Cold Fire Read online

  When he reached the end of the narrow chamber and looked down, he had no doubt that the man crumpled on the floor was dead. Bloody human garbage. Garbage alive, now garbage dead.

  At the sight of the torn and battered corpse, a savage elation gripped him, a furious righteousness that was both thrilling and frightening. He wanted to be sickened by what he had done, even if the dead man had deserved to die, but although the carnage nauseated him, he was not morally repulsed. He had encountered purest evil in human form: Both these bastards deserved worse than he had been able to do to them, deserved long and slow deaths with great suffering, much terror. He felt like an avenging angel, come to judgment, filled with a holy rage. He knew he was teetering on the edge of a psychosis of his own, knew that only the insane were unreservedly certain of the virtue of even their most outrageous acts, but he could find no doubt within him. In fact his anger swelled as if he were God’s avatar into whom flowed a direct current of the Almighty’s apocalyptic wrath.

  He turned to the closed door.

  The bedroom lay beyond.

  The mother and child had to be in there.

  Lisa ... Susie ...

  But who else?

  Sociopathic killers usually operated alone, but sometimes they paired up as these two had done. Larger alliances, however, were rare. Charles Manson and his “family,” of course. There were other examples. He couldn’t rule anything out, not in a world where the trendiest professors of philosophy taught that ethics were always situational and that everyone’s point of view was equally right and valuable, regardless of its logic or hate quotient. It was a world that bred monsters, and this beast might be hydra-headed.

  He knew caution was called for, but the exhilarating righteous wrath that filled him also gave him a sense of invulnerability. He stepped to the bedroom door, kicked it open, and shouldered through, knowing he might be gut-shot, not giving a damn, shotgun in front of him, ready to kill and be killed.

  The woman and child were alone. On the filthy bed. Bound at wrists and ankles with sturdy strapping tape. Tape across their mouths.

  The woman, Lisa, was about thirty, slim, an unusually attractive blonde. But the daughter, Susie, was remarkably more beautiful than her mother, ethereally beautiful: about ten years old, with luminous green eyes, delicate features, and skin as flawless as the membranous interior surface of an eggshell. The girl seemed, to Jim, to be an embodiment of innocence, goodness, and purity—an angel cast down into a cesspool. New power informed his rage at the sight of her bound and gagged in the bedroom’s squalor.

  Tears streamed down the child’s face, and she choked on muffled sobs of terror behind the tape that sealed her lips. The mother was not crying, though grief and fear haunted her eyes. Her sense of responsibility to her daughter—and a visible rage not unlike Jim’s—seemed to keep her from falling over the brink of hysteria.

  He realized they were afraid of him. As far as they knew, he was in league with the men who had abducted them.

  As he propped the shotgun against the built-in dresser, he said, “It’s all right. It’s over now. I killed them. I killed them both.”

  The mother stared at him wide-eyed, disbelieving.

  He didn’t blame her for doubting him. His voice sounded strange: full of fury, cracking on every third or fourth word, tremulous, going from a whisper to a hard bark to a whisper again.

  He looked around for something with which to cut them free. A roll of the strapping tape and a pair of scissors lay on the dresser.

  Grabbing the scissors, he noticed X-rated videotapes also stacked on the dresser. Suddenly he realized that the walls and ceiling of the small room were papered with obscene photographs torn from the pages of sex magazines, and with a jolt he saw it was filth with a twisted difference: child pornography. There were grown men in the photos, their faces always concealed, but there were no grown women, only young girls and boys, most of them as young as Susie, many of them younger, being brutalized in every way imaginable.

  The men he had killed would have used the mother only briefly, would have raped and tortured and broken her only as an example to the child. Then they would have cut her throat or blown her brains out on some desolate dirt road out in the desert, leaving her body for the delectation of lizards and ants and vultures. It was the child they really wanted, and for whom they would have made the next few months or years a living hell.

  His anger metastasized into something beyond mere rage, far beyond wrath. A terrible darkness rose inside of him like black crude oil gushing up from a wellhead.

  He was furious that the child had seen those photographs, had been forced to lie in those stained and foul-smelling bedclothes with unspeakable obscenity on every side of her. He had the crazy urge to pick up the shotgun and empty a few more rounds into each of the dead men.

