Phantoms Read online

  Frank said nothing.

  Stu looked at what he’d pried out of his nose, inspecting it as if it were a pearl found in an oyster. He glanced back at the doctor again. “Look at the way she fills out them jeans. Christ, I’d love to dip my wick in that.”

  Frank stared at the three screws he’d removed from the radio and counted to ten, resisting the urge to drive one of the screws straight into Stu’s thick skull. “You aren’t stupid enough to make a pass at her, I hope.”

  “Why not? That’s a hot number if ever I did see one.”

  “You try it, and the sheriff’ll kick your ass.”

  “He don’t spook me.”

  “You amaze me, Stu. How can you be thinking about sex right now? Hasn’t it occurred to you that we all might die here, tonight, maybe even in the next minute or two?”

  “All the more reason to make a play for her if I get a chance,” Wargle said. “I mean, shit, if we’re livin’ on borrowed time, who cares? Who wants to die limp? Right? Even the other one’s nice.”

  “The other what?”

  “The girl, the kid,” Stu said.

  “She’s only fourteen.”

  “Sweet stuff.”

  “She’s a child, Wargle.”

  “She’s plenty old enough.”

  “That’s sick.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to have her firm little legs wrapped around you, Frank?”

  The screwdriver slipped out of the notch on the head of the screw and skidded across the metal cover plate with a stuttering screech.

  In a voice which was nearly inaudible but which nevertheless froze Wargle’s grin, Frank said, “If I ever hear of you laying one filthy finger on that girl or on any other young girl, anywhere, any time, I won’t just help press charges against you; I’ll come after you. I know how to go after a man, Wargle. I wasn’t just a desk jockey in the army. I was in the field. And I still know how to handle myself. I know how to handle you. You hear me? You believe me?”

  For a moment Wargle was unable to speak. He just stared into Frank’s eyes.

  Conversations drifted over from other parts of the big room, but none of the words was clear. Still, it was obvious that no one realized what was happening at the radio.

  Wargle finally blinked and licked his lips and looked down at his shoes and then looked up and put on an aw-shucks grin. “Hey, gee, Frank, don’t get sore. Don’t get so riled up. I didn’t mean it.”

  “You believe me?” Frank insisted.

  “Sure, sure. But I tell you I didn’t mean nothin’. I was just shootin’ off at the mouth. Locker room talk. You know how it is. You know I didn’t mean it. Am I some kind of pervert, for God’s sake? Hey, come on, Frank, lighten up. Okay?”

  Frank stared at him a moment longer, the.. said. “Let’s get this radio dismantled.”

  Tal Whitman opened the tall metal gun locker.

  Jenny Paige said, “Good heavens, it’s a regular arsenal.”

  He passed the weapons to her, and she lined them up on a nearby work table.

  The locker seemed to contain an excessive amount of fire-power for a town like Snowfield. Two high-powered rifles with sniper scopes. Two semiautomatic shotguns. Two nonlethal riot guns, which were specially modified shotguns that fired only hard rubber pellets. Two flare guns. Two rifles that fired tear gas grenades. Three handguns: a pair of .38s and a big Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum.

  As the lieutenant piled boxes of ammunition on the table, Jenny gave the Magnum a close inspection. “This is a real monster, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. You could stop a Brahman bull with that one.”

  “Looks as if Paul kept everything in first-rate condition.”

  “You handle guns like you know all about them,” the lieutenant said, putting more ammunition on the table.

  “Always hated guns. Never thought I’d own one,” she said. “But after I’d been living up here three months, we started having trouble with a motorcycle gang that decided to set up a sort of summer retreat on some land out along the Mount Larson Road.”

  “The Demon Chrome.”

  “That’s them,” Jenny said. “Rough-looking crowd.”

  “That’s putting it kindly.”

  “A couple of times, when I was making a house call at night, over to Mount Larson or Pineville, I got an unwanted motorcycle escort. They rode on each side of the car, too close for safety, grinning in the side windows at me, shouting at me, waving, being foolish. They didn’t actually try anything, but it sure was ...”

  “Threatening.”

  “You said it. So I bought a gun, learned how to shoot it, and got a permit to carry.”

  The lieutenant began to open the boxes of ammunition. “Ever have occasion to use it?”

