Underground

Twitcher shook his head rather violently and bounced on his toes. “No, no. Nobody didn’t like Little Jolene or Jan and we all didn’t like Hafiz. So that’s everybody and nobody. Go-cart got a lot of people mad, but they didn’t usually stay that way. Well, Tanker never did forgive him for ru

“An’ Bear were good, but he weren’t allus a easy fella t’be friendly wit’,” Zip said. “Him ‘n’ Lass’d go around—you’d think they hated ch’other.”

“Can’t go by Lass—he doesn’t like anybody,” Twitcher said. “You call me twitchy—hah!”

“Lass in’t twitchy, he jes crazy.”

“But…” said Sandy, “I’d rather be on Tanker’s bad side or Bear’s than Lassiter’s.”

“Oh? Why?” I asked.

“He’s sneaky. Tanker and Bear both let you know when they’re mad.”

Zip hooted. “Lass in’t so good at keepin’ his temper on the QT. Remember when him’n Hafiz got into it? Hoppin’ at ch’other like frogs on a griddle.”

“Not that everyone didn’t get into it with Hafiz sometime, the mouthy so-and-so,” Twitcher supplied.

“What about Tandy?” Quinton asked. “Anyone ever get into an argument with him?”

“Nah,” Zip said. “Couldn’t git inta nothin’ with him. He’s allus drunk and happy.”

“Drunk and sloppy,” Sandy corrected. “He’d drink with anyone who could keep him upright enough to tip the bottle.”

“When was the last time anyone saw Tandy?”

The three undergrounders fell silent, thinking.

“Thanksgiving,” Sandy finally said. “Before the windstorm.”

“Where did you see him?” I asked.

“Down near the football stadium.”

“Near the hotel construction?”

“Not that close, but he could have walked there. He wasn’t too drunk at that point.”

“Was he with anyone?”

“Actually, he was with John Bear and Little Jolene.”

I glanced at Quinton, who shook his head. “Bear and Jolene were seen later than that.”

“But Tandy wasn’t,” Sandy added.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, I never saw him after Thanksgiving and I watch.”

“When was Hafiz killed?” I asked.

“He was found the Monday after Thanksgiving, but I think he’d been dead a day or two,” Sandy said, thinking aloud. “The body was under some tree limbs that fell off the plane trees here in the windstorm.”

“He was killed by the falling boughs?”

“Oh, no. They just hid the body.”

We kept chatting with the three until our toes were numb in our boots and we couldn’t feel our faces, but nothing else useful emerged. As Quinton and I walked on to find more undergrounders, he said, “Tandy and Lass used to drink together a lot—but Tandy did drink with pretty much anyone, as Sandy said.”

“So he could have been with Bear and Jolene or he could have been with anyone else whom we haven’t talked to yet.”

“But the fact that he disappeared just before the leg was found makes him prime suspect to be the owner of that leg.”

I shivered. “Ugh. So that would make Tandy the first to disappear, then Hafiz was killed—but he seems universally disliked—then what?”

“After that, Jan and Go-cart were both found dead—in that order. But there was a good lag between Hafiz and Jan.”

“Who disappeared between those?”

“I’m not sure. I’d guess the order was probably… Jheri, then Jolene… then Jan was killed… then Bear and Felix disappeared, and Go-cart died. And Je

“That’s about one a week, average. Pretty hungry monster.”

“Yeah.”

I paused, frowning and thinking there had to be a co

“You think Tanker knows something he hasn’t told us?”

“Someone knows something, and the only people who can be ruled out are the confirmed dead.”

We walked around the area for a while but didn’t have much luck finding Lassiter, so we went below.

Down in the bricks, we found Tall Grass, raging in a corner and waving a soft brown object in the air. When he spotted us, he raced down the crumbling floor and shoved the object into my hands. “You wanted it! You take it! Take it away!”

He shook me, shouting into my face.

“Grass, Grass, calm down,” Quinton murmured. “They’ll hear. Be quiet.”

Tall Grass turned on Quinton. “You brought her down here. She wanted the hat. It’s your fault! It’s your fault Je

Quinton pulled his face back from the other man’s. “Grass, you’re out of your head. It’s not our fault. Something or someone killed Je

“It’s that hat!”

“Damn it, Grass, get a grip. It’s not the hat.”

“It was Bear’s hat. Bear’s dead. It was Je

“Grass. How do you know Bear’s dead? We don’t know Bear’s dead. He’s just—”

“I saw it! I saw his spirit! And the creature—the monster—I saw! I saw!” He was hyperventilating. Then he began to scream, staring at nothing at all, bellowing in terror, his eyes rolling up to show too much white.

“Damn it,” Quinton muttered. Then Tall Grass gulped, fainted, and slumped to the floor.

Quinton looked down at him. “I was never glad to see someone faint before.”

“Hey…”

We both looked around. Someone had stuck their head around the corner. When we caught sight of it, the head pulled back.

“Don’t run off, Lass!” Quinton hissed. He motioned with his head for me to catch Lass.

I sprinted down the rough walkway, feeling sudden twinges in my bad knee, and collared Lass less than ten feet down the Occidental side. “C’mon and lend a shoulder, Lass,” I suggested. “We have to get Tall Grass out of here.”

Lassiter goggled at me, shaking. His hands crabbed for his pockets.

“Don’t reach for that,” I told him. “I don’t go down easily and I’ll take you with me. Not going to hurt you if you come help Quinton and me out.”

He shuffled reluctantly ahead of me to where Quinton was trying to get Tall Grass up. The Indian was unconscious and limp.

Quinton looked hard at Lass and told him, “Put your shoulder under his armpit and get him up. We’ll have to carry him up the Cadillac stairs and hope we can find a place to leave him.”

“Why not here?” Lass whined. “Who cares? Why are we risking our necks for him?”

“Because if he stays down here while he’s like this, he might die. I helped you. Now you help me. Or I won’t be doing you any favors in the future, Lass. Get me?”

“OK, OK. I got you.”

Lass helped lift Tall Grass and the two men carried him like a sack between them to the bottom of the stairs that came up beside the Cadillac Hotel. I scouted up the stairs and peeked out, waiting until I was sure the street was empty to hiss at them to come up.

Tall Grass was making noises and trying to move by the time we reached the street. Quinton set him on the sidewalk and hunched down beside him. I grabbed Lassiter’s wrist before he could hare off.

While Quinton checked on Grass and muttered to him, I interrogated Lass a bit.

“What were you doing down there?”

“I–I live down there.”

“Not right there…”

“Not all the time, no. I–I heard something. I heard Grass talking to himself. He’s on drugs, man!”

“Surprise, surprise. He thinks he saw a monster eat John Bear.”

“I told you—he’s flipped out.”

“I’m not sure he didn’t see a monster down there.”

“What?”

“You see monsters. I heard you say so.”

He looked startled and glanced around but I was blocking his only line of escape.

“Did you see the monster that ate Bear?”

“I seen things…”

“What did you see and where did you see it?”

“I seen—I seen a… lot of scary dudes. They hurt us… That’s what Q-man gave me the stu

“Yeah, but I’ll bet you’ve seen more than that, or you wouldn’t be so scared.”

“I seen… a snake. Big snake.”

I looked skeptical—not that I didn’t believe him, I just wanted to make this insecure man talk, and nothing starts some people off like the idea that others don’t believe them.