by Sharon Sala
“Don’t bother him,” Simon said. “He’s having a tough time here.” Then his voice broke, and he, too, began to cry. “Hell, we’re all having a tough time.”
“Who did this?” Bart asked.
“The cabbie. It was the cab driver,” Simon said.
Bart frowned, trying to recall the man’s face, but all he could remember was a long ponytail and a beard.
“But why?” Bart called out.
“He calls us his disciples,” Simon said. “He thinks he’s Jesus.”
“What’s going to happen to us?” Bart asked.
“Matthew Farmer…Airman First Class…799442013. Matthew Farmer…Airman First Class…799442013.”
The hair on the back of Bart’s neck stood on end as he listened to the captive repeating his name, rank and serial number. Obviously the man had once been a POW. What irony that he’d come back to the States, only to be subjected to what must, for him, amount to a living nightmare.
Bart didn’t want to think about what was going to happen. He kept telling himself that people would surely be looking for them, and that they would surely be found before long. Then he remembered Simon’s remark. He’d been here almost a month. Why hadn’t they been found? Bart was religious about watching local and national news, and not once had he heard a mention of any missing men.
Slowly he turned, for the first time surveying his surroundings. The portable commode was obvious, as was a small table. He moved toward the only door in the room but was stopped by the chains at least six feet from the exit. There was a tiny window mounted up near the sixteen-foot-high ceiling, but it was so grime encrusted that only minimal light came in.
When Bart heard a rustling sound behind the commode, he flinched, then watched in horror as a large rat ambled out from behind the pot. Bart could see its nose twitching as it tested the air for scents, and wondered how in the name of God he was going to get out of this place alive. At the same time, it occurred to him that he might die in here. His stomach turned, and his knees went weak.
As the rat moved toward him, he backed up against the wall. One of the prisoners was whimpering. It took a bit for him to realize it was himself that he heard.
Finally the rat disappeared through the space under the door. Bart leaned against the wall, then slid all the way down to the floor. His head was throbbing, his heart pounding so hard he couldn’t hear himself screaming.
But he was.
And the others heard.
Simon Peters cursed and turned his face to the wall, while in the room next to him, Matthew Farmer put his hands over his ears and began hammering his head against the floor.
James rolled into a fetal position and began to wail.
Andy didn’t bother to join the manic chorus. Minutes before, he’d managed to catch one of the rats that infested the building, and now he was clutching it in both hands. As the other men screamed and cried, he grabbed the rat’s neck and squeezed, harder and harder, until blood started coming out of the rat’s nose and ears. When the eyeballs suddenly popped, he laughed aloud and threw it across the room.
Jay circled the block to his warehouse twice before he pulled around to the back and drove in. Even then, he sat in the cab without getting out, watching the opening in the rearview mirror, as well as scanning the large open space of the warehouse floor. Nothing had changed. Same stacks of wooden pallets. Same forlorn feeling of failure. Satisfied that all was as it should be, he opened the car door. But his sense of security quickly disappeared when he heard the racket coming from the other end of the building. He jumped out of the cab and started running, tracking the loudest wails to the room where his newest disciple, Bart, now resided.
Without taking the usual precautions, he unlocked the door with shaking hands and dashed inside. Bart Scofield’s business suit was covered in blood. His nose was dripping blood, as were several cuts on his forehead. His wrists were bracelets of blood, with spreading bruises just visible beneath the once white shirt cuffs.
“Bartholomew…what’s happened? What’s wrong?”
Bart Scofield was past pain and out of his mind when he turned on the cab driver. Still running on the adrenaline of panic, he whipped one of the chains up in the air and then brought it down and around Jay’s neck.
Jay managed one panicked squawk before he went down. It was instinct that made him grab at the chain with both hands, and it was the only thing that saved him from a broken neck. He felt a finger bone snap as the chain tightened, but it was that pain that saved his life. Without thought of what would happen when he let go of the chain, he bolted to his feet and dived headfirst at his latest disciple.
Scofield slipped on the puddle of urine in which he’d been standing and lost his hold on Jay as he went down. He landed flat on his back. His head snapped backward, hitting the floor with a sickening thud. After that, he didn’t move.
Jay rolled off him, then sat up.
“Bartholomew…are you all right?”
Bart wasn’t talking.
Jay nudged Bart’s shoulder. When the man didn’t respond, he moved a little closer and felt for a pulse. The only thing he felt was the trembling of his own hands.
“No,” Jay muttered, then got up on his hands and knees and tried again, to no avail.
He slid his hand beneath Bart’s head, testing for a wound. At first he felt nothing; then something odd caught his attention and he thrust his fingers through the man’s hair to the scalp, then beyond. Shocked, he yanked his hand back. It came away covered in blood and brain matter. Bart Scofield’s skull was smashed.
Jay scooted backward like a crab, then scrambled to his feet. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He rocked back on his heels, folded his arms across his chest, and began to sway back and forth. A moan slid from between his lips; then he let out a wail.
What did this mean?
Was God angry with him?
Had He taken Bartholomew because Jay had done something bad?
