PRECINCT 20: DEAD STRANGE
(Web serial, 2002 - ) - stories by A.R.Yngve
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GODSMACK
By A.R.Yngve
I
Homicide detective Innis Garris exited his apartment and walked up to the youngsters across the street. The group quickly scattered, leaving behind a skinny, leather-jacketed man with a distinctly British appearance. The skinny man staggered backward as the stocky, grave plainclothes cop reached for the shoulder holster underneath a worn overcoat.
"Easy there, mate! I'm going, I'm going. Search me if you want. Go ahead."
Garris stopped one step from the man and lowered his voice to a gravel-filled menace.
"If I ever see you pushing your dope on this street again, 'mate,' I'll shoot you on sight. Consider that a promise."
The man let out a nervous giggle, out of fear or disbelief, but the hate in Garris's narrow, deep-set eyes convinced him that the threat was sincere. He turned and ran.
"I never forget a face!" Garris shouted. Then he leaned against a fence, and steadied his breath. His legs were trembling, and his heart beat a little too fast. Being tough looked so easy on TV. Through the corners of his eyes, he checked if the neighbors had seen him. The neighborhood youngsters had scattered. He did not expect them to thank him for having (hopefully) saved them from drugs.
Still, that the drug dealers were out in the street again was sort of a good sign... it meant that people were no longer scared of the Invisible Sniper, after the police shot and killed him - or "it." He went for his car. The hubcaps were safe; he kept them locked up in the trunk.
As he drove to the Precinct 20 station, Garris listened to the police radio. The flat, unaffected voice of Sergeant Bolland caught his ear among the other messages. Bolland always acted a simpleton, but somehow his presence inspired Garris, like a mental squash court to throw thought balls at. You never knew what might bounce back from the brick wall that was Bolland's head...
"Call for Garris," said Bolland's voice. "He's going to just love this. A junkie who's found God."
Garris had no idea what Bolland was talking about, but he called Bolland's patrol car over the radio.
"What's this I hear about religious junkies, Sergeant?"
Bolland sounded exactly the same when he replied: flat. "Well, sir, this junkie I picked up sitting on the street during my early morning round... he claims there's a new dope called 'Godsmack' that puts you in direct contact with God. And he claims a friend of his, the same guy who brought in the new drug from abroad, was slain while using it."
"'Slain?' By whom?"
"By the hand of God, coming out of the air, smiting his friend down before his eyes."
"If it's true, then why isn't the drug used in churches?" Garris joked. Typical... hard users always made outrageous claims about their drug of choice. One look at their faces told another story: prematurely aged by withdrawal horrors that felt like dying over and over. Every new generation had to be taught the lesson anew: salvation could not be found in a bottle, a pill, or a syringe - only oblivion. He was not prepared to take this murder claim seriously... yet.
"I know, sir, sounds like the usual junkie talk, but maybe we've got something new for the narcs. I checked with the databank, and no one's even heard of Godsmack before. I check on the Internet, and there's a pop group by that name."
Garris scanned the streets while driving, out of habit. Once he thought he glimpsed that British dealer in the crowd, but he must have imagined it.
"Bolland..." He sighed. "If that poor soul's feeling religious, why don't you take him to the nearest church. Unless you found something on him."
"Sorry, I found nothing to bust him on, he was just raving in public. I thought you'd like to talk to him. No one else wants to. The narcs haven't shown any interest yet."
"Okay. After the briefing. Has he got an address?"
"He came out of a condemned house in Ratboro. You shouldn't go there alone."
"Then come along, Sergeant. Unless you've got more pressing business..."
"Can't say I have, sir."
***
After the morning briefing, the precinct captain followed Garris to the car park. Captain Collins was unusually calm this morning. Maybe, Garris thought, the captain was still basking in the afterglow of having officially cracked the Invisible Sniper case. Garris had kept his bargain and let Collins take the credit. And Bolland had kept his mouth shut about it, as Garris asked him to.
"Innis," Collins said, "I want you to know that I'm putting you up for promotion this year - whether you like it or not."
"Thank you, sir, but I'll have to refuse. I'm convinced that I've reached the limit of my competence, and I'm quite happy to be doing what I'm doing."
"How's the Sanford Bay murder case going?"
"Slowly. Bolland and I are going to check a new lead downtown."
