Fire Spirit Read online

  Miss Elwood said, ‘You’re asking us to undress? You mean here, now, in this bus?’

  ‘You got it, ma’am. And as quick as you like.’

  ‘I will not!’ Miss Elwood protested. ‘I am seventy-three years old and I have never undressed in public, ever!’

  ‘In that case, you shriveled old crone, you have probably been doing the public a very great favor for all of these years,’ said the laughing man, leaning over her so that his white papier mâché nose was almost touching hers. ‘But today you’re going to do what I tell you to do, and that means get bare-ass naked, and it means here, and now, and it means quick.’

  ‘I would rather die!’ Miss Elwood spat at him.

  ‘You would? Okaly-doky-do, your choice.’

  With that, he gripped her head and twisted it sharply to the right, so that her neck snapped. He did it with no hesitation whatsoever, so that although Miss Elwood’s fellow passengers all heard the distinctive crackle of her upper vertebrae being broken apart, only Mr Kaminsky saw what happened, because he was sitting right behind her. The rest of them didn’t realize that she had been killed until her head dropped sideways on to her shoulder and she toppled on to the floor, all arms and legs, like a marionette with the strings cut. There were gasps and cries of ‘Alice! No!’

  ‘What happens no-o-ow is entirely up to you,’ said the laughing man. ‘All I’m asking you to do is put on a little performance for us. A play, to propitiate the gods of ill fortune. If you choose not to – well, like I say, that’s entirely up to you. But this is what will happen to you if you refuse. The gods of ill fortune, they don’t take kindly to folks who deny them what they want.’

  Mrs Lutz was the first to stand up. She unbuttoned her red vinyl raincoat and said, ‘Come on, everybody. Survival is much more important than modesty. And most of us have seen it all before, haven’t we?’

  She took off her raincoat and dropped it on to the seat beside her. Then she crossed her arms and pulled her dark green sweater over her head, so that her bouffant white hair stood up like a parrot’s plumage. Next, with arthritic fingers, she unfastened the pearl buttons of her blouse and took that off, too.

  Neville rose up in his seat and said, ‘Mrs Lutz – don’t you go no further!’ But the laughing man prodded him with the point of his knife.

  ‘Hey, Rastus – you don’t want this nice old lady put through the highly unpleasant experience of having to watch you masticate your own manhood, do you?’ he asked, and then coughed.

  Mrs Lutz said, ‘It’s OK, Neville. Sometimes it’s braver to admit when you’re licked than it is to fight back.’

  ‘You’re sick,’ Neville told the laughing man. ‘All three of you, you’re worse than dogs.’

  The laughing man feinted at him with the knife, and Neville jolted back in his seat, lifting up his left elbow to ward him off.

  The scowling man laughed. ‘Won’t have to do much surgery on you, Rastus. Looks like you don’t have no balls to begin with.’

  Mrs Lutz tugged down the zipper of her charcoal-gray skirt and stepped out of it. Now she was wearing only a thin satin slip, and a bra, and thick black pantyhose. She took all of those off, and as she did so the bus fell silent, except for Mr Thorson, whistling through his trache to my tube.

  ‘There,’ she said, looking up at the laughing man in defiance. For a woman in her middle seventies she had an exceptionally good figure, even though her stomach was a little rounded and her full breasts had given up their fight with gravity. Her nipples crinkled like two walnuts.

  ‘Do you know something, ma’am?’ said the scowling man. ‘If I was eighty years old, I think I could take a shot at you. In fact, if we had the time, and someplace to lie down, I think I could take a shot at you right now.’

  The expressionless man handed Mrs Lutz her hospital gown. It had crusted yellow-and-green food stains on the front, and a wide brown bloodstain on the back, where its previous wearer had obviously suffered a severe rectal hemorrhage. Mrs Lutz took a deep breath, put her arms into the sleeves and awkwardly tied up the strings at the back.

  ‘Now the rest of you!’ the laughing man demanded. ‘And you, too, Rastus! Let’s see if you really don’t have any stones!’

  Grunting, shuffling, the six remaining passengers stood up and began to take off their clothes. Mrs Petersen had difficulty unlacing her tight pink corset, because her carer always helped her to take it on and off, so Mrs Lutz helped her. She also knelt down and helped Mr Carradine to remove his shoes and socks, because he suffered from lumbago and he couldn’t bend forward and reach his feet. Mr Thorson, when he dropped his pants, revealed that he was wearing an adult-sized diaper.

