Rickie tripped again, getting out into the fresh air and onto the deck. He hurried down both sets of stairs to the main deck. He stumbled again on the gang plank, getting off the dredger, and almost fell into the water. That would have been bad because Rickie couldn't swim. He caught himself in time and scrambled to dry land. He ran for the American Indian Island, and safely across the bridge, hid in the high grass behind the teepee.
Shaking and gasping, Rickie just got hunkered down when the dark thing appeared in the cloudy sky. Flapping powerfully, it landed atop the dredger's pilothouse. It folded its great wings in, swung down and through the door Rickie had left open and disappeared. Confused, unsure what he ought to do, Rickie merely stared.
He was still staring, a moment later, when a lady walked out of the pilothouse. She was a long way away, backlit by the moonlight over the harbor, and mostly in shadow. But it was a lady in a thin dress. She stared at the museum grounds from the bridge of the William T. Greene and Rickie had never been so afraid. But she didn't seem to see him. She left the hurricane deck and wound her way down to the lower level. She left the boat and crossed the gangplank to the grounds. Rickie held his breath. But, instead of taking the boardwalk past his hiding place and to the museum, she headed in the opposite direction to where the walkway ended at one of the closed outbuildings.
There was a sudden flash and out of thin air, like a magic trick at a birthday party, a big red bird appeared, perched on the edge of the outbuilding roof. It looked like an eagle; Rickie had seen many on the river. Looked just like an eagle, only bright red, with a mean-looking black head and a long beak. It stared down at the lady and sang her a song as she came: Tik. Tik. Tik-tik. Tik-tik. Tik-tik.
The lady reached the building, not a hundred feet from Rickie's hiding spot, and looked up at the ticky bird. Then the lady jumped into the air, higher than a person should be able to jump, and onto the roof beside the bird. The bird sang again, then it vanished. It didn't fly away; it just disappeared. The lady jumped again, from the top of the outbuilding roof, six feet high and eight feet across, over the wall of the enclosure. Two impossible leaps and she also disappeared.
Terrified, Rickie scrambled up from the grass at the pond's edge and around the teepee, glancing repeatedly at the rooftop from which the lady had vanished. He raced across the grass, across the boardwalk, around the boat pool and, as fast as his legs could carry him, across the blacktopped yard. At the steam engine garage, he paused to pull his bicycle out of hiding. Pushing it, he hurried to a spot in the wooden fence with three loose boards. Since discovering this secret, the museum grounds had been his private night time play area. But Rickie wasn't playing now. He lifted a slat and scratched his knuckles shoving his bike through. The board slammed shut behind him. It didn't matter. Rickie wasn't coming back there, ever again.
He jumped onto his bike and started across the empty parking lot, riding like the wind. He put a full block behind him without once looking back. So frightened was he, thinking about the naked legs, the dark flying thing, the ticky bird, and the jumping lady, Rickie couldn't think about anything else. A block further on, he raced his bike through an unlit intersection without even slowing to look or listen. Before anything could prevent it, Rickie was caught in the lights of a moving car on the side street. An instant later, he and his bike were hit broadside by Erin Vanderjagt's new, unmarked squad.
Thirty – Three
“Oh, God! Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!”
Erin threw her replacement cruiser into Park. She hustled out and around the busted front grill to find Rickie Savage knocked on his rear, on a bed of shattered glass and broken plastic, in the street. He was dazed and crying in pain and fear. “Are you all right?”
“My bike.”
“Don't worry about your bike. Are you all right?”
“My bike!” he wailed.
She spotted his pride and joy, the bicycle that carried the child-man from one end of the city to the other, lying twisted and ignobly thrown over the curb, on the grass eight feet away.
“It's right there. Don't worry, honey.”
“I'm not honey. I'm Richard Savage the third. People call me Rickie.”
“Of course they do. I'm sorry, Rickie. I didn't mean to speak to you as if you were a child.”
“That's okay.”
