Hopper House (The Jenkins Cycle Book 3) (11 page)

“
R
eady for the next one
?” Stephen said when we got in the car.

“What?”

“Hit it now, while the cops are scrambling?”

I blinked stupidly. He wanted to rob another bank. “We uh … no. Let’s just go. Okay?”

Stephen grabbed me and planted a big kiss on my cheek. “Whatever you say, Dan. But first, something to eat. Near the house, not around here.”

The pills were kicking in. A good thing, all considered.

I got back on the interstate in the direction of Tacoma and the hopper house on the coast. I wondered what the water looked like during the day. Then I giggled.

Wet…

“Easy in your lane,” Stephen said, grabbing the wheel and righting the car. “Take that exit there and let’s get a bite.”

Homeless Trevor was obviously a lightweight. Of all the murderous homeless people I could have hopped into, I’d picked one who said no to drugs.

“Get it to go,” Stephen said. “Best not push our luck.”

I navigated the enormous automobile into the tiny little space in front of the big glowing menu and rolled down the window. Dutifully, I rattled off Stephen’s order, then kept reading down the menu until Stephen nudged me.

“Slow down, mate. Save some for next year.”

I slowed down, saving some for next year, then drove up to the window. I paid in cash and handed the greasy bags to Stephen, then pulled back onto the freeway high as a kite, driving under the influence in a world without consequence.

Somehow we made it back to the house without killing anyone else.

“Leave the money,” Stephen said and got out carrying the three bags of fast food.

There was a package waiting for us, propped against the door. An overnight delivery. I reached down, picked it up, and went inside. Stephen took the food to the dining room. He put his gun and the food on the table, and I dropped the package there, too.

“What’s all that?” Stephen said, pointing at it.

“Mail.”

Stephen grunted and tucked into the food like he had a grudge against it. I sat there watching him. He’d seemed like such a nice guy.

“I thought you were just shooting the ceiling,” I said at last.

Stephen shrugged, chewing away, then took a sip of his drink. “Wasn’t sure if you’d get all moral on me.” He paused mid-bite. “You’re not hungry?”

I shook my head.

Stephen sighed tiredly. “I only killed the old people. That girl I popped in the leg will probably get a bunch of insurance money. She should thank me. Also, hey—maybe God’s in charge after all. If so, the deaders are off in Heaven if they deserve it, or Hell if they don’t. Or nowhere at all, and all that glorious oblivion.” He grabbed another sandwich and dropped it in front of him. “Would you pass me the bag with the sauce?”

I passed it. He mumbled “thanks” around a mouthful of fries.

I left him there and turned on the TV. Like the house in Georgia, this one had a great TV package with all the sports channels, but I skipped over those and put on the news. CNN was in a commercial break.

A loud burp sounded from the dining room. Stephen, trying to be funny, no doubt.

A minute later, he came in and said, “No more pills for you, mate. You can’t handle your high. Which means more for me.”

He had one of the little baggies of meth or whatever it was. I thought about the gun in the donation box and the one he’d left on the table. I could murder Stephen right now, but all that’d happen is he’d zoom off to the Great Wherever quicker, then come back in another form.

“Stephen,” I said, following him to the kitchen.

“Yes, Dan?” he said, spinning around attentively, as if eager to make things right between us.

“Do you normally do what you did today?”

Stephen watched me, brow furrowed in thought.

“You’re a beautiful man, Dan. But I, alas, am not. The landlord pushed me yesterday, which is something I hate. I want a good time, not a job. When he finds out what happened, he’ll think twice before pushing me again.”

“Do you know what’s in that package?” I said, nodding toward the other room.

“Beats me,” he said, laughing. “It’s addressed to you. I wouldn’t pilfer your mail, Dan. I got standards, mate. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He held up the baggie. “Same deal as last time: if I die, dump me off the pier out back.”

I nodded numbly while Stephen set to work filling his needle.

A package for me.

When Stephen stumbled off to his room, I went to look at the letter. It had a P.O. Box return address. I ripped it open, reached inside, and took out two sheets of paper. One was a photo of my sister, Jane, standing in front of a
SOLD!
sign in Los Angeles next to two happy homeowners. The other was a satellite photo of my old neighborhood where my mother still lived. Our house had a red circle around it. There was no accompanying note.

I put both photos on the table, wiped my hands, and went to watch TV.

When the news returned from commercial, the caption at the top of the screen flashed
BREAKING NEWS
, and a very serious-looking male newscaster came on.

“We return once again with a terrifying story out of Washington State, of a violent robbery of not one, not two, but
three
banks in the Seattle area. Let’s listen to the anchors, who are covering this developing story there, of three bank robberies—”

The image switched mid-sentence to a computer generated map of Seattle with three circles around it.

