“Twelve-gauge rounds’ll blow down a cinder block wall. Push this button and it converts to a pump—lets you clear ajam that would stop a normal auto shotgun cold.” When Stannard hefted it by the pistol grip, Horns laid in with his qualifiers: “Another pain in the ass to reload. The reputation of a shotgun as an alley sweeper ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, either.”
He moved on. “These are flash-pops, also known as stun grenades. Used well, they can immobilize an enemy you may not be able to see, with a very loud bang and a burst of bright light. Used badly…well, you get what those idiot sheriffs got at the Van Cleef and Arpel’s shootout got, which was dead and scorched hostages.”
“Move over, Arnold Schwarzenegger,” said Stannard.
Cannibal Rex cracked into a parody of the body-sculpting star: “Ahh, ahh, ahh, be garful you don’t blow abb!”
“More than this and we’ll have too much crap to carry,” said Horus. “And I, for one, think the idea of all this firepower is pussy.”
“I like ’em,” croaked Cannibal. “Pretty guns.”
“Strictly backup, failsafe material,” Stannard noted. “If it was my choice, I’d do the son of a bitch with my crossbow. But we gotta be ready in case we find him arsenaled in somewhere—that’s the bottom line. And if you hate guns so much, how come you know so many statistics?”
Horus turned his mouth down. It should have been obvious that he preferred any endeavor to be executed well. If Stannard did not want expertise, he could have sent some amateur to do the job.
On the TV screen, Cannibal charged a large white Panavision camera and began to batter it with his Les Paul. Both camera and guitar began to splinter apart, hurling fragments. The sound on the TV was turned all the way down.
“The cops are too stupid to see they grabbed the wrong guy in Arizona,” Stannard said. “But they’ll catch on. In the meantime, Lucas Ellington is saving me for last. It’ll all be old news by the time the cops do anything effective.”
The nasty challenge of Mardi Grassley hovered about him, taunting and echoing.
“You don’t know for a fact he’s after you,” Horus said.
“I don’t need a bouquet and a card to tell me.” He patted his left pectoral. “I know it in here. And if you can’t understand that after spending all your spare time sunk to the upper lip in that Eastern mystical bullshit, then I can’t explain it to you.”
Cannibal Rex touched the three fingers of his picking hand to his sternum, nearly duplicating Stannard’s motion. “When someone wants your blood,” he said in that odd voice of his, “you know it. There ain’t nothing else except to play it out.” The cocaine had dried him out, and his voice sounded remarkably like a gas bubble in a tar pit.
“Whatever you say, bwana. We live but to serve. But I say again I think this is all hot fart wind.” Horus folded his massive arms.
“If it is, then we’ve got nothing to worry about. That’s what I mean by fail-safe. Josh is checking out the guy’s shrink, the one from Olive Grove. I bet he’ll check in with her sooner or later. Personally, I hope it’s sooner—before the cops whiff the fact that their killer is still at large. That way it’ll get done before they can muss things up—and I don’t want a bunch of amateurs in my way.”
“Amateurs, wow,” snickered Cannibal Rex. He grabbed his beret from the table and mopped his shaven, scarred head with it.
“Seriously. The LAPD is one thing—those dudes are professional cops, rated the best metro police force in the country. But the hypos and sheriffs… shit, man, those morons got their jobs by ‘calling the number on your screen.’ They got their training by spending two years beating up prisoners in the county lockup. They’re walking around out there with more hardware than anybody. They’re the worst fucking gang in the whole city. And I don’t want them in my way.”
Horus released a huge breath. He had not determined whether there was karma to be balanced here or not. “I’ve spoken my words. You call it. We’ll do it.”
Cannibal Rex hoisted up the American 180 by the long, padded SIONICS silencer screwed onto the snubbed barrel. A stretch clip protruded from the grip. He worked the bolt and perched the gun against one forearm. “Yesss. Anyplace around here we can acid test this honey?”
“Basement.” Horus nodded. “It’s soundproofed.”
