Biker (33 page)

“Hold me, Pratt,” she croaked.

Pratt took her head on his lap, bent over her so that his lips brushed her hair.

“Hang on baby,” he whispered. “Help is on the way.”

“Don't shit a shitter, Pratt. Is he dead?”

Pratt glanced over at Ginger and Eric holding one another on the floor.

“Ginger's son showed up and took care of Moon.”

“Eric is here?” A bubble of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth. She smelled of mimosa.

Pratt nodded. “Don't speak. Save your breath.”

“I'm cold, Pratt.”

He looked around. The blanket from the sofa. “Wait here.”

Pratt got up and quickly fetched the blanket. When he returned Cass was dead. Pratt covered her with the blanket and knelt next to her.

“Fuck me,” he said to himself.

Pratt was grateful for the dark. It hid his tears.

The hail stopped. The rain stopped. Pratt found a flashlight behind the bar. He flicked it on the slumped figure of Munz, whose head lay at an odd angle to his body. Moon had broken his neck.

Stuart lay where he had fallen. That left only Foucalt unaccounted for. Pratt had no doubt they'd find his body in the woods.

Pratt knelt next to Ginger. He looked at the pathetic creature she held in her arms. Eric's mouth was streaked with gore.

“You remember me? Josh Pratt?”

Eric spoke in a lugubrious honk, “
I remember
…”

“You tracked Moon?”

“
I followed his scent
.”

A brief image appeared in Pratt's head of an old pick-up truck rolling across the prairie, an explosion of fury in the driver's seat.

In cars on highways? Through the air?

Pratt helped Ginger to her feet and up two sets of stairs to her bedroom. Although she felt too light it wasn't easy. He had to support most of her body weight. The boy couldn't help—there wasn't room. He followed, snuffling. They put her to bed and she collapsed immediately into a deep sleep.

“Come on,” Pratt said. “You must be hungry.”

He could hear the boy's stomach growling as he went back down the stairs and into the kitchen. The sudden harsh glare of fluorescents pinned them as power was restored. Eric covered his eyes and moaned. Pratt skipped to the wall and turned off the lights. The clock on the microwave blinked 12:00 over and over. The refrigerator hummed.

Pratt found some baked ham in a Tupperware container, put it on a plate, got out a fork and knife and set it on the island counter. “Go ahead. Dig in.”

Eric seized the piece of meat in both hands and ate it like an apple with a growling, slurping sound, crouching over his food and staring defiantly at Pratt beneath his shaggy mane. The sky began to clear. A slice of the moon poked through. Pratt leaned on one side of the counter studying the dog boy. The fur sprouting from his face and arms obscured the human being, making him a fuzzy, shambling horror.

The kind of thing you'd pay a buck to see at a carnival.

Pratt pulled out his cell phone. Still no service. He tried the Munzes' land line. Dead. If he wasn't able to get through in the next fifteen minutes he'd pack everybody into the truck and drive into Janesville.

Eric looked around hungrily. Pratt gave him an apple and a banana. After starting on the apple the boy set it down. His teeth couldn't handle it. He finished the banana.

Three sharp raps on the front door. Pratt looked through the peephole. It was a fresh deputy. Pratt opened the door.

The deputy's nameplate said Hopkins. “You folks okay in here? Storm toppled an oak right across the driveway. I had to walk.”

“Then you know about the shoot-out at the end of the driveway.”

“Damn shame. Ed Foster was a good man. Leaves a wife and child.”

“I'm sorry. I'll pray for him.” He heard sirens in the distance. Pratt glanced at the Flintstone car. “You didn't look in the car?”

The deputy followed Pratt's glance. “No. Why?”

“Moon killed the three Flintstone ops, Nate Munz and Cass Rubio. Mrs. Munz is alive. The boy, Eric, is here. He killed Moon. Two other Bonnets got through. Your deputy killed one and I got the other.”

Pratt did the math. Seven bodies. Deputy Foster made eight.

Hopkins' mouth hung open. His shoulders stiffened and he touched the radio at his shoulder. He went down the steps to the black Chrysler and stared in the window. He opened the passenger side door and looked. He quietly but firmly shut the door and, eyes on Pratt, began to fiddle with the transceiver at his shoulder. He spoke quietly and urgently for several minutes before approaching Pratt.

