When he emerged less than three minutes later, Robert Kirkland had aged. “Got a homicide in there. Old man in the bathtub with his throat cut.” Deep shit, he thought. “We need a key! Find me a manager, fast!”
The manager was not at home. The locked door of Apartment 6 stared Kirkland in the face. Kirkland walked back to his car and used the phone to place a call to the metro police. Then he dialed FBI Central in Atlanta, requesting information on a Coles, Ginger. The computer came up empty. The name Leister, Janette also drew a blank. Both aliases? he wondered. Who would need an alias but a fugitive? And what did the old man in the bathtub have to do with the kidnapping of a baby boy from St. James Hospital in Buckhead?
Deep shit, he thought.
Within an hour, as the metro police questioned the other residents of the complex and a specialist team hunted for fingerprints and evidence in the debris, the wind picked up. It swirled around the trash dumpster, and lifted from its depths the crumpled picture of a smiling infant. The wind blew it away from the policemen and the FBI agents, and it floated north on a cold current before it snagged in the pines.
The apartment complex’s manager, it was learned from a resident who’d just arrived home, worked at a Kinney’s shoe store at a nearby mall. Two policemen were assigned to go get him, and he arrived in their custody around five-thirty to find the place acrawl with officers in dark raincoats. He unlocked the door to Ginger Coles’s apartment with a trembling hand, reporters armed with minicams beginning to swoop in like vultures on the death scent.
“Step back,” Kirkland told the man. Then he turned the knob and opened the door.
As the door came open, Kirkland heard a small click.
He saw what was waiting for him, and he had a split second to think: Deep sh—
The picture-wire trigger pull coiled around the doorknob did its work very well. The sawed-off shotgun that had been positioned on a chair, its barrel carefully uptilted, went off with a hollow boom as its trigger was yanked, and the full force of the lead shot almost tore Robert Kirkland in half. The pellets ripped through a second FBI agent’s throat and blew the manager’s right shoulder apart in a cascade of flesh, blood, and bone for the TV minicams. Kirkland staggered back, minus his heart, lungs, and much of what held him together, and fell in a twitching heap. The policemen hit the wet pavement on their bellies, the reporters yelled and screamed and backed off but not too far away to lose the pictures. Somebody started firing into the apartment, another scared policeman started shooting, too, and in another moment pistols were being emptied through the doorway and windows of Apartment 6 as plaster and woodchips danced in the air. “Cease fire! Cease fire!” the remaining FBI agent shouted, and gradually the shooting died down.
Finally, two brave—or foolish—policemen rushed into the bullet-riddled apartment. A lava lamp had been hit, the glop spattered all over the walls. Open kitchen cupboards, chipped by bullets, were empty. A stereo and a TV remained, along with some records. If the police had known to look, they would have found no Doors albums among them. There were marks on the walls where pictures had been hung, but there were no pictures. In a closet was found a cardboard box filled with mutilated plastic and rubber dolls, and behind that was a boy-sized rifle minus its sight. The closets held no clothes, and the dresser drawers had been emptied.
The ambulances were on the way. Someone had already put a raincoat over Kirkland’s corpse. His blood was collecting in a pothole on the pavement, one arm sticking up from the folds of the coat and the fingers curved heavenward into claws. The reporters shoved to get the best camera angles. Already, on CNN, the network was about to start a live feed from the Mableton apartments.
Over a hundred miles northeast of Atlanta, on Interstate 85, an olive-green Chevy van puttered along at fifty miles an hour in a heavy rain. While her new baby slept in a little cardboard box on the floorboard, wrapped up in his blue blanket, Mary Terror sang “Age of Aquarius” in a low voice and wondered who would find the pigsticker she’d left cocked and ready in her front door. She was no longer wearing the nurse’s uniform; she had changed at the apartment, put the uniform in a trash bag and thrown it over a bridge into a wooded creek, and the name tag had been tossed away twenty miles out of the city. But the pigs would find out where she’d rented the uniform soon enough, and they would have her Ginger Coles name and her address. It couldn’t be helped, because she hadn’t had time to come up with a false driver’s license. No matter, she was leaving the wasp’s nest behind her, and she had her baby, and everything would be great when she met Lord Jack at the weeping lady.
