The Suicide Motor Club (20 page)

“If it were explainable, we wouldn't need faith.”

“
Trust me.
That's a liar's evasion.”

“Do you forget what you are? I don't—I can see it. You're a
corpse
, and yet here you are talking to me. If there's no mystery in the world and no God running it, how did you manage this?”

“Well, that is a poser, I admit. Are you saying that God claims by default everything that lies beyond the reach of science? Does God then shrink as science grows? We read by lamplight when I was a child. The only men who flew did so in hot air balloons. And now we're going to the moon, where I suspect we'll find more rocks than angels. How long must God retreat with no clear sign of himself before you admit he isn't there at all?”

“So you don't breathe or blink because of what? A germ?”

“Do I not blink?”

“Not always.”

“I try to remember to blink.”

“Don't bother. What do your cells look like under a microscope?”

“They don't survive to the slide.”

“So you mean they're dead.”

“I mean they don't make it there at all. They dissolve and rejoin the whole.”

“If I cut your arms off you, would they do the same thing?”

“Please don't. But yes.”

“How do they do that, Mr. Birch?”

“I don't have a plausible theory.”

“But you reject mine.”

“Damn it, I don't want to hear this.”

She stood up, walked near him.

He saw her bare, bandaged feet, thought it must hurt her to walk on those cut soles he had Mercurochromed. He gestured at a paper sack near the limit of the shadow.

“I got you combat boots. I guessed your size. It's all they had.”

“Thank you,” she said. She touched his shoulders and looked at his face.

“Help me, Clayton.”

He worked his mouth around his fangs, ran his tongue over them as if to assure himself they were still there.

At last he spoke.

“I will. But not because of some fictional old Hebrew whitebeard.”

“Then why?”

“I'll do it because they'll kill you otherwise.”

“Yes,” she said, “I think that's true.”

They looked at each other.

“Do you trust me?” she said.

He thought for a long moment before he spoke.

“I do.”

“Then sleep the rest of the day. Do you have a dime?”

“Sure,” he said, fishing one out of his jeans. “Why?”

She took it out of his hand, then got the combat boots out of the sack and started putting them on.

“I have to find a phone. When I get back I'll watch over you. After sunset, we have to go back to Missouri and find that van.”

“Why on earth would we do that?”

“I need the cross that's in it.”

St. Petersburg, Florida

TRACY CALVERT'S “ACTIVE SENIORS” APARTMENT COMPLEX NEIGHBORED A PUBLIX
, separated from the rear of the supermarket by a short cinder-block wall in need of a paint job. From his second-story, screened-in back porch, Tracy could see the loading docks, the Dumpster, the coffee can the employees used as an ashtray. That told him the manager was a hard-ass, that he didn't let people smoke in the break room. He knew the employees, the ones who smoked anyway, so well he could almost set his watch by their movements. At five after three, five after five, and five after seven, the thickset guy from the meat department sat on the stoop and smoked by himself. Too much time in the sun, that guy, but not recently. Probably served in the Pacific theater twenty-some years ago, burned himself the color of roast beef filling sandbags on Tarawa or swabbing down the deck of a destroyer. Definitely a vet, though, the way his back straightened when the fat slob of a manager poked his head out the door to lay down the law on this or that. He used to take his breaks with a gangly kid with a big Adam's apple, a kid who wiped his hands on the front of his apron a lot. The meat guy would sit on the stoop, gesturing with his hands, his Timex glinting in the sun, making the cigarette dance on his lip while he jawed at the kid, who paced around him in a deferential orbit. This
was a kid whose dad beat him up—he cut his eyes to the older man to make sure he liked what he was saying the few times he actually spoke. When the kid stopped coming around in April, Tracy guessed his draft number might have come up; that would explain the bonding routine with the older guy, that he was trying to figure out what he was in for. He'd seen the kid bagging in the store—respectful, fast hands, knew when to double-sack, this wasn't a kid you'd fire. And April wasn't a going-off-to-school month. Of course, it could have been anything, a job offer in Peoria for all Tracy knew, but it didn't fit the story the man and the boy told with their bodies, and Tracy had spent his career filling in people's stories.

Now the meat man smoked alone.

This is bullshit you're just occupying your mind 'cause you don't want to think about Hank.

