Stephen King - Different Seasons

‘But-'

'Do you suppose, I ask myself, that the very atrocities in which Dussander took part formed the basis of some attraction between them? That's an unholy idea, I tell myself. The things that happened in those camps still have power enough to make the stomach flutter with nausea. I fed that way myself, although the only close relative I ever had in the camps was my grandfather, and he died when I was three. But maybe for all of us there is something about what the Germans did that pleases and excites us - something that opens the catacombs of the imagination. Maybe part of our dread and horror comes from a secret knowledge that under the right - or wrong - set of circumstances, we ourselves would be willing to build such places and staff them. Black serendipity. Maybe we know that under the right set of circumstances the things that live in the catacombs would be glad to crawl out And what do you think they would look like? Like mad fuehrers with forelocks and shoe-polish moustaches, heiling all over the place? Like red devils, or demons, or the dragon that floats on its stinking reptile wings?'

'I don't know,' Richler said.

'I think most of them would look like ordinary accountants,' Weiskopf said. 'Little mind-men with graphs and flow-charts and electronic calculators, all ready to start maximizing the kill ratios so that next time we could perhaps kill twenty or thirty millions instead of only seven or eight or twelve. And some of them might look like Todd Bowden.'

'You're damn near as creepy as he is,' Richler said.

Weiskopf nodded. 'It's a creepy subject Finding those dead men and animals in Dussander's cellar ... that was creepy, nu? Have you ever thought that maybe this boy began with a simple interest in the camps? An interest not much different from the interests of boys who collect coins or stamps or who like to read about wild West desperados? And that he went to Dussander to get his information straight from the horse's head?'

'Mouth,' Weiskopf muttered. It was almost lost in the roar of another ten-wheeler passing them. BUDWEISER was printed on the side in letters six feet tall. What an amazing country, Weiskopf thought and lit a fresh cigarette. They don't understand how we can live surrounded by half-mad Arabs, but if I lived here for two years I would have a nervous breakdown. 'Maybe. And maybe it isn't possible to stand close to murder piled on murder and not be touched by it.'

29

The short guy who entered the squadroom brought stench after him like a wake. He smelted like rotten bananas and Wildroot Cream Oil and cockroach shit and the inside of a city garbage truck at the end of a busy morning. He was dressed in a pair of ageing herringbone pants, a ripped grey institutional shirt, and a faded blue warmup jacket from which most of the zipper hung loose like a string of pygmy teeth. The uppers of his shoes were bound to the lowers with Krazy Glue. A pestiferous hat sat on his head. He looked like death with a hangover.

'Oh Christ, get out of here!' The duty sergeant cried. 'You're not under arrest, Hap! I swear to God! I swear it on my mother's name! Get out of here! I want to breathe again.'

'I want to talk to Lieutenant Bozeman.'

'He died, Hap. It happened yesterday. We're all really fucked up over it. So get out and let us mourn in peace.'

'I want to talk to Lieutenant Bozeman!' Hap said more loudly. His breath drifted fragrantly from his mouth: a juicy, fermenting mixture of pizza, Hall's Mentholyptus lozenges, and sweet red wine.

'He had to go to Siam on a case, Hap. So why don't you just get out of here? Go someplace and eat a lightbulb.'

‘I want to talk to Lieutenant Bozeman and I ain't leaving until I do!’

The duty sergeant fled the room. He returned about five minutes later with Bozeman, a thin, slightly stooped man of fifty.

'Take him into your office, okay, Dan?' The duty sergeant begged. 'Won't that be all right?'

'Come on, Hap,' Bozeman said, and a minute later they were in the three-sided stall that was Bozeman's office. Bozeman prudently opened his only window and turned on his fan before sitting down. 'Do something for you, Hap?'

'You still on those murders, Lieutenant Bozeman?'

'The derelicts? Yeah, I guess that's still mine.'

'Well, I know who greased 'em.'

'Is that so, Hap?' Bozeman asked. He was busy lighting his pipe. He rarely smoked the pipe, but neither the fan nor the open window was quite enough to overwhelm Hap's smell. Soon, Bozeman thought, the paint would begin to blister and peel. He sighed.

'You member I tole you Sonny was talking to a guy just a day before they found him all cut up in that pipe? You member me tellin' you that, Lieutenant Bozeman?'

'I remember.' Several of the winos who hung around the Salvation Army and the soup kitchen a few blocks away had told a similar story about two of the murdered derelicts, Charles 'Sonny' Brackett and Peter 'Poley' Smith. They had seen a guy hanging around, a young guy, talking to Sonny and Poley. Nobody knew for sure if Sonny had gone off with the guy, but Hap and two others claimed to have seen Poley Smith walk off with him. They had the idea that the 'guy' was underage and willing to spring for a bottle of musky in exchange for some juice. Several other winos claimed to have seen a 'guy' like that around. The description of this 'guy' was superb, bound to stand up in court, coming as it did from such unimpeachable sources. Young, blond, and white. What else did you need to make a bust?

'Well, last night I was in the park,' Hap said, 'and I just happened to have this old bunch of newspapers -'

'There's a law against vagrancy in this city, Hap.'

'I was just collectin' 'em up,' Hap said righteously. 'It's so awful the way people litter. I was doin' a public surface, Lieutenant A friggin' public surface. Some of those papers was a week old.'

'Yes. Hap.' Bozeman said. He remembered - vaguely being quite hungry and looking forward keenly to his lunch. That time seemed long ago now.

'Well, when I woke up, one of those papers had blew onto my face and I was looking right at the guy. Gave me a hell of a jump, I can tell you. Look. This is the guy. This guy right here.'

Hap pulled a crumpled, yellowed, water-spotted sheet of newspaper from his warmup jacket and unfolded it Bozeman leaned forward, now moderately interested. Hap put the paper on his desk so he could read the headline: 4 BOYS NAMED TO SOUTHERN CAL ALL-STARS. Below the head were four photos.

'Which one, Hap?

Hap put a grimy finger on the picture to the far right 'Him. It says his name is Todd Bowden.'

Bozeman looked from the picture to Hap, wondering how many of Hap's brain-cells were still unfried and in some kind of working order after twenty years of being sauteed in a bubbling sauce of cheap wine seasoned with an occasional shot of sterno.

'How can you be sure, Hap? He's wearing a baseball cap in the picture. I can't tell if he's got blond hair or not'

'The grin,' Hap said. 'It's the way he's grinnin'. He was grinnin' at Poley in just that same ain't-life-grand way when they walked off together. I couldn't mistake that grin in a million years. That's him, that's the guy.'

Bozeman barely heard this last; he was thinking, and thinking hard. Todd Bowden. There was something familiar about that name. Something that bothered him even worse than the thought that a local high school hero might be going around and offing winos. He thought he had heard that name just this morning in conversation. He frowned, trying to remember where.

Hap was gone and Dan Bozeman was still trying to figure it out when Richler and Weiskopf came in ... and it was the sound of their voices as they got coffee in the squadroom that finally brought it home to him.

'Holy God,' said Lieutenant Bozeman, and got up in a hurry.