Night and Day (38 page)

“Did he give you his name, or show you any identification?”

“Nope,” he said. “Guess he done showed it to Sister Rose, and didn’t figger I was
important enough to show it again. I knew he was a police officer, though. I know those
things.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was a little spic, if you’ll pardon the expression. Tiny fella, not much more than five
feet tall, if that. Had a little notebook he pulled out when he sat where you’re sittin’, kept
lookin’ in it when he asked his questions. I guess he had ‘em written down ahead of time.”

Burt Martinez. If the Resistance guy in Hanritty’s was telling the truth, Martinez was
either tracking Sam Klinger, or had already found him, and was making sure there were no
loose ends that needed to be clipped.

“I think I know who you mean,” I said. “Guy was a real asshole, wasn’t he.”

Kendell grinned. “Yeah, well, you said it, not me. Understand, I got a lot of respect for
the police department. Lot of respect.”

I nodded. “So what did you tell him?”

He shrugged. “Didn’t tell him nothin’. Just answered his questions. He was mostly
interested in what happened after Sam started missin’ all that time. I kinda figgered that Sam
was out there, tooting his horn at the wrong kinda people, if you know what I mean.”

I shook my head. “No, I guess I don’t. Why don’t you tell me about Sam, beginning
when he started missing work. Was there something that happened around that time?”

“Oh, yeah,” Kendell said, looking at me like I was an idiot. “I mean, everybody knows
when Sam started actin’ wacky. It was when Nay got stole.”

“Nay?”

He jerked his chin at one of the trucks in the garage and spat in the can. “That little reefer
over there. We call it Nay, which is short for Naomi. Other truck is Gabby, which is short for
Gabrielle.”

“You name your trucks?”

“Yeah, after a couple of heifers I had back on my farm before the
war,” he said. “That’s where I learned mechanics, workin’ on farm equipment.”

I nodded. “That’s real interesting, Mr. Kendell. So Sam started acting different when the
refrigerated truck was stolen? When was that, exactly?”

“Oh, must have been two months ago, maybe two and a half months. Sam made a pickup
out of state, and got back just before sundown. Parked Nay in front of the garage and went
into the hospital cafeteria for some chow. Cheap there, you know. Good eats and it’s cheap.”

I’d heard this story before. But it had been coming out of Eddie Gee’s mouth, and it had
been told from the perspective of his guys stealing the truck.

“Well, while Sam was in the cafeteria, somebody hot-wired Nay and drove off in her,”
Kendell continued. “Sam was just comin’ out of the hospital and saw them pullin’ out, so he
jumped in the Mother Superior’s car and followed.”

“The keys were in her car?”

Kendell shook his head. “Nope. We got a copy of every key on every driver’s key ring.
Makes it easy for the drivers if one of the sisters needs to be carted somewhere.”

“So Sam followed the truck?”

“Sure did,” he said. “Right up to the gates of that big prison camp over on the other side
of the river.”

“Delta-5?”

He nodded. “That’s the one. He didn’t want to follow it in, on account of they had
soldiers guardin’ the place and all. And between you and me, I think the place made him
nervous. Him and his family had been locked up in there after the war.”

I knew what he meant. The idea of going to Delta-5 was making me nervous too.

“Anyway, he hung around outside, watchin’ for about an hour, and then Nay came rollin’
through the gate and he followed her back to the city. Guys who stole her dropped her off
about three blocks from here, on Century, over near Imperial. Sam brought the Mother
Superior’s car back, and hotfooted it over there to pick up Nay.”

“Did he get in any trouble for taking the car?”

“Mother Superior wasn’t real happy about it, if you know what I mean, but I guess she
understood, heat of the moment, that kinda thing. What really got her panties all in a bunch
was what Sam was sayin’ about that camp, about the soldiers and about the monsters that
were walkin’ around outside.”

“What do you mean, monsters?”

