Scarecrow Gods (31 page)

“Come on, Boy. Snap out of it.”

Snap out of it sure. Snap, like Beaver had done to the dog’s neck. Or snap, like the boy’s did to someone’s neck so they could borrow the head for a quick game of catch.

“Ahh, damn it all to hell. I don’t care. Do you hear me, boy? I just don’t care. You go on ahead and tell everyone you wanna tell. What are you gonna say? You saw a bird write in the dirt? Where’s your proof? How are you gonna make people believe you saw that? And even if you do, what does it prove?”

The tea was getting cold now. His legs were beginning to ache from being pulled up so tightly to his chest. Maxom was right. Who would care?

“I could’ve told the police who it was that beat up your little friend, but then how‘d they believe me?” he continued. “They’d ask me questions like,
And where exactly were you when you witnessed this attack, Mr. Phinxs?
And I’d answer,
about seventy feet straight up, Officer
. Then, after they’d laughed for a spell, I’d get an all expense paid seventy-two hour weekend in the loony bin over Moccasin Bend way. No thank you.”

Danny turned and stared at Maxom. “You know who beat up Bergen?”

“Of course I know. How do you think I knew to save him? I know he got beaten just like I know it was you and the other boys what bushwhacked the kid in the Mustang in the first place. Shit, boy. I’ve seen it all. I can even tell you where you keep your
Playboys
out in the woods. I know which bush that Sammy Snyder jacks off in as he’s staring in the next door neighbor’s window every Sunday morning when she’s getting ready to go to church. I know a man who beats his wife then punishes himself by burning holes in his chest with a cigar. I know a woman who buys fluffy white rabbits from the pet store, grills them on her back patio, and feeds them to her grandchildren when they come over. I know what goes on in this world, boy. I have to. It’s what I do. It’s how I live.” Maxom crossed his arms and sat back.

“I had no idea,” said Danny, his eyes tracing the length of the prosthetics.

“You weren’t expected to.”

“Who did it?” asked Danny, his voice much calmer than he would’ve believed.

“You gonna relax now?”

“I’ll try.”

“If I tell you, you have to promise to listen to me. You have to promise me that you’ll give me a chance. And after you do, I’ve got some ideas about how we can get back at him. Make him pay for it like the police could never do.”

Danny stared for several long moments. He lowered his legs and scooted forward on the sofa cushion so his feet touched the floor. The earlier fear he’d felt was like a first grade memory. He’d been terrified—having animals speak and do human-type things in books and movies was all fine and dandy, but Danny didn’t like seeing one in the flesh.

“Deal,” he said shakily.

Maxom looked relieved. “Thank God.” He leaned forward and rubbed a large scar above his left ear with the working end of his hook, eyeing Danny in such a way that he could tell that their relationship had changed. No longer was it grown-up and child. They were more than that. Now they were partners, maybe even co-conspirators.

* * *

Paradise Valley, Arizona

The maroon conversion van screamed into the roadside turn-around, twisting sideways in a cloud of red dust. Abused gears screeched and the van shot back onto the highway, reversing directions and accelerating into an early afternoon sun that caught the silver words sweeping across the top the windshield:
The Ghoul.
Behind the wheel, a thin man argued into a cellular telephone, his hands occasionally poking the air. A grimace split his long face as he snapped shut the phone and tossed it into the captain’s chair beside him.

Born Gil Gooly, he’d been known as The Ghoul for as long as he could remember. Atop his bald head rested a black baseball cap. His skin was white and sallow. The Ghoul couldn’t tan. Even a few moments in the sun would make his skin burn. If he was forced to go outside during the day, he wore his windbreaker and large wrap-around sunglasses beneath his cap making him look more like a barrio banger than a law enforcement officer.

The phone rang again. After the sixth ring, The Ghoul reached over, checked the LED to see who it was then flipped it open. He took a deep breath, and when he spoke, his voice was low and personal. “Sorry honey. I shouldn’t have said that. Yeah, I know. I know that too. I’ll talk to you about it when I get back. Yes, I promise. Okay. Same to you. Bye.”

