Black House

When he sees his chief take off after one of the men, fat Dit Jesperson lurches into action and spots Doodles Sanger, against whom he has borne a grudge ever since she turned him down late one night in the Nelson Hotel. Dit recognizes Teddy Runkleman, the tall galoot with the broken nose Dale is chasing; and he knows Freddy Saknessum, but Freddy is undoubtedly too fast for him and, besides, Dit has the feeling that if he put his hands on Freddy Saknessum, about eight hours later he would probably come down with something really nasty. Bobby Dulac is on the skinny guy's case, so Doodles is Dit's target, and he looks forward to pulling her down into the weeds and making her pay for calling him what she did, six years ago in the Nelson's filthy bar. (In front of maybe a dozen of French Landing's most raffish characters, Doodles had compared him to the then chief's smelly, waddling old mongrel, Tubby. )

Dit looks her in the eye, and for a second she stops jumping around to stand flat-footed on the ground and give him a little come-hither gesture with the fingers of both hands. He launches himself at her, but when he gets to where she was, she is six feet off to the right, shifting on her feet like a basketball player. "Tubby-Tubby," she says. "Come and get it, Tub-Tub. " Furious, Dit reaches, misses, and nearly loses his balance. Doodles prances away laughing and mouths the hateful expression. Dit doesn't get it ¡ª why doesn't Doodles just break away and take off ? It's like she almost wants to get caught, but first she has to run out the clock.

After another serious lunge that misses the target by only an inch or two, Dit Jesperson wipes the sweat off his face and checks out the scene. Bobby Dulac is snapping cuffs on the skinny guy, but Dale and Hollywood Sawyer are faring only a little better than he is. Teddy Runkleman and Freddy Saknessum dodge and bob away from their pursuers, both of them cackling like idiots and shouting their halfwit slogans. Why is low-life scum always so agile? Dit supposes that rodents like Runkleman and Saknessum get more practice in being light on their feet than regular people.

He charges Doodles, who slips past him and goes into a chuckling, high-stepping diddley-bop. Over her shoulder, Dit sees Hollywood finally fake out Saknessum, wrap an arm around his waist, and throw him to the ground.

"You didn't have to get all physical on my ass," Saknessum says. His eyes shift, and he gives a brief nod. "Hey, Runks. "

Teddy Runkleman glances at him, and his eyes shift, too. He stops moving. The chief says, "What, you run out of gas?"

"Party's over," Runkleman says. "Hey, we were just funnin', you know?"

"Aw, Runksie, I wanna play some more," Doodles says, throwing a few hip wiggles into the diddley-bop. In a flash, Beezer St. Pierre thrusts his mountainous self between her and Dit. He steps forward, rumbling like a semi going up a steep grade. Doodles tries to dance backward, but Beezer envelops her and carries her toward the chief.

"Beezie, don'cha love me no more?" Doodles asks.

Beezer grunts in disgust and deposits her in front of the chief. The two state cops, Perry Brown and Jeff Black, are hanging back, looking even more disgusted than the biker. If Dit's mental processes were to be transcribed from their

shorthand into standard English, the result would be, He's gotta have something on the ball if he brews that Kingsland Ale, because that is some fine, fine beer. And look at the chief! He's so ready to bust a gut, he can't even see that we're about to lose this case.

"You were FUNNIN'?" the chief roars. "What's the MATTER with you idiots? Don't you have any respect for that poor girl in there?"

As the state cops step forward to take charge, Dit sees Beezer go rigid with shock for a moment, then move as inconspicuously as possible away from the group. No one but Dit Jesperson pays any attention to him ¡ª the enormous biker has done his bit, and now his part is over. Arnold Hrabowski, who had been more or less concealed behind Brown and Black, shoves his hands in his pockets, hunches his shoulders, and gives Dit a glance of shamefaced apology. Dit doesn't get it: What does the Mad Hungarian have to feel so guilty about? Hell, he just got here. Dit looks back at Beezer, who is advancing ponderously toward the side of the shack and ¡ª surprise, surprise! ¡ª everybody's best pal and favorite reporter, Mr. Wendell Green, now appearing a little alarmed. Guess more than one kind of scum just rose to the surface, Dit thinks.

Beezer likes women who are smart and levelheaded, like Bear Girl; brainless skanks like Doodles drive him crazy. He reaches out, grabs two handfuls of pasty, rayon-covered flesh, and scoops wriggling Doodles under his arm.

Doodles says, "Beezie, don'cha love me no more?"

