Psycho Save Us (44 page)

Leon stepped
aside, and got a glimpse of the child’s terrified face.  He looked out from the
blanket hood around his head with the eyes of one who didn’t know if he was
with the good guys or the bad guys. 
He may never know the difference again
. 
How would his life be different?  How would he view basements now?  How would
he view people with Russian accents?  How would he view the whole fucking
country of Russia?  Impossible to say, but a single glimpse told Leon that the
boy would never live a normal life again.  Nightmares waited for him, awkward
conversations with people who joked about man rape in his presence without
realizing what he’d been through, and relationship problems that would run
deep.

When they
stepped back outside, neither Leon nor the agents were speaking, though Porter
was certainly doing a great deal of texting.  David Emerson approached.  He’d
hustled over to see the kid into the ambulance, but now looked at Leon
staunchly.  “What the fuck is in there, Hulsey?” he demanded.

“Find this
fucker,” he said.  “Find him.  Find Tidov.  They’re running right now.  They’re
all going to ground.  This is an operation, one they’ve worked on for years,
and gotten
damn
good at it, and at keeping hidden.  If we don’t get them
within the next few hours they’ll have closed up shop and left town.  They’ll
just open up somewhere else, and do this all over again.  That’s what they do. 
We have to
find them
, David.”

Leon had never
gotten to know David Emerson well.  He didn’t know what sort of TV shows or
women he liked, he didn’t know what high school he’d gone to, he didn’t know if
he preferred Coors to Budweiser, he didn’t even know what David thought of him,
but he knew the guy was committed to his job and that he had a bullet waiting
for anyone that fucked with his partner.  David nodded wordlessly and turned
and bolted for his patrol car.  He was gone before the ambulance carrying the
kid could get out.

For a minute,
Leon stood there, looking back at the House, rubbing his cheek with the back of
his right hand, considering.  Then he turned and looked for Porter, who was
standing beside his SUV talking to Mortimer and Stone.  He hustled over there
and said, “Baton Rouge.  What happened there?  Anything connected with this?”

Porter halted
midway through discussing what they’d seen inside with his fellow agents, and
looked at Leon.  “No,” he said.  “I told you.  We were just onto Pelletier, I’d
never even heard of the Rainbow Room before tonight.”

“So what
happened in Baton Rouge?”

At first, Leon
thought the agent would keep hush, but Porter surprised him.  “Pelletier killed
six contract killers that the Aryan Brotherhood sent after him.  They were
still plenty pissed at him for what he did to one o’ their boys in CRC.  It was
their complaint that helped fuck him over, got him transferred to Leavenworth,
where the biggest prison population of AB members was at that time.  Word
travels through the grapevine fast, even in prison.  Pelletier probably knew if
he hung around in Leavenworth long enough he’d get it in the shower or in the
work houses.  He got out before they could get their payback.”

“Six assassins? 
They wanted him that badly?”

“That’s what the
Brotherhood is best at.  They account for only one percent of the prison
population, but they’re responsible for about twenty-five percent of all prison
murders.  They work in extortion, prostitution and murder-for-hire.  They’re
exceedingly good at it.  Before a person can get inducted into their ranks, the
person have to show that they’re well learned—AB members aren’t just dumb
rednecks, they’re educated inside prison on Nietzsche, Sun Tzu, Socrates,
Plato, Buddha, and they’re encouraged to learn about the many different
religions of the world.  You have to show undying loyalty.  Blood in, blood
out.  Only the most committed of men can join, and so it’s easy to put out a
hit when they want it done.”

“How’d Pelletier
survive it?”

“He got a heads
up of some kind.  One of them made a mistake.”

“What mistake?”

“We don’t know. 
All we know is that six are dead and one was mutilated pretty badly for several
minutes postmortem, maybe as long as an hour.  He killed the guy and spent a
while working on his corpse.  Cut his dick off and shoved it in his ass.  A
woman was nearby, terrified form all the gunfire that had just gone off, scared
to the point that she couldn’t move.  She covered her eyes, but still peeked. 
Said she saw Pelletier…eat one of the testicles.”  Porter shrugged.  “Then he
cut the belly open, and pulled out the intestines.  Played with ’em.  She said
he…um…ah, hell,
what
did she say he did with them?” he asked of Stone
and Mortimer.

