Game of Cages

by Harry Connolly

  Encouraged, he turned toward me. His eyes looked a little bleary and he had trouble focusing, but he could talk without slurring. “It hits so hard at first. It’s like … all the love in your life is ripped away from you all of a sudden. All you have left is this, like, little tattered shred of something in your hand, because you tried to hold on too tight. Ya know whutamean? You think I tried to hold on too tight?”

  Catherine did this for a living, I thought. She drew people out, listened to their stories, and found the information she needed. Not me. Everything I’d ever learned about investigations had come from being on the other side. I couldn’t play this game her way; I had to do it mine.

  “I don’t know, man. Who did you lose?”

  “My wife.” I immediately lost interest. Still, he kept talking. I glanced away and saw that one of the pool players had joined Catherine’s conversation. Whatever they were talking about, she seemed interested. Was she a good actress, or did she enjoy this? “She dumped me over the phone. Can you believe that? After ten and a half months of marriage.”

  I glanced around the room. Pratt was looking straight at me. I looked back, and he didn’t look away. In some places, that would have been an invitation to brawl, but I haven’t had much luck with bar fights.

  Depressed Guy wasn’t finished. “Almost eleven months! I thought we were in love.”

  “That’s rough,” I said.

  He went back to his beer. “I’m keeping the damn fish tank, you can believe that.”

  I imagined a tank full of dead fish, and it suddenly occurred to me that Pratt might have completed his job already. Maybe this was his victory meal, as pathetic as that sounded.

  I slid off my stool and crossed to his booth. He was dipping his spoon into a bowl of grayish chowder when I sat across from him. Before he could tell me to get lost, I said, “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  I met his stare. Apparently, he wanted me to talk out loud in front of all these people. “Well, have you taken care of that dog?”

  “I don’t report to you.” Which was true, but he struck me as the boasting type, so I figured the job wasn’t done.

  “Fair enough. How about another supplemental report?”

  “You don’t file reports,” he said. “I get those from the smoke.”

  For a moment I thought he was talking about smoke signals, or visions in magic smoke or something. Then I realized—duh—he meant Catherine. “You’re a real charmer.”

  He stirred his soup. “Get out of here,” he said without looking at me, “before I break both of your legs.”

  So much for warning him about Yin’s ghost knife. I glanced back at Catherine. She was looking at me, and her expression was difficult to read. I stood and went to the men’s room, washed my hands in the dirty sink, and walked toward my original spot. As I passed Catherine’s stool, the bartender said, “Hey, man. Are you Clay Lilly?”

  I stopped. “My name’s Ray Lilly.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Catherine said, her voice lilting. “I knew that was you. How is your mother?” She slid off her stool. “Excuse me, Rich,” she said to the bartender.

  I heard the bartender curse under his breath, but it was too late. Tonight’s entertainment had walked off with another guy. I led her to the table and picked up my soda. “Did—”

  She interrupted me right away. “Is your mother still working at that law firm?” We had a conversation about a woman I hadn’t seen for years. While we were talking, Pratt laid a couple of bills on the table and walked out.

  Eventually, I said I had my mother’s phone number out in the car, and Catherine smiled as though I was learning the game. I paid for my food, and while we were waiting for the slip to sign, Depressed Guy looked blearily over at us.

  Catherine couldn’t resist. “How are you, honey?” Her tone was maternal.

  “Alone,” he said. “My wife just left me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?” If she was pretending to be interested, she was damn good at it.

  “Thass the thing. I don’t even know! This afternoon everything was great between us. An hour later, she called me and said that she didn’t love me anymore. She said she’d found someone else. Someone with stars in his eyes.”

  Catherine looked at me. I looked at her. I fought down the urge to grab the guy and shake him until he told me more.

  “That’s terrible,” Catherine said. Her voice was shaky and she’d lost her grip on the kind, maternal, cry-on-my-shoulder character she was playing. “Where did she call from?”

