Moonheart

by Charles de Lint

  “We’re playing this one cool,” Tucker said. “While we can. The last thing we need is to have the locals crawling all over us.”

  Collins shrugged and let the gun drop back into its holster. He shook out a Pall Mall and lit it as he followed Tucker to where Constable Warne was standing guard over a blanket-draped body. Two RCMP paramedics had already brought a stretcher out of the van behind Tucker’s car and were laying it down beside the body. Two more constables disembarked from the third car.

  “Hold it,” Tucker said to the paramedics. He looked at Warne. “Give it to me from the top.”

  “There’s not a whole lot to tell, Inspector,” Warne replied. “It was going on 0900. I was out, stretching my legs, checking the doors on O’Connor and making my way back to the car, when that”‌—he indicated the body with a jerk of his head‌—“just . . . Jesus, I don’t know. It just appeared there. I ran over, figuring the guy’d been tossed from one of the upper-story windows maybe, and then I saw . . .”

  Warne’s features seemed a little strained and Tucker knew what was playing through the Constable’s head. However used to this line of work you got, there were some things that still hit you hard. Like when they’d brought in Thompson’s body last night . . . Tucker figured he’d start to worry when it didn’t bother him anymore.

  “What’d you see?” Tucker prompted softly.

  Warne frowned. “Did you ever pull a bear-mauling detail, Inspector?”

  Collins kneeled down beside the body, but Tucker stopped him as he was reaching for a corner of the blanket.

  “Anyone around?” Tucker asked. “Witnesses. Anything?”

  “The street was empty,” Warne said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the body just appeared out of nowhere.”

  Tucker sighed. “Figures. You talked to anyone in the House?”

  “Just through the door. They say they’ll only talk to you. They did throw out the blanket for me, when I asked.”

  Tucker looked up and down the street, then turned his gaze to the body. Steeling himself, he nodded to Collins. Warne looked away as Collins lifted the blanket. For a long moment there was silence, then Tucker swore.

  “Christ, Warne. What’re you trying to pull?”

  “Inspector?”

  Warne turned, looked from the mutilated corpse to his superior. The body was the same as it’d been before he’d covered it up. The head half twisted from the shoulders, chest cavity open and intestines spilling out onto the pavement. But Tucker. . . . The Inspector’s face was a hard mask. He stepped forward and lashed out at the corpse with his foot. When the leather of his shoe hit the body, Warne winced. The taste of breakfast came rushing up his throat. He started to say something, then saw a vague shimmer flit across the body. Instead of intestines, a lump of mud and twigs went flying under the impact of Tucker’s shoe. Where the corpse had been there was only a matted mess of twigs and wet leaves, held together in the shape of a body by drying mud.

  Warne stared at the place where the transformation had taken place, his face blank with shock. Where the head would have been, the caricature of features composed of wet leaves appeared to mock him with an evil grin.

  “Inspector,” Warne began dully. “I swear . . . I swear . . .”

  Tucker watched the Constable carefully. The shock was genuine. Either Warne was the best actor he’d ever run across, or he sincerely believed that he’d been guarding a mutilated body. The Inspector turned his attention to the House and caught a movement at the curtained windows directly across from them. He remembered the note on his desk. Just what kind of a fucking game were they playing anyway?

  “I swear. . . .” Warne was still saying.

  Tucker nodded. Warne had seen what he’d seen. He believed that.

  “Take him back to headquarters,” Tucker said to Collins, “and help him fill out a report. Then send him home.” To the paramedics he added: “You guys can take off.”

  The paramedics shrugged and, hoisting their stretcher, returned to the van with it. The two constables from the third car looked to Tucker for orders.

  “You too,” he told them.

  “Are you going in?” Collins asked.

  “Yeah.” Tucker’s voice was as grim as the set of his features.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t go alone‌—” Collins began, but Tucker cut him off.

  “Just get Warne to headquarters, okay? I can handle Jamie Tams.”

