Читать книгу Comanche - Brett Riley - Страница 16

Chapter Ten

August 27, 2016—Comanche, Texas

Morlon and Silky had gone home at five. The staff planned to close around ten. Of course, sometimes around ten became one in the morning when the truckers and shift workers rolled in, and while the night cooks and manager liked the extra hours, both servers rolled their eyes and griped to each other. They never gave back their tips, though.

At 9:30 p.m., John and Pat Wayne pulled into the parking lot. It seemed like a slow night—only seven or eight cars, most of them probably the workers’. John smiled. Perhaps he and Pat would get their food faster than usual and be home in time for the news. Beside him, Pat looked skittish, probably thinking about how that poor Harveston girl had died not five minutes after saying goodbye. That had been sad and strange, and the cops had no leads on the man spotted in the lot that night. John had come back to the diner since then, but this was Pat’s first time.

He drove his brand-new Ford Mustang GT, royal blue with gray interior. He had driven the old one until you could damn near see through parts of the chassis that had rusted away. He had bought that car as a kid and had kept it up as best he could over the years. He had driven it to his senior prom and to his wedding and to the hospital when Pat miscarried the only child they ever conceived; he had picked up his first date in it and lost his virginity in its back seat and drove Pat to Dallas for what they called a honeymoon, squirreling away a little money every month toward his next Mustang. John Wayne paid his bills on time and owned a nice house, a bass boat he pulled behind his crummy work truck, a savings account, a sixty-inch television, and a growing retirement fund. When the old Mustang had finally decayed beyond his powers to repair it, he took a big chunk of his savings and paid almost a third of the $32,000 price on the spot. The salesman had nearly choked.

Now John parked on the lot’s fringe, sure that if he pulled in next to another car, someone would back into the ’Stang or sit on it and leave their ass prints on his hood. He killed the engine, and they got out, the night’s heat descending on them like a wave. The recently mown grass clumped around their feet. Shit fire. I just washed her, too. As he walked away, he trailed his fingers down the length of the car.

If you’re thinkin of makin love to it, I’d advise you not to use the exhaust pipe, Pat said.

John laughed and put his arm around her. She had always made him smile without resorting to the usual jokes about his name. If they had lived in a big city, he would have advised her to try stand-up insult comedy, like that old fella Rickles. But they lived in Comanche, so she practiced her art at Pat’s Hair and Nails, her own little shop. Humor had helped them stay together during the tough times when bills and work and Texas summers upped the everyday tensions of their lives. Except during the most serious of crises, she always cracked the first joke.

Pat slipped her arm around John’s waist and hooked her thumb into his Wranglers’ back pocket, and together they stepped out of the grass and onto the parking lot proper.

The streetlights along Austin flickered.

When they reached the walkway, John saw movement in his peripheral vision. He stopped.

A figure stood beside the old storage building—a man dressed in Old West garb, complete with pistols. He slumped as if exhausted and looked somehow bleached, as if he had walked out of the Llano Estacado and brought half its sand and dust with him.

He watched them.

I think I’ve seen that fella before.

Pat clutched his arm. Come on, she said, tugging him. Let’s get inside. Her voice carried an edge that John registered in some part of his mind. She tugged harder.

John stared at the figure. He could not seem to stop. He shivered and felt the hair on his neck stand up.

Now Pat was practically yanking his arm out of its socket.

Yeah, you’re right, he muttered. Let’s get inside right now.

They took three steps before the man appeared in front of them, just popped out of nowhere like one of those holograms on Star Trek. Over on Austin, the streetlights buzzed like angry insects and then winked out. The diner’s overheads strobed and crackled. The jukebox cut off. From inside came a cacophony of outraged voices. Pat moaned and gripped John’s arm. He was sure her long nails would break the skin.

Just like that night the Harveston girl died. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

The man stood perhaps ten feet away. John was over six feet tall and weighed 240 pounds, and he had gone toe to toe with even bigger men in honky-tonks across central Texas. It had never frightened him. But now, standing in front of this short, skinny, grayish man in the cowboy getup, John Marion Wayne nearly pissed himself.

Get hold of yourself, you pussy. He cleared his throat.

Mister, you’re scarin my wife. Best you step outta the way.

Pat trembled. John wondered if those pistols were functional. They sure looked real. We heard gunshots that night.

Let’s go back to the car, Pat said.

I mean it, mister, John said. Don’t make me tell you again.

But the cowboy did not move.

I wanna go home, Pat said.

John’s fists clenched. Jesus, it’s just some jackass in a cowboy suit, not the goddam boogeyman. He pulled away from Pat and assumed a boxer’s stance.

