Michael Lister - Soldier 02 - The Big Beyond (14 page)

Chapter 36

“S
orry again, Jimmy,” Delton Rogers said when Clip and I walked up. “Didn’t know what else to do. Glad it worked out for you. Knew Folsom would be fair. Oh, and happy Thanksgiving.”

He was leaning on his car not far from the dock, smoking conspicuously, easy for De Grasse to spot, particularly if he were suspicious and operating in a heightened state of paranoia.

“No sign of De Grasse?”

“No.”

He ignored Clip and Clip ignored him right back.

“We’ve searched the place. Some creepy shit in there, but no sign of crime. No evidence of murder.”

The bay was dark and quiet, the only sounds the gentle slap of the water against the pilings and the occasional foghorn in the distance.

The breeze blowing in off the bay was cold and constant and caused my eyes to tear. Clip and I were both in overcoats and hats, and were warm enough except for our faces.

All the streetlamps in the area were off because of the blackout, causing the ember of Delt’s smoke to glow even brighter in the dark night. Clip and I lit up a couple of Old Golds, our embers joining his in the gloom.

“Found out anything else about him?” I asked.

“Got no record here. Don’t know about where he came from. Hell, they may’ve sent him here ’cause he likes cutting up girls.”

“Could be.”

“Captain told us to keep our eyes out for that Cliff Walton fella. You seen him again?”

I swallowed hard.

“Y’all lookin’ for him,” Clip said, “just a matter of time ’fore he be in custody. Bet he can feel the net of justice drawing in on him right now. ’Course he probably blew town already.”

“Did if he knew Delt was after him,” I said.

We were quiet a moment, the sounds of the dark, lonely bay the only ones filling our ears, and I thought again of what Ruth Ann had told me. Had I really not killed Lauren? Had I really not given her the disease that had cut her life so short? And if I hadn’t, who had? Who else was she seeing or had she seen? Why hadn’t she told me? Had she been raped or had she been unfaithful? I had to find out. I wished I could talk to Father Keller. He’d know. Knew.

The silence was broken by Delt’s radio squawking through the partially open window of his car. He opened the door, sat down, grabbed the mic, and responded to the dispatcher, who informed him that another body had been found and told him to report to the crime scene.

I recognized the address she gave him. It was the anarchist art gallery of Adrian Fromerson.

I
pulled the car up in front of Adrian’s old three-story Victorian house and parked behind Delt. Since we had been so close, we were the first to arrive. Avoiding cops as often as he could, Clip had remained behind to keep an eye out for De Grasse.

The front door was open, the dainty, diminutive figure of Adrian Fromerson partially filling it, his short, jagged bleach-blond hair backlit by the chandelier in the foyer behind him.

“The hell is that?” Delt asked me.

“That’s your host,” I said.

“Oh God. What are we walking into?”

I looked forward to Delt’s and the other cops’ reaction to both Adrian and his art show.

“Jimmy, can you believe it?” Adrian said as we stepped up onto the porch. “It’s just so … to think the killer was here … again … in my house. That he actually installed one of his exhibits in my …”

“Have you touched anything?” Delt asked.

“No, sir.”

“Is anyone else here?”

“Just me.”

“Have you searched the entire house?”

“Well, no. I haven’t.”

“Let’s start with that. Jimmy, you help?”

I nodded.

We withdrew our weapons and began a systematic search of the huge house.

Delt and I split up, so I didn’t get to see much, but any chance I got I watched him react to the distorted images, odd perspectives, queer elements, and asymmetrical arrangements of the deconstructed, disassembled, and rearranged female forms.

Mostly he just shook his head as the expressions on his face ranged from revulsion to incomprehension.

After searching every floor but the third, we collected Adrian from the front porch and went to look at the crime scene, sirens in the distance announcing the soon arrival of the others.

The single room of the third floor was exactly as it had been when I was here before—all black, faceless female mannequins painted white posed on black silk drop cloths in various stages of disassemble and dissection—only now in the center of it all was a new murder victim displayed in such a way as to be nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the exhibit.

