Eleven seconds. Lucas’ finger pulled back on the steel tongue of the trigger.
Write a wet-dream love ditty about this, ratfuck. Hope you enjoy hell.
Before he could shoot, he saw something astonishing through the scope. A stuttering line of black dots punctured the double bass, then corrected trajectory and quilted upward into Reichmann. Five dark holes blossomed in a diagonal across his bare chest as he rose to take a look at his unmoving comrade on the stage below. His face scrunched up, and he did a backward tumble off the drum riser, dragging the long rack of brass gongs with him as his white-booted feet flashed in the air and he disappeared out of sight behind the platform. The gongs made a hell of a racket going down.
Rick Hicks had half-turned to see what in blazes was going on when a fan of hot slugs tore through both him and his guitar, impelling him into a clumsy pirouette.
Fourteen seconds gone.
Pepper Hartz’s solo hitched and died. He had just turned his attention to Reichmann’s fall when a fireline of bullets stitched toward him, blowing plastic and canvas splinters out of the prefab stage floor. There was zero time to react. He caught the burst in both legs and folded up, screaming. The blue spotlight was still on him, and in its light the fresh blood looked like chocolate syrup. Hartz’s Strat thudded endwise on the floor and sent a thrumming bass tone careening through the Arena.
Lucas broke through the panic freeze of his total surprise and turned his head to fix on the bright flashes of light.
Somebody was standing on the stage-left catwalk, less than sixty feet across from him, cutting the band apart with an M-16 on rapid fire. Lucas remembered what he and every other soldier had called the rapid-fire setting in Vietnam.
Rock and roll.
17
The urge to spend some time near the ocean struck Cass as she was picking her way down from the outhouse. Going to the bathroom in the woods was never less than an adventure, and however cleanly maintained, the outhouse nevertheless hosted a scary variety of curious life forms.
The clothes she had hand-washed in the kitchen basin hung, dry now, from tree limbs behind the cabin. She pulled them down and sniffed. Ahh.
There was ham and Swiss cheese and tuna salad in the fridge, and she constructed a pair of thick sandwiches on seven-grain bread and folded them into a bindle made from one of Lucas’ large kerchiefs, which she had also washed. She used the sandwiches to cushion two clinking bottles of cold Dos Equis beer and added a spiral notebook she had discovered in the kitchen drawer. Under the gun.
Finding the gun had sent a tiny lance of surprise spearing into her heart. It was some kind of huge pistol, wrapped up in a holster with a lot of nylon webbing. Her hands had absolutely refused to even touch it; she hated guns. She’d slid the notebook out from under it as though the pistol were radioactive. It had dropped back into place with a heavy thud—even the sound had been dark, weighty, ominous. She’d slammed the drawer shut and refused to look inside again.
Guy has a cabin in the mountains. Has a gun. Almost logical, for out here. Frontier security. Just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean lots of normal people don’t have them. I certainly don’t have to touch the icky thing. Case closed.
After she wiped off the surface of the notebook (what, me, compulsive?), she put the gun out of her mind. She did not feel much like reading, though Lucas had socked in plenty of paperbacks. Today she wanted to ruminate on the pad or just doodle by the sea, which held a degree of bohemian attraction for her. A pity Jack Kerouac was stuck with the squalors of suburbia and skid row for inspiration.
Thus provisioned, she checked the padlock on the door of the cabin’s auxiliary room before leaving. She could not pinpoint the reason why she did this, other than her desire to be responsible on Lucas’s behalf. It was secure. When she let it go it clunked against the plank door and shined at her. It was new, recently bought, as was the hasp on the door. The other hardware and cabin fixings were all worn or broken in with age.
It was none of her business.
