Limbus, Inc. Book II

by Brett J. Talley

  And that was as much of this bullshit as I could take. It wasn’t a good day to begin with. Doctor sticking both hands and one foot up my ass. That damn card from Limbus. These assholes. The memories of the hurt in the girl’s eyes when she was done with rehab and sitting with the cops to tell them what she remembered. A hurt I was sure would always be there, polluting her life, darkening her skies.

  I know I said I wanted Stevie to go to trial.

  I really did.

  Past tense.

  I jumped over the desk at him.

  He wasn’t expecting that.

  Not a knock against him that he wasn’t expecting it. The average person wouldn’t be primed to make that kind of intuitive leap.

  I was only a medium-sized, middle-aged man when I started the jump.

  I was something else when I hit him.

  I saw the way his eyes changed as he realized just how much trouble he was in. As he realized exactly what tough really was and how little judgment he possessed. As he realized that the world was so much different than what filled his limited understanding.

  He’d come with superior numbers and overwhelming force to kill a man.

  He did not bring enough of anything to kill the wolf.

  Chap. 5

  A solitary headlight cut through the forest and the killer stopped.

  He froze into the moment, becoming absolutely still. The breeze blew past it, rifling hair, but the killer was now part of the vast and complex darkness of the woods. Beneath the canopy of oak and pine boughs, the floor of the forest was as impenetrable as the deepest part of the ocean. Not even a spark of moonlight fell through that ceiling.

  But the headlights…

  They moved along the serpentine fire access road, pushing the engine buzz in front of it.

  The killer watched the light, amused by it like a traveler seeing a will-o’-the-wisp. The road the bike drove came from the southeast and curved around toward the northwest.

  Toward where the killer waited.

  The killer felt drool worm its way from between his lips, hang pendulously from his chin and then fall. He could hear the release of the ropey spittle. Could hear the splash as it struck the grass. He could hear everything.

  The sound of the motorcycle and the glow of its light ignited a burning hunger deep in the killer’s mind. His mind, first. Then in his chest, and then in his stomach.

  Always in the mind.

  That’s where hunger began.

  That’s where lust lived.

  The killer turned, peeling itself out of the featureless black of the forest as it stepped onto the winding road.

  To wait.

  Chap. 6

  It takes a long, long time to bag three grown men.

  Takes even longer to clean up the mess.

  My office is prepped for it, though. Everything is waterproof. Everything is cleanable. I keep a bucket and mop, bleach, paper towels, rags, soap, sponges and brushes in the closet. A big box of heavy-duty contractor black plastic bags. And a wheeled mail cart.

  Took me nearly five hours to clean everything up.

  Played Tom Waits and Steely Dan really loud while I did it. Sometimes you got to play loud music to distract you from what you’re doing. And, yes, I have playlists for this sort of thing.

  My life is complicated.

  I killed two more hours driving to a landfill I knew of and dumping the bags, then driving back. Tried not to look at the card while I was driving. Still hoping it would blow out the window. Still didn’t. Came back to the office, drank some beer. Watched a DVR of the All-Star game and fell asleep on my couch.

  I didn’t start thinking about the card until I woke up. Took a poor-man’s shower standing in front of the sink and washing myself with paper towels. Thought about coffee and decided to go find some.

  The card was still in my car when I came outside at a quarter to seven in the morning.

  Except it wasn’t where I left it.

  It should have been on the passenger seat. Instead it was tucked into the cracked vinyl where I’d found it the first time.

  But this time it was turned backward so I could see what somebody’d written in blue ballpoint. One word.

  “Now.”

  I looked at the card.

  I got out of the car and looked around the area. The usual suspects were doing what they usually do. Cars passed on Street Road, heading everywhere but where I gave a shit. No one was looking at me. No one looked like the kind of person who’d leave this kind of card.

  I didn’t want to call the number. They might as well have printed nothing but trouble in red embossed typeface.

  I said, “Fuck.”

  I went back into my office.

  And called the goddamn number.

  Chap. 7

  The motorcycle rounded the curve in the road and the light splashed its whiteness ahead. The pale light painted the figure standing in the road.

  The driver tried to stop in time.

  He swerved.

  He braked.

  The bike turned and began to slew sideways toward an inevitable collision. One that would break bone and burst meat and splash the landscape with blood that would be black as oil in the night.

  The killer did not move.

  Not right away, at least.

  As the bike and its driver skidded and spun toward him, the killer rose up from four legs to two. He bared his teeth and with red joy reached out to accept the gift that was being given.

  It was not just meat and blood that fed him.

  He feasted on the screams as well.

  Oh, how delicious they were. And he made sure they lasted a long, long time.

  Chap. 8

  The voice that answered did not belong to the beautiful woman who’d hired me last time.

  The voice was male.

  Nasal, high-pitched, fussy. If a Chihuahua could talk, it would be like that.

  Funny and cute if it was a cartoon. Less so on a business call.

  Instead of saying “Hello” or any of that shit, he picked up halfway through the second ring and said, “Mr. Hunter.”