He looked hard at Pratt. “You look like hell. Show me the bodies.”

“Officer, the boy Eric is a wild child and may have been taught to hate policemen. You won't get anything out of him. He barely speaks English.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

Pratt led the way inside and down the basement stair. Ginger had taken Eric into the bedroom. Hopkins shone his flashlight first on Stuart, arrow protruding from his chest, then on Moon, who lay twisted and bleeding, torso black in the flood of blood Eric had unleashed. Falling back on routine, the deputy checked Stuart and Moon for a pulse, busied himself with notations on a tablet.

Pratt withdrew the blinds, admitting morning light. He rapped softly on the bedroom door.

“Yes?” Ginger said in a surprisingly firm voice.

“Ginger, it's Pratt. There's a deputy out here wants to see you and the boy.”

“I don't think that's a very good idea right now. Eric is very upset.”

Pratt looked to the deputy.

“Ma'am,” Hopkins said, “I'm just going to stick my head in for a minute to satisfy myself you're not in any danger. As long as everyone remains where they are there won't be a problem.”

“Okay,” Ginger said after a minute.

The deputy stuck his head in the door.

CHAPTER 67

A beautiful summer day bloomed with the arrival of four police cars, an ambulance and a fire truck. Firefighters used chainsaws to remove the fallen oak blocking the road.

The Lake County Sheriff's Department questioned Pratt for two hours while crime scene techs photographed the bodies. They recovered the Ruger to match it against holes in the wall and in Munz. They had a hard time accepting that Munz was already dead when Pratt shot him but they were just being cops. Deputies found tufts of fur clinging to the broken glass in the second-floor bedroom invaded by a falling tree. Eric had come into the house through the second-story window.

Police were dubious when Pratt explained that Eric had tracked his father across the Midwest.

“Tell me how, Pratt,” Lake County Sheriff Edmund Little said, seated across from him in the dining room, recorder and notepad on the table. He wore beige khakis and a brown tie with a pig tack. His balding head and mild features, burnt by the sun, gave him the appearance of a toasted acorn. “Tell me how a feral boy even survives while crossing twelve hundred miles on foot without being seen.”

“Sir, I have no idea. It's no more incredible than Moon taking out three Flintstone ops in a storm. You need a child psychologist. Maybe an expert in paranormal activity.”

Pratt fished in his wallet and found Morgan Teitlebaum's card. The sheriff took it, pausing to read her credentials.

“May I have this?”

“Sure.”

Calloway appeared in the door, nodded at Little and winked at Pratt.

DEA agent Barlin arrived at eight-fifteen and went immediately to view Moon's corpse. The coroner had already sealed Moon's hands in plastic but there was no mistaking the shaved skull or the tats. Pratt couldn't resist looking. In daylight and death Moon seemed diminished. It was hard to imagine he had wreaked such damage.

A plump female deputy with a master's in psychology gently questioned Ginger, who held and stroked her boy on the bed in the guest bedroom.

By the time Morgan Teitlebaum arrived, two television crews were camped out on Makepeace Road offering the first tentative reports against a backdrop of massed police vehicles and law enforcement officers. Someone switched on the flat-screen TV in the den. News reporters characterized the crime as a “mass slaying” by a “disgruntled former boyfriend of Mrs. Munz who may have been active in a methamphetamine ring.”

Teitlebaum spoke with police for a half hour before introducing herself to Ginger and Eric. Taking the deputy's place, she closed the door behind her. Teitlebaum remained in the room with mother and child for two hours.

The police finished questioning Pratt at eleven forty-five. He was free to go but chose to remain until Teitlebaum came out of the room. Agent Barlin found Pratt on the back deck helping to clear storm debris.

“The DEA is offering a reward for information leading to the breakup of a major drug ring.”

“That would be the boy's,” Pratt said, using pruning shears he'd found in the garage. “How's Mrs. Munz?”

“She left in the ambulance a half hour ago. She wanted to stay but she's having some kind of flare-up that requires hospitalization.”

“And the kid?”

