Fred Mundy was of two minds as he drove away from the Sleepy Teepee motel. At one level he was horrifi ed by what he had done—that he had, with cold calculation, put a dead soul in a living body to punish a man who was (in his estimation) more pathetic than dangerous. He could not kid himself that he had acted in the heat of the moment. No, he had passionlessly checked out of one motel and checked into a different one specifi cally to create a space between himself and the man who had become his victim. He had taken care not to touch the doorknob. He had opened the window with his hand swaddled in cloth, so as not to leave fi ngerprints. Not to mention the effort of preparing a demon-blade knife.
Yet, even as one part of Fred regretted his own actions, another part worried that he had done a poor job of them. Like all mystic adepts, Fred was very good at thinking in contradictions.
“Okay, evidence,” he muttered to himself as he drove. “Fingerprints on the gun—gotta wipe that off. Blood on the gun is his, that’s okay. Shit, I really shouldn’t have shoved it in the back of my pants, now they’ve got his blood on them… blood on the knife too, gotta wipe it. Keep the knife? There’s thousands like it, it’s not like a bullet, they can’t trace it if the blood’s gone, right?”
If he was in his hometown of St. Louis, he would have been looking for a good river to chuck the gun into, but all saw were trees and streetlights. He wondered what the trees were saying. (He’d known someone who could read the future, sure as a newspaper, in the shapes taken by growing twigs and branches.) The density of the small town was thinning as he got towards the highway, towards the town’s
other motel. Then his eyes widened. He left a tiny dab of Seth’s blood on his turn signal as he turned it on.
He turned into a truck stop. Instinctively he drove under the fl ickering, dying lamp post at the back of the parking lot. He pulled up behind a hulking trailer full of cars and took a deep breath.
He bent down and pulled the shirt-wrapped knife from underneath the driver’s seat. The blood was starting to dry and clot, sticky. He wondered if the cops could get fi ngerprints off cloth as he scrubbed the knife with the shirt. When he couldn’t see any more blood on it, he closed the blade and put it back in his pocket, vowing to boil it later. Even if it messed up the knife, the runes would still make it worth something.
Next, the gun.
“Damn,” he muttered, marveling at the size of it. “How’d he even hold this thing?”
The grip had quite a bit of blood on it, so he put that in the armpit of Dobbs’
shirt and wiped around it. He took the bullet from the chamber, fi ngers clumsy through cloth. He put on the safety and popped the clip—wouldn’t do to put a bullet from Seth’s gun into his dashboard, no way—then moved on to the barrel, rubbing it briskly. When that was done, he wrapped the rest of the shirt around it, leaving him a vaguely L-shaped white cloth bundle. Someone who looked close might see faint stains, but most of the bloody fabric was inside, against the metal.
Not bad.
He took a deep breath and tried to control his shaking hands. No dice. Then he closed his eyes and tried to control destiny, with more success. There’d been a real chance that Dobbs would cap him, a chance he’d taken. He’d spent part of that chance scrawling his will through Dobbs’ fl esh, but there was enough left for a little request.
“Privacy,” he muttered.
In the truckstop, a family that had just about gotten its act together to set out again for their uncle Steve’s had to stop and search for a dropped toy rabbit. A waitress who’d been about to leave her shift got a phone call from her husband, asking her to pick up some milk and cereal on the way home. A trucker leaving the bathroom stepped on his own shoelace, which broke when he tried to retie it. All ordinary things, but they meant that no one went into the parking lot because Fred wanted to be alone.
He took another moment to wipe down everything he thought he’d touched in his car, anything he might have smeared with Dobbs’ blood. As he opened the door, he concentrated on what a lucky bastard he had to be now, and that was when he caught a glimpse of his bloodstained turn signal. He made a clucking noise as he wiped that on the shirt, then took the white bundle over to the transport truck and wedged it in good between the tire of a strapped-down Chrysler and the rusty metal on which it sat.
