Takedown, page 3
Spending most of his time at meetings and benefit dinners, Kormoski wore a suit and tie and trailered a rump more accustomed to an office chair than a walk around the park. His presence in the Reptile House was extremely rare. In fact, Zookeeper Davis could not remember ever seeing him in there. But when a growing conflict over what proper action should be taken on an “insane” Galapagos Island tortoise reached his ears, Kormoski had decided his next meeting would be with all parties involved, including the tortoise.
Kormoski took off his thick wire-rimmed glasses, cleaned them with a white handkerchief, and slid them back into the worn grooves in front of his ears. “How odd,” he said to the two people he had called there to meet with him. “That son of a gun seems to be staring at me.”
“That’s because he is staring at you, sir,” answered Susan Cocchiola, the zoo’s chief veterinarian. Cocchiola was the best in her field as far as the zoo was concerned. She stood with clipboard in hand, tall and trim with short, wavy red hair, reading glasses draped over her white overcoat. Her normally pleasant demeanor was masked by her now serious countenance. Where the well-being of her animals was concerned, she was known to be pure business.
Kormoski moved a few steps aside and the tortoise’s glare followed him.
“Why do you suppose he’s looking at me?” he asked. “It’s a little eerie.”
“I don’t know,” Cocchiola replied dryly.
Lester Davis said nothing but figured the demon in the tortoise knew Kormoski had the authority to have Jeremy shipped out of the zoo, where the animal’s demise might be more likely. Buck had warned Davis to guard the tortoise with his life because if it ever died, the vengeful demon would escape and surely repay anyone who’d had anything to do with its captivity. At the time, saving the next three or four generations from the likes of Krogan seemed to Lester Davis the only right thing to do. And keeping a tortoise healthy in the Bronx Zoo would be an easy task—or so he’d thought. But as soon as Buck had returned Jeremy to the zoo, Davis knew there were going to be complications. The tortoise had changed—more than he had ever dreamed possible.
“Okay, besides the fact Jeremy likes to stare at fat guys in suits, what exactly do you see as the problem here, Susan?” Kormoski demanded, his chin held high.
Cocchiola sighed. “Problems, sir. For one, the tortoise no longer acts like a tortoise. It can’t even be kept with the other tortoises. That’s why we have it isolated.”
“What does it do when it’s with the other tortoises?”
“It attacks… quickly. And not just tortoises. Jeremy attacks anything it sees, including us.”
“Hmm. And when you say quickly—”
“I mean in every sense of the word, sir,” she interrupted. “Not only does it attack immediately, but it scurries to do it. I’ve never seen a giant tortoise move half as fast as Jeremy does. And it doesn’t fight like a tortoise, either. It fights more like… like a tiger.”
Kormoski frowned. “A tiger?” he asked doubtfully.
“Have you ever seen one tortoise battle another?”
“Not firsthand, but I hear they go at it rather slowly.”
“To put it mildly, sir. They face off and charge toward each other at a blazing two-tenths of a mile per hour. That’s just slightly faster than crabgrass grows. When they finally ram—and I use the word loosely—you might imagine you’re not going to hear the clack of mountain sheep. More like a war of opposing hand-cranked car jacks. Their feet dig in and it’s neck against neck until one retreats. Except for some fatigue and muscle soreness, the dominated tortoise is usually unharmed.”
“But not when Jeremy attacks,” Kormoski said.
“No, sir. Jeremy has been known to plow into full-grown giants, three times his size, flipping them over onto their backs and biting at their exposed flesh. When they pull in their head and feet for fear of their lives, he gnaws on their shells until someone separates them. A dangerous task in itself.”
“How long has this behavior been going on?”
“I don’t know, sir. I became aware of it through one of my techs a few months ago after a routine checkup. Jeremy nearly bit his finger off while being inspected for ticks.”
“I remember hearing something about that,” Kormoski said, nodding.
“But he was already in isolation.”
With a furrowed brow, Kormoski turned to Davis. “Lester?”
