The Devil's Laughter

by William W. Johnstone

  Link sat in his den, the lights off. One of his dogs came to him and nuzzled his hand. Link petted the animal, and that got all the inside dogs moving toward him for some attention. Then as quickly as they came to him, he noticed they were all looking toward the road. Even Hector – and the raccoon was so lazy he seldom noticed anything except when his food dish was empty.

  Link went into his bedroom and took out the .45, tucking two clips into his pocket. The house had been dark, so his eyes adjusted quickly to the gloom of night as he exited by the back door. On the way out, he slipped his hands into leather gloves. His animals were silent, sensing something was going on that was completely out of character for the man who took care of them. Even the huskies were quiet for a change.

  Link stayed in the deep shadows, working his way down to his gate, keeping about fifteen feet to the north of the drive. He reached his fence line and knelt down. He smiled very grimly as he caught the glint of faint light off a vehicle, parked across the hardtop in an old weed-grown logging road. A match or lighter flared briefly and he could see the ugly face of Waldo Brown, hulking behind the steering wheel. Waldo puffed on his cigar and the flame went out. Waldo was in his sheriff’s department unit, and he had others with him.

  Link felt all around him for a moment. Finally, his fingers closed around a baseball-sized rock. He grinned, wondering if he could make the toss. He decided he could; he’d always played the outfield and still had a pretty good arm. He felt all around him, finding more rocks about the same size.

  He stood up, stepped into a small clearing, took a deep breath, and chunked the rock in a long, slow arc. He grinned as he heard the rock slam through the windshield and the men inside holler.

  “Goddamnit!” Waldo shouted. “Who’s chunkin’ rocks at us?”

  “Shit!” another man said, his voice carrying. “I got glass all over me.”

  “You reckon Donovan’s on to us and is chunkin’ them rocks?” a third voice was added.

  “Naw,” Waldo said. “He goes to bed with the chickens. Hell, this thing may be one of them meteorites or something. Don’t touch it, Hubert. Liable to come down with cancer or something.”

  Hubert Dale, Link guessed. A local thug, and just about as worthless as a person could get and still be called a human being. He suppressed a chuckle at Waldo’s theory about meteorites and heaved another baseball-sized stone. This one slammed onto the top of the patrol car. Ray was not going to be happy about this.

  “Now, goddamnit!” Waldo squalled. “What the hell is goin’ on here?”

  Link watched him get out of the car and look all around him. Link stood erect and still. Movement attracts attention more often than noise. He stood still for several minutes while the men – four of them – got out of the car and looked all around. A car filled with kids roared by, the radio blasting the night with incomprehensible sounds.

  “Kids,” he heard one man say. “They’ve had their fun and gone.”

  “Got to be,” Waldo said. “Get all them firebombs, Dave. We got to do this fast and quiet.”

  Link squatted down and found some more rocks. Dave had to be Dave Barlow, from that pack of outlaw white trash that lived north of the old Romaire plant.

  “Harden,” Waldo said, “I want you to tote the firebombs and the dynamite. Everybody knows that Link Donovan keeps all sorts of ammo and shit in that house. It ain’t gonna surprise no one when his house catches fire and blows up. Be rid of him and them goddamn animals of his.”

  Harden. More trash just like the Barlows. Link pulled out the .45 and started to lift it. He thought better of it and stuck it back behind his belt. He found some smaller rocks, about the circumference of a silver dollar, and let one fly straight and true, he hoped. He winced as he heard the stone hit flesh. One of the men – he thought it was Harden – grunted in pain and dropped to his knees just as Link tossed one of the baseball-sized stones. That one dropped on Waldo’s shoulder and the man howled in pain and stumbled backward. Link let a third one fly and that one smashed into the emergency lights on top of the car. He ran closer to the road and climbed the fence. His arm was getting tired and he wanted to close the gap.

  Link caught his breath and hurled another stone; this one was a clean miss. He chunked another and Barlow took it in the center of his forehead. The man dropped like a brick and lay still. Link ran across the road and slammed into Waldo, knocking the huge man sprawling. Link slugged him with the last rock, and Waldo sighed and lay still. He turned and kicked Harden in the face, the toe of the boot catching the man under the chin. Blood and teeth exploded from the man’s mouth. Hubert Dale came at Link, a long-bladed knife in his hand and a mean look in his eyes.

