A Host of Shadows Read online

  And then, quite suddenly, my nostrils fill with the stench of blood and burning straw.

  And the telephone rings.

  The Easy Way

  A black-and-white slowly turned the corner up ahead, oversized tires hissing in the rain. The balding cop in the passenger seat opened the window to dump steaming hot coffee onto the asphalt. Tom Garrett flinched, acutely aware of the loaded Smith & Wesson .38 that was hidden in the pocket of his yellow raincoat. The cop looked up with tired, roadmap eyes as if sensing the reaction, and Garrett hunched his shoulders. He trotted towards a nearby liquor store with his head down and hands out of sight. He paused under the striped metal awning just as another wave of hail attacked like a horde of drunken Irish dancers.

  A burst of static, two garbled voices. The siren howled anguish and the busy cops sped away. Garrett turned his back to the departing squad car and entered the nearly empty store, trembling right hand now caressing the gun. A motion detector pinged, the door closed behind him. Garrett could hear the faint sound of a classic rock station playing an early Eagles tune; the lyrics tugged at his ear, but he couldn’t place them.

  Garrett took two steps forward, tennis shoes sucking the linoleum. He imagined how he’d look to someone else; a big, silver-haired man pushing sixty but still formidable if you knew what to look for. Old, I’ve gotten old…

  The bored young guy behind the counter had a nose ring, some crude jailhouse tattoos and buzz-cut black hair. He picked imaginary lint from his tight black T-shirt before looking up and caught Garrett imagining him dead.

  He saw Garrett’s surly face and one hand slid beneath the counter, probably to clutch his own weapon.

  “Good evening.”

  “Yo.” Warm breath born of frost, the ticking of a wall clock. The kid looked nervous, forehead abruptly shining with sweat. “You gonna buy something, ese? ‘Cause we ain’t running no homeless shelter.”

  For one long moment, Garrett tried to do it, meant to do it; ordered himself to pull the .38 and punch this guy’s ticket, start a close-up, down and dirty fire fight. He fantasized about the mutually assured destruction and the way he and the kid would be photographed, sprawled out like fallen heroes in a western with huge, red stains splattered on their torn clothing. One move and it would be done.

  Hell,

  he thought with a mental sigh, that would be the easy way out. He loosened his fingers. It hurt.

  “You hear me, pops?”

  Garrett returned with one elastic, almost audible snap. “You got any beef jerky?”

  “Right up here.” The kid still had his right hand below the counter. His deep eyes were a bit too red and the pupils were dilated from THC. Garrett opened his slick raincoat as he walked. Now his tennis shoes made a high pitch squeak on the damp linoleum floor. He stood at the counter and looked down on the kid and his wares. Several kinds of plain and spiced jerky were displayed on a wheel.

  Ah, Christ…

  A wave of blackness and grinding self-loathing made Garrett feel like picking on somebody. This cherry would do. He allowed his eyes to bore in and manufactured a bitter smile that stretched his weathered face in odd directions.

  “Which one’s the best?”

  Shoulders rolling: “I don’t know.”

  “Pick one. Eat it.”

  The clerk blanched and he moved back a couple of inches. “No way, dude. I never touch the stuff.”

  “Relax,” Garrett offered. That cadaverous grin was still in place. “Anyone ever tell you that you need to work on your manners?”

  Darting eyes. “Say what?”

  “You heard me. You’re being rude to a paying customer.”

  “Uh, sorry. So, you want jerky or not?”

  “Not.”

  “What’s up, then?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  Garrett kept up the thousand yard stare until the spooked kid made a small, whining sound in the back of his throat. Said: “You know something? Forget the food.”

  “What you want then?”

  “Time.”

  “Say what?”

  “Never mind. Give me a pack of unfiltered smokes, whatever’s cheapest.”

  The clerk found some generic cigarettes, slid them over and rang up the sale. The weird, plastic grin never left Garrett’s face. Money changed hands and so did a cheap pack of matches from a local strip bar, HOT GIRLS, LIVE ON STAGE. Silence fell hard, except for the distant, rattling gunfire of the rainstorm and the low moan of a grief-stricken wind.

