Swallowed By The Cracks e-Pub

by Lee Thomas, Gary McMahon, S. G. Browne, Michael Marshall Smith

  "You see that guy?" Dean asked.

  "Where?"

  "Two houses back. Other side of the road?"

  "No. Why? He and old boyfriend of yours?"

  "Fuck off, Harper," Dean said. "He could be our guy."

  The man stepped back into the alley beside the house. Dean kept his eyes on the mirror, hoping he would reappear.

  "Are you serious?" Harper asked, turning to look over the seat and through the back window.

  "I don't know," Dean said. "Probably not. There have to be a hundred guys in Four Points that fit the description. I'm probably just overreacting. On edge or something."

  "Should we check him out?" Harper asked.

  "I'll do it," Dean replied. He opened the car door and stepped out. Speaking to Harper over the roof of the vehicle, he said, "You check on the Boltons. More than likely this isn't our guy, but if it is and he thinks we're close he might bolt."

  "Or he might blow your head off. I'm going with you."

  "And what if the perp is Jesse Bolton? He sees us out here and tears out the backdoor because we went chasing geese? You handle the family, I'll go talk to this guy."

  Harper wasn't satisfied with the arrangement – it wasn't procedure – but he nodded his head.

  Dean turned to face the house across the street. The man in the red parka was there again, crossing to the front door. His head turned slightly as he attempted to unsnag a key ring from one of the jacket's pockets. Seeing the man in partial profile set off a web of chill at the back of Dean's head.

  Shit, that's him.

  * * * * *

  He stopped at the mailbox on the curb and read the name Baker on its side. Dean jogged over the man's lawn and paused on the front doorstep. He breathed deeply and released the strap that secured his sidearm in its holster. Then he knocked on the door.

  When the man opened the door, Dean saw he had shed his parka. The bulk of frequently worked muscles pressed at Baker's white button down shirt. Thickly veined forearms grew from rolled up sleeves. The face was chiseled and striking; the eyes as clear and blue as the winter sky. The man's appearance unnerved Dean, caused a thick and inappropriate lust to settle low in his belly.

  Watching the killer on the video, Dean had been reminded of a teacher named Rick, but Baker looked nothing like that man. There wasn't even a passing resemblance to the soft-faced teacher who abused boys and finally killed himself. Dean couldn't be certain what random connection he'd made equating the two.

  "Hello," the man said.

  "Hello, Mr. Baker is it?"

  "I'm Paul Baker."

  "Mr. Baker, I'm Detective Dean Kaiser with the Barnard Police Department."

  "Yes detective," Baker said. "Do you want to come in? It's colder than shit out here."

  "Yes, thank you." Dean stepped inside, his hand close to the gun on his hip.

  The inside of the house was as impeccable as the exterior. The furniture, while not expensive, was clean and modern and fit the space well. White high-gloss paint covered the moldings at the ceiling and floor, framing walls painted a soft fawn color. Anywhere else in the city, the house would have struck Dean as pleasant, but it didn't fit the Four Points model. He found the neatness of the home wholly wrong.

  "Mr. Baker, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions," Dean said, watching as Baker crossed the room.

  "I assume this is in connection with the deviant?"

  The statement was close enough to a confession for Dean's taste. He took a step back and removed his sidearm, which he aimed at Baker's torso.

  "I'm going to ask you to lie down on the floor with your hands behind your head."

  "That isn't necessary."

  "My gun disagrees with you."

  "So shoot," Baker said. "This body has already lived its time. Your bullets won't change the shape of things."

  The serenity in the man's tone disturbed him. No one should sound that calm with a gun pointing at him.

  "I said get on the floor."

  Baker ignored the request and walked along the far wall, brushing his hands across the vertical blinds, making them clack and whisper. He paused and licked a thumb, which he pressed to one of the white plastic panels. He rubbed lightly as if to remove a stain.

  "The boy would have damned himself without me," said Baker, seemingly lost in his massage of the blind.

  "You're quite the guardian angel, now lie the fuck down!"