"Good, good. And Garris..." The captain put a hand on the detective's thick shoulder, and Garris stopped to give Collins a curious glance. "Let's be extra, extra careful out there, okay?"
"I always am, sir."
Before the captain could say anything more embarrassing, Garris slinked out the door to the car park and met up with Bolland. The lean sergeant had a curious, almost bemused face, always surprised by everyday items - he could watch things like icicles, leaves, or clouds as if they had never occurred to him before. Garris envied him that.
Bolland drove; Garris rode shotgun, and noticed the videocamera that was mounted on the dashboard: it was switched on.
"Shot any home movies lately?" he asked, pointing at the camera. Bolland mostly forgot to use it, except for trivial occasions like traffic violations.
"Yes, I saw this beautiful woman drive a gorgeous pink Cadillac early in the morning, and I switched it on. And just then I happened to catch that junkie on tape... watch."
Garris turned on the small TV monitor and watched the replay of Bolland's encounter. A pale-looking raggedy man, aged before his time, wearing dirty sneakers, was rambling across the street talking to himself, casting anxious glances into the sky.
Bolland: Could you say that again?
Man: He cried out, "God! I see the face of God! Holy Mother Mary! The face of Javeh, Adonai, the name that should not be spoken!" And then... and then...
Bolland: Yes?
Man: A big hand came out of the air and touched his face, man, and he caught fire! Right there before my eyes, man! The hand went away, and he just fell down dead.
Bolland: Will you please give me your name, sir.
Man: I ain't saying no more without a lawyer, man.
Bolland asked the man to empty his pockets, but - as he had explained before - found nothing. He took a few notes and let the man go.
Bolland stopped before a rundown apartment block of red bricks; garbage heaps lined the streets and alleyways. "Third floor on the right," he said.
"Let's go. And keep the video camera running. It scares the car thieves away."
Bolland chuckled: "Yeah. Didn't think of that." He switched it on; the little green light on the camera was clearly visible from outside.
***
II
Ratboro lay at the mainland end of Precinct 20. It was the area that the city council would rather not talk about in public. In the cracked streets of Ratboro, most windows were broken or boarded up. Crackheads and crankheads stood huddling in street corners; passing traffic never stopped, except to make quick dope deals with gang members. Those who didn't peddle drugs sold themselves openly - and they didn't have much flesh left to sell.
Bolland parked the car outside the building where he had met the raving junkie. He and Garris walked up creaking wooden stairs, past graffitti-ridden doors with gang symbols and threats. The walls reeked of mold and urine. Cockroaches crunched under their soles, and the occasional well-fed rat ran for cover. Bolland pinched his nose.
"You smell fire?" asked Garris.
"Don't know, but it stinks."
When they came to the third floor, they saw two doorways without doors, and one shut door with a padlock. Without waiting for Garris to decide, Bolland kicked the door in and drew his gun.
"Freeze," he said out of habit - but it was he who froze, when he saw the thing on the floor.
"Jesus," Garris whispered. This he had not anticipated.
The man hadn't been making up his friend's death, after all: on the floor lay a shape exactly like a man, burned to a coal-black crisp. The stench caused Bolland to choke and cough. Garris ignored the smell and bent down over the corpse for a closer look. Bolland put a handkerchief over his mouth and nose.
"It's real, all right. Sergeant, call the station and ask the forensics team to come and dust the place. And put up an APB on the missing guy, the one you met."
"Excuse me," Bolland's muffled voice came from underneath the handkerchief, "but isn't this an open-and-shut case? Some crazed junkie torches himself while he's strung out -"
"I can't smell any gasoline or flammables. And if the body was burned here, why is the floor left unscathed? I want to ask our missing junkie if he brought the corpse here, and why."
Bolland went downstairs, phone to his ear. Garris took out a pincer and poked into the corpse's pants pockets. His eyes watered as ash drifted up from the fragmenting fabric. There was something in the pocket that hadn't burned: a metal locker key, with a number engraved.
Garris held up the sooty key and read the engraved number on it: 666. He shuddered as a sudden cold rush ran down his spine. Thoughts swirled in his head: Find locker 666. That ought to be a cinch. Could be a drug stash in there. Godsmack? A hallucinogenic, maybe? They use acetone to manufacture cocaine. Maybe he got hold of a shipment with traces of flammables in it and accidentally lit it up? The hand of God. Not the forgiving, loving God, but the stern unforgiving God of the Old Testament.
