Port of Sorrow (4 page)

CHAPTER
6

After the deputy left, Finn returned to his transformation.

It was difficult to stop his hands from trembling as he soaked quilted cotton pads in lotion and used them to remove the last traces of Veronique’s face. When she was gone, he removed the last of the bloodstained clothing and undid the tape that bound his penis between his legs. Naked and shivering, he entered the stand-up shower. The water released an odor of iron and salt, but it was hot — scalding hot.

Finn scrubbed his body raw, his mind too numb to feel the piercing heat of needle-thin spray. Tortured images drifted within the clouds of steam, drawing more tears from what seemed like a bottomless well. He didn’t know if his body shivered from fear, shock or rage, or if it was guilt from lying to the young deputy.

After drying himself, Finn soothed his burning skin with moisturizer, rumpled his short hair with a dab of gel, and dressed. A charcoal T-shirt was tucked loosely into black jeans; thick walking socks fit comfortably inside ankle-high, steel-toed hiking boots; and a fleece-lined, brown leather bomber was added for warmth. A glance in the mirror told him that no one would ever guess that the lean man reflected there spent his nights performing as a voluptuous French singer.

Before leaving the room, Finn slid a sapphire-and-steel piercing in the shape of a comet, Selene’s favorite, in his left earlobe, and a snub-nosed, six-shot revolver in his right pocket.

Outside, the midnight air was cool and crisp, stealing Finn’s breath as he walked the creosote docks. Curious eyes peered from shacks along the rocky shore, and grubby faces scampered into hollows or hid behind the legs of ragmen who were huddled around smoky fires to share a bottle and tall tales. Nobody approached him as Finn walked through the makeshift camps; they could sense trouble lurked within steel-cold eyes.

The darkness soon gave way to a scattering of neon beer signs, and the silence was punctured with familiar noise. The first bar on the strip, Magnum’s Quarter, was empty except for two tables of black-leathered bikers listening to a young bluesman on electric guitar. Finn had admired the chrome of the Harleys outside, and the twenty-something kid on stage had a real south Chicago feel for the woeful music, but the bearded man he sought wasn’t there.

Further down the road, Finn heard the strain of loud, B-Grade rock spilling from The Admiral’s Mistress. The bar catered to a rough crowd of dockworkers, lumberjacks and the women who thought they were tough enough or battle-scarred enough to handle them.

Finn pushed his way through the crowd to a scuffed and battered long bar to order a bourbon with beer chaser. He could sense his prey was nearby. The bar held every attraction for a man who found pleasure in the pain of others. Finn downed his shot of Jack, feeling its warmth flow to his belly, picked up his beer and pushed deeper into the crowd.

He spotted his quarry lurking near the pool table in the back room. He had friends; three of them, plus two drunk women. The women — one white, one native — likely weren’t strangers to their present dilemma, but it didn’t look as though they were prepared for four assholes at once.

The bearded man who had molested Selene in the doorway of their hotel room was leaning over the women’s table, his attentions drawn to both of them. With drunken ease he was groping the right breast of the white woman while trying to pull open the shirt of the other. Both women were fighting him, but as he had done with Selene, he used his weight to keep them pinned in the booth.

“Come on,” he slurred. “I only want to see if you’re worth it. I don’t need to waste my time humping a board.”

His three friends laughed, encouraging the scene.

“Who says you’re doing any humping?” spat the native woman as she fought to keep her shirt closed. But as her words failed, so did her friend. Apparently the drunker of the two, she silently gave up her struggle.

The bearded man noticed immediately.

Before the unresisting woman could react, he grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt and yanked it up to her neck. Her arms were trapped, her face covered, and her bare breasts exposed to the hungry eyes of the men.

“Hey, Wells,” the shortest member of the trio called out, “she looks worth it to me.”

Now Finn had a name.

Wells grabbed the half-naked woman by the hair and yanked her to her feet. She was having difficulty removing the shirt from her face.

“If you want her, she’s yours,” he laughed, throwing the woman into the awaiting arms of the trio.

Finn moved forward, but the crowd was as thick and slow as molasses.

Wells focused his attention on the second woman, his greedy hands ripping open her shirt as he pressed further into the confines of the dark booth. She screamed for help, but no one seemed prepared to answer.

Encouraged by the lack of resistance from the crowd, the pool-table trio stripped the jeans off the white woman and threw her face down on the table. Her head was still covered by the shirt.

“I’m first,” the short guy said, eagerly undoing his belt.

