When She Was Bad Part 14

As for Pender, who'd been driving through Moss Landing-quaint fishing village on one side of the two-lane highway, h.e.l.lish power plant, like something out of The War of the Worlds, on the other-when MacAlister reached him on his cell phone, it had been a mixed bag of motivations, none of them financial, that inspired him to turn around and head back to Santa Cruz.

Rescuing Lily was foremost in his mind, of course. And capturing, or rather, recapturing Maxwell was high up on Pender's list as well, but not for the publicity. Pender had already had his Warholian fifteen minutes of fame several times over, and had always been more relieved than disappointed when the spotlight had moved on.

Instead, Pender looked on the opportunity to bring Maxwell in again as a chance to redeem two of the worst mistakes of his FBI career. Through a moment of inexcusable carelessness on Pender's part three years earlier, the psychopath had escaped from the Monterey County jail, at the cost of half a dozen additional lives. Then after the shootout on Scorned Ridge, when Maxwell lay injured, every instinct Pender had developed in three decades of chasing serial killers cried out for him to end it with a coup de grace, or by letting Maxwell bleed out on the floor of the barn.

But although it was Irene Cogan who'd talked him out of it, then tied a tourniquet around Maxwell's thigh, thereby saving his life, Pender still blamed himself. Witness or no witness, there were dozens of ways for a determined special agent not to bring his man in alive-and if he'd employed any of them, Patricia Benoit, Walter Smets, Alan Corder, and Cheryl Corder would still be alive.

Pender's remaining motivations were less conscious. Chief among them were resentment for his treatment at the hands of the Portland cops-your basic "I'll show them" state of mind-along with a severe action jones: at fifty-seven Pender was no better prepared to slip gracefully into his golden years than he had been when he reached the FBI's mandatory retirement age two years earlier.

They drove with the top down and the CD player blaring Grateful Dead tunes. Pender, still wearing his gra.s.s-and-mustard-checked sport coat, nearly lost his hat when Mick put the hammer down on the superhighway running the length of California; he reached out to make a last-second, one-handed grab as the beret flew off his head. A few minutes later, Mick, wearing a casually matched jacket and jeans outfit of faded denim, took a joint-filled Sucrets tin from his pocket, and fired one up with a windproof butane torch.

"Don't worry, I drive better stoned," he told Pender, with the dangling joint glommed securely to his lower lip.

"You're under arrest," Pender replied.

"You got me fair and square, copper," said the portly private eye, raising both hands over his head-at eighty-plus miles an hour, on a far-from-empty eight-lane highway.

"On second thought, maybe I'll let it slide just this once," Pender decided.

They made good time, stopping once for gasoline and a convenience-store chili dog that reminded Mick, a native New Jerseyan, of the sign on the old roadside greasy spoon/gas station in Tuckahoe: EAT HERE AND GET GAS. As they pa.s.sed Sacramento, he lit up a second doob. Pender remonstrated, reminding him they still had a potentially hazardous job in front of them.

"What, you think I'm goin' up against a psychopathic serial killer straight?" said MacAlister.

Which made so much sense to Pender that he found himself wondering whether he hadn't inhaled a little secondhand smoke himself.

2.

Alone now in the attic, Lyssy searched wildly for his leg, which proved to be under the bed.

Yeah, like that's going to do a lot of f.u.c.king good, said the voice in his head.

"Max?"

No s.h.i.t, Sherlock. Now be a good little boy and go to sleep-I'll take it from here.

"I'm not a little boy anymore."

You'll always be a little boy to me.

Lyssy clapped his hands over his ears. Max chuckled slyly. I'm not out there, sonny, I'm in here. Now you know what you have to do-don't make it any harder on yourself than it has to be.

"Never," said Lyssy. "Never, never, never again."

Okay, buddy-bud, you asked for it.

