Jimmy slept on, and George glanced at his peaceful shape in the dark room. He loved the man like a brother, he truly did, which is why he had to leave him behind.
You’ve done enough, Jimmy. I am not going to endanger you any more with my problems.
George silently closed the door behind him and went out to the parking lot, where the rental car waited.
Chapter 23
ATCHAFALAYA SWAMP, LOUISIANA
He made it to Green Water in record time. Very few people were up in this part of Louisiana at such an hour, and George used that as an excuse to speed down the lonely road.
He stopped at the edge of town, which was still shrouded in darkness.
This next part was trickier. He had to find his old home, and he had no address or memory of what it looked like.
He remembered some techniques Jimmy had tried to teach him when they first moved to Seattle. George had grown bored and stopped the lessons, even though Jimmy tried to remind him that Raven wasn’t done with them yet.
George let his mind go blank, trying to shut out every thought, every worry, every image.
It took a few minutes, and he concentrated on his hands driving back to the old house.
After a moment, he moved forward at a sedate speed. It was a little eerie because he was both driver and passenger. It was like a dream state, and he was careful not to disrupt the process.
He drove on, his hands turning left, then right after a couple of blocks, then right again.
He came to a strip mall. It was an ugly thing, with a chain convenience store, a coffee place, laundromat, and a tire store. On either side of it were houses that had seen better days.
George was confused.
This can’t be right, he thought.
He closed his eyes. The feeling of rightness was almost palpable.
He got out of the car and walked with shaky steps toward the laundromat.
Not here…in back.
He walked down to the end and around the back. There was an alley where delivery trucks could access the backs of the businesses, and Dumpsters for trash. The alley stank of urine and refuse. Its outer wall was cinder block, heavy with graffiti. There were no working lights back here, but the bright moon cast everything in silver.
As George headed down the alley, the memory of a big dog came to him, barking and wagging its tail.
Not a dog, his dog.
Pete? No…Patch.
Behind the laundromat, the wall was broken, as if a car had smashed into it. Chunks of cinder block still lay strewn about. Beyond was a weed-choked expanse dotted with old tires, a mattress and beer cans, and wine bottles.
Beyond this was the forest and the swamp.
George picked his way carefully through the rubble. Wouldn’t do to break his arm now.
Yeah, not when you can get gobbled up by a gator.
As he stepped over the wall and onto the grass, he felt something tug at his pants. He thought he had caught his pants on a length of rebar when he heard whimpering.
George shivered as his skin turned to gooseflesh. He looked back.
A spectral dog with a patch over its eye had his pant leg in its teeth. It looked at him and whined again.
George smiled. “You still lookin’ out for me, boy?”
The dog released his leg and panted, his tail wagging furiously.
George reached out and petted him, thinking his hand would pass through, but he felt fur, warm to the touch.
“I have to go, boy.”
The dog whimpered.
“You stay now, you hear? I think…I have a feeling even a ghost isn’t safe out here.”
He walked a little way toward the swamp, and the dog barked but did not follow.
“Good boy,” George said. “Stay.”
When George turned back, a small yellow light floated and bobbed at the edge of the wood. He moved toward it, his heart full of fear he tried to ignore. When it moved on past the first shrubs, he followed.
The dog whined again and lay down, its head on its paws. It sighed heavily, then was gone.
Chapter 24
PORT ALLEN, LOUISIANA
Jimmy slept until well after 10 A.M. He would wonder later if he had actually been that tired, or if his sleep had been deepened by outside forces.
He got up to use the bathroom and saw that George was not there. Jimmy thought George might have gone to get some coffee, either in the lobby or at the diner.
But now something began to nag at him, some bit of intuitive insight that said his friend was in danger.
Jimmy washed and dressed hurriedly and went outside.
The rental car was gone.
Jimmy moaned. George had left no note, which meant that whatever he was doing, he was going to do it alone.
He wondered if he should go to Richard or Martin but didn’t want to worry them unnecessarily. He also wasn’t sure he had the time to bring them up to speed on everything that had happened since their visit with Coraline.
He decided to walk down to Phoebe’s. It was possible George didn’t feel like walking or wanted to get back quickly.
He walked down, and the rental car was not there. He went in and got a quick cup of coffee and a fried egg sandwich to go. He was ravenous and not sure when he would eat again.
He left the diner and wolfed down his sandwich, not an easy thing to do while holding a coffee. He set the coffee down on a low retaining wall between the diner and a private residence. Eating the sandwich, he decided to call a cab and get a ride to Green Water.
Jimmy headed back, sipping the hot coffee, when a dark blue Ford Crown Victoria rolled up beside him.
Jimmy’s heart sank.
The window rolled down, and Detective McCarthy was sitting in the passenger seat.
“Good morning, Mr. Kalmaku.”
“Good morning, Detectives.”
“Where’s your friend?”
If he lied, they would find out, and he’d be in more trouble than he needed right now.
“I don’t know,” said Jimmy. “I think he might have gone back to Green Water.”
“Isn’t that convenient?” Detective McCarthy said. “And here we came all this way to talk to him.”
“For all I know, he’s at your offices right now.”