As the man’s pants fell to his ankles, Finn’s steel-capped toe smashed into his dangling testicles. The unexpected leather-on-skin connection was so violent that the man’s eyes instantly rolled back in his head and he collapsed to the floor with his mouth opening and closing silently like a drowning fish.

Finn immediately turned his attention to the booth where he grabbed a handful of Wells’ hair and yanked him to his feet. Wells was doubly startled when Finn jammed a .38 revolver in his mouth, cracking a tooth in the process. Wells was spun around to face his remaining two, shell-shocked friends.

In a calm, steady tone, Finn said, “Anybody makes a move, I splatter this bastard’s brains across the ceiling.”

Wells gagged on the gun barrel, but his struggle was surprisingly weak. His friends stood frozen in place as the disheveled woman crawled out of the booth. Her mouth was bleeding and black mascara tracks ran down her cheeks. Her bare, undernourished breasts were purpled with fresh bruises in the shape of Wells’ cruel grip.

“Get your girlfriend out of here,” ordered Finn, his eyes never leaving the two remaining threats. The third man still hadn’t uttered a sound apart from a high-pitched keening, and wouldn’t be able to move for a very long time.

Nobody attempted to stop the women as they grabbed their clothes and vanished through a rear fire exit. The woman who had been on the pool table was giggling as she left. A lesson never learned.

“You can let him go now, hero,” sneered the man closest to Finn. He had moved to one side so that his shoulders leaned against a rack of pool cues.

“Not until I’m outside.”

Wells tried to say something, but Finn jammed the gun further down his throat, slicing the roof of his mouth with the barrel sight, causing him to choke and gag on his own blood.

The two men looked at each other nervously before moving away from the exit, granting clear passage.

With a tight grip on Wells’ hair, Finn moved quickly.

“I won’t hesitate to shoot him if you try to follow,” he warned, but the two men now seemed more concerned about their empty beer mugs.

Outside, Finn removed the gun from Wells’ mouth and stuck the barrel behind his ear.

“We’re going to run now,” he said calmly. “If you stumble or try to get away, I’ll kill you.”

Wells nodded and they took off at a fast-paced trot. None of Wells’ friends left the bar in pursuit. The night swallowed them after they slid down an embankment to a stone-flecked beach. The tide was out. The beachcombers had moved on.

Finn stopped underneath the twisted timbers of a ferry pier and threw Wells against one of the barnacle-studded supports. The slap of flesh against sharp shell was lost in the wind that skirted the choppy waters of the Strait of Juan De Fuca. Finn sat on a large boulder, his flesh ignoring the spray of freezing, salty mist.

Wells looked around in terror, his forehead bleeding from a dozen tiny barnacle cuts, his eyes still tinged with defiance.

“Who are you?” he asked, wiping blood from his mouth onto the back of his hand.

“We met earlier,” answered Finn. “I introduced you to the art of baseball.”

“Oh, Christ,” Wells moaned. “Didn’t I pay for that already? My cock has rug burn and my head is still thumping. I didn’t know the tease had a boyfriend.”

“You didn’t care what Selene had. You just wanted her to pay for making the mistake of being friendly to you.”

“She was asking for it, man,” Wells blurted.

“Nobody asks to be raped.”

“Hell, that ain’t rape. I was just having some fun. She would have enjoyed it. They all fucking enjoy it.”

Finn moved faster than Wells expected. Before he could react, Wells was lying on the pebbles, his right cheek slashed open from the gun sight, more blood pouring into his mouth. Finn stood over him, eyes ablaze with fury.

“Why did you kill her?” Finn demanded.

“What the fuck are you talking about? I didn’t kill nobody. You hit me with a fucking baseball bat and I woke up in the street. You think I’d be stupid enough to go back?”

“Once you had a few beers and sucked some bravado out of that worthless crowd you hang with, you came back. Only this time you brought a shotgun.”

“That’s fucking lies, man. I don’t own a shotgun. I never went back there. I swear.”

Finn thumbed back the hammer of his gun with an audible click.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Shit, man. I didn’t do it,” Wells whimpered.

Finn pressed the steel barrel against the back of Wells’ head, pushing his face hard into the pebbles. The blood ran cold in his veins and his pulse was calm. He knew he was going to pull the trigger and nobody could


“Freeze,” a voice ordered as a powerful flashlight illuminated the beach.

Finn heard movement sliding down the bank in front of him just as another flashlight pierced the darkness.

“Just put the gun down and no one will get hurt,” the second voice said as a light locked on Finn’s face.

“He’s a killer,” said Finn, his finger tightening on the trigger.

