Black House Chapter Six

6IN THE make ROOM of the cut Landing P.D., the ph unitary on the desk rings. Bobby Dulac has been mining for nose-gold. directly he squashes his latest treasure on the sole of his shoe and picks up the ph unmatchableness.Yell-o, natural law Department, police mankind Dulac speaking, how advise I help you?Hey, Bobby. Its Danny Tcheda.Bobby feels a trick up of malaise. Danny Tcheda last name pronounced Cheetah is one of French Landings fourteen full-time RMP cops. Hes currently on duty, and ordinary procedure dictates that duty cops radiocommunication in thats what the R in RMP stands for, after all. The notwithstanding exception to the manage has to do with the Fisherman. Dale has mandated that patrol officers call in on a land bourn if they think they mystify a situation involving the killer. Too many tribe have their ears on step forward t here, doubtless including Wendell Pisshead chiliad.Danny, whats up?Maybe zilch, mayhap whateverthing not so in effect(p). I got a bike and a fink in the trunk of my car. I found em all over on promote Street. Near Maxton Elder C atomic number 18?Bobby draws a pad toward him and begins to jot. The tickle of unease has be perform a sinking feeling.nothing wrong with the bike, Danny continues, only if posing at that place on its kickstand, that combined with the sneaker . . .Yeah, yeah, I forgather your point, Danny, merely you neer should have fooled with what could be evidence of a crime. gratify divinity fudge dont let it be evidence of a crime, Bobby Dulac is thinking. Please God dont let it be another one.Irma Freneaus mother has just been in to absorb Dale, and while there was no screaming or sh bulge step to the foreing, she came out with snap on her cheeks and looking deal death on the half s nether region. They cant allay be sure the short girl has start out the Fishermans leash victim, hardly Bobby, I had to, Danny is saying. Im ridin solo, I didnt fatality to say this out on the air, I hadda find a phone. If Id left-hand(a) the bike there, psyche else coulda monkeyed with it. infernal region, stolen it. This is a well bike, Schwinn triad-speed. Bettern the one my electric shavers got, tell you that.Whats your twenty?7-El correct, up the hill on 35. What I did was mark the location of the bike and the sneaker with chalk Xs on the military positionwalk. I handled them with gloves and put the sneaker in an evidence dishful. Danny is sounding to a greater extent and more anxious. Bobby knows how he must feel, sympathizes with the choices Danny had to make. Riding solo is a bitch, simply French Landing is already supporting as many cops full-time and temporary as the budget will bear. Unless, of course, this Fisherman business gets totally out of control in that case, the t throw fathers will no doubt watch a bit more elastic in the budget.Maybe its already out of control, Bobby thinks.Okay, Danny. Okay. See your point. Whether or not Dale sees it is a whole nother thing, Bobby thinks.Danny lowers his voice. No one needs to know I broke the chain of evidence, do they? I mean, if the subject ever came up. In court, or something.I imagine thats up to Dale. Oh God, Bobby thinks. A new problem has just occurred to him. All calls that come in on this phone atomic number 18 automatically taped. Bobby decides the taping machinery is nigh to have a malfunction, retroactive to more or less devil oclock in the afternoon.And you privation to know the other thing? Danny is learning. The big thing? I didnt want people to see it. A bike standing all by itself that counsel, you dont have to be Sherlock Fucking Holmes to draw a au whencetic conclusion. And folksre getting close to the panic line, oddly after that goddamned unreliable story in the idea this first light. I didnt want to call from Maxtons for the same reason.Im gonna put you on hold. You better talk to Dale.In a vastly unhappy voice, Danny says Oh boy.In Dale Gilbertsons office there is a bulletin poster dominated by en spectaculard photographs of Amy St. Pierre and Johnny Irkenham. A triad photo will be added soon, he fears that of Irma Freneau. Beneath the two current photos, Dale sits at his desk, smoking a Marlboro 100. Hes got the fan on. It will, he hopes, blow the spate away. Sarah would just roughly kill him if she knew he was smoking again, but unspoiled Jesus Christ, he needs something.His interview with Tansy Freneau had been short and nothing short