Tailed (7 page)

I dialed again, this time to home. Otto picked up.

“Alo. This Garv Carson Critters. Please, tell to me if help.”

“I miss you, too, Otto. Put Angie on.”

“My Got, Garv! Must come home before soon! Very, very important to come before soon. KGB vas here…”

“KGB?” That was Otto's word for bad guys or the police, which on occasion had been both.

I heard the phone change hands.

“Garth?”

“Nicholas?”

“Do exactly what I say and don't ask any questions. Get away from where you are, as far as possible. You remember the bar where I last saw you?”

“What's going on? Where's Angie?”

“The bar. Do you remember?”

“Yes, the—”

“Don't say it! Just call me there in an hour. Stay off the interstate. And don't call back here.”

The line went dead.

chapter 9

N
ext thing I knew I was in Hell. And like some people, both figuratively and literally, I found myself in Hell completely by accident. I took Nicholas's advice and left the highway, hoping to follow local roads instead, but I became all turned around when I rounded a bend and saw a huddle of wooden establishments painted red with flames and topped with billboard devils. Yes, I had accidentally found myself in Hell, Michigan.

I swung the Lincoln to a stop in front of the largest establishment. It was part café, part post office, part souvenir shop; the only other store was all souvenirs. Had I any need for satanic paraphernalia, I would have been well supplied by the merchants in Hell. Light-up horns, “devil made me do it” shot glasses, red tridents, you name it, it was all for sale here. All I needed was a pay phone, though, and I found one next to the café, an old-timey wooden booth outside the bathrooms marked
HELLIM
and
HELLER
.

“Gravy's Tavern,” the bartender answered.

“Hi, Judy, it's Garth.”

“Hey, Garth. Where are you?” I could hear the tinkle of glasses and ice in the background as she poured someone a drink.

“Um…” I looked up at the café's specials board:
WELCOME TO HELL! FRIDAY NIGHT FISH FRY $6.95 ALL YOU CAN EAT
. Nice that they observe Lent in Hell, and in June. “Just some town.”

“You better get your butt back here in time for the wedding. We can't have a wedding without the best man.”

“I'm working on it, Judy.”

“Nice chatting. Here's Nicholas…”

“Garth: don't tell me where you are, can't be sure of this phone, either.”

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you. So what the…heck is going on? Is Angie OK?”

“She's fine. But the FBI have her down at Federal Plaza, and they came to your apartment with a search warrant. They questioned me, too. And Otto.”

“What the…heck? She has to leave for Chicago. Nicholas, what's going on?”

“You know a man named Bronte Jones?”

“Sure, the actor who had that TV private eye show
McGlaggart
in the seventies. Big-game hunter, lives outside Seattle. I appraised his collection a few months back. Uh-oh. Don't…don't tell me.” My heart felt like it had been stabbed with a Popsicle.

“Reconjugate the verb ‘to live.' He was run through the chest with an elk horn just before you left Seattle without saying good-bye.”

“Why didn't Stella tell me that?” Why didn't Gabby tell me about Fowler being my uncle? Why was everyone keeping me in the dark? The frustration of my predicament was giving me prickly heat. “So, I guess now they think I killed TV's McGlaggart, too—is that it?”

“Bingo. Yet another person whose collection you appraised is dead….
Stella?
Christ, you didn't tell Wilberforce/Peete where you are, did you?”

“I spoke to her just before I spoke to you last. I didn't tell her where I was. But she wanted me to come back to New York, said Wilberforce/Peete would protect me. I said I'd look after myself.”

“Atta boy. There's good money to be made in appraising, but don't kid yourself—the insurers look out for themselves first and foremost. And Stella is sly, probably throw you to the wolves as soon as she could. You're a liability to them now. To the FBI, you're the common link. You not only were in town during each of the murders, you had entrance to the victims' homes. Now they only need a motive, and maybe a witness.”

“How do I get into these things?” I massaged my forehead. “When the FBI questioned you, did they mention anything about our grandfather?”

“Yup. Didn't know what that was about. Do you?”

“No. And about Fowler?”

“Who?”

“J. C. Fowler. Just look him up, you'll remember. Seems he knew Gabby and Dad.”

I held back on the Uncle Werewolf fantasy for the time being. The uncle part, well, I wanted to see if Nicholas's research came up with anything on that independently. If it was true, he should find it pretty quickly. And the werewolf part…well, that was just too nutty to repeat.

