Now a man named Grant was trying to hurt Van, and Ian wouldn't allow it, not ever.
Sid Corman knew why he was left with the results of the Scalpers’ work here in the den of perversion, surrounded by wall hangings of human hair, furniture covered in human skin, bedding stuffed with scalps. He knew now why Dean had to leave the cleanup to him. This was far worse than any floater case, far worse than anything in Sid's experience. The sour odors he could manage, and the sight of the walls and furniture he could stomach. Sid had never in all his entire professional life as a coroner felt so sickened as he did now. Never in all his time as a medic in Korea had he been made ill by the sight of a corpse with missing head, limbs, gaping holes. Nor had there ever been a diseased corpse that he could not deal with professionally, coolly, objectively. Not even a floater could cause Sid's strings to come apart. But this ... this diced-up floater was wholly different from anything he'd ever witnessed. This carnage and boiling of portions of Mrs. Jimenez and her fetus to feed the perversions of two distorted minds, this was more than any man should have to bear.
After some time in the hidden room, taking photos, collecting the necessary evidence, putting off the inevitable, Sid scooped out the remains still intact. He tried not to allow it, but jarring the mush got to him, and he threw up repeatedly on the hearth below the black cauldron, which remained scaldingly hot, the steam rising with the smoke of embers still red.
"You okay, Dr. Corman?” asked Mark Williams, Peggy Carson's partner, who along with Staubb had remained behind. The kid had rushed to the kitchen, found a cup, and brought Sid some water.
"Thanks, Williams."
Staubb was outside, preferring it that way. With a few other officers he'd called in, he was beating about the bushes, just in case the murderous little dwarf was out there somewhere watching the proceedings. Staubb, Sid had decided, had become spooked considerably, but Sid could understand why. Williams, normally a happy-go-lucky, bright-eyed kid, was currently somber, his face green, his eyes forlorn.
"I'm fine now ... I'll be okay,” replied Sid.
"Ain't nothing to be ashamed of."
"I'm not ashamed,” said Sid, taking a syringe and sucking up the residue left in a deep brown soup bowl on the little table. He then took forceps and lifted the bowl itself into a plastic bag.
"Why ... don't you take these bags carefully out to your squad car and ... put ‘em in the trunk,” said Sid, handing Williams some of the items he'd chosen to take downtown. Both men knew Sid was fighting down bile.
"Sure, sure ... no problem.” Williams rushed to it, knowing Sid wanted to be alone with his stomach. Williams plowed through the wooden-floored house noisily.
Sid controlled it, got hold of it, fought it back just long enough to allow Williams to return as he lost it again at the hearth, where now he was on his knees and bent over, pushing the vomit into the embers with a fireplace shovel.
Williams continued to make Sid uneasy. “Enough here to drive any man to his knees, turn you to religion,” muttered Williams. “My mother always says you got to have religion in your life to ... to fend off the bad times, she says, the real bad times ... calamities, but I don't reckon she meant anything like this, but she does worry ‘bout me all the time, being a cop.” The kid was going on out of nervous hysteria, Sid realized. He'd seen it before.
"Why don't you go on outside with Staubb, huh?"
"Sir?"
"Staubb may need your help outside."
"Yes sir, I'll check on that."
Williams was only too glad to return to the outdoors. Fifteen minutes later Staubb turned up, informing Sid that the woods around the house had been secured, and that nothing was found. He had his units returning to their normal duties.
Sid said a thank-you, but kept working.
"Me and the kid will be just outside. Give a holler if there's anything you need."
Sid got ahold of himself now and returned to the necessary work. He wanted to nail Benjamin I. Hamel to a cross, really crucify the bastard with every nail of evidence he could compile now, nail both him and his sick little accomplice.
Sid allowed his anger and hatred for what they had done to flood his mind. He would work better, faster, and more efficiently if he could hold that thought over those that made his stomach turn. “Going to nail the scum,” he repeated to himself in a kind of mantra as he completed his part in this nightmare.
