End of Watch

by Stephen King

  And yes, Hodges will come. Plenty of people at Kiner Memorial know about this place; it's sort of legendary. But will he come straight in? Brady doesn't believe that for a minute. For one thing, the Det.-Ret. will know that many hunters leave their firearms out at camp (although few are as fully stocked with them as Heads and Skins). For another--and this is more important--the Det.-Ret. is one sly hyena. Six years older than when Brady first encountered him, true, undoubtedly shorter of wind and shakier of limb, but sly. The sort of slinking animal that doesn't come at you directly but goes for the hamstrings while you're looking elsewhere.

  So I'm Hodges. What do I do?

  After giving this due consideration, Brady goes to the closet, and a brief check of Babineau's memory (what's left of it) is all it takes for him to choose outerwear that belongs to the body he's inhabiting. Everything fits perfectly. He adds a pair of gloves to protect his arthritic fingers and goes outside. The snow is only a moderate fall and the branches of the trees are still. All that will change later, but for now it's pleasant enough to go for a tramp around the property.

  He walks to a woodpile whose surface is covered with an old canvas tarp and a few inches of fresh powder. Beyond it are two or three acres of old-growth pines and spruces separating Heads and Skins from Big Bob's Bear Camp. It's perfect.

  He needs to visit the gun closet. The Scar is fine, but there are other things in there he can use.

  Oh, Detective Hodges, Brady thinks, hurrying back the way he came. I've got such a surprise. Such a surprise for you.

  23

  Jerome listens carefully to what Hodges tells him, then shakes his head. "No way, Bill. I need to come."

  "What you need to do is go home and be with your family," Hodges says. "You especially need to be with your sister. She had a close call yesterday."

  They are sitting in a corner of the Hilton's reception area, speaking in low voices although even the desk clerk has retired to the nether regions. Jerome is leaning forward, hands planted on his thighs, his face set in a stubborn frown.

  "If Holly's going--"

  "It's different for us," Holly says. "You must see that, Jerome. I don't get along with my mother, never have. I see her once or twice a year, at most. I'm always glad to leave, and I'm sure she's glad to see me go. As for Bill . . . you know he'll fight what he's got, but both of us know what the chances are. Your case is not like ours."

  "He's dangerous," Hodges says, "and we can't count on the element of surprise. If he doesn't know I'll come for him, he's stupid. That's one thing he never was."

  "It was the three of us at the Mingo," Jerome says. "And after you went into vapor lock, it was just Holly and me. We did okay."

  "Last time was different," Holly says. "Last time he wasn't capable of mind control juju."

  "I still want to come."

  Hodges nods. "I understand, but I'm still the wheeldog, and the wheeldog says no."

  "But--"

  "There's another reason," Holly says. "A bigger reason. The repeater's offline and the website's shut down, but that leaves almost two hundred and fifty active Zappits. There's been at least one suicide already, and we can't tell the police all of what's going on. Isabelle Jaynes thinks Bill's a meddler, and anyone else would think we're crazy. If anything happens to us, there's only you. Don't you understand that?"

  "What I understand is that you're cutting me out," Jerome says. All at once he sounds like the weedy young kid Hodges hired to mow his lawn all those years ago.

  "There's more," Hodges says. "I might have to kill him. In fact, I think that's the most likely outcome."

  "Jesus, Bill, I know that."

  "But to the cops and the world at large, the man I killed would be a respected neurosurgeon named Felix Babineau. I've wiggled out of some tight legal corners since opening Finders Keepers, but this one could be different. Do you want to risk being charged as an accessory to aggravated manslaughter, defined in this state as the reckless killing of a human being through culpable negligence? Maybe even Murder One?"

  Jerome squirms. "You're willing to let Holly risk that."

  Holly says, "You're the one with most of your life still ahead of you."

  Hodges leans forward, even though it hurts to do so, and cups the broad nape of Jerome's neck. "I know you don't like it. I didn't expect you would. But it's the right thing, for all the right reasons."

  Jerome thinks it over, and sighs. "I see your point."

  Hodges and Holly wait, both of them knowing this is not quite good enough.

  "Okay," Jerome says at last. "I hate it, but okay."

