Instead of putting myself through the trouble of having to sit down and get back up, I decided to instead make my morning pot of coffee and get ready for work.
Despite the head start on the day, I still got to work a few minutes late. I had to walk to the bar to pick my truck up, after all. At the restaurant, there were three cars already in the lot. The first was Abraham’s Buick, complete with his Bob Marley bumper sticker. The second was Frank’s. And the third car in the lot belonged to Carlos, the cook with the evening shift.
I walked into Long John’s, and the little bell jangled above my head. Abraham was behind the counter, and Brian the life insurance guy was sipping a cup of coffee, standing by the windows. Through the long window I saw Carlos, surrounded by steam. Seated at one of the tables was Frank.
“What’s going on?” I asked him. “Am I finally getting a shift change?”
Frank raised himself from the seat with what looked like great effort. I hated him effortlessly, he was such a bum. He said, “Why don’t we talk outside.”
“Let’s not,” I said. I had a bad feeling. “What’s going on? Why is Carlos in my kitchen?”
I looked at Abe, and he looked away.
“Frank,” I said.
“Marley,” he replied. “It isn’t your kitchen anymore. I need to let you go.”
“What? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, man. How the hell can you do this to me in front of Brian?”
“I told you to come outside, you idiot….”
“Hardball, eh?”
“No hardball, Marlowe….”
“Why the hell are you firing me, man?”
“Our agreement when you took this job, Marlowe, was that you would be out on your ear if you ever got in trouble with the law, and that’s what happened. Honestly, I’m surprised it took so long.”
Jesus, I thought. Van Buren must have been holding a serious fucking grudge for him to contact Frank about my arrest.
“In case you didn’t notice, I got worked over like a two-dollar whore. I didn’t do anything. I was the victim of an assault.”
I pointed to my swollen eye.
“Sure,” said Frank. “Just like you’re a victim of goddamn sexual harassment. I don’t need to hear it.”
“Like a two-dollar whore,” I repeated.
“I can’t have any sympathy for that,” he yelled, “and you look as ragged as you always do.”
“But it’s my fucking job, man,” I said.
“Not anymore.”
Brian stood up and said, “I personally think the world of Marlowe. He’s a splendid man. I think you should give him a second chance.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Have some fucking compassion, man.”
“Compassion! Who gave you the job in the first place? What’s the first thing you do when the only man that saw a lick of good in you went on and died? You got drunk. It’s bad enough you harass the patrons when you’re sober. No one needs to hear a booze-hound like you rant and rave in the middle of my goddamn diner. Now get outta here before I call the police.”
“Well, you’re not even willin’ to entertain the thought of being a humanitarian today, are you?”
“No,” he said, and he lit one of his awful cigars.
“I’m sorry,” Carlos said through the long window. “I know,” I said. “It’s not your fault.”
I turned to Abe and said, “Any words of encouragement?”
“You’re not black,” he said. “You’ll get another job.”
I smiled, but I sucker-punched Frank in the stomach anyway. He collapsed back into his chair and gasped for air. His face turned as red as a brick. Abe rushed out from behind the counter and ushered me out of the restaurant as quickly as he could. The bell jangled, and then we were outside. Abe pushed me down the few steps outside the restaurant. It wasn’t a fight he wanted. He was just being a peacekeeper in the only way he knew how.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“It don’t look like nothing, you crazy asshole. Why’d you have to do that?”
“He thinks he’s better than me? Fuck him.”
“No.”
“You think he’s better than me?”
“No, Marley, no one’s better than you. Now go home, and I’ll do my best to keep this guy from calling the cops. How does that sound?”
“Fine, but I got friends on the force,” I said. “No, you don’t,” he said.
He was right. “Damn, Abe, you didn’t have to say it like that.”
He came down the stairs and slapped me on the arm. “Marley, I feel for you, man, but you gotta pull your shit together. You can’t go on and let yourself fall apart because of these external factors, man, you know what I’m saying? I know you’re hurting, but you’ve got to be a big man here.”
“I know. I just can’t help it.”
I felt like crying right there. I couldn’t believe I’d been fired. “I lost my fucking job, man….”
“You need someone to talk to, you know I’m here for you,” he said.
“I know, bro. You never liked Ozzy, but you’re an okay guy.”
“Yeah, and you never liked Al Green.”
“I don’t even know who the fuck Al Green is,” I said. “If you did, we wouldn’t be here right now. Now, get outta here. And, Marley?”
“Yeah?”
“Be good. There’s a lot of people in this town who remember how you used to be, and they don’t fuckin’ like you. Don’t justify that shit with some stupid-ass behavior like the shit you just pulled in here, okay?”
“Arright.”
“What would do you good is a little bit of church.”
I was driving on Old Sherman Road, my mind spinning in a hundred different directions. If my radio had worked, I would have been informed that there were still no developments with the Rose Killer case, and there was no comment from the police. Luckily, my radio was on the fritz. I didn’t have to hear it.