Sgt. Joe Staubb, and Peggy's partner, Mark Williams, were having a smoke, even though Williams didn't smoke. Each man, the one in his second year and the other an old veteran of policing, had a case of shot nerves from what they'd seen deep inside the house. It dredged up in Staubb an old, forgotten line out of a poem or something he'd read somewhere, something to do with how when a man stared into the unknown, he could count on it staring back. Yeah, that was it, and he shared the thought with Williams, but Williams hadn't seen as much as Staubb—he'd remained away from that cauldron. All he'd seen was what was half-hidden by Sid Corman's broad shoulders. All the kid knew was that the coroner himself was losing it inside, and that told him to keep a safe distance if he wanted to “maintain."
Staubb, trying desperately to find something to laugh about, pointed to the brown-and-gold sign out front of the house and lightly chuckled, saying, “This place puts a whole new meaning to those real estate ads, don't it, Williams?"
Williams chewed on the inside of his mouth, tossed down the cigarette only half-burned, crushed it out, and said, “Over two million sold..."
Staubb smiled and added, “We're the neighborhood professionals."
Williams laughed, and Staubb, caught up in the macabre humor, now laughed with him, giving him a whack on the back.
Williams and Staubb felt a surge of manliness return to them, Staubb feeling it to his core, when each heard one of the radio units crackling to life out in the dark ahead of them.
"Yours or mine?” asked Williams.
"Yours."
"Be right back."
"Right"
Staubb knew from the little time he'd spent with young Williams that the kid would make a better-than-good cop if he stuck with it long enough. Most cops got out of it long before they gave themselves a real chance to gain a true understanding of police work. That it was, after all, public service work, seldom as glamorous as Hollywood portrayed it, or as gory and horrifying as tonight.
Staubb saw the lights in Williams’ unit come on as the kid settled in behind the wheel and snatched up the radio. Something seemed to agitate the kid, his relaxed posture going stiff, his free hand going to his face, rubbing it all about, as if concerned he'd forgotten to shave.
"Something up?” Staubb called to him as he neared the unit.
Williams stuck his head out through the open door. “Code 10 at Mercy Hospital ... just caught the tail end of it ... some kind of shootout."
Code 10 was the area call for “officer down.” Staubb's normally blustery face showed his concern. “You think it's a coincidence?"
"I don't know."
"Could be Dyer. See if you can get more info out of Dispatch, kid."
"Yes, sir."
But getting through was impossible. It was as if all hell had broken loose. The squawk box was filled with chatter of Chief Hodges having called an all-units in sector six—the Mercy Hospital area—to converge on the scene. A suspect in a double cop-killing had taken a unit numbered 11, shot and killed Frank Dyer, and was presumeably making an escape.
Airport, train, and bus terminals were being covered; highways leading in and out of the area were sealed off. But there was no information on Peggy or Dr. Grant.
Williams got out of the unit and walked back to the porch with Staubb, asking him what they ought to do now.
"Right now we wait for Dr. Corman to finish up his work inside. He's taking photos now, and then you're out of here. I'll call a couple of my men back here to housesit for the night."
"But maybe—"
"They wouldn't be stupid enough to com
e back here, not now,” said Staubb. “And if they do"—he patted his .38 Smith and Wesson—"we'll get ‘em. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Williams? Blow their heads off? Give you some satisfaction after all this shit. Now keep trying to get more information. I'll let Corman know what's up. Williams watched Staubb go back inside the house and he turned to the dark, facing the unit where he'd left the front door ajar. It was the only light for miles.
Williams felt a sensation akin to fear, a feeling of foreboding, a sincere and sickly notion that he was never going to see any other light in his life again, that this night was never going to end, that he and Staubb and all the others were somehow stopped in time—out of time—trapped in a ghoulish zone where cops and killers cohabited, feeding off one another for a thrill and a kick....
