Читать книгу The Straw Men 3-Book Thriller Collection: The Straw Men, The Lonely Dead, Blood of Angels - Michael Marshall - Страница 28

Bobby was leaning against the counter in my parents’ house, sipping a glass of mineral water. He glanced up when I walked in, watched me stand and drip on the floor. It had rained virtually the entire time I had been walking.

‘What have you done?’ he asked mildly.

‘Nothing.’

‘Right,’ he said, eventually. I took the glass and drank the remainder of the water in one swallow. Only when it was gone did I remember it had come from my parents’ last shopping list.

‘Is there any more of that?’

‘A little,’ he said.

‘Don’t drink it.’ I put the glass on the counter and sat down at the table. As an afterthought I took my coat off, almost as if I’d heard a voice warning me that I’d catch my death. Through the window I could see that Mary’s sitting-room light was on. I hoped she didn’t find out I was still in town. It would have looked rude that I hadn’t dropped by. Then I realized that I was sitting in a house with several lights on and a car outside, and so she probably knew already. I wasn’t thinking very clearly.

Bobby waited, arms folded.

‘So,’ I asked. ‘How was your day?’

‘Come on, Ward,’ he said irritably.

I shook my head. He shrugged and let it go. ‘I checked out the scene of the accident. Given the position of the car they ran into, it’s entirely conceivable your mother could have simply screwed up the turn. It’s kind of sharp, it was dark, and it was pretty misty by all accounts.’

‘Right,’ I said, wearily. ‘And she had only been driving for, like, forty years. Probably never come across a sharp turn before, never crossed that junction in all the time they’d been living here. I guess the cranberry juice and the mist was just all too much for her. I see it all now. It’s a miracle the car didn’t flip clean over the first row of buildings and bounce all the way to the sea.’

Bobby ignored me. ‘There was a small gas station kitty-corner to the crash site, and a video rental a little further along the way. It goes without saying that neither of the guys I talked to were there the night of the accident. The video store is an independent run by two brothers. The one I talked to was certain that his brother hadn’t known anything about it until he saw a police car arriving.’

‘He didn’t hear the sound of one heavy metal object running into another, think maybe something might be afoot?’

‘You know what these places are like. Big old TV hung from the ceiling, John Woo movie playing ear-bleeding loud, guy behind the counter getting through the evening with beer and a joint the size of a burrito. Chances are you could have cracked him over the head with a hammer and he’d’ve barely blinked. So I went over to the gas station, and the guy gave me his manager’s number. I called him and got the address of the guy on duty at the time.’

‘Telling him what?’

‘That I was assisting the police with their inquiries.’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘That’s going to get the local PD right up my ass.’

‘Ward, who fucking cares?’

‘I’m not Agency any more, Bobby. Out here in the real world, the cops can do things to you.’

Bobby flipped a hand, indicating this was a negligible concern. ‘So I visited him. I confirmed that he saw nothing either. He heard a noise, but thought it was maybe someone dicking around at the back of the station. Dithered about calling the cops, and by the time he realized there’d been an accident outside and the station was safe, the police were already on the scene.’

‘Okay,’ I said. I hadn’t expected anything to come of Bobby looking into the crash, but he’d been insistent. ‘So what else?’

‘So then, as agreed, I came here and looked around.’

‘Find anything?’

He shook his head. ‘Nope. Absolutely nothing.’

‘I told you.’

‘You did,’ he snapped. ‘You’re not only handsome, Ward, you’re always right. Man, I wish I was gay. I’d look no further. You’re the best. So now you tell me something.’

‘The place in the first scene of the video is called The Halls, and it’s up a gully off the Gallatin Valley. You have to be really very rich to join, and they won’t even let you see the houses until you’ve proved you’re good enough.’

‘The Halls? What kind of a name is that?’

I breathed out heavily. ‘I don’t know. Maybe they’re thinking of Valhalla. Maybe they believe they’re gods. That much money, maybe they are.’

‘You’re sure it’s the one?’

‘There’s no question. The lobby was exactly the same as the one from the video, right down to the artwork. It’s the place. And they are very, very tight about letting people join.’

‘So how come you didn’t put a call through?’

‘I did. Must be there’s no signal out there. I did it with the phone in my pocket, so I couldn’t tell.’

‘What was it like?’

‘Just swell. I didn’t see any of the residents, except one guy briefly at the end and I didn’t get a good look at him either. Basically if you’ve got the money and don’t want to be bothered by standard-issue earthlings, then this is the place for you. I got a peek at the house plans, though, and these are not your average trophy homes. They got someone pretty good on the case, someone who had something specific in mind.’

‘Like what?’

I took a pen from my pocket and sketched. ‘Exploded layout. Main living spaces elevated over the terrain. Central fireplaces withdrawn to internal room edges. Stained glass on the windows opposite the fires, and in skylights over corridors. Hanging eaves, horizontal banding of windows, conspicuous terraces.’

