Black House (Page 82)

So (more in order to dispel his bad case of the willies than to gossip; let’s at least give Arnold that much) the Mad Hungarian makes the terrible mistake of trusting his wife’s discretion. He calls Paula and tells her that he spoke to the Fisherman not half an hour ago. Yes, really, the Fisherman! He tells her about the body that is supposedly waiting for Dale and Tom Lund out at Ed’s Eats. She asks him if he’s all right. Her voice is trembling with awe and excitement, and the Mad Hungarian finds this quite satisfying, since he’s feeling awed and excited himself. They talk a little more, and when Arnold hangs up, he feels better. The terror of that rough, strangely knowing voice on the phone has receded a little.

Paula Hrabowski is discretion itself, the very soul of discretion. She tells only her two best friends about the call Arnie got from the Fisherman and the body at Ed’s Eats, and swears them both to secrecy. Both say they will never tell a soul, and this is why, one hour later, even before the State Police and the county medical and forensics guys have been called, everyone knows that the police have found a slaughterhouse out at Ed’s Eats. Half a dozen murdered kids.

Maybe more.

10

AS THE CRUISER with Tom Lund behind the wheel noses down Third Street to Chase — roof-rack lights decorously dark, siren off — Dale takes out his wallet and begins digging through the mess in the back: business cards people have given him, a few dog-eared photographs, little licks of folded-over notebook paper. On one of the latter he finds what he wants.

"Whatcha doin’, boss?" Tom asks.

"None of your beeswax. Just drive the car."

Dale grabs the phone from its spot on the console, grimaces and wipes off the residue of someone’s powdered doughnut, then, without much hope, dials the number of Jack Sawyer’s cell phone. He starts to smile when the phone is answered on the fourth ring, but the smile metamorphoses into a frown of puzzlement. He knows that voice and should recognize it, but —

"Hello?" says the person who has apparently answered Jack’s cell phone. "Speak now, whoever you are, or forever hold your peace."

Then Dale knows. Would have known immediately if he had been at home or in his office, but in this context —

"Henry?" he says, knowing he sounds stupid but not able to help it. "Uncle Henry, is that you?"

Jack is piloting his truck across the Tamarack Bridge when the cell phone in his pants pocket starts its annoying little tweet. He takes it out and taps the back of Henry’s hand with it. "Deal with this," he says. "Cell phones give you brain cancer."

"Which is okay for me but not for you."

"More or less, yeah."

"That’s what I love about you, Jack," Henry says, and opens the phone with a nonchalant flick of the wrist. "Hello?" And, after a pause: "Speak now, whoever you are, or forever hold your peace." Jack glances at him, then back at the road. They’re coming up on Roy’s Store, where the early shopper gets the best greens. "Yes, Dale. It is indeed your esteemed — " Henry listens, frowning a little bit and smiling a little bit. "I’m in Jack’s truck, with Jack," he says. "George Rathbun isn’t working this morning because KDCU is covering the Summer Marathon over in La Riv — "

He listens some more, then says: "If it’s a Nokia — which is what it feels like and sounds like — then it’s digital rather than analog. Wait." He looks at Jack. "Your cell," he says. "It’s a Nokia?"

"Yes, but why — "

"Because digital phones are supposedly harder to snoop," Henry says, and goes back to the phone. "It’s a digital, and I’ll put him on. I’m sure Jack can explain everything." Henry hands him the telephone, folds his hands primly in his lap, and looks out the window exactly as he would if surveying the scenery. And maybe he is, Jack thinks. Maybe in some weird fruit-bat way, he really is.

He pulls over to the shoulder on Highway 93. He doesn’t like the cell phone to begin with — twenty-first-century slave bracelets, he thinks them — but he absolutely loathes driving while talking on one. Besides, Irma Freneau isn’t going anywhere this morning.

"Dale?" he says.

"Where are you?" Dale asks, and Jack knows at once that the Fisherman has been busy elsewhere, too. As long as it’s not another dead kid, he thinks. Not that, not yet, please. "How come you’re with Henry? Is Fred Marshall there, too?"

Jack tells him about the change in plan, and is about to go on when Dale breaks in.

"Whatever you’re doing, I want you to get your ass out to a place called Ed’s Eats and Dawgs, near Goltz’s. Henry can help you find it. The Fisherman called the station, Jack. He called 911. Told us Irma Freneau’s body is out there. Well, not in so many words, but he did say she."

Dale is not quite babbling, but almost. Jack notes this as any good clinician would note the symptoms of a patient.

"I need you, Jack. I really — "

"That’s where we were headed anyway," Jack says quietly, although they are going absolutely nowhere at this moment, just sitting on the shoulder while the occasional car blips past on 93.

"What?"

Hoping that Dale and Henry are right about the virtues of digital technology, Jack tells French Landing’s police chief about his morning delivery, aware that Henry, although still looking out the window, is listening sharply. He tells Dale that Ty Marshall’s cap was on top of the box with the feathers and Irma’s foot inside it.

"Holy . . ." Dale says, sounding out of breath. "Holy shit."

"Tell me what you’ve done," Jack says, and Dale does. It sounds pretty good — so far, at least — but Jack doesn’t like the part about Arnold Hrabowski. The Mad Hungarian has impressed him as the sort of fellow who will never be able to behave like a real cop, no matter how hard he tries. Back in L.A., they used to call the Arnie Hrabowskis of the world Mayberry RFDs.