“I just finished seeing Mom again, trying to find out more. She didn't know much, just that Grandad was a famous big-game hunter and that Fowler was bothering Mom and Dad back when we were kids. Fowler somehow tracked me down, was babbling about coyotes and javelinas and spirits…Gabby seems to think Fowler believes I'm possessed with a demon of some sort. Just insane stuff, Nicholas. I'm hoping you can make some sense of it.”

“Yes, Garth, how do you get mixed up in these things?” I heard Nicholas chuckle. “Let me have someone look into it. We're going to get you out of this, don't worry.”

“You going to have Mel research it?” A cute brunette with an even cuter little daughter, Melanie was once his skip tracer—she could hack her way into anyone's past. Now she was his fiancée.

“She's pretty frazzled these days, what with the wedding,” Nicholas said, clearing his throat. “I have someone else in mind, at least for some of it.”

“Nicholas, there's something else you need to know about the murders. Maybe you can dig something up on this. What's the significance of a white gecko?”

“A white gecko? You mean the lizard?”

“Yup, the lizard. Each of the previous victims was found with a dead white gecko. And these geckos only turn white every hundred years or so. The FBI wants to keep that a secret. Gabby said that five geckos together were some kind of bad mojo, and Fowler had a medallion with five white geckos on it around his neck and seems to think they're the key to all this.”

“So, let me get this straight. You want me to research the connection between our grandfather, J. C. Fowler, the murder of three big-game hunters, and five white geckos?” He snorted. “Can I get you something else with that, sir? Fries? A shake?”

“I'm just giving you what I've got. But what do I do now, Nicholas? I can't come home.”

“We have to get you to a safe house.”

“Who am I: Machine Gun Kelly? I haven't done anything!”

“The FBI has an all-points out on you, buddy boy. If you get picked up, the local cops will lock you up until the FBI can get their hands on you, and then you'll be arraigned…”

“But I haven't done anything!” Now I was sounding like Gabby.

“Doesn't matter. They're convinced you're their man, and they'll want to put you under wraps until they get the goods on you. Your departure from Seattle was ill-timed. They think you flew the coop and they'll most likely be able to convince a judge that you're a flight risk. So unless you want to spend a couple weeks in prison until they clear this up, I suggest you dig a hole and climb in. Don't use your credit card, or your cash card—they can track you with that.”

“There's forty dollars in my wallet, and the Lincoln needs gas. Any idea how much it costs to fill her tank with premium? What am I supposed to do, sleep in the car, eat roots and berries? Exchange dirty underwear for bark?”

“I have a friend in your vicinity. He owes me. Got a pencil?”

“Sure, but is it safe to say it over the phone?”

“Remember the code? Frick Frack?”

“How could I forget,” I said dryly. Frick Frack was a code system used on a kids' TV show we used to watch called
General Buster
. The show's host worked with puppets and was supposed to be some kind of heroic pilot living on a military base. He would relay coded messages to us kids during the show, which usually translated into something about brushing our teeth or washing our hands before meals. My memories of the show were fond but tarnished since, years later, General Buster had tried to kill me. No lie.

“Ready?” Nicholas cleared his throat.
“Fricka fracka, quacka fava, massa mat moot. Waza waxa pixa fassa laxa ipso croon.”
I jotted down the number. If the song began with “Fricka fracka,” it meant that what followed was a number, and if reversed meant that what followed was a series of words. And the words “ipso croon” always signified the end of the message, whether it was words or numbers. The code sounds terribly complex, and as an adult I'd have to go through rigorous training to learn it. But as kids we had a natural facility to absorb things like that. Maybe our brains had space in them that has since been taken up by sports scores and tabloid news.

Anyway, I doubted very seriously that the FBI's encryption department kept a file on General Buster's Frick Frack code. If they were listening in, at least they wouldn't get the phone number Nicholas had just recited.

We signed off and I stood to leave. Through the glass of the phone booth I could see the front entrance to the store.

I did a double take.

It couldn't be.

But it was.

Colonel Lanston was entering Hell, and she had two MPs in her wake.

chapter 10

L
ike the Amazing Collapsible Man, I melted down in the phone booth, out of sight.

