The IA cops were gone, along with the crime-scene cops, the panel truck, and a disconsolate Souza. A dozen uniforms hung around outside the shanties, watching the Community men light fires in the oil drums, black smoke rising in thick plumes.
Grip said, “They have those things in this heat?”
Morphy chuckled and two uniforms they were chatting with smiled. There was a lull, the lieut in the shade with a doctor, getting the broken syringe removed and his arm bandaged. Grip, Morphy, and the other cops waited, eyeing the white men gathering in the field, knowing there would be more work to do.
Something in the distance, across the field toward the ware houses, caught Grip’s eye and he excused himself. Drums—sporadic, not coordinated—came from the shanties as he crossed the field. The only other sounds were the crows, the light crush of his feet in the weeds and gravel, the distant flow of the river. The ground seemed to radiate heat, and the sun on Grip’s neck had sweat pouring off him. Ahead, the two girls, dressed in canary-yellow dresses, stood several feet from their cow, which lay on its side, strangely deflated.
He heard the sound of the flies. The girls didn’t come to meet him, but watched. They weren’t twins, but roughly the same ages with their hair in neat braids. They were calm. Grip wondered how long they’d been there.
The cow, he saw, seemed to have burst open, blood pooled under its body and in it, viscera. The side up seemed untouched.
Grip approached the girls, kneeling to be at their eye level. “What happened?”
One of the girls said, “He popped.” The other nodded earnestly.
“Popped?”
The girl who had spoken nodded. The other said, “He was the Mack Doll.”
Grip looked to the shantytown, its form distorted by the waves of heat rising from the field. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve.
“Where are your mothers?”
One of the girls nodded toward the shanties.
“Maybe you ought to go find them.”
The girls nodded and, without so much as glancing back at the dead cow, walked toward the shanties. Grip watched them for a couple of minutes, knowing that as soon as he left, the crows would converge.
Westermann gathered his men—Grip, Morphy, and Dzeko—in the shade of a factory building that had caved in on itself, the crumbled brick walls on top looking vaguely like a castle’s crenellations. They heard rats scuttling in the ruins, smelled something decaying. Westermann laid down their only priority: Find Ole Koss. Things were falling apart around Koss and his reaction was unpredictable and likely dangerous. Grip and Morphy headed to Crippen’s to shake the tree, see what fell out.
Morphy surprised Grip by taking the wheel, and Grip decided not to say anything about it. Morphy gave it the full siren-and-lights treatment, trusting that other cars would get the hell out of the way.
“Jesus, Morph. Let’s get there in one piece.”
Morphy looked sideways at Grip and shook his head. Grip hoped no one gave Morphy shit at Crippen’s.
A block away, they could see the crowd at Crippen’s spilling out onto the sidewalk.
“The fuck is that?” Grip said.
“It ever get like this?”
“Never. Not close.”
Morphy killed the sound and lights and pulled the prowl car to the curb down the block. Grip led Morphy into the crowd—all men—nodding to guys he recognized, several cops among them. People were drunk, their body language belligerent.
Grip pushed his way inside, knocking a guy’s arm out of the way, spilling beer on the guy’s shirt. The guy started to make a move at Grip—not a small guy, either—but Morphy got ahold of his shirt and got in the guy’s mug and he backed down fast. Morphy grabbed a glass off a table and threw the beer in the guy’s face; the guy looked unsure; the man who’d just lost his glass got a good look at Morphy and decided to get another beer from the bar.
Grip grabbed Morphy by the arm and pulled him hard. “Come on. We’ve got business.”
Ed Wayne was at his usual table. Grip nodded for Wayne to get up. Wayne stared at him, glassy-eyed. Morphy shoved by a couple younger guys and picked up Wayne by the back of his shirt. The crowd checked out the commotion.
Grip got in Wayne’s face. “You know where Ole Koss is, Ed?”
Wayne drew back, as if the question surprised him. “How the hell would I know that?”
Grip bit his lip in frustration. “The fuck is going on here?”
“Free liquor. No one’s supposed to know, but Gerald told me Truffant’s footing the bill.”
“Why?”
“Where the fuck have you been?” Wayne sneered.
Grip caught the subtle movement of Morphy’s arm as he gave Wayne a shot to the kidney, Wayne wincing and his eyes rolling drunkenly. “All right. Jesus. There’s a group—these guys, others—going to take apart the Uhuru Community to night. To night. Burn it to the ground.”
Grip shook his head. “That’s not a great idea, I don’t think.”
“Fuck you.”
Morphy shoved Wayne forward onto the table, his weight tipping the table over and sending him and the beer glasses sprawling into the laps of his friends.
Grip and Morphy pushed their way back out to the street again. No one had seen Koss.
“This is getting out of control,” Grip said as they walked back to their car. “There’s a lot of kids in those shanties; women; old people.”
Morphy shrugged. “I don’t drink there.”
Grip winced at him.
Morphy drove back to the shanties, siren and lights going again, but almost serene at the wheel as he careened through the crowded streets. Grip recognized the attitude and kept quiet, knowing that Morphy was mulling something over.
Westermann was by the shanties, drinking coffee from a paper cup and talking to Dzeko, who looked as if he was about to drop from heatstroke. Grip heard drums coming from the shanties, the rhythm not quite organized. The ground seemed to bake in the sun.
Morphy strode toward Westermann and Souza, forcing Grip to skip a little to stay close. He had no idea what Morphy had in mind.
“Lieut,” Morphy said, still moving, “I’ve been thinking about Koss.”
Westermann turned to them. Everyone was sweating, but Dzeko’s face was the color of a slice of watermelon.
Morphy said, “He’s coming here. He’s got to know those assholes at Grip’s bar are going to tear the shanties apart to night.”
“What?”
“Oh, shit.” Grip looked around, registering the dozen or so cops, shaking his head. “We need a lot more support down here. There’s a group getting ugly uptown, going to come here and raise some hell.”
Westermann looked to Dzeko. “Phone it in.”
Dzeko shuffled off toward the squad car.
“You going to make it?” Grip called after him.
“Go to hell,” Dzeko shouted over his shoulder; but Grip hadn’t been kidding, the guy looked about to keel over.
Westermann turned back to Morphy. “You were saying about Koss?”
“Yeah, no way he lets this go. If we’re right and they were really trying to infect all these people, then Koss is going to do whatever it is he wants to do before the shanties get torn down and all the people disperse.”
“Isn’t that the point?” Grip asked.
“No. The point is they fucking think Womé is the Antichrist. The point is that Koss is going to come here to do some killing.”
Westermann nodded thoughtfully. “Okay. So we post people around? Keep an eye out?”
Morphy shrugged. “You’re the lieut.”