Текст книги "Blood And Bone"

Автор книги: William Lashner

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

“No, actually.”

Kyle tilted his head. “It’s not?”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Kyle, but you can keep the file. Do whatever you want with it.”

Kyle examined the senator carefully, trying to find the trick. Because there had to be a trick. All the uproar and death over the file had to be coming from this one powerful man. So his nonchalance had to be a trick. But there was something in the senator’s face, a sort of rueful weariness that seemed to belie the possibility that any confidence game was going on. It was as if he really didn’t care.

“You don’t want the O’Malley file?”

“No.”

“But if I turn it over to the press . . .”

“Then I probably will be seen by the world as a rapist unless I challenge the affidavit. Which I won’t.”

“So it’s true.”

“No, it’s not true.”

Kyle just stared at the man. Nothing was making sense. “If it’s not true, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t contest it.”

“Let me ask you something, Kyle. Was your life ever planned out for you? Did you have dreams that you were supposed to fulfill, even though they weren’t your dreams?”

“My mom wasn’t the type to plan anyone’s life, even her own, and my father wasn’t around.”

“Then you were lucky.”

“Screw you. I didn’t have a father because of you.”

“Because of me?”

“That’s what I said.”

“I think you’re gravely mistaken. But what you did have, Kyle, was a clean slate. A chance to invent yourself. I never had that. You know what I always had? A future. Italicized and with a capital F. My Future. It was a beast that consumed everything. Every school I went to, every course I took, every girl I dated and job I accepted was only fodder to be fed to the beast. No youthful folly allowed, no mistakes. ‘Think of your Future,’ I was told over and again. ‘Consider your Future.’ And now I’m in the middle of it all, with the brightest part yet to come, and it doesn’t seem so damn capital anymore.”

“You want me to be sympathetic, is that it? You want me to feel pity for the poor rich senator?”

“No. I want you to be a little grateful for what you did have. And I want you to show at least a little respect.”

“Go to hell.”

“Yeah, well, it’s happening sooner rather than later. You asked for this meeting, and now here I am. Tell me, Kyle, what were you going to ask for?”

Kyle looked carefully at the man across from him and saw something in his eyes. Concern? For Kyle? Son of a bitch must be a hell of a politician, because Kyle almost believed it.

“I was going to . . . you know . . . I was going to trade it for . . .”

“Money?”

Kyle nodded, and at that moment—even sitting across from this man who he was certain only a few moments before was a rapist and a murderer, and even believing that it was all just a ruse on his part—at t hat moment he felt ashamed. A ll t he more so when t he senator laughed. But it wasn’t a mocking laugh. It was gentle, and almost appreciative.

“You can’t even spit the word out of your mouth,” he said. “Money’s not what you want, son. And you have no idea of the price you’d end up paying. Though the affidavit isn’t true, I paid to keep it quiet twice already, paid to stop it from infecting my glorious future. And I’ve regretted both acts ever since. I’m sorry, but I’m not paying again.”

“No money?”

“Nope. Sorry.”

“If it wasn’t true, why did you pay before?”

“Because I had my future to think about. Lies always stick around longer than the truth. But I’m sick of my future, sick of the price I’ve paid for it, so I’m going to think about yours. What do you want to do with your life?”

“I don’t know.”

“Isn’t it time to figure it out?”

“God, I’m getting it now from an asshole like you.”

“If I let you turn yourself into a blackmailer, that’s exactly what I would be,” said the senator. “I did that once, I won’t do it again. I’m going to tell you a story, Kyle. About an arrogant little prick and a sweet girl who loved him and that file of yours. I’m going to tell you because I’ve been wanting to tell someone for years. And I’m going to tell you because it involves your father, and I think you have the right to know.”

CHAPTER 46

ONE OF MY GREAT-GRANDFATHERS was a crony of Morgan’s,” said

Francis Truscott IV. “Another played golf with Rockefeller.” “Bully for you,” said Kyle.

“I’m not bragging here, Kyle, I’m explaining. The Truscotts were a

family of grand ambitions. My father could never live up to them, and eventually they broke him. He had once had the grandest of Truscott dreams. He was going to be a titan of industry, a poker champion, a pilot, the president, something big, something great, maybe even a race-car driver. While still a young man, he disappeared into the West to make his own way. But in his forties he returned to his dour family, with nothing to show for his time away except for a raging alcoholism and a pregnant wife. But his megalomania wasn’t completely burned out of him by his failures, he transferred all his thwarted hopes onto his only child. Me.