“Still in the bedroom with the shrink. Jesus Christ, Pratt. Every time I see you, you look worse than the last. Maybe you ought to go to the emergency room.”

“I just want to sleep.”

“You're free to go as far as I'm concerned. You have my card? You need me for anything just give me a holler.”

“Thanks, Barlin.”

“Stay out of trouble.”

Pratt threaded his way out front, where he found Calloway talking to the Lake County sheriff. Little shook Pratt's hand.

“Son, you done a good thing, busting up this meth ring. Very sorry for your loss.”

For a moment Pratt went blank.

Cass
.

They were talking about Cass. Numbly, he looked around. Cass' truck remained at the curb. He couldn't just take it. He looked at Calloway.

“I need a ride.”

Calloway nodded. “Let's go.”

Pratt slid in the passenger side of the city's Crown Vic. By the time they reached the end of the driveway he was asleep.

CHAPTER 68

Calloway poked Pratt on the leg. “Wake up.”

Pratt blinked himself awake and saw that they were in his driveway. He opened the car door and swung his legs out.

“Mind if I come in with you, see what Moon might have left?”

Pratt pulled himself to his feet with the door frame. “No. Come on.”

Pratt fumbled with his keys. The nap had only served to focus his exhaustion. He got the door open and stumbled into the living room. He collapsed on the sofa. Calloway followed him into the house and went room to room. When he had finished the first floor he went down the stairs to the basement.

Before Pratt went to prison and found Christ, he never would have permitted a cop anywhere near his home, warrant or not. But Calloway was different. Calloway had showed respect. And Pratt had nothing to hide. The only evidence of sin was a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey in the kitchen cabinet and a roach Cass had left in his bedroom.

Pratt's cell phone sang. He reached into his pocket, didn't recognize the number, and turned it off.

Calloway was a long time in the basement.

Pratt was sound asleep on the leather sofa when Calloway came back upstairs. Calloway quietly let himself out and shut the door.

Steady knocking woke Pratt. He checked his watch. It was four o'clock. He sat up, parted the blinds and looked out the window. There was a WMAD news van at the curb. A familiar-looking news babe and her cameraman were at the door.

Pratt opened the door.

“Mr. Pratt, I'm Sonia Tyrell from WMAD News. What part did you play in the death of alleged drug kingpin Eugene Moon?”

The camera guy replaced his head with the camera. Pratt flipped them the bird and shut the door. The pounding resumed.

With an inarticulate noise of animal desperation, Pratt headed for the basement. The spare bedroom in the basement was in the rear of the house. When he shut the door he couldn't hear the knocking. Pratt flopped down on the bed and pulled the pillow over his head.

Now the rush of blood through his head kept him awake. He'd arrived at that stage of exhaustion where he was jazzed by everything that had happened. Too much nervous energy to sleep. He considered talking to the news crew, but they'd get it all wrong anyway and he didn't trust himself not to play the fool.

He didn't know what to do. It was the type of situation that cried out for Bloom. Pratt was drained, running on fumes. The reserve tank was empty.

He flipped the TV on with the remote. The five o'clock news was on in five minutes. Pratt went into the bathroom, relieved himself and splashed cold water on his face. Back in the bedroom he flopped on the bed.

The storm led the news. Tornado touched down in northern Illinois, two people missing and feared dead. The Munz massacre was next. A helicopter view showed myriad police and emergency vehicles jamming the broad turn-around in front of the house.

The voiceover sounded like the info babe at the front door. “The Lake County sheriff says alleged drug kingpin Eugene Moon used the cover of the storm to attack this residence. Five people are dead, including the couple who lived here and three Flintstone Security agents who had been hired to protect them. Sheriff Edmund Little will hold a news conference tomorrow at nine a.m. to discuss the killings. In the meantime they are withholding the names of the dead pending notification of next of kin.”

The view changed to the front of Pratt's house. “According to Sheriff Little, private investigator Joshua Pratt triggered the series of events culminating in the horrific tragedy. The couple who lived at the murder house allegedly hired Pratt to locate a missing child.

“Earlier today we tried to speak to Mr. Pratt …”

Pratt watched himself flipping the bird on TV. A black dot covered his finger. Pratt turned it off.