A Passing Curse (2011) (5 page)

He backed off. Shaking something off his pant’s leg. His ears rang. His gun hand slippery wet. Blood smoke off the hot barrel. He reholstered the pistol. He rolled the body over, unlocked the bloody cuffs, dropped them in the sink, turned the creaky tap. He put out Lamb’s hair with the gray pillow.

He took the blood-wet towel from his chest, threw it in the trash can, and replaced it with a clean towel, clearly marked in bold green lettering, Holiday Inn.

Head-shooting cuffed suspects was a touchy matter, he thought, but explainable.

He’d tell Internal Affairs that Lamb had attacked him, undeniable, and they’d struggled for his service pistol. He’d claim big-time self defense. They’d wound up on the bed. The gun went off. The details would nail him. Little things like Lamb’s blood in the sink trap. Too much blood for a shaving nick. IA might also wonder why the inside of Lamb’s ear was mangled.

He slipped the still wet cuffs over his belt.

Blood was everywhere.

Would the blood spatters support his story? No. Too many details. He’d act stupid. He’d claim amnesia. He’d glide as a mental case.

Sirens down Alvarez, now. Cars skidding, doors slamming. The troops.

A girl winked from a centerfold thumb-tacked to the wall, proclaiming - “Wonderful Wanda Wants You.”

He opened the bathroom door. A small iron tub and toilet. The bottom of the tub covered with dirt. The miniature window covered with aluminum foil.

He doubted he could remain a cop. Jail was a possibility.

He opened the closet door and pulled a breath so deep it hurt his chest.

He should have searched the room immediately after cuffing Lamb. Rookie mistake number two. He was looking at evidence that would have buried Lamb, if he weren’t dead. Evidence that would keep him out of jail. He would now have to retire.

Inside the closet was a red and white plastic ice cooler, a large plastic bag flung casually on top. Mindful of fingerprints, he picked up the bag by the seam. It was filled with a jumble of mortician’s needles, number eights from the look of them, and surgical tubing.

He nudged off the cooler’s top with the tip of his shoe.

Nestled in the watery ice, three or four intravenous 500cc plasti-paks, fat with blood and ready to be hung from IV stands.

He picked up the plasti-pak. Dark red, almost black, blood. The name Cirrus stamped in white. He saw Melissa’s face and dropped the bag back into the cooler as if scalded.

He heard the first cops running up the stairs. He backed out of the closet and sat in the middle of the floor. Lamb’s hair was still smoking. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

He’d shot Lamb a good fifty-eight seconds before his minute was up.

4

Rusty Webber woke to the sound of far off ratchets, slightly muted, like the lowering of a casket. But the sensation was definitely that of rising. Resurrection?

She looked to the foot of the bed and saw a nurse cranking an unseen handle. The top half of the bed rose jerkily, slowly giving her a view of the outside courtyard, covered in snow, crisscrossed with footprints. A weather-whipped pine tree, much bedraggled, grew in one corner. Granite walls, as gray as the skies, showed dark mottling. The snow was turning to light rain. She was not in America.

She was in a green iron bed under an immeasurably high ceiling. The room smelled of mold, the stiff sheets of boric acid. She was not handcuffed or strapped down.

The nurse, in starched white cap and bat-wing glasses, black tape at one corner, stopped cranking the bed and stood behind a short gray-haired man, sporting a pointed goatee, wearing a stethoscope and a crisp white smock, a doctor’s badges of office.

He spoke Englishman’s English, Romanian flavored. “You came out of it absolutely topping,” he said. “A bit of coma, I’d think. Not bad, but we were a little put out, you know. You’ve been under three days. Gave us a frightful scare.”

Three days? Her mouth felt dry and cottony. The nurse put a tin cup with a glass straw to her lips. She tasted aluminum and crushed match heads. She did not feel “topping”.

A distinguished-looking man wearing a black suit stood at the window. He was looking into the courtyard, and he seemed too modern for the hospital. His dark face, nicely tanned, made the nurse and doctor sallow in comparison.

He turned. “May I speak with her alone?” He had a southern accent, hinting at culture. Arkansas? He glanced at his watch.

