City of Heretics (22 page)

He waited.

It was a quiet street. For over half an hour, not a single car came through. Some lights came on in the upstairs window of a house on the left side, then went off again. In the house next to it, he saw the shadows of people moving around, but they too disappeared after a moment.

He fell asleep, but woke up when a car rumbled past, its headlights cutting a slice out of the darkness. Heavy bass thumped dully from inside the car, loud enough that Crowe could hear the dashboard rattling. It was Garay.

The Grand Prix pulled into the driveway of one of the ranch houses, about halfway up the street. The porch light came on. Garay cut the engine and the rumbling bass stopped. He got out of the car and trotted up to the house.

Crowe could see another figure in the doorway, waiting for him—his mother. Faith’s mother. Crowe wondered if they knew about her already. How could they not?  If it was already on the news, the cops were obligated to tell the immediate family first. But he didn’t know if they’d released the victim’s name yet. Should’ve been listening to the radio, Crowe thought. Again, he was going into something unprepared.

One thing was for certain: if they knew Faith was dead, then they knew Crowe was the one the cops liked for it.

Another thing he was certain of: Garay knew full-well Crowe didn’t kill his sister. He had the tattoo, the mark of the Heretics. He knew.

When the porch light went off Crowe got out of the car and walked to the house. His head spun. His back and shoulder screamed for mercy. He ignored it all and kept walking.

He came up the driveway, half-expecting the porch light to come on, but it didn’t. He tried the knob. The door was unlocked. Typical Germantown behavior, forgetting to lock the goddamn door.

He wondered if Garay’s crew knew he lived in a nice house on a nice street, away from the squalor and degradation of Memphis. He wondered how they’d feel about it, if they knew. It couldn’t be good for his cred, living in a neighborhood where you didn’t even bother to lock the door.

The foyer was dark, the only light coming from the far end of the hall. Crowe closed the door gently behind him and, without moving, gave it a quick look-over. There was a sitting room immediately to the right, filled with the kind of over-stuffed furniture that no one sits in and a walnut Grandfather clock that ticked away the seconds of life with all the compassion of a killer. To the left, a carpeted staircase leading up to the second floor.

Straight ahead, where the light came from, shadows moved and someone sobbed very softly. Garay was saying, “It’s okay, Mama. It’s gonna be okay,” and the sobbing broke off a little, just long enough for her to say, “Oh my baby, my poor baby,” before starting up again.

There was a door just under the staircase. Crowe moved quietly along the carpeted foyer, opened it. Linoleum-lined steps led down to a pitch-black basement. He stepped down onto the first stair and closed the door behind him, leaving it open only a fraction of an inch.

“Why?” the woman cried. “Why would somebody kill my baby?  She never hurt no one.”

“I don’t know, Mama. I don’t know.”

“Oh God, oh God, my poor baby girl…”

“Shh, shh, Mama. I came as soon as I heard. I’m here now, Mama.”

It felt strange, listening in on their grief, muted through the basement door. It made Faith’s death more real, somehow. More real even than seeing her mutilated corpse. Crowe don’t know why. Something like regret surged through him, and his body sagged a little.

Faith
, he thought.
I’m sorry
.

He pushed it out.

It went on for a few more minutes, the old woman’s crying getting softer and softer, and Garay doing his best to sooth her. Finally, Garay, “C’mon, Mama, let me help you upstairs. You gotta get some rest, okay?”

“No, I don’t wanna sleep, I can’t sleep.”

“You need to, Mama, okay?  Let me help you upstairs.”

Crowe heard them shifting, standing up, and then moving toward the foyer. They passed the basement door, inches away, the woman stifling now. Her feet shuffled on the carpet.

The stairs groaned above as they went up, and then Crowe couldn’t hear anything.

He waited. About ten minutes went by.

The stairs groaned again, softer this time, and he heard Garay pause at the foot of the stairs. He sighed, muttered to himself, “Christ. Jesus Christ.”  The front door knob rattled briefly as he locked the door, and then he was moving through the foyer again, back toward the rear of the house. Peeking through the crack in the door, Crowe saw his shadow on the wall. He pulled the gun out of his waistband.

He opened the door just as Garary was passing it and placed the barrel against his temple.

