The Devil’s Bed

by Krueger, William Kent

  “Jesus,” Bo said. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “The last few hours haven’t been exactly normal for you.”

  “I need to call the field office.”

  “If you call from here, won’t they trace it?”

  “I need wheels.”

  Otter hesitated. “Well, the church has a van. And I know where they keep the keys.”

  He called from a phone booth outside a liquor store at the intersection of two busy streets, Snelling and University. When Linda Armstrong, the receptionist, answered, Bo said, “Who’s in charge there, Linda?”

  “Bo?”

  “Who’s in charge?”

  She hesitated a long time, as if she were debating answering at all. “Assistant Director Malone, for the moment.”

  “Any of our people around?”

  Another long pause. Then a different voice came on the line, a voice unfamiliar to Bo and attached to a name he didn’t know.

  “This is Special Agent Greer.”

  “You’ll have to do. You listen to me and listen good, Greer. Tom Jorgenson is the target for a hit. An attempt will be made on his life very soon. You should get him out of the hospital and back to Wildwood, where security is tighter.”

  “Who’s going to make this attempt?”

  “I don’t know. I just know that it will happen.”

  “Come in, Thorsen, and we’ll talk about it.”

  “No.”

  “How do you know this information?”

  “It’s too complicated to go into over the phone.”

  “Then come in.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Do it, Greer. His life is in your hands.”

  “Thorsen—”

  “Just do it.” Bo hung up.

  Otter was waiting in the van with the engine running.

  “They buy it?”

  “I don’t know. But I don’t want to take any chances. We’re going to Stillwater, Otter. Step on it.”

  They took I-94 east, then I-694 north, and finally shot east again on Highway 36 ten more miles to Stillwater. Otter pushed the van as fast as it would go, but it was in need of an alignment. Much over fifty and the chassis shook so badly Bo’s teeth rattled. Just outside the river town, they turned north again and scooted along the crest of the hills that fronted the St. Croix until the tall concrete tower that was the Medical Center burst into view.

  “Park there,” Bo said, indicating a curb at the corner.

  He checked his Sig Sauer. The clip still held six rounds. He shoved it under the waistband at the back of his trousers and let his shirttail hang over the butt of the firearm.

  “What do you have in mind?” Otter asked.

  “You stay with the van.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m heading in. Play it by ear.”

  “That’s your plan?”

  “You got a better one?”

  “You’re the professional. I just thought—”

  “Wish me luck.”

  “You got it.”

  The sun was low in the west. It bathed the hospital tower in a tangerine hue and all the western windows had a glaring orange glint that made Bo think of a many-eyed beast watching him. The parking lot was full. He wove among the vehicles, working his way toward the entrance. The fire lane was lined with police cruisers, county and state. Uniformed officers were posted at the doors. Keeping to the cover of the lot, Bo headed toward the Emergency Room entrance on the south side. A police cruiser was parked there, too. He thought about the outside door of the laundry room in the building that adjoined the hospital on the northeast side. It was possible that door hadn’t been locked yet. He headed that way.

  Even if he gained access to the hospital, he had no idea what he would do once he was inside. After his call to the field office, every law enforcement officer would be looking for him. But he was responsible for putting Tom Jorgenson’s life in danger, and he couldn’t simply sit and wait to see what move NOMan made. He followed a lilac hedge that bordered the hospital grounds, then trotted across the empty parking area behind the laundry building. He mounted the stairs to the loading dock and tried the door. It was locked.

  As he stood considering what next, a chopper swung over the hill, hovered above the roof of the hospital tower, and descended toward the pad there until it was out of Bo’s sight. He could hear the thump of the blades slowing after it landed.

  Down the hill overlooking the town, Bo saw a SuperAmerica gas station/convenience store at the next intersection, and he had an idea. He bounded off the loading dock, raced across the laundry parking area, and jogged down the sidewalk to the store. He found a pay phone near the pumps, but where the phone directory should have been there was only the dangling end of the chain that had once held it in place. He pushed through the door of the store and leaned on the counter, breathing hard.

