The Best Revenge

by Stephen White

  “Tom?” I said aloud. “What the hell?”

  The number that he’d left was busy. I waited for half a minute and tried again. Still busy. I paced the office for another thirty seconds, then tried one more time. The phone rang twice before someone answered.

  “Tom?” I said.

  A sonorous male voice, not Tom’s, replied calmly, “Just a second. Your friend is right here. You hold on.”

  Tom answered by saying, “Dr. Gregory? Hel’ ’e.”

  I was using my therapist’s demeanor, but it felt an odd fit for the circumstances, given Tom’s obvious alarm. “Sure, Tom. I’ll do whatever I can to help you. Where are you right now?”

  “In the ’ountains.” Away from the phone, I heard him say, “Where a’ I, ’oca?” A second later, he spoke to me again. “I’ near Ward. It’s in the ’ountains. You know where that is? Indian ’eaks.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I know where Ward is. Do you need an ambulance? I can send an ambulance.”

  “No!”

  “Then you need to call the police, Tom. They’ll help you. Whatever trouble you’re in, they’ll help.”

  “No!” he barked. “No ’olice. I didn’t do anything. Nothing. So’eone kidna’ed ’e to teach ’e ’ear lessons! You ha’e to co’e and get ’e, ’ut you can’t call the ’olice! They’re the ones trying to kill ’e. Will you co’e get ’e?”

  He sounded as desperate as anyone I’d ever spoken with. “Yes, Tom. I’ll come get you. Can someone there give me directions?”

  “Yes. Here’s ’oca.”

  “Oka? His name is Oka?”

  “No! ’oca. Here he is.”

  The deep voice returned to the phone. “This is Boca. Your friend’s a mess. It’s pitiful. I’d hurry if I were you.”

  “What’s wrong with his voice? Why can’t he talk?”

  “He’s been stung all over his body by bees. His face, and inside his mouth. He smells like gasoline and he keeps talking about vipers and napalm and electric fences. And fear? He goes on and on about fear, and fear lessons. He looks like he’s been through a damn war. I’ve been to one or two, so I know how people look after they’ve been in the shit.”

  Bees and snakes and napalm? I didn’t know whether Tom needed a trauma surgeon or an IM injection of Haldol. “Are you in a position to drive him someplace?”

  “My truck is in town being repaired. I hit an elk down near Allenspark. All I have is my mountain bike.”

  I suspected there was a story there. I didn’t have time for it, though.

  “How do I get to you?”

  When he was done dictating directions, I repeated what I’d written down. He made one correction. I said, “Boca, could you ask Tom something for me?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Ask him if he’s ever been to Hawaii.”

  “What?”

  “I know it sounds strange. Just please ask him if he’s ever been to Hawaii.”

  I could hear Boca repeat my question to Tom and I could hear Tom say, “Wha’? No.”

  I said, “I heard him. Never?”

  Boca said, “Never?”

  Tom said, “Ne’er. I’e ne’er ’een to Hawaii.”

  Tom had no reason to lie. None. Given the stress he was under he couldn’t possibly have guessed why I was asking the question. Even if he had, my clinical intuition was that he wouldn’t be able to lie with such facility in those circumstances. I said, “Thanks, Boca.”

  Ten seconds after I hung up, while I was contemplating what it meant that Tom Clone had never flown across the Pacific to Hawaii, my private line rang. Lauren said, “It’s me. Grace is cranky. We’re going to head home after all. We’ll see you there, okay? You’ll pick something up for dinner?”

  “Change of plans. I have an emergency brewing with one of my patients. It looks like I have to make a house call. Sorry.”

  “You’re kidding?” She wasn’t happy.

  “I wish I was. It’s up in the mountains. I could be late.”

  “A house call? Really? You make house calls?”

  “In rare circumstances, I guess I do. Give Grace a kiss. I love you guys. I’ll call when I know what’s going on.”

  CHAPTER 50

  Prehost and Hoppy were walking side by side down the trail that led back to the cabin. Prehost said, “I say he went to the car and when he discovered he couldn’t drive it, he took off down that road on foot. He’s probably trying to make it back to Ward so he can catch a ride out of here. Somebody in that crazy town will help him no matter what he’s done.”

