She stared at the TV. Drinking her beer, lighting her cigarettes and snuffing them out. Some sort of game show was on now. One of those shows where they did outrageous things to the contestants. Now they were dumping a bucket of snakes onto this one woman. If she could endure it, she would win some money. What the hell was so hard about that? Kathleen thought. That woman would probably stick her head in a bucket of shit if you gave her enough money. Fuck her if that was all she cared about. Idiot bitch.
She thought of changing the channel but she couldn’t be bothered. She went on staring at the show. Where she was, at the back of the house, of course, she didn’t see the sleek, dark car pull up to the curb outside. She didn’t hear her own front door open. She didn’t even hear the footsteps coming down the hall until the last minute. Then she glanced around and saw her husband moving into the doorway.
Startled, she sat up straight. Jesus, he looked bad. Really bad. Gray-faced, crazy-eyed. There was a dark patch just drying on his pants—and was that the smell of piss on him?
She had just lit up another cigarette. She quickly screwed it into the ashtray, set the tray on the coffee table. She found the remote on the cushion against her thigh. Pressed the MUTE button. The sound on the TV went off.
“Hey, Chris,” she said uncertainly.
The windows were open to let the smoke out, to let the night air in. With the TV silent—just some bland fathead on the screen flapping his grin now—she could hear the noises of the backyard and the neighborhood. The crickets, the O’Connors’ yapping rat of a Chihuahua, the thump of a plastic garbage can lid at the Paynters’ house next door.
Chris stood another long second, kind of unsteady and wavering, kind of smiling in this eerie, distant way.
“You okay?” she asked him.
“Yeah,” he said finally. His tone of voice was eerie too. Small and dreamy. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m fine. But we gotta go now, Kathleen.”
“Go? Where the hell we gotta go?” She looked at her watch. “It’s, like, nine o’clock…”
“I know,” he said in that same voice. “But we gotta. Mr. Hirschorn says we won’t be safe here. He’s sent some guys to take us. They’re gonna take us to where it’s safe until all this is over.”
“All…? Chris, what’re you talking about, I don’t get it, all…?”
And then she knew they were going to kill her.
The fathead on the TV went on talking and grinning with glittery eyes and the crickets outside went on chirping and that goddamn little Chihuahua dog went on yapping and maybe there was a footstep in the backyard grass that tipped her off or maybe it was just the weird way Chris was talking but all of a sudden she just knew that the men in the BMW were here. She knew they were going to take her away, take her into the woods somewhere. When she was found her hair would be matted with blood around the hole where the bullet went in. Her face would be half in the dirt with leaves and twigs sticking to it.
And here was Chris. That was the part that sucked, really sucked. Chris had come to give her over to them. Her own loving husband. He was here to coax her outside so she would go quietly, so the neighbors wouldn’t know what was happening and there wouldn’t be a fuss. She didn’t think anything could hurt her anymore but that hurt her. That made her sick just about to death. She was his own wife and she didn’t mean shit to him. He’d just hand her over. Like the game show, for money. Anyone would do anything for money in the end. Nobody meant shit to anyone.
She stood up—stood up slowly, even as she felt everything inside her sinking down, caving in.
“Jesus, Chris,” she said.
“We have to go now,” her husband told her dreamily. “Mr. Hirschorn sent some guys to take us.”
Hot tears welled in her eyes. “I mean, Jesus. What’re you doing?”
“Come on, Kathleen,” he said. “It’s all right. No one’ll hurt you. We have to go.”
She flung herself at him. She cried out in her rage and despair and tried to hit him with both fists at once. When he grabbed her wrists, she tried to claw at him with her fingernails, to tear his cheeks. She was sobbing and her tears burned her eyes like acid. Somehow her despair and her fury made her tears burn.
Chris wrapped his powerful arms around her. He held her close. She couldn’t get free to strike at him again. She struggled and twisted. She smelled his rancid sweat and his urine and some other smell she didn’t know that was rank and dead and awful. She struggled—and then finally she collapsed against him. She pressed her face against his chest and sobbed. He put a hand on the back of her head and patted her gently. He kissed her hair.
