The Empress File

CHAPTER 18

I dropped Marvel in a pool of darkness a half block from the City Hall, hoping that nobody would see us or recognize us. She hurried away, not looking back. The outcome of our attack on the city was now in her hands. I had no ideas for her.

And I had LuEllen to worry about. She should have been out of animal control, but I had to check. I was supposed to keep track of Hill and St. Thomas, and in the encounter with Marvel, I'd lost them.

The road to animal control, after it got past the tank field, was dark as pitch. My headlights on the lonely gravel road would attract the attention of anyone at the place, but driving without them was impossible. I finally left them on, kept my speed up, and blew past the turnoff into the complex. There were lights on in the building, and Hill's van squatted under the pole light in the yard.

"Goddamn it," I muttered. I smacked the steering wheel with the palm of my hand. LuEllen should have seen their headlights coming. But if she'd been inside, looking for a spot to hide Hill's pistol, it was just barely possible that she'd been trapped. I went on down the road, parked, got a flashlight out of the glove compartment, and jogged back.

The night had cooled, and the smell of mud, road gravel, weeds, and something else rode on a river breeze. Goose bumps popped up on my arms as I ran, and I finally identified the "something else" as the stink of decomposing flesh, probably from Hill's killing pen.

At the entrance to the animal control complex I slowed, cut a corner through the weeds, prayed that all copperheads were asleep, and stepped over a fence. The complex was in a flat, open area cut in the riverside brush. I skirted the open area, cut behind the pen where we'd seen Hill and St. Thomas killing the cats-the smell of rotting flesh grew stronger, and I started breathing through my mouth-and climbed the levee. Nothing; I was too far away to see whether or not the boat was tied to the wall. I started down the levee, picking my way along the nearly invisible game trail. The boat loomed up like a ghost in the night, just a light spot in the humidity, a trick of the eyes. In another fifty yards it had solidified. No lights, nothing moving around it.

"LuEllen? LuEllen?"

Nothing. Cursing under my breath, I turned back up the levee. I could hear somebody inside. A voice, a banging of drawers. There was a window on the far side of the building. If I could get to it, I should be able to see into the main work area.

I started around the clearing, staying in the brush as long as I could, then darted into the cage area at the rear of the main building. Most of the animal pens were simple wooden or wire cages stacked six high inside a chain-link fence, but there was also an open pen for puppies. A couple of half-grown spotted mongrels stood up in the pen as I went by, watching curiously, and I prayed for silence. One continued to watch me, its nose pressed through the fence, while the other one turned in its tracks and settled down again. Neither barked.

Standing in the darkness of the pens, I waited a second, listening, then poked my head out. A shaft of light came out of the window onto the grass. Then a man spoke, but I couldn't make out what was being said. I stepped out from the pen area, staying close to the building, moved up to the window, and carefully looked in, moving slowly.

Hill was there, his back to me, stuffing paper into a plastic garbage sack. The file cabinets around him were standing open. He was cleaning the place out. That was OK, as long as they didn't physically trash the computer. The voice I'd heard came from the radio, a local sports talk show about the high school baseball team. I let out a breath and started to step back.

"Don't fuckin' move." The voice came from ten feet away and nearly stopped my heart. I turned my head, and St. Thomas was there. He was wearing loose, soiled khaki slacks and a light short-sleeved shirt, which was half open over his fat belly. With one hand, he fumbled with his fly. With the other, he pointed a shiny chrome pistol at my head. I froze.

"Duane, get your butt out here," St. Thomas hollered. Then to me he said, "Picked a good time to take a leak, didn't I?" Then louder again: "Duane, goddamn it."

Hill came around the corner of the building and stopped, his mouth half open.

"God-damn," he said. He broke it into two words, dragging out the God. He didn't exactly smile, but he was delighted. "I knew you was the nigger in the woodpile."

"I talked to the mayor before I came-"

As I started the sentence, Hill walked up to me and, before I had a chance to raise my hands, swatted me openhanded on the face. The blow almost knocked me down, semiblinded me, and the taste of blood surged into my mouth.