“How did you handle the pressure?”

“With a purposeful nonchalance. I was always the star of my sports teams, I was the class president. My grades were only adequate, but I had a confident manner and the Truscott name. By my senior year at Haverford Prep, I was already accepted into Yale. Let me tell you something, Kyle, no one feels more atop the world than a high-school kid on his way to Yale. There were girls, parties, trips to Cabo. Life was brilliant, and my future, the one that had been lined up for me since birth, was well on track.

“But this is a love story, first and foremost, and I found it at a homeless shelter, on Christmas Eve, where, at my mother’s shrewd request, I was helping serve dinner to the city’s least fortunate. It was something for the résumé, something to polish my image and show I could give as good as I got. I had started it two years before I applied to Yale, had featured the experience in my application essay, and I continued after my acceptance only because my mother convinced me that to stop would appear churlish. It was as I was dishing out the mashed potatoes that I noticed the girl beside me pouring the gravy.

“Blond hair, blue eyes, a slim figure, all standard enough as far as I was concerned. But there was a sweetness there, too, and an innocence, two traits sorely lacking in the girls I dated. I almost believed that she was at the shelter because she wanted to do good for others, not for herself. The idea was so foreign to a Truscott as to be revolutionary.

“That was Colleen O’Malley.

“I didn’t think she would be much of a challenge, and truthfully, she wasn’t. She was swept away by my charm, my ease, maybe even my money, as I arrogantly expected she would be. But it wasn’t long before I was swept away, too. It was her unaffected goodness, her purity of intention, the way she stared at me with so much love. Looking into Colleen O’Malley’s eyes was like peering out of a tunnel and catching a glimpse of transcendent sunlight in an otherwise dark, monochromatic world.

“We dated in secret—neither of our sets of parents would have approved, she was poor, and I wasn’t Catholic—and we fell in love in secret, and we made love in secret. But sex with Colleen wasn’t about getting something, a piece or an advantage or a prestigious date for Saturday night, it was about giving, not just pleasure but the whole of ourselves, one to the other, together. One heart, one breath, our souls twining together like the braided candles stuck in the silver holders in the dining room at our estate, the ones that burn down so prettily until they are mere sputtering heaps of blackened wax. Like the pair that was lit one evening when I was summoned to that very dining room by my mother.

“ ‘Francis,’ said my mother, sitting at the head of the table, her mouth pursed like the painting of my father’s mother on the wall above her. She was eating her dinner alone. A bowl of consommé. My father was away at the club, where he would spend the night after another evening of hard drinking, as had become his custom. ‘We need to talk about this nonsense with the O’Malley girl.’

“ ‘How do you know about her?’

“ ‘Francis, dear, we are your parents. It is our job to know.’ She lifted the spoon to her lips, lapped up the broth like one of her prized Burmese. ‘Now it is time for you to prepare for Yale. You need to concentrate on getting ready, not on dillydallying in the sun. And it is not fair to string that young girl along through the summer. It is time to end it.’

“ ‘I’m not stringing her along.’

“ ‘Francis, please. She goes to a Catholic school in Darby.’

“ ‘She’s different from the other girls I’ve dated.’

“ ‘I know she is, dear. The exotic young Catholic-school girl with her plaid skirt and saddle shoes. It is a ready-made fantasy for a young boy. Trust me, I know.’ She lifted the spoon to her lips. Lap, lap. ‘Which is why we didn’t stop it when it first broke out. But it has grown beyond what is tolerable. Now we’ve already spoken to the O’Malleys, and they are fully in agreement.’

“ ‘What did you do? What the hell did you do, Mother?’

“ ‘Watch your tone.’ Lap, lap. ‘Francis, they have plans for their daughter, just as we have plans for you. And she is rather young.’

“ ‘You had no right.’

“ ‘You didn’t say that when we promised a wing for that science building at the university. And you’ll happily accept our tuition payments and the money you’ll need to live in New Haven in the style you’ve grown accustomed to here. So, dear, I think we have every right to ask that you respect our wishes when it comes to this one minor matter.’

“ ‘It is not a minor matter.’

“ ‘But that’s exactly what she is. Have you read the penal code lately? Do you know what you are risking?’

“ ‘I love her, Mother.’

“ ‘Yes, yes. And I love chocolate. But I have learned to do without to maintain my figure. As you must learn to do without to maintain your future.’ Lap, lap. ‘Now, think of the right way to break it to her. Young hearts are often so fragile, and we wouldn’t want to see such a precious flower unduly bruised.’

