Ghost Road Blues pd-1

by Jonathan Maberry

  The shape drew near and then squatted down next to him. Tony tried to see past the glare of the flashlight, but the shape held it so close that he couldn’t see anything.

  “You’re hurt,” the shape said. The voice was flat. It was a statement, not a question.

  “I…I’ve been…shot.”

  The shape reached out one massively muscled arm, grasped Tony’s shoulder, and carefully rolled him onto his back; then the shape sat back again. Tony grunted and coughed more blood. He was amazed that he still had any left to lose.

  “I’ve been shot,” he said again.

  “Uh-huh. I can see that.”

  “Could you…help me?”

  The shape said nothing for a few seconds, then murmured, “I could. Sure, I could help you.” Still, he did not move. He just squatted there on his hams and appeared to wait.

  It was getting very hard for Tony to think. Why did the guy just sit there? he wondered. “I need help,” he said again, raising a weak hand and trying to grab the man’s shirtfront. The strength in his arm failed and the hand fell away.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did you…” he began and then had to stop until another fierce coughing fit came and slowly passed. When he tried it again his voice was faint, even to his own ears, as if he were listening to it through an old plaster wall. “Did you come…to help me?”

  “No,” said the shape, and reached for him.

  (2)

  Terry Wolfe stared at Ferro for a long time, trying to work out something to say. The mayor went to the coffee station and poured himself a cup, turning his back to give himself a moment to compose his face. He added sugar and cream, then sipped it to lubricate a throat that had gone completely dry. When he turned back to face the cops his face betrayed nothing, but he stared hard at Ferro for a long time.

  Ferro waited it out, used to this kind of reaction, having already gotten it from Chief Bernhardt, his officers, and the two cops from the other towns. Everyone reacted like this: how could they not? The murders at the Cape May Lighthouse had made the papers across the country and throughout much of the world. Two books had already been written about them, and Jonathan Demme was already making a movie based on it starring Don Cheadle and Colin Farrell.

  “How much of the story do you know?” asked Ferro, lighting up a Camel with a silver Zippo with the F.O.P. symbol engraved on it.

  Terry’s throat was as dry as paste as he sipped the coffee. “Just what everyone else in the world knows,” he said. “Some madman tore up an entire group of senior citizens who were visiting the lighthouse in Cape May. Forced them all into the observation room of the lighthouse and then cut them to pieces and left bizarre messages on all the walls. Something like eighteen dead, though two were supposed to have actually been tortured to death before being cut to pieces.”

  “That’s the gist of it.”

  “I thought no one knew who did that. I mean…do you guys actually know who did that?”

  Ferro looked grave and even a little secretive. “This is all South Jersey P.D. and the FBI, but some of it kind of spilled over into my backyard. I know that the investigative team has been looking at Karl Ruger for months now, but it’s one of those situations where they know more than they can prove. Most of it comes from hearsay — one ex-con said this and a hooker from Atlantic City said the other — but lately a lot of people seem to know that Ruger did the job. It isn’t known if he did it alone, or if he masterminded it, or what. One theory is that someone hired it done with Ruger as the hitter.”

  Gus was appalled. “Why would anyone pay someone to do something like that?”

  Ferro exhaled through his nose. “It’s complicated. I’m sure you’re aware of all the infighting among the families in Philly. The so-called don died of lung cancer nineteen months ago and, since he didn’t have any sons, everyone who thinks he has a claim to the title is vying for it. Well, to make a long story short—”

  Terry held up a hand. “Detective Ferro, as fascinating as this all would be to another police officer, I personally don’t care even a little bit about the dynamics of Philadelphia criminal politics. Just tell me how this is going to impact my town.”

  Ferro’s mouth snapped shut with a click and for the first time he looked off-balance. Terry could see that he was used to always being in charge and probably enjoyed the scope and drama of the ongoing battle between cops and robbers, but right now Terry’s head was pounding and listening to what amounted to a recap of the last four seasons of The Sopranos was not going to help any.

  LaMastra stepped in and summed up: “We think Ruger was hired to do a hit on relatives of one of the crime lords, and he overdid it.”