“Absolutely,” the doctor said. “She’s fine now. Absolutely good. Won’t make sense for a while. Still a bit potted on the medication, I’m afraid.” The doctor bent down to her ear and whispered, “This place is no good. Dreadful for you. I’ll do what I can. I hope your man here can help.” Then he straightened abruptly, looked into the courtyard, and hurried off with the nurse.

“I am the United States Ambassador to Romania,” the gray-haired man said with what sounded like regret. He touched her shoulder. “Wallace Harrington, Miss Webber, and we have a situation.”

“A situation?” Her voice sounded raspy and unused.

Harrington turned to the window. A black sedan roared into the courtyard and slid to a stop, throwing slush. The driver jumped out smartly and opened the rear door. A small man wearing a black homburg and overcoat popped out and strutted across the courtyard. An open jeep painted in splotchy gray primer halted behind the sedan. One of the tires looked flat. Four soldiers jumped out and looked around. Two of them grabbed heavy chains from the back of the jeep.

She heard a door swing open downstairs on un-oiled hinges.

“A situation?” she repeated. It flashed back to her. The snow. The blood. “I was damn near raped and killed. My driver was executed. That situation?”

Harrington didn’t answer. She heard them coming up the stairs. The man with the homburg topped the stairs and stomped into the room, followed by his driver, their boots wet.

“I am Bugazi,” the homburg said to Harrington. Two soldiers came next, dragging the chains, also wet from the snow. The men looked bored, as if they’d been dragging the chains for years, from one criminal to the next. The two soldiers without chains brought up the rear. No one seemed concerned that the chains were leaving a reddish smear on the linoleum.

“Your decision will not be looked upon favorably by the international community,” Harrington said to Bugazi, a pronouncement.

“We are not in your country,” Bugazi snapped in English, his accent more Russian than Romanian. “We do not let killers go. They must answer for their crimes.”

Harrington said evenly, “Miss Webber was attacked by three soldiers, your soldiers, who had already killed the guide. The evidence is clear.”

It suddenly annoyed her how damn calm Harrington was, like he was back on the Yale debating team, or Harvard, or whatever school he’d gone to on his wind-up to becoming an ambassador. He might have even roomed with the current president. No, that couldn’t be right, she was sure that presidential roommates got better postings than Romania.

Bugazi, stiff-faced, stomped his foot like a wind-up Hitler. “Three soldiers killed! While she has small concussion. Their heads removed. That is only clearness.” Bugazi stomped his foot again and turned his back sharply, as if that were the only answer they’d get.

Harrington reminded Bugazi with a grating equity, “They tried to rape her.”

The scene now hit her. Radu in the snow. What heads were they talking about? She put the field of death out of her mind. “Give him money, Wally. Grease his palms. Baksheesh.” She laughed and they both looked at her. She did not feel bad at all.

Harrington tried to gain momentum. “The soldiers killed Miss Webber’s guide. They were about to assault Miss Webber when she defended herself.”

She felt suddenly bored with Harrington. The four military policemen were freshly shaved and smelled of wet wool and leather. Their faces were flat, slightly oriental, but very white, exaggerating the redness of their eyes. Eager boys, she thought. She’d probably spend a few nights in jail before Ajax bailed her out. It was only a matter of money.

“The condemned girl will be taken now,” Bugazi said. The two without chains moved forward.

She sat up and grabbed Harrington’s arm. “Condemned? What’s he talking about?”

Ambassador Harrington, now sweating freely, tugged at his collar with his free hand before patting her arm. “There’s been a trial, my dear, is what he’s talking about.”

“A trial? I’ve been in a coma.” Her head throbbed from sitting up. She flopped back and laughed. A trial? A soldier hustled up, carrying a straight-backed chair. His lips were thin and blue. Everyone looked at her with surprise. Why was she laughing?

The kindly doctor walked up and complained loudly in Romanian. One soldier took out a short billy club and hit him twice on top of the head. The doctor dropped to his knees. His thick octagonal glasses clattered to the floor.

Two soldiers dragged the doctor down the hall and put him in a closet, kicking the door to make him fit. One soldier came back for the glasses. His friend opened the door wide enough to throw the glasses in. They leaned against the door before it clicked shut. One giggled.

Harrington came close. His eyes wet. “I’m so sorry.”

They pushed Harrington out of the way and manhandled her off the bed and into the chair. They wrapped the chains around her and the seat-back. The chain smelled of rust.