  “That’s it?”

  Garrett blinked. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Okay, then.” The kid nodded, Adam’s apple bobbing like a cork.

  “Thanks,” Garrett said. His weary voice had a faint scratch in it, like bony fingers on the velvet roof of a coffin. “Hey, you have a nice night.” He backed away, without turning his back. When he left the store he heard the kid sigh for the joy of breathing.

  Time took a jump-cut. The next thing Garrett knew he was standing outside under the awning trying to mate flame to cigarette with hands that wouldn’t stop twitching. He managed to light up, started walking and took a deep, bitter drag. Since Garrett hadn’t smoked in years, the nicotine rush slapped him sideways. He leaned against the brick wall, his heart thudding like a primitive drum.

  “Damn.”

  The cigarette slipped from his fingers and showered blue smoke and orange sparks before the rain put it out. The world spun like a brightly-lit Ferris wheel. For a few seconds the idea of just letting go, slipping away into dark nothingness, felt welcome. Garrett knew what he was doing, did it anyway, even though it always brought back feelings from the war.

  He closed his eyes and tried to imagine being dead and gone and his pulse quickened.

  Garrett remembered reading somewhere that death was “the impossibility of further possibility.” That idea makes the human ego, which is an observer, go ‘tilt.’ It cannot see itself not being there, and thus the mind starts to gibber and shrivel. And yet we all have to die even if we can’t make peace with the idea. The world has hundreds of religions and philosophies, all claiming to have an answer that lies beyond answers in the undiscovered country. To be or not to be.

  Garrett threw the pack of cigarettes into a trash can. The rancid odor beneath the lid abruptly made him think of his deceased father. He stuck his hands into his pockets and kept walking.

  Tom Garrett was a country boy, born outside of Ely, Nevada. The land was hard then, those who lived there harder still. His mother died young and the old man, ‘Ace’ to his pals, found occasional work as a hired hand on different spreads, bailing hay and branding cattle. World War Two and the Pacific had gouged the warmth from his soul and left his dark eyes wary and haunted. He’d drink bathtub gin and mumble stories about humans flattened by tanks or fried crispy by flame throwers and endless rivers of dark, dried blood. Garrett and his brother rapidly learned not to hang around when the fists started flying, which was damned near every weekend.

  Old Ace would sober up from time to time and drag the boys to the white clapboard church come Sunday morning. Kneeling beside him, they’d see swarthy, sweaty skin that stank of smoke and alcohol; powerful forearms and trembling hands that clutched a frayed black family Bible. Ace would close his eyes, struggling to believe, his quavering baritone tentatively joining in on the hymns he knew.

  Old Ace died of liver disease the summer Garrett was drafted and left for Nam.

  A car honked and Tom Garrett jumped sideways and back, into a puddle. A taxi almost clipped him and the driver gave him the finger. “Watch out, moron!”

  Garrett shook his head and grunted. He felt grateful for the interruption because he didn’t want to think about Nam. His time there had been violent and chaotic, though blessedly brief. He’d been shot twice in the first four months; then halfway through his tour a mortar barrage that wiped out most of his platoon had given him his third wound and a ticket home.

  He’d arrived in country as an
invulnerable, immortal young soldier but arrived back in the world a bitter drug addict who was preoccupied with death and dying.

  And now here he was, about to kill again.

  A trident of blistered, white lightning pierced the western skyline and the deserted office buildings at the end of the street morphed into towering gargoyles. The air boiled with electricity, reeked of ozone. Garrett leaned his shoulders against the downpour and turned his collar up. His jeans and shoes were uncomfortable, soaked. His clothes made odd whooshing sounds as he picked up the pace. Low thunder rumbled hungrily in the mountains, rolled forward and prowled through the concrete canyons.

  I could shoot myself too…

  Garrett’s fingers clutched the cold metal of the weapon and immediately recoiled again. Maybe like the cops do it, he thought, grimly. Just eat the gun.

  “Want to party?”