  “Well,” she said, “I never had to shoot anyone, thank God. But I did have to show it once. It was just after dark. I was on my way to Mount Larson, and the Demons gave me another escort, but this time it was different. Four of them boxed me in, and they all started slowing down, forcing me to slow down, too. Finally, they brought me to a complete stop in the middle of the road.”

  “That must’ve given your heart a good workout.”

  “Did it ever! One of the Demons got off his bike. He was big, maybe six feet three or four, with long curly hair and a beard. He wore a bandanna around his head. And one gold earring. He looked like a pirate.”

  “Did he have a red and yellow eye tattooed on the palm of each hand?”

  “Yes! Well, at least on the palm he put against the car window when he was looking in at me.”

  The lieutenant leaned against the table on which they had placed the guns. “His name’s Gene Terr. He’s the leader of the Demon Chrome. They don’t come much meaner. He’s been in the slammer two or three times but never for anything serious and never for long. Whenever it looks as if Jeeter’s going to have to do hard time, one of his people takes the blame for all the charges. He has an incredible hold on his followers. They’ll do anything he wants; it’s almost as if they worship him. Even after they’re in jail, Jeeter takes care of them, smuggling money and drugs in to them, and they stay faithful to him. He knows we can’t touch him, so he’s always infuriatingly polite and helpful to us, pretending to be an upstanding citizen; it’s a big joke to him. Anyway, Jeeter came over to your car and looked in at you?”

  “Yes. He wanted me to get out, and I wouldn’t. He said I should at least roll down the window, so we wouldn’t have to shout to hear each other. I said I didn’t mind shouting a little. He threatened to smash the window if I didn’t roll it down. I knew if I did, he’d reach right inside and unlock the door, so I figured it was better to get out of the car willingly. I told him I’d come out if he’d back off a little. He stepped away from the door, and I snatched the gun from under the seat. As soon as I opened the door and got out, he tried to move in on me. I jammed the muzzle into his belly. The hammer was pulled back, fully cocked; he saw that right away.”

  “God, I wish I’d seen the look on his face!” Lieutenant Whitman said, grinning.

  “I was scared to death,” Jenny said, remembering. “I mean, I was scared of him, of course, but, I was also scared I might have to pull the trigger. I wasn’t even sure I could pull the trigger. But I knew I couldn’t let Jeeter see I had any doubts.”

  “If he’d seen, he’d have eaten you alive.”

  “That’s what I thought. So I was very cold, very firm. I told him that I was a doctor, that I was on my way to see a very sick patient, and that I didn’t intend to be detained. I kept my voice low. The other three men were still on their bikes, and from where they were, they couldn’t see the gun or hear exactly what I was saying. This Jeeter looked like the type who’d rather die than let anyone see him take any orders from a woman, so I didn’t want to embarrass him and maybe make him do something foolish.”

  The lieutenant shook his head. “You sure had him pegged right.”

  “I also reminded him that he might need a doctor some day. What if
he took a spill off that bike of his and was lying on the road, critically injured, and I was the doctor who showed up—after he’d hurt me and given me good reason to hurt him in return? I told him there are things a doctor can do to complicate injuries, to make sure the patient has a long and painful recovery. I asked him to think about that.”

  Whitman gaped at her.

  She said, “I don’t know if that unsettled him or whether it was simply the gun, but he hesitated, then made a big scene for the benefit of his three buddies. He told them I was a friend of a friend. He said he’d met me once, years ago, but hadn’t recognized me at first. I was to be given every courtesy the Demon Chrome could extend. No one would ever bother me, he said. Then he climbed back on his Harley and rode away, and the other three followed him.”

  “And you just went on to Mount Larson?”

  “What else? I still had a patient to see.”

  “Incredible.”

  “I will admit, though, I had the sweats and the shakes all the way to Mount Larson.”

  “And no biker has ever bothered you since?”

  “In fact, when they pass me on the roads around here, they all smile and wave.”

  Whitman laughed.

  Jenny said, “So there’s the answer to your question: Yes, I know how to use a gun, but I hope I never have to shoot anyone.”

  She looked at the .357 Magnum in her hand, scowled, opened a box of ammunition, and began to load the revolver.

  The lieutenant took a couple of shells from another carton and loaded a shotgun.

  They were silent for a moment, and then he said, “Would you have done what you told Gene Terr?”