  Link lifted the .45 and shot the man between his beady eyes at almost point-blank range. The slug made a big hole in Dale’s forehead and a real mess when it exited out the back.

  The blast of the shot had just echoed away when Paul yelled, “Link! Are you all right?”

  Link yelled, “Come on down to the gates, Paul. Open them. I’m all right.”

  Link cuffed Waldo’s hands behind his back; his wrists were so huge the cuffs would just barely fit around them. Then he checked Harden and Barlow, who were still unconscious. Paul unlocked the gates and ran across the road.

  “Jesus, Link,” he said, sliding to a halt at the sight of Hubert Dale and his ruined head. “You want me to call Sheriff Ingalls?”

  “No. Just don’t touch the car. Help me stuff Waldo in the back seat.”

  “What are you going to do with Hubert?”

  “Put him in the trunk.”

  “You’re not going to call the cops, Link?”

  “No. The cops will find them, don’t worry. They just won’t find them here. Help me stuff these two on top of Waldo, and then you get back across the road and get ready to follow me out to just this side of the old Romaire complex. If we have any kind of luck, we can pull this off. Unless you want out of it? What I’m doing is a felony, Paul.”

  Paul was a realist in a world filled with many idealistic and dreamy people. He was also tough as wang leather. “Hey, I don’t know what happened here; you can tell me later. But Hubert Dale was a no-good. And these other three are no better. If we’re going to do something, Link, let’s do it.”

  “You know Foster Road?”

  “Sure.”

  “Meet me there. Take off.”

  Link smiled. If they could pull this off, Waldo was going to have a lot of explaining to do. He found ankle chains and secured one of Waldo’s ankles to one of Barlow’s ankles. He handcuffed Harden’s wrists, running the chain around the ankle chain. When these three woke up, they were going to have a terrible problem walking.

  The .45 slug had gone through Hubert’s stupid empty head, so the slug was gone forever. No one knew Link had the .45, anyway. The only weapons Ray and Gerard had ever seen were .380’s and .38’s.

  They made the run without meeting another vehicle. Link threw the keys away and took Waldo’s handcuff key from his gunbelt. He smiled as he fitted Waldo’s. 357 into one big hand and fired it into the air twice. Then he tossed the gun on the floorboards.

  Waldo was going to have some real talking to do to explain this.

  Chapter 10

  Paul had driven into town to get the rest of his gear while his parents were at work. Link was just finishing breakfast. He looked up from his second cup of coffee and smiled when the wail of sirens reached him. The sheriffs department cars were roaring past his house, heading north.

  “The next hour or so should be interesting,” he said.

  He had just finished checking on the injured animals when he heard the honking at his front gate. He walked down and unlocked the gates, waving the two sheriffs department cars in, Ray and Gerard behind the wheel.

  He walked back up to the house. The men were waiting for him. “What’s all the excitement, boys?” Link asked. “Don’t tell me someone else has been carved up?”

  Both the top lawmen in the paris
h stared at him for a moment. Then Gerard said, “Well, now, Link, Waldo Brown says you attacked him last night and shot Hubert Dale. He says you assaulted him, Barlow, Dale, and Harden.”

  Link grinned. “I single-handedly assaulted four men, one of whom is the approximate size of an elephant and probably armed to boot? Are you kidding me, Gerard?”

  Ray sighed. “They were found this morning by a deer hunter, Link.” He pointed. “Up there on Foster Road. Barlow, Harden, and Waldo with lumps on their heads, all handcuffed together. We found the body of Hubert Dale in the trunk. He’d been shot once in the head with a large caliber pistol. Waldo says you attacked them with . . . ah ... rocks.”

  Link burst out laughing, and both Gerard and Ray flushed. “Rocks?” Link said. “I attacked four men with rocks?”

  “Waldo said he was parked right across the road from your gate. On that old logging road. Said he was checking for speeders.”

