Dead Echo

by C.G. Banks

  *

  He looked out the curtain and saw it was going to be a long, hot day. Fitting, he thought, and checked his watch. Almost seven. He’d called in already and told them he’d be in the streets. Told dispatch about Beverly Bills and how important it was for them to let him know if she called in. He still didn’t trust the gadgetry of technology and insisted on human backup. Phelps told him not to worry and they broke the connection. He considered calling Skate’s office but knew she wasn’t going to be there. That much was already fixed in his mind. And of course any call from him would likely go spiraling downhill with the excitable Beverly Bills.

  “Bill Camp,” he whispered, grabbing his car keys from the kitchen counter. “What can you tell me, my man?” and then he was out the door and gone. He’d already done the phone work yesterday and confirmed that the man had been released several days before. Stuck his foot in the door and managed to get the guy’s address.

  A little less than a half hour later he was slowly trolling down Ranch Street in a small, old subdivision just outside of town. The neighborhood wasn’t much to speak of, obviously blue collar, hanging right on the edge of food stamps and weekly wife beatings. Here were cars parked in front yards, grass up above the tires. Rotting boats. Chained dogs raising nine kinds of hell. Then, yeah, right there. Arnold brought the Crown Vic to a stop in the middle of the street and took his survey. There was only one car in the driveway, a beat up, decades-old station wagon, and the front porch light was on. Right in front, through a thin curtain where whomever had sealed off the garage to make a living room, he could see, very faintly, a television playing. Arnold pulled into the driveway. He stopped the engine and got out slowly, taking into account the three-legged cat that hobbled off to the shadows alongside the crumbling stucco of a neighbor’s house. He cracked his knuckles and turned toward the front door.

  This close in he could hear the television, some morning show trash. Fucking Springer or Montell. The house had skipped its last four or five paintings and the gutter overhead sagged from the freight of detritus it held. Something, maybe that three-legged cat, had damned near scratched through the foot of the front door. Yeah, his job was just an every day vacation. He knocked cop-hard on the door, ignoring the moldy doorbell he knew wouldn’t work anyway. He heard the TV shut off. Backed up and fig-leafed his hands, doing his best not to look dangerous. And waited. Absolute silence now. Arnold stepped up to the door again and knocked. He squinted through the curtain and thought he saw movement on the other side. “Mr. Camp,” he said. “It’s very important that I speak to you.”

  This time the curtain pulled back a few inches and a haggard face looked through. The man had raccoon circles around his eyes and hadn’t seen a razor in a month. The sonofabitch looked like he stunk. Arnold unfolded his hands and flashed his badge at the face in the window. The sunken eyes widened a little but the expressionless face remained. “Mr. Camp,” Arnold said again. “I need to ask you a few questions.” Then, on an impulse. “I’m here to help. I just want to know what you saw in Leszno’s Acres.”

  The curtain fell back to its place and for a moment Arnold thought his gambit had failed. Then he heard a clumsy fumbling with what must have been several locks and the door creaked back an inch or two. “Wha’di’dyou say?” the man asked and Arnold could smell his breath, like rancid milk and old socks.

  “I think people are in danger, Mr. Camp, and I think you can help me understand why.” The door came open another couple of inches. The hermitic character stepped into the light. His clothes carried a history of bad lunches that had graduated now to these stomach-churning smells.

  “You know I got fired,” the man said and sucked at his teeth. “Somebitches dropped me like I was hot. Probably gonna lose my gotdamn house, you know that?”

  Arnold shook his head sadly. “I hate to hear that, Mr. Camp. Maybe you can give me an idea why.”

  The man laughed high and cackling, like a crow high up on a pole. “Shit,” he said and spat on the concrete. “I’m crazy. Cain’t you see that? M’brains gone screwy.”

  “How’d it happen?”

  Camp closed his eyes and shook his head. A nerve underneath his left eye began to twitch and dance. He swallowed down a large lump in his throat. Arnold decided to press ahead. “Mr. Camp, really. I believe that what happened to you may be happening to others too.”

  The man’s head snapped up. “What happened to me then?” he asked and the venom fairly dripped from the words.

  “That’s what I’m here to find out.”

  The statement deflated the defiance in his eyes and he rubbed his face despairingly. “It’s that place…it’s evil,” he managed.

  Arnold dropped his voice down to interrogation mode. “What makes it evil, Mr. Camp? What happened to you in Leszno’s Acres?”

  “You believe in the devil? In Hell?” the defeated man whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Arnold admitted. “I’ve been a cop a long fucking time.”

  Camp’s eyes widened again at the profanity. A thin smile cut through the cake of grime on his face. “Well I do, mister. You go looking for it and you’ll find it too.” He turned back to the door and dragged himself inside. “I ain’t talking no more about it either. It’s here all the time anyway without some know-it-all somebitch come to throw it back in my face.” And with that the man shut the door and began the long process of locking it.

  Arnold stepped away and listened as the locks clicked into place. He thought about the man on the other side, what it must be like to live like this. In all his years he’d never seen a more haunted individual. More fucked up, yeah, sure, but never more haunted. He breathed in deep and blew out. Squeezed his mouth into a tight pinch and tried to figure what he’d gained. Not much, nothing really, if you wanted to go scientific. But at least his suspicions were confirmed. Whatever had happened to this guy in that godforsaken neighborhood was about a million times worse than the “feeling” he’d told Skate about. And with the memory came distress. Skate. Something terrible had happened. There was no longer any doubt in his mind. The relic of Bill Camp had crystallized that intuition into hard-and-fast fact.

  So what now?

  He turned in the overgrown yard and looked at the Crown Vic. The sun was getting high and it was going to get bastard hot today. Fitting. He kicked through the grass and climbed inside the cop car. Tapped his foot a few times on the brake pedal. He looked down through the steering wheel at the dashboard panel. Off in the corner was an address and a name scratched in his tight hand on a scrap of paper. He picked it up and considered it like some exotic insect. “Samuel Jester Johnson,” he read aloud. “What can you tell me, friend? If you could,” he added. He started the car and slowly backed out of the driveway, aware the whole time of a set of fiery, disturbed eyes that tracked him all the way out of sight. He thought probably the best days for Mr. Camp were done.