“It’s all right,” he said in the same strange tone. “We just have to go away for a while. It’s no problem. No one’ll hurt you. It’s just until all this is over.”
Kathleen sobbed into his shirt. “Oh, Chris,” she said. “Oh, Chris.”
“Come on now,” said Chris. “It’s all right. Really.” He guided her to the door of the den.
Behind them, a commercial had come on the TV. Dad was home for dinner and Mom was putting a hearty bowl of soup on the table for him and one for Junior and one for smiling Sis as well. It was all in silence, only the crickets for a sound track and the yapping Chihuahua and Kathleen’s sobs against her husband’s chest.
Chris led her out of the den into the hallway and the men were there. Flake had come in through the back, through the kitchen, and Goldmunsen through the front. That way they had both ends of the hall blocked off in case she tried to run for it.
But she didn’t run for it. She didn’t give a shit what happened anymore. Why should she? She let Chris take her down the hall. Out the door. Into the warm night. She balked a little at the sight of the BMW. The sleek, dark car. She hesitated a little when she saw it, trying to hold up on the front path of her house. It was just so horrible somehow, the car and the way Chris was leading her to it with his arm around her. She tried to stop but he kept his grip on her. He drew her gently but firmly on.
“It’s all right, Kathleen,” he said dreamily.
The three men put her into the car and they drove away with her and she didn’t care anymore what happened.
Fifty-Two
Out in the forest, meanwhile, Bishop waited for his chance at the man with the gun. They were in the barracks now, in the room on the second floor. It was a long room, without much in it. A couple of air mattresses. A square card table. Chairs. A bare bulb that hung down from a wire.
Chase, the gunman, sat at the card table, tilted back in one of the chairs. The bulb sent a circle of glare down over him, cast him in stark light, dark shadow. He was a squat powerhouse of a man. His torso was the shape of an upside-down triangle and his head was like a boulder perched on top of it. He never took his meaty hands off his HK. He never took his beady eyes off Bishop.
Bishop was facing him, leaning against the opposite wall, his leg bent back, his foot pressed flat against the wall’s surface. His hand rested lightly against his midsection and a wisp of smoke trailed up from the cigarette he held between his fingers. He was thinking, wondering. Wondering what a mutt like Hirschorn was planning to do with an attack helo. Wondering if he could get out of here in time to stop him. Wondering if he’d have to kill this Chase guy when he got the chance and made his move.
After a while, he pushed off the wall. Strolled over to one of the two windows. He drew the blind aside a little. Peeked out into the night. The second gunman, a black man, six-foot-four, was standing guard outside the ground-level door. There was some kind of meeting going on down there, it sounded like. Bishop could hear voices coming up through the floor. He could make out Hirschorn’s voice and at least two others. Which meant there were probably at least four gunmen in all. Whatever he did up here, it was going to have to be quick and quiet so as not to alert the whole gang of them.
He let the blind slip shut again. Let his eyes wander around the steel box of a room. There was only one door. It led to the stairway outside. The stairway led dow
n to where the black gunman was posted. There was no way to get around him. It was a nice little puzzle.
He glanced over at Chase.
“How about I step out on the stairs and get a breath?” he said.
“How about you don’t,” said Chase in his deep monotone rasp. “How about you just breathe in here.” He rocked back and forth on the hind legs of his chair. He never took his eyes off Bishop.
Bishop strolled toward him. Chase watched him with a thin bouldery smile on his big bouldery face. It amused him to think that Bishop might make a play.
“What the hell is this?” Bishop said. “Am I a prisoner here?”
“Only in the sense that if you try to leave the room I’ll kill you,” said Chase.
“Oh,” said Bishop. “For a minute there, I was starting to get worried.”
He turned before he came within reach of the gunman. No way to angle in on him with him as watchful as that. He strolled to the other side of the card table. Chase’s eyes followed him and his gun barrel followed him.
