insanity.
These were Sanders’s rewards for the truth, a psychological profile that would make Charles Manson seem straight. And the doctors had laughed at him, too. Silently. The way all psychiatrists laughed.
Further reward had been expeditious medical discharge, free air fare home care of an Air Force C-141 MED EVAC flight, and seven years of restricted psychiatric environment.
Room 6 was a compressed pit. It came complete with a sagging bed, a fiberboard desk, two shaded lamps, and a bathroom the size of a broom closet. All the comforts of home. The floor was bare wood, and the white- painted walls had begun to tint yellow from age, neglect, and cigarette smoke. Behind him stood a squat dresser enameled a hundred times over. Dust clung to the baseboards, and formed clotted balls which lurked beneath the bed. In the wastebasket he noticed several bloody napkins, a pair of torn panties, and no less than four prophylactics, used, he had to presume. Pressed into the wall just over the bed were two smudged handprints.
His duffelbag hung empty in the closet; he’d already unpacked his things, and had arranged them in the dresser. He’d been fortunate that the Uniformed Code of Military Justice did not restrict private ownership of bullet-proof vests, though such items could never be worn on duty unless they were general issue. This was not general issue. The Bristol grade-25 protective vest lay in the drawer like a black, perverse girdle. It was British- made, with front, back, and pelvic panels composed of Kevlar and a fiber-reinforced plastics composite that would stop up to a 9mm submachine gun round at 75 feet. He’d won it in a card game in Germany. The half-dozen dents in the ballistic material were barely evident, and he thought again of how lucky he’d been.
From the drawer he removed his set of ancient HPC lock picks. His MOS qualifications for armorer and lock technician had protected these from customs. He opened the black, zippered case, which was approximately the size of a prayer book, and surveyed the assortment of black, spring-steel implements. These tools might prove vital in the next few days. He would have to brush up on his technique, though; it had been a while since he’d last practiced.
Last was his stash belt, his portable bank. It sat in the drawer like a dead snake. Within its zippered lining he stored his current funds, a thousand dollars in traveler’s checks. Florida was still his legal place of residence, even though he hadn’t actually been there in years. During his hospitalization, then, his VA disability checks had been sent to a bank in Sarasota, via direct deposit. The thousand in the belt, plus his ready cash, was the remainder of his TDRL pay from the Army, which he’d kept in an account at the patients’ funds office until his release.
Officially, only sixty-six pounds of on-carry freight per man were allowed on any MAC flight, though an additional ten pounds were allowed to slip by if properly tied to the duffel in a standard G.I. string bag. It was from this that customs had confiscated the only things from Sanders’s air baggage: deodorant, shaving cream (aerosol cans were not permitted in any military air freight compartment), a lizard-skin wallet, and his set of Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knives. All lost without consequence.
Bored, Sanders opened the door and stood wide within its frame, looking out. The night air rushed him and seemed heavy with dank, sweet scents. From all around came the anapestic calls of crickets. Darkness had settled fully now, a murky deceptive dark which he’d noticed frequently since coming back to the World. The moon was smeared by clouds to just a faint blur overhead; he could hardly tell the sky from the woodline on the other side of the highway. The sign at the end of the parking lot burned GEIN’S MOTEL in hot blue neon. He peered at the sign strangely, as if someone might be hiding behind it.
The danger was easy to see. At least he hadn’t lost all his operational foresight. He would need a good weapon before he began, and that might require a favor. There were many favors owed, though, and Sanders thought of May 1968, Delaware Offensive, Quang Tri Province, and a good, good friend named Jack Wilson. It was time to cash that favor in. He remembered well the whoosh-tick-bam of Soviet-made wire-guided rockets as they impacted Detroit steelplate.
Inexplicably, the word
— | — | —
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kurt walked cheerily into the kitchen, for once at grips with his “five days suspension without pay.” He’d get over it. Bright morning light blazed in through the sliding door. Melissa was seated on a stool at the counter, talking on the phone. As she spoke, though, she spun smoothly on the stool and watched Kurt advance toward the coffeepot.
“Just make sure you’re in the house by sunset,” she was saying. There was a pause, a matter-of-fact nod, then she continued. “Oh, sure, tent stakes will work. Broom handles, pool sticks—anything, just as long as it’s made of wood.”
Kurt poured coffee into a Styrofoam cup and reluctantly held it to his nose.
”Uh huh,” Melissa went on. “Just hold a mirror up to her face. If there’s no reflection, then you’ve got one… Okay, yeah. Garlic works, too, but not as good as a cross… Sure, sure, I’ll see if I can.” Then she hung up and stared widely at Kurt.
“Is this coffee fresh?” he asked.
“Yep. Just made it”
Kurt took a sip and immediately spat it into the sink.
“Fooled you.” She giggled impishly. “Some people will believe anything.”
“Buttbrain,” he said. “Who was that on the phone?”
“Jenny. She thinks her sister is one.”
“One what?”
“One of the vampires.”
“And I suppose she’s gonna drive a tent stake through her sister’s heart.”
“Only if she doesn’t pass the mirror test.” Melissa turned again on her stool as Kurt went to get his keys off the kitchen table. Grinning, she said, “I guess you’re gonna go do some job-hunting today, huh?”
“What?”
“Job hunting,” she repeated. “Everybody’s heard.”
“Melissa, what the fu— What the heck are you talking about? Why would I need to go job hunting?”
Her grin widened to the extent of perversion. “Well, I heard that you got kicked off the police department for crushing Lenny Stokes’s head with a croquet mallet.”
Kurt looked at her, his eyes drooping. “Who told you that?”
“Jenny. The whole town’s talking about it.”
“I can always count on the Tylersville grapevine to get the story straight. Jesus.”
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not true,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to mimic her voice. “I was suspended for five days, not fired. And I didn’t crush his head with a croquet mallet, I punched him in the face.”
“Why?”
Kurt’s cheeks were beginning to redden. “Because he’s a pri— he’s a coc— Because I felt like it, that’s why.”
Melissa seemed disappointed. “You mean he’s not in critical condition?”
He shoved the question away with a groan, the conversation now thoroughly corroded. Melissa continued to revolve on the stool, her arms crisscrossed between her legs. “Wanna do me a favor?” she asked.
“No.”
“Drive me and Jenny to Foos Fun?”