The meat man was just lighting up his five-after-six ciggy when Tracy approached the low wall, scooted his ass up on it, swung his legs over, taking long enough for a drop of sweat to darken the cream-colored polyester pants. The meat guy was watching him, so Tracy issued him a nod, got a wave in return. He wasn't the only old coot who made the pilgrimage from the Bay View Apartments to the Publix. You'd think they would knock down the wall or cut a breach in it just to be sociable; he'd helped Mrs. Clarke, the woman from 318, over that wall more than once before she graduated to a walker. Maybe he would bring it up to the manager, if he could catch him between dressing down his stockboys and stuffing corned beef down his piehole.

You goddamn coward think about Hank the mission went dark they got him the creepy-crawlers ate your sister's kid just like your sister

Shut up wait for the call

Tracy walked around to the front of the store, where two kids on bikes were having a powwow, their Schwinns nose to tail like dogs at the sniff. Probably talking girls or shoplifting, the way they leaned in
so nobody else could hear. They both had their shirts off, a sensible uniform given the Christ-awful wallop the July sun was packing. Sweat had dampened the creased legal pad Tracy tucked under his arm while he got over the wall, sweat from his armpit; he wouldn't be writing any love letters on that.

He took the pad in hand now, put it in the top part of a shopping cart he freed from its fellows. He only had one phone call to make today, and it would be a hard one.

In the store proper, he farted near the chickens, saw a woman notice, wrinkle her nose. He picked up a pair of thighs, sniffed them, made the same face she did, put them back. “They used to be fresher here,” he said, moving on. He felt more like pork chops anyway. Tracy saw the meat man roll up a piece of ham so it looked like a panting dog's tongue. He came from behind the case, handed it to a little boy who held on to his mother's dress hem while he took it, as if to let go of her dress would invite goblins. “What do you say?” his mother asked him, but he had already stuffed the whole piece in his mouth, made the sounds “mmm-hm,” because in kid world thank-yous can be hummed. “That'll have to do, I guess,” she said, and wheeled her cart on. The mother and the kid were the youngest non-employees in the store. She was a good-looking head, wore her dress at a decent length, open-toed sandals, nice legs. He saw this gal had cut the back of her calf shaving, a scale of dried blood. Women usually cut their knee, didn't they? His wife had been gone long enough that he looked at other women, but not so long that he didn't feel a twinge of guilt. Tracy himself was turning eighty in August, if he got there.

You won't

He was healthy except for his joints, no funny stools, heart didn't flip-flop around too much, but

The bad guys win sometimes and they're winning now

you never knew when it came to the old ticker. One minute she's humming along, the next minute

You're gonna hear that Pontiac's engine on Bay View Circle

whammo. That's life.

He knew the meat man's name, had seen
KARL
on his name tag, he looked like a Karl, but they weren't on a first-name or any-other-name basis.

“Excuse me,” he said, delaying whatever mission Karl was about to launch himself backstage to undertake.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“I used to see a bag boy, tall kid, but I don't see him anymore. He okay?”

Hope he's not dead like my convict nephew

“Army,” Karl said, his tone just a little brighter than neutral. Proud the kid went in the service, would have been prouder if he went into the right branch. Definitely a Marine. “Thanks,” Tracy said, wheeling his cart around, steering his pork chop toward the registers.

The next thought was selfish.

He felt it coming and couldn't stop it before it formed itself even though he hated it.

Hank knows your address

Shut up

If they took him they know it too

SHUT UP

You haven't got time to cook a goddamn pork chop

Please stop it

Sun's going down in a couple of hours

You have to get in the car and run

Where

Just drive until you see a motel you like

I don't like motels

Go to Naples

“How are you today, Mr. Calvert?” the cashier said.

To hell with Naples

She was maybe twenty-two, a heavyset girl with red hair and a gap between her front teeth. An English teacher had once told the class that girls with a gap like that were “hot to trot,” and that stuck with Tracy. From a story about the Wife of Bath. At that age, just the words
wife
and
bath
in the same sentence had been enough to start him on a boner.

“I'm fine, I'm fine, thank you. They treating you all right here?”

“No complaints, Mr. Calvert. I just punch keys and smile.”