  ‘Take that fucking thing off,’ ordered the scowling man.

  Mr Thorson pressed his fingertips to his tracheotomy tube and croaked out, ‘I can’t. I’m incontinent.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit, grandpa. Ha-ha, even if you do. Take it off.’

  Neville undressed, too, taking off his Spirit of Kokomo necktie and his khaki uniform shirt and pants. He stood at the front of the bus with tears filling his eyes and his lower lip puckered because he was so ashamed of himself. Not because of his own nakedness, but because his passengers all looked so vulnerable and frightened.

  As if to remind him of his inability to save them, the laughing man pricked the glans of his penis with the point of his knife. ‘See?’ he said. ‘It just isn’t true what they say about you black guys, is it? I’d say that this one is average to bijou. Here, put this gown on. Don’t want the ladies laughing at your shortcomings, do we?’

  His voice shaking, Mr Kaminsky said, ‘What do we have to do now? You’ve murdered poor Alice. You’ve made the rest of us dress up in these disgusting gowns. Don’t you think you’ve humiliated us enough?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said the laughing man. ‘This is where the fun begins. Now that you look like dementia patients, it’s time for you to behave like dementia patients.’

  He pointed to Mrs Petersen and said, ‘Hit her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You just asked me what it is that you have to do now. Well, that’s what you have to do. Hit her.’

  ‘I can’t. Are you out of your mind?’

  ‘No, and neither are you. But you’re going to have to act as if you are. Hit her.’

  ‘No. I won’t.’

  ‘OK then, I’ll have to kill her, like that other old bag.’

  He came down the aisle with his knife raised. Mr Kaminsky shouted, ‘No! You can’t do this! No!’ He tried to seize the laughing man’s arm, but the laughing man gave him a deep criss-cross cut on the side of his face, exposing his cheekbone. Fresh blood sprayed all the way down the front of his gown.

  ‘I told you to hit her!’ the laughing man shouted at him. ‘What part of “hit her” do you not understand?’ He coughed, and coughed, and for a moment he had to hold on to one of the seats to steady himself. When he had recovered, he took a deep breath and repeated, ‘I told you to hit her. If you don’t hit her, I’m going to cut her throat so deep that her head is going to fall backward like a coffee-pot lid. You understand what I’m saying now?’

  Mr Kaminsky had his hand pressed against his cheek. Blood was running between his fingers and dripping from his elbow. He was too shocked and terrified to answer.

  ‘Hit her,’ the laughing man insisted. ‘This is your last chance, old man, because if you don’t hit her, I’ll have to kill her, and if she’s dead then I’ll have to ask you to hit somebody else instead. And if you don’t hit them, I’ll kill them, too, and so on and so on, etcetera.’

  ‘You’re out of your mind!’ Neville shouted at him, his voice hoarse. ‘You can’t ask him to hit an elderly woman like that! She has angina, for God’s sake!’

  ‘You listen to me, Rastus!’ the laughing man retorted. ‘This is an exorcism, got it? Ex, Or, Sizzum. This is a ceremony that has to be played out, or else the goddamned gods don’t get propitiated and then, believe me, there will be hell to pay!’<
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  He paused, still holding up the knife, but he was clearly so angry that his chest was rising and falling and his hand was trembling.

  ‘If you don’t hit each other, then I’ll have to kill all of you, and if I have to kill all of you then the goddamned gods won’t be propitiated and we’ll have to find another bus load of old coots and go through this whole goddamned performance all over again! You want to save lives? You want to save people’s lives? Then do as you’re damned well told and hit her!’

  He had hardly finished speaking when Mr Kaminsky gave Mrs Petersen a half-hearted slap on her wobbly left cheek. Mrs Petersen let out a gasp, but it was obvious that she was more surprised than hurt.

  ‘Well,’ said the laughing man. ‘That wasn’t exactly a haymaker, but it was a start. Now, you hit him back.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Mrs Petersen, breathlessly.

  ‘What do you think I mean, fatty? I mean, hit him back, and make sure you hit him harder than he hit you.’

  ‘I can’t possibly do that.’