“To tell the truth, I don’t think killing me’s all that smart,” Bishop said.
“Hey, don’t criticise my ideas,” said Chase. “It damages my self-esteem.”
Bishop came around behind the chair across from him. He put his hands on the back of it. He wondered if he was fast enough to lift it, swing it at the guy’s head. He might’ve been, but he thought Chase would probably shoot him dead if he tried it. Which seemed a major drawback to the plan.
“I mean, it’d be kind of tough for your boy Hirschorn to find a new pilot on such short notice, wouldn’t it?” he said.
“Yeah,” said Chase. “But it’d be kind of tough for you to come back to life too.”
“I see your point.” Instead of swinging the chair, Bishop pulled it from under the table and sat on it. He shuffled his cigarette pack out of his T-shirt pocket and tossed it down on the tabletop. “Help yourself,” he said. He thought if Chase reached for the pack, he might be able to break his arm, then his neck.
But Chase didn’t reach for it. His bouldery smile grew wider. “Hey, you know what I think?” he said.
Bishop considered the question. “No,” he said then. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re looking for ways to take me.”
“Really?”
“I do.”
“That’s startling. Why would I?”
“Hey, don’t ask me,” rasped Chase. “If you’re smart, you’ll just sit tight and smoke your cigarettes. Give yourself cancer—you’ll live longer.”
Bishop smiled himself a little. Lifted the last of his smoke into the smile and sucked the flame down to the filter. Then he dropped what was left to the floor, twisted his shoe on the ember, crushed it out. All in all, he thought, yes, he might well have to kill this guy. The gunman was too good to take a chance on.
The two men’s eyes met across the card table. Chase knew what Bishop was thinking. He knew and it didn’t stop him from smiling. Which probably wasn’t a good sign.
But no matter. Whatever Bishop was planning, he didn’t get to pull it off, not just then. Because just then, there was a sound outside, a rhythmic beating of the air. A chopper, a little Jet Ranger or something by the sound of it. Coming in close and low. Too close, too low. It had to be landing on the nearby runway.
“You expecting someone?” Bishop asked.
Chase didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Bishop could read his expression: He was surprised.
Bishop’s mind raced. Who would show up here unexpected? The helo sounded too dinky to belong to the cops. No one else would be able to find this place. And that meant it must be one of Hirschorn’s friendlies. And that meant they were bringing news, surprising news that couldn’t wait.
And that meant Chris must’ve woken up, must’ve gotten his chance to tell them who “Frank Kennedy” really was, what he’d been up to.
And that meant, finally, that Bishop’s time had just run out.
Fifty-Three
Weiss went on standing at the big arched window, went on looking down at the misty city. Hands in his pockets, shoulders low, chin sunk nearly to his chest. He let his eyes follow the slow progress of a motorcycle as it wove its way through an intersection thick with cars.
A pale white light played over the room behind him. The computer was on at his desk. There had been no e-mail from Bishop. The long silence was like fuel on the fire of urgency in him. Knowing Bishop, it meant he was out of touch. Which probably meant that, against Weiss’s specific instructions, he had worked his way into Hirschorn’s confidence and was moving toward the heart of his operation. Whatever they’re planning, it’s going down soon. Time’s short, I’m doing my best. JB.
Time’s short. But how short? And what were they planning? And what the hell did it have to do with Whip Pomeroy, with Julie Wyant, with the Shadowman?
Weiss stood at the window, stood still, looked down. He watched a man in a black raincoat as he walked swiftly along the sidewalk. The man came under a streetlight haloed in mist. His figure was etched clearly for a moment, hunched against the rain. Then he was gone into the haze and darkness. Weiss stood gazing at the place where he had been.
