Of Daughter and Demon (7 page)

“Mr. Mitchell, we’ll need to re-schedule our
appointment, yes?”

“Yeah, sorry about that. You weren’t waiting
around too long before someone told you I couldn’t be there, were
you?”

“Not at all, I never came down. I hope your
other business went well.”

“You never showed up down here?”

“Not once I knew you wouldn’t be there, no.
Was I supposed to?”

“How uh, how’d you know I wasn’t gonna be
here?”

“Mr. Mitchell--”

“Call me Harry.”

“--we need to talk in person, we have things
to tell each other that shouldn’t be said over the phone,
correct?”

But he couldn’t know about Bradley, could
he?

“Can we meet beneath the Steel Street Bridge
at noon, Mr. Mitchell?”

“It’s Harry. Which side of the river?”

“West side, same side you’re on now.
Agreed?”

“Sure, now can you--”

“And bring the picture you took last night,
Harry.”

The line went dead and I broke in to a cold
sweat, wondering how he knew. I couldn’t have been followed down
there; no one can follow me, not unless I’m letting them. There
weren’t even any windows in that puke’s place, now that I think
about it. This ain’t making much sense to me, Alice. Then I gotta
man--a puke--says he’s a Holder for some guy that’s making him do
some of what he done to you. Said it was a monster, and he’s right.
They’re all monsters. I let the boogie-man get you, Alice. All them
times you was scared in your room and I told you there was nothing
to worry about, there was no monsters in your closet or under your
bed, I was wrong, I lied, and I’m sorry.

I need more time to think all this out, but I
ain’t got time. I gotta go to your funeral this morning. I drive up
town to that place Joe works, to Fisher and Sons, and this real
nice young guy named Nate helped me out, said Joe called them on
Friday and he knew everything. I know I was supposed to come and
pick out a casket for you a couple days ago, and drop off this
photo album, and I can tell this guy’s brother is a little uptight
about it, but who can blame him? I shoulda done this already, but I
guess I wasn’t ready until now. Again, God, thank you for a friend
like Joe, who took care of everything else.

I walk through this large showroom like a man
looking for a used car he don’t want. I remember picking out a crib
for you, Alice, and me an your Ma, we’d go to these baby-stores and
get all your clothes, your little tiny socks and everything,
diapers and toys, everything all soft yellows and pinks, it seems
like only yesterday, and now I’m looking at these shiny black
boxes, and picking one out, it’s so small, and your little body
won’t even be in it. The police hafta get all the evidence they can
off you, and that’ll take a couple days. Then, if there’s anything
like fingerprints or, ah Jesus, if there’s...teeth marks, or
anything, they’ll hafta keep you in a freezer until they find the
bastard what done this, so they can prove it was them and put ‘em
in jail. That’s if they find ‘em before me. I’ll have my own trial,
and never mind State’s Exhibit A or none of that.

After I tell ‘em which casket I want, I
excuse myself to the bathroom where I cry hard and silent, screwing
my fist against my mouth to stifle the sounds that ain’t new to a
place like this. They have this little waiting room and I sit in
there and do just that, I wait, the service don’t start for another
hour or so. Joe showed up, and so did a few other people from the
force.

“Bobby wanted me to tell you how sorry he is
he couldn’t make it,” Joe says, squeezing my shoulder. “The
roster’s been kinda spotty lately he said, no back-up...”

“It’s alright, Joe. Better he be out there
helping the living instead a bein’ in here with the dead, right?”
Still, it woulda been nice if he coulda shown up, but I know he
means well, and Bobby has always been really bad at funerals.

But where the hell is Angie?