I put my hands up to defend myself, and St. Thomas screamed, "Put your hands down, motherfucker, motherfucker." He shook the pistol at me, and I was sure it was the last thing I'd see. I put my hands down, backing away, watching the gun, and Hill hit me with a left hook and then a right cross, hit me first in the eye and then in the nose. My nose broke with a crunch, and I went down, banging backward into the side of the shed, then dropping forward on my hands and knees.

"Busted my fuckin' ribs," Hill shouted. He grabbed the hair at the sides of my head, jerked me upright, and threw me back against the building. "You was the nigger in the woodpile, wasn't you? You was the one what set this all up, this whole thing, nobody'd believe me, nobody'd listen."

He punched me in the forehead. My head banged back against the building, and I went straight down, to a sitting position, and he kicked me below the armpit. I rolled with the kick and crouched, ready to roll again, and Hill started screaming, "On your feet, motherfucker, on your feet."

St. Thomas danced around beside me, giggling, waving the gun. "On your feet, on your feet."

"What're you looking for out here? What're you looking for? Were you in that car? What were you doing, cocksucking faggot?"

I got up again, sputtering, blood running out of my broken nose into my mouth. I had my hands half up again, and said, "Listen, goddamn it, I talked to the mayor-"

"Fuck Bell. You hear me, cunt? Fuck him-"

Hill screamed. He screamed all the time, never dropped his voice, never laughed, always screamed. "Hands down, cocksucker. Arnie, you shoot the motherfucker in the nuts if he puts his hands up."

"I will," St. Thomas squealed. "I'll shoot you in the nuts, faggot motherfucker." He pointed the pistol at my crotch. Hill squared up again, and St. Thomas was squealing, and I dropped my hands, trying to edge away, but St. Thomas danced around in front again, blocking me, and Hill hit me in the nose again, and I went halfway down, trying to fall, and he hit me twice more, hard, in the right eye again and on the nose. The world went black and red, and I was down, nearly blind, feeling the grass under my hands, the blood running down my throat.

"Get up, motherfucker," Hill screamed, his face two feet from mine. "Get him around inside, Arnie, let's get him around inside."

I couldn't get up. I tried but couldn't. "Get up, motherfucker," Hill screamed, and kicked me in the thigh. I tried and stumbled. He kicked me again.

"Kick him in the ass," St. Thomas yelled. "Kick him in the ass, Duane. Kick him in the balls."

Hill kicked me again, and I crawled some more, and he screamed, "Crawl, motherfucker." I crawled another six feet toward the door, and he kicked me in the side, and this time I didn't see it coming, couldn't roll, and a couple of ribs went. You can feel ribs when they break because the muscles between them go into spasm. The pain can bend you in half.

I went down on my face and thought: Keep breathing. Keep breathing, keep your arms around your head, LuEllen's out here somewhere; maybe she's gone for help. And I had an image of the Fanny slowly slipping off the revetment and downstream, LuEllen cutting the boat loose, satisfied that she hadn't been seen.

When I went down on my belly, Hill flew into a fury, kicking me in the legs, the hips, and along the side. Most of the kicks to the side hit my arm. Somewhere along the nightmare crawl to the door, the arm broke below the elbow. I didn't realize it until he kicked it a second time in the same place, and the pain ripped out as a groan out of my chest.

"That's right," Hill brayed. "Let's hear it, motherfucker, what you done to us, you oughtta hurt."

St. Thomas was as excited as Hill, out of his mind, waving the pistol, and as Hill was kicking me, he fired a shot into the ground next to my head. Dirt blew up into my face, embedding itself in my cheek, but by then I didn't care.

Six feet from the open door Hill, impatient, grabbed me by the hair on the back of my head and dragged me into the building. My broken arm bumped over the concrete doorsill, and I may have fainted.

Water splashed off my face. Hill was pouring it out of a paper cup. It was cold, out of a bottle cooler, and trickled off my forehead, down across my nose and chin onto my neck. I opened the one eye that still seemed to work, and found myself lying on my back on the concrete floor, my legs spread, my head propped up against the wall.

