Stagger Bay Read online

  “You misunderstand me, Sam. I’m going in, but you’re going to be right outside the front door guarding the exit, making sure I can beat feet fast if I have to. That’s how me and Karl always did it, young blood.”

  I was telling the truth – but it would also keep Sam out of harm’s way as much as possible for now. After a moment he reluctantly nodded at the sense of it.

  I turned to Elaine. “It’s no good if we can’t get away, so you’re driving the car.”

  I looked up and down the road. “Find a turn out or shoulder or something, U-turn the car around, and park it out of sight from here but where you can still keep an eye on this spot. No matter what happens or who you see coming, you keep quiet and wait on us and us only. Don’t let anyone know you’re there – you’re our ace in the hole. We’ll probably be in a hurry when we come out, so be fucking ready to pull up the instant you see us.”

  Elaine nodded owlishly at my instructions, but she still had me paranoid as ever. Here I was having to turn my back on her to enter the Driver’s lair, still uncertain about the risk she represented.

  But it didn’t matter what she did or didn’t do; didn’t matter whose side she was on. I was going into that house after that kid even if it was all some kind of trap, and it still had to be me instead of my son.

  As we turned to go, Elaine said, “Don’t come back without that child.” She appeared nervous as I probably did but there was also a set, grim expression on her face.

  “We won’t,” Sam promised.

  The Lincoln idled quietly away behind us as we moved toward the house. I cased the casa as we neared it, watching for signs of activity, figuring my best angle in. I found myself moving slower and slower as I got a better and better look at the place. Sam didn’t seem in any more of a hurry; he didn’t budge from my side.

  I was feeling less and less in control the closer we got. There were too many ways upcoming events could skitter away from me like a drop of water on a hot griddle.

  To the right of the garage, the grim bulk of the main house extended in a long one-story wing. The porch light was unlit, and I gestured at Sam to take his station there. Sam peeled off and moved in that direction, silent as a tomcat on the prowl.

  When I reached the garage I looked past it at a beautiful view: Stagger Bay sprawled beneath the heights this house commanded, street lights and neon in a small-town grid, like a cartoon or some kind of computer simulation. I saw the Hospital and the Gardens; the jail and the courthouse; Stagger Bay Center and the Arcade; Old Town and the Andersen Club and our two water towers. Beyond all lay the Bay and the Pacific, the night surf glowing phosphorescent in the moonlight.

  It was a little town, even if it was Sam’s whole world right now. Maybe the folks living in it were no more than bacterium scurrying across the face of an unremarkable planet orbiting a sub-prime star, facing inevitable entropy and death.

  But they mattered, didn’t they? They’d sure tell you so if you asked them.

  I’d tried to make this little toy town my home once, and Sam claimed it now. But to the beast lurking in the house behind me it was a hunting ground, and he used this raised vantage point to plan his stalks. He figured he owned Stagger Bay and all the people that lived in it, even if it was the Gardens he was targeting for now.

  Did the Driver have any inkling of the Brownian motion of conflicting agendas, selfish impulses, and higher yearnings that had somehow come together to accomplish this moment in time, create the reality of me being here on his doorstep about to have a heart to heart with him? It was almost as though Stagger Bay was an entity with goals and an agenda of its own like some kind of hive mind. I wasn't sure I liked the idea of being a soldier ant, a worker bee serving Stagger Bay's collective soul – a soul I'd found to be homicidally callous and apathetic where my loved ones were concerned.

  But what if it was the Driver who served Stagger Bay’s nonhuman needs? What if Stagger Bay was as much my personal enemy as the Driver? A ludicrous thought, one that almost made me chuckle nervously out loud.

  I moved around the far corner of the garage to a lit-up window. On the other side of the Cougar I saw the Driver’s broad rounded back and blond mop of hair as he stepped through a door into the house’s interior.

  A little black boy was draped over the Driver’s shoulder. There was duct tape over the boy’s mouth and around his wrists. I recognized the boy instantly: it was Little Moe, Big Moe’s nephew. The Driver hit the light switch on his way in and the garage went dark as he closed the door behind him.