He lowers the dumb mutt to the ground in front of Dale Gilbertson. When Dale finally explodes at these four grown-up juvenile delinquents, Beezer remembers the signal Freddy had given Runksie, and looks over the chief's shoulder at the front of the old store. To the left of the rotting gray entrance, Wendell Green is aiming his camera at the group before him, getting fancy, bending and leaning, stepping to one side and another as he snaps pictures. When he sees Beezer looking at him through his lens, Wendell straightens up and lowers his camera. He has an awkward little smile on his face.

Green must have slithered in through the back way, Beezer imagines, because there's no way the cops down front would give him a pass. Come to think of it, Doodles and the Dodos must have come the same way. He hopes all of them did not learn of the back road by following him, but that's a possibility.

The reporter lets his camera hang from its strap and, keeping his eyes on Beezer, sidles away from the old shanty. The guilty, frightened way he moves reminds Beezer of a hyena's slink toward its carrion. Wendell Green does fear Beezer, and Beezer cannot blame him. Green is lucky that Beezer did not actually rip off his head, instead of merely talking about it. Yet . . . Green's hyenalike crawl strikes Beezer as pretty strange, under the circumstances. He can't be afraid of getting beaten up in front of all these cops, can he?

Green's uneasiness forms a link in Beezer's mind to the communication he had seen pass between Runkleman and Freddy. When their eyes shifted, when they looked away, they were looking at the reporter! He had set the whole thing up in advance. Green was using the Dodos as a distraction from whatever he was doing with his camera, of course. Such total sleaziness, such moral ugliness, infuriates Beezer. Galvanized by loathing, he moves quietly away from Dale and the other policemen and walks toward Wendell Green, keeping his eyes locked on the reporter's.

He sees Wendell consider making a break for it, then reject the idea, most likely because he knows he doesn't have a chance of getting away.

When Beezer comes to within ten feet of him, Green says, "We don't need any trouble here, Mr. St. Pierre. I'm just doing my job. Surely you can understand that. "

"I understand a lot of things," Beezer says. "How much did you pay those clowns?"

"Who? What clowns?" Wendell pretends to notice Doodles and the others for the first time. "Oh, them? Are they the ones who were making all that ruckus?"

"And why would they go do a thing like that?"

"Because they're animals, I guess. " The expression on Wendell's face communicates a great desire to align himself with Beezer on the side of human beings, as opposed to animals like Runkleman and Saknessum.

Taking care to fix Green's eyes, instead of his camera, with his own, Beezer moves in closer and says, "Wendy, you're a real piece of work, you know that?"

Wendell holds up his hands to ward off Beezer. "Hey, we may have had our differences in the past, but ¡ª "

Still looking him in the eye, Beezer folds his right hand around the camera and plants his left on Wendell Green's chest. He jerks the right hand back and gives Green a massive shove with the left. One of two things is going to break, Green's neck or the camera strap, and he does not much care which it is to be.

To a sound like the crack of a whip, the reporter flails backward, barely managing to remain upright. Beezer is pulling the camera out of the case, from which dangle two strips of severed leather. He drops the case and rotates the camera in his big hands.

"Hey, don't do that!" Wendell says, his voice louder than speech but softer than a shout.

"What is it, an old F2A?"

"If you know that, you know it's a classic. Give it back to me. "

"I'm not going to hurt it, I'm going to clean it out. " Beezer snaps open the back of the camera, gets one thick finger under the exposed length of film, and rips out the entire roll. He smiles at the reporter and tosses the film into the weeds. "See how much better it feels without all that crap in there? This is a nice little machine ¡ª you shouldn't fill it with garbage. "

Wendell does not dare show how furious he is. Rubbing the sore spot on the back of his neck, he growls, "That so-called garbage is my livelihood, you oaf, you moron. Now give me back my camera. "

Beezer casually holds it out before him. "I didn't quite catch all of that. What did you say?"

His only response a bleak glance, Wendell snatches the camera from Beezer's hand.

When the two state cops finally step forward, Jack feels a mixture of disappointment and relief. What they are going to do is obvious, so let them do it. Perry Brown and Jeff Black will take the Fisherman case away from Dale and run their own investigation. From now on, Dale will be lucky to get random scraps from the state's table. Jack's greatest regret is that Brown and Black should have walked into this madhouse, this circus. They have been waiting for their moment all along ¡ª in a sense, waiting for the local guy to prove his incompetence ¡ª but what is going on now is a public humiliation for Dale, and Jack wishes it weren't happening. He could not have imagined feeling grateful for the arrival of a biker gang at a crime scene, but that's how bad it is. Beezer St. Pierre and his companions kept the crowd away more efficiently than Dale's officers. The question is, how did all those people find out?