“Not a sound,” Crowe said. “Unless you want to involve your mama in this.”

To his credit, Garay didn’t jump or even flinch. He went stock-still, and, without even looking at him, said, “Crowe. You sonofabitch. You come into my goddamn home, you sonofabitch—“

“Shut up,” Crowe said. Then, “Downstairs.”

He flipped on the light switch and got behind Garay as the kid led the way down the steps. He was wearing a Chicago Bulls jersey, faded loose-fitting jeans and a pair of well-tended Timberland’s. He kept his hands out, where Crowe could see them, doing the drill like an old pro.

The basement was partially finished, with an old well-used sofa facing a 52-inch flat screen and a fairly impressive sound system. There was a mini-fridge next to the sofa. On the far side of the basement was a workbench with all the tools carefully displayed on the wall. There was a length of heavy twine next to a box of nails.

They stopped in the middle of the basement and Garay said, “Well?”

Crowe motioned to a wooden chair near the workbench. “Sit down”

He did, looked up at Crowe with a pretty good impression of impatience. He said, “My sister died today. But you probably already know that.”

“Reach over and grab that twine on the workbench.”

Garay looked at it, and then back at Crowe. He actually smiled. “You gonna tie me up?  How you plan on doing that?  You’ll have to lower your gun, and the second you do that, motherfucker, I’m gonna be all over you.”

“That’s a good point, Garay,” Crowe said. As a solution, he took a step toward him and whacked the gun hard against his temple.

Garay slumped out of the chair, out cold.

He was awake five minutes later. By then, Crowe had him back in the chair, tied securely with twine, his wrists tied to arms of the chair and his ankles bound tight. After he was tied, Crowe pulled up his jersey to get a look at the tattoo on his abs; it was still there, of course. A simple black cross, topped with a slightly misshapen blood-red heart.

Securing Garay took a lot out of him, and Crowe was still breathing hard and fighting dizziness when Garay came to.

It took Garay a few moments to get his head together. Crowe gave him the time, saying nothing, until finally Garay peered up at him with bleary eyes and said, “You… you sonofabitch… if I get outta this I’m gonna kill you, I’m gonna rip your goddamn lungs out.”

Crowe put away the gun and found a soiled cloth and a solid hammer on the workbench. Sears & Roebuck. The right tools for the job. He said, “Here’s how this is gonna work, Garay. I’m not gonna get cute about it, and I’m not gonna engage in any banter with you. Understand?  It’s gonna be simple.”

“You motherfucker—“

“I’m gonna ask you questions, very specific questions, and for every answer you give that makes me unhappy I’m going to smash one of your fingers with this hammer. Is that clear enough?”

Garay eyed the hammer, and finally some of the fear he’d been feeling began to show on this face. But he still had some bravado left. He said, “I ain’t scared of you, Crowe.”

“Not yet,” Crowe said.

This was Crowe’s element, hurting people. It was what the Old Man had paid him for, back in the day, and he was good at it. It was simply a matter of shifting perspective, shoving all the human aspects of mercy and compassion to another part of the brain and just going on machine-mode. He didn’t get any pleasure from it, but he also didn’t suffer remorse. It helped, too, that Crowe was exhausted beyond caring.

Garay clenched his fists, hiding his fingers, and it was all there in his eyes now, the knowledge that bad things were about to happen to him and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Crowe said, “Keep your fingers out. If you don’t, I’ll just have to smash your hands first and believe me, that’ll make things much worse.”

Garay just looked at him, sweating now, teeth clenched and something like the shakes coming over him. He kept his fists tight.

In a quiet voice, he said, “You… you ain’t any different than them. You think you’re better?  You ain’t any different than them.”

“Okay,” Crowe said, and shoved the cloth in his mouth.

He smashed the hammer down on Garay’s left hand.

Garay screamed against the cloth and his body spasmed, straining against the ropes. His fingers shot out like ten exclamation points against the chair arm.

Crowe brought the hammer down again, crunching his left little finger to a pulp.

Five minutes later, Garay had told him everything Crowe needed to know, and it had only cost him his one hand and the pinky finger attached to it.