Lanston was even more compact than I remembered. She was only about five feet tall and packed tightly into her uniform. Her gait was all business, arms straight at her sides, folding garrison cap under her epaulette, hands knotted into fists, and feet stepping like they were following orders. She looked like some military attaché from the Lollipop Guild.

By comparison, the two MPs were towering and lanky as scarecrows. But why was Lanston here—and why with MPs and not agents Brickface and Stucco? Which begged the question of why the Air Force was hounding me in the first place.

How Lanston had tailed me to that spot I had no idea—but one could imagine. Perhaps the local police had seen my car and plates and called them in. Maybe the Feds had put a tracking device in my luggage or on my car. It was the federal government. Weren't they capable of just about anything?

Of course, how they found me didn't matter now; how I was going to slip out of Hell did. It was dawning on me that there was no way to keep these people from making their crazy serial killer problems mine.

The idea of just staying in the booth and waiting for Lanston and the MPs to leave was an attractive idea. Except, of course, that my car was out front and they had to know I was around someplace. And if they asked the clerk if he'd seen me, a finger might well point toward the phone booth.

I had little choice but to get out of there, pronto. I snuck a look out of the booth's window and saw the backs of three uniforms trailing away from me toward the far end of the shop.

Crouching again, I slid the door open and started to crouch-waddle into the men's room like some gnarled elf. But the men's room would be the second place they would look, so I veered into the women's room instead.

Thankfully, it was vacant.

I locked the door. Figured I'd better take a quick whiz while I was in there. Panic had reached my bladder.

Now what? I stood in front of the bowl, looking around. The only window was small and had bars on it. Right: a common place of forced entry after hours, even way out in Hell. But I couldn't stay in the women's room, either. Eventually, Lanston would check there, too. Either that or some Heller who needed to use the head would contact management when she couldn't gain access. Maybe I could pry the bars off the window.

I zipped up and almost flushed, then thought better of it. Quiet.

The absurdity of my situation bounced around inside my head as I paced. Here I was like a trapped animal, like a tiger in a pit. I recalled a story one old-time big-game hunter had told me about tiger hunting. This guy had the stereotypical overly elaborate mustache and was a veritable Commander McBragg. According to this blowhard, it was common, back when, to merely dig a pit for the tiger to fall into when he pounced on a dead goat used as bait. All the hunter had to do was sit in a tree and wait, then shoot the tiger once it fell in the pit.

Here I was, a tiger in a pit. A fish in a barrel. A frog in a puddle.

I'd asked McBragg what would happen if the tiger saw the hunter in the tree before it fell in the pit. Wouldn't it be scared off? Or attack him?

I could still smell the scotch on his breath and see the tobacco stains on his white mustache when McBragg leaned in close with a confiding and sapient air: “A tiger never looks up.”

So I looked up.

Just the ceiling. And a hatch.

I silently thanked McBragg for this crumb of hope.

Much like hatches in the roofs of New York apartment buildings, this hatch was simply a lid to a square portal. Two buckle-like hasps held it in place. No locks.

Standing on the small sink, I could just barely reach the hasps to unbuckle them. But I wasn't high enough to lift the hatch itself.

Moments later I found myself precariously balanced atop a metal wastebasket atop the sink, pushing on the hatch. Then shoving.

The hatch gave suddenly, the springs on the hinge opening it wide to the sky.

That's when the trash can popped out from under my feet, clattering to the floor.

I was dangling from the rim of the hatch by one hand, gasping with surprise and frustration. My left foot found the faucet, and I pushed off with enough force to get my other hand to join the one on the lip of the hatch.

That's when the entire sink came off the wall, crashing to the floor in a geyser of water.

So there I was dangling by two hands, a gusher of water drenching me, my feet kicking in midair, as I attempted to do my first chin-up in twenty-five years.

Vainly, I prayed that nobody had heard the ruckus. But how long before someone noticed the water gushing out from under the door?

I scrambled to get a toehold on the top of the mirror, then straightened my leg, hooking one elbow over the edge of the hatchway before the mirror popped off the wall and smashed onto the floor with the sink and trash can.

Someone must have heard that.

But moments later I was standing on the roof, sopping wet in the hot June sun, with extremely sore armpits and wheezing like a leaky bagpipe. If this sort of episode were to keep recurring in my life, I was going to have to go into training. I know, the life of this particular taxidermy renter and appraiser must sound strenuous enough to have prepared me for the Marines, but such was not the case. I was ready to collapse from the exertion.