Lyssy heard the crackling sound, saw angry orange flames leaping up all around him. To fight them, he pictured Lilith-her hair the color of rich dark chocolate, her eyes big and dark in her sweet round face, her sweetly curved lips, her soft white rosy-tipped b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her velvet-soft belly, her creamy thighs and the dark mystery between them, her dimpled knees, strong calves, her toes arching in ecstasy. Then he worked his way back up, past her calves, thighs, bush, belly, b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and back up to her face, and he held her face there, he made himself see it, ten times larger than life, back-lighted by the leaping flames. Which weren't leaping quite as high now, or burning quite as hot.

You're making a mistake, said the voice, sounding less sure of itself. You're nothing without me. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing....

The flames were gone. Lyssy found himself alone in the tiny attic room, sitting on the edge of the bed with his prosthetic leg in his hands. "Who's nothing now?" he said aloud. But for all his bravura, he couldn't help c.o.c.king his head to the side and listening, as if he weren't at all sure there wouldn't be an answer.

3.

The problem was, Mama Rose liked the girl, had liked her from the moment she'd first set eyes on her, snapping and snarling like a she-wolf in a trap as she faced down the bikers back in Sturgis. And having a surrogate teenage daughter around, especially one who was as tabula rasa as Lilith, had meant a lot to the childless older woman. She'd had fun during that first visit, showing Lilith the ropes, pa.s.sing on a little hard-earned practical wisdom.

But Mama Rose was n.o.body's fool: she had seen her walking hard-on of a husband growing more infatuated with the kid every pa.s.sing day. Not that the prospect of Carson knocking off a quickie had her particularly worried-but what if it turned into a full-blown midlife crisis? He wouldn't have been the first man to trade in a middle-aged wife for a firm young mistress.

So she'd quietly cut a deal with the private eye, MacAlister, put the reward money into her secret "f.u.c.k You" account-a safe-deposit box at the Bank of America down in Redding-and told Carson that Lilith had gone off with some folks she'd met in Weed. And while Mama Rose had missed her company-the warmth of her greeting this morning had been genuine enough-she was more determined than ever that Lilith had to go.

But not to die-that seemed a little extreme to Mama Rose. In the absence of a compelling threat to herself or Carson (Lilith had already proved she could be trusted to keep her mouth shut about the chop shop and the little pink house, if only because Swervin' Mervin was buried in the nearby woods, and both Carson and Mama Rose had witnessed his death) Mama Rose could not allow Carson to kill the girl.

As for Lilith's boyfriend, though, Mama Rose had no objection to terminating him. They certainly couldn't let him go: if captured, he could lead the cops straight back to them-the same cops who'd been trying in vain to find Carson for fifteen years. And never mind how sweet Lyssy had seemed to be during breakfast: judging by what she'd read about him in the newspapers, anybody who knocked off Ulysses Maxwell would be doing the world a favor.

Hence the tangled web Mama Rose had been weaving all afternoon. First she'd cut another deal with MacAlister in return for another contribution to the Mama Rose f.u.c.k You fund. The private eye and the backup he'd insisted on bringing along were to rendezvous with Mama Rose at a coffee shop in Mt. Shasta, follow her to an undisclosed location out in the boondocks, lend her two pairs of handcuffs, and wait for her to return with a manacled pair of fugitives.

And the only difference between their relative expectations, Mama Rose's and MacAlister's, was that he a.s.sumed that both fugitives would be alive when she handed them over.

4.

Lilith's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, white and round as scoops of meringue, floated above the burbling, steaming water of the redwood hot tub on the narrow patio behind the house. On the other side of a trellis twined thinly with haphazardly blooming rose vines, the hillside rose sharply, b.u.t.tressed by old tarry railroad ties. The late afternoon sun was hot as ever as it sank toward the crest of the hill, but the shadows were lengthening rapidly.