  The voice startled Garrett and he stepped back. His left shoe landed in a puddle of rainwater where the gutter was clogged with autumn leaves. He lost his balance and moved away, left hand tunneling back into the pocket of his raincoat. Above him, some gang kid had shot out the streetlight, and the corner was a smear of shadow except for the pale rainbows of neon reflected from the slick city streets.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you, pops.” The voice was female.

  Garrett squinted. The skinny girl was maybe a yard deep into the alley. She took his silence for interest and glided forward through the mist like some eerie creature born without feet. “My name is Willow, and I can make you happy for fifty bucks.”

  “That true?”

  “For sure.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  The scantily clad Goth girl was clearly a junkie; anorexic-thin with small, circular bruises on her pale arms. She took in his size and the black tension in his face and hesitated, wary eyes darting up and down the residential street. Her exposed body was alive with crawling gooseflesh, trembling from the cold. Garrett could tell her nerves were shot.

  “Okay, forty?”

  Willow stayed put. Her harsh voice went up a notch on the second word and made it a pithy, desperate question.

  “You’d sell yourself that cheap?”

  “Huh?”

  Garrett opened the raincoat and took out his wallet. Myriad expressions running from agony to relief to mistrust flowed over the girl’s face like melting wax. He counted out a twenty and two tens then took out a worn business card. Willow shook feverishly. She licked her lips and edged further into the light, but her eyes kept flicking back and forth between Garrett and her hiding place.

  “I got a pimp,” she lied. “He’s right behind me.”

  “Sure you do.” Garrett didn’t budge as the girl called Willow forced her painted mouth into a reasonable imitation of a leer.

  “How do you want me to do you?”

  “I don’t.” Garrett held out the cash. “Just take this.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s on one condition, though. You’ve got to promise me something.”

  Those skittish eyes widened. “What?”

  “This business card is for a referral agency, Willow. Call that number. Get in a program, get clean. Do it now, while you’re young.”

  She tried a sneer. “You some kind of ‘Captain Save a Whore’?”

  “Nothing like that.”

  “Forget it.” Her eyes moistened. “It’s too late for me.”

  “No,” Garrett said, wearily. “I promise you it’s not. Just call that number.”

  She was openly crying now. Her nose was running and she wiped it on her arm. “Maybe I’ll do that, okay? Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

  He stepped closer and this time she didn’t flinch. Garrett pressed the bills and the card into her hand. “Do more than think about it. Think of me as your last chance. Life’s a bitch sometimes, but don’t take the easy way out.”

  “Easy.” She repeated the word dully, without emphasis.

  “Oh, and there’s one more thing.”

  The girl cocked her head like a parrot and looked up expectantly, but Garrett wasn’t there. He was already moving away, towards the main drag. His deep voice echoed a bit.

  “Tell them Hack sent you.”

  More rain, less time. Tom Garrett hurried his pace. Sepulveda Boulevard had decayed more rapidly than most other areas of the San Fernando Valley. Anywhere much above Victory it was like a giant Monopoly board packed with sleazy liquor stores, vacant lots, crack houses and motels that promised twenty four-hour cable porn and mirrored ceilings. Garrett still felt at home on these blighted streets, still had some larceny in his soul. In fact, that’s why he’d chosen to leave his car several blocks away with mud smeared over the license plate.

  Garrett looked up and down the street for cops. Finding it clear, he walked briskly through the rainy night. The gun still seemed heavy and awkward, like a tiny brick of well-oiled metal. He wondered again if he’d be able to go through with it. He had less than ten long blocks to decide.

  I can do this…

  Garrett stopped walking and stepped into an alley, out of the rain. Some overflowing boxes of trash were stacked haphazardly on a raised, slatted platform. Garrett stepped up onto the dry wood and leaned against the brick wall. He slid down into a sitting position, the yellow raincoat squealing in protest, wrapped his arms around his knees and closed his eyes again. The thoughts wouldn’t slow down or rearrange themselves to be any less disturbing, no matter how hard he tried to control them; they just played out like some movie in his woozy head.