  “You don’t say,” Terry murmured. “So, Ruger gets the Hannibal Lecter award for head case of the decade. And…?”

  Ferro pursed his lips, considering. “Well, the degree of rage demonstrated in those killings in Cape May, and what we saw on the surveillance video of the shoot-out earlier today, clearly paint Ruger as both extremely dangerous and completely unstable.”

  “Mm, I’ve heard homicidal maniacs can be like that,” Terry said dryly.

  Ignoring the mayor’s tone, Ferro said, “He’s on the run and under pressure and he has apparently stopped somewhere in your town. When he did the hit in New Jersey he killed a lot of innocent bystanders as well.”

  Terry nodded. “I take your point. So why is this guy walking the streets at all?”

  “As I said, more is known than can be proved. The killer left no useful clues, and he certainly didn’t leave any witnesses. Even so, people talk, and some of the talk has pointed the investigative team in the direction of Karl Ruger. It would be fair to say that an arrest would have been made within a week, two at the outside.”

  “So, how the heck did a psycho hit man get involved in a drug heist?”

  “Philly’s getting too hot,” said LaMastra. “Word started getting around that Karl was maybe the hitter, and that meant that sooner of later he’d end up in a field somewhere, hands tied behind his back with his cock cut off and stuffed in his—”

  “I…uh…get the basic idea,” Terry said, cutting him off and shooting a significant glance at Shirley.

  Ferro glared at his partner and LaMastra gave Terry and the officers an apologetic nod. “I think it’s a fair guess that not everyone knows it was him, or at least not the right ones. If they did, parts of him would be showing up in fifty different states. More likely it’s that no one knew it was him until just recently, probably as recently as last night or this morning. It was all breaking fast. The way we figure it is that when Ruger got wind of the rumors he immediately organized the drug hit to give him some traveling money. The fact that he was working with Boyd seems to bear that out.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Boyd was a kind of small-time fixer. A travel agent,” said LaMastra. When Terry looked perplexed, he explained, “He gets people out of the country when things get hot. Fake IDs, passports, whatever. Because he’s good at it everyone leaves him alone.”

  Sergeant Ferro nodded. “If they were working together, then it’s probably a good bet that Boyd was going to arrange to get Ruger out of the States. He stole a lot of money and that buys a lot of plastic surgery and false ID. There are places where a new face and new papers and a million dollars could get you lost in a big hurry.”

  “So he split,” Terry said, “and now he’s running around loose in Pine Deep?”

  Ferro and LaMastra both looked at him soberly. “Yes,” they agreed.

  Terry looked at Gus, who shrugged and shook his head. “So, now what?”

  Ferro pursed his lips. “Well, Your Honor, the rest of our boys should be here any time now. They have surveillance pictures of Ruger, Boyd, and Macchio that we’ll distribute. Since the road posts in Crestville failed to spot them, then we have to assume that they’ve stopped here and decided to hole up. That means we have to work out a search and detain program that will run them to ground.”

>   “Uh, Sergeant, this is not really the sort of thing that our chief’s department is used to handling,” said Gus diffidently. “I mean, we don’t really do manhunts….”

  Ferro looked faintly amused. “Don’t worry, Chief, you’ll be getting a lot of help from my team. We can probably count on the state police and by tomorrow probably the FBI as well, not to mention some pinch hitters from the neighboring towns. We’re used to doing this sort of thing. I don’t mean to usurp any authority from you, sir, but we have a set way of handing these things, and if you’ll let us, we can run the show for you.” He glanced at Terry. “If that’s acceptable to you, sir?”

  “Darn straight!” Terry said. “Like I said, I don’t care if you have to call in the National Guard, just do what you have to do. Chief Bernhardt will be more than happy to defer to your greater expertise.” He glanced at Gus, who, rather than looking offended at the loss of authority, appeared to be massively relieved. “You tell us what to do,” he concluded, “and we’ll give it a go.”

  Ferro nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Chief. Okay,” he said and clapped his hands, “let’s get to work.”

