Solomon Creed

‘A lot of folks thought it was inappropriate, said it’s not what the church is for. They cash the subsidy cheques the trusts give out, but they don’t want to think about where that money comes from. One of the joys of being mayor: all the grief and none of the credit. Like being a parent, I guess.’

‘You don’t have children?’

‘Never was blessed. Are you OK? You seem kind of uncomfortable.’

‘I’m fine,’ Solomon said. ‘Just don’t like being confined.’

Cassidy looked across at him like he was afraid he might throw up in his nice antique car. ‘Leave the window open if it makes you happy.’

‘Thanks.’ Solomon opened it all the way down again and relished the wind on his face. It carried the smell of smoke with it now and he could see it ahead of them, a curtain of darkness spreading right across the sky with tiny figures and vehicles spread out in front of it. ‘Only those who face the fire,’ he murmured, ‘can hope to escape the inferno.’

‘You know who wrote that?’ Cassidy asked.

Solomon dredged his mind and was surprised to discover that he didn’t. And in the perverse nature of his teeming brain he regarded any knowledge that didn’t come easy to him as significant. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘It was Jack Cassidy. He designed the whole church then painted the frescoes too. He was what you might call a renaissance man. Could turn his hand to anything: miner, businessman, architect, painter, author – you name it, he tried it. And most likely mastered it too. Not bad for a man who started life as a locksmith.’

‘Quite a troubled man too, I think. A man with his fair share of demons.’

‘Well, he … maybe so, but … what makes you say that?’

‘The figures in the fresco. The black words he wrote on a dark, dark sky. The fact he painted hell so vast and vivid and heaven so small and distant.’

‘He was complicated, I would say. A serious man. You should read his memoir.’

Solomon pulled his copy from his pocket and turned it over in his hand. ‘I have.’ He opened it to the dedication page, felt the familiar stab of pain in his arm when he read James Coronado’s name. ‘What about James Coronado, was he a troubled man?’

‘Jim? No, I wouldn’t say so. I would call him pretty straightforward.’

‘Was he in some sort of trouble?’

‘No.’

‘You sure?’

‘He was very well liked.’

‘That’s not what I asked. What about his death – is there any question hanging over that?’

‘No,’ Cassidy snapped, a little too quickly, then took a hold of himself. ‘Listen, I don’t know what ideas you have about how you might save him, but he’s gone. Jim Coronado is dead. It was an accident, is all. A terrible, terrible accident. He was driving at night, he crashed his car. That’s all there is. There ain’t no point in raking up the mud searching for something that ain’t there. You’re only going to hurt people who been hurt bad enough already.’

He said it as though he was pushing a door closed and Solomon left it shut. The mayor clearly didn’t want to talk about it and Solomon didn’t think he’d get anything out of him anyway. The person he really wanted to talk to was James Coronado’s widow. Maybe she would be at the city limits along with everybody else, lining up to try and save the town from the fire.

They rounded a corner and started dropping down towards the edge of town. Beyond it the whole world was on fire. The smoke was so high it blotted out the sun, and the flames at the base twisted and leaped in the air as the bright line of fire slithered closer. The fire crews were positioned half a mile out of town and about the same from the fire, working in lines, their forms smudged almost to nothing by the dust they were stirring up with rake and shovel as they cleared the ground of anything that might burn in an attempt to stop the flames from advancing. To the left of the road a tractor was creeping like a clockwork toy, ploughing up the ground behind it. It was making its slow way towards a concrete storm drain that cut across the ground in a straight line all the way to the slopes of the mountains. To the right a grader was struggling over uneven terrain it wasn’t built for towards the anaemic piles of crushed stone that rose sterile and ugly around a tall skinny tower with a lifting wheel at the top. Between the mineworks and the storm drain the flanks were pretty well protected, but there was nothing in the centre but a mile or so of clear ground and dry vegetation. Two vehicles and maybe a hundred men against an army of flame.

‘You should tell everyone to clear out,’ Solomon said.

‘Be a waste of breath,’ Cassidy replied. ‘The folks here are kind of stubborn that way. Most of ’em would rather burn than abandon their town.’

