Prayers For Rain Part 28

"None whatsoever."

"And someone's tried to reason with him?"

"Uh-huh. Conversion seems out of the question."

"Well, it's rare," Sully said. "That disease is like Ebola, man."

"Yeah."

"He waiting?"

"Yeah. He's not going anywhere."

"I got a pen."

I gave him the address.

"Look, Sul, there are some extenuating circ.u.mstances here. Barely, but they exist."

"So?"

"So don't make the damage permanent, just severe."

"All right."

"Thanks, man."

"No sweat. You be there?"

"I'll be long gone," I said.

"Thanks for the tip, brother. I owe you."

"You don't owe anybody anything, man."

"Peace." He hung up.

I found a roll of electrical tape on a shelf and then let myself back into the house through the other door in the garage, came out into a rec room, empty except for a Stair-Master in the center, a few curling bars on the floor. I walked through that and opened another door onto the kitchen, took two steps, and was standing over Cody Falk again.

"What guy?" he said immediately. "You said you knew a guy. Who are you talking about?"

I said, "Cody, this is very important."

"What guy?"

"Shut up about the guy. I'll get to him. Cody, listen to me."

He looked up at me, all sweet and harmless and willing to please suddenly, the fear treading water like mad behind his eyes.

"I need an honest answer, and I don't care what it is. I won't blame you on this one. I just need to know. Did you or did you not vandalize Karen Nichols's car?"

The same confusion I'd seen in his face that night I'd come here with Bubba filled it again.

"No," he said firmly. "I...I mean, that's not my style. Why would I f.u.c.k up a perfectly good car?"

I nodded. He was telling the truth.

And some small alarm bell had gone off in my head that night in the garage with Bubba, but I'd been too angry at Cody's stalking and rape history to listen to it.

"You really didn't, did you?"

He shook his head. "No." He glanced at his ankle. "Could I have some ice?"

"Don't you want to hear about this guy?"

He swallowed and his Adam's apple bobbed. "Who is he?"

"He's a nice guy mostly. Regular dude, works a job, has a life. But a decade ago two sick f.u.c.ks broke into his house and raped his wife and daughter when he wasn't home. They never caught the guys. His wife recovered as best women can after encounters with a.s.sholes like you, but his daughter, Cody? She just locked herself up in her brain and floated away. She's in an inst.i.tution now, ten years later. She doesn't talk. She just stares out into s.p.a.ce. Twenty-three years old now, and she looks forty." I lowered myself to my haunches in front of Cody. "So, this guy? Ever since, he hears about a rapist, he gathers this, I dunno, posse, I guess you'd call it, and they...Well, you ever hear the story about that guy a few years back in the D Street projects-they found him bleeding from every orifice with his own d.i.c.k cut off and stuck in his mouth?"

Cody ground the back of his head into the fridge and gagged.

"So you're familiar with that story," I said. "That's not urban legend, that's fact, Cody. That was my buddy and his crew."

Cody's voice was a whisper. "Please."

"Please?" I raised my eyebrows. "That's good. Try that with this guy and his friends."

"Please," he said again. "Don't."

"Keep working at it, Cody," I said. "You almost got the hang of it."

"No," Cody moaned.

I pulled a foot of electrical tape from the roll, snapped it off in my teeth. "See, I figure with Karen, maybe half of it was a mistake. You did get those notes and you are dumb, so..." I shrugged.

"Please," he said. "Please, please, please."

"But there have been a lot of other women, haven't there, Cody? Ones who never asked asked for it. Ones who never pressed charges." for it. Ones who never pressed charges."

Cody tried to drop his eyes before I could see the truth there.

"Wait," he whispered. "I have money."

"Spend it on a therapist. After my buddy and his friends get through with you, you're going to need one."

I slapped the electrical tape over his mouth and his eyes bulged.

He screamed and the sound was m.u.f.fled and helpless behind the tape.