I hit a pothole, and my head hit the roof of the cab. It hurt, and I squeezed my eyes shut for just a second. When I opened them again, I saw there was a man in the road just ahead of me. I hit the brakes hard, and the truck skidded to a stop just feet in front of the man.
He was old, and wearing a tattered suit and a baseball cap. Over one shoulder he had a plastic bag full of cans he’d picked up from the gutters. In his hand was a long stick with a nail driven through the end. It was the fucking Indian.
His eyes glimmered with wisdom and dirty secrets, like they were laughing at me for not knowing what he knew. I should’ve hit him.
“Do you want to die, old man? Are cans that important that you’ll stand in the middle of the fucking road?”
He looked at me like I owed him an apology.
“What the fuck are you lookin’ at, you old bastard?” I shouted out the open window. He said nothing. I knew he wouldn’t. “What are you doing?”
He came over to the truck, to the side, to my window. He was holding that stick up like a weapon.
“Waiting for you,” he said in a low, cracked voice.
“The fuck does that mean?” I sneered.
“You drive these roads … like a mad wolf, white man. I know which way you come. Your darkie friend gave you some excellent wisdom, and … you’d be wise to follow it.”
“Yeah? What would that be?”
“External factors have destroyed the balance.”
“Fuck did you just say?”
“Outside forces are at work, Higgins. Be aware …”
“How the fuck do you know my name?” He smiled, ignored the question. “How do you know about me?”
The toothy smile on his face turned into a perfect moonlike crescent.
“You sinister little bastard,” I said, opening the car door, my fist clenched at my side.
Just then, I heard a noise like the wail of a clarinet, and caught a movement in the corner of my eye. On the other side of Old Sherman, right where th
e woods meet the road, was a wolf, watching me. It was gray, with blue eyes so piercing my heart skipped a beat. It looked at me, yawned, then padded into the maze of trees, out of sight. When I turned back to the old man, he was gone.
What did that damn Indian mean about external factors? Wasn’t it a strange coincidence that Abraham had just said the same thing earlier that morning? Abe also said I should go to church. At that point, a lightbulb went off in my head, and church didn’t sound like a bad idea at all.
The church I went to wasn’t just any old church, but the one that had been broken into the night that Josie Jones disappeared.
I knew which one it was because I had read the article several times.
It was all the way on the west side of town on a very quiet block. Just a few homes here and there, and the church took up one whole corner. Off to the side was a playground. Past that was a church-type school, where the kids wore uniforms. The street was empty, and I couldn’t imagine it being any different in the dead of night. The cross on top looked nice and even, and all the stained-glass windows were clean. No one had seen or heard a thing when the place got busted into, but I needed to satisfy a curiosity. Maybe something had gone down they didn’t mention in the papers. If there was semen all over, or a swastika or some such thing, I can’t imagine the churchgoers being anxious to know about it. But I had to know. It couldn’t just be a coincidence that a church break-in occurred on the same nights as the disappearances. I could have been grasping at straws, but something told me I wasn’t. After all, there was a mighty strange incident that had happened years before I moved to Evelyn, and it involved a church.
It was 1988. The bodies of three children had been found in a drainage ditch just a few miles outside of Chicago. Two of them had been there for several weeks. The third was fresh. The papers said there were no signs of sexual misconduct, but that didn’t mean anything to me. When the full moon came around, the wolf knew what to do.
It visited the dumping ground, picked up a scent, and tracked it on the wind to a fellow named Jack Kaplan, who at that moment was joyriding on a Japanese motorcycle. He was a high school dropout with an arrest record loaded with drug charges and a couple of indecent exposures. Nothing serious, but that’s just because he’d never been caught. Just like me.
The wolf stalked him till he turned off an exit and wound up in the suburbs, far away from prying eyes. On a quiet street, it sprang from the bushes, causing the man to fall from the bike. He took off his helmet, saw what was coming at him, and took off like a bat out of hell.
Directly across the street was a church. He charged it, as if he would be granted asylum there. He kicked the door in and shut it behind him. The wolf entered the church just seconds later, but was unable to locate the man, who was just several feet away, hiding under one of the pews. This had never happened before. It was as if the wolf’s powers had been nullified once it set foot on holy ground. Anywhere else in the world, it would have been able to find the man with its eyes closed, just on scent alone, but in that church, the creature was rendered almost human.
The wolf looked left and right, and roared in confusion. The hellish sound of the beast scared the man out of his hiding place, and he ran. The wolf followed.
To make a long story short, the wolf eventually chased the man onto the roof, where he jumped and died. This incident is unique and noteworthy for two reasons. One, something to do with the church legitimately fucked up the wolf’s senses. Two, something to do with the church had prevented the wolf from ripping the man to shreds. Instead, it led him to his own doom. It was as if the wolf had obeyed some unwritten rule I knew nothing about, or if not, it seemed that Jesus put the kibosh on the beast’s dastardly ways while it was on His turf. Maybe Jesus came down and said, “Hey, man, don’t make a mess in here.” I didn’t know what to make of it at the time.
