by Dave Stanton
“Sure you’re not being paranoid?”
“With Loohan spotted there yesterday? Come on, we’re wasting time. I’m low on gas, let’s take your rig.”
In two minutes we were hitting it down the street, Cody leaning forward in the passenger seat like a bent spring, his lips a tight, colorless line.
“Step on it,” he said. I hit the gas around a corner, the tires howling as they fought for traction. We turned onto 50 and sped through a couple greens and then blew a red before turning off and careening down a series of side streets. I almost ran over a cat, then power slid through a corner and bounced to a stop in front of the Pine Mountain complex. Cody was out the door before the springs stopped rocking. I followed him, my Beretta tucked in the back of my jeans.
We knocked on the front door of the Perez’s apartment, and when nobody answered, we jogged around and into the common, to their back patio. The screen was shut, but the sliding glass door was open. Inside it was dark, and when Cody slid open the screen, I could see the furniture was gone.
“Teresa!” Cody yelled, walking inside.
It took us five seconds to see nobody was home and the unit was vacant.
“Let’s see if her pickup is here,” I said. When we walked out to the parking stalls, I saw the small, rust-colored truck in a covered spot.
I put my hand on the hood. “Still hot.”
Cody reached in an open window and picked up a cell phone from the seat. He held it in his palm, and I could see his ears turning red, the way they did when he was either under intense pressure, or on the verge of losing his temper.
“No wonder she hasn’t returned my calls.”
We walked to the end of the row and turned the corner to a back street that was seldom used. A U-Haul truck was parked at the curb. Cody opened the door to the cab. The keys lay on the seat.
“What the hell?” he said. I went around to the rear and pushed up the unlocked gate. It was empty.
We circled the truck, staring up and down a street bordered by stucco walls on one side and an open field on the other.
“Shit. Try Juan’s cell again, would you?”
I did, with no success. As I hung up, a young woman came from the alley, pushing a baby stroller. Behind her an elderly Mexican couple shuffled along.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said. “We’re supposed to meet Teresa Perez. Have you seen her by any chance?”
“Who are you?” She looked at us beneath thick eyelashes, seeing two white men she had no reason to trust.
Cody bent down, bringing his eye level to hers. “We’re her friends, ma’am. We think she may be in trouble. If you’ve seen her, please tell me. We’re here to protect her from someone we think wants to hurt her.”
After a long moment, she shrugged. “I saw her about half an hour ago. She was sitting in a purple car. I waved, but I think she might have been asleep.”
“A purple car?”
“Yes, parked right here.”
“What kind of car?”
“It was the car your president was assassinated in,” said the old man, stepping forward with a glint in his eye. “Before you were born. But I remember.”
“Which president?” I said, but before he could respond, I knew the answer.
“Kennedy. In a Lincoln Continental with suicide doors.”
Cody and I locked eyes. “Luther Conway,” we said simultaneously.
• • •
We barreled over Spooner Pass toward Carson, Cody driving like a fiend, while I tried to reach DeHart at Carson City PD. I left a message, asking that they send units to Luther Conway’s house to investigate a potential kidnapping. Then I called Marcus Grier, who said he’d put out an APB for Conway.
“We can’t help Teresa if we wreck,” I said, bracing myself as Cody pushed my truck through a downhill corner at almost double the speed limit.
“You think Loohan is with Conway?” he said. His straw-colored hair was damp with sweat and pulled back from his forehead, his eyebrows knotted in a V.
“I think we’re going to find out.”
“If they’ve laid a hand on her, I’ll kill them both.”
“Easy now,” I said, the words foolish as soon as they left my mouth. Like telling a stampeding herd of buffalo to slow down.
I assembled my gear as we drove: body armor, stun baton, pistol loaded, extra clip, my sawed-off shotgun, a dozen shells. When we reached Carson City, we switched seats at a stop light so Cody could gear up.
Thirty minutes from when we left Teresa’s apartments, we parked a few houses down from Luther Conway’s Victorian-style home. There was no sign of Carson City PD. The sun was going down, dusk settling over the high-desert valley. The sky was laced with orange and pink streaks along the distant ridges.