  Garrett had been in Tarzana for his second rehab, still just a tall bully who thought Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was a blank check to use drugs. The meetings were mandatory but he’d attended them sullenly, legs sprawled out to lay claim to alpha space, muscular arms crossed over his chest to keep arrogance intact. He’d already gotten in trouble for fighting and putting the moves on an actress who was in for her third DUI. He imagined himself there, and a smile curled his lips. What a damned fool…

  A new guy led the meeting that night, a man nearly Garrett’s size with a shaved head and laser blue eyes. Hack looked maybe fifty, but nobody smart would have screwed with him anyway. He wore a blue work shirt with a cowboy string tie, a belt with a gold horse buckle and a pair of snakeskin boots. He talked about his time as a biker and said he’d done seven to ten upstate, but didn’t say why. He’d gone around the circle, made everybody speak up. When those eyes fixed on him, he’d felt his guts dive to the parking garage in a fast elevator. After the meeting, Hack had cornered him by the ashtray outside on the patio.

  “You got a sponsor.”

  “No,” Garrett mumbled. “I don’t.”

  “That wasn’t a question,” Hack said. “I said you got a sponsor. Me. And I have a news flash. Your sponsor tells you what to do.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, the first thing you’re going to do is take that chip of your shoulder before I knock the taste right out of your mouth.”

  Garrett, sitting in the cold alley, felt his lips twitch into a smile. The memory of that moment still gave him the oddest mixture of amusement, respect and fear he’d ever experienced. He’d been sober ever since, and that was a lot of years. Most of that time had been at Hack’s side, first as a student, then as a good friend.

  A passing car sent a tidal wave of filthy water into the alley. It rose up and over the wooden platform and splashed against his legs. Garrett swore under his breath and struggled back to his feet. He raised his illuminated watch.

  No more time.

  Garrett shook himself like a wet hound, stepped down and stumbled back out onto the empty sidewalk. A break in the rain let him complete the last, long block in relative comfort.

  He had rehearsed this part several times, so his heart settled down and routine took over. He turned right and came to a muddy stretch of grass adjoining the nearly empty parking lot. Garrett stayed in the darkness, away from the lights; his eyes roamed the vehicles and the
brightly lit lobby, searching for witnesses. Satisfied, he jogged across the grass, slid down the last row of cars and found the fire door. The pack of matches he’d left the night before was still there, propping the emergency exit open.

  Tom Garrett slipped inside. He stood in the stairwell, took several deep breaths and then started up the metal stairs as silently as possible. His footfalls echoed in the gloom. An eerie calm overtook him, now that the moment was at hand. Three floors and time would run out. No more indecision. Death is coming…

  Two floors, then one.

  Garrett paused on the third floor to gather his thoughts and took another quick look at his glowing wristwatch. He was right on schedule. The overworked nurses would be completing their final rounds, now that visiting hours were officially over. The VA hospital was badly understaffed and many of the patients went unattended for long stretches, even after repeated attempts to summon help.

  Garrett edged the door open and peered out into the dimly lit hallway. The green walls were spider-webbed with cracks, the paint faded and stained from cigarette smoke and the yellow linoleum was peeling at the edges. Garrett stepped out into the hall and gently closed the door. He licked his lips and looked both ways before striding forward. Soon he was proceeding briskly toward the next ward. The elevator pinged and Garrett slid into the shadows.

  The doors opened and an octogenarian strapped to two different IV rigs came shuffling out into the hall, looking down at his paper shoes. His scalp was peeling and covered with sores. A chubby Hispanic orderly waited impatiently until certain the old man was headed the right direction, then punched another floor and left. Garrett let the patient pass before continuing on to Room 407.

  Garrett paused outside the door, his mind racing, and nervously fondled the .38 in his pocket. I can do this…

  The room stank of antiseptic and decay. Old Hack was sitting up in bed with his eyes shut. The big man, once so imposing, had been whittled down to bones and pale parchment skin. His jaws were clenched, grinding; knuckles white from enduring another bout of intense pain. Tom Garrett watched him drink some water and relax into the stained pillows. He fought off a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to turn his back, just run away. Then it was too late because Hack saw him and grinned toothlessly.