  They had not touched her. Thank God for that. They hadn’t had time to touch her.

  But the room. Oh, Jesus, she had suffered an assault just by being in that room.

  He was shaking.

  He saw that the mother was shaking, too.

  After a moment he realized that her tremors were not of rage, like his, but of fear. Fear of him. She was terrified of him, more so now than when he had come into the room.

  He was glad there was no mirror. He would not have wanted to see his own face. Right now there must be some kind of madness in it.

  He had to get a grip on himself.

  “It’s all right,” he assured her again. “I came to help you.”

  Eager to free them, anxious to quiet their terror, he dropped to his knees beside the bed and cut the tape that was wound around the woman’s ankles, tore it away. He snipped the tape around her wrists, as well, then left her to finish freeing herself.

  When he cut the bindings from Susie’s wrists, she hugged herself defensively. When he freed her ankles, she kicked at him and squirmed away across the gray and mottled sheets. He didn’t reach for her, but backed off instead.

  Lisa peeled the tape off her lips and pulled a rag out of her mouth, choking and gagging. She spoke in a raspy voice that was somehow simultaneously frantic and resigned: “My husband, back at the car, my husband!”

  Jim looked at her and said nothing, unable to put such bleak news into words in front of the child.

  The woman saw the truth in his eyes, and for a moment her lovely face was wrenched into a mask of grief and agony. But for the sake of her daughter, she fought down the sob, swallowed it along with her anguish.

  She said only, “Oh, my God,” and each word reverberated with her loss.

  “Can you carry Susie?”

  Her mind was on her dead husband.

  He said, “Can you carry Susie?”

  She blinked in confusion. “How do you know her name?”

  “Your husband told me.”

  “But—”

  “Before,” he said sharply, meaning before he died, not wanting to give false hope. “Can you carry her out of here?”

  “Yeah, I think so, maybe.”

  He could have carried the girl himself, but he didn’t believe that he should touch her. Though it was irrational and emotional, he felt that what those two men had done to her—and what they would have done to her, given a chance—was somehow the responsibility of all men, and that at least a small stain of guilt was his as well.

  Right now, the only man in the world who should touch that child was her father. And he was dead.

  Jim rose from his knees and edged away from the bed. He backed into a narrow closet door that sprang open as he stepped aside of it.

  On the bed, the weeping girl squirmed away from her mother, so traumatized that she did not at first recognize the benign intention of even those familiar loving hands. Then abruptly she shattered the chains of terror and flew into her mother’s arms. Lisa spoke softly and reassuringly to her daughter, stroked her hair, held her tight.

  The air-conditioning had been off ever since the killers had parked and gone to check th
e wrecked Camaro. The bedroom was growing hotter by the second, and it stank. He smelled stale beer, sweat, what might have been the lingering odor of dried blood rising from dark maroon stains on the carpet, and other foul odors that he dared not even try to identify.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  Lisa did not appear to be a strong woman, but she lifted her daughter as effortlessly as she would have lifted a pillow. With the girl cradled in her arms, she moved toward the door.

  “Don’t let her look to the left when you go out,” he said. “One of them’s dead just beside the door. It isn’t pretty.”

  Lisa nodded once, with evident gratitude for the warning.

  As he started to follow her through the doorway, he saw the contents of the narrow closet that had come open when he’d backed against it: shelves of homemade videotapes. On the spines were titles hand-printed on strips of white adhesive tape. Names. The titles were all names. CINDY. TIFFANY. JOEY. CISSY. TOMMY. KEVIN. Two were labeled SALLY. Three were labeled WENDY. More names. Maybe thirty in all. He knew what he was looking at; but he didn’t want to believe it. Memories of savagery. Mementoes of perversion. Victims.

  The bitter blackness welled higher in him.

  He followed Lisa through the motor home to the door, and out into the blazing desert sun.

