The Pale Man Rises

CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT

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The wipers throbbed back and forth trying to repel the flurrying mixture of snow and ice. The heater was on high and it made the car feel like a furnace. But it seemed once it was turned down only a notch that the damn compartment would become an icebox almost immediately. There was no happy medium and the three detectives were reluctant to roust the FBI agent and tell him of the worsening storm.

"We ought to wake up Mabry." Farr said. "Man he's gonna be pissed! I had to tell him this shit would be melted by morning–now look at it?"  he banged the steering wheel with his right hand. "It's a fuckin' blizzard–a fuckin' blizzard, mind you!" he cursed. "Look out there and see if you can spot a road sign that might tell us where in the hell we are?" he now instructed Frank Spellman.

Spellman squinted through the glass. He tried to rub a clear space to see through, but with little success. Langley leaned forward grunting loudly. "Hey I keep seeing stranded cars–if it gets any worse we might get stuck out here ourselves!" he announced. "Shut up Langley!" Spellman snapped as he continued to try and spot a road sign out of his window, which seemed to have iced over far more than the other windows. "Fuck you!" Langley shot back. "You don't know me well enough Ron!" Spellman now said in his turn. "Both of you shut up!" Douglas Farr now broke in. "You're going to wake up Mabry!" he warned them.

"Correction–you have woken Mabry." the FBI agent said as he attempted to stretch in the back seat, which was crowded with himself and the bulk of Ronnie Langley. "Why is it so damn hot in here, and why are we just crawling along?" he then asked.

He pulled a handkerchief from inside his coat and then removed his glasses from the case he took from inside his coat. He wiped the lens briefly and then put them on his face. He wiped his brow with the piece of cloth now and then returned it to his coat pocket. He looked about the car for a moment and then he peered out the ice-covered window to his left. "Ah...the weather has got a bit worse." Farr said with embarrassment. "Good Lord are we going to make it?" Mabry asked with astonishment. He remained calm however, and his comportment seemed to delete the tension that had been mounting before his awakening.

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"Crawford Town two miles–Belfast twenty-two miles." Frank Spellman declared loudly from his sentry at the front passenger window. "Okay then–I know where we are now. There's a café up here on the left. It ain't much, just a café, a few stores and homes. I don't know what about it constitutes a town, but it is." Farr volunteered. "We can use the phone at least–and if the café ain't closed we can get some coffee." he added. "Whatever, we will have to get our bearings and decide how much further we can proceed, if at all." Mabry said. "We can get something to eat too." Langley eagerly suggested. Mabry frowned at him.

After another long interlude they at last could see a rage of colored lights through the storm of snow and ice that continued to assault the night. The murder scene of those on the bus was close by here and it seemed the authorities had settled upon this place as the base of operations for the investigation. The windshield cleared some more and they could now see the Southeast American bus sitting in the middle of a crowd of police vehicles whose lights swirled about through the haze of snow and the thick cold air.

A few people slipped about through the rampaging storm. One of the bundled officers rushed up toward their vehicle as well as he could and directed them to a parking space along the curb. The lot of the place was virtually covered with snow and that, that wasn't was churned up into slush and chunks of ugly dirty ice.

The lawman now tiptoed up to the driver's window. Farr struggled to roll down the glass. The cold air rushed in like a tempest. "I'm sorry gentlemen but the café is closed." the officer said through the cloud of his breath. "They're expecting us I believe?" Farr told him then. "And you are?" The patrolman asked.