by R. L. King
“Well, even if I were, I’d hardly be interested in the likes of you.” Stone couldn’t keep the contempt out of his voice. Bullies like this man tended to bring out qualities that had on occasion gotten him punched in the face, but he considered it a reasonable price to pay. “Now, suppose you move along, yes? Off you go.” He made a shooing gesture.
Something seemed to come over the man: rage darkened his features, his eyes blazed with hatred, and he launched himself forward—not at Stone, but toward the kids hiding behind the refrigerator.
Stone, preparing to sidestep another attack, was almost too slow to react. The man moved faster than he’d expected a drunken stoner to. The two children, wide-eyed, shrieked and scrambled backward.
Stone acted without thinking. As Dario was about to leap over the refrigerator, he made a small gesture and the fridge’s door flew open, standing up like a shield in front of the raving man.
It worked just like Stone hoped it would: Dario, unable to slow his forward momentum, smashed into the door with a loud thud and an inarticulate scream of rage and pain. He hit the ground but got up fast, blood from his nose joining the dirt on his face, spinning around as if trying to figure out what the hell had just happened to him. “What the fuck?” he yelled.
Stone shrugged.
Dario wheeled away from him again and spotted the kids. “You did this!” he screamed. “You took my fuckin’ stash and I’m gonna kill you!” Once again, he lunged at the two children. “You can’t run! I know where you live, you little fuckers!”
“Stop it!” Stone yelled. He gestured again, and Dario’s feet went out from under him, slamming him to the hard-packed, trash-strewn ground with enough impact to knock the wind out of him.
He rolled over on his back, gasping for air, and stared up at Stone with bulging, bloodshot eyes. It was clear he was struggling against something. “What the…fuck?” he spluttered, unable to get enough breath to scream.
Stone held the spell on him, pressing down on his chest with enough magical force to keep him in one place, but not enough to completely prevent him from breathing. He stood towering over the man, glaring down on him. “Now. You’re going to go off wherever it is you go and sleep off your little party. Understood?”
Tears of frustration and rage cut tracks down Dario’s dirt-streaked face. He tried to spit at Stone, but the glob only flew up a couple of inches and landed back on his own face. “Buh—fuck—kids—”
“Yes, yes, very articulate.” Stone increased the pressure a bit. “Understood? Nod if you understand. If I find out you’ve hurt these kids, I’ll come back, and it won’t be pleasant for you. Best if you nod quickly.”
Dario struggled again, arms and legs flailing while his torso inexplicably refused to move. Then, suddenly, all the air seemed to go out of him. He ceased struggling and deflated back to the ground. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, and nodded several times. “Whatever. Lemme up, dude.”
Stone glanced at the kids.
“It’s okay,” the boy said in a small voice. “He’s okay now.”
The girl nodded solemnly.
Stone, with a final glare at Dario, released the spell. The man struggled to his feet and stood there, swaying. He glanced at Stone and then at the kids like he didn’t quite register who they were. All the fight seemed to have evaporated from him, replaced with confusion. “Uh…” he said. Without another word, he turned and shuffled off back toward where Stone assumed the main camp was.
Stone watched him go. When he disappeared over a rise, the two kids popped back up from behind the refrigerator. “Thanks,” Pedro said. “Dario—he’s bad news.”
“I can see that. Did you take his stash?”
“No way!” the little girl said. “We don’t go near him!” Her voice dropped. “I don’t think his brain is right.”
Stone nodded. “Will you be all right? Later, I mean?”
Pedro nodded. “We’ll tell people. They been gonna run him outta the camp for a while anyways. They will for sure after this.”
“Good, good. Now then: are your parents around? Or another grownup you trust?”
The kids looked at each other. “Uh…Mr. Levine is here. He can’t walk, and his wheelchair got busted so he can’t sit on his corner anymore, so he has to stay here. People bring him stuff.”
“Can you take me to him?”
Pedro nodded, his face serious. “You sure we’re not in trouble?”
“I promise: no trouble.”
