Bad Radio (26 page)

Two loud knuckle raps on the door announced our visitor. I stood up to answer it. “Not a bag.”

“How do you know?”

“They don’t knock.” I opened the door. “Yes?”

Paperback Guy stood in the doorway. “Hi, I need to talk to you. Can I come in? It’s important.” I could see the bulge of a gun under the black hoodie that he wore.

“Sure, come on in.”

As he walked past me I grabbed his arm and swept his feet out from under him. As his feet left the ground, I kept my hold on his arm and pushed him backwards and down with my other hand. Air percussed from his lungs in a long cough as his back slapped forcefully against the thin carpet.

Anne swept neatly past us and closed the door. I removed his gun, a black 9mm Taurus, and tossed it to Anne. She stepped out of reach and pointed it at our guest, who was now trying to raise his hands as well as gasp for breath. His eyes flicked back and forth between me, standing over him with my arms crossed, to Anne’s unsmiling face, to the barrel of his own gun.

“Wait,” he wheezed. “I’m trying to help you.”

“By spying on us in the diner, following us to our hotel, and trying to gain access to our room in the middle of the night with a gun? That doesn’t sound very helpful.”

“Listen to me. If you don’t want to be a missing persons statistic, then you need to move on, right now. Can I get up?”

“Sure. Slowly.”

He heaved himself to his feet. I noticed that he had tattoos on his arms and just peeking out of the neck of his shirt. “You really need to leave. Bad things happen to people who visit Belmont, and that goes double for anyone who stays at this rat-trap hotel. So I risk my ass when fresh meat comes to town, without any thanks by the way, trying to get dumbasses like you clear of trouble. That’s what I do. Can I have my gun back?”

Anne clicked off the safety. “Sure, come get it.”

“Whatever. I did my boy scout routine and now you’re warned. If you get snatched, it’s your own fault.” He turned towards the door.

“Wait. Anne, let’s be friendly.”

He stopped and faced me, arms crossed.

“Okay, but the gun’s mine.” She flicked on the safety and tucked the gun away behind her in her waistband.

“We appreciate the warning, really. Tell me about the kidnappings.”

“It’s complicated, and you wouldn’t get it even if I tried to explain. Let’s just say that some bad people are running this town, and you want to get out before they come for you. Get it?”

“So what do you get out of your lone hero act? Won’t the bad guys kind of frown on that and grab you, too?”

“Oh, they try, but we’re too smart for ‘em. Me and some other people are sticking around, trying to get the folks that we can still save out of town, and keeping new ones from coming in. So take my advice and keep moving.”

“Maybe we want to stay and help.”

“Yeah, right. Just move over to another town, and keep vacationing or whatever. You have no idea what we’re up against.”

“You mean wormy guys that are jumpy and stabby and eat bullets like candy?”

Our visitor froze as thoughts chased themselves plainly across his face. “Shit!” He sprang for the door. He was closer, but I was faster. I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back. He drove one of his elbows into my ribs with surprising strength. It was painful, but also a mistake. It let me hook my arm through his and pin it behind his back. I put my other hand behind his neck and powered him back to the ground, this time face first. He managed to turn his head at the last second and took the impact on his chest and cheek.

He stopped struggling when he realized that no matter how hard he strained, he couldn’t budge me. “Fuck! Fuck!”

“Calm down. We’re not going to hurt you.”

“Go ahead and take me away, that won’t stop us. It won’t make any difference!” He started struggling again.

“Will you stop? We’re on your side. We tracked Piotr here and we’re going to shut his operation down. It’s my turn to say we’re here to help.”

He went still. “I don’t know who that is, but if you’re on our side, then let me up.”

“I’ll let you up if you promise not to run for it again. Because if I can’t stop you before you reach the door, then the pretty girl over there with the gun is going to do it for me. Understand?” He nodded, so I let go and stood back.

When he stood up, he looked pissed. He also had a rug burn on one cheek and a split lip. “So what’s your deal?”

“Same as you, trying to put an end to all this. I have some history with Piotr, the guy who’s running things. My name’s Abe, and this is Anne.”

“I’m Chuck. Tell me what you know.”

“You said you were part of a group. Why don’t you take us to meet whoever is in charge, and then everybody can swap stories.”

“I’m in charge, so just tell me what you know, and I’ll let everyone else know what they need to know.”

I smiled my most reassuring smile. “No offense, Chuck, but I’m going to want to meet your friends, if they exist. I phrased it as a request to be polite, I wasn’t really asking. I know Piotr uses regular folks from time to time, so as much as I like your sunny personality, you’re not getting out of my sight. If you really are part of some guerilla group, then great. If not …”

Chuck’s eyes rolled to the side and he sighed. “Fine. We’re going to have to drive around for a while to make sure nobody is tailing us, so just follow me, but not too close.”

“Anne will follow, and I’ll ride with you. If anything goes wrong, I promise that’ll it’ll go wrong for you before it goes wrong for me, understand?”

“Yes, I get it already. Let’s just get going.”

Chuck was in a cheap, beat-up sedan. It was a dull green and looked like something you’d buy from a rental car auction. I watched out the windows, trying to get a feel for the town while Chuck drove in sullen silence, for which I was grateful. Anne trailed us by a good block or so, blending into the nearly non-existent traffic as best she could.