The time comes, they get us from the waiting
room and I’m numb. The photo album with all those pitchers of you
is set up on a little table just inside the door, there are flowers
everywhere and I’m not sure how she found out but this lady that
used to babysit you is here, and so is Fifties Chick, even though I
never mentioned the funeral to her. The service was beautiful,
Alice, at least I think it was, there were some songs, some
prayers, some people said some stuff, and then Joe took me by the
arm and helped me stand up. I lifted your little empty coffin and
carried it to the hearse they had waiting, and the procession of
cars was small. That don’t really matter to me, Alice, what bugs me
most is your Ma, she ain’t here. No, come on, you gotta remember
how hard this has been on her. She’ll be out at the cemetery. Of
course she will. You gotta know how much she loved you, Alice. I
remember how hard she cried when we found out she was pregnant, she
was so happy; I wish you coulda seen her too. And the way she held
you after you was born, she held like you were an egg, you were so
tiny and fragile. What? Ah, c’mon, Alice, don’t think that. I know
you’re sad she ain’t here, but--yes, of course I remember the time
she hit you. No, it was just that once. And well, I guess she
dropped you that one time too, but that was an accident, and you
wasn’t even hurt, remember? Sure it scared you, but you was two
then and you never even hit your head, and I think two year olds
are just about made a rubber, Alice, they hafta be. If a little kid
had normal bones nobody would ever even make it to kindergarten.
How many times did you fall when you were trying to learn to walk?
How many times did you try an’ walk under the table and smack
yourself on the head or crash your bike, or remember when you hit
that tree in the sled? That woulda broken my back but you just
hopped right up, brushed off the snow, and ran right back up that
hill, didn’t you? You always was a tough little kid. But you can’t
hold that one time she hit you against her, Alice, not forever. She
had a hard day, and she was drunk, and I know that ain’t no excuse,
I used it as grounds as divorce, didn’t I? And I’m sorry about that
too, Alice. I figured I was gonna get full custody but your Ma’s
lawyers brought up that assault charge I did a little time for,
even though it was self-defense, and they kept going on and on
about how dangerous it was for me to be a cop cuz what if I got
shot or something and who would take care of you? If I’d known that
damn judge was gonna give you over to your Ma, I woulda stayed
married to her forever. It’s my fault what happened to you, Alice.
I shoulda been there. All three of us were together that day, on
your birthday, when that picture I got on my bedside table was
taken, but I shoulda been there that night, I know I coulda stopped
all this from ever happening. No--no, Alice! Don’t say that! For
the last time, it wasn’t your Ma’s fault, and I don’t want to hear
you sayin’ that again. She loved you, and she should be here any
minute to tell you goodbye.

But she ain’t, Angie ain’t nowhere. There are
more prayers and I put two big handfuls of soft black dirt on the
coffin you might never see the inside of. After they lower it into
the ground, the people leave me alone one-by-one, standing there,
looking down into that black and endless hole in the earth and in
my heart. I look up, and on a hill a ways away is a tall man
dressed in black. I look down, then back up, and he’s gone, and I’m
all alone, except for the guy standing back a ways, hoping I won’t
see the shovel lying on the ground and flip out or something, the
guy waiting to fill in this hole.

It rains, the sky above the city the same
color as your tombstone and right now there’s nothing good in the
world, not for me there’s not.

But I gotta get down to that bridge in
another fifty minutes or so, probably take me twenty to drive down
there so I gotta leave in thirty. I stop at home and eat a lunch I
don’t want and can’t taste. I change outta my suit and grab my Mack
and that pitcher I took of Bradley. I feel anxious, nervous like I
ain’t been since the war, when you just knew something terrible was
gonna happen, it was a fact a everyday life, but you just didn’t
know when or where, or who’ll be left standing when the smoke
cleared and the body parts finished landing. I feel like that, I
feel trapped in a way, and I know what happens when I get like
this, wasn’t I in the can once for it? Almost kept me off the
force, even got me suspended once, unofficially, I mean. This was
right after you got taken away, Alice, I felt trapped, kinda how I
do now, and I did some things I shouldn’t a done to a guy that
nevertheless deserved it, but that didn’t make it right. Sure, I
can bust some pukes head now and not feel too bad about it, but I
was a
cop
back then, and cops just ain’t supposed to do
those kinds a things, cops are for order and peace and protecting
people, and sure there’s a lot that don’t go that way, but I always
tried, and Bobby Johns did back then too, and Sam Molina before he
gacked himself, and Lubbock, he was good, but he retired.