  It was a crazy transition, but Depressed Guy was drunk enough to take it in stride. “She rides out at the stables three nights a week.” He took a pull off his beer. “He’s prolly a cowboy or something.”

  The credit card slip came. I signed it. Catherine and I walked calmly and slowly toward the door.

  Once through it, we ran to the car. We had our lead.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I scanned the parking lot. Pratt was already gone, dammit. “Do you know where the stable is?” I asked.

  “I know how to find it.” She took out a cellphone, dialed 411, and got the address from the operator. “There’s only one in the area,” she said. “Shit. I wish they hadn’t stolen my cell.”

  “What’s that in your hand?”

  “The bartender’s. He loaned it to me, without realizing he was loaning it to me. But I can’t use it to file a supplemental report. The number would turn up on his phone bill.”

  I was feeling keyed up. “I’m sorry,” I said. “The answer we needed was sitting right next to me, and I didn’t realize it.”

  “Don’t worry about it. That’s my job, not yours. Not that I found out a damn thing. All those boys wanted to talk about was the festival tomorrow. They’re worried that it may be canceled after ‘what happened today.’ I wasn’t sure how much they really knew, but they were being careful.”

  I wondered what the festival would be like. If we destroyed the predator tonight—and did it quickly and cleanly—the town could have Christmas in peace: no more killings, no more people going crazy, no more burning buildings. Maybe there would be something nice I could pick up for Aunt Theresa and Uncle Karl. And maybe I could find a gift for Catherine, if—

  “God, I hope we can finish this tonight,” she said. “I want to spend Christmas with my family. Was that man in the tan coat who I think?”

  “That’s Pratt. He didn’t want to talk to you at all.”

  She seemed to understand right away. “They’re like that. A lot of them. They live a couple of hundred years, and everything they knew about the world gets turned on its head. They see a black woman alone at a bar, talking to men she doesn’t know, and they immediately think prostitute. They’re old-fashioned, squared. Some of them even talk about the good old days before the Terror.”

  I didn’t know what “the Terror” was, but I got the point. “Do you know anything about him?”

  “One of the other investigators said Pratt likes killing people, which doesn’t exactly set him apart from the crowd. He should have talked to me. Now I can’t even get a new report to him.” She sighed. “So, we’re going to check out the stables, right?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  She started the car and we rode through the dark town. I wondered how late the stables would be open, and if we’d have to break in.

  We headed toward the fairgrounds but reached the turnoff well before the festival banner appeared. There was a split-rail fence, a gate, and a sign that said CONNER STABLES. The gate was bolted and padlocked. I cut the padlock, opened the gate, let Catherine drive through, and closed it again.

  She drove down the long path with the headlights off. Our plan was simple: Sneak in as close as we could without being spotted, just like the Wilbur estate. Locate the sapphire dog. Use the ghost knife on it, preferably from ambush.

  Catherine wondered if we could use bright light to trap or stun it, but I didn’t trust that idea. Sunlig
ht hadn’t bothered it at all, as far as I could tell. I suggested that its cage might have had special bulbs in it, and we agreed that we should have stolen a couple when we had the chance.

  “Are you sure you want to come with me for this?” I asked. She gave me a look.

  There were no turnoffs from the main drive where we could stash the car, so Catherine pulled all the way into the stable’s parking lot and backed into a spot. There were three other cars already there.

  I was getting a lot of practice closing car doors quietly. We walked toward the gate as if we belonged there. I was keyed up and jittery, and Catherine seemed to feel the same.

  The muddy lot was ringed with trees and heavy scrub. Ahead was a wooden rail that looked just like the one at the edge of the property. It could have been part of a set in a cowboy movie except that the gate attached to it was made of welded aluminum pipes and locked with another Yale padlock.

