Blunt Darts jfc-1

by Jeremiah Healy

  I couldn't see the road, but I could hear Blakey throttle down and then continue up the road at a low speed. I heard him fading in the distance for maybe a half mile; then he came back. He stopped near the car and turned off his engine. He probably checked my car and, seeing my gear still in it, figured I wasn't intending to be gone for long. He'd know that I hadn't had car trouble because I was facing back out the way I'd come in, a difficult maneuver if your car isn't working. He'd also figure, I hoped, that I'd intended it to look like car trouble so that if anyone did pass by, they wouIdn't think a parked car was suspicious. I heard him reenter his car, start up, and move back down the road. I was willing to bet he'd angle in and hide it at the old house to wait for me to come down the road with Stephen. I then heard what sounded like a short spurt of reverse. Then his engine stopped long before it would have faded in the other direction. Good work, Option Five.

  I continued up the mountain, approaching the ranger station from the back, blindside. With luck, Blakey would wait me out for a few hours. By that time, I'd have Stephen and we'd have arrived back in Granville after cutting across country the same way Stephen must have hiked in.

  With luck.

  TWENTY-THIRD

  – ¦ About an hour later, I knew why the clerk had advised me to take the front road up to the ranger station. The grade on this side of the mountain was steep, the brambles sharp, and the bugs fierce. From the topo map, the ranger station was just over the crest. From the climb, I was still a good hour away.

  When I reached and crossed the crest, I spotted the station. It was nearly sundown, but even in the fading light the box on stilts looked derelict. I waited and watched for half an hour. I then moved slowly to the base of the ladder of steps that connected the ground to the box sixty feet above. It was made of wood, and a couple of crossbars were missing. It would have been a hairy climb for a fourteen-year-old. I wasn't too enthusiastic myself.

  I climbed the ladder, pulling myself by the arms rather than pushing myself by the legs. My hands I kept at the intersection points of the rungs with the vertical posts. A few groaned, but none gave way. The ladder topped at a hatchway with a clasp long ago broken off. I raised the hatch and gingerly pulled myself up into the station.

  It was a box perhaps thirty feet square, windows all around, but all broken. Bugs buzzed the hot air. An old desk, some debris from its official use, and some condoms and beer cans from its unofficial use. Otherwise, nothing.

  Except for the floor. No broken window glass. And no dust. At least there should have been dust, and there should have been marks and scuffs in the dust from any recent users. No dust meant somebody had cleaned up. Cleaned up so the dust wouldn't show fourteen-year-old footprints. Just in case somebody came looking for him.

  I walked to the front windows and looked down at the logging road. Then I walked to the back window and could see only the edge of the crest. The back side of the mountain must have been the responsibility of another station in the network. If I couldn't see Blakey, then he couldn't see the station. Fine. The only other question was whether Stephen would return before Blakey ran out of patience. I settled down to wait.

  An hour. An hour and fifteen. An hour and twenty-five. I got up and looked out back. Nothing but deepening darkness. I walked to the front windows and, after crouching, eased my face to eye level and then slowly higher. I was about halfway up, when I heard a creak behind me and a voice that froze me.

  "Don't move or I'll shoot you."

  "Stephen, I'm-"

  "Don't move! I have a twenty-two-caliber pistol pointed at you. I might not be able to kill you with it, but you'd never catch me or get down the ladder to a hospital in time. Now keep your hands on the sill and kneel down."

  "Stephen-"

  "Now!" His voice cracked.

  I knelt.

  He began to move in behind me. "Cross your one ankle over the other," he said.

  "Your grandmother sent me."

  He stopped. "Sure she did. Now cross your ankles and don't move while I search you. Okay?"

  "Okay," I said. I crossed my ankles. It's almost impossible to pivot quickly on your knees that way. No problem, though. I figured I'd wait until I felt his hand on me, then disarm him.

  He stepped slowly toward me. Then he must have broad-jumped and swung the pistol butt at my head as he landed. The room abruptly darkened to a midnight-blue fog.

  I could taste the wool hairs in my mouth. I suppose wool technically isn't hair, but when I was little, every night in the winter my brother and I slept in a rusty iron bed with a coarse woolen blanket over us. The cheaply made blanket would shed every night, and I'd awaken every morning with wool hairs in my mouth. I'd then feel waves of nausea coming over me and run to the bathroom with the dry heaves. One morning my half-opened eyes caught my brother putting the hairs in my half-opened mouth. I half-split his upper lip open with my fist.

  I blinked my eyes, and I wasn't in my parents' house anymore. I was lying on my right side in the dark. Based on the ache from my right kidney, I'd been in that position for a while. I coughed and gagged. There was cloth in my mouth. I was also tied, hands (behind me) and feet. Taken and immobilized by a fourteen-year-old. I lifted my head, and John Philip Sousa struck up the band at the back of my skull. I involuntarily bit into my gag, which I suspected was one or more wool socks. I coughed some more and flopped over onto my left side.