“He’s gotta see the video,” Stannard said, noticing the TV set. “Once he sees the video, he’ll know I’m after him. If he was planning to leave me alive, make me sweat, then maybe this’ll force his hand. He’ll have to try to take me out before I can do the same to him. Showdown time.” He held the auto Mag end up into the light, popped the clip, and thumbed up one of the cartridges. He turned it between his fingers like a jewel.
“Target practice,” said Cannibal Rex, up for it now. “Firepower! Crush, kill destroy!” He laughed, and Stannard joined him.
“You gentlemen start without me,” Horus said. “Right now I’ve got to go put my hands all over your girlfriend.”
Stannard’s eyes did not waver from the gun. “Do whatever she needs,” he said, as though Sertha was the furthest thing from his concern.
21
Cass unbolted the door in a clumsy rush, yanked Lucas into the cabin, and threw her arms tightly around him.
When he had called her name from outside, her fear had washed away and she had literally leapt for the door. Lucas caught many impressions in a finger-snap of time.
The echoes of her ordeal had made her newly healed face haggard, and he saw animal trepidation haunting her eyes as she pulled him in out of the rain. His Llama ACP pistol was in her right hand as she answered the door. The door to the Whip Hand room was battered to junk, the table was collapsed, there was blood dried on the floor. Lucas knew the dark stain was blood—no excuses. The air in the cabin hung thick with recent violence, and he felt the phobic dread that radiated from her as she clung to him, her face buried in the hollow of his neck. He tried numbly to still her shaking without using his crippled hands.
They stood that way for a while, the storm raging outside, as he spoke her name repeatedly and said other soothing, meaningless things in a succoring voice. The muttered nonsense helped distill some of the anxiety and pain; it solidified the bad feelings so they could be spat out and eliminated. It was a two-way exchange, though Cass was oblivious to this at first. By the time they settled down, Lucas himself was close to tears. They parted, looked into each other’s eyes calmly, and Cass’ mouth unhinged when she got her first good, rational look at what was left of him.
“Jesus Christ!” She saw his mummified hands, watched him list stiff-leggedly to the nearest unbroken chair.
“You first. I’ve got to—ahgh!—sit down.” His leg gave up, and he landed heavily in the seat. He cleared his throat of the thick coating that impeded his voice. “God. You know, on top of everything else, I think my foot’s asleep.”
The coffee was on, and fresh, and they both needed it. Lucas was rapidly running out of pain pills. They dragged their chairs closer to the hearth, where it had taken Cass an hour to get a good fire going. Orange light illuminated them in flickering, shifting patterns as she wrapped one of his injured hands up in both of hers, carefully not squeezing.
“This day has been a million years long.” She cleared her eyes with the sleeve of the merchant marine sweater, looking like a first-timer on the high-diving board. Then she took the plunge. “Reese came back after me. He found me. He’s out back, now, behind the cabin. He’s dead; I shot him with your pistol. He was going to kill me. I killed him. He broke into the locked room, looking for stuff to steal, and I found your gun in the kitchen drawer, and it jammed and I tried to shoot him and he ran at me with—”
“Calm, calm,” Lucas said. “He’s not here now. I am. Calm.”
A nervous laugh rose and broke surface. “Almost became a runaway, didn’t I? Damn it.” She swallowed dryly. “I shot your television set. Pretty slapstick, huh? I blew away a TV set. Reese was going to bash my brain
s out with it.” The enormity of her luck made her shake her head in dull awe. “I shot the TV, and then I shot Reese. How am I doing so far?”
“Just work your way through what happened. Nobody’s going to land on your head tonight. Reese is, that is, his body is out back?”
“I covered it up. I was gonna bury it. I found his Datsun down at the bottom of the hill, hidden in the bushes.”
“Anybody else around? Does anyone know he came up here, do you think?”
“Reese wouldn’t tell anyone. He’s a lone wolf. He went back to the city and beat up Jonathan pretty bad. Everything but my cash was still in the truck. Everything except my favorite hairbrush, which the son of a bitch probably threw away.”
Lucas looked speculatively to the kitchen window. The storm hammered on. “No one is going to come snooping in this weather.”
