Mulengro, page 31
Okay, he could handle not having all that anymore, because he had his space here, the lake and the land, the wind to talk to him, the odd person that came by and took the time to look beyond the image. He kept that image because it still seemed important to him. As it had been back in the sixties. It made a statement. And that statement could still be made, perhaps even stronger, in the eighties. When you plugged into what was happening in the world—Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, unemployment, the economy, the Sandinistas, cruise missiles, acid rain. . . . Christ, the list just went on forever. How could anyone believe that peace and flowers wasn’t the only way to go?
He had his little corner of heaven, playing at being a modern Thoreau of sorts on his own pond, and he’d given up trying to change anybody else a long time ago.
But now the purity of the land, of the spring-fed waters, was going bad. The wind didn’t murmur, it muttered. And the darkness, instead of being invigorating and peaceful, was downright spooky. He didn’t blame Ola for it. The vibes he got from her were all mellow. He got a kick out of the cat and the backpack floating through the air and all the other stuff. Magic. Zach felt like a kid in a candy store with what Ola’d brought with her. But the trouble was, you got the bad with the good.
He’d always believed in the good shit. That trees and animals and the wind could talk. You just had to be tuned to their wavelength. And this thing about names and their power that Ola had told him about—hell, it made perfect sense. Once you knew something, knew its essence, you could talk to it, move it, relate to it on a deeper level. So why the hell did some pig like this Mulengro have to step in and blow it all?
Mulengro. He made everything go sour. Zach could feel him in the wind, in the dark ...just waiting.And it scared the shit out of him. It wasn’t the possibility of immediate physical danger that scared him so much as what was going to happen to his space. Mulengro was going to pollute the good vibes so badly that the forest might as well be a parking lot. With that small stir of what Ola called the dook that he had, he could see it happening and it just made him want to die.
“There’s no way you can get away from it, man,” Tamber had told him when the band broke up. They’d been like brothers in Raggle Taggle—Dory and Tamber and himself. But then Dory ODed and Tamber dropped in—as opposed to the way they’d all dropped out years before—and Zach was the only one of them left. Tamber was using the name his parents had given him now. Tom Hodgell. It had no soul to it, that name. Not like Tamber did. But it sure as hell fit the man Tamber had become, living in New England and working as a salesman for a chocolate bar distributor. Chocolate bars!
“No matter where you go,” he’d told Zach, “the world’s going to find you.”
“I’m not hiding from the world,” Zach had tried to explain. “I’m trying to find the real world. You can’t tell me it’s out there, Tamber. Not after all we’ve been through together. It’s here. By this lake. Or it’s gone forever.”
Tamber had shaken his head. “We were kids, Zach, and we had a good time, you know? But it’s time to grow up. You go hide yourself away in some little woodlands commune and all you’re going to do is stagnate, man. You want to grow? You want to find the real world? Then stop pretending it’s still 1967 and plug into what’s happening now!”
Zach knew what was happening now. He just didn’t want any part of it—didn’t want any part of the negative side of it, at least. He wasn’t hiding. He was just filtering what he took in and making sure he never let the glitter blind him. What he had here wasn’t for everyone, but it was all he wanted. And now it was threatened by Mulengro and, win or lose against the sorcerer, things just weren’t going to be the same again. It was like Tamber had promised him that last time they’d been together: The world had found him. Found his space. And in the shape of Mulengro and his horrors, it was going to steal it all away.
He sighed and wiped his face dry of the misting rain that mingled with his tears. He’d reached Gord’s door and had to get his head straight before he went in. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then rapped on the door. When there was still no reply by the fourth knock, he tried the doorknob and found it turned under his hand. He hesitated then, his melancholy vanishing under a wave of cold fear. Why was there no reply? Gord’s car was in the lane and he was a light sleeper. He hesitated there, listening to the mutter of the wind in the trees, then slowly swung the door open and stepped inside.
