The Killing Kind

I called Ross in New York, hoping to light a fire under him, but got only his secretary. I was twenty miles outside Bangor when he called me back.

“I've seen Charon's reports from Maine,” he began. “This part of the investigation was minor stuff, pure legwork. A gay rights activist was killed in the Village in 1991, shot to death in the toilet of a bar on Bleecker; MO matched a similar shooting in Miami. The perp was apprehended but his phone records showed that he made seven calls to the Fellowship in the days preceding the killing. A woman called Torrance told Charon that the guy was a freak and she reported the calls to the cops. A detective named Lutz confirmed that.”

So, if the killer had been working for the Fellowship, they had a cover story. They had reported him to the police before the murder, and Lutz, already their pet policeman, had confirmed it.

“What happened to the killer?”

“His name was Lusky, Barrett Lusky. He made bail and was found dead two days later in a Dumpster in Queens. Gunshot wound to the head.

“Now, according to Charon's report, he went no farther north than Waterville during his inquiries. But there's an anomaly: his expenses show a claim for gas purchased in a place called Lubec, about a hundred and fifty miles farther north of Waterville. It's on the coast.”

“Lubec,” I echoed. It made sense.

“What's in Lubec?” asked Ross.

“Lighthouses,” I answered. “And a bridge.”

Lubec had three lighthouses. It was also the easternmost town in the United States. From there, the FDR Memorial Bridge stretched across the water to Canada. Lubec was a good choice of location if you needed an escape route left permanently open, because there was a whole new country only minutes away by car or boat. They were in Lubec: I was certain of it, and the Traveling Man had found them there. The gas receipt was careless, but only in the context of what came later and the murders he himself committed, using a strange justification based on human frailty and inconsequence that mirrored some of Faulkner's own beliefs.

But I had underestimated Faulkner, and I had underestimated Pudd. While I closed in on them, they had already taken the most vulnerable one among us, the only one left alone.

They took Angel.

26

THERE WAS BLOOD ON THE PORCH, and blood on the front door. In the kitchen, cracks radiated through the plaster from a bullet hole in the wall. There was more blood in the hallway, a curving snake trail like the pattern of a sidewinder. The kitchen door had been torn almost off its hinges, and the kitchen window had been shattered by more gunfire.

There were no bodies inside.

Taking Angel was partly a precaution in case we found Marcy Becker first, but also an act of revenge against me personally. They had probably come to finish us off, and when they found only Angel, they took him instead. I thought of Mr. Pudd and the mute with their hands on him, his blood on their clothes and skin as they dragged him from the house. We should never have left him alone. None of us should ever have been alone.

They would never let him live, of course. In the end they would never let any of us live. If they escaped and disappeared from our sight I knew that one day they would reemerge and find us. We could hunt them, but the honeycomb world is deep and intricate and rich with darkness. There are too many places to hide. And so there would be weeks, months, perhaps years of pain and fear, waking from uneasy sleep to each new dawn with the thought that this, at last, might be the day on which they came.

Because, finally, we would want them to come, so that the waiting might be brought to an end.

I could hear the sound of a car engine in the background as Rachel told me all that she had seen. She was driving Marcy Becker to the Colony in her own car; now that they had Angel, she was safe for a time. Louis was on his way north and would call me within minutes.

“He's not dead,” said Rachel evenly.

“I know,” I replied. “If he was dead they'd have left him for us to find.”

I wondered how quickly Lutz had talked and if the Golem had reached them yet. If he had, all of this might be immaterial.

“Is Marcy okay?” I asked.

“She's asleep on the seat beside me. I don't think she's slept much since Grace died. She wanted to know why you were willing to risk your life for this: Angel, Louis, me, but you especially. She said it wasn't your fight.”

“What did you tell her?”

“It was Louis who told her. He said that everything was your fight. I think he was smiling. It's kind of hard to tell with him.”

“I know where they are, Rachel. They're in Lubec.”

Her voice had tightened a notch when she spoke again. “Then you take care.”

“I always take care,” I replied.

“No, you don't.”

“I guess not, but I mean it this time.”

I was just beyond Bangor. Lubec was about another 120 miles away along U.S. 1. I could do it in less than two hours, assuming no eagle-eyed lawman decided to haul me over for speeding. I put my foot on the gas and felt the Mustang surge forward.

Louis called when I was passing Ellsworth Falls, heading down 1A to the coast.

“I'm in Waterville,” he said.

“I think they're in Lubec,” I replied. “It's on the northern coast, close to New Brunswick. You've a ways to go yet.”

“They call you?”

“Nothing.”

“Wait for me at the town limits,” he replied. His tone was neutral. He could have been advising me not to forget to pick up milk.

At Milbridge, maybe eighty miles from Lubec, the cell phone rang for the third time. This time I noticed that the ID of the caller was concealed as I pressed the answer button.

“Mr. Parker,” said Pudd's voice.

“Is he alive?”

“Barely. I'd say hopes for his recovery are fading fast. He seriously injured my associate.”

“Good for him, Leonard.”

“I couldn't let it go unpunished. He bled quite a lot. In fact, he's still bleeding quite a lot.” He snickered unpleasantly. “So you've worked out our little family tree. It's not pretty, is it?”

“Not particularly.”

“You have the book?” He knew that Lutz had failed. I wondered if he knew why and if the shadow of the Golem was already almost upon him.

“Yes.”

“Where are you?”

“Augusta,” I said.

I could have cried with relief when he seemed to believe me.

“There's a private road off Route 9, where it crosses the Machias River,” said Pudd. “It leads to Lake Machias. Be at the lakeshore in ninety minutes, alone and with the book. I'll give you whatever is left of your friend. If you're late, or if I smell police, I'll skewer him from his anus to his mouth like a spit pig.” He hung up.

I wondered how Pudd pla

I called Louis. It was a test of trust, and I wasn't certain how he would respond. I was closest to Lubec; there was no way that Louis could get there before Pudd's deadline ran out. If I was wrong about Lubec, then somebody would have to be at the rendezvous point to meet him. It would have to be Louis.

The pause before he agreed was barely detectable.