“I'm so sorry, Rickie. I didn't see you. Did you stop at the sign? You were just… Why are you riding in the dark? Why didn't you stop?”
“I had to ride away,” he cried. “I had to ride away… from the big bat and the ticky bird.” He gasped, tears racing down his face, trying to catch a breath. “She put her legs back on and jumped the fence.”
“The big bat?” Erin repeated. “She put her legs back on?”
“The lady put her legs back on!”
“The lady put her legs on?” Erin asked. “And you were riding away from the big bat?” Rickie nodded. Erin frowned. She had it right, but what it was, she had no clue.
“My bike is broke.”
“We'll take care of your bike. But we have to take care of you first. You need an ambulance.”
That did it; Rickie began to shriek. “They take you away,” he cried. “You never come back. They took mama away. She never came back!”
Erin tried to calm him. She changed the subject and asked again why he was riding at night without a light. Rickie returned to his rambling story of the big bat, the ticky bird, and the lady who reclaimed her legs and jumped the fence. Then, switching from one terror to another, he begged again that she not call an ambulance. Erin tried to reassure him. Shaken and shaking, she grabbed her phone.
Moons ago, in Ben's lonely days, he could be found on a bar stool. That had changed after he and Erin hooked up; more so, when they'd grown serious. He'd found better things to do than hang out in an old dive. Then trouble came to Duncan. Soon after, he'd started an acquaintance with Forester the reporter, renewed his acquaintance with The Well, and returned to being one of its better customers. Now he and Erin had fallen out, and he and Forester had fallen out, Ben was back on his old stool, lonely again. He hadn't started yet, but he had every intention of getting drunk.
He brushed his pocket looking for cash and found the card Forester had given him; his shrink's phone number. Amazing how something could be amusing and, at the same time, not at all funny. What would he tell a psychiatrist? What could he tell the guy about the recent trouble? The museum incident? His visits to both of the late demon experts? What confession might appease everybody, get him back to work, without a reprogramming session in a nut house? He'd skip any talk of monsters and murder, of course, blame it all on alcohol; that'd be the way to go. He'd done all he could to help Nestor. He couldn't do a thing, no matter what, to help Ruzicki.
Buried in thought, Ben paid no attention when the woman sat down beside him. Had she been stark naked, he wouldn't have given a damn. But she wasn't naked, merely exotic. He wasn't even paying attention to the island accent when she said, “I am almost finished.”
Ben stirred. “What?”
“I am almost finished.”
He frowned. A caveman by nature, he'd never gotten used to the idea of women hitting on guys. With opening lines like hers, he never would. “Congrats,” he said, staring at his glass. “Good luck.”
She wasn't taking the hint. “I am a creature of habit.”
Ben sighed. Whatever she was after, he didn't feel like providing it. He didn't like riddles. Just then, he didn't like anything. “Look, sweetheart,” he said. “I'm not a social drinker; I'm a drunk. I don't know what you're talking about. And I don't care. Try another stool.”
She grabbed his forearm like the snap of an iron trap. Gasping at the violence and pressure, Ben tried uselessly to pull away. He almost cried out when her nails grew to claws before his eyes and dug into his flesh. He clenched his teeth as his hand went numb, and envisioned crushed bones. He looked up, giving the stranger the attention she wanted. As quickly as she'd snatched hi
m, she released her grip. Ben grabbed the bar to keep from falling. Then he grabbed napkins to tamp the bleeding.
She was exactly as described by witnesses; dark, beautiful, exotic. No one had mentioned 'damned scary'. “As I said, I am a creature of habit.” She lowered her sunglasses, staring. Ben started again. Her eyes were a brilliant yellow-green with veins of blood shot all around. His reflection in them glinted upside down. All doubts vanished; this was Ruzicki's Vong, Poni's legendary monster, an aswang in human form. He gulped air. She smiled, amused, and slipped her glasses back on.