“He did help us with Dario,” the girl pointed out.
“Okay,” Pedro conceded. “C’mon.”
The kids led him in the same direction Dario had gone, keeping wary eyes out for the drunk. Before long, the source of the smoke Stone had seen became clear: a metal trash can with a fire burning inside of it. Several figures in shapeless coats huddled around it. Makeshift tents, one battered old trailer, and a few sleeping bags covered by lean-tos made from tarps and poles rounded out the camp.
“There he is.” Pedro pointed at a young black man sitting in a battered deck chair. He wore a baseball cap turned backward, a gray hoodie, and jeans tied off at the knee; the remaining parts of both legs were missing. “Hey, Mr. Levine,” the boy called.
The man looked up from where he had been dozing. “Pedro, my man. And Chelsea. How you kids doin’?” He spotted Stone and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Who’s this?”
“Um…” Pedro apparently realized he’d never asked for Stone’s name. “He says he wants to talk to a grownup. He’s okay, Mr. Levine. He helped us get away from Dario.”
“Is that so?” Levine squinted up at Stone, examining him. “Okay, you two. Go find somethin’ to do, okay? If you can find any water ‘round anywhere, I’d go for some. Or a beer, even better.”
The two kids nodded and hurried off, waving over their shoulders at Stone. “They good kids,” Levine said. “Shouldn’t be here. Should have a home with a roof and stuff, y’know?”
Stone nodded. He agreed with him. “Aren’t there shelters? I thought especially children—”
“Nah.” Levine shook his head. “You don’t go to no shelters. They bad news.”
“Oh?” Stone was uncomfortable standing; he felt like he was looming over Levine. There weren’t any other chairs, though, and he wasn’t going to sit on the ground. Finally he crouched down, forearms resting on his bent knees. “Why is that?”
“People disappear from shelters,” Levine said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Again, his eyes narrowed. “You ain’t tryin’ to get us to go there, are you? That guy from Gordon Lucas’s bunch came through here last week, but he didn’t get no takers. Not even after he handed out food. Week before that it was the Salvation Army, with coats. It don’t matter. They okay, but them shelters are all bad places.”
Stone studied Levine, shifting to magical sight to try to get a read on the man’s mental state. His aura was inconclusive, though: strong and green, but with patches of darkness that might indicate psychological distress, but could also just come from drinking or hard living. “People disappear?”
Levine nodded. “Yeah. People don’t think we hear things, but we do. Sometimes people check into those places and they don’t come out, y’know?”
“I see.”
“So what you want, anyway?” he asked before Stone could continue. “Guys like you don’t come around here unless they want somethin’. Even the do-gooders like Lucas and the churches and the Salvation Army usually just set stuff up and we have to get to it. So what you want?”
Stone paused, considering how to bring up the subject. He glanced around to see if anyone else was watching, but this time of day the camp seemed mostly deserted, except for Levine and the knot of shapeless forms clustered around the trash-barrel fire. “Did you hear about a murder near here?” he asked. “Several homeless men who were killed recently?”
Levine nodded, suspicion showing in his eyes. “Everybody hear about that,” he said. “How could we not? It was
just over there.” He pointed in the same direction as the area where Stone had sensed the disturbance.
“Did you—” Again, Stone wasn’t sure how to proceed. He wanted all the information he could get, but he was acutely aware of the fact that his questions might seem insensitive.
“Did I know any of ’em?” Levine asked. When Stone nodded, he said, “Yeah, a little. They were at the old camp before the cops broke it up. Guess they went off and made their own. Lot of folks did, like us.” He gestured around the area. “We’ll stay here ’til the cops come and kick us out again, I s’pose.” He tilted his head. “Why you askin’, anyway? You ain’t a cop, right? ‘Cause they already been through here askin’ questions right after it happened.”
“I’m not a cop,” Stone said. “There’ve been some other odd murders around here, so I’m looking for information about them.”
“Why?”
