Lucky's Girl (20 page)

Through the stationhouse door the Rev could see a man in front of Jerry’s desk. It was Frank McCord, Kenny’s uncle, wearing a Walkman headphone set. Jerry was oddly mute on the ride, just saying he really needed to talk to the Rev but offering nothing more. The Rev didn’t pry. He knew when people needed to talk, but you just let them tell their story in their way. So he rode along.

Frank’s here.

Uh oh
.

What had those boys got themselves into? This was going to be one of those nights, where parents pick up the kids from the police station for DWI or weed or general hellraising. The Rev was no fool. He knew they drank some beer, smoked a little reefer and chased skirt. They were young, they were dumb and the girls liked them. Especially Mason. You don’t end up with a handle like Lucky for being a failure in the ladies department.

He just hoped they’d be smarter than this.
Luckier
than this.

He reached for the door handle and exhaled hard. “Okay, Jerry, how bad is it?”

Jerry gave him a look he just couldn’t understand. They stood there for a long moment, icicles forming in the Rev’s blood.

“It’s bad, Rev, it’s
real
bad.”

Jerry pulled the door open for him. Frank looked back at them then turned around without a word. Mason was in one of the two small cells. He grabbed the bars and looked out with expressions the Rev had never seen on his son’s face; fear and confusion. He stood looking at his son from across the room and a flood of questions poured in. The fear and confusion multiplied because these were fundamental questions he’d never asked, questions that in their own right made no sense.

Why had he never seen Mason frightened or confused before?

And the answer hit him like lightning:
Mason’s Different
.

Jerry interrupted their silent communication. “Sit, Mason. Right now, and don’t open your mouth.”

Mason didn’t sit. “You can’t treat me like this! Where’s Kenny? Dad, don’t listen to their jealous lies! Deceit!
For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue!”

It was Psalms.
Psalms
. The Rev now knew Mason hadn’t merely learned the Bible. He’d
memorized
it.

Jerry’s voice became very threatening, very cold. “Mason, if you speak one more time I will tape your mouth shut and chain you to that bench.”

This snapped the Rev out of his fugue. “Jerry! What in the blazes is going on here? That’s not necessary…”

Mason growled out from behind the bars.
Ket-mat-na-roz! keh-pi-uh! ja-quey! tae-lae! bas-nef-tek
!

Mason was speaking in
tongues.

Then;
“A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish!”

Jerry yanked his pistol from his holster and pointed it at Lucky. “Last chance you piece of shit. Shut your fucking mouth!”

The Rev lurched towards Jerry, trying to block his son from the cop’s bullets, but Frank was faster. He intercepted the Rev, gently but firmly pulling his hands behind his back and pulling him to the floor. The Rev was a big man, but he was soft. Frank was corded steel. The Rev cried. “Please! Please, Jerry, my boy, no!”

Mason was silent, glaring down at the Rev on the floor.

The Rev whimpered holding out one hand, beseeching Jerry. “Please… please.”

Frank switched off the Walkman.

“It’s gonna be hard, you’re gonna have to fight your way through it, Rev. Don’t listen to Mason.”

The Rev turned away from Jerry to his son, still gasping, and was about to speak to him when Jerry interrupted. “I told you not to speak, Lucky. The safety’s off on this thing and I don’t fire warning shots. Don’t push your luck, you shit.”

Frank squatted down next to the Rev, putting his fingers to his neck to feel the pulse. “Rev, you have to slow your breathing or you’re gonna bust a valve. Just look at me, listen to my voice and nothing else.”

Jerry kept his pistol on Lucky. “Listen to him, Rev. And you,
asshole,
you turn the other direction and keep your mouth shut.”

Lucky didn’t turn around. He just glared with a malice Jerry had never seen, even on the streets of Detroit.

Frank and the Rev were face to face, the Rev sweating and wheezing, uncomprehending, Frank as calm as a rock. He pointed to the side of his head.

