He motioned with his free hand. “Go on.”
I put on a disgusted look; I thought it might work on him better than backtalk or a display of anger. A shrug, a headshake, and I walked into the office. He followed at a distance, stood in the inner doorway as I turned to face him again.
“Now what?”
“Now you sit down there. One of those chairs.”
“Oh, for Chrissake. What’s the big idea? I told you—”
“I know what you told me. I want to check with the Colonel.”
“Where you think I got this badge?” I said. Heavy on the disgust this time. “Who the hell you think I am anyway?”
“I don’t think anything,” he said. “I just want to check with the Colonel. You got a problem with that?”
What could I say? “No problem. Just make it quick—I got better things to do with my time.”
“Sit down there.”
I moved sideways to the nearest folding chair, laid a hand on its back. But I didn’t sit down. “I don’t feel like parking my ass,” I said. “You got a problem with that?”
Ten-second staredown. He ended it by reaching down with his free hand and unhooking the walkie-talkie from his belt.
Two choices again, both of them bad. I could try to catch him by surprise, disarm him, put him out of commission, then make a run for it down the escape road; or I could remain his prisoner, let him take me to the Colonel, and try to talk my way out of here. Damn poor odds, either way. Matt had nearly thirty years on me and he was in better physical shape; and I knew all too well the damage a .45 slug could inflict at close range. And I no longer had the verbal leverage I’d consoled myself with on the drive in: I’d seen the weapons stash, knew how extensive and illegal it was. They couldn’t afford to let me walk out of there with that kind of knowledge, no matter how many people knew of my intention to breach the compound.
“Unit Nine to Unit One,” Matt was saying into his walkie-talkie. “Unit Nine to Unit One. Do you copy, Unit One?”
I closed my fingers loosely around the back of the chair. If I could lift and pitch it at him with enough quickness . . .
Crackly static came out of the walkie-talkie. That was all—no answering voice.
Matt frowned and repeated his message.
Static. And more static.
His eyes bored into me as if he thought it was my fault the Colonel wasn’t responding. I pulled a face, mixing annoyance with the disgust, and shifted my feet a little—all in an effort to appear relaxed and unconcerned. Inside I was sparking heat and tension, like a box filled with overloaded high-voltage wires.
“Unit One, come in, Unit One . . .”
Crackle.
“So he’s separated from his unit,” I said. And I couldn’t have asked for a better break. “You gonna keep me hanging here till you track him down?”
“Shut up.”
“Don’t tell me to shut up. It’s your ass on the line here, pal, not mine. I’m telling you, the Colonel ain’t gonna like you treating me this way. Neither will my people.”
One, two, three beats. “Your people,” he said. “Who are they?”
“Who do you think?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Name Chaffee mean anything to you? How about the Colonel’s brother-in-law?”
He blinked at me. They meant something, all right.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I said. “I drove up here from Modesto. Why don’t you get somebody to contact Chaffee, too, while you’re at it? Ask him if he knows Bill Anderson.”
For the first time I could see little cracks in his soldier’s stoicism. Wearing him down, I thought—but not enough, not yet.
“Unit Nine to Unit One, do you copy?”
Snap, crackle, and pop.
“Tell you what,” I said. “How about if we just go find the Colonel ourselves, you and me? He’s still somewhere in camp, it won’t take us more than a few minutes—”
“I can’t leave my post.”
“Come on, man—”
“No,” he said. “I can’t leave my post.”
The cracks were still there. The problem was, I’d used up all my bluff; there was nothing left I could say to finish the job. If I didn’t act now, gamble with the cards I had, I might not have another chance.
Hard and angry, I said, “You can’t leave your post, and the Colonel don’t answer, and I’m supposed to just stand around here with a dumbass like you and a gun shoved in my face. Well, screw that. Enough’s enough.”
I took a step toward the door.
“Hold it. What do you think you’re—”
“I’m leaving. No more crap.”