  Hodges gets up, hand to his side to hold in the pain. "Then let's snag that SUV. The storm's coming, and I'd like to get as far up I-47 as possible before we meet it."

  24

  Jerome is leaning against the hood of his Wrangler when they come out of the rental office with the keys to an all-wheel drive Expedition. He hugs Holly and whispers in her ear. "Last chance. Take me along."

  She shakes her head against his chest.

  He lets her go and turns to Hodges, who's wearing an old fedora, the brim already white with snow. Hodges puts out a hand. "Under other circumstances I'd go with the hug, but right now hugs hurt."

  Jerome settles for a strong grip. There are tears in his eyes. "Be careful, man. Stay in touch. And bring back the Hollyberry."

  "I intend to do that," Hodges says.

  Jerome watches them get into the Expedition, Bill climbing behind the wheel with obvious discomfort. Jerome knows they're right--of the three of them, he's the least expendable. That doesn't mean he likes it, or feels less like a little kid being sent home to Mommy. He would go after them, he thinks, except for the thing Holly said in that deserted hotel lobby. If anything happens to us, there's only you.

  Jerome gets into his Jeep and heads home. As he merges onto the Crosstown, a strong premonition comes to him: he's never going to see either one of his friends again. He tries to tell himself that's superstitious bullshit, but he can't quite make it work.

  25

  By the time Hodges and Holly leave the Crosstown for I-47 North, the snow is no longer just kidding around. Driving into it reminds Hodges of a science fiction movie he saw with Holly--the moment when the Starship Enterprise goes into hyperdrive, or whatever they call it. The speed limit signs are flashing SNOW ALERT and 40 MPH, but he pegs the speedometer at sixty and will hold it there as long as he can, which might be for thirty miles. Perhaps only twenty. A few cars in the travel lane honk at him to slow down, and passing the lumbering eighteen-wheelers, each one dragging a rooster-tail fog of snow behind it, is an exercise in controlled fear.

  It's almost half an hour before Holly breaks the silence. "You brought the guns, didn't you? That's what's in the drawstring bag."

  "Yeah."

  She unbuckles her seatbelt (which makes him nervous) and fishes the bag out of the backseat. "Are they loaded?"

  "The Glock is. The .38 you'll have to load it yourself. That one's yours."

  "I don't know how."

  Hodges offered to take her to the shooting range with him once, start the process of getting her qualified to carry concealed, and she refused vehemently. He never offered again, believing she would never need to carry a gun. Believing he would never put her in that position.

  "You'll figure it out. It's not hard."

  She examines the Victory, keeping her hands well away from the trigger and the muzzle well away from her face. After a few seconds she succeeds in rolling the barrel.

  "Okay, now the bullets."

  There are two boxes of Winchester .38s--130-grain, full metal jacket. She opens one, looks at the shells sticking up like mini-warheads, and grimaces. "Oough."

  "Can you do it?" He's passing another truck, the Expedition enveloped in snowfog. There are still strips of bare pavement in the travel lane, but this passing lane is now snow-covered, and the truck on their right seems to go on forever. "If you can't, that's okay."

  "You don
't mean can I load it," she says, sounding angry. "I see how to do that, a kid could do it."

  Sometimes they do, Hodges thinks.

  "What you mean is can I shoot him."

  "It probably won't come to that, but if it did, could you?"

  "Yes," Holly says, and loads the Victory's six chambers. She pushes the cylinder back into place gingerly, lips turned down and eyes squinted into slits, as if afraid the gun will explode in her hand. "Now where's the safety switch?"

  "There isn't any. Not on revolvers. The hammer's down, and that's all the safety that you need. Put it in your purse. The ammo, too."

  She does as he says, then places the bag between her feet.

  "And stop biting your lips, you're going to make them bleed."

  "I'll try, but this is a very stressful situation, Bill."

  "I know." They're back in the travel lane again. The mile markers seem to float past with excruciating slowness, and the pain in his side is a hot jellyfish with long tentacles that now seem to reach everywhere, even up into his throat. Once, twenty years ago, he was shot in the leg by a thief cornered in a vacant lot. That pain had been like this, but eventually it had gone away. He doesn't think this one ever will. The drugs may mute it for awhile, but probably not for long.

