waste, sleeping, building, growing, repeating the process. It amazed him. He suddenly realized that a newborn human was the exact mirror opposite of an old person, who slowly degenerates with the intake and expulsion of matter. He saw humanity as a miraculous eating machine.
Chaingang could look at the tiny features—the wrinkled face, the mouth, the miniature hands and feet—for hours and hours. This was his human son. It was a miniature Daniel Bunkowski. He had performed a miracle. He had duplicated himself.
Bunkowski retained only survival information, but that ran the gamut from the basics of high technology to the most incredible trivia. He understood that criminology had made advances far beyond what the public knew about. Just within his own personal history of captures and imprisonments he had experienced many didactic and mind-expanding events that gave the lie to the stereotypical dumb-copper image. What little the public, cons included, knew about the latest advancements in ultra-sophisticated weaponry or ultrasound detection was a mere trickle of disinformation filtering down through the media.
A man as large as himself, a man alone with an infant, it would only be a matter of time before they zeroed in on him. He had killed another policeman. Never mind that it had been the wrong one. They would hunt him down as relentlessly as if the victim had been Eichord.
In this new introspection the bestial killer was permitted sufficient insight to realize that his quest of vengeance was meaningless. It was the sort of thing he did when he was out of control. Eichord would now be surrounded by such a steel circle of protection that to attempt to penetrate it again would be virtually suicidal. Yet, to this physical precognate the copper Jack Eichord remained the key to Daniel Bunkowski's future. He represented the police to Chaingang. He WAS the long blue arm.
As always, the huge man was not bereft of plans. He knew that to escape that claw full of sharp, legal talons he would have to vanish again, as he had in Chicago. What was the best way to disappear? To remain in view. The last place they'd look would be right under their noses. He could hide here with his son, and take on the colorings of the locale and its people with his consummate actor's skill. Change. Blend in. Disappear. But to do this there was one major prerequisite. He must have money.
It was this need that had him putting the baby to sleep in its mosquito-netted bassinet and surveilling the traffic at a remote construction site there on the outskirts of monied Lake Buckhead.
Chaingang saw the man get into the van and pull out from the construction site. The van said Catton Construction Co., Inc., on the side of the door and he pulled out a half a block behind it. They went through a newly planted line of scraggly tulip poplars and small, spreading yews, and passed under a huge sign saying Welcome to Something Vista a New Something Village. The two something-words had portions of banner stuck to them and Chaingang couldn't make the words out. At the bottom of the sign that spanned the entranceway and exit to the new project it boasted that this was
They went by a vast work site of cats and backhoes and diggers and scoopers and haulers and movers and shakers of every description. Water sluiced down into the muddy earthen pit from a half a hundred pipes and hoses and lines. The lake was about twelve feet deep at the finished depth, and appeared to be five or six acres in overall size. Catton's job would be limited to the construction of the lake, which would ultimately be stocked to keep the standing water from becoming stagnant, at least until they got the place filled and paying for itself.
Concept Environments, Inc., was a work name for the Bernard Grossman Co., who had designed, sold, and erected these “villages” all over the South and Midwest. The man driving the Catton van was on his way to discuss a problem with Mr. Grossman, and the problem was occupying his thoughts when a loud, metallic crunch and a slamming jolt whipped him back and forth in the seat as a vehicle had come from out of nowhere and rammed the van from behind.
“You STUPID son of a bitch,” was all he could think as he heard that awful and unmistakable crunch that most motorists end up hearing at some point in their lifetimes, and Bob Byrd came out of the van hopping mad and ready to kick some ass.
For most of us tame citizens, jumping out of our company van with our schedule our precious
“Whyn'cha look where the FUCK you're goin'?'
“Ahhh, hey, man” Bunkowski is saying, the face crinkled with sincere remorse, “I feel like a fucking IDIOT,” he says even as Byrd is going, “Why didn'cha hit cher BRAKES when—'
“STUPIDEST damn thing I've ever done.” The head about to come off he's shaking it so hard, so abject in his apology, looking all around like he just can't believe it, the big head bobbing around as he admits his stupidity,
“Jeeeezus,” Byrd says as he looks at the damage to the van.
“I just can't tell you how sorry I am,” Bunkowski is saying, that face in constant motion, that head going all over the place, what he does—he looks around as he talks, looking for a curious passing motorist, looking for the cop car, the rod out of nowhere, the interested construction worker leaning on his shovel a block away drawn by the impact of the vehicles, and moving back up to the van to get a clear view of the front seat, moving the body, the arms, the hands, the face, that huge shadow of bulk in sudden, constant motion. “I just hope I can make this up to you, buddy,” he's saying to Bob Byrd, who is still irritated but how the hell can you keep cussing out a guy who admits he's wrong, says he's stupid, and it's all his fault, he's going to make it up to you.
“This is going to cost me—'
“Not to mention fuckin’ up your busy schedule,” he's telling the guy what he was about to say, he knows just how this man feels, he is genuinely SYMPATHETIC—well, hell. accidents happen—and Byrd is still mad but he's beginning to see there is nothing to be gained by flying off the handle.
“Man, I just wish my foot hadn't slid off that damn brake.” And all the time with the body language and the hands, now, HANDLING him so very gently, he couldn't really tell you how it was happening, this big guy TOUCHED him somehow, just a light rap really a pat on the shoulder but the unwanted intrusive familiarity makes you back up and that is how he HANDLES you, MOVES you, MANIPULATES you like a human chess piece.
“I'm always having to drive defensively because of some IDIOT,” he's saying, “and now to go and be one of the idiots—well, I tell you.” He keeps up the flood of words, always words coming out at you as that huge head bobs around, the expression constantly changing, so much to took at, to hear, to contend with, to assimilate, the flow of information coming at you so rationally, the words coming in the exact cadence of your own speech pattern, because this is CHAINGANG, who practiced the art of vocal camouflage as a SURVIVAL SKILL.
And 99 percent of the time all the bullshit and the sudden waves of input overload your ordinary thought processes and it's just too much for you, but Bob Byrd is a hothead, you see, and something about the guy, the bigness, the familiarity, the unwanted intrusion on his life just hacks him off and he bristles and PULLS AWAY from the immense man, almost as if he was going to RUN, and the plan, which was to get hold of him with those hands, snap his neck, toss the rubbish back in the van, and get what there was to take and be gone, the plan is changed and Chaingang pulls out the Colt Woodsman and drills the hothead right in the pelvis with the first one, but it's only a .22 long rifle Super and the hands come up as Chain triggers another one, making a nice perforation in the left palm, but by then, as Bob Byrd slips and goes down, Death is right on top of him and he lets him hold one up close and personal the ABC way and pockets the weapon and with one hand the sack of shit is being hauled up off the blacktop and packed back into his van with one of the nasty little chunks of lead in his gray matter, Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski having just permanently revoked and canceled Bob Byrd's birth certificate.
The long, strange-looking leather wallet thing is attached to a small chain that is locked to a thick leather belt and for most of us it would take wire cutters to snip through it but Daniel just puts a little crimp in the chain and wraps the slack around a couple of steel cigars on either hand and WHAP the sucker is in two pieces and he is back in the car and moving away from the scene. And a dirty van with Catton Construction Co., Inc., on the door is sort of in the way of the traffic but you can get around it so it will be a few minutes before a semi tries to pull around it, going down on the shoulder a little, the driver sitting high up looking into the van seeing the man who obviously had a heart attack or something slumped down on the floorboards and taking time to signal to a passing scout car.
Even as Daniel drives away the on-line terminals are filing the information away and his bizarre but