  "That won't happen," Baker noted with amusement. "You'll find that Clarke wrote a check to Matthew Bolton's father; it wasn't a very large check. People pay more for a mediocre television set."

  "Excuse me?"

  "That's why Matthew couldn't go to his parents. Surely, you must have been wondering that. Clarke bought the boy's services and his parents' silence. Matthew really had no choice."

  "But you did."

  "Not so."

  "Down on the floor!"

  "You'll find Clarke wrote a lot of checks to a lot of people."

  "I'm only going to tell you one more time."

  "That's true," Baker agreed.

  A blur of motion startled Dean. He nearly fired his weapon, but the target was gone; Baker no longer stood at the window. A thick arm slid around Dean's neck, clamping across his throat like a boa constrictor. Baker's other arm shot out and grasped the gun. With a painful twist, he freed the weapon from Dean's hand.

  "You don't need this," Baker whispered, rocking the gun in Dean's field of vision. "I'm not going to hurt you, and you can't hurt me." Baker inhaled loudly, air rasping through his nose and throat. He let the breath out cold and dry on Dean's neck. "Now, I could snap your neck, or if I was feeling particularly cruel, I could suffocate you slowly. You know that, don't you?"

  "Yes."

  With the uttering of the word, Baker released Dean's throat and stepped away.

  "Sorry, but guns have a way of making people deaf to the important things. Now, as I was saying, Clarke wrote a number of checks, to procure company and to keep things quiet. You'll find ample evidence of these transactions."

  "If you know so much about this, you should have turned him in."

  "That's not the shape of things."

  "Because you'd rather kill."

  "I have no choice."

  "Bullshit."

  "I was created with a purpose. I'm a fabric, a weave of needs, created from man's effluent."

  "You're a fucking psychopath."

  "No," Baker said, evenly. "I'm your violence."

  Baker walked in front of him and pressed his face close to Dean's. He cocked his head slightly to the left, peering into Dean's eyes.

  What is he looking for? Understanding? Fear? Fuck that.

  Dean drove a fist toward Baker's throat. The man didn't flinch. His eyes remained locked on Dean's as he caught Dean's wrist in his hand.

  "How frustrating," Baker said. "You so badly want to hurt me, but you can't. Not because you don't possess the determination but because you're helpless against me. Imagine a small boy with no place to turn, backed into a corner, betrayed by the only people in the world he thought he could trust. Imagine that. Imagine what that must be like for the boy. Just think what he might do."

  "But the boy didn't do anything. You did."

  "If I hadn't destroyed Clarke, Matthew would have. His thoughts were already leading him to it; he might have even succeeded, but then his soul would carry that soil, and I couldn't let that happen. So I intervened on his behalf. That is the shape of things."

  "He told you to kill Clarke?"

  "Of course not. If he had asked, he would have been complicit in the act."

  "But he told you Clarke was abusing him?"

  "Hi
s desperation summoned me."

  "Let go of my hand, Paul. Come with me. I can get you help."

  "This is a carousel," Baker said in frustration. "Perhaps another approach?"

  Baker tossed the gun to the floor, and his hands shot to either side of Dean's head. He pulled their faces close. Remembering Charles Clarke's death at the teeth of this madman, Dean struggled against the grip, fearing his skin would soon be pinched and torn away, but his efforts against the sturdy hold were futile. Baker's lips crushed against his in a violent kiss. The skin of Dean's upper lip split with the impact. His head grew light, his struggles intensified.

  A flash of blue light blinded him, and Dean fell back and down, his body shaking in spasm as if he'd just been struck by a taser. He hit the floor hard, and pain flared at his elbow, his hip, and his leg. Baker also collapsed on the floor, but unlike Dean the suspect was motionless.

  Once the seizure-like tremors released him Dean crawled away from Baker's body. "Shit," he hissed. "Shit. Shit."

  He stood and looked about the room frantically as if expecting another attacker to emerge from one of the archways. Dean's eyes fell on his sidearm laying on the floor less than a foot from Baker's clawed fingers. He scrambled across the room and retrieved his gun. From this angle Baker appeared dead. Glazed eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. His mouth, stained with Dean's blood, was open and slack. Dean thought to check the man's pulse, but feared his host was playing possum, waiting for a clean opportunity to strike.