All right. I don’t know how you got over here so fast or why you’re wearin that getup, and I don’t care. Move your skinny ass, or I’ll move it for you.

He took two steps toward the gray figure.

The cowboy raised his head. His visage was haggard and gaunt and stubbled, the cheekbones prominent. His eyes, already gray and faded, sunk into his head, and the Waynes screamed as they gazed into the his skull’s empty sockets.

The cowboy snarled. Pat’s voice rose like the whistle of a teakettle.

And then, faster than John could follow, the cowboy drew his pistols and fired twice. Something punched John in the gut, and he flew backward five feet, landing on his back, his legs in the air. Then he rolled onto his side and lay still, groaning.

Pat ran to John and grabbed his shoulder with both hands and pulled him onto his back. His eyes were wide open, his teeth clenched. He opened his mouth. She leaned in close. And then John vomited blood, hitting her in the face. It streamed into her shirt and burned her eyes. Some ran into her mouth, gagging her, yet she kept on screaming, clawing at her eyes, flinging ropes of gore into the grass. By the time she could see, John was dead.

The cowboy stood ten feet away, guns holstered, arms hanging slack at his sides as if he had never moved.

You killed him, Pat said. You son of a bitch.

People poured out of the diner, their footfalls like the muted thud of faraway horses’ hooves. The cowboy ignored them. Pat got to her feet, hands hooked into claws. Let the cowboy blow her head off. If he did not, if she could get close enough, she would dig her fingers deep into those gray sockets and see if she could find something soft.

Behind the cowboy, a white man and two Latinos arrived and fanned out.

What the hell’s goin on here? one of the men said.

The cowboy ignored him.

Pat advanced, her arms outstretched, John’s blood dripping from her fingers.

But just as she got close enough to rip his face off, the cowboy disappeared. He did not move or fade. He winked out of existence.

Pat stumbled toward the men, not seeing their puzzled, frightened expressions. The white man caught her before she fell. She tried to scream again, her abused vocal chords not up to the task. She beat at the man’s face, blood spattering onto the other two as they tried to pull her away.

Jesus, she’s as slippery as a greased pig, the first Latino man said.

What happened to her? said the other.

What I wanna know is where that sumbitch in the cowboy hat went.

The white man wiped streaks of blood off his face with his shirttail and trotted to John’s body. He put two fingers under John’s upper jaw. Then he put his ear to John’s chest and listened. The other men watched, silent. Pat had collapsed in their arms. She hung there like a puppet without strings.

This fella’s dead, the white man said. Somebody call the cops. Anybody know these people?

I don’t, one of the Latino men said. Maybe somebody inside does.

Sirens warbled in the distance. In the back of the parking lot, the Mustang sat in darkness, where the police would find it minutes later, still perfect but for a bit of dust and cut grass sticking to its undercarriage.

Bathed in the pulsing reds and blues of police and ambulance lights, C.W. Roark stood over John Wayne’s body. The eyes were open, the mouth pulled down in a horrible rictus. Nearby, Bob Bradley, the chief of police, conversed with the county coroner. Deputy Roen interviewed three men who had come out to help. Every other cop on the payroll worked crowd control. That had never been much of a problem in Comanche, but when two people were killed in the same place only seven or eight weeks apart, the townsfolk tended to gawk. Or piss themselves. They might even tell their friends and relatives to stay away, and right before the annual Pow Wow.

Roark squinted against the lights. A pounding headache formed on top of his skull. Will was out there, leaning against his truck and shooting the scene with his phone. Hell and damnation. Gotta go make him delete it, or it’ll be up on the YouTube before I get home. Roark started to move. Then, as if he needed more problems, Rennie arrived.

She parked on Austin. The streetlights—burning bright, though the three witnesses swore they had gone dark during the killing—reflected off the hood and roof of her car. She got out, her red hair pulled back in its usual bun, and spotted Will. Pausing long enough to glare at him, hands on her hips, she said something Roark could not make out. The boy scowled, put the phone in his pocket, and got in his truck. As he drove away, Rennie ducked under the police tape, ignoring the calls of the deputies to stop, to get back on the other side of the barrier. Roark sighed. They all knew her and would not restrain her, though who knew whether they feared losing their jobs by his hand or their heads by hers?

Rennie trooped past the chief and the coroner, who stopped talking long enough to watch. The coroner shook his head and laughed. The chief did not. Rennie stamped up and regarded C.W., hands on her hips, her head cocked to one side, as if he were their son come home two hours after curfew with liquor on his breath. Roark steeled himself for the onslaught and hoped his temper would hold.

