Nocturnes Read online

He tapped the glass gently with his fingernail.

  And the tumor moved.

  Across town, in Elaine Olssen’s untidy bedroom, Lopez sat at the window and looked out on the fields. Elaine’s place was right at the edge of Easton, where town met country. There was a stream close by, and distant mountains silvered by the moon. He heard an owl hooting. He wondered if it had already fed itself that night, or if it had not yet found its prey.

  Lopez could not stop thinking about Buddy Carson. Earlier that evening, as he stood over him in Reed’s, he had been conscious of a ringing in his ears, a kind of high-pitched whine. Lopez knew what the sound was: it was his senses kicking up a gear, like they did when, distantly, he thought he heard his garden gate open and knew that someone was approaching his door, even if he could not hear the steps on the path, or when a person came too close behind him and he felt his personal space being encroached upon, even though he could not see the individual in question without turning around.

  Faced with Buddy Carson, Lopez’s senses appeared to go on high alert. Even though he had no reason to think it, Lopez believed that Buddy Carson was trying to touch him in the bar, as though some game were being played between them, the rules of which were clear only to Carson. It was in the awkward way that he turned his hand in order to pass his license over, or in the way his fingers leaped forward to take it back when Lopez returned it, aiming at once at and beyond the license itself.

  Lopez didn’t want to be touched by Buddy Carson. Something told him that to have any physical contact with the cowboy would be a very bad idea indeed. Knowing that Carson had left town would help, but it would not alleviate his concerns entirely. He was bad news for somebody, and moving him along would only transfer to another man the burden of eventually dealing with him.

  There were times, when he was a trooper, that Lopez encountered individuals who brought nothing of worth to the world, who in fact seemed to enjoy making it worse for anyone who had the misfortune to cross their path. Lopez would often try to imagine what they had been like as children in an effort to modify his feelings of hatred for them. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it did not. When it didn’t, Lopez would find himself agreeing with those of his peers who felt that the best thing for everyone involved would be if those people were dead. They were like bacteria in a petri dish, spreading out and colonizing their surroundings, tainting everything they touched.

  Lopez tried to picture Buddy Carson as a child, and found that he could not. Nothing came to him. Maybe it was tiredness, but in his head Carson seemed both old and young, both newly formed yet ancient, like old metal that had been smelted and reused again and again, becoming more and more corrupt in the process.

  Lopez looked to the bed, where Elaine lay sleeping. She always slept the same way: curled up on her right side, with her right arm pressed against her breasts and her left hand close to her mouth. She rarely moved in the night, and uttered no sounds in her sleep.

  He slipped back into the bed and made as if to reach for her. Instead, his hand remained hovering inches above her skin, unwilling to make contact. He drew it back to himself and moved away from her, finding his own space at the very edge of the mattress, where at last he drifted into sleep.

  V

  Buddy Carson checked out of the Easton Motel shortly after eleven the following morning. The pain was growing in his right side. He could take a small hit from someone, if it got too bad, but just a little in case he might be tempted to rest, for he usually felt sleepy after release, and there was work to be done. He would accept some discomfort now in return for more lasting relief later.

  Jed was too distracted by his family problems to care much about being polite to his sole guest. Phil Wheaton was already sitting in the waiting room of Greg Bradley’s office, his face white and stretched taut with pain. He told his father that he wasn’t feeling so good, that he had pains in his lower body, but Jed didn’t need to be told that his son was sick. His physical appearance had changed drastically overnight. He seemed to have lost pounds in a matter of hours. Jed wanted to go see the doctor with him, but Phil said he would prefer to go alone, and that he’d give his father a call if there was a problem. Despite that, Jed was considering heading over to the doctor’s office anyway when Maria called to say that she wasn’t feeling great and that she’d be late. When Buddy Carson came in, Jed was already calling around his relief staff, trying to find someone who might be prepared to cover at short notice.

  Buddy had paid up front for his stay. Now that he had decided to check out early, he wanted his money back. Jed didn’t argue. He just wanted Buddy gone so that he could set about seeing to his son’s needs.

