Hangman's Curse (2 page)

“Abel Frye!” Boltz screamed, inching and clawing along the ground, eyes staring upward. “Abel Frye!”

Then he was on his feet, starting to run.

Marquardt and Raddison overtook him and brought him to the ground, holding him down, trying to contain his lashing arms and kicking feet.

“Give us a hand here!” Raddison shouted, and players from both sides came to help hold Jim down.

“Where's the doc?” Marquardt shouted, searching. Then he slapped Jim Boltz on the helmet. “Cut it out, Boltz!”

A medic came running, emergency kit in hand.

The field was filling with parents, schoolmates, fans, the curious.

“Please stay off the playing field,” said the announcer over the loudspeakers. Nobody listened.

The medic took charge. There was no need to check for pulse or breathing; the poor kid had plenty of both. “Let's get him inside. Careful, now.”

“Make way there!”

Marquardt was on one arm, Raddison on the other. Between them, Jim Boltz began to weaken, his voice ebbing from a scream to a whimper. As they reached the passage to the locker rooms, his head began to droop and he muttered two last words before he passed out: “Abel Frye . . .”

Marquardt cursed and looked at Raddison.

Raddison nodded grimly. “You're right. It's happening again.”

As the puzzled and murmuring football crowd gravitated toward the field, Ian Snyder turned and stole quietly up the stairs to the exit, his hands in the pockets of his long black trench coat.
Yeah,
he thought
, now Boltz will be just like the others.
In all the confusion, no one gave his presence in the stands a second thought.

In Washington, D.C., far from the Capitol dome, was an old redbrick office building with office space and apartments available for rent. On the fifth floor, at the end of a narrow hall with a noisy steam radiator, was a plain little office with its title painted in small black letters on the door: The
Veritas
Project. Just inside that door, Consuela, the secretary, sorted through conventional mail at her desk. Seated at a computer nearby, Carrie, the assistant, scanned through e-mails from all around the country. Between their two workstations was another door, and beyond that door was the cluttered office of Mr. Morgan, the boss.

Mr. Morgan was sitting at his cluttered desk, his suit jacket draped over the back of his chair, his tie loosened, his shirt sleeves rolled up. He was reading a field report he'd just received via the Internet: “Springfield/Montague/Phase Two.” What he read pleased him, and he smiled, nodding his head.

Morgan was middle-aged, bald, bespectacled, and generally unimpressive in appearance. His name and face were not widely known in this town, and his office was in an obscure, hard-to-find location. He preferred it that way. A project like
Veritas
could benefit from being quiet, unknown, and behind-the-scenes. He was well connected with the
right
people, and that was all that mattered.

His telephone bleeped and the voice of his secretary said, “Mr. Morgan, the President on line one.”

He picked up the receiver, pressed the button for line one and responded, “Mr. President.”

The voice on the other end was immediately recognizable. Mr. Morgan was hearing from the foremost leader of the free world. “Mr. Morgan, I understand we have trouble brewing in Baker, Washington.”

“Yes, sir. I heard from the high school counselor just this morning.”

“Mr. Gessner.”

“Yes. So you've read my report already?”

“Every word of it. And I agree.
Veritas
should have a look at it. Where are the Springfields now?”

Mr. Morgan glanced at the report he'd just finished reading. “Montague, Oregon. That drug abuse prevention program.”

“How long before they're finished with that?”

Mr. Morgan looked at his watch. “Well . . . it could be as soon as half an hour, if everything goes according to plan.”

In a quiet old neighborhood where ancient maple trees overshadowed the street with their shady branches and pushed up the sidewalks with their roots, where the yards were small and neat except for an occasional neglected bicycle or forgotten skateboard, a late-model station wagon pulled slowly to a stop along the curb.

Inside, the driver looked warily at the gabled gray house several doors down the street. “That's it.” He was a high school kid, sixteen or seventeen, thin, and nervous. Beside him sat another high schooler, a girl. Neither appeared to have slept, eaten, or bathed in days, and both were dressed in weird, pricey clothing that carried the same message as their dour expressions: Let the whole world drop dead.

