Bad Karma (28 page)

He stumbled.

Paveeth charged him then, striking him in his wounded shoulder. The pain exploded, blinding him, sucking the breath out of his lungs. He staggered while Paveeth clawed at his face with one hand and fought for the gun with his other. Shannon recovered enough to sweep his right leg around Paveeth and knock the cult leader off his feet. Paveeth fell to the floor, Shannon falling with him and landing hard on the cult leader’s chest. Paveeth was still grabbing for his gun hand. Shannon lifted his right arm as much as his injured shoulder allowed and punched Paveeth in the face. He did it again and again, each time only being able to lift his hand a few inches above the cult leader’s face before striking down.

Paveeth let out a whimper and quit his struggling. Shannon didn’t notice. As he stared at the cult leader’s face, the image dissolved into a sea of redness. He felt nothing but numbness as he lifted his fist the several inches his shoulder allowed and slammed it into Paveeth’s face over and over again. Then someone was pulling him off, and through the red haze he could see Maguire, his friend’s eyes like silver dollars as he took in the room.

“Jesus, Bill, you’re going to kill the dude,” Maguire was saying.

Shannon felt very cold then. So cold. He let himself be pulled off. Then he lay down. Consciousness flickered off and on. He was aware of being loaded onto a stretcher. Then nothing but blackness until he opened his eyes and saw Daniels staring at him with concern.

“How’s Susan?” he asked.

“She’s going to be okay.” Daniels tongue flicked out and licked his lips. “That .38 snub nose… Wake up, Bill, goddamit, open your eyes! That .38, you got it off one of the cult members here, right? Just nod your head, okay?”

Shannon nodded. The room tilted sideways and he fell into a deep blackness again.

When he opened his eyes, he felt groggy and his shoulder throbbed as if nails had been hammered into it. After a dazed moment, he realized he was in a hospital bed. His shoulder was heavily bandaged, so was his right hand, the one he ripped open on the fence. As he became more aware, he felt a small hand holding his undamaged hand. He moved his head to the side and saw Susan, her eyes and nose both red. She broke into a big lopsided smile. Then the dam burst open and tears streamed down her cheeks as she laughed and cried at the same time.

“Bill, I’ve been so worried about you.”

Shannon tried to ask her if she was okay, but his throat was too dry and his voice came out as a hoarse whisper. Susan fought back her tears and held up a glass of water. Shannon drank a little of it through a straw. He tried again, asking her how she was.

“I’m okay, Bill. They didn’t hurt me.”

“All I could think when I saw you tied up like that…”

“I know, hon. Please, don’t think about it. I’m fine, I really am.” She tried smiling. “Guess who came by and donated blood for you?”

Shannon didn’t say anything, his mind still too fuzzy to think clearly and guess the obvious.

“Eli. You have two pints of his blood in you now.”

“Shit. I’ve got blood from a Yankee fan coursing through me? Damn, he’ll try anything to bring me over to the dark side. He didn’t get me a Derek Jeter tattoo while I was out?”

Susan choked up as she shook her head, her eyes filling up with tears. The emotion was too much for her, and she started weeping again. Shannon watched helplessly, wanting to do something to comfort her.

“You lost so much blood, hon,” she said when she could, showing him the saddest clown smile he’d ever seen. “The doctors told me most people wouldn’t have made it, but you fought hard and you’re going to be okay. But I came so close to losing you.”

“You’re not going to lose me. Darling, you’re lucky, but not that lucky.” He winced. It felt like more nails were being hammered into his body. “My shoulder…”

“I know. It hurts. They had to reconstruct it. But they told me it should be as good as new someday. If you need to, you can press that button for more morphine.”

Shannon saw the button Susan was pointing out. He pressed it several times.

“What about Anil Paveeth –”

“They arrested him.” She brought his undamaged hand to her mouth and brushed her lips softly against it. “Let’s not talk anymore. Just close your eyes and rest for now.”

Shannon did as she asked. He felt Susan slide into the hospital bed next to him and drape his good arm around her while nestling her head against his shoulder. Her face was so wet with tears that it got his hospital gown wet, but he didn’t mind. Even with his wounded shoulder throbbing away, he felt at peace. With the morphine kicking in, he drifted off into something warm.