A female newscaster broke in: “… massive manhunt underway for two men involved in a bank holdup. Police warn they are considered armed and
extremely dangerous
. I repeat, they are both armed and
extremely dangerous
.”

The newscaster never stopped talking—a continuous roll of chatter about how shots were fired, how she didn’t know the specifics, but that there were definitely shootings, that police were on high alert, and that ambulances had been dispatched. The screen changed yet again to live footage from the ground outside the first bank Stephen had robbed while I sat in the car.

The original newscaster from CNN broke back in. He repeated how there had been a “string of deadly bank robberies,” assured us, “we’re getting more information from police every minute,” and stated how he was “staying on top of the situation as it develops.” I’d never felt so well informed.

I got up for a burger and one of the now flat drinks. I looked at the photographs again, put them down, and returned to the couch. Too much to think about.

The facts of the story unfolded slowly and repetitively. Soon, the news was finally able to reward its viewers with a body count: ten people dead, two critically injured, with more details coming in all the time.

Stephen had said it was only three people. When the affiliate station in Washington started broadcasting scenes of family members hugging each other and sobbing, I got up to check on him.

The homicidal hopper was lying in bed with a needle stuck in his arm, very much dead. Whether he’d overdosed by accident or on purpose, I couldn’t say.

T
he house phone started ringing
. I left it alone, grabbed the donation box gun, and went to Stephen’s room. I aimed and shot him, the son of a bitch. The blast hurt my ears, but I didn’t care. Physical pain felt pretty good right now.

On the TV, a different newscaster said how police hadn’t ruled out the two suspects’ possible ties to extremist groups.

Sitting back down with my flat drink, I listened to the news drone on about gun control and how police weren’t denying the use of machine guns in the killings. I picked up the remote and flipped around for cartoons and left those on, then munched through a bag of cold fries. Any distraction from my own thoughts and feelings would do nicely.

The phone kept ringing.

Another trip to the donation box yielded a bottle of painkillers. I tapped out three into my hand and swallowed them dry, then went to the sink for a slurp from the faucet. I was turning into them. A drugged-up hopper.

The still-ringing phone was an old corded model, but the cord was long enough to reach the breakfast table. I carried it over so I could still see the TV and sat down.

“Hello?” I said, cradling the handset.

The landlord said, “Why did you shoot Stephen?”

That was odd.

How did he…?

Then I remembered the hidden cameras behind the peek-a-boo mirrors. He couldn’t be watching all day and night. Maybe the cameras were set to record via motion detectors, ensuring he only got the good stuff and not hours of people sleeping.

“Never mind that,” he said. “Who said anything about a shooting spree? Why do you keep showing up in the news? First with Rose and that district attorney, and now this. You are
not
to bring that kind of heat down on my properties.”

On the TV, one cartoon character hit another character with a mallet that appeared out of nowhere. No word yet on whether it was an assault mallet.

“How did you know it was us?”

“Your faces are plastered on every station, you imbecile. Wear a mask next time if you don’t want to be famous.”

I giggled. “
Fame is a fickle food on a shifting plate.
”

“Shut up,” he said. “I assume you got my letter. I know about your family. Which means you’ll do as you’re told. Understand?”

He uses people,
Rose had said. But I’d called the number anyway.

I tried to focus. “I understand.”

“How much money did you get from those banks?”

“Don’t know. It’s still in the car.”

In a calculating tone he said, “Probably not much if you only robbed the tellers. Don’t you dare mail it to me. Put it in the donation box—your penalty for screwing up. I’ll send someone to retrieve it. From now on, you’re to send me ten thousand a month. How you get it is your business, just make sure it doesn’t involve my properties.”

Ten thousand a month?
There was no way I could make that much regularly.

“I came back this time as a homeless man. I can’t guarantee that kind of money.”

He made a sound of impatience. “I’m not unrealistic. If you return as a bum, there’s not much you can do, is there? If you return as a bum
twice in a row
, your family pays the price. Am I clear?”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me.

“Look on the bright side,” he said. “My work is very expensive, and your part is important to my success.”

“I had a part in a school play, once,” I said. “Kept waving at my parents. Couldn’t remember my lines. When the crowd laughed, I waved at them too. That was the last time they let me have any lines.”

The world felt foggy, making it hard to focus. I’d have to take more painkillers.

“Yes I … I see,” the landlord said. “Well … then they made the right decision, didn’t they? Now, for your family’s sake: pack-up Stephen and get the hell out of my house.”

The call ended.

I got up, returned to the living room, and sat there staring at the frenetic activity on the TV, unable to turn away. When it broke to a commercial, I blinked dazedly, tamped down my natural queasiness, and searched Stephen’s cold pockets for his phone. He didn’t have it there, but he did in his jacket.

