The Everborn Page 14

  He locked and shut the car door, activated the car alarm, zipped up his jacket, and enjoyed another drag. He took in the scene around him and the eerie strangeness he associated with it all, until the passing moments afterwards brought him away and across the corner intersection and into the direction of the curious streetside motel, which beckoned his arrival.

  Max was scarcely afforded no more than a rapid rundown of reasons for the urgent summons...a murder...a missing reverend’s daughter, an unexplained link to Ralston’s Crow Job gig...each reason as insightful as a pocketful of posies tattooed upon the rubbery-white ass cheek of an alcoholic social worker. But the very fact that his police lieutenant informant and long-time friend had never been known to cry wolf with these matters was enough in itself to get Max out of bed and come running.

  Just as he came running long ago, almost three decades ago, when a young Matthew’s desperate screams echoed from within the bowels of a ramshackle building condemned by both the imminent wrecking ball and the widespread rumors of a ghost child inhabiting its treacherous inner sanctum. A handful of roving children knew Max only as the s’curity man back then, but on that fateful day he became a belated savior. He was enough of a savior to come running when he did, driving away the wicked monsters young Matthew claimed to have seen moments before Max’s arrival; he was belated long enough for those same elusive terrors to seize the opportunity and steal away an even younger Nigel who lay dying in Matthew’s arms, taking him with them into a dark and timeless realm far beyond the material reaches of Max and their decadent lair.

  The fate folks upstairs, as Max often later referred to them (if there were any), had initiated a web of impact and influence upon both Matthew and Max which sparked a unique closeness between the two and each of the years which followed found Max increasingly aware of the boundlessly epic saga taking place in secret all around him, a secret he found himself able to reveal in part to an older and more prepared Matthew in later years, to later still share and discover together with him.

  This was an ancient saga straight from the storybook of God, who, if we all behave ourselves, may likely come down to tuck us in our beds and read it to us just before He bids the earth good night. Max was of the restlessly curious breed who simply could never stand to wait that long and who made it their quest to get their hands on an advanced copy. Even if they had to obtain it page by page. What transpired from the events that came down that day in the Fall of ‘68 was to Max, like a succession of pages from that secret saga falling from the sky, Max’s lap being the lucky recipient time and again from that day forward.

  Matt McGregor, on the other hand, hadn’t quite been able to face, nor develop, an appreciation for this sort of thing until his teens, which to him was no less boring than the meaning of life...and no less feared...even though the “God’s storybook” metaphor was originally his. For awhile, what he had experienced with Nigel and the monsters that took him was a nightmare, was something he did not want answers to, had no desire to rediscover. In those days, Maxwell was like a father figure or big brother who often dropped by for family dinners or for outings with himself and Matt. In consideration for Matthew, Max managed to keep any details of his struggles for the truth surrounding Nigel to himself until later years when Matt wanted to know. Otherwise, Max shared with him as often as he could the comparatively down-to-earth exploits of a ufologist’s efforts to make a living and a claim to fame.

  The decision made by Matt’s parents to move out of state arrived with the summer of Matt’s junior high graduation, their idea of a safer and more affordable home in Nevada taking a heat-stricken toll and a plunge into regret, which returned them to their L.A. hometown three years later.

  Matt returned wanting to be a cop.

  He wanted Max to visit him again.

  And he was just about ready to search for monsters.

  A two-year college endeavor began soon after high school was conquered and the need for income brought him an unarmed surveillance position at Captain Security in Norwalk. Three days after receiving his guard card, he was enticed from his night post when Max showed up with a tailored job offer with his cable documentary production crew effective at once. During this short time, Max disclosed certain remarkable case discoveries, information, and insights into his continuing escapades concerning what came to be the Erlandson case. By the time he turned twenty, Matt McGregor had earned an associate degree in Criminology and was well on his way through police academy training, heading at breakneck speed towards his prized role in life, towards tremendous change and achievement, towards a loving wife and the three sons she would bear for him.

  As far as Max Polito was concerned, Matt was no longer the brilliant mischievous youth to look down to, but an adult to look up to with mutual respect, a hard-nosed expert in the arts of interrogation and investigation who, after all this time, was still stubborn enough to intrude into the dark treacherous passageways of the curious and the dangerous in a high-wire dare-walk between truth and lies.

  And Matt McGregor had been there more often than not, calling Max’s attention each time a page of God’s storybook would fall and then positioning him directly below it, just like the way it all began.

  ***

  Since the call a little more than an hour before, Max inwardly anticipated this urgent meeting, though outwardly he contained his hopes with speculation and trained sensibility; he couldn’t deny that this excursion could promise exciting revelation for all he knew, whispered hints of unearthly clues which could back the Erlandson/Nigel saga further into the corner where the show-and-tell spotlight would keep them there, would keep them there for Max to show and tell all.

  He journeyed down the uneven sidewalk, past an alleyway and rounding the corner of a small building, discarding his spent cigarette as he went.

