The Listener

by Robert R. McCammon

  “What I can’t figure,” said Ludenmere after he’d driven about another half-mile, “was how they got the kids with both Hartley and Detective Parr bein’ on the alert. I swear to God, I thought Parr was smarter than that, to let themselves be waylaid between the school and the house. How the hell did that happen? And both of them with guns…I just can’t figure it out.”

  Curtis said, “I doubt they wanted to do any shootin’ with the children liable to get hurt.”

  “Yeah. Right. You know, I blame myself for this. When that detective came to me, the first thing I should’ve done is hire three more bodyguards. But…the way he told it…maybe I didn’t want to believe it was true. I mean…he wasn’t sure about it himself. Just a story from some lowlife criminal who wanted to stay out of prison. But damn it, I should’ve acted! Should’ve hired three extra bodyguards right that afternoon!” He reached for the coffee thermos again for a drink of more fuel.

  “It’ll be over soon,” Curtis said, but it sounded more lame than helpful.

  “This part’ll be over,” Ludenmere corrected. “I don’t think the idea that my—our—children were kidnapped and at the mercy of three criminals for thirty-four hours is gonna be over anytime soon. Jane’s hangin’ on by whatever fingernails she’s got left, and so am I. When we get the children back…God only knows what shape they’ll be in…mentally, I mean.”

  “They’re holdin’ up.”

  “Ask her again if they’ve left yet.”

  The answer to that was :No, not yet.:

  “Gonna make us wait,” Ludenmere said between clenched teeth. “Goddamn bastards gonna make us wait.”

  Leaving the outskirts of New Orleans behind, they reached Sawmill Road that led into Kenner. Ludenmere took a left and in silence drove toward the meeting place. Through his side window Curtis watched the lightning flare over Lake Pontchartrain, sending out jagged and blazing whips from clouds to earth. The noise of thunder came to him like a muffled bass drum.

  His heart was beating harder and his stomach—enriched with a ham sandwich from a rich man’s kitchen—felt like it wanted to lurch and spill its contents into the fine, leathery-smelling car.

  :Curtis? Curtis, we heard the front door open and close. We think they’re leaving!:

  :They’re not takin’ you with ’em?:

  :No.:

  “Nilla says she thinks they’re leavin’ now,” Curtis reported, “but they’re not takin’ the kids with ’em.”

  “I figured they wouldn’t. They’ll want to see that all the money’s there first,” Ludenmere said. “I don’t know how this is gonna work, but I want my children back tonight. I want ’em in this car with me when we head back home, and by God that’s what’s gonna happen.”

  ****

  Behind the wheel of the Oldsmobile, Ginger shifted uneasily in the seat. She made a noise that sounded to Pearly like a whisper of discontent.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Somethin’ I’ve forgotten,” she answered, as she steered the car east along Sawmill Road. “Can’t remember what. Somethin’. That damned Donnie…last night…got me all out of whack.”

  Pearly said nothing. Between them on the seat was Hartley’s .45 Smith & Wesson revolver, and Pearly carried his .38 pistol in the shoulder holster under his coat. They had also brought along the bull’s-eye lantern and the flashlight. A streak of lightning across the sky to the northwest lit up the interior of the car for an instant, and the thunder that followed seemed to vibrate in Pearly’s bones. His palms were damp and his shirt was sticking to his back. He had rolled down his window to let the air circulate and cool himself off, but even the moving air was thick with heat and the wet clammy noxion of the approaching storm.

  “Fine night to get paid two hundred thousand bucks,” said Ginger, but it was spoken with absolutely no emotion, either good or bad.

  “Two hundred and fifteen,” he said.

  “Yeah.” She swerved the car a few feet to crunch a tire over a raccoon that was sneaking across the road. “Somethin’ I’ve forgotten,” she said. “Damn if I can remember.”

  They would be passing through Kenner in a couple minutes more. Pearly wished he could light up a cigarette and swallow it down, but he could do that later. Mexico, Mexico, he thought.

  It was not so far away now.

  Again Ginger shifted uneasily, and the words were out of Pearly’s mouth before he could think to stop them: “I thought you said you didn’t have any kids.”

  “Huh? I don’t.”

  “Never?”

  “Fuck, no. I hate kids. Gettin’ in the way of everythin’.”

  “Uh huh. Don’t you mean you hate rich men’s kids?”

