When Graveyards Yawn by G. Wells Taylor (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

I smelled creosote, or cordite, or gasoline. At first I thought it was in the air, then realized the smell was coming from me. I was still in Tommy so had to bend my neck to look down. My coveralls were burnt and charred. The blood on them had been baked black. My left arm was useless. I couldn’t get it to bend. I sat up quickly. A dark orange light glowed above. My head throbbed noisily then I realized it was not my head at all. It was the sound of an engine. My first suspicion was that I was lying on the steel floor of an Authority Transport. A chill went through me like déjà vu. Willieboy smiled down at me from a bench seat. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill someone. I reached for my pink skipping rope belt, but found only a line of melted plastic fused to my waist. No gun.

Willieboy chuckled. “Here.” His large hand held out a pack of cigarettes. From a compartment beside him came a bottle of Canadian Club. “Drink?” He needn’t have asked. A part of me, that part that wasn’t shell-shocked, was experiencing an odd sense of familiarity. But I was too numb to place it. We were in the cargo bay of a transport. Both walls held benches over which ran streamlined weapons’ compartments. Authority used these big monsters when they were called in to break up a riot or start one. Transports could carry equipment, weapons and Enforcers. The benches running the length of the bay were of molded high-impact plastic. I counted places for twenty armored bottoms. Struggling onto an elbow I took the tin cup offered me—downed the drink then held it out again. I also grabbed the cigarette offered and let Willieboy light it. He was being nice to me for a reason. My singed nostrils ached.

“So there wasn’t enough left of Adrian to question?” My voice trembled.

“I didn’t mean to take him out so bad in the first place.” Willieboy smiled fiercely. “Gun jammed! Heat of the moment. He’s done.” He gestured with his chin. I turned my head and saw a clear plastic garbage bag smeared with red. It crackled as a pile of hamburger moved inside. A lidless eye peered out. The gristle around it twitched. “You never know. The King’s got some good stitch men.”

“Lovely.” I tried to shift my body away from the monstrosity. “Speaking of heat. You were playing it pretty close to the candle.”

“We were surprised. Cane’s people came in through the floor. Blew a hole and up they came. I suspected something like that. But whoever that first group was that came in through the roof, I’m still trying to figure them.”

“King’s people?” I grinned.

“Maybe…” Willieboy offered me another drink.

“The Businessmen?” I struggled onto an elbow again to accept the drink.

Willieboy gave me a hard look. “What do you mean?”

This time I smiled. “They should have been there. But, that would mean that your helicopter fired on your own group. I know the stakes are high, but you can’t buy that kind of loyalty. You know it wasn’t the King’s men in the penthouse, because you know the King’s men came in the helicopter.”

Willieboy stared for a moment, then ruined the whiskey by drinking from the bottle. I tried to register distaste in my features. He worked the liquor in his mouth. “What makes you say that?”

“You said yourself that the King was a big player. Yet, I never bumped into any of his people. Why would that be?”

“Maybe they only tailed you.” He drank again, and lit a cigarette. “It ain’t over yet.”

“The King’s a leader, not a follower. You said they were bigger than the Businessmen; yet the King would be happy with a tail, and only a tail?”

“Maybe Adrian…” He took a deep drag.

“Adrian was involved because he was lucky, or unlucky seeing how things turned out—same with Van Reydner. Besides he had his people with him at the Penthouse, and the Enforcers coming through the roof weren’t playing any favorites. They fired at everyone. You included. Adrian stumbled on Cotton at the Morocco Hotel, the same night he was there to kill Billings and collect himself another client. I think his luck finally turned on him and he got squashed between bigger players.”

“Maybe Van Reydner turned on him.” Willieboy’s eyes were evasive.

“Sold him out? No, I don’t think so. Like every loser who thinks he’s a winner, Adrian had to gloat. He talked before he passed away. He had a deal worked out with her, and she was a solo artist. I can’t see her commanding the party that came through the roof. Adrian would have known. He was a paranoid man, kept all of his phones tapped. He knew how much Van Reydner had on him so he wasn’t going to let her go anywhere without keeping tabs on her. Also, if she had wanted a double-cross she could have done that right at the start. Adrian lost track of her for a while after the Billings’ murder. She could have walked—peacefully.” I pulled on my cigarette studying Willieboy’s face. Emotions tightened the muscle on his jaws.

