"Respond to 705 Locust Street, for undesignated call." "Roger," Rosh said and smirked when he hung up the mike. "Undesignated call-s.h.i.t. Can"t even buy crack bags without somebody interrupting us."

"Locust is right around the corner," Stein said, racing down the dark road.

Rosh said, "s.h.i.t," again, when they pulled up at the seedy, bungalow-like house. Three local cars, lights throbbing, already sat in wait, floodlights pointed at the porch. "I hate being the last car to respond in our own juris."

"Yeah, if we"re not careful people"ll start thinking we"re bad cops."

"And what the f.u.c.k is County Technical Ser vices doing here? We only see them when-"

"When there"s a homicide," Stein finished and parked. "This looks like Pine Drive all over again..."

The sight-the lights, the shadows, the radio noise-funneled Rosh"s focus. The cop at the door looked pallid, while others seemed poker-faced as they marked the crime scene. Both Rosh and Stein nearly reeled when they entered a cluttered room with holed carpet, half collapsed couches, and a television set with a shattered screen. Blood was everywhere: soaked up by the rug, splattered on the walls, even on the ceiling. A coffee table that had once been a cable spool left no doubt what had been going on here; there were lighters, gla.s.s pipes, and an ashtray full of pieces of crack.

"I can"t believe what I"m seeing," Stein remarked queasily. "How many this time? Five, six?"

"Seven," corrected Cristo in his County Technical Services jumpsuit. "This is starting to look like a broken record sounds."

Name that tune, Rosh thought, but it was difficult to harbor his typical secret mirth looking at all that blood and death. One white male had his head twisted around so that he was on his belly but looking at the ceiling. Both legs had been wrenched off, and he"d been scalped.

"The perp or perps separated that guy"s scalp from his skull," Cristo said tonelessly. His forceps pointed to the decedent"s bare b.u.t.tocks and stumps. "Then infixed the separated material into the excretory vault."

Rosh"s lower lip drooped as he mentally translated the verbal hodgepodge. "You mean they tore his scalp off and shoved it up his a.s.s?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then just say it, Cristo," Rosh spat, irked. This was hard enough. "Next time, just say, *They tore his scalp off and shoved it up his a.s.s." "

Cristo smiled. "Yes, sir."

A black female sat backward on a couch, armless; and a haggard fiftyish woman, probably the "den mother," had somehow been pulled in half just below the ribs. Rosh didn"t like the way the lower half had been arranged on the floor with the legs parted. Almost like they...Aw, forget it. Two more men had been de-armed, and it appeared that their heads had been somehow pressed against one another until their skulls had given way.

"Why"d she get so lucky?" Stein pointed to a half-attractive female junkie in jeans and a sparkly blouse. She had all her limbs, unlike any other victim.

"What"s with her?" Rosh asked. "Looks like she"s got all her parts."

"Not quite, Captain." Cristo lifted her right leg. No foot existed below her ankle. "They torqued her foot off the talus socket, and..." He pointed the forceps to her throat. "You"ll note the atypical distension?"

The girl"s throat seemed thick. "She got the mumps?" Cristo grinned. "To expound in terminology more to your liking, Captain, they tore her foot off and shoved it down her throat." And then the tech"s gloved fingers pulled the girl"s mouth open.

Rosh saw toes sticking out.

"Don"t see that every day, huh?"

Rosh and Stein paled.

"We"re out of here," Rosh said, confused as well as disgusted. "Crimes this severe are a county gig-it"s all yours."

Cristo rose, wiping his hand on his pants. "Don"t leave yet, Captain. Remember what I told you last time, at the Pine Drive sixty-four?"

"Oh, yeah. Something about-" Then he slowly looked to Stein.

"Clay," Stein said.

"Clay residue, Captain. Residuum," Cristo corrected. "I told you the lab verified it on the murder last spring, but yesterday they also verified it at the Pine Drive crime scene. Smears of clay on the victims. They also found clay residue, well..."

"Well, what?"

"Inside the v.a.g.i.n.al barrels of some of the female victims." Now Cristo stooped over the bottom half of the older woman"s body, and pointed to the pubis. "Just like this."

Some manner of grayish fluid had leaked from the v.a.g.i.n.al fissure.

"That"s clay?"

"In some kind of suspension, yes, sir."

Rosh couldn"t imagine what had truly gone on here. He didn"t want to know. "I said it before, I"ll say it again. We"re out of here." He and Stein turned and briskly left. Rosh remained silent when he got in the cruiser. "Drive," he told his subordinate. "This s.h.i.t"s giving me bad karma. It makes me feel haunted."