“Gord?” he called softly. “Hey, Gord!”
He found the wall switch and flicked it. The ceiling light came on, flooding the room with light. The back door facing the lake stood ajar. Zach crossed the room and called outside, but there was still no reply. Just the wind and the sound of water dripping. He stood there for a long moment, listening, then he turned back inside the cottage. A quick search showed him that the place was empty.
Where had Gord gone? The vibes were not good. Moving quickly now, Zach dug out the phone book, found the number for the motel, and dialed it. Leaning against the wall that the phone hung from, he listened to it ring at the other end, feeling more nervous with every passing moment. A sleepy voice finally answered.
“Sorry to get you up,” Zach said into the receiver, “but, like, do you have a Mr. Cerinek or a Mr. Greenly staying with you? Sure, I can hold. . . .” His throat was all dry, his palms damp. It was funny how fear could bring out such opposite reactions. “You do?” he said when the motel manager came back on the line. “Can you call his room for me? Well, sure I know what time it is but, like, this is important, man. Okay, okay. Would you just do it. No, it can’t wait.
Yeah, I’ll hold.”
It was another endless minute before a cautious voice came on the line. “Yes?”
“Hello, Greenly?” Zach asked. “You don’t know me, but I’ve got a message for you from your brother Janfri. If you’ve got a pencil, I’ll give you the directions to get to my place where he’s staying. He wants you to come right away.” As he spoke, Zach stared around the empty cottage, the pinprickle of nervousness never leaving the nape of his neck where it had lodged when he first came in through the door.
Janfri stepped outside and eased the door closed so that it wouldn’t slam and wake up the sleepers inside. The night was quiet, but because the area was unfamiliar to him, he wasn’t sure if it was too quiet or not. The faint drizzle that was coming down would help muffle the usual rustlings and murmurs of the forest. He ambled across the lawn in back of the cottage and looked up the hill to where the driveway led off, enjoying the misty rain that wet his face. He wondered if he should have a look to see what was keeping Zach, then decided to sit down on a swing and try to relax instead. He was too wound up—with good reason, perhaps—and it wasn’t the best way to face a problem such as this.
He concentrated on the stillness, tried to let it take the place of the endless swirl of conversation inside him. He was thinking of this, and answering with that, and replying to yet another—just like a Gajo. They never stopped talking—not even when their mouths were closed— and he was too much like them.
His night vision sharpened as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He’d lived in cities too long, that much was clear. A Rom needed the night around him, like this, not walls. The sky above, cloudy with a mist of rain like tonight, or lit by stars, not diffused by streetlights and neon signs. He drew the mulengi dori from his pocket and traced the familiar knots with his fingers. They were like these knots—he and Ola and the others. All part of a dead man’s string. And it would be the measure of their strength that would fit the coffin for Mulengro. It was a curious notion and gave him a sense of disquiet. If they were knots, then which one of them would have to be untied?
Sweet dead one, let the noose about to be tied around my neck be undone
He put the mulengi dori away and stood up. The swing moved back and forth behind him, the length of its arc shortening until it was motionless again. He started up the driveway, topped the hill. The track disappeared into the darkness and there was still no sign of Ola’s friend. He thought he saw something move far down the track—a low quick shape. Fox maybe? Or a dog? He stood there watching for a few minutes longer, but whatever it had been was gone now. He turned then and went back down the hill to the cottage. As soon as he left the hilltop, there was movement on the track again.
Zach cradled the phone. He looked out the window, not much relishing the idea of the walk back to his own place. Not that it was all that far or anything. It was just that he could feel things out there beyond the glass panes that separated him from the night. Ghosts. Bad vibes. Danger. He remembered the story Janfri had told him and looked for some salt and pepper, emptied out a couple of small shakers into a napkin and put it in his pocket. Then he went through the kitchen drawers looking for a flashlight.