A siren. Flashing lights. Mary’s heart jumped, and she started to put her foot to the brake, but the highway patrol car pulled past her and disappeared in the swirling rain and mist ahead.
She had a long way to go. She had her fist-sized Magnum and her Colt, and her clothes and groceries in the back. Plenty of diapers, plenty of formula. A plastic thermos she could pee into so she wouldn’t have to make any stops. Messy, but adequate. She’d topped the gas tank before leaving Atlanta, and she’d checked the tires. She wore her Smiley Face on her paisley-print blouse. She was in high cotton.
Who would find the pigsticker, and when? she wondered. It would be worth the loss of the shotgun to take down a really big Mindfucker, to blow the shit out of some superpig with medals on his chest. She glanced down at the little pink thing in its cardboard box, and she said, “I love you. Momma loves her baby, yes momma does.”
The tires thrummed on the rain-slick interstate. Mary Terror, a careful driver who observed all speed limits and rules of the road, went on.
2
Armed and Dangerous
THE MAN IN MICHIGAN could not sleep.
He checked his watch. The luminous hands read seven minutes after midnight. He lay in bed awhile longer, but the metal plate in his jaw was picking up radio noise. He opened his mouth, and he could hear the gnashing of rock and roll guitars. This was going to be a very bad night.
Nothing to be done but to get drunk, he decided, and he got up in the dark.
The wind was whistling outside, the cold borne across the Great Plains on the back of buffalo winter. The woodframe house shivered and moaned, also unable to sleep by reason of turbulence. The man, gray hair all over his chest and matting his back, walked in his pajama bottoms to the chilly kitchen, where he opened the refrigerator. Its dim light fell upon his death’s head of a face, all hollowed cheekbones and deep-socketed eyes. Something was wrong with the left eye, and his jaw was crooked. His breathing was a slow, hoarse bellows. He reached for the four remaining cans of Bud in their plastic harness, and he took them all with him to the den.
In his sanctuary of walnut paneling, his bowling plaques on the walls and his marksmanship trophies standing around like Greek sculptures, he turned on the TV and settled himself into his butt-worn, old plaid recliner. He used the remote control to go to ESPN first, where two Australian teams were playing their brand of football. He drank most of one of the beers, putting it down in a few long swallows. In his mouth someone sang underwater. His head was pounding, too, a slow, excruciating pain that began at the crown of his bald skull and trickled like hot mercury down to the nape of his neck. He was a connoisseur of headaches, as some men know wines or butterflies; this headache would fill him with delicious pain, and leave an aftertaste of gunsmoke and metal.
He finished a second beer and decided the Australians didn’t know squat about football. His big-knuckled hand moved on the remote control. He was in the realm of movies now: The African Queen on one station, Easy Rider on another, Godzilla vs. Megalon on a third. Then into the jungle of talking heads, people selling cellulite cream and promising hair growth for desperate men. Women were wrestling on the next channel: GLOW. He watched that for a while, because the Terrorist knocked him out. Then he went on, searching the electric wilderness while his head sang and his skull vibrated with bass notes.
He came to Headline News, and he stopped his impatient fi
nger to watch the nuts in Beirut blow themselves to pieces. He was about to move on, toward religious territory, when the newscaster said: “A bizarre scene today just outside Atlanta, when police officers and agents of the FBI walked into a trap set by a woman who may have stolen an infant from an area hospital.”
The third can of Bud hung poised at his lips. He watched the jerky cameras record a scene of carnage. Boom went a gun. Shotgun, it sounded like to him. People screamed and backpedaled. Someone was on the ground, writhing in agony. Whoever was holding the camera fell to his or her knees. More gunfire: pistol shots this time. “Get down, damn it!” somebody yelled. The camera angle went down to pavement level, and raindrops splashed the lens.
“The suspect,” the newscaster said, “identified by the FBI as Ginger Coles, is thought to have taken a baby boy from St. James Hospital at approximately two o’clock on Saturday afternoon. FBI agents and policemen tripped a wire-fired shotgun at her apartment, killing FBI agent Robert Kirkland, thirty-two, and critically wounding another agent and a young man.”
