Page 2 of Corruption
Charles stretched out his long legs and raised his eyebrows questioningly. He didn’t say anything, though. Two could play this game. He wasn’t in any hurry.
Finally, Townsend huffed. “Got a call from Kansas.”
“That’s the Chicago office’s jurisdiction.”
“Yeah. But they ain’t got a specialist. We do.”
Charles narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. “What specialist?”
Townsend drew deeply from his cigarette; then he blew a perfect smoke ring before stubbing out the cigarette in a silver ashtray. He drained his glass, seemed to consider refilling it, but shrugged instead. “According to our sources, there’s a demon in Kansas.”
“A demon.” Charles wished he could smoke too, or down a generous slug of booze. But repeated experience told him trying either would only make him ill. He uncrossed his feet. “A demon in Kansas?”
“Yeah. Apparently, someone summoned the fucker and now it’s in a carnival freak show.”
Charles hoped his wince didn’t show. When he was five or six years old, a man with a tall hat had knocked on the door of their modest house and offered to buy Charles for a thousand dollars. “I’ll make a star of him!” the man had proclaimed. Ma fetched her shotgun and told the man she’d pull the trigger if she ever saw him again. A few days after that, she and Charles had picked up and moved far away. For a long time afterward, the man haunted Charles’s nightmares. Hell, sometimes he still did.
“If it’s been summoned, someone’s got it under control,” Charles said. “It’s not dangerous.”
Townsend lit another cigarette. “Maybe not now. But what if its master decides to use it for something other than a sideshow? You remember that nasty business in Bakersfield.”
“That was before I joined the Bureau.”
“Yeah, but you heard about it. Everybody heard about it. There were goddamned newsreels about it. How many dead? Eighteen?”
Charles worked his jaw. “Nineteen. The little girl died a couple months later.”
“Right.” Townsend pointed his cigarette at Charles. “I ain’t gonna have another Bakersfield. Not on my watch.”
“But it’s Chicago’s problem, not ours.”
“Normally, yeah. But Chicago hasn’t got anyone like you, angel.”
“I’m not an angel.” He wasn’t. His mother was human. And his father... well, maybe not. But there didn’t seem to be anything angelic about knocking up a pretty girl then skipping town. Anyway, Charles had given all that up. He couldn’t do much about his milk-white skin or strange eyes, but he dyed his colorless hair brown. And he’d had his wings removed when he turned eighteen. The stupid things were too small to lift him and a real nuisance besides.
Faced with Charles’ glower, Townsend merely smiled. “Whatever you are, you wasted that fiend in Glendale after it killed three good agents, and you took care of a pair of ’em up near Medford. So now you’re gonna get yourself to Kansas and destroy this one too. Should be easy if it’s under someone’s control. You can consider this a nice little vacation if you want.”
“Nobody vacations in Kansas.”
“You can start a trend. Maybe find yourself a sweet little farm girl and get yourself laid. You could use it, kid.” Townsend ground out his cigarette. “Now, go see Stella and she’ll get you all set up with the travel particulars. I’m expecting a nice thick report from you within two weeks.”
Charles sighed. “It won’t take me two weeks to get to Kansas.”
“Then get acoupleof farm girls. Hell, get yourself a baker’s dozen. You gotta work that stick outta your ass, kid, or one of these days you’re gonna break. We’re in a tough business. Can’t take ourselves seriously all the time.” He winked and uncapped his bottle.
They could have sat and argued longer, but Charles would eventually lose. He stood, collected his suit coat and fedora from the rack, and exited Townsend’s office.
Charles knew that Stella kind of had a thing for him. She knew it was impossible because she was twenty years his senior, and he knew it was impossible because she was a dame. But neither of them minded a little harmless flirting now and then. Sometimes he even brought her flowers. When he had to go out on assignment, she always made sure he was well taken care of.
This time she booked him a train compartment—a big one, with a private toilet and a drawing room with a couch—on theSuper Chief. He spent most of the ride tucked away from the curious stares of the other passengers, reading or watching the barren landscape roll by. He slept well too; he liked the rocking motion of the train beneath him. So even though it was early in the morning when he arrived in Kansas City, Missouri, he felt refreshed.
Normally he’d have rented a nice sedan. Back in Los Angeles he owned a plain old Chevrolet, but sometimes the Bureau gave him something flashier, like when he investigated that necromancer in Hollywood and got to spend a few weeks tooling around in a beautiful MG. But the current assignment called for something plainer, so he took a taxi over the state line into Kansas, where he found a dealer selling an ugly but serviceable Dodge pickup truck. Charles bought the truck outright; then he drove down bumpy dirt roads into the countryside until he found a small-town mercantile store. Ignoring the gaping locals, he bought jeans, three cheap cotton shirts, and a pair of dun-colored boots. He’d almost left the place before he remembered a hat, ending up with a plain straw number.
In the middle of nowhere, between fields of half-grown sorghum, he changed out of his suit and into his new, more rustic clothing. He packed his California clothes away in his suitcase; then he spent a half-hour trudging through the dirt, trying to make his new outfit look old. Sometimes he even dropped to the ground and rolled a bit. He stomped on his new hat a couple of times. Satisfied, he got back into the truck and drove away in search of a carnival.
News of the demon was already old when it reached Townsend’s desk. And because it had taken a few days for Charles to reach Kansas and start looking, he had no idea where to start. He drove around for over a week, eating pie in diners and sleeping wherever he could rent a room. He had very good hearing, and he eavesdropped shamelessly. He heard rumors of a banshee near Dodge City and stories of ghosts in Beloit, but those were Chicago’s problems, not his. He made notes of them for his eventual report.
It was in the aptly named town of Plainville that he finally found a lead. He’d rolled in at midday, parked his truck downtown, and strolled around for a while, taking the measure of the grain elevator and passing a few tired-looking women in faded print dresses. Half of the shops were boarded up. He wondered if the owners had gone west in search of jobs or had just grown old and died. But there was some life yet in the diner, and that’s where he ended up. Everyone else was eating big slabs of ham and steak, but he had to be content with pie and coffee. Meat didn’t agree with him any better than alcohol or cigarettes. At least the pie—strawberry rhubarb—was good.