He thought it’d be better it he hung around until Janfri’s friend showed up and would ride back with him. If Yojo missed the turn to his place—which was easy enough to do in the dark—he’d find himself bogged down in the Conservation Area. Meanwhile, he would scout around a bit outside. Perhaps Gord had fallen down somewhere in the bush and hurt himself; he could be lying out there somewhere, unconscious.
Zach turned off the lights in the cottage and went outside, playing the beam of the flashlight on the lawn around the cottage. The wet grass glimmered in its light. He heard something behind the cottage and moved around the building, the flashlight’s beam stabbing the darkness. When it caught and reflected a pair of eyes, low to the ground, Zach thought he’d shit his pants. He backed up as whatever it was began to growl.
forty-one
“Hey, Briggs?”
They were back at the OPP headquarters on Highway 7. Briggs and Will were sitting in Archambault’s office finishing off a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches. They were both wearing ill-fitting bush clothes that Archambault had dragged up from somewhere for them—jeans, plaid shirts, police-issue windbreakers and heavy-duty boots. Briggs looked up at the sound of his name to see one of the RCMP officers who had been present at the trailer park standing in the doorway. His name was Jack Killens. “Yo!” Briggs said.
“I ran that check through for you,” Killens said, stepping into the room. “The Stateside boys don’t have anything but I turned up something interesting when I ran an international check on Gypsies with Interpol.”
He laid a folder on the desk and took Archambault’s chair. Briggs flipped the file open and looked at the fuzzy 8 X 10 B&W blowup that was on top.
“Who’s this?”
“Guy’s name is Josef Wells. He was an inmate at a psycho ward in a place called Hôpital St. Marie in Strasbourg, France.” “What’s with the scars?”
“It’s in the file. Lupus vulgaris—a skin disease that leaves heavy scarring.”
“I’ll say. Looks like a mask. Gives him a kind of wolfish look.” Killens smiled. “That’s why they call it lupus.” “What was wrong with him?” Will asked.
“He was a survivor of the Dachau camp—if you can call it surviving. He never recovered completely.” “What do you mean?”
Killens shrugged. “Look, this isn’t in the file, but I know a man who survived the camps and what he’s told me about them isn’t pretty. This guy’s in his fifties now and he still wakes up screaming some nights, thinking he’s back there, that he’s never getting out. The file doesn’t make it really clear what happened to Wells. They just say he couldn’t adjust back to the real world, you know? I mean, he was just a fucking kid when he went in—nine-years-old. And they worked him over in there. The Americans brought him back to France when they liberated Dachau. Nobody else wanted him. The French didn’t want him either, but he ended up just getting dumped on them. The kid was bad news. Had visions. He was violent and was kept under sedation most of the time. And he was in that psycho ward since the end of the war.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it. Anyway, he busted out about a year ago and they’ve been looking for him ever since. The trouble is, with Gypsies—”
“You don’t have to tell me about Gypsies,” Briggs said. “They’re nothing but trouble. And if they want to disappear, they’re gone.”
“What’s he got to do with Owczarek?” Will asked.
“Nothing—that I know of. You asked about Gypsies, this came up, so I pulled it for you. The thing that made me sit up when I read the file is, that when he was in St. Marie, he talked a lot about having to cleanse his people, even if it meant killing them.”
Briggs stared down at the picture. “Cleanse his people?”
“Yeah. He told the doctors that the reason the Nazis were killing his people was because they weren’t clean anymore. That the Nazis were doing God’s work and nobody should have stopped them.”
“So now he’s doing it,” Will said softly.
“I don’t know,” Killens said. “It’s a long way from Strasburg to Canada. And with a guy that looks like that—not to mention that his elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top floor—he’d be kind of hard to miss, don’t you think?”
“But he is a Gypsy,” Briggs said. “And they haven’t picked him up yet—have they?”
“No.”
“What about Gypsies getting murdered over there? Was there anything on that?”