  Hoppy replied, “Sounds possible, Fred. But I think we should do a quick check on that boarded-up mine first. It would be his first place to hide. He may have thought we were right on his tail. Maybe he didn’t try to make it all the way back to the car or the cabin. He probably thinks we don’t know about the mine.”

  “Maybe.”

  “We have to be careful, though. He could have guns or God-knows-what stashed in there.”

  Prehost chuckled. “Or maybe another rattlesnake.”

  Hoppy didn’t respond.

  The rain had stopped and the night held a chill. Prehost said, “Bet the summers are even shorter up here than they are in Park County. Don’t you think?”

  “This doesn’t feel like summer to me. What do you think, Fred? Should we check the mine?”

  “Yeah, okay, we’ll take a quick look at the mine.”

  “Yeah. A quick look.”

  Prehost said, “Who the hell is this Oliver guy? What the hell was he doing back there with that . . . that . . . thing where he had Clone? What was that, like a, I don’t know, a corral? What was that?”

  Hoppy answered just as they reached the clearing that led to the mine entrance. “Got me. More like a prison camp, I think. How you want to do this?”

  “Can we pull that door off?”

  Hoppy tugged lightly at it. “Yeah, it’ll come right off. It’s not bolted or anything like that. It’s just there for soundproofing, I think.”

  “Well, let’s do that, first.” Prehost held up the flashlight so his friend could see better. “Then we’ll see what we have inside there.”

  The door on the shaft entrance was just a sheet of plywood lined on both sides with rigid foam insulation. It wasn’t even secured to the entrance; it just rested against the opening. Prehost tossed it aside by himself. The insistent throb of the generator seemed to roar from the cave.

  Prehost peered into the opening. “He’s not in there, Hoppy. Let’s go.”

  “Damn it, Fred, we’re here. Let me at least look. It’ll just take a minute. Give me the flashlight.”

  Prehost handed the light to Hoppy, who lowered his head and stepped into the rough framed opening that led to the mine. “Be quick, Hoppy. That mine has to be full of carbon monoxide from that generator. And he ain’t in there. I’m damn near sure of it. We’re losing time.”

  The darkness inside the mine swallowed Hoppy after three or four steps. Seconds later, Prehost couldn’t even see the glow from the beam from his partner’s flashlight. He cursed softly.

  A minute or so later, he saw the flashlight beam reemerge from the darkness, and seconds later, he spotted Hoppy. He was breathing with his mouth open, like a dog on a hot day. He gasped for ten or fifteen seconds, unable to speak. Finally, he managed to say, “You gotta see this.”

  “He’s in there?”

  Hoppy nodded. He rested the shotgun across his knees and leaned over it, wheezing. “You gotta see it.”

  Prehost said, “I don’t like caves and shit. How far in is it? Do I really have to go in there and see what you found?”

  “It’s no big deal getting in. Thirty feet in there’s like a room. You can walk the whole way, just have to bend over. But you have to see what he had going, Fred. You have to.”

  “Did he shoot himself?”

  Hoppy shrugged. “Couldn’t tell.”

  “Blood?”

  “It’s a mess. But you have to see the setup. What
he had planned inside that mine.”

  “Meth lab?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you’ll know what all that stuff is.”

  “Shit. Show me the way.”

  Hoppy leaned the shotgun against the mineshaft door, took a noisy breath of clean air, and stooped low to reenter the cave. Prehost was a step behind him. The smell of gasoline exhaust in the narrow tunnel was as thick as fog.

  After eight or nine feet the shaft took a forty-five-degree turn to the right. The timbers that supported the tunnel were as rotten as tomatoes still on the vine after the first freeze. Prehost said, “I hate this shit, Hoppy.”

  “Not too much farther, Fred. The generator’s in a little alcove right ahead. Five more feet. His body’s right past it.”

  Sure enough, the generator was roaring exactly where Hoppy said it would be. He warned, “Stay on the right side for the next few feet. It’s a low ceiling on the left.”