Then he got into his car and awkwardly drove to the Super 8, still trying to keep the bloody back of his clothes from rubbing the car seat. The fi re doors were locked, and he worried that desk clerk might notice something odd about him, but as it turned out the night man was preoccupied with a bloody nose and didn’t even see him come in.
As he entered, Fred had no way to know he’d missed Joe Kimble by minutes.
* * *
The front desk of the Super 8 Motel had an electric buzzer—just a doorbell from True-Value, Joe fi gured—and while Fred had been hiding the gun, Joe had leaned on it for a full fi ve seconds before poking his head over the counter to look in the back.
“Hey! How about some service here?”
A door into the manager’s offi ce opened, and there stood Dan Hamilton. Joe’s eyes narrowed and his lip pouted out a little. He hated Dan Hamilton. When Joe was just a freshman in high school and Dan was a junior, Dan had picked on him for no reason at all that Joe could discern. By the time Joe got his growth spurt, Dan had gone off to college.
“Well well. If it isn’t Joe Kimble.” Dan had put on the freshman fi fteen at college and had kept right on going. His beady eyes peered from fatty folds.
“Hey Dan, you got a room for me?”
“You got a reservation?” Dan asked playfully. Behind him, through the open door, Joe could see a small TV playing. He recognized it as a Jerry Springer “Too Hot For TV!” tape.
“Gimme a break,” Joe said, glaring at him.
“That a yes or a no?”
“I don’t need no reservation.”
“Language, Mr. Kimble,” Dan said, aping the voice of one of their hardass high school English teachers.
Joe had spared only a moment’s thought that Dan might be at the Super 8.
Dan’s dad owned it and Joe knew Dan had started working there after fl agging out from U of M. Nonetheless, nothing was going to make Joe check into the Sleepy Teepee.
“Dan, I saw the fucking ‘vacancy’ light on your sign, so you can cut the crap and give me a room, okay? Just do your job, all right?”
“Ooh, you know Joe, there’s a little ‘no’ thing ahead of ‘vacancy’ on that light.
Like, on a separate circuit. Burns out a lot. It might be burned out now. Lemme check the books…”
Joe gritted his teeth as Dan casually fl ipped open the registry and started languidly reviewing it, leaning on his right hand, fl ipping pages with his left.
“So Joe, what brings you here tonight?”
“It’s none of your goddamn business.”
“Yeah, that’s what your mom used to say.”
Joe’s eyes and nostrils both got wide.
“What was that, Dan?”
“‘S what your mom used to say when she’d check in here. You know, after she’d have fi ghts with your dad.”
“Dan, I wouldn’t be talking ‘bout that if I was you.”
If Dan had bothered to look up at that moment, he probably would have shut his mouth. Or, better yet, said something kind and sympathetic to take the sting out of his words. But Dan hadn’t really looked at Joe for years, just as he rarely really looked at himself in the mirror. He didn’t realize that Joe had put on some weight of his own, but weight gained at boot camp—not from starchy campus food. He still considered Joe Kimble the scrawny kid he’d shoved around, crammed into lockers and tripped in the hallways.
That’s why he didn’t dignify Joe’s warning with even a look. Instead, he said,
“You know, my dad was always real nice to your mom. I think a couple times she didn’t even have to pay her bill…”
Joe reached over the counter with both hands. His left hand grabbed Dan’s right wrist and yanked it outwards, while his right cupped the back of Dan’s head and fl ung it forward, hard, onto the book. Dan didn’t even see it coming. There was a crack and Dan’s nose started bleeding.
“Owww! You cocksucker!” Dan straightened up and stared in shock and anger.
“C’mon out here and say that.”
“I ought to call the fuckin’ cops on you!”
“Go ahead. Luther’s on duty tonight.” It was a bluff, but Luther had also suffered from Dan’s high school attentions.
Dan looked at Joe. Weighing his chances, his anger started to bleed away into fear.
“You’re just lucky your pal’s a cop,” he said at last.
“I ain’t the one hiding. C’mon Dan. Come on out and get some, if that’s what you want.”