  2

  Lisa stood in the white-gold sunshine on the shoulder of the highway, behind the motor home. Her daughter stood at her side, clung to her. Light had an affinity for them: it slipped in scintillant currents through their flaxen hair, accented the color of their eyes much the way a jeweler’s display lamp enhanced the beauty of emeralds on velvet, and lent an almost mystical luminosity to their skin. Looking at them, it was difficult to believe that the light around them was not within them, too, and that a darkness had entered their lives and filled them as completely as night filled the world in the wake of dusk.

  Jim could barely endure their presence. Each time he glanced at them, he thought of the dead man in the station wagon, and sympathetic grief twisted through him, as painful as any physical illness he had ever known.

  Using a key that he found on a ring with the motor home ignition key, he unlocked the iron rack that held the Harley-Davidson. It was an FXRS-SP with a 1340cc. single-carburetor, two-valve, push-rod V-twin with a five-speed transmission that powered the rear wheel through a toothed belt instead of a greasy chain. He’d ridden fancier and more powerful machines. This one was standard, about as plain as a Harley could get. But all he wanted from the bike was speed and easy handling; and if it was in good repair, the SP would provide him with both.

  Lisa spoke worriedly to him as he unracked the Harley and looked it over. “Three of us can’t ride out of here on that.”

  “No,” he said. “Just me.”

  “Please don’t leave us alone.”

  “Someone’ll stop for you before I go.”

  A car approached. The three occupants gawked at them. The driver put on more speed.

  “None of them stop,” she said miserably.

  “Someone will. I’ll wait until they do.”

  She was silent a moment. Then: “I don’t want to get into a car with strangers.”

  “We’ll see who stops.”

  She shook her head violently.

  He said, “I’ll know if they’re trustworthy.”

  “I don’t...” Her voice broke. She hesitated, regained control. “I don’t trust anyone.”

  “There are good people in the world. In fact, most of them are good. Anyway, when they stop, I’ll know if they’re okay.”

  “How? How in God’s name can you know?”

  “I’ll know.” But he could not explain the how of it any more than he could explain how he had known that she and her daughter needed him out here in this sere and blistered wasteland.

  He straddled the Harley and pressed the starter button. The engine kicked in at once. He revved it a little, then shut it off.

  The woman said, “Who are you?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “But why not?”

  “This one’s too sensational. It’ll make nationwide headlines.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They’d splash my picture everywhere. I like my privacy.”

  A small utility rack was bolted to the back of the Harley. Jim used his belt to strap the shotgun to it.

  With a tremor of vulnerability in her voice that broke his heart, Lisa said, “We owe you so much.”

  He looked at her, then at Susie. The girl had one slender arm around her mother, clinging tightly. She was not listening to their conversation. Her eyes were out of focus, blank—and her mind seemed far away. Her free hand was at her mouth, and she was chewing on her knuckle; she had actually broken the skin and drawn her own blood.

  He averted his eyes and stared down at the cycle again.

  “You don’t owe me anything,” he said.

  “But you saved—”

  “Not everyone,” he said quickly. “Not everyone I should have.”

  The distant growl of an approaching car drew their attention to the east. They watched a souped-up black Trans Am swim out of the water mirages. With a screech of brakes, it stopped in front of them. Red flames were painted on the fender back of the front wheel, and the rims of both the wheel wells were protected with fancy chrome trim. Fat twin chrome tailpipes glistered like liquid mercury in the fierce desert sun.

  The driver got out. He was about thirty. His thick black hair was combed away from his face, full on the sides, a ducktail in back. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal tattoos on both biceps.

  “Somethin’ wrong here?” he asked across the car.

  Jim stared at him for a beat, then said, “These people need a ride to the nearest town.”

  As the man came around the Trans Am, the passenger door opened, and a woman got out. She was a couple of years younger than her companion, dressed in baggy tan shorts, a white halter top, and a white bandana. Unruly dyed-blond hair sprayed out around that piece of headgear, framing a face so heavily made up that it looked like a testing ground for Max Factor. She wore too much clunky costume jewelry, as well: big dangling silver earrings; three strands of glass beads in different shades of red; two bracelets on each wrist, a watch, and four rings. On the upper slope of her left breast was a blue and pink butterfly tattoo.

  “You break down?” she asked.

  Jim said, “The motor home has a flat.”

