Previous Installments-
Part One
Prologue and Chapters I-XPart Two
Chapter XI Chapter XIIChapter XIIIChapter XIVChapter XVChapter XVIChapter XVIIChapter XVIIIChapter XIXChapter XXChapter XXIChapter XXIIPartThree
Chapter XXIIIChapter XXIVChapter XXVChapter XXVIChapter XXVIIChapter XXVIIIChapter XXIXChapter XXXChapter XXXIChapter XXXIIChapter XXXIIIRadu-Chapter XXXIV (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)
11 pages approximate
Phelps van was making noises again. Time for a tune-up, he thought, as the outline of DC came into view.
“You know, it’s a shame,” he said. “I’ve lived practically within walking distance of this place almost all my life, and I’m a news photographer, yet I’ve been here a total of four times. The last time I was here was 2003. All I have to show for it is a picture of the Lincoln Memorial.”
Grace tried to steady herself, but her nervous anxiety, to say nothing of her dizziness and nausea, made it difficult.
“It really doesn’t do you any good to come to Washington if you can’t bring an authentic press pass,” she replied. “Even then, it’s not easy. This place is murder on a struggling reporter with no connections. Trust me on that.”
She realized she probably sounded more dismissive than she intended, and looked toward him and tried to put on her best smile.
“I really appreciate you driving me here,” she said.
“Well, I couldn’t very well let you come here yourself, even by plane,” he said. “You look like hell, and I know you feel like shit. You really should take some time off.”
“That is not an option,” she said.
“So, who is the father, anyway?” he asked. “By the way, I thought you told me you couldn’t have kids.”
She wondered whether she should tell him. What could it possibly hurt? She decided against it.
“I have no idea whose it is,” she replied. “All that matters to me is that it’s mine.”
Phelps maneuvered in the midst of the oppressive traffic onto the Georgetown exit. The identity of the father of Grace’s child was the least of his concerns.
“So, just what is the reason for all of this secrecy, this hiding from public view?” he asked. “You know everybody in Baltimore has been looking for you, and you say you’re innocent of any involvement in the deaths of Karinsky and Lawson, so why not just come forward and give a statement and clear it all up?”
“One of these days, I just might do that,” she replied. “For now, I’m working under deep cover and I can’t afford to allow my whereabouts to be known by certain parties. It will be clear soon enough, you’ll see.”
“So you’re working on something that important huh?” he asked. “I take it that it must be a really big story for you to go to all these extra pains. Does it have anything to do with what happened at Khoska’s Church at all, or was that just an incidental something that just happened to get in the way? Oh, and by the way, just what was all that about anyway?”
“You got involved in the wrong department of the journalism business, Phelps, you should have been a reporter. I went to the church to confront Sierra, and she attacked me. Then, she started acting crazy. She turned the Church into her own private music studio, without benefit of a band or even a karaoke machine. Karinsky and Khoska tried to make her stop, but she would not.
“I got bored with her making a spectacle of herself, and left. Mainly, though, I got bored with the mosquitoes. They were thick in there that night. I could not take that. Whatever happened afterward, I have no idea. I only know it had nothing to do with me, regardless of what Khoska told you. I heard she stabbed herself to death, right there in the church. I sure didn’t do it, though I would have like to at the time. I can certainly promise you I didn’t hoist Karinsky up on top of the spire of the cross and impale him on it.”
Grace was hiding something, and Phelps knew it. She had no idea of the extent of his conversations with the old Priest, or at least so he hoped. Yet, when she called him to ask him to drive her to Georgetown to see a friend, he remembered Khoska’s entreaties to help her. He did not want to do it, but felt it was incumbent on him to do what he could to get to the bottom of what certainly was the most baffling mystery he ever encountered.
“So who is this friend of yours?” he asked. “Is he a contact, some kind of reliable news source?”
“No, actually, he is nothing but a friend, one I haven’t seen in a good many years. When he learned of my current predicament, he offered to help, and I more than gladly decided to take him up on his offer. There is nothing at all mysterious about it.”
Soon, she was giving him directions to what eventually lead to an old three-story Brownstone on the outskirts of Georgetown. As he pulled up into the driveway, he peered back toward the back of the van.
“By the way, I have something I want to show you,” he said.
After he parked the van, he reached back and grabbed hold of the handle of the item he earlier procured from the old cabin in the woods of West Virginia. When she saw the old aluminum bat, she did not blink an eye, her bland expression more of wonder as to why he would should someone such a thing as this.