Apart from the damage to Dale's reputation and self-esteem, however, Jack has few regrets about the case passing to another jurisdiction. Let Brown and Black scour every basement in French County: Jack has the feeling they won't get any further than the Fisherman permits. To go further, he thinks, you'd have to travel in directions Brown and Black could never understand, visit places they are certain do not exist. Going further means making friends with opopanax, and men like Brown and Black distrust anything that even smells like opopanax. Which means that, in spite of everything Jack has said to himself since the murder of Amy St. Pierre, he will have to catch the Fisherman by himself. Or maybe not entirely by himself. Dale is going to have a lot more time on his hands, after all, and no matter what the State Police do to him, Dale is too wrapped up in this case to walk away from it.

"Chief Gilbertson," says Perry Brown, "I believe we have seen enough here. Is this what you call securing an area?"

Dale gives up on Teddy Runkleman and turns in frustration to the state cops, who stand side by side, like storm troopers. In his expression, Jack can see that he knows exactly what is going to happen, and that he hopes it will not be humiliatingly brutal. "I did everything in my power to make this area secure," Dale says. "After the 911 call came in, I talked to my men face to face and ordered them

to come out in pairs at reasonable intervals, to keep from arousing any curiosity. "

"Chief, you must have used your radio," says Jeff Black. "Because for sure somebody was tuned in. "

"I did not use the radio," Dale says. "And my people knew better than to spread the news. But you know what, Officer Black? If the Fisherman called us on 911, maybe he also made a couple of anonymous calls to the citizens. "

Teddy Runkleman has been attending to this discussion like a spectator at a tennis final. Perry Brown says, "Let's handle first things first. What do you intend to do with this man and his friends? Are you going to charge them? The sight of his face is getting on my nerves. "

Dale thinks for a moment, then says, "I'm not going to charge them. Get out of here, Runkleman. " Teddy moves backward, and Dale says, "Hold it for a second. How did you get here?"

"The back road," Teddy says. "Comes straight down from behind Goltz's. Thunder Five came the same way. So did that big-shot reporter, Mr. Green. "

"Wendell Green is here?"

Teddy points to the side of the ruin. Dale glances over his shoulder, and Jack looks in the same direction and witnesses Beezer St. Pierre ripping film from the back of a camera while Wendell Green watches in dismay.

"One more question," Dale says. "How did you learn that the Fre-neau girl's body was out here?"

"They was five or six bodies up at Ed's, is what I heard. My brother Erland called up and told me. He heard it from his girlfriend. "

"Go on, get out of here," Dale says, and Teddy Runkleman ambles away as if he has been awarded a medal for good citizenship.

"All right," Perry Brown says. "Chief Gilbertson, you have reached the end of your leash. As of now, this investigation is to be conducted by Lieutenant Black and myself. I'll want a copy of the 911 tape and copies of all notes and statements taken by you and your officers. Your role is to be entirely subordinate to the state's investigation, and to cooperate fully when called upon. You will be given updates at the discretion of Lieutenant Black and myself.

"If you ask me, Chief Gilbertson, you are getting far more than you deserve. I have never seen a more disorganized crime scene. You violated the security of this site to an unbelievable degree. How many of you walked into the . . . the structure?"

"Three," Dale says. "Myself, Officer Dulac, and Lieutenant Sawyer. "

"Lieutenant Sawyer," Brown says. "Excuse me, has Lieutenant Sawyer rejoined the LAPD? Has he become an official member of your department? And if not, why did you give him access to that structure? In fact, what is Mr. Sawyer doing here in the first place?"

"He's cleared more homicide cases than you and me ever will, no matter how long we live. "

Brown gives Jack an evil glance, and Jeff Black stares straight ahead. Beyond the two state cops, Arnold Hrabowski also glances at Jack Sawyer, though not at all the way Perry Brown did. Arnold's expression is that of a man who deeply wishes to be invisible, and when he finds Jack's eye on him, he quickly glances sideways and shifts on his feet.

Oh, Jack thinks. Of course, the Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Hungarian, there you go.

Perry Brown asks Dale what Mr. St. Pierre and his friends are doing on the scene, and Dale replies that they are assisting with crowd control. Did Dale advise Mr. St. Pierre that in exchange for this service he would be kept up-to-date on the investigation? It was something like that, yes.

Jack steps back and begins to move sideways along a gentle arc that will bring him to Arnold Hrabowski.

"Incredible," says Brown. "Tell me, Chief Gilbertson, did you decide to delay a little bit before passing the news on to Lieutenant Black and myself ?"