In the rear seat, a young man with a grim, wary expression peered out the window and asked, “Are they ready?”

“If they aren't ready for company we won't get through the front door,” said the driver. “I called 'em and they said it was all clear.”

“So let's do it.”

They got out of the car and crossed the street quickly, while looking up and down the street and toward the surrounding houses in case anyone might be watching.

An unkempt, slightly heavy blond woman in jeans and oversized shirt answered the front door on the third knock. She recognized the boy and girl. “Hey, Luke. How you doing, Leah?” She eyed the stranger warily. “This must be Marv.”

“This is Marv,” Luke confirmed. “The buyer I told you about.”

She studied Marv's face, her suspicion never waning. “How long have you known him?”

“We buy from him all the time. He's okay,” said Leah.

The woman flung the door open. “Well, come inside before somebody sees you.”

They walked into a modest living room. The carpet was worn, with several years' worth of cigarette holes. The furniture looked old, smelled old, and nothing matched. A big cat lay curled on the couch and looked up at them for only a moment before lowering its head again in disinterest.

“Let's see your money,” said the woman. “Convince me.”

Marv reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of bills. “You're not dealing with a small-timer.”

She was impressed at the sight of the hundred-dollar bills. “So Luke and Leah tell me.” Her expression softened. “I'm Nancy. My husband Lou's down in the lab right now.”

He smiled, only slightly. “So let's see your goods. We'll make this quick.”

He followed her into the kitchen where she reached into a drawer and produced a plastic bag containing white powder. “One hundred grams of crank, finished up just this morning.”

Now it was Marv's turn to be impressed. “You must have some kind of lab.”

“We don't talk about it.”

He started counting out the big bills. “I'll take it.”

“You'll take half. The rest is spoken for.”

“Okay, half.”

“We gotta go,” said Luke. “If I get caught skipping class one more time, somebody's gonna get wise.”

“Go out the back way,” she instructed. “Use the alley.”

The two kids ducked out the back, leaving Nancy and Marv alone to close the drug deal.

“So, fifty grams,” said Nancy, taking a triple-beam balance from a cupboard.

“Wow,” said Marv, “nice scale.” Then he noticed the “SCHOOL DISTRICT 212” label still attached to the side and chuckled.

She smiled. “I have friends in the school district.”

He boasted, “So have I. I work Mannesmann High, Cleveland, Kennedy, Lincoln Junior High, even Dwight Elementary.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You do get around.” She placed a coffee filter on the scale and began carefully pouring out the powder, watching for the scale to tip at fifty grams. “So how come I never heard of you before?”

“I'm smart,” he replied. “How come I never heard of
you
before?”

She stopped pouring. She had fifty grams. “I'm smart, too.”

She carefully poured the powder into a bag, then waited for Marv to place the hundred-dollar bills in her hand. When he did so, she gave him the bag.

“Thanks,” he said. “It'll take about a week to sell this, and then I'll—”

There was a commotion on the back porch. A door banging open. Stumbling footsteps. An angry voice.

Marv was about to bolt for the front door, but Nancy said, “It's Lou.”

The back door burst open and the two high schoolers stumbled into the kitchen, shoved along at gunpoint by a big, stubbly-faced man.

“Lou!” said Nancy. “What gives?”

Lou shoved the two kids up against the counter and then growled in a roughneck, East Coast accent, “Found these two outside, snooping through the kitchen window with
these!”
He threw a tiny video camera and a set of earphones on the kitchen table.

The back door burst open and the two high schoolers stumbled into the kitchen, shoved along at gunpoint by a big, stubbly-faced man.

Nancy looked at the gadgets, then at the kids, in horror. “We heard a rumor about some kids working undercover. It's
you?”

Lou pointed the gun at Marv. “ 'kay, Marv—or whoever you are—party's over. Better join your friends.” He motioned with the gun toward the frightened Luke and Leah.

“What are you talking about?” said Marv, half raising his hands.

“They brought you here with 'em, and guess what? They're working for the cops. That means
you're
working for the cops.”