If there was a single fact she had learned about men—whose weird body chemistry made them the closest thing to alien beings on earth—it was that men were addicted to the cultivation of their private little caches of secrets. The thing that had put the whole country in such a balls-up was the machismo hormone. That was why the backbone of politics was the mudslinging smear campaign, why there were so bloody many nuclear bombs buried all over the map, why Tanya’s biker boyfriend T-Bone and Cass’ own Reese had apocalypse written in their eyes. The machismo hormone. Lucas seemed immune, so far. At least he had not been demonstrably male in the Teutonic, patience-abrading fashion that kicks the female’s automatic alarm system on like a fire klaxon. He seemed to live his life in balance, to know what he wanted. He seemed in control of his circumstances, and for that Cass envied him. At least he hadn’t gotten himself puddled by a homicidal screwball like Reese.
She had taken stock of herself that morning and thought she was mending with fair speed. The left side of her face no longer stung abominably when she spoke or rolled onto it in sleep. Her crushed hand had freed up, and her grip was back to about three-quarter strength. Her shiner had deflated. The discoloration in the socket of her eye now resembled an inept makeup job. If she glanced at her face in the mirror tile above the sink fast enough, she looked normal. The progress pleased her. You’ll be back on the cover of Vogue in no time, kiddo.
She used a flexible wire brush on a wide wooden paddle to brush her auburn hair straight back, then braided it into a single, thick, twisting rope that she secured with a rubber band at the bottom. It looked rather like the bell pulls used by the filthy rich to summon butlers and handmaidens in the mostly awful 1940s films that ran in the predawn on Channel Five or Thirteen, back in the city. It no longer hurt to comb her hair. She did not yelp with pain in the course of washing or drying it. Just a few days before, it had felt as though she was yanking blood vessels right out through her scalp.
She laced up her hiking boots and cuffed the slightly large coverall legs to fit. Then she hit the trail.
Near the cabin you could make out natural depressions in the ground that meant walk here, others do. But the footpath vanished almost immediately, giving way to a forty-degree slope of limestone bluff littered with rock chips a foot deep in some places, which led down to the timberline. She speculated that a huge chunk of limestone stratum had pushed its way to the surface and made a big scab where trees could not root. Only stubborn scrub plants poked up through infrequent cracks. It killed traction. Sometimes it allowed deceptively easy climbing. Right when you thought you’d gotten the swing of dancing downward, high-stepping, it would slip your foot and dump you on your ass. No wonder Lucas needed a tank like the Bronco to scrabble all the way to his stoop. From a postcard distance, it was picturesque. Up close, it was just a bitch of a hill.
She watched a squirrel watching her.
“Yeah, laugh all you want, buckaroo. I need the exercise, and nobody invited you to watch. Whoops!”
Cass slid feet first down five feet or so of the rock surface. Pathetic miniature avalanches of chalky rock trickled around her. Fifteen feet away, another squirrel joined the first on the branch of a crooked, dead tree. The soil could not nourish the tree here. But the squirrels could gather there to make bad squirrel jokes and watch the human burlesque.
“Fine. Wonderful.” Her butt was sore, and her calf muscles were already twanging. She felt like throwing a rock until she remembered this wasn’t her neighborhood.
Doggedly she continued downhill, bobbing and weaving and sliding only occasionally. She thought triumphantly, At least I’m not falling around as comically as those two city slickers on their way up.
She petrified, a cat on freeze mode.
Two people had just emerged from the treeline far below her and were valiantly fighting their way up the inhospitable incline. They were about a hundred yards distant, mere specks. But it was obvious they were bound for her pos
ition as though homed in via radar.
She turned and bounded back toward the cabin. Going up was more of a challenge, but she did not fall, and her legs greedily welcomed the work. In the rare times she noticed her legs thrumming with strength, she would reflect that maybe the eight years of dance classes inflicted on her by her parents had been worth it. Her legs hit stride and propelled her upward with gazelle sureness.
She could lay for them inside the cabin.
Twenty minutes later the two visitors knocked on the cabin door. It was a city knock, no different from that of a group selling highschool band candy or proselytizing for the Seventh Day Adventists.
Cass opened the door fully prepared for a confrontation with Lucas’ fabled ex-wife.