‘Then they may well get their wish.’

They pulled off the road and came to a halt next to a line of parked cars and trucks. Cassidy cut the engine and Solomon was already out of the door, desperate to feel the ground beneath his feet again. The wind gusted a greeting, roaring out of the desert and bringing the smell of the fire with it.

‘Now I appreciate you volunteering to help here, Mr Creed, I really do,’ Cassidy said, climbing out the driver’s side and fixing his Stetson on his head. ‘But if you want to help us fight this fire, then you’re going to need something on your feet.’ He pointed to a pick-up parked over by an ambulance that had lots of activity buzzing round it. ‘See that man in the green shirt? His name’s Billy Walker. Tell him I sent you over and ask if he’s got a pair of work boots he can loan you, then report to one of the fire crews. Sorry to cut and leave, but I’ve got a town to try to save and people look to me to lead.’ He walked away, heading over to where Chief Morgan was standing by a tow truck, his own stricken truck perched drunkenly on the back.

Shouts drifted out of the desert. Out on the control line someone was pointing up at the sky where the yellow tanker was levelling out and getting ready for another run. It settled into position and the sky behind it turned red, as though the wings had sliced through the flesh of it and made it bleed. A bright scarlet cloud spread and fell on to a section of desert, then the vapour trail sputtered out. The red line had covered a little less than a quarter of the leading edge of the fire on one side of the road and the air around Solomon was already starting to thicken with ash and embers falling softly around him like black snow. He held out his hand and caught one, rubbing it to nothing with his fingers. It was warm, most of the heat blown out of it by the wind, but the ashes falling closer to the control line would be fresh from the fire, maybe even still glowing as they settled on the dry grass. Soon there would be spot fires breaking out all over the control zone. It would only need one to take hold and the fire would have breached the thin line they were drawing in the sand. They were in the wrong position, wasting time and energy with what they were doing. At this rate the whole town was going to burn, along with everything in it. Then where would he be? What answers might he sift from the embers?

The wind roared again, twisting the distant flames into columns of orange and red, and Solomon felt as if the fire was sniffing him out, searching for him. He headed over to the ambulance and into the welcome shade of the billboard.

The man in the green shirt was helping set up a makeshift field hospital around the ambulance. Men and women in green scrubs and white rubber clogs were weaving in and out of each other, checking lists, carrying boxes of supplies, filling movable stands stacked with suture packs and dressings. Solomon recognized Gloria. She was unpacking boxes of gel dressings and FAST-1 infusion kits.

‘Billy Walker,’ Solomon said, and the man in the green shirt turned round. ‘Mayor Cassidy sent me over to see you.’

The man looked him up and down, his eyes lingering on Solomon’s bare feet. ‘Lemme guess – pair of boots, right?’

‘Actually no, I was hoping you might have a hat.’ Walker shook his head then loped off towards his truck.

The wind surged again, so hard it rocked the billboard and drove the smell of smoke into Solomon’s face like a threat. There was something else there too, something ominous and familiar.

Gloria appeared at his side. ‘You feeling OK now, Mr Creed?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said, sniffing the air again. ‘How ready are you here?’

She looked around at all the activity. ‘About as ready as we’ll ever be, I guess.’

‘Good. You’re about to get busy, I think.’ The sound of a distant siren whooped out in the desert and the radio in the ambulance crackled to life.

‘Incoming,’ a voice said with an urgency that made everyone else go silent. ‘The grader got caught in a fire surge. The driver’s hurt bad. We’re bringing him to you now.’

18

Mulcahy’s eyes never left the Jeep.

The angle of the sun and the tinted windows turned the two men inside into dark shapes. It was impossible to see if anyone was in back. There could be two or three more guys in there, but he doubted it. One maybe: two to do the job, one to stay in the car, ready to roll when it was done. He had a pretty good idea what the job was too. He guessed they were on the phone right now, talking to whoever had sent them. He had a pretty good idea about that too.