  (3)

  The wrecker was a gleaming, grotesque monstrosity. From the rat-eye red of its running lights to the shroud-black opacity of its tinted windows, it appeared every inch a pernicious and predatory thing, soaring along the road in a hideous silence. The split-rim hubcaps were polished to a spotless chrome finish, as was every cold metal accessory from the twin exhaust stacks to the guardrails that looked as if they had come from some ornate and disinterred coffin. The duel sets of rear wheels pushed the behemoth along the road at a ghastly speed, whipping along past harvested and unharvested fields, past whitewashed telephone poles that looked like old bones, past the bolted doors of night-darkened houses. Aside from the faint whine of the tire rubber on the macadam and the fainter growl of the perfectly tuned engine, the wrecker made no other sound; for all the noise it made it might have been a midnight wind.

  In the cabin, Tow-Truck Eddie squatted in a repulsive tangle of ungainly muscularity, unnaturally disfigured by knots of muscles. Muscle upon muscle, tendons like bundles of piano wire, veins like high-pressure hoses. Even his face was hard with bulging muscles, bunching as the driver clenched and unclenched his jaw. He drove in complete silence, eyes fixed and staring, barely seeing the road as it unrolled itself before his headlights, big hands gripping the nubbed and leather-wrapped wheel with crushing force.

  He made no sound, played no radio, listening instead with entranced delight to the voice in his head, the voice that whispered and whispered.

  On his massive hands the blood still gleamed bright and fresh, lit by the dashboard display; in his mouth he could still taste the blood of the man he’d killed. His thick lips twisted and writhed in some semblance of a smile as he drove wildly through the night. The night that was now his.

  He savored the taste of blood in his mouth, and he knew that it had made him pure, made him holy. It was the first time he’d ever really paid attention to the taste of blood. It was delicious, and he wondered if he would have more of it. Inside his head the voice of God told him that yes, he would. Soon.

  As Tow-Truck Eddie drove, God whispered secrets to him, telling him of the glory that had been, and of the glory that was to come. God reminded him of his own holy purpose — that of finding the Beast and killing him.

  You are the Sword of God.

  It echoed like thunder in his head.

  Somewhere, out there in the darkness, in some unknown spot on the black road, his destiny waited. Destiny in the form of the Beast — a creature of vast cunning and evil power that he must find, must oppose — must destroy—because he was the Sword of God, and it was his holy purpose to do God’s will here on earth. Now he knew that, after all his waiting, the Beast was out here on the road tonight, waiting for him to find it, to confront it, to begin the battle of Good against Evil, of heaven against hell. That was what the voice of God told him, pounding the words into his brain. Over and over again.

  He laughed out loud, and his laugh was an explosion of righteous joy because his holy work was beginning. He had always known that someday God would set him on the right path. He’d prayed for this for years. His destiny had been clear to him since childhood. If he was who he thought he was — who he knew he was — then the voice that spoke so powerfully in his mind could belong to no one else but his own father. To God himself.

  He laughed again and searched the roadside shadows for the Beast.

  The wrecker cut through the night air like a butcher’s knife leaving a screaming darkness behind it.

  (4)

  “Jesus, Karl, wait for me, will you, for Chrissakes?”

  Ruger said nothing and didn’t slow his pace a single bit. He plowed on through the corn, moving fast but seemingly not making as much sound as he ought to. He glided through the stalks like a snake.

  The corn stood impossibly tall and it stretched outward on all sides in a forever of darkness. Boyd stumbled after Ruger, slapping the stalks aside, feeling the sharp sting of the razor-edged leaves nicking his hand and cheeks. The wind was icy and damp and his exposed skin burned from the raw cold. His lame left arm was tucked into his shirt, and the dead weight of it plus the lumpy burden of the backpack gave him an ungainly pace that consumed energy and cost effort. Despite the chilly air he was bathed in sweat and the backpack felt as if it were filled with rocks.

  “Man, do you even know where we’re going?”

  This time Ruger did stop. He turned and faced Boyd, his face completely in shadows. “Yeah, Boyd, sure I know where I’m going.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m going that way. Any more fucking questions?”