Maybe I should bring a priest when I open the locker?
His phone buzzed and he picked it up without looking at the display. "Garris here."
"I want it back," said a voice he did not recognize. It sounded angry. He couldn't place the accent. "Leave the key there. Do not take what's mine. This is the last warning."
"Who is this -"
The voice hung up on him. Garris stared in disbelief at his phone. He checked who had called him. The number was 555-666666. But 555 area codes didn't exist - only on TV and in the movies. Instinctively, Garris stuck one hand inside his coat and grasped the tiny crucifix that hung from his neck. He called Information and asked about the number 555-666666. The operator responded that no such number was in use.
Garris shook his head, jerkily, as if to shake off a bad dream, and stood up. He hesitated, then put the locker key in his pocket and called the station.
"Send out an A.P.B. to all bus stations, train stations and depots. All lockers bearing the number six-six-six are to be reported to the police, specifically to Detective Garris at the twentieth precinct."
When he came down to the car, Sergeant Bolland was stalking around the street with murder in his eyes, his nightstick ready. The patrol car was still standing, but someone had sprayed graffitti on the hood.
Garris read the sprayed red letters: "'Pigs go to hell.' Bolland, get in. We don't have time for this." Swearing under his breath, Bolland walked back to the car and started up.
***
A man in a black coat and glasses stood waiting for them as they walked in on the station floor. Bolland looked at him, expressionless.
"Look what the cat dragged in."
"Rob Ferment from the National Surveillor. I just knew he had a police-band radio. That's why I rather use the cell phone."
Ferment jumped in the way of the blocky detective, coattails flapping as if he was doing a bad Batman impersonation.
"Detective Garris? We've met before -"
"I'm busy," Garris cut him off, trying to ease past the eager journalist.
"Hear me out, Garris - you're looking for a locker, I'm looking for the story. Word on the street is there's a new satanic cult that sets people on fire. What's the connection to locker 666?"
"Have you found it?" Garris asked, instantly regretting it. "Damn. Don't interfere with my investigation, Ferment. Wait for the precinct chief to hold his press conference. Now if you could please step aside -"
The reporter backed off before a threatening glance from Bolland, and Garris walked into his small office. He hung up his coat and picked up the blackened locker key - and sat down, waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting for his head to start working. He checked his e-mail on the computer.
After a minute, the phone rang. A clerk at the train station called and reported that locker number 666 had recently been occupied by a suspect character who "looked like a junkie." Garris thanked him, asked the clerk to leave the locker for the police, stood up and paced out.
On his way to the front entrance Garris passed Bolland, who stood by the coffee machine chatting up a female officer.
"Come along, sergeant." Bolland took gulp from his paper cup and tossed it into the wastebasket.
"Big case," he told the woman and hurried after.
***
III
The local Catholic chapel was situated half a block away; Garris saved time by walking. That, plus the walk helped clearing his mind. Ever since that threatening phone call, he had had trouble thinking.
"Do you go to church, sergeant?"
"Only on cop funerals," Bolland said. Despite his coffee-and-donuts diet, he was still lean and an expert walker. "My parents were, ah, freethinkers."
"Not all cops are Irish Catholics," Garris said plainly. "I just look like one." When they came to the church entrance, Garris thought about the sex scandals that had rocked the Catholic Church in America. What were the odds that the priest he chose to talk to was a pedophile? If only there was a litmus test to find a truly good man. He could really need to talk to one right now...
They found the verger inside the chapel and asked for the priest on duty. He led them to a small office in the back, where a middle-aged man with pale eyes sat reading the paper. He was wearing a black frock and a priest's collar. His hair was a little too neat to look real; it might be a hairpiece. Garris flashed his badge; Bolland took off his cap and stood by the door like a shy schoolboy.
The pale-eyed priest shook hands with the detective; his handshake was firm, but not too strong. He did not seem worried by the arrival of the police; this comforted Garris.
"Father Joseph Holby at your service. How may I help you, officer?"
"Father, I'd like you to come along down to the train station as a... consultant on religious matters."
The priest seemed genuinely bemused.
"Could you please elaborate?"
