Full Wolf Moon (9 page)
Before he turned to the door, Arthur asked, "Will I see you tomorrow?"
"I...I don't know. There's a lot to do..."
He didn't reply, but neither did he look away. At last he said, "Will you be all right, by yourself?"
"Absolutely," Doris replied, probably too quickly.
At long last, he turned to leave and Doris suddenly asked, "Do you still want me to call you Arthur?"
He stopped and looked at her, a near-smile on his lips. "Yes, I do."
"I never told you that you could call me Doris," she said, just to aggravate him.
He smiled more fully. "Well, we can't undo what's already been done."
Doris smiled, too. Then Arthur left her office, and she was alone again, standing by her desk like a sentry.
Chapter 12
Lakeside Assembly Center
Night. Last Quater Moon.
Mine. Mine!
Max runs, propelled by anger, propelled by greed. The gravel road to Tulenar clacks and grates, he feels it give under his bare feet, but he is unaware of any pain. The air is cold on his skin, naked and damp, his genitals retreating for warmth, but the cold and discomfort are nothing compared to his need to rush to the claim.
They have no right!
He swerves suddenly, clambering up a hillside, two-footed at first, then scrambling on hands and feet as the climb grows steeper. The sweat is dripping off him like tears, regardless of the cold. His lungs burn and he wonders vaguely how he can keep such a pace - shouldn't it be impossible?- when he bursts onto the clearing.
The full moon blazes down on Doris Tebbe and David Alma Curar. They are kneeling, digging like dogs, trying to disinter what they have no right to, no right at all. Alma Curar is telling her, "There's still time. If we hurry there's still time."
Inside the hollow they have dug Max can be seen one bloodless, white hand, stiffened and clawlike, as though the corpse had been scratching at its grave. Max looks down at his own hands with a start, because he is suddenly afraid it is he they are digging up. And when he can find no trace of himself, no trace at all, he knows for certain they are.
Then he feels the dirt in his mouth and the clots in his eyes, his heart is in pain and despair for being dead and buried so long, so long! Yet he is also still looking through altogether different eyes at Tebbe and Alma Curar, desperately digging at his corpse.
No, mine!
Mrs. Tebbe is screaming, "Max! Max!" as she yanks at his dead wrist and forearm, as if she thinks she can awaken him. But Max is no longer in his corpse. He is back in the thing again, the thing full of rage and greed, lunging at David Alma Curar as Mrs. Tebbe's eyes fly wide with horror. She flings her hands upward. Her right palm bears a silver-tinged pentagram.
Stop them, kill them! Mine! He feels Alma Curar's throat burst between his jaws.
Max clutched at his own throat when he awoke, gasping and staring wildly about the bedroom, unable to see a thing in spite of the beams of a brilliant half-moon streaking through the window. He groped quickly toward the nightstand where he knew his glasses lay and panicked a little when he almost knocked them to the floor.
Only when he had them shoved snugly in place did Max lean back against his headboard and try to catch his breath. A nightmare. Just a nightmare. But it was out of sync, out of rhythm. Nightmares as vivid as this one... it wasn't time yet. Max pulled the sheet up to his face, blotting his forehead and throat, so sore where he had clawed himself.
He thought suddenly, God, I miss Annie, God I miss her! He rose, pulled his robe over his damp shoulders and walked sluggishly into the kitchen. God... Annie.
Max pulled a bottle of orange juice from the Frigidaire and didn't bother with a glass. His heart was calmer now, as he leaned on the cool, enameled door, the horror of the dream fading. But his longing for Annie was still full and strong. It always was after the nightmares. How he needed her when thrust awake like that. But Annie was not there, had never been there. She had died the very night those awful visions were born.
Max let his head fall back against the refrigerator. How was he going to get through life without her? And then he wondered how Doris Tebbe, widowed just like he, managed for so many years.
/ / / /
The news from Mrs. Tebbe's office gave Max a surge of adrenaline, a burst of victory. Her police force had an Inu Hunter in custody.
This time, when his car passed by David Alma Curar's truck at Tulenar, Max made a point of staring straight ahead. Still, he could see the healer - imperfect though his vision was -see the man from the corner of his eye, see him in the side view mirror as the car trundled past.