  When I reached up to test the window my hand stopped short for a moment just before I touched it – as if I were afraid I would feel a pulse, as if the house were a living creature I should be frightened to disturb. I went ahead and grabbed ahold.

  The window was locked but it was old and loose in its wooden slide rail. I’d beat this type many times in my burg days as a kid. It was a simple matter to lift it, pull it from its trough, wipe where I’d gripped the edges with my sleeve, and lean it silently against the exterior wall.

  I stood to clamber inside and froze again. That dark window looked like a toothless, sucking mouth, and I suddenly felt like I’d rather die than slither in there. But Sam was on duty at the front door, waiting to cover my egress; he wouldn’t wait long before deciding I wasn’t coming out – he’d go into the house and face the Driver alone.

  I imagined Sam’s mockery if he ever learned of my hesitation here. If we survived this evening and he ever got an inkling of this, he’d never let me hear the end of it.

  At the thought of my son the window was just a window again, like any of the hundred ones I’d B &E’d through before I’d met Angela. I went right on in with ease: eeling through until I rested in a hand-stand pike on the garage’s cement floor, then silently drawing each leg through in turn until finally standing and looking past the Cougar at the door to the interior.

  For what it was worth, I was inside the Driver’s lair.

  Chapter 55

  I swiped my sleeve across where I’d gripped the window sill entering, and scuffed my feet across the floor where my hands had rested when I piked my way in. Sloppy cleanup, but there were timeliness constraints here.

  Automotive tools hung neatly on wall racks, and hot-rod accessories lay all about ready to service the Cougar’s souped-up needs – this garage was a wrench-head heaven, and perfectly organized by an anal retentive type. On a work bench next to me I saw a hammer, a 24-ouncer used for framing with a waffle pattern on the face of the head.

  I picked the hammer up and hefted it. It wasn’t the jawbone of an ass but it’d have to do.

  I rounded the Cougar and stood in front of the closed door into the main house, breathing open-mouthed to improve my hearing. I held the framing hammer up by my ear as I turned the knob with the sleeve of my work shirt covering my hand, slow as possible, dreading the smallest noise.

  It finally wouldn’t turn any more and I opened the door a crack, dim light spilling through to illumine my hand. After waiting a few seconds I pushed the door just far enough ajar to take a peek through and make sure no one was lurking, then opened it enough to allow me to slink through and close it gingerly behind me.

  A short hallway extended in front of me, with doorways to either side. Directly ahead and to the right was a large archway; it would lead to the front room and the front door.

  Only two of the hall doors were open, both leading to lit rooms. The light from the doorway closest to me was flickering and dim; the glow from the one at the far end had the steadiness of artificial lighting.

  I side-stepped my way to the closest doorway, which was on the left side of the hall. When I got close enough I leaned against the wall next to it, carefully placing my sleeve-covered free hand against the door frame for support. I leaned over to turkey peek around and through the doorway for a split second before pulling back and away as quick as I could.

  I took a few seconds analyzing what I’d just glimpsed – a room painted
entirely black: floor, walls, ceiling, and even the window panes. The only piece of furniture seemed to be some kind of altar with a statue and burning candles atop it. There’d been nobody in there I could see.

  I crossed to the far side of the hall to make it harder for anyone in the room to ambush me. I side-stepped into position opposite the doorway, ready to float away in any direction if the Driver showed himself, or to jump in at him with the framing hammer if he saw me.

  I took a better look into the room without moving any closer to the doorway. Two black candles burned on the left side of the altar, and one white candle burned on the right. Shadows pulsed and danced all about the room, created by the candles’ heartless light. Humped on the altar next to the white candle was a freshly severed woman’s breast, its nipple already wilted and pitiful in death.

  Smack dab in the middle of the altar was a statue carved out of dark stone, depicting some kind of fantastic creature. It was a hunched miniature monstrosity, a squatting semi-human perversion. What passed for a face was looking to its left, toward the far end of the hallway.