She met eyes with a tall woman whose conservative brown hair was windblown. Her tan boots were newly scuffed from the climb. She had removed her dark glasses to unveil direct, authoritarian eyes, also brown, which she narrowed in the sunlight.
“We’re here to see Lucas,” she said as though it explained everything. Then, less sure: “Lucas Ellington.”
Ellington. Nice name. Cass had not known it. Yes, this had to be Sara, and the bulldog type with the fluffy gray hair, standing a respectful distance behind and to the left, that had to be her attorney, as Lucas had forewarned. Any residual fear drained away. She had this ex-spouse’s number. No problem. She folded her arms and squared her body. She’d actually been rehearsing the routine in her head.
“Too late,” she told them sweetly. “Lucas is long gone.” If the legal bloodhound knew his business, it wouldn’t be any use to try and convince them that this was not Lucas’ cabin. “He expected you guys to show up a week ago.” Just a hint of derision there. Perfect.
Bulldog stepped forward to flank Sara. “Do you suppose you could tell us where he is, Miss—?”
Cass’ eyes did not leave Sara’s, where a war was brewing. “Nope.”
A slow breath escaped Sara, laden with the psychic smell of grinding teeth. “I don’t believe her. Listen, whoever you might be… if Lucas is hiding, or if you’re just covering for him… you might be in danger. He—”
“Sounds horrible.” Cass smiled, dripping contempt.
“He is being sought statewide right now for possible connections in three murders,” Sara overrode, despising the lie but infuriated by this girl’s snide manner. Splendid, her professional imp poked her. You’ve just changed from a potential equal in this argument to Old Bitch. She had been put instantly on the defensive by a girl half her age. Almost half, since she was almost forty. Didn’t she have any chops left? Her jaw muscles concretized. “I don’t know how long you’ve known Lucas, honey, but I’m willing to bet it hasn’t been more than two weeks, and you obviously don’t have any idea of who or what you’re involved with! If Lucas is here, he’ll see me. I’m his doctor…
Now she was looking past Cass and into a depressingly vacant cabin. There was a locked door set into one wall. A hiding place?
“You listen to me now, Mom,” Cass shot back. “I really don’t care if you’re Doctor Jekyll and that’s Mister Hyde behind you. Get some legal realities straight. I am the caretaker of this place. Lucas is gone; don’t ask me where. That’s none of my business and none of yours. You are trespassing. If you want the tour, bring a cop with a warrant. I know how that works, so don’t jive me. I would tell you all I know is that Lucas packed up and left days ago, but you’re not prepared to buy that. So we have nothing to talk about, do we? Goodbye.”
She began to shut the door in Sara’s face when Sara interposed her boot, blocking it. Cass’ green, dark-ringed eyes flared.
“You trying for forcible entry, doctor?”
Burt interceded. He approached with his hands open in entreaty, a gesture unchanged almost since caveman days, like the handshake, originally intended to prove the absence of hidden weapons. “Er—look, young lady. We’re not here to cause trouble or make you angry. Seriously. I don’t know what you’ve been told, now, but Lucas is a good friend of mine, and he might be in trouble I don’t think he even knows about. Perhaps you care about that? I’m certainly not here to trap him, or compromise him. I’m here to exonerate him.” His salesman voice clicked in; he made his eyes as warm as he could. More primal signals. That was how you sold products. “I just need to talk to him. I guarantee you that if he knew Sara—Ms. Windsor—and I were standing here right now, he would see us. So I believe you; I don’t think he’s here, either.” Christ, he thought—what on earth had this girl been told?
Cass held the door fast, and Sara withdrew her foot. She looked from one to the other and settled on Burt. “You should have come to the door first. Your lady friend is less civilized. I’m not a hard-ass, but I’ve already told you: Lucas is gone. He did not say where. That is all I know.” She shrugged.
“Fine,” said Burt, still succoring. “Is he coming back?”
“In a month, maybe.” That fib was harmless enough.
“Can I leave word for him here? That’s all I really want—to get in touch as soon as I can.”