  “I need a phone book. It’s an emergency.”

  The clerk, a kid with gold wire-rims and the look of a failed poet, said, “Be with you in a minute.” He reached to the cigarette bins above his head and pulled down a pack of Winston Lights for the customer ahead of Bo.

  “I need that phone book now.”

  “I said just a minute.” The kid gave him a stern glare weighted with all the authority of a clerk in charge.

  Bo drew his Sig. “Give me the damn phone book.”

  The customer, a balding man with eyes that had bloomed huge as two chrysanthemums, stepped out of Bo’s way.

  The clerk kept his gaze on the barrel of the Sig, reached to the phone book that was on a stool near the register, and handed it to Bo.

  “I’ll need fifty cents for the phone, too.”

  The clerk rang open the register, fingered out two quarters, and handed them over.

  “Thank you,” Bo said. He pushed out the door and ran to the phone.

  As he looked up the number of the St. Croix Regional Medical Center, he heard the chopper lift off from the pad on the hospital roof. He glanced up and saw it zip away over the hills to the south. He dialed the hospital operator, gave his name as Doctor Lingenfelter, and asked to be connected to the nurses’ station in Trauma ICU. When he was connected, he asked if Maria Rivera was on duty. She was. He asked to speak with her.

  “Hello, this is Nurse Rivera.”

  He pictured her clean, white uniform, her kind eyes.

  “Maria, it’s Bo Thorsen.”

  She was quiet.

  “I need a favor, Maria.”

  “What?” she asked carefully.

  “Just tell me if they’ve put additional security on Tom Jorgenson.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “It’s important, Maria. His life may be in danger.”

  “He’s not here,” she finally answered. “A helicopter just picked him up and took him to Wildwood.”

  “Thank God,” Bo whispered into the receiver.

  “Bo, what can I do to help you?”

  “You’ve done it, Maria. Thank you.”

  “Be careful, Bo.”

  He hung up. He looked back through the glass of the convenience store and saw the clerk on the phone. Calling the police, no doubt. Bo beat a hasty retreat.

  Otter was still in the van, the engine idling.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Bo said. “But slowly and carefully.” He crouched on the floor of the van so that he couldn’t be seen.

  “How’d it go?” Otter said, signaling to pull away from the curb.

  “If they thought I was crazy before, they’ll be damn sure of it now.”

  By the time they returned to St. Paul, a gray evening light hung over the quiet neighborhood and the church. Otter pulled up to the back entrance and gave Bo a key.

  “All the doors are locked. Nobody will disturb you. Go on in and wait for me. I’m going to gas up the van. Then there’s a good Greek place a mile or so up Snelling. How about I grab us a couple of gyros. I don’t know about you, but this sp
y stuff makes me hungry.”

  “I’m starved. Thanks.”

  Bo shut the van door, and Otter headed away.

  Inside, the church was dark and deserted. Instead of heading to Otter’s room in the basement, Bo went to the sanctuary. He was still tingling from the adrenaline rush of his dash to Stillwater. He wanted to relax for a few minutes. The church sanctuary seemed as good a place as any.

  It was a vast room with great stone arches that reminded Bo of a cathedral. There were a dozen stained glass windows set high in the walls along the sides and behind the altar. Probably when morning light streamed through them, they were dazzling. As it was, with the dark of night closing in behind them, they seemed lifeless. Aside from the red glow of the exit signs, there was only one light in the sanctuary, directly above the cross on the altar. Beyond the chancel rail, the light faded quickly so that the sides of the great room and the far back corners lay in a charcoal gloom. Bo walked to a pew near the rear of the church and sat down next to the center aisle. He removed the Sig Sauer that had been stuffed in the waist of his pants and laid it beside him on the pew. For a long time, he stared at the gold cross on the altar.

