The Devil's Bag Man

by Adam Mansbach

  He shifted on the bench seat, their merged silhouette separating, and Galvan saw his face in profile, the handsome jut of his forehead, nose, and chin. His lips separated to take the joint.

  No—to lean forward into the empty space and kiss Sherry full on the mouth.

  She leaned back against the passenger door, left hand cradling the back of his head, pulling him on top of her. The glowing tip of the joint streaked across the blackness, and then it and Sherry and the boy all disappeared below Galvan’s sight line.

  He stood rooted to his spot, vibrating with intention. He felt it in his bones: something was wrong here.

  Something was not as it appeared.

  Shadowed body parts rose into view. His daughter’s left leg, from the knee down, thrown over the upholstery. The boy’s back arched, then hunched. The top of his dark head bobbed down the length of her body—and then, suddenly, he was visible from the waist up, brushing back his hair, stripping off his overshirt to reveal a threadbare orange tee. The kid’s mouth cleaved into a smile as he said something to Sherry, sprawled beneath him, and Galvan saw her wriggle, the leg disappearing, knew she was shrugging her jeans down past her hips, that in a moment they would be a rumpled afterthought on the floor.

  And then the boy lurched into the backseat and lifted a backpack. Galvan cringed inwardly, expecting to see him extract a small square foil package from the bag, please don’t make me watch this dude put on a condom, but what the kid took out was worse.

  Far worse.

  A Ziploc bag, with a piece of fabric inside. His body was twisted away from Sherry’s; she couldn’t see what he was doing.

  But Galvan saw. Galvan understood.

  Galvan, the paralytic.

  The ghost.

  And then he was on top of her—invisible, but Galvan knew exactly what was happening.

  The weight of his body pressing Sherry down.

  His forearm locked across her windpipe as she bucked and kicked, reflexes tamped down by the weed, the shock, the confusion.

  The rag pressed to her nose and mouth, Sherry twisted her head left and right to escape the fumes.

  Her eyes saucered as the chloroform took effect, then rolled back into her skull. Her head lolled and she went ragdoll limp.

  The whole thing was over in fifteen seconds.

  Galvan couldn’t even scream.

  The brake lights glowed, and the kid slammed the shift into reverse, threw his arm across the top of the seat, and twisted to look behind him as he backed out.

  For a moment, they were face-to-face, the car coming within a few feet of where Galvan stood—long enough for him to commit the boy’s features to memory: the thick black hair, the widow’s peak, the Cupid’s bow lips, the steely, emotionless eyes.

  He spun the wheel, put the car in drive, and rambled down the hill, taking it nice and easy. Just a sweet young kid taking his sleepy girlfriend home. Galvan watched them disappear around the bend, swallowed by the moonlit night.

  And finally, he screamed. A full-throated bellow of agony and impotence that turned the night sky bright, curled back the edges of the universe like burning paper.

  The sound of his own voice woke him, and Galvan squinted in the midmorning sunlight, his chest heaving, his hands clenched into fists.

  He leaped up, scrabbled through the bedside mess for his cell phone, pressed On and waited for it to find a satellite, his breath coming fast and ragged. The goddamn thing barely worked out here, got two bars at the best of times, was basically a glorified answering machine.

  The screen pulsed once, coming in range, and Galvan pressed Talk. The only number he’d ever dialed was Sherry’s.

  One ring. Two.

  His heart felt like it would explode. Galvan could sprint for miles at a time and it barely jackhammered, but this was something else again.

  You cannot defend her without me, Cucuy said, in his head. As long as you resist, she will never be safe.

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  Three rings. Four.

  “Dad?”

  There was fear in her voice. Galvan stood, snatched up a shirt, made for the door.

  “Sherry. Sweetheart. Are you okay?”

  “Uh . . . I guess.”

  Her voice quivered. It was a lie. There was a knife at her throat. A gun to her head. Adrenaline coursed through him.

  “Is someone there? Does he have a weapon on you?”