“That’s what Sam called ‘em. Like I told ya, he hated leeches with a passion. Of course
he wasn’t crazy, not like that preacher at St. Bonaventure, hollerin’ about devils and demons
and such. Sam didn’t go in for that kinda mumbo-jumbo. Sam called ‘em monsters cause
that’s what they looked like. Said they was unnatural, not like normal folks or even normal
leeches.”

Eddie Gabriel’s driver had told Eddie something very similar. He’d called the place a freak
show.

“The Mother Superior didn’t want to hear that?”

“The Mother Superior knows which side her bread is buttered on,” Kendell said. “None
of the mackerel-eaters want to mess with leech business. Healthier for them, healthier for
their church.”

“So after the truck was stolen, Sam started missing work?”

“Yup. Sometimes he’d come in at nine, ten o’clock, and leave right after lunch. Some
days he wouldn’t come in at all. I tell ya, we only got two drivers here at Sisters of Mercy,
and when one of them ain’t here, it makes it hard. I can fill in if I have to, but that means
there ain’t nobody here at the garage, and the sisters don’t like that neither.”

“Did Sam say why he was missing so much work?”

“Sam started gettin’ real funny after Nay got stole. Kept talkin’ about the monsters at that
camp, sayin’ they was using regular folks in their experiments and whatnot. I told him that he
had to put that out of his mind and concentrate on gettin’ his self into work, but he didn’t
listen.”

Kendall was silent for a moment, then said, “You ask me, I think he was goin’ up to that
camp every day and watchin’ what was going on.” He fell silent again for a moment. “Okay, I know it for a fact.”

“How?”

“Sam told me,” Kendell said. “One mornin’ he came in all beat up, black eye, bruises,
limpin’. Said he’d been hangin’ around outside that camp and a couple of them soldiers come
over and whupped his ass. Chased him off, told him if they saw him again, they’d do a lot
worse.”

“Did he go back?”

“Don’t know for sure. I’m thinkin’ he probably did, and them soldiers saw him and
reported him to the Mother Superior. I’d been coverin’ for him, best I could. It wasn’t me
that told her how much time he was missin’. But one day, she came stompin’ down here and
wanted to know where Sam was. Gabby was out, and Nay was sittin’ right here, so I couldn’t
give her some story ‘bout him makin’ a delivery. I told her he had taken the day off sick.
Then she asked me how much time he’d been takin’ off recently, and I had to tell her the
truth.”

“I understand,” I said. “You wouldn’t want to lose your job.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Agent Welles,” Kendell said, squirting brown juice through his
teeth into the can. “I liked Sam, I truly did. He was a good ol’ fella, good driver. But I
wasn’t gonna lose my job cause he couldn’t get his self in here.”

“No explanation necessary, Mr. Kendell,” I said. “Friends are friends, but business is
business. So the Mother Superior fired Sam?”

“Nope,” he said. “Had me do it. Handed me Sam’s final check, told me next time I saw
him to give him the check and send him on his way. Sam came in the next mornin’, and that’s
what I did.”

“How did Sam take it?”

“Oh, I gotta think he knew it was comin’. Can’t skip work off and on for the better part
of two months and not expect to get the hook. He didn’t give me no trouble, if that’s what
you’re askin’.”

“Did he give you any idea of what he was going to do with himself? What he was going
to do for work, where he was staying, that kind of thing?”

Kendell shook his head. “Nah, he didn’t say much. I offered to put him up at my place
till he got his feet under him, but he thanked me and said he’d be fine. Then he left.”

“Well, that’s all I’ve got, Mr. Kendell,” I said. “Anything else about Sam that you think I
should know?”

“Nope, I think that’s the lot.” He paused. “But if you find ol’ Sam, would you tell him
I’m sorry ‘bout havin’ to fire him like that?”

“Sure will,” I said. I stood and stuck out my hand.

As we shook, I said, “I truly appreciate your cooperation.”

“My pleasure,” he said. “Like I said, I got a lot of respect for the police.”

“What was in the truck?” Jimmy asked.

“Beg pardon?” Kendell asked.

“The truck that was stolen,” he said. “Nay.”

