One rainy night, p.1
One Rainy Night, page 1
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RICHARD LAYMON!
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“A brilliant writer.”
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Other books by Richard Laymon: BITE
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 1991 by Richard Laymon
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781477837115
ISBN-10: 1477837116
eBook ISBN: 9781477887110
To Wren and Ida Marshall,
two of the best people I know.
May the luck of the Irish
be with you always.
This title was previously published by Dorchester Publishing; this version has been reproduced from the Dorchester book archive files.
Contents
The Killing Ground
A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall
Downpour
Entrances
Captives
Warriors
Collision Course
Aftermath
The Killing Ground
This is pretty goddamn crazy, Hanson thought. But he didn’t climb down.
The chainlink fence surrounding the football stadium of Lincoln High School shook as he made his way upward. Its mesh let out tinny chinging sounds that seemed terribly loud in the stillness of the November evening. But Hanson doubted that anyone would hear the noise.
The nearest houses were out of sight beyond the stands at the far side of the stadium. Behind him, an empty field stretched toward the distant classroom buildings. The stadium itself seemed deserted.
The sounds of the shaking fence would be heard by no one. Hanson knew that. Yet they unnerved him just as surely as the crunch of dry leaves underfoot might unsettle a man making his lone way through a graveyard in the dead of night. His heart pounded. Sweat seemed to run out of every pore. His arms and legs trembled.
Climbing the fence was easy. Being here was not.
At the top, he hurled himself over the rail. He dropped the nine feet to the grass, landing with his knees bent to absorb the impact. He felt the jolt mostly around his waist, where gravity tugged at his gun belt. Jostled leather groaned and creaked. Cuffs and ammunition rattled inside their cases. Standing up straight, Hanson gave the belt a couple of pulls to bring it back up where it belonged.
He rubbed his sweaty hands on the front of his shirt.
Well, he thought, you’re here.
Now, if he only knew why.
He walked slowly over the grass, eyes on the north goal post straight in front of him.
He was kidding himself if he thought he might find anything new. The boys had gone over the area thoroughly last night, and again in daylight. They’d photographed, picked up, tagged and taken away everything: the poor bastard himself, his clothes, matches and cigarette butts, the gasoline can, candy wrappers and other shit that probably had nothing at ail to do with the crime, even some of the sod surrounding the main standard where the kid had been tied. There’d been talk of taking the goalpost, as well, but the chief decided against it. They had stripped off the charred remains of the padding for evidence.
Hell, there was nothing left to find.
But Hanson, patrolling the neighborhood, had found himself circling the high school, slowing his car each time he had a view of the distant goalpost and staring out his window at the damned thing. Finally, he’d parked in front of the stadium.
And left the car without even radioing in.
Crazy.
As he crunched across the cinder track, Hanson wished he’d made the call. He could’ve given Lucy a phony location, claimed he was taking an early break for chow.
Would’ve been worse, lying to her.
He planned to marry the woman. You don’t lie to someone you love.
Better this way, he thought. Besides, she’ll probably cover for me if anything comes up.
The grass felt soft and springy under his shoes. He walked through the end zone, the goalpost jarring slightly in his vision. He stopped just outside the circle where the grass had been removed. He stared.
Again, he wondered why he was drawn to this place.
He’d seen murder victims before. Though not many. And only one, Jennifer Sayers, who’d met an end this brutal. She hadn’t been burnt like this boy. Tortured and raped. Her mutilated body had given Hanson plenty of nightmares, but he’d never made a secret trip to the section of woods where it happened.
Somehow, this was different.
Yeah, he thought. Somehow. Maxwell Chidi was a black kid. That’s the difference, right there.
When does a black guy become a nigger? When he leaves the room.
Hanson used to laugh at stuff like that. Shit, he used to say stuff like that.
That’s why I’m here, he realized.
Guilt.
They did it to the kid because he was black. White people. They got themselves a nigger.
Hell, you’re just guessing. It might’ve had nothing to do with that. We aren’t in Alabama, here. Could’ve been a perfectly ordinary motive. Jealousy, greed. Maybe the kid was a pusher, could’ve been skimming and . . .
Right. He was black, therefore he was a pusher.
That’s the kind of thinking . . .
The stadium lights came on.
Hanson flinched, sucked in a quick breath. Oh, Jesus! He whirled around. He scanned the stands on both sides of the field. Nobody there. But he knew he’d been caught.
Stay cool, he told himself.
Probably just a maintenance man. Might not even know I’m here. Yet.
Hell, I’m a cop. I’ve got business here.
He still saw no one.
Somebody turned the lights on.
Maxwell . . .
Oh, right. Sure.
