The Devil_s Workshop

by Stephen J. Cannell

  He had begun to suspect that he had lived his life in pursuit of the wrong things, but how could he find the strength to redirect himself or even know what to aim at? His life before Kennidi died had been about trophies and medals; now it was about self-pity and despair. He had jumped out of his comfortable life almost in desperation, but the chute hadn't opened. Instead, he had experienced four years of free fall with his silk canopy streaming uselessly above him, flapping and tugging at his shoulders like ghostly memories. There was almost no time left; the ground was coming at him fast. The impact would be sudden and devastating. He had no solution.

  The sun was finally setting, and the approaching night cooled his freshly shaved head. He wondered what he should do. He didn't want to sleep in doorways or under railroad bridges anymore, but he couldn't stand his old bedroom. No place seemed like home. He desperately needed a drink.

  "I still owe you a meal," a voice said, pulling him out of these thoughts.

  Cris turned and looked at a pretty blond woman standing just behind him. He could see his father down the hill, waiting by the car. He couldn't place her for a minute, but she looked familiar.

  "Stacy," she said, reading the confusion in his eyes. "You cleaned up after my raccoons."

  Then he nodded and smiled weakly, exposing the temporary tooth put in that afternoon.

  Stacy almost couldn't recognize him. The long, greasy blond hair had been completely shaved off. He stood before her, bald-headed and sallow-cheeked; the skin around his eyes was mottled and unhealthy-looking. His shoulders were hunched, but at least the garbage bags had been replaced by expensive brown loafers.

  "That's not much of a haircut," she said, smiling at him.

  Absent-mindedly he rubbed his hand over his shaved head. "It's not a haircut, it's a medical procedure. Guy hit me with a wrench. Took fifteen stitches." He turned and exposed a nasty cut on the back of his head.

  "Ouch," she said, then after a moment, "Listen, Mr. Cunningham… Cris… I need to talk to you."

  "About what?"

  "It's about Mike Brazil and Sidney Saunders, and that whole horrible disaster up at Vanishing Lake."

  "Oh," he said, and then they both fell silent as a gust of wind blew dry leaves across the raised metal names of the dead.

  Chapter 19

  THE FAME IN DEAD MEN'S DREAMS

  They had switched trains at Amarillo, and were now on the old, lyrically named Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, heading back toward Vanishing Lake. Now that Dexter was an Acolyte of the Choir, he had been assigned his very own sub-angel to guide him to the path of godly reckoning. Dexter's sub-angel was the cruel, war-hardened Randall Rader. When Dexter wasn't listening to Fannon Kincaid's long, dissociative lectures, he was forced to sit with Randall and read scripture from the "Available Light Bible," which was just a long rolled-up filmstrip and a plastic viewer that they held up to the sunlight. The filmstrip only contained the Old Testament and the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation. No mention was made of the fact that all the other chapters of the New Testament, Matthew through Jude, were missing. Randall started Dexter's Bible study by concentrating mostly on Deuteronomy, which, he explained, was the Fifth Book of Moses and necessary for a new member of the Choir to fully understand. Fannon was a latter-day Moses, Randall told him. He was fighting for the Lord while attempting to lead his flock out of metaphoric Egypt, which in today's world was not a corrupt state, but a corrupt state of mind. Although hardened by war and life on the rails, Randall still cried as he read Deuteronomy: 44 'Surely there shall not one of these men of this evil generation see that good land, which I swear to give unto your fathers.' " He whispered reverently as he read Chapter Two, Verse One: " 'Then we turned and took our journey into the wilderness by way of the Red Sea.' " Dexter learned the new metaphor for the parting of the Red Sea. Randall explained that the rail system from which Fannon led his flock parted a sea of corruption and misplaced moral values in America. As they read through the Available Light Bible, looking for appropriate passages, Randall explained that his biblical name was "The Angel in the Church of Per-ga-mos," a long, exalted title. Randall was, after all, a sub-angel.

  As they scrolled Deuteronomy, they skipped right over a few important Commandments that caught Dexter's eye, like Chapter Five, Verse Seventeen, "Thou shalt not kill," or Verse Nineteen, "Thou shalt not steal."