Stein spat out the window as if to expel a bad taste. He pulled the cruiser away. "Whoever the hitter is that D-Man and Nutjob hire-he did that."

"Yeah, and he did the others, too. Just can"t believe one guy could do a job like that. Lazy Whitaker said Jary told her it was one guy. And now we got this, this-"

"Clay," Stein said. "What"s the connection? The guy who bought the Lowen House says someone stole clay out of his bas.e.m.e.nt, not to mention that we"ve got at least three murder scenes with traces of clay on the bodies."

Rosh"s TracPhone rang, to divert him from his confusion. It was D-Man. "Hey, partner, we just left a crack-house on Locust, and it"s just like the job you did on Pine. You did this job, too, didn"t you?"

"Yeah," D-Man acknowledged over static. "So what?" Rosh began to break out in p.r.i.c.kly heat. "I f.u.c.kin" paid you to bring me Jary Kapp. Alive. I didn"t pay you to do a chop job on seven more crackheads."

"Hey, you didn"t say we couldn"t kill witnesses! You paid us to get the guy for you, so we did."

Rosh stalled. "What?"

"We got the guy."

"You"ve got Jary Kapp? Alive?" "Yeah, man."

Rosh couldn"t believe it. "That fast?"

"We work fast. I"m sittin" here with the a.s.shole tied up and gagged in my van. That"s why I called. We"re at the place we usually meet. Come and get him. We"re busy."

Rosh"s jaw dropped.

"You there?" D-Man said.

"Yeah, yeah. Well be right there." Rosh hung up, dizzy with bewilderment. "f.u.c.k. He says he"s got Jary Kapp. Alive."

"Quick work. It was only yesterday you paid him and gave him the Red Sox hat."

Rosh stared off into twilight. "s.h.i.t, man. Maybe it is voodoo..."

The moon shined so bright it hurt Rosh"s eyes when he got out of the cruiser. Behind them, the woods stood silent, while the switchgra.s.s beyond the clearing hissed. The black step van sat like a square hulk, its owners milling slowly about in the impromptu graveyard they"d made of this place. Nutjob lit a joint while he watched D-Man sway some sort of a pole back and forth over the ground.

"What"s that he"s got?" Rosh asked.

Stein squinted in the headlights. "Don"t know. Golf club?"

Curiosity lured them from the cruiser. It looked like one of those metal detectors. "What the h.e.l.l do you have a metal detector for?" Rosh asked.

"Ain"t no metal detector, Captain," Nutjob wheezed through a toke. "It"s a...it"s a thingmajig that shoots these...thingmajiggy waves into the ground"n tells us where s.h.i.t"s at."

"Thanks for explaining," Rosh said as sarcastically as possible. "D-Man! What are you doing?"

"Ma.s.s-penetrating sonar, it"s called. Just testin" "er out," the bald man said. The machine beeped erratically as he swayed the pole back and forth. "Doesn"t read for metal, reads objects in the ground more dense than the dirt or some s.h.i.t. I"m just makin" sure it works."

"D-Man! I"ll repeat! What are you doing?" "Somethin" for the boss, Captain." D-Man seemed annoyed. "Ain"t your concern. Nutjob buried one"a his old duckpin b.a.l.l.s while I wasn"t lookin". Just need to know if-" The machine suddenly beeped manically. "This it?" he asked Nutjob.

"Bingo." Nutjob dug quickly with a spade and removed the small bowling ball.

"I"ve heard of Easter egg hunts," Stein said. "But bowling ball hunts?"

"The ball"s about the size of the thing the boss wants us to look for," D-Man told him and put the detector in the van.

Rosh rubbed his face. Don"t ask. Why bother? "So. Are you guys jiving me about Jary? I got this funny feeling you are, "cos there ain"t no way you could possibly s.n.a.t.c.h that a.s.shole alive in one day."

D-Man instructed, "Nutjob? Get the package for Rosh-er, I mean, the Captain." He grinned insolently.

Nutjob walked to the rear of the bulky step van. After a moment, there was some shuffling. The van doors were reclosed, and Nutjob shoved a very subdued-looking Jary "Kapp" Robinson into their midst.

"Here"s your cowboy," D-Man said.

The short but muscular black man stood erect in front of Nutjob. Jary wore baggy sweat pants, a Jaguars football shirt, and untied Nikes; he had an Afro like a sixties activist but with a shaved line at the part.