"I'll tell you on the way. This shouldn't take more than half an hour at most. I cannot explain how important your help is, but... trust me. Please?"
Sergeant Bolland made a rare facial expression: he raised his eyebrows.
"Okay," said the priest, shrugging, and reached for his jacket. "Shall I bring the Bible?"
"Yes, please. And some exorcism equipment. Bolland, call for a squad car to pick us up from the street. Let's start walking now."
Bolland's eyes widened perceptibly. The priest complied with Garris's request and all three hurried outside, driven by the detective's urgent aura.
***
When they arrived at the central train station afternoon rush hour was in full swing, and the waiting hall was packed with stressed commuters.
The clerk on duty met them by the wall of lockers, and pointed out locker 666 in the far corner. There were exactly 670 locker doors, stretching across two walls.
Holby moved ahead of the group and stopped by the 666th locker door. Bolland began to stop him, but Garris held out an arm in front of the sergeant.
"Wait. Father, what do you think?"
"Can't you smell it?" the priest almost shouted. "Brimstone!" He produced a small flask, opened it and sprinkled drops of what seemed like ordinary water on the locker door, while he chanted in Latin. Then he turned to Garris - and he was sweating: "You can open it, officer - but be careful. Temptation is in the air. Do not yield to it."
Garris found it hard to focus his thoughts; his heart pumped faster than normal, and he needed to pee badly. He took the sooty key, put it in the lock, and turned it. The locker door opened effortlessly. Inside lay a shapeless, dirty canvas bag. It really did smell of sulphur, like the priest had said... but the smell was so faint that Garris hadn't registered it before the door opened. As the others looked on silently, Garris unzipped the bag and looked inside.
A small plastic shopping bag lay there, taking up only a fraction of the canvas bag's space. He opened the plastic bag and found a pile of tiny plastic packets - each filled with yellow-tinted crystals, like the bathing salts sold in health shops. The smell of sulphur was stronger. This did not look like any other dope he had seen before.
"Father," he said, offering one transparent packet to the priest. "What do you think about this? Word on the street is, this dope puts the user in direct contact with God. They call it, pardon me for saying it, 'Godsmack.'"
Holby took the packet, held it up to the light, and one could see his hand tremble. His pale eyes seemed to darken slightly - or maybe it was an illusion created by the flickering ceiling lights.
"Impossible," Holby said faintly. "There cannot be such a thing as a holy drug. Drugs are but the Devil's filthy lies, lies to cloud one's senses and steal the soul. But..." His eyelids fluttered, and he quickly wetted his lips.
Garris reached out and snatched the packet from the priest, and put it back into the canvas bag.
"This is evidence in a drug death investigation. I'll take it to the lab for analysis. I promise to tell you what they came up with." He held out his hand to thank him. "I... I apologize for dragging you here. It must've seemed foolish."
Holby shook his head: "No, you were right to be cautious. Be careful, officer Garris. You're a better man than you think. If you feel weak, seek comfort in the word of the Lord. Good luck."
"Shall I drive you back, Father?" Bolland asked hastily.
"I'll find my way, sergeant. Thank you."
Holby disappeared into the crowd.
"Well, he was in a hurry," Bolland said.
"As we ought to be," Garris replied. "Come on, let's get this stuff to the police lab. I'll write a report, a brief one. Whatever you do, don't let Collins hear about the religious angle. Or we'll both be the laughingstock of the office."
"Right, sir."
***
IV
Garris delivered the bag of suspect crystals to the city police lab. Then he went back to the office and wrote a report on the day's findings. The coroner's report on the charred junkie's corpse had just arrived, but added little of substance. Garris had to wait for the full autopsy, but according to the coroner it seemed like the junkie had been set on fire alive at some other location - most likely in a crematory or industrial furnace - and then brought to his comrade's apartment.
This theory did not match the other junkie's statement - though it sounded far more credible - and why should Garris trust the already fractured mind of a raving addict? And if the burning had happened in a furnace, how come the locker key had not melted?
He went home at six in the evening, saying goodnight to Bolland.
***
The phone by the bed rang. He fumbled for the receiver and picked it up, dimly noticing the time on the alarm clock: five in the morning.
"Hello?"
"You took what was mine," the angry voice said. "I warned you. You are going to regret this."
"Who is this?"