The niggling pain he’d been dealing with all day exploded into a full-blown blast at the back of his neck. He leaned forward until his forehead touched the floor. The scent of urine and blood and desecration filled his nostrils. He opened his mouth to pray and was only slightly surprised when he screamed instead.
He screamed until his throat burned and his voice was gone—until the shock and rage within him were spent. Only then did he allow himself to look at Bartholomew again. Jay’s shoulders slumped. It wasn’t a bad dream. It was true. The man was dead.
He covered his face with his hands as his mind ran the gamut of panic. What to do now? Only hours earlier it had seemed so simple—adding another disciple to the fold.
He dropped his hands in his lap and closed his eyes.
“Lord, You know I never meant for this to happen. You know I would never step off the path You trod. Help me, Lord. Tell me what to do.”
Jay sat for what felt like hours. Finally it was the cries from the others that brought him back to his senses. His face was expressionless as he took a key from his pocket and removed the chains from Bart Scofield’s wrists. Jay’s hands were steady as he grabbed Scofield by the feet and dragged him out of the room.
Simon’s pleas for mercy rolled off his conscience. Matthew’s repetitive name, rank and serial number didn’t bother him tonight. Not even the unusual silence from Andy’s and James’s rooms caused him concern.
He’d come to the conclusion that this man had been sent by the devil to test him, and because of that, Jay was talking himself into a righteous indignation. How dare this Bartholomew try to pass himself off as a disciple? As worthy?
He was sweating by the time he got to the cab. He popped the trunk, dumped Scofield’s body inside and shut the lid. The shouts and screams coming from the rooms behind him distracted him enough that he remembered they hadn’t had food or water all day. He took a large sack from the back seat of the cab and retraced his steps.
Simon Peters was hysterical when he entered.
“W
hat happened?” he screamed. “What did you do?”
“There was a traitor in our midst. I dealt with him,” Jay said, then set two cans of potted meat, a tube of crackers, an apple and two bottles of water on the table.
As if it was nothing out of the ordinary, he stood there, calmly blessing the food for Simon to eat.
“Have you been reading your Bible?” he asked.
“Let me go,” Simon begged.
Jay frowned. “Read the book of John. We will discuss it tomorrow.”
“Jesus Christ,” Simon sobbed. “You are one crazy motherfucker. Let me go. I swear I won’t tell. Just let me go!”
“You do not take the Lord’s name in vain!” Jay shouted, swept the food he’d put on the table back into the sack and strode out of the room, leaving Simon with a bottle of water for sustenance.
He was still angry when he entered Matthew’s room. It displeased him to see the man coiled in upon himself and lying in his own filth. It appeared as if he was still pulling out his own hair. Jay stifled a curse. For two cents, he would take a hammer to this loser’s head and dump him, just like he was going to dump Bartholomew.
Then he sighed. That was the devil whispering in his ear, trying to make him commit a sin. But that wasn’t going to happen; he was on the Lord’s path. The ache at the back of his neck was making him sick to his stomach. He set out Matthew’s food and strode out of the room. By the time he got to Andy’s room, his hands were shaking. He entered quickly, checking the whereabouts of the big man. He saw him in the corner, naked and playing with his own erection.
Jay stared at it for what seemed like forever, before he remembered he was the father and Andrew was the son.
“Andrew! Andrew! Stop that this instant!” he demanded. “It’s a sin to do that…and what have you done with your clothes?”
Andy was locked into the pleasure of what he was doing and paid no attention to Jay.
When he started to moan, Jay slammed some food down on the table and left.
James wouldn’t even look at him as Jay left the food and water. Jay started to bless the man and his food, then stomped out in disgust.
Jay ran all the way back to the cab. His neck was already bruising, and his broken finger was throbbing. But he had to clean his house before he could rest this night.
He opened the overhead door and quickly drove away.
Five
Bart Scofield’s body was discovered at daybreak in a Dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant by two men from the city sanitation department. Bart would never have imagined such an ignominious end, to be found lying on top of half-eaten egg rolls and discarded cellophane noodles. But there he was, blessedly past pain, leaving the mystery of his disappearance and murder to those who knew it best.
In another part of town, January stood in a patch of moonlight, an ivory goddess waiting for her own mythological god to claim her. Ben watched her, speechless at the sight. Then she was suddenly lying beneath him with her legs wrapped around his waist and her fingernails digging into the muscles in his back as he drove himself deep into her heat.
Her breath was warm and shaky near his ear, and she was begging him for things he’d never done to another woman before.
He rocked back on his knees, then lifted her to him. They rejoined with her sitting up, impaled by his erection.
She locked her hands behind his neck and leaned back just enough to shift the pressure point. As she did, she groaned.
Ben wasn’t sure, but he thought there was a possibility that he might die from the pleasure.
“Ben, oh, Benjamin…love me.”
“I already do,” he whispered.
“Then show me how much,” she begged.
He grabbed her by the waist and—
The phone rang. It was a rude awakening from the most crucial dream he’d ever had in his life. Angry and frustrated by the loss of a climax, even though it would have been a solitary one, he reluctantly answered.