  “I’m Frank,” the guy said. “This is Verna.” He was chewing gum. “I’ll help you fix the tire.”

  Jim shook his head. “We can’t use the motor home anyway. There’s a dead man in it.”

  “Dead man?”

  “And another one over there,” Jim said, gesturing beyond the Roadking.

  Verna was wide-eyed.

  Frank stopped chewing his gum for a beat, glanced at the shotgun on the Harley rack, then looked at Jim again. “You kill them?”

  “Yeah. Because they kidnapped this woman and her child.”

  Frank studied him a moment, then glanced at Lisa. “That true?” he asked her.

  She nodded.

  “Jesus jumpin’ catfish,” Verna said.

  Jim glanced at Susie. She was in another world, and she would need some professional help to reenter this one. He was certain she couldn’t hear a thing they said.

  Curiously, he felt as detached as the child looked. He was still sinking into that internal darkness, and before long it would swallow him completely. He told Frank: “These guys I killed—they wasted the husband ... the father. His body’s in a station wagon a couple of miles west of here.”

  “Oh, shit,” Frank said, “that’s a rough one.”

  Verna drew against Frank’s side and shuddered.

  “I want you to take them to the nearest town, fast as you can. Get medical attention for them. Then contact the state police, get them out here.”

  �
�Sure,” Frank said.

  But Lisa said, “Wait... no ... I can’t...” Jim went to her, and she whispered to him: “They look like ... I can’t.... I’m just afraid... ”

  Jim put a hand on her shoulder, stared directly into her eyes. “Things aren’t always what they appear to be. Frank and Verna are okay. You trust me?”

  “Yes. Now. Of course.”

  “Then believe me. You can trust them.”

  “But how can you know?” she asked, her voice breaking.

  “I know, ”he said firmly.

  She continued to meet his eyes for a few seconds, then nodded and said, “All right.”

  The rest was easy. As docile as if she had been drugged, Susie allowed herself to be lifted into the back seat. Her mother joined her there, cuddled her. When Frank was behind the wheel again and Verna at his side, Jim gratefully accepted a can of root beer from their ice chest. Then he closed Verna’s door, leaned down to the open window, and thanked her and Frank.

  “You’re not waitin’ here for the cops, are you?” Frank asked.

  “No.”

  “You’re not in trouble, you know. You’re the hero here.”

  “I know. But I’m not waiting.”

  Frank nodded. “You got your reasons, I guess. You want us to say you was a bald guy with dark eyes, hitched a ride with a trucker going east?”

  “No, Don’t lie. Don’t lie for me.” “Whatever you want,” Frank said.

  Verna said, “Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of them.”

  “I know you will,” Jim said.

  He drank the root beer and watched the Trans Am until it had driven out of sight.

  He climbed on the Harley, thumbed the starter button, used the long heavy shift to slide the gearwheel into place, rolled in a little throttle, released the clutch, and rode across the highway. He went off the shoulder, down the slight incline, onto the floor of the desert, and headed directly south into the immense and inhospitable Mojave.

  For a while he rode at over seventy miles an hour, though he had no protection from the wind because the SP had no fairing. He was badly buffeted, and his eyes filled repeatedly with tears that he tried to blame entirely on the raw, hot air that assaulted him.

  Strangely, he did not mind the heat. In fact he didn’t even feel it. He was sweating, yet he felt cool.

  He lost track of time. Perhaps an hour had passed when he realized that he had left the plains and was moving across barren hills the color of rust. He reduced his speed. His route was now filled with twists and turns between rocky outcroppings, but the SP was the machine for it. It had two inches more suspension travel fore and aft than did the regular FXRS, with compatible spring and shock rates, plus twin disc brakes on the front—which meant he could corner like a stunt rider when the terrain threw surprises at him.

  After a while he was no longer cool. He was cold.

  The sun seemed to be fading, though he knew it was still early afternoon. Darkness was closing on him from within.

  Eventually he stopped in the shadow of a rock monolith about a quarter of a mile long and three hundred feet high. Weathered into eerie shapes by ages of wind and sun and by the rare but torrential rains that swept the Mojave, the formation thrust out of the desert floor like the ruins of an ancient temple now half-buried in sand.