  "Be quiet or I'll have to hit you again," came a low voice across the shadowy room.

  "Ugglub caaam," I said.

  "I mean it. We're not talking until morning when I can see your eyes."

  I tried to recall if I'd mentioned Blakey. I couldn't remember, but I didn't think I would have risked it with a gun being held at my back by a boy who was terrified of him.

  "Ercrue Baaka," I said. "Baaka, Baaka."

  "Last warning," he said, his voice rising a little.

  My head continued throbbing. I relaxed as best I could, and tried to forget about wool hairs and giant court officers. My left pant leg had been yanked out of my boot, and I could feel the empty holster on my calf.

  The throb in my head eased a bit, and I drifted off.

  TWENTY-FOURTH

  – ¦ I realized the throbbing was gone. Then I heard a bird sing. Two birds. I opened my eyes, and it was full morning. Plenty of clean, bright sunshine in the room, but no Stephen.

  I rolled up and went too far and keeled over onto my right side. The throbbing resumed. After a few more tries, I was sitting upright but hunched over. Stephen had run a connecting rope between my hands and my feet. I assumed he knew his knots. Walking, much less descending, the ladder was out of the question.

  I edged backward until I could rest against the wall. I was hungry, but the thought of Blakey tracing my steps fast eroded my appetite.

  There was nothing I could see in the room that would help me get free. No sharp edges, no drawers I could reach. All the broken glass from the windows had been swept up by Stephen's cover-up. Which left the broken windows themselves.

  I rolled onto my back and tried to stretch my legs. They were pretty numb, but even if they hadn't been, the rope connecting my hands and feet prevented me from stretching my legs high enough to reach the lowest of the broken windows.

  I rolled back to a sitting position and tried to stand. No good. Feet and legs too numb. I squirmed and flexed until I could feel the pins and needles signaling the return of blood to my legs. Then I got a cramp in my left calf that left me munching on wool gag again. Finally, I edged my way up into a stooped position. I leaned back into the open window, but my hands behind me were still a good six inches from the sill. I didn't like the possible consequences of trying to assume a sitting position on the window shelf itself.

  Then I heard the first footstep on the ladder. I had never heard Stephen climbing the steps. But I was pretty sure he didn't weigh enough to make the room above shake the way it was.

  A cross-piece gave way, and a muffled curse filtered up thro
ugh the closed hatch. A minute later the hatch flew back and slammed as it hit the floor behind. The barrel of a. 357 Magnum appeared, followed by the beefy hand holding it and the beefier face directing it. Blakey looked surprised when he saw me. Then he smiled. He came up one more step, sweeping the Magnum around the room. Then he pulled himself up, leaving the hatch open. He was dressed in now-dusty dark slacks and a light green shirt.

  "Christ," he said, "am I glad to see you, asshole. Where's the kid?"

  I did not dignify him with a reply.

  "Aw, what's the matter? Kitty-cat got your tongue?"

  He holstered his gun and reached into his pocket as he came toward me. "Maybe this'll loosen things up a little."

  He produced and opened a pocket knife. He cut the piece of rope around my head that was keeping the gag in place. Then he fished in my mouth with the blade and drew out the gag. A very damp gray sock. I could feel the wool hairs in my mouth but decided it would be impolite to spit. I swiveled my head and worked my jaws.

  "Now," he said, "where's the kid?"

  "He went out for Eggs McMuffin."

  Blakey backhanded me on the left side of my face. I rolled awkwardly down the sill and banged my elbow hitting the floor. Blakey then kicked me hard in the back of my left thigh.

  "I figure it's about sixty feet to the ground, wise-ass. A fall like that'd cover a lot of bruises."

  My leg wouldn't work. "I don't know where he is, Blakey."

  "I thought maybe he was gonna burn you at the stake, like a babysitter on TV."

  I decided to try a smile. "He may yet."

  Blakey smiled and crossed his arms, coplike. "You know, he's a fuckin' crazy kid. You know that."

  "Then why do you want him back?" I asked, then clenched, fearing I'd unintentionally hit close to a nerve.

  "What would I want him for?" he said warily. "It's the judge who wants him back. Back in the nuthouse where he belongs."

  I unclenched and pursued the matter a little. "Then why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff? Why didn't the judge just let me help you find him?"

  The smile passed. "None of your fuckin' business."

  "Wouldn't have anything to do with a midnight swim four years back, would it?"

  The lips curled back into a smile I didn't like. "The judge told you to stay out of this. The judge and me both. I warned you." His smile grew wider. "Remember?" he said huskily.

  "I meant to tell you, you've got a sweet phone voice, pal."

  Blakey stopped smiling. "This time the kid takes the blame. This time some local cop and I find you at the bottom of the ladder, with six slugs from the kid's twenty-two in you. Then I bring the kid to the nuthouse and call the judge. The judge takes it from there."

  "Why not just kill the kid?" I asked, to gain some time.

  Blakey laughed. "Boy, you are a cold-hearted bastard. I