  Until he went to live with Harold and Nell Thorsen, he’d never gone to church. They insisted that every Sunday he accompany them to Valley Lutheran. He went mostly because he grew to like the people who made up the congregation, people like Harold and Nell, farm families. But he never got the God part of things. In all his growing up, he’d never felt safe, protected, watched over, cared for in any but the most careless way. Although he knew she loved him, his mother had failed miserably in giving him any sense of security. Whenever Harold or Nell suggested to him that God’s hand had guided his way to their farm, he was clear in pointing out that it was the hand of the Minnesota justice system that had brought him there, and the judicial shoving of Annie Jorgenson in particular. As grateful as he was to Annie, he’d never been inclined to think of her as an angel of God. What he’d wanted in all those Sundays, demanded silently in church, was something on the order of a miracle. He challenged God, “Give me a sign, something I can’t miss, and I’ll believe.” The miracle never came. For Bo, church remained an experience based on community rather than religion. Eventually, in place of a religious doctrine, he established for himself a credo of his own, three simple dictates that he tried to live by.

  1. The world is hard. Be strong.

  2. Love is for only a few. Don’t expect it.

  3. Life isn’t fair. But some people are. Be one of them.

  Over the years, he’ d considered adding others—Laugh when you can; the opportunities are few; and Women are easy; compliment their shoes— but he’d always kept it limited to the three he formulated in that small country church outside Blue Earth. He had no complaints. He suffered only when he broke one of his commandments.

  With his eyes on the dull reflection off the cross he whispered, “The world is hard. Be strong.”

  From directly behind his right ear came the click from the hammer of a pistol being cocked. Bo felt the cold kiss of a gun barrel against the bone at the back of his head.

  “Two: Love is for only a few. Don’t expect it. Three: Life isn’t fair. But some people are. Be one of them.” A small laugh accompanied the recitation. “Briefer than the Ten Commandments and the Bill of Rights,” David Moses said, “but not a bad way to live, Thorsen. Not bad at all.”

  chapter

  forty

  Surprised that I’m alive?” David Moses said. “But why would that be? Isn’t this a place that celebrates resurrection?”

  Bo glanced at the Sig beside him on the pew.

  “Uh-uh. Eyes on the cross.” The muzzle of the gun barrel pushed Bo’s head gently toward the altar. An arm reached alongside Bo and sent the Sig sliding to the far end of the pew.

  “What now?” Bo said.

  “Now? We talk.”

  “About what?”

  “I read about you in the papers, that they suspect you killed your boss. Anybody who has any idea of who you are wouldn’t believe that bullshit for a moment. You were framed. I’m wondering by whom.”

  “How did you find me?”

  Bo was trying to come up with a plan, a move that would give him some advantage. But at the moment, he could think of nothing. Moses was in complete control. Keep him talking, Bo thought.

  “The real question is, how did I find you when the authorities couldn’t. They look in all the obvious places. They’ve staked out your apartment. They’re watching that farm you grew up on in Blue Earth. They’ve even got a detail posted at your partner’s place. What’s his name? Coyote? But I know you, Thorsen. And I know how you think.

  “Specifically, I asked myself when a man’s got no place to run, where does he turn? To family? Too obvious. Maybe to a close coworker. But your boss is dead, and Coyote is out of town. How about a friend? I’m sure the authorities thought about that, but anyone looking at you on the surface would think you didn’t have any friends. So the question for me was, if you turned to a friend, how would I identify him?”

  There was a moment of silence in which, apparently, Moses waited for a response. Bo heard the creak of the old wooden pew as Moses leaned forward and spoke into his ear.

  “Simplicity itself. I secured a copy of the visitor’s log kept by the security guards at the hospital during your convalescence. Lots of cops dropped by to see you. But only one who decidedly wasn’t.”

  “Otter.”

  “Who gave this address to the guard.”