Detective McCarthy grinned. It was not a pleasant smile. “No, he’s not. Do you want to know how I know?”
Jimmy nodded, feeling some of the frustration George must have felt countless times before.
“Because we have people on patrol, good people, and they have all been instructed to watch for your friend, and you. And we left instructions that we should be contacted immediately if George Watters was spotted…or you.”
“Detective, I don’t know what to tell you. I was planning on taking a cab to Green Water and see if I could find him.”
“We’re going back that way, we’ll take you.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“No,” said McCarthy with a jovial air, as if he had just turned down Jimmy’s offer to pay for lunch. “We just want to talk to you.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Well, then we would probably have to file charges to get the information we want.”
“There are no charges. I think you know that.”
“Mister,” McCarthy said, all false jolliness gone, “I don’t know you from Adam.”
Jimmy looked at his watch. “Can we make it quick?”
“You answer us honestly, and you’ll be out in no time.”
Jimmy nodded and got into the back of their car. His intuition was screaming at him not to go with them, but what choice did he have?
They drove past the motel on the way out of town, and Jimmy wondered how his friend was, how the search was going, and what these men wanted with him.
Life had been so much simpler at Golden Summer. There, his only worries had been whether he and George would get caught raiding the kitchen and possibly dying from boredom.
George
.
If it hadn’t been for him, would Jimmy even be alive? Oh, he wasn’t thinking of their encounter with the mad god, but of everyday life. In Alaska he might have wandered out into the frigid barrens. In Seattle, he would have retreated into himself until he was little more than a vegetable.
When life had seemed its bleakest, George Watters had shown up at his door with a deck of cards and bottle of booze stolen from some airline.
George’s friendship had saved him.
And now George was out there, alone.
“Hot today,” McCarthy said.
“It’s hot every day in this damn place,” Jimmy said.
“Big change from Seattle…or Alaska.”
Jimmy grunted. He guessed they were fishing. Why should he help them bait their hooks?
McCarthy tried a couple of other gambits, but Jimmy just stared out the window. He kept hoping for a sign, a message, but he was far from all he knew and all he loved.
—
By the time Jimmy was being driven out of Port Allen, George was hopelessly lost. He knew the sun was in the east, but that did him no damn good.
Should have brought Pathfinder with me, he thought, and wondered if he would ever see his friend again.
When the sun came up, the little ball of light he had been following, a will-o’-the-wisp, faded until he could no longer see it. He had gone in the same direction but had to double back numerous times when he reached a waterway or stand of brush too thick to get through. He was hungry and tired, and his shoes and clothes were all but ruined. The air was humid and much too warm, and he finally left his jacket hanging on a jagged tree stump and rolled up his sleeves. His shirt was wet with perspiration and removing his jacket cooled him a little.
He thought the heat of Hell would be preferable—at least it wouldn’t be so damn humid.
Complaining already, old man? How is Donny doing? he chided himself. He’s been out here a lot longer than you.
He drank water from one of the smaller tributaries, keeping an eye open for alligators.
George Watters, Lord of the Jungle.
He wondered if the little light would come back when it got dark and thought it might. He suspected someone was fucking with him, and figured he might just be pissed off enough to take that individual’s head off—man, god, demon, whatever.
George found himself a shady spot under a tree. He thought it was far enough from the water that some reptile wouldn’t gnaw on him, but what the hell did he know? He was exhausted and lost, so it seemed wise to try to get some rest.
For whatever lay ahead.
—
The Crown Vic pulled into the sheriff’s station in Green Water.
Jimmy knew from all the cop shows that George loved that he would be unable to open his door, so he didn’t give them the satisfaction of trying.
McCarthy opened his door and they led him inside. It was a small station, befitting a small town. There was a waiting area with a front desk, a number of desks behind this, and a hallway that led to interrogation rooms in one direction, booking and holding cells in the other.
Jimmy asked if he could use the restroom, and they let him do so. The restroom featured two stalls and three urinals. There was a tiny window up on the wall he would never have fit through, but he wasn’t going to run. He wasn’t under arrest and he hadn’t done anything.
He relieved himself and washed his face and hands with cold water. He tried to pretend the water was from the stream behind the old house in Yanut, but it was too warm for that.
They asked him if he wanted anything to drink and he accepted a black coffee, which came in a chipped blue mug.
Like his uncle Will had favored.
Was it a sign? He didn’t think so, just one of those vibrations of quantum strings that lent a comfort to the cold of the universe.
Still, he smiled.
“Coffee that good?” McCarthy asked, puzzled.
Might as well be honest, maybe they would warm up to him. “My uncle always used a cup like this when I was a kid.”
McCarthy nodded, but Jimmy could see he really didn’t give a shit.
They escorted him to the first of two interrogation rooms and had him sit at the table.
A deputy came in and said something in McCarthy’s ear. He looked at Satsuma and nodded. “Mr. Kalmaku, something’s come up. Sit tight for a bit, okay?”
“Did you find him?” Jimmy asked, praying George was alive.
“Sit tight,” McCarthy said again, and he and the others left Jimmy there with his bitter coffee.
He didn’t try the door; he knew it was locked.