  Collins looked like he wanted to add something, then shrugged. He lit up a cigarette and ushered Warne back to his car that was parked further down the block. Tucker waited until they’d reached the Acadian and the others were gone, before turning back to face Tamson House. His .38 was a comfortable weight on his hip, but he didn’t think he’d have to use it. When he heard the Acadian start up, he headed for the door of the House.

  Blue let the curtain fall back in place and turned to Jamie with a numb expression on his face.

  “We’re screwed,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean there’s no body out there. Just a heap of twigs and shit.”

  “But we both saw it,” Jamie said.

  Blue rubbed his face. “I know. I know what we saw. I know what came down a few hours ago. The whole House shaking like something out of The Exorcist and Lon Chaney Jr. clawing at the door. . . . But I’m telling you now, Jamie, there’s nothing out there for your Inspector Tucker to find. I mean, we haven’t even got a scratch on the door, and with the body gone. . . .”

  “My God! He’ll think we made the whole thing up.”

  “I don’t understand,” Sally said.

  “You don’t understand?”

  “But surely someone would have noticed something?” she said. “One of the neighbors, or someone just driving by? The sky went black and the shaking must have run up and down the street.”

  Blue shrugged and turned back to the window. “Here he comes,” he said. He glanced at Jamie. “You want to do the honors?”

  Jamie nodded uncomfortably.

  When the door opened and Tucker confronted the five pale faces, the worst of his anger ran from him. Something weird was going down. No doubt about that. But, intuitively, he knew that Jamie Tams and his companions didn’t have anything to do with it either. At least they weren’t causing it. They were involved, though. No fucking way they weren’t.

  “Ah . . . Inspector?” Jamie began, stepping back from the door.

  Tucker nodded a greeting as he entered. Tams he already knew, but this wasn’t the same blustering man he’d met yesterday. Something had been drained out of him. The others were as motley a crew as he might have expected from the files he’d been reading last night. The biker would be Glen Farley. The woman . . . ? And there were two other men; one had a makeshift bandage on his head.

  “You wanted to talk to me?” he said to Jamie.

  “Ah . . . yes.” Jamie was confused. This wasn’t how he’d imagined it would go. He’d expected a half dozen policemen to come running in, slapping handcuffs on the lot of them and dragging them downtown, or wherever it was that they took apprehended criminals.

  “Who’re your friends?” Tucker asked.

  Awkwardly, Jamie made the introductions. When they were done, he just stood there, not knowing where to begin. Picking up on Jamie’s near-fugue state, Blue spoke up.

  “We’ve got us a problem, Inspector,” he said, “that’s kind of hard to explain.”

  Tucker turned his attention to him. “People call you Blue, don’t they?”

  Blue nodded.

  “And you used to ride the Devil’s Dragon?”

  “Hey. That was a long time ago.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  Jesus, Blue thought. If you know everything, then what the hell are you asking questions for?

  “Everybody here involved in this?” Tucker asked.

  Blue shook his head. “Just me and Jamie.”

  “And Ms. Kendell? Where’s she?”

 
“That’s part of the problem.”

  Tucker nodded. “Okay. Why don’t you and Mr. Tams and I go somewhere and have ourselves a little talk. The rest of you,” he added, speaking now to Sally, Fred and Sam, “hang around, okay? By that I mean, go and do whatever it is that you do, but don’t leave the premises. I’ll want to talk to you.”

  Blue and Jamie exchanged glances. Usually, Blue thought, there’d be two cops. One playing Mr. Nice Guy, the other being the hardass. So what was Tucker’s game? Was he going to play both parts himself? Knowing what they had to tell him, Blue wasn’t looking forward to the next few hours. He knew where they’d end up. Downtown in holding cells, because who’d ever believe the story they had to offer? And having a record from his days with the Dragon certainly wasn’t going to help.

  They retired to the Silkwater Kitchen and there, over cups of coffee, Jamie told the Inspector everything he knew. When he got to the attack on the House this morning, Blue took up the narrative, finishing with the Inspector’s arrival.