  “Bad morning?” asked Buddy.

  “Not so good,” said Jed.

  He reached out to count the cash and Buddy Carson tapped him softly on the back of the hand with a yellowed index finger.

  “You need to take a deep breath, try to relax,” said Buddy solemnly. “You’ll make yourself sick. Believe me, I know.”

  Jed remembered the description of the blackened, bloodied towels, and registered the way Buddy Carson’s teeth were streaked brown with nicotine, his gums a vivid purple. I’ll bet you know all about sickness, he thought. I’m glad that you’re leaving, but if I find out that you brought something into this town, if I discover that it was you that made my boy sick, I’ll hunt you down, you fuck. I’ll hunt you down and I’ll take a knife to you, and then you won’t have to worry about bloody towels, or your teeth falling out of your head, or your ragged fucking nails cracking and disintegrating, because I’ll tear you apart, I swear to God I will.

  “Sure,” said Jed. “You have a good day, now.”

  Lopez woke with Elaine. They made love quickly, then Elaine showered while he toasted some bagels. He listened to the news on the radio in the kitchen, then took his shower while Elaine dressed. She dropped him outside Reed’s, kissed him good-bye, and told him that she’d see him later that evening. He watched her drive away, waving to her as she turned the corner and left his view, then strolled over to talk to Eddy Reed, who was sweeping the steps outside the bar.

  “Economy drive?” he asked. “I thought you had employees to clean steps while you counted your millions in a back room.”

  “Two called in sick,” said Eddy. “Today of all days they have to get sick.”

  “You’ll have no problem getting folks to help out if you’re in trouble.”

  Eddie stopped sweeping and leaned on the handle of the brush.

  “I guess you’re right.”

  He sucked on his lip, as though trying to reach a decision with himself, then said to Lopez: “You got a minute to look at something?”

  Lopez shrugged and followed him into the bar. Reed led him to the men’s room, then opened the door.

  “Last one,” he said.

  Lopez walked past the urinals. The door to the end stall was half closed. He pushed it open with the toe of his boot.

  There was black fluid on the wall, and more liquid pooled on the floor. An inexpert attempt had been made to prevent it from spreading by dumping toilet paper on top of it. The paper was almost entirely soaked through.

  “Found it when I was locking up. It was quiet last night, so I guess nobody used the stall after it happened. I was going to call Lloyd, but it was after two in the morning and I figured that maybe it wasn’t worth troubling him about.”

  Lopez squatted down and took a closer look at the blood.

  “Give me that brush for a second,” he said.

  Reed handed over the brush, and Lopez used the handle to explore the accumulation of paper and fluid. At the center of the mass, he found pieces of black matter.

  “What are they?” asked Reed.

  “I don’t know. Looks like someone might have coughed them up.”

  “Whoever it is, he’s real sick.”

  Lopez stood, then washed the tip of the broom in the sink before handing it back to Reed.

  “You remember who was in the
bar last night after I left?”

  Reed considered the question.

  “Locals, mostly. I can name them. Two couples from out of town. Don’t think they were staying here. And the guy in the corner booth, the one you were talking to. Creepy sonofabitch. Kept brushing up against the wait staff.”

  Lopez swore softly. “I think I know where to find him,” he said. “I want you to make a list of the people who were here, just in case. Put some Scotch tape over the door to this stall, maybe an OUT OF ORDER sign too. I’ll get Greg Bradley to stop by and take a look at it. And Ed, don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

  Ed looked at him as if he’d just been advised not to stir cocktails with his wiener.

  “You mean you don’t want me to tell my brunch customers about what looks like black blood in the men’s room, which might make them think twice about ordering the beef? I don’t know, Chief, but if you insist…”

  Lopez called by the Easton Motel. Jed was no longer behind the desk. A young girl, one of Pat Capoore’s kids, was looking after things while Jed was gone. A teen magazine was open in front of her, and she was sipping a can of soda through a straw.

  “You know where he is?” he asked.