“I've been watching you,” she said. “From early on. Watching you pick up after me. Watching you squirm. Watching you dig for answers like a mutt for a bone. It seems pointless. You are a slow learner, so I will tell you plainly. I eliminate those in my way. You saw what happened to the soldier's wife and child.” She licked her luscious lips. “You know what happened to the women in their junk shop. Yet you and your friends try to make trouble for me.”
She ran a fingernail along his arm. Ben jerked it back. Vong laughed. “Someone visited me tonight. Was it you?”
Ben stared without answering. Vong grabbed her sunglasses to remove them again. “No!” he said, too loudly. He had no desire to see her eyes again. He cleared his throat and quietly said, “I wouldn't know where to visit you.”
“No matter. When I find him, he'll die. For now, you need to know that I know many things. I know you have committed yourself to my destruction. I know you should reconsider. Because I also know your little bitch cop has a bun in the oven.” She laughed. “I'll be finished here soon. In the meanwhile, mind your own business and maybe – maybe – I'll leave your brat alone.”
She paused as a young couple, the woman coincidentally and obviously pregnant, passed behind them. Vong ogled her and loudly exclaimed, “Yummy.”
Instantly livid, the man turned back, and despite the woman's attempt to stop him, came at Ben and Vong. “You freaks got a fucking problem?” he demanded.
“No,” Ben said.
Vong snatched the man by the throat with the same grip Ben had felt. She jerked him up against the bar like a rag doll. Ben jumped up. Tightening her grip, Vong hissed, “Sit down.” The man was turning blue. “Sit back down,” she demanded.
Ben did as he was told.
Ignoring the woman's cries, and those of the staring patrons around the bar, Vong asked, “What should I do with him?”
“Why not let him go?”
Vong smiled. “Why not?” She opened her fingers and the man fell, gasping, grabbing his throat as he hit the floor. The terrified woman was still shouting as she helped her man to his feet. Vong laughed. The couple backed away and beat it for the door. The others in the bar continued to stare, but now that her hands were free, nobody said a word. The bartender downed a shot then, decided, marched toward them. “You,” he said, addressing Vong. “You need to go too.”
She rose, ran her hands down her dress, and offered the bartender an unsettling smile he would remember for a lifetime. “Remember what I said,” she told Ben. She started to leave, but turned back. “I forgot to mention. I left your lady cop a little something… somewhere… Tell her I said, 'Happy Easter'.” She smiled again and left the bar.
“A friend of yours, Ben?” the bartender asked.
“No. The opposite.”
“She's gorgeous but…” He rubbed the gooseflesh on his arms. “She gave me the fucking willies.”
Ben couldn't have agreed more. He was still there, holding a Coke in trembling hands, trying to comprehend the threatening visit, wishing he could talk to Erin, when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. When he saw Erin's name he couldn't flip it open fast enough. He nervously croaked a hello.
“Ben! I need you. I need your help.”
Dating a cop had its ups and downs. He'd been thinking about the 'downs' for days. A definite 'up' was her ability to give directions. Ben found Erin where she said she'd be, a dark intersection in the Port District. He saw her unmarked car nosed to the curb with its rear tires a foot too far into the street. He slowed and parked. Then he saw a familiar bike and the picture came into focus.
Rickie Savage sat on his prat, on the sparse grass, his feet dangling over the curb beneath Erin's headlights. She was crouched, comforting him. He held his arm, then his knee, touched his lip, then his swollen brow, and rubbed his elbow, tearfully visiting each and every “Owwee” before starting over. Ben grabbed the First Aid kit from his trunk.
“I think he's all right,” Ben said, after a quick assessment. “But the body hides injuries. He needs X-rays.” He hesitated. “The best way to get him to the hospital is to call an a-m-b-u-l—”
That was as far as he got before Rickie went ape. He started to bleat, then tried to stand and would have made it, had Erin not been there to corral him. She scowled at Ben. “He's afraid of ambulances.”
“I know. I've had him in mine. Okay.”
“Don't worry, Rickie,” Erin said. “No ambulance. You come with me. We'll go together in a police car. How would that be?”