“I’ve seen bigger ones,” she said with a shrug.
“You could really bash someone’s brains in with this,” he said. “Would you like to have it? It might come in handy here in DC.”
“That is a point,” she said as she reached for the bat. “Would you like to come in for a few minutes?”
“No, that’s all right,” he said. “I’ll just wait long enough to make sure your friend’s home so you won’t have to wait alone out here too long, then I’ll be on my way.”
“If he’s not here, someone will be, and I am expected,” she replied. “Still, as I said, you are welcome to come in.”
Phelps was busting at the seams to accompany her inside, but something deep inside of him was wary of entering that house. Besides, it was unnecessary. Soon enough, he would find out all he needed to know. Therefore, he declined her invitation.
“So, I take it this aluminum bat can be considered a baby shower gift?” she asked as she opened the door.
“Yeah, pretty much,” he replied. “Just don’t swing it around too much. You can do a lot of damage with that thing.”
She stood there looking at the bat, and Phelps realized she did not seem to have a clue as to what he was getting at. Could Khoska have been wrong, he wondered? He said himself he was not at the cabin during the time Grace allegedly murdered Karl Emil Grozhny. Was it not possible someone else committed the deed? Phelps realized of course he wanted to believe that, but on the other hand, Khoska’s accusations pertaining to Grace and the murders of her entire adopted family were hard to refute.
He sat there and watched her, holding the bat, as though trying to understand the connection she felt with the object-or, possibly, trying to figure out just why he was acting so mysterious about it. Phelps told her goodbye, and that if she needed anything else, to give him a call. She thanked him and said goodbye as he started to drive off.
However, Phelps was not really returning to Baltimore-not right away. As he drove toward the city of Washington, he placed a call to Cruiser Dietrich, the wizened old editor-in-chief of The Baltimore Explorer, who agreed to pay Phelps’s expenses. He gave Cruiser the address of the house in Georgetown at which he had dropped Grace off, as well as the license number of the Lexus parked in the cobblestone driveway of what looked to be a Pre-Civil War era mansion. It took under half an hour for Cruiser to call him back.
“You need to get back here as soon as you can,” he said.
“What’s up?” Phelps asked, hiding as best he could his concern due to the overtly frantic tone in Dietrich’s voice.
“These are the big leagues, boy,” the old man replied.
“Okay, so who is this guy anyway?” Phelps demanded.
“Edward Akido,” came the reply. “He’s a registered lobbyist for a pharmaceutical firm, as well as several foreign governments, including the Sudan, as well as India, Syria, Pakistan, Iran, Cuba, China, and Turkey. He has also lobbied extensively on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.”
“What about Romania?”
“I’ll have to check on that to be sure,” Cruiser answered. “Why is that important?”
“I’m not sure,” Phelps answered as he just now pulled onto the lane indicated as the route to Ronald Reagan Airport.
“Is there anything else he represents?”
“Some energy companies, for the most part,” came the reply. “Also, some banking and investment firms, insurance, and contract arms suppliers. All of this though is almost incidental. I have not even gotten to the really juicy part yet. This guy just came on the scene eight years ago. He just more or less appeared out of nowhere. Before this, he was an insurance and investment company executive, a mid-level manager of a mid-sized firm. He was an apparent nobody, somebody that would never show up on anybody’s radar screen.”
“You’re right, that’s really strange,” Phelps agreed. “Maybe he’s got some kind of pull with some political family, like maybe with the Morrisons, for example.”
“Or, how about with the CIA?” Dietrich replied. “While we’re at it, what about the DEA and the ATF?”
“Oh, fuck!” Phelps said. “You are fucking kidding me, right?”
“I wish I was, boy,” Cruiser responded. “I really wish I was. I don’t know how this guy ever gets any sleep, because he’s in bed with some really nasty bastards-including, it’s rumored, the Taliban. Do you remember the recent deal between India and Pakistan?”
“Uh-huh, I remember-what about it?”
“He brokered that. He evidently did this by twisting some arms of some people the Taliban has in high positions in the Pakistani military and security services. Phelps, I am telling you, this is not somebody you need to be fucking with. Back off, boy.”
“How in the hell did you find this shit out so fast?” Phelps asked, his head spinning to the point he came close to missing the exit ramp to the airport.
“I just put the address and license number through the computer and his name popped out. Then, I ran him through a list of lobbyists, and his name comes up in connection with Briscoe and Lamont Ltd, which is the insurance and investment company that he worked for. They were a successful firm, but not a major player until a little more than ten years ago. Now, all of a sudden, they have offices all over the place, including all those countries I mentioned. He is not with them anymore, but suddenly he is a registered Washington lobbyist. Put two and two together Phelps.”