  They both watched the Inspector as they talked, trying to judge his reaction, but he kept a poker face. Only when Blue was finally done did he speak.

  “You paint a pretty picture,” he said. “Either of you ever think of moving to Hollywood? With imaginations like you’ve got‌—”

  “I swear it’s true!” Jamie said.

  Tucker sighed. “I’m so tired of hearing those words. Every two-bit punk or hooker that you pick up is willing to swear to anything, if they think it’ll get ‘em off.”

  Here we go, Blue thought. No more Mr. Nice Guy. But Tucker surprised him again.

  “Let’s just suppose,” Tucker said, “that what you’ve told me is true.”

  Jamie and Blue looked at each other in astonishment.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” the Inspector added. “We’re just supposing it’s not a crock of shit. Now tell me this. Why was the House attacked this morning?”

  “But I told you,” Jamie said. “It’s the ring‌—the ring that Sara’s got.”

  “Isn’t she supposed to be off in Never-never-land?”

  “Yes, but‌—”

  “And didn’t the elusive Mr. Hengwr go there to look for her?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Then what the hell’s this‌—what? Dead harper? What’s he attacking you for?”

  That stopped Jamie. He’d assumed that the attack was part of the harassment that Tom had told him to expect.

  “I . . . I hadn’t thought of that,” he said slowly.

  “You hadn’t thought of that,” Tucker repeated, his voice laced with irony. He shook his head wearily.

  “Give us a break,” Blue said. “Do you think any of this makes sense to us?”

  “Jesus H.! I’ll tell you something, Farley. Even if I believed half of what you’ve told me, what’s left is still so full of holes it’s pathetic. You got me?”

  Blue bit back a retort and leaden silence descended. He glared at Tucker, who returned the look, not giving an inch. At last Blue looked away and sighed.

  “Okay,” he said. “So now what. You taking us in?”

  Tucker had the warrant for Jamie sitting in the breast pocket of his jacket and knew he could whistle one up for Blue that’d be waiting for him by the time he got to headquarters. The only trouble was, what good would bringing them in do? He couldn’t accept the story they’d handed him. But at the same time, it was plain to him that they believed it. And something had happened here this morning. Why else would Jamie have called him with a story that they had to know wouldn’t be believed?

  “On what charge?” Tucker asked finally.

  “You need a charge?” Blue’s voice was sullen.

  This guy’s done time, Tucker thought. It was there in the file. He’d pulled a year-less-a-day on an assault charge. The Crown report read that he’d been provoked. Other than that he’d never been charged with anything more serious than unlawful possession of firearms and creating a public nuisance. Looking from the biker to Jamie, Tucker came to a quick decision.

  “Either of you planning to leave town?” he asked.

  “No sir, Marshal Dillon.”

  “Lay off the shit, Farley. You’re in enough trouble as it is.” He turned to Jamie. “I’d like to have a look around the House and then talk to the others.”

  Jamie nodded. “You can look around all you like. We’ve nothing to hide.”

  As he started to get up, Tucker shook his head.

  “You bring the others in here,” he said. “Our hero here can show me around. Right, Farley?”

  Blue shrugged.

  You could hide an army in here, Tucker thought as Blue led him from room to room. He wasn’t really expecting to find anything. He just wanted to get a feel of the place. The route they took led through a lot of broken glass, upset furniture and general disarray‌—which either lent credence to Jamie’s story or proved that they had a lot of really wild parties. Tucker found himself hoping it was the latter.

  “What do you really think is going down?” he asked.

  They were in the base of the northwest tower, just under Sara’s rooms. At the question, Blue paused with his hand on a doorknob and turned to look at the Inspector. A quick retort died on his lips at the set of Tucker’s features. The cop wasn’t there for a moment. There was just a man, plainly curious. Caring even. And that was a weird thing to think, Blue thought as he framed a reply.

