But the cop only bent, offloaded his burden, then backed out onto the porch’s little stoop again. He closed the door and then wiped his hands above it, leaving smears of blood on the lintel. He was so tall he didn’t even have to reach to do this. The gesture gave Johnny a deep chill-it was like something out of the Book of Exodus, instructions for the Angel of Death to pass on by … except this man was the Angel of Death. The destroyer.
The cop walked back to the cruiser, got in, and drove sedately back toward the intersection.
“Why’d you take him into there?” Johnny asked.
“What did you want me to do?” the cop asked. His voice was thicker than ever; now he seemed almost to be gargling his words. “Leave him for the buzzards? I m ashamed of you, mon capitaine. You’ve been living so long with so-called civilized folk that you’re starting to think like them.”
“The dog-”
“A man is not a dog,” the cop said in a prim, lecturely voice. He turned right at the intersection, then almost immediately hung a left, turning into a parking lot next to the town’sMunicipalBuilding . He killed the engine, got out, and opened the right-hand rear door. That at least spared Johnny the pain and effort of sliding his banged-up body out past the sagging driver’s seat. “A chicken is not a chicken dinner and a man is not a dog, Johnny. Not even a man like you. Come on. Get out. Alley-zoop.”
Johnny got out. He was very aware of the silence; the sounds he could hear-wind, the spick-spack of alkali hit ting the brick side of theMunicipalBuilding , a monotonous squeaking sound from somewhere nearby-only emphasized that silence, turned it into something like a dome. He stretched, wincing at the pain in his back and leg but needing to do something for the rest of his muscles, which were badly cramped. Then he forced him self to look up into the ruin of the cop’s face. The man s height was intimidating, somehow disorienting. It wasn’t just that at six-three Johnny was used to looking down into people’s faces instead of up; it was the amount of the height differential, not an inch or two but at least four Then there was the breadth of the man. The sheer breadth He didn’t just stand; he loomed.
“Why didn’t you kill me like you did that guy back there? Billy? Or does it even make any sense to ask?
Are you beyond why?”
“Oh shit, we’re all beyond why, you know that,” the cop said, exposing bloody teeth in a smile Johnny could have done without. “The important thing is … listen closely . . . I could let you go. Would you like that? You must have at least two more stupid, pointless books left in your head, maybe as many as half a dozen. You could write a few before that thunderclap coronary that’s waiting for you up the road finally takes you off. And I’m sure that, given time, you could put this interlude behind you and once more convince yourself that what you are doing somehow justifies your existence. Would you like that, Johnny? Would you Like me to let you go free?”
Eringo bragh, Johnny thought for no reason at all, and for one nightmarish moment felt he would laugh.
Then the urge was gone and he nodded. “Yes, I’d like that very much.”
“Free! Like a bird out of a cage.” The cop flapped his arms to demonstrate, and Johnny saw that the bloody patches under his arms had spread. His uniform shirt was now stained crimson along the torn side-seams almost all the way down to his beltline.
“Yes.” Not that he believed his new playmate had the slightest intention in the world of letting him free; oh no. But said playmate was shortly going to be nothing but blood-sausage held together by the casing of his uniform, and if he could just remain whole and functional himself until that happened…
“All right. Here’s the deal, bigshot: suck my cock. Do that and I’ll let you go. Straight trade.”
He unzipped his fly and pulled down the elastic front of his shorts. Something that looked like a dead whitesnake fell out. Johnny observed the thin stream of blood drizzling from it without surprise. The cop was bleeding from every other orifice, wasn’t he?
“Speaking in the lit’ry sense,” the cop said, grinning, “this particular blowjob is going to be a little more Anne Rice than Armistead Maupin. I suggest you follow QueenVictoria ’s advice-close your eyes and think of straw-berry shortcake.”
Johnny Marmnville looked at the maniac’s prick, then up at the maniac’s grinning face, then back at his prick again.
He didn’t know what the cop expected-screams, revulsion, tears, melodramatic pleading but he had a clear sense that he wasn’t feeling what the cop wanted him to feel, what the cop probably thought he was feeling.
You don’t seem to understand, ci that I’ve seen a lot worse things in my tune than a cock dripping blood. Not just inVietnam , either.
He realized that the anger was creeping up on hut again, threatening to take him over. Oh shit, of course it was. Anger had always been his primary addiction, not whiskey or coke or ‘hides. Plain old rage. It didn’t have anything to do with what the cop had taken out of his pants, and that might be what the guy didn’t understand It wasn’t a sex issue. The thing was, Johnny Marinville had never liked anything stuck
in his face.
“I’ll get down on my knees in front of you if you want he said, and although his voice was mild, something in the cop’s face changed -really changed for the first time. It blanked out somehow, except for the good eye, which narrowed suspiciously.
“Why are you looking at me that way? What in the hell gives you the right to look at me that way? Tak!”
“Never mind how I’m looking at you. Just hear me out. ~- motherfucker: three seconds after I put that trouser-rat of yours into my mouth, it’s going to be lying on the pave-ment. You got that? Tuk!~’ He spat this last word up into the cop’s face, standin~ on tiptoe to do it. and for a moment the big man looked more than surprised-he looked shocked. Then the expression tightened into a cramp of rage, and he shoved Johnny away from him so hard that for a moment he felt as if he were flying. He hit the side of the building, saw stars as the back of his head connected with rough brick bounced back, then went sprawling when his feet tangled together. New places hurt and old places howled, but the expression he had seen on the cop’s face made it all worthwhile. He looked up to see if it was still there wanting to sample it again like a bee sampling the sweet heart of a flower, and his heart staggered in his chest.
The cop’s face had tautened. The skin on it now looked like makeup, or a thin coat of paint-unreal.
Even the blood-filled eye looked unreal. It was as if there was another face beneath the one Johnny could see, pushing at the overlying flesh, trying to get out.
The cop’s good eye fixed on him for a moment, and then his head lifted. He pointed at the sky with all five fingers of his left hand. “Tak ah lah,” he said in his guttural, gargling voice. “Timoh. Can de lach! On!
On!”
There was a flapping sound. like clothes on a line, and a shadow fell over Johnny’s face.
There was a harsh cry, not quite a caw, and then something with scabrous, flap-ping wings dropped on him, its crooked claws gripping his shoulders and folding themselves into the fabric of his shirt, its beak digging into his scalp as it uttered its inhuman cry again.
It was the smell that told Johnny what it was-a smell like meat gone feverish with rot. Its huge, unkempt wings flapped against the sides of his face as it solidified its position, driving that stench into his mouth and nose, jamming it in, making him gag. He saw the Shepherd on its rope, swinging as the peeled-looking
bald things pulled at its tail and feet with their beaks. Now one of them was roosting on him-one which had apparently never heard that buzzards were fundamental cowards that only attacked dead things-and its beak was plowing his scalp in furrows, bringing blood.
“Get it off”’ he screamed, completely unnerved. He tried to grab the wide, beating wings, but got only two fistfuls of feathers. Nor could he see; he was afraid that if he opened his eyes, the buzzard would shift its position and peck them out. ‘Jesus. please, please get it off me!”