“It was the first real test of my life, Kyle, my first chance to stake out my own path. No one should be surprised that I failed. Along with the ambition that had been instilled in me from birth, there was a tendency toward acquiescence, too, which allows ambition to find the simplest way to rise. It does no good to fight the man when being the man is your deepest aspiration. So I broke it off, ignored the wailing of my heart as I delivered the news over the phone, and found some solace in the long-legged, straight-haired girls in the groves behind my classmates’ pools.

“I was already at Yale when I heard the news. A lawyer named Liam Byrne had contacted my family before going to the police. Colleen had accused me of rape.

“It wasn’t true, of course. But Colleen had discovered she was pregnant after I’d broken it off. She didn’t know what to do. She was alone and scared, and abortion was out of the question. When she told her parents, they were so hurt and angry, both, that the word ‘rape’ just slipped out. It was perfectly understandable; it was a direct result of my cowardice. But once it was out, her parents seized upon the accusation, and it snowballed. And soon the charge had taken on a life of its own, and she was unable to take it back. I called her from Yale, and the conversation didn’t go well. We were both hurt and angry and scared, and I said some things I should never have said. It was going to get ugly, I could feel it. But your father gave everybody a way out.

“He went to my family before going to the police. Once the police had it, it would be part of the public record forever. But your father promised to make it disappear, for a price. There would be money exchanged, of course. But also custody of the child was to be considered. In light of the accusation, and the phone call, I had to agree to counseling and to never try to contact Colleen or the child, ever. Under the circumstances it was a price my parents were only too happy to pay. One of my mother’s relatives handled negotiations on our side, to make sure it all stayed quiet, and the agreement was signed and the money transferred.

“ ‘Let that be a lesson to you, Francis,’ my mother told me. ‘Always be careful with whom you associate. And never underestimate the brutal dishonesty a woman is capable of, despite her gleaming surface. I know, dear, believe me, I know.’

“And it was a lesson I took to heart. Seeing my future suddenly imperiled and then revived, I began to cultivate it avidly, as if it were a rare orchid that needed constant care. I excelled at Yale, was inducted into Skull and Bones, married into an old-line Boston family, went home to Philadelphia and claimed my place in the family business. It was only a matter of time before I would take the next step. And so, in 1994, with the Republicans poised to gain control of Congress, and with the financial backing of both my wife’s family and my own, I declared my candidacy for the United States Congress.

“I won the nomination in a hotly contested battle, determined by an onslaught of hard-hitting television ads, and looked to be a lock in the general election, when I was approached by a figure from my distant past.”

“My father,” said Kyle.

“It felt like a ghost had come back to haunt me,” said the senator. “The ghost of my own desertion of Colleen. He told me that he couldn’t, in good conscience, allow a rapist to waltz into Congress without the public becoming aware of what had happened. He told me it was a matter of national interest. Despite the nondisclosure clause in the agreement, despite the injury it would cause to his client, Colleen, who had started life anew in Ohio with her son and a husband, despite its being a violation of his code of professional responsibility, he said as a patriot he had no choice. He was going to give the file to the press if I didn’t pull out of the race.”

“So what did you do?”

“I panicked,” said the senator. “It wasn’t just my future I was trying to protect, it was Colleen’s, too. And my son’s, the son whom I had never met but still thought about frequently. My father had drunk himself to death by then, so I went to my mother. She told me to offer him money. I told her that Liam Byrne wasn’t interested in money, and she gave me one of her smiles, like I was nothing more than an innocent fool. I didn’t think it would matter, but I gave it a shot. I was ashamed to broach the subject, just as you were today, but I did it. And to my surprise, that’s when the negotiation started.” “Negotiation?”

“Yes. We bought off your father. We bought the file.” “How much did you pay him?”

“A lot. Enough for him not to have to worry about money for a long time. Half a million dollars.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No. The transfer took place in a deserted lot by the river. A suitcase full of cash. And he took it, and that was the end of it. But it felt wrong, it felt rotten. I was disgusted with the whole thing, and I was thinking of quitting the race. But then your father died. And later I learned about Colleen. It was too much. My mother told me to forget it all, that it was over. ‘Think of your future, dear,’ she told me. ‘All that remains is your future.’ And so I stepped into it.”

“Half a million dollars?” said Kyle.

