Heirs of Cain (2 page)

“War’s a profitable enterprise,” Snake said. “Everybody knows that.”

“Yeah, profitable for everybody but the killers,” Cardinal answered.

“Here. Take some,” Deke said, offering a handful of bills to Snake.

“Money’s not what I want,” Snake said, moving toward the river’s edge. “What I want is to waste every dink in this fuckin’ shit-hole country. Every fuckin’ dink, regardless of what side he’s on. They’re all useless, chickenshit, untrustworthy slopeheads. I wouldn’t give you a drop of spit for any of them.”

Snake yanked Lucky’s body into a sitting position and, with a single swing of his machete, separated head from torso. He held up Lucky’s head, kissed his cheek, and then tossed the head into the river.

“Rest in pieces, Charles.”

The head hit the water and rolled over, eyes open and looking toward the night sky.

Deke said, “You is one cold motherfucker, Snake. One hard-hearted white dude.”

“Don’t pay to have a heart in this place,” Snake said.

“Pocket the money, Deke,” Cain ordered. “We need to move. It’s blood time.”

“My favorite time,” Deke said, stuffing the cash into his pocket.

Snake rolled Lucky’s body into the water. “One down. A million to go.”

Their destination: an old school building in the North Vietnamese village of Hoa Binh
.

Their mission: kill nine high-level ARVN generals and two Russian advisers
.

Operation Nightcrawlers
.

The final test; a preview of coming attractions
.

Arnie Moss cursed out loud. The phone was going to ring. Don’t ask him how he knew; he just did. And he was seldom wrong. Knowing when the blasted phone would ring was a special knack he’d had since he was a kid. His mom always told him his intuition was a blessing from God. He wasn’t so sure. A true gift, he felt, should extend beyond knowing when the phone would ring. If he only had the same ability with picking ponies at the racetrack or the Lotto numbers, he wouldn’t be stuck in this crappy job. He’d be on the inside looking out.

He especially didn’t want a phone call now. Not while he was watching a recording of Jack Nicklaus winning the 1986 Masters championship. Moss considered Jack the most incredible friggin’ golfer to ever stride down a fairway—Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, or Arnie notwithstanding. What the Golden Bear accomplished during his career swamped by a mile anything any of his predecessors had ever done. Or ever dreamed of doing. Sure, those other guys were great, but there is great and there is
great
. And Jack was the greatest of them all, even at age forty-six, when he won the Masters for the sixth time. The Golden Bear had the goods, which was all that counted. Jack Nicklaus was Michael friggin’ Jordan in golf shoes. The best of the best.

Ever.

But at this particular moment, Jack was in deep trouble. His second shot lay hidden behind a tree, his view of the green obstructed. Moss took some comfort in Jack’s predicament, in knowing the greatest golfer of all time could produce a hacker’s result. Right now Moss knew exactly how Jack felt.

Jack’s third shot, which he somehow managed to curve around the tree, landed on the edge of the green and rolled to within four feet of the cup. Quickly, Moss’s connection to the Golden Bear was broken. Watching, he could only shake his head in amazement, awe, and wonder.
Jesus, how can one human body possess such extraordinary ability? Incredible. Simply incredible
.

Ten seconds later, the phone rang.

Well, at least the caller had the decency to wait until
after the Golden Bear
‘
s latest bit of magic
.

“Pinewood Estates. Moss speaking.” He pulled the phone away from his ear and eyed the TV screen again. “What can I do for you?” he asked, hoping the answer would be short and sweet. He didn’t want to miss Jack’s hard-earned birdie putt.

What Moss heard wasn’t an answer. Indeed, what rattled his eardrum and caused him to flinch barely qualified as a man’s voice. It was shrill, high-pitched, and extremely loud. Obviously panicked, the caller threw out words in bunches, making absolutely no sense. In the background was hysterical screaming. Probably a woman’s, Moss guessed, although he wouldn’t swear to it. It could just as easily have been coming from a mortally wounded animal.

“Bungalow nine, hurry, the man’s been shot, looks like he’s dead, hurry, God, please hurry!”

Moss put the phone directly against his ear. “Slow down a little, willya? I can’t make out a word of what you’re saying.”

“He’s dead, been shot in the head, hurry!”

“Who’s dead?” A feeling of dread began to work its way up Moss’s spine. Jack’s golfing adventures had faded into the distance.

“Bungalow nine, please hurry!”

Moss could barely hear the man’s words above the woman’s screaming. “You said nine?”

“Yes. Oh, God, hurry!”

Moss processed the information. “Nine. That’s Taylor. And you say he’s dead?”

“Dead … yes.”

“Have you called 911?”

“No.”

“Well … hell … I guess I’d better do it.”

“Please, just hurry.”

“I’m on my way. Don’t touch or disturb anything. Hear me?”

“No, we won’t. Please hurry.”

Moss placed the phone back on the receiver. Considering what he’d just been told, he was surprisingly calm—no fear, no panic at all. Fear, for him, was little more than an imposter once the unknown was revealed. Death he could handle. Death he had seen. Death he understood. But the unknown—that’s a different ball game. It was spooky and unsettling.

He dialed the police, gave them the details of what he’d been told, hung up, gave a nod as Jack sank his putt, then jumped into his battered red Pontiac.

Two minutes later, he walked into bungalow nine.

