Bad Moon Rising

Chapter 25 Mischief Night—October 30

(1)

“They’re here,” Val said, and Crow looked up from the menu as two tall men were ushered into the dining room by Erin, the wife of the restaurant’s owner. She brought them to the table, gave the detectives menus, and took orders for coffee—decaf for Ferro, espresso for his partner, Vince LaMastra.

Ferro looked like a younger, less good-humored Morgan Freeman and had an undertaker’s dour face and the hard shark’s eyes of a long-time cop. LaMastra looked every bit the ex-college football player he was, with broad shoulders, blond hair that was cut high and tight, and an out-of-season tan. Crow remembered LaMastra as a jokester, always smiling, but right now he looked as serious as his partner.

“Are we eating and talking, or just talking?” Ferro asked.

“I’m hungry,” said LaMastra. “What’s good here?”

“Everything,” Crow said, “but I can really recommend the pizza. Best anywhere.”

“That works,” Ferro said and they ordered two pies, one with the works, one plain, both well done. The dining room was large, with grapevines painted on the walls and a wide-screen plasma TV showing Portuguese soccer. Danny, the owner, came by to shake hands with Crow and his friends, flashing everyone a brilliant smile, and left them with a big bowl of steaming baked garlic knots. Crow had ordered them with double garlic.

“Long drive up here,” Ferro said when they were alone. “Lots of traffic.”

Val leaned her forearms on the table and said, “Then let’s cut right to it.”

“Works for me,” LaMastra agreed, tearing into the garlic knots.

Ferro said, “Where’s Dr. Weinstock?”

“He had some personal business,” Crow said. “We’ll see him later,”

“Well…that remains to be seen.”

Val took a folder out of an old leather briefcase that sat on an empty chair, flipped it open, and handed Ferro the top pages. “This is the report from the State Police crime scene investigator who participated in the cleanup after Boyd killed my brother.”

Ferro hesitated a moment before taking it. “How did you get this?”

“From Saul.”

“You’re not allowed to have this, you know.”

“You can arrest me later. Read it, Frank.”

Ferro gave her a narrow stare before putting on a pair of reading glasses. “Why am I looking at this?”

“Just read it.”

He did, with LaMastra leaning sideways to read past his shoulders. Ferro started frowning first, but LaMastra caught up. “This is questionable reportage,” Ferro said.

“Yeah,” agreed LaMastra. “Says here that Boyd had a large number of healed-over injuries consistent with bullet wounds.” He looked up. “‘A large number’?”

“Interesting,” Val said, “isn’t it?”

Crow reached out and tapped a paragraph. “It also says that from initial inspection it looked like Boyd had a partially healed broken leg.”

The pizzas arrived and Crow served slices. Nobody spoke until the waitress was well out of earshot.

Ferro sprinkled hot peppers on his pizza. “Okay…so are you reporting a case of improper crime scene assessment? That’s a state matter.”

Val’s pizza sat untouched on her plate. “That’s just it, Frank. The crime scene assessment was one hundred percent accurate.”

Both detectives paused in the midst of chewing.

“What?” LaMastra said around a mouthful of pizza.

(2)

Vic banged on the door and waited until the padlocks inside were keyed and the chains pulled through; then he opened the door and went in, a toolbox in each hand. The white-faced figures moved back away from him as he entered, knowing not to speak unless spoken to. One of Vic’s house rules, especially in this house.

Griswold’s house was gloomy and dark, but over the years Vic’s night vision had improved, and besides no one knew this house better than he did. Long before Griswold had awakened from his long sleep, long before the Red Wave had even been conceived, he’d walked here.

He set the toolboxes down and looked around, feeling the energy of the place. It was here where Vic went after he’d orchestrated the murder of Oren Morse. That had been such a terrible, terrible night. As soon as Vic saw Morse he knew that Griswold had to be dead, that the nigger had killed him. Even now, thirty years later that thought filled him with crimson rage. Once that black bastard had paid for that murder and been nailed to the scarecrow post, Vic had come down here to the house in the Hollow, had opened this very door, and then gone inside. All that night he had lain curled in a fetal ball of pain at the foot of Griswold’s bed, weeping and lost, torn to pieces by Griswold’s death.

