A Garden of Vipers

by Jack Kerley

  I heard a rumble in the distance, and my heart froze. Crandell coming up the drive?

  The rumble again, this time clearly thunder.

  There was nothing equivalent to a weapon in the kitchen, only soft plastic implements. A closet by the door provided a pair of men’s painter pants and a woman’s dark blue raincoat—Miss Gracie’s, I assumed—better than the loose pajamas I had been dressed in upon arrival.

  Shoeless, shirtless, the raincoat flapping in my wake, I set about finding my escape.

  The windows were barred and wired: Breakage would trigger some form of alarm in the security detail’s offices, I assumed. All doors were steel and secured by electronic locks. No phones.

  Everything seemed designed to keep Lucas inside if he ever breeched the confines of his two-room Zenda.

  That left the second floor.

  I found a staircase to the second floor: tiny windows, steel doors locked tight. The elevator was turned off. I searched closets and cupboards to locate a pry-bar, finally discovering a utility mop and bucket. The mop handle was hardwood, tipped with a steel attachment to fasten mop heads in place. I tossed the mop, kept the handle, jogged to the elevator. Passing a room off the kitchen, I saw Freddy eating from a bowl in his lap, raptly watching a videotaped cartoon, the volume louder than Miss Gracie would have allowed, I suspected.

  The attachment on the mop handle slid between the brass-plated elevator doors, and I tried to jimmy the doors without breaking the handle. The doors opened several inches before the handle slipped and the door slammed closed. Sweat streamed down my forehead, burned into my eyes. I gripped the handle tighter, going for brute force.

  The doors separated four inches and I jammed my bare right foot between them, laying my full weight into the task. With a sound like a gunshot, the mop handle snapped. I fell forward, my foot wedged between the doors. I heard a second gunshot from my ankle. Pain exploded up my leg and I fought my way to standing. I jammed my elbow between the doors, roared with agony. Pushed with everything I had. The doors widened until I tumbled into the elevator.

  The doors closed behind me. My ankle was on fire.

  A hard knocking at the door.

  “Carson?”

  I tried to still my breath. “What, Freddy?”

  “I heard you yelling real loud. What are you doing?”

  “Exploring. I’ll be back in a while.”

  “What are you exploring?”

  “The elevator.”

  “Can I come in and explore, too?”

  “Of course, but later.”

  His slippered feet slapped away. I struggled upright, put weight on my leg. It answered with searing pain. Something had given way, a bone or ligament.

  Feet returned to the elevator doors.

  “You know that man, Carson? The one that was mean to Puppy?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s outside with another man. He’s coming in, I think.”

  I wanted to throw back my head and scream. Crandell would have keys to everything. All he had to do was open the elevator, pull once or twice on the trigger. My final hope was exploding outward on my one good leg, hoping Crandell would be directly outside the door. I might get my hands to his face, rip my nails across his eyes, blind the bastard…

  Footsteps approached, slow and measured. I held my breath, ready to dive through if he could open the door.

  What if he just fired through the door?

  Footsteps, footsteps…I held my breath.

  Bang! A hand smacked hard against the door. Again.

  “Carson? He didn’t come inside. They drove away.”

  I leaned against the door. My head swam. Each of my heartbeats sounded like a kettledrum.

  “Are you sure, Freddy? Crandell’s really gone?”

  “He drove away in that special truck, Carson.”

  “What special truck, Freddy?”

  “The one Uncle Buck uses to carry his cars around. Uncle Buck has lots of cars.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Trees whipped by the sides of Nautilus’s cruiser, the country lane tight. The meeting spot was one Nautilus was familiar with, an old strip center serving what had once been a rural community, now just a couple miles from the edge of the growing city. Nautilus figured Crandell lived nearby, the site like he and Carson had figured, out of the city, but still allowing fast access anywhere in Mobile.

  The meeting location was a pizzeria in the center, A-Roma Pizza. The closer he came, the more he became convinced he should let the county cops in on his plan. This was Mobile County, and he knew several guys on the force, not a Cade Barlow in the bunch. Nautilus waited to pass a slow-moving trailer on the road ahead. He was about to accelerate when the trailer swerved erratically, slid from the road, ground to a hard stop.

