Dead Man's Song полностью

He strummed his guitar as the wind blew past him and thought about those people, the ones who had liked him, who had cared about him. They were the only ones from Pine Deep he could remember without anger. Henry Guthrie and his wife, Henry’s brother and his cousin. His daughter, little Valerie, Li’l Bosslady. Boppin’ Billy Crow and his brother, Malcolm—Little Scarecrow. Terry “Wolfman” Wolfe and his little sister, Mandy. Big John Sweeney. Just a handful. Henry was dead now, his body on a cold slab in the bowels of the hospital. Henry’s wife was two years in her grave, and his cousin Roger had been killed during that slaughter thirty years ago. John Sweeney had gone off Shandy’s Curve in his Malibu. Everyone thought he’d fallen asleep at the wheel, but the Bone Man knew different. He knew that Vic Wingate had rigged that car. Done something to the steering. Vic had wanted John dead so he could get next to Lois Sweeney, and he’d managed it; and John Sweeney wasn’t dead a week before Vic had pumped Lois full of Ecstasy and Mescal and had fed her to Griswold. Not as a blood sacrifice like he’d done with so many others, but as something else; and that was nearly sixteen years ago, during one full moon when Griswold’s spirit had hijacked another man’s body so he could live for just a few days. He’d lived all right. He’d done things to Lois that had driven her into the bottle and she’d never dared peek out of it since, not even when she found out she was pregnant. Vic had stepped in and married her before the baby was born, grinning all the time at what he had stage-managed. That left Big John Sweeney’s boy, Mike, at the mercy of Vic Wingate—only Mike wasn’t Sweeney’s son. Anyone who really looked at the boy could see that. Big John had been black Irish, with brown eyes and black hair, but Mike had red hair and blue eyes. In another couple of years, if he lived long enough for that, Mike would look like his real father—the man whose body Griswold had hijacked for one ugly night—and then everyone would know for sure. But even that was complicated, because Mike actually had two fathers. Three if you count Big John. There was the father of his flesh, and the father of his spirit. Or, maybe that second one was the father of his nature. Mike Sweeney was one who would bear watching—and watching over. There was trouble there, sure enough, and no way in the world to know how those cards would fall.

The Bone Man strummed his guitar, seeding the air with sweetness while all around him the darkness twisted and writhed.

Chapter 15

(1)

LaMastra burst into the conference room with a walkie-talkie in one hand. “Frank! Boyd’s been spotted.” He hurried over to hand off the unit. “It’s Jim Polk”

Ferro grabbed the walkie-talkie. “Polk, Ferro here. Tell me.”

“Sir,” Polk’s voice said with a crackle, “We got a call from Gaither Carby, he’s a local farmer who was driving back to Pine Deep across the Black Marsh Bridge when a guy cuts across his path. Carby damn near runs him down ’cause the guy was limping pretty bad. Carby slows down to see if maybe the guy’s hurt and the guy takes a couple of shots at him. Carby floors it and gets out of there. He called it in and from his description it seems pretty likely that it was your boy.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Fifteen minutes. Carby doesn’t have a cell phone, so he had to drive to a neighbor’s house and use their phone. I took the call here and rolled some units.”

“Good work,” Ferro snapped. “I’ll head out there right now.”

Ferro tossed the walkie-talkie to LaMastra as they raced to the door. “’bout goddamn time we caught a break,” he growled.

Jim Polk switched off the walkie-talkie and motioned for Ginny to cover the phones while he went out back for a smoke. As soon as he shut the alley door he pulled out his cell and punched in a number that was answered on the first ring.

“How’d it go?” Vic asked.

“Like you said. Carby has his story straight. The jerkoffs from Philly are heading out to the bridge now. How is it at your end?”

“Neat and tidy. Boyd tramped footprints all over the bridge and they should be able to find his shell-casings, too.”

“That’s great. Is he really gone this time?”

“He’s as gone as I need him to be,” Vic said. “He’ll be seen at least three times over the next week, and each time he’ll be farther from here. By the time they lose his trail completely he’ll have been spotted up in Trenton. After that, nobody’s going to see him again until trick or treat night. At that point—well, it won’t matter who sees him.” Vic was laughing as he disconnected.

Polk leaned back against the door. “God save my soul…” he breathed, but his Catholic rituals were thirty years out of practice and as dry as his mouth.

(2)

“Excuse me…are you Malcolm Crow?”