“Hello?”
It was Don Borger, his captain.
“We got a fresh one in the alley behind the China Wok. Meeks is on his way to pick you up. Work this one close. I’m getting a lot of flak on it.”
“How come? Who is it?”
“Bart Scofield, the mayor’s best friend and one of the golden boys of Media Marketing, Inc.”
“We’re on it,” Ben said.
“Keep me informed,” Borger said.
“Yes, sir,” Ben said, and hung up.
He dressed without paying much attention to details, then poured himself a cup of coffee to go.
Meeks honked at him from the street. It was his signal that his day had begun.
Considering the place where the body had been dumped, it was difficult for the crime scene investigators to decide what was evidence and what was pure garbage. They couldn’t ignore the bit of spring roll in Bart Scofield’s ear any more than they could overlook the obvious bondage marks on his wrists. At first glance, the only two things they were sure of were that Scofield was dead and the Dumpster was not the scene of the crime.
Fran Morrow, from the crime lab, was in the Dumpster when Rick and Ben arrived on the scene. Not only was she masked and gloved, but she had pulled a pair of dark green coveralls on over her clothes and traded her regular street shoes for calf-high rubber boots.
“Hey, Fran, what can you tell me?” Meeks asked, as he sauntered up to the Dumpster.
“Americans waste their food,” she muttered, then bagged and sealed a man’s loafer that was covered with cold fried rice.
Scofield’s body had already been photographed and pulled out of the garbage. Ben looked at it, then looked away. Rigor had set in, giving the frozen limbs an obscene appearance. He was about to ask Fran some questions when he caught a glimpse of something shiny from the corner of his eye. He turned, then looked up just in time to catch a bystander leaning over the third-floor fire escape filming with a video camera.
“Hey! You!” he yelled, pointing to the man. “Get down here and bring that camera with you when you come.”
The man straightened up, gave Ben the finger and ducked back into the window on the third-floor landing.
“Son of a bitch,” Ben muttered, then turned toward the uniformed officers standing by. “Did you see him?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Go get him and get that camera.”
One started up the fire escape, another moved toward the back of the building on the run, while a third ran out of the alley toward the front of the building.
“Damn vultures,” Fran muttered, as she pulled down her mask and climbed out. “It’s not enough that when it’s time for our life to be over, we have no control of how it ends. We have human vultures feeding off our indignities.”
“We’ll get him,” Ben said.
She shrugged. “I hope you’re right. It doesn’t matter to Scofield, but it will to his family.”
“We need a starting place,” Ben said. “Have you got one for us?”
Fran had already stepped out of her boots and was peeling off her coveralls. She looked up, grimaced, then reached toward Ben.
“Yeah, I need out of these damn things,” she said. “Give me a hand.”
Ben curled his nose from the smell coming off her clothes as he braced her while she took off the coveralls.
“Thanks,” Fran said, as she rolled them up and stuffed them in a bag. “My cleaners have refused to do any more of my laundry. Can you believe that?”
Ben laughed.
Fran grinned.
“Now we talk,” she said.
“Got a silver bullet for us?” Rick asked.
She shrugged. “Make what you will of it. You always do. And, as always, I’ll know more when all the tests have been run. Having said that, there were a couple of things that were unusual.”
“Like what?” Ben asked.
“Scofield more than likely died from blunt force trauma to the back of the head, but he hasn’t been dead more than fi
ve or six hours.”
Ben picked up on the inference right away.
“But he’s been missing for almost twenty-four. That means—”
“He was manacled,” Fran said. “And, from what I can see, most of the minor wounds on his body are self-inflicted.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I don’t kid.”
“Are you sure?” Ben asked.
“No, and I won’t be until I run the tests. Until then, that’s all I have to say.”
“Where do we go with this?” Rick asked.
“That’s your problem, not mine,” Fran said, then pointed to the other investigators. “You done?”
They nodded.
She eyed the detectives. “Anything else?” she asked.
“Just remember me when you finish your reports,” Rick added.
She nodded. “We’re out of here.”
As they drove off in one direction, the beat cops were coming back with the would-be paparazzi and his camera.
“Hey, North, we got your Peeping Tom and his third eye.”
One of the officers handed the camera to Ben.
“What do you want to do with him?” another asked.
“I’m not sure,” Ben said. “Stick around a minute, will you? He might need a ride down to the station.”
The man was short and dumpy, wearing a pair of pants two sizes too small and a T-shirt that barely covered his hairy belly. His tennis shoes were mismatched, and there was a dirty New York Yankees ball cap covering what appeared to be a nearly bald head.
Ben stared the man down, then eyed the camera.
“Where did you steal it?” he asked.
“I didn’t steal nothin’, and you ain’t got no right to—”
Ben pointed to the badge clipped to his belt.
“This gives me the right to do a lot of things, including confiscating your camera. This is a crime scene, mister. You don’t get to violate it. Period.”
The man’s shoulders slumped.
“What’s your name?” Ben asked.
“Morey Arnold.”
“So, Morey Arnold. What the hell did you think you were doing?”
