The Walls of Lemuria (34 page)

“That kid’s trouble,” Norris said.

“Trouble or troubled?” Keo said.

They were outside the house, looking in the direction where they knew Levy had gone again this morning.

“Both,” Norris said, sipping the instant coffee from the same white and yellow LSU Tigers mug he had rescued from a convenience store.

“What did you used to do with troubled kids back when you were walking the beat, old timer?”

“Put them in a hospital.”

“With your nightstick?”

“Yeah, that too.”

Keo chuckled. “Not a lot of hospitals around anymore. What are we going to do? Arrest him for kidnapping? Read him his Miranda rights? Sic the United Nations on him for war crimes against non-humanity?”

Norris grunted. “I’m telling you, kid. I’ve seen this before.”

“This?”

“Not
this
, this. But the same ballpark. People ignoring all the obvious signs that someone’s headed for trouble. It only encourages them.”

Maybe Norris was right. Gillian seemed to think so. But she didn’t have any answers either, and from the sounds of it, neither did Norris. What exactly were they going to do with Levy if they did decide he was too dangerous? If his “experiments” came home to roost? He recalled those scratches on the garage door. Were the other creatures trying to get in to save their own?

There you go again, assigning them human behavior. They’re not human anymore. Get that through your head.

“You know I’m right about this,” Norris said.

“Knowing and doing something about it are two different beasts.”

“You gotta make the decision.”

Keo stared at him. “Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

“Why am I the one who has to make a decision?”

“You’re the de facto leader, aren’t you?”

“When the hell did that happen?”

Norris shrugged and sipped his mug. “I guess it was that night back in November when you told us how it was going to go down. You basically set yourself up as our fearless leader.”

“Not on purpose.”

“Maybe not, but there it is.”

“And you approve?”

“I’m already too old for this shit. I’m basically Murtaugh to your Riggs.”

“Rigs what?”

“Riggs. R-i-g-g-s. You know,
Lethal Weapon
?”

“What is that?”

“It’s a buddy cop movie from the ’80s.” Norris grunted. “You’ve never seen it.”

“I don’t watch a lot of movies,” Keo said. “When I do, I try to watch one made after I was born.”

“You’re missing out.”

“What was it about?”

“These two diametrically opposed guys who also happen to be cops. One’s insane and single, the other’s by the book and married with children. They’re thrown into a situation where they basically have to trust one another with their lives. Hard to do since they’re so different and all, which is where the movie’s conflict comes in. You’ve really never seen it?”

“Nope. So, Murtaugh and Riggs?”

“Yeah. One was an over-the-hill black guy. Like me. The other was a loose cannon white guy with a death wish. Like you.”

“I’m not white,” Keo grinned.

“You’re half white, so that makes me half right.”

“Question.”

“Shoot.”

“Did Murtaugh and Riggs live at the end of the movie?”

“Oh, hell yeah. They even did three sequels in the next ten years after the first one.”

“Ten more years?” Keo said. “I’d take that. Hell, I’d take five more years.”

“That’s the spirit, kid; think high.”

“You don’t understand, old timer. The things I’ve done, even before all of this…” He shook his head. “The fact that I’ve survived this long is a miracle.”

“Like I said, loose cannon with a death wish.” He slurped his coffee. It was probably already cold by now. “On the plus side, we know where he goes now.”

“Are we still talking about Levy?”

“No, the Pope.” He wrinkled his nose like he had an itch. “It’s a mistake. What’s happening back there at the garage isn’t helping us, but it could hurt us. Karma’s a bitch, kid. If we let him keep doing what he’s doing, how does that make us better than the Nazis during World War II?”

“You sound like you’ve been thinking about this for a while.”

“It’s a problem. Can’t just stick your head in the sand and pretend what he’s doing isn’t wrong.”

Keo nodded. “Maybe you’re right…”

“It’s been known to happen.”

Keo noticed that Norris’s beard had become less salt and pepper and almost entirely gray these days. “You getting any sleep?”

“As much as the rest of you, I guess. Gotten a few more extra hours since Jordan and the others showed up.” He shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve had a full night’s sleep since all of this began.”

“Yeah. Me, neither.”

“What kind of night’s sleep you think Levy gets every day?”

“I don’t know. He seems pretty damn cheery in the mornings, though.”

Norris snorted. “Maybe we should ask him what his secret is.”

“I would,” Keo said, “but I’m a little afraid he might tell me.”

*

Things with Levy
came to a head two weeks later and caught everyone off guard, especially Keo. He would have been fine spending the rest of his life not having to deal with the “Levy Problem,” as it had become known around the house when Levy wasn’t around. Reality, unfortunately, had its own ideas.

With no supply runs scheduled for the day, Keo was walking the woods when his radio squawked and he heard Gillian’s voice, panicked, but clearly doing her best to stay calm.

“Keo. Please come in.”

“I’m here,” Keo said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but Lotte’s missing.”

“What do you mean, ‘missing’?” Norris asked through the radio.