"I did everything according to procedure," Dale says. In answer to the next question he says that yes, he has called for the medical examiner and the evidence wagon, which, by the way, he can see coming up the lane right now.

The Mad Hungarian's efforts at self-control succeed only in making him look as though he urgently needs to urinate. When Jack places a hand on his shoulder, he stiffens like a cigar-store Indian.

"Calm down, Arnold," Jack says, then raises his voice. "Lieutenant Black, if you're taking over this case, there's some information you should have. "

Brown and Black turn their attention to him.

"The man who made the 911 call used the pay phone at the 7-Eleven store on Highway 35 in French Landing. Dale had the phone taped off, and the owner knows to keep people from handling it. You might get some useful prints from that phone. "

Black scribbles something in his notebook, and Brown says, "Gentlemen, I think your role is finished here. Chief, use your people to disperse those individuals at the bottom of the lane. By the time the M. E. and I come out of that structure, I don't want to see a single person down there, including you and your officers. You'll get a call later in the week, if I have any new information. "

Wordlessly, Dale turns away and points Bobby Dulac down the path, where the crowd has dwindled to a few stubborn souls leaning against their cars. Brown and Black shake hands with the medical examiner and confer with the specialists in charge of the evidence wagon.

"Now, Arnold," Jack says, "you like being a cop, don't you?"

"Me? I love being a cop. " Arnold cannot quite force himself to meet Jack's eyes. "And I could be a good one, I know I could, but the chief doesn't have enough faith in me. " He thrusts his trembling hands into his pants pockets.

Jack is torn between feeling pity for this pathetic wanna-be and the impulse to kick him all the way down to the end of the lane. A good cop? Arnold couldn't even be a good scoutmaster. Thanks to him, Dale Gilbertson got a public dressing-down that probably made him feel as though he'd been put in the stocks. "But you didn't follow orders, did you, Arnold?"

Arnold quivers like a tree struck by lightning. "What? I didn't do anything. "

"You told someone. Maybe you told a couple of people. "

"No!" Arnold shakes his head violently. "I just called my wife, that's all. " He looks imploringly at Jack. "The Fisherman talked to me, he told me where he put the girl's body, and I wanted Paula to know. Honest, Holl ¡ª Lieutenant Sawyer, I didn't think she'd call anybody, I just wanted to tell her. "

"Bad move, Arnold," Jack says. "You are going to tell the chief what you did, and you're going to do it right now. Because Dale deserves to know what went wrong, and he shouldn't have to blame himself. You like Dale, don't you?"

"The chief ?" Arnold's voice wobbles with respect for his chief. "Sure I do. He's, he's . . . he's great. But isn't he going to fire me?"

"That's up to him, Arnold," Jack says. "If you ask me, you deserve it, but maybe you'll get lucky. "

The Mad Hungarian shuffles off toward Dale. Jack watches their conversation for a second, then walks past them to the side of the old store, where Beezer St. Pierre and Wendell Green face each other in unhappy silence.

"Hello, Mr. St. Pierre," he says. "And hello to you, Wendell. "

"I'm lodging a complaint," Green says. "I'm covering the biggest story of my life, and this lout spoils a whole roll of film. You can't treat the press that way; we have a right to photograph whatever the hell we like. "

"I guess you woulda said you had a right to photograph my daughter's dead body, too. " Beezer glares at Jack. "This piece of shit paid Teddy and the other lunkheads to go nuts so nobody would notice him sneaking inside there. He took pictures of the girl. "

Wendell jabs a finger at Jack's chest. "He has no proof of that. But I'll tell you something, Sawyer. I did get pictures of you. You were concealing evidence in the back of your truck, and I got you dead to rights. So think twice before you try to mess with me, because I'll hang you out to dry. "

A dangerous red mist seems to fill Jack's head. "Were you going to sell photographs of that girl's body?"

"What's it to you?" An ugly smirk widens Wendell Green's mouth. "You're not exactly lily-white either, are you? Maybe we can do each other some good, huh?"

&

nbsp; The red mist darkens and fills Jack's eyes. "We can do each other some good?"

Standing beside Jack, Beezer St. Pierre clenches and unclenches his enormous fists. Beezer, Jack knows, catches his tone perfectly, but the vision of dollar signs has so gripped Wendell Green that he hears Jack's threat as a straightforward question.

"You let me reload my camera and get the pictures I need, and I keep quiet about you. "

Beezer lowers his head and balls his hands again.