Alma Curar stood by his truck bed, sacking something for a young woman, Nisei most likely, dressed in the crisp white of a nurse's uniform. Like the white and cut of the woman's uniform, so the general shape and identical colors marked the two children with her as twin boys. They circled the truck, making a game of not running, but walking very, very fast as they tried to tag each other. It was Alma Curar's posture that told Max the healer stared after him until the corner was turned.
Harriet Haku's face seemed all but healed as she escorted Max to Mrs. Tebbe's office. The C.A. finished scribbling on a note pad, poised in a nest of files, before looking up and nodding at him. He looked around the office as he took his usual seat.
"You've added some things."
It was still sparse, still intensely practical compared to his office. But, now, the wall behind Mrs. Tebbe displayed framed certificates, a political science degree from Sarah Lawrence, a few pictures of the late Senator Tebbe, with and without her, posing beside various politicians. One was with Herbert Hoover.
She'd added a slate blue carpet, too, that covered most of the office floor. A square oak table with four chairs was butted up against the window that overlooked the camp.
"I needed the table for small meetings and, with the carpet, the room finally doesn't sound like a stable when people walk in."
"It looks good."
There was a moment of silence. Mrs. Tebbe seemed reluctant to get on with it. She shuffled the paper nest, poked at the errant auburn waves against her nape.
Max finally prompted, "Well. Are they escorting the young man here, or do we go to the lock-up?"
Mrs. Tebbe sighed, then stood. "We go there, Captain."
/ / / /
There was nothing to hint of the teenager's Japanese features as Max walked into the little wooden jail. His wounded vision, glasses or no, couldn't make out the boy's face. But Max could read the posture, the typical American stance of a young tough, reared back on the bunk, one ankle crossed over his knee.
Not until he was at the long, thin bars could Max really see the boy's face. The Issei jailer produced a small ring of keys and unlocked the door for Max and Mrs. Tebbe.
The youth wore the trappings of his age and American culture, rebellious in a white tee-shirt, one sleeve rolled even though it held only a match box instead of a pack of Lucky's. Baggy, dark blue dungarees, cuffs folded a good three inches wide, brown loafers over white socks. He was worrying a match stick at the corner of his mouth to prove he was "hep," as the young people liked to say and, for the same reason, he wore his hair long enough to slick at the sides and comb into greased waves on the top. A perfectly normal teenager in a perfectly bizarre situation.
The jailer brought two stiff, wooden chairs into the cell for them before returning to his desk, obviously trying to mind his own business.
Mrs. Tebbe said without preamble, "Andrew, this is Captain Pierce. He's the commanding officer of Lakeside and, under certain circumstances, the final authority here at Tulenar as well. Captain, this is Andrew Takei."
How old was Andrew, sixteen? He had the constant, unsure expression of most boys his age, in spite of trying to seem self-possessed. The smoothness at his jaw line sprouted a few, long downy hairs that weren't quite whiskers yet. Sixteen.
The boy's eyes darted from Mrs. Tebbe to Max, his tough-guy posture frozen and betraying his fear. His voice betrayed him, too, nervous and unsure, though he did his best to seem in control. "I don't have to say anything until my mom gets here."
"You don't have to say anything, then, either," Mrs. Tebbe replied quickly, glancing at Max as if she thought he might have told the boy differently. Then she said directly to Max, "His father won't be transferred here for another week."
So I should go easy on the boy? he thought. Was that what she was implying? Again it stung to know she saw him as the military heavy.
He heard the door of the jail's office open, and the scent of blue violets wafted in. Perfume, tastefully applied. It was followed by the staccato of a woman's shoes on the wooden floor and, by the time Max had stood to turn, Andrew Takei's mother was at the cell. Andrew's rigid pose dissolved a moment and he sat at the edge of his bunk, his eyes riveted on his mother.
Mrs. Tebbe stood, too. "Mrs. Takei, this is Captain Pierce."
Mrs. Takei looked from her son, her eyes pained, to Max and her gaze grew cool. When she spoke, her smooth, educated voice held the faintest trace of her native tongue.
"This is ludicrous, penning Andrew up like a criminal. He is just a boy."
