I turned to face him. "Lemme borrow your pen."
I took the pen, ignoring the look on Karl's face, and went to the wall map. It took me only a few seconds to find the dot I was looking for. I circled it once, then again, and again, and stepped back. "That's where he is," I said. "Right there. He's right fucking there."
Speaking as fast as I could without becoming incoherent, I told McGuire and Karl what I had just figured out: Sligo was going to cast his spell in the pump house on top of the dam at Lake Scranton.
"He wants still water, and there's a shitload of it up there, and the place is isolated. It's not supposed to be for swimming – that's where the city drinking water comes from. But my cousin Marty and me and a couple of girls went skinny-dipping there one summer when I was fourteen. I saw the pump house close up, although we didn't go inside – it was locked. And the pump house is what's in that photo on Jamieson Longworth's computer – sure as I'm fucking standing here."
"That's good enough for me," McGuire said, and picked up the phon/div›
"Who're you calling?" I asked.
"SWAT. Dooley's supposed to be on call, twentyfour-seven."
"Good," I said. I went to my desk and started rummaging through the pile of papers on top of it.
"What're you looking for?" Karl asked me.
"That phone number Vollman left us. Here it is."
A few seconds later, I was listening to the phone ringing in, I hoped, Vollman's pocket. It rang. And rang. Then after the seventh ring, one of those synthesized computer voices that I hate said, " No one is available at the moment to take your call. Please leave your name and number, and your call will be returned as soon as humanly possible."
I wondered whether "humanly" was Vollman's idea of a little joke.
At the beep, I said, "Vollman, this is Markowski. It's going down at the pump house, at the top of the Lake Scranton Dam. I need to know if you've located Christine, because that's gonna determine our tactics. Call me, or get over here, fast!"
Karl had just finished checking the loads in that big Glock of his. He looked at me. "Determine our tactics?"
"If we know Christine's safe, we can go in there with all guns blazing – or SWAT can. But since she's still missing… don't you think Jamieson Longworth would get a giggle in Hell, knowing that Christine was going to be Sligo's final vampire victim?"
"But we don't know for sure that Longworth and Sligo were even in cahoots, Stan."
"Do you believe in that many coincidences?" I asked.
That brought a little smile to Karl's face. Before I could ask what was so damn funny, he said, the way you do when you're quoting somebody, "'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action.'"
"Who said that? Although he's right, whoever it was."
"Auric Goldfinger – to James Bond."
McGuire came out of his office, scowling. "Problem. Big one. The SWAT unit, every one of them, is on administrative suspension, pending investigation into possible wrongdoing in the death of one Jamieson Longworth."
"What kind of fucking bullshit is that?" Karl said.
"Mrs. Longworth again," I said to McGuire.
"Yeah, most likely. Dooley says the union's fighting it, on the grounds that SWAT's vital to public safety – but they're not gonna get it overturned in- " he looked at his watch, "-the next eighty-five fucking minutes."
"If this is a nightmare, I hope I wake up soon," I said quietly. "We don't have SWAT, we don't have a warrant for the fucking pump house-"
"Isn't that city property?" Karl asked. "Don't need a warrant for that."
"No, the water company owns it," I said. "Don't interrupt me when I'm bitching – no SWAT, no warrant, no Vollman…" I stopped, and just shook my head.
"You've got these, though." McGuire held out a key and a slip of paper.
"What?" I asked impatiently.
"A master key, which will open any office in the building, including SWAT's, and-" he held out the paper to me, "-the combination to the SWAT weapons room. The key is from me, who will have no idea how you got it. The combination's courtesy of Dooley, who says 'Kick some ass for us, too.'"
I took the paper and key and looked at Karl. "You heard the man – let's go kick some ass."
It was quiet in the part of the building that SWAT called home, so nobody asked us what the hell we were doing. Just as well. The mood I was in, if somebody had, I might have shot them.
As Karl unlocked the SWAT team's door, I said, "You know, vampires and wizards and shit – that's weird enough. But now, we're in the middle of a fucking 'buddy cop' movie."
Karl pushed the door open and felt around for the light switch. "Is that what it is? Sure hope you're right, Stan."
"Why – you like that stuff?"
"Yeah, but that's not why I said it."
"I think the weapons room is back there," I said, pointing. "Okay, I give. Why do you want this to be a buddy cop movie?"
"Because the good guys always win," he said, as we walked to the back of the big room. "And neither of the cops ever gets killed. Maybe a flesh wound, arm in a sling in the final scene – but nothing worse. I could handle that. Here – gimme that combination."
Consulting the paper, Karl carefully turned the big dial back and forth a few times, then tried the handle. The steel door unlocked with a click. I gave the handle a pull, and the door opened smoothly on well-oiled hinges. A couple of bright florescent lights in the ceiling came on automatically.
"Holy fuck," Karl said softly. "Will you look at this shit!"
We were bleeding time faster than a vampire's victim loses blood, so within ten minutes of opening the SWAT unit's weapons room, Karl and I were in the parking lot, heading for a brown Plymouth – the car the department had assigned us to replace the one with the man-sized dent in its roof
We walked as fast as we could with all the stuff we were carrying. Stopping behind our new ride, I was fishing for the keys when I heard the sound of a car door opening in the row behind us, then heard it again. Part of my mind noticed that I didn't hear those doors slam shut.
I wasn't worried. Jamieson Longworth was dead, and his buddy, Sligo, was up at Lake Scranton, getting ready for the biggest night of his life – which I hoped would also be his last.
I should have worried.
I realized that when I heard, from behind us, the distinctive clickety-clack of a shotgun being racked.
Both of Karl's arms were full; so was one of mine, while my other hand was deep in my pants pocket, digging for the car keys. We had no chance at all.
Then a familiar man's voice told us, "Stand very still, gentlemen."
We froze like Gorgon statues.
After a few seconds, he said, "Good. Now, without unburdening yourselves, turn this way. Slowly."
Once I'd heard that voice, I was pretty sure we were fucked. Then we turned around, and I knew it for certain.
The Reverends Ferris and Crane, still wearing their elegant gray suits, stood thirty feet away, next to the open doors of a big black Caddy. Crane held the shotgun barrel pointed right at Karl and me, and we were so close together, I knew one blast would nail us both. The nasty smile was back on Crane's schoolboy face. The Reverend Ferris was smiling, too, and it wasn't hard to guess why.
"How good to see you both again, Detectives," he said. "Reverend Crane had started to wonder if you were ever going to join us out here, but I reminded him that the Lord provides those who serve Him with what they need, all in due time. And here you are."
"We have unfinished business," Crane said. I guess he felt he should contribute something besides firepower.
"Indeed we do." Ferris looked as happy as a little boy with a new kitten – a kitten he planned to tor ture to death, as soon as he could get it alone. "The sergeant has some questions to answer for us. And do you know, Detective Renfer, I believe I smell the taint of witchcraft on you, too. I'm afraid you'll have to come along with us, as well."