Using my head for once, I called the minister with Stephen’s phone, that way it wouldn’t show up in the landlord’s phone records.

“Hello?” he said.

“Hi.”

“Who is this?”

“Dan Jenkins.”

The minister’s voice lowered fractionally. “Hello, Dan. What’s wrong?”

“You been watching the news?”

“The news?” he said. “What about it? Oh yes, someone said there was a mass shooting. Not another school, thank God. Wait a minute … tell me you’re not involved somehow.”

“I didn’t pull the trigger.”

A couple of seconds passed. “Explain what happened. Everything.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be lucid long enough for everything,” I said. “My family’s involved, and we need Nate’s money. You two still friends?”

“Hold on, slow down. Your family? Involved how?”

“They’re in danger.”

“Immediate danger? Right now? I can call the police, just tell me—”

“Okay, maybe not
immediate
danger,” I said. “More like Sword of Damocles danger.”

With a feeling of wading through pharmaceutical quicksand, I brought the minister selectively up to date on everything since our last phone call, keeping all but the most basic details of Rose and her house to myself.

Halfway through the second bank massacre, he said, “How could you be so stupid? Why did you believe him when he said he was shooting the ceiling?”

“He’s a good liar,” I said, unable to tell him the lame, honest truth:
because he seemed cool, and I wanted a friend.

“Why did you call me?”

With some heat, I said, “Because I have a problem. Isn’t that what priests are for? My problem is money. I need Nate, and you two are friends.”

“I’m not bothering Nate,” he said in a hard tone. “Your part in his life is over. I told you once before to stop coming into the world, but you never listened. Now look what you’ve done.”

“My family’s in danger, and I need your help,” I said, and was rewarded with blessed, holy silence. “The landlord doesn’t care who he hurts so long as he gets money. If we can show him he’s vulnerable, he’ll back off.”

After a brief pause, he said, “I’m listening.”

“Write this down.”

I told him the address for the house in Georgia and the one here, which was written on the overnight delivery.

“Okay,” he said. “Got it. Now what?”

The plan I outlined was simple. Nate would send ten thousand to one of them in cash. Absolutely
no
return address
. In addition to sending the money, he’d hire a private detective to figure out who owned the properties. The minister would give me the information, and I’d confront the landlord at his house and show him he could be reached—that he’d never be safe if he kept extorting me.

My real plan was much more direct: I’d simply kill the son of a bitch. He’d threatened my family, and I wasn’t a saint.

“I’ll ask Nate,” the minister said. “But I can’t make any promises.”

Nate knew about me and what I’d done for him, and I wasn’t above using that. “Remind him he owes me his life. His brother’s, too.”

The minister grunted. “What will you do now? They’ll have your face everywhere.”

“You’re right about that. I need a new ride.”

“What’s the story with your current body?”

“He kills Mormons,” I said. “Don’t worry about him. I hope to be back in the world again soon. Hopefully in a couple of days, but sometimes it’s longer.”

“Whatever he’s done, I forbid you to harm him. Turn yourself in. Leave normally. When you return, we’ll have the information you need. Please, Daniel.”

Daniel
.

Had to get mushy on me, didn’t he?

I could totally do it—throw dead Stephen in the back of the car, drive to the police station, turn myself in, admit to everything. And for three weeks, the landlord would be out there thinking about me, learning more about my family—maybe even about Sandra. If he’d read my whole story, he knew she lived in Centreville.

Three weeks in jail.

I thought about my ride, Trevor. His wallet had been stuffed with Monopoly money. The man was clearly out of his gourd. I’d killed psychos before, but it always left me with this faintly ashamed feeling. It wasn’t their fault they had chemical imbalances or whatever was wrong with them. Trevor was homeless and crazy. He’d murdered someone and tried to kill another man, but maybe he’d thought they were monsters? Being crazy didn’t make him evil.

As if reading my thoughts, the Minister said, “It isn’t your right to decide these things. Turn yourself in. This landlord—he sounds like a deliberate sort of villain, and very familiar with your time constraints. He won’t harm anyone unless you give him a reason. I’m more worried about this Stephen character. What happens when he comes back? Will he kill again?”

“It’s complicated,” I said. “Yes, he’s a killer. But he didn’t strike me as a predator. Still, he’s dangerous. I think he’d kill again if he felt he had to.”

“I can’t allow that,” the minister said.

“What can you do?”

“Nothing right now. You just concentrate on keeping your host alive.”

I hated losing three weeks and however long in limbo waiting to come back. If I could somehow speed up my return … and then I had it.

It worked before
.

“I’ll let you know when I’m back.”

“Good,” he said. “I’ll call Nate now and get started.”