Silly, you're just being silly, he told himself. He returned to the unit, pleased to stand in the glow of the light in the cab. The surrounding darkness was like a wall creeping in at him. He shuddered involuntarily, and this made him clench his teeth in anger. He was angry at the men who could put such fear into him, angry at himself for allowing it. Staubb was right, it'd be so gratifying to put a bullet through the sons of bitches....
But for now, he'd better get back on the horn, find out what was going on; for now he needed to sit down under the light and feel safe again for a moment, gather up his nerve again, steady himself.
Get on inside, he said with a final look into the dark all around, thinking he'd heard some movement in the palmetto leaves on the other side of the unit. Wind ... rabbit ... armadillo, maybe, the woods in Florida were full of the things. Get into the unit and onto the box, he told himself again.
Williams did so, slipping into his front seat, leaving the door ajar, the light on in the cab. He picked up the receiver and was about to speak into it when suddenly he was grabbed around the neck and he felt something cold and whiplike slide easily across his neck, followed by a sudden, wet and warm rush over his Adam's apple. Suddenly he realized his throat had been cut.
His eyes saw something dark and hairy on his shoulders, humped over the seat, with enormous eyes and a slavering grin beneath an apelike jaw. Feeling fainter by the second, Williams ripped at his holstered gun only to find this idea hopelessly beyond him. He was unable to unlatch the snap, and even if he could, the weakness pouring into his limbs told him he'd be unable to lift the heavy pistol even if he could work his fingers round it. With his eyes now trained straight ahead on the unsuspecting Staubb, whose eyes were on the house, Williams tried desperately to put his weight against the horn, to warn Staubb, and that was his final thought, the world going completely dark as his eyes rolled back in their sockets.
Williams’ body flinched and fell forward, hit the horn and made it blare, making Staubb jump and wheel, his gun in his hand. He called out to Williams again and again, seeing him under the light of the squad car, slumped over the wheel. Then the horn stopped and the kid's body melted from the car and lay on the ground, his neck crimson with blood.
Staubb's heart skipped a beat. Whoever got Williams was in the squad car, probably in the back seat. Staubb inched closer, his revolver trained on the back windows, his eyes trying desperately to see his enemy. “Come outa there, now! Hands up!” he cried.
But all was still. Staubb wheeled at the sound of a thrush that whizzed past and into the brush. He looked all about him, then trained his eyes on the car once more. As he got closer, he began to believe that it was empty, that whoever had slit Williams’ throat was gone. He whipped open the car door and saw the black-brown creature deep on the floorboard, an odd sound coming from it. Staubb realized it was the dwarf, and that he'd been here all along, watching the house, watching them, and waiting for a chance like this. Staubb cocked his weapon, wanting nothing more than to blow the bastard out of this world. He could do it without remorse after what he'd seen, and now Williams lay at his feet.
But the shot went astray with the sudden plunge of an enormous knife into Staubb's back, directly between the shoulder blades. Staubb's body slammed into the car. The big man thrashed about and put distance between himself and his attacker, but his gun had been lost, dropped with the nerve spasm sent through him with the blade that still protruded from his back. He looked into the eyes of a well-dressed, clean-shaven, handsome man his own height. His mind registered the fact it was Hamel. Staubb lunged at the man, his large hands wrapping about his neck, squeezing, turning into a vise. Hamel was going to die with him, Staubb told himself, determined to make it so. Somewhere behind and overhead, Staubb half-heard the screams and cries of the dwarf, who leaped from the top of the squad car onto Staubb's back, driving home yet another knife into the big policeman, this one going through his neck.
Staubb fell over the top of Hamel, holding onto the killer's throat as if it meant holding onto life. The breath stolen from Hamel was the breath that kept him going. But the bastard dwarf plunged his knife in and out again, twisting it until Staubb had nothing left to give. All his major arteries to and from the heart had been severed. Staubb died bloody atop Hamel, who was now gasping for air, the dwarf working to push the large body from his brother until he was free of the dead man.