“Now you're cooking,” he said, taking his change, taking the paper sack the bag boy handed him, leaving his cart awkwardly by the register.

Why did I take a cart into the store for a measly pork chop

“Would you like a hand out to your car?” the boy asked.

Distracted I'm just distracted better focus

“I think I can handle this one bag.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said, already moving to the next register.

He fished in his pocket for a dime.

I don't want to make this call

Have to just have to

Always knew Hank would end badly but not like this

Forget Hank you're next

Don't think like that Hank was a good kid

No he wasn't

Tough and good aren't the same thing

He set the bag down on the green bench next to the phone.

He picked up the receiver and listened for the tone.

He put the dime in the slot.

He dialed.

THE PORK CHOP SIZZLED IN ITS GREASE.

Two more minutes on this side and then he'd flip it and give it four more. Then let it sit for ten.

Tracy looked at the wall clock, a utilitarian thing very like one you'd see in a school or government office. Little wonder, because this very clock had been hanging on the wall at his FBI bureau and, when he retired, the chief had given it to him as a joke—Tracy Calvert had often been the last man to go home.

“Since you never looked at the son of a bitch while you were working, maybe you should get an eyeful of it down in Florida.”

His scruffy orange cat, Max, would have normally been watching him from his post under the table, but the cat went shortly after Edna. Edna had named it Marzipan, but that's no name for a cat, so he called it Max. Might as well call them two names, it's not like they listen. Eighteen years under his belt, the fat, two-name scoundrel had been old enough to order a beer. He looked at the clock. Seven thirty. Was this dinner or supper? Both. One of them used to mean lunch, but he forgot which. Didn't matter. It was his last meal in the house for a little while.

Wicklow still couldn't give him specifics, but everything looked bad.
The van had been found and towed to a private lot. Authorities hadn't connected it with the crash and shooting that took the lives of four deputies and one state trooper a few miles down Route 66. Nobody had a good explanation for how the pursuit of a red GTO with an obscured tag had turned into a massive debris field, or why a young deputy had surrendered his vehicle to an unknown party and shot a fellow officer point-blank. According to the tow truck driver Wicklow had spoken to, the radio preacher in Joplin openly blamed the devil, while the one in Hornet blamed the spook light. The spook light theory held a lot of water in Jasper County.

“Tracy, I don't know if we're going to hear anything else. I'm sorry. Hank was a fighter. If anyone could have held out against their mesmerism, it was him, and he knew what to do to keep from being taken alive. But you don't need me to tell you it's best if we assume the worst. We're both compromised, but I'm dug in. Get out of there, and take everything with you. Do it now. If they're coming for you, they could show up tonight. Try to put ninety miles behind you before you stop. Call me again when you're in place.”

That had been thirty minutes ago.

Wicklow was right—All Souls Ranch was a hard target, whereas he was a sitting duck. Only Wicklow and Hank had known his location—sending Hank had been a calculated risk. It would have been better not to put him within their reach, but Hank drove well, shot better, and didn't scare easy; it wasn't like the Bereaved were turning people away. Now they were down to, what, eight? Ten? Probably no more than that. Two at the ranch, himself, an unknown number out west. But those were insulated—Wicklow trained them, only Wicklow knew how to reach them, and all
he
had was a phone number. Would Wicklow ask them to come secure the ranch?

Probably not. If one group fell, it was vital that the other group
continue—as far as they knew, these dozen or so souls had been the only ones in the country fully aware of the threat.

“This stinks,” he told the spot under the table where Max should have been, and then he flipped the pork chop.

The clock's hands pointed at 7:32, the little red second hand doing laps.

It was a bright day; the sun wouldn't set for another hour.

He would be gone by eight o'clock.

He had four minutes before the chop needed to come off the heat, but it would take only three and a half minutes to take another load down to the car.

Why waste time?

He grabbed the suitcase with his winter clothes in it, wrinkling his nose as the mothballs briefly overpowered the more affable smell of cooking meat. He didn't know where he was going to end up, so the sweaters and scarves he had saved from younger days in snowy places might prove useful again. He never wore scarves in St. Pete even on the dozen or so frosty nights each year that passed for winter.

