Т Паркер - Where Serpents Lie

It was 2:03 A.M. by Hypok’s watch, which, he knew, was two minutes slow. He started the turn off Wytton and his rearview caught the faint headlights coming up his street from way back in the night.

Wytton to B to First. The school, the church, the ball field. Darkness, streetlights and the private hiss of cars. Haif a moon. Then the 55 freeway heading north and east to get him to the 91.

Hypok felt strong right now, immensely strong, with the tequila pulling down all his nerves into one big muscle and the one big muscle under the control of his will. Strong fingers on window handle, strong arm as he cranked it down for the cool spring suburban air. Jazz on the radio, syncopated, mindless and happy. That’s what he liked about jazz when he was on a predation, the way it never got to the point, never hit the tonic note, just kept mincing along and got you more and more... agitated. He let the notes go into his ears and bounce off the knotted muscle of his nerves and imagined what happens when a bird lands on the snout-ball of an alligator submerged in water. Wham!

Up the 55, merging with the 91, low-lying fog in the basin of the river, tracts to the left and hillsides to the right, truck scales closed, the toll lanes offered for 25 cents but empty anyway, fast-food America anchoring the suburbs: McDonald’s, In-and-Out, Carl’s, Taco Bell. He gazed at his own gigantic face on a billboard and felt proud. Have You Seen This Man? Call 1-800-647-SAVE. He wondered for the thousandth time exactly when Item #3, the little toad, had peeked at him. Must be a problem with the hood. The next one could stare at him all it wanted, he thought. The big illuminated rectangle of his face stood out wonderfully against the dark hillsides, and it was the only one for miles, the reigning deity in this little corner of the American night. It didn’t look anything like him anymore, he thought, but that was good, like an advertisement for someone else.

Hypok veered gently to his left, flattening a dozen orange dividers that wobbled back upright in the wake of his van, then he sailed along in the toll lane for a few hundred yards just to see what it was like — he’d never used it and this was his chance — but at this hour with so few cars what was the benefit except the satisfaction of feeling those rubber stanchions bending under you like helpless pygmies and the comfort of knowing you were breaking the law and getting away with it? He trampled another ten pylons and settled back into the no-pay fast lane, jazz low on the radio, fog triangulated in his headlamp beams, generic tequila harnessing the tracers of his imagination and tamping them down in his brain like gunpowder.

He thought of the Item and its mother waiting for him on Leeward: ditzy blondes, both of them, the mom maybe thirty and the Item maybe seven or eight, with long spindly legs and lots of hair. Met them at church months ago, talked to the woman at the Single Parents meeting afterward a few times, Chloe the Item and Margo the mom, very trusting as you would expect people at church to be. He’d regaled Margo with tales of his beloved “Mike,” age five, living with his mother back in Texas. Even showed her a picture of him, courtesy of some Bright Tomorrows moron who’d foisted it off on him in a burst of motherly pride. My son, Alexander. He’d filed Chloe and Margo under the port-in-a-storm category, because they weren’t easy to research, like the Bright Tomorrows Items, and it took him two prowls into the assistant pastor’s office to view the Rolodex long enough to get the address and phone number, because Margo wasn’t listed in the phone directory. He kept maybe a dozen port-in-a-storms catalogued in his head, reserved for a situation just like this one: billboards of his face on all major county freeways, a composite drawing (not bad) distributed to post offices, neighborhood markets, health clubs, police stations, school offices and thousands of homes throughout Christendom; cops getting closer to him, pressure, pressure, pressure. The pigs called it proaction — that warthog Ishmael spelled it out, right on TV — and proaction was exactly what he was going to give them, courtesy of Margo, Item #4, Neighborhood Congregational Church — Praise the Lord! — and the port-in-a-storm file.

It was hard to keep his excitement contained. Hypok thought about the ten grand, delivered to him that night by one of the Friendlies. What a sweet, secret delight it was to know that he had been instrumental, first in ruining the reputation of Crimes Against Youth sergeant Terry Naughton, and now in fleecing him out of ten thousand more bucks! And that on top of the $30,000 Naughton — Mal — had coughed for his original customs. Talk about a smiley face. That money would go a long way now, especially with his snakes no longer eating up a hundred dollars’ worth of vermin a week along with the occasional boxes of kittens or puppies he’d get free in the classifieds, so long as he promised a good home for them. After quitting Bright Tomorrows, he’d live on Mal’s money. A cop’s money. Tax free. He was commissioned. He was golden. He was changing. He was there.

He really was there. He pulled onto Leeward and proceeded west to the correct number. It was easy to find because they were right out there on the curbs, in reflecting black and silver paint: 239. He drove past, made three right turns and pulled alongside a little park to settle himself. He cut the engine and got out the bottle. He liked the way the liquor warmed up in the center console, down there where the engine heat seeped through the plastic. He thought about Mal again. What would the inmates do with him if he went to prison? It was hard to imagine the wrath. He took another drink. Idea: would law enforcement pay for information on the continuing exploits of T.N.? What if he contacted this Ishmael fool, for instance, the one on the TV press conference, the proactive prick, and told him he had additional information on the accused? Interesting. But would the cops pay up enough to make it worth his while? Idea: take it one step further. What would Mal do if he threatened to expose his latest request to the Sheriffs? Maybe that’s how to get the last few drops of blood out of Naughton. Wait until he finds out who his dream girl is. Make him sweat awhile. Daydreams can be so exciting, he thought, especially at 2:38 A.M. on a damp May morning.

He took another swig, for luck, then worked on a pair of latex gloves and started up the van.

Thirty seconds later he was sitting outside Item #4’s house, engine off, neighborhood still, moon low over the uniform roofs of uniform houses, his heart slamming inside his chest like a dragster with a blown rod. He put some cinnamon drops on his tongue. He pulled off three eight-inch lengths of duct tape and stuck them inside his jacket. The glass cutter and toilet plunger, the rim of which was smeared with petroleum jelly for a sure fit on the window glass, sat in his lap. He put the Hiker’s Headlight on and arranged the lamp up on his forehead, equidistant from each eye, a snug, cyclopean organ just waiting to illuminate prey. He knew the Item’s room was in the back and he knew they didn’t have a dog. It was just a matter of getting over the gate without waking up the world, then he’d be home free. He got out and quietly pressed the door shut, nudging it into its latch with his hips.

Fifteen steps to the gate, arms at his sides and plunger tucked up under his armpit. Calm strides, but assured ones, the stride of a man on familiar ground. Then the gate getting closer, closer now, closer still, Hypok running the last five steps, long eager steps like the high jumpers take in the Olympics — one, two, three, four, five — then the swing of his right leg and the heave of his left, plunger held before him for balance, and he was atop the rickety grapestake fence, pausing for just one moment like a sentence delayed by a comma, then he shifted his weight and drew himself together to spring off with hardly a sound, just the brief swoosh of a body falling through space then the muffled air-cushion tap of athletic shoes on concrete as Hypok landed apelike and crouched on the side walkway by the trash cans, his eyes adjusting to a new gradient of darkness, moonlight only, his ears tuned to every sound in the night, his heart pounding hard and a voice inside snickering, clean.