Pounding echoed up from the bathroom door below—if I had a next move, now was the time to implement it. The roof had a very slight pitch, but was mostly a flat expanse of tar paper with a few drain risers and exhausts poking out of it. I trotted to the roof's edge and looked down at the parking lot.

An Air Force sedan was parked next to the Lincoln, which was backed into a spot directly below me, top down.

Colonel Lanston was talking on her cell phone while she paced between the two vehicles. The MPs were standing, arms folded, to one side. All they had to do was look up thirty degrees and they'd spot me. I held my breath, my lungs protesting.

The tiger never looks up.
In this case, I sure hoped not.

“What do you mean Gibraltar is sending someone in?” Lanston stopped her pacing long enough to stomp her foot. “I have this under control. Carson is here somewhere.”

Gibraltar?
What was that, some secret organization like SMERSH, THRUSH, or SPECTRE? Were they sending in a contract killer to bump me off?

“I'll find Fowler.” She punctuated her remarks with a wave of a clenched fist. “I said I'll find him—that nut has been a thorn in my side long enough…. Yes, I think I have the FBI taken care of. Well, who is it they're sending? An independent? Why can't they tell me?…Look, I've kept this bottled up for thirty years. I think I can keep a lid on these jerks for four more days. Hold on.” She turned to one of her goons. “What's all the hubbub in there?”

He shrugged, and she finished her call. “Gotta go.”

The three of them trotted back into the store to investigate the growing clamor.

I exhaled like a whooping crane with asthma.
Oxygen, sweet oxygen.

The distance to the hood of the Lincoln's trunk looked to be about ten feet. Landing on it would likely put a major dent in the trunk, something I'd already had fixed the last time I was in trouble. And I'd just had all the bodywork done and a new paint job. I hated to do it, but…

Time to play stuntman; cue
The Six Million Dollar Man
zither.

I jumped, landing on the trunk, knees bent, judges about to flash me a perfect ten. But the hood and the rear shocks gave as I thumped down. I tried to maintain my balance but tipped forward as the shocks sprang back up. I launched like an acrobat off a teeter-board right into the red leather upholstery of the backseat. Headfirst.

With a squeak, my wet noggin wedged between the seats, my soggy scalp scrunching onto the rear floor mat.

Terrible dismount. Judges?
Five.

No time to dally. In a mad scramble, I pulled my head from between the seats like a wet cork from a bottle. Clambering into the driver's seat, I juggled the keys from my pocket and cranked the Lincoln alive.

Of course, I wanted to make like the Batmobile and fishtail up the road, flames in my wake. But I had the presence of mind to drift as calmly as possible toward the exit. No sense drawing attention.

My eyes were trained on the rearview mirror—so intently that I didn't see the moving van coming around a bend as I exited the parking lot.

Booming air horns drew my attention to the impending collision.

Now, I might have applied the brakes and let the truck swerve around me. But driving a vintage power-house like the Lincoln gave me another option.

Under such circumstances, it's not enough to merely jam the accelerator forward. In the Lincoln, you needed to punch it and then bring your knee forward and pivot the accelerator pedal to the floor. That's what puts the spurs to the V8 and transmission.

Gotta love a powerful old car—she paused a split second before the 460 roared gleefully to life, my tires screeching. All 340 whinnying horses bolted into full gallop. The truck skidded up close behind me, but the Lincoln lunged forward like Seattle Slew out of the gate and narrowly avoided a collision. The turbodrive transmission slammed into second, making the truck shrink harmlessly in my rearview mirror.

But I could see the moving van skid sideways—the truck's brakes must have locked up. I felt a
whump
and saw the van tip onto its side across the road.

So much for the nice quiet exit.

Now the problem was how the hell—literally, for a change—to get out of there? The roads into Hell had been so confusing I'd only gotten there by chance. I had intended to ask for directions back to the main secondary road.

My knees were trembling and my armpits ached, but I took the corners as fast as the Lincoln would allow, the tires complaining as we swayed this way and that along the little two-lane road. The canopy of trees raced away behind me as I kept an eye on the rearview mirror for the Air Force sedan.

But it never appeared.

Either the truck had blocked the road entirely so Lanston couldn't follow.

Or Gibraltar was taking over.