Carson slipped the revolver, a snub-nosed .38, under a pile of clean towels on the whitewashed, round wrought-iron patio table, and switched on the boom box. This radio, although it was connected to a long orange extension cord plugged into the same outlet that powered the Jacuzzi motor, was kept on the table, out of arm's reach of the tub, to prevent stoned bathers from accidentally electrocuting themselves. Carson fiddled with the dial until he found his favorite heavy metal station, then with the radio blaring post-Sabbath Ozzie, he took off his bathrobe and climbed in after her wearing only his bush hat. Groaning long and loud, he lowered his dangling privates into the steaming water until he was submerged to his neck, beads of sweat already forming on his brow.

Lilith held her nose, bent her knees, and submerged herself. Underwater, the echoic rumble of the Jacuzzi jets sounded almost peaceful. Hearing a distant splashing sound, Lilith opened her eyes underwater, found herself staring down the barrel of Carson's hard-on. She rose like Venus, hair plastered flat against her sleek round skull, water dripping from her full, round b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "I like your c.o.c.k," she whispered, pressing the length of her body against his, front to front.

"Me too," he replied hoa.r.s.ely.

"Could I change the f.u.c.king station?" The radio was blaring that annoying McDonald's jingle: I'm loving it, I'm loving it.

"Hunh, what? Oh-sure."

She climbed out hurriedly, before he could change his mind, and trotted over to the table shivering, with her arms crossed in front of her. "Where's a good station?"

"Try the FM band," he said easily-but his glance had flickered briefly to the pile of towels on the table. s.h.i.t, she thought: obviously he'd remembered where he'd left the revolver. Which meant her chances of grabbing the gun, finding and releasing the safety, pulling back the hammer, and squeezing off a shot before he could leap from the tub and cross the five or six feet to the table, were not exactly encouraging, Lilith decided, as she absentmindedly fiddled with the radio dial.

Then suddenly it dawned on her, with all the force and clarity of revelation, that the revolver wasn't the only weapon on the table. Or even the deadliest-pistols misfire, bullets miss their targets. She turned her face away, hiding a savage grin as she traced the length of the orange extension cord with her eyes to make sure it lay free, with enough slack so it wouldn't tangle or catch on anything. Picking up the boom box in both hands, she raised it over her head.

Mentally and emotionally drained after the struggle with Max, Lyssy strapped on his leg, still in its gray sock and black sneaker, then dressed hastily in the same oversize white T-shirt and b.u.t.ton-fly jeans Lilith had given him before they left Dr. Al's. After tying his other sneaker, he tried to raise the trapdoor, again to no avail.

There has to be another way out, he thought, glancing around the long, narrow attic-there just has to be. He examined the double-sashed dormer windows jutting out onto the roof in the front of the house. They were both nailed shut on top and sealed so tightly around the air conditioners below that no light showed around them. But only one of the machines was running; the short three-p.r.o.nged power cord of the other dangled limply.

Lyssy seized hold of the unwieldy gray-brown box with his fingertips, and began rocking it. It was lighter than it appeared to be, and held firm at first. But as Lyssy continued to rock it back and forth to the pounding rhythm of the unG.o.dly music blaring from around the back of the house, lengthwise cracks like miniature geological fissures began to form in the dessicated gray putty that held the box in place.

Encouraged, Lyssy threw all his weight into the effort, working the awkward load up and down, side to side, until it was loosened enough for him to get a good grip with his clawlike hands. After three strong heaves it broke free, tilted, and began sliding back into the room. Lyssy stepped back just in time to avoid getting his toes crushed when the air conditioner crashed to the floor, corner first, gouging a furrow in the linoleum.

Listening for a response to all the racket he'd made, Lyssy heard only the infernal howling of the radio. He cleared the gaping hole of clinging cobwebs and active spiderwebs decorated with mummified flies and sticky egg sacs, stuck his head through, looked down, and beheld his next challenge: though the drop to the roof was only four or five feet, there were but eighteen inches or so of steeply pitched composition shingles between the base of the dormer and the edge of the roof to use as a foothold, then an eight-to-ten-foot drop to the ground, or rather, the front doorstep.