“So, you put two and two together and this somehow adds up to an Indian-Pakistani treaty?”
“Phelps, that’s no secret, that’s a selling point. That’s practically on his resume’.”
For a minute, both men were silent, as Phelps tried to digest the information he received, in an attempt to ferret out how much of it was actually the truth.
“All right, why in the hell would the CIA and those other agencies need lobbyists?”
“Partially for funding, but also for legal clauses-exclusions in bills that might regulate some of their more clandestine activities, especially those ones that ain’t necessarily in the public interest, if you know what I mean. Phelps, this guy knows how to get things done precisely because he knows the major players. Of course, there’s no way you can be involved in so much dirt without some mud sticking to you.”
“It still doesn’t make any sense,” Phelps insisted. “If he has that much influence then he can keep his name out of the public spotlight. This smells like some kind of facade.”
“All right, that’s a point,” Dietrich said. “I’ll look some more into it, but in the meantime, you need to get your ass back here quick.”
“Cant do that, Cruiser” he replied. “I’m on my way now to New Jersey. The only thing I am missing is the plane. Oh, that reminds me-check and see if he has any connection to Phillip Khoska and Voroslav Moloku.”
“Yeah, I’ll say there’s a connection,” Dietrich said. “Akito works for the same pharmaceutical company those clowns embezzled funds from. He is a lobbyist for them, too. Look, Phelps-wait a minute, why are you going to New Jersey?”
“I have an appointment with Khoska,” he replied.
“Now wait a minute”-
“I really have to go, Dietrich,” he said. “My plane leaves in an hour.”
“Phelps, wait, listen to this-Akito has been hired at the State Department. That is why all this was made public. Okay, now it all makes sense. Well, it does, but it does not. How would Grace be involved with somebody like this? Are you sure you gave me the right address? Are you sure you even pulled into the right driveway?”
“I’ll talk to you later, Cruiser,” Phelps said, not about to allow Cruiser Dietrich or anyone else to talk him out of a story that could finally be his big ticket out of the tabloids and into the relatively respectable business of actual journalism. He already had his ticket to New Jersey, so all he had to do now was arrange for transportation once he got there. He quickly found the Alamo Car Rental agency and arranged for a vehicle to be waiting for him upon his arrival. He left his van in the lot, making sure he left nothing behind before he locked it up and made his way toward the terminal.
Cruiser called him four times by the time he caught the plane, and another three by the time he touched down in New Jersey. When he finally made it off the plane, he decided he had better call the old fart one more time.
“Phelps, something ain’t right,” Cruiser insisted. “Why would Khoska agree to talk to you?”
“I know his father for one, and for another I know Grace,” he explained as he drove in his Alamo rental toward the home of Phillip Khoska, currently under house arrest pending an appearance before the Grand Jury.
“So in other words, you ain’t so much interviewing him as he is interviewing you,” Dietrich observed. “Boy, you had better watch your ass good.”
“I’m an expert at that, Cruiser,” he replied. “I got to get off of here for now. Hold the presses, boss. If this works out, you’re going to be publishing a story that might well be Pulitzer material.”
“With all the crap that’s been going on around Baltimore for the last few months you would think something would qualify for some kind of award,” Dietrich said. “I ain’t counting on it though. Just be careful.”
It was another twenty minutes before Phelps arrived at Phillip Khoska’s house, which impressed him with its sheer cold ostentation. This man wants the world to know he is rich, an irony in its own right seeing as to how he made an appreciable amount of it-allegedly, of course. That, of course, he wanted no one to know about, which was understandable owing to the fact the government would soon likely auction it off.
When he walked up to the front door, he looked around, almost positive one van and two cars parked down the street contained federal agents. He waved in their direction, shook his head, and rung the doorbell. He waited more than a minute before the door finally opened, and the younger wife of Phillip, whom he recognized from the papers and looking hard and cold, stuck her head out and asked what he wanted.
“I’m Everett Phelps, from the Baltimore Examiner,” he replied. “I have an appointment with your husband.”
“Good,” she replied. “You can keep him company while I finish packing. I am out of here in thirty minutes, maybe less. You can come on in if you want.”
Ordinarily, Phelps would consider a woman like this one cold bitch, but under the circumstances, he could hardly blame her, though he found it hard to have much sympathy for her. Had he not known already her name was Pamela, he might expect her to introduce herself as “Buffy”.
