American Nocturne Page 21

  The horses reared and twisted. Ezekiel struggled not to be thrown. He heard a man’s scream, then several shots. When the horses finally settled and Ezekiel could see again, the boy and the woman lay motionless on the ground, soupy matter oozing from large holes in their skulls. Their faces were locked in feral expressions, animal ones, the likes of which Ezekiel had never seen, and prayed he’d never see again.

  Campbell was weeping now, and Ezekiel wondered if it was his scream he’d heard. The man mumbled through his sobs, just loud enough for Ezekiel to hear, saying, “It wasn’t done yet... She just needed more time... They just needed more time...”

  Smoke rose from the barrel of the gun wielded by the man with the white bandana as the scene settled down. The man seemed to stare at the bodies for a long time, as if maybe he was trying to make a point, or possibly think of one, then he swung the gun toward Ezekiel and cocked it once more.

  Shaking as he was, Ezekiel cleared his throat and fumbled to open the writing again. He found the gun in that man’s hand to have a remarkable way of aiding his understanding of what was expected of him.

  “William Campbell. You have been... found... guilty... of... the crime... of... nek... necro–mancy...”

  Ezekiel looked up again, catching a glimpse of the bodies, then back down before white bandana had a chance to react. The bore of that pistol looked huge when he stared into it.

  “You... and the n-n-neg-ress Obi have called upon... the p-p-prince of darkness to ease your suffering and vi-vi—” He stopped and coughed, wiping at his eyes. “Vi-olated the laws of Heaven.

  “For your crimes... against... nature... and nature’s God... you... have been... sen ... ten... ced... to burn... in... the... fl-fl-flames... of... Hell.

  “May the Lord and S-S-Savior... have mer-mercy... on your soul... when He comes to judge the q-q-quick and the dead...”

  Ezekiel raised his eyes. He saw that Campbell’s face had drained. There was only resignation there now. But Ezekiel knew there also had to be fear hidden beneath the flesh. The smell of it, or something like it, seemed to be trying to reach Ezekiel against the breeze. It was then he realized why he’d been brought here, what his purpose was. He wanted to tell the man it would all be okay, that they were just trying to teach him a lesson, but he knew that wasn’t true. He didn’t know what was about to happen, and not knowing always seemed worse. Still, he clung to the hope they really weren’t intent on hanging the man. But he also presumed they viewed killing as wrong, that they feared God’s reckoning, and he had little reason to believe that. Not these men. Not the one with the white bandana who rode so tall in the saddle, who carried himself like a gospel sharp on Sunday morning.

  White bandana holstered his weapon and gestured with a tilt of his head toward the others. The rider who had taken the blindfold off Campbell held it up, then removed something from a pocket in his coat with his other hand. He’d struck it against his saddle before Ezekiel realized it was a match. Within a moment, fire was creeping up the dangling cloth, licking and clawing skyward.

  Campbell screamed. He started saying no over and over. His eyes grew impossibly wide. The look of someone suddenly realizing something. Seeing his reaction made Ezekiel realize it, too.

  The Obi woman started laughing, a loud, raucous laughter that reached into Ezekiel’s body, transformed into icy claws, and squeezed his heart. Then the laughter stopped and she began to speak things he couldn’t understand; chanting, almost singing words heavy and melodic with m’s and b’s.

  She twisted her head to see the man the boy had bit. He was favoring his arm, pressing it against his side. She turned back to Ezekiel. Through a wide smile she spoke again, loudly and clearly this time, eyes focused only on him.

  “Judgment has already begun,” she said. Her voice sent a shiver through him, as if a thousand people had just marched over his grave. He would have sworn had he not known better it was his mother speaking. But he knew that could not be. She’d been dead more than twenty-five years.

  The rider tossed the cloth onto the rope near the stake. The fire made the sound of wind pressing against a door as it traveled up the rope, looped over the branch, and plummeted down to the noose. Campbell’s hair erupted first, then his shirt. Within a heartbeat, his entire upper body was a torch. Ezekiel could see his open mouth through the flames, watched his body shake and shudder, saw the thin log knocked to the ground.