  “What? Shoot him?”

  “No. I mean, if he’d hurt you, maybe raped you, and then if you’d later had a chance to treat him as a patient... would you have...?”

  Jenny finished loading the Magnum, clicked the cylinder into place, and put the gun down. “Well, I’d be tempted. But on the other hand, I have enormous respect for the Hippocratic Oath. So ... well ... I suppose this means I’m just a wimp at heart—but I’d give Jeeter the best medical care I could.”

  “I knew you’d say that.”

  “I talk tough, but I’m just a marshmallow inside.”

  “Like hell,” he said. “The way you stood up to him took about as much toughness as anybody has. But if he’d hurt you, and if you’d later abused your trust as a doctor just to get even with him ... well, that would be different.”

  Jenny looked up from the .38 that she’d just taken from the array of weapons on the table, and she met the black man’s eyes. They were clear, probing eyes.

  “Dr. Paige, you have what we call ‘the right stuff.’ If you want, you can call me Tal. Most people do. It’s short for Talbert.”

  “All right, Tal. And you can call me Jenny.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  “You’re a doctor and all. My Aunt Becky—she’s the one who raised me—always had great respect for doctors. It just seems funny to be calling a doctor by his ... by her first name.”

  “Doctors are people too, you know. And considering that we’re all in sort of a pressure cooker here—”

  “Just the same,” he said, shaking his head.

  “If it bothers you, then call me what most of my patients call me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Just plain Doc.”

  “Doc?” He thought about it, and a slow smile spread over his face. “Doc. It makes you think of one of those grizzled, cantankerous old coots that Barry Fitzgerald used to play in the movies, way back in the thirties and forties.”

  “Sorry I’m not grizzled.”

  “That’s okay. You’re not an old coot, either.”

  She laughed softly.

  “I like the irony of it,” Whitman said. “Doc. Yeah, and when I think of you jamming that revolver in Gene Terr’s belly, it fits.”

  They loaded two more guns.

  “Tal, why all these weapons for a little substation in a town like Snowfield?”

  “If you want to get state and federal matching funds for the county law enforcement budget, you’ve got to meet their requirements for all sorts of ridiculous things. One of the specifications is for minimal arsenals in substations like this. Now ... well ... maybe we should be glad we’ve got all this hardware.”

  “Except so far we haven’t seen anything to shoot at.”

  “I suspect we will,” Tal said. “And I’ll tell you something.”

  “What’s that?”

  His broad, dark, handsome face could look unsettlingly dour. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about having to shoot other people. Somehow, I don’t believe it’s people we have to worry about.”

  Bryce dialed the private, unlisted number at the governor’s residence in Sacramento. He talked to a maid who insisted the governor couldn’t come to the phone, not even to take a life-and-death call from an old friend. She wanted Bryce to leave a message. Then he talked to the chief of the household staff, who also wanted him to leave a message. Then, after being put on hold, he talked to Gary Poe, Governor Jack Retlock’s chief political aide and advisor.

  “Bryce,” Gary said. “Jack just can’t come to the phone right now. There’s an important dinner underway here. The Japanese trade minister and the consul general from San Francisco.”

  “Gary—”

  “We’re trying damned hard to get that new Japanese-American electronics plant for California, and we’re afraid it’s going to go to Texas or Arizona or maybe even New York. Jesus, New York!”

  “Gary—”

  “Why would they even consider New York, with all the labor problems and the tax rates what they are back there? Sometimes I think—”

  “Gary, shut up.”

  “Huh?”

  Bryce never snapped at anyone. Even Gary Poe—who could talk faster and louder than a carnival barker—was shocked into silence.

  “Gary, this is an emergency. Get Jack for me.”

  Sounding hurt, Poe said, “Bryce, I’m authorized to—”

  “I’ve got a hell of a lot to do in the next hour or two, Gary. If I live long enough to do it, that is. I can’t spend fifteen minutes laying this whole thing out for you and then another fifteen laying it out again for Jack. Listen, I’m in Snowfield. It appears as if everyone who lived here is dead, Gary.”

  “What?”

  “Five hundred people.”

  “Bryce, if this is some sort of joke or—”

  “Five hundred dead. And that’s the least of it. Now will you for Christ’s sake get Jack?”