“If there was, I couldn’t get it. The only reason I picked up on this Wells guy was because they have a bulletin out on him across Europe—at all the border patrols and that kind of thing.”
Will took the picture and studied it. The man looking back at him from the photo was a very scary looking guy.
“This is one we owe you, Jack,” Briggs said.
“Yeah, well if you pick him up, you can mention my name. But if you don’t, you never heard of me, understand? The brass doesn’t much like us using our connections to help out the local boys— though that’s not official either. Word gets out, my ass is in a sling. Unless you pick him up.”
Briggs nodded. “I never heard of you, Jack.”
“So long as we’ve got that understood.” He arose from behind the desk and headed for the door. “Don’t leave that file hanging around, okay?”
“I won’t.” When he was gone, Briggs turned to his partner. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know, Paddy. I don’t see a connection with Owczarek. But then again, maybe there isn’t one.”
“I’ve been thinking of that too. Gypsies—you push them and they just melt away. We probably just scared Owczarek off, coming down too hard.”
Will nodded, his gaze still on the picture. “Or maybe someone else did,” he said. When he looked at the man’s wolfish features, he kept seeing the bodies they’d found at the Lennox farm. Feral dogs and juju. He shook his head. It was too weird. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were all connected. There was that damn symbol on the fencepost. . . .
“I still want Owczarek,” Briggs said softly. He too studied the picture. He tried that face on the mental picture he had of the man they were looking for and found that it fit better than Owczarek’s had. The ghosts stirred inside him, as though they agreed. “There’s a connection,” he added. “There has to be. The way Owczarek’s running—it can’t just be Gypsy reticence.”
“Maybe he’s not running from something so much as at something,” Will offered.
“There’s that,” Briggs admitted, though he had trouble picturing Owczarek and himself on the same side. “Guess we’ll find the answer to that when we catch up with him.”
Will nodded. “Are we sharing this with Archambault?” he asked, indicating the file.
Briggs sighed heavily. “I don’t see that we’ve got much choice. It’s his manpower we’re going to be using tomorrow.”
“I’d rather we just took a car out on our own,” Will said. “We can work with them, but I’m not real big on having Archambault’s boys stumbling over our feet.”
Briggs found a tired smile and fit it to his lips. “Seems to me you’re always the one who’s warning me about hotdogging.”
Will shrugged. “This one’s almost personal, Paddy, and we’re so far out of our own jurisdiction anyway “
Briggs closed the file. “Maybe we’ll play it close for another day,” he said. “I’ll talk to Archambault about letting us check out the area where Owczarek was last seen on our own. There’s a lot of country out there and he’s already got his hands full trying to coordinate things. Could be he’ll be happy to get us out of his hair.”
“I’ve got a feeling about that area,” Will said. “We’re getting so close to him now I can almost taste it.”
The ghosts stirred inside Briggs again, a swirl of dead faces that demanded retribution.
“Christ, I hope so,” he said.
fourty-two
Yojo cradled the handset and sat down on the bed, staring at the phone. Who was this Gajo? He had known Yojo’s name and Janfri’s, as well as the names Yojo was traveling under. How could he know these things? How could he know where Yojo would be staying, that he was returning, when even Janfri didn’t know these things? It smacked of the supernatural to the big Gypsy and a nervous twitch cat-pawed its way up his spine. The Gajo’s instructions had been clear—Yojo had memorized them as he could read and write only with great difficulty. But what would he find at the end of them? Janfri or the man in black?
He stood abruptly and plucked his small traveling bag from the top of the dresser. He left the door to the room unlocked, with the key on the dresser, and went out to his car. Tossing the bag into the back seat, he backed out of the parking space, turned, and nosed the Lincoln towards the highway. Left on 15, the Gajo had said, until he saw the Conservation Area sign, then he was to take the road there on the right. Yojo pulled out onto the highway and floored the gas pedal. The big Lincoln growled as it picked up speed.