At some point he became aware again of the dull throbbing ache in his shoulder, and when he opened his eyes Susan was gone. He glanced sideways and saw Daniels standing to the side of him with his arms folded and his face set in a morose frown. When he noticed Shannon’s eyes had opened, he pulled up a chair next to the bed and sat down.

“Where’s Susan?” Shannon asked.

“She’s giving me a few minutes so we can talk privately.” Daniels forced a smile. “What a day yesterday, huh?”

“Yeah, what a day.” Shannon reached up and found the button controlling his morphine flow and pushed it several times. “What happened to the great almighty Vishna?”

Daniels smile turned hard. “He doesn’t look all that almighty now. You did a good job revealing what was behind the curtain, and an even better job bruising that sonofabitch up. I think you even knocked him out for a few minutes. If your shoulder hadn’t been shot up you would’ve killed him.”

“But you arrested him?”

“We will. Right now we’re holding him, and he’s giving the impression of cooperating with us. Your friend, Mike Maguire, told us about the porn films you found. That sex shop has been shut down and all the DVDs confiscated. The Feds are involved now.”

“Paveeth admitted to making those porn films with Carver and Linda Gibson?”

“Yeah, he has, but he’s denying any knowledge of their murders. Maybe when you get out you can sit in on some of the questioning.” Daniels lowered his voice, edged closer to Shannon. “He’s claiming he had nothing to do with that dungeon—that those Russians took over once Carver and Gibson were killed and started making their own films without his knowledge.”

“That’s bullshit. What did he think that dungeon was for?”

“Discipline.” Daniels shrugged in response to the look Shannon gave him. “His word, not mine.”

“Yeah, right, he was shooting the video when I went down there.”

“I know. I saw the video and it clearly shows that you acted in self-defense. No charges are going to be brought against you.”

“Thanks. What do you know about the Russians?”

“According to Paveeth, Carver brought them in to distribute their films. Supposedly they used the opportunity of Carver being killed to take a more active role in the operations. To hear Paveeth tell it, he was a virtual prisoner to them.”

“Any idea yet who they are?”

Daniels shook his head. “I’ve got a feeling the Feds do, but they’re not saying anything. My gut’s telling me that they’re part of some nasty international porn ring.” He paused, rubbing a thick hand across his jaw. “Bill, we found other videos they made. As sick as you can possibly imagine. These bastards were making rape and torture videos. In three of them they killed the girls. Those videos are enough to get Paveeth a lethal injection, but we’re keeping quiet about that for now. He’s trying hard to sell those two dead Russians down the river and pin the whole works on them and we’re letting him think we’re buying it, see if we can get more out of him about Carver and Gibson.”

A dull throbbing started behind Shannon’s eyes knowing what they had in mind for Susan. He asked whether one of the women killed was a redhead who could’ve looked like a young Meg Ryan.

Daniels thought about it and nodded grimly.

“She had tried to leave the cult,” Shannon said . “She complained to someone I know that Paveeth was a false prophet. I guess they found her. What about the other cult members?”

“A few of them scattered, including Alvin Guthrop. We’re looking for him now. Duane Sweenski’s here in the hospital. They’re trying to see how much of his face they can save. We’re going to be charging him with whatever we can when he gets out. We’re holding the women we picked up as material witnesses. Most of them are in pretty rough shape and being held here in the psych ward. I’ve talked to the DA and we’re going to consider them victims, regardless of where they were in the hierarchy.”

“What about Melissa Cousins?”

“She was one of them who was pretty messed up. She’s here now, but we’re letting her mother transfer her to a hospital back in Portland.”

“What’s been in the news so far?”

“We’ve caught a break on that. Thanks to that compound being so remote and True Light having stayed under the media’s radar we’ve been able to keep this quiet. We’ll be giving a press conference in the next few days after we’ve sorted everything out. You can get as much credit as you want or we can leave you out of it. Your choice.”

“Did you talk to Mike?”

“Yeah, I did. He doesn’t want any attention.”

“Neither do I. There’s a guy in Denver named John Rude. Credit him with giving you a key tip that led to you uncovering the porn ring.”

“Any truth to that?”

“Yeah, he helped me out. The guy’s dying of cancer, and for whatever reason, it’s important to him to get his name in the papers.”

The morphine had kicked in. Shannon let his eyes close. Daniels was saying something but his voice had become a soft drone. Before drifting off he realized what the police lieutenant was asking him. He wanted to know how he knew something was hidden in the speakers. He tried telling Daniels that Linda told him about it, but he realized that his lips weren’t moving. Then everything seemed to fade away.