Like the other victims before her, this latest one had been dissected and dismembered, drained of all blood, cleaned, her pale white body displayed on a black silk cloth. Like the other victims, her upper and lower body had been bisected, her arms and legs cut off. Unlike them, her hands and feet had also been severed. She was splayed spread-eagle, her arms and legs swapped. Every part of her had roughly six inches in between it and the part closest to it. Instead of her arms extending out to her hands, her legs did in their place. Instead of her legs extending down to her feet, her arms did. But as shocking as all of this was, nothing could match the visceral jolt of what was above her shoulders. Sawn off at the neck, her head had been removed and was missing. In its place, the bleached bright white skull of a cow, complete with long, sharp horns.

“Fuck me,” Delt said. “I mean, goddamn. I just mean … hell, I saw the others, but this … this is just …”

“I know.”

“This is all the work of that De Grasse fella?” Delt asked.

“It is,” Adrian said. “All but the … but that.”

“What the hell are we dealing with?”

“An artist,” Adrian said.

“So it’s got to be De Grasse, right?”

“Seems likely,” I said. “But he could just be inspiring him. What else can you tell us about him?” I asked Adrian.

“He’s—”

“What the fuck?” Butch said as he entered. “Is that real?”

“It is,” Delt said.

Butch glanced over at us.

“The hell they doing here, Delt?”

“Adrian owns the place and Jimmy came with me from—”

“No civilians.”

“But Butch, we—”

“No exceptions.”

I turned and started out, Adrian following me.

“Nothing personal, pal,” Butch said. “I mean that.”

A
fter leaving Adrian’s, I drove back to check on Clip at De Grasse’s place. Unlike Delt, Clip was not visible—neither he nor his car could be seen.

I pulled in and drove down away from the entrance to the dock and parked and waited. In a few minutes, Clip opened the passenger door and got in.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Not a thing.”

“If he’s the killer and he’s letting us know by displaying the most recent body in his art exhibit, don’t imagine he’ll ever come back here.”

“And if he do, and he not the killer, what good is he to us?”

I nodded slowly as I thought about it. “He might know something.”

“Might.”

“You up for keeping an eye on the place a little longer?”

“Sho. This a motherfucker I like to meet.”

“Whatta I owe you so far?”

“More than you got,” he said.

“How much?”

“Five dollars.”

I pulled out one of Harry Lewis’s crisp new hundreds and handed it to him.

He lit up, unable to help himself from grinning.

“Goddamn.”

“I know.”

“Hope you ain’t thinkin’ I can break this bitch for you.”

I laughed. “It’s all yours.”

“Son of a bitch but you know how to put money in a nigga’s pocket.”

Chapter 37

C
liff Walton haunted my dreams.

In the first one, I couldn’t kill him. No matter what I did, he wouldn’t die. I shot him over and over again—in the arms and legs and chest and head—and he just kept talking about all the horrible things he would say about Lauren as soon as he could get to the police or paper. Abandoning the gun, I stabbed him repeatedly with a pocket knife—hacking and chopping and spearing until we were both blood-covered and coughing, and all he did was kept talking, kept telling me all the ways in which he was going to torture me as soon as he got free. Eventually, I got the shovel and went to work on him, but even that was no good.

In the second dream, Walt was dead, but I couldn’t burry him.

No matter what I tried, I just couldn’t seem to get the hole dug and the body in it. Even with both my arms, which I had in the dream, I couldn’t get the dirt to stay out of the hole. Every shovel I threw out would reappear back in immediately. Then, when I did finally have a small hole dug, I couldn’t pull his body into it. I tried everything, but something was holding him back, and nothing I did could free him. The sun was coming up and I could hear cops approaching, but I couldn’t get him buried. They were going to discover what I had done. They were going to lock me up. I was going to jail, maybe even be put to death, and I was powerless to prevent it no matter how feverishly I dug.