  “I see. What were Dale, Barlow, and Harden doing? Helping Waldo out? I didn’t know they were deputies.”

  “They aren’t. And Waldo isn’t radar certified,” Gerard said. “He doesn’t have radar in his unit.”

  “I ... see. I guess,” Link said.

  “I don’t,” Ray said. “But as goofy as it sounds, it’s something you’d do, Link. Now, I’m not saying you did it; but it’s something you’d get a kick out of doing. The windshield had a big hole. Rock still on the front seat. One side of the emergency lights smashed, and a dent in the top of the unit. You’d figure there would be glass and plastic all over the area where he said it happened. Funny thing about that: we couldn’t find one shard of glass. But a smart man would have gone over there at first light and picked it all up.”

  Correct on both counts.

  Link said nothing.

  “I got Tom dusting the car for prints now, but an ex-spook like you would be real careful about things like that.”

  “How about this, Ray?” Link asked. “Waldo was riding around some of his trashy friends – and those you named are pure trash – and they got into a quarrel. Somebody pulled out a gun and started shooting. Who among the four named was armed?”

  Gerard stared hard at Link, a very jaundiced expression on his face. Nobody had to tell him a thing about Link Donovan. He knew that Link, while usually an easygoing fellow, was also a man best left alone. Do Link Donovan a hurt, and you better get ready for a damn war. Link did not forgive or forget.

  “What is the sheriffs department policy about deputies hauling around civilians?” Link asked. “Especially trouble-making, honky-tonk hopping trash like Dale, Barlow, and Harden?”

  Before Ray could reply, his belt-held walkie-talkie spoke to him. “Go ahead,” he said.

  “Two empties in Waldo’s pistol, Sheriff,” a deputy said. “It’s been fired recently.”

  “Bag it,” Ray said. He shifted his eyes back to Link. “What puzzles me is why did Waldo have dynamite and homemade firebombs in his car?”

  “My goodness!” Link said. “Isn’t that against the law?”

  Ray ignored the sarcasm. “My gut instinct tells me that you were walking around your property down by the road last night and you spotted Waldo parked across the blacktop. You stayed in the bushes and overheard them planning to burn down your house, blow it up. It would be their word against yours in court, four to one, so you decided to settle it out of court. You had some fun, Link. I recall you had the best throwing arm on the baseball team, and you’re still in damn good shape. But it got out of hand and Hubert Dale got killed. That damn hunting knife he carries – and has used on people – was in the trunk beside the body. Nobody is going to grieve for Hubert Dale, Link. He was a total no-good. I’m not blaming you for doing it, Link – and I know you did it. It’s just the way you did it that bothers me.”

  “You boys want to come in for coffee?” Link asked.

  “No,” Ray said. “Link, we got big problems in this parish. I need your help. But this is not some damn covert CIA operation. We’ve got to break up this devil’s coven, but it’s got to be done legally and lawfully. Waldo is going to stick to his story, because he’s so damn stupid he doesn’t know how to make up one that anybody would believe. The funny thing is – if anything is funny about this situation – that nobody is going to believe him anyway, even though he’s telling the truth. Barlow doesn’t know what happened. He was knocked stone-cold out. He’s got a knot on his forehead about the size of a baseball. Took him to the hospital. Hubert is dead. Under questioning, Harden admitted he had blood in his eyes and never saw the man who attacked them. And kicked out about half of his teeth,” Ray added. “This is going to be one of those unexplained mysteries, I suppose. I’m not going to push it and neither is the DA. In fact, the DA thought it was funny.

  “Miller and Holt, those two crazy young troopers we got in this parish, thought it was hysterical. Good men but a couple of clowns. I’ve got to put Waldo on paid leave until this is cleared up ... and it’ll never be cleared up, which is a good thing. But the bad thing is he’s going to come after you, Link. Now, I know that doesn’t worry you. But it worries me. I don’t want any more killing in this parish.”

  Link stared at him.

  Ray sighed. “Link, I don’t blame you for what you did. Hubert came after you with a knife. You fired in self-defense. Fine. You had no choice. And I see why you couldn’t play it legal. Four against one, and one of them a deputy sheriff. But what bothers me, Link, is the way you handled it. It’s a joke to you. Life is a joke to you. It always has been....