Three people were waiting in the living room. Two men stood on either end of the couch on which a woman sat and sobbed into a Kleenex. Moss noticed the woman’s raven black hair, the apparent result of a recent dye job. With her head down and eyes covered by tinted glasses, she looked to Moss like Roy Orbison. Not exactly a compliment, Moss knew, but … the truth is the truth. When she looked up, Moss found himself staring into the face of a woman who had seen her share of summers and was making one last attempt at outrunning the clock. It was a race, Moss decided, that she had lost long ago.

The two men stood still as statues, flanking her like a pair of gargoyles. They were similarly dressed, wearing khaki shorts, loose-fitting flowery shirts, sandals, black socks that stretched to their knees, and grim looks. Not natives of the South, Moss concluded—not with those threads and that chalky, pale skin. These were big city folks all the way. Quintessential snowbirds, retired, vacationing in the sun, living the easy life.

“He’s in the upstairs bathroom,” the man nearest Moss said, his voice quivering and barely audible. He started to say something else but hesitated, instead putting a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

She burst into louder sobs, sending a fresh stream of black mascara tears racing down her cheeks.

Moss hurried up the stairs and went straight to the bedroom. It was no trouble finding it; all of these bungalows had practically the same design. Connected to the master bedroom, the bathroom was to the left as he entered. He looked around the room. The bed was still made, the curtain closed. He noticed a dark spot he guessed to be a bloodstain on the comforter. The television was on, its volume turned all the way down. Moss glanced indifferently at the TV screen. Golden Bear Jack had pulled off another miraculous shot. This time, however, Moss wasn’t interested in Jack’s magic act.

Moss opened the bathroom door and looked down at the body lying on the floor. It was Taylor, all right, and he was a goner. He was on his back, eyes open, head ringed by a ghastly scarlet halo. Moss knelt down and felt for a pulse. For an instant he thought he detected one, but there was no way. He’d seen plenty of dead men in Korea, and he wasn’t mistaking this. Taylor was history, done in by the bullet that had crashed into the side of his head.

Moss stood, careful not to touch anything, and began looking around the bathroom for a gun. He couldn’t find one, and that bothered him. He had automatically leaped to the conclusion that this was a suicide. But how could there be a gunshot suicide without a gun? There couldn’t be, which meant it had to be something else. But what?

Murder? No way. A murderer would have to come through the front gate, past him—and that damn sure didn’t happen.

Of course, there was a second possibility: the murderer could be one of the residents living at Pinewood Estates.
No, that
‘
s an even more ridiculous notion
, Moss thought.
The folks here may be old, wealthy, and somewhat cantankerous, but they aren
‘
t killers
.

Had to be a suicide
, Moss finally concluded.
Definitely. Okay, so where
‘
s the damn gun?

As Moss turned and started to walk out, he heard a groan. Pivoting, he looked behind him and then down at the body on the floor. Several seconds passed before he realized Taylor wasn’t dead. He knelt down next to the wounded man, whose groaning had given way to a rattling sound deep in his chest.

“Taylor, it’s me—Moss. You’re gonna be all right. You gotta hang on. Hear me? I’m going for help.”

Moss tried to rise but felt a violent tug from Taylor. The grip was surprisingly strong for a man who was only seconds away from death.

Moss drew close enough to feel Taylor’s breath on his face. Blood began to trickle from Taylor’s nostrils and the corner of his mouth. The groaning was now a hollow, gurgling sound.

Death may not have arrived, but it hovered close by.

“Fallen,” Taylor managed to whisper.

“Don’t try to talk. I’m going for help.” Moss tried to stand, but Taylor again drew him closer.

“Fallen angels,” Taylor said, his voice fading.

“What’s that?”

“Fallen angels,” Taylor repeated, this time sending the word
angels
into eternity on the winds of his final breath.

All signs of imminent death vanished. The rattling and gurgling ceased; the eyes, fixed and dilated, stared straight into nothingness. The dark angel had descended. There was no mistaking it this time. Taylor was gone.

Two uniformed police officers rushed into the room with weapons drawn. Close behind was a plainclothes detective. Moss looked at them and then stood.
They needn’t hurry
, he thought.
Hurrying ain’t gonna do nobody any good
. No one was going to be saved tonight.

“Dead?” one of the officers asked, seemingly to no one in particular. He had to repeat the one-word question before Moss responded.

“Afraid so.”

“Who are you?” the detective asked, stepping between the two officers.

“Arnie Moss. The night watchman.”

“You find the body?”

“No.”

“Who did?”

“One of the clowns downstairs.”

The older of the two officers knelt beside the body, felt for a pulse, briefly examined the wound, and then looked up at the detective. “Gunshot. Pretty heavy duty, from the looks of it. Body’s still warm, too. Couldn’t have happened much more than an hour, hour and a half ago.”

The detective’s eyes scanned the room. “Where’s the gun?”

“Didn’t find one,” Moss answered.

“Really? That’s interesting.” The detective motioned to the two officers. “Start a canvass of the neighborhood. Maybe somebody heard something. And when CSU gets here, make sure they go over this place with a fine-tooth comb. I mean, scour the place. You ever been printed, Moss?”

“Yeah. When I was in the Army. Why?”

“We’ll need to eliminate your prints from any others we might find.”

“You sayin’ I’m a suspect?”

“You and everyone else who wasn’t with me the past two hours.”

Moss immediately disliked the detective. The smugness, the arrogance, the better-than-thou demeanor. Moss saw enough of that from the folks living at Pinewood Estates. Old farts with fat bank accounts, healthy stock portfolios, and overblown opinions of themselves. He tolerated it, barely, because he had to. It went with the job. But seeing the same attitude in this jerk detective almost made him sick to his stomach. There was no excuse for behaving in such a disrespectful way.