He lifted the .45 from the kitchen counter, slid out the clip, and thumbed up five slugs. Another shell jumped from the chamber when he snapped the action. His eyebrows went up. “Three shots? It should only take one bullet from this gun to put anybody away.”
“Not Reese. And I missed the first time. I’ve never fired a gun in my life.” She shut her eyes, segueing back. “I shot the TV. Then Reese. Twice.”
“He must have been pretty close, if you shot him twice and never fired a gun before.”
“Point-blank, as they say in the cop movies. Another second and he’d’ve noticed that nasty-looking M-16 you’ve got stashed in there.”
Lucas’ eyes darted to the Whip Hand room, then back. “But he didn’t. Look… I’ll do something about the body when the rain eases up. Maybe Reese and his truck can disappear into the good old Mar Pacifica. That sort of thing isn’t unheard of, not in storms like this.” He had no way of knowing that this was exactly the option Cass had considered, but her reaction to the suggestion was acquiescence, almost resignation, and not the queasy discomfort he expected to see. He had, after all, just proposed ditching the corpse of a murder victim.
Cass sat grinding her teeth, eyes focused on the floor. “I would not enjoy dealing with a whole platoon of nosy cops,” she said at last. “Or laying out everything that happened, in detail, over and over. Or blowing more of my life than I already have on Reese. All it would gain me is more grief. No, not for him.” She wrung her hands. “As far as I’m concerned, Reese went into the forest and never came out. Besides, I get the feeling that the police are the last people you want poking around up here.”
“Why?” Lucas was aware that he was playing games, that he should just be straight with her. But what harm could paying out a little more rope do now? Let’s see what she says.
“The stuff in that room over there. The stuff I’ve heard on the radio about the members of an old rock band called Whip Hand. A room full of weapons and a poster of the lead singer with his gut torn out. Two plus two. I hate to be chill, Lucas, and I hate to rope you in regarding Reese… but what I saw in that room looks awfully incriminating to me.”
He sat, evaluating her. His unblinking assessment was too much like Reese’s flat lizard gaze.
“Lucas, listen to me: I don’t care one way or the other! It all has something to do with Kristen; it’s what you wouldn’t talk about before.” She moved closer, trying to touch his injured hands gently. “I’d be willing to bet that what you’re doing—what you seem to be doing—is no more murder than what I did today. Sometimes things don’t fall neatly and cleanly into the boundaries of the law! Can’t you understand that I saw the stuff in that room, and that none of it matters to me? What I care about is the fact that you saved my ass, and that you’re a good man, and if you’re involved in this Whip Hand stuff, then you must have a damned good reason—a reason at least as good as mine. Nothing else matters.” She waited a beat, through more of his stoic silence. “Would you like some more coffee?”
The moment was poised between them, like some dark predator deciding whether to kill or let live. Finally his eyes came up to concentrate on the crackling fire.
“I love dealing with intelligent people, I really do. I think I’ve just had ten seconds of the most significant eye contact I’ve ever experienced… and yes, I could use some more coffee, Cass.”
She rinsed out their mugs. There was dry blood staining the ring of the drain. It looked like a coffee stain. She did not want to flash back on what she’d fished out of the sink earlier. “Another thing,” she said. “Your ex-wife? I think I met her and her lawyer right before Reese showed up.”
“You said nobody else was up here.” The hint of accusation in his voice was level and reasoned, but damning just the same.
“No—I said nobody else saw Reese. He showed up after they left. He’d been camping out in the trees, watching the cabin, biding time. He made sure nobody was around when he made his move. A half hour earlier, who knows? A half hour later, I might be dead.” Yet unspoken was a fiat verification of murder on Lucas’ part: I did it, Cass. Part of her was frantic to know. Part of her needed to know how she fit into, or disrupted, Lucas’ plans. One possible answer was ugly and total. Lucas’ words had suddenly taken on a defensive tinge. What he said seemed to hold deadly dual meanings and unvoiced threats. She had started babbling to fill the hole left by his scary silence, while Sara’s odd protest echoed in her mind: 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!