The man in the chair gave a soft grunt. The scene showed a sheet-covered body being put into an ambulance.
“The suspect, also known as Janette Leister, may still be in the Atlanta area.”
Leister, the man thought. Janette. Oh, Jesus! He sat bolt upright, his headache forgotten, and beer streamed from the Bud can onto the carpet.
“Coles is also implicated in the murder of a neighbor, sixty-six-year-old Grady Shecklett, and she’s considered to be armed and extremely dangerous. We’ll have more on this story as it develops. Stay tuned for sports news next.”
Leister. Janette. He knew those names, but they didn’t go together. A tick bothered his right eye. Gary Leister. Janette Snowden. Yes, those were names he knew. Two dead members of the Storm Front. Oh, Christ! Could it be? Could it be?
He stayed where he was until the story came around again thirty minutes later. This time he had his VCR on, and he taped it. The house shuddered under the onslaught of winter winds, but the man’s attention was riveted to the violent drama on his television set. When it was over, he played it back once more. Walked into a trap. A wire-fired shotgun. Ginger Coles. Janette Leister. Taken a baby boy. May still be in the Atlanta area. Armed and extremely dangerous.
You can bet your life on it, the man in the plaid recliner thought.
His heart was racing. The wire-fired shotgun was something she’d come up with, all right. A little extra effort to nail the first person through the door. But still in the Atlanta area? That he seriously doubted. She was a night traveler. Even now she was probably on the road. But going where? And why with the baby?
He reached over beside his chair. He picked up a cord with prongs on one end, the other end connected to a small black box with a speaker in it. He fit the prongs into a flesh-colored socket on his throat, and he held the black box in his right hand and clicked it on. There was a low humming noise.
“It’s you, isn’t it, Mary?” the metallic voice said through the speaker. The man’s lips moved only a bit, but his throat convulsed with the words. “It’s you, Mary. Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?”
He ran the tape back and watched it a third time, his excitement mounting.
“With shotgun shells and walking hell and dead men all in a row,” he finished.
He unplugged his throat socket to save the batteries. They were expensive, and he lived on a budget. There were tears in his eyes: the bright, standing tears of great joy. He opened his mouth to laugh, and what came out was heavy metal thunder.
3
When the Candles Went Out
“READY?” NEWSOME ASKED.
Laura nodded, her eyes tear-swollen behind sunglasses as Newsome grasped the back of her wheelchair.
The elevator reached the first floor. Ramsey kept the Door Closed button pressed, but they could hear the murmur of voices beyond the door. Newsome drew a long breath, said, “Let’s do it, then,” and Ramsey released the button.
The elevator door slid open, and Newsome wheeled Laura out into the knot of reporters.
It was Sunday afternoon, almost twenty-four hours since David had been stolen. Laura was leaving the hospital without him, the torn stitches between her legs still oozing a little blood and her insides crushed with grief. In the wee hours of the morning, between three and four, her anguish had turned monstrous, and she might have taken her own life if she’d had a gun or pills. Even now, every movement and breath was a labor, as if gravity itself had become her enemy. The rain had ceased, but the sky was still plated with gray clouds and the wind had turned viciously cold. The glaring lights of minicams caught her in their crossfire. Laura ducked her face as Newsome said, “Give her room, please. Step back now,” and the security officers in the lobby tried to get between Laura and the reporters.
“Mrs. Clayborne, look this way!” someone shouted. She didn’t. “Over here, Laura!” someone else insisted. The questions were flung at her: “Has there been a ransom note yet, Laura?” “Do you think Ginger Coles was stalking you?” “Are you going to sue the hospital?” “Laura, are you afraid for your baby’s safety?”
She didn’t answer, and Newsome kept pushing the chair. Though she’d lost David’s weight, she’d never felt so burdened down. Cameras whirred, driven by electric motors. “Mrs. Clayborne, look up!” to her left. On her right, the hot focus of a minicam in her face. “Get back, I said!” Newsome demanded. Laura looked at the floor. She had been instructed by both Newsome and her own lawyer not to answer any questions, but they flew about her like squawking birds nipping at her ears. “What about the baby box?” a reporter shouted over the din. “Did you know about the burned dolls?”
