Absolute Rage

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  He waited. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

  “No. You’ll know if it works, though. I don’t want to jeopardize my reputation for perfection.”

  * * *

  Giancarlo Karp awoke before dawn to find his sister in the bedroom he shared with his brother. She was stuffing clothes into a couple of duffels.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Packing some stuff for you guys. We’re going on another road trip.”

  “Where to?”

  “West Virginia. Listen, as long as you’re up, get some clothes on and go down to the kitchen and make a bunch of sandwiches. I want to leave right away and not stop. And fill the red cooler with ice.”

  Zak sat up in bed. “We’re going away again?”

  “Yeah,” said Giancarlo. “We’re going to West Virginia to see Mom and Dad.”

  “Among others,” said Lucy.

  * * *

  The murder of the Heeneys had attracted some modest national attention, but the news that the family had been killed by one of the two sons set off a media tornado. On a slow summer newsday it had led at six on all three major networks, and the Times ran it front page above the fold, column left. Lucy had seen it the previous evening on the eleven-o’clock and had immediately called Dan Heeney fifteen times over three hours, receiving a busy signal each time. Only then had she thought to call her parents. After some arguing with the night manager, she had been put through and engaged her sleepy father in an unsatisfactory conversation, consisting largely of (from him) the unhelpful statement that he couldn’t talk about it. She had then slept badly for a few hours and awakened with the resolve to drive immediately to McCullensburg.

  She went out to the barn, fed and watered the dogs out of guilt, and let Magog out of her pen. Billy Ireland was in bed when she barged into his room and then barged out again when she saw Marjorie Rolfe was in it, too.

  “Sorry,” Lucy said. “Look, I have to leave. I’m taking the boys to see my folks. Will you be okay?”

  “Well, yeah, for a while,” Ireland said. “Are the bills paid?”

  “Yes. Also, I want to take Magog. The pups don’t need her anymore and I think she’d appreciate the break.”

  “Hell, she’s your dog,” said Ireland, “I just work here. Have a nice trip.”

  They passed Alex Russell as they headed out the drive. “See ya later, agitator!” Giancarlo yelled as they sped by.

  The old-style Toyota Land Cruiser was not built for speed, but she kept it at a steady seventy-five from Jersey west through Pennsylvania and down into Charleston, stopping only once for gas, and twice, fuming, in rest stops, so that the boys could empty their absurdly small bladders.

  “Why are you angry?” Giancarlo asked her after the second of these.

  “I’m not angry.”

  “Well, you’re driving like a maniac, you don’t talk, and you’re bossing us around like we did something wrong. That’s what Mom does when she’s angry.”

  “I’m sorry, guys. I’m upset, not angry at you.”

  “What about?”

  “You remember Emmett Heeney from the beach? Lizzie’s brother?”

  “Is he the one you like?” asked Zak.

  “No. That’s Dan,” she said automatically. “No, that’s not . . . what I mean is, the cops down there are saying that Emmett was the one who killed the Heeneys and Lizzie. It was on the news, and I can’t reach Dan for some reason, and Dad won’t tell me what’s going on. That’s why we’re going down there.”

  “How could he murder his parents?” Giancarlo asked. “Was he crazy?”

  “I don’t think he murdered them at all,” said Lucy firmly. “I think it’s a horrible mistake.”

  “Is Dad going to find the real ones?” asked Zak.

  “I hope so.”

  From the backseat, Giancarlo said, “He will. Don’t worry, everything will be fine.”

  An hour later they were descending the steep grade on Route 130 south that the map said led into McCullensburg when they saw red lights flashing ahead and traffic stalled. They stopped behind a tractor-trailer and waited. After ten minutes, Lucy got out and walked along the shoulder. The trucker was standing on his front bumper, looking down the line of vehicles.

  “What’s the problem?” Lucy asked. “An accident?”

  “Nah, some trouble down in the town. I was just talking with some drivers on the CB. The damn coal miners are having some kind of damn riot in town. They drove some coal haulers into the junction of 130 and 119 and parked them there and they blocked the railroad, too. Traffic’s backed up for miles in all four directions.”