Mortimer said,
“She said he tossed the intestines around his neck, and looked at her and said,
‘Do I look like Greta Garbo?’  The woman said she looked away, but said she
heard the sound of pants being unzipped and a belt buckle rattling, then some
squishy noises.  ‘Lots and lots of squishy noises.’  That’s how she put it.”

“And laughing,”
Stone put in.  “Don’t forget that.”

“And laughing,
yeah.”

Leon didn’t
blink for a moment.  And while he imbibed what the agents had said, they went back
to their chatter.  He finally turned back to the house of horrors, and had the
briefest of insights.  He was fortunate he had been born relatively sane, to relatively
sane parents, and not anywhere near the Bluff.

The rain started
in again.

At first, the
sky completely dropped on him, drenching him in a torrential downpour to end
all downpours.  It lasted only a few seconds, though, and petered off to a
drizzle.  Spencer was already upset about having come across no vehicles that
could be easily stolen, and now he would have to walk the rest of the night
soaking wet.  Not only that, but his quarry was likely to get away.  Not only
that
,
but he was still hungry.

Then, he spotted
lights up ahead through the drizzle.  “You still there, partner?” he asked of
the wind.

Yeah
, came the
Voice, from everywhere and nowhere. 
I’m still here
.

“Are ya movin’
yet?”

Silence.

“That means no. 
You better
get
to moving, savvy?  I think I’ve found a way to get to
you, but you’re still gonna need to buy me some time.  It won’t be long before
the police get to Tidov’s place and somebody gives Dmitry and the others a
heads up.  Cops are probably already there now.”

I
…
hurt
.

“What’s wrong
with you?” he said, leaping over a chain-link fence and moving ever towards the
light.  He saw a parking lot wreathed in the orange glow from various
lampposts.

I got hit with a
stun gun, and my sister
…
and Bonetta
…
I can feel their pain and
fear, too
. 
It’s
…
crippling
.

“Let me rephrase
that: what the
fuck’s
wrong with you?” he said, stepping around a few
cars which undoubtedly belonged to the late-night workers hitting that third
shift grind.  Up ahead was a warehouse of some kind, a manufacturing plant.  A
sign nearby read
Keegan Corporation – Building Better Trucks
.  “Ya just
gonna lie down and let these fuckers get away with what they’ve done to you an’
yours?  Huh?”  He peeked at a few of the cars, but saw none that would be
easily boosted.  Then, he looked fifty yards up at the manufacturing plant
itself.  Two large bay doors had opened up to let a pair of Penske trucks out. 
An assembly line
. 
They build Penskes here
.  “After all they’ve
done, you just gonna lay there an’ take it?  Let ’em fuck you like they fucked
yer sister?”

Don’t you talk
about her!  Don’t you use that filthy fucking mouth to
—

“An’ what’re you
gonna do about it?” he said, laughing and walking through the rain and speaking
to air.  “
Nothin’
!  That’s what.  Nothin’, because you’re nothing but a
fucking loser who gives up.  Fuck you, you little bitch.  Lay there and get
raped and fuckin’ die.  Die without even givin’ them a fight.  See if I give a
fuck.  See if
anybody
gives a fuck.”

Don’t tell me
I’m nothing
—

Spencer wasn’t
listening to her anymore, at least not for the moment.  He saw things inside of
her.  He saw her own private fears, her shame at her lot in life, an unspoken
self-loathing for being the daughter of a woman named…named…
Jovita Dupré! 
Yes, that was her name!  And he saw something else, he saw that her teeth were
rotted, her eyes sunken and hollow.  “Jovita Dupré,” he said aloud.  “That’s
yer mother, right?  A crack whore and a—”

Shut your mouth!
the Voice
cried. 
Don’t you look at my thoughts!  They’re not yours!  They’re mine! 
Stay out of my head!