  Instead of touching the suspect, Dean fished his cell phone from his pocket and flipped it open, intending to call for back up.

  His finger refused his command to dial. Dean tried again, thinking he must be in shock. He took several deep breaths, steadied himself and tried again. Still he could not force his finger to press the buttons.

  Don't, a voice shouted.

  Dean looked around, seeking the direction of the voice, but he shared the room with no one but Baker, and the man hadn't moved.

  The walls about him began to melt, blurs and smears replacing hard edges and angles. This odd shifting forced Dean off balance. A moment later, he stood in a different room – a bedroom – and Charles Clarke was alive and offering him money in exchange for his life; he tore the man's throat out. The room spun, and Dean dropped to his knees. Strange faces appeared like memories behind his eyes. A slender, cruel-faced woman knelt before him as he brought a hammer down on her skull. A handsome young man in an expensive business suit flopped on the floor – a length of bailing wire tightly wrapped around his throat. A blubbery man with few teeth, dirt-splotched cheeks and watery eyes howled. He lay crucified on a floor of raw wooden planks. Dean gouged at the man's genitals with a broken whiskey bottle.

  The ghastly show played behind Dean's eyes. He couldn't push it away, couldn't hide behind his own thoughts. His head swam with the grotesque images.

  Then Dean was walking away from Baker's body. His mind cleared momentarily, but foreign thoughts surged over the moment of relief. Paul Baker's life and death surfaced in the wake of the blood-soaked montage.

  Baker had pumped his body full of muscle enhancing drugs, had spent hours at the gym to reshape a body that had earned him the nickname "Porkster" in high school. Baker had been so obsessed with his personal beautification he'd drawn away from people. He'd slaved and struggled and sacrificed for a body considered perfect, but in the process had totally removed himself from the society he'd meant to impress with his newfound physique. The information came to Dean like a memory, like a fragment of his own life clearly remembered.

  Recently. Late one night, Baker answered his front door. On the stoop stood a young boy with blond hair and an innocent but sorrowful face. (Matthew Bolton? Dean wondered) The boy showed Baker his palm, where a long cut ran from index finger to wrist. Baker took the boy's hand amid a flare of blue light.

  And then this other – this Violence – moved into Baker's skin, the way it now resided in Dean.

  Yes, a gentle voice whispered in his head. The dead and dying… the weak. They give me shelter. Baker died only minutes after I joined him. The drugs he used to manufacture his physique destroyed his heart.

  Am I dying? Dean thought. Am I dead?

  No, the other voice replied. Your arrival interrupted my final duty to Matthew. You are simply being borrowed.

  Dean felt his body move, but he'd made no command for it to do so. He walked across the room to the front door and pulled it open. Dean tried to exert his will, struggled to make even a single finger move of his own volition, but his attempt failed. Inside his head, his own body, he was an impotent prisoner.

  His thoughts twisted and tangled, knotted by an extreme and manic claustrophobia, but his body produced none of the phobia's physical manifestations. The sick gut. The sweaty palms. The clenched muscles. His mind struggled but his body was untouched by the fear.

  Dean's body walked across Baker's lawn, his sidearm gripped in the hand at his side. A new collage of grisly images erupted in his thoughts. Blood. Bands of shredded flesh. Organs, glistening and twinkling wetly, but no longer serving the human machine.

  Christ, Dean screamed within his head. What are you?

  You already know, the voice replied.

  My violence.

  Man's violence. Emotional energy, like all energy, unbreakable and eternal. I'm woven of it. I'm the sum of it. But for you, violence comes with guilt and fear. I lack these obstacles, and I absolve you of them.

  You're a creature of revenge, Dean asserted.

  I'm a being of justice, unhampered by the viscous fluid of shifting moralities. This is my purpose. Others of my kind were woven of different emotions, with dissimilar purposes. Some are pure hate and others pure joy. Some have gone mad because they were woven of so many disparate threads.