  There were two fenced-in areas for the horses to ride in; one was a muddy circle about twenty-five feet wide with a tall fence made of more welded aluminum. A second, larger area was bordered with low wooden rails to make an oval about seventy-five feet long. Cedar chips had been spread over the ground, and obstacles—long window planters without plants and uprights with crossbars that formed an X—had been left out. There was a Porta Potti and an overturned wheelbarrow to the left, but they couldn’t have been the only source of the odor that made us wrinkle our noses. This place must have been stink heaven on hot summer afternoons.

  Farther left there was a cluster of big, windowless wooden buildings decorated with pennants. I guessed those must be the stables.

  I hopped the fence. Catherine climbed over it more slowly, but that was what I wanted. I had the tattoos and should be in the lead. I made my way toward the nearest stable. No one shouted a challenge at us. No waving flashlights came out of the darkness, no little squares of window light appeared in the distance. No one knew we were there.

  There was a low, echoing rumble of thunder from somewhere nearby. It seemed to rebound against the mountains around us, coming from every direction and muffled by all the trees and brush nearby. Rain was coming.

  I walked along the building. A lamp was shining on the other side of the stables, and we made our way by indirect light. The wind hissed through the branches, but aside from our footsteps, there was no other sound.

  At the corner of the building I peeked out. There were three more buildings, all four set two by two facing an open area about thirty feet wide. A single light glowed above the open door across the way. I peered into the darkness, searching for a human silhouette. I didn’t see anything.

  I stepped out of hiding. All four of the stable doors were open. Was that normal on a chilly winter night? I had no idea.

  Catherine followed me into the yard as the mist thickened into a light drizzle. The stable beside us was dark and quiet. Then we heard steps from the stable across the yard. A horse slowly stepped out of the darkness.

  I grabbed Catherine’s arm. “It has a white mark on its face.”

  “Lots of horses have that.”

  This mark was completely off center, starting on the left side of its nose and passing under its left eye. “But can they be all crooked like that?”

  “Maybe it’s a paint,” she said, which I didn’t understand.

  It stared at us. God, it was big. I heard Catherine back away. I was about to ask if we should just walk by it when she said: “Is it bleeding?”

  I looked again; its ear was ragged and its mouth was bloody. It also had open wounds on its shoulder.

  It lowered its head.

  Catherine’s voice was a low whisper in my ear. “Is that mud on its hoof?”

  The horse stamped its foot. Something coated the hoof, but it looked too red to be mud. I raised my hands to clap. “Horses run from danger, right?”

  Then it charged at us.

  Catherine cursed and fled into the open stable behind us. I backpedaled after her, keeping the protected part of my chest toward the horse.

  Christ, it was fast. Catherine yelped in pain and fear, but I couldn’t turn to see why because the animal was already next to me.

  It tried to bite me but missed. Even its mouth seemed huge. I ducked to the side, raising my arms to protect my face. My heel struck something and I nearly fell; in that same moment, the horse reared and kicked.

  It caught me full in the chest. Already off balance, I tumbled back, feet flying over my head. I landed on my shoulder in the corner, my legs hitting the wall above me. The shin I’d bashed against the water trough flared with pain again. I fell with dirty straw in my face and long-handled wooden tools clattering around me.

  I was exposed. A kick would cave in my skull, and—

  Catherine screamed.

  I rolled to my knees, shrugging off whatever had fallen on me. The stench of horse shit filled my nose, but I’d worry about that later. My hand fell on a thick wooden handle, and I grabbed at it like a lifeline.

  The horse snorted and stamped. I jumped to my feet and raised my hands. I was holding a push broom.

  That wasn’t going to do me any good. Catherine cried out again, a sound more of fright than pain. I threw the broom underhand, hard, like I was throwing a shovel into the back of a truck. It struck the horse’s hind legs, startling it. The horse jumped and kicked a little, turning its huge body toward me.

  I reached back down into the straw, unwilling to look away from the animal. My hand fell on something thin and metal, and I dragged it out of the straw. It was a pitchfork.