  A pause like a sob. Galvan halted at the doorway, spun and searched the trailer for his boots.

  “I’m at work, Dad. What are you talking about?”

  Galvan froze, boots dangling from his hand.

  You will tear yourself apart, Jess Galvan, and for what?

  “Sherry, listen to me. If someone’s there, give me some kind of signal—”

  “No one’s here, Dad. Just calm down.”

  Another pause. He could hear music playing in the background. Galvan dropped the boots, closed his eyes, massaged them with a thumb and forefinger.

  “Are you okay?” his daughter asked. “Where are you? You sound really weird.”

  “Sherry, listen to me.” He heard the choke in his voice, tried to swallow it down. Imagined her leaning over the ice cream counter, rolling her eyes. “Are you seeing somebody right now? A boy?”

  Another pause, as if the words had to travel some fantastic distance in order to reach her. Perhaps, in some sense, they did.

  When she finally spoke, her voice was rimmed with a chill he’d never heard. She sounded like her mother.

  “We don’t speak for weeks, and that’s what you want to know? How about ‘How are you, Sherry? How’s life completely on your own with no parents.’”

  Galvan sighed, the breath shuddering out of him. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m just scared is all. I-I had a dream, a nightmare, that something happened to you—”

  “Yeah, well, something did.”

  The conversation was getting away from him. Galvan shook his head to clear it.

  Fat chance.

  “Look, it was just a dream, okay, Dad?”

  “Sherry—”

  “I’ve got a customer. I gotta go. And no, for your information, I’m not seeing anybody.”

  The line went dead, and Galvan sank to his knees, alone with his demons again.

  Which wasn’t really alone at all.

  CHAPTER 9

  It had to be some kind of self-hate thing, Nichols thought, his interior monologue dappled with Cantwell’s psycho-speak these days. Either that or a macho thing: Nichols playing the stoic, the man who could take a licking and not start bitching.

  Why else—now that the department had both a pot to piss in and a window to throw it out of—would he refuse to get himself a goddamn working air conditioner?

  The twelve-to-eight shift fit better with Ruth’s schedule, meant he could linger at the breakfast table the way she liked—weekend breakfasts had been marathon affairs in Cantwell’s house growing up, apparently, and for her domestic bliss started with re-creating the ritual.

  And it meant he could be privy to shit shows like this morning’s, play stepdad to the bundle of nerves and hormones that was Sherry Richards—and hey, Nichols wasn’t complaining, was happy to do his part, had been an equal partner in the decision to take her in. A no-brainer, considering the lack of options the girl had.

  But still, Jesus Christ. He wasn’t qualified for this. And two women in one house? Nichols was no goon, women were his equals and his betters—but goddamn, that was a lot of estrogen whipping around, a lot of emotional updrafts and downswings. More than he could keep track of, for sure.

  He parked the cruiser in his reserved space, made for the front door. He swung it open and tamped down the irrational, guilty feeling that he was sneaking in late. Starting at noon just felt wrong. It threw off his rhythms, made him feel like he was playing catch-up all day. Robbed him of his morning rituals.

  Like feeling his office heat up. By this time of day, it had already completed the trans
formation into a sweltering, fetid armpit. Where was the sport in that?

  And when the hell were you supposed to eat lunch on a noon to eight? An hour after you got to work? At three? Were you supposed to eat two meals on the clock? Starve yourself, then strap on the feedbag for an early dinner?

  First-world problems, Nichols.

  Use ’em to block out what’s underneath, long as you can.

  He grabbed the stack of paperwork waiting for him on the department secretary’s desk—Maggie was already out to lunch herself, no fool she—walked into the Armpit, and turned on the Eisenhower-administration fan. He’d stopped for an iced Dunkins on the way, despite the pot of coffee he’d already poured down his throat at home. Sheer force of habit. He plunked it down on the desk with a reproachful glance, unable to even take a sip, and took a baleful look around.

  This room, and the job he did in it, represented the only continuity Nichols had left.