  Nautilus had dropped back a hundred yards, thinking the trailer or the truck pulling it had blown a tire. He passed the stopped rig slowly, checking. It was an extended-cab truck with a vehicle hauler behind it. The hauler was empty.

  The cab of the pickup exploded open and a man dropped halfway to the ground, clawing at his chest, the seat belt trapping his body. Nautilus braked hard and stared in horror, his headlights framing the grisly scene.

  Don’t get out of the car, a voice said from the back of his head. Call it in, but don’t get out. His hand reached for the radio, was stopped by the flashing red light in his rearview: a vehicle with an emergency flasher stuck atop the roof, volunteer fireman. Hopefully the guy had some medical training.

  “I’m an EMT,” called a voice from the vehicle behind as the door opened, feet started his way. “What happened?”

  “Looks like a heart attack,” Nautilus yelled back. “I’m a cop. I’ll call it in. You got a defibrillator?”

  “No. But I have one of these.”

  Nautilus felt something hard press his ear. Caught the smell of gun oil. The voice at his shoulder said, “How’s about you keep your hands off that mike and right up there where I can see them.”

  The man hanging from the truck suddenly slipped to the ground, somersaulted to standing, brushed himself off. Nautilus saw a patch on the guy’s shoulder: PRIVATE SECURITY. He was a tall, raw-boned guy with tight eyes. He grinned at the Crown Vic, then ignited two road flares. He tossed one behind the Crown Vic, another in front. Anyone passing would think car trouble.

  “All right, Rafe,” said the voice at Nautilus’s shoulder. “You earned yourself a double bonus tonight. Drop the ramps and let’s get this circus to another town.”

  Nautilus said, “Crandell, right?”

  “Stay relaxed and we’ll all go home tonight.”

  Like hell, Nautilus thought.

  Headlights filled the scene as another vehicle slowed, a couple teen guys in an old Camaro with a bad muffler.

  “Sssssh,” Crandell said to Nautilus, leaning to hide the gun. “One word and the kiddies don’t get any older.”

  “Y’all need some help?” the passenger in the Camaro said.

  Private Security smiled, shook his head at the Crown Vic. “Thanks, man, but we got her. Tranny stripped out in second gear. We’ll get ’er up on the trailer, haul it to the garage. Hey, you guys want a beer?”

  The guy in the Camaro waved it off. “Thanks, bud, but we’re set.” He held up a six-pack of Schlitz Malt Liquor, grinned stupidly, and the pair roared away.

  Private Security hustled to the back of the hauler, dropped the ramp to the road. That was all the time it took for Crandell to have Harry Nautilus on the rear floor of the cruiser, handcuffed to a steel D-ring.

  “And before I forget…” Crandell slipped his hand into Nautilus’s jacket and snatched out his Glock.

  “And a shotgun, too?” Crandell said, pulling the weapon from the seat rack. “My, we did come prepared, didn’t we?”

  Private Security jumped in the door, backed up the Crown Vic, angled it, then ran the Crown Vic onto the hauler. He slipped a chrome .44 revolver from his belt, set it in his lap.

  “Wh
at next?” he asked Crandell.

  “Stay in there and keep an eye on our company. You’ll have to lay across the seats, stay below the windows.”

  “No problem.” Private Security nodded at Nautilus. “What do I do if he acts up?”

  Crandell thought a moment, said, “Put one in his knee.”

  Lightning flashed on the horizon. Nautilus felt the wind shift direction. It suddenly smelled of rain. Private Security lowered his voice to a whisper.

  “I hate cops and I hate niggers. I do believe you’re gonna act up once we get under way.”

  Nautilus felt a cold squirming in the pit of his stomach. Crandell leaned in the open passenger window.

  “You’re going to behave, right, Detective?”

  “I doubt it’ll mean much,” Nautilus said.

  “You’ll be good to our guest, Rafe?”

  Private Security chuckled. “Unless he acts up, like you said.”

  “Detective Nautilus, I want you to turn to Rafe and promise you’ll be a good boy.” The jab with the barrel again.