She expanded her shoulders and chest. The chain was cold. The wetness of it soaked her nightgown, a brown thing made of rough cotton. She cleared her throat. “Do something, Wally. You represent the most powerful nation in the world, or on earth, I forget which one.” She started to laugh again.

“Control yourself,” Harrington said to her and turned to Bugazi. “At least get her a priest. Have some decency.”

Bugazi scowled, crossed his arms, and stamped his feet again, the sound of it dully ringing out as if sounded by the clapper of a leaded bell. “Natashi!”

“A priest?” she asked, not wanting to understand. The soldiers were behind her fumbling with the chains, as if tying a knot. “A priest?”

Harrington said solemnly, “One of the soldiers, Kurash, was Bugazi’s cousin. I hope you see now what we are up against.”

“Who cares? It was self defense,” she said but her voice sounded funny, very funny, and she laughed. “And I didn’t cut off anybody’s head.” This sounded even funnier and she could not figure out why no one else was laughing.

Harrington was at her ear, his breath hot. “I have to stall them. I called the President’s advisor. I think he’ll call back. It will take a while to find a priest.”

They carried her downstairs. Harrington called out after her, “You’re very much on the President’s mind today.”

She yelled over her shoulder, “Why do I need a priest?”

Before he could answer, the soldiers had her across the courtyard and in front of the wall. She did not feel cold. She wasn’t the least bit scared, which seemed alarming. She looked down at her bare feet. She wiggled her toes. The snow felt grainy. Her feet were turning red from the cold, but she could not feel them.

A small, blue bus clanked to a halt outside the gate. Soldiers wedged out of the door, tilting the bus, holding their rifles jauntily in one hand, looking happy to be out of the cramped bus and into the cold air.

The two soldiers who had carried her to the wall stepped back and lit cigarettes. Their job was done.

Now in the courtyard, Harrington came behind Bugazi screaming, “What are you doing? A priest must be present. This is insane! Totally unacceptable! A priest is called for.”

If they were planning to shoot her, unacceptable was hardly the right word. Still, she felt disconnected, like a small bird high in the arthritic tree.

Bugazi turned on Wallace. “The hospital will prepare the body afterwards. You may have your priest then.” Bugazi pointed to the gate, a huge arch, bricks patched with gray cement. “You are no longer needed. Go. We will send the remains for your determination tomorrow.”

The word “remains” sounded wrong, she thought. She didn’t want to end up as remains. She scrunched her shoulders. The top chain slipped six inches.

At the direction of an officer, smartly dressed in a loden-green overcoat, the soldiers from the bus formed opposite her in a rough line. Their breath misted shoulder high. No one looked at her.

Harrington punched his cell phone with a gloved finger. Bugazi rocked back and forth, whistling the Vienna Waltz.

She felt a looseness in her spine. The cold was waking her up. The drugs were wearing off. She tucked her arms and exhaled, the chain slid to her elbows. Everyone studiously ignored her.

Harrington screamed into the phone, “They’re killing her right here! I can’t stop it by myself! I need help!” He stopped and listened for a moment. His voice was less hysterical, more urgent. “You have planes up? They’d better hurry. Of course she’s an American citizen. Make that high priority. The President knows - ”

Bugazi walked up to her, smiling. Plum brandy had stained his teeth blue. His cheeks were red. “It von’t be long,” he hissed. The firing squad had slung rifles and were talking among themselves, slapping bare hands together, a few hopping from foot to foot for circulation.

Another black sedan swerved through the gate and stopped. The driver hopped out and carried a briefcase to Bugazi. Another man, wearing a black leather jacket, leapt from the passenger seat and handed Bugazi a belted ceremonial sword which Bugazi promptly buckled to his waist. She pulled her elbows in, the chain dropped to her lap. Her arms were free.

The man in the leather jacket stood at attention, holding the briefcase open in front of Bugazi who removed a single white sheet from the briefcase and said to Harrington, “I have the order. In English for your convenience.”

Harrington ran up and snatched the paper away. Bugazi laughed. They both seemed insane.

She could pull her feet through the chains, kick free, and run. But where?

With all eyes on Harrington and Bugazi, both now pointing and yelling at each other, she might get through the gate. The black sedan’s engine was running, coughing blue smoke, and she might steal that. A dog’s chance, at best, but a chance.