Everything but the Squeal

28

T he Mountain heaved himself around with such force that he grunted. Then he froze.

Framed in the pale pool of light falling from the transom window, Bruner's usual impeccable wardrobe looked damp. He made up for it, however, with the perfect accessory: a nickel-plated automatic aimed at the center of my stomach. Behind him, looking much wetter and more wrinkled, was a man who seemed only marginally smaller than Ship Rock, New Mexico. The man also held an automatic. His was pointed at the Mountain.

“Hello, Fat Boy,” Bruner said to the Mountain. “You should've stuck with the burgers.” To me he said, “I really didn't think you'd get this far.”

“Max,” I said, swallowing my heart to clear speaking room, “you shouldn't be out in this weather. You'll ruin your creases. Your dry cleaner is going to be furious.”

He moved the barrel of the bright little gun in a tight circle. The top of the circle was my nipples and the bottom was my groin. Not much of a choice.

“Pissant,” he said. He shook his head. “I tried to tell you. I tried to get you out of it.”

“I've always had a hard time with advice,” I said.

Bruner's mouth twitched into a straight line that made his upper lip disappear. “Fatal flaw,” he said. “And contagious, too. You're going to take Tubbo here with you.”

“You snotrag,” the Mountain said between heavy breaths. “You're supposed to help them.”

Ship Rock took a step forward and raised his gun so that it pointed at the Mountain's forehead.

“Help them what?” Bruner said, putting a restraining hand on Ship Rock's forearm. Ship Rock stopped like he'd been freeze-framed. “Help them go home to the people who chased them away in the first place? Home to all those hugs and kisses and sweet words? This may be hard for you to believe, Tubbo, but the people who write Hallmark cards aren't in charge of the universe.”

The child inside shrilled again. At the top of its arc the sound tore itself into confetti and mingled with the drizzle settling around us.

“Neither are you, snotrag,” I said, borrowing the Mountain's phrase. It had seemed to nettle Bruner.

“Over the long haul,” Bruner said, “over the millennia, probably not. But what you're looking at here,” he added, lifting his arm straight in front of him and training the silvery automatic directly into my left eye, “is the present.”

The flow of time slowed to a trickle. I could feel a bead of cold moisture make its way down my cheek in agonizing slow motion. There was an itch in the center of my back. I knew that the moment I moved the smallest muscle I was dead. The hole in the end of the automatic looked wider than the Milky Way.

“The question,” I said through rigid lips as the Mountain wheezed and snuffled beside me, “is what brought you out from under the plumbing?”

Bruner lowered the gun with a nasty little grin that told me he knew he'd scared the shit out of me. He kept it aimed casually at my middle. “Good question,” he said. “You should have been a cop.”

I wiped the moisture from my cheek and found that it was blood from the scratch on my forehead. “So should you,” I said.

Ship Rock bared puffy gums and let out a truncated bark. It could have been a laugh or a particularly vehement scoff. His gun stayed trained on the Mountain.

“This is Sergeant Belson,” Bruner said by way of introduction. “Sergeant Belson thinks you're funny.”

“Yeah,” I said, wiping the blood on my pants. My hand brushed over the hard barrel of the gun, and I immediately let my arms dangle at my sides. “Well, it's hard to get good help.”

“Hey,” Belson said. It was probably the longest sentence he'd spoken in a week. He was looking at me instead of the Mountain. Belson could be distracted. That was something to remember. Not much, but something.

Bruner shook his head again, pityingly this time. “You're not going to rattle me. You sure shook up Doris, though. It was a cute stunt, but any idiot would have known it was a setup.”

“Doris?” I said. “You mean the Wicked Witch of the West has a first name? What'd you do, Max, slip into the Mister's used condoms? Were they still warm?”