"Well, well, well," said Stein, calmly astonished. Unf.u.c.kINGbelievable. "Hi, Jary," Rosh greeted. "I paid a lot of money for your sc.u.mbag a.s.s, and I can say it was a pleasure seeing your brother"s severed head the other night." When Rosh spit in his face, the captive didn"t flinch; he seemed devitalized, his eyes strangely worn out above the duct-tape gag, arms limp behind him, wrists tied.

"See, the only bigger sc.u.mbags than you and your brother...are us." Rosh grinned. "n.o.body sells rock on our turf. We"re the guys who turn Somner"s Cove kids into crackheads and wh.o.r.es, not jive cowboys like you."

Jary just looked back with those big, exhausted eyes. He didn"t even flinch when Rosh tore the duct tape off his mouth, taking some mustache.

"What"s wrong with you, brother?" Rosh asked. Then, to D-Man: "What did you do, drug him? This guy looks brain-dead or something."

"Probably in shock," D-Man replied. "That happens a lot."

In shock? Rosh thought, bewildered. From what?

Stein chuckled. "Maybe they turned him into a zombie, with that voodoo stuff."

Neither D-Man nor Nutjob seemed amused by the remark.

"Take this hunk of s.h.i.t to the car," Rosh ordered, and then Stein shoved Jary toward the cruiser.

"You drugged him, didn"t you?" Rosh demanded of D-Man.

"No. All"s we did was what you paid us for. Now we"re leaving. I"ll call ya when we got more crack to switch. Tomorrow or the next day maybe."

"No, no, no, partner." Rosh hurried and grabbed D-Man"s arm before he could go back to the van. "Don"t you want to know why I paid so much for you to take him alive?"

D-Man shrugged. " "Cos you"re a sick f.u.c.k who wants to torture the living s.h.i.t out of him is my guess."

Rosh was furious. " "Cos he witnessed the party you pulled at Pine Drive. He saw your hitter! That"s what I want to know about. I can"t let it go, D-Man. I"m curious, you know? I want to know how you guys are pulling these jobs? I want to see your guy!"

The veins in D-Man"s shaved head tensed. "Leave it, man! Just forget it. What difference does it make so long as you get what"cha want?"

Nutjob t.i.ttered through a toke of marijuana. "He wouldn"t believe it if ya told him-"

clank!

Rosh stiffened at the sudden sound. His eyes drifted to the step van. The sound came from the van.

"What was that?"

"Nothin"," D-Man insisted.

"The guy"s in the van, isn"t he? Your hitter"s in the van-"

"No! Just forget about it! Nutjob, let"s go."

"I want to see him!" Rosh yelled so loud his face reddened. "I need to meet the guy who"s pulled arms, legs, and heads off over a dozen people in the last week!" Rosh pulled his gun. "I don"t believe in f.u.c.kin" voodoo, so no more bulls.h.i.t! Show him to me!"

D-Man glared, disgusted. "You"re really f.u.c.ked up, Rosh." "That"s Captain Rosh!" Rosh screamed and raised his pistol. "Show him to me now!"

Nutjob t.i.ttered again. "Go ahead, D-Man. Show him." He grinned with rotten teeth at Rosh. "I"ll bet"cha pee your police pants, Captain."

D-Man stared, then very slowly smiled. "Sure. Why not?"

He casually took Rosh to the back of the vehicle, pulled open the van doors. He grabbed Rosh"s flashlight and shined it inside.

Fast as a pin bursting a balloon, Rosh"s spirit burst as well, and everything he understood to be right and wrong, or good and bad, or black and white, shriveled down into something impossible, insane, and unspeakable. Rosh took one look into the van, shrieked, vomited, then ran sobbing back to the cruiser. He also urinated spontaneously in his police slacks.

D-Man and Nutjob laughed out loud as they watched the cruiser roar away.

VI.

Judy awoke glazed in sweat that felt tacky as pancake syrup; her side of the bed felt sopping wet. Oh, G.o.d, oh, G.o.d, she thought. The clock read two a.m. In spite of all the terror-rooted exhaustion the day had delivered, she couldn"t sleep. All she could do was shake, and- Think about crack.

She rolled off the bed and knelt, praying, G.o.d give me strength, for I have faith in my redeemer.

No strength, however, seemed forthcoming.

She felt disgusting in the cool, tacky sweat, yet she knew she couldn"t go outside nude. She"d previously enjoyed Seth"s comments about her in-house "nudism," but that was the furthest thing from her mind right now. I can"t tell Seth but...I must quit. I must, I must!