The purple Lincoln we’d seen when we were last here was not in the driveway or on the street. I eyed the detached garage at the end of the driveway.
“Garage first, then house,” I said.
We moved silently toward the garage, a flat-roofed structure almost wide enough for three cars. The roll-up door was closed. Next to it was a side door, one that looked less than stout.
I rattled the handle of the door. Locked.
“Kick it in,” Cody said, shotgun pointing at the lock.
Beretta in hand, I reared back my leg and slammed my heel into the jamb, which gave way in a burst of splinters. I jumped into the garage, finger poised on the trigger, Cody following with the twelve-gauge. The interior was lit by dim red lights. There were no vehicles, just a bed and a desk on the far side.
On the bed sat a teenage boy, 150 pounds of lanky bones, his face hidden by a hairstyle as long in the front as the back. With a flip of his head, he shook his hair from his eyes, and stared at us with his best bad boy expression.
“Whoever you are, get out,” he said.
“Where’s Luther?” Cody crossed the room in long strides.
“Who knows? He doesn’t share his schedule with me.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cody grabbed him by the neck and slammed him against the wall. I watched Cody’s thumb seek out the nerve below the chin. The kid gasped and struggled.
“Hail Satan,” he cried.
“You think you’re tough, huh?” I said. “Is Luther with Jason Loohan?”
A few straggled sounds, then Cody moved his thumb off the nerve, dropped the kid onto the bed, and grabbed his wrist. He held it at an angle that forced the kid’s shoulder to twist awkwardly.
“You’re gonna answer our questions, or I’m gonna cause you agony you won’t believe.”
Tolerating pain can be learned, to a degree. Survivalists and cage fighters develop the ability to endure extreme discomfort for limited lengths of time. But for the uninitiated, relatively small doses causes complete mental shutdown. The brain can only focus on one thing: make the pain go away.
“Stop it, stop!” the boy screamed.
“Where are they?” Cody snarled.
“You’re going to break it!”
“Where are they?”
“I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you! Luther and Loohan have a virgin for a black mass!”
“Where?” Cody barked.
“I’ll show you,” the boy whimpered. “Just please let go.”
• • •
The minutes ticked by as we bombed back over Spooner Pass toward the lake, Cody at the wheel, the kid between us in the cab. Jesus Christ, somebody’s son. Maybe the product of bad parents, or maybe just a bad seed. One thing I noticed, his teeth were straight and white. Likely had braces and regular cleanings. He also wore a pair of black designer skate shoes, the expensive kind. Could have got them anywhere, I suppose, but I didn’t think this punk was a tough-luck case from the streets. More likely a failed product of middle class suburbia.
“When we get there, you’re gonna do exactly as we say,” I said. “You mess up, I will personally break your bones.” He tried to look away, but I grabbed his hair and made him look in my eyes. “Whatever is g
oing on in your pea brain, make sure you remember what I just said.”
He swallowed and nodded. Cody screeched around the final sweeping corner leading to Lake Tahoe and floored the gas. We drove in silence, hitting close to a hundred on the straight sections along the lake, until we turned left on Kingsbury Grade. About a mile up the winding road, the kid said, “Turn here.”
It was a paved street, probably private, built to access a few old cabins we passed. The road narrowed to a single lane, then turned to dirt. We followed it around a steep bend onto a long straight above a deep gorge, the dirt crumbling beneath my tires. The road turned away from the gorge and into the forest. The last of the twilight was fading fast when we reached a small turnaround.
The purple Continental was facing us, parked for a quick exit. Cody skidded to a stop, blocking it in. When we got out, I heard a muted thumping coming from the Continental’s trunk.
I grabbed a crowbar, while Cody secured the kid’s hands behind him with a plastic tie, then strung a rope through the tie. Cody wrapped the rope around his hand, creating a leash—if the kid tried to run, Cody could yank the punk’s shoulders out of their sockets.
The thumping again, louder. I jammed the crowbar under the lock, but the old Detroit steel held fast. I shoved it in deeper and gave it a sharp jerk. The latch popped and the lid rose up on its springs. Juan Perez lay in the trunk, his hands tied and his mouth duct-taped, his eyes wide and bulging.