Bobby peered at the drawing. ‘So? I tell you, my friend, that just sounds like a regular house to me.’

‘Lot of this has been incorporated into standard design now,’ I agreed. ‘But the way it was put together in these drawings was textbook Frank Lloyd Wright.’

‘So maybe they hired him.’

‘Unlikely. Unless they hired a medium, too.’

‘So they got someone who designs like him. There must be hundreds. Big deal.’

‘Probably. But this kind of stuff isn’t fashionable these days, never has been for this kind of development. Usually it’s oil baron staircases, master bedroom suites, and look-at-me aren’t-I-rich.’

‘Sounds great.’

‘But artificial. In the beginning, the places where we lived were sculpted from natural environments, not constructed from scratch. That’s why so much modern architecture feels barren: it makes no organic use of the site. Wright’s houses were different. The entrance route is made complicated to symbolize a retreat to a known safe haven, and the fireplace is withdrawn into the centre of the structure to take the place of a fire in a deep cave. Spaces within the house flow to allow internal prospect as an ultimate defence, additionally suggesting the adaptation of a naturally created space. External windows are banded so the sight lines reveal the outside without compromising the inside. Stained glass evokes a wall of vegetation that the inhabitants can see through, but which presents a wall from without. Humans feel most comfortable when they’ve got both prospect and refuge – when they’ve got a good view of the terrain they inhabit, but also feel protected and hidden. That’s what his patterns provide.’

Bobby stared at me. ‘You’re an unusual man.’

I shrugged, embarrassed. ‘I listened in class. My point is, you find me another development in the world looks like this, I’ll kiss your ass.’

‘Tempting, but I’m just going to take your word for it.’

‘It’s probably one of the reasons they don’t let people see the houses beforehand. It’s not what they’d usually lay out their millions for. Which means they have to have some other reason for making them that way.’

‘So the developer’s a Wright nut. Or they hired an architect who listened in class, too. I don’t see how this leads anywhere, and I’d really like you to tell me what happened at the end.’

‘I lost it with the realtor.’

‘On site?’

I shook my head. ‘Give me some credit. Back in town. There was no one around.’

‘Is he dead?’ The question was businesslike.

‘Christ, no.’

‘Why did you do this?’

‘I didn’t like him. Plus there used to be two firms looking after The Halls. Now there’s only one.’

Bobby nodded, slowly. ‘Your dad’s firm being the one no longer on the case.’

‘You’re a bright guy.’

‘I also take it, from the fact we’re not discussing a homicide, that you don’t think this realtor killed your folks. Despite the financial incentive.’

I shook my head. ‘Not personally. But he’s in bed with people who did. Why else is there footage of this place on the tape?’

Suddenly I was on my feet, walking quickly out of the kitchen. As I passed through the hall something tugged at me, but I couldn’t work out what, so kept on going. Bobby followed me into the sitting room, where I went over to the coffee table.

I picked up the book lying there, and waved it at him.

‘A book about the aforementioned great architect,’ he said. ‘So what? Your dad was a realtor. They’re into houses. And an old guy. Old dudes really dig biographies. It’s that and the Discovery Channel that keeps them going.’

‘Bobby …’

‘Okay,’ he conceded. ‘It’s an interesting coincidence. Sort of.’

I wandered back out into the hallway and then came to a halt again. I felt like I had an engine of activity inside me, turning over, ready to run – but having no idea what direction to go in. ‘You tossed this place hard?’

‘I took carpet up, I went under floorboards, I went in the roof and shone a flashlight in the tank. I looked inside the phones. There’s nothing else here. Of course – I can’t tell what might be missing.’

‘Me neither,’ I said. ‘I didn’t come here enough. The only thing I noticed was the videos.’ I frowned. ‘Wait a second. When I was here the other day I put the mail here. Now it’s gone.’ I looked up at him, suddenly sure I was onto something.

‘Relax, detective. A couple hours ago an old guy picked it up. Beaky, said he used to be your folks’ lawyer. I let him in, explained I was a friend of yours. He was cool about it, though he did look like he wanted to check how many spoons I’d stolen.’

‘Harold Davids,’ I said. ‘He said he’d keep coming by.’

Bobby smiled. ‘Ward, you got enough weirdness going on without looking for it. Stop being so paranoid.’

We heard a loud shattering sound from the sitting room. We started moving, but not quickly enough.

It’s not so much a sound as a feeling of immense pressure, and as shocking as being a child smashed across the face by someone who’s never hit you before. If you’re close enough to an explosion, what you’re mainly aware of is the thud of your head and chest, an impact that turns any noise into a deep sensation, a feeling that the world itself has been knocked out of its path. The sound itself seems secondary, as if you’re hearing it days afterward.