Waking, heart pounding, gasping for breath, and drenched in sweat, I shoved myself up unsteadily from the couch and stumbled to the kitchen sink and stuck my head under the tap.

Back in the rack, it took me a while to fall asleep again, but when I did, I dreamt of Lauren.

At first, I was trying to get to her, but couldn’t. Harry was keeping me away. Everywhere I went to meet her, he’d arrive before me and whisk her away. Other times he’d have Walt do it.

Then we were together, making love in my bed at the Cove, but just as I was about to come, Harry banged on the door, saying he knew Lauren was in there with me, demanding for her to come out so he could take her home.

Suddenly, we were at Margie’s, borrowing her bed, and this time Margie, Harry, and Walt were trying to get in—knocking on the door, tapping on the windows, calling to us.

It felt so good to be inside her—truly the best feeling in the world—and yet I couldn’t completely enjoy it because the others were right outside, making so much noise, trying to get in.

“Ignore them,” she whispered in my ear.

“I can’t.”

“Concentrate. I want you to finish before they come in and take me away from you.”

“Is that what they’re going to do?”

“I’m afraid so, darling.”

“But—”

“Don’t think of that now. I want you to finish first. Let me help you.”

She slid down between my legs and took me in her mouth. God, it felt so good, so soft and warm, her skilled movements so tense yet tender. But it was no good. I couldn’t come—and not just because of the distracting noise and the possibility they could burst in at any moment, but knowing they were going to take her away from me.

I was so hard and wanted to come so bad, but I couldn’t and I was growing more frustrated by the moment.

I awoke a little while later to discover I really was in Lauren’s mouth and that no one was trying to break in.

Relaxing into it, I grabbed the top of her head with my hand and began to thrust up into her open, hungry mouth.

I couldn’t recall being this hard, this turned on, in a very, very long time. It had been so long, in fact, since I had been intimate, been sexual at all, and it felt so damn good, I was sure I wouldn’t be able to last much longer before I exploded into her mouth.

But just as I was about to, she stopped.

“I want you inside me,” Ruth Ann said.

Unstrapping her prosthetic leg, she let it fall to the floor, then straddled me, balancing herself with her strong hands.

“Say it’s okay,” she said.

She took me in her hand and moved me so that I could feel the soft hair, the warmth, the wetness waiting for me.

“Tell me you want me, want to be inside
me
.”

“I … I …”

She began rubbing herself with the tip, moaning as she did.

“Say my name and I’ll put you inside me.”

I started to, but then hesitated.

“God, I’ve wanted you so long,” she said. “So long. Say my name. Say aloud who you want to make love to.”

“
Ruth Ann?”
I said. “It’s
you
?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t.”

“What? What’d you say?”

“I can’t. I can’t. I love Lauren. I can only be with her.”

She moved her hand and slid down on me, arching her back, tossing her head back, letting out a breathless “Oh God” as she did.

“Stop,” I said. “I only want Lauren.”

“Lauren’s dead. You can’t have her. You can only have me now.”

Meeting you has saved me. Being with you has caused me to wake up. I can only describe as divine. Please don’t ever stop loving me that same way. You and I were always out of time, weren’t we? We’ll have eternity. All my love, all of me, Your Lauren

“No. Stop.”

I realized then how much my abdomen was hurting, the pain searing, as if I were being stabbed over and over.

“Ruth Ann,” I said. “It’s no good. Get off me now.”

“No. I know this is right. Just give in to it, soldier. I won’t stop. I won’t.”

With far more force than I should have, I reached up with my arm and swept her away, slinging her flying across the coffee table and sprawling onto the floor, objects thudding, glass breaking, her crying.

Chapter 38

“G
ood morning.”

I awoke on the couch with Ruth Ann smiling down on me.

“Morning,” I said.

I tried to sit up. It took some effort.

“I’ve gotta go check in with Clip,” I said.

