Part 35 (1/2)

”I know it on account of 'cos Natter, see, he come in here and told me.”

”Wait a minute, wait a minute, Gut,” Phil caught him up. ”You're telling me that Cody Natter came into this jail one night and told you this stuff about sacrifices and demons?”

”Er, well, it weren't like he came in here phys-ick-erty.” Gut, then, pointed to his temple. ”He come inta my head, see? Most ever night. Sometimes while's I'se sleepin' and sometimes not. And he whispers ta me and shows me things, in my head. He shows me this demon, and he shows me hade's place. Says he's got hisself a special place fer me down there once he gits me.”

Oh, for Christ's sake, Phil thought in disgust. There goes my eyewitness right out the window. I can see him sitting up on the stand testifying and then telling the judge that Natter comes into his head at night and shows him demons. Phil despondently put his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes. ”You know, Gut, that s.h.i.+t you do really f.u.c.ks up a person's brain.”

”What s.h.i.+t ya talkin' 'bout?”

”Dust, Gut. Flake. PCP. It's f.u.c.king horse tranquilizer processed through paint thinner and industrial solvents. It causes irreversible brain receptor damage.”

”Aw, but ya got it wrong. I ain't smoked flake but maybe twice in my life, and that were years ago. Didn't like it, so's I never did it again.”

Yeah, right, and the Pope s.h.i.+ts in the woods.

”Now I ain't sayin' we weren't movin' it. What me an' Scott-Boy did, see, was we used ta wait behind bars at night and jack guys out fer their green. Scott-Boy, he had hisself a pair of bra.s.s knucks that'd do a zinger on the biggest of fellas. And we went on doin' that some, when the pickin' was ripe, but, see, we could make lots more scratch faster by running drops fer Sullivan and Eagle. Folks buy the s.h.i.+t right up, any town you can name from here ta Lockwood. Big money ta be made. 'A'course, I knows now all that s.h.i.+t we pulled, either ruckin' or working fer Sullivan, was bad. And I also know that's why Natter wants ta git me, to send me ta hade's place where I'll have ta pay fer my sins. See, what he plans to do is s.n.a.t.c.h me when I get outta here, and then he'll take me to the demon.”

Phil groaned. Why does this s.h.i.+t always happen to me? Why do I always get the live ones? So far, nothing jibed. Every time he got close, his leads turned to garbage. It was almost like this case had put a curse on him.

”It's part of their religion,” Gut said.

Phil's thoughts stalled a moment. Religion. What had Sullivan told him at the county lockup?

Something about the Creekers' religion...

But that was ridiculous. Mullins was right: Gut was obviously suffering from a PCP-related psychosis. Crazier than a possum in a s.h.i.+thole, you ain't kidding, Chief. Nothing Gut said could be deemed reliable. He wasn't fit to testify, and never would be.

”Thanks for your time, Gut,” Phil got up and said. ”You sure you don't want me to let you out of there?”

Gut flinched at a sudden pang of fright; his belly jiggled. ”No, man, please. I ain't safe nowhere's else. Please don't make me leave.”

”All right, Gut. You want to stay in there a few more days and get your head together, that's fine.”

”Ain't nothin'wrong with my head. I know it all sounds crazy, but it's true.”

”Sure, Gut. Later.”

”And you best be careful, man. Don't go messin' with Natter and them Creekers, or else they'll be doin' the same job on you they did ta Scott-Boy. They'se be sacker-ficin' you to that there demon.”

”I appreciate your concern, Gut, and you can be certain I'll keep it in mind.” Jesus, just what I need, another whack, Phil thought. Aren't there enough eightb.a.l.l.s in the world?

Phil began to walk out, but before he made it to the hall, a single word sounded behind him: ”Skeet-inner.”

He stopped, stood a moment. The word nailed him in place. He walked back to Gut's cell.

”What does that word mean?” he asked very slowly.

”That's what they calls the demon,” Gut replied. ”I thinks it's sort of a nickname, 'cos it's got another name, too.”

”What's that?”

”Ona,” Gut said.

Twenty-Eight.

Skeet-inner, Phil thought. Ona.

He drove the Malibu down the Route, the two words hanging like vapor in his mind. They wouldn't go away.

A demon.

Phil didn't believe in demons, but he definitely believed there were lots of people who did. The country was full of whacked-out cults that wors.h.i.+pped the devil-you read about them in the papers every day. And a lot of these cults incorporated drug-use in their rituals, and also sold drugs to finance their activities.

Before he'd left the station's jailhouse, he'd asked Gut about the other words he'd heard. Mannona. Onamahn. Prey-bee. Where Sullivan had dismissed them as ”Creeker talk,” Gut had indeed verified them as still more designations regarding the Creekers' religion...