  “What are they rioting about?”

  “Oh, the cops arrested some union fella for killing his folks, and his buddies think it’s a frame-up. What it is, is a damn pain in the butt. I should’ve been in Williamson half an hour ago.”

  “Is there any way to get to 119 east of town without going through the junction?”

  “Well, yeah, if you want to go over the top of the mountain. You hang a U-ey right here and drive on back till you get just outside of Logan, hang a right, and follow the signs to Gilbert Corner. Shoot on through there and in four, five miles you hit the highway. I’d do it myself but the bridges won’t hold my weight.”

  She did as the trucker suggested. Twenty minutes later she was in first gear, four-wheel drive, climbing a dirt road. Zak had a road map spread out on his lap, complaining that the road they seemed to be on did not exist and that they were lost. Giancarlo was spinning a tale about them getting permanently lost, wandering through the desolate mountains until they ran out of gas and then having to eat human flesh. Lucy paid attention to neither of her brothers. The news about the riot was good; it meant that substantial numbers of people thought the charges absurd.

  “There’s the highway, smarty-pants,” she said as their wheels rolled onto the blacktop. “Intuitive driving once again triumphs over map-bound patriarchical worrywarts.”

  “Dumb luck,” said Zak. “And I have to pee again.”

  Several cars, a police cruiser, and a couple of news vans were parked at the turnoff to the Heeney house.

  “Sorry, miss,” said the trooper. “You can’t go through there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Family’s having some trouble. We’ve been asked to protect their privacy. There’s a wide place just ahead where you can turn around.”

  “I know about the trouble. We came all the way from New York.”

  “And you are . . . ?”

  “Lucy Karp. I’m Dan Heeney’s, um, fiancée.”

  The trooper looked the car over, saw the boys, the dog slavering in the window. He said, “Why don’t you follow me in.”

  He got in the cruiser and turned down the drive, Lucy following. She watched him knock on the front door, saw Dan come out and talk to the trooper, saw the smile break out on his face, his vigorous nod. Lucy got out of the Toyota. Dan came running down the steps, threw his arms around her, and planted a kiss on her mouth.

  “Darling,” he sighed. “I’ve longed for this moment.”

  The trooper was observing them from his cruiser. Satisfied, he drove off.

  “He’s gone,” she said. “You can let go of me now.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  “Oh, stop it! I had to say that or he wouldn’t let me in. The road is full of reporters. Will you just tell me what is going on?”

  The boys and the dog jumped out. Dan, releasing Lucy, made much of them and Magog, after which he said, “We better go in unless you want to be on TV. I think they’ve got a crew up on the mountain there.”

  Dan played host, to Lucy’s great impatience. He poured drinks, showed them the house, settled the boys in front of his computer with Quake II. When he and Lucy were alone on the living room sofa, he said, “Relax, it’s a scam.”

  “What do you mean, a scam?”

  He explained. She listened, her face still, not interrupting. When he
had finished, she asked, “This was whose idea? My mother’s?”

  “I don’t know. Your dad was pitching it pretty hard. Why?”

  “I don’t know. It just sounds like something she would think up. So I seem to be the prize schmuck of the Western Hemisphere. Why didn’t he just tell me on the phone?”

  “I think because they’re keeping it really close. The desk clerk at Four Oaks likes to listen in, it’s well-known. In fact, your dad made a big point about not discussing the deal on the phone at all.” He met her eyes. “You’re sorry you came, right?”

  “Of course I am!” she cried, and then seeing his face, she said, “No, of course, I didn’t mean that. Oh, I don’t know. When I heard the news, all I could think about was how awful it must be for both of you, and I dumped what little logical process I have and just tossed the twins into the car and drove. My mother will go crazy. She’s the only one allowed spontaneous excesses in the family.”

  “It was a nice kiss, though,” he said. “You have to admit that. Maybe not worth an eight-hundred-and-sixty-mile drive, but . . .”

  “Oh, stop it!” Then a grin broke out on her face. “Yes, it was. My feet sweated.”