He entered the house, which overwhelmed him with a sense of solitude and despair. There was no furniture outside of a love seat and one recliner with an end table. The wall was devoid of clocks, mirrors, or pictures. There was not even a throw rug on the bare, hard wood floor, which looked previously carpeted, owing to lack of waxing. There was not so much as an ashtray, and so Pamela walked back toward the den flicking her ashes on the floor.
“Oh, Phillip, love of my life, you have company, break out the chips and dip,” she said sarcastically. Yeah, she is a cold bitch at that, he thought.
Then, they both reacted to the sound of a loud crack, the sound of a gunshot, and looked at each other in a unified look of stunned awareness.
“Mr. Khoska, are you all right?” Phelps asked. Pamela tried the door only to find it locked from the inside.
“Phillip!” she shouted. “Oh shit, mister, we have to do something.”
“Get away from the door,” he ordered. “You’d better call 911.”
She moved, and Phelps, after ramming his shoulder against the door several times, began to kick. After the fourth time, he threw his entire weight against it, and again, and a third time, but the fourth time finally sent the door flying open. Phelps lunged into the room sideways from the force of his lunge, and there was Phillip Khoska lying on the floor with a derringer at his side, a pool of blood at the back of his head.
He heard Pamela rummaging through her bags and assumed she was attempting to retrieve her cell phone, but he saw the phone on a table in what was evidently a private study.
He placed a call to 911, and wondered whether he should call Dietrich. First, he had to take some pictures. He took a series of them, and then noticed something. Khoska moved, and groaned. He breathed in deep, short gasps. Phillip Khoska was still alive.
“Mr. Khoska,” he said. “It’s me, Greg Phelps. Don’t try to talk or move. Someone should be here shortly.”
“The-phone-erase-the tape,” he said urgently and in obvious pain.
“What are you talking about?” he said, but then Khoska opened his eyes and seemed disturbed when he saw for the first time Phelps standing over him. He angled his eyes over toward the phone. Phelps went to the phone, but then Pamela entered, took one look at her husband lying there on the floor, and screamed.
“Mrs. Khoska, you really shouldn’t be in here right now,” Phelps said. “I already called 911, an ambulance and the cops should be here in a few minutes. You should really wait outside.”
“Is-he dead?” she asked but then saw he was in fact still alive, if barely. Then, before Phelps could move or speak another word, she was at his side, begging him to hold on until help arrived.
“You can’t die now,” she insisted. Phelps considered this display based probably not on concern or affection so much as a determination to secure her portion of community property, which would probably be considerable, even if the government took at least ninety percent of it. There was even a better than average chance he had more in offshore accounts she was after.
“You’d better go outside and wait for them,” he advised her. “I think I can keep him going until they get here, but I need space, and I need to keep him calm.”
She looked at him, then rose and stomped out of the room, for which Phelps was grateful. He walked over toward the phone, and noticed Khoska seemed desperately forming words at his lips. Phelps watched him carefully, and could make out the silent, deliberately slow accentuation of his lips.
“Grace-machine.”
Phelps played the answering machine, which yet contained one recent message.
“Hello, Phillip-you know who this is. It is over, after all this time. You lost. Soon, everything will come out-everything that you ever did, not only to me but to others as well. Your life is over. You have lost everything. Your family is gone now, and so is your money. You have nothing left to live for. Watch the DVD, Mr. Khoska. Click on the link. When you are through, do the right thing. For once in your life-just do the right thing.”
Phelps erased the tape. He then walked over to the DVD player under the plasma screen television, and ejected the DVD. He knew he had the right thing when he saw the name of it-Rappin’ With The Chairman by Toby Da Pimp. What would a man like Phillip Khoska be doing with something like this, he wondered. More ominously, what could possibly convince him to kill himself in such a fashion? Then, he saw the box, opened on the end table where Khoska had sat. He looked at it and saw that whoever addressed it to him had included no return address. He was no firearms expert, but the indentation inside the carved oak box told him all he needed to know. Someone had sent Phillip Khoska the Derringer in this box, obviously with the expectation he would do exactly what he had done.
Yet, why a Derringer? They were notoriously inefficient. John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln with a Derringer, true enough-but the sixteenth president lingered for hours before he finally died. Even now, Phelps could hear the distant yet approaching sounds of ambulances. Khoska would more than likely survive, may even conceivable make a full recovery. It made no sense.
As the ambulance even now pulled up in the driveway, Phillip leaned down toward the yet conscious Phillip Khoska, who struggled to keep his eyes open.