of purgatorial. Tansy is a juicer, a regular patron of the vertebral column Bar, and during their interview the smell of coffee brandy was so strong it almost seemed to be coming out of her pores (another excuse for the fan). Half drunk, she had been, and Dale was glad. It kept her calm, at least. It didnt put any sparkle in her dead eyeball, coffee brandy was no good for that, but she had been calm. Hideously, she had even said Thank you for helping me, sir onwards l eaving.Tansys ex Irmas father lives crossways the state in Green Bay (Green Bay is the devils town, Dales father used to say, God knows why), where he names in a garage and, according to Tansy, supports several bars with names worry the End Zone and the Fifty-Yard Line. Until today, there has been some reason to believe at least to hope that Ric unassailable Cubby Freneau snatched his daughter. An e-mail from the Green Bay Police Department has put paid to that little judgement. Cubby Freneau is living with a woman who has two kids of her own, and he was in jail D & D the day Irma disappeared. There is hush no body, and Tansy hasnt received a letter from the Fisherman, but The door opens. Bobby Dulac sticks his head in. Dale mashes his cigarette out on the inside lip of the wastebasket, burning the patronage of his hand with sparks in the process.Gosh n fishes, Bobby, do you know how to knock?Sorry, Chief. Bobby looks at the smoke ribboning up from the wastebasket with uncomplete surprise nor interest. Danny Tchedas on the phone. I think you better take it.Whats it about? except he knows. Why else would it be the phone?Bobby only repeats, not without sympathy, I think you better take it.The car sent by Rebecca Vilas delivers enthalpy to Maxton Elder Care at three-thirty, ninety minutes sooner the Strawberry Fest dance is scheduled to begin. The idea is for the old folks to work up an appetite on the floor, then troop down to the caff fitly decorated for the occasion for a glamorously late (seven-thirty is quite late for Maxtons) dinner. With wine, for those who toast it.A resentful Pete Wexler has been drafted by Rebecca Vilas to bring in the deejays s match (Pete thinks of henry as the artifice record-hopper). Said shit consists of two speakers (very large), one lazy Susan (light, but awkward as a motherfucker to carry), one preamp (very heavy), solarizedry(a) wires (all tangled up, but thats the blind record-hoppers problem), and four b oxes of developed records, which went out of genius about a hundred years ago. Pete guesses that the blind record-hopper never perceive a CD in his whole life.The last item is a character bag on a hanger. Pete has peeked in and ascertained that the suit is white.Hang it in there, please, Henry says, pointing with unerring accuracy toward the supply cupboard that has been designated his dressing room.Okay, Pete says. What exactly is it, if you dont mind me asking?Henry smiles. He knows perfectly well that Pete has already had a peep. He heard the plastic bag rattling and the zipper chinking in a duet that only occurs when person pulls the bag away from the hanger at the neck. Inside that bag, my friend, Symphonic Stan, the Big-Band Man, is just postponement for me to put him on and bring him to life.Oh, uh-huh, Pete says, not knowing if he has been answered or not. All hes really sure of is that those records were almost as heavy as the preamp. Someone should really give the blind record-hopper some information about CDs, the next great leap forward.You asked me one may I ask you one?Be my guest, Pete says.There appears to have been a police front end at Maxton Elder Care this afternoon, the blind record-hopper says. Theyre gone now, but they were here when I arrived. Whats that about? There hasnt been a robbery or an transport among the geriatrics, I hope?Pete stops in his tracks beneath a large cardboard strawberry, holding the suit bag and looking at the blind record-hopper with an amazement Henry can almost touch. Howd you know the cops were here?Henry puts a finger to the side of his nose and tips his head to one side. He replies in a hoarse, conspiratorial whisper. Smelled something blue.Pete looks puzzled, debates whether or not to inquire further, and decides not to. Resuming his march toward the supply closet?Cdressing room, he says Theyre playing it cagey, but I think theyre looking for another lost kid.The look of amused crotchet fades fro m Henrys formulation. Good