"Mrs. Takei," Max replied, "if the young man had bullied a neighbor or defaced property back in Sacramento, he would have had to answer for it in juvenile court."
"But he would not be thrown in jail like some hoodlum!"
"Madame, he is a hoodlum, if he's a member of the Inu Hunters."
"But he is not!" Mrs. Takei looked to her son for confirmation. Andrew was speechless, all pretense of rebellion evaporating as the adults argued around him.
Max turned to the boy. "Are you, Andrew?"
The youth hesitated and Max barked, "Answer me, son."
"I didn't do anything!" Andrew looked up at Max, fear clearly in his face, then his attention latched back onto his mother. "Ma, I swear to... I swear to God. Just some paint, is all."
Mrs. Takei strode to her son and clasped him against her hip. "This is madness," she said, her voice unsteady. "A prison inside a prison. For the love of Heaven, where do you people think he is going?"
"Mrs. Takei, please. Please." Maxwell approached her. "Sit with your son."
After a moment's hesitation, she did so slowly. She looked up at Max and Mrs. Tebbe, as if she were the jailed, defiant one instead of Andrew. Max pulled his chair a little closer to her and sat. Mrs. Tebbe did likewise.
"Your son," he began calmly, "was caught -red-handed- by the residents' own police, scrawling obscenities on the walls of Block Eleven. That alone is inexcusable, but that's not why he's in jail. He's in jail because he was seen earlier with a band of teenagers hurling rocks at one of the residents of Block Eight, a gentleman who has just begun working at one of the warehouses. He's become a favorite victim of the Inu Hunters."
Mrs. Takei looked at her son. Andrew fidgeted, but didn't reply. Mrs. Takei regarded Max again, clearly wondering if she could trust what he said.
"Mrs. Takei," he ventured in answer to her silent question, "why would I come all the way out here just to punish a boy for some graffiti?"
"In fact the Army may not, Captain. I know that is not within your jurisdiction. Likewise, I understand, neither are thrown stones."
The lady had been studying. But she didn't have him stymied.
"But the Army may," he replied, "if our assistance is requested by the WRA."
He waited for Mrs. Takei's rebuttal. It didn't come, and he knew why. Andrew's mother had to be aware that Max was really here to find a murderer. The connection between the Inu Hunters and Mr. Ataki's death was still tenuous and, therefore, classified. But who could doubt that the internees had long figured out the connection themselves. As they sat across from each other, Max watched Mrs. Takei's expression as the puzzle pieces began to fit together. She looked at her son again and basically changed the subject.
"Is this true? Did you throw rocks at someone?"
"No..." Andrew insisted, but his voice carried a qualifier in it.
"But you were there," Max prompted.
"It wasn't my idea."
"Whose was it?"
Suddenly Andrew seemed to find a steadying force within. He was still afraid, but his eyes took on a sense of purpose as he tugged on his tough guy posture again.
His mother prompted, "Andrew..."
He shook his head. "No, Ma."
Mrs. Tebbe spoke up, her voice full of worry for the boy. "Andrew, do you realize how much trouble you're in?"
Andrew looked at her a moment before his gaze swept about the jail cell. The sarcasm was thick in his reply. "I've noticed, yeah."
Max screwed up his tone to intimidate the boy. "Then you'll also notice you're going through it without your friends. Do you see any of them walking through that door, showing you the same loyalty you're giving them?"
"You can't sound off there, 'general.' They'd do exactly what I'm doing."
By the minute, Andrew was finding a courage that Max would have admired under other circumstances. But this wasn't a mere boy protecting his companions. This was a murder suspect.
The silence drew on as that thought seeped deeper into Max's mind. God in Heaven, the kid really was a suspect, their only suspect. This skinny, sixteen-year-old clutching his attitude like a life preserver; he was Tulenar's only link to the murder.
No. Not this kid, surely not. Max couldn't begin to imagine this boy crushing Ataki's head with a rock, couldn't imagine him scooping out the brain. Had Andrew done it with his own hands? Jesus. No. There would have to be something in Andrew's eyes, surely. Something psychotic. For a sixteen-year-old boy to act that horrifically, there needed to be something visibly odd in his behavior and Max couldn't see it.