  Prehost said, “I really hate this shit, Hoppy.” But he stayed right, just as he was told.

  Seconds later, Hoppy turned and flashed the beam of the light above Prehost’s head. “Okay, you can stand up now, Fred. There’s headroom here.”

  Prehost felt queasy and a fierce headache was burning up the back of his neck. He figured he was already starting to suffer from the first signs of carbon monoxide poisoning. “Let’s hurry, Hoppy. We’re going to die in here. This is poison we’re sucking.”

  Hoppy said, “You’re half right. One of us is going to die in here. I’m real sorry, Fred.”

  Prehost said, “What?” just as he spotted the little pistol in his friend’s left hand.

  “If Oliver really knows who killed the girl, I just can’t risk you ever finding out. I’m so sorry, Fred.”

  “Hoppy, what the hell—”

  The little gun made a huge roar in the cave. Prehost took a hasty step back as though he’d concluded that the bullet from the gun was a punch he could absorb better from a distance. His brain registered the earth disappearing from beneath his back foot before it noted the slug that had pierced the firm flesh of his upper abdomen. His last words as he disappeared into the void of a deep vertical shaft were a surprised “Oh shit, Hoppy.”

  Hoppy watched Prehost disappear into the mineshaft and counted to two before he heard the dull punctuation of a thud.

  He retraced his steps to the opening of the mine. Once outside, he stumbled forward into a somersault and came up gasping for air, tears in his eyes.

  Aloud he said, “I’m so sorry, Fred.”

  After a minute he raised himself to his feet and looked down the trail toward the cabin. Then he looked in the other direction back toward the fenced pen that imprisoned Tom Clone. Hoppy wasn’t sure which way to go. Finally, he said, “Oliver, I’ll get you later. Hel-lo, Tom.”

  Hoppy took half a dozen steps toward the trail before he remembered the shotgun that he’d leaned next to the entrance to the mine.

  He spun and returned to grab the gun. To his amazement, he saw that it was gone.

  “Damn,” he said. “Damn.” He aimed the flashlight into the woods all around him but saw no one lurking. He carefully checked his service weapon and reloaded a round into the pistol from his ankle holster before he trotted down the trail to the enclosure.

  He could tell before he’d even made it out of the woods that the fenced pen was empty.

  Tom Clone was gone.

  A closer examination revealed that the orange power cable was separated by almost a foot from the wiring that led to the fence post. Clone had somehow managed to sever the connection that Prehost had reset, and then he had scaled the fence to freedom.

  Tom Clone was gone.

  The shotgun was gone.

  Oliver was gone.

  Fred Prehost, Hoppy’s only ally, was long gone.

  Hoppy stepped back into the woods to reconsider his plan.

  At least, he reassured himself, the damn rattlesnake was dead.

  He allowed himself the comfort of that thought for a few seconds before he realized that he should have asked Fred Prehost for the keys to the Suburban before he sent him to the bottom of the mineshaft.

  That was an oversight, for sure.

  PART FOUR

  A Step into Darkness

  CHAPTER 51

  The section of Boulder Canyon Road that is closest to town is a curvy two-lane wonder of engineering that hugs the irregular contour of Boulder Creek as the river carries snowmelt from the highest reaches of the Rockies down the Front Range toward the plains. Even within a few hundred yards of town, the deepest parts of the canyon are perpetually bathed in the shadows of imposing vertical rock walls. Depending on the season, the canyon draws hordes of hikers, bikers, picnickers, rock climbers, ice climbers, and sightseers from the city.

  On a typical summer evening, the cars cruising Boulder Canyon Road are most likely to be driven by residents commuting home to the mountain towns up the hill, or gamblers heading farther south up to the high-country gaming meccas in Blackhawk and Central City.

  As she climbed the unfamiliar road out of Boulder, Kelda was keenly monitoring the cars that lined up behind her, wary about being followed. The pavement was still wet from the thunderstorm, and she was driving cautiously, unsure of the handling of Maria Alija’s car, and hoping her slow speed would bring any potential tails into sight of her rearview mirror. As she passed the Red Lion Inn she spotted two cars lined up behind her: a big SUV with headlights as bright as lasers and, behind it, a four-door sedan. She guessed it was a Mitsubishi something, but she wasn’t really sure.