“I guess it wouldn’t be Cane,” he said lamely.

“Come on Willieboy, you already accounted for Cane’s people! There was another invasion force, but it wasn’t the King’s. Cane could turn Cotton into soup, but he didn’t have the motive. He needed the scientist because he didn’t have the research. Whoever pureed Cotton already had everything they could get out of his head. And Cane worked for the Twelve Stars Group. They wanted the Regenerics Secret for their own reasons. I’m sure they believed that Cotton was hiding something that somehow fit into their religion. Cotton was killed and mutilated by someone who either had the Regenerics Secret or he had Cotton’s research to fall back on. Cotton was not needed.” Willieboy shifted his eyes. “You gave me far too much direction for someone who was a small player. The King had to be represented, but I never saw his people. Who was the one recurring character in this nightmare?” I paused, then crushed my cigarette on the floor. “I called the King just like I called you and hinted that I might have some interesting things for him, Regenerics, for example. Then, when I was ready to move I called him back, told his secretary about some action at the Galaxy Tower.” Willieboy’s smile broadened. “Well, Inspector Willieboy, I never did call you back.”

Willieboy pointed a finger. “I’ve got other methods of collecting information—I sure as shit don’t need you to hand it to me. Anyway, that just proves that the force coming through the roof could have been his.”

“No. I know whose force that was. And it wasn’t the King’s.” I was playing a hunch, and I hoped he wouldn’t notice. “Mr. Willieboy. You’re working for the King of the Dead. That was his helicopter. And this is his transport.”

Willieboy scowled and studied his shirt cuffs. Then, a smile spread over his face. He produced another cigarette, offered me one.

I continued. “I wasn’t even convinced of it at first. I actually tried to hang the King of the Dead’s involvement on those three dead arsonists who torched the Morocco. Then I realized whoever had the Regenerics Secret was the only individual that needed to cover his tracks. Those arsonists were hired by Adrian to clear away any evidence. He was the only one who had something to hide, since the other players were Authority. Adrian was the only one who could be harmed by evidence.”

“That proves fuck all!” Willieboy’s face held genuine ire.

“Oh, I’m aware of that. Believe me. I know the thin tissue of a case I have. It’s just that I don’t see myself surviving the next couple of hours, so I wanted to get these things off my chest.” I puffed on my new cigarette. It hurt.

“Anything’s possible, Wildclown.” Willieboy’s smile was an admission.

“You were there too often to be linked to a group like the Businessmen.” I decided to accept another drink. “I’ve never heard of them, but I have heard of the Twelve Stars, and the King of the Dead. Cane was all over me like a bad rash. But I didn’t see the King, though you admitted he had people in Authority. The King paid for Cotton’s research. He owned the results and could personally benefit from Regenerics if it worked. But he was nowhere to be found. Odd. I was surprised I kept waking up without a foot on the back of my head.” I glared, then smirked. “You gave it away completely though when you killed Cane.”

“Oh, you noticed that.” Some of Willieboy’s easygoing manner was returning.

“He was going to say that he wasn’t the first Authority at the scene at all. That he got to the Morocco Hotel, after Cotton had been butchered.” I watched Willieboy. He had a formidable poker face. “You see, you both missed the mark because Cotton never talked to either of you. I think Cane was waiting for years for the opportunity to get what Cotton offered—it was his religion. But you, you were just trying to reclaim what your boss already owned.”

The transport took a sudden lurch, there followed the sensation of turning. Willieboy shook his head then said: “Why don’t you tell me all about it. Of course, you know, the more you talk the more difficult it will be for you to live through this. It’s your funeral.”

“Just over two years ago, the King of the Dead read about some scientist of little renown and his new theory, Regenerics. The King, being a dead man, is understandably excited by the notion of life. He contacts Cotton and sets him up in a lab. The only thing missing now is a woman who can ovulate and a man who can produce sperm.

“It just so happens, and I don’t know what sort of luck was working against her, but sure enough, Julie