"I...I don't know. There's a lot to do..."
He didn't reply, but neither did he look away. At last he said, "Will you be all right, by yourself?"
"Absolutely," Doris replied, probably too quickly.
At long last, he turned to leave and Doris suddenly asked, "Do you still want me to call you Arthur?"
He stopped and looked at her, a near-smile on his lips. "Yes, I do."
"I never told you that you could call me Doris," she said, just to aggravate him.
He smiled more fully. "Well, we can't undo what's already been done."
Doris smiled, too. Then Arthur left her office, and she was alone again, standing by her desk like a sentry.
Chapter 12
Lakeside Assembly Center
Night. Last Quater Moon.
Mine. Mine!
Max runs, propelled by anger, propelled by greed. The gravel road to Tulenar clacks and grates, he feels it give under his bare feet, but he is unaware of any pain. The air is cold on his skin, naked and damp, his genitals retreating for warmth, but the cold and discomfort are nothing compared to his need to rush to the claim.
They have no right!
He swerves suddenly, clambering up a hillside, two-footed at first, then scrambling on hands and feet as the climb grows steeper. The sweat is dripping off him like tears, regardless of the cold. His lungs burn and he wonders vaguely how he can keep such a pace - shouldn't it be impossible?- when he bursts onto the clearing.
The full moon blazes down on Doris Tebbe and David Alma Curar. They are kneeling, digging like dogs, trying to disinter what they have no right to, no right at all. Alma Curar is telling her, "There's still time. If we hurry there's still time."
Inside the hollow they have dug Max can be seen one bloodless, white hand, stiffened and clawlike, as though the corpse had been scratching at its grave. Max looks down at his own hands with a start, because he is suddenly afraid it is he they are digging up. And when he can find no trace of himself, no trace at all, he knows for certain they are.
Then he feels the dirt in his mouth and the clots in his eyes, his heart is in pain and despair for being dead and buried so long, so long! Yet he is also still looking through altogether different eyes at Tebbe and Alma Curar, desperately digging at his corpse.
No, mine!
Mrs. Tebbe is screaming, "Max! Max!" as she yanks at his dead wrist and forearm, as if she thinks she can awaken him. But Max is no longer in his corpse. He is back in the thing again, the thing full of rage and greed, lunging at David Alma Curar as Mrs. Tebbe's eyes fly wide with horror. She flings her hands upward. Her right palm bears a silver-tinged pentagram.
Stop them, kill them! Mine! He feels Alma Curar's throat burst between his jaws.
Max clutched at his own throat when he awoke, gasping and staring wildly about the bedroom, unable to see a thing in spite of the beams of a brilliant half-moon streaking through the window. He groped quickly toward the nightstand where he knew his glasses lay and panicked a little when he almost knocked them to the floor.
Only when he had them shoved snugly in place did Max lean back against his headboard and try to catch his breath. A nightmare. Just a nightmare. But it was out of sync, out of rhythm. Nightmares as vivid as this one... it wasn't time yet. Max pulled the sheet up to his face, blotting his forehead and throat, so sore where he had clawed himself.
He thought suddenly, God, I miss Annie, God I miss her! He rose, pulled his robe over his damp shoulders and walked sluggishly into the kitchen. God... Annie.
Max pulled a bottle of orange juice from the Frigidaire and didn't bother with a glass. His heart was calmer now, as he leaned on the cool, enameled door, the horror of the dream fading. But his longing for Annie was still full and strong. It always was after the nightmares. How he needed her when thrust awake like that. But Annie was not there, had never been there. She had died the very night those awful visions were born.
Max let his head fall back against the refrigerator. How was he going to get through life without her? And then he wondered how Doris Tebbe, widowed just like he, managed for so many years.
/ / / /
The news from Mrs. Tebbe's office gave Max a surge of adrenaline, a burst of victory. Her police force had an Inu Hunter in custody.
This time, when his car passed by David Alma Curar's truck at Tulenar, Max made a point of staring straight ahead. Still, he could see the healer - imperfect though his vision was -see the man from the corner of his eye, see him in the side view mirror as the car trundled past.