“Jeremy’s been under my care for four years, Mr. Kormoski. I admit he’s been going through some growing pains lately, but that’ll pass. He just needs a little special attention right now. He’s healthy. I’ll see to it he gets everything he needs, sir. I promise.”
Cocchiola rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry, sir, but the kind of attention Jeremy needs we can’t provide here in the Bronx. Keeping giants at this location was an experiment that, in my opinion, has failed. I think we should send the lot of them to a more southerly location where they can be outside year round. Then they’ll benefit from the symbiotic relationships that naturally form between them and say, finches, for example, which clean them of ticks daily in their natural environment.”
“Lester? You seem troubled by that suggestion.”
“Nobody knows Jeremy like I do, sir. I don’t mind if you send the rest of them south, but Jeremy needs me.”
Kormoski frowned again.
“Jeremy needs Honolulu, sir,” Cocchiola interjected. “Theirs is the absolute best facility in the world for giants, and they’ve been at it the longest. It’s giant heaven. The animals all have remarkable dispositions and breed readily there. Jeremy may still need special attention, but if he’s going to have a chance to assimilate anywhere, it would be in Hawaii.”
Davis felt a sensation like an army of ants crawling down his back as he saw Kormoski nod approvingly at Cocchiola’s suggestion. From what Buck had told him, the tortoise would do anything to die and would have outside help if left in the open. Davis had spent the last two years fearfully speculating on how long it would take for Krogan to hunt him down once freed. No. There was no way he could let Jeremy out of his protection.
“Mr. Kormoski. Jeremy’s gonna be fine. He’s already on the mend. If you can just give me a little more time with him I—”
“I anticipated this type of resistance, sir,” Cocchiola interrupted. “Lester is as capable a wild-animal keeper as I know, but for some reason, he keeps fighting me on this one. So I’ve arranged a little demonstration.” She took out a small radio and spoke into it. “Karen, please bring in the rat.”
4
Gavin drove over the Throgs Neck Bridge in light traffic, convertible top down, afternoon sky high and bright, Long Island dwindling in his rearview mirror. To his left was the New York skyline, what was left of it. The events of that fateful September Tuesday and the heartbreak of the following days flashed before him. The giant buildings swallowing commercial airliners. The media replaying the catastrophic implosions over and over. The faces of the cops and firefighters Gavin had worked with and the grief at dozens of funeral services. Grown men crying, recounting stories of people in midstride guillotined by falling glass. The beginning of a war, but not the beginning. Not to Buck.
Evil? Absolutely and completely. But demons? For the first time in a long while, Gavin allowed himself to think about Buck—not the man, but his beliefs.
Did Buck think all terrorists and serial killers were influenced by demons? Yes. Did Buck believe a demon could really gain control of a human? Absolutely. Was Buck nuts? Well, yes, a fanatic at the very least, but not dangerously so. He was extreme, where reality and fantasy merge. It had to have been over a year ago that Gavin had asked himself if there really was any such thing as a demon. And more important, if there really was such a thing as a demon named Krogan—a name he had struggled to put out of his mind since the killer had been thrown into jail for life. But now, try as he might to ignore it, the name kept coming to him. The more it came, the faster he drove. The speed helped refocus his attention to the road.
Gavin continued north into the Catskills on roads of lesser and lesser importance. Winding through dairy country, the smell of manure and fresh-cut hay in the air, he thought about what Buck would say to him. Assuming he was still alive and able to say anything. A dying man securing a future he wouldn’t be around for. Not exactly someone Gavin wanted to argue his faith, or lack of faith, with. And why bother? Let the old guy die in peace. Agree with him. Why not? Whom would it hurt? If only Amy weren’t pregnant, she really would have been the better person to speak to Buck at a time like this. The old man was the theological heavyweight, and Amy believed in him. She would’ve been asked to pray some kind of battle prayers and would have agreed and pounded on heaven’s doors with all her heart. She would feel better for it, even if in the end nothing was actually accomplished. With demons, nothing could ever be proven. Everything had to be faith. If they didn’t show up, which of course they couldn’t because they were never there in the first place, the prayers were answered.
