Gray Night Read Free

nonsensical anyway.” He flipped to the next page. “We don’t even have a first name. You mention Abiku and Kishi like that’s supposed to mean something, but it’s all local religious BS and you know it. I’m not fucking Mulder here out chasing demons. The kinds of stories I’ve heard associated with this asshole make you look like a saint, Knight. And anything you’re holding back is aiding him.”
     He'd never gone off script before. Something was setting him off. A history lesson was the last thing I needed, though. Thank God I’d had one last pill to take when I got home last night after the museum gala. It was wearing off, but I was grateful for it just then. My stomach roiled thinking about what images might have involuntarily risen from my memory. It didn’t matter what descriptions had been given to Bob, or what he’d heard around the office. The demons that the local Yoruba and Bantu peoples assigned to the man in the folder were closer to the truth than anyone wanted to admit. The folder didn’t say anything about the burning children. Or anything about what heaps of flayed, decaying flesh smelled like. And no one ever talked about the end of the war when we were finding the bodies, used and discarded, fed upon. The cadavers used by his smugglers. Cadavers… sometimes they didn’t wait for death. I’d seen it. And it all led to one man. A man it seemed most of the Western world was convinced I could deliver in chains. I remember when I thought so too.
     “Everything I have on him I gave to you. I gave that information to anyone and everyone who asked. Bob, most of the file you keep waving around at me every month is based on my own report.”
     “I’ve seen thicker folders on Santa Claus!” he hollered, dumping three pages of text and a blurry photograph onto the desk. Bob grabbed his jacket off the rack and headed for the door.
     “Umm, hey, Bob. Where you going?” asked Chris.
     “I’m getting more coffee.”
     “The diner doesn’t open until six-thirty,” I said being helpful.
     “Then I’ll wait!” Bob said, slamming the door behind him.
     Sheriff Clark took his old leather seat back and gathered all the papers and folders that had fallen. He looked over at Chris. “Agent Bailey, you mind telling me what all that’s about, son?”
     “Look, you can’t ever say anything around him, all right. Guys upstairs are pushing hard for his retirement. They keep giving him assignments more and more likely to fail except he keeps seeing them through. As long as he’s successful no one can touch him, but one slip and I’m getting a new partner young enough to still get carded everywhere,” Chris said.
     “So what is it then? Housekeeping? Money? He piss off all the wrong people, or sleep with the director’s daughter?” Clark asked.
     “Ha-ha…yeah. Ummm, all of the above,” said Chris.
     “You’re kidding. The director’s daughter? Seriously?” I asked.
     “Not the current one. Guy before him. Married her. They separated two months ago and daddy’s out for blood,” Chris said.
     Clark whistled. “Well hell, now I feel bad for calling him an asshole.”
     “You didn’t call him an asshole,” Chris said.
     “Oh, I didn’t? Well, I was thinking it,” Clark said smiling.
     Have I mentioned my respect for the good sheriff?
     Chris Bailey grabbed a chair by the wall and dragged it over the wooden floor to me where he sat down. “Adrian, despite having one of the thickest files I’ve ever seen, you aren’t half as bad to deal with as everyone else on our desk. Truth is I enjoy driving this far north out of the city, but you need to realize that if we blow this we’re getting reassigned. The rest of the guys aren’t as charming as we are. I’m asking you nicely, please, is there anything at all you can give us?”
     Well crap. I hadn’t thought of that. The information I had already given was as thorough as I would be, but I’d held back. There were