  “That’s supposed to be an infallible sign.” He moved closer on the sofa and dropped an arm around her. “We could try it again. Then it would only be a four-hundred-and-thirty-mile kiss.”

  She found herself on her feet. “Maybe later. I have to get in touch with my folks before they find out from someone else and go nuts.” This was not the real reason, though.

  * * *

  “What’s the situation now?” asked Karp. “Is it as bad as it looks on the TV?”

  They were in the Karps’ cabin at Four Oaks: Karp, Marlene, Hendricks, and Oggert, all of them looking grim and flicking eyes toward the live coverage on the room’s television.

  “Well, it’s a mess,” said Hendricks. “The local troop is trying to straighten out the traffic tangle, rerouting and all, but what I’m worried about is the mob down at the courthouse. That’s Willie Pogue up on a D8 in front of the courthouse demanding they release Emmett right now or he’s going to take the jailhouse down and pull him out.”

  “Who’s Willie Pogue?” Karp looked at the screen. A fiftyish man with a mane of white hair and a florid face was haranguing the crowd through a bullhorn from the nose of an immense yellow earthmover.

  “One of Red Heeney’s pals. I guess he’s the head of the dissident faction now. There’s about eight hundred miners out, with wives and kids. Some of them’re armed. The sheriff’s in full combat mode, and there’s a bunch of security guys from the company standing around, also armed. Deputizing mine security is kind of a tradition in Robbens County. That happens, all bets are off.”

  “Can’t you do anything?” asked Marlene.

  Hendricks shook his head. “I don’t believe I have a horse in this race unless the governor tells me different. The local troopers are pretty much tied up, and I don’t have enough men to get between that mob and a bunch of scared cops.”

  “And we have no idea where the Cades are right now?” asked Karp.

  “No. I pulled my cars back so it’d look like we weren’t interested in them anymore.” He stared briefly at the TV. “We didn’t count on this.”

  “No,” said Oggert. “And if this keeps up, someone’s going to get hurt, and if that happens, we will get absolutely no support from the governor. He’ll repudiate the bunch of us. Maybe it’s time to pull the plug.”

  “Pull the plug?” said Karp.

  “Yeah. Release the kid, say we have new evidence that exonerates him. Take a breather and then play it straight against the Cades.”

  “That gets us back to the siege business, Cheryl. I thought we all agreed that was the worst case.”

  “Yeah, but that was before this happened. Even if it comes to a siege, at least we’ll be the good guys. I’ll tell you right now, no one is going to take responsibility for cops or miners killed pursuant to a fraudulent arrest. The lead will be ‘Cops Too Chicken to Go after Cades, Four Dead in Phony Arrest Riot.’ Uh-uh.”

  “No. We’re hanging tough,” said Karp. “And you can tell the governor I said so.”

  Oggert glared at him and seemed about to say something when Hendricks cleared his throat. “Uh, also, Butch? You ought to know this, too. We had a call from Murchison, the trooper who’s watching the Heeney place? Do you know a Lucy Karp?”

  Karp felt a hammer descend on his diaphragm. “Yes, she’s my daughter. What about her?”

  “Well, she showed up at the Heeney place a little while ago, in a car with two little kids and a big dog. She said she was Dan’s fiancée, so Murchison let them through. He said they looked like they knew each other pretty good.”

  “The mom is always the last to know,” said Marlene. “Oh, shit! That stupid girl!”

  “Calm down, Marlene,” said Karp. “She was worried, she came, we’ll deal with it. Why don’t you call the Heeney place and talk to her?”

  “Oh, I’ll talk to her all right,” said Marlene, and departed for the suite’s bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  “Look, something’s happening!” said Oggert.

  The others turned their attention to the television. Karp cranked up the volume.

  Marlene came out of the bedroom. “I can’t get through on the phone. What’s going on?”

  The screen showed Pogue in the cab of the D8. A plume of black smoke shot from its stack as he revved the engine. The voice of the TV reporter was strained and barely intelligible over the roaring of the giant earthmover. Pogue was heading toward the line of helmeted, flak-jacketed deputies standing behind sawhorses placed around the jail entranceway. The scene rolled and jumped as the cameraman ran alongside the great treads.