  I side-stepped onward to the open archway, and took my next quick turkey peek around. It was a dark empty living room with sofa, coffee table, and dead TV, its normalcy surreal after the altar room.

  A wave of relief flooded me when I saw the front door on the far living room wall; it shone like a beacon promising eventual escape from this place. I could feel Sam out there guarding my back, the knowledge warmly comforting.

  The smell of mold and decay filled the air, and clumps of mushrooms sprouted between the baseboards and the edges of the living room’s carpeting. Old plastic Revell models cluttered pretty much every horizontal surface; mainly airplanes and cars. Children’s games and toys were stacked on the floor, all decades old and covered in dust.

  Were they the Driver’s? Had the boy he’d once been laughed and played within these now decaying walls?

  A photo on the coffee table caught my eye, a high school graduation photo of two young men in caps and gowns with arms over each other’s shoulders, both smiling for the camera. One of the boys was a teenage Officer Hoffman; in the picture Rick looked almost human, though that furtive gleeful slyness was already evident in his eyes. The answer to the other boy’s face was a little harder, of the two he’d changed the most in growing up – but after a few more seconds certainty blazed in my mind and I nodded to myself, unsurprised at this revelation.

  Next to the high school graduation photo was a box filled with paperwork, and with video and audio cassettes. Even in the gloom I could see something printed on the manila folder on top in my big brother’s almost illegible handwriting.

  I wanted to stay there and dig through Karl’s box of evidence and see what he’d died to learn, to touch something he’d touched while alive. But the clock was ticking for Little Moe.

  I continued toward the open doorway at the far end of the hall. I moved past each closed door in turn, listening intently as I passed with my war hammer ready and hopeful. But there was no noise, no movement; the rooms behind the doors felt empty as I passed. And then I was at that last open doorway, the light from within spilling out onto the hall floor in a curdled sour puddle.

  Chapter 56

  I took my lean-over peek and froze in the middle of it: Little Moe lay duct taped to a hospital gurney in the center of a big plastic drop cloth, which was spread across the floor with one edges duct-taped onto the wall partway up as a splash guard. On the floor next to the drop cloth was an open-topped case box half filled with bottles of bleach.

  A wheeled operating room table was parked next to Little Moe’s gurney. On it were implements, most of them surgical but some toolbox stuff as well; they looked well cared for; somebody loved them. They glowed with the evidence of their owner’s affections; they smelled of honing oil even through the stench of disinfectant filling the room.

  Little Moe saw me right off, his brown eyes pleading above the duct-tape gag. I stood back up straight and leaned against the wall, out of the doorway’s line of sight. I’d seen no sign of the Driver.

  A creak came from the direction of the garage and I gulped, but it was only the old house settling.

  Fuck this shit, I thought. It’s Clint Eastwood time.

  I pushed off the wall and marched through that door with my war hammer up by my ear and at the ready, feeling wild.

  That was the instant he made his move. He’d been plastered against the wall inside the left side of the doorway like a big lizard, waiting.

  If I’d still had both eyes I would have seen him in my peripheral vision. As it was the only warning I had was Little Moe grunting hysterically past his gag as he pointed to my left with his jerking chin and flashing eyes.

  The Driver lunged in, grabbed the wrist of my free hand in a vise-like grip and stabbed a hunting knife up towards my belly in a disemboweling thrust, a snarling grimace on his blond-haired blur of a face. A cry of dismay blurted out of me as I smashed the heavy hammer down onto his knife hand, snapping his wrist bones and redirecting the blade so it missed my stomach and stabbed into my thigh. I hissed at the knife’s bite, and the Driver squealed at his broken wrist as he let go of me and pulled away.

  A nonstop ululating yell came out of me as I lunged after him, clumsily due to the knife in my leg. I brought the hammer down onto him once, twice, thrice. I snarled each time the head embedded itself into his chest, shattering his ribs with a series of hollow thuds like I was destroying an overripe watermelon.