  "What if we find this place and he's not there, Bill? Have you thought about that? Have you?"

  He has, and has no idea what the next step would be in that case. "Let's not worry about it unless we have to."

  His phone rings. It's in his coat pocket, and he hands it to Holly without looking away from the road ahead.

  "Hello, this is Holly." She listens, then mouths Miss Pretty Gray Eyes to Hodges. "Uh-huh . . . yes . . . okay, I understand . . . no, he can't, his hands are full right now, but I'll tell him." She listens some more, then says, "I could tell you, Izzy, but you wouldn't believe me."

  She closes his phone with a snap and slips it back into his pocket.

  "Suicides?" Hodges asks.

  "Three so far, counting the boy who shot himself in front of his father."

  "Zappits?"

  "At two of the three locations. Responders at the third one haven't had a chance to look. They were trying to save the kid, but it was too late. He hung himself. Izzy sounds half out of her mind. She wanted to know everything."

  "If anything happens to us, Jerome will tell Pete, and Pete will tell her. I think she's almost ready to listen."

  "We have to stop him before he kills more."

  He's probably killing more right now, Hodges thinks. "We will."

  The miles roll by. Hodges is forced to reduce his speed to fifty, and when he feels the Expedition do a loose little shimmy in the slipstream of a Walmart double box, he drops to forty-five. It's past three o'clock and the light is starting to drain from this snowy day when Holly speaks again.

  "Thank you."

  He turns his head briefly, looking a question at her.

  "For not making me beg to come along."

  "I'm only doing what your therapist would want," Hodges says. "Getting you a bunch of closure."

  "Is that a joke? I can never tell when you're joking. You have an extremely dry sense of humor, Bill."

  "No joke. This is our business, Holly. Nobody else's."

  A green sign looms out of the white murk.

  "SR-79," Holly says. "That's our exit."

  "Thank God," Hodges says. "I hate turnpike driving even when the sun's out."

  26

  Thurston's Garage is fifteen miles east along the state highway, according to Holly's iPad, but it takes them half an hour to get there. The Expedition handles the snow-covered road easily, but now the wind is picking up--it will be blowing at gale force by eight o'clock, according to the radio--and when it gusts, throwing sheets of snow across the road, Hodges eases down to fifteen miles an hour until he can see again.

  As he turns in at the big yellow Shell sign, Holly's phone rings. "Handle that," he says. "I'll be as quick as I can."

  He gets out, yanking his fedora down hard to keep it from blowing away. The wind machine-guns his coat collar against his neck as he tramps through the snow to the garage office. His entire midsection is throbbing; it feels as if he's swallowed live coals. The gas pumps and the adjacent parking area are empty except for the idling Expedition. The plowboys have departed to spend a long night earning their money as the first big storm of the year rants and raves.

  For one eerie moment, Hodges thinks it's Library Al behind the counter: same green Dickies, same popcorn-white hair exploding around the edges of his John Deere cap.

  "What brings you out on a wild afternoon like this?" the old guy asks, then peers past Hodges. "Or is it night already?"

  "A little of both," Hodges says. He has no time for conversation--back in the city kids may be jumping out of apartment-building windows and swallowing pills--but it's how the job is done. "Would you be Mr. Thurston?"

  "In the flesh. Since you didn't pull up at the pumps, I'd almost wonder if you came to rob me, but you look a little too prosperous for that. City fella?"

  "I am," Hodges says, "and in kind of a hurry."

  "City fellas usually are." Thurston puts down the Field & Stream he's been reading. "What is it, then? Directions? Man, I hope it's somewhere close, the way this one's shaping up."

  "I think it is. A hunting camp called Heads and Skins. Ring a bell?"

  "Oh, sure," Thurston says. "The doctors' place, right near Big Bob's Bear Camp. Those fellas usually gas up their Jags and Porsches here, either on their way out or their way back." He pronounces Porsches as if he's talking about the things old folks sit on in the evening to watch the sun go down. "Wouldn't be nobody out there now, though. Hunting season ends December ninth, and I'm talking bow hunting. Gun hunting ends the last day of November, and all those docs use rifles. Big ones. I think they like to pretend they're in Africa."