After half an hour of circling, we entered a lower middle-class subdivision called Liberty Estates. Cheap but well-tended houses stood shoulder-to-shoulder down narrow roads, with alleys running behind the houses to give access to the rear-facing garages. Every house had a tiny flower bed out front and a tin mailbox on a post in the yard. The same three or four house designs repeated endlessly down the streets.

Chuck stopped on the curb in front of the only house on this particular street with the lights still on and killed the engine. Anne pulled up behind him and did the same.

“Okay,” he said, “let me go in first and introduce you. They’ll trust you more if you don’t go manhandling me in front of them, alright? Just lay off me.”

“Sure thing. I promise to try not to embarrass you in front of anybody.”

Anne was waiting for us on the sidewalk when we got out of the car. We made it halfway up to the front door when a woman’s voice called out quietly from the roof.

“Stop right there and put your hands up where I can see them.” The sound of a rifle bolt being shoved home rang out louder than her voice. I put my hands up and Chuck smirked at me.

“Not so smart now, are you, asshole?”

29

I
smiled back at Chuck and whispered, “You’re standing between me and the shooter, Chuck. If I wasn’t trying to be friendly, you’d already be enjoying a career as a human shield.”

His smirk faded and he quickly stepped away from me. I was aware that I was being childish, but some people just bring out the worst in me.

The front door opened, and an older man carrying a pump-action shotgun stepped outside. “Hello, Chuck. Who are your friends?”

Chuck sauntered up the concrete walkway to the front door. “They have valuable information, so I brought ‘em in for questioning.”

Anne made a choking sound. I shushed her under my breath and then called out, “My name is Abe and this is Anne. I understand from Chuck that we might have some things in common, so he graciously brought us here so that we could compare notes. May we come in?”

The man nodded in a friendly way, but he didn’t lower his shotgun. “That sounds good to me, as soon as we check you out real quick. Chuck, would you mind getting the light?” Chuck ducked inside. We waited with our hands up in full view of the surrounding houses in the middle of the night, trying not to think about the rooftop sniper looking at us through the crossed wires in her scope.

Chuck came back out with a handheld spotlight, one of those huge jobs that campers and hunters use. “Put your hand out.”

I did so, and he put the light underneath and turned it on. The powerful light turned the skin of my hand translucent red around and between my fingers. He watched carefully, and then repeated the test on Anne. Then he took a penlight out of his pocket and looked into our eyes, leaving bright red blobs floating across my vision after he was done. “No wigglers. They’re clean.”

The man on the porch lowered his shotgun and smiled. “In that case, come on in.”

The inside of the house was homey, if a little shabby. Stacks of books, magazines, and DVD cases were arranged as neatly as possible, which wasn’t very, considering their number, on every surface and on the floor next to the couch and easy chair. Pictures of the man with the shotgun and a pretty brunette hung on the walls, mostly holidays and vacations, with no kids in them.

Our host led us through the living room and into the kitchen, which was cramped, but less cluttered than the living room. “Have a seat. Can I get you something? Coffee?”

I pulled out a flimsy chair with tubular metal legs and a padded vinyl seat. “Love some, thanks.” Anne pulled out another chair and declined the offer. She was young; eventually she’d learn that when somebody points a firearm at you, at the very least they owe you some goddamn coffee.

The man leaned his shotgun against the wall and poured me a cup from a cheap coffee-maker’s glass pot. The bottom was stained brown from sitting on the warmer for hours on end. He was an older man, late fifties maybe, with a short but full salt-and-pepper beard, round glasses and a tiny ponytail sticking out of the back of his head. He handed me the cup. “I’m Greg. You already know Chuck here.”

The front door slammed and a young woman about Chuck’s age stalked briskly into the room and leaned her rifle against the wall next to Greg’s shotgun. Getting a good look at it made me shudder. A 30-.06 round is a pretty good way to keep bad guys off your lawn.

“And this is Mazie.” She had short, jet-black hair and a pretty face that seemed more sorority than sniper.

Anne stiffened beside me and squeezed my hand. She leaned in close and whispered in my ear. “That’s her. That’s the waitress from my dream.”

I kept my reaction to myself. “Nice to meet you, Greg. And thanks for not blowing my teeth out through the back of my head, Mazie.”

“I don’t shoot
people
.”

“Glad to hear it. I’m Abe, and this is Anne.” I took a sip of coffee. It was terrible.

Anne pulled her eyes away from Mazie and pointed at the spotlight. “That work?”

Greg shrugged. “The big test is whether or not they’ll let you try it. The fact that you didn’t go berserk when you thought it could reveal you was a pretty good indicator that you were safe. The idea of looking for the small worms in the hands and eyes is a good one, however. I think.”

“You’ve never tested it on a real one?”

“Oh, no. Thank God. But there are plenty of the coerced around town, we know the signs.”

“Coerced? I guess that’s one way to describe them. Abe calls them baitbags because of the worms inside of them.”

Mazie made a face and looked away. “That’s disgusting. And demeaning. Those poor people are victims, and they deserve more respect than that.”

I had to chuckle. “I don’t know that a high-powered hunting rifle equals respect, ma’am.”

Chuck clapped me on the shoulder. “Get ready for a speech on monster rights, dude. I’ve already heard it a million times, so I’m going to bed.”

“Hey, fuck you, Chuck!” Mazie yelled at his back as he slipped out of the kitchen. Then she turned to me and said, “They aren’t in their right minds, so you shouldn’t judge them, but at the same time you can’t let them hurt other people, either. They won’t want the murder of another human being on their consciences when they’re cured.”