But his skin prickled as he imagined the dead boy staggering through a passageway of the stadium, coming toward the field. A black shape shuffling through the dark. Rigid all over, arms sticking out, stubs of fingers hooked like claws. No face at all. Just a black, earless knot above the shoulders. With teeth.
He thought he could hear the slow shuffle of Maxwell’s charred feet on the concrete, hear his crisp skin cracking as he moved, see it flaking off and drifting down from him like dead leaves.
Gonna getcha, white man.
Quit it! Hanson told himself.
Though he knew he was letting his imagination run wild, he snapped his head from side to side, eyes darting to the grandstand openings. Three on each side. Dark holes. Tunnels leading to the rear, to refreshment stands and restrooms, to exit gates in the fence.
Stop this. You’re just spooking yourself. Maxwell’s dead in the morgue, not . . .
Across the field, a figure emerged from the nearest passageway.
A white man in dark green coveralls. A grounds keeper? Hanson sighed. He felt as if all his strength had drained away. The effort of standing up straight made him tremble.
The guy raised an arm in greeting, then climbed over the rail and leaped down to the grass area on the far side of the track. He took all the impact with his left leg while he kept his right leg high. Then he was standing on both feet, and walking toward Hanson with a limp. ‘Evening, officer,’ he called.
Hanson nodded a greeting.
The top of the man’s head gleamed in the stadium lights. The hair around his ears was gray. His lean face was weathered. He looked wiry and tough. Keys jangled at his side as he hobbled closer.
‘Toby Barnes,’ he said, and stuck out his hand.
Hanson shook it. ‘Bob Hanson.’
‘Just got here, Bob. I saw your car out front. Mind if I ask how you got in?’
‘I had to come over the fence.’
Toby looked relieved. ‘Glad to hear it. I was afraid some idiot might’ve left a gate unlocked. Sorry I wasn’t around to let you in.’
‘No problem.’
‘An yway, I thought you might appreciate some light on the subject. I was on my way over to the school. I’m the head of maintenance, you know, gotta keep my eye on the cleaning crew. Bunch of no-good loafers, most of them.’ Toby turned his eyes away from Hanson and frowned at the goalpost. ‘Terrible,’ he said. ‘Any ideas who did it?’
‘We’re working on it. I just thought I’d stop by and try to get the feel of the situation.’
‘I suppose you were out here last night.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Must’ve been pretty grim. I’ve seen my share of crispy critters, you know. Bakersfield Fire Department till a roof dropped out from under me.’ He slapped his right leg. What it smacked through the trousers didn’t sound like skin. ‘Never a pretty sight. That’s one aspect of the job I sure don’t miss.’
Hanson, who’d taken a liking to the man right away, now felt a grudging admiration. ‘They couldn’t pay me enough to be a fireman,’ he said.
Toby nodded. His eyes stayed on the goalpost. ‘Think it was kids?’
‘I don’t know. Seems likely.’
‘We haven’t got any Klan here that I know of.’
‘No.’
‘It’s the sort of thing you might expect from the Klan. Really gives this burg a black eye.’
‘Did you know the boy?’ Hanson asked.
‘I’ve seen him around school.’ Toby faced him, frowning slightly. ‘We’ve only got a handful of coloreds, you know. This Chidi, he wasn’t at all like the others. A tall fellow, kind of handsome, and he talked funny. I guess he came from one of those islands. Jamaica, Haiti, someplace like that. It was none of this “hey, bro, mutherfuh,” stuff. He talked like he had breeding, you know?’
‘How did he get along with the other students?’
‘Well, from what I saw, he didn’t have much to do with the other black kids. The rest of them were always hanging around together. I guess that’s only natural. But I don’t think I ever saw Chidi with them. When I saw him, he was always with white kids. White girls, mostly. It seems like the girls really took to him.’
Hanson felt his heart quicken. ‘Anyone special?’
‘Yeah, there was. I don’t know the girl’s name, but I could find it out for you. The past couple of weeks, they’ve been hanging all over each other. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she wasn’t putting out for him.’
‘Well, now,’ Hanson muttered.
‘Yeah, I can see how a thing like that might rub some folks the wrong way.’
‘This is . . .’
They both jumped and threw their heads back as the sky seemed to explode. For an instant, Hanson thought a mid-air collision had occurred over the stadium. But what he saw was a searing bright flash of lightning, branched like a giant tree, ripping down through a canyon of dark, piled cloud.
The roar faded. It left his ears ringing.
‘Jesus-smoking-Christ,’ Toby blurted.
The rain came down.
It dropped tike a shroud over the stadium lights, blocking out all but the faintest yellow glow.