None of the other men had come with him. Not even Polk or Jimmy Crow. Like the apostles after the arrest of Christ they’d lost faith and fled, and only Vic had come to his master’s house. Alone there in the wretched darkness of that first night he had prayed for hours—not to God, because that would be an insult to the Man—but to darker, less defined powers. Had Vic known at the time where Morse had buried Griswold’s body he would have dug him up, washed and dressed him in the old Reichsleader uniform—his favorite, Griswold told him many times, of all the many uniforms he’d worn over the years. Then he would have buried him properly, with the correct rites read over him so that his return would have been assured, and so it would have been much faster. By the time he learned where Griswold was actually buried it was both too late and no longer the right thing to do. Funny how that worked out.

As it was years passed before the Man awoke, and that sweet night seventeen years ago when that glorious voice first spoke in his head was Vic’s most precious memory. The very first word the Man spoke after those years of nothingness was “Vic.”

Calling him, calling the one who always loved him, who always believed in him.

So much had happened since then. Vic moved through the living room, ignoring the pale-faced figures that moved aside to let him pass. Avoiding certain spots—tripwires and hidden floor triggers that he’d installed himself—Vic went into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and took out a beer. There was no electricity in the house, but blocks of ice kept his beer cold. He twisted off the top and dropped it into a trash can. Vic never littered, especially here.

He fired up a small Coleman lantern and turned it up to medium and set it on the table. Drinking his beer, Vic looked around at the walls, the paintings of Hitler and other great thinkers of the twentieth century. Vic felt a stirring in his heart and in his loins. He’d have to make sure those paintings were removed, sent to one of his storage units.

He sensed someone behind him and turned. Dave Golub was there, a big moonfaced hulk of a kid who had always been something of a clumsy goof, but Vic hadn’t heard him approach. They were all like that. Ghost-footed. Vic just gave him an uptick of his chin.

“Karl said you wanted a count.” He handed over a sheet of paper that showed the location of every nest in town. Beside each location there was a number, and a tally at the bottom of the page.

“That’s everyone?”

“Yes, sir. Less about ten of the Dead Heads that Karl wanted put down. Ones who wouldn’t listen.”

Vic frowned. “Still a lot of mouths to feed.”

Golub stared at him for a moment, perplexed, then when he realized that Vic had made a joke he laughed. It was a bad fake of a laugh, but it showed respect and Vic appreciated the gesture.

“You and McVey all set to handle the candy?”

“Sure. We have about eight guys with us. None of the ones with too much teeth. Guys like me and Shanahan who can blend in.”

“No Dead Heads either.”

“Oh, no sir. The ones who are still left are locked up.”

“Any word on Mike?”

“No. I had everyone out looking last night, and those guys who can take sunlight are still out there. Nobody’s seen him.” Golub paused. “Is that going to be okay for us? If we don’t find him, I mean?”

Vic sucked on the mouth of the beer bottle. “Let’s just say it’d be better for all of us if we found him.”

He dismissed Golub with a curt nod and sipped his beer. His face still hurt from Mike’s lucky punches. Little bastard. God, how he wished he could just do what he wanted to do to that kid and have done with it. Two or three hours and some power tools would be a nice way to punch his ticket. Make him pay for the hurt and the humiliation. Yeah, that would be sweet. That’d take the sting out.

He sat down at the kitchen table and took out his notebook. Tomorrow was Halloween. Even though he’d worked so hard for all these years to bring the Plan to this point, it was hard to believe that it was all ready to launch. Tonight he’d set the dynamite and wire the radio detonators. The boxes of candy would be distributed all throughout the town, and a few in the neighboring towns of Crestville and Black Marsh. Spreading joy, Vic thought.

The candy was not precisely part of the Plan, but Vic had put it into play as a backup. The Plan was complicated and something could go wrong. If the Plan failed, or if any part of it misfired and the authorities came in before the Man rose, then the candy would be part of a cover story. And even if the Plan worked according to the Man’s vision and intention, it would be useful to muddy the waters for a while, at least until the Red Wave took hold and started sweeping toward both coasts. Ultra-high doses of hallucinogens were in the candy, more would be dumped into the town’s water supply, and at least a quarter of all the bottled water that would be sold to tourists was spiked with LSD or haloperidol.

Vic also had caches of white supremacist flyers hidden where the authorities could find them once an investigation started. An excellent cover story. Not towel-head terrorists but homegrown stuff. Very plausible, and Vic didn’t feel so much as a twinge of sympathy for his buddies in the white leagues who would take the hit for all this. Once the Man rose there would be a whole New Order and old loyalties wouldn’t mean a thing. All human connections would be broken forever.

