An Evil Shadow (20 page)

Perhaps the only Supreme Being was inevitability.

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind and
knocked on the sacristy door. A young male Latin answered, possibly Colombian.
Val had disturbed his cleaning of two massive brass candlesticks, only slightly
shorter than Val, their candles as thick as his wrist.

“Es Senor Malcolm Kellerman aqui?”

The young man wiped his hands on the polishing cloth.
“No, he’s gone to St Francis parish for a few days. To make arrangements for
his sister’s funeral. He’s expected back on Thursday.”

“Gracias.”

“Is there a message I can give him?”

“No, thanks. I’ll see him some other time. Buenas
noches.”

The young Colombian returned to his polishing. Val
walked back through the church into the night.

Marcus called Val’s cell phone as he was turning on to
Loyola on his way home.

“Is Angie with you?” Marcus asked anxiously.

“No. Isn’t she at home?”

“I’ve just returned from a faculty meeting to find the
house empty and the security alarm not turned on. I’ve had a good look around
but I can’t see any note. She told me she would be in all evening.”

Val’s vision blurred. He pulled over to the side of
the street.

“Have you spoken to the officers on surveillance duty?”

“There’s no patrol car outside. Somebody’s been here;
there were two dirty glasses on the living room table.”

Val told himself not to overreact. Maybe she had had
to leave the house to go someplace and the police officers had tagged along
after her. “I’ll ring the station house and find out where she is.”

“I thought she might have been at your place. I know
she’s still seeing you,” Marcus said belligerently.

“Not now, Marcus,”
Val said and cut him off. He tapped in the automatic dial code for the
UNOPD. The duty sergeant answered on the third ring.

“Chief Bosanquet. Let me speak to Captain Clements.”

“He’s not here right now.”

“What’s happening with the watch on my brother’s
house?”

“Nothing. It was terminated earlier this evening.”

“On whose orders?” Val stormed.

“Captain Clements’s. He said he needed the manpower
and had okayed it with you.”

“I want you to find him and have him call me. Now!”

Val restarted his car and drove the short distance to
his house. Maybe Angie would be there, but he had a bad feeling about this.
Angie had a mind of her own, but she was far from dumb. What on earth did
Clements think he was playing at?

There were no lights on inside the house when he
arrived home. He sat in the car and called the station house again to find out
what was keeping Clements. The duty sergeant was surprised to learn that
Clements hadn’t been in touch. The sergeant had contacted him at home and
Clements had assured him that he would phone Chief Bosanquet immediately.

Maybe he was calling his home number. Val sprinted up
the steps.

He found a plain white envelope taped to his door. He
opened it. Inside, there was a note and a gold wedding band. He knew without
examining it that it was the one he had placed on Angie’s finger a lifetime
ago.

The note said he was to be at Woldenberg Park by the
river at ten o’clock. He was to park his car near the Conti end of Front Street
and to come on foot and to be alone. There was no threat or mention of any
consequences should he fail to show. There didn’t have to be.

Val checked his watch. Nine fifty-five. He was late.
He stuffed the letter in his jacket pocket and hurried down the steps.

Two men approached him as he was unlocking the door of
his car. They showed him their credentials, but he already knew who they were. FBI.

“Chief Valentino Bosanquet? I’m Special Agent Ben
Lehman and this is Special Agent Mike Comeaux We’d like a word with you.”

“Won’t it wait until the morning? I’m on my way out.
It’s important.”

“No, it can’t,” Lehman said. “A man was killed early
this afternoon and we think you might be able to help with our inquiries.”

Val felt his stomach flip over. “Since when has it
been the FBI’s job to investigate homicides?”

“The homicide may be tied in with one or our
investigations. The NOPD called us.”

“Who was killed?”

“Howard Woods, a convicted drug-dealer. Several
witnesses have come forward and given the police accurate descriptions of a man
seen chasing Woods on Sunday evening. A bartender called in and gave homicide
your name. Said you had been in his place asking about Woods.”

Val nodded. “Didn’t any of your witnesses mention the
fact that Woods got away from me?”

“Yeah, but only after you almost strangled him. Our
SAC wants to know why you have the mark of Cain on you. It seems everybody you
talk to ends up dead. That ex-cop, Trochan. The Jacksons, and now Howard
Woods.”

Val sneaked a look at Agent Comeaux’s watch. Ten
o’clock. “There’s a very simple explanation. Let me come over to your office in
the morning. I’ll tell you all about it then. I didn’t kill Woods; he was a
drug-dealer for chrissake. It’s an occupational hazard.”

Lehman seized Val by the arm. “Now would suit us
better.”

“You two really know how to screw up a guy’s love
life.” He held up his cell phone so they could see it. “At least allow me time
to make one phone call. Tell the girl not to wait up.”

Comeaux shook his head. “No calls.”

Val let the cell phone slip from his hand. Both agents
saw it fall. Lehman made a grab for it and collapsed like a deck of cards when
Val slammed a fist into his solar plexus. As Comeaux moved for his gun, Val
stomped a heel down on the bridge of his foot. The agent groaned and tried to
pull his leg away, but Val caught him by the arm. Unbalanced, he was easy to
swing around Val’s projecting hip. His head went through the driver’s window as
if it was sugar glass.

Val took to his heels, his injured knee forgotten.
There were shouted demands for him to stop. Val half-expected the agents to
open fire as he ducked into the narrow alley between the backs of his neighbors’
houses. He had known every inch of ground around here since childhood. They
would never catch him.