Spencer smiled.

The Voice
babbled on as he approached a pair of guys who’d stepped outside for a smoke
break.  They stood underneath a tin overhang, protected from the rain.  “Hey
guys!  Is Terry in?” he said to them.

They looked
between one another.  “Terry?” one of them said.  He was a bearded guy wearing
a checkered flannel shirt and work gloves.

“Yeah, ain’t he
the plant manager here?”

The bearded man
took a puff of his cigarette and said, “Naw, man.  Plant manager’s Nathan
Hunter.  You might be thinkin’ o’
Perry
, not Terry.  Perry’s second
shift manager.  Who’re you?”

“I was supposed
to drop off some new quarter-inch washers,” Spencer said, pulling a story right
out of his ass.  “I guess I should speak to Nathan about that, huh?”

“Probably.”

“Where can I
find him?”

“Ah, he’s
probably back in QC right now.”

Quality control
area.  “Great.  I appreciate it.  You guys pushin’ anymore trucks out tonight? 
I don’t wanna keep my truck in the way.”  Spencer didn’t have any automobile,
of course, and he certainly didn’t have anything parked in their way.  But it
didn’t matter, all he had to do was keep his lips moving, keep asking
questions, and unless they were incredibly sharp folks (and they couldn’t be
because they had found themselves so desperate in life that they worked third shift
jobs building trucks on an assembly line), they wouldn’t pick up on it.

“Yeah, but the
rest’ll come outta QC later.  Probably out back.  You can park yer truck up
here, it oughtta be fine, man.”

“Thanks, man,”
Spencer said, and started to step inside before he stopped himself.  “Oh, hey! 
I got another delivery tonight to Avery Street.  Either o’ you guys know how to
get there?”  Spencer had looked up the directions to Avery Street on Tidov’s
Droid phone and had gotten conflicting reports.  Some of the streets were
probably recently renovated and the maps were updating poorly.

The other smoker
scratched his scraggily beard.  When he spoke, he revealed blackened teeth that
had to be the work of meth or heroin.  “Yeah, uh, Avery…yeah, that’s…first, you
head north on Mansell.  That’s this road right out here,” he said, pointing through
the rain.  “Go about four stoplights up, then turn left onto Huckleby Ridge
Road, go about a mile I wanna say?  Then turn right onto Kingsley Street.  Stay
straight, ’cause that road turns into Umway Street.  Go another mile, you’ll
see a big billboard that’s fallin’ apart, turn left.  That’s Avery.”

“Thanks,
friend,” he said, and stepped on inside like he was meant to be there.  “Hey, I
don’t guess I could be a total prick an’ bum a cig off o’ you, huh?”  The man
obliged, if only because he appeared to find it too awkward to say no.  He also
lit the cigarette before Spencer went on his way, smiling his thanks.

They didn’t stop
you
,
said the Voice.  Spencer felt the other’s dull curiosity creeping across his
brain.  She was in shock, and in such a detached state.  Brain dead, like when
watching TV.

“Of course not. 
Why would they?”

You’re not
supposed to be here
…there
at the plant
.

“They don’t know
that.  Those guys probably see two dozen people a day that they’ve never met
before just come traipsin’ into the plant.  Regional managers, district
managers, plant inspectors, what the fuck do they know about them?  Those two
knuckleheads work the goddam third shift on an assembly line.”  Spencer walked
past the area labeled
ROOF
PIT
,
where an aluminum roof was being situated on top of a yellow Penske truck.  One
of the men looked down from the catwalk at him.  Spencer called up, “Hey, man! 
Nice to see you again!”

The man had a
look of confusion, but nodded back and said, “You too!”

Spencer smiled,
winked, and gave him a companionable thumbs up.

He doesn’t even
know you
,
said the Voice.

“He doesn’t know
that,” Spencer said, taking a puff of his cig.  He continued moving through the
plant like he belonged there, checking his watch and waving to guys along the
assembly line.  He gave a wink to one lady with a clipboard, and she smiled
back, then looked away, no doubt embarrassed that she didn’t remember him.