“You feel it right here, don’t you, Rev?”

The Rev just looked at him.

Frank tapped him on the heart. “And you feel the panic here, in your chest. You’ve never questioned anything, and when the first questions come, the body resists. It literally hurts to think about it.”

The Rev shook his head, and held a hand to his temple. “I don’t understand.”

He looked back towards his son glaring hate holes in Jerry.

He shook his head as if to push away the fog. “I don’t understand any of this. What did Mason do?”

Frank shook his head. “Not yet, Rev. I need to know one thing.”

He looked over to Jerry, and Jerry nodded his okay.

Frank turned to Mason. “Where’s Kenny?”

Jerry nodded and re-pointed the gun at Lucky. “Answer him. One sentence only.”

Mason smiled. “He won’t turn on me like you did.”

Jerry waited a one count. “Where is he?”

Mason shrugged. “I left him at Christie’s.”

Frank asked. “Is he okay?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t he be?”

The Rev shook his head and struggled to his feet. “Okay, that was crazy, but now, please, someone tell me what in the fucking hell is going on here?”

Jerry kept the gun trained on Mason while pointing to the chairs in front of his desk. The Rev and Frank sat down, glancing over their shoulders at Mason behind them in the little cell.

Jerry carefully sat down, all the while never taking the gun off Lucky. He glanced over at Frank. “Your head okay?”

Frank nodded yes.

Jerry nodded towards the Rev. “How ‘bout you? Headache? Trouble breathing?”

The Rev answered coldly. “I have a tension headache because you’ve got my son at gunpoint in a jail cell, but other than that, I’m peachy fucking keen. You’ve got some explaining to do, Jerry, and you too, Frank.”

Neither man said a thing, they just passed small glances at each other. Both shook their heads in sincere bafflement. They had no idea where to begin.

The Rev shook his own head. “Are the boys selling drugs? Are they secret commie spies? Please say something that makes sense right now, Jerry!”

Jerry just looked at him, dumbfounded.

The Rev was about to yell when Frank interrupted. “Mason shoots animals with a pellet gun then takes them alive to Grove Island and pulls their guts out and plays with them.”

The Rev leaned forward in his chair. “Come again?”

Jerry nodded, his face completely blank. “He cuts them open and pulls out the guts while they’re still alive. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The Rev gave a crazy smile of confusion. “What? That’s silly, Jerry. No one does that.”

Jerry’s face acknowledged this. “I know. But I saw it.”

The Rev exhaled long. “Jerry. You’re gonna unlock that cell and we’re gonna go home okay?”

Frank spoke very quietly. “I saw him. I watched him take the animals in a pillowcase, and then I called Jerry when I saw him out there with the pellet gun again.”

The Rev started to breathe hard and shake with fury. “Jerry, you are fucked in the head. Open that cell and let my son go right fucking now!”

Jerry cleared his throat. “We both saw it. Rev, he’s been doing this a long time. There’s a spot behind the Big Tree where the roots come up and form a little cave. It’s full of animal skeletons.”

The Rev looked back and forth between them and Mason. He turned back to Jerry. “That’s insane. That makes no sense. You’re telling me that my son, Mason
the youth pastor,
is a psycho? Can you hear what you’re saying?”

Jerry calmly turned away from his stare down with Lucky. “Rev, people who do this kind of thing hide it. It’s called sociopathy. They blend in perfectly and put themselves in positions of authority. Eventually they go after humans too.”

The Rev shook his head and looked Jerry in the eye. “Like you’re doing right now.”

Frank reached under the desk and pulled out the bloodied pillowcase and poured out its contents. The animals, slick with blood and hollowed out, fell limply to the floor.

The Rev stared down at the pitiful mess of formerly living creatures. He held his hand over his mouth and nose. He’d seen lots of dead animals, he was a hunter too, but this wasn’t the same as that. This was sadism. This was killing cruelly for the sheer wrongness of the deed.