  My name, not his.

  “Who’s this?”

  “We’re delighted you called, Mr. Hunter.”

  “I’m not. Who is this?”

  “Limbus,” he said.

  “No, your name.”

  A pause. “My name is Cricket.”

  “First or last?”

  “Just Cricket.”

  “Jeez.”

  “And, as I said, we’re delighted you called.”

  “Why?”

  “My employers were very satisfied with the manner in which the last matter was, mmmm, handled.”

  The humming pause was for effect. He wanted me to know that he knew exactly how that case was handled. I had to use some irregular methods. Irregular for most P.I.s. Only semi-irregular for me.

  “Can I speak with the lady who hired me before?”

  “Mmmm, which lady would that be?”

  “Don’t jerk me off.”

  Another pause. “That person is no longer a part of this organization.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She is, mmmm, engaged in other work,” said Mr. Cricket. “And before you ask, Mr. Hunter, I am not at liberty to discuss the matter.”

  “Balls.”

  To be fair, it was what I expected. I would have been genuinely surprised if I ever saw her again.

  I sighed. “Okay, so what do you want?”

  “Are you, mmm, familiar with the town of Pine Deep, Pennsylvania?”

  “Sure. In Bucks County, on the river.”

  “Have you ever been there?”

  “No. I heard it burned down.”

  “There was some trouble,” Cricket said diffidently, “but that was a number of years ago. It has been, mmmm, substantially rebuilt.”

  “Big whoop. How’s that matter to me?”

  “We would like you to go there.”

  “Why
?”

  “To conduct an investigation.”

  “What would I be investigating?”

  “There have been a series of, mmm, attacks.”

  “What kind of attacks?”

  “Murders.”

  “Murders? Plural?”

  “Five murders,” he said. “And one person seriously injured.”

  “That’s too bad. Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t even one-Starbucks towns in Bucks County have police departments?”

  “They do.”

  “Maybe you haven’t heard, but unless you’re in a movie, it’s pretty rare for anyone to hire a private investigator to go anywhere near a police matter. Cops, as a rule, take that sort of thing amiss.”

  “Amiss,” he repeated, apparently enjoying the word.

  I waited.

  Cricket said, “You used to be a police officer.”

  “‘Used to be’ is a phrase you should look at more closely.”

  “You’re still an investigator.”

  “Private. And let me reiterate that P.I.s do not—I repeat do not—interfere with active police cases. Cops tend to get cranky about that. Cranky cops can make life very difficult for working P.I.s, even small-town, cranky cops. If I interfered, I could get my ticket pulled.”

  “I do not believe that would happen in this case, Mr. Hunter.”

  “Why, are you cats going to pay for my lawyer?”

  “Mmmmm, no.”

  “Are you going to run interference between me and local law?”

  “No.”

  “Then have a swell day.”

  “Mr. Hunter, the reason you won’t have those kinds of problems is that the Pine Deep Police have requested our assistance.”

  I said nothing.

  “They have, in point of fact, requested your help.”

  “Me?”

  “Well, perhaps I should clarify…your actual name was not included in the request.”

  “Then what—?”

  “Well, mmmm, through various channels, the chief of police in Pine Deep has been searching for an expert in a certain kind of crime.”

  “I’m no expert. More of a general practitioner. Jack-of-all-trades, master of none,” I said, trying and failing to make a small joke.

  “Forgive me, Mr. Hunter, but we disagree with that assertion. You are exceptionally well qualified for this particular kind of crime.”

  “How so?”

  “Because of the unique nature of the murders.”

  That’s when I got the first real tingle of warning. Small, but serious. The smart thing to do would have been to simply end the call. No goodbyes, no polite refusals, just hit the button, put the cell phone in the bottom drawer of my file cabinet, and go to the multiplex to watch a movie about things blowing up. Maybe get some Ben and Jerry’s afterward.

  That’s what I should have done. I knew it then, and I sure as shit know it now.

  Instead, I felt my mouth speak, heard my voice say, “What do you mean?”

  I swear to Christ that I could hear him smile. Like a fisherman who knew that his last tug had set the hook.

  “The victims,” he said after the slightest pause, “were torn apart and partially, mmmm, consumed.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “And at the scene of each crime the forensics experts took castings of an unusual set of prints. Do you, mmmm, care to guess which kind of prints?”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Not really,” I said.

  “Just so,” he said.

  There was a very long silence on the line. Mr. Cricket did not seem interested in breaking it. He wanted me to jump out of the water into his little boat.

  And, damn it, I did.

  “Tell me the rest,” I said.

  Chap. 9

  The killer sagged back from the orgy of its feast.

  Sated.

  Swollen.

  His mouth tingled from the hundreds of tastes present in fresh meat and blood.

  His cock was turgid from the frenzy of the kill.

  His eyes were glazed from the intoxicating beauty of it all.

  He rolled over and flopped onto his back, letting the night breeze cool the blood on skin and mouth and hands.