  Boyd shut his mouth with a click, biting down on all the things he didn’t have the balls to say. They burned on his tongue like pepper seeds. With a grunt, a hearty expectoration, and a shadowy sneer, Ruger turned and plunged back into the corn. After a few seconds Boyd followed him. They trudged on in silence for just over a hundred yards before Boyd stepped into a gopher hole and neatly snapped both the tibia and fibula of his right leg.

  He never saw the hole, and despite the dropping lunge and the sharp double snap of the bones, he couldn’t immediately understand what had happened. All he knew was that the cornfield suddenly rose up in front of him, the stalks seeming to launch themselves into the air, and then his face was rushing at the dirt. He tried to break his fall, but only one hand answered the summons and that was a second off the mark, so he took a cheekful of hard-packed dirt. His eyes jolted painfully in their sockets, he bit his tongue, and his brain felt jellied by the impact. He never even heard the double pop-pop of his leg bones as they broke, and at first all he felt was the pain in his face…and then the leg pain hit him. It hit him like a hurricane — blasting through every nerve ending he possessed, boiling up from the torn muscle and severed blood vessels all the way through the top of his head. He howled. He howled as loud as he could, and the shrill sound of it took flight and rose far above the waving corn. He drew in a single ragged breath and then opened his mouth to howl again, but the rough leather of Ruger’s glove, backed by bone and gristle and anger, struck him with such shocking force that the howl evaporated on his tongue and he gasped for a shocked breath, tears springing into his eyes. Ruger grabbed a fistful of his hair and jerked his head back and Boyd stared in mute awe at the single black metal eye that glared unwinkingly at him. The hard, cold silver that surrounded that black eye gleamed dully in the bad light.

  “If you make one more fucking sound I’m going to blow your face all over this field.” The whisper was as cold as the metal of the gun barrel.

  “My…leg…”

  “You hear me, Boyd?”

  “Jesus, Karl, I broke my fucking leg,” Boyd insisted, but in a low hiss, not a howl.

  “No shit. Ain’t you the genius?”

  “My fucking leg!”

  Ruger pressed the barrel against Boyd’s forehead. “Shh
hh. You’re getting loud again. Shhh, shhh now.”

  “You gotta help me, Karl,” Boyd began, and then his eyes grew suddenly very wide. “Wait…Karl…don’t…!”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t do me, man. Don’t, okay? Don’t do me, please, man.”

  Ruger actually managed to look hurt as he withdrew the gun. “Jeez, Boyd, what kind of guy do you think I am?” He released Boyd’s hair and even smoothed it with a caressing hand.

  “Don’t do me, man….”

  Ruger smiled. After a few seconds, he eased the hammer off cock and put his gun away. “Stop shitting your pants, you asshole. I’m not going to do anything to you unless you get loud again. I don’t go around killing everyone I meet, you know. I do have some scruples.”

  Boyd didn’t dare make an answer to that. His terror of Ruger was even greater than the searing agony in his leg. With a sigh, Ruger stood and shrugged out of his pack, set it to one side, and then stood there, looking first at Boyd and then around at the rows of corn. A few yards away was the corner of a fence, and nailed to it was a tall wooden support for a scarecrow. The tattered guardian of the corn hung like a hobo Christ, arms outstretched and body slumped. The body was dressed in a cast-off old brown suit, frayed work gloves, and an old blue mechanic’s shirt. Instead of a burlap bag for a head, this scarecrow had been topped with a grinning jack-o’-lantern in an early nod to the coming Halloween season. Beyond the figure, the fence trailed away into shadows. Ruger pursed his lips in thought; then he turned back to Boyd.

  “I think we’re near a farmhouse. See that fence? That looks like some kind of dividing line, maybe between this farm and the next. I’m going to follow it and see what I can see.”

  “Jesus! You can’t just leave me here!” He hissed the words, his face screwed up with the unrelenting pain. Beads of sweat burst from every pore on his face.

  “I sure as hell can’t carry you. You’re too goddamn big. Even if I could, I couldn’t lug you and both backpacks. No, m’man, I’ll get you set up here and then go get some kind of help.”