“Oh, sorry. Guess I didn’t think to mention that. Nay was full of whole blood. Think
there was about 500, maybe 600 pints. Guess one of them leeches at that camp was pretty
goddamn thirsty, huh.”

Chapter Thirty-four

I first saw Camp Delta-5 through the grime-smeared window of an aging yellow school
bus that was transporting me and about fifty other people to our new home. The camp was
still under construction.

They’d had time to put up the ten-foot chainlink fence around the place, and some of the
guard towers were in place, but the Trench of Death hadn’t been dug yet, and the razor wire
wasn’t in place.

From the road, the berm kept me from seeing the concrete block buildings with tin roofs
that I’d be calling home for almost three years.

By the third day of the Vee assault on the city, it was clear to everybody that the end was
close, maybe no more than hours away. A lot of people had already evacuated, many before
the Vees got there. Most of those left in the city were trying to follow.

The majority of the uniformed cops at the 83
^rd
Street station had gone out to man the
hasty barricades that had been thrown up in the neighborhood. A few had already taken their
families and fled.

Those of us in plainclothes, detectives and officers alike, had taken over the day-to-day
operation of the police station. I don’t know why. There was nobody on the street to make an
arrest. Hell, there wasn’t anybody on the street to arrest. The criminals had been among the
first to beat feet out of the city.

Even looting wasn’t a problem. I guess the potential profit didn’t equal the probable loss
if you were still in the city when the Vees arrived. But the Police Commissioner had given the
order, and whether he was even in the city or not, the order stood. So we sat at our desks,
staring at each other, listening to the gunfire on the street through the open windows.

That Wednesday morning, the Robbery-Homicide skipper, Captain Vince Cunningham,
called the squad together and told us to clear out, try to make it out of the city before we got
trapped there. Nobody gave him an argument. It was clear what was happening outside. We
weren’t going to win this one.

The Vees seemed to be coming in from the north, so that way was out. Most of the
civilians were heading southeast, clogging the roads and interstates with traffic jams ten miles
long. The major bridges across the river and out of the city to the southwest were also
jammed, but the rumor was that the Parker Bridge, used mostly
by truckers who wanted to
avoid car traffic when bringing goods into the industrial west side of town, was still clear
enough to cross, at least by foot. It was worth a try.

Six of us took off from the station at around noon, under the watchful eyes of Captain
Cunningham. We’d invited him to come with us, but he’d already made up his mind to stay at
the station and take down as many Vees as he could before they got him. His wife had been
turned the first night of the attack, according to one of the detectives, and I don’t think the captain was
anxious for a family reunion.

We planned to make the bridge and be across before the sun went down. Seven hours
later, the sun was hanging near the horizon, we were still two miles from the Parker Bridge,
and there were five of us left. Billy Fredriksen, one of the detectives, had walked into a bullet
fired by a trigger-happy civilian in an alley. The rest of the squad had removed that particular
public menace.

By nine o’clock, we were down to four, after Jamie O’Toole got taken down, and we
were finally close enough to eyeball the bridge. It was deserted, which should have been a
hint that something wasn’t right. But we were all tired and strung out with fear, and all we
could think about was getting across the river, away from the city.

The four of us were halfway across the bridge, moving at a flat-out run, when an Army
Humvee pulled across the road in front of us, blocking it. It was quickly surrounded by a
group of eight or ten soldiers. They were wearing Army uniforms, but I don’t think they were human.

We didn’t have the firepower to get through them, so we turned around and ran like hell,
hoping to pull back to the city side, to hide and try again after dawn. But they’d sealed off
that end of the bridge as well.

We spent the rest of the night in an old warehouse with an ever-increasing number of
people who’d been caught in the Vee trap. The Vees watched us closely, but didn’t mess with
us, except for once in the middle of the night, when a couple of the guards grabbed a well-dressed blonde and dragged her out of the warehouse. At the time, I figured they raped her
before the killed her. After what Sara told me about male
Vees, I knew now that rape wasn’t on
the agenda. The guards were just hungry.