"Let's make a deal. If you bring me back my merchandise, I'll make you very rich. Richer than you could possibly imagine. There's still time to turn this around. I'll get back to you when you've got my merchandise back."
Again, the voice disconnected. Garris was wide awake. He had wanted to ask the caller: Who killed that junkie, who burned him to a charred husk of coal? There were several options, none of them pleasant.
He got out of bed, dressed and drove to the chapel near the 20th Precinct station.
***
Holby had just arrived at the back entrance. Garris walked up to him, yawned, and shook hands. It was a freezing, dry morning. A thin frost of early winter coated all surfaces and trees around them, and Garris noticed the priest was wearing attachable frost-nails on his shoes.
"Good morning, Officer Garris," said the pale-eyed priest. "How is the investigation of the drug find going?"
"Still waiting for the technicians to send in test results. Father, could I have a word with you?"
Holby's face assumed a solemn quality. "Do you have something to confess?"
"A theological issue."
"Come into my office."
Garris sat down and accepted a cup of hot tea from the priest's thermos. He waited until Holby had poured his own tea, and leaned forward in his chair.
"I'm what you might call a lapsed Christian," Garris said, his voice muted and uncertain.
"You're not the only one, I gather." Holby smiled a little.
"I was raised a Catholic, but as a young man I became disenchanted with organized religion - though I never stopped believing in some kind of divine presence, in good and evil. I had this recurring idea that the religious experience ought to be... unmediated. As direct as possible. You know what I mean?"
"Ah, yes. I respect your view, though my church holds a different view."
"When I first heard about this dope we confiscated at the station, I thought it was just the usual junkie talk. Drug addicts are consummate liars, always promising the moon..."
"But...?"
"Yesterday, before I asked you to come along on the drug bust, we found the corpse of a man who had supposedly taken that drug we found... 'Godsmack.' I saw with my own eyes that he had been burned into charcoal. Like spontaneous combustion - not a trace of the corpse being moved, no smell of kerosene or anything, no burn marks or matches on the floor. As if he had just... caught fire, right there. His junkie friend claimed he had seen the man catch fire when he used the drug."
"I see." Holby took a long sip from his cup. "Do you believe in the Devil, Garris?"
"Quite frankly... no. In my work, I have seen much evil and depravity... but no signs of an outside evil causing it. All the evils were done by human beings. The evil always seemed part of them, not imposed upon them by some entity. I figured... that the evil is inherent in Man; we were created both good and evil from the beginning."
Holby nodded. "You're a Manichean, I gather."
"Could be."
"So how did the dead man change your mind on the... drug?"
"I've been receiving anonymous phone calls from a man who demands to have the drugs back. First he threatened me, then he offered a bribe in return for the drugs. I couldn't trace his number."
Holby paled and put his cup down on the desk. "I would say this drug is the work of the Devil."
Garris took a deep breath, and focused on the priest's frightened eyes. "I thought about that, too... but then I had another idea. No one but God would be able to create a drug of that kind. What then, if the drug belongs to God? What if this God is both good and evil, like us? A wrathful, possessive entity like my anonymous caller. It is not in my power to arrest God for creating a drug that kills people. I can't stop him. If God became a drug dealer, maybe no one can."
"This is blasphemy," Holby said, frowning in fear and disgust. "Reject such Satanic ideas at once! The Lord would never indulge in crime. Never!"
Unsmilingly, Garris said: "According to the Bible, the Lord killed off almost the whole human race once - all but Noah and his family. That always did strike me as a great crime, and yet no one suggested God should be held accountable for genocide."
Holby stood up, white-faced. "Could you please leave, officer. I have a whole day's work ahead of me."
"I apologize," Garris said helplessly, full of regret. "I didn't mean to sound so -"
"Good day to you, officer."
Garris nodded, and exited without shaking hands. He felt like a jerk. On his way past the church doors, he dropped fifty dollars into the poor-box. He would have to skip lunch now, but his appetite was gone anyhow.
***
V
Captain Collins was surprised to see Garris sitting in the briefing room half an hour in advance.
"Good morning, Garris," he said, carrying his laptop computer onto the small podium. "What are you doing here so early? Losing sleep over that torched junkie?"