“You’re not going anywhere—”
“Yeah I am. You want to shoot me in the back, go ahead.” Another step, turning away from him. “But you’ll be dead meat too when the Colonel finds out. Guaranteed.”
I kept on going, chills on my neck and back, the flesh crawling. Never hear the shot that kills you. I put my hand on the doorknob, turned it. Behind me I could hear Matt moving, his boots shuffling on the floor—but he didn’t say anything more, didn’t come after me as I opened the door, went through it into the gusting wind and rain. I resisted an impulse to throw it shut, left it wide open and kept on walking, head down, fighting another impulse to look back.
The walk through the mud and grass, across to where I’d left my car, seemed to take an impossibly long time—one of those dreamlike sequences in which every movement, every clock tick and heartbeat, happens at inchmeal speed. The road would not get any closer . . . but finally I was on the road. The car would not get any closer . . . but finally I was in the car, with the door shut and locked. The speed of things increased then, but not quite all the way; there still seemed to be a jerky, sluggish quality to my actions and perceptions.
Sweat and rain in my face, dripping; I wiped it away, looking out through the side window as I started the engine. Matt was over there in the doorway, watching me, the .45 in one hand and the walkie-talkie still clenched in the other. But now he was holding the weapon down at his side. I put the transmission in gear and pulled away, making a conscious effort to keep the pressure of my foot light on the accelerator. I stayed on the main road, bypassing the escape road, because if I’d gone that way, it would have tipped him sure.
It seemed to take another small eternity to reach the fork in front of the parade ground. I kept looking left and right, glancing up into the rearview mirror, expecting Jeeps and trucks, men with guns, to come rushing out in pursuit. Nothing happened. I turned onto the asphalt that led out to the main gate. Another glance in the mirror, and the entire camp was visible behind me—evil in the rain, eaten into the wilderness like a cancer—and then I was into the trees and it was gone. But its afterimage remained sharp and clear against the backs of my eyes.
One more gauntlet to run. Except that it turned out to be an anticlimax. The young blond sentry opened up right away when he saw me, both gates, and stood stiffly and touched his backward-turned cap in a kind of weak salute as I passed. The sorry bastard was still worried that I might have reported him for deserting his post.
My body wouldn’t relax until I was a few miles along Timberline Road. And when the tension release came, it left me feeling enervated. Close back there—as close as I’d come to dying helpless in a long time. Foolish risk. Reckless, stupid, self-destructive . . .
Cut it out.
You went in there because it was something that needed doing. Part of the job, part of who you are. And you survived and that’s the bottom line. Let it go at that.
Five seconds after I walked into number eleven at the Northern Comfort, the telephone bell went off. I let it ring three more times before I picked up.
Ruth Bartholomew’s gin-rich voice said, “There’s a message for you.”
“Is that right? Must be pretty important.”
“. . . How’s that?”
“For you to be watching out the window for me.”
&nbs
p; She made a sniffling sound. “Wasn’t watching out for you,” she said. “Just happened to see you drive in. You want your message or not?”
“Go ahead.”
“Luke Judson called up. Wants you to call him.”
“I don’t know any Luke Judson.”
“Owns Judson’s Oasis, few miles up the highway.”
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“No. I didn’t ask neither. None of my—”
“I know. None of your business.”
“That’s right.”
“What time did he call?”
“Around noon. Give you his number.”
She did that and I wrote it down.
“He’s a busybody,” she said then.
“Luke Judson?”
“He don’t mind his own business,” she said. “You and him ought to get along real good.”
I had a reply for that, but the line was already dead.
When I tapped out the number she’d supplied, a man’s scratchy voice answered on the first ring. Instantly, as if he’d been sitting hunched over the phone. “Yeah, what is it?” Good old country cordiality. In the background I could hear a woman’s shrill voice yelling and the back-sassing response of an equally shrill child.
“Luke Judson?”
“Who wants him?”