Who was Lucas? What was Lucas?
A realization jolted her as she mechanically did her bit with the coffee. It was one of those unsettling puzzle pieces that had been sitting all along, only it had taken her till now to think of it. Sara had been angry and reactionary. Maybe the reason was because she thought Lucas was up here fucking a girl half his age. But why should that make his ex-wife so steamed?
And she hadn’t said she was his ex-wife, but his doctor. And that meant Lucas hadn’t been entirely straight with her.
“You don’t look so disheveled now,” Lucas said, intruding on her accelerating thoughts. “Despite Reese.”
“I’m a fast healer.” She was going to start mumbling and circumventing if she didn’t dive in and hope for the best. Detouring Sara had committed her. She had lied for Lucas before she had any real idea of what he might be doing out in the real world, beyond the mountains.
Cass dove.
“Sara said you were being sought in connection with three murders. Her words. I think she was seeking you. I think if there was a real dragnet out for you, neither of us would be here right now. There’d be cops dropping out of the trees. She looked to me a lot like a lady who has put a whole bunch of facts into a stack—enough stuff to come after you. But she doesn’t want to nail you. She just wants to find you.” She found the Bronco’s first-aid kit, still in the kitchen, and brought it over. In a curious, role-reversed replay of their first meeting, she began to unwrap the stiff dressings on his hands. “So who is Sara, Lucas? Really. Maybe it’s an unfair question. But I don’t want to keep up with the evasions and meaningful silences.”
He decided to play proper croquet. “It’s over, Cass. It ended yesterday. And no matter what Sara does, there’s no real evidence. All the evasions have been mine—you’ve been perfectly honest with me. I’m not used to that. But since I found you—or vice-versa —things have changed. The whole…what I was doing…doesn’t seem as important now.” His palms felt the air. “Careful…”
“Holy shit.” Cass’ mouth pulled back.
“Skinned them on a climbing rope. Damned stupid.”
“In Arizona.” There it was—a direct accusation in one color, sizzling crimson.
“Right.”
She refused to let it rock her. She busied herself with cleaning and rebandaging the ravaged hands of the man who had just admitted to killing off the members of Whip Hand. But then, hadn’t she just killed someone herself, less than ten hours ago? “I think Sara and that guy will probably come
back. They didn’t have that give-up look in their eyes. I told them you’d cleared out for a month, but I don’t think they bought it enough to keep them from checking one more time, maybe tomorrow. Hold your hand like this. Better.”
He winced as medication stung him, sterilizing, cleansing away what his hands had done. “They had to have driven up from L.A. It must be Burt who’s with her, which means he’s gotten curious by now. They’re probably in a hotel somewhere between here and the city. Maybe one of those mom-and-pop beachfront stopovers you can get for twenty-six bucks a night. They’ll be back all right.”
She unfurled a roll of sterile gauze. “So what do we do? Both of us, I mean?”
“Nothing will happen till the storm goes away, and no one is coming up that hill in the storm unless they have a tank. We’ve got to get rid of Reese’s body and the stuff in that room. Maybe Reese can serve a purpose after all. Everything—including evidence—could be dumped with him. Once that’s done, we could wait for Sara and Burt and just face them off. Or you and I could just move on, and I can deal with them in my own time.” The new bandages were brilliantly white in the firelight. He pushed himself up and stumped over to the back door. With the baton flashlight from the kitchen, he scanned until he located the soggy mass of tarpaulin.
“That’s Reese,” Cass said from behind him, grateful that the lump was still there, had not crawled off into the night to stalk her another day. “The firewood’s wet, but I brought a stack inside before it started pouring. Don’t know why I thought of that, considering the mental state I was in.”
“The mind does weird things to keep itself on track during stress,” he said. Behind them the fire had calmed down to glowing embers, pulsing good heat.
She moved past him to close the back door and slide her arms around him. “I’m just glad you finally showed up,” she told him, and this time he knew she meant it.
Cass was a woman who would not lie to him.
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