  Hands now. Not paws.

  He lay there and stared up through the trees. They were sparser here above the road and he could see a few stars.

  He could see the moon.

  It was a sickle-slash of white. So bright. So bright.

  Chap. 10

  After the call was over, I sat slumped in my chair, staring a hole through the middle of nowhere.

  Cricket hadn’t told me much more, saying the local law in Pine Deep would give me the whole story. He suggested I familiarize myself with that troubled little town. The story was readily available on the Net.

  When we finally got to the question of my fee, Cricket made his mmmm-ing noise again and said, “Third drawer down.”

  After which the line went dead.

  I pushed my wheeled chair back from my desk and looked at the bottom drawer. It was closed, the way I’d left it and I hadn’t checked it since getting back. The wall clock ticked its way through a lot of cold seconds while I sat there. I hadn’t told Cricket I was taking the job. We had no formal agreement. And whatever was in that drawer did not constitute acceptance on my part. Not unless I put it in the bank.

  So, I could just leave it there.

  Or I could mail it back to them.

  Except that there was no address on the card. Just the number.

  I drummed my fingers very, very slowly on the desktop.

  The minute hand had time for two whole trips around before I opened the drawer.

  The usual stuff was there. Yellow legal pads, box of disposable mechanical pencils, extra rolls of Scotch tape, plastic thing of staples, a dog-eared Jon McGoran thriller I was rereading.

  And the envelope.

  Placed very neatly and squarely in the exact center of the drawer’s interior space. Fussy. Like I imagine everything was on Cricket’s desk. I think he even straightened the stuff in my drawer.

  “Mmmm,” I said in acknowledgment.

  The envelope was a standard number ten, off-white, with nothing written on the outside.

  I could tell right away that it wasn’t a check. Checks are flat. The contents of this envelope distorted its shape. Bulged it.

  I sighed and reached for it. Hefted it, weighed it in my hand.

  Heavy.

  Heavy is nice. First nice thing about this matter.

  I tried to judge how much would be in there. If it was fives, tens and twenties, it could be five hundred. Half a week’s income for me, on a good week.

  I tore open the top and let the bundle of bills slide down into my hand.

  The top bill was not a five, a ten, or a twenty.

  Mr. Benjamin Franklin smiled at me with a smug awareness as if to say, “Yes, son, we all have a price.”

  I took a breath and folded down the corner of the top bill.

  The next one was a hundred, too.

  So were the next thirty-nine.

  My scalp began to sweat.

  The stack didn’t end there, though.

  There were six bills with the face of someone I’d never seen on a piece of paper currency. Read about them, but never actually looked at one.

  William McKinley.

  The denomination insisted that this was a five hundred dollar bill.

  There were six of these.

  Six.

  I turned on my computer and did a search to see if these were even in circulation anymore.

  They weren’t. The last five hundred dollar bills had been printed in 1945.

  These were all from 1934. All crisp and clean as if they’d never been used.

  I did a second search to see if they were still worth five hundred.

  They were not.

  Not even close.

  I found auction sites that listed them, that sold them.

  My sc
alp was sweating even more. So was every other part of me.

  I called the number for one of the auction houses, a place in Doylestown. The receptionist transferred me to the rare coins guy. When I explained what I had, the man snorted and asked me if I was making a prank call. I assured him I was not.

  “And you have six such bills?”

  “Yes,” I assured him.

  “Would you mind reading the serial numbers to me?” The skepticism was thick in his tone.

  I read the numbers. They were all in sequence.

  He made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a growl.

  “Please,” he said, “assure me that this is not a joke.”

  “Not unless someone is playing one on me. But, look, just tell me…are these still good? I mean, could I deposit them in my bank?”

  He made that sound again. Much louder this time.

  “Please, sir, do not even joke about that. If these are legitimate bills, and if they are in the condition you describe, then they have considerable worth.”

  “Yeah…I saw something on your site that they might be worth fifteen hundred or—”

  “No,” he said abruptly.

  “Oh,” I said, deflated, “then—”

  “If these bills are real then they are worth a great deal more than that.”

  “Like…how much more?”

  “Do you have any understanding of rare currencies?”

  “Not beyond that fact that it’s rare for me to have currency.”

  He gave a polite little laugh. Enough to tell me that I wasn’t as funny as I thought I was, or maybe that this was no time for jokes.

  “Rarities of any kind are what drive the passion for collection. Art, coins, stamps…they have value based on a number of factors. Condition—even a scratch can take hundreds off of a rare penny, and—”

  “Right, I understand that part.”

  “Condition is one factor in determining value. The actual degree of rarity is another. Take, for example, the 1933 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle. When the Depression was in full swing, President Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard and recalled all gold coins for melting. About a dozen of that particular coin never made it back to the mint or were smuggled out again by enterprising government employees. One of those coins resurfaced in 1992 and was confiscated by the Secret Service but was not melted down. In 1933 it had a face value of $20; in 2002, it was sold at auction for over seven million dollars.”