“Mr. Khoska, why did Grace want you to shoot yourself?” he demanded. “What is this all about?”
Khoska finally strained to speak, desperately trying to tell Phelps something-but what?
“Warn-my father,” he said with an urgently strained whisper.
Phelps kept his eyes peeled on Khoska, hoping for more information. What should he warn Aleksandre Khoska about that the old Orthodox Priest already did not know about, or at least did not strongly suspect?
“Warn him about what?” Phelps said, as even now he heard the sounds of footsteps through the opening door.
“Daniel,” Khoska said with a voice now already so weakened he seemed barely strong enough to speak above a whisper.
“Berry-is going-to kill him,” he continued, as suddenly a team of EMT personnel entered the room followed by an officer of the New Jersey State Police.
“Mr. Khoska, what are you talking about? Who’s Daniel?”
The EMT’s however quickly took over, before Khoska could respond. They were all over Khoska, in fact, and fromthe looks of him, it was unlikely at this point Khoska could have responded anyway. He seemed to be fading fast. Now, a police officer was questioning Phelps. Luckily for him Buffy was here when the shot was fired, he considered. Otherwise, he might be in for a long night.
The police were suspicious of Phelps, but allowed him to leave after four hours of questioning. They could not seem to comprehend why Phillip Khoska would agree to an interview with a muckraking photographer-a paparazzi, of all things-when he on the advice of legal counsel denied all interview requests from legitimate journalists. The fact that he just happened to be present during a suicide attempt looked all the more suspicious, despite the fact that Phelps made the 911 call.
Before he returned to Baltimore, he went to the hospital where Khoska now lingered on life support, having lapsed into and out of, and finally back into a coma from which he was yet to recover. The hospital called Aleksandre Khoska, but Phelps thought he as well should phone the old Priest. He did so, but Aleksandre seemed coldly uninterested in the fate of his wayward son.
“I am glad he survived, of course,” he said. “Perhaps he will recover sufficiently to see to the welfare of his soul, though I tend to doubt it. There is nothing I can do for him regardless.”
Phelps now found himself in the incredible position of feeling pity for a man credibly accused of running a sex-slave ring, of child prostitution and internet child pornography, of drug smuggling, embezzlement of corporate funds, of money laundering, of murder, and God only knew what else. On the other hand, he tempered his sympathy with the knowledge that Phillip Khoska had, throughout his life, carved out a cold, hard niche for himself.
“He had something he wanted me to tell you,” Phelps said. “Do you know somebody named Daniel or have a relative by that name? If you do, according to him, our good friend Detective Berry is planning to kill him. He was adamant that I tell you about it.”
For a brief moment, Khoska was silent, though Phelps could discern a sudden audible gasp.
“Are you sure about this?” he finally asked.
“Well, that’s what he said anyway,” Phelps replied. To his dismay, Khoska told him he had to hang up, and did so before Phelps could respond.
“Son of a bitch!” he shouted.
By the time he made it back to Washington, where he quickly retrieved his van, he found himself listening to and watching the entirety of the DVD on his van’s player as he drove around Washington. Nothing he saw or heard made any sense to him. Why on earth would Phillip Khoska be interested in this kind of thug garbage?
Then he saw it, on what was supposed to be Da Pimp’s version of Strangers In The Night. It was the usual second rate, in Phelps’s opinion, rap rip-off. At one point, however, it featured a girl-a young, Oriental girl, dressed in nothing but a black leather thong and tank top, strolling down what seemed to be an unusually large alley between large and ramshackle tenement buildings, lined with junkies, winos and whores who regarded her curiously, as she made her way up to Toby. She had one line that she repeated several times as she looked around, and into the video camera.
“Lick-lick-lick-lick-lick-lick-lick-lick this,” she said-over, and over, and over again.
“I know I’ve seen you somewhere before,” he said, and backed up the tape. It then occurred to him that as she recited her one line, she seemed to indicate the area of her vagina, which seemed to have a subtle glow to it.
She would then walk up to Toby, who while reciting his rap, took her in his arms, turned her around, and shoved her into the arms of a waiting wino as he walked off continuing his rap while a background vocalist sung the chorus to the actual song in a falsetto voice.
Screw it, he decided. It probably had nothing to do with Khoska anyway. The DVD might well have belonged to his idiot wife. On the other hand, he had to remind himself to consider the unlikelihood of such a coincidence, especially when there was a connection between the Seventeenth Pulse and Khoska’s own cutthroat gang. There had to be a correlation, he decided.