"I just got the autopsy report," Garris said, holding up a printout of the report. Collins did not seem interested in looking at it. "Dental records identify the corpse as one Fred Loyola from New York. He's got a rap sheet for the usual petty junkie crimes, he'd only earned a few years hard time. I checked with the travel agencies, and whaddya know... Fred flew to London recently, and came back two days ago. God knows how he passed customs with that bag of junk we found in his locker."
"You're sure he wasn't held up at the airport?" Collins asked, without looking up from his laptop. "Damn this Microsoft crap. Can you help me sort out this display program for the briefing?"
"Ask Melvin at the network office. The lab is still working over the drug find. What really puzzles me is this: Loyola's drug stash reeked. It smelled real bad, like sulphur. So how did it pass the drug-sniffing, bomb-sniffing dogs at the airports in both London and New York?"
"Maybe he passed it off as French cheese?"
"I don't think he picked it up abroad. It was given to him here."
"You still don't know what it is. It could be some disgusting European food."
Garris quietly wished the captain would stop mentioning food.
"I'll go talk to Bolland."
"Get back in time for the briefing," Collins muttered, still struggling with the computer program. "And get me Melvin!"
***
Bolland came out of the locker room, neatly dressed in his dark-blue uniform and suit, a half-eaten donut in one hand. Garris almost ran into him.
"Bolland, I... forgot to ask you to about that witness..."
"You look a bit tired, sir. That burned corpse gave me bad dreams too. I thought you wanted to find the witness, so I got Melvin to help me on the video feed from the car camera. He 'captured' an image of that witness's face and ran it through the computerized register of offenders."
The sergeant showed Garris the image file on his computer. "This new facial-recognition software is great, saves me days of work."
"Ignatz Quemada," Garris read. "Got an address?"
"I was just going to call his parents in town." Bolland pushed the box of donuts across the table to Garris. "Help yourself, sir."
"Thanks."
Garris sat down with a donut and coffee, and waited as Bolland made the call. He couldn't stop thinking about the mysterious caller. It was slowly getting easier to put things in perspective. Of course the caller didn't have to be a supernatural drug dealer. Only human beings called people over the phone and made dumb threats. He probably found Garris's phone number the natural way, through connections. Ignatz Quemada must've snooped on me and Bolland when we went into the condemned block, he thought. Then he heard my name and tipped off the dealer. What a superstitious fool I've been. When I find that Ignatz I won't let him go until he talks.
Bolland uttered elaborate thanks into the desk phone and put down the receiver, jotting down notes on a pad.
"Last they heard of his son was he lived with a girl over on forty-second Fulton Road. Want me to call her first, sir?"
"Jesus, Bolland. Are you as tired as I am? Of course we don't call her. Then Ignatz'll just run and hide. Get the unmarked car."
"Sorry," Bolland said in his typical flat, unaffected manner. "Guess I'm a little off-balance today."
"Apology accepted," Garris said, grinning wryly as he pushed himself out of the chair. "Wanna catch the morning briefing? The captain's got a really fetching audiovisual presentation in the works for us."
Bolland's face showed no emotion, but his feet shifted uneasily.
Garris told him: "You had to catch a witness right away and couldn't be present. I'll tell you what went down at the briefing. Okay?"
"Right."
Bolland hurried to the car park, and Garris mosied over to the briefing room.
***
"Has anyone here heard about 'Godsmack?' asked the captain.
The officers shrugged and murmured a collective, uncertain no. Garris sat quiet, trying to catch some fleeting shut-eye.
"Isn't that a rock group?" asked one cop, and the others laughed.
Collins sighed. "Franklin will brief you." He ushered in the dark-skinned, short detective in charge of the narcs at Precinct 20. Garris did not know him personally, and Franklin was fairly new to the precinct - his predecessor had been killed in the line of duty a few months before.
"The other day a known drug addict was found cremated in a crack house downtown. Early this morning another one was found, also cremated... alive. A witness identified him as one Ignatz Quemada."
Garris sat upright so abruptly, he nearly fell out of his chair. Franklin looked at him.
"Did I wake you up, Garris?"
"I was looking for Quemada," Garris told him quickly. "He claimed to know something about Godsmack, and he also told sergeant Bolland he saw his associate, Fred Loyola, die from taking Godsmack. We found Loyola burned to a crisp. Yesterday."
Franklin visibly expanded his chest, like a bullfrog making itself larger.