They were staring over in his direction, towards the parked Jeep. He wondered if they could see the movement of the curtain and thought about shutting the air-con off. If he did Javier would pick up on it and he didn’t want him to know what was unfolding outside. He’d freak out most likely, start shooting and they’d end up in a siege situation which no one would walk away from.

The passenger door of the Jeep opened and a short, solid Mexican man slid out. He had a Mike Tyson style tattoo curling round his left eye and rolled his neck like a boxer preparing to spar as he sauntered over to the reception building, no doubt to ask the clerk about the Jeep parked over by G-block. Mulcahy imagined him walking up to the desk now and flashing some fake ID – FBI or Border Patrol. The clerk was probably illegal anyway and likely to freeze in the face of anything official. He would do whatever the guy asked, tell him whatever he wanted, even give him a master key. Except that wasn’t what happened.

Tyson reappeared, walking fast, tucking something into his jacket and Mulcahy knew he had been wrong. All wrong. There had been no fake ID because there had been no need for one. He hadn’t heard a gunshot but over this distance and with the TV noise he might have missed it. More likely they were carrying suppressed weapons. Assassination pieces.

Tyson climbed back into the Jeep and leaned over to talk to the driver. Then the Jeep started to move.

‘Anyone want ice?’ he said, moving towards the door, forcing himself not to hurry. ‘I’m going to get a bucket and stick it on this shitty unit. Might cool us all down a little. Who knows how long we’re going to be stuck here, right?’ He placed the car keys down on the counter by the door and made sure Javier saw him do it.

Javier stared at them. ‘Yeah, ice,’ he said, like it was his idea. He sounded guarded, all the strut ground out of him by the flow of bad news from the TV, his face rippling with drug-tweaked tics and suspicion. He knew that being third cousin – or whatever the hell he was – was going to cut him zero slack in their current situation. Tío’s relatives might get a leg up in the organization, but if they messed up they paid the same price as anyone. ‘Don’t be long,’ he said, like he was in charge.

‘Be right back,’ Mulcahy said, looking out through the window in the door. He watched the Jeep make a right past the reception building and disappear from sight, then he opened the door in a burst of heat and sunlight, stepped outside and closed it quickly behind him.

He forced himself to saunter past the window because he knew Javier would be watching, his amphetamine-sharpened paranoia ready to catch the slightest whiff of haste. It would take ten seconds for the Jeep to clear the east side of the complex and swing back into view; he knew because he’d spent a whole afternoon on a previous stay timing cars, watching the sedans peel off the highway and work their tired way round the one-way system. But if the guys in the Jeep had left a body back at reception they’d be in more of a hurry to get this done and get out.

Call it five seconds.

The moment he cleared the window he took off, running smoothly and keeping low, past the ice-machine in the shadow of the stairwell, feeling in his pocket for a second set of keys.

Four seconds.

The lights flashed on a two-year-old white Chevy Cruze sedan parked near the end of the block, the backup vehicle he had intended to drive away in – the one he still intended to drive away in. It was America’s third most popular car, painted in its favourite colour – utterly unremarkable, totally unmemorable, perfect. He glanced back toward C-block, at the spot where the Jeep would reappear. Still no sign.

Three seconds.

He reached the Chevy and moved along the passenger side, squeezing alongside a Pontiac that had parked too tight against it.

Two.

He grabbed the handle, opened the door and squeezed through the narrow gap and into the car.

One.

He fell into the seat and pulled the door shut, reached down to the side, found the adjustment lever and tugged hard.

Zero.

He leaned back, throwing the seat almost flat and dropping from view just as the black shadow of the Cherokee appeared round the edge of the far building.

He lay there, taking deep breaths. Calming himself. Sweating. The Chevy had been parked out front for most of the day, soaking up the heat until the inside felt like a pizza oven.

The throaty rumble of the Cherokee’s V8 engine drew closer. He could hear it through the thump of his heartbeat and the low whisper of the cars out on the highway. He tried to think himself into the minds of the two men, assuming it was only two. Tyson had already killed the desk clerk, so they were not about stealth and finesse, they were about speed and surprise, which meant they would most likely storm the room. Javier and Carlos would be dead before they even knew what was going down, but the crew would know they were looking for three men so would think he was in the bathroom. One of them would move fast through the smoke-filled room towards it, past the still figures of Carlos and Javier, leading with his gun, maybe firing to keep him pinned down while the other guy – or guys – covered. And that was when he would move. That was his best chance of getting out of this alive.