  “That’s a hell of a machine,” said Karp.

  “Yes, sir, it is,” said Hendricks. “It weighs forty tons. It’d go through that jailhouse like a knife through pie.” The ten-foot-high blade of the Cat edged ever closer to the sawhorses, moving slowly but inexorably. The deputies had gas masks on now. Their shotguns now pointed at the Cat and the crowd around it. Karp could make Swett out, unmasked, talking into a radio. A saw-horse crashed over. The deputies sighted their weapons. Swett was handed a bullhorn by a deputy and started to talk into it, but the soundman from the TV station was not in position to pick up what he said. Karp and the others could imagine it though. Pogue had his bullhorn, too, and said something back about release Emmett Heeney and we’ll talk.

  Then the door to the jail opened, and a gray-haired man in a dark suit walked out, carrying a briefcase. He shouldered through the line of deputies, stepped over the toppled sawhorse, and climbed up onto the yellow snout of the D8. The soundman was already poking his furry sausage out on its pole, so they were able to hear: “. . . it, Willie, turn this damn thing off and give me that bullhorn. They are letting him go. Now give me that damn thing before someone gets hurt.” The engine sound cut off.

  “Who the hell’s that?” asked Hendricks.

  “It’s Poole!” cried Marlene.

  The camera got its range and zoomed in a little. It was indeed Ernie Poole, who now raised the bullhorn to his mouth and gave a speech. He said who he was, and that he was representing Emmett Heeney. He said that the cops had tried to frame Mose Welch and he had got Mose Welch off free, and now they were trying to frame Emmett, and he would get Emmett off, too. There was no evidence worth looking at against him. He said that he guaranteed that the charges against Emmett would be dropped, unless they wanted to kill him, too, in which case you were at liberty to push the courthouse over. Laughter. But you had to go home now and move this equipment away, too, because what they want is a riot with gunfire, so that they can claim that a stray shot killed Emmett Heeney. Are you going to let them do that? Noooo! the crowd moaned. Poole said he’d applied for bail, and that Judge Bledsoe was inclined to grant it, but he’d said that no one would be released until order was restored, because old Judge Bledsoe d
id not want anyone to think he was acting out of fear of a mob. Poole said that the judge was an honest man, not like some of the judges we’ve had around here, and that he would see justice done, and now he was going to go back into the jail and sit with Emmett until they were both released. Vast cheering from the crowd, and in the room grins and applause.

  Poole got down from the Cat, and the producer shifted to the on-scene guy, who started to tell everyone what they had just seen. Karp muted the sound. He looked at Marlene. “Way to go,” he said softly, so that no one else heard.

  14

  LUCY DROVE THE LAND CRUISER down the Heeneys’ long drive, smiled and waved at the state trooper, rolled slowly through the gauntlet of newsies, who pointed cameras and microphones at her and yelled questions. Does he think his brother did it? How does he feel? That’s what they always asked. How do you feel now that your kid’s been eaten by the bear, your mother hacked to pieces by a maniac? She thought it was because everyone felt dead inside and thought they could jump-start their own withered hearts by some transfusion of pain from the victims of a catastrophe. Surely they felt something. It was a kind of vampirism; maybe that’s why tales and movies about vampires were so popular just now.

  Past the media encampment she gave it the gas, and once the vans and cars had vanished in the rearview, she called, “You can come out now.” The boys were clapping and giggling as Dan climbed out from the rear compartment, where he had been concealed by a beach blanket and Magog the dog. He sat in the rear, next to Giancarlo.

  “How far to the border?” Dan asked.

  Lucy met his eyes in her mirror. “Not far but the Nazis are everywhere.”

  Giancarlo said, “You have dog slime in your hair.”

  Dan touched his head, examined his wet finger, and touched it to the boy’s nose, provoking a giggling battle.

  Lucy said, “If you two can’t behave back there, there’s going to be no ice cream.”

  “He started,” whined Dan.