  “His son, Phil, isn’t feeling so good. He told me he’d be over at Greg Bradley’s if there was a problem.”

  Lopez asked for the motel’s registration cards. He flicked through them until he came to Buddy Carson’s.

  “Did this man check out?”

  “The motel’s empty. I guess he must have done.”

  “Have you made up the room?”

  “I don’t think it’s been done yet. I guess I’ll have to do it when Jed gets back.”

  She made a barfing gesture by sticking her finger in her mouth, then gave Lopez the key to 12 before returning to her magazine.

  “Hey,” she called, as he was about to leave. “Should I ask you for a warrant or something?”

  “Why?” he asked. “You got something to hide?”

  “Maybe,” she said, coquettishly. Her lips closed around the straw. She sucked deeply, never taking her eyes from him the whole time.

  Lopez left her to it, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t have a talk with Pat Capoore about his little girl.

  The room was neat and empty. The toilet roll was folded into a little triangle at the end, and none of the towels had been used. The bed had been slept on rather than in. Lopez could see the depression Buddy Carson’s body had made on the quilt. The quilt was yellow and green. Where it covered the pillows, Lopez saw a dark stain.

  Black blood: not much, though. Lopez thought he could see traces of it in the toilet bowl too, although nothing like the men’s room at Reed’s. It looked like Buddy Carson wouldn’t be creeping people out for much longer. Lopez tried to find an ounce of sympathy for the man, but failed. He closed the door, returned the key, and headed home to change into his uniform.

  Greg Bradley was having a bad morning. First, there was Maria Dominguez, with a lump in her breast the size of a walnut. He’d warned her again and again about screening, but she was a big, buxom woman in the fullest bloom of health. People like her believed that they just couldn’t get sick. He’d given her a referral for Manchester and made the appointment for her for that afternoon. She’d called her husband from the office and he had collected her. As soon as they were gone, Greg phoned Amy Weiss, the counselor he used, and told her the details. She assured him that she’d call the house and offer to accompany Maria to Manchester.

  Now there was Phil Wheaton. He began to cry almost as soon as Greg examined him, big silent tears that rolled down his cheeks and exploded on his bare thighs.

  Greg tried to keep his voice calm as he examined him.

  “How long have you had this, Phil?” he asked.

  “Just since yesterday.”

  Greg looked up at him.

  “Seriously, Phil. I need you to tell me the truth.”

  “That is the truth. Honest, I wouldn’t lie about something like this. I mean, look at me.”

  It flew in the face of all medical knowledge, but Greg was inclined to believe him. The expression on Phil Wheaton’s face was one of absolute fear and panic, and Greg had become expert at spotting the liars in his office. But this made no sense: he was looking at what he very much suspected was an advanced stage of testicular cancer. He tested him for discomfort and found pain centers as high as his abdomen.

  “Okay, Phil, we need to get you looked at by a specialist. You got someone you can call?”

  “My dad,” said Phil. “Can I call my dad?”

  Greg told him to pull his pants up, then went out to ask his secretary to call Jed Wheaton, but the older man was already in the waiting room, staring at the bulletin board on the wall without taking any of it in. Greg walked over to him, touched his shoulder, and gestured toward the second consulting room at the opposite end of the hallway from where his son was dressing.

  “Jed,” he said. “You want to come inside with me for a moment?”

  Lopez relieved Lloyd and Ellie, then left Chris Barker, another part-time cop, in charge of the station house while he did his rounds. It would be a long day today, culminating in the event at Reed’s, which would require him to be present and in uniform for the occasion. He called Greg Bradley’s office, but Lana told him that the doctor was pretty much tied up for the morning, and asked him to call back later. Lopez decided that the blood in Reed’s could wait until the afternoon. Once Greg had taken a look at it, Reed could get the stall cleaned up before the crowds started to arrive.

  Buddy Carson: the guy certainly managed to leave his mark on a place.

  It was Lloyd who spotted the red Dodge Charger. He was halfway home, and thinking only about his bed, when he saw it parked under a bank of trees beside Easton’s old bowling alley, long since boarded up and slowly falling into disrepair.