He took the suitcase out the front door and down the steps that led to the parking lot; the elevator would have felt better on his hips and knees, but the steps were faster, even though they would take him past Mrs. Warner, an impossibly wrinkled, gossipy old thing who only left her post on the common balcony to eat, sleep, and produce waste. She had been a pain in the keester before, but it was ten times worse now that her relationship with dementia could no longer be called flirtation. She shouted down to him.

“You going on a trip, Mr. Calvert?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he answered without slowing or turning.

“You taking your son with you?” she klaxoned so loudly the landscaper looked up from his ministrations to a
Croton californicus
. The
man was new, looked Cuban. A lot of Cubans around since Castro, though more in Tampa. Wherever he was from, he would learn not to look up.

“My son's in Indiana,” he said.

“You going back to Indiana?”

“No, ma'am.”

He was almost to the car now.

Heat baked up at him from the asphalt, which seemed to want to stick to his sneakers even though the sun was behind the buildings now.

“Now'd sure be a good time to visit Indiana. I was in Terre Haute in February once. No thank you to that.”

He popped the trunk of his Caddy, loaded the suitcase, shut it.

“Is it Indianapolis you're going to?” she said.

“Excuse me, but I've got a pork chop,” he said, walking back across the blacktop as fast as he could.

“How's that?” she said.

He was almost to the stairs.

“Good evening, Mrs. Warner,” he said, giving the gardener a wink as he passed him.

“You drive safely!” she said. “Get some rain tires, it's rainy season up there. And let your son do some of the driving, young eyes are better.”

He held the screen door open with his elbow and opened the door, his nostrils widening with the pleasant odor coming from the range. He stepped around the file box and two more suitcases destined for his Cadillac; he was almost to the stove when he stopped and stared. Something was very wrong.

Glass glittered beneath the window.

He walked over to it, checked quickly for a baseball or rock to eliminate benign coincidence, found none.

Turned around to head for the fridge.

His breath caught in his throat.

A young man stood in his kitchen, a black T-shirt wrapped around one fist, blood welling up from a cut on his forearm. He shook the glass off the shirt and put it on, just as casual as you please.

“Who are you?” Calvert said, stalling. Twenty years ago he could have mopped up the floor with this bum. Ten years ago he would have had a fighting chance. But now? He had to get the man away from the refrigerator. Or make a run for his bedroom, but that was a race he wouldn't win without a distraction. The front door was out of the question; there was no balcony out the back window, so the kid must have shimmied up the latticework on the outside of the building—there'd be no outrunning him.

The young man, keeping an eye on Calvert, opened a drawer, peeked in. Shut it.

“I asked you a question,” he said, moving closer, angling for the fridge. The meat still sizzled and smoked in the skillet, starting to burn.

“Me no speekee inglee,” the man said, peeking in a second drawer. What did he want? Didn't he see the eight-inch kitchen knife sitting on top of the cutting board?

Just let me get near that fridge, kid

Now the intruder's eyes widened like a little boy who'd found his birthday present early. He pulled out an extension cord.

Oh shit this is about to get rough.

—

MINUTES LATER.

Woods drove the F100 down Fourth Street, heading south to the Banyan Tree Motel, under the canopy of which tree and with the help of a large black umbrella Woods had shuffled his three companions out of the truck and into the suite he'd rented an hour before.

Now he parked behind the hotel as instructed and tried to summon
the energy to open the door and stand up. If he could just do that. If he could just get to their room. If Luther would just not be too pissed off about how badly things had gone. His hands were shaking not only from his injury but from fear of what Luther might do to him.

He needed a big favor, and he didn't think Luther was going to be in the favor-giving mood now.

Luther had been
very
clear about what he wanted.

Don't you fuck this up, Woodsy-woods. You don't need to do nothing but keep him there, and I mean don't you dare let him leave. Sun creeps down, we'll be over there and fix his wagon. Now if he starts to load up the Conestoga, you gotta work him yourself. Should be an ole hand at killin' after what you did with that Gee-rand, right? Only you cain't shoot. You beat him, you stab him, whatever, just get a rag in his mouth or something and don't make no noise.

Can I choke him?

Chokin's not as easy as you think.

What is he, eighty?

Somethin' like that.

I just haven't choked somebody before. Not for keeps. I think I'd like to try it.