On another occasion many years earlier, I had taken shelter in a church on the night of the full moon. As night came down, the priest was alerted of my presence because I was screaming. I was changing, but it was happening more slowly than it would have in any other place. It hurt twice as much. I couldn’t move. The priest helped me outside to wait for an ambulance. The changing process then sped up, and that’s when I killed him.
I climbed the stone steps to the church and opened the heavy wooden door. The church had a high ceiling that was designed to look like the inside of a boat, like Noah’s Ark. There were pews on each side, and all the way down at the other end, the altar. A big, hungry Jesus hung on the wall behind the altar, and there were candles all over the place. Right in front of me was a big vat of holy water, like a birdbath. I dipped my fingers in the stuff and smelled it. Smelled like water to me.
There were two women seated in one of the pews, both dressed in black, like widows. I didn’t want to look at them. What I needed was a priest or something, not atmosphere. I didn’t know if there was some office located somewhere, or any kind of fancy legwork I had to do to get the man’s attention, so instead, I cleared my throat. Loudly. It didn’t work. So I did it again. The two widows looked at me.
I cleared my throat a third time. A man in black poked his head out from behind one of the columns. I waved, and he strolled over with a plastic smile on his face. He was my age, with his short brown hair combed to one side, and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched on the edge of his nose. He was trying to look older than he was. The hell of it was that I recognized the guy, and then I remembered: He had done the services for Pearce.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “What brings you to our house?”
I blushed. I just then realized I didn’t know how to address him.
“Hey, Padre,” I said, to which he frowned, “you don’t know me, but I was wondering if I could just ask you a few questions about some stuff. It won’t take but a minute.”
“Certainly, sir,” he said. “Time is not an issue here, because the time is always right to find yourself in God’s house.”
I said, “Sure, man. Whatever you say.”
“What is your denomination?”
“My what?”
“What church have you attended in the past?”
“Oh. Well, honestly, Your Honor, I’m not here about, uh, to inquire about attending your services and whatnot.”
“Oh,” he said sadly.
“You see, I’m inquiring about the break-in you guys had here a while back. This was two weeks ago, this happened.”
“Yes, I remember. Do you … do you have any information regarding …”
“Actually, I was hoping to get some information from you.”
“Are you with the authorities?”
I evaded the question. “The article in the local papers pointed out that nothing was stolen from the premises. Is that accurate?”
“Oh, yes. Nothing was taken.”
“How sure are you? All the crosses are accounted for, all the candles? Little things like that?”
“Yes, but … I have to wonder why you’re asking.”
“I don’t know if you’re familiar with the killings that have been going on …”
“Yes, as much as anyone else in Evelyn …”
“The break-in here happened the same night that Josie Jones went missing. The prostitute. On the night that Gloria Shaw, the first victim in Evelyn, disappeared, there was also a church break-in, with nothing taken. Allegedly. This was also the case over in Edenburgh. Don’t you think that’s odd?”
“I didn’t realize …”
“It’s a strong coincidence.”
“My,” he said. “It certainly is.”
“So, what I’m asking is, are you people sure that nothing was taken?”
“Oh, yes. Quite sure. Everything was accounted for. The surprising thing is that our poor boxes weren’t even tampered with, much less broken into. When people feel compelled to force themselves into a church, it is usually to, um, gain the contents of those boxes.”
“But that didn’t happen?”
“No.”
“Was anything done? Anything moved, or replaced? Anything at all out of the ordinary? A note, a stain, a footprint?”
“Definitely not,” said the priest.
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks for your help, Reverend.”
I turned to walk out of the place before he tried to convert me.
“The name is Peter,” he said.
“Rock on, Peter,” I called back.
My chat with Peter proved to be another strike against me, one of about a million I had accrued in the last few weeks. Just as I got home, the phone was ringing. I didn’t want to pick it up, but I just couldn’t help myself.
“Yeah.”
“Welfare can help with your bills,” said the voice.
“I’m going to welfare your fucking face.”
The man laughed, then hung up.
Made me realize that I still had a drink coming to me.
NINETEEN
The man with the broken nose turned when I tapped him on the shoulder. My right hook from hell sent him flying through the air like a kite. He landed on the edge of the pool table, then dropped down to the floor like a bag of wet clothes. His friend from the jail cell got a kick in the balls that brought him to his knees, and the other guy that did the job on me in the parking lot the night before got a left hook to the jaw. He dropped his weight down and brought his shoulder into my guts. The momentum carried me into the edge of the pool table, which screeched back along the floor. I dropped a double-ax-handle onto the back of the man’s neck, and he fell to his knees. A boot to the face left him sleeping on the floor. When I looked up, Curly was running toward the door.
I caught him in the parking lot. He was digging through the trunk of his rust-colored Mercury, and when he set eyes on me, he stepped back from the trunk with the tire iron in his hand. He swung with it once. I ducked under the arc, and then delivered an uppercut that sent him back on his heels. He dropped the tire iron. I grabbed him by the shirt and threw him headfirst into the open trunk, then retrieved the tire iron.
“You got me,” he said, his hands up.
The Wolfman Page 18
