The Coldest Mile
Page 23
He lay in the hospital bed semizoned on pain-killers, trying to figure out how much they had on him. His own name was still clean, even if he had been off the map for a few months. He'd never been in prison, never been arrested. He had no job or house anymore, but they still didn't have anything on him, except maybe vagrancy.
The Tampa cops questioned him about what happened at the Curse of Nature. He said he'd just been fuckin’ shot in the head and didn't remember anything. They didn't believe him and by turns became tough, smooth, friendly, childish, talkative, and vicious. The talkative feint interested him because they spilled more than they intended.
Two cops had been killed along with the thug Jonah had aced. Elkins had been a solid enough driver to get the Langans the hell out of there, and Bishop's body hadn't turned up so he'd probably made it. Of course the old man hadn't been nabbed. And Arno appeared to be missing.
Chase was weak and drugged and in a hell of a lot of pain, but he never had to ride out the questioning for more than ten minutes before the nurses came in and shut the heat down.
Hildy visited him. She wore a bright orange wrap and an even skimpier bikini top than before. She smelled of the ocean, and the scent moved across him tickling him in places he didn't want to be touched. His brain was still a little cloudy and he knew he was staring. The twinkling blue stones on her flat belly jabbed light in his face. He swallowed and his throat was dry.
She found a bottle of water beside the bed and without asking poured him a cup and helped him to drink. Her hand was tender on the back of his head, and when he'd finished she ran the ball of her thumb along his bottom lip. She said, “Some girls think scars are sexy. This might improve your sex life dramatically.”
“Highly doubtful.”
“Me, I think they can add a certain amount of character. Of course, you'll probably have a big bald spot on the side of your head, and that's sort of yucky.”
He checked the hall to make sure no cops were hanging around. “What's the word?”
“I knew there must've been big trouble when I found out Dex was dead.”
Jonah, cleaning up loose ends. He should've gone on to Chicago and tried to get Kylie back before losing any more time. But the old man couldn't move forward without making sure everything behind him was finished. Chase thought Arno was a reach and probably didn't deserve to go down just because his place had been used, but Chase wasn't going to sweat the loss.
“I thought you didn't like guns,” Hildy said.
“I don't.”
“You didn't pull the trigger on that guy in the club?”
“No.”
“How's the little girl?”
“They took her.”
“Who are they?”
He didn't want to think about it, much less say anything aloud, but just as he was about to tell her that he didn't want to talk, he was talking. From somewhere nearby, he listened to himself explaining the rest of his story He wondered why that kept happening, why he was so comfortable with his chatter around her.
“So you're not finished,” she said.
“No, not yet.”
She nodded, the ponytail bobbing. “Tons is upstairs in ICU. They don't think he's going to make it.”
“Don't tell me that the dress heist went bad?”
“No. All the damage to his pinkie, he got a staph infection. Mackie and Boze are up there crying their eyes out. I told you they were loyal to each other. They've got a nun in there saying prayers.”
“So that's where she went.”
A look of real grief washed over Hildy's face. “I'm splitting.”
“You're better off without them.”
“Probably, but I'm not like you, I hate to be alone.”
“Then you are like me.”
She relaxed against the bed, threw her shoulders back, hitting another really sweet pose. He shifted beneath the sheet. She moved over him and into his arms, pressed her lips to his, and murmured against his mouth while he too allowed odd whispers to escape him. They held each other for a while. The tranqs swept up like a low tide on the beach and drew him forward. When he opened his eyes again it was night and she was gone.
The cops came around again.
He stuck to his amnesia story. They'd finished his background check and knew about Lila and what had followed. They wanted to know why his wallet had fake ID in it. He said it wasn't his wallet. They had the driver's license with his photo. It was a bad picture and he claimed it wasn't him.
There was talk he was connected in some way to what had gone down in Newark, but all they really knew was he'd taught high- school auto shop. They started another round of questioning, saying they were certain he was in on the motel murders.
But their hearts weren't in it anymore. Lila had been one of their own. The blue wall had finally worked to his advantage.
They told him to get the fuck out of Florida and never come back.
For the first time he told them the truth and said, “Count on it.”