“We gonna talk about last night?” she said.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’ve stayed far longer than I should have. I’m sorry I—”

“Don’t be,” she said. “It was my fault, fella. Not yours.”

“I’ll move out today,” I said. “I don’t have to hide out anymore.”

“I want to pretend it never happened. Okay? I want you to accept my apology and then let’s wipe the whole thing from our minds.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding.

“I really am sorry, pal,” she said, and though she still looked like Lauren, she was back to sounding like her old self. “Oh, but one thing before we forget about the whole thing.”

“Yeah?”

“I told you, didn’t I? I knew you could get an ah … Huh? How about that?”

I was so torn up about what happened, it hadn’t even really registered that I
could
have done it, that I wasn’t as wounded as I thought. I worked in a way I never thought I would again. It was incredible, and I’d be thrilled about it if the only woman I’ll ever want weren’t dead.

“Okay. So, again, I’m sorry. Now let’s forget the whole thing.”

“Forgotten,” I said.

“And you don’t have to rush to move out. Doesn’t have to be today.”

“Yes it does. I should’ve already. I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be. And don’t be in such a rush to get out of here that you don’t let me finish my one job and help you catch the killer. ’Cause I’m almost done.”

“With?”

She nodded toward a folder on the kitchen table. “Gathering all the info and pictures on the girls that were killed. Will finish today. They could all be sisters.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said. “And they’re just your type.”

W
hen Ruth Ann dropped me off in front of the police station to get the car Harry left for me, I discovered it wasn’t there.

I had been determined not to use it, but now that I was leaving Ruth Ann’s and didn’t want to borrow her car any longer, I had decided to take him up on the loan of it for a day or two.

But maybe it was too late. Had I waited too long?

I inquired inside and learned that it had been towed. I then took a cab to the impound lot, where they refused to release it to me.

“This car’s registered to Panama City State Bank,” a fat man with a nub of cigar sticking out of the corner of his mouth said.

“Your name’s nowhere on it, pal.”

“Tell you what—” I began.

“Look, fella, I sympathize. I do. But I know what you’re doing. You think you’re the first?”

He was sweaty and in need of a haircut, the stubble on his face and chin drawing attention to all the fat on his neck.

“What am I doing?”

“Trying to get your car back.”

“Exactly.”

“They repossessed it and now you’re trying to steal it back from ’em.”

“It’s not like that. I’m working for the president of the bank. He provided the car. Call the bank. Ask the mayor.”

“If you think I’m gonna spend my day callin’—”

“Or call Captain Folsom. He can tell you. Or let me borrow your phone and I’ll do it.”

“Knock yourself out.”

I did, and in fifteen minutes I was pulling out of the lot in the black Ford registered to Panama City State Bank—which is where I drove it.

“D
id you hear they found another one of those poor girls last night?” Harry asked.

We were in his office at the bank, which is where he asked me to come when I called for him to authorize me picking up the car.

I nodded.

The office was spacious and plush and filled with heavy masculine mahogany furniture. The chairs were upright and uncomfortable.

“I’ve just become mayor and something like this is happening. It won’t do, Jimmy. It won’t do. And I don’t just mean how it looks politically. I mean it’s my job to take care of this town.”

I had nothing for that so I didn’t respond.

Harry was puffing on a pipe, and the smoke filling his office had the sweet aroma of toasted marshmallows and warm vanilla.

“Police chief tells me the only real lead they got
you
gave them.”

I shrugged.

“I know you’re busy, but I’d like to hire you to help find the killer. And to help me with some security. I’m getting death threats. I don’t mind telling you I’m frightened. I truly am. Now, I wouldn’t want you to stop searching for Lauren’s killers. Could you do both?”

“You mean all three?”

“Well, yes. All three.”

“With some help.”

“I’ll pay you whatever you want. Name your price.”

I thought about putting more crisp hundreds in Clip’s pocket and a few in my own and it made me smile.

“Well?”

I named my price, which I thought was a little on the high side, but obviously that, like everything else, is relative, because he paid me out of his pocket.