Page 21 of The Furies

I caught the faintest hint of a smile, although it wasn’t a nice one. In her head, I think she was picturing Raum acquainting me with some of that payback he had promised.

“If you’re done with the register,” I said, “perhaps we could speak a little more. In private.”

“Yeah, I’m done with the register, but that goes for the discourse, too. If Raum hears you’ve been by, I’ll be in a world of torment, but you’ll be keeping me company.”

“Some people are concerned that you’re already in a world of torment, Ms. Strange.”

She squinted at me, and her lips managed, against all odds, to grow even thinner. Gradually some of the tension eased from her, and I glimpsed something like resignation, or regret.

“I can guess who that might be,” she said. “You tell Will he has no reason to fret. I can handle Raum.”

And only the slightest tremor to her voice and hands gave away the untruth.

CHAPTER XXII

Reuben Hapgood had managed to get as far as the kitchenette, although not without falling over twice, it being harder to negotiate a room full of obstacles with one’s arms and legs secured than might have been anticipated. Finally, after banging his head painfully against a chair arm, he had opted for an awkward shuffle on his knees. When he reached the kitchenette, he backed against a drawer, pulled it open, and got his hands on a paring knife. It wasn’t very sharp, and he fumbled it a couple of times before managing to figure out the best way to hold it in order to saw at the bond on his wrists.

Reuben had decided that while the encounter with Kepler could have gone better, it could also have gone a great deal worse. Kepler didn’t know that Reuben had paid hard cash for only three of the coins supplied by Egon Towle, and had effectively taken the rest on consignment, including the Two Emperor—not that Reuben would have encountered any difficulty selling the latter, but he didn’t have enough cash on hand to pay even half of what Towle expected to make from the sale. In other words, counting the half eagle, and the three coins bought from Towle, he was down about $60,000, which was bad. On the other hand, he was still alive, which was good, and he had also managed to keep back from Kepler both his own involvement in the planning of the theft and the identity of Egon Towle’s partner, Raum Buker. Reuben believed Buker might be capable of handling Kepler. What was more, Reuben knew that Buker had been entrusted with the lion’s share of the haul, including—

Reuben paused in the twin acts of cutting and assessing. A storage box stood on the floor by the bar fridge in which he kept milk for the cats and a selection of candy bars for himself. The box was constructed of plain cardboard, about two feet in length and a foot in width and height, with a lid on top. It wasn’t a type that Reuben ever used, and he couldn’t recall ordering anything that might have arrived packed in it.

He recommenced his efforts and felt the cable tie give way beneath the edge of the knife. He removed the duct tape from his mouth, sacrificing some skin and hair along the way, and set about freeing his feet. Once this was done, he tossed the knife aside, walked to the box, and knelt beside it. Gently, he removed the lid. Inside the box were two containers of gasoline wrapped in detonation cord, and a timer affixed to a blasting cap. The face of the timer had been painted with Wite-Out to obscure the countdown. Score low, and you forfeit. Reuben, a little too late, now grasped the nature of that forfeiture.

He started for the back door, but Kepler had secured it behind him and taken the keys. The spare set was contained in a magnetic lockbox attached to the back of the safe. Reuben didn’t want to go anywhere near that incendiary device again, but now he had no choice. Offering up his first prayer in many years to the God in whom he still mostly believed, Reuben ran for the safe. He was halfway there when he learned that God was otherwise occupied.

And Reuben Hapgood burned.

CHAPTER XXIII

I’d struck out badly with Dolors Strange; not that I’d anticipated a better outcome, but if we don’t have misguided optimism, what do we have? The sensible move would have been to wipe my hands of the matter and advise Will Quinn to go back to hanging out in his lumberyard in the hope that love, having once found him there, might consider coming around for a second try.