  When Dexter asked Randall Rader about these two cornerstones of religion, Randall simply explained, "How can one steal something that was itself stolen?" And regarding killings, Randall recalled a quotation from Luke 22:36: "He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one."

  Dexter had given up, and was now just going along with everything. He had been captured by maniacs.

  In the evenings they sat in a circle in the moving freight car, warming their hands over "canned heat," which was tins of Sterno. Fannon would give political, social, and religious lectures as the train rumbled back up the east face of the Black Hills.

  "Prison is a kiss on the lips of defeat," Fannon said softly one evening, as they discussed their inevitable incarceration, if they allowed themselves to be caught alive. Moon shadows moved slowly across the floor of the moving car. The members of the Choir all looked at Fannon as if he had just uttered something so profound that a pause was needed to completely digest it.

  "The field of Armageddon will be either in Kansas, or Nebraska, or Maryland," he said, for the umpteenth time. They all sat in silence and contemplated the great wisdom. For this reason the Choir rarely, if ever, ventured into those states.

  "The filthy Levites control the banking system," Fannon continued. "This was predicted in Revelation with Apostle John's nightmarish vision, where he foretold that nobody could get a job or even buy in a store. The capability already exists for us to live in a cashless society." He rambled on, "Computer technology has accomplished this feat for the Jew. Already the banking system is increasingly multinational, and Levites are now managing the world's wealth. Their private banks issue computer credit, which is a debt against the currency of nations, instead of how it always was before, where nations issued currency backed by their own people's productivity. This change has delivered the financial powers into the hands of the International Jew Bankers, who now control the ability to throw us into financial dungeons."

  His lectures were even more emotional when he turned to the mud races. He ranted endlessly on mixed marriages and the blurring of bloodlines. "The White men in America are 'sheeple,' " he announced. "Our White brothers are blind to what's happening in the Jew-nited States of America."

  Dexter listened and nodded. He was trapped. He had made a horrible mistake when he told Fannon about his deadly secret, hidden in sealed containers in the freezing water at the bottom of Vanishing Lake. He had intended to escape from the Devil's Workshop and then retrieve the containers to continue the next phase of his research alone. He had only told Fannon in a moment of white fear, when he thought he was just seconds from death. It had been his only bargaining chip. Now he knew that if the deadly bio-weapon fell into the hands of this maniac, he might indiscriminately wipe out huge sections of the population. Still, he couldn't figure out a way to undo what he had done.

  Dexter's attention drifted back to Fannon, who was now talking about death. It was clear from what he was saying that he didn't expect to survive his war with the U. S. Government. He was telling them that he would only strike the first blow before perishing. Others would have to pick up his lance and march to victory.

  "Bob Matthews said it before he died," Fannon lectured. These last few days, Dexter had been hearing a lot about Bob Matthews, the martyred White separatist who went down in a hail of government gunfire. "Matthews said it, and remember his words," Fannon ordered. " 'The only thing I know of that does not die is the fame in dead men's dreams.' " All of them sat quietly in the rumbling freight and thought about their own death and fame as martyrs to the Cause. All, that is, except Dexter, who was only thinking about esca
pe. But with Randall Rader never more than a few feet away, it seemed increasingly impossible.

  Chapter 20

  AUTOPSY

  It was already dark, and Buddy was still waiting for Gary Iverson in the overlit waiting room of the morgue. In the twilight afterglow, out the third-floor windows, he could just barely see the surf hitting the moonlit ribbon of beach south of the Santa Monica Pier. Paranoid thoughts still followed him, like refugees trailing a defeated army. He was fighting the urge to scoot down and retrieve his stash from the Porsche spare tire, which had a hole cut in the underside for easy access. He knew that would be a mistake. When he was snapping paranoid, cocaine put him in a despair so deep he would sometimes be blighted for days.

  He began to think more seriously about rehab.

  Only occasionally did his mind drift to his dead son lying in frosty silence somewhere in the overlit morgue.

  The elevator doors opened, and Gary Iverson stepped off, his bloodshot eyes blinking rapidly in hollow sockets. He had a two-day stubble, and was wearing his Malibu chic grunge attire. He moved to Buddy, dragging visibly.