“Yes. But it always rankled, not the money, but the denial. And I was disappointed in your father, too. Maybe because I secretly hoped he would release it, and then my future would go down the tubes and I’d be free in a way I never had been before. Things would have changed, that’s for sure. I would have had to deal with Colleen and my son. Who knows what would have happened? But I always regretted that I never found out. And I won’t do it again. Colleen’s gone, my son is a now a doctor in Cleveland; he can take the truth. Do what you want with that file, Kyle, and do it with my blessing.”

“But if you didn’t want the file, then why did you come?”

“I came because of something Malcolm said. By the way, have you been in touch with him today?”

“No.”

“He seems to have disappeared. Strange. Anyway, he told me you knew what really happened to Colleen.”

“And you don’t?”

“No. But I’d like to know.”

“She died.”

“I know that. She drowned accidentally in a lake.”

“No, she was murdered.”

His eyes widened. “By whom?”

“I thought by you.”

The senator shook his head. “I loved her,” he said. “Even after everything that happened, I still do. She was the love of my life. I could never have hurt her. How do you know she was murdered?”

“Because after she drowned, somebody tried to kill my father.”

“When was this?”

“Nineteen ninety-four.”

“How do you know that someone tried to kill your father?”

“I just do.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll believe you.”

“But whoever killed her and tried to kill my dad, it didn’t end there. I believe that the same person killed Laszlo Toth and then burned down my old house.”

“Because of the file?”

“Why else?”

Francis Truscott IV sat there and thought for a bit, and then he closed his eyes, put his hands over his face. “My God,” he said softly.

“What?”

“No matter how sharp we think we are, Kyle, the only ones we’re able to fool all the time are ourselves.”

CHAPTER 47

AS KYLE WATCHED Truscott drag himself out of Bubba’s, looking as if something had broken inside him, Kyle felt as if he himself had been punched in the gut. It could have been an act, the senator’s sorry tale, a ruse, a pack of lies told by a merciless killer. And that the teller was a politician made such a possibility seem all the more plausible. But there was something about the story, and the telling of it, that rang so true. As did the tolling of that half a million dollars.

His father had never mentioned the payoff when he told Kyle of why he left. Kyle bet the half a mil made the exile a hell of a lot easier. And the fact that he had told Kyle to ask for the same amount put his father’s present motives in serious doubt. Was he really trying to catch a killer, or was he merely using Kyle to set up another halfmillion-dollar score? Kyle had never realized before how difficult it was to be a son.

“Did the son of a bitch confess?” said Skitch, slipping into the senator’s seat after a suitable interval.

“Not really,” said Kyle.

“Bastard. But did you get what you needed?”

“I don’t know what I need,” said Kyle. “That’s the problem.” “Bro, what’s going on?”

“I have no idea,” said Kyle, “but I don’t have long to find out. And let me tell you something, Skitch. Once I do, somebody is going to pay.”

“You got the look, man.”

“What look?”

“Remember that game with Chaucer’s when that creep tackled Bubba Jr. with a takeout slide into second? And you slammed the ball into the outfield and then jogged around the bases slow enough to ensure a play at the plate, and then you laid out the catcher so brutally they had to cart his ass off to the hospital?”

“I broke his jaw.”

“That look,” said Skitch.

“Hey, Kyle,” said Bubba Jr. from behind the bar. “You got a call.”

Kyle scooted out of the booth and reached for the phone, but Bubba pulled it away before he could get his hands on it. “Everything go okay?”

“I suppose. No gunplay at least.”

“I got to tell you, Kyle, seeing a United States senator walk through my door scared the hell out of me. Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

“Do I ever?”

“Be careful. You’re in deep water now, where the sharks swim. And thanks a hell of a lot for pulling me in with you.”

“I was wondering who I could rely on in the middle of a godawful mess, and I realized it was pretty much only Skitch and Kat and you.”

“That’s plain sad. But I got to tell you, you look damn good in a suit.”

BLOOD AND BONE 311

“Now you’re scaring me, Junior,” said Kyle as he took the handset. Kyle figured it was Kat calling from her perch outside, letting him know where the senator headed after he left. He was hoping it was Kat, because if it wasn’t, it was probably his father, and he had no idea what the hell he’d say to him, at least not yet. But he was wrong, it was neither.

“Is this Kyle Byrne?” came the voice, a female voice, old and tremulous, but with a brutal self-possession.

“Yes, this is Kyle Byrne.”