Alma Curar stood by his truck bed, sacking something for a young woman, Nisei most likely, dressed in the crisp white of a nurse's uniform. Like the white and cut of the woman's uniform, so the general shape and identical colors marked the two children with her as twin boys. They circled the truck, making a game of not running, but walking very, very fast as they tried to tag each other. It was Alma Curar's posture that told Max the healer stared after him until the corner was turned.
Harriet Haku's face seemed all but healed as she escorted Max to Mrs. Tebbe's office. The C.A. finished scribbling on a note pad, poised in a nest of files, before looking up and nodding at him. He looked around the office as he took his usual seat.
"You've added some things."
It was still sparse, still intensely practical compared to his office. But, now, the wall behind Mrs. Tebbe displayed framed certificates, a political science degree from Sarah Lawrence, a few pictures of the late Senator Tebbe, with and without her, posing beside various politicians. One was with Herbert Hoover.
She'd added a slate blue carpet, too, that covered most of the office floor. A square oak table with four chairs was butted up against the window that overlooked the camp.
"I needed the table for small meetings and, with the carpet, the room finally doesn't sound like a stable when people walk in."
"It looks good."
There was a moment of silence. Mrs. Tebbe seemed reluctant to get on with it. She shuffled the paper nest, poked at the errant auburn waves against her nape.
Max finally prompted, "Well. Are they escorting the young man here, or do we go to the lock-up?"
Mrs. Tebbe sighed, then stood. "We go there, Captain."
/ / / /
There was nothing to hint of the teenager's Japanese features as Max walked into the little wooden jail. His wounded vision, glasses or no, couldn't make out the boy's face. But Max could read the posture, the typical American stance of a young tough, reared back on the bunk, one ankle crossed over his knee.
Not until he was at the long, thin bars could Max really see the boy's face. The Issei jailer produced a small ring of keys and unlocked the door for Max and Mrs. Tebbe.
The youth wore the trappings of his age and American culture, rebellious in a white tee-shirt, one sleeve rolled even though it held only a match box instead of a pack of Lucky's. Baggy, dark blue dungarees, cuffs folded a good three inches wide, brown loafers over white socks. He was worrying a match stick at the corner of his mouth to prove he was "hep," as the young people liked to say and, for the same reason, he wore his hair long enough to slick at the sides and comb into greased waves on the top. A perfectly normal teenager in a perfectly bizarre situation.
The jailer brought two stiff, wooden chairs into the cell for them before returning to his desk, obviously trying to mind his own business.
Mrs. Tebbe said without preamble, "Andrew, this is Captain Pierce. He's the commanding officer of Lakeside and, under certain circumstances, the final authority here at Tulenar as well. Captain, this is Andrew Takei."
How old was Andrew, sixteen? He had the constant, unsure expression of most boys his age, in spite of trying to seem self-possessed. The smoothness at his jaw line sprouted a few, long downy hairs that weren't quite whiskers yet. Sixteen.
The boy's eyes darted from Mrs. Tebbe to Max, his tough-guy posture frozen and betraying his fear. His voice betrayed him, too, nervous and unsure, though he did his best to seem in control. "I don't have to say anything until my mom gets here."
"You don't have to say anything, then, either," Mrs. Tebbe replied quickly, glancing at Max as if she thought he might have told the boy differently. Then she said directly to Max, "His father won't be transferred here for another week."
So I should go easy on the boy? he thought. Was that what she was implying? Again it stung to know she saw him as the military heavy.
He heard the door of the jail's office open, and the scent of blue violets wafted in. Perfume, tastefully applied. It was followed by the staccato of a woman's shoes on the wooden floor and, by the time Max had stood to turn, Andrew Takei's mother was at the cell. Andrew's rigid pose dissolved a moment and he sat at the edge of his bunk, his eyes riveted on his mother.
Mrs. Tebbe stood, too. "Mrs. Takei, this is Captain Pierce."
Mrs. Takei looked from her son, her eyes pained, to Max and her gaze grew cool. When she spoke, her smooth, educated voice held the faintest trace of her native tongue.
"This is ludicrous, penning Andrew up like a criminal. He is just a boy."