He went to one of the DC area libraries and got on-line. While he was here, he decided he might as well check out the available information regarding the mysterious Edward Akito. This as well turned out to be a waste of time. Aside from a number of pictures of the Japanese man, including one with his late wife, there was nothing new. He decided he would return to Baltimore. Unfortunately, there was a problem. His van refused to start.
“Phelps, why don’t you just junk that damn thing,” Cruiser demanded when he called. “How the hell old is that thing anyway?”
“Look, it’s no big deal, according to the mechanic it’s probably the computer. Once I get that done, with a tune up it should be as good as new. Well, it should be good enough to get me back to Baltimore at least. In the meantime, I want you to see if you can hook me up with some kind of interview with somebody that knows this Akito.”
“Who do you think I am Phelps, Bob Woodward? I am telling you, this is not somebody that you can just have a casual off-the-record chat with, and he sure as hell ain’t going to tell you anything on the record. What would you ask him anyway? There is no conceivable reason to interview somebody like this to begin with. He is going in as an under-assistant secretary of some little niche agency at the State Department. I don’t think he even has to be confirmed by the Senate. He’s a minor player at best-technically speaking, of course.”
“Well, maybe some people in the government might be interested in his connection with Phillip Khoska, and with the Russian Mafia. I’m sure the President and his staff would find that highly interesting, to be sure, assuming they don’t already know it.”
“Yeah, as if-remember when I told you to watch your ass, Phelps? That is exactly what I was talking about. Come back to Baltimore, boy. Sometimes digging in the dirt will only make you dirty. If you ain’t real careful about six foot of it ends up on top of you-kapish?”
“Alright, damn, I’ll come back as soon as the van is fixed,” he promised.
Of course, Phelps intended to keep that promise, but in the meantime, he decided it couldn’t hurt to make some use of his time. He returned to the library and played the DVD, whereupon he made a discovery. The young Japanese girl seemed to be pointing to her crotch area as she recited her one repetitious line. He noticed something else-her crotch, for a brief instant, seemed to glow. Then, it finally occurred to Phelps.
“She’s saying “click this,” he said. Looking around, he decided to back up the DVD, and he did just that. It had the effect of pausing the DVD at first, but then something else happened. A new window seemed to open, and there was the girl, in the same alley, surrounded by shadowy, unseen figures. She was now naked, apparently in a great deal of pain, bruised and bloody. She had obviously been badly beaten, and probably raped. Her eyes glared with pain, humiliation, desperation, and abject terror. She seemed to force herself to look into the camera. Then, as Phelps thought he could hear an animal growling in the background, she spoke.
“Long live the Seventeenth Pulse. Long live Securitate. Long live The Sacred Order Of The Dragon. Long live The True Church Of The Sacred Blood Of The Crucified And Resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. Death to the heresy of the false church and world governments. Please, forgive me my sins on this night of my death.”
She broke down and cried pitifully as suddenly, the animals came into view. There were dogs, countless numbers of them, ranging from pit bulls, Doberman Pinschers, and other breeds, which all ripped mercilessly into the hapless girl, ripping her to shreds in a matter of under a minute, as she begged to no avail.
As Phelps watched in an aura of helpless confusion and dismay, he found himself unable yet to turn from the computer screen as the window closed and returned to the exact spot at which he clicked on the hidden link. Phelps now once more looked upon the revolting face of Dwayne Lecher.
“You son-of-a-bitch,” he hissed.
He walked back outside the library and phoned Cruiser, who was now adamant that he return to Washington.
“Do you know what has happened?”
“Khoska is dead?”
“No, Khoiska is still in a coma. The FBI is looking for you now. What in the hell is wrong with you? Why did you erase the message on Khoska’s answering machine? Do you think you can get away with stuff like that?”
Phelps muttered under his breath as he tried to block out the sound of Cruiser’s rant.
“Never mind that, Cruiser,” he said. “I’m sending you a copy of a DVD. Check your e-mail. Pay attention to the version of Strangers In The Night. There’s a girl there, a Chinese girl. When she keeps saying “lick this”, move your browser over her crotch and click it. It’s a hyper-link to a snuff film. It’s incredible. I’m not sure, but I think the girl is Susan Chou-in fact I’m positive that’s who she is.”
“My God, Phelps, are you serious?” he asked. “Is that what you took from Khoska’s house? Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, they are after you for that too. You need to get in here right now, boy. We’ll try to work something out for you.”