“You just had a meeting with Senator Truscott, and the senator just left, isn’t that correct?”

“That’s right. Who is this?”

“And in that meeting you discussed with the senator a certain file that you found in your old house, even as it was burning down around you.”

“Maybe,” said Kyle slowly.

“Dear, don’t try to play games with me. You don’t have the testicles for it.”

Kyle couldn’t keep himself from laughing.

“What was decided in your meeting?” said the voice.

“None of your business.”

“But it is, you see. Nothing could be more my business. You wanted to sell the file to him, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, actually.”

“And is he buying?”

“No. He refused. He told me to do with it as I wished.”

“The truculent fool. So then the file is still for sale, I presume.”

Kyle thought for a moment and laughed again. This time he laughed because, even though he had never heard the voice before, he realized exactly whom he was talking to. “Yes, it’s still for sale.” “Do you have a price in mind?”

“Half a mil.”

“You are an ambitious guttersnipe, aren’t you?”

“Aren’t we all?”

“Yes, I suppose. But it’s important we each remember our respective stations. That’s something your father frequently forgot.” She gave him an address in Chestnut Hill, among the toniest old-line neighborhoods in the city. “Can you find it?”

“Probably.”

“You will come tonight, you will bring the file, we will discuss your price.”

“There won’t be any discussion,” said Kyle. “And no checks. Cash.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. And of course you will come alone.”

“Don’t worry about that, I’m not into sharing.”

“Just like your father.”

“You’ll have the money when I show?”

“Of course I will, dear. I’ll keep up my end, I always do. Nine o’clock. Don’t be late. Ciao.”

Kyle shook his head for a bit, listened some more to make sure the line was actually dead, and then tossed the handset back to Bubba Jr.

“Who was that?” said Bubba Jr.

“That,” said Kyle, with a smile both broad and dangerous, “was a cold-blooded killer. And I am next on her list.”

CHAPTER 48

EVEN WITH HIS BLACK BAG on the passenger seat beside him, Bobby Spangler felt under-armed.

Parked in the alley he’d found that faced Bubba’s almost head-on, he had the uncontrollable urge to ram his car straight through the bar’s front door. And he was ready to do it, too, because just then he had that potent combination of aggrieved self-righteousness and sexual frustration that was detonating murderous explosions all over the globe. If only he had a swill of fertilizer and nitromethane in his trunk, or a huge sack of hand grenades. If only he had something devastatingly powerful that would crater that bar and obliterate everyone inside, including Kyle Byrne, who had dismissed his help, and Senator Francis Truscott IV, who had been the bane of Robert’s existence for pretty much his entire life.

He wondered what they were talking about in there, Kyle and Francis. Of course there was the file to discuss. Kyle had found it, that clever boy, and Francis wanted it, and an agreement would be made, because that was the way Francis worked: give them everything they wanted so long as Francis got more. It was what the O’Malley file was all about in the first place: take a girl against her will and buy off the rape charge, the whole time maintaining the loving support of the mother who provided him everything.

But they were taking too long a time. This had gone beyond “How much do you want?” and “We have a deal.” Maybe they were laughing together, telling jokes. Maybe they were laughing about him.

He wanted a bomb, he needed a bomb. Bobby slapped the steering wheel in frustration. One bomb and he’d destroy the Truscotts’ fondest hopes once and for all, obliterate Kyle Byrne, and end his own torment at the same time. A bundle of dynamite, tied tight like a fasces, or an empty fifth of vodka filled with nitroglycerin, or a half ton of Semtex sculpted into a ten-foot phallus. He closed his eyes and imagined the sensation of the car engine coming to life, revving higher and higher until he punched it into gear and plunged it into the bar’s cheap doorway, shattering brick and wood as he rammed through. And then being lifted by the fire and force, by the sheer power of his unleashed anger, rising ecstatically through the flame and blood as his will consumed everything about him until he felt himself all-powerful, all-knowing, the creator.

But he had no bomb, no grand instrument of destruction. He wondered what would happen if he set his car on fire and then, with flames shooting out the rear, barreled into the heart of that bar. Would they all be exploded into the sky, or would only he flame out, screaming horribly as he burned, while they laughed at him once again? No, he couldn’t allow that. He had to stick with his plan.