  “Up until that thing came through the door at me,” he said at last, “I didn’t know what to think. Jamie’s always been a little off the wall. Different, you know? But not in a way that’d ever hurt anybody. And the same goes for the kind of people that drift into the House. We’re down to a core membership right now. There’ve been up to fifty people staying here at a time and the feeling that goes down is always good. I was into some pretty heavy shit when they took me in‌—Jamie and Sara. And I’d do anything for them.”

  “Would you go as far as perjury, if this came to court?”

  “In a minute.”

  “Well, at least you’re being honest.”

  “We’re not bullshitting you, Inspector.” Blue tried to think of something, anything, he could say that might drive the point home. “I’ve seen a thing or two in my time that was . . . well, weird, you know? I lived with some Navajo down in Arizona for awhile‌—must’ve been around ’73 or so‌—and saw some pretty bizarre shit go down.”

  “Peyote induced?”

  Blue shook his head. “I did some mescal‌—stuff like that. But dope or no dope, there’s a lot of things that go on that just can’t be explained. I’ve never really paid that much attention to most of it. But Jamie does. He studies that kind of stuff.”

  “So what are you trying to say?”

  “All I’m trying to say is that there’s something more around us, something more than what we can see or even understand. I guess most people never come into contact with it. But some do. And what we’ve got here is one hell of a contact. Now you can laugh it off, you can bust us, you can do whatever it is that you’re planning to do, but that still won’t change the fact that something’s going down and it’s not something you can put in a neat little box and stick a label on.”

  Tucker didn’t say anything for a long moment. He regarded the biker steadily, then shrugged.

  “You could be right,” he said at last.

  Blue let out a sigh. Well, that was something, at least. Not a commitment, but something.

  The rest of the hour went quickly. In the West Library where Sam Pattison worked, Tucker paused long enough to try out the typewriter sitting on one of the desks. He compared its script to a card he took from his pocket, then laughed to himself as he put it away. He hadn’t really expected it to match.

  Back in the Silkwater Kitchen, he talked to the others, taking an informal statement from each one. Their stories matched, but that didn’t mean anything. They’d had plenty of time to put a story together.

  “Okay,” he said a
t length. “I’ve got all I need.”

  “What happens now?” Jamie asked.

  “I’ve got a few other things to look into. But I’ll be back. I’d like you all to stick around, okay?”

  “What if it happens again?” Sally asked.

  “If what happens again?”

  “If that . . . that thing attacks us again,” Jamie said.

  Tucker raised his hands helplessly. “What do you expect me to do about it?”

  Blue laid a hand on Jamie’s arm before he could say anything else. “We’ll handle it on our own,” Blue said.

  “If something does come up,” Tucker said, “give me a call. You’ve got my number.”

  When Blue returned from seeing Tucker out, Jamie asked: “What now?”

  “Now?” Blue sat down wearily. “I don’t know, Jamie. We wait some more, I guess.”

  “Well, I’m going to my study,” Jamie said. “Tom entered a program into Memoria that I’d like to have a look at.”

  “Yeah,” Blue said. “Maybe you can make some sense out of all this. Lord knows we need something. I think I’ll go and clean my rifle. Just in case, you know?” He glanced at Jamie. “You got any silver bullets?”

  Jamie attempted a smile. “Not even one.”

  He got up and left, looking very old.

  Blue drummed his fingers on the table, staring out at the garden. He tried to rationalize what had happened this morning, but it always came down to the same thing: There was no explanation for what had gone down. None, except for what Thomas Hengwr had told Jamie.

  Fred left to see what damage his precious gardens had sustained, and Sam trailed along behind him, leaving Blue and Sally alone.

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  Blue looked up, then reached across to take her hand. “You and me both.”

  “We should go,” she said. “Just get away from here.”

  “I can’t leave Jamie to face this alone, babe.”

  “I meant all of us.”

  Blue shook his head. “There’s Sara to think about. If she comes back, needing us, and we’re all gone . . .”

  “I had my pick of the whole city,” Sally said, “and I had to choose someone with a white knight complex.”