On the other hand, all human beings contain within them a self-destructive urge. It typically manifests itself as addiction—food, drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, and violence (because that, too, becomes addictive)—but even the most disciplined of us will sometimes hear the call of compulsion, and see for an instant the world through craving eyes. It’s the voice that speaks in your head as you walk along a cliff edge, before offering a vision of your body tumbling to the rocks below. The more vulnerable you are, the more insistent it becomes. The only ones untroubled by it are the dead.

Thus, having failed with Dolors Strange, he knew it was natural also to court failure with her younger sister. The dentist’s office at which Ambar Strange worked operated half days on Wednesdays, which I didn’t discover until I dropped by. I should have taken that as an omen, but by then I was committed, so I continued to her home.

Ambar lived in a two-bedroom Cape cottage off Railway Avenue. The property was probably worth about $300,000. Real estate records showed that she had bought it for just over $200,000 back in 2015, so it had turned out to be a good investment. It was painted burnt ocher with a cream trim, and had a small, over-ornate portico enclosing the front door, lending it the aspect of a gingerbread house. All that was needed to complete the picture was a witch, but I had to settle for a would-be ogre.

Raum Buker emerged from the rear of the cottage as I pulled up to the curb, Ambar Strange following behind him, her hands buried deep in her pockets. She was six years younger and six inches shorter than Dolors, and carried just enough weight to soften the edges that showed so distinctly in her sister. Her hair was a vivid red, and tied in a ponytail that hung over her left shoulder. She was wearing a quilted vest with a sweater and jeans, and tan work boots that looked excessively ungainly on her small frame, and were too clean to have ever served any practical purpose. Her head was down, and she radiated low-level misery.

She and Raum spoke for a few minutes beside the front door. When he leaned over to kiss her, she turned her head so that he caught her cheek, not her mouth. He tried again, this time gripping her chin with his right hand, but she pulled away. Raum wasn’t happy about this, and let her know it—loudly. With the window rolled down, I heard it all.

“Fuck you,” said Raum. “You asked me to come over.”

“For help,” said Ambar, “not for that.”

“It’s busted glass. You want help, call a glazier.”

He stomped back to his car. Raum Buker: gentleman caller, comforter of the afflicted. He was driving a red Chevy Monte Carlo in rough condition. If he’d paid more than five hundred dollars for it, he’d been robbed.

I hoped he’d paid more than five hundred.

Ambar Strange went back into her home through the front door and closed it behind her, which meant she didn’t see what happened next. As he reached the car, Raum rolled up the sleeve of his jacket and began scratching at the pentacle tattoo on his arm. It might have been festering; I’ve never been tattooed, so I couldn’t say for sure. But as I watched, Raum progressed from scratching to tearing, his nails gradually digging through the skin into the flesh beneath, and I could see the blood running down his wrist and palm before dripping from his fingers to the pavement. Despite the pain he must have been causing himself, his expression never varied, not once. His face was a mask of absolute desolation.

CHAPTER XXIV

I once listened to a talk given by a writer who believed some men were so morally corrupt that their depravity found a physical expression, their moral disfigurement manifesting itself as an alteration to feature or form. It was a variation on phrenology and physiognomy, the discredited pseudoscientific convictions that the shape of a skull or face might disclose essential traits of character. Were it true, the job of law enforcement would have been made significantly easier, and a lot of time and effort could have been saved by jailing all the ugly people. But evil—true evil, not the mundane human wickedness born of fear, envy, wrath, or greed—is adept at concealment, because it wishes to survive and persist. Only when it’s ready, or is forced to do so, does it reveal itself. Not even evil is free from the rule of nature.

Certain parasitic wasps lay their eggs either on, or in, host creatures, frequently caterpillars. The injector, known as an endoparasitoid, attempts to introduce its eggs into the prey, which—if the effort is successful—will continue to mature, its development unhindered by the alien organisms it is carrying. But the wasp has to take precautions. The caterpillar instinctively recognizes the threat posed by the predator. It wriggles and jerks. It bites, or secretes poisons from its skin. It might even win, if it struggles hard enough. But often it doesn’t struggle sufficiently.

---