  Nautilus craned his head upward to the leering face of Private Security. Lightning exploded and a small dark dot appeared in Private Security’s forehead. He frowned, waved at something in front of his face, like he was troubled by a fly, then slumped sideways in the seat.

  Nautilus looked to the window. He smelled burned gunpowder and saw a smile on Crandell’s face. Crandell reached in with the gun.

  Lightning exploded inside Harry Nautilus’s head.

  Climbing through the hatch in the ceiling of the elevator was easier than I expected, relying on arm and shoulder strength rather than my ankle. I was hobbling around atop the box. The ceilings in the house were fourteen feet high, the elevator eight. Combined with the space between floors, it put the second floor a foot above my head, a second set of doors to outwit.

  I had no leverage, and even if I did, no way to apply it.

  I held on to greasy cables to keep the weight off my foot, trying to make sense of a metallic cocktail of bars and springs, gears and latches. My only light was from below, beaming weakly through the two-foot-square hatch.

  I studied the assemblage beside the door and above my head. Think. Analyze. Deconstruct. Elevator doors would be inoperable unless the car was safely behind the door, or folks would be dropping down shafts with metronomic frequency.

  But would the unlocking mechanism be electronic or mechanical? How did elevator repairmen deal with these situations?

  I squatted below the mechanism, pushed upward on one leg, grabbed a steel bar hooked to the door, and pulled myself up until I was staring into greasy metal components. I studied the mechanism holding them shut, saw a servomotor beside the bar holding the door. There was a red button on its side, just the size of my thumb. I pressed it.

  Bing. The doors withdrew.

  Soft yellow light drifted into the elevator shaft. I pulled myself through the opening. My chest crossed the threshold, then my belly, and finally the whole of me was squirming facedown on the floor. I could hear the pain in my ankle, a high red whine. I forced myself to look down: swollen with fluid.

  “Hello?” a wavering voice said.

  The old man was sitting at the desk as if he’d never moved from it, a strained look on his face, trying to understand my appearance in his world. I crawled to a leather-upholstered chair, pulled myself to standing, hopped to his desk.

  “Phone!” I yelled. “Where’s a phone?”

  He stared at me like I was a life-form never before encountered, his mouth opening and closing like a boated fish. A floor lamp stood behind the desk. I hobbled over and tore off the shade, used the pole as a crutch to the window. Barred, the glass threaded with wire.

  I turned and saw Daddy Kincannon at the open shaft, looking down with a sense of wonder.

  “Get back from there, Pops!” I yelled.

  He shuffled his feet backward in a decrepit moonwalk. I thumped past chairs and tables and love seats to the chimney, too narrow. The old man sat on a couch and picked up a copy of Forbes. He held it upside down, occasionally shooting me puzzled glances above the pages.

  A small bedroom was off the sprawling main living area. I tore through a closet, not knowing what I was looking for, finding nothing but casual clothes and robes. No, there in a back corner, a cane! An old man’s bentwood cane, leather handle, rubber tip. Maybe the old guy had bouts of gout.

  Think. Analyze.

  The old man had been there fifteen years, or was it twenty? Surely in all that time someone had planned for an emergency, fire, tornadoes. This was the Prime Buck, numero uno, tucked away but provided exceptional care. Had he ever been prepared for a problem, drilled until the response lodged in his frizzled brain cells?

  “There’s an emergency, Mr. Kincannon,” I yelled. “Is there a way out?”

  He wiped a strand of drool from his mouth. I thumped across the floor, got down on one knee, took his hand in mine, like I was proposing marriage.

  “What do you do for fire, sir? Have you been told?”

  He looked at me with expectant eyes, like I was judging his answer and he wanted a passing grade.

  “Sir?” I prompted.

  “Hot spots and piss pots. Climb inside, hide and ride.”

  Piss pots?

  I thudded to the bathroom. It was the size of my living room: bath tub, Jacuzzi, multiheaded shower. I yanked open a closet. Empty, the size of a phone booth. I smelled rain and warmth, outside air. It seemed to be wafting up from the floor of the closet. I stepped inside, hands patting the walls. My fingers found a wooden latch. I turned it and began falling, a controlled drop. I heard a counterweight rising with my descent.

