John Connolly - Bad Men

“He’s down there,” said Macy. “There’s nowhere he can go.”

But Marianne was pulling her back.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “There’s something else down there too.”

Macy looked at her. She remembered the tower, and the floating child, and the look on Scarfe’s face as he stared out into the forest and saw what was pursuing him.

Macy began to run. A rumbling sound came from the ground below her, and she felt the earth begin to give way beneath her. She increased her speed, Marianne beside her, the two women racing as the ground around the Site collapsed, taking the stones and the cross and the remnants of the settlement with it, smothering Moloch’s final cries in the thunder of its destruction.

Barron sat in the SUV over by the Portland Marine Company, an empty coffee container from the 7-Eleven on Congress in the cup holder by his right hand, the radio playing some Cheap Trick for the night owls. Once or twice prowl cars had passed his way, but he’d hunched down low in his seat and the cops hadn’t even slowed, the SUV just another vehicle parked in the lot. The snow was still falling, although the wind had died down some. The SUV was warm, the heat on full blast, but he had kept his gloves and coat on just the same.

Barron had spent most of his evening trying to reach a decision about Parker, the private detective who was nosing around. People listened when Parker spoke, and it was only a matter of time before somebody with real authority started paying attention to his noises about a sexual predator at work in the area, possibly a predator in a uniform.

The men in Boston were his only option. He was their tame cop, in so deep with them now that he could never escape. If they heard he was under threat, then they might be prepared to deal with his problem for him. The Russians didn’t give a rat’s ass about reputation, or influence. They were in it for the money, and anything that threatened their sources of income, or their carefully cultivated contacts, would be annihilated without a moment’s thought. He had once hoped that they might let him go, but it had been a faint hope. If that was the case, he might just have to resign himself to the fact and take advantage of the situation.

He glanced again at the dashboard clock: almost midnight. All was quiet. If Scarfe’s buddies did come back to the port, it looked like they would be able to do so without interference. Barron had even spotted one or two ships, dense with lights, braving the bay as the snow began to ease and the wind faded from a howl to a whisper. The streets were deserted and Scarfe’s battered Grand Am was parked not ten feet from where he sat, along with two vans. They had wheels. They were free and clear once they got back to Portland. Barron had done all that he could be expected to do. He had waited, he had kept an ear to traffic on the two police bands. He had his cell phone ready, the number he had been given by the men in Boston written on a napkin and not stored in the phone’s memory just in case any of this came back to bite him on the ass.

Then his scanner burst into life, and next thing Barron knew there was a chopper being readied for a run to Dutch, the Coast Guard was moving in, and there were enough armed police heading for the water to mount an invasion. Barron started his engine and drove.

It had all turned to shit, just as he had expected.

Barron ditched the SUV at Hoyt’s Pond, then retrieved his own car and headed home. He spent the next two hours pacing his apartment floor, wondering if he should run, fearing that his colleagues were already coming for him, sold out by Scarfe to save himself. After a while, he just had to know. He returned to Commercial and contrived to bump into one of the detectives from headquarters, who gave him the lowdown on the situation. Dupree was dead, killed by persons yet to be identified. Some, maybe all, of those responsible were also dead, but they were still searching the island. Macy had blooded herself: Terry Scarfe, who appeared to be tied in with those involved, had died at her hands. Barron was particularly happy to receive this last piece of information. If he had survived, Scarfe would have fed him to the department like fish bait.

Barron returned to his apartment relieved and began to feel the old urge gnawing at him, brought on in part by his relief at what he had learned about the events on Dutch. His appetites had forced him to risk his job and jail time for men he didn’t know, yet he was still unable to control his urges. Lipska, the little Polack who acted as Boston’s representative in Maine, had promised him some payback if he did as he was told, even as he was blackmailing him in another’s name. Barron felt saliva flooding his mouth and the welcome ache building at his groin. He made the call.

“Yeah, it’s me. Something went wrong, and the cops moved on the island.”

He gave Lipska a summary of what little he knew. “Now I want what’s coming to me.”

He sighed when he heard the other man’s reply.

“Yeah, I know I still got to pay, but you promised me something fresh, with a little off the top for my time.”

Barron grinned.

“Man, you crack me up, you really do. I’ll be waiting.”

Barron’s apartment lay off Forest, close to the university. It took up the entire top floor of the building, the rooms below rented out to students, and nurses from Maine Medical. They paid their rent to Barron although they didn’t know it. He used an agency. To them, he was just another tenant. Barron didn’t want them bothering him with their shit.

He took a beer from the fridge, walked to the bathroom, and lit some candles, then ran a bath, testing the water with his fingers to make sure the temperature was okay. He wanted it just a little too hot, so that it would have cooled down just enough by the time the package arrived. He stripped, put on a robe, then turned some music on low. He was just heading back to the kitchen for another beer when there was a knock at his door. There had been no buzzer, no voice over his intercom. He went to his bedside table and took out his gun, keeping it to his side and slightly behind his back as he approached the door. He looked out of the peephole, then relaxed and opened the door.

There was a boy standing before him, fifteen or sixteen at most, just the age Barron liked. He had dark hair and pale skin, with reddish-purple smudges beneath his eyes. Truth be told, Barron thought he looked kind of ill, and for a moment he was worried that maybe the kid had the virus, but Lipska had assured him that he was clean, and that was one thing about Lipska: he didn’t lie about shit like that.

“How’d you get up? I leave the door open? I must have left the door open.” Barron heard himself babbling, but hell, the kid had something. He was almost otherworldly. Barron felt certain that tonight was going to be special. He stepped aside to let the kid enter, noticing his faded, crude trousers, his rough cotton shirt, his bare feet. Bare feet? The hell was Lipska thinking, on a night like this?

“You leave your shoes at the front door?” Barron asked.

The boy nodded. He smelled clean, like the sea.

“Yeah, bet they got real wet. Maybe tomorrow we’ll head out, buy you some sneakers.”

The boy didn’t reply. Instead, he looked toward the bathroom. Steam was rising from the tub.

“You like the water?”

The boy spoke for the first time.

“Yes,” he said.

He followed the older man into the bathroom, his thumbs rubbing against his fingers, tracing the grooves that the waves had worn into his skin like an old song waiting for the touch of the Victrola needle to bring it alive.

“I like the water very much.”