Jimmy sat there, sipping his coffee and letting his mind wander. Sometimes the only way to tune into the ether was to become open and receptive.
Nothing.
He finished his coffee and began to meditate, a state that sometimes led to visitations or portents.
He sat that way for three hours. Finally, an image came to him, hazy and sun-drenched.
George’s hat near the water, and blood…so much blood.
Jimmy tried not to panic. Sometimes things seen were merely symbols, not the literal truth. He had to get closer, perhaps try to touch or smell what lay before him, get a more complete sense of…
Detectives McCarthy and Satsuma came bustling through the door, and the vision was gone.
“Sorry about that, Mr. Kalmaku.” McCarthy put a file folder down on the opposite side of the table.
Jimmy swallowed his frustration and anger. Railing at these ignorant men would do him no good.
“You’ve been in here awhile, you need to use the can?”
Jimmy shook his head.
McCarthy looked at Satsuma, impressed. “Me, I drink a quarter cup and I gotta piss like a racehorse in twenty.”
Satsuma nodded, then turned to Jimmy. “That some kind of Injun trick? You know, the kind your ancestors used to sneak up on innocent settlers?”
Jimmy was pretty sure the guy wasn’t that racist, probably trying to get him mad enough to spill something vital.
“My ancestors never snuck up on anyone,” Jimmy said. He amended that. “Deer, maybe…bears…” He shrugged and looked at Satsuma mildly.
“Where is your friend, Mr. Kalmaku?” McCarthy asked.
“I told you, I don’t know. I’d be out there looking for him if you hadn’t picked me up.”
“You forget something you left out there in the swamp?” Satsuma asked.
“What?”
“Shovel, roll of duct tape,” McCarthy suggested.
“You know, Gil,” Satsuma said to McCarthy, “a lot of people think you dump a body in the bayou, that’s all she wrote. Place is full of gators, and chomp…chomp…chomp.”
McCarthy adopted a quizzical look. “Really, Leo? Is that wrong?”
Satsuma nodded sagely. “Yep, gator won’t eat anything like that right away. Too big to swallow. They let it rot under a log or embankment, getting nice and soft, then they tear chunks off it. Takes awhile, especially for an adult male.”
“So, if George Watters is in the swamp…”
“He’s going to be there awhile.”
They both turned to Jimmy, their faces bland.
Jimmy laughed. He knew it wasn’t smart, but he couldn’t help it. It was so ridiculous.
McCarthy’s eyes narrowed. “You find that notion, your friend rotting in some muck hole, you find that funny?”
“I find the notion that I would kill my best friend ridiculous. I have no motive.”
“Really? How about money?”
“I don’t need, nor do I want, George’s money.”
“You two have a joint account, do you not?”
“I would imagine you already know that.”
“Hey,” McCarthy said, “I’m not judging. People do their own thing and I’m cool with it.”
“I can vouch for that,” Satsuma said. “I’m gay and Gil here was my best man.”
McCarthy nodded. “It’s true. It’
s a new day, and the world is changing. But you know what doesn’t change, Mr. Kalmaku?”
Jimmy sighed, already weary of this game. “Greed?” he asked.
McCarthy pointed a finger at him like a gun. “Bingo! People have money, but they always want more.”
“The account is in both our names,” Jimmy said. “I am free to spend what I wish.”
“Maybe, maybe,” McCarthy agreed.
Satsuma picked up the file and checked it. “Your money came from the Slater family, right?”
“Again, you obviously know all that,” Jimmy said.
“You and Mr. Watters went to see these people in Los Angeles on a whim?”
“Hardly,” Jimmy said.
“Kind of unusual, isn’t it?” Satsuma asked. “Two old men travel from Seattle to L.A. to visit some people they don’t even know?”
“I knew Steven’s brother Daniel,” Jimmy said. “He came to my village and actually helped me curtail my drinking.”
“And for that, the Slaters gave you a shitload of money?”
“The Slaters inherited quite a lot of money, and they figured George and I could use some, I suppose. They’re very generous.”
“Cop beat the crap out of you, then disappeared. NYPD,” said McCarthy, sounding impressed. “So, he attacked you?”
“Yes. He had some beef with Daniel Slater, no one has ever been able to determine what that was.”
“I’ll bet,” Satsuma said.
“Roberts had some kind of breakdown, killed his partner and several people en route to California.”
“Yeah,” McCarthy said, it was in the papers. “We heard about that weird shit, even down here.”
“Guy had someone with no face in his trunk?” Satsuma asked.
“Apparently,” Jimmy answered. “I was in the hospital when they searched his car.”
“Man, no face—that is fucked up!” McCarthy said.
McCarthy looked at Satsuma. “You know, they say that Roberts and the faceless guy…what was his name?”
“Jake Sparks,” said Satsuma.
“Jake Sparks, right. Sounds like a porn name.”
Satsuma laughed.
“You know,” McCarthy said to Satsuma, “they think Roberts and Sparks were the Taxidermist.”
Satsuma nodded.
Jimmy said nothing. Sorry to drag your name in the muck again, Stan. I am sorry no one really knows how brave you were and how noble.
Deadlight Jack Page 17