I slit the ropes binding his wrists and tore the tape from his mouth. He scrambled out of the trunk like a feral cat.
“They’ve got my sister,” he said, and before I could speak, he took off like a mad squirrel down a path heading into the forest.
“Shit,” I whispered.
“Keep your mouth shut and lead us to them,” Cody told the kid. “Move it.”
We set out at a jog. In the woods it was almost full dark, spires of pine and fir surrounding us, the air cool with nightfall. The footing was uneven, rocks protruding from the trail every few steps. A tiny glow of moonlight penetrated the trees, not much to go by. We maintained our pace, stumbling at times.
“There’s a clearing right up there,” the kid said after a long minute. “That’s where they are.”
We crept forward, smelling smoke. Flickering shadows became visible. I could feel the textured grips of the Beretta digging into my palm. Then, as I peered from around a huge pine, a scene emerged unlike any I’d witnessed.
Three granite slabs towered over a clearing perhaps fifty feet square. Torches and candles burned on rock ledges. A large, red pentagram had been painted on the cleanly swept dirt. Presiding over it, resting on an upended kettle, was the bloody head of a goat, its eyes glazed in death. Beyond that, propped up against a stone face, was a black cross made with lengths of two by six. Tied to the cross as if for crucifixion was a naked Teresa Perez. Her head was tipped forward, her lustrous hair covering her face.
Unconscious, I thought. But then she raised her chin and saw me. A range of emotions flashed through her eyes—fear, rage, hope, shame, despair. My consideration of her mental state was brief, however, because Jason Loohan casually stepped from the shadows behind the cross. He stroked Teresa’s breast then dropped to a knee, bringing his face to the triangle of black hair between her legs.
“Freeze!” I shouted, leaping forward, my sites trained on Loohan’s back. I would have shot him, but if my bullet passed through his body, it might have hit Teresa. A frozen moment, then like a lizard, Loohan darted behind the cross and disappeared into an opening in the rocks.
Dropping the rope tied to the kid, Cody rushed into the clearing. To his left I caught a quick glimpse of a startled Luther Conway, then he was gone in a flicker of light.
“Loohan,” I said, pointing. I ran forward and slid into the narrow crevice into which Loohan had vanished.
Cody pulled a knife and began cutting the ropes binding Teresa. “I’ll come around the other way,” he said.
I shimmied deeper into the crack, my boots wedged beneath me, the rough granite catching the straps of my bulletproof vest. It was a tight fit, but soon I hopped out on the other side, my feet crunching into thick brush. I looked out at a rock-strewn patch of forest lit by the moon. There were dozens of places Loohan could be hiding.
Staying low, I moved along the rocks, looking for a trail. Freshly broken sticks marked a deer track leading away. I paused and strained my ears. I heard the crackle of brush, but it could have been Cody. I crouched, inching forward.
It was a bad situation. Loohan could be watching me from any number of spots, waiting for my head to pop into the moonlight, and I’d be dead before I heard the shot. The only advantage I had was Cody. But I had no idea where he was.
I kept moving and reached a low rock ledge. I lay on my chest and pushed my head over it, looking to the right and left. The ledge was the top of a face that dropped down farther than I could see. I saw anchors cemented into the rock. Probably a popular climbing wall. There were plenty of handholds, but I doubted Loohan was on the face. I didn’t see anywhere he could hide.
Then, from unexpectedly close, a voice.
“Help! Help me, please!”
It was Luther Conway.
I crab-walked along the top of the ledge to where it angled away. Peering over, I saw Conway clinging to the side of the face, about twenty feet below, his silver hair shining against the gray stone.
“I’m stuck! I have nowhere to go!”
“Who is it?” Cody said, stepping from the trees behind me.
“Conway. You still got that rope?” I said.
“Fuck him,” Cody whispered, looking over the cliff. I could see the Satanist’s white fingers trembling where he gripped the rock. “Let’s go find Loohan.”
“Just give me the rope. And cover me.”
He pulled the ball of clothesline from his pocket. “This is nuts,” he hissed. “Loohan could double back and find Teresa.”