  “I’m not saying this right.... Maybe I never will. I just don’t ever want to be around when you get pushed to the wall and you cut that wolf loose that roams around inside of you.” He rubbed his face and Link felt sorry for the man. “Nobody gives a shit what happens to Barlow or Harden. There won’t be five people at Hubert’s funeral. Far as I’m concerned, what happened last night is a dead issue – no play on words intended. But Waldo and his kin are going to be after you, Link. The whole Barlow and Harden clan will be gunning for you. You know how white trash thinks. You’ve opened Pandora’s box, Link. I think all that trash is involved in this devil thing. And you know what else I think? I think you enjoy this. And that worries me, boy. That really worries me.”

  * * *

  “And you didn’t have anything to do with it?” Anne asked.

  “Me? Not me,” Link said. They sat in the kitchen, drinking coffee. Billy and Betsy were in their rooms.

  She touched his hand. “Link, this isn’t some fun game. It’s dangerous and ugly. I think somebody, some group, has made you a target.”

  “If they have, I don’t know why.”

  “You have no idea at all, Link?”

  He shook his head. “No. Not a clue, Anne. I’m not a religious person; I’ve never posed any threat to their coven . . . or whatever the hell we have going on in this parish. I’ve made it known that I don’t care for those types of people, and as far as I’m concerned, they could be used in lab experiments and let the animals go.”

  She stared at him and shook her head. “Don’t you ever bite your tongue, Link?”

  “No. That whole goddamn bunch – Barlows, Hardens, and Browns – they’re all worthless trash. They’ve inbred for generations and God only knows what the mental condition of the last batch that was whelped might be because of it. The only law they live under is their own.” He held up his hand and snapped his fingers. “They don’t care that much for your well-being or anybody else’s. They’re thieves, dopers, child-molesters, poachers, and dog-fighters – and you and I both know that’s some of the lowest scum on the face of the earth. They’re ignorant, illiterate, dangerous human filth. And they live that way because they like it. They don’t want to live any other way.”

  “Then why doesn’t Ray do something about them?”

  “This is America. Land of the constitutional rights and the home of the lawyers, remember?”

  “How could I forget so soon?”

&nb
sp; “That’s right. Those people have a better intelligence network than the Mossad. Let a sheriff’s department car get within five miles of their territory and everything shuts down. And they all live up there around the Romaire complex.”

  “How big is this county . . . parish?”

  “Big. Maybe even the biggest in the state. At one point – that area just north of us – it’s seventy-five... eighty miles across, east to west. Hundreds of square miles of woods, lakes, rolling hills. And a huge swamp south of us. Two incorporated towns in the whole parish, I think. No interstates, no principal highways.”

  She was silent for a moment, toying with her coffee cup. “Have you heard anything about Chris?”

  “Only that he’s living over at Dick Marley’s house and running with Frankie Marley and his gang of hoodlums.”

  Anne paused, shaking her head, then she met his eyes and smiled. “We still going to inspect the basement tomorrow?”

  “You want to?” he asked, standing up.

  “In a way.”

  “Bright and early then.” Impulsively, he leaned over and kissed her, the move taking both of them by surprise.

  Then, grinning impishly, she put both hands to his face and pulled him close, almost turning over the table. She kissed him soundly.

  “That ought to hold me until tomorrow,” Link finally said.

  * * *

  Ray and Cliff Sweeney were waiting for Link inside his gate.

  “How do you keep the FBI out?” Paul asked.

  “It’s all right, Paul,” Link assured him. “How are the critters?”

  “Fine. I just checked on them and changed one bandage. Mr. Sweeney wanted to look around the hospital. I showed him. Hope I didn’t screw up.”

  “No. That’s all right, Paul. Come on in the house, gentlemen.”

  Seated in the den, Cliff looked nervously at Kat. She yawned and went back to sleep. “Does that animal bite?” he asked.

  “All animals bite, Cliff. But she’s never bitten or clawed anyone except those two assholes who were breaking into this house.”