The burned dolls? she thought. What was that about burned dolls? She looked up into Newsome’s face. It was closed, like a piece of stone, and he kept guiding her onward through the human sea.
“Did you know she cut an old man’s throat before she took your baby?” “What’re you feeling right now, Laura?” “Is it true she’s a member of a satanic cult?” “Mrs. Clayborne, did you hear that she’s insane?” “Back off!” Newsome growled, and then they’d reached the hospital’s front doors and Doug’s Mercedes was waiting beyond. Doug was striding toward her, his face drawn from lack of sleep, and her mother and father were in the car. More reporters were waiting outside, converging on her with a glee that was almost wolfish. Doug reached out to help her from the chair, but Laura ignored him. She got into the backseat with her mother, and Doug slid behind the wheel. He accelerated so quickly, a news team from the ABC station had to scatter to keep from being run down, and one of the men lost his toupee in the Mercedes’ backblast.
“They’re at the house, too,” Doug said, racing away from the hospital. “Bastards are crawling out of the woodwork.”
Laura saw that her mother wore a black dress and pearls. Was she in mourning? Laura wondered. Or dressed up for the cameras? She closed her eyes, but she saw David behind them and so she lifted the lids again. She felt as if she were bleeding internally, growing weaker and weaker. The engine drone lulled her, and sleep was a sweet refuge: her only refuge.
“The FBI’s bringing over some pictures in an hour or so,” Doug told her. “They took the police sketch you helped them with and put it into a computer that matches photos from their files. Maybe you can identify the woman.”
“She might not be in their files,” Miriam Beale said. “She might be a lunatic escaped from an asylum.”
“Hush!” Laura’s father said. Good for him, Laura thought. Then he added, “Sugarplum, let’s don’t upset Laura anymore.”
“Don’t upset her? Laura’s half crazy with worry! How can it be helped?”
Talking about me like I’m not even here, she thought. I’m invisible, gone bye-bye.
“Don’t bite my head off, hon.”
“Well, don’t sit up there telling me what to do and what not to do! My God, this is a crisis!”
Dark thin
gs stirred in Laura’s head, like beasts pulling themselves free of swamp mud. “What about the burned dolls?” she asked, her voice as raw as a wound.
No one answered.
It’s bad, Laura knew. Oh Jesus oh God oh it’s bad very bad. “I want to know. Please.”
Still, no one would rise to the challenge. Pretending I don’t know what I’m saying, she thought. “Doug?” she said. “Tell me about the burned dolls. If you don’t, I’ll find out from a reporter at the house.”
“It’s nothing.” Her mother spoke up. “They found a doll or two at the woman’s apartment.”
“Oh, Christ!” Doug slammed a fist against the wheel, and the Mercedes briefly swerved from its lane. “They found a box of dolls in a closet! They were all torn up, some of them burned and others…crushed and stuff. There! You wanted to know! All right?”
“So…” Her mind was starting to shut down again, guarding itself. “So…the police…think she might…hurt my baby?”
“Our baby!” Doug corrected her fiercely. “David is our child! I’ve got a stake in this, too, don’t I?”
“The end,” she said.
“What?” He looked at her in the rearview mirror.
“The end of Doug and Laura,” she said, and she uttered not another word.
Her mother clasped her hand with cold fingers. Laura pulled away.
The reporters were at the house, waiting. The vans were out in full force, but the police were there, too, to keep order. Doug put his hand on the horn and bellowed his way into the garage; the garage door slithered down and they were home.
As Miriam took Laura back to the bedroom to get her settled, Doug checked the answering machine. The voices he’d expected were there: NBC, CBS, ABC, People magazine, Newsweek, and other magazines and newspapers. All of them were hooked to the tape recorder left by the police to monitor a possible ransom call. But there was one voice Doug hadn’t expected. Two quick words: “Call me.” Cheryl’s voice had gone into the tape recorder, too.