C.W., she said, I wonder if you understand what this means.

He frowned. I understand we’ve had two people dead in our goddam front yard. You shouldn’t be here. You ain’t a town official.

I don’t give a rat’s ass. Is that really John Wayne over yonder?

Not the one you’re thinkin of. He’s been dead a lot longer.

That’s about as funny as a broken knee. We’re in trouble here.

He snorted. Don’t I know it. Sayin this is bad for our business is like callin Niagara Falls a campground shower. Plus, we can kiss the Pow Wow goodbye if we don’t catch this fella. And if I can’t keep the Pow Wow goin, I might as well clear out my office, because our merchants will remember next Election Day.

I couldn’t care less about the diner or the Pow Wow. Or your job either.

Then what?

She reached into her purse and pulled out a newspaper clipping and handed it to him. He took it and stepped closer to the streetlights, pulling his reading glasses out of his shirt pocket. It was Red Thornapple’s article on the Piney Woods Kid. Roark looked at the black-and-white photograph with the names under it. He saw himself and Garner, the big truck driver, and the Johnstone lady, who was, if memory served, somebody or other’s secretary. The sluttish McCorkle woman, whose pants had been tight enough to trace the creases in her ass. Red Thornapple himself. The young girl, dark hair falling past her shoulders—Lorena Harveston. And John Wayne.

Rennie’s point was obvious, but why would anybody target the folks in that picture? Most of them had done little in their lives beyond ordinary living. Only he was of any particular importance to the community. Only he and Thornapple had money. No one could be jealous of their publicity; the Warrior-Tribune did not exactly enjoy national circulation. Rennie was seeing connections where only happenstance existed, but he did not have that luxury. Not now, when his town needed him and would remember, for better or worse, how he handled this crisis.

He folded the article. If you’re tryin to show me two people in this picture have died here, I kind of noticed.

She touched his arm. I heard those men say the killer disappeared. Like he was a ghost.

Oh, for God’s sake.

Listen to me, she hissed. I don’t know what those people saw, but how did he get away? How did he do it twice?

We don’t even know if it was the same person.

She groaned. Are you really arguin we should worry less because maybe there’s two killers in town? We gotta call somebody. Bob Bradley don’t know how to deal with a serial killer. Maybe the state police or the FBI—

Damn the state police, he said. This town needs every single dollar we can get, and to attract more dollars, we need the Pow Wow. If anybody so much as hears the words serial killer, we can kiss it goodbye. And if the diner goes under, we’ll lose our investment. Is that what you want?

I told you. I don’t give a damn about that. I’d rather be the wife of a live ex-mayor than a widow.

Bradley and the coroner stopped talking and glanced at them. So did some of the deputies.

Keep your voice down, C.W. urged. People are lookin. I’m tellin you, this town can’t afford to let this shit go statewide. This killer ain’t no goddam ghost or a criminal genius. He’s just a man, and he’ll slip up. So we’re gonna handle this ourselves. I mean it, Rennie. If you so much as breathe a word to any law enforcement official—local, state, or federal—you and me are gonna go round and round.

They scowled at each other, their eyes locked. Finally, C.W. looked away. Rennie could stare down a rabid bull when she put her mind to it.

Then she poleaxed him by saying, What about Raymond? We could call him.

Anger welled up in C.W.’s throat like acrid vomit. His expression hardened. What’s he gonna do? Drink the killer under the table?

He’s been sober for months now. You know that.

What I know is that he near about broke your heart and probably gave himself cirrhosis while he was at it.

Rennie looked like she could rip out C.W.’s liver with her teeth. Marie died, she said. She was his whole world. He’s human.

He’s weak is what he is. No. We ain’t callin Raymond. He’d just muck things up even worse. Now please. Get on home, and let our people earn their salaries.

He walked away. I never talked to her that way before. I’ll be in the doghouse at least a week. She tromped back toward the car. The deputies backed away like she was a grizzly bear.

Rennie pulled into her driveway and killed the engine, yanking the keys out of the ignition and slamming the door behind her. On the drive home, one thought flashed like a neon sign: God, that man can be an ass. She unlocked the front door and dropped the keys on the coffee table while passing through the living room. In the bedroom, she sat down and leaned against the headboard, looking at the family picture on her nightstand—her, C.W., and Will, all sitting on a bench in front of an oak tree. Everyone looked happy.

She dug her phone out of her purse, opened her contacts, and selected Raymond.

He answered on the second ring. What’s wrong? he asked.