  Sure, you’ve got a brand-new house and a brand-new lady friend and a brand-new sense of existential dread, but hey, at least the wood paneling and the smell of mold remain the same.

  Talk about cold comfort.

  At least something was cold.

  He drummed his fingers atop the paperwork, not ready to slog through it yet, and felt a familiar restlessness creep though his muscles, a desire to move just for the sake of moving, the desk like a ball and chain around his leg.

  Get out there and do some good—that was the self-exculpating, rah-rah version.

  Went down a lot easier than I can’t sit here with myself or I’ll go nuts.

  Protect and Serve, motherfuckers.

  He called the rookie’s name, hoping maybe something had happened out in the world that required sheriffly attention. Anything major, and he’d have gotten a call; the deputies weren’t shy about interrupting Nichols’s off-time, passing the buck to the buck-stopper. But a man could dream, couldn’t he?

  “Boggs.”

  “Yessir?” Boggs called back, from his cubicle in the big room, not even standing up.

  What was it with these kids, and their willingness to conduct a conversation through multiple walls? Sherry was the same way. Nichols ran the numbers, realized that Russell Boggs was probably six years older than her and nearly two dozen younger than himself.

  The fact that it keeps surprising you how old you are, you know what that is?

  Proof of how fucking old you are.

  “C’mere, dammit!”

  Boggs appeared at the threshold a few seconds later, a rangy kid with curly brown hair and arms 25 percent longer than seemed necessary. He was a little doofy, but he had the makings of a solid cop—good bones, as they always said about a house they were about to gut-renovate on those design shows Cantwell sometimes watched.

  Nichols shook his head, playing at fatherly rebuke. “What do you think, I wanna talk to you across the whole office?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. What’s new? All quiet this morning?”

  Boggs shrugged, helped himself to a seat across the desk. “Pretty much. Had a B&E call over on the east side around seven. Lady woke up and found her kitchen door pried open—with a screwdriver, it looked like—and some cash and small electronics gone. But her son’s a meth-head, and she kicked him out last week, so . . .” He shrugged again. “All in the family, probably.”

  “Fair enough. You want this iced coffee? Fresh from Dunkins. I haven’t touched it.”

  Boggs raised his eyebrows, nodded. Nichols handed it over and leaned back. The deputy’s smooth cheeks went concave as he drew on the straw.

  “Oh, and Oklahoma put out an APB on that Knowles guy. Apparently, he escaped from the lockup in Ardmore a few days ago.”

  Nichols sat bolt upright. “What? How? And they’re just putting it out now?”

  Boggs turned red. “Um, no. Actually, I just kind of forgot to tell you. It came in right at the end of my shift, and then I had to—”

  “Goddamn it, Boggs.”

  “Sorry, Sheriff. I—”

  Nichols took a deep breath, let it out through his nose. “Don’t be sorry. I obviously didn’t make clear to you how important this son of a bitch is to me. We’ve got . . . history.”

  Escaped. The word chimed in Nichols’s head, abrasive and off-key. This wasn’t the Wild West. Nobody escaped these days—not without a whole lot of help, or some very willing incompetence. Which came down to the same thing, really.

  Who the fuck would expend that kind of energy on a scumbag like Knowles? His club was tattered and scattered, those once-ubiquitous convoys of True Natives absent from the local landscape since the Night. Aaron Seth’s organization had shown no signs of rising from the ashes either; cut the head off the charismatic leader, and a cult usually folded.

  A man always stepped out of jail with a sense of purpose. And if he was a fugitive, the clock ticking down on his freedom, every day quite possibly his last?

  There were only a couple of things a man like that might have on his mind.

  Settling scores, or disappearing.

  Or both.

  Putting whoever he blamed in a world of hurt, and then making for the border.

  Whoever he blamed.

  That’d be Nichols, and everyone he loved.

  Before he knew it, he was brushing past the deputy and heading for the door, cell phone out in front of him like a compass, stone-faced and scrolling through the numbers.

  Boggs raised up, stepped into his wake.