It seemed like I hit the wall immediately, hard, and smacked face-first into a row of pictures. As I hit the ground, my head full of white light and surrounded by falling glass, there was another, quieter explosion, and then I was hauling Bobby off the floor and toward the remains of the front door.

We careered down the path together, slipping and falling on the wet flagstones. There was another detonation behind us, much louder than the first. This time I heard the whistle and fizz of things flying around me, the whupp-a of air compressed and released. Bobby kept scrabbling forward, using his hands to keep us moving. I screwed up his efforts by turning to look back at the house, and we tangled and ended up skidding flat on our backs on the wet grass. The whole of the outer wall of the sitting room was gone, and the interior was already beginning to burn. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. When you see a house on fire it’s like watching the burning effigy of someone’s soul, like seeing the grave work of worms writ sixty feet tall.

By the time I’d pushed myself up Bobby already had his phone out and was walking away, looking over the fence. I took a few paces back toward the house. Maybe I thought I could go back in and put the fire out. Or that I should save some things. I don’t know. I just felt there ought to be something that I could do.

There was another small detonation, and I heard things break deep inside the house. The heat was building rapidly. The rain had slackened into a faint drizzle, and I remember feeling that this was about typical. It had rained hard all afternoon. Why not now?

Bobby ran back over to me, snapping his phone shut. He had a small cut on his forehead, which was dripping blood.

‘They’re on their way,’ he said.

I couldn’t imagine who he would be talking about. ‘Who are?’

‘The fire brigade. Let’s go.’

‘I can’t go,’ I said. ‘That’s their house.’

‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘it’s a crime scene.’

When we reached my car he walked quickly all around the vehicle, looking carefully at the ground. Then he went down on hands and knees in the mud and peered up underneath. He got back up, rubbed his hands, then unlocked the door. He squatted down and looked under the driver’s seat, then popped the hood, walked round the front, and looked at the engine.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We’ll take the chance.’

He closed the hood and walked back to the driver’s side. He stuck the keys in the ignition, winced at me, and turned his hand. The engine started, and nothing exploded. Bobby breathed out heavily, patted the top of the car.

‘But we didn’t hear anything,’ I said. ‘No car.’

‘Not surprised,’ he said, and his voice was a little shaky with relief. ‘Area like this it’s easier to lose yourself in backyards than on the road. I’d stash a car downhill and come the last quarter mile on foot. Though if it had been me, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You hear the way it kept futzing after the first explosion? Someone put it together in a hurry and screwed up.’

‘What difference? Surely the first blast takes the whole lot up?’

‘The sections got blown apart by the ignition charge. Someone tried to put together a real mother, and it blew itself apart before it could go off properly.’

‘If we’d been in the sitting room, it would have been enough.’ I abruptly rubbed my face with my hands. ‘I guess Chip delivered the message.’

‘Sure looks like it.’

‘In which case …’ I looked at my watch. ‘They put this whole thing together in just over an hour, including someone getting down here.’ I noticed I was bleeding briskly from a gash on the back of my hand, and wiped my jacket over it.

‘Like I said. They rushed it.’

‘They may screw up on the details, but they’re definitely on the case, wouldn’t you say?’ In the distance I could now hear the sound of approaching sirens, and across the road I saw front doors opening.

‘They bombed my parents’ house,’ I said, incredulously, turning to look at it once more. ‘Like, with a bomb.’

The burning house looked bizarre, a point of utter wrongness amongst a street of perfect little dwellings. I turned to look at Mary’s house across the hedge. A few lights were on, and the front door was open.

‘You’re dealing with Grade-A cocksuckers,’ Bobby agreed, slapping the top of the car again. ‘And now let’s leave.’

But by then I was running, slipping and careering down toward the gate. I heard Bobby swear and start after me. Near the end of the path I thrashed my way straight through the hedge and into Mary’s front yard. I’d barely made it into her property before Bobby grabbed my shoulder and spun me round.

I shrugged him off, tried to keep walking up the yard. He reached for me again, but faltered when he saw what I’d seen, and then he was moving faster than me.

She was lying half on the porch, her head and shoulders tipped downward onto the steps, one arm thrown out by her side. At first I thought maybe a heart attack, until I saw the blood all over her, the pool already turning sluggish on the weathered wood. Bobby dropped to one knee beside her, supporting her head.

‘Mary,’ I said. ‘Oh, Jesus Christ.’

Between us we pulled her gently round so that she was lying level. Her breathing was ragged. Enough light was thrown by the fire next door to make the lines in her face look like canyons. Bobby was searching through the folds of her clothing, finding hole after hole, trying to stanch blood that didn’t seem to be flowing as fast as it should. She coughed, and a slug of something dark glotted up into her mouth.

