Frank passed Lewis a sheaf of papers. She'd called Kennedy to apologize for standing her up Friday afternoon. Kennedy had rightly figured that unless Frank was dead she'd want the notes ASAP so had taken them home with her. Frank picked them up Sunday before visiting Helms.
"How's she doing?" Noah grinned.
"Good. This should hold you two for a while. Now go away."
Uncoiling his long frame, Noah declared, "Well, this talk meant a lot to me too, Frank."
With her left hand Frank awkwardly signed off for personal leaves and overtime. She scanned a collection of 60-days, deciding to send them up to Foubarelle. Let him mark the red hell out of them, if he could even tell what needed correcting besides dangling participles and inappropriate use of commas. Thinking her supervisor would have been more useful to society as an English teacher, she reached for a pen with her right hand. Jolting it against the desk made her wince. Worse than that, the leering image of the relic popped up again.
"Fuck you," Frank whispered to it. She concentrated Kennedy's data. The narc had uncovered a nugget that neither Gough nor Joe had dug up during their investigations.
In 1967 Lincoln Roosevelt bought two life insurance policies, both naming Crystal Love as beneficiary. Seven months later, the insurance company identified his bones amid the rubble of an unexplained fire in a St. Louis boardinghouse. The Mother had collected $50,000 from the first policy and a cool $300,000 from the second.
Helms pronouncement, that his sister-in-law "can make things happen," echoed in Frank's head. Too many accidents around the Mother, and unexplained deaths. While her supernatural talents were debatable, Frank decided her maliciousness was not. If all these cases were connected, then Lewis was chasing a career serial killer.
Frank was plotting a time line of the Mother's suspected criminal involvements when the phone rang.
Bartlett, from Sheriff's Homicide, said, "Look here, see. I gotta do this. 'All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.' Okay, so it's a little trite, but you can't go wrong with Saint Matthew. But seriously, I've thought about this. Stick with me. The first is Wilfred Owen. Great war poet. You gotta love him. Listen.
" 'Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade how cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood; blue with all malice, like a madman's flash; and thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.' Great, huh? Now listen to this. 'For—' "
Frank interrupted, "So they were both cut. Was it swords or bayonets, Bartlett?"
"Houseman. Another great war poet. 'For when the knife has slit the throat across from ear to ear, 'twill bleed because of it.' "
"English, Robbie."
"Their throats were cut. Both of 'em. It didn't happen where they found 'em though. They were cut, then dumped."
"You got pictures?"
"Sure, I got 'em. Got the whole enchilada here. Whaddaya want to know?"
"How do they look? Kind of tidy or the usual mess?"
Frank heard him flipping pages, muttering something about bloody blameful blades and boiling bloody breasts. She was never sure which irked her more; the endless quotations or his normal conversation, which was more like dialogue from a 40's B-movie.
"Looks normal to me. As normal as guys can look with their windpipes letting the rain in."
"So pretty messy?" she persisted.
"Whaddaya think, Franco? They got their throats cut, for crying out loud."
"Let me borrow the book?"
"Oh, most pernicious woman! Oh, villain, villain, smiling damned villain!"
The murder book was archival. It wouldn't sweat Bartlett to loan it out.
"Come on," she coaxed. "I gave you Ackerman." Then she tested a foggy line from a college humanities class.
"We gotta stick together. 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers we ... for he today that sheds his blood with me ... forever shall my brother be ... ' Close enough, huh?"
Bartlett burst out, "He which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart!"
Frank pinched the phone against her shoulder and rubbed her eyes while he finished.
"Come get your book, Franco! 'Come cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer—remarked the soldier whose post lay in the rear!'"
She started to interrupt his next soliloquy, then fell silent, all too familiar with the feel of gooseflesh rising in her skin.
"Say that again," she told him.
"You're a scholar and a gentleman, Frank. I knew you'd appreciate me someday. 'Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men groaning for burial.' Shakespeare, my lady fair. The bard himself."
Frank fumbled the phone into its bed, the dog's searing teeth and the dream of the battlefield fresh upon her.
25
Tito Carrillo packed three pieces of heat. A .38, police-style under his arm, a .2 5 in his boot, and his favorite, a black 9mm Smith & Wesson in his waistband. Carrillo made sure the alley was empty before releasing a stream of piss against the wall. He knew that bruja negra was looking for him, but he felt confident. If she wanted a piece of him, she'd have to get a piece of his three friends first. He shook himself and zipped up, catching his shirt in the steel teeth.
"Mierda," he whispered. He was so engrossed in pulling at the stuck fabric he didn't see the huge shadows engulfing him. Fingers bit into his arms. He didn't even notice the needle's quick sting. Los hijos negros, that black bitch's sons whipped a gag into his mouth. He writhed and twisted, trying to fight, but the hijos held him with ease. They shoved him into the car then squeezed in beside him. He kicked wildly, flailing his torso like a whip. Carrillo used the strength and courage that accompany imminent death, but he was still no match for the ebony twins; one held him in a macabre embrace while the other tied his wrists and ankles.
"That ain't necessary," La Negra said from behind the wheel.
Translated, the gutsy thought in Carrillo's head would have been something like "The fuck it isn't," but even as he struggled he felt a strange numbness in his limbs. They jerked of their own accord. At the same time he noticed he was having trouble moving his eyes and that his lungs were getting awfully tight.
One of the evil hijos de la gran puta looked into his face. Carrillo saw the red lips move. He heard, "It's working," but the words seemed to come from a tunnel. They pulled the .38 from its holster, then he felt the 9mm leave his pants. But they didn't know about his boot. If he could just get to the .2 5 he'd be okay. Streetlights raced over his locked lids. Ay dios, he couldn't move! How could he get to his gun if he couldn't move? Carrillo hadn't cried since he was three, but he wanted to now.
The car stopped. Doors opened. Carrillo's head fell and bumped. Hands grabbed him, pulled him. They moved swiftly against an angry wine-red sky. That was the color of hell, Carrillo thought. That's where he was going.
Then he was rolling over and over, like when he was a boy, down the hill behind their house in Leon. When the rolling stopped, La Negra was looking down at him. A woman was singing soft and far away. Was it her? Hands moved back and forth over his frozen vision. His eyes were dry and he wanted to lick his lips. He couldn't. He knew then he'd never get to his .25. That was enough to make Tito Carrillo a reverent man. He tried to shut his lids, but Carrillo had to apologize to God with the Mother in his eyes. He felt wetness soak the carpet. He prayed it was his bladder, prayed the sharp hiss he heard wasn't a match striking.
Tito Carrillo was still praying when he blossomed into a hideous black and orange flower unfurling itself toward a disinterested moon.
26
Noah flopped onto Frank's couch. Draping his long arms across the back, and sighing for emphasis, he announced, "Tito Carrillo's dead."