  She didn’t answer that one right off. Did he see her hands tighten on the wheel? It was hard to tell. The lightning flared, sending a dozen spears into the dark, and the thunder came with a sharper edge.

  They passed through Kenner, which had likely folded up and gone to sleep at eight o’clock. Two stray dogs were nosing around some trash cans, but that was all the movement in evidence.

  “What’re you talkin’ about?” Ginger asked. Her voice was a little too light. “Gettin’ crazy, the closer we get to the payoff?”

  “Just thinkin’ out loud, I guess.” He realized he was one foot in, and he might as well put the other one in too. “Thinkin’ that I hope this job is just about kidnappin’, and not really about some kind of…oh, I don’t know…revenge.”

  “Revenge? For what?”

  “Oh…life, I suppose. Like I say, just thinkin’ out loud.”

  “Stop thinkin’, you’re makin’ me nervous. I’m doin’ the talkin’ when we get there. Got that?”

  “Sure, whatever you say.”

  “Comin’ up real soon,” she said. “Take the safety off my gun.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” she answered, her eyes deadset on the centerpoint of the cones of light that fell upon the road ahead, “I want you to.”

  ****

  They heard the scrape of the table being moved.

  The door opened. Donnie came in holding an oil lamp and the pillow from his cot. Tucked into the waistband of his jeans and against the white cotton of the undershirt he wore was the handle of the kitchen knife with the serrated blade.

  Beside her, Nilla felt Little Jack tremble in spite of his bravery. Across the room, Hartley slowly drew his knees up against his chest.

  “Howdy, folks,” said Donnie. He grinned in the yellow light. “Came to keep you company for awhile.” His eyes moved toward the boy. “How you doin’ there, kid?”

  ****

  Ludenmere pulled the car to a stop at the end of Sandusky Road, about three hundred yards off Sawmill. Before them was thirty-five feet of fishing pier. To the right stood a pair of cabins, both dark and empty as they had been when Ludenmere and Curtis had peered through the grimy windows this afternoon, and to the left was a mass of scrub brush and woods.

  Ludenmere cut the engine. He reached on the seat between them for the flashlight he’d brought. He peered into the rearview mirror. No sign of another car yet. He said tersely, “All right, let’s get to it.” He switched the light on and gave it to Curtis. They got out of the car as another streak of lightning flamed across the sky, and the following crack of thunder was as sharp as a whipstrike.

  Ludenmere leaned into the backseat and picked up the money box. The cardboard box with that much cash in it weighed over twenty pounds, though the container itself was only a little larger than a Stetson hatbox. It held twenty-three hundred fifties, three thousand twenties and four thousand tens, the denominations stacked together and secured with thick rubber bands. Curtis followed Ludenmere out onto the pier, which they’d seen by daylight was warped downward in the middle and had a thin wooden railing. A length of rope dangled from the left side into the black wat
er, and off on the right were broken and mollusk-encrusted pilings where an older pier must have once stood before a squall had taken it under.

  Curtis kept the light aimed at their feet as they reached the end of the pier and Ludenmere set the money box down. The spaces between the boards glinted with the dark and briny-smelling lake, which was being stirred into motion by the approaching storm. Waves had begun to slap the muddy shore. Curtis felt the raw wind pushing at his back. It shrilled past his ears as he and Ludenmere faced the road. Lightning lit up the woods and flamed over the lake, and the thunder cracked and boomed to wake the sleepers in Kenner’s cemetery.

  They waited, watchful for the lights of another car.

  ****

  “Blowin’ up a rain out there,” said Donnie. “Hear that thunder? Me, I kinda like storms. You like storms, kid? Or do they scare you some?”

  Little Jack didn’t answer; he kept his face angled toward the floor.

  “When I was about your age I saw what was left of a fella got struck by lightnin’, out in a cow pasture,” Donnie went on, swinging the oil lamp slowly back and forth. “Turned coal black, his whole body was. Clothes blown right off. Face was burned to the skull, and he was just lyin’ there with a death grin on his mouth. Know what me and my buddies did? We knocked his teeth out with a stick. He had three silvers in there. I took ’em and got some money for ’em later on, ’nuff to buy a pack of rubbers. You ever see anythin’ like that, kid?”

  Her cheeks burning, Nilla squinted up into the light. “Why don’t you leave us alone? You’re going to get what you’re after soon enough.”