Marv was totally flustered. “No, man, I don't know anything about this.”

Nancy's eyes were suddenly cold and cruel. “You were good. Real good. You had us fooled!”

“But, but I'm not with them!” Marv protested.

Lou came closer, raising the gun to the level of Marv's eyes. “Oh, riiiight, like I don't know a sting operation when I see it? Open the jacket. You're probably wired.”

Marv spread his jacket open. “No! No wires! No microphones, nothing! I'm clean, I tell you. I don't know these kids.”

Lou was insulted. He spoke sideways to Nancy, “He says he don't know 'em!”

“I mean—”

“You drive up with 'em, you come into the house with 'em, and you don't know 'em? Eh, give me a break!”

Nancy glared at Marv in murderous rage. “So what are we going to do, Lou?”

Lou grabbed the video camera and earphones off the table, dashed them to the floor, and shattered them under his heel. He grabbed Leah by the arm as she screamed in pain, then aimed the gun at her. “How much do the cops know? How much have you told 'em?”

She didn't answer, but only squirmed in his iron grip, her face contorted with pain.

“Let her go,” Luke blurted. “We haven't told them anything. We were supposed to take the recording back to the drug task force.” Then he added with a tone of warning, “And if they don't hear from us within an hour they'll come looking for us.”

“Elijah,” the girl screamed, “don't tell them that!”

Lou nodded, a sly smile forming on his lips. “Hey, that gives us time, doesn't it
Elijah?
So what's
your
name, sweetheart?”

“Elisha.” She pronounced it Eleesha. “Elisha Springfield.”

“So Elijah must be your brother.”

Elijah confessed, “That's right.”

Lou smiled menacingly. “So it's all in the family.” He waved the gun at Marv. “So who's this, your cousin?”

“You gotta believe me,” Marv pleaded. “I'm not with them! I'm just here to do business!”

Lou aimed the gun in his face and pulled the hammer back. “You got two seconds to convince me.”

“Jackie Morelli, over in the central district—you can call him. He knows me.”

Lou shook his head. “Don't know him.”

“Eddie Baylor? Runs Hogie's Tavern over on Torrance Boulevard.”

Lou was unimpressed. “You gotta be making this up.”

Marv was getting desperate. His voice was rising in pitch and he was talking a lot faster. “Okay, okay. Jimmy Dorning, over at—”

“Where are you getting these
nobody
names?”

“Just let me finish! He lives right next to Lincoln High School. He's my contact over there and we've made good money—I'm talking thousands, tens of thousands, and no ripoffs.”

Lou cocked his head slightly as if he were just beginning to believe. “What about Steve Vernon? You know him?”

“I know him. I don't like him, but I know him. He's buying from Gomez and trying to get Gomez to cut me out.”

Lou raised one eyebrow as if impressed. “You know Gomez?”

“Yeah, you kidding? Everybody knows Gomez.”

“You work for him?”

Marv hesitated to answer. Lou brought the muzzle of the gun a little closer. “I don't ask questions twice, kid.”

“Okay! Okay!” Marv finally burst out. “I work for him!”

“How long?”

“A year. Maybe two.”

“How'd you meet up with him?”

“He helped me out.”

“Yeah, just like all his little flunkies. So where's his lab?”

“He has an old rental on Taylor Avenue.”

Lou's grip on the gun tightened. “He's at his
mother's
place!”

“No, no, no!” Marv raised his hands pleadingly. “He moved just last week! Go ahead, check it out! 401 Taylor Avenue!”

“So if you work for Gomez, why are you buying from us?”

“Because . . .” Marv couldn't finish.

“You're setting us up!”

“NO! NO! I just . . . I just gotta get away from Gomez, that's all.” Marv began to wilt. “I can't take it anymore.”

“So go home.”

Marv seemed close to tears. “Don't have the bread. Gomez takes it all.”

Lou eyed Marv curiously. “You mean, you do all the selling, but Gomez takes the money?”

“That's the deal. He puts me up, gives me a bed, maybe some food, and I work for him.”