Dan looked in Joe’s eyes and realized he’d never seen anyone look that crazy before. He’d seen actors try it on TV, but this was the real thing.
“Can’t take a motherfucking joke,” he muttered, lowering his eyes, turning away.
“Not when it’s my mother,” Joe said.
Dan reached for a paper towel for his bleeding nose, then sullenly handed Joe a key.
Minutes later, Fred Mundy walked through the lobby doors. Not long after that, it was Leslie and Kate.
* * *
In his room, Fred took several deep breaths and kneaded the scrawny muscles of his shoulders. They were tight with tension. He checked the bed for Magic Fingers, but no such luck. (The Sleepy Teepee had them.) He was in the bathroom splashing cold water on his face when he heard a knock at the door. He hadn’t had a chance to change out of his lightly-bloodstained clothes.
At the sound of the knock, he felt an elevator lurch in the middle of his chest and a cold prickle on his skin. Instantly, his shoulders were tense again. He thought about going for a gun, but unlike Seth he’d packed his at the bottom of a suitcase.
“Who’s there?” he called. He couldn’t think of anything better to do. He didn’t want to look through the peephole. Jada Skinks in Topeka had made that mistake.
The gunman on the other side had been watching her back through it, using an optic device that reversed the tiny lens. When he saw that she was standing in front of the door, he’d shot her through it. Somehow, Fred didn’t think the pressboard doors at a Motel 8 would stop a bullet.
“It’s Kate and Leslie. You wanna open up or what?”
His fi rst reaction was relief, then surprise that he was relieved. He hadn’t exactly parted from Kate on the best of terms. On the other hand, he’d take her over a vengeful duke or a curious cop any day.
“Uh, hold on, okay? I gotta put some pants on,” he said, yanking off his trousers and shirt. He rolled them into a bundle as quick as he could and shoved them under the bed, then groped in his suitcase until he’d found an old pair of sweat pants and a polo shirt he’d only worn once.
He peeked out the door at last then opened it for the woman who was no longer his wife, and the man who had never been his child.
For a moment, they all just looked.
“Well, one big happy family, huh?” Leslie said in an overbright tone. Both his parents scowled. There was a tense silence as Kate and Leslie shuffl ed in and seated themselves in the room’s two wicker chairs. Once again, Fred took his seat on the edge of the bed.
“Don’t everyone talk at once,” Leslie said at last. Fred blew out his breath across slack lips, making a horselike sound. Both Leslie and Kate knew it was his expression of exasperation.
“I guess I should be surprised you’re here,” he said. “But somehow, I’m not. So.
How’d you manage to fi nd me?”
“Aw Fred,” Kate said, “The phone trick. Don’t you remember teaching me that one?”
“Oh I remember,” he said. “I guess I’m a little surprised you’re willing to go the distance for it.”
“Did you forget the fi rst lesson you taught me? ‘Life is full of surprises.’”
“So how you charging up then? Picking fi ghts? ‘Lady or the Tiger’? Chainsaw juggling?”
“Blind driving, if you have to know.”
“Look, Mom, Dad,” Leslie said. “Could you two cool off for a little bit? Ever since we came in here, you’ve been glaring at each other like…”
“Like divorcées,” Kate said, with a sneering little grin.
“Well could you take it down a notch, huh? ‘Not in front of the children,’
right?”
“I’m sorry son,” Fred said, looking away from his ex-wife. “I guess I’m just a little curious about how your mama’s been risking her life, that’s all.”
“Probably as smart or smarter than you have!” Kate replied. “But I suppose big risks are pretty easy to take in prison, right?”
“You better believe it.”
Fred’s tone had changed, subtly. It was still bitter, but the sarcasm had dropped out, replaced by an echo of genuine loss.
Kate was silent for a moment.
“You shouldn’t have taken the fall for Braunfeld,” she said quietly.
“I disagree.”
Leslie tried again.