  “Boss?”

  “I’ll be back.”

  “Anything I can—”

  “No.”

  He jumped into his car, the seat back still warm from the journey over, the cell wedged between his ear and shoulder now, the home phone on its tenth ring.

  Where the fuck was Ruth?

  He hung up, tried her mobile. Twice. Nothing.

  Her office, even though she wasn’t scheduled to work today. Straight to voice mail, the answering service telling him that if he was having a medical emergency, he should hang up and dial 911.

  Nichols felt the sweat ooze through his pores. He gripped the wheel tighter.

  It made no sense to panic. The old Nichols—the Nichols of three months ago—would not have.

  The new one was downright prone to it.

  Calm down, he told himself. Knowles was on the loose for months before this, and he didn’t beat a path to your door. Hell, he’d busted out nearly a week ago, and it had been all quiet on the Western front.

  There’s no need to do eighty in a thirty-five, Nichols. She’s probably in the shower or something.

  He hung up, held the phone at arm’s length to search for another number, phone inches from the windshield, Nichols’s bifocals still lying on his desk. Get it together, you fucking dinosaur.

  Three rings.

  “Hello?”

  “Sherry! Are you okay? Is everything all right?”

  A desultory sigh. “Why is everybody asking me that today?”

  Nichols felt his throat constrict. “What do you mean?”

  “My dad called. He sounded, like, freaked out. Is something going on?”

  Without meaning to, Nichols accelerated. “What did he say?”

  “He had some dream or something.” A pause. “What’s happening, Nichols?”

  Should he say anything? Infect her with his own panic, or be the rock Sherry needed?

  The quivering, terrified rock.

  “It’s nothing. Just . . . be careful. I’ll see you later on, okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess. You be careful too, or whatever. And Nichols?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m not going back to school.”

  Click.

  Nichols banged a right, tires screeching. Two blocks from home.

  He lifted his phone again, wondered if he should call Jess, give him a heads-up. But Knowles would never be able to find him anyway—and if he did, well, best of luck. Galvan would see the biker coming a mile away. P
robably rip off his head and punt it into the fucking stratosphere.

  It was Ruth whose name was in the phone book, who’d liberated Sherry and her mother from Seth’s compound, gone after the cult leader so relentlessly he’d filed a restraining order against her.

  Nichols skidded to a halt in front of the house, and what he saw kicked the panic into a higher gear.

  Ruth’s red Audi, parked in the driveway, the driver’s door jacked open, the car beeping insistently.

  Her gym bag, lying on the ground.

  “Ruth!” He raced toward the house, found the front door standing open, tore inside.

  “Ruth! Baby, where are you?” The front hall, the kitchen. Empty.

  Only then did Nichols think to draw his gun.

  He spun into the living room, weapon first, swept left to right.

  Nothing.

  “Ruth!”

  From the back of the house, a tiny, breathless cry. “In here.”

  He found her in the bathroom, curled around the toilet.

  Nichols holstered his gun and felt the adrenaline flow out of him, leaving him weak, deflated as an old balloon. He slid down the wall and reached out to touch her hair, sweat-plastered to her forehead.

  “Baby,” he breathed. “What’s wrong?”

  She gave him a weak smile. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was worried about you,” Nichols said. “You weren’t answering your phone, and then . . . your car was . . . I . . .” He smiled at her—helpless, ridiculous, not caring, his limbs rubbery with relief.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked again.

  She blinked rapidly, then wiped a phantom tear from her cheek.

  “I didn’t want to say anything yet,” she started, and Nichols’s heart surged.

  She read the joy on his face and smiled broader. “It’s only been eight weeks. But . . .” She reached out, grabbed his warm meaty hand in her thin clammy one, and pressed it to her belly.

  Nichols didn’t realize he was crying until the first tear hit his knee.

  “I know what it did to you and Kat,” she whispered. “Trying for so long. I wanted to wait until I was little further along, in case . . .”

  But Ruth was glowing like she didn’t believe a word.