  "You don't look like a doctor, you look like fucking afterbirth," Buddy complained.

  "It's the nineties, man," Gary sighed. "I'm not okay, you're not okay, but that's okay. What's going on?"

  "These guys are talking about doing an autopsy with some County Medical guy, some dipshit supervisor. They got Mike's body in bio-containment, whatever the fuck that is. Why would they do that?" Gary shrugged. "I want Mike's body released to Mount Sinai now/"

  "God, why's my head killing me," Gary said, rubbing his eyes.

  "Your head's killing you 'cause that whore Ginger hooked you to a G. H. B. ride. I told you not to shoot that stuff. Heidi promised me Ginger was off it." When Gary didn't answer, Buddy went on, "That shit's lethal. That's what gonked River Phoenix."

  "Ginger's a whore?" Gary asked, dumbfounded. "She's one of Heidi's girls? You told me she was an actress."

  "Whores are actresses," Buddy backtracked. "Listen, Gary, you gotta get down there and stop that autopsy. Somethin' ain't right," he said, paranoia driving suspicion.

  "Ginger's a fucking whore?" Gary repeated. "All that time I thought she was enjoying it and getting off."

  "Who gives a shit?" Buddy riled. "You don't pay whores to come, you pay them to leave. Now will ya please go find out why they got Mike in bio-containment. They won't let anybody but doctors in there."

  In the second-floor autopsy section of the morgue, a heated argument was taking place between two M. E. S and Colonel Laurence Chittick, who had just flown in from Fort Detrick. All of them were in a sterile hallway that fronted four autopsy rooms.

  "Excuse me," Iverson said softly as he approached, "I'm here to make arrangements to transport the body of Michael Brazil to the mortuary at Mount Sinai."

  Nobody paid any attention to him, or maybe they hadn't heard him, because his voice was a low drugged whisper. Colonel Chittick was arguing loudly with Dr. Ernest Welsh, the Santa Monica Coroner, who was tall, with a hairline shaped like a laurel wreath.

  "You don't seem to understand. I don't care who at Fort Detrick authorized it," Dr. Welsh said. "My chain of command is municipal. This body isn't leaving here without the correct authorization, period."

  "I'm Dr. Iverson, the Brazil family physician," Gary stated more forcefully. They both turned.

  His ripped-at-the-knee jeans, flip-flops, and fatigued appearance argued with this statement. "Sorry, I've been up forty-eight hours," he alibied, reading their disbelief. "Camping trip. Got here as soon as I could. I'd like to make arrangements to have Mike's body delivered to Mount Sinai-"

  "He's not going to Mount Sinai. He's going air-express to the bio-containment facility at Fort Detrick," the Colonel said.

  "Who are you?" Gary Iverson demanded.

  "I'm Colonel Chittick, with the E. I. S. at the Centers for Disease Control."

  "E. I. S.?" Gary asked.

  "Epidemic Intelligence Service," Chittick said.

  The Santa Monica M. E. turned back to Colonel Chittick.

  "The only way to accomplish what you want is to supply me with the proper paperwork," he said. "I need a written request that states E. I. S.'s reasons why this body should be transported to Fort Detrick. Without that I can't let it go. My ass will get sued by his family." He turned to Iverson. "Right, Doctor?"

  "Count on it," Gary said, with over-the-top conviction.

  "Where will the body be kept?" Chittick asked.

  "We'll keep it right here. The autopsy is scheduled for nine this evening. You should be able to get the correct paperwork to me by then. Have the EPS duty officer frame the request, then submit it with the C. D. C.'s recommendation and copy it to the State Health Department in Berkeley. Fax it to me and the body will be turned over to you. Otherwise we're going to do this procedure as scheduled."

  Colonel Chittick nodded and moved out of the morgue, using the side elevator. He went down to a rented windowless van parked around the corner from the County Medical Building. Once inside, he turned to face Lieutenant Nino DeSilva. The Lieutenant was only twenty-two, but his dark Latino looks burned with a fierce intensity that made him seem older.

  "They want a paper from E. I. S. or they won't turn the body loose."

  "Then let's get the paper," DeSilva said.