  “But Bryce, five hundred—”

  “Get Jack, damn it!”

  Poe hesitated, then said, “Old buddy, this better be the straight shit.” He dropped the phone and went for the governor.

  Bryce had known Jack Retlock for seventeen years. When he joined the Los Angeles police, he had been assigned to Jack for his rookie year. At that time, Jack was a seven-year veteran of the force, a seasoned hand. Indeed, Jack had seemed so savvy and streetwise that Bryce had despaired of ever being even half as good at the job. In a year, however, he was better. They voted to stay together, partners. But eighteen months later, fed up with a legal system that regularly turned loose the punks he worked so hard to imprison, Jack quit police work and went into politics. As a cop, he’d collected a fistful of citations for bravery. He parlayed his hero image into a seat on the L.A. city council, then ran for mayor, winning in a landslide. From there, he’d jumped into the governor’s chair. It was a far more impressive career than Bryce’s own halting progress to the sheriff’s post in Santa Mira, but Jack always was the more aggressive of the two.

  “Doody? Is that you?” Jack asked, picking up the phone in Sacramento.

  Doody was his nickname for Bryce. He’d always said that Bryce’s sandy hair, freckles, wholesome face, and marionette eyes made him look like Howdy Doody.

  “It’s me, Jack
.”

  “Gary’s raving some lunatic nonsense—”

  “It’s true,” Bryce said.

  He told Jack all about Snowfield.

  After listening to the entire story, Jack took a deep breath and said, “I wish you were a drinking man, Doody.”

  “This isn’t booze talking, Jack. Listen, the first thing I want is—”

  “National Guard?”

  “No!” Bryce said. “That’s exactly what I want to avoid as long as we have any choice.”

  “If I don’t use the Guard and every agency at my disposal, and then if it later turns out I should’ve sent them in first thing, my ass will be grass, and there’ll be a herd of hungry cows all around me.”

  “Jack, I’m counting on you to make the right decisions, not just the right political decisions. Until we know more about the situation, we don’t want hordes of Guardsmen tramping around up here. They’re great for helping out in a flood, a postal strike, that sort of thing. But they’re not full-time military men. They’re salesmen and attorneys and carpenters and schoolteachers. This calls for a tightly controlled, efficient little police action, and that sort of thing can be conducted only by real cops, full-time cops.”

  “And if your men can’t handle it?”

  “Then I’ll be the first to yell for the Guard.”

  Finally Retlock said, “Okay. No Guardsmen. For now.”

  Bryce sighed. “And I want to keep the State Health Department out of here, too.”

  “Doody, be reasonable. How can I do that? If there’s any chance that a contagious disease has wiped out Snowfield—or some kind of environmental poisoning—”

  “Listen, Jack, Health does a fine job when it comes to tracking down and controlling vectors for outbreaks of plague or mass food poisoning or water contamination. But essentially, they’re bureaucrats; they move slowly. We can’t afford to move slowly on this. I have the gut feeling that we’re living strictly on borrowed time. All hell could break loose at any time; in fact, I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t. Besides, the Health Department doesn’t have the equipment to handle it, and they don’t have a contingency plan to cover the death of an entire town. But there’s someone who does, Jack. The Army Medical Corps’ CBW Division has a relatively new program they call the Civilian Defense Unit.”

  “CBW Division?” Retlock asked. There was a new tension in his voice. “You don’t mean the chemical and biological warfare boys?”

  “Yes.”

  “Christ, you don’t think it has anything to do with nerve gas or germ war—”

  “Probably not,” Bryce said, thinking of the Liebermanns’ severed heads, of the creepy feeling that had overcome him inside the covered passageway, of the incredible suddenness with which Jake Johnson had vanished. “But I don’t know enough about it to rule out CBW or anything else.”

  A hard edge of anger had crystallized in the governor’s voice. “If the damned army has been careless with one of its fucking doomsday viruses, I’m going to have their heads!”

  “Easy, Jack. Maybe it’s not an accident. Maybe it’s the work of terrorists who got their hands on a sample of some CBW agent. Or maybe it’s foreign agents running a little test of our CBW analysis and defense system. It was to handle those kinds of situations that the Army Medical Corps instructed its CBW Division to create General Copperfield’s office.”

  “Who’s Copperfield?”