A moment after the lights dimmed, the shower hit Hanson. Big, hot drops that pelted his face and shoulders. They made his skin tingle. They seemed to sink in. They warmed him. He suddenly felt a strange, wild rush of excitement.
Toby said, ‘Holy shit.’
Hanson and Toby stared at each other through the faint jaundiced light, the dark shower and the mist that now drifted around them – condensation, probably caused by the hot rain sluicing through the cooler November air.
Toby looked as if someone had dumped a bucket of ink over his head. Only his eyes and teeth were white. More teeth showed as his lips curled.
Hanson popped the snap of his holster guard and snatched out his revolver as Toby lunged at him, snarling. The man’s fingers clutched Hanson’s neck. Thumbs dug into his throat. He rammed the muzzle of his .38 into Toby’s belly and jerked the trigger three times fast. The blasts pounded his ears.
Toby staggered backward, folding at the waist.
The fourth round smacked through the crown of his bald, black head. He sat down hard, skidded on his rump, and came to a stop sitting up, drooping over his outstretched legs.
Hanson gave himself a small running start, and punted Toby’s face. He hoped he might send the head soaring like a football. In spite of his power and follow-through, however, all he managed was to slam the man’s back against the ground.
As Hanson’s right leg reached the height of its kick, his left foot slipped on the wet grass. He flapped his arms, gasped, and flopped on his back beside Toby. Jarred by the fall, he lay motionless for a while. The rain felt very good. This was like sprawling out in his bathtub with the shower on, but this was better. He holstered his weapon, then spread out his arms and legs. Moaning, he squirmed with pleasure.
As his head turned, he saw Toby’s body close beside him.
Wow, he thought. Sure wasted that son-of-a-bitch.
He laughed. Feeling the rain in his mouth, he opened up wide and stretched out his tongue. The rain felt thicker than water. It tasted, he thought, a little bit like blood.
Just a little bit. A mild coppery flavor. Very subtle.
It made him long to fill his mouth with the real thing.
Hanson rolled over, pushed himself up, and crawled. He stretched out, belly down. Elbows against the soft, wet grass, he grabbed Toby by the ears. He lifted the man’s head. He clamped his mouth to the bullet wound and sucked.
A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall
1
Earlier that evening, while patrolman Bob Hanson was still cruising the streets near Lincoln High and just more than an hour before his bullets ripped out the life of Toby Barnes, Francine Walters sat down on her living room sofa. She pulled the TV tray closer as the six o’clock Eyewitness News came on. While the lead-in music played, she polished off the scotch at the bottom of her glass.
‘Good evening, everyone,’ said anchorwoman Chris Donner. ‘At the top of our news, investigators continue to probe last night’s grisly murder of seventeen-year-old Maxwell Chidi, a student at Lincoln High in the nearby valley community of Bixby. The body of the black youth was discovered in the newly completed Memorial Stadium by . . .
‘Mark my words,’ Francine said, ‘that boy was up to no good. He probably had it coming.’
‘Shit,’ Lisa muttered.
Francine snapped her head toward the girl. ‘What? What did you say?’
Lisa glared at her from the rocking chair. ‘I said that’s shit. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I know good and well what I’m talking about, young lady, and don’t you dare speak to me that way. What’s gotten into you? You haven’t been fit to live with ever since you climbed out of bed this morning.’
The anger seemed to melt out of Lisa’s stare. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. Her lips mashed themselves together. Their corners trembled. Her chin, dimpled and discolored with the effort of thrusting up her lower lip, began to shake. Her eyes filled with tears.
‘Lisa?’
‘Just leave me alone.’ She scooted back her rocking chair. But not far enough. As she got up, her thighs bumped the edge of her dinner tray. Not hard, but the collision jostled the tray and capsized her glass, which tumbled over the edge, flinging out its contents of ice cubes and water. The glass hit the carpet with a soft thump.
‘Now see what you’ve done!’ Francine snapped.
Letting out an anguished sob, the girl ran from the room.
What the hell’s the matter with her? Francine wondered. Damn it!
Carefully, she moved her own tray aside. As she stood, she heard a door slam shut. It sounded too near to be Lisa’s bedroom door. Probably the bathroom, just off the foyer.
She stepped past Lisa’s tray and picked up the glass. Squatting, she gathered ice cubes off the beige carpet. Thank God it was only water, she thought. She dropped the cubes into the glass. If Lisa’d been drinking milk or Pepsi . . . and you can thank your lucky stars her lasagna didn’t end up on the floor.
Francine set the glass on the tray, then went looking for Lisa. She felt hot and squirmy inside. God, how she hated this kind of thing.
But this episode didn’t seem like one of her daughter’s typical tantrums. Something more serious. Maybe something to do with the death of that black kid.