“Fine, I’ll be there, but first you have to promise me that you’ll look at the DVD, and the link. Please.”
Dietrich promised him he would do so, and Phelps told him he was on his way back to Baltimore. By the time he found a cab and made it to the garage, his van was ready, and so he drove off as he wondered if he could possibly make it to The Examiner’s office building before the feds picked him up. He might be in real trouble, but he could not afford to worry about that now. He had tried to protect Grace while in the process of undertaking his own investigation. He told himself Grace was a witless pawn in over her head. Now he wanted to ring her neck. How could he have been so stupid?
By the time he made it back to Baltimore, it was approaching nightfall, and he decided to make one quick stop at the now almost completely restored Krovell Funeral Home. He knew from searching Grace’s apartment earlier that there was a connection in some way with the people involved in that business. Martin and Louise Krovell especially were under suspicion since the death fo Grady Desmond. He parked far enough away for no one to see him-he hoped-and he waited.
Soon, and luckily from another direction, he saw the car of Lieutenant James Barry pull up to the front of the building. He had someone with him-a female. He zoomed in with his camera lens, and saw, to his horror, there was a third person in the back seat. It was a young girl, who looked as though bound in some manner. Suddenly, he saw someone else standing outside the funeral home.
Marlowe Krovell, he realized, was alive. It was him, standing outside the house, in plain sight, and looking very anxious, as Phelps began shooting roll after roll of pictures. The woman who rode with Barry looked to be in horrible shape, yet she seemed well at the same time, though she walked with a stiff gait. The girl cried. Phelps called Cruiser on the phone.
“Now where in the hell are you?” Dietrich demanded. “Damn you boy, are you determined to be charged with a federal crime? I’m telling you one more time to get your ass in here now-pronto!”
“I’m sending you some pictures, Cruiser, of Marlowe Krovell and James Berry. There’s a couple of other people too, a young girl and some woman that looks like something out of the pits of hell. I don’t know what’s going on here Cruiser, but I think the girl is in danger. You should call the police as soon as you can. Have you seen the DVD yet?”
“Yeah, I saw it,” he said. “You’re right, it’s the Chou girl. Your pictures just came over. Hold on. You need to get away from there though, it might be dangerous there.”
However, Marlowe had disappeared, and so had the girl. Now, Barry and the strange, horrid looking woman got back into Barry’s car and drove off toward the same direction from which they arrived. Phelps hurriedly continued shooting the pictures of the back of the car, being especially careful to capture Barry’s license plate.
“Phelps then left, and made his way toward the Examiner office. He knew it would be a waste of time attempting to return to his own apartment. He considered briefly the idea of going to Grace’s apartment, since he did have a key, but decided that would be risky as well.
As soon as he got to Phelps’s office, he turned over the original DVD. Suddenly, Cruiser seemed delighted.
“That was great work, boy,” he said. “You really had me going for awhile. I think you’re off your rocker about Krovell, though. You do need to get some rest.”
“I know it was Krovell-I saw him with my own two eyes. He’s on the film. You can see for yourself.”
“That’s just the thing, I did see it. Well, you were right about Barry at least,” Cruiser said. “I don’t know who the other people are, but if the other man is supposed to be Marlowe Krovell, he sure has changed a hell of a lot. I guess death will change a person, but this is a little much.”
He handed Phelps the newly developed photos, copies Phelps e-mailed him earlier. While Barry, the strange woman, and the apparently kidnapped girl looked the same, the person he took as Marlowe had decidedly changed. Instead of Marlowe Krovell, he now looked upon the form of a man who looked to be in his fifties, yet with dried leathery skin that in death would easily pass as mummified. His hair was long, thick, wavy, and blonde. The only resemblance to Marlowe was the eyes, which showed up now the same bright green. In his own way, he looked even more horrible than the woman, who looked worse in the photo than she did from the distance at which Phelps saw her in person. She looked, in effect, not only to be a walking corpse, but one at a preliminary stage of decomposition.
“I don’t know what in the hell is going on here, Cruiser, but its some bad shit.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” the old editor replied. “I ran some of these pictures through our database of photos. That woman came back as Raven Randall. I would almost have to say that is just as impossible as the man being Marlowe as you insisted. The only thing about that is, it just so happens that, by the way, her body is missing from the morgue. Her corpse was one of those the morgue was checking for signs of post mortem sexual abuse by Brad Marlowe. Well, evidently, if that was true, it gives a completely new meaning to the term “waking the dead.”