Gavin cruised into Delhi, asked the first person he saw for directions, and two minutes later pulled into a newly paved parking lot. His legs were still stiff from a three-hour ride where he had averaged better than seventy from curb to curb, and over a hundred on the highways. He walked through the hospital’s automated glass doors and found himself in the ER waiting room. He hated hospitals—too many bad memories. Get in, get out, and get home to Amy with a report that would calm her fears. Looking, looking, his eyes darted about and found a reception desk where a woman was on the phone. Women and phones. He approached her and flashed his badge.
“Gotta go,” she said. “How can I—”
“Reverend Buchanan. Where is he? ICU?”
“Uh, no,” she said after taking what seemed like a very long second and a half to answer. “He’s in the CCU.”
“Where is that?”
“Around the corner, up the ramp, and down the hall,” she said to his back as he left her.
He soon came to another, much smaller, waiting room with another receptionist. He recognized a young black girl in one of the seats. Buck’s granddaughter, Samantha. She would be thirteen now. Sitting next to her, holding her hand, was a blonde woman in her thirties. They were the only two visitors in the room.
“Hello, Samantha,” Gavin said.
The young girl looked up. Her eyes were wet, swollen and pink, like the ribbons her grandfather allowed her to put on all the cows at the farm, where the farmhouse looked like a life-size dollhouse with lace and flowers everywhere. Her grandfather was now the only family she had left since Krogan had killed her parents and grandmother seven years ago in a collision. Only she and Buck had survived. Buck had taken her in, sold everything, and bought a small, working dairy farm simply because she loved animals. He had done everything he could for her to try to make up for her loss. A loss Buck believed his ministry was indirectly responsible for. A loss he feared could someday include Samantha’s life as well.
“I’m Gavin Pierce. I met you two years ago. I left New York right after you called.”
Samantha nodded. “I remember. You and the pretty lady… Amy. She was very nice.”
“She wanted to come, but she’s going to have a baby soon and had to stay home and rest. I guess you know what I’m talking about, taking care of those cows,” he said awkwardly. Talking to thirteen-year-old girls had never been his strength, even when he’d been thirteen. As Gavin spoke, Samantha’s eyes wandered to a set of double doors with a sign that read Coronary Care Unit. He immediately felt stupid for mentioning the cows. He knew absolutely nothing about cows or farming, much less what kind of rest, if any, a pregnant cow required.
“Is my grandfather going to be all right, Mr. Pierce?”
Her question caught Gavin off guard, reminding him of the same question he had asked a doctor two years ago regarding his own grandfather. He wanted to tell her something to comfort her, but could not think of anything and didn’t want to shoot from the hip and come out with another dumb cow remark.
“What did the doctor say?” Gavin asked, looking to both Samantha and the blonde woman.
“The doctor said the surgery saved his life and that he needs to rest,” the woman replied before Samantha could answer. “I’m Mary Quinn, Samantha’s next-door neighbor.” The look in her blue eyes made him wonder if there was more she was trying to say.
“Will Samantha be with you while her grandfather… gets some rest?”
Mary nodded and put her arm around the young girl. “Samantha knows she’s welcome to stay over anytime she wants. My twin daughters, Michele and Jackie, are her best friends, and she knows our home is her home. Don’t you, dear?”
Samantha gave a distant nod as Mary welcomed the girl’s head against her shoulder.
Everything seemed okay, but Gavin knew he would be paying the Quinn home a visit for Buck’s sake. The old preacher might trust in his prayers for his granddaughter’s needs, but there was nothing like seeing things firsthand to put Gavin’s mind at ease that she was being properly cared for.
Just then a nurse came through the CCU doors next to the receptionist.
“I’ll be back,” Gavin said.
Samantha reached out and grabbed Gavin’s hand. “Grandpa wants you to pray,” she said with blinking saucer eyes.
“I know… I will,” he consoled her, his words carrying more conviction in his reassuring expression than in his heart. The way she held on to his hand before finally letting it go made him wonder if Samantha knew what Buck’s prayer request was really for.