Without warning an image of Lois popped into his head. It happened so suddenly that it jolted Vic, even though it was the fifth or sixth time it had happened today. Lois. For sixteen years she’d been his whore and his punch, and never once had he ever given a single moment’s serious consideration to the possibility that there were any genuine feelings for her anywhere in his heart. A month ago Vic would have laughed at the thought. Now she belonged to Ruger and suddenly there were conflicted feelings in Vic that he would have liked to reach in and tear out by the roots.

He didn’t want to feel a goddamn thing for her, or for anyone except the Man, yet there it was. The Man must have known all along, or must have gotten wind of it the way he does, because when Little Halloween went all to hell and Griswold vented his rage at Vic, Ruger, and all the others, there had been a special twist of the blade for Vic. To appease the Man, to earn back his favor, Vic had been asked for a sacrifice. The Man wanted him to give up Lois. Not just give her up—he wanted Vic to let Ruger have her.

That shouldn’t have hurt. Sure, maybe it should have stung his pride a bit, like the alpha dog having to yield up a favorite toy to a new puppy in the house, but it should not have hurt him deep inside.

He swallowed more beer and stared at his list without really reading the entries. It did hurt, though. It actually hurt.

(3)

Ferro said, “What’s this bullshit all about?”

Val leaned back in her chair and gave him a long, calculating look. “Frank, I want you and Vince to come with us to the hospital. Saul Weinstock has all of the forensics and video information and he’s willing to show you everything.”

“Why should we go anywhere with you?”

“Because now that you’ve read that report you have to know the rest.”

“No, we don’t,” said LaMastra, “it’s not our case anymore. What part of that can’t you people process?”

Ferro met Val’s stare and after a minute he said, “Be quiet, Vince.”

LaMastra pivoted in his seat and stared at him. “What?”

“She’s right,” Ferro said. “There’s something very wrong here and we have to know what’s going on.”

Crow exhaled a long breath, but Val didn’t look convinced. “Are you saying that you understand what’s going on…that you understand what those reports indicate?”

“No,” Ferro snapped. “I’m saying that someone has either screwed up a crucial phase of the investigation, or else these folks are pulling some kind of shit. In either case I want to know what’s going on.” He looked hard at Val. “And if there’s something hinky with this don’t think my sympathies for your losses are going to cut you any slack.”

“All we want you to do is look at the evidence,” she said.

“Okay. We’ll go that far, but as of now I’m putting you all on notice. This is police business and you are a bunch of local yokels who are not cops.” He stared hard at Crow. “And I don’t give a rat’s ass if you used to wear a badge, Mr. Crow. That was then, this is now.”

“Frank,” said Val, her blue eyes dark and unblinking, “if, after seeing what Dr. Weinstock has, you want to arrest us, then so be it. If we can’t convince you with what we have to show, then jail is going to be the safest place for all of us to be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ferro demanded.

Val just gave him an enigmatic smile and called for the check.

(4)

Sergeant Jim Polk finished his coffee and stepped out into the sunlight of October 30. Though the forecast called for a storm later, the sky of early afternoon was a cold blue dome dotted with crows circling high above. The sunlight was warm on his face and Polk indulged himself by standing there, face tilted upward, eyes closed, enjoying the warmth.

“Trying to get a tan, Jim?”

Polk opened his eye to see Gus Bernhardt’s florid, sweating face beaming at him from the passenger window of Unit C1, the command vehicle of the town’s small fleet of cruisers. Gus was chewing a mouthful of gum so big he looked like a cow with a cud and Polk resisted the urge to spit on him. Instead he pasted on a genial smile.

“Afternoon, Chief,” he said. “Nice day for it, huh?”

“Sunshine brings in the tourists,” Gus said, as if that’s what Polk meant; and at least that much was true because the town around them had swollen to bursting with tourists. Thousands upon thousands of them—overnighters and day-trippers, kids and adults, families and school groups. They were everywhere, going in and out of the stores like lines of worker ants. Laughing, all of them. Everyone seemed to be having tremendous fun.

Polk hated them all. He hated the smiles on their faces, he hated the hands that lovers held, he hated the grins on the faces of the kids as they showed each other the costumes they’d bought for tomorrow night. Speakers on the lampposts played music, and Polk swore to himself that if he heard one more goddamn rendition of “Monster Mash” he was going to take his hunting rifle and climb to the top of the Methodist Church and just plain open up.