That, apparently, was fine. He sat back down while Ben finished with his patch job. Then he happily allowed the detective and the firefighter to help him into Erin's squad and off to the hospital they went. Ben followed in his car.
Thirty – Four
Rickie Savage didn't mind at all being seen by the Emergency Room doctor. He had all kinds of great things to touch, play with, and talk about. Above all, Rickie wanted to know what each item cost, including the bandages being wrapped around his head.
Outside of the room and down the hall, Erin apologized to Ben, who didn't catch it all because he was apologizing to Erin. Emergency responders, they agreed, could handle any emergencies but their own. They further agreed they needed each other, and that their baby needed them together. It might have been old-fashioned, but there it was. Not only was it time to get together, it was time to tell their families and friends they were a couple.
The one area where their minds didn't meet was on the cause of their city's traumas. Erin was still looking for a perpetrator. Ben, with a bandaged arm for proof, no longer had any doubts; he knew the enemy to be a demon. The easiest way to convince Erin, he realized, was to empty the bag, including a confession. “One weapon used against aswang is the tail of a manta ray. With it you whip the demon into submission.”
“That's what you were doing in the aquarium tank? You were going to cut the tail off the manta?”
“I did not, out of the blue, decide to maim an exotic sea creature. People are being killed all over town. My best friend's wife and baby were killed. Everyone that's tried to help me has been killed. Now you and I are being threatened. I'm not crazy. And I'm not an animal hater. I'm trying to do the best I can with a lot of people insisting they're depending on me. God knows what you've been thinking.”
“I don't know what I think. My job has gotten crazy. My boyfriend is out of his mind; no offense.”
“None taken.”
“Morning sickness is killing me. My hormones are shot to hell. And in my hometown of Duncan, Iowa, I'm asked to believe some creature from Hell—”
“The Philippines, actually.”
“Have it your way. Is committing serial murder.”
“Do you think we can get the tail of a manta?”
“Benjamin Court, are you out of your damned mind?”
“I thought you believed me? I thought you were going to help me?”
“I am going to help you. I don't know yet if I believe, but I'm going to help. I'll risk life and limb to help you. But you can forget the manta tail, Ben, or I'll kill you myself. Think of something else.”
“That's twice you've threatened to kill me.”
“I know and I'm sorry. I'm going to be sad if you make me do it.” She looked at the waiting area clock, then looked at her watch as if she couldn't believe her eyes. She kissed Ben on the forehead. “I've got to get to work.” She kissed him on the lips. The surroundings
prevented passion, but when it ended, Ben had no doubt about her restored affection. “Promise me you'll stay with Rickie. And get him home safe.”
“I will. If you promise not to take any crazy chances.”
She held up three fingers. “Scout's honor.”
He grinned. “You weren't a scout.” His face grew grim. “Promise me you will not search for this killer, for Vong, alone.”
“I promise.” She kissed him hard, clutching his shirt front with her left hand. She couldn't use both; the fingers of her right hand were crossed behind her back.
Erin was not a belligerent and she didn't have a death wish. She would not break a promise made to Ben. But the crossed fingers kept it from being made, didn't they? She had no desire to hunt Ben's monster on her own. But it was her duty to find and stop the killer. She couldn't tell her co-workers they were hunting a demon. That meant she had to hunt alone. As she had no notion what the night would bring, she had no choice but to punt her promise to Ben.
Perhaps he sensed her equivocation. As they walked to the door, he said, “Erin, let's blow this pop stand.”
“You mean leave?”
“Just pick up and go.”
“I can't,” she said.
“I know. Neither can I.” He took her hand. “But if we do ever need to escape; remember the plan.”
Erin kissed him, took his waist and started to slow dance, singing, “My kind of town, Chicago is. My kind of town, Chicago is.” Ben joined her. “My kind of razzmatazz. And it has, all that jazz…”
When The Tik-Tik Sings Page 21