"Damn it, why didn't you tell me sooner, Garris? Did you find any drugs on him?"
Garris became aware of everyone in the room staring at him, and his shabby, unshaven appearance.
"Uh, we... found a whole stash of the drug in Loyola's locker at the train station. I delivered it to the lab for analysis yesterday. I was of course unaware of the second death... the, uh, substance did not resemble any known drug."
"I appreciate the swift action, Garris," Franklin said in a terse voice, "but frankly you should've told me the moment you found the stash. Are you all right?"
"Yeah, Garris," the captain said, "you look sick. What's the matter with you?"
The room blurred around Garris, and the voices became distant. "I'm okay, just a little... warm..."
Garris blinked, tried to rise, fell off his chair and fainted.
***
Garris became dimly aware of a presence; it reminded him of what he had felt when the anonymous voice called over the phone. It was shapeless, dark, sentient and selfish. Or just a bad dream.
See me, the entity demanded. Behold my radiant face.
With his thoughts, Garris replied honestly: I see nothing. I have never seen a face. You have no face.
The voice spoke, in rising and falling waves of presence: The others saw me. See me.
Why? asked Garris.
Because I command it. See me. Fear me. Like you were taught.
This is stupid. I don't see anything anymore. I don't feel anything. It's gone.
The voice turned into a gurgling rumble, like malfunctioning pipes in an apartment, and went away.
***
VI
He woke up in the hospital; an intravenous drip tube was stuck in his arm. Sergeant Bolland sat in a chair next to him, reading a magazine.
"Feeling better, sir?" Garris checked himself and found himself feeling well. "You slept almost six hours. I'll call the doctor."
"Ignatz Quemada's dead," Garris said; Bolland did not so much as blink.
"I heard."
"What did you find out from Quemada's girlfriend?"
Bolland read from his notepad: "He'd been over to her place last night, real scared. He was talking about 'Godsmack' and was going to score it. He even wanted her to join him, but she got scared and asked him to leave. That's all. He left nothing of it for her; seems he only had taken a small amount from Loyola's stash."
"It's safe to assume they were the first two people in the country who got their hands on it?"
Bolland nodded.
"And no word of who gave them the stash, or if they stole it?"
"Nothing, sir."
Garris sat up. "This is ridiculous. A new drug appears out of nowhere, someone dies from it and his friend immediately wants to try it. Where's the reason in that?"
Bolland kept reading as he replied: "If you want my opinion, sir, it's all a scam. The lab report's coming in soon, and I'm sure they'll tell us there is no drug. Crazed junkies committing suicide and making up urban legends."
"Why would someone bother to call me over the phone and ask for the stash, if it's useless?"
"There's no use asking yourself, sir. Crazy people... do crazy things." He held up the magazine; it was the new issue of National Surveillor, with the frontpage headline: SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION DRUG EPIDEMIC! Junkie burns up from O.D.
"Maybe our reporter set the junkies on fire to create a story," Garris quipped as he stood up. "Nah, forget it. He's not that ambitious."
A man dressed as a doctor came in the door. Garris cut him off with an impatient gesture. "I'm leaving, Doc. Just tell me what I got."
The doctor frowned and looked down on his papers. "Overexertion and possible poisoning. I took a small blood sample and found minute traces of a rapidly disintegrating sulphur-based substance. Have you been in contact with toxic chemicals lately?"
"No, I... Garris's eyes widened. "Yes." Bolland raised a finger. "I touched the plastic bag, and some of the crystal powder might have gotten on my skin or into my lungs... deadly stuff, that."
"Did you find God, sir?" Bolland asked spontaneously. Garris very nearly got angry with him.
"No. Get me my clothes. Doc, can I have a copy of that blood test?"
"Of course."
"Where to, sir?" Bolland asked.
"The lab. Or did Franklin beat us to it?"
"I don't know. But isn't this his case now? O.D.s ain't Homicide business..."
"Poisoning is murder, sergeant. Someone doesn't hand out a new drug that toxic without reason. I think the dealer was fully aware of the danger; he wanted to kill the users in spectacular fashion, and create a new legend."
Or, he thought, a new myth.
***
VII
They got to the police lab - it was housed in a wing of the Antonioni University - and found a chaos of people, smoke and firemen. The laboratory's glassed-in central workspace was sealed off by "Do-Not-Cross" tape. A film of yellowish-gray smoke covered the big windows, making it impossible to look inside.