  The horse moved toward me. I backed toward the corner. There was a narrow pen in front of me to the right, and a second at my right elbow. Close on my left was the wall, and there was no back door. I was trapped.

  I held the pitchfork high so the light would fall on it. Could the horse see what I was holding? I could. Would it understand and back away?

  Apparently not, because it kept coming toward me, stamping its feet and snorting angrily. I yelled “Yah!” at it, just like a movie cowboy. It didn’t have any effect. I pretended to jab at it, shouting “Hah!” each time.

  I really, truly did not want to stab this animal. The thought of this dirty metal entering its flesh made me nauseous.

  But it wouldn’t back away. It was coming more slowly, more cautiously, but it wouldn’t stop coming and I was running out of space. Soon it would have me pinned against the wall, the pitchfork would be useless, and it could kick my skull in.

  “Yah!” I shouted again, half hoping that, even if the horse wouldn’t back off, someone who worked here would suddenly show up and take control of the animal. There wasn’t time for that, though. The horse reared back and kicked with its right hoof. I tried to pull the sharp tines away, but it struck the side of the fork and I nearly dropped it.

  My nausea knotted into naked fear. To hell with this. I wasn’t going to be killed just because I wasn’t willing to defend myself. I jabbed with the pitchfork, just barely striking the horse’s shoulder as I yelled “Back!” It wasn’t enough to do real damage, I hoped, but it would break the skin and sting a little. Whether the horse could see well in the dark or not, it knew what I was holding now.

  It suddenly made a high, hair-raising shriek and lunged at me, kicking with both front hooves. I jumped back and felt the pitchfork wrench upward, shivering, as a hoof nearly knocked it out of my hands. God, the sound the horse was making …

  I tossed the pitchfork high, making the animal flinch and step back. I lunged to the right, into the pen. Running away from a horse was a lunatic idea, but if I stood my ground, I was going to have to kill it.

  The horse followed—I could hear and feel it just behind me. I leaped up, grabbing the top of the wall between the enclosures. Adrenaline gave me the strength and speed I needed to practically throw myself into the next pen. I felt something snag my pants cuff—was the horse trying to bite me again?—but my momentum pulled it free.

  The room suddenly darkened—
not completely, but something big moved to block the light from across the yard.

  I got my feet under me just in time, then jumped for the wall of this second pen. I didn’t have the same quickness that comes from having a huge, hostile animal at my back, but I still had plenty of fear.

  And I could hear the horse backing out. It didn’t have room to turn around quickly, but I still didn’t have a lot of time.

  I dropped down on the other side of the wall, my weight pitching forward and my hands landing on something huge, soft, and cool right in front of me. It was another horse, this one dead and lying almost against the wall.

  One of the front doors had been closed, and the other was scraping shut, cutting off my light and means of escape. I stumbled over the dead horse, half running, half falling toward the exit. I didn’t look back. If those hooves were coming toward me, I didn’t want to see it. I slipped through the doorway and sprawled in the mud just as Catherine slammed it shut.

  The doors banged and jolted as the horse tried to kick them open. Catherine was knocked several inches away from them, then threw her shoulder against them again.

  “Get something!” she yelled at me, and I jumped to my feet.

  There was no way I could see to lock both doors—no bolt, no bar, no padlock. There was only a wooden catch, which I closed, but it was worn and fragile. It might not have held up in a strong windstorm, let alone a couple more kicks.

  I turned, scanning the yard. What I needed was a truck or tractor I could drive up to the doors and block them with, but there wasn’t one nearby, and I couldn’t have gotten any of the cars in the lot through the fence.

  Instead, I ran to the aluminum pen and cut off two lengths of pipe. As I ran back to Catherine, I shaved one end of each into a point, then staked them into the ground at the base of the doors.

  Catherine stepped back carefully, ready to throw her body against the doors again if the stakes didn’t hold. I stood next to her with the same thought.

  The stakes held, but the doors still wobbled with every kick. And damn, it was loud.