The Rev spoke barely above a whisper. “I need to speak with my son.”

Jerry answered quietly and with compassion. “We’re not leaving you alone in here, Rev. There’s more to this, a lot more, and we don’t understand a great deal of it. But we can’t leave you alone with him.”

The Rev looked back down at the mess on the floor and back to his son. “Why? He won’t hurt me…”

Frank shook his head and looked down. “There’s more to this, Rev.”

Jerry exhaled hard. “A lot more.”

CHAPTER 9

Kenny woke up in Mary’s bed. He was naked, his clothes neatly folded on the dresser. It was already way past sundown. He’d slept the day through and now it was night time again. He couldn’t hear anyone; he was completely alone in Mary’s house. He thought about this morning, of the fear of being caught by Christie’s parents, and the shame of benefitting from Lucky’s manipulation of these naïve girls. He cringed again when he thought about the ride home. Mary had told him that she was pregnant like it was the best news in the world. Then she’d got him home, got him out of his clothes and had fucked him until he’d passed out. His own body was his enemy, and when it came time to fight, he surrendered every time.

He was lost in this stew of guilt and confusion when three sharp knocks sounded on the door. He looked around wildly. He was suddenly sure it was as improper for him to be in Mary’s dad’s trailer naked as it had been for him to be in Ted Tellefsen’s bed this morning. He really, really shouldn’t be here either.

Three more knocks. Harder. More insistent.

He jumped up, dressed himself then ran into the living room. He looked around wildly. It couldn’t be Lucky. He wouldn’t knock. It couldn’t be Mary, she lived here. Had the neighbors called the police for some reason?

He peaked through the blinds, seeing Christie’s white Acura.

He exhaled hard and opened the door. Christie was wearing sunglasses.

He giggled crazily. “Sunglasses at night, Ms. Tellefsen?”

She just pushed past him, barging into the living room, her motions ugly and stilted. She lurched from room to room calling for Lucky.

She spun round at Kenny. “Where is he?”

He shrugged, baffled at all of this. “Uh, I don’t know. He left before me and Mary. I’ve been here passed out all day, haven’t even showered yet.”

He tried to look confident and composed. “He’s probably at home. Actually he’s probably working on his Wednesday night youth ministry.”

He couldn’t help it, he laughed again and it sounded crazy.

She stalked across the room and got directly in his face. Then she started smelling him like an animal. Her weird jerky motions subsided and she pulled him in and rubbed her lips up the side of his neck, inhaling his stink like perfume.

He gently pushed her back, despite the throbbing in his pants.

“Hey, Christie.
Buddy
. I haven’t had a shower and I’m pretty gross.”

She grabbed his wrists and pulled into him again. She breathed hard and groaned. “I can smell it all. I can smell her pussy. I can smell everything from last night.”

Her hands pulled his fly open and she stuffed her tongue in his mouth. She started pulling her clothes off, not slowing for the ripping of expensive fabric. His mind began losing to his body and his will power slid into her open mouth.

But a single thought came like a tiny beacon in the distance.

“Why does he shoot animals with a pellet gun and carry them off to Grove Island in a bag?”

He pushed her away gently but firmly. “Christie! Why are you doing this? What the hell is wrong with you?”

She struggled to get her body and her mouth around his, to envelop him in her mindless lust.

He pushed her down on the couch and her sunglasses fell away. She had a glistening purple black eye. He held her at an arm’s length, getting a good look. Someone had really punched her good.

“Christie, what the fuck is that?”

She stopped her writhings, sat still, and stared blankly. Her breath caught and she started sobbing, long, hard and painful. Kenny had never seen such real and heartfelt anguish.

He sat down and gently cradled her head. “I’m sorry, Christie. I don’t understand any of this. This hurt you. This wasn’t supposed to happen to you. I’m sorry I had anything to do with it. I’m sorry for… fucking you. I’m sorry for participating in everything we did.”