Christ, he says.They came and went in a hurry. No kids here, Mr . . . uh, Leyden?Leyden, Henry confirms.A kid in this authority would stand out like a rose in a patch of poison ivy, if you know what I mean.Henry doesnt consider old folks in any way analogous to poison ivy, but he does indeed get Mr. Wexlers drift. What make them think ?Someone found sumpin on the sidewalk, Pete says. He points out the liftow, then realizes the blind guy cant see him pointing. Duh, as Ebbie would say. He lowers his hand. If a kid got snatched, someone probably came along in a car and snatched him. No kidnapers in here, I can tell you that much. Pete laughs at the very idea of a Maxton moldy oldie snatching any kid big decent to ride a bike. The kid would probably break the guy over his knee like a dry stick.No, Henry says soberly, that hardly seems likely, does it? hardly I guess the cops got to dot all the ts and cross all the is. He pauses. Thats just a little joke o f mine.Henry smiles politely, thinking that with some people, Alzheimers disease might be an actual improvement. When you hang my suit up, Mr. Wexler, would you be so good as to give it a gentle press? Just to banish any incipient wrinkles?Okay. Want me to take it out of the bag forya?Thanks, that wont be necessary.Pete goes into the supply closet, hangs up the suit bag, and gives it a little shake. Incipient, just what the hell does that mean? Theres a rudiment of a subroutine library here at Maxtons maybe hell look it up in the dictionary. It pays to ontogeny your word power, as it says in the Readers Digest, although Pete doubts it will pay him much in this job. When he goes patronage out to the common room, the blind record-hopper Mr. Leyden, Symphonic Stan, whoever the hell he is has begun unraveling wires and plugging them in with a speed and accuracy Pete finds a play unnerving.Poor old Fred Marshall is having a terrible dream. Knowing its a dream should make it less h orrible but somehow doesnt. Hes in a rowboat with Judy, out on a lake. Judy is sitting in the bow. They are fishing. He is, at least Judy is just holding her pole. Her face is an chemical formulaless blank. Her skin is waxy. Her eyes have a stunned, hammered look. He labors with increasing desperation to make contact with her, trying one informal gambit after another. None work. To make what is, under the circumstances, a clean apt metaphor, she spits all(prenominal) lure. He sees that her empty eyes appear furbish up on the creel sitting between them in the lowlife of the boat. Blood is goop through the wickerwork in fat red dribbles.Its nothing, just fishblood, he tries to assure her, but she makes no reply. In fact, Fred isnt so sure himself. Hes thinking he ought to take a look inside the creel, just to be sure, when his pole gives a tremendous jerk if not for quick reflexes, he would have lost it over the side. Hes shoped a big oneFred reels it in, the fish on the othe r end of the line fighting him for every foot. Then, when he finally gets it near the boat, he realizes he has no net. Hell with it, he thinks, go for broke. He whips the pole ventureward, just daring the line to snap, and the fish biggest goddamned lake trout youd ever hope to see flies out of the water and through the air in a gleaming, fin-flipping arc. It lands in the bottom of the boat (beside the oozing creel, in fact) and begins thrashing. It also begins to make gruesome throttling noises. Fred has never heard a fish make noises like that. He bends forward and is horrified to see that the trout has Tylers face. His son has somehow become a weretrout, and now hes dying in the bottom of the boat. Strangling.Fred grabs at it, abstracted to remove the hook and throw it back while theres still time, but the terrible choking thing keeps slipping through his fingers, leaving only a shiny slime of scales roll in the hay. It would be tough to get the hook out, in any case. The Ty- fish has swallowed it whole, and the bar distinguish tip is actually protruding from one of the gills, just below the point where the human face melts away. Tys choking becomes louder, harsher, unendingly more horrible Fred sits up with a low cry, feeling as if hes choking himself. For a moment hes completely adrift as to place and time lost in the slippage, we might say and then he realizes hes in his own bedroom, sitting up on his side of the bed he shares with Judy.He notices that the light in here is much