“Keep trying if it makes you happy,” Bruner said. “The Mister, as you call him, had to keep poking the merchandise. I handled the investigation on the Mister, which maybe you already know.” I certainly hadn't. “He had a very sweet thing going. If he hadn't had his heart attack when he did, I would’ve attacked his heart for him. Now, let's go inside.” He gave his gun a tiny jerk toward the door, and I turned obediently, hearing the Mountain snap into step behind me. To draw attention away from the gun jammed into the front of my pants, I laced my fingers together and put my hands on top of my head.

“So that's why you're here, Max? You're the new Mister? You figured the pictures on the computer were a draw play?” I asked, keeping as close to the wall of the warehouse as possible. It was darker there. We were about a third of the way to the door.

“Doris panicked,” he said, full of male superiority. “Keep walking. Your little parlor trick got her all superstitious. She barely had the brains to call me. It was an obvious spook trick, and I was working on my list of possible spooks. When she described you and your adorable little ward, the list shrank to one. I didn't know about Tubbo, here, but I'd already decided that she should get the meat together and Belson and I should hang around and watch you show up. Tubbo just makes it better.”

We rounded the corner. The door was only paces away.

“Why does he make it better?”

“He'll cook slower,” Belson said in the resonant voice of someone who uses his skull mainly as an echo chamber. Then he barked again.

“Shut up,” Bruner said.

“The sergeant has something on his mind,” I said, “and it must be an exciting occasion for him. If you don't let him talk, he could have a stroke. There must be some blood pressure up there.” I had slowed considerably, and the Mountain bumped up against me. I could smell the sour sweat of fear coming from him.

“Accelerate, please,” Bruner said. “If you keep walking, I'll explain. Otherwise, I shoot you here, and not to kill. A man who's been gut-shot can live long enough to burn to death.”

I accelerated.

“When they respond to the fire alarm,” Bruner said, giving me my reward, “they'll find a bunch of dead missing kids and two dead adults. One of them is a private dick who decided to go for big money instead of a fee you could count in pennies, and the other is a tub of lard who works at the place where the kids hang out. I mean, you couldn't ask for more perfect suspects. Case closed.”

The child's wail split the night again. I drove my fingernails into the palms of my hands.

“Don't slow down again,” Bruner said. “You want to measure your life in minutes, or in half an hour or so?”

“Fire alarm,” I said. “The kids are going to be dead. Then why are they hurting her?”

“Ahhh,” Bruner said, “some people know what's going on, and some people don't.”

We'd reached the door. It was closed.

“Hit the horn, Belson,” Bruner said. Belson ambled obediently toward the nearest car.

“Why, Max?” I asked, trying to keep him talking instead of thinking about searching me. “What happened? Al always said you were a good cop.”

“I am a good cop,” Bruner said. The Mountain made a small choking sound. “That's the problem. I'd bust the pimps and see them on the street the next night. I'd save the kids' lives and send them home and then watch them come back and turn into pimps.”

“This is bullshit,” I said as Belson gave a beep on the horn of a car behind me. “It can't be the lady. I mean, she's okay for someone with a lot of wear on her, but nothing to abandon your life over. She's got a neck like a leg of poultry.”

“Don't be silly,” Bruner said. “I've seen enough sex so that I don't ever want anything to do with it again. Anyway, I'm not the Mister that way. We stay away from each other. I'm what you might call the fixer.” There was a knock from inside the door.

“Knock twice,” Bruner said.

“It was the money,” I said, not knocking.

“It was a lot of things,” Bruner said, “and none of them matter worth an ounce of spit. Knock on the door two times or I'll shoot you in the back.” I hesitated. “Even better,” Bruner said, “I'll shoot Tubbo, here.”

The Mountain let out an involuntary moan. I knocked twice.

The door opened as Belson shuffled up behind us. It was like a dam bursting: light flooded through it and into my eyes, and I was blind.

“Well, Happy Easter,” said a familiar voice. “I must of been a good little boy. And, looky, the Mountain too.”

“Marco, you little shit,” the Mountain said.