Stone reached into the pocket of his coat and withdrew a couple of the ten-dollar bills he’d brought with him. “Mr. Levine,” he said, “I’ve got my reasons for wanting to know. I promise you, I don’t mean you or any of your friends any harm.” He held out the money. “I’d very much appreciate if you could answer my questions, and in exchange, perhaps I can help you a bit as well.”
Levine eyed the money, obviously tempted. “You sure you ain’t gonna cause trouble ’round here?”
“I give you my word. I just want to know anything you might be able to tell me about the murders.”
There was a long pause, then Levine reached out and delicately plucked the bills from Stone’s hand. “Thank you, man. Not gonna lie, it does help.” He sighed. “I can’t tell you much, though. Nobody heard nothin’, which was weird enough. Killin’ six guys like that without makin’ enough noise for anybody to hear?”
“Killing them like what?”
“Messy,” Levine said. “I didn’t see ’em, but I heard about it. Sounds like some o’ the stuff I saw overseas when I was in the Army. Blood and guts.”
Stone took a deep breath, remembering the old case he’d thought was long since put to bed. “They weren’t…none of the body parts were, ah…eaten, were they?”
Levine’s eyes widened. “You mean like cannibal shit? Naw. None o’ that. Why you think that, anyway?”
“Just something I read once,” Stone said. “I guess it wasn’t right. Please, go on.”
Levine eyed him with suspicion for a few seconds, then shrugged. “And they was all arranged ’round their fire. That was the weirdest part.”
Stone was beginning to see that he wasn’t going to get much else useful about the murders. Maybe nobody had seen anything—especially if Levine was telling the truth and the killers hadn’t made much noise. He tried a different tack. “What about the disappearances from the shelters? Are you sure it’s not just people taking off? Getting fed up for whatever reason and just leaving on their own?”
Levine shook his head. “Naw, man. That happens, sure. But when they leave, they come back to their people, their camps. Wherever they stay on the streets. These ones just disappeared, like they up and left town.”
“How do you know they didn’t?”
“I don’t, I guess,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe one or two, yeah. But most of us ain’t got the cash for a bus ticket or whatever, and not many drivers pick us up these days. Too dangerous. But we all talk, y’know? Word gets around. And lately there’s always people askin’ about friends. Where they gone, anybody seen ’em, that kinda thing. People afraid to go into them shelters.”
“Even the children?” Stone glanced over to where Pedro and Chelsea were rolling an old tire around in a cleared-out space.
“Yeah. Shelters, those halfway house places—it happens.” His expression turned bitter. “They think we stupid, ’cause we’re homeless. They think we don’t know. Won’t notice. Cops won’t listen to us, even if we get brave enough to say somethin’ about it.” He shook his head. “Ain’t nobody give a fuck about us, man. That’s the way of the world.”
Stone sighed, bowing his head for a moment. He knew that the man was right. Homeless people were everywhere these days, invisible and silent on the streets. He rose to his feet. “Thank you, Mr. Levine. I appreciate your time.”
“No problem, man.” Levine leaned back in his chair and pulled his hat brim down over his eyes.
Stone turned and started back the way he’d come. He’d made it a little way past the group at the trash can when someone called, “Hey!”
He stopped and turned. One of the shapeless figures was shuffling toward him. “Yes?”
The figure approached. It was an old man, hunched and wrinkled, in a tattered coat a couple of sizes too big for him and fingerless, knitted gloves. He looked up at Stone with eyes barely visible behind a deep squint. “You was talkin’ to Levine. About the murders.”
“Yes…”
“I seen you give him some money. You give me some too, and I’ll tell you somethin’ he don’t know.”
Stone eyed him with suspicion, wondering if he was going to be followed by a parade of homeless guys trying to make a buck with a good manufactured story. “How do you know this?”
“I seen it.”
“You saw the murders?” Stone asked, surprised.
“I saw it after. They was still there, though. The guys who did it.”
Stone shifted to magical sight and examined the man’s aura. An aura wasn’t a lie detector: he couldn’t tell someone was lying just by looking at it. But if it remained steady, it was a reasonable indication that the speaker at least believed he was telling the truth. “Tell me first. If I believe you, I’ll give you what I gave him.”