  The quiet of the sanctuary was broken by the rise of a siren wail. It grew in volume, passed, diminished, was swallowed by distance and the night.

  Moses said, “You know, I’ve been inside lots of churches all over the world trying to figure out this Christianity thing. Get this. ‘Christian soldiers are to wage the war of Christ their master without fearing that they sin in killing their enemies or of being lost if they are themselves killed…. If they kill, it is to the profit of Christ; if they die, it is to their own.’ A good Catholic saint said that. Pretty bloodthirsty, don’t you think?”

  “I never argue religion.”

  “Gets you nowhere, right? You know what Mark Twain said? ‘If Christ were here now, there is one thing he would not be—a Christian.’” Moses laughed softly. “What do you think of this whole God thing?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It does or I wouldn’t have asked. I did a little checking on you. You had a tough time of it growing up. Orphaned. In trouble with the law.”

  “You had a pretty shitty childhood yourself.”

  “You think so? I never thought of it that way, actually. A little lonely, maybe, but what kid isn’t? My mother was available to me probably no more or less than yours was for you. She read to me, held me sometimes, relied on me. And my other companionship was with books. You like books, too.”

  “I didn’t kill my mother.”

  It was almost a full minute before Moses spoke again. Whether he was thinking or fuming, Bo didn’t know, but his words, when they finally came, were oddly gentle.

  “Have you ever put an animal out of its misery?”

  “Don’t tell me you did it out of pity.”

  “No. What I knew of love. I would do things differently now, but at the time, it seemed reasonable.”

  The pew behind Bo gave another creak, more pronounced this time as Moses leaned nearer.

  “Am I any worse than the God whose house this is?” Moses asked.

  “The God who sends plague and conflagration and misery and suffering to whole populations who piss him off. The Old Testament, now there’s a chronicle of brutality.”

  “That’s how you deal with your guilt? Pointing a finger at a greater guilt?”

  “Who said I had any guilt?”

  “What I’m wondering is why you’re still alive.”

  “Why, I can’t say. But if you’re interested I’ll tell you how.”

  “I’m interested.”
r />   “Buckle your seat belt, Thorsen,” Moses said. “You’re in for a bumpy ride.”

  chapter

  forty-one

  At first there’d been almost nothing. No day. No night. Only darkness, perpetual and full of pain.

  Death? David Moses had wondered. If so, then why the voices and the press of hands? Why the visitations and the dreams? Was death a long remembering and a longer regret?

  Should I give him more? A voice like the crackle of dry brush.

  A touch. Then another voice, No. Vitals are too erratic.

  He screams sometimes.

  Not from the pain. Dreams. His dreams, I’ll bet, are terrible.

  They were worse than terrible. They were the loneliness multiplied by the longing, the betrayal multiplied by a desperate trust.

  He was not dead, he thought in one lucid moment, for hell would have been easier.

  Moses dreamed.

  He was in the cell they called el Cuarto del Diablo. The Devil’s Room. He was naked, strapped to a wooden apparatus they called the Devil’s Bed. His nose was filled with the odor of vomit and blood and excrement that had soaked into the wood.

  The filthy guard the prisoners had nicknamed La Cucaracha stood near the barred window. The sky beyond was full of gray clouds. The guard held a long black stick. A Paralyzer shock baton. Eighty thousand volts in his hand. La Cucaracha turned from the window and began to walk toward Moses on the Devil’s Bed. His dark eyes traveled the length of Moses’s naked body, looking for the right spot. He grinned as he gazed at the shriveled testicles. His mouth was like a dark cemetery, his gapped teeth like gravestones. Moses felt his jaw go rigid as the baton descended toward his genitals. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying in the dark of this awful dream to will himself awake.

  He’s screaming again. What if someone hears?

  There’s no one to hear. Keep him sedated. Keep him restrained.

  Christ, I hate his screams.

  Just be glad you don’t have his nightmares.