  "Nobody stopped earlier today? Would have been driving an old car with a lot of primer on it?"

  "Nope."

  A young man comes out of the garage bay, wiping his hands on a rag. "I saw that car, Granddad. A Chev'alay. I was out front, talking with Spider Willis, when it went by." He turns his attention to Hodges. "I only noticed because there's not much the way he was headed, and that car was no snowdog like the one you've got out there."

  "Can you give me directions to the camp?"

  "Easiest thing in the world," Thurston says. "Or would be on a fair day. You keep on going the way you were heading, about . . ." He turns his attention to the younger man. "What would you say, Duane? Three miles?"

  "More like four," Duane says.

  "Well, split the difference and call it three and a half," Thurston says. "You'll be looking for two red posts on your left. They're tall, six feet or so, but the state plow's been by twice already, so you want to keep a sharp eye, because there won't be much of em to see. You'll have to bull your way through the snowbank, you know. Unless you brought a shovel."

  "I think what I'm driving will do it," Hodges says.

  "Yeah, most likely, and no harm to your SUV, since the snow hasn't had a chance to pack down. Anyway, you go in a mile, or maybe two, and the road splits. One fork goes to Big Bob's, the other to Heads and Skins. I can't remember which one is which, but there used to be arrow signs."

  "Still are," Duane says. "Big Bob's is on the right, Heads and Skins on the left. I ought to know, I reshingled Big Bob Rowan's roof last October. This must be pretty important, mister. To get you out on a day like this."

  "Will my SUV make it on that road, do you think?"

  "Sure," Duane says. "Trees'll still be holding up most of the snow, and the road runs downhill to the lake. Making it out might be a little trickier."

  Hodges takes his wallet from his back pocket--Christ, even that hurts--and fishes out his police ID with RETIRED stamped on it. To it he adds one of his Finders Keepers business cards, and lays them both on the counter. "Can you gentlemen keep a secret?"

  They nod, fa
ces bright with curiosity.

  "I've got a subpoena to serve, right? It's a civil case, and the money at stake runs to seven figures. The man you saw go by, the one in the primered-up Chevy, is a doctor named Babineau."

  "See him every November," the elder Thurston says. "Got an attitude about him, you know? Like he's always seein you from under the end of his nose. But he drives a Beemer."

  "Today he's driving whatever he could get his hands on," Hodges says, "and if I don't serve these papers by midnight, the case goes bye-bye, and an old lady who doesn't have much won't get her payday."

  "Malpractice?" Duane asks.

  "Don't like to say, but I'm going in."

  Which you will remember, Hodges thinks. That, and Babineau's name.

  The old man says, "There are a couple of snowmobiles out back. I could let you have one, if you want, and the Arctic Cat has a high windshield. It'd still be a chilly ride, but you'd be guaranteed getting back."

  Hodges is touched by the offer, coming as it does to a complete stranger, but shakes his head. Snowmobiles are noisy beasts. He has an idea that the man now in residence at Heads and Skins--be he Brady or Babineau or a weird mixture of the two--knows he's coming. What Hodges has on his side is that his quarry doesn't know when.

  "My partner and I will get in," he says, "and worry about getting out later."

  "Nice and quiet, huh?" Duane says, and puts a finger to his lips, which are curved in a smile.

  "That's the ticket. Is there someone I could call for a ride if I do get stuck?"

  "Call right here." Thurston hands him a card from the plastic tray by the cash register. "I'll send either Duane or Spider Willis. It might not be until late tonight, and it'll cost you forty dollars, but with a case worth millions, I guess you can afford that."

  "Do cell phones work out here?"

  "Five bars even in dirty weather," Duane says. "There's a tower on the south side of the lake."

  "Good to know. Thank you. Thank you both."

  He turns to go and the old man says, "That hat you're wearing is no good in this weather. Take this." He's holding out a knit hat with a big orange pompom on top. "Can't do nothing about those shoes, though."

  Hodges thanks him, takes the hat, then removes his fedora and puts it on the counter. It feels like bad luck; it feels like exactly the right thing to do. "Collateral," he says.