  Lopez sometimes commented that Lloyd had a mind like a sorting office: everything in its right place, the smallest of facts correctly filed away. A seemingly innocuous detail could set Lloyd off, leading him to flip diligently through the storehouse of his mind until he came up with the relevant case.

  Among the heads-ups in the IN tray that morning was a bulletin concerning the deaths of a family in Colorado. While medical experts were still examining the bodies, state police—and, for reasons that weren’t made clear in the bulletin, the Feds and the health authorities—were anxious to talk to a man who might have visited the scene. Apparently, the owner of a neighboring ranch had noticed a red Dodge Charger entering the property a day before the bodies were discovered. He couldn’t make out the plate, but the driver was male, and the witness thought he might have been carrying a white hat in his hand.

  Now here was a red Dodge Charger. It was a long way from Colorado, but there was no mistaking it. Standing beside the car was a thin man wearing a white cowboy hat and eating a candy bar. There was something stuck on the front of the hat, just above the brim. Lloyd didn’t know that this was Buddy Carson, the same man Lopez had asked Ellie to run a check on the night before, because Lopez hadn’t mentioned a car.

  Lloyd pulled into the lot. He didn’t have a radio in his truck, but he did have a cell phone. He could call Lopez, he supposed, but he decided to see what the guy had to say for himself first of all. He pulled up about ten feet from the man in the hat and opened his door. Lloyd was still wearing his uniform, but the man didn’t appear troubled by the sight of him. Either he was very cool or he didn’t have a lot to hide. The trouble was that those who had the least to hide tended to worry the most when confronted by a cop in uniform. It was the quiet ones who needed to be watched.

  “Morning,” said Lloyd. “Everything okay here?”

  Buddy Carson finished the candy bar, rolled the wrapper into a ball, then placed it carefully in his shirt pocket, just behind his wallet. He was wearing black leather gloves.

  “Everything’s just fine,” he said.

  “You got some identification?”

/>   “Sure,” said Buddy.

  He took his wallet from his pocket, found his driver’s license, and handed it to Lloyd, but Lloyd jerked his hand away at the last moment and the license fell on the ground between them. He felt as though he had come too close to an electrical field, bristling and humming with dangerous energy, contained only by the thin leather of the man’s gloves.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked.

  Buddy Carson didn’t answer. Instead, his mouth opened wide, and a steady stream of black fluid struck Lloyd Hopkins in the face. He stumbled backward, his eyes burning. He tried to reach for his gun, but Buddy moved in on him, wrenching his arm away from the weapon and hitting him on the bridge of the nose with the heel of his right hand. Lloyd went down, and Buddy took his gun.

  Buddy listened for a second, but could detect no cars coming. He considered shooting the cop, but was afraid that someone as yet unseen might hear, and he couldn’t risk dissipating his energies by taking him in the usual way. Instead, he slipped the gun into his belt, then raised his foot and brought the heel of his boot down hard on Lloyd’s head.

  By the third strike, Lloyd Hopkins was dead.

  Greg Bradley cleared his office by twelve thirty, then told Lana to go home. Fridays were always half days, but Lana was in even more of a hurry to leave than usual since she was due to help Eddy Reed with the preparations for the charity evening. Once she had left, turning the sign on the door to CLOSED on her way out, he sat down at his desk and put his head in his hands. It was as bad a morning as he could ever remember: Maria and her husband driving out of the lot, she with her head lowered, too stunned even to cry; Jed Wheaton trying to console his weeping son; and a call from Manchester to say that Link Frazier had passed away during the night. Three cancer cases in as many days, at least two of them massively advanced and two of them connected with the Easton Motel. He replayed the message Jed had left on his machine the night before. He had wanted to question him more closely about his sick guest, the one who had bled all over the towels, but Jed’s attention was now fixed entirely on his son. Anyway, the guy had checked out that morning. The towels were still there, Jed told him. Maria had placed them in a bag in the laundry room, just in case.