"Tell you what. I'm a generous guy ¡ª maybe I could even cut you in, say ten percent of my total. "

Jack would prefer to break his nose, but he contents himself with a hard punch to the reporter's stomach. Green clutches his gut and folds in half, then falls to the ground. His face has turned a hectic pink, and he struggles for breath. His eyes register shock and disbelief.

"See, I'm a generous guy, too, Wendell. I probably saved you thousands of dollars in dental work, plus a broken jaw. "

"Don't forget the plastic surgery," says Beezer, grinding a fist into the palm of the other hand. He looks as if someone just stole his favorite dessert off the dinner table.

Wendell's face has become a reddish shade of purple.

"For your information, Wendell, no matter what you think you saw, I am not concealing evidence. If anything I am revealing it, though I hardly expect you to understand. "

Green manages to wheeze in something like a cubic inch of air.

"When your wind starts to come back, get out of here. Crawl, if you have to. Go back to your car and drive away. And for God's sake, make it snappy, or our friend here is likely to put you in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. "

Slowly, Wendell Green gets to his knees, takes another noisy sip of oxygen, and levers himself semi-upright. He waggles one open hand at them, but his meaning is unclear. He could be telling Beezer and Jack to stay away from him, or that he will trouble them no further, or both. His trunk tilted over his belt, his hands pressed to his stomach, Green stumbles around the side of the building.

"I guess I oughta thank you," Beezer says. "You let me keep my promise to my old lady. But I have to say, Wendell Green is one guy I'd really like to deconstruct. "

"Man," Jack says, "I wasn't sure if I could get in before you did. "

"It's true, my restraint was crumbling. "

Both men smile. "Beezer St. Pierre," Beezer says, and sticks out a hand.

"Jack Sawyer. " Jack takes his hand and experiences no more than a second of pain.

"Are you gonna let the state guys do all the work, or will you keep going on your own?"

"What do you think?" Jack says.

"If you ever need any help, or you want reinforcements, all you have to do is ask. Because I do want to get this son of a bitch, and I figure you have a better chance of finding him than anyone else. "

On the drive back to Norway Valley, Henry says, "Oh, Wendell took a picture of the body, all right. When you came out of the building and went to your truck, I heard someone take a couple of pictures, but I thought it might have been Dale. Then I heard it again when you and Dale were inside with Bobby Dulac, and I realized someone was taking a picture of me! Well, now, I say to myself, this must be Mr. Wendell Green, and I told him to come out from behind the wall. That's when those people charged out, yelling and screaming. As soon as that happened, I heard Mr. Green trot around from the side, go into the building, and shoot a few pictures. Then he sneaked out and stood by the side of the building, which is where your friend Beezer caught up with him and took care of things. Beezer is a remarkable fellow, isn't he?"

"Henry, were you going to tell me about this?"

"Of course, but you were running around all over the place, and I knew Wendell Green wasn't going to leave until he was thrown out. I'll never read another word he writes. Never. "

"Same here," Jack says.

"But you're not giving up on the Fisherman, are you? In spite of what that pompous state cop said. "

"I can't give up now. To tell you the truth, I think those waking dreams I mentioned yesterday were connected to this case. "

"Ivey-divey. Now, let's get back to Beezer. Didn't I hear him say he wanted to 'deconstruct' Wendell?"

"Yeah, I think so. "

"He must be a fascinating man. I gather from my nephew that the Thunder Five spends Saturday afternoons and evenings in the Sand Bar. Next week, maybe I'll start up Rhoda's old car and drive to Centralia, have a few beers and a nice gab with Mr. St. Pierre. I'm sure he has interesting taste in music. "

"You want to drive to Centralia?" Jack stares at Henry, whose only concession to the absurdity of this suggestion is a little smile.

"Blind people can drive perfectly well," Henry says. "Probably, they can drive better than most sighted people. Ray Charles can, anyhow. "

"Come on, Henry. Why would you think Ray Charles can drive a car?"

"Why, you ask? Because one night in Seattle, this was, oh, forty years ago, back when I had a gig at KIRO, Ray took me out for a spin. Smooth as Lady Godiva's backside. No trouble at all. We stuck to the side roads, of course, but Ray got up to fifty-five, I'm pretty sure. "

"Assuming this really happened, weren't you scared?"

"Scared? Of course not. I was his navigator. I certainly don't think I'd have a problem navigating to Centralia along this sleepy stretch of back-country highway. The only reason blind people don't drive is that other people won't let them. It's a power issue. They want us to stay marginalized. Beezer St. Pierre would understand perfectly. "

"And here I was, thinking I was going to visit the madhouse this afternoon," Jack says.