Try it, huh? You gonna bone him when you're done?

You know I'm not like that.

Right. 'Scuse me. I didn't mean to make you out to be no pervert. Just a clean-cut American injun's what you are. All right, choke the fuck out of him, just remember what I said about it not bein' easy. Man runs outta air he starts getting real enthusiastic. And take the goddamn bonnet off, it's too particular.

People'll remember the bonnet, not my face.

Yeah, but they'll start payin' attention, won't they? “Hey, Mabel, did you see that injun goin' up the stairs? Wonder what he wants!” Damn, you're dumb. You got a handle on this?

I do.

Good. I don't want to be in this dusty old bonestack town no longer than I have to. You see these geezers? I been peekin' out the window since you left and I swear somebody dumped a pile a' mummies up the road. St. Peter's burg is right, half these folks'll be talkin to St. fuckin' Peter by Christmas. Bet the blood around here tastes like wet dust.

Woods didn't have an opinion about the merits of geriatric blood, but it turned out Luther was right about strangulation.

Choking a man, even an old man, wasn't so easy.

Woods started off punching him in the face, knocked his dentures clean across the floor. When the old fellow went to his knees, Woods slipped around behind him and looped the cord around his neck, but his liver-spotty old hand with its big clunky wedding ring got in the way. After he cleared the hand and started choking him for real, the old fellow's adrenaline must have kicked in because he stood up, even with Woods on his back, and leaned forward toward the counter. There was a weird moment when they both looked at an upside-down steel pot, a big bright one, drying on a spread-out dish towel, and Woods saw the guy see himself in the shiny pot all purple with his eyes bugging literally almost out of his head, and Woods saw himself too and hadn't realized he was smiling. That made him embarrassed and mad, so he kicked the geezer's legs till he went back on his knees again, only now he was closer to the stove. Woods knew he was about to get a face full of hot grease and skillet a heartbeat before he did get it, but he pulled tighter on the cord instead of ducking, which turned out to be a poor instinct. The heavy cast-iron thing caught him on the cheek, probably chipped the bone there, and the grease and meat burned the shit out of him. He let go of the cord and it was a good thing he had his Chuck Taylors on because he felt the rubber catch before he actually fell. He stumble-stepped forward for the knife he had seen on the cutting board while the old dude helped himself up, hugging the fridge
like a fat dance partner, slipping some himself in all that grease. By the time Woods had the knife and turned, he saw the old guy reaching up high for the wire handle of the fly swatter there, and that actually amused him enough to hesitate and bark out a laugh. But it wasn't a fly swatter he wanted at all. Next thing Woods knew, a snub-nosed gun was coming off that fridge, so he rushed in. The gun went bang loud enough to ring his ears, Woods felt it pinch him in the belly, but then he knocked the old guy against the wall and the gun fell to the floor. He stabbed the old man in the chest until he stopped trying to raise his arms and slunk down, bleeding fast. Woods's biggest thought at the moment was how much trouble he was going to be in for the gunshot and that the police would be coming soon. So he stepped to the bathroom and dropped the knife in the toilet for no reason he could think of, then almost went for the window until he remembered he was supposed to grab evidence. He saw two suitcases and a file box. He grabbed the file box with one hand, grabbed his belly with the other, and out the back window he jumped.

The fall made something move agonizingly in his guts.

He crossed the yard behind the apartment and ducked behind a row of bushes with big round green leaves with bloody veins in them. He was about to splash down into the shallow canal leading to where he parked the truck on First Street when he felt a pain like bad diarrhea he got in Texas once—no, twice—only worse, and his legs got shaky tired. He sat down on a low concrete wall for just a few seconds, hunching over the file box cradled in his lap. Sitting down seemed to help. He noticed a few drops of blood on his white Chucks, but not too much. He might be okay. He didn't want to get up but realized that if he didn't he'd probably sit there until he passed out, so he forced his legs to move. Somebody yelled behind him. He looked and didn't see anybody, but then he was sorry he looked because he saw the huge bloody ass print he left on the wall. There was probably a hole out his
back you could put a Ping-Pong ball in. He realized he had registered the wetness there as sweat, but one little corner of his brain had peeped at him that it was weird to sweat hard and fast only down your back and ass-crack.