I told him who.
“Oh, yeah. Just a second.” Away from the receiver he yelled, “Shut up, goddammit! Can’t you see I’m on the phone?” The stridulous background exchange came to an abrupt end. And he said to me again, “About time you called up. I been waiting. ”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Judson?”
“Know something you want to know. Been thinking on it and I can’t keep it to myself. Ain’t right.”
“What’re we talking about?”
“Don’t want to say it over the phone, with the wife and kid here. How about you come out in about an hour? Judson’s Oasis, four miles north of town on Three ninety-five.”
“How about you come here instead?”
“Can’t do that,” he said. “I got a bum leg and I ain’t supposed to drive or move around too much. Hour okay?”
“No,” I said.
“. . . You say no?”
“I’ve got things to do that can’t wait.”
“Listen, what I got to tell you, it’s real important. About them college kids you’re looking for, the girl and the other one.”
I glanced at my watch; the time was a couple of minutes past two-thirty. “Suppose we make it five o’clock.”
“Five? Can’t you get here sooner than that?”
“Best I can do, Mr. Judson.”
There was a pause before he said, “All right, five. Oasis is closed until next month, but I live around back. Just drive on around and come in the house.”
We rang off and I sat for a time, massaging my neck and stiff shoulder. The sense of enervation was gone, but the cold and the tension had me feeling my age. On the way there I’d thought hard about getting out of it right then—calling the FBI and Fassbinder, passing on what I’d found out and letting them take over; letting them dig out the connection between the Sentinels and Allison and Rob. But I couldn’t quite make up my mind to do it that way. The need in me was too strong to finish what I’d started. For Helen McDowell’s sake. And for my own.
In the bathroom I washed my hands and face, dried off, and took four aspirin for my various hurts. Then I zipped up the toilet kit, packed it in my suitcase; packed the rest of my stuff too, leaving nothing behind.
I’d parked the car in close to the cabin door, and when I went out with the suitcase down low against my leg, the car’s bulk shielded it from the office building and the street. I opened the passenger door, slid the case in on the seat. And then locked the cabin door before I got into the car.
I didn’t stop at the office to check out or turn in the key. Maybe I wouldn’t be back—and maybe I would. Either way, the less sure anybody in Creekside was of my whereabouts and intentions, the better off I would be.
Chapter Eighteen
Judson’s Oasis was a high-roofed log building with a covered porch on two sides, set back fifty yards or so on the east side of the highway. A pole sign at the edge of a fronting asphalt lot next to the entrance drive gave the place’s name in dead neon script; below that was a square with smaller, spaced words: FINE DINING DANCING LIVE MUSIC. I could tell that there was another building at a distance behind the main one, but it was dwarfed and I couldn’t see enough of it through the dirty gray scrim of rain to estimate its size or shape. The property had a vacant look: no cars on the lot, no lights anywhere, not even a wisp of chimney smoke.
I slowed to forty-five as I passed, trying for a better far-side angle on the outbuilding. No dice: trees partially screened it to the north. Two or three vehicles could have been parked back there too; I wouldn’t have been able to see them unless I drove in and around for a close look.
I stayed on the highway for another third of a mile, until I found a place where I could make a turn across the divider strip into the southbound lane. Traffic was sparse; mostly I had the rain-slick road to myself in both directions. When Judson’s Oasis appeared again ahead, I began scanning the highway’s near side. I thought I’d seen an intersection about fifty yards north of the Oasis, and I had: a country road that angled off to the west. I braked as soon as I spotted the sign for it, took the exit, and came off onto a narrow blacktop that climbed a rise between thinly spaced trees.
The side road was one piece of luck, and at the top of the rise was another—a flat, stony section that opened up to the south. The area was wide enough, and the hard earth and a carpeting of evergreen needles gave the surface enough traction in wet weather, for it to be used as both a turnaround and a parking spot; a crosshatching of recent tire tracks proved it. I turned in there, over close to the near end, where the trees grew downslope to the highway verge. From that point I had a fairly good view through them and across to Judson’s Oasis.