  “Just askin’, sugarlips. Bet I’ve seen some nasty things you kids never dreamed of in your worst nightmares.”

  “Go scare yourself and look in a mirror,” Little Jack said suddenly, with acidic heat. “Stop it!” he growled at Nilla when his sister shot a warning elbow into his ribs.

  Donnie laughed quietly, but there was no humor in it. When his false laughter was done, he aimed the lamp at Hartley. “How you doin’, ol’ One Eye? You ain’t sayin’ much.”

  “Nothin’ to say,” came the answer.

  “I reckon not. Now this kid here…he’s got a mouth on him. Just lets them insults fly out like he could take ’em back if he wanted to. That’s a real bad habit of yours, kid. You know that?” He swatted Little Jack in the head with the pillow, but it was only a gentle nudge. “Speak when spoken to,” he said, and swatted him with the pillow again, just a little harder.

  ****

  Curtis and Ludenmere saw the headlights coming. “Jesus Christ,” said Ludenmere bitterly. “That’s my own damned car!”

  The Oldsmobile turned so that the headlights aimed down the length of the pier and directly upon the two men, all but blinding them in the glare. Then the car stopped and the engine was cut; the headlights remained on but no one got out.

  “Come on, come on,” Ludenmere said under his breath. He lifted both arms in recognition and to show he was holding no weapon. Curtis also lifted both arms, pointing the flashlight’s beam skyward. Still there was no reaction from the car. “We’ve got your money!” Ludenmere shouted, but was nearly drowned out by the following roll of thunder. “It’s all there!” He put a foot against the cardboard box.

  The car’s driver got out, followed by the passenger. Sure enough, the driver—a slim figure, maybe the woman? Curtis thought—walked to the Pierce-Arrow, turned on a flashlight and peered into the backseat. The light then went searching in the woods on the left and toward the cabins on the right. The second figure paused to shield the bull’s-eye lantern from the wind with his body and touch a match to the wick. He aimed the focused and magnified beam around in a slow circle. When the two kidnappers were satisfied, they approached the pier but neither Curtis nor Ludenmere could tell much about them in the glare. The two stopped midway out.

  “You were told to come alone,” the woman said. “Don’t take orders too well, do you? Who’s the nigger?”

  “My driver.”

  “That’s bullshit. Your driver’s with us right this minute.”

  “My new driver,” said Ludenmere.

  “You too rich to drive your own fuckin’ car? Boy, keep that light upturned! Hear?” The woman’s voice had sharpened, because Curtis had started to bring his hand with the flashlight down. Her attention returned to Ludenmere. “Well, you’ve been a pretty good boy otherwise. We’re gonna come out now and get the box. You two stay real still and this’ll all be over in about five minutes.”

  “Hold it!” The note of command in Ludenmere’s voice stopped the kidnappers in their tracks. “I want my children back tonight. You take the money and go to hell with it, but I’m goin’ home with my children.”

  There was an uncertain pause. Curtis smelled ozone in the air. The lightning flashed so close that for a brief instant he and Ludenmere could nearly make out the features of the man and woman, and more importantly they saw the gleam of metal in her right hand that could only be a pistol; then the thunder crashed again with ear-cracking force.

  “You’re out of tune,” the woman said. “No go on that one.”

  “When do I get them, then?”

  “We’ll let you know. First thing is, we count the bills and make sure you haven’t shorted us.”

  “Nope,” said Ludenmere.

  “What?”

  “I said…nope. You’re takin’ me to my children and handin’ ’em over as soon as you put your hands on this box. I haven’t shorted you. That would be pretty damn stupid, wouldn’t it?”

  “What’s stupid,” the woman said, “is you standin’ there arguin’ with me and Hartley’s .45. Now that is real fuckin’ stupid.”

  Ludenmere ignored her. Curtis felt sweat running down his sides under his arms. He could smell the rain coming; it wasn’t too far away now, rolling toward them across the lake. Ludenmere said, “I want everybody freed tonight…my children, Hartley and Detective Parr. Hear me?”

  “Ha,” she replied tonelessly. “Hear him, Detective Parr?”

  Curtis saw the silent man shift his weight. Then the man said, “I hear.”

  It took a few more seconds, but suddenly Ludenmere staggered and grabbed hold of Curtis’s shoulder to keep himself from falling.