  And you're not mad? Dean asked. You ripped Clarke apart with your teeth.

  With Baker's teeth, the voice corrected. And the method is prescribed by the one I serve. Lacking a viable weapon, Matthew was led by tortured thoughts to a resolution not wholly common.

  Dean's foot stepped up on the far sidewalk. A gunshot echoed. It rang in his ears, but his body was otherwise unmoved by the sound.

  Matthew's house, Dean thought, suddenly panicked. Harper?

  He willed his legs to move faster, to run. Concern for his partner flared like static charges all around him, but his body was not his own, and it continued to stroll along the sidewalk at an aggravatingly measured pace.

  Maybe that will make what follows easier for you.

  Make it easier? What happened?

  You'll see.

  Harper? Dean asked.

  Yes, the Violence replied, Harper.

  They reached the house far too slowly. Dean's imagination played cruel games up to the second his hand wrapped around the front door's knob. He imagined Harper lying dead on the Bolton's floor. He clearly saw a hole punched between his partner's eyes. Then the door opened, and his body moved inside to find his teasing imagination hadn't been completely inaccurate.

  Harper lay against a cheap and tattered brown sofa. A shimmering crimson stain blossomed across the left lapel of his coat. He struggled for breath, chest rising and falling in ragged gasps.

  Across the room, in the archway separating the dismal room from another stood an emaciated couple. Their faces were tight and pale like latex masks pulled too tightly. Through these masks wild eyes scurried in their sockets like insects fleeing sudden light. Janis Bolton bit a fingernail furiously. She wore only a bra and a pair of blue sweat pants frayed at the cuffs. Her ribs showed through the thin membrane of sickly skin on her chest. Pale blue shadows accentuated the protruding bones.

  Jesse Bolton wore blue jeans and a gray T-shirt with a beer company's logo printed on the chest. He held a narrow, cheap rifl
e at his side.

  "We found him that way!" Janis Bolton shrieked, suddenly, pointing a bony finger at Harper. "He was like that when we got here."

  The grossly ridiculous claim would have been humorous if its subject hadn't been Dean's partner. He felt the urge to shoot the woman on the spot. Perhaps fortunately, his body was not his to control.

  "Yeah," Jesse blurted. "Yeah, this isn't mine. It was here."

  He threw the rifle on the floor, where it clacked on the rotted wooden planks.

  "You lying sacks of shit," Harper said weakly from his place against the sofa.

  Dean's arm lifted. He took a moment to aim down the barrel. Then, he pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Jesse Bolton in the chest and threw him back to the floor amid a spray of blood.

  Janis Bolton screamed. She started a silly jig, stomping back and forth in frantic steps, bent low as if trying to hide behind currents of air until her gaze fell on the rifle. Dean watched as she lowered herself to snatch up the weapon. Once her hands were on it, his finger tightened. A bullet entered through Janis Bolton's left temple. Her head was cocked toward him so the bullet traveled through her jaw, sending a spray of teeth flying from her mouth. She crumpled to the side, arms splayed, landing on the corpse of her husband. Again, the rifle clattered on the floor.

  Dean lowered his weapon and holstered it. He crossed to Harper and put a hand behind his partner's head.

  "You okay?" he asked. "Hey, Reg, can you hear me?"

  "I'm not deaf," Harper muttered. "Shoulder wound. Broken collarbone. Blood loss. Get something to apply pressure. Thank god the asshole only had a twenty-two."

  Dean stood from his partner's side. Only then did he realize he was again controlling his actions.

  The Violence had released him.

  He took no time to entertain his relief. Instead he spun away, searching for a suitable bandage for his partner's wounds.

  A boy stood in the home's entryway. His eyes were soft, filled with tears, but Dean could see the boy's struggle, and it sickened him.

  Matthew Bolton fought to keep a smile from pushing up the corners of his mouth. His lips trembled with the effort. Soon enough, the boy gave up the fight, and Matthew grinned happily as tears streamed down his cheeks.