  She counted a single passenger in the SUV, and no passengers in the sedan. Within minutes a third car—she thought it was a Lexus sports car—joined the parade up the hill. Kelda kept her pace moderate—fast enough to get her to the top of the canyon as soon as possible, slow enough to keep the traffic lining up behind her. The Lexus driver wasn’t satisfied with Kelda’s pace, however; she blew past all three vehicles in front of her on a straightaway so short that the double yellow line never broke into dashes.

  Twenty uneventful minutes later, after completing a climb to eight thousand feet above sea level, Kelda approached Barker Reservoir near Nederland, the funky little town that guards the top of Boulder Canyon. A third and fourth car had joined the uphill procession, but darkness kept Kelda from identifying makes or models. She assumed that the lights of Nederland would allow her to gather all the information she needed to know about the cars behind her.

  The big SUV that had been tailgating her since Boulder pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant in Nederland. Moments later, both of the unidentified cars at the rear of the pack headed south on Highway 72. Only the sedan that Kelda thought was a Mitsubishi stayed with her after she turned north toward the town of Ward. The car kept a steady position about a hundred yards behind her. If this was a tail, she decided, whoever was doing it should be involuntarily retired from law enforcement.

  She was thinking it was Bill Graves. And she was thinking that he wanted her to know he was there.

  Little traffic impeded her progress toward Ward. Nighttime traffic north of Nederland on 72 is typically light. But then, so is daytime traffic. She fumbled to review the map on the seat beside her and almost missed her turn onto Chief Street, finally braking hard to manage the left-hand turn that seemed to lead directly into the wilderness between Ward and the Continental Divide.

  She thought there was a fifty-fifty chance that the sedan would stay right behind her.

  It did.

  Kelda said, “Damn you, Bill. This is none of your business.”

  As she cleared a bend and was temporarily invisible to the driver of the sedan, she floored Maria’s car and sped through a second turn and a third, finally putting the car into a skid that left it sideways across the narrow lane. She hopped out of the car and ran, crouching in a ditch at the side of the road, most of her body shielded by a big boulder. Her Sig Sauer was in her hand, light as a feather.

  What if
it isn’t Bill?

  Seconds later a different car—not the sedan that had been following her—skidded to a stop. The driver stepped into the darkness. It was a man in gray pants. He hesitated, apparently befuddled at the sight of the empty car with the open driver’s door blocking the road in front of him.

  Kelda couldn’t identify the man in the darkness. Everything about his silhouette said Bill Graves, with one exception: The man’s left hand was empty. Bill Graves would never walk into an obvious ambush without his weapon.

  Unless, she scolded herself, he knew that it was Kelda who had set the trap. Which, if he was following her, he did know.

  She pulled herself from the drainage ditch and crept behind the man as he slowly approached Maria’s car. Three feet from his back she hissed, “On your knees.”

  The man dropped to his knees as though he were a Catholic who’d just recognized he was standing in front of the Pope.

  “Now lie down, on your face. Leave your hands where I can see them,” she ordered.

  He did.

  She saw the red cast and said, “Oh no.”

  Alan Gregory said, “God, I hoped it was you. Can I get up now?”

  CHAPTER 52

  After leaving Sam Purdy and the red Vespa at the Boulder County Mental Health Center, Kelda had stopped at the Ideal Market on North Broadway to get something to eat while she pondered what “something else” she was going to do next. She sipped at a bottle of iced green tea and took tasteless bites of a turkey sandwich on wheat while sitting in Maria Alija’s car in the grocery store lot. The car was facing south and the sky above the Flatirons was dark but clear. The brief storm was history.

  Her phone chirped in her shoulder bag.

  The number she saw on the tiny screen shocked her. Just in case someone else was using his phone, she answered, “Kelda James.”

  His voice a tense whisper, Ira said, “It’s me, babe. I think I’ve really screwed things up. Some guys showed up with guns and shit and I had to run, and I think he got out. Got away.”

  “Who? Who got out?”