Crowe left him still tied to the chair, barely conscious and muttering to himself. Upstairs, he half-expected to see the mother, since even with the cloth in his mouth Garay hadn’t been exactly quiet. But she was nowhere around. Grief must have sent right into the deepest of sleep; that’s how some people deal with it.

Garay had some interesting things to say, things about the Society of Christ the Fisher.

“It’s like… like I told you,” Garay had said. “Vitower is old news. Bad Luck, they… they’re the New Breed. Welling knew it. And it made a… it made a split in the Society.”

“What kind of split?”

“Some of the others in the Society, they didn’t wanna do deals with Bad Luck. But Welling trumped ‘em… he wanted to get Vitower outta the picture. Vitower knew it. I don’t know how, but he knew it. That’s… that’s why your man Vitower wants to kill Murke… it ain’t got nothing to do with his dead bitch. Well… not much, anyway.”

“I don’t understand.  Talk sense, Garay.”

Garay was crying, looking at his mangled little finger and his flattened hand. “’Cuz, man… ‘cuz Murke would be on Welling’s side. And now… now that Murke is out, the others in the Society, they’ll be, what, over-ruled.”

So Bad Luck, Inc, were the Society’s new first line of defense in the city now, doing the dirty work that didn’t relate specifically to the Society’s agenda. They’d been ordained. They’d been taken into the fold and given tattoos and the Word.

Vitower and his wife and certain select others—like Dallas—had been welcomed into the Society. And then Murke killed Jezzie: the beginning of the end for Vitower’s future with them. If he’d been the kind of guy to shrug off his wife’s murder, things might have taken a different turn. And Vitower probably knew that. And yet… and yet he’d decided his course, and to hell with the repercussions.

Crowe almost admired him for it.

Head spinning, Crowe left Garay’s house and the cold night air didn’t help clear things.

He was beyond exhausted. He remembered climbing behind the wheel, popping another three pain killers. The stitches between his shoulder blades had busted again and blood ran warm down his back. His right shoulder ached fiercely from exertion, and even the scar on his face felt as if it had been lit afire.

Somehow, some time later, he was at the motel, pulling up in the space in front of the room. He got out of the car and nearly stumbled on the walkway, and was dimly aware that it wasn’t just the wounds; he was dangerously close to putting himself into oblivion with the pills.

It seemed like a minor consideration, though. In fact, it almost seemed like a goddamn good idea.

He managed to unlock the door after what seemed like a very long time, nearly fell inside, and slammed it shut behind him. Sleep, he thought. Some sleep, some oblivion, and he would be fine.

He leaned against the door, eyes closed, trying to will the strength in his legs just to make it to the bed.

When the bedside light snapped on and he heard the voice, he wasn’t even surprised.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” the voice said.

Crowe opened his eyes and saw Detective Wills, reclined on the bed, his gun leveled at him.

“Try to resist arrest, Crowe,” he said. “Try it. ‘cause there’s nothing I’d rather do than shoot you down right here and now.”

There was a bottle of whisky on the nightstand, and the bedside lamp shined through it and showed it nearly empty. The room reeked of it. Crowe willed the fuzziness in his head away, off to the corners, and tried to focus. Wills smiled at him and crossed his legs and wiggled his toes in his socks.

Crowe said, “Whisky and firearms don’t mix.”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “When I’m drinking whisky, that’s when I like my gun the best.”

“Probably,” Crowe said, “that’s the only time you can actually feel good about it. Right?”

Wills frowned briefly before understanding dawned and then a slow grin spread across his face. “Oh, right. That was Freudian, yeah?  Ain’t you the clever boy?”

His coat was draped over the little writing desk by the front door, and his shoes were arranged nicely at the foot of the bed. Crowe sighed and leaned back against the door, feeling all his muscles screaming. “Are you gonna shoot me, Wills?  Or arrest me, or what?  Because whatever it is, let’s get on with it.”

Wills sat up, stretching, and grabbed the bottle. With the gun still trained on Crowe, he took a long pull of whisky, finishing all but a nip of it. Burping, he tossed the bottle over his shoulder, where it bounced on the bed and rolled off to thump on the floor.

“Truth is,” he said, “I haven’t really decided yet, Crowe.”

“Well, then. You care if I sit down?”

He motioned to the floor. “Go right ahead. Right there on the carpet, in front of the door.”