Hamel choked and gasped and rubbed his neck as if to revive the bruised tissue on the outside with a laying-on of hands. The dwarf looked over the contusions with much attention and anguish, repeatedly asking Ian if he were all right.
Hamel staggered to his feet, saying, “We've got to take the other one, Corman—alive."
"Yes, I know ... and there he is."
Corman stood on the porch, having come out to see what the shot was all about. He stood there like a statue, his features in deep shadow. “Do you think he's armed?” asked the dwarf.
"Only one way to find out.” Ian stepped toward Sid Corman, who suddenly raced into the house and tried desperately to bolt the door and seal the house from entry.
"Remember the plan,” Ian said as they closed in on the house they knew so well, going for the root cellar stairs, which would lead up into the kitchen cupboard.
"I remember ... but if he doesn't cooperate, it's sssssssss!” He made a throat-cutting gesture. “Then we'll take his hair."
"We've got to make the plan work! If we fail, they will destroy your power, strip you of the hair, dissolve the dark energies."
He looked into Ian's eyes, deeply and long, shaking his head. “No, no, we cannot allow it. Do what you must, Ian, to stop them."
"Follow my plan to the letter. We must take Corman alive. He must stand trial as the Scalper."
He laughed raucously as they approached the cellar and lifted it, Ian begging for silence. “We must take him by surprise."
"Then we get Grant?"
"Then we get Grant."
Together the brothers went into the black hole in the earth. Quietly they made their way to the rickety old stairs and ascended cautiously, Ian in the lead.
Ian was getting more and more pushy ... more and more uppity, Van thought. When this was over, after they had found a new home place, he would teach Ian a good lesson, remind him who was who and what was what.
But for now, Ian was right. For the moment these two cursed doctors had to be shown what was what....
SIXTEEN
Grant thrashed about on the stretcher as he was being wheeled through the E.R. at Mercy Hospital, his mind fighting for consciousness, a deep-seated knowledge disallowing him to return to complete unconsciousness. He sensed that Sid Corman and the others at the house where Hamel lived were in terrible danger. Coming around, his eyes opened on the doctors and nurses caring for him, and on Peggy.
"Now, now, lie back there,” said a reproachful nurse applying pressure to Dean's chest as he tried to get up. “You'll only do more harm—"
"I'm all right ... have to get out—"
"Orderly, please,” said the nurse.
But by this time Dean was on his feet and making for the door. The two policemen who had helped them earlier were just outside, and they caught
him, forcing him back inside. “I've got to get a call through to that house, to warn—"
But no one was listening, or Dean was sounding so full of gibberish he could not make himself understood. He felt woozy. Had they given him a sedative?
"Just lie right back down here! You big hunks think you can overcome a shock like that easily, but let me tell you, it's easier said than done,” the nurse's voice droned on.
Dean needed to call the number he'd jotted down, Hemel's place. He needed a car to get back out there. He needed to escape these self-important, would-be Florence Nightingales. He saw his opportunity when the nurse whipped white curtains all around him and said, “The doctor'll only be a few minutes, and then we'll find you a nice room."
The moment she left, Dean got up and slipped into a second curtained room which was unoccupied. Somewhere behind him, he heard a voice telling someone that the girl's condition was much worse. He then stepped into a doorway that led him down a corridor and out of the building on the other side. Still dazed, not thinking clearly, Dean only knew that for some time Hamel had been secretly planting the idea that Sid Corman was the killer. Hamel had somehow influenced men as disparate as Hodges and Warner to work for him in this regard. Hamel had to be on his way back to that house for a final frame of Sid Corman. With Sid the only one walking out of that house alive tonight, it could stick.
And somehow Hamel knew that Dean would come for him. Something in Dean's dazed mind told him it was so. Hamel had remained one step ahead of them the entire way, first with Park and now with Dean.
Dean circled the building, wondering if he could not get back to Dyer's squad car. But it was no good ... the car was being towed off, and there were cops everywhere.
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