  “He gets it now,” the man said to the woman, with what sounded to Curtis like a smug satisfaction that was evil to the core.

  ****

  Donnie had put the oil lamp down on the floor, and with the next crash of thunder he swung the pillow hard against Little Jack’s head.

  “Leave him alone,” Hartley said, but quietly.

  “I ain’t botherin’ him much. Am I, kid?” The following strike with the pillow made Little Jack say, “Ow! That hurt!”

  “Leave us all alone!” Nilla cried out.

  “Well now,” Donnie answered in an easy voice, his eyes glinting in the lamplight, “there you go again, you rich kids tryin’ to rob me of all my fun.”

  And as soon as he’d pronounced the last word, he swung the pillow with seemingly tremendous strength at Little Jack’s head, and followed that up by leaping behind the pillow upon the boy. He pinned Little Jack’s head and face down on the floor and put all his weight on the boy’s skull. Little Jack thrashed and gave a muffled cry, his legs kicked wildly, and Nilla in her start of terror screamed out a message to her listener.

  ****

  “My God,” Ludenmere breathed, as the wind swept past Curtis and him and the lightning crackled through the clouds. “Oh my God…no.”

  “Yes indeed,” the woman said. “Played you good and proper, didn’t we? Now…we’re comin’ for that money, and you might be real used to gettin’ your own way, but I’d advise you to—”

  Suddenly Curtis couldn’t hear her.

  In his head was the frantic scream of :Curtis! Donnie’s hurting Little Jack!:

  �
�Little Jack!” he said urgently to Ludenmere. He didn’t know how else to put it but, “Nilla says he’s gettin’ hurt!”

  Ludenmere trembled. His face had bleached to fish-belly gray. He shouted at the kidnappers, “My boy’s gettin’ hurt! Goddamn you, you’re takin’ me to my—”

  He started toward them, took two steps, and the woman shot him.

  There were two quick shots. Ludenmere wheeled violently around and grabbed hold of Curtis. His momentum was carrying them both backward. A third shot sent a bullet zipping past Curtis’s right ear, and then he and Ludenmere crashed through the railing and hit the black water of Lake Pontchartrain.

  Twenty-One.

  “You will let him up.”

  Hartley had spoken it calmly, as Little Jack continued to thrash and fight with his head trapped beneath the pillow and Donnie’s weight; it had been spoken not with a threat or as a plea, but as a prediction and a certainty.

  Donnie grinned fiercely in the lamplight. Sweat sparkled on his reddened cheeks. He said, “Make—”

  He didn’t get out the rest of it, because Hartley was suddenly up on his knees. Hartley’s tape-bound hands swung toward Donnie’s face in a blur, from right to left. The ring on his little finger, with its pot metal Buck Rogers rocket ship jimmied open at a seam to form a ragged-edged cutter two millimeters thicker than the dime Hartley had used as a tool, tore across Donnie’s left cheek and that side of his nose, and from the ghastly slash in Donnie’s flesh the scarlet blood spattered the far wall.

  Instantly Hartley’s prediction came true. Donnie gave a high shriek like a wounded animal and fell back off Little Jack, colliding with Nilla who scrabbled away from him with frantic speed. Her message sent in a scream to Curtis was still caught in her brain like a banner of fire. Little Jack rolled out from under the pillow, gasping for air. In his convulsion Donnie’s elbow knocked over the lantern; its glass cracked but the oil reservoir did not break open, and the burning wick continued to throw contorted shadows upon the walls.

  One of Donnie’s hands went to his gashed face. The other pulled the knife out from his waistband, and just that fast Donnie caught his backward motion and propelled himself toward Hartley. Before Hartley could avoid the blade it sank into his left side, turned on a rib, then was wrenched out and stabbed again into the man’s lower belly. All Hartley could see was Donnie’s teeth right in his face, but Nilla saw the knife’s bloody blade glint in the light. It sank into Hartley’s left forearm, and then Nilla kicked into the backs of Donnie’s knees with both stockinged feet as hard as she could, throwing him off balance and bringing from him a howl of pain. Hartley fell back against the wall and swung once more with the cutter at Donnie’s face, but at that instant the younger man’s head had begun to turn toward Nilla and so the jagged edge of the Buck Rogers rocket ship hit him on the left side of his throat under the ear. It carved across the flesh in a brutal blur, the force of the blow breaking Hartley’s little finger with a noise like a snapping twig.