  The woman’s rope caught a second later, another cloth tossed onto it. Unlike Campbell, she made no sound. Her body was still, motionless as the flames ravaged her. An empty shell, delivered into Hell. Where its occupant had gone he had no clue.

  Ezekiel knew he’d been wrong. Even enveloped in flames, the rope was plenty strong. Same for the tree limb. And the stake. He watched Campbell’s body jerk and twist, watched the fire consume it. Recognized the smell of kerosene and roasting flesh. He tried to close his eyes, but couldn’t get them to shut. He felt compelled to face it, compelled to accept that he’d done nothing to stop it. The fact he couldn’t have was no comfort. He imagined the painful sensations in his chest to be his soul sagging under the crush of guilt, found himself wishing for the first time ever that he was a slave again. He wondered what he’d done to be singled out for such a horrible punishment as that, one worse than he just witnessed. He knew now for certain these men would not harm him, though he found himself praying they would, praying for any outcome that would not leave him with these thoughts and nothing else. It was as if God had smote this man in the cruelest way conceivable, simply to prove Ezekiel had been wrong about everything he’d ever believed.

  The men waited for the hanging bodies to burn out before dumping what was left of the kerosene over the boy and the woman they’d shot. They lit them on fire then rode off, whipping their horses into a gallop. The man who’d been bitten was the slowest, trailing behind. Ezekiel realized he was in more pain than he had wanted the others to know.

  The sun was setting. Ezekiel supposed he should ride into town, tell the Sheriff. That was what he was there for, he knew. To bear witness, to tell everyone what had happened, and why. To let the world know this was not a crime, not a slaughter, but an act of justice. To send a warning.

  He tugged his mount back toward his own land instead, shaking and uncertain, the woman’s last words echoing through his head.

  Judgment has already begun.

  His mother’s words mixed with those as he glanced one more time in the direction of the departing riders, the last one looking unsteady in the saddle, still hunched over and in pain as he shrunk in the distance. Somehow he knew she’d been right, that somehow, some way, her words were coming to pass. Once it got in the blood, that’s when mankind would feel God’s wrath.

  He stared at the ground, then peered a final time in the direction of the riders, saw the last man crest a hill. The straggler, the man still favoring his arm. The man who’d been bit by a creature more animal than child, the glow of the devil in its eyes.

  Knowing was better than not knowing, something he’d never doubted, something he’d always been sure of. But in a part of his soul he rarely listened to, the one untouched by things like pride, he wondered if he might have been wrong about that, too.

  Mugwumps

  NO MATTER WHERE he looked, Grant Lomax saw his fate hanging there in the balance, staring back at him. Not the fickle finger of an intervening deity or the character-determinism blathered about in philosophy classes; this was the obvious, cause-and-effect kind of fate, as predictable as it was preventable. There was a train wreck looming in his future, and avoiding it was simple. He had to find some way to rid himself of his client. And the quicker, the better.

  Simple, but not easy. The balding, portly man in front of him, droning on about being a victim of circumstances as he solicited his lawyer’s moral approval, was the only client he had. It had been that way since Grant left Winston, Peck & Hughes, accepting the man’s offer to become his full-time attorney. It didn’t take long for
the golden handcuffs to start cutting off his circulation. After almost two years, Grant was almost ready to gnaw his hands off at the wrists to see them gone.

  The real problem, hovering over him like a storm cloud, was that people didn’t just rid themselves of Moscow Bain. If anyone was going to be dropped, it would probably be him by Moscow, not the other way around. And a six-foot drop, at that. He knew better than anyone that it was height of foolishness to lock horns with a man like Bain. And given the unsettling disappearance of Danny Alvarez, it was an understanding grounded in experience. Grant Lomax’s shingle could easily change from Attorney-at-Law to Attorney-at-Rest.

