Devoted(109)
He intended to introduce them in this order: Rhodes, Colby, and Daniels. Rodchenko was being Daniels, and when his name was spoken, it would be the signal to pull their Tasers.
Then Verbotski hesitated because he saw the idiot smile slip off the boy’s face, saw intelligence in those blue eyes, saw contempt in the black man’s face, saw Ben Hawkins putting a hand on the mantel clock as though to reach behind it. Suddenly he knew that intuition was not Volkskunde, after all, that he should have shot Hawkins on the doorstep, that he needed to shoot the bastard now, shoot the black dude and shoot the Latina bitch and shoot the kid, shoot them all before they made a move, and take Megan captive. She was the only one they really needed.
119
Deputy Foster Bendix was assigned to a winding rural route where nothing ever happened except DUI arrests, teenagers busting themselves up while back-road drag racing, good old boys blasting away at road signs just for the fun of it, if you called that fun, and vehicle breakdowns to which he could lend a helping hand. At times, Foster thought he was more of a janitor, cleaning up messes, than he was a cop.
In the dismal gray light of the storm, through thick curtains of rain, as he passed the former trailer park, where the planned bird-slaughtering system had failed to be approved, he thought he was seeing a mirage, a fata morgana, except not illusions of cliffs and buildings, but ranks of cars and SUVS.
No one had lived there in years. The mobile homes were gone. There had once been power hookups and connections for gas and septic tanks, but the utilities had been cut off long before the decision was made not to build the windmills. The property wasn’t suitable for any kind of gathering.
In fact, the county owned the land, couldn’t find a buyer for it, and was liable for any injuries that anyone might sustain there. No funds had been provided for a fence, but they had staked some no-trespassing signs at the entrance.
Because it fell to Foster Bendix to pursue any miscreants who ignored the signage, he drove off the county road and onto the buckled and cracked blacktop of that forlorn property. The most vehicles he’d ever seen here before was one, always at night. One teenage couple or another with nowhere else to go, doing the Meat Loaf thing, like he sang about in “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.”
Standing side by side in the pelting rain, these vehicles all appeared to be without drivers or passengers, unless everyone was lying down, which Foster didn’t credit. There were Hondas and BMWs, SUVs and crew-cab pickups, a couple of vans with sliding side doors. Most of the license plates were from California, but three were from Oregon. He counted forty-one vehicles.
Not sure what to do, he called the current watch commander, Cecil Kalstrom, and Cecil said, “Did you have a close-up look at ’em, see if there’s maybe dead people slumped in ’em or something?”
“Why would there be so many dead people?”
“Could be some cult, like that Jim Jones thing years ago, and they all met to kill themselves.”
“You’ve got some imagination, Sarge.”
“All my imagination ten times over couldn’t keep up with the weirdness that’s really out there. Look in some of the cars.”
“The way it’s raining, some Noah somewhere is building himself an ark.”
“It’s a rough life being a uniformed hero.”
“Ten-four,” Foster said.
120
Thunder and rain and voices below.
Kipp in the upstairs hall, at the top of the stairs, standing ready, head raised. Every muscle tense.
Trembling with the expectation of action.
Woody on the Wire: Now, now, now!
Kipp howled, not just on the Wire, but for real.
Behind him in the hall, other dogs howled, as did still others in the bedrooms.
The dogs he had summoned on the Wire. Before dawn of this very day. According to the plan worked out with Ben and Megan.
These Mysterians had been silent, waiting. They had been still and poised.
Now they cried their outrage and flew to the fight.
Kipp raced down the stairs.
A thunder separate from the thunder of the storm filled the house, the booming of paws pounding down the steps behind him.
121
Verbotski reached under his suit for a cross-body draw, and all the demons in Hell howled at once. As he pulled the pistol from his belt holster, the pack exploded off the stairs, across the foyer—German shepherds, golden retrievers, Labradors, Dobermans, mastiffs, rottweilers—barking, snarling, teeth flashing, a score of dogs, a double score, even more than that, a crashing sea of dogs breaking onto the shore of the living room. A mastiff leaped, a hundred-plus pounds of irresistible force, and John Verbotski proved not to be an immovable object, staggering backward as the dog slammed into him. A golden retriever seized his wrist in its mouth, the pistol flew from his grip, he stumbled sideways and collided hard with an end table, lost his balance, fell to his knees. Dogs swarmed him, nipping at his hands when he tried to reach for his Taser, for the pressurized can that would stream chloroform. When he attempted to struggle back onto his feet, they tore at the sleeves and panels of his suit coat and pulled him to the floor, flattened him facedown, flopped across his back and legs to pin him in place. A rottweiler licked the back of his neck and breathed on it, every hot exhalation a mortal threat that Verbotski, even in his bewilderment, took seriously.