I left the engine running, got out long enough to open the trunk and snag my binoculars—a pair of powerful Zeiss 7 × 50. Inside again, I put the window down far enough so that I could rest the glasses on its edge. When I adjusted the focus I could see the Oasis all right, but I still couldn’t make out much of the building behind it. So I backed the car a little ways, altered its angle slightly, and tried again. Better—much better. Now I had a mostly unobstructed view of about half the outbuilding: small, weathered A-frame with a side deck built on. The only visible window was curtained and shaded, a sightless eye. There was still no sign of life anywhere on the property, front or rear.
The rain kept coming down in a steady slant, which meant that I had to keep the window open partway in order to see clearly, which meant in turn that it grew damp and chilly in the car when I shut off the engine. But I couldn’t leave it on to run the heater because I was low on gas. I buttoned my jacket to the throat, put on a pair of driving gloves to keep my fingers from numbing. Okay except for my ears; pretty soon they began to tingle. I got out again and poked around in the cluttered trunk until I found my old fisherman’s hat. Ear problem solved.
I checked my watch. Five minutes past three.
With the binoculars on my lap, I settled down to wait.
It wasn’t a long wait. Fifty-three minutes, give or take a few seconds.
I was in one of those states you drift into on stakeouts—body-shifting constantly to ease discomforts, alert but with your mental processes stuttery and sluggish—when the old primer-patched truck came barreling up the highway’s northbound lane. As soon as I spotted it, even before it slowed to make the turn past the Judson’s Oasis sign, I had the binoculars propped on the window edge and my eyes tight to the lenses.
The truck crossed the parking area, heading diagonally toward the main building’s far corner. Despite a little rain-blur, the magnification brought it up close. Two men inside, Ollie Ballard at the wheel. The other man was less distinct throu
gh the rear window, but from the size and mostly hairless shape of his skull, I thought he must be Frank Hicks. And in the open rear bed—
Dogs. A brace of them, chained and muzzled.
Ballard’s pit bulls.
The anger flared inside me, hot and raw. The bastards—the dirty bastards! Set a pair of blood-hungry fighting dogs on another human being, stand around watching while they ripped him apart. Just stand there and watch, for God’s sake. No better than animals themselves. Worse, because they had nominal powers of reason.
Was that the way it happened with Allison and Rob?
The pit bulls snarling and tearing flesh while Ballard and Hicks stood there and watched?
The truck bucked along the north side of the Oasis, on past the A-frame and around behind it out of my sight. I worked the knobs on the glasses, trying for an even sharper focus. A minute passed. Two. Three. By the time the two men appeared on foot from behind the cabin, I had a tight check on the anger. Control was something I could not afford to relinquish now, not even for a little time.
The dogs, still muzzled and leashed, jumped and tugged and butted heads; Ballard was having a difficult time controlling them with both leashes wrapped around his right hand and wrist. His left wrist and forearm appeared tightly splinted and bandaged, the nonprofessional kind of doctoring. His scrawny face reflected the fact that he was in pain. I hope it hurts like fire, you son of a bitch, I thought. I hope it’s just a taste of what’s in store for your soul the day after you die.
The second man was Hicks, all right. He opened the A-frame’s front door with a key, stood aside while Ballard herded the dogs inside, then followed and yanked the door shut after him. The key made me think of the fine upstanding family man I’d talked to on the phone . . . Luke Judson after all, or somebody who knew him well enough to borrow his house key. Yeah, and to get his permission to use the place as a slaughterhouse. Another Sentinel. Another candidate for the Pit.
I watched the A-frame for another five minutes. Neither Ballard nor Hicks reappeared. With them and the dogs shut away inside and the truck parked out of sight, Judson’s Oasis once again wore its vacant look.
Sentinels Page 16