  At once his objective materialized before him, a less-than-average spiritless stretch of one-story refuge, a likely haven of indulgences and wanton deeds, of abusive domestic brawls and stained bedsheets. And, by the looks of things, of murder as well. Now and again. Max shrugged off an impulsive sneer of disregard as he continued his approach towards what now seemed to be a routine drama for this section of neighborhood and he stifled the unwelcomed notion that today’s episode was disappointingly common. He clung to the wish of a connection between this discovery and the recent discovery of Nigel, being that the locations were so close to each other.

  He sidestepped into a driveway, onto the motel property, and towards his first view of yellow crime scene ribbon adorning a hedged walkway near the head of the parking lot. A young uniformed officer emerged without warning into Max’s path from seemingly nowhere, his upraised palm commanding a halt. In a voice dry and monotone, the officer instructed him to keep away from the center area of the building, to keep off the property unless he currently occupied a room, and asked him if he occupied one.

  The officer was interrupted by a more animate voice from behind him. “Now does this gentleman look to you like the type of sorry, snot-ragged, bottom-of-the-barrel-scraper you’re used to seeing in a room here, officer?”

  The officer turned towards the voice, then back towards Max and to the voice again, then apologized and walked away.

  Lieutenant Matt McGregor approached, stopped and faced Maxwell Polito cheerfully, and the two exchanged eager handshakes several times before and after a cordial embrace. “Maxy, you marauding, Martian-chasing son-of-a-bitch! Howya doin’? How, was Brazil?”

  “Well...you know,” replied Max. “When you see one abductee bitching about a bizarre chunk of metal surgically implanted in an armpit or ankle, you see dozens of them, then you see hundreds over the years and you wonder how much would all this shit be worth at a recycling center if they could turn ‘em all into soda can tabs?“

  They both shared a hearty laugh.

  McGregor’s jolliness diminished into an odd moment of silence as he lapsed into a studious gaze upon his friend, a gaze, which vanished as he dug into the inn
er pocket of his rain-speckled sports jacket and pulled out a pack of Camels. This was a good idea to Max and he retrieved one himself. Matt offered him a light hidden and cupped against the weather.

  McGregor returned the pack to his pocket, unmindfully disclosing the butt of a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum cradled into a leather shoulder holster just past his reach deep beyond the jacket’s innards. Matt buttoned the jacket, which tightened into broad athletic shoulders and hung loosely, almost unevenly, over a narrowing torso and tightly-fit slacks. He was an adult now, but to Max his appearance remained the same in many ways, although his wispy straight brown hair now drooped over a brow surprisingly wrinkled for a man a decade younger than he. The look of roughness in his complexion mismatched a narrow mouth which virtually turned lipless when shut, a trait redeemed by a full, deep brown moustache, which worked well in making him handsome.

  They shared a moment of quietude as they smoked and prepared to get down to matters at hand.

  It was Max who spoke next. “So...it was Nigel, it was his body, after all this time...?”

  “No shit, it was Nigel....”

  “After all this time, I can’t believe it. Those sightings were true, then, and it was him.”

  “But ghosts don’t get cut the hell up and sent to the morgue,” McGregor told him. “I saw him, I saw him after they brought him in on a stretcher. I’ve seen bodies where even dental records went into wishy-washy borderline I.D.'s. This was him. And we let the media get his story...that is, the story on the surface, the discovery of a dead kid. We had to, for positive I.D. reasons, to see if anyone could claim him. In the wait, I dug for the right evidence to persuade the department to close the case to the public and to pursue it further behind closed doors, with the right people. I mentioned your name, but the higher-ups kept quiet and the lower-downs just laughed. When no one claimed the body after only a few days, the Feds came in and closed the case themselves.”

  “Is it closed?” Max asked.

  “The bar may not serve booze after two a.m., but that doesn’t mean the owner can’t party with a few personal friends after closing up shop. They closed up shop all right, but I wasn’t one of the personal friends. My big mouth just drew attention to the interested bastards who took it from there and shut the door in my face.”

  “You think they know more than us?” Max questioned.

  “It’s government now, like all this sorta bullshit usually gets to be...excuses and coverups...you should know that. You’ve always been civilian and in the public norm to them. But they’re digging up shit from ‘68 and related files that’ve been confidential even to me. I’m telling you, the bastards don’t know black from white. They know enough but can’t translate it, don’t know after all these years where it’s taking them. They won’t cooperate with me and someone higher won’t cooperate with them without a good enough blow job. Now...follow me, there’s something further I’d like to show you....”

  They ditched their smokes, Max motioning an obedient Rod and the two proceeded to venture across to the cement walkway of the motel corridor, bending beneath crime scene tape and furthering their approach towards the crime scene itself, where a half-dozen uniformed officers awaited them before an opened doorway.

  Max shot an observing gaze about him and to the array of on-lookers gathered along the parking lot outskirts. A doleful, dark-toned gentleman nervously fondled a beaded necklace adorning bell-bottomed attire found only in thrift stores and the late seventies, as he beheld his own dismal fortunes reflected from beneath the rainswept skies and come to pass around him. A display of several city and county squad cars littered the lot, mingling amongst the parked vehicles of leftover motel patrons who spied from the discreetly parted curtains of their rooms. An ambulance rested not far from the corridor’s hedged cobblestone walkway leading in from the lot, its rear double doors gaping while a medic team patiently awaited the go-ahead to unload a gurney.

