunch, I kept walking.

"I said hold it!"

"Sorry. I didn't hear you." I stopped.
Well, they sure as hell can see me now
.

I looked around again. There were several small orange fires bobbing and weaving at the outer rim of the camp. People were dancing naked and shooting water pistols at one another. Something warm and wet struck my face, then my right arm.

I heard a sound like dozens, and then hundreds, of tap shoes moving closer. A hard rain began to strike the parched earth, canvas tents, and the Plexiglas roofs of the portable toilets. The air rippled with static electricity as a low grumble of thunder rolled over the foothills and down onto the empty white plain. Another warm wind whipped the tents and tugged gently at my sweaty clothing.