“Congratulations, Marco,” I said, trying to focus. “Nice job on Junko.”

“Nothing compared to what I'm going to do to you.” He bared his cocaine-rotted teeth and waved the switchblade, his vitamin, under my nose. His pupils were the size of punctuation marks but less expressive. Marco was flying.

“Now that we've all said hello, Marco,” Bruner said in a voice that would have frozen vodka, “maybe you can get the fuck out of the way so we can get inside.”

Marco jumped back as though he'd been jerked on a wire.

“Max,” Belson said, “I think we-”

“Belson thinks,” I said desperately. “What a headline for the Times. On a par with mayor abducted by UFO or Elvis appears at summit meeting. Do you pay Belson to think, Bruner?” What Belson was thinking, I was certain, was that he should search us. “When was the last time a crustacean had a good idea?”

“God damn you,” Belson said. The Mountain hissed in warning, and a 747 flew into my right kidney. My head snapped back and I hurtled into Marco, knocking him flat on his back. I landed on my face next to him, feeling the concrete floor rip at the cut on my forehead. Something black and hot rose in the back of my throat and I turned my head and retched. In what seemed like the far distance I saw Belson blowing on his fist.

Marco scrambled away from me, swearing in a thin, chemically high-pitched voice. The next thing I knew, he was standing over me, grinding his foot into the back of my head and rolling my face back and forth in whatever it was that I had spit up. “Your turn, asshole,” he said. Then he increased the pressure of his foot and said it again. The Mountain was making a blubbering sound.

“You little jerk,” Bruner said viciously. “I'm telling you, get back inside and do what you're supposed to do. Or maybe you'd like to be on-line?”

Marco lifted his foot.

“I'm too old,” he said in a pleading voice.

“Too old for what?” Bruner said. “Get Tubbo inside, Belson, and close the door. Too old for handcuffs and a plywood table? Too old for John Wayne Gacy?”

“Jesus,” Marco said. The door slammed shut behind us. It sounded like a very heavy door. “You wouldn't do that.”

“There's all kinds of customers,” Bruner said.

“I'm going,” Marco said. “I'm going.” I heard his heels tap on the concrete, going away from me. Then I heard a door close.

“And you, Belson,” Bruner said, “keep your fucking hands to yourself.”

“But, Max-”

“You want marks?” Bruner said. “You want internal injuries? You want something to wake up some smart coroner who wants to run for governor? Or you want to go to work tomorrow and take early retirement in a couple of years and live to be a hundred?”

“Okay, sorry,” Belson said, “sorry, sorry, sorry.”

“You bet your ass you're sorry,” Bruner said. I'd made it to my hands and knees. My forehead was bleeding freely and something vile dripped from my chin. “You're about the sorriest thing I've ever seen,” Bruner continued remorselessly. “Just keep your ideas to yourself and your eyes on Tubbo. And you,” he said to me, “get up. It wasn't all that bad.”

I tried my legs. They worked, more or less. “It wasn't a weekend in Acapulco, either,” I said, wiping my face. More blood flowed immediately from my forehead. We were inside and we still hadn't been searched.

“What’m I, your travel agent?” Bruner asked. “You're not going to have a weekend anywhere. Now, stop dicking around and walk.” He reached into his jacket and popped some Maalox. I hoped he was digesting his backbone.

The Mountain was now weeping openly behind me. Great. All my life I'd fantasized having a sidekick, and the one I'd finally gotten had turned out to be the Cowardly Lion. I consigned him to the litter heap and walked.

There was a door inside the door, an arrangement like a low-tech parody of the airlock in a movie spaceship. Marco had closed the inner door behind him, or maybe it had closed of its own accord. The four of us-Bruner, Belson, the Mountain, and I-were now alone inside a brilliantly lighted room about twelve feet square. Now, if ever, was the time to make a move. Now, before we were inside the warehouse with a bunch of guys who looked like the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers.