It was hours later when he woke up again. Susan was with him. The surgeon who performed his shoulder reconstruction came in and explained to him what had been done. The doctor thought the surgery went as well as they could’ve hoped for, but they wouldn’t know how much strength and range of motion Shannon would get back until after nine to twelve months of physical therapy. Shannon drifted off again after that, holding Susan’s hand.

That evening Eli stopped by for a visit. His long face was more somber than usual and showed deep lines of worry along his forehead and around his eyes. They mostly made small talk, Eli trying to get his long body comfortable in one of the hospital chairs while Susan joined them, sitting next to Shannon on the bed while holding on to his hand as if for dear life. Shannon got a genuine smile out of Eli when he finally told him what the clue
mit vergnugen
meant.

“I told you that was more than a lucid dream,” Eli said.

“I’m beginning to think you’re right.”

“So why’d the idea of that upset you so much before?”

Shannon shrugged as much as his wounded shoulder allowed. “I think it was because when I finally had the opportunity to look for my mom and my old partner, Joe DiGrazia, I blew it. I couldn’t see past my case to what was really important to me.”

“Bill, you’ll have other opportunities. If you did it once you’ll be able to do it again.”

Shannon nodded halfheartedly. He felt Susan squeeze his hand harder. She changed the subject, asking Eli for ideas about where they could go on vacation once Shannon’s shoulder healed.

“Now that he’s got two pints of my blood in him, don’t be surprised if Bill wants to make a pilgrimage to Yankee stadium,” Eli said with a wry grin. “I’d also expect him to give up his vegetarian life style and start ordering pastrami on rye.”

“
Vai is mir
,” Shannon said.

Eli’s grin sharpened. “Where’d you pick up Yiddish?”

“No idea. Must be those two pints of your blood running through me.”

Eli hung around until Shannon’s eyelids started to droop, then he let himself be chased out by Susan but not before threatening to return the next day. The hospital had brought a cot into the room for Susan, but instead of using it she balanced herself on the edge of Shannon’s hospital bed, and with her arms and legs draped across him, settled in for the night. With Shannon it was more like a light switch being turned off. One moment he was barely conscious of Susan’s soft breath against his face, then nothing until the next morning when the nurse woke him to change the dressing on his shoulder. Susan’s face crumpled a bit when she saw what his shoulder looked like under all the bandaging, but she forced a brave smile for his sake.

Monday was a better day for him. He felt more alert, and while he had a persistent, dull throbbing ache in his shoulder, he didn’t have to resort to pumping in as much extra morphine as the other day. Keeping to his word, Eli returned later that morning bringing a wheatgrass-mint-pineapple juice for his friend. Susan left them to run some errands, and Shannon gave Eli the full story about what happened at True Light. As Eli listened, his long face grew ashen and an intense sadness overwhelmed his eyes. “What you and Susan have gone through, first with Winters, and now this. What a horror show. But it’s because of you that True Light has been shut down. All those girls who’ve been victimized there now have a chance. You did a lot of good but at some point you need to find peace for yourself.”

Shannon tried smiling. “Yeah, well, I’m going to have nine to twelve months where I’ll have no choice but to do just that.”

“You need more time than that, Bill. You’ve already suffered through enough violence for several lifetimes. I’m hoping you finally give up this PI work.”

“We’ll see,” Shannon said. “The damn thing might just be in my blood, though.”

“If that’s the case, then you should have no problem. Most of whatever blood you had you left behind at that
fercockta
cult.”

After Eli left, Maguire stopped by for a visit. His round face flushed a deep red as he recounted how he had rolled Shannon’s car to the gate so he could use it to boost himself over the iron fence surrounding True Light, then turned even redder when he talked about what he saw once he got inside the compound. “None of this has been in the news yet,” he told Shannon. “It’s like nobody fucking knows about it except us.” He hung around a little while longer, mostly talking about how good a team they made and how it would be a waste if the two of them didn’t go into business together when Shannon was up and around. He had brought several of his prized PI books with him and left them with Shannon. These included Hammett’s
Red Harvest
and two more recent books that he claimed were fucking amazing and brought the PI novel up to a whole new level:
The Guards
by Ken Bruen and
The Long-Legged Fly
by James Sallis. Shannon told Maguire he’d read them and get back to him with his thoughts.