“Look, could you two just say it’s water under the bridge? Seriously. I mean I…
do you have any idea how much it hurts me to watch you two fi ght? What is under all this? The two of you haven’t seen one another for years, and the fi rst thing you’re doing is copping attitudes like old-west gunslingers. Jesus. You were married.
You had a kid. Do you still need to impress one another?”
The two parents were silent again before Kate spoke.
“He started it,” she said, and when she looked up there was a mischievous smile on her face.
Fred fl exed his mouth for a moment, then guffawed.
“All right, you got me, you got me. Shit. Look, can you forgive me for going to jail for Donna Braunfeld instead of you?”
“Well, it sounds like you paid for that piece of dumb more than I ever would have asked.”
All three were smiling, but only Leslie’s was wide and unguarded. Fred could feel his shoulders relaxing again, when Kate said, “So, we followed you from the Sleepy Teepee. Was that Seth Dobbs I saw jumping out the window with you?”
Fred’s smile evaporated. “Yeah,” he said, “But I don’t think you’ll see him around any more.”
“Oh? You weren’t working with that shithack, were you?”
“Are you kidding? I know he’s bad news,” Fred said. “We were having a frank and honest discussion, and we agreed that it would be best for all concerned if he left town.”
“Uh huh. Is that why his hand was bleeding?”
“As a matter of fact, yes it was.”
She nodded. Leslie’s smile had been replaced by a look of concern.
“Dad… was there any other way…?”
Fred let out a long sigh.
“Son, I know we raised you to be a pacifi st, to turn the other cheek, and… all that. But sometimes, you have to do what’s expedient.” It rang false in his ears even as he said it.
“I’m not going to shed many tears for Seth Dobbs’ misfortunes,” Kate said. “Do you know why he was here? Somehow I’m guessing a fi nder of his skill wasn’t just passing through.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s here for the same reason we all are.”
“Do you know who sent him?” Kate’s voice was tense. “Dobbs strikes me as just the kind of hustler who’d sign up with this New Inquisition racket. If he tips them that there’s something big going on here… Jesus, I don’t even want to think about it. Did you hear they got Stealin’ Dan McKay?”
“I heard he was dead, and that this New Inquisition was involved. The way I heard it thought, it was Neal Brinker who did the deed.”
“Neal?” Leslie asked, incredulous. “I don’t believe it. I know he and Dan had their quarrels, but Neal would eat glass before he’d hurt Dan.”
“Maybe. Unless he was gambling for some big mojo.”
They were quiet for a moment.
“You think Neal would do that?”
“I don’t know, son. I’ve seen people do crazy shit, evil shit, for a lot less power than that. I know Brinker and McKay were close. I mean, that’s what makes it work, isn’t it? Risk the death of someone you love, win a big magickal prize. That’s the rules. Our rules.”
“I don’t think Neal would go that far.”
“‘If you’re not going to go all the way, why go?’” Fred quoted softly.
“That’s ridiculous!” Leslie replied, his voice and his face both tight with emotion. “Just because a deadly path is the most powerful doesn’t mean it’s the best or most worthwhile. You yourself said that the people who want power at any price usually burn out fast…”
“Leslie, I think that comment was aimed at me.” Kate’s voice was also quiet.
Leslie turned, puzzled.
“Mom?” he asked.
“It was a long time ago,” Fred said.
“Yeah well,” Kate said. “I forgave you for Donna Braunfeld. Can you forgive me back?”
Fred smiled again, and his voice was gentle. “Like Leslie said, it’s water under the bridge.” He ran his hand over the freckled top of his head and spoke again. “For
what it’s worth, I asked Dobbs if someone had sent him, and he said he was just nosing around on general principles. I don’t think he’s New Inquisition. I’m pretty sure. I know he was hanging out with Harvey Duopulous, and Harvey was tight with Brinker and McKay. Duopulous is never going to be anybody’s soldier.”
“Yeah, but he ain’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, either.”
“So does Dobbs know why you’re here?” Leslie asked.
“So does Dobbs know why you’re here?” Leslie asked.