Lyssy lowered himself backward through the hole. His left foot, arching downward, touched the slanting shingles first. Gripping the window frame with his deformed hands, he began to sidle to his left, keeping as much weight as possible on his real foot. It seemed to take forever, but at last he rounded the corner of the protruding dormer, and had room to drop to his hands and knees.

The heavy metal music from the radio had given way to a McDonald's commercial by the time Lyssy reached the apex of the roof. He spread-eagled himself against the shingles and crept with a sort of swimming motion headfirst down the other slope. Just as the patio came into view, he heard the urp-beep-fleep-floop sound of someone dialing swiftly through the channels on a radio. Peering over the edge of the roof, he saw Carson directly below him, reclining naked in a hot tub; Lilith, also nude, stood a few feet away, holding a boom box above her head with both hands.

Carson had only an instant to realize what was coming. He struggled to his feet, opened his mouth to scream. Lyssy's own scream caught in his throat as the radio sailed through the air, then everything was blue sparks, popping noises, bubbling water, and a weird, high-pitched shriek, like a lobster makes when you drop it live into a boiling pot.

Suddenly hatless, his hair sticking straight out from his head and his body jerking like Sonny Corleone at the tollbooth, Carson lurched around the tub with his arms extended-think Frankenstein's monster-until the strain on the circuits blew the fuses.

Seconds later, all was quiet. Carson floated faceup, hair fanned out and bobbing gently, with an erection you could have pitched horseshoes at. Lilith lay naked, crumpled on her side at the edge of the patio, a good fifteen or twenty feet from the tub.

Lyssy scrambled frantically across the length of the roof, grabbed the aluminum rain gutter with both hands, and lowered himself over the edge, bracing himself for a nasty fall. But instead, the gutter began to bend, nails and rivets popping as it pulled free from its moorings and swung him down gradually.

When his flailing feet touched the concrete, he let go, swaying unsteadily for a moment, then regained his balance and limped across the patio to Lilith. He knelt beside her and rolled her onto her back, relieved to see that she was breathing. "Lilith? Lilith, you okay?"

Her eyelids fluttered open. He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand; she jerked her head away sharply, looking not at him, but past him.

"Lilith? It's Lyssy. Talk to me-can you talk to me?"

She might as well have been deaf and dumb. Blind too, as far as Lyssy was concerned-try as he might to insert himself into her line of vision, her eyes failed to focus on his face.

Lyssy said her name a few more times-no response-and was trying to figure out his next move when he heard the roar of a downshifting Harley growling as it climbed the steep asphalt driveway in low gear. Panic mounting, he glanced around wildly, wadded up one of the white towels strewn around the patio to cushion Lilith's head, and covered her with another-he couldn't just leave her lying there like that.

Someone was coming around the side of the house. As he climbed to his feet and looked around for a place to hide, Lyssy spotted Carson's revolver lying on the cement, a few feet from the overturned patio table. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, slipped it into the waistband of his jeans, limped around the hot tub, keeping his eyes averted from the sickening sight of Carson's scalded corpse, and crouched behind the tub.

"f.u.c.k, it stinks back-" The bearded troll Lyssy had met that morning-felt like a whole lifetime had pa.s.sed since then-rounded the corner of the house. He saw Lilith first, broke off in mid-sentence, started another sentence that began with "What the...?" and trailed off when he caught sight of the hot tub with its grisly contents.

What happened next would seem strange only in retrospect: Lyssy, who'd never knowingly handled a gun before, drew the .38 from his waistband, flicked off the safety, c.o.c.ked the hammer, and rose, calling, "Put your hands up," in as deep a voice as he could manage.

"You!"

"I said, put your hands up!"

"You killed Carson."

"Darn right," said Lyssy, happily taking on Lilith's guilt. "And I'll kill you too if you don't put your stupid hands up."

"f.u.c.k you," said the troll, so Lyssy shot him. Not a whole lot of thinking had gone into it-he'd pointed the gun toward the troll's knee and tightened his finger experimentally, just a hairsbreadth or so. Apparently that was far enough.