My back was turned toward Belson, the Mountain, and Bruner. No one could see my hands. I forced a cough and then a chain of coughs, bent double, and put my right hand under my shirt. The grip of the gun felt cold and rough beneath my fingers. I was trying to tug it upward, free of my pants, when the coughs, to my surprise, became real and I bent forward against my will and retched again.

“Damn, you're messy,” Bruner said from behind me. I ignored him: I'd worked the gun up an inch or so. I could have gotten it out if I'd been able to straighten up, but another spasm seized me and I doubled up and spewed some horrid liquid onto the floor.

“Hey,” Belson said happily, “I hit the kidney.”

“The trophy comes later,” Bruner said. “Tubbo, open the door.”

I was still jackknifed forward, fumbling hopelessly at the handle of the gun, when the Mountain went past me and pushed the door open. Bruner or Belson shoved me from behind, and we were inside the warehouse. Without the door to muffle them, we could hear the screams.

In front of us was a scene out of the elder Bruegel or Hieronymus Bosch. The trucks gleamed in the distance, wherever they were picked out of the darkness by the bare hundred-watt bulbs under their conical metal dunce's caps. Closer to us-much closer to us-in the center of a spill of light, was a circle of big men. They were spread apart holding hands like a beefy parody of a circle dance, forming a living wall to keep the children inside. The scream had come from the middle of the circle.

“Give her two more, Marco,” Mrs. Brussels' voice said calmly. Then the door swung closed behind us and the men turned their heads to look.

“Where do you want them?” Marco's voice said into the sudden silence. He was invisible, blocked from sight in the middle of the huddle.

“One minute.” Mrs. Brussels came around the outside of the circle and regarded us. “We have visitors.”

She looked cool and imperturbable. Except for the damp perspiration stains on her collar and beneath the arms of her jacket, she might have been behind her desk discussing some baby's future nightmares. “Mr. Ward,” she said, “or, rather, I guess, Mr. Grist. What a shame you weren't who you said you were.”

“One of the great themes,” I said, wiping new blood from my forehead, “the difference between appearance and reality.”

“Welcome to reality,” she said. “You seem to have cut your head. Who's the fat one?” She wasn't talking to me. The Mountain whimpered.

“A clown,” Bruner said behind me. “A walk-on, that's all.”

“What's a walk-on?” She knew less about Shakespeare than Bruner did.

“He walks on and then walks off,” Bruner said, “except he's not going to walk off.”

“Well, good, Max,” Mrs. Brussels said. “You were right. You said he'd show up,” she said, meaning me, “and he did. One for you. Where's Jewel, Mr. Grist?” In the center of the circle, something choked out hurt little sounds.

“Where you'll never find her,” I said.

“Don't bet on that,” she said. “If I really want her, I know where to find her. Bring our friends in, Max. Maybe they'd like to watch.”

“I'd like to watch you die,” the Mountain said shakily.

“Good thing you didn't buy a ticket,” Mrs. Brussels said. “I'd hate to give you a refund. This is a different kind of show. We've got a bad girl here, and she's learning what it means to be bad.” She made an airy gesture with her hand. “Boys?” she said. “Boys, let our guests get a look at what happens to bad little girls.”

The ring of steroid addicts parted reluctantly. One of them looked at me, and recognition struggled with stupidity for possession of his face. Stupid or not, he looked dangerous. It was good old hearty Marty from Cap'n Cluckbucket's.

“I know you,” he said, narrowing his eyes with the effort.

“That makes one thing you know,” I said, swallowing my own blood through the corner of my mouth. “Give you the rest of the year, you might make it into double digits.”

“I know him,” Marty insisted to Bruner.

“Great,” Bruner said. “Get out of the way.”

Marty stepped aside, and the circle broke open as though he'd been the cue they were waiting for. Crowded inside were eight wide-eyed children, six girls and two boys, wide-eyed in a way that suggested nothing but vacancy within. They were wearing bedsheets, insurance, I guessed, against their trying to make an escape.