The Ghoul closed the phone more slowly this time. He was still frowning, but his eyes smiled in the dying afternoon light. An old Buick chugged along in front of him, moving only slightly faster than a horse and carriage. He slowed to seventy and swung into the oncoming lane of traffic. A semi carrying a load of tires blared its horn. The Ghoul widened his eyes, pressed his own horn and screamed at the top of his lungs. He brought his hands up and in front of his face. Then, with only a dozen feet to spare, he regripped the wheel and shot into the gap between the oncoming truck and the car, acting as if nothing had happened. Behind him the Buick chugged on.

Five more minutes passed before he pulled into Paradise Valley. Traffic was backed up all the way to the river. He swerved onto the shoulder, slowing to a more manageable forty-five miles an hour. Each time someone honked a horn in outrage, he honked his in return. He answered curse with curse, his much more original and definitely more detailed in its descriptions of mothers and farm animals.

Soon, he was at the head of the line of cars where a police cruiser had been pulled across the eastbound traffic lane. Another cruiser had been pulled across the westbound lane about fifty feet down. In the pocket of road created by the blockage were several hundred people screaming insults. The Ghoul counted twenty deputies lined up across the entrance to The Church of the Resurrection, each holding the baton of the deputy next to him. Like Fort Apache, this was a last stand. The Ghoul searched the crowd, recognizing most of the protestors and knowing them to be good folks, just a little zealous in the promotion of certain old Baptist principles and not willing to share their God with the likes of John the New Baptist.

He shrugged on his black windbreaker, the words Agent Gooly in white letters over his left breast. Eyeing the sun like a dog eyed the spokes of a bicycle wheel, he pulled his cap low and adjusted the sunglasses over his eyes. When he opened the door of the van, he couldn’t help but smile at the chaos.

Standing on the top deck of a red double-decker bus with
JESUS SAVES
printed inexpertly across the side in two-foot tall white letters was the Reverend Phillips gripping a Bible in one hand and a bullhorn in the other. At the rear of the bus stood two police officials arguing with a man in an expensive suit. One was Johnny Montcrief from the County Sheriff’s Office, the other was Saul Weinstein of the State Police.

JESUS IS GOD
was the call of the moment and Reverend Phillips led the mob, his amplified voice a practiced tenor as he repeated the words over and over.

The Ghoul strode straight for the bus, pushing and shoving his way through the protestors. He felt a crunch beneath his heel and wondered absently if it was a beer can or a hand.

“I said, get the fuck out of my way before I—”

“Hi Johnny,” said The Ghoul, placing his hand on the Deputy’s, holding it in place atop the grip of the pistol. “I got a call from the head office. Said you girls need some help.”

Johnny tried to move his hand. The man in the expensive suit frowned as he took in the visage of The Ghoul.

Saul turned and grinned, “just in time.”

“I see that. So what’s going on here and why wasn’t I invited earlier?”

The suit recovered quickly. “As I was telling the officers, the Reverend Phillips is exercising his First Amendment rights and any attempt to halt him in his constitutionally approved business will, and let me repeat
will
, result in enough legal action to ensure that your departments will probably reassign you to a foot patrol somewhere near the seventh circle of Hell.”

“Old boy’s pretty good, isn’t he?” The Ghoul inclined his chin at the lawyer.

“He’s the one got the Martinez Brothers off last year in Phoenix,” growled Johnny.

The Ghoul remembered the case well. Televised on all the networks, even Court TV had it running hour-by-hour interviewing anyone and everyone who’d know the twin brothers, including some matronly woman with Alzheimers who’d changed their diapers in the maternity ward.
I always knew they were up to no good
, she’d cackled into the camera. That was the exception, however. The media had been more than a little slanted in favor of the brothers, neatly forgetting the bodies of the five young girls that had been found in the Martinez’s garage. Like in the OJ Trial, it was problems with DNA interpretation that had gotten the boys off. Unlike OJ, however, the Martinez boys were found shot in their basement exactly one month after their release, each with one precisely placed wound in the center of each head.