But Lyssy hadn't counted on the upward kick-the bullet struck at the intersection of leg and groin, severing the troll's femoral artery, and blew a fist-size hole in his b.u.t.tock on its way out. The troll didn't seem to realize at first that he'd even been hit. He took a step toward Lyssy, frowning and reaching behind himself to grab his a.s.s, as if he'd pulled a glute. His hand came away wet; only then did he look down to see dark arterial blood spurting from the hole in his overalls.

"You should have put your hands up," said Lyssy as the bearded man took one more step, then crumpled to the ground. It took the puzzled-looking troll only a minute or so to bleed to death, unnoticed by Lyssy, who stood frozen in place, staring at the spot where Lilith had been lying, and from which she had somehow magically disappeared, leaving him alone on the patio with two dead bodies.

5.

With a little help from her very pregnant friend Dennie, Mama Rose had manged to kill the rest of the afternoon and the early evening hours smoking dope, hitting the thrift shops, dining at a Mexican restaurant on Mt. Shasta Boulevard-but the time had died slowly.

It dragged even more slowly after Dennie left. Sipping espressos on the patio of the coffee shop where MacAlister was to meet her, Mama Rose couldn't get her mind off the unpleasant task which lay before her: shooting Maxwell in cold blood. Very cold blood: her plan was to handcuff him first, walk him around the side of the house, then shoot him in the head.

But nasty as that was to contemplate, it still beat thinking about what she'd tell Carson when he came home later that night and discovered that Lilith and Maxwell were gone. In a way, she thought, it might have been better to let Carson f.u.c.k the girl at least once-at the very least, it would have made it more difficult for him to lay any self-righteous guilt trips on her.

The sun was low in the sky when Mama Rose caught sight of a red Cadillac convertible pulling up in front of the coffee shop. As MacAlister had requested earlier, she made no sign of recognition, but she did make such a show of "casually" finishing her coffee-smacking her lips, shaking her head regretfully, and patting her lips with a paper napkin before pushing her chair back from the sidewalk table, pulling on her helmet, and zipping up her leather jacket-that if he had had her under surveillance, Pender whispered to Mick, he'd have been looking around to see who'd just arrived.

Just in case, MacAlister waited a full minute before following her. They caught up to the baby-blue Sportster waiting at a stop light at the edge of town and followed it discreetly for four and a half miles, to a derelict wood-frame gas station with two red, round-shouldered pumps out front, from which the hoses had been cruelly amputated. She rode around the back of the barnlike building; by the time they pulled up she was already off the bike, shaking out her thick red hair and combing it with her fingers.

"You made good time," she said, as Mick climbed out of the Caddy-Pender waited in the car, his face averted, his beret tugged low over one eye.

"Zoom, zoom," replied Mick.

"Any progress on the reward?"

"Ten thou, same as last time. Only thing is, I don't have the cash with me this time-you're just going to have to trust me."

"How do I know you won't try and screw me?"

"Lady, if I wanted to screw you-in that sense of the word-you'd have found a Michigan sandwich in that bag the other day." A Michigan sandwich, also known as a Michigan roll or brick, was a thick sheaf of bills with twenties or hundreds on the outside, depending on the size of the con, and singles or green paper cut to the size of currency on the inside.

"Okay, here's the situation," said Mama Rose. "You're gonna have to wait here for a couple hours. Carson's going out around nine-as soon as the coast is clear, I'll get Maxwell and the girl out of the attic, bring 'em back here, then they're all yours. You can make up any story you want for the cops, as long as you leave us out of it. If you rat us out, though, you're a dead man."

"Don't worry, I won't rat you out. But are you sure you can handle them?"

"I can handle them."

"Then we've got a deal." MacAlister shook Mama Rose's hand, then turned his attention to the Sportster. "That's a beaut," he said, walking around the bike, squatting to admire it at close range. "What year?"

"An original '57."

"Engine?"