The Cherokee’s wide wheels swept into a space seven or eight spots short of where he was lying. The engine cut out and there was the muffled clunk of doors opening then the double thud of them closing again at almost the same time.

Two doors. Two men. Maybe one still in the Jeep.

Mulcahy glanced down at the glove box. His Beretta was stashed inside, along with loaded magazines and a sound suppressor. He dearly wanted to feel the comforting weight of it in his hand but he didn’t dare reach for it in case the car moved and someone saw it.

He pictured them outside, walking toward the grey door of room 22. They would be reaching into their jackets, pulling their hands out high to clear the long barrels of their silenced weapons. The lead man would take the key, stolen from the front desk, and fit it in the lock. The other would stay high, checking behind before taking a step away from the wall to get a better angle. He would level his gun at the door, give a nod – then …

There was a loud bang as the room door flew open, then a shout cut short by the staccato taps of rounds hitting thin walls and furniture and everything else in the room.

Mulcahy reached forward, keeping his head below the window. He yanked open the glove box, grabbed the sunglasses case and the duster the gun was wrapped in, then popped his door open and rolled back out onto the narrow strip of hot tarmac between the Chevy and the Pontiac.

The popping of suppressed gunfire stopped and he heard the sound of the TV drift out through the open door. He tipped the gun and a spare magazine from the duster into his hand, stuffed the clip in his back pocket then took the suppressor out of the sunglasses case and fixed it to the barrel of the gun.

The men would be checking the room now, making sure the two men were down. Then they would start searching for the third.

He checked the suppressor was secure, flipped the safety off with his thumb and started making his way round the back of the Chevy, keeping low, heading towards the Jeep the Mexicans had arrived in. The blackened glass made it hard to see inside but there was no one in the driver’s seat and the engine wasn’t running. Two then. You always left the driver behind in a three-man team. He reached the dusty Buick, peered round the edge of it.

The driver was standing inside the open door to the room. He had his back to him, the material of his jacket stretched tight across his shoulders suggesting he was holding a pistol in a double grip. Mulcahy moved forward, keeping low, aiming centre mass, the best percentage shot given the distance and added inaccuracy of a silenced weapon. He couldn’t see into the room but he imagined Tyson would be at the bathroom door now, ready to kick it in and spray rounds into the room. He kept on moving, increasing his odds of a clean shot with every step. Then he heard a voice from inside, a voice he recognized.

‘He went that way.’ Carlos pushed past the driver and pointed along the block where Mulcahy had headed. ‘Said he was gettin’ ice.’

He had a gun in his hand, an un-silenced Glock. It was a three-man team after all.

Mulcahy re-sighted on Carlos’s chest just as his eyes swung round and spotted him. The Glock rose fast but not fast enough. Mulcahy squeezed off two rounds and Carlos twitched twice and spiralled to the ground.

The driver spun round, swinging the long barrel of his pistol to where the shots had come from. Mulcahy hit him with two shots in the chest that knocked him backwards into the room, leaving him half in and half out of the door.

Mulcahy was already moving forward, firing as he went, spreading his shots left, right, level and low, hoping to clip Tyson with at least one of them, or keep him pinned down until he was in the room. He passed through the doorway, stepping over the driver and opened his eyes wide to adjust for the dark interior.

Javier was lying dead in the far corner, a smear of blood on the wall behind him. No sign of Tyson. Mulcahy dropped down to the side, behind the bed, making use of its limited cover. He kept his gun and eyes on the bathroom door.

The TV cast a flickering light into the dark of the room and the modulated tones of the news report filled the silence. Mulcahy listened through it for breathing, or the snick of a gun being reloaded. He thought about shooting out the TV so he could hear better but he had already used ten rounds and his Beretta only held eleven. He needed to reload but Tyson might know that and be waiting in the bathroom, listening out for the snick of a magazine release, ready to capitalize on the few seconds Mulcahy would be unarmed.