  Not a closet, a converted dumbwaiter.

  The booth slammed hard and I crumpled, boxed tight, surrounded by total darkness. I pushed on the sides of the booth. A door popped loose like a hatch and I found myself with a faceful of the azalea bush concealing the small door. Lightning flashed, a bomb burst of white across the vast rolling carpet of lawn. The house loomed above. I pictured Buck Senior returning to his desk, reading an inverted magazine, vaguely recalling a limping visitor from years ago.

  I crept from an azalea bank the size of a truck, rain pelting me like stones. My ankle felt like white-hot thorns had been driven through it from every angle. Lightning shimmered between boiling clouds and I saw Kincannon’s house in the distance, perhaps a third of a mile. It seemed forever far away.

  But I’d just been granted a reprieve, and whether it had been through pure luck, or something underlying the realm of language and human capacity to understand, I was going to get there if I had to drag myself every inch. Knock on the door of the goddamn scion of that goddamn family.

  Hello, Buckie, remember me?

  CHAPTER 49

  Nautilus awoke to a roar in his ears and the smell of blood and excrement in his nose. His head ached and something dry filled his mouth. A gag, he figured, consciousness swirling into his head on a blaze of fear and adrenaline.

  He was still tight to the floor of the Crown Vic, moving. Occasionally the interior of the car brightened from lightning or passing cars. Private Security slumped sideways, head between the front seats, trails of blood draining from his nostrils. Rain whipped in the open passenger window. Nauseated, dizzy, his head throbbing, Nautilus still managed to figure that was how the extra water had filled the floor of Taneesha’s car.

  The truck slowed and turned and the ride became bumpy, like on a rutted dirt road. After a few minutes they stopped. Nautilus heard Crandell get out of the truck. The dark turned to a hazy light.

  Crandell opened the door, freed Nautilus from the D-ring, reattached the cuffs, the weapon never straying from Nautilus’s head.

  “End of the line,” Crandell said, yanking tape from Nautilus’s mouth, followed by a wadded rag. Nautilus gasped, sucked in air, his tongue dry as sandpaper. He looked out the cruiser’s windows.

  They were inside a barn, yellowed utility lights casting
shadows across bales of hay, an ancient tractor, and a miniature backhoe. Beside the backhoe’s bucket was a trough seven feet long, three wide. A mound of fresh dirt was piled beside the ditch.

  Lightning flickered outside the barn, doors open at one end, thunder hitting seconds later. Crandell jumped to the ground. “Step on out, Detective Nautilus. Sorry about your head. It was a light tap, you’ve been out under ten minutes.”

  Nautilus looked at the ditch, then at Crandell, polo-shirted, hands in the pockets of his Dockers, muscles rippling in his forearms as he jingled coins in his pocket, looking like he’d just finished an excellent supper.

  Nautilus said, “Why should I get up just to lay down in the hole in the ground?”

  “Because ends can come fast, or they can come slow. I have an hour or so to kill—pardon the pun—and it can be a fast hour for you, or it could be agonizingly slow. If I put a couple slugs in your hip bones, I guarantee it could feel like days. Do you really want to spend days with me, Detective?”

  Crandell popped open a utility room at the side of the barn, pulled out two wooden folding chairs, snapped them open, set them beside the trough.

  “How’d you know I was coming, Crandell?” Nautilus said, looking at the thick barn rafters above. “Someone tip you off?”

  “Shuttles did.”

  “What?”

  “You’re a star, big boy. Celebrated member of the MPD, big-shot detective. You and Ryder got reps of going against the grain, hot dogs. But you always get ’er done, right?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Before all this got set in motion, Shuttles and me worked out a simple code to ID the potential problem types. A person’s initials plus a letter. F’rinstance if it was Ryder, the code was DS. What’s Harry Nautilus?”

  “IO,” Nautilus said. “Like in the note Shuttles had me send you. IO was in there two times.”

  “Shuttles is a bright boy.”

  Crandell gestured to the chairs he’d set up on the barn floor beside the trench. “Come keep me company, Harry,” he smiled. “Who knows what might happen?”