“So, this is it,” Phelps said. “I’m here, just like you insisted. I guess I’m toast. Go ahead and call the feds. I’m ready.”
“I wish I didn’t have to do this, Phelps,” he said. “Still, if I don’t go along with them I could face a charge myself. I promise you, I’ll make sure you have access to the best lawyer I can get you. Just don’t lie to them about anything. Tampering with evidence is a serious charge under any jurisdiction. Don’t make it worse by engaging in perjury, by lying to the FBI in the course of a federal investigation. You’re just lucky that the New Jersey Police answered the 911 call you put in-which, by the way, is another thing in your favor. The Feds don’t really have a reason to charge you. Don’t give them a reason, boy, I’m begging you. If you play your cards right, they can get you out of hot water with the New Jersey authorities.”
“I think I need to go out and have a smoke before they get here,” Phelps said.
“Phelps”-
“I promise, I’m not going to run away,” he assured the old editor.
“All right,” Dietrich said. “Go on, I’ll give you ten minutes before I call.”
Phelps reluctantly walked out and lit up a Winston. He breathed in deeply. How could he have let things get so out of control, and all for Grace Rodescu at that? He was under no illusions about her. Grace would hang him or anyone else out to dry without a second thought, if the price was right. Fore that matter, it would not have to be an astronomical sum before it qualified as “right”.
It was now dark, and Phelps felt as though someone watched his every move. It was cold, too, and as he inhaled the cold air along with the thick warm smoke of his cigarette, it hurt his lungs. He coughed harshly. He wanted to go back inside. Surely Cruiser wouldn’t deny him the time and space to have one smoke in comfort. Before he made it to the door, he realized someone moved behind him. He could feel the presence of another person. He turned, and there he was.
It was a man, judging by his size, in a dark gray burlap robe. He could make out no features through the hood, as the streetlight seemed to illuminate only the shadows of the hood that hid his features.
“Who in the hell are you?” he asked.
The man gave no answer, but Phelps could see his eyes, glowing like red-hot embers, burning into him, piercing into his consciousness, making him uncomfortably hot despite the cold night Baltimore air.
“I asked you a question-who the hell are you?”
Phelps was suddenly paralyzed, and found it impossible to turn from the burning gaze of the man. Soon, his features came into focus. Phelps realized then, as he looked upon his terrible, ungodly countenance-he somehow knew this man. He came closer to him, walking slowly and yet steadily towards him. Phelps wanted to run, but could not, as the man, with a speed that belied his seemingly ponderous size, seized him by the neck and, with an iron grip under his chin, hoisted him off the ground with one hand, as Phelps flailed helplessly in the air. At first he made several ineffectual attempts to strike back, to kick, but it was all to no avail. The man kept his eyes focused on Phelps’s own eyes, as Phelps saw his entire life flashing before him. He saw the time he was a kid in the second grade. One of the older kids, a twelve year old, caught him after school and held him up in the same manner and shook him until Phelps, in front of everyone in school, it seemed, pissed all over himself.
He saw the time his own father did the same thing to him when he came home and caught him beating his mother, and remembered how he threatened to beat him to a pulp if he ever told anyone. He saw then how later on his father gave him his first camera for his birthday, and how he used to go all over Baltimore taking pictures of street scenes. Later, he would sell pictures of dating couples at the outdoor cafes. He tried to open his first photography studio, a business venture that ended in failure and debt-until he started work as a freelance news photographer, a job that led to his first and only full time job with the Examiner.
He saw all of these things, in the flash of an instant, his life in pictures, a still-life collage, distilled down to enough snapshots to fill a shoebox, but otherwise, a life of little substance.
Now, he was helpless, and limp as a dishcloth, until he found himself laid out on the sidewalk, barely conscious. He wondered now-who am I? He looked around and saw no one. He vaguely remembered a man in a gray robe and hood. Where did he go? Had he seen him at all? Why could he not remember where he was? Why could he not remember who he was?
“Your name is Phelps, right?”
He looked around to see the large black man reaching toward him with his tattoo-marked wrist, while looking at him earnestly. Of course, he was right. His name was Phelps.
“Yeah,” he replied. “That’s me. Do I know you?”
The man shook his head in the affirmative.
“Come on, man,” he said. “I’ve been sent to take you home. You’ve had a hard night. You’ll be alright after a little rest.”
The man motioned toward the open door of the vehicle. Phelps rose, but he was shaky and weak, so the man helped steady him. He helped him to the Land Rover. Phelps got in and, after the man closed the door, he got behind the wheel and drove away.