“I mean she’s not here, and no one’s seen her since this morning,” Gillian said.

Keo began jogging through the woods back toward the house, while Norris said through the radio, “Didn’t I see her this morning during breakfast?”

“No,” Gillian said, “she wasn’t there. I didn’t realize that until an hour ago. She usually has coffee with me and Rachel.”

“And Rachel hasn’t seen her either?” Keo asked into the radio.

“No,” Gillian said. “No one has. And I asked everyone, including Christine. No one has seen her, guys.” Then, more panicked, “Hurry, Keo.”

“I’m coming,” Keo said.

He put the radio away and ran faster.

*

Gillian and Rachel,
along with Jordan and the others, were waiting outside the house when Keo arrived. Norris was already there, having been closer when Gillian called.

The ex-cop looked over and shook his head. “She’s not here. We looked everywhere.”

“She wasn’t here when we woke up this morning,” Jordan said. “She was with us all last night, talking about school. She wanted to be a nurse and was asking me about college courses.” She looked pained. “I’m sorry, Keo. I thought she’d just gone back into her and Gillian’s room when I didn’t see her this morning.”

“What about her crutch?”

“It’s gone, too,” Gillian said. “I found her radio inside our room.”

“And no one saw her leave?”

He looked from face to face and they all shook their heads.

“What about Levy?” Keo asked.

“Levy?” Gillian said.

“He didn’t answer the radio.”

She frowned. “Why would Levy know where Lotte is?”

“I don’t know,” Keo said. “But he should have answered the radio. You don’t ignore something like that.” He unclipped his radio and pressed the transmit lever. “Levy, are you there? Come in.”

He waited, and so did the others. Norris shifted his feet anxiously, as did Gillian.

“Levy,” Keo said into the radio again. “Come in if you can hear me.”

Then, just when Keo didn’t think he would ever answer, Levy said through the radio, “What’s up?”

“What time did you leave the house this morning?” Keo asked.

“Early. Why?”

“Did you see Lotte?”

There was a slight pause, then, “No,” Levy said. “Is something wrong? She okay?”

“We don’t know. We can’t find her anywhere. You sure you didn’t see her leave the house this morning?”

“I’m sure, yeah. Sorry.”

“Okay, let me know if you see her.”

“I will,” Levy said.

Keo put the radio away and looked back at the others.

Norris was staring at him. “He’s lying,” he said. There was no trace of doubt in his voice.

“You don’t know that,” Gillian said.

“I do know,” Norris said. “I’ve been listening to people lying to me half my life, Gillian. He’s lying.”

“It doesn’t make any sense. Why would he take Lotte?”

“Only one way to find out,” Keo said.

*

“He’s lost it,”
Norris said. “You know that, right?”

“We don’t know anything for sure,” Keo said. “You’re jumping to conclusions.”

“I’m pretty good at jumping, kid. But I also know when something isn’t right. And that kid isn’t right.”

“You can jump all you want, just don’t pull the trigger until we know for sure.”

They walked through the woods in silence for a moment, the only sound the
crunch
of soft ground and twigs under their shoes. The others were staying behind at the house, even though most of them wanted to come, including Gillian. He had managed to talk them out of it, though. Keo didn’t want Levy to see everyone converging on him at once.

“I’m right,” Norris insisted after a while.

“We’ll see,” Keo said. Then, “What would Riggs do in this situation?”

Norris chuckled. “I don’t know. Probably run in blind with guns blazing.”

“He do that a lot?”

“Yeah, he was a lethal weapon, see. Thus the title of the movie.”

“Maybe we can look for the Blu-ray when we hit that Wallbys near Corden later next week.”

“Why stop at one Blu-ray? Grab the whole boxed set. All four parts. They’re all pretty good.”

“Did they die at the end of part four?”

“Nope. Last I heard, they were still hoping to make a part five.”

“Wouldn’t they be pretty old by now?”

“Have you looked around you, kid? Old age is the least of their problems these days.”

Norris didn’t say much after that. Keo guessed he was trying to think about what was waiting for them up ahead. Keo was doing the same thing. He spent the long walk back to the burnt-out two-story house trying to come up with a scenario where Norris was both wrong and right.

What the hell was he going to do if Norris
was
right? Keo didn’t have a clue. If he thought the idea of taking charge was foreign and uncomfortable, having to decide what to do with a stray member of the flock was borderline nauseating.

“What do you think he’s doing with her in there?” Norris said.

“We don’t know she’s there.”

“She’s there,” he said, with that same absolute certainty.

He’s probably right,
Keo thought, but said instead, “Maybe.”

Norris was holding his M4 tightly in front of him, and every now and then he adjusted the Glock holstered at his hip. The ex-cop looked a little nervous as they approached the familiar clearing. They had both slowed down without a word, as if they were trying to prolong the walk to the garage, to where Levy was at the moment. But eventually they had to finally reach the edge of the woods, where they stopped and looked out.