He'd always heard they made you leave a hospital in a wheelchair, but after he signed the paperwork and had them send the bill to the house he no longer owned on Long Island, they went about their duties and left him standing there for three or four minutes before he realized he could go.
He hadn't even made it to the curb before Jonah pulled up in the Goat. It had been repainted and had new tags.
Chase walked to the driver's side and said, “Move over, I'm driving.”
His grandfather got out and stepped around the back of the car to the passenger side and climbed in. Chase noticed that the old man had gotten some sun too. He was tan and looked rested and well fed. He also had a new tattoo. Kylie's name was listed among the others beneath the angel on his left forearm. Sandra, Mary, Michael, Kylie.
Chase got behind the wheel and took it in his hands, but he didn't feel the strength, the cool or the muscle at all. He was just a guy holding on to a steering wheel.
First things first.
“I heard you took care of Dex and Arno.”
“Dex, yes. Arno must've gone into hiding. He can wait.”
“Clarke?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“How what?”
“How'd you do it?”
“What's it matter?”
“I want to know.”
Jonah said nothing.
“Did you drown him?”
“No.”
“You should've.”
Two more dead, and the old man looking younger and healthier for it.
“Did you murder my mother?” Chase asked. Jonah said, “Yeah.”
The flat, unbearable, insignificant truth of it hit him like a fist under the heart. Chase, drifting inside the hurricane of his own head as the cold shock hit his belly and his limbs began to buzz, heard the voice of his unborn sibling telling him again that he wasn't done yet.
“She was pregnant.”
“The kid was mine.”
Chase let out a small cough of agony. His lips twisted trying to frame words, but nothing would come. He reached out and touched the dash hoping for horsepower, for the thrum to work inside of him. He waited. He gave up.
“No.”
“Yeah.”
“You're lying.”
“I'm not lying.”
He turned in his seat and said, “I'm going to kill you, old man.”
His grandfather, showing nothing. “Wait until after we get Kylie back to take a run at me.”
Jonah in his head said, Do it now, you'll never get another chance.
Chase hung his head out the window and vomited. He couldn't catch his breath and thought he might black out. The lung felt like it had gone bad again. His vision turned red at the edges and yellow streamers whirled and fluttered in front of his eyes. But finally the hitch in his chest lessened and his head cleared. He threw the car in gear. It would take three days to get to Chicago without pushing it. They'd hole up for a while and decide on a play, maybe pu
t together a crew, call it a score. He eased down on the gas pedal to make the engine first growl and then moan and then scream. But nothing else was louder than the inside of his skull. Lila said to him, Never let your heart dim, love. He wanted to throw up again. The last kind words spoken to Christ were by a thief. He was protected. His gaze met his grandfather's, and the chains of blood grew stronger as the threat of impending murder filled the hopeless space between them, and the world continued to grow wider and more deranged and distant on the other side of the windshield.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TOM PICCIRILLI lives in Colorado, where, besides writing, he spends an inordinate amount of time watching trash cult films and reading Gold Medal classic noir and hardboiled novels. He's a fan of Asian cinema, especially horror movies, bullet ballet, pinky violence, and samurai flicks. He also likes walking his dogs around the neighborhood. Are you starting to get the hint that he doesn't have a particularly active social life? Well, to heck with you, buddy, yours isn't much better. Give him any static and he'll smack you in the mush, dig? Tom also enjoys making new friends. He's the author of more than twenty novels, including The Cold Spot, The Midnight Road, The Dead Letters, Headstone City, November Mourns, and A Choir of Ill Children. He's a recipient of the International Thriller Writers Award and a four- time winner of the Bram Stoker Award. He's also been nominated for the World Fantasy Award and Le Grand Prix de L'Imaginaire. To learn more, check out his official website, Epitaphs, at www.tompiccirilli.com.
A blind ex-cop.
A blizzard that's isolated a small,
private school in upstate New York.
Two killers whose hunt for blood will
expose the secrets of his past.
Look for
SHADOW
SEASON
by Tom Piccirilli
Coming soon from Bantam Books.
THE COLDEST MILE
A Bantam Book / March 2009
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are the product of the author's imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2009 by Tom Piccirilli
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks
of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90618-9
www.bantamdell.com
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