I tossed the line down to Conway. It stopped just beyond his fingers.
“Grab the rope,” I said.
“I can’t—I can’t, I’ll lose my grip!”
“Then you’re on your own, asshole!” Cody yelled.
“Take a deep breath, Luther. You can do this,” I said.
Conway raised his head, staring up at us, his face stark and colorless in the moonlight. He took two breaths, his cheeks puffing out like a balloon. Then he shot his left hand up and snatched the end of the rope. I stiffened my back, expecting to feel his weight. But his hand must have been slick with sweat, because it slid off the thin line, then his feet scuffled and he clawed like mad to find purchase.
“No,” he cried, and in an instant he was air born, falling back, arms and legs outstretched, his eyes round with terror, his howling white face illuminated by the moon. His final scream continued, fading away until we heard him crash into the trees hundreds of feet below.
“Fuckin’ A,” Cody said.
I stared down into the void for a couple of seconds, blinking.
“Come on,” Cody said. “Let’s get back to the clearing.”
We followed a path, moving quick and silent. If I saw the slightest movement, I was ready to blast away. But all was still at the clearing, the torches flickering garishly against the black cross where Teresa had been tied.
“Teresa!” Cody yelled.
“I’m here.” She was crouched behind a rock on the edge of the clearing. She stood partially so we could see her. I looked around for something to cover her nakedness, but neither of us had our coats. As spectacular as the sight was, I averted my eyes. And so did Cody.
It was silent for a second, then another voice rang out, from the direction of the rocks behind the cross.
“I got him, I got him!”
I ran over and began forcing myself through the narrow fissure again, rubbing skin off my palms. Cody followed behind me, but I didn’t know if he’d fit through. When I dropped into the scrub on the other side, he was still grunting a
nd swearing.
Not five feet from where I stood, Juan Perez lay in the brush holding Jason Loohan in a chokehold. Juan’s arm was buried deep, his left hand grasping the right wrist in classic form. Loohan looked out cold.
“Just like you taught me, Dan,” Juan said. Twigs and leaves were wound in his hair, and his face was scratched and bleeding.
I trained my automatic between Loohan’s eyes. “Juan, you better let him go. You could kill him,” I said.
Juan released his grip and scrambled to his feet, deadfall cracking under his shoes.
“Almost there,” I heard Cody grunt. I looked over and saw him shoving himself from the crack. In that fraction of a second, I sensed rather than saw Loohan move, and I didn’t have time to realize I’d blown it before his hand came up, holding an ugly little .25 cal. pistol. His first shot slammed against my vest, knocking me back into the rock. I got off a wild shot as I staggered, but it missed and Loohan was pointing his gun at my head.
I had an instant to regret every wrong decision I’d ever made, then I heard a deep blast from behind. Loohan’s body jolted, his stomach tore open, his entrails falling out on his shirt. Cody stepped past me, the shotgun smoking in his hands, and brought his heel down on Loohan’s gun hand.
“Any last words, shit bag?” Cody said.
“Call an ambulance. You can’t kill me.” The calm, even tone of Loohan’s voice was startling.
“I think you’ve misinterpreted your situation.”
“You can’t kill me,” Loohan said again.
“Wrong,” Cody replied. The shotgun roared, and Loohan’s face dissolved into a bloody maw of bone and gristle.
My eyes rose from Loohan’s corpse to Cody Gibbons. He flipped the twelve-gauge to his shoulder and frowned at some blood that had splattered on his pants. Juan stood with his mouth open, staring down at Loohan’s dead body. He stared with such intensity that I wondered if he expected Loohan to continue insisting he couldn’t be killed.
Cody stepped back and looked at me, his eyes flat and without expression, as if awaiting my judgment. The best I could do was a nod and an attempt at a smile. Cody had done as he saw fit, because that’s how he did things. Being that Loohan was probably planning the rape and murder of both Teresa and Juan as a final statement before coming after us, I would not question my partner’s actions. If it came to it, I’d support Cody’s contention of self-defense 100 percent. I had the flattened slug in my flak jacket to prove it.