  ‘Oh yes you can. Because if you don’t, I’m going to cut his throat, just as deep as I was going to cut yours. Did you ever look down a man’s neck before? Fascinating what you can see down there.’

  ‘Come on, Margot,’ said Mr Kaminsky. ‘You can do it. Don’t you worry about me. I’m tough as old boots. I was at Hofen with Butler’s Blue Battlin’ Bastards. Wounded twice.’

  Mrs Petersen took a step toward him. Then she let out a high, piping scream and began to pummel his chest with her fists.

  ‘That’s more like it!’ the laughing man encouraged them. ‘Now you hit her back, grandpa, even harder!’

  Mr Kaminsky slapped Mrs Petersen’s face, twice. She retaliated by slapping his left cheek, where the laughing man had laid it open with his knife. He said ‘gah!’ in pain and slapped her back. She staggered back and fell against her seat, losing her balance. Mr Kaminsky straddled her with his bony knees and started pulling at her hair. Mrs Petersen heaved her wallowing hips from side to side, but when she couldn’t dislodge him she fumbled underneath his hospital gown, grasped him between his legs and squeezed him hard.

  Mr Kaminsky shouted, ‘Aaaahh!’ and punched Mrs Petersen’s breast. Mrs Petersen released her claw-like grip on his scrotum, but then she dug her crimson-polished fingernails into the bone-deep cut underneath his eye and pulled downward, tearing furrows in his cheek. He punched her again.

  While they were still struggling, the laughing man grasped Mrs Lutz by the shoulder and dragged her down the aisle. ‘Now you can hit her!’ he told Mr Thorson.

  Right next to them, Mr Kaminsky and Mrs Petersen were rolling from side to side, hitting each other harder and harder, partly out of fear that one or other of them would have their throat cut open if they didn’t, and partly out of rising hysterical rage. They might have been hurting each other because they had to, but that didn’t make either of them any less angry, or make their punching and slapping any less painful.

  Mr Thorson bubbled and wheezed through the stoma in his throat. ‘You can’t make me hit her,’ he gargled.

  ‘Oh, I think I can,’ said the laughing man. ‘How’s about I cut her gazongas off, one after the other, and then I cut her throat? What do you think about that?’

  ‘I think you’re a diseased bastard,’ said Mr Thorson.

  ‘I’m diseased? I’m diseased? You should look at yourself in the mirror, throat cancer man. What was it, three packs a day? Go on, hit her!’

  ‘Oh God in heaven forgive me,’ said Mr Thorson, and gave Mrs Lutz an awkward backhand slap across the mouth.

  Like a raging fire that feeds on its own ever-intensifying heat, their terror and their anger and their self-disgust turned into uncontrollable madness. They pushed and scratched and pulled at each other, tearing at each other’s hair, knocking each other’s heads against the seats and the window-frames, breaking each other’s glasses. Even Neville joined in, punching Mr Kaminsky again and again, half in the hope that the old man would drop unconscious to the floor and not have to fight any more, and half in desperation, because he knew that the three masked men would blind him and mutilate him if he didn’t.

  All the time they were fighting with each other, the elderly passengers moaned and screamed and ululated, like a choir from hell. They struggled with each other for nearly ten minutes, and when the struggling was over, five of them lay unconscious or semi-conscious on the floor of the bus, bleeding and bruised. Neville was still standing, and so were Mrs Lutz and Mr Carradine, but Neville’s face and arms were deeply scratched, as if he had been attacked by a mountain lion, while Mrs Lutz’s lips were swollen and her eyes were half-closed, and Mr Carradine had blood dripping from his left ear and had also lost his upper teeth.

  Neville turned around to the laughing man. ‘What now?’ he demanded, his voice shaking with strain. ‘Are you satisfied? Look what you’ve made these people do to each other.’

  ‘Please, we can’t take any more,’ said Mrs Lutz. ‘I’m begging you, please go away now and leave us alone.’

  The laughing man came up to her and pushed her so hard with the heel of his hand that she fell backward on to one of the seats.

  ‘Leave you alone? Sorry, lady, we can’t leave you alone. The gods of ill fortune won’t allow it. They have to be propitiated, like I told you, and they’re a long way from being propitiated yet.’

  ‘Go away!’ shouted Neville. ‘Go away and let these poor people be! What have they ever done to you?’