"Can you see, motherfucker? I want you to see," Hill brayed. I could see and tried to say something. St. Thomas was there, still grinning, still waving the gun, though he didn't need it. "Look at this. You see this? This is the vacuum chamber, motherfucker."

Directly across from me was the Plexiglas door of the killing cage. Hill pounded it with his hand.

"The vacuum chamber. We put big fuckin' dogs in there, boy. We put Doberman pinschers in there. We put German shepherds and rottweilers in there. Big, dangerous dogs, we can't take no chances. Once you put a dog in there and close these latches, no way he's gonna get out. If he got out, he'd tear your fuckin' liver out, boy, so we built these latches strong. You know what we're gonna do, boy?"

He waited for an answer, but I was in no shape to make one. He seemed vaguely disappointed.

"We're gonna put you in there," he screamed, smacking the plastic door again. "Then we're gonna get a couple of lawn chairs and some beer, and we're gonna push the button on you, and then we're gonna sit here and watch you try to scratch your way out. Just like TV. Like a big-screen TV. I'm gonna do a little more work on you, cocksucker, because I want you to hurt before you go, but I ain't gonna kick you in the head, and you know why?"

He turned to St. Thomas. "You know why I ain't gonna kick him in the head, Arnie?"

"No. Why?" Arnie was grinning, the straight man in a comedy act.

" 'Cause I want him to know what's happening to him. You hear that, motherfucker? I want you to know." He grabbed one of my feet and jerked me away from the wall. The back of my head bounced off the floor, and Hill booted me in the side. It was the good side, the side where I hadn't been hurt yet, but more ribs went. I tried to move, tried to roll, tried to cover with my hands, but he was in a rage, screaming, spitting, kicking, howling.

I had the good eye open, watching myself being kicked to death. St. Thomas was there behind him, encouraging him, laughing, with the little silver pistol, a cheerleader.

Then LuEllen was there with him. She came out of nowhere, like a rabbit out of a hat. She had Hill's old weapon, the.45, the one we'd fished out of the river, and she put it next to St. Thomas's ear. At the very last second he sensed her presence and started to go stiff, but she pulled the trigger and blew his brains all over the wall of the animal control building.

Hill spun, staggered, caught himself on the wall, got around, his mouth hanging open in shock, and looked straight down the barrel of the.45.

"Don't," he croaked. I don't think I could hear him, but I could see him say the word: Don't.

I saw LuEllen's mouth moving but couldn't hear what she was saying. The world was going pink on me, and I realized that while I could see the shot go through Arnie's skull, I hadn't actually heard it, or the noise hadn't registered. I thought I might be dying.

A few seconds later I was moving. Trying to focus. Trying. We were outside, the cool air on my face, and then I was in the back of the station wagon, lying flat on my back. I could see LuEllen, all black and white, like a black-and-white film, holding the pistol with both hands, marching Hill away.

Sometime later, I don't know how long, the car was moving. Bouncing. LuEllen's voice came in, finally, and from far away, with static, like a Juarez radio station when you're driving at night across Montana.

"Hold on, Kidd," she said. "Hold on, Kidd."

Some long time after that, it seemed, another woman leaned over me and said, "His pressure's OK, but we're gonna want a peritoneal lavage, blunt trauma, looks like the ribs, mostly, let's get some film on his skull. keep that neck straight."

I can barely remember three other things before the black plastic mask came down over my face, three things that I wonder about. Were they dreams, or were they real?

I can remember the catheter going in. That's not something you forget, no matter how skillful the nurse; it doesn't particularly hurt, but it's a memorable feeling.

And I remember somebody talking to LuEllen, almost chanting: "Has he been drinking, using street drugs, allergic to aspirin.?"

And I remember driving out of the yard at animal control, the yard light spinning by the window like a sudden moon, and the sound through the window, the sound coming back, that familiar ooka-ooka-ooka.