The man frowned. “How’m I gonna believe you?” He pulled a bottle wrapped in a paper bag from his capacious pocket, took a swig, and returned the bottle to its place.
“You’ll just have to trust me, won’t you?” Stone shrugged, and started to turn away. “Or I could just be on my way—”
“No, no.” The man plucked at Stone’s sleeve. “Don’t go. I’ll tell ya.” When he turned back, the old man leaned in, blowing breath that was at least forty proof in Stone’s face as he spoke. “I was on my way back to my camp. I spend the day by the freeway, askin’ people for cash at the stoplight. It was late. I saw ’em. They were there.”
“Who was there?”
“Four of ’em. I was a long way away, so I didn’t see their faces. But they was big. And they was laughin’, bendin’ over somethin’.”
“What did you do?”
The man snorted. “I hid. Those guys weren’t from ’round here. I could tell by how they moved. They wasn’t no homeless guys.”
“Did you hear anything else? Screaming from the victims?”
“No,” he said. “I think maybe they was already dead, or close to it, when I got there. But…” He hesitated.
“But…?”
The man’s small bright eyes shifted back and forth. “I did hear somethin’ else. Moanin’.”
“That doesn’t seem odd. If they’d injured the victims and they weren’t dead yet—”
“Not that kinda moanin’,” he said. He glanced to both sides again, as if afraid somebody might be listening. “Moanin’ like you hear when people are…you know…havin’ sex. And it was comin’ from those guys. The killers.” He looked at Stone shrewdly. “Okay. That’s what I know. Where’s my money?”
Stone handed him the bills while otherwise barely noticing him. On his way back to the car, mind far away, he paused on his near-autopilot walk and used magic to remove the door from the abandoned refrigerator.
CHAPTER FIVE
By the time Stone returned from the homeless camp to his townhouse in Palo Alto, he’d made a choice. It wasn’t an easy choice: there were downsides to each of his potential decisions, but as he parked the car in the garage and headed inside, he arrived at the conclusion that one of them had less chance of affecting him in ways he couldn’t control. The devil you know, he thought wryly.
<
br /> Most of his thoughts on the way back from San Jose had been about why he was even doing any of this. He was a college professor, not a policeman or a detective. The police were trained and paid to investigate crimes like this, and even these days when the sheer number of crimes committed in the area had stretched their numbers thin, they still had better resources than he did to find whoever was responsible for the killings.
Or did they? He was also a mage, and if the murders did have a supernatural component—or even if some of them did, since he still wasn’t convinced they were all related—then he didn’t think the cops were at all equipped to deal with perpetrators that walked on the spooky side of the street.
Realistically, he didn’t see how the crimes could have been related. Madison McClain had suffered some kind of temporary violent mental episode and killed her mother. Whoever had murdered the man in the alleyway behind the bar had no doubt been violent and deranged—perhaps under the influence of some dangerous drug. The man who had pushed the woman in front of the train swore he had no idea why he’d done it, and was currently on suicide watch at the county jail and under mental evaluation (this little fact had been in the papers, along with the other details of the murder). The only case that seemed to have a clear group of perpetrators was the homeless men’s killing. If the old man at the camp could be believed, then the men hadn’t been killed by fellow homeless people. Someone had preyed on them, efficiently and quietly. Four someones, from the sound of it.
And what about the moaning? That had struck Stone as oddest of all, even odder than the artfully arranged bodies. Had the killers gotten some sort of sexual pleasure from the violent murders? Stone didn’t know much about serial killers or even mentally deranged ones, but he was reasonably sure that the kind of man who got his jollies from murder tended to act alone. Four of them together having some kind of mutual celebratory wank over the cooling bodies seemed too farfetched to consider. But yet, that was exactly what it sounded like had happened. He remembered the impressions he’d gotten in the alley behind the bar: the sense of satisfaction and pleasure. Had it been the same sort of thing as the old man had described?