His mind wandered back to that moment in the car, that moment when he had felt the presence of the Shadowman, felt the poison in him, felt the logic of his monstrous rage. He remembered what Bishop had said about Hirschorn, how he had left a lot of dead bodies on his way to the top. What if it had been the Shadowman who arranged for those bodies to become dead? What if Hirschorn owed the Shadowman something—or owed him everything? And feared him, as anyone would fear him? What if the Shadowman had called in his debts? It would be the nightmare of Hirschorn’s life. Hirschorn would probably do anything to make the hit man go away again.
But what? What had the Shadowman wanted him to do?
Weiss let his thoughts play over it. Pomeroy. Whip Pomeroy was the key. Pomeroy with his secret: Julie Wyant’s new identity, her name. Pomeroy, who had overheard the Shadowman’s humiliation. Weiss knew the Shadowman would have to kill Pomeroy for that. Torture him to find out about Julie and then kill him because he had overheard. Pomeroy knew it too. He knew it and was so terrified he was willing to barter away his clients’ identities if the law would only keep him locked up in the most secure prison in the country—and then he was still terrified. Nothing stops him in the end. Nothing. Ever…You can’t protect me. You can’t protect her. You can’t protect anyone.
Weiss made a soft noise, his head moving slightly. His focus shifted upward from the people and the traffic on the street below. He saw instead the mist coiling and turning above them. No one can protect me. It was ridiculous, he thought. North Wilderness SHU was impregnable. If the Shadowman, if anyone, could get close enough to Pomeroy to make him tell his secret, well, then Weiss was king of Romania.
And yet…And yet he felt that rage, that poison, that unstoppable rage. Rage itself in love. What wouldn’t it do? Weiss peered down into the mist and thought; Rage. Rage in love.
And so he began to consider. If it could be done, how could it be done? If your rage and your love compelled you. If Julie had to be found. If Pomeroy had to die. It was a complicated thing. You couldn’t just bribe a guard or another prisoner to take Pomeroy down. No. You’d need access, real access, real time to work the secret out of him. You’d have to look in the man’s eyes for yourself and know when he was finally telling the truth.
Weiss frowned into the night, unseeing now. The easiest way would be to threaten Pomeroy’s family, his friends, let him know you would hurt them if he didn’t give over. But that was no good. Weiss remembered what Ketchum had said. Moncrieff was the only friend he had, the only anything he had, family, friend, anything.
Weiss’s big chest lifted on a breath. Then there was only one other solution. The Shadowman would have to get into the prison himself. He would have to get a job there as a guard or something. But even as the thought occurred to him, Weiss gave a s
mall shake of his head. He remembered reading that the North Wilderness guards were specially chosen. They needed years of experience, extra months of training. You could fake the credentials but not the references, the recognition. It would take too long, be far too uncertain.
“Ach,” he said softly. The whole thing was impossible. A crazy idea, just Pomeroy’s paranoia.
But that rage. That poison he had felt in the car. The logic of that rage. He stood with his hands in his pockets, unmoving. He came back to himself, focused on the mist again. He stared down into that swirling, shifting mist. Saw the silhouettes and shadows moving underneath it, the lights, ringed and rainbowed, breaking through.
The image of Julie came to him. Those deep and distant, dreaming eyes. That beckoning gesture from the computer screen. For a moment, he was with her by the Golden Gate, watching in suspense as she ditched her car, put on her wig, picked up the new car, the new papers Pomeroy must’ve arranged for her.
And now he was with Pomeroy in his prison cell. Waiting, afraid.
And now he was with the Shadowman. That rage…
There was only one other way into that prison, he thought. The easiest way. The surest way. The way everyone else got in.
Finally, Weiss raised his eyes, raised them until he was gazing, not outside anymore, but into his own reflection.
“For fuck’s sake,” he whispered.
Then, quickly, he turned away from the night-blackened window and moved into the glow of his computer.
Fifty-Four
Now there were noises outside.
Voices calling. A gruff reply. Bishop got to his feet again.
Chase, tilted back in his chair, tightened his grip on the machine gun. “Stay where you are,” he rasped.
Bishop ignored him. He went back to the window. Looked out through the blinds.
Dynamite Road Page 22