Then a calm falls over me, and I know it’s
you up there, isn’t it, Alice? You’re helping your old man like you
always did. Every time I was upset before you was taken away, I
just thought of you, your little smile, your little blue eyes, and
your angel face, and it made everything better, easier to deal
with, because I knew at the end a the day I was making the city a
better place for you to grow up in, and that helped a lot.

You came through again, thank you, I needed
that. I can’t tell you much I needed that, but you know, up there
lookin’ down, you know everything, don’t you? I hope not, there’s
things I ain’t proud of, Alice, some of ‘em happened in just the
last couple days, but if you can see them things, try and look past
‘em, try and remember I was a different person before I fell in
love with your Ma and before you was born, try and remember that
every day since I found out you was comin’ I loved you more and
more, and that didn’t change just cuz you was taken away by some
puke, and it don’t change now that I know for sure I’ll never see
you again, not in this life I won’t.

But maybe if there’s someone up there, maybe
you could put a word in, tell them your old man ain’t so bad, and
maybe no matter what becomes of me after I die, maybe they’ll let
me hold you in my arms just one more time before they send me to
burn in hell or to toil away my sins in purgatory. I love you,
little Alice. Your Daddy loves you, and he always will.

I got in the car and drove to the bridge. Any
other day you’d have an assortment of punk kids on skateboards that
are mostly good, don’t hurt nothing but maybe some city property
now and then. If they weren’t there, you could bet they left
because the crack-heads hung around and vibed ‘em out, or maybe the
junkies or the crazy homeless people, or the pukes. This time of
day is a little early for ‘em, true, but you can always find a puke
if you know where to look. But today there ain’t nobody but one
guy, dressed up like Humphrey Bogart in that Hammett story they
made a movie outta, right down to the hat and the swagger, and I
know it’s my guy.

I park, and walk across the grassy area where
on a normal day some smelly hippy bastards might be kicking a
beanbag around or smokin’ dope or whatever, then I cross the black
tar bicycle path and meet him by the wrought iron, four-foot high
fence that lets you look at the river without taking a header into
it.

“Mr. Dulouz?”

He stuck his hand out. “You’ve invited me to
call you Harry, Mr. Mitchell, so why don’t you call me Cain. You
brought the photograph?”

“Sure. His eye’s a little popped outta the
socket though.” I handed him the grisly Polaroid and don’t know
what I expected, maybe for him to flinch, but he just looked it
over, nodded, and took a small silver flask outta some inner pocket
of his overcoat and took a quick little nip from it. The flask
disappeared again and he looked me in the eyes.

“So you met Bradley,” he said.

“You gonna tell me how you know that?”

“I went to see him before I called you, and I
found someone burnt his building down. It just seemed like
something you’d do, Harry, and with good reason. Between the two of
us, I hope he died hard.”

“He did. Damn hard. But not hard enough.”

Dulouz nodded, took a nip from his flask. “I
assume you made him talk first. Get anything out of him?”

“Bunch of nonsense, seemed like. Something
about he’s a Holder, sounds like some kinda cult thing. That
it?”

“You’re closer than you might think. Anything
else?”

“He tole me there are others like him, and a
guy named Father Valentine that’s been helping out the puke that
done what he did to my little Alice.”

He took a long look at me, like a man
deciding something.

“I don’t have time to tell you everything,
Harry. The one responsible for her death, ultimately responsible, I
mean, the one who physically, well...”

“Killed her.”

“Yes. He’s not a
puke
, not in the
sense you use it. In fact, he’s not really a man. He’s a
demon.”

“See, that’s what that Bradley was sayin’,
and I know, I don’t see how there’s people like that, how they get
like that--

“Mr. Gustofsen was being quite literal,
Harry, and so am I.” Dulouz took another drink. “It wasn’t a human
that killed your daughter, it was a
demon
. He’s done it
before, thousands of times around the world. Not this same one, of
course, but ones like him. This one,
our
demon, so to speak,
has killed about ten children in the last twelve years, your
daughter Alice being the most recent.”

And how do I play this, Alice? He can’t be
serious, right? Maybe he’s in on it, some real sick bastard trying
to fuck me around--

“I assure you I’m not trying to ‘fuck you
around’, Mr. Mitchell, I’m quite serious.”