“You drink your lunch today, Jim?”

Polk blinked and refocused on Gus. “What?”

“I been talking to you for a whole minute and you’re just staring shit-faced at the crowd. What’s with you today?”

“Late night,” Polk said. “Burning the midnight oil.”

“Midnight oil, huh? Well, I hope she had big tits,” Gus laughed at his own joke and signaled his driver to go. Polk stepped into the street and watched the cruiser head south.

South was a good direction, he mused. Maybe he should head south, too. Maybe before tomorrow night. Once this party got started Pine Deep was going to be a really bad place to be found loitering. Polk knew that he was a fool, but he wasn’t fool enough to really believe that his neck would be safe once Ruger and those others started their shenanigans. What was the phrase he heard on TV so often? “Ethnic cleansing?” Tomorrow night was going to be all about them, and Polk didn’t belong to that club and sure as hell didn’t want to. Not that he felt any kinship with the throngs of bleating sheep that flocked all around him.

Yeah, getting out of Dodge was a great idea, and south was as good a direction as any. Somewhere nice and hot, where there was a lot of sunshine. He had plenty of cash now. He could go now, not even bother to pack. Just get in the car and drive.

He snorted, mocking the thought even as he had it. Sure, it was a nice idea, except if Vic caught up to him. Or Ruger.

He thought about the evidence in Saul Weinstock’s office—the evidence he told Vic wasn’t there. He wondered if he should tell Vic now. Make up a story, say he went back and checked and found it. Would Vic reward him for that? Maybe, maybe not. Vic was hard to predict; he never jumped the way you’d expect.

Or should he go drop a dime to someone? Maybe that Philly cop, Ferro. Drive down to Doylestown or Newtown and use a pay phone. Put a rag over the mouthpiece and leave an anonymous tip. God, it would nice to screw things up for Vic. Might even work, he thought. Probably would work. Polk looked around. It would save a lot of people, too. People like him. Ethnic cleansing. Them against us.

Polk thought long and hard about making that call. Fifty cents in a pay phone and the Red Wave might come crashing down before it got rolling. Tell Ferro about the evidence and a whole lot more besides. Name names, give locations. Polk knew enough to bring it all down.

He looked at his watch. Nearly two in the afternoon. He smiled as he looked at the people around him, trying to feel what they felt, trying to see the day through their eyes. He should make that call.

“Vic would kill me,” he said aloud. A passerby flicked him a glance, but as Polk was in uniform the tourist said nothing. Polk turned and watched him go. “Vic would kill me.”

The speakers began playing “Monster Mash.”

Or worse than kill me, he thought, and that was really the decider. Polk knew too much, and it included way too much about Ruger and his kind. There were fates worse than death, Polk knew, and that was no joke.

He jingled the coins in his pockets, feeling with the pad of his thumb the faces of a couple of quarters mingled in with the pennies, nickels, and dimes. His car was parked across the street. Tank was almost full; the gym bag with the cash was hidden in the wheel well. Hours and hours until sunset.

“God help me,” he said softly, and he turned and walked up the street, away from his car, back toward the station.

(5)

“Thank God!” Weinstock said and gave Ferro’s proffered hand a vigorous shake. Then he seized LaMastra’s and wrung that. “Come in, come in. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you fellows. Thanks so much for coming.”

Ferro gave him a stern glare. “To be honest, Dr. Weinstock, we’re not happy to be here and the clock is ticking on my patience.”

“Understandable, understandable, sure. Well, you guys should sit down and get comfortable. There’s a lot to go over.”

The two detectives sat; the doctor went around behind the desk and perched on the edge like a frightened pigeon ready to take flight. He looked like hell, with dark smudges under his eyes, three visible cuts from a botched job of shaving, and a case of the shakes that made LaMastra glad that Weinstock wasn’t about to operate on him.

“Before we get started, I want both of you to swear to me that everything I tell you, everything we discuss here today is going to stay between us.”

Ferro pursed his lips and drummed his fingers on the desk top before saying, “I’m not sure we can make that promise.”

“You got that right,” LaMastra agreed. “Doc, let’s do it this way—you shoot straight with us and we give you our word that we will play fair with you. We can’t promise anything more than that.”

After a long moment, Weinstock nodded. “Okay, okay…whatever. I just need to get this out. Frank…Vince…please, you have to help us save our town!”