“Good for him. Saved the state a lot of money by making those boys available for a
public
execution. We should all be thanking him.”

Johnny Montcrief laughed aloud.

“So what’s the problem?” asked The Ghoul.

“Trying to speak to the Reverend. I want to end this in a non-violent way, but Johnny Cochran here won’t let me pass. Keeps waving the constitution and the permit for this gathering in our faces.”

“That’s right and without a warrant, you can’t even step foot on this bus. It’s private property owned by the Reverend Phillips in his capacity as leader of the Huachuca Mountain First Baptist Church. And because we understand your propensity for violence, this entire event is being filmed by our associates.”

“I bet he was beaten as a kid,” said The Ghoul. The cameras worried him. It wasn’t that he was afraid of getting caught doing something, it was the forethought they evidenced. If someone was to make a point, what better way than to have it available to the masses through their favorite media device? He spied several young men moving through the crowd unmolested, expensive hand-held video cameras out in front of them.

Saul grinned at the remark. He was about to say something but the noise, which had already been making them shout to be heard, doubled. Electricity filled the air as the crowd morphed into something angry. The people surged into the line of deputies. A siren began blaring from one of the police cruisers. This wasn’t the big city. There just weren’t the assets to deal with such a thing. What they really needed were some gas masks and some riot canisters. A little CS gas would disperse the folks and give them a severe rash for a week or two.

“There he is. Blasphemer!”

The Reverend Phillips’ voice could barely be heard over the cacophony of screams and chants and sirens. Still, his chant was taken up and the crowd began shouting
Blasphemer.
It was only a matter of time before someone got hurt. The Ghoul could only imagine what would happen if someone had a rifle. The presence of this pseudo-cult leader had never been popular—it would be too easy for a bullet to come from out of the crowd.

The Ghoul stared up at the top deck of the bus where the Reverend was encouraging his followers. If he could be there, he’d be able to scan the crowd. If there were weapons, he’d be able to spot them—especially a rifle. Without a word, he stepped forward, shouldering the lawyer aside. He took the steps two at a time.

“Wait. Stop. You can’t do that.”

“Yes
he
can,” said Johnny, pointing to the back of the ascending man’s jacket, where the letters
ATF
were prominently displayed. “And he don’t even need a warrant.”

At the top of the stairs, The Ghoul removed his glasses. It was almost dusk, getting too dark for him to see through the polarized lenses. Most of the rows of seats, which had been part of the original bus, had been removed. Only two in the front still remained, leaving the rest of the space a clear platform. Besides the Reverend, there were two other people. One was a younger version of the Reverend, dressed in an identical cream-colored suit. Most likely his son, the younger man was in his twenties and wore a headset with a microphone. One hand was cupped over the transmitter near his mouth. The other person was a woman, too old to be either man’s wife. She was staring through some binoculars when she exclaimed suddenly, “There she is. It’s my Bonnie.”

His presence still unnoticed, The Ghoul followed the woman’s trembling arm which pointed to a group of people approaching the line of deputies from inside the compound. The leader he recognized as John the New Baptist. With him were seven young women dressed in shapeless long white robes. Their heads were clean shaven.

“Dean, she’s there. My granddaughter’s there,” exclaimed the woman. “Last one on the left.”

The young man nodded and spoke rapidly into his microphone, his demeanor military precise.

John the New Baptist wasn’t a large man, but his presence was unmistakable. Even from his perch atop the bus thirty yards away, The Ghoul felt the cult leader’s draw. He began to smile as he noticed the other’s smile and caught himself. He’d seen pictures of Jonestown and of the cult members who’d killed themselves by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid all because of the charismatic power of one man. The Ghoul felt that power now and fought against it.