“Sure. You can leave word, but like I say, he may not see it for four weeks or more. Four weeks equals a month.”
Sara stopped smoldering. “Did Lucas do that to you? Black your eye?”
“No. I had an accident. I’m recuperating up here, and baby-sitting the cabin, and that’s all.” Then she pointedly turned back to Burt. “I think your lady friend wants to ask if I’m Lucas’ significant other. No. Lucas is a touch too old for me.” Unspoken was He’s more in your range, Mom. Cass watched her barb sink and seat.
“Any idea of what’s in the locked room?” said Burt, pushing his luck.
“Not the foggiest.”
He craned his neck but could not see the video gear Lucas had borrowed from Kroeger Concepts. “Then that’s all I can ask without force,” he said, conceding defeat and hating it, for it offended his problem-solving mind. “Let’s go, Sara.”
She spun on him. “You mean we just walk off, Burt, just like that, after the drive, after… everything? Just pull out because she wants to play some stupid game?” Her eyes were wet with fury.
“Hanging around here gains us nothing. Lucas would have poked his head up by now.”
“Lucas!” Sara shouted at the cabin, at the woods. It was immediately apparent how futile it was. “Lucas, goddamnit!”
“You’ve got quite a backbone, young lady,” Burt said to Cass. “I sure as hell hope you don’t come to regret it. Because if you’re spinning me ’round, you will.”
He took Sara’s hand to avert her, and they crunched away down the footpath. She looked back. He did not.
“You’re welcome,” Cass said, knowing they could not hear. Then, in a whisper, she added, “I win.”
She watched from the door until the pair could no longer be seen. Lucas would be very pleased. Maybe he would tell her what their tale of three murders was really about. Probably this Sara woman, playing soap opera, trying to scare her. She might have tried saying they were from Internal Revenue; that scares the shit out of most people. For all the results they walked away with, she might have said she was a Russian counterspy or a Roman demigoddess fallen on hard times.
Cass reveled in her handling of the situation… but now her stomach lurched sourly, and her knees wanted to unhinge. Her hands trembled. Battle fatigue. The thought of the fat sandwiches packed into the bindle became less than appetizing. It was just adrenaline backwash. She recognized the nausea. She replaced it with anger. She would not let this spoil her plans for the beach.
Murder. Sara had used the magic word, and it hung around to hamper her.
They might come back. If they did, things might escalate. They might bring up the Rangers to roust her. Would her backbone give out at a crucial point, making her faint or puke while they ransacked Lucas’ place looking for god knew what? She sat down heavily on one of the kitchen chairs, drawing slow, deep oral breaths. Gradually things swam back into normal focus, and the i
ron returned to her blood. If the interlopers were to hang back a day, then try again, Lucas would have returned and the matter would be out of her hands. She would help him any way she could.
Just who was Lucas, though, out in the real world? Did it matter, as far as her relationship with him was concerned? She wiped her brow; found it sweaty. Nervousness, leaking out through her pores.
Then she heard footsteps outside, or thought she did. She stopped in midbreath. A shadow disturbed the light in the front window. She pushed out of the chair. Maybe the pair had thought of some new angle to throw in her face.
When she pulled open the door, she was pissed off. Then she found herself staring up, up into Reese’s crooked smile. Lucas’ long-handled axe, from the chopping stump outside, depended loosely from Reese’s right hand.
“Hi, puss,” he said.
“Just who the hell are we?” Burt said.
They had traded the fantasmagoric milieu of the woods for the push-button urban familiarity of bucket seats and tinted windshields, and now they were headed north. “Be realistic, Sara. We can’t demand anybody do anything. Even if we had any kind of authority, we’d still need guys with badges to deal with that girl. Is that what you want? I thought the idea was to avoid guys with guns.”
Their descent down the mountain had made Sara’s coat a hot purgatory to wear, and she had stowed it in the backseat. She nursed a keen whomper of a headache, and the Excedrin tin in her bag was cunningly empty.
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