Before this I had only ever seen an old woman, one of those people who clutter up the lanes of supermarkets and stand waiting for buses, who know or care about what gift people are supposed to give on which anniversary, who look papery and cold and as if they can never have been any other way. People who can never have been drunk, or clambered over forbidden fences, or moved, giggling, so that someone else gets stuck with the wet patch in the bed. Dry old sticks who you cannot credit with having loved someone, not someone alive anyhow, not someone who wasn’t just a memory, whose resting place was now decorated with fading flowers that only she remembered to bring. Now I saw someone else. Someone she’d once been and presumably remained, beneath the patina of failing cells and dry skin and wrinkle canyons and grey hair curled and cut short. Behind the disguise the years had conferred, behind the mistaken assumption that because of her age she had never been, and wasn’t still, somebody real.

And then her throat clicked, and a full bladder voided, the smell warm and acrid. Her eyes seemed to go from moist to dry in an instant, as if fast-forwarded. Perhaps it was the coldness of the air, but it looked as if she’d been pulled away in front of our eyes, and pulled away fast.

Bobby looked slowly up at me. I stared back. I didn’t have anything to say.

‘What happened?’ I asked. It was the first thing I had been able to say in ten minutes. ‘What the hell happened back there?’

Bobby was peering hard through the windshield, whipping his head back and forth to look up side roads as we sped past them. All were early-evening quiet. Mary’s body was two miles behind us now, still lying on her porch. It would receive medical attention there faster than we could have got it to a hospital, and anyway it was dead without hope of reprieve. Both Bobby and I knew that.

He shrugged. ‘She got in the way. Like I said, someone came in over the yards. She heard something, came out. So they emptied half a gun into her. I’m sorry, man.’

‘Someone comes down here to blow me up, bringing a gun with a silencer just in case. A harmless old lady gets in the way and they whack her. Just like that.’

‘These people are serious, Ward, and they really don’t like you at all.’

He yanked the car round a sharp left and then we were back down in the main part of town. A fire truck flashed past us along the main drag, heading in very much the wrong direction to get to the house.

‘Where the fuck is he going?’

A car behind us honked. Bobby and I turned as one and a guy in a pickup indicated that the lights had changed and maybe we’d like to move. Bobby pulled out, and headed down the road after the fire truck.

‘The truck’s going the wrong way, Bobby.’

‘I told them the address just as you told me. It was good enough to get me there.’

‘But why the …’ I stopped. We could both now see the orange light up ahead.

Bobby abruptly pulled over, without signalling. We got another stern honk from the oldster in the pickup, who turned to stare heavily at us as he passed. Neither of us really paid him much mind. We could see now that the Best Western, or at least a small part of it, was on fire. I stared at it in frank disbelief, wondering how Dyersburg had suddenly come to reside within one of the circles of Hell.

‘Get closer,’ I said, faintly.

He drove slowly, and after a block left the main drag to come around at the hotel along a side street. We stopped at the top, putting us about a hundred yards from the hotel. From here we could see that the fire was relatively small, only affecting a forty-yard stretch of one wing. The hotel would survive to host another convention. Four fire trucks were already in attendance, and a fifth joined them as we watched. The other end of the street was already thronged with people, and more were walking quickly past the car, hurrying to get a better view of the excitement. Half of the town’s police force appeared to be in attendance.

‘That start round about where your room was?’

I didn’t even answer. I felt sick. For some reason attacking the hotel felt like more of a personal wound than the house had done. I wondered if my neighbours had been in, the people in the rooms around me.

‘Ward, this message you sent them,’ Bobby said, ‘what exactly did you say?’

‘This is ridiculous,’ I said. ‘This is completely out of hand.’ Then: ‘What about the house? What are they …’

‘They’ve probably got someone up there already. Other neighbours will have called it in. And before you even get around to wondering, your stuff is safe.’

‘What stuff?’

‘Well, not your clothes. Look in the back.’ I turned and saw my laptop bag in the backseat of the car.

‘Never assume you’ve got refuge,’ he said, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, and watching the fire. ‘I’m a prospect man myself. Keep what you need within reach. I think now would be a good time to blow Dodge.’

I wanted to go up into the hills and kill someone. Bobby read my mind, and shook his head firmly. ‘Once this fire is under control they’re going to find which room went up first. Chances are they’ll have taken more time and made it look halfway credible. But add it to the house and you’re going to leap straight to Dyersburg’s Most Wanted.’

‘In what fucking sense? I didn’t do anything.’

‘There an insurance policy on your folks’ house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Big one?’

I sighed. ‘Probably. I didn’t listen. And then they’ll find Mary and some bright cop will decide to dust her down just in case. That much blood, they may get some latents. Your prints on file, Bobby?’

‘You know they are.’

‘Mine, too. You’re right. It’s time to leave.’

Twenty minutes later we were at Dyersburg airport.