Joe Lansdale - Leather Maiden

We found a window we could force up, and crawled inside.

There was a pile of pews. Half the place was charcoal. Across the way, it looked as if the fire had cut the wood in the shape of teeth rising up from the floor. You could see through those gaps and what you could see were a bunch of dark homes and a dark street that looked to have last been paved about the time pigs flew. A good wind and all of it on the burned side could topple like a smoldering fireplace log, and what made me nervous was we were having just such a wind. On the side that wasn’t burned, the windows rattled in their frames like maracas, and the air still smelled of charcoal and soot.

“When did this place catch fire?” Booger said.

“I don’t know exactly. Dad said it could have been arson.”

I found a little narrow stairway that went up. I hesitated for a moment, but there was nothing else to see anywhere. I took out the .38 and looked back at Booger.

“I’m going up,” I said.

“I’m not stopping you.”

I went up. On the stairs, about halfway to the top, I could see where the skein of a spiderweb had been snapped and someone had gone through. I climbed into the room above. The smell of smoke was strong there. It had gathered into the lumber thick as the paint, even though there was only a slight bit of burn damage on the far right wall. The stench made my nose itch and my eyes water. Underneath it was an even more unpleasant odor.

I was still standing at the top of the landing, blinking through smoke-watered eyes, staring at something by the window, when Booger got there.

Booger looked too, said, “I feel like I’m in a Hardy Boys book.”

I guess they had those in the orphanage as well.

We eased over to the chair that was in front of the window. The underlying stench became less underlying. In the chair was a human shape, but there was little human left of it. A telescope was mounted on a tripod in front of it, pointing out the tower window.

I moved around so I could see the thing in the chair. It was a woman, withered and near mummified like the other; another leather maiden, like the title of the Jerzy Fitzgerald book. The hair was mostly there, and it was long and black as a raven’s wing. The upper teeth showed where the flesh had dried and drawn back, and I could tell that beneath the yellowed skin there was some kind of frame, like before, wire or wood. The breasts were stuffed and knotty and misshapen. The legs had nothing in them. They were just skin, dangling like empty stockings over the edge of the chair. It was Ronnie, pretty much as she had appeared in the photograph that had been sent to me. Her head, like Tabitha’s, had a cut line.

I took a breath and took hold of her hair and lifted up her skull. There was another envelope inside.

Booger reached in and took it out and I set the skull cap back in place.

Booger opened the envelope. He looked inside. He made a grunting noise.

I took it from him and read it. It said:

DON’T BUMP THE TELESCOPE. LOOK THROUGH IT AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU SEE.

I got hold of the chair Ronnie’s remains were in and moved it back so that I could get to the telescope. A corpse without its insides is very light.

When I finished moving her, Booger took out a handkerchief and wiped down the chair where I had touched it. He studied the corpse, said, “Looks like she’s been frozen and stored in salt. There’s still salt in her hair, and the rest of her looks and smells like freezer burn.”

“What she smells like is dead,” I said.

“I had some fish sticks went bad smelled like that.”

I turned my attention to where the telescope was pointing. There was smoke and dust grimed over the other windows in the church, but this one had been cleaned, and I could even smell a bit of window cleaner in the air.

I didn’t touch the telescope, just looked through it. It wasn’t an expensive telescope, but it was powerful enough, and for a moment I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Then I realized exactly what I was seeing. A slow warm horror settled over me.

A few blocks over. Belinda’s house. It was lined up dead center in the telescope.

37

We parked at the rear of Belinda’s house, at the curb. It was dark behind the windows. When we got to the back door, Booger used his little lock pick and it opened easily. This time I had my flashlight, and I moved the beam around as we walked inside. The house was silent and there was a kind of emptiness about the place, like a funeral home. There was a faint smell of the bread candle in the air. I hesitated a moment, and then I couldn’t help myself; I said, “Belinda?”

I turned to look for Booger, but he had already gone deep inside and was moving through the dark like, well, like a copper cat.

I turned on a light. Booger was standing in the open bedroom doorway, blocking it. He said, “All we needed was you banging some fucking cymbals and blowing a kazoo with your asshole. Man, don’t lose your focus, woman or no woman. Come here.”

I followed him through the doorway, into Belinda’s bedroom. The bread smell was strong in there, and the door to the bathroom was open. Booger went over and leaned against the doorjamb. I peeked in. There was water in the tub, some soap scum on the water. There was a throw-away razor on the edge of the tub along with some kind of shaving gel. There were splashes of water all over the floor.

“She’s in here getting a bath, shaving her legs, and they came in on her,” Booger said. He went over and sat on the edge of the tub and dropped his hand in the water. “Water’s still warm, she just ran it and had most likely got in. The floor’s wet, so they pulled her out. Gals don’t like to get out wet. They dry.”

“Damn,” I said, and I felt my knees get weak.

“No time for that shit,” Booger said. “Let’s check the place good.”

We went into the kitchen. I saw there was a note propped up on the kitchen table. I had seen it earlier, but it hadn’t really caught my eye, as I was looking for Belinda.

I eased over and took it and opened it. Unlike the others, it was written in a tight little script by someone who fancied themselves stylish.

It read:

WE KNOW A LOT ABOUT YOU AND A LOT ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW YOU, AND WE HAVE BORROWED ONE OF THEM. WE WANT YOU TO KNOW WHAT YOU’RE UP AGAINST AND TO UNDERSTAND THAT WE ARE ABSOLUTELY RUTHLESS AND PROUD OF IT. SHE MIGHT BE OKAY AND SHE MIGHT NOT. WE ARE THINKING OF REMOVING HER BRACES WITH PLIERS AND EXTREME PREJUDICE. GO HOME. AWAIT INSTRUCTIONS. SHE RESTS IN THE TRUNK OF OUR CAR FOR NOW, BUT THAT IS NOT AS DARK AND AS TIGHT A PLACE AS SHE MAY END UP. SKIN COMES LOOSE EASY WITH THE RIGHT KNIFE AND PLENTY OF EXPERIENCE.

I sat down in a chair at the table. Booger came over and picked up the note and read it. “Look here,” he said. “She’s dead, she’s dead. If she’s alive, we got a chance to get her back. I don’t know her and it’s not anything to me, but it’s something to you, so that makes it my business. Now get your shit together and let’s go to your place and wait for instructions.”

I nodded.

Booger clamped his hand down on my shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “Just like when we was over in Sand World, you got to cinch up your drawers and get to cracking before you get a bullet in the head and your pants fill with shit. Got me?”

I nodded again and got up. Booger drove us back to my place.

When we opened the door and turned on the light, lying on the floor, near the motorcycle, was yet another note. It had been slipped under the door.

“These fuckers are quick,” Booger said. “A little too quick.”