"Mrs. Takei," Max replied, "if the young man had bullied a neighbor or defaced property back in Sacramento, he would have had to answer for it in juvenile court."
"But he would not be thrown in jail like some hoodlum!"
"Madame, he is a hoodlum, if he's a member of the Inu Hunters."
"But he is not!" Mrs. Takei looked to her son for confirmation. Andrew was speechless, all pretense of rebellion evaporating as the adults argued around him.
Max turned to the boy. "Are you, Andrew?"
The youth hesitated and Max barked, "Answer me, son."
"I didn't do anything!" Andrew looked up at Max, fear clearly in his face, then his attention latched back onto his mother. "Ma, I swear to... I swear to God. Just some paint, is all."
Mrs. Takei strode to her son and clasped him against her hip. "This is madness," she said, her voice unsteady. "A prison inside a prison. For the love of Heaven, where do you people think he is going?"
"Mrs. Takei, please. Please." Maxwell approached her. "Sit with your son."
After a moment's hesitation, she did so slowly. She looked up at Max and Mrs. Tebbe, as if she were the jailed, defiant one instead of Andrew. Max pulled his chair a little closer to her and sat. Mrs. Tebbe did likewise.
"Your son," he began calmly, "was caught -red-handed- by the residents' own police, scrawling obscenities on the walls of Block Eleven. That alone is inexcusable, but that's not why he's in jail. He's in jail because he was seen earlier with a band of teenagers hurling rocks at one of the residents of Block Eight, a gentleman who has just begun working at one of the warehouses. He's become a favorite victim of the Inu Hunters."
Mrs. Takei looked at her son. Andrew fidgeted, but didn't reply. Mrs. Takei regarded Max again, clearly wondering if she could trust what he said.
"Mrs. Takei," he ventured in answer to her silent question, "why would I come all the way out here just to punish a boy for some graffiti?"
"In fact the Army may not, Captain. I know that is not within your jurisdiction. Likewise, I understand, neither are thrown stones."
The lady had been studying. But she didn't have him stymied.
"But the Army may," he replied, "if our assistance is requested by the WRA."
He waited for Mrs. Takei's rebuttal. It didn't come, and he knew why. Andrew's mother had to be aware that Max was really here to find a murderer. The connection between the Inu Hunters and Mr. Ataki's death was still tenuous and, therefore, classified. But who could doubt that the internees had long figured out the connection themselves. As they sat across from each other, Max watched Mrs. Takei's expression as the puzzle pieces began to fit together. She looked at her son again and basically changed the subject.
"Is this true? Did you throw rocks at someone?"
"No..." Andrew insisted, but his voice carried a qualifier in it.
"But you were there," Max prompted.
"It wasn't my idea."
"Whose was it?"
Suddenly Andrew seemed to find a steadying force within. He was still afraid, but his eyes took on a sense of purpose as he tugged on his tough guy posture again.
His mother prompted, "Andrew..."
He shook his head. "No, Ma."
Mrs. Tebbe spoke up, her voice full of worry for the boy. "Andrew, do you realize how much trouble you're in?"
Andrew looked at her a moment before his gaze swept about the jail cell. The sarcasm was thick in his reply. "I've noticed, yeah."
Max screwed up his tone to intimidate the boy. "Then you'll also notice you're going through it without your friends. Do you see any of them walking through that door, showing you the same loyalty you're giving them?"
"You can't sound off there, 'general.' They'd do exactly what I'm doing."
By the minute, Andrew was finding a courage that Max would have admired under other circumstances. But this wasn't a mere boy protecting his companions. This was a murder suspect.
The silence drew on as that thought seeped deeper into Max's mind. God in Heaven, the kid really was a suspect, their only suspect. This skinny, sixteen-year-old clutching his attitude like a life preserver; he was Tulenar's only link to the murder.
No. Not this kid, surely not. Max couldn't begin to imagine this boy crushing Ataki's head with a rock, couldn't imagine him scooping out the brain. Had Andrew done it with his own hands? Jesus. No. There would have to be something in Andrew's eyes, surely. Something psychotic. For a sixteen-year-old boy to act that horrifically, there needed to be something visibly odd in his behavior and Max couldn't see it.
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