“Pull that trigger and you will be, too,” the second voice said.

“I can take him clean, Charlie,” the first voice called.

Finn looked at the pitiful heap of useless flesh below him; pants soiled with fresh urine; eyes filled with terrified hate; worthless.

“I can switch him off like a light, Charlie,” the first voice continued.

“Take it easy, Gilles,” Charlie ordered. “He’s going to do the right thing. Aren’t you, mister?”

Finn desperately wanted to do the right thing, but instead he uncocked the hammer and threw the gun to one side. Then he placed his hands on top of his head and stepped away from the whimpering form at his feet.

“I’m going to kill you,” Wells sniffled as the two deputies moved in to place Finn in handcuffs.

“I hope you try,” Finn answered calmly. “I really hope you try.”

CHAPTER
7

The Port Sorrow Sheriff’s Department, located two miles north of the downtown core, shared a three-story, red brick building with the Clallum County Fire Department. The firehouse occupied the main floor and two-thirds of the attached garage, leaving the top two floors for law enforcement.

The interrogation room on the second floor was designed to be unpleasant: cold stone floor, gray concrete walls, no windows, and a lone steel-reinforced door. An empty stainless-steel bucket stood in one corner, while the dull stain of urine, puke and blood spotted the other three.

Finn stood in the corner parallel to the bucket, facing the wall. He was naked and shivering, his hands locked in steel cuffs behind his back. Behind him, Deputy Gilles finished rustling through the pile of clothes in the middle of the floor.

Finding nothing in the clothes, Gilles turned to his captured prey and slapped his nightstick into the palm of his hand. Finn jumped, which made Gilles grin even wider. The deputy enjoyed the sound of the nightstick; nothing sounded quite as injurious as old-fashioned, black-painted wood, but unfortunately hardwood always left bruises. For the tricky cases, he preferred the rubber truncheon that he kept in his locker.

“Your clothing is clean,” Gilles said, making sure he sprayed Finn’s goose-pimpled back with hot spittle. “I guess you didn’t see a need for a back-up weapon. Is that because you’re used to killing or just cocky?”

Finn stayed silent.

Gilles stepped even closer, his breath tickling Finn’s ear. “Bend over, asshole,” he said. “There’s still one place I need to check.”

Finn hesitated, as though contemplating something stupid, before bending over.

Gilles slipped the nightstick between Finn’s legs, its cold tip lifting his dangling testicles.

“Nothing taped under here,” he said, his voice on the edge of a cruel laugh.

The nightstick was removed and Gilles watched as Finn allowed himself a sigh of relief. But just as the prisoner relaxed, Gilles rammed the blunt end of the stick between his buttocks and smashed a heavy forearm into his back to knock him face-first into the wall.

“Don’t fuck with us, pal,” Gilles hissed as he twisted the stick. “We don’t need your kind here, understand?”

Finn stood frozen against the wall, unable to move.

Gilles pulled out the stick and grinned when he saw a smear of blood coating its tip.

“I guess my partner was right,” he said. “There was no reason to search you.”

STILL NAKED AND
with his clothes bundled in his arms, Finn held his anger in check as Gilles escorted him up a drafty stairwell to the third-floor holding cell.

There, Finn waited patiently at the cell door while his handcuffs were unlocked. But Gilles couldn’t resist a final jab as he pushed the prisoner inside. His outstretched foot caught Finn by surprise, sending him sprawling to the ground, his knees and hands scraping painfully across the floor as his clothes scattered in front of him.

“You best get used to kissing concrete, pal,” Gilles laughed. “Accidents happen here all the time.”

Finn stayed on the floor until the deputy had left, then rose shakily to his knees and glanced over at his lone cellmate. The disheveled black man in the corner bore the punishment of a swollen lip, purple eye and at least two broken teeth.

“He do that to you?” Finn asked, lifting himself off the floor to begin pulling on his clothes. Every muscle movement sparked a wince of pain.

The gray-haired man shook his head and hid his eyes. He was dressed in rags: ripped brown pants held together by a rainbow of mismatched thread and string; a thick woolen jersey that smelled of smoke, tar and fish; a suit jacket that was in style when Carter ran the White House; and a bright yellow pair of rubber boots with a matching hole in each toe.

“These guys,” Finn said, “usually get what’s coming to them in the end.”

The ragman lifted his eyes, sickly yellow against a mischievous face. “W-wha-t di-d yoo doo?” he asked, struggling to mouth the words.

“Not enough,” Finn replied. “Not nearly enough.”