Aimee Sorrell wasn't among them.

In the center of the circle was a little girl. She might have been fourteen. She was wearing nothing but underpants, and long slashes across her rib cage and her tiny breasts and her thighs wept long red streaks. One of the giants held her by the armpits. Her hands were tied behind her. Her hair and face were wet with tears. Her eyes were enormous and crazed. In front of her was Marco, switchblade in hand. He looked annoyed. He'd been interrupted in the middle of the only thing he truly enjoyed.

“This is Marie,” Mrs. Brussels announced in her third-grade teacher's voice. “What did Marie do, children?”

There was an agonizing pause. Children gathered their sheets around them and looked at the floor.

Mrs. Brussels clapped her hands twice. The children's heads jerked upward. Mrs. Brussels arched an eyebrow in the general direction of her hairline. “What did Marie do?” she demanded.

The children, as a group, emitted a confused sound.

“That's right,” Mrs. Brussels said. “She tried to run away. She talked to the police.” Behind me, the Mountain released a heavy, captive sigh.

“And what happens to children who talk to the police?” Mrs. Brussels said.

“They die,” said a little boy, bolder than the rest. Like the rest, he was wearing a sheet.

“Good, Jamie,” Mrs. Brussels said with horrible approval. “And is Marie dead yet?”

“No,” the children chorused. Other than Marie, the oldest couldn't have been more than twelve. They chorused their answer in a demonic imitation of group spelling exercises. Their eyes were hooded, their last defense against total madness.

“Marco,” Mrs. Brussels commanded, “finish it.”

Marco waved the bright knife in the air. The side of his mouth that was still mobile curved upward and he took a step toward Marie. Marie closed her eyes and let out a scream that would have broken the windows in the Pentagon.

Something hit me on the shoulder, pushing me into the overdeveloped triceps to my left. The Mountain broke through into the circle, scattering children and Mr. Universe contestants alike, and threw his hands around Marco's middle from behind. With an inhuman roar he snatched Marco from the floor and picked him up. Before either Bruner or Belson could do anything, the Mountain had snapped Marco right and left, a terrier with a dishrag. There was a sound like God's fingers being snapped, and Marco's spine broke.

Marco yodeled his anguish, and the Mountain dropped him on the floor like so much garbage and turned to face Belson, who tried too late to stop himself in mid-charge. As Marco twitched on the floor, the Mountain roared again, bent double, and planted his shoulder into Belson's middle with the force of an Alpine landslide. Belson barked again, but this time it wasn't a laugh. He folded in half like a paper airplane, and the Mountain picked him up by the waist and, lifting him over his head, slammed Belson's head against the concrete floor. Belson's body went all loose and floppy, and something gray and puddinglike flowed out of his head. Marco was letting out little yippy moans. The top half of his body still worked. He writhed on the floor like a rattlesnake who'd been run over in mid-spine.

“Get him,” Mrs. Brussels screamed. At the same time, a muscular arm encircled my neck. It belonged to the bozo I'd bumped against. I felt his biceps tighten as he lifted me off my feet. I could hear Mrs. Brussels screaming, a kind of atonal counterpoint to the Mountain's roars and the whimpering of the children. My air was being cut off. As spots began to appear before my eyes, I saw the Mountain put his fist all the way through the face of another of the muscle cases, breaking his neck like a wishbone, and I finally worked the gun out of my pants. Then Mrs. Brussels screamed again, and I saw that the Mountain had lifted another bodybuilder in a sumo hold, lifted him so high that the man's head struck the light hanging beneath the cone and set it swinging wildly, and I finally had the gun and I angled my hand and wrist around so I could shoot the guy with his arm around my throat, and his hold on my neck loosened and I fell to the floor with him on top of me, among the small bare feet of the children, and someone out of somewhere pried the gun from my hand, and I saw Bruner step forward and aim the shiny little automatic with both hands and blow the Mountain's brains out.