dimmer, because the sun has moved to the other side of the house. My God, he thinks, how long have I been asleep? How could I Oh, but here is another thing that repulsive(a) choking sound has followed him out of his dream. Its louder than ever. It will wake Judy, scare her Judy is no longer on the bed, though.Jude? Judy?Shes sitting in the corner. Her eyes are all-embracing and blank, just as they were in his dream. A corsage of crumpled composition is protruding from her mouth. Her throat is grotesquely prominent, looks to Fred like a sausage that has been barbecued until the casing is ready to pop.More publisher, he thinks. Christ, shes choking on it.Fred rolls himself across the bed, falls off, and lands on his knees like a gymnast doing a trick. He reaches for her. She makes no move to evade him. Theres that, at least. And although shes choking, he still sees no expression in her eyes. They are dusty zeros.Fred yanks the corsage of paper from her mouth. Theres another behind it. Fred reaches between her teeth, tweezes this second ball of paper between the first two fingers of his right hand (thinking Please dont bite me, Judy, please dont), and pulls it out, too. Theres a third ball of paper behind this one, way at the back of her mouth. He gets hold of this one as well, and extracts it. Although its crumpled, he can see the printed address GREAT IDEA, and knows what shes swallowed sheets of paper from the notepad Ty gave her for her birthday. Shes still choking. Her skin is turning slate.Fred grabs her by her amphetamine arms and pulls her up. She comes easily, but when he relaxes his hold her knees bend and she starts to go back down. Shes turned into Raggedy Ann. The choking sound continues. Her sausage throat serve well me, Judy Help me, you bitchUnaware of what he is saying. He yanks her hard as hard as he yanked the fishing pole in his dream and spins her more or less like a ballerina when she comes up on her toes. Then he seizes her in a bear hug, his wrists brushing the undersides of her breasts, her bottom tight against his crotch, the pleasing of position he would find extremely sexy if his wife didnt travel by to be choking to death.He pops his thumb up between her breasts like a hitchhiker, then says the magic word as he pulls sagaciously upward and backward. The magic word is Heimlich, and it works. Two more wads of paper fly from Judys mouth, propelled by a jet of vomit that is little more than bile her intake of food over the last twelve hours amounts to three cups of coffee and a cranberry muffin.She gives a gasp, coughs twice, then begins to breathe more or less normally.He puts her on the bed . . . drops her on the bed. His lower back is spasming wildly, and its really no wonder first Tys dresser, now this.Well, what did you think you were doing? he asks her loudly. What in the name of Christ did you think you were doing?He realizes that he has raised one hand over Judys upturned face as if to knock against her. Part of him wants to strike her. He loves her, but at this moment he also hates her. He has imagined plenty of bad things over the years theyve been unite Judy getting cancer, Judy paralyzed in an accident, Judy first taking a raw sienna and then demanding a divorce but he has never imagined Judy deviation chickenshit on him, and isnt that what this amounts to?What did you think you were doing?She looks at him without fear . . . but without anything else, ei ther. Her eyes are dead. Her husband lowers his hand, thinking Id cut it off in the first place I hit you. I might be pissed at you, I am pissed at you, but Id cut it off before I did that.Judy rolls over, face-down on the coverlet, her hair spread around her head in a corona.Judy?Nothing. She just lies there.Fred looks at her for a moment, then uncrumples one of the slimy balls of paper with which she has tried to trammel herself. It is covered with tangles of scribbled words. Gorg, abbalah, eeleelee, munshun, bas, lum, opopanax these mean nothing to him. Others drudge, asswipe, black, red, Chicago, and Ty are actual words but have no context. Printed up one side of the sheet is IF YOUVE GOT PRINCE ALBERT IN A CAN, HOW CAN YOU EVER GET HIM verboten? Up the other, like a teletype stuck in repeat mode, is this pitch-dark syndicate CRIMSON KING BLACK HOUSE CRIMSON KING BLACKIf you waste time looking for sense in this, youre as daft as she is, Fred thinks. You cant waste time T ime.He looks