The door of the bar opened, and he spied once more the chief antagonist of his life, Francis Truscott IV. Francis was dressed down, jeans and leather and a silly ball cap, but it was still the same old prig who looked around guiltily and then made his way down the street. Bobby fought the urge to pick up the shotgun right then and there. Francis had gotten everything from her, while Robert had gotten nothing. Francis had been groomed for greatness by her, while Robert had been forced lower and lower until there was nothing left of him but the lowing beast inside. And what was the difference between the two in her eyes? Simple. Francis was half a Truscott, while Robert was all Spangler. But she underestimated her birth family. She thought she could outrun it and create something new, but there was no running from blood. He would prove that soon enough. First, though, there was business.

“He just left,” said Bobby into his cell.

“Thank you, dear. I might need you tonight.”

“I’m busy.”

“Not too busy for this.”

“What kind of job is it this time?”

“Your specialty, you naughty boy. If things in that bar went as

I expected, and go as I expect, young Byrne will be coming to the house tonight at nine. I want him to come but not leave, do you understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“You don’t sound enthused.”

“I’m tired of taking your orders.”

“It’s not an order, it’s an offer. Anything he has on him is yours.

And there will be plenty, trust me. One more job, Bobby, and then it’s over and my promises will finally be fulfilled.”

“Liar.”

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

Yes, we will see, thought Bobby as he hung up his phone. They’d both see when he showed up at nine with the file and a gun and had his sweet way with her. And then, when it was all over, he’d give that young thing from the police department a call. She seemed interested enough in a Spangler. Maybe all along his problem was shooting too high. She was just low enough to be in his range. He’d wow her with his charm like he wowed her before. She wouldn’t know what hit her as he took her from behind. Yee-haw. But now it was just a matter of waiting until Kyle Byrne slipped out from the bar like the insect he was and then, shotgun at the ready, following the son of a bitch to his death.

The door opened, and there he was, Kyle Byrne, in a suit, with some fat little tattooed spark plug by his side. Bobby turned on the car engine and prepared to follow when something stopped him.

Who was that approaching Byrne? With that walk. It was her, the pretty detective, that Ramirez. She was grabbing Kyle Byrne’s arm, hard, like she knew him. She was grabbing his arm, like she knew him, like they were great friends, and she was looking around, and she was pulling him back into the bar.

What the hell? What was her connection with Byrne? Bobby thought it through, quickly, let the possibilities fall like dominoes one after the other in his consciousness. Maybe she was in on it all. Maybe they were a team. Maybe they were lovers. That two-timing bitch. Or wait. Something else, something far more disturbing.

Maybe he hadn’t played the scene in his apartment as well as he had thought. Maybe her suspicions hadn’t been quelled but instead ratcheted higher. Maybe her romantic interest was feigned. Maybe she had followed Bobby to the bar. Maybe she herself was waiting to see who came out. Which meant she saw Truscott. And then saw Byrne. And now was escorting that Kyle Byrne to safety. As if something were about to happen on the street. Which meant she wasn’t alone. Which meant—

He didn’t wait to figure out the rest. He grabbed the black bag, leaped out of the car, ran as fast as he could down the alley and away from the bar. He tripped as he heard the police cars slam to a halt in front of the alley, rose back to his feet amid shouts from behind him and sirens in the distance.

He cut through one alleyway and another, stopped, searched for refuge like a hunted animal, spied a Dumpster out behind a restaurant. He dashed to it, threw the bag in, pulled himself up and over, buried himself in a week’s worth of garbage—pizza boxes, newspapers, rotted vegetables, maggoty knuckles of meat, excrement leaking from those little blue doggie bags—buried himself until he was completely covered.

He waited for the police to arrive, which they did. He waited as they searched, waited as they left. He waited as the sirens in the distance died. He waited, and waited some more, he waited for hours, just to be sure, he waited, and every breath through the fetid garbage was a reminder of exactly what he had become.

And it was sweet as honey cake.

CHAPTER 49

AFTER DETECTIVE RAMIREZ yanked Kyle Byrne back into Bubba’s, she twisted the lock in the door and pushed him into a booth halfway down the bar. Then she stood with her back to him, facing the rest of the bar, and pulled out her badge and her revolver.

“Police,” shouted Ramirez.

“Hello there, Detective,” said Kyle. “Thirsty?”

“Just shut up, you. Now, I want everyone to get down. Something might be coming through that door, and if it does, it won’t be pretty.”

As the bar’s patrons scattered to the floor and started crawling behind the bar, the bartender, still standing, reached down and pulled out a shotgun. With a quick pump, he slid a cartridge into the chamber.