Captain John Clements sat in his car in the privacy of
his garage next to his house. He had his UNOPD revolver in his hand, but knew
he wouldn’t use it. His wife was at their prospective in-laws house finalizing
wedding arrangements. Their son had driven her there, and then taken his
fiancée to the movies. The girl’s father had promised to drive his wife home.
But what if she was to be the first back and the one to find his body? The
shock would be bad enough for her without having to see blood and bits of brain
splattered all over the interior of his car.

He set the revolver down on the passenger seat and
opened the car door. He once had had to deal with the suicide of a beautiful
young student. She had attached a garden hose to her car’s exhaust and fed the
other end through the window. She closed the door, sealing the gap in the
window with a towel. She shut all the vents and sealed them with duct tape.
Then she put the car in park and turned on the engine.

Clements’s world started crashing down around him when
the two FBI agents arrived at the station house. They wanted to interview
Bosanquet in connection with the homicide of Howard Woods. A witness has seen
the Chief at the scene, the agents told him. Somehow he had coped with their
questions, knowing all the time that he was responsible for the man’s death.
That appalled him. He had signed himself off duty and driven home in a daze.
Then, five minutes ago, the station sergeant rang to say that Angie Bosanquet
had disappeared.

The beautiful student hadn’t left a note.

Neither would he.

Philip Lausaux was waiting behind the wheel of a
bronze Jeep Wagoneer when Val made it to Woldenberg Park at ten-thirty. He had
flashed his headlights to attract Val’s attention.

“You’re late. I was beginning to think you weren’t
going to show.” Lausaux said, when Val walked over to where he had parked. The
Creole was smoking a thin cheroot.

“Where’s my wife?” Val panted. He had sprinted all the
way. Sweat had soaked his shirt and stained his jacket.

“Jump in and I’ll tell you.”

“I’m fine out here.”

“I’d like it better if you were inside.”

Val walked around and opened the passenger door of the
vehicle. He climbed in.

Lausaux turned off the radio that had been playing
softly. “Until I saw how she kissed you after the press conference, I had
assumed the beautiful Angie loved only your brother. They’re much better
suited, don’t you think?”

Val reached for the door handle.

Lausaux laid a hand on Val’s arm. “Don’t go. You
haven’t seen what I’ve brought with me
.”

“
What?”

“This.”

He handed Val a small phial of clear glass. It had a
rubber stopper, but no label and was empty.

He grabbed Lausaux by the throat and cracked his head
back against the door post. “You bastard. What have you done with her?”

“She’s okay,” Lausaux croaked. “As long as you do
exactly what I ask of you. Touch me again and she’s dead.”

Val let him go and pulled the Beretta automatic. He
thumbed the safety off, cocked it and jabbed it against Lausaux’s breastbone. A
white-hot fury had engulfed him. He wanted to kill this man.

“Tell me where she is?”

Lausaux made a show of checking the time on his watch.
“Ten-thirty-five. Your wife ingested a powerful neurotoxin just under two hours
ago, and is currently in a state of deep cataplexy. As long as you cooperate,
she’ll be fine. I know you’re acquainted with the facts; your drinking buddy,
Richard Bickford, mentioned that he had been discussing Zombism with you. I had
lunch with him yesterday. He’s a persistent man. Doesn’t give up easily when he
needs another post-graduate project funded. His unintentional disclosure gave
me the idea of how you could be of some assistance to me.”

“I should kill you right now,” Val said, his finger
applying pressure on the trigger. “There can’t be that many places you could
have hidden a grown woman.”

“Finding her would be the easy part. You would also
have to find the antidote. That was much easier to conceal.”

“A hospital could supply the antidote.”

“Unlikely. Strictly speaking, it isn’t an antidote at all;
merely a blocking formula which prevents further absorption of the Zombi
neurotoxin until, eventually, the person expels it from the system. The doctors
might come up with something similar, but they would need time to do perform
tests, take blood samples, and run analysis. Angie may not have that long. The
baby even less.”

“You know about that?” Val said, astonished.

“Of course.”

Lascaux hah Val backed into a corner. Tight-lipped, he
asked, “What do I have to do?”

“Simply be my driver for an hour or so. I need someone
I can trust implicitly and, regrettably, my partner isn’t able to be with me
tonight.”

“Donny Jackson?”

Lausaux smiled thinly. “I take it I have your
cooperation?”

Val gave him a murderous glare. “For now.”

Lausaux took hold of the automatic by its barrel and
eased it from Val’s grip. “We both know you won’t use this. Now get out and
walk round to the driver’s seat. I’ll ride in the back.”

“Where are we headed?”

“The Moncoeur mansion. I happen to know he’s going out
tonight, but it we’re early maybe we can catch him as he leaves.”

Moncoeur sat behind two square meters of Louis XVI
desk, calmly checking the Canadian Treasury bills. Satisfied that all was in
order, he placed them inside an ox-blood leather briefcase and snapped the
locks shut. He interlocked his slim fingers and pushed back in the leather
captain’s chair.

“What time is it?” MacLean asked. He had been pacing
the floor of Moncoeur’s study for the last hour.

“Five minutes further on from when you last asked. Sit
down and try to relax. We don’t need to leave for another three-quarter of an
hour.”

“How the hell can I relax? I’m about to hand over
twenty million dollars to a cheap punk we should have dumped in the Mississippi
five years ago.” He pulled a cigarette from a carton and lit it with a gold
Dunhill lighter. A gift from a London stockbroker.

“I don’t think cheap is the most suitable adjective.”

MacLean grunted. “Kellerman should be doing this.
Jackson’s his cocksucker of a nephew.”

“You don’t have to come. I’m perfectly capable of
doing this myself.”