  The uniformed officers, one at a time, caught sight of the lieutenant and the accompanying stranger until the two halted in their midst.

  “Gentlemen,” McGregor commenced a hurried introduction, “this is Maxwell Polito, a one-of-a-kind private wonder-dick who’ll be joining me at this point of the investigation. Max, these guys are top-notch motherfucking street centurions. But even after a hard day of criminal kick-ass, they’re just like the sweethearts they bring flowers home to every goddamn night. Ain’t that right, guys?”

  They snickered as though they had to.

  Max nodded a greeting, after which he added, “Officers.” He then followed Matt through the doorway of room number “0”, according to the “0” hanging loosely upon the front of the door. He eyed a fallen, cast iron “6” at his feet as he then entered and stepped upon carpet, his next steps treading past a massive terrain of thick stagnant blood flow, dried and black and rank beneath the staleness of the room’s confining quarters. A square wooden table near the kitchenette beyond rested overturned upon its side facing the wall, flanked by two toppled chairs; its outstretched table legs reached toward and above a body bag stuffed and sealed and sprawled limply like a black plastic Hefty bag readied for the garbage man to haul away on Monday.

  A woman gripping a clipboard stumbled into Max’s elbow on her way to exit, nearly losing her glasses. Two men in yellow rain jackets knelt and measured and conversed beside the body bag, their backs turned, a camera case dangling over the shoulder of one of them. Past an undisturbed queen-sized bed. In front of a sink counter and wall mirror in the rear portion of the room stood two other men in business suits, whispering to themselves below the crackling static of holstered radios. Max and McGregor caught their adverse attentions, just as the clipboard woman re-entered the room and brushed past Max on her way to the far end, joining the suited officials in their whispered banter.

  “Listen, Max,” McGregor turned and spoke sternly but softly, “I need your insight on this.”

  “That makes it ditto,” Max said. McGregor’s urgent summons had brought him here with unanswered questions and Max had been calm and observant so far. But any accumulated speculations were just as equally doubtful and hopeful as before he’d arrived, though of this new apparent homicide he entertained certain notions...after all, Matt would never have brought him here unless there were certain notions....

  McGregor continued, unexpectedly sentimental, although ever so slightly this way as if to avoid an embarrassing bonding moment between them, “Maxy, you know we were destined to know each other....”

  “You sound like my wife,” Max said.

  “....because you’ve been on this thing for so many years now, this thing that happened to me so long ago, this thing you walked in on because of me and despite a career taking you through more demanding affairs, you’ve been on this thing all your life since.”

  Max shook his head as if to shake free a confusion which suddenly came at him from all of this and when he looked back up and into Matt’s observing features, he responded by asking, “What happened here?”

  They both were interrupted by one of the men in business suits, who now appeared at McGregor’s side. He plainly had more than ten years on Matt, yet answered to him with a respect underscored with a mildly irritable hostility. . . the kind of guy who always seemed pissed off at something unspoken and over everyone’s heads, a cop who still called bodies stiffs. “Lieutenant, let’s wrap this up at the office. We’re ready to bail, throw this to the other bloodhounds. It’s Forensics’ show now.” Then, looking at Max, “Who’s this, the goddamn media already?”

  McGregor made a prompt introduction. “Hugh, this is Maxwell Polito, a private detective and close friend of mine for many years. So for chrissake, be nice to him.”

  The man gripped Maxwell’s hand cordially but skeptically. “Hugh Updike, Detective of Homicide.”

  McGregor continued, “Mister Polito has been involved in a private case for quite a while now and in effort to further his investigations he sent a shadow to observe the s
ubjects of his case at The Crow Job last Friday night. Hugh, please tell Mister Polito what Friday night has in common with the unholy shithole gore-fest we’re standing in today. The condensed version, if you will. Please.”

  Max pulled out a micro recorder from his outside jacket pocket, clicked it on and returned his attention to Detective Updike with an apologetic nod.

  Hugh sighed impatiently, undid the front button of his suit coat and anchored his hands about his waist. He began, “Two young adults we were eventually able to identify attended the event at the club Friday night and were seen leaving before the place closed. They proceeded to this motel and to their prepaid room, this room, to go fuck or whatever. At some point after or during their arrival inside this room, they were assaulted by an unidentified male Caucasian. There was a struggle, brief but as you can see violent....” A quick finger snap brought the clipboard woman to his side and he seized her clipboard.

  Scanning the first of an orderly assortment of forms and papers, he continued, “...resulting in the slaying of Benjamin Norquist, age twenty-two, victim of multiple lacerations and stab wounds and a fatal cut across the jugular. It is assumed that the unidentified intruder then had his way with Benjamin’s gal-pal before making off with her at some point soon afterwards, locking up before leaving, and no one saw nothing. A few low-lifes thought they heard loud voices, things being thrown, but nothing substantial in a dive like this. We got cream-o-the-crop evidence here, hair follicles, torn clothing, semen traces, shoe and finger prints.