Gavin walked up to the receptionist, an older woman with a name tag that read VOLUNTEER over a long, unpronounceable last name. “I’m Detective Pierce, and it’s very important I speak to Reverend Buchanan,” Gavin said, showing his shield. The woman’s eyebrows rose at the sight of the badge.
A moment later a nurse appeared through the double doors and escorted Gavin into the CCU. In the center of the large rectangular room was a raised counter, thirty feet in diameter, with several people behind it, all busy. Around the room’s perimeter were partitions separating hospital beds, mostly occupied, some with curtains drawn. The air was clean and cool, filled with soft mechanical sounds—hisses, pings, beeps—he assumed all rhythmically keeping beat with vital body functions.
The nurse stopped at a closed curtain and peeked in. “You can go inside in a minute, Detective. He’s being lined with a new IV.”
Gavin scanned the room as he waited. There were no plants or flowers anywhere. This was not a place to rest and heal as much as it was a place to survive. He tried, unsuccessfully, to forget past hospital visits caused by Krogan. Indirectly, this was one of them.
The curtain opened all the way. “You can come in now, Detective, but you can’t stay long. If you need me I’ll be…” The nurse continued to speak but Gavin was no longer listening. The sight of Buck seized him. He had not seen him in two years and the man had somehow aged twenty. His white hair was thinner and his black, cracked skin was paler. Not that the oxygen tubes in his nose and the IV lines in his veins helped his appearance any.
As though he had no control over his actions, Gavin felt himself move closer until he was leaning over him. “Buck?” he whispered. “Buck.” He noticed the watchful eye of the nurse on him and wished she had stationed herself out of earshot.
The old man’s eyes slowly opened to mere slits. Gavin took a step back. After a long moment of squinting and blinking, Buck said something like, “Do I know you?”
“It’s Pierce, Buck. Gavin Pierce.”
Buck smiled weakly. “Detective… what’s the occasion?” His voice was deep but hushed.
“Nothing special. I was just passing by the coronary care unit on my way to the deli, so I thought I’d stop by, say hello. How do you feel?”
“I’ve felt worse.”
Gavin took in his eye contact and nodded. “I know.” Gavin knew he was referring to the time he had barely survived a Krogan car crash that had killed his family—all but Samantha.
“Hmm…” Buck said, licking his parched lips. “How is Amy?”
“She’s, well, eight months’ pregnant.”
“Pregnant?”
“We’re married.”
Buck nodded almost imperceptibly, his eyelids heavy. “Congratulations. You belong together,” he whispered.
“Thank you. I agree.… Samantha looks well,” Gavin lied.
“Is she still here?”
“Yes.”
“With Mary?”
“Uh, yes.”
“She’s a good woman, Detective. You needn’t worry about her.”
Gavin nodded, wondering how Buck even knew he was concerned.
“But she doesn’t know, of course. Neither does Sammy.”
Gavin had wondered if Samantha knew of Buck’s belief about Krogan. Thank God he hadn’t laid that demon-hunting trip on the young girl. “Everything will be fine, Buck.”
Buck closed his eyes. “You and Amy need to take over for me. I’m not going to be around much longer.”
“Nonsense. Bypass surgery can extend your life for decades.”
“They did what they could, but the damage was already done.”
“I’ll argue with you later… when you’re better informed. What do you mean, take over?”
“In prayer. Prayer is the key to spiritual warfare. Without faithful prayer, you’ll be doomed, and so will Sammy.”
Gavin took another glance at the nurse, who stood just outside the curtain like a sentry. “Don’t worry about a thing, Buck. I’ll tell Amy and we’ll pray about the situation every day.”
Buck frowned but said nothing.
“And I don’t want to hear any more about you not being around. You’re not going to get off your knees that easy. This ain’t the old days, you know.”
Buck was still frowning. “You have no intention of praying at all, do you?”
Gavin tried in vain not to let his shoulders slump. He absolutely hated this. He was a terrible liar and an even worse actor. And standing before Buck, he felt as see-through as glass. Time to come clean… or at least cleaner. “Buck, I do pray sometimes, but to be honest, most of the time I don’t know why. Amy is the one you should be talking to. She’s the real believer in this family.”