  "We go through channels on this and C. D. C. will demand delivery on the body," Chittick explained. "They're gonna find the brain disintegration and see the spongiform encephalitis. Once that happens, they're gonna run more tests, take some C. S. F., and eventually discover the Pale Horse Prion. They'll turn it over to the FBI, who will notify Congress, and we're fucked." He paused and rubbed his forehead. "We have to contain this ourselves. They are doing the autopsy at nine. We've got to stop it," Colonel Chittick said darkly.

  "This was the original Bob's Big Boy," Wendell told Stacy and Cris as they pulled up in front. "I haven't been here in ages."

  It was a large, old-fashioned fifties-style restaurant. The huge plate-glass windows looked out on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham had gone directly home from Forest Lawn. Cris and Stacy got out of Wendell's station wagon. She leaned back in the passenger window and winked at the ever rumpled doctor, who was still seated behind the wheel.

  "You sure this is okay? I could stick around," he said.

  "It's better if you go over and witness the autopsy in Santa Monica. They did us a big favor by moving it up, and doing it on Sunday night." She looked at her wristwatch; it was eight-fifteen. "You'll just about make it. I'll catch a cab, drop Cris, and meet you at my place around eleven."

  He hesitated, so she gave him a subtle head movement that said, "Get outta here." She wanted to talk to Cris Cunningham, and she thought she would get more out of him alone.

  Wendell blew her a kiss and pulled the station wagon away from the curb, leaving them standing in front of the restaurant. They moved inside and were greeted by the chill of too-cold air-conditioning, and a hostess who led them to a table by a window overlooking the parking lot.

  "Jesus, it's a fucking malt shop," Cris said. "Let's go someplace that at least has a bar."

  "Order anything you want," Stacy said, ignoring that, as a waitress handed them menus and moved off. "You and Mike did a good job around that Dumpster," she smiled. "This is on me."

  He took the menu and held it without opening it. "Why did you go to all the trouble of finding me?" His suspicious, feral eyes studied her, eyes that had lost their trust in humanity. "You wanna tell me what's really going on here?"

  "You're right, I came a long way looking for you," she admitted, then dug into her purse and pulled out the rolls of developed pictures she had taken at Vanishing Lake. She slid them across the table toward him. "Do you recognize him?" she said, pointing to a shot of Fannon Kincaid taken moments after he had murdered the troops on the baseball diamond. "Most of the men with him had 'F. T. R. A.' tattooed on their arm."

  C
ris looked at the picture for a long time, weighing his jeopardy before answering. It was the same man he'd seen shoot the two soldiers. When she mentioned the tattoos, he suddenly knew who he was. He'd heard stories whispered over jungle campfires.

  "F. T. R. A. stands for 'Freight Train Riders of America,' " Cris said. "I think his name is Fannon Kincaid. He runs some White supremacist church. Rides the rails to stay underground. He's killed hobos for just being on the same train. Legend says, if you see a crazy silver-haired fanatic that looks like the abolitionist John Brown, run like hell."

  "Great," she said. "He's got Dexter DeMille. God only knows what that means."

  "Who's Dexter DeMille?"

  "He's the other reason I came looking for you. You need to go to the hospital," she said. "I'll set it up, but you need to get checked over immediately."

  "Why?"

  "Hollywood Mike didn't die from a crushed larynx." She watched as his eyes shifted slightly, then came back and found hers.

  "Who said he had a crushed larynx?"

  "You did. You told Roscoe Moss in Badwater."

  "Christ, lady, you've been covering a lot of ground."

  "Roscoe Moss sent the body to someplace called Government Camp, and they looked it over. The doc there said there was nothing wrong with Mike's throat. That's not what killed him."

  Cris hesitated, then let out a long, slow breath. "I thought I'd killed him," he finally admitted.

  "You didn't. Something else did."

  When the waitress reappeared they both ordered full house Big Boy burgers and vanilla shakes. When she left, Cris looked back at Stacy.

  "That still doesn't explain why you want me to go to a hospital."

  Stacy looked across the table at Cris and decided that the best way to get him to cooperate was to level with him. Despite his scrawny, alcohol-ravaged state, he was still a college graduate and a Silver Star winner. She hoped the truth would motivate him.