  The laughing man coughed. ‘They’ve done nothing except to be conveniently on hand when an exorcism was called for, that’s all. Like I told you, I’m sorry. But the night has to follow the day, even if we don’t want it to. Darkness always inevitably has to fall, brother. Darkness always inevitably has to fall.’

  ‘Don’t you go calling me your brother, you motherfucker. You’re not my brother.’

  ‘Oh, we’re all brothers under the mask. And you go back to the Bible, brother. You go back to the Good Book. What did the very first brother do to the second brother?’

  The laughing man half-turned away, but then he swung around with his right elbow raised and Neville didn’t even realize that he was holding his knife in his hand. With a single elegant sweep of his arm he cut Neville’s throat wide open so that blood cascaded down the filthy hospital gown that he was wearing.

  Neville’s eyes bulged with shock. Instantly, he clamped both hands over his throat, but he could feel for himself that the laughing man had killed him. He took one staggering step backward, and then another, and then he tipped sideways over his driver’s seat, trying to seize the steering wheel with one bloody hand to stop himself from falling.

  ‘No!’ screamed Mrs Lutz. ‘No!’

  But the scowling man slapped her across the face, twice, and then ripped her hospital gown open.

  Mrs Lutz said, ‘God will punish you for this. You are going to burn in hell.’

  The scowling man pulled her gown right off her, and kicked it away down the aisle. ‘Lady,’ he said, ‘I already did.’

  ELEVEN

  Ruth arrived at the Fire & Arson Laboratory at lunchtime. It was still thundering and it was so dark outside that Jack had switched all the lights on. He was perched on a stool in his white lab coat, reading the sports pages in the Tribune and making a mess of eating a ham and provolone submarine from Jimmy John’s.

  ‘Hey – how did it go?’ he asked her. ‘Did the doc find out why Amelia’s been feeling so antsy?’

  Ruth took off her raincoat and hung it up. Then she took off her beret and slapped it to shake off the raindrops. ‘He seems to think her meds are OK, so it could be nothing more than her hormones playing up. But we talked to a shrink, too – Doctor Beech? She wants Ammy to meet up with some guy who’s been having the same kind of problems.’

  Jack picked up a slice of tomato that had dropped on to a picture of Caleb Abbott, the big hitter from the Kokomo Knights. ‘I know Zelda Beech, she’s good. S
he used to treat Lois.’

  He didn’t say any more and Ruth didn’t press him. She knew that Jack’s first wife, Lois, had suffered a severe mental breakdown, and that she had eventually committed suicide, but she didn’t know all of the details and if Jack didn’t want to tell her, that was his privilege.

  ‘I just don’t know if it’s a good idea,’ she said. ‘You know – meeting up with somebody who’s suffering from the same kind of anxiety. I don’t want Ammy to get any worse.’

  ‘Zelda Beech is good with people,’ Jack reassured her. ‘She’s not your run-of-the-mill shrink, not by any means. She’s very open-minded. If she thinks that her patient will respond to a certain kind of treatment, she’ll try it, even if she doesn’t necessarily agree with it. Like hypnosis. She was always very wary about hypnosis because she didn’t like the after-effects. The nightmares, the sweats, the heebie-jeebies. But she hypnotized Lois when Lois was going through the worst, and it helped her to make some sense of the world. Not that the world has ever made any kind of sense.’

  ‘You can say that again. How’s it going with Tilda Frieburg?’

  Jack put down his sandwich and smacked his hands together. ‘I was going to call you, but I didn’t want to interrupt you while you were talking to the doctor, and in any case I wanted to see your face in live action when I told you.’

  He walked across the laboratory and came back with a test-tube half-filled with light gray powder.

  ‘What’s this?’ Ruth asked him.

  ‘Sludge from the bottom of Tilda Frieburg’s bathtub. Filtered and dried, tested and analyzed.’

  He waited, smiling, for Ruth to react.

  ‘OK,’ said Ruth. ‘Why are you keeping me in suspense?’

  ‘I enjoy being dramatic, that’s all. This powder is in fact cremated remains. Professionally cremated remains, just like the cremated remains we found inside the mattress on which Julie Benfield was burned. What’s more, they have minute bone fragments in them, exactly similar to the bone fragments we found in the first sample. If I was to give you an educated guess, I’d say that both samples came from the same not-terribly-efficient crematorium.’