He glanced at the two men sprawled in the doorway: Carlos on his back, his eyes open and staring up at the water-stained ceiling; the driver lying across him, legs sticking out the door where anyone could see them. He needed to get him inside and out of sight but couldn’t risk it until Tyson was dealt with. He reached for the spare magazine and switched his attention back to the far end of the room.

There was no blood around the bathroom door or on the white tiles of the kitchenette, and if he’d clipped him there should be. He would expect to hear something too, the laboured breathing of someone fighting pain and going into shock. There was always the chance he had killed him outright and the impact had spun him into the bathroom, but he didn’t believe in luck and he knew better than to rely on it. He’d seen too many people lying dead with looks of surprise on their faces.

He held the spare magazine up in front of him and sighted on a spot by the bathroom door, four feet up and a foot away from the wall. He took a deep breath to steady his breathing, blew it out slowly then moved his thumb across to the magazine release button and pressed it.

The magazine slid cleanly out with a distinctive snicking sound, a blur of movement appeared in his sights and Mulcahy fired his last bullet. He dropped down, rolled on to his side, jammed the fresh magazine into the empty slot then flicked the safety off and peered through the gap between the base of the bed and the floor. Through the twisted condom wrappers and dust bunnies he could make out a dark shape over by the bathroom door, dragging itself across the floor towards a gun lying on the tiles a few feet away.

Mulcahy sprang up, swinging the Beretta round as he cleared the top of the mattress. He fired two rounds. The first caught Tyson between his shoulders in a puff of white padding and pink mist. The second hit him in the back of the head and sent a small section of his skull spinning across the tile to the far wall. Mulcahy waited until it stopped spinning then moved to the centre of the room. He grabbed the remote from the bed and muted the sound on the TV so he could hear sirens or anything else heading his way. He tossed his gun on the bed and hauled Carlos inside first, dumping him next to Javier before grabbing the arms of the driver. He was heavier than Carlos and he had to tug hard to get him moving. Something cracked in the man’s chest and a yelp of pain squeaked out of him.

Mulcahy dropped the man’s arms like they were snakes, grabbed his Beretta from the bed and pointed it down at the driver. Blood was leaking out of a chest wound that was gently rising and falling. He was breathing.

The driver was still alive.

19

The ambulance screamed to a halt in the shade of the billboard and medics and doctors swarmed around it. Everyone else stood back, grimly fascinated by what would emerge from inside and frightened at the same time.

Solomon knew what was coming. The strangely familiar smell of charred flesh had already told him. It warned him exactly how bad it was going to be too. The siren cut out and was replaced by a howl that came from inside the ambulance.

‘Here –’ Billy Walker appeared at his side and handed Solomon a starter cap, his attention fixed on the ambulance. ‘Best I could do. Got you some boots too.’

‘Thank you.’ Solomon took them and inspected the cap. It had a red flower logo and the name of a weedkiller on it. He pulled it over his head, folding the peak round with his hands until he was looking at the ambulance through an arc of shadow.

‘You should use this too –’ Walker handed him a tube of heavy-duty sunscreen squeezed almost empty.

The howl doubled in volume with the opening doors and there was a clatter of tubular steel as a man, or what remained of one, was pulled from the ambulance. He lay twisted and charred on starched white sheets, his whole body shaking, his hands baked to talons by furnace heat and clawing at the smoke-filled air above him while the inhuman noise howled from the seared ruin of his throat.

‘Jesus,’ Walker said, his voice flat with horror. ‘I think that’s Bobby Gallagher. He was driving the grader.’ The medics wheeled the gurney to a covered area and doctors clustered round him. ‘You reckon they can save him?’

Solomon squeezed sunblock from the tube and rubbed some on to his neck and the back of his hands, disliking the greasy feel of it but disliking the growing itch of sunburn even more. ‘Not a chance,’ he said.

Bobby Gallagher stared up at the ring of faces crowding over him. Worried eyes stared down.