A technician explained to Garris what had just happened. "A crazy priest... Holby, I think his name was... came in and demanded to see the 'Godsmack' sample. I told him it was off-limits, and he pulled a gun, forced us to open the lab and give him the bag."
"Have you done the tests on it yet?"
"We're swamped here, okay?" the technician complained. "I've got a batch of terrorist explosives to run tests on... the Godsmack tests were due tomorrow. The priest locked himself up in the lab and set the bag on fire. That's when he started screaming. We ran out when the fire began, and the sprinklers came on."
"Are you sure that was what happened?" Garris asked; he tried to look into the smoke-filled lab but couldn't see anything. Then he saw the security camera in the ceiling, and had a revelation. "Could I see the surveillance tape from inside the lab?"
"Sure."
They went over to the security guard's office and rewound the surveillance tape. The monitor showed Holby, with a pistol, carrying the canvas bag into the lab area. Holby didn't set the canvas bag on fire; the technician had misinterpreted events. Instead, the priest opened the plastic bag and swallowed the contents of one plastic packet.
They could all see what had happened next. Holby fell to his knees on top of the canvas bag, his eyes bulged and seemed to cloud over, his body went into convulsions, and he screamed.
"God! Your face! Have mercy on me... God!"
Holby's eyes burst into flames and he collapsed over the canvas bag. His body turned into a bright flame, incinerating itself and the bag with the drug packets. The bag itself caught fire, spraying the lab with a firework of sparks. That was all. It was over.
"Case closed," Garris said to himself, ashen-faced. He was going to have nightmares about that priest, he just knew it.
"You don't think the drug is gonna pop up again, sir?" Bolland asked, frowning slightly.
"I'll ask the dealer."
***
On their way from the campus area, Garris and Bolland ran into Franklin and a squad of his narcs in SWAT suits, submachine guns and flak jackets.
"I heard about the fire," Franklin said breathlessly. "Any of the Godsmack left?"
"Probably not," Garris said, walking on.
"Jesus, Garris," Franklin shouted, and grabbed the man's sleeve. Garris halted and faced down the glowering, angry, shorter man. "You saw the dope. You touched it, maybe you got some on your skin, and got sick. We could test your blood. We could -"
Garris took the doctor's report from his coat pocket and shoved it in Franklin's face.
"You read it. They found something with sulphur. It dissolves quickly. No aftereffects."
He went to the car, ignoring Franklin's curses.
They had settled in the front seats, when Garris's phone rang. He knew who it was.
"Garris, Homicide."
The voice was still angry, but a little less so: "It's settled then - no thanks to you. Did you try it on yourself? What did you see?" There was eagerness in the question, and overt malice.
"Nothing," Garris said rapidly, with total focus. "I saw nothing. It was a disappointment. And you know what I learned from that?"
"What?" the voice whipcracked.
"The effect of Godsmack is determined by the belief of the user. The first victims - Quemada, Loyola, the priest - were all Catholics or from Catholic families. I was affected according to my own belief. Sure, I had some remnants of the old faith left that you could play on, but not much. When I stopped going to church, I believed you were a mean-spirited son of a bitch, a bully playing in his little personal sand lot, so that's what I experienced.
"And even that is going away. I don't think you really exist anymore. You're more like a dying parasite on human minds, a dealer in fear. Godsmack was your test run, a last-ditch attempt to prop up your tenuous existence and create new believers. But you're fading out. Soon you've disappeared, like a dream."
"No! The drug works! It proves I exist!"
"I find you guilty. I sentence you to death, and the punishment is to be exacted as of now. Die."
"No! Nooo! Nooooo..."
Howling, the voice faded out - and the connection ceased. Garris looked at the phone display: NUMBER INVALID. He turned to Bolland. The sergeant was talking into his own cell phone, and hadn't been listening to a word Garris had said.
"I'll be coming now, honey," Bolland told his wife. "Gotta drive Garris home first. Love you too. Bye." He put down the phone and gave the detective a bemused glance. "Why are you smiling, sir?"
Smiling? Garris hadn't noticed.
"I think I ought to spend more time around people," he said. "Would your wife mind if I dropped in for dinner?"
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