at the clock on his side of the bed and cannot believe its news 417 P.M. Is that accomplishable? He looks at his watch and sees that it is.Knowing its foolish, knowing he would have heard his son come in even if in a deep sleep, Fred strides to the door on big nerveless legs. Ty he yells. Hey, Ty TYLER postponement for an answer that will not come, Fred realizes that everything in his life has changed, quite mayhap forever. People tell you this can happen in the blink of an eye, they say, before you know it, they say but you dont believe it. Then a wind comes.Go down to Tys room? Check? Be sure?Ty isnt there Fred knows this but he does it just the same. The room is empty, as he knew it would be. And it looks oddly distorted, almost sinister, with the dresser now on the other side.Judy. You left her alone, you half-wit. Shell be chewing paper again by now, theyre clever, mad people are clever Fred dashes back down to the master bedroom and exhales a breathe of re lief when he sees Judy lying just as he left her, face-down, hair spread around her head. He discovers that his worries about his mad wife are now secondary to his worries about his missing son.Hell be planetary house by four, at the latest . . . take it to the fix. So he had thought. But four has come and gone. A strong wind has arisen and blown the bank away. Fred walks to his side of the bed and sits down beside his wifes splayed right leg. He picks up the phone and punches in a number. Its an easy number, only three digits.Yell-o, Police Department, Officer Dulac speaking, youve dialed 911, do you have an emergency?Officer Dulac, this is Fred Marshall. Id like to speak to Dale, if hes still there. Fred is pretty sure Dale is. He works late most nights, especially since He pushes the rest away, but inside his head the wind blows harder. Louder.Gee, Mr. Marshall, hes here, but hes in a meeting and I dont think I can Get him.Mr. Marshall, youre not hearing me. Hes in with two gu ys from the WSP and one from the FBI. If you could just tell me Fred closes his eyes. Its interesting, isnt it? Something interesting here. He called in on the 911 line, but the idiot on the other end seems to have forgotten that. Why? Because its someone he knows. Its good old Fred Marshall, bought a Deere lawn tractor from him just the year before last. Must have dialed 911 because it was easier than looking up the regular number. Because no one Bobby knows can actually have an emergency.Fred remembers having a similar idea himself that morning a different Fred Marshall, one who believed that the Fisherman could never touch his son. Not his son.Tys gone.Gorg fascinated him and the abbalah took him.Hello? Mr. Marshall? Fred? Are you still Listen to me, Fred says, his eyes still closed. Down at Goltzs, he would be calling the man on the other end Bobby by now, but Goltzs has never seemed so far away Goltzs is in the star-system Opopanax, on Planet Abbalah. Listen to me carefully. save up it down if you have to. My wife has gone mad and my son is missing. Do you understand those things? Wife mad. Son missing. Now put me through to the drumheadBut Bobby Dulac doesnt, not right away. He has made a deduction. A more diplomatic police officer ( Jack Sawyer as he was in his salad days, for instance) would have kept said deduction to himself, but Bobby cant do that. Bobby has hooked a big one.Mr. Marshall? Fred? Your son doesnt own a Schwinn, does he? Three-speed Schwinn, red? Got a novelty license rest home that reads . . . uh . . . BIG MAC?Fred cannot answer. For several long and terrible moments he cannot even draw a breath. Between his ears, the wind blows both louder and harder. Now its a hurricane.Gorg fascinated him . . . the abbalah took him.At last, just when it seems he will begin to strangle himself, his chest unlocks and he takes in a huge, tearing breath. PUT boss GIL-BERTSONONDOITNOW,YOUMOTHERFUCKERAlthough he shrieks this at the top of his lungs , the woman lying face-down on the coverlet beside him never moves. There is a click. Hes on hold. Not for long, but its long lavish for him to see the scratched, bald place on his missing sons bedroom wall, the swelled column of his mad wifes throat, and blood dribbling through the creel in his dream. His back spasms cruelly, and Fred welcomes the pain. Its like getting a telegram from the real world.Then Dale is on the phone, Dale is asking him whats wrong, and Fred Marshall begins to cry.