  The Driver’s arms wind-milled as he thrashed backward to crash spread-eagle on the floor, hitting hard enough I felt the impact through the soles of my feet. Chief Jansen’s breath came in harsh gargling coughs as he lay there with the blond wig dangling off his head, drops of blood spewing from his mouth with each gasp. His left hand pawed at the caved-in dents on his upper chest; his right arm was draped across his waist, the broken wrist bent out of true.

  I hovered over Jansen for a few seconds with the hammer, ready to smack him again if he had any more fight in him. But the Chief was through. He was done.

  Next to where he lay was a table filled with enough prescription bottles to medicate a zoo. I recognized the names on some of them from prison: Zidovudine and Combivir, Immunitin and Intelence, Agenerase and Fuzeon; a hard-core end run AIDS medication cocktail. I finally understood the Driver’s reckless desperation, why Jansen had been spiraling downward into final rampage.

  I turned and limped to Little Moe, then peeled the tape from across his mouth. “How you doing, little man?” I asked.

  “Okay,” he whispered, watching Jansen gurgle on the floor.

  I shifted over to block Little Moe’s view of the Driver’s mewling agonies and plucked at the duct tape around his wrists. “I’m here to take you home, Little Moe,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t be making too many promises if I were you,” Reese said behind me.

  Chapter 57

  Officer Reese held the scruff of Sam’s neck with one hand as they stood in the doorway. Reese’s other hand held the muzzle of his.357 Magnum against the base of Sam’s neck.

  Sam did not look happy – in point of fact, he had a snarly hard-on light in his eyes that said he was about to do something teen-boy stupid.

  Don’t be dumb, I willed him. Just chill, son, and wait for the main chance.

  Sam’s gaze met mine, and for a second the mortifying embarrassment of being caught with his pants down in front of me threatened to turn this into a major blood bath. Then the moment passed and he subsided into a sullen, watchful stillness.

  Officer Reese frog-marched Sam into the room and looked down at Jansen, seemingly hypnotized by his helplessness. I took that opportunity to hide my hammer hand behind my leg.

  Reese stank like he hadn’t bathed in a while. Brown snuff stained the front of his uniform shirt; he’d apparently given up on using a dip-spit can at all. He didn’t smell like alcohol tonight, though – he’d come here sober.

  “Hello, sou
l brother,” Jansen mumbled to me as though Reese wasn’t there, something resembling a smile cavorting across his red-stained mouth. “It is so nice to finally welcome you into my home.”

  “If the tip of a knife blade is your standard welcome, I’m assuming you don’t get very many voluntary guests.”

  “I gave you chance after chance. I could have reached out and taken you anytime, but I didn’t,” Jansen said in a low, gloating asthmatic voice. “I did everything but give you a map to my front door. I gave you this.”

  “You keep telling yourself that. I would have gotten you eventually, even if your buddy Hoffman hadn’t turned on you. Yeah, Rick made it easier, making sure everybody knew you’d set up the hit on Kendra. He’s a surprisingly persistent little thing for such a sketch of a personality, ain’t he?”

  Jansen’s eyes rolled wildly at that revelation, but he didn’t respond otherwise to the news of his slave’s betrayal.

  “How those ribs feeling, Chief?” Reese asked, a crazed expression on his face as he stared at the squirming Driver. “They stinging a bit? Punctured a lung yet?”

  “You are a weak fool, Reese, and a coward,” Jansen said. “Your fiancée was a traitor, she-”

  With a hiccupping snarl Reese pulled the pistol barrel away from Sam’s temple to aim it at Jansen. But as Reese’s gun hand extended over Sam’s shoulder, Sam yelled “Haw!” and grabbed Reese’s wrist and ducked under his arm, scuttled and spun until he was behind him holding him in a wristlock arm bar.

  Sam cranked on Reese’s wrist with one hand and pressed hard on his elbow with the other, forcing Reese heavily to his knees. Sam continued to crank and press until Reese knelt with his upper body squeezed down against his thighs; Reese’s Stetson spilled off his head and he dropped his Python to the floor. I couldn’t be prouder of Sam than a tiger parent watching their cub’s first successful stalk.