It could all be meaningless, but then again, everything Phil found out about Natter and his Creekers would lend a better understanding of them. And the more he understood them, the closer he could get.

Except when all my leads are either crazy, clamming up, or dead, he reminded himself. Starting from scratch would be a pain in the a.s.s, but there was no other alternative. He'd have to go back to Sallee's and try to cultivate more low-life, get back into the scene. Still too early, though, he realized when he looked at his watch. The denizens didn't generally start coming in till midnight or so.

To kill time, he went back to his room and read more in the books he'd gotten from the library. One text did indeed mention a frequency among inbred communities to partic.i.p.ate in non-Judeo-Christian systems of wors.h.i.+p. This, of course, stood to reason: in their sheer isolation, such communities and settlements had no exposure to more popular religious beliefs. They existed and developed within their own spheres of influence; therefore, it made sense that their theological beliefs would develop on their own, too. Most of these religions, though, were nature-oriented, or revolved around self-made superst.i.tions. Many actually were rooted in guilt-syndromes; in other words, the inbreds believed that the ”G.o.ds,” through birth deformities, were punis.h.i.+ng them for their sins. And those born non-defected were frequently given higher social status; sometimes they were even wors.h.i.+pped themselves as semi-G.o.ds, as proof of forgiveness. The book, however, made no mention specifically of demonological beliefs.

In time, Phil's curiosities took him back to the more technical text, the one with photoplates. Again, his most immediate observation came when comparing the book's most extreme examples of inbred defectivity to the most extreme examples he had seen himself among Natter's Creekers. The enlarged heads (hydrocephalus), lengthened bone structures (endo-acromegaly), and cleft skulls (cranial bivalvism or ”split-head syndrome”) were all well-known traits of congenital inbred birth defects, all caused by hypersecretions of pituitary growth hormones. Also common were crimson irises, additional or missing fingers and toes, even extra limbs (adulterated biamous appendagalus). But it was the extent of these extremes that struck Phil right off.

The textbook depictions were minor in comparison. He understood that the more actively inbred the community, the more grievous the defects. And this could only mean that Natter's Creekers had been inbreeding for a very long time.

Next the text delved deeper into causal aspects of inbreeding. Initially, parental or sibling reproduction presented only one chance in about nine of producing a defected offspring. But it was exponential. After generations of incestuous reproduction, a community's gene pool became so corrupted that normal births were rare. The text gave examples of several such communities which hadn't known a normal birth in decades, yet-quite futilely-these same communities would inbreed even more actively on the false a.s.sumption that the more births they achieved, the greater the chances of a rare normal birth.

G.o.d, this stuff's dense, he thought, reading on in the lamplight. Some of the words hurt his eyes just to look at.

Here was an oddity: homeoaxial transfective deflection-What a mouthful, Phil thought-a congenital syndrome where a person displayed horrendous defects while remaining possessed of absolutely normal reproductive genes. And here was another oddity, the kicker: ”Hierarchal savantism.” Phil had skimmed this description the other day, but now he read it carefully. One more commonality among inbreds. By some chromosomal fluke (which was termed h.o.m.otopic genetic inversionism), some were born with grievous physical defects but normal if not brilliant minds, and these persons often became the community's leaders...

Natter, Phil thought.

At midnight, he embarked for Sallee's.

The notion of religion continued to peck at him. Were the Creekers really an inbred cult that wors.h.i.+pped a demon? And were they actually sacrificing people in some sense of appeas.e.m.e.nt, or in some plea for forgiveness? And if so: Was Natter the ”priest” of the ”sect”?

Phil s.h.i.+vered. The entire idea shed new light on Natter's possible motivations. Maybe he's more than just a pimp and a drug lord, Phil considered. Maybe he's also some crackpot cult governor urging his followers to commit murder...

He parked in the back of Sallee's; the lot, as usual, was jammed. Concussive music hit him in the face the second he walked through the door. ”Highway to h.e.l.l,” the speakers thundered. Cigarette smoke burned his eyes; the strobe lights flashed. Up on stage an ungainly blonde scarred by tattoos was demonstrating the dexterity of her pectorals, flexing them to the beat, which made her b.r.e.a.s.t.s jump up and down as if jerked by unseen strings. Then she flung herself to the top of the bra.s.s stage-pole and spiraled all the way down, a human corkscrew.

Don't worry, honey, you'll make the Olympics next time. Phil pulled up a stool, and in less than a second a draft was placed before him. ”Ya never get here early enough,” the keep complained.

”Don't tell me, I missed Sting whipping Ric Flair's a.s.s.”