  “So, I’m asking you, Grant… am I wrong?” Moscow said, raising his bushy eyebrows. He was picking his teeth with am ornately designed toothpick as he spoke, reclining into the chocolate-brown leather of a chair in Grant’s office, his foot propped atop the lawyer’s desk. Grant wondered where a person had to go to find toothpicks like that, ones that came individually wrapped, with intricately patterned grooving. He wished he still wondered what kind of person actually bought them.

  “Am I?” he repeated.

  Grant looked at the sole of the shoe staring back at him. Its heel was scuffing the otherwise flawless finish of his mahogany desk. God, he simply could not go on like this: a high-dollar whore, paid to be the screwer, rather than the screwee.

  “I can terminate the leases, if that’s what you’re asking,” Grant said. That was certainly true. All the leases he drafted for Moscow contained provisions that were impossible for tenants not to breach. This was by design. Moscow Bain did not enter relationships he couldn’t end at will, even though the other party was always bound, hand and foot, tighter than Faust. Grant’s response to the question spoke to Moscow’s legal position, even though that wasn’t what the man was fishing for. Such was the way of their conversations.

  “Of course you can. I can always count on you.” Moscow looked down at his toothpick. A small, pasty lump of white food clung to the tip. He slid the wood through his fingertips, then flicked the glob away and rubbed the fingers against his pant leg. “Money-grubbing bastards. I can sell that property for seven million as a teardown. Seven million! Highest and best use, that’s what that location demands. Some of those bastards have a five-year renewal right. Do you think any damn one of them wouldn’t skip out for a fraction of that kind of money? Do you?”

  No one who wasn’t willing to pony up significant money in legal fees, only to face certain ruin in the long run, ever skipped out on a Moscow Bain lease or backed out of a Moscow Bain deal. But Grant knew better than to even hint at such a thing. Such was the way of their conversations.

  “I can draft termination and notice-to-vacate letters tomorrow. We’ll have most of them out in thirty days. Sixty to ninety if they put up a fight. But ninety days would be the max. That’s the quickest you’d be able to close.”

  “Ninety days! Jee-zus. If somebody came to me and said ‘Moscow, I need you to vacate because I’ve got a business opportunity’, why I’d be outta there in a week. A week, I tell you! I don’t force myself on anyone. I’d tear up that lease and move on. But I’m old school. Old school guys, we didn’t need lawyers to do up our contracts. It was all based on trust. If a situation changed and the other guy needed you to change the deal, to cut him a break, he could count on that trust to work things out. Not today. You can’t hardly trust anybody nowadays. Nothing but money-grubbing bastards and mugwumps. Am I wrong? Tell me if I’m wrong.”

  Grant forced himself not to cringe. Mugwump was the term Moscow used for people he particularly despised. People like Danny Alvarez.

  “I’ll draft an opinion letter to the title company stating that all leases are subject to termination and that every unit will be vacant by closing. You shouldn’t have a problem.”

  “You do that. Ninety days. I ought to sue any bastard who fights it, for my costs, for delaying my closing. We can claim conspiracy.”

  Grant rubbed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Everything that stood in Moscow’s way was a conspiracy. It was almost laughable. The man was the target of more conspiracies than JFK.

  “Something wrong, counselor?” Moscow’s tone, sarcastic and wry, suggested in its usual way that there had better not be.

  “No. I’m just tired,” Grant said, dropping his hand from his face and leaning forward to place his arms on his desk. He stretched the edges of his lips into what he hoped was a pleasant expression. “And I’m not feeling all that well.”

  It was the truth, he told himself. He was nothing if not sick and tired.

  “Yeah, well, you better get some rest. But first, I got something I want you to do for me.” Moscow pulled his foot from the desk and leaned forward, retrieving a slip of paper from a rear pocket. “I want you to research these properties. Find their owners’ tax status. Most of them are old and exempt from paying. This is a new gig I thought of. If they owe anything on their house, I can maybe buy the note and foreclose for letting the taxes accumulate.”

  “And if they’re exempt?”

  “Those are the ones I want to know about. You know those taxes accumulate against the property until the old people die. Most of the geezers with a mortgage, their places are almost paid off. Got a couple of years left on the note, maybe. But I bet you their loans don’t allow for taxes to go unpaid, whether they’re exempt or not. Other lenders may not care, but I can foreclose and pick up those places for a song. A song, Grant.”

  Grant nodded, almost tasting the bile as it threatened to crawl up his throat. Such was the way of their conversations.

  * * *

  When Grant led his client out of his office, his secretary had already left for the day. Kyle Shaw was standing over the printer at her workstation, waiting for the pages of a document to stop spitting out.

  “Hello, Mr Bain,” Kyle said, smiling.

  Moscow grunted a response, a hint of contempt tugging at the pudgy creases of his face.

  Kyle looked at Grant and hitched his shoulders. “Well, have a nice evening, Mr Bain.”

  Grant walked Moscow through a set of glass doors to a bank of elevators. He pressed a button and waited with his client.

  “When are you going to fire that kid?” Moscow asked.

  “Kyle? He’s okay. Besides, I need the help. You keep me pretty busy, you know.”

  Moscow pulled the toothpick from his mouth and stabbed the air near Grant’s chest. “Well, I wouldn’t trust him if I were you.”

  “Why not? He’s harmless. A good worker, too.”

  “He’s fake. A phony. There’s nothing worse than a phony. Someone who smiles in your face, but secretly hates your guts. Know what I mean?”

  “Yes,” Grant said. “I don’t think that’s the case with Kyle. He’s a good guy.”

  “You don’t know shit, counselor. You always say that about people. Other lawyers, mugwumps, people trying to screw me. I always have to educate you on the way people really are.”

  Grant inclined his head, placing a hand on the back of his neck and giving it a squeeze. “Are you insisting I fire him?”

  “No, you’re loyal. I respect that. Disloyalty is the only thing I hate worse than phoniness. I’m not gonna make you be disloyal.” Moscow leaned back, peering past Grant and through the glass doors to where Kyle was tapping the bottom end of a clutch of papers against a desk, aligning them into a neat stack. “But I’m telling you, I wouldn’t trust him. And I expect you to value my opinion.”

  “I always do, Moscow.”

  “You’d better. I’m the one who paid for that fancy suit you’re wearing.” The bell rang and the doors to an elevator cab parted. Moscow stepped inside and turned back to face Grant, waving a hand in a loose sweep from left to right. “I’m the one who pays for all of this, and don’t you forget it.”

  Grant wandered back through the glass doors into the reception area. Dark woods, green marble, supple leather. All in abundant supply. Al
l bought with Moscow’s money. Try as he might, forgetting it wasn’t in the cards.

  “Say Boss, if it’s okay with you, I’m going to kick out for the night,” Kyle said, emerging from a small office opposite Grant’s.

  Grant glanced at his watch, a diamond-studded Rolex he bought himself the day he accepted Moscow’s offer. The sweep of the second hand seemed both mocking and ominous as he checked the time, like it was happy to remind him that his was running out. It was almost seven.

  “It’s Friday, Kyle. You shouldn’t ask. Get out of here.”

  “You okay, Boss? You look kind of… out of it.”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  Kyle curled the side of his mouth into a dimple. “I don’t know why you’re in bed with that guy. You must know you’re so much better than this.”

  Grant eyed his clerk warily, saying nothing. The truth was, despite his defense of him, he didn’t fully trust Kyle. There was something about his clean-cut image, his boyish face, his no-combing-needed, meticulously chaotic crew cut, that seemed… phony.

  “I know it’s not my business, Boss, but you can’t tell me you don’t think that guy is worse than awful.”

  “Mr Bain pays the bills, Kyle. Don’t forget it.” Grant wasn’t certain which was worse – saying it or knowing that it was true. It almost made him want to retch.

  “Oh, there’s no denying it. But I’ve been here almost three months now, and I can see it’s killing you. Me, I’m just earning a paycheck. I can leave whenever. But you. You’re stuck with him.”

  The kid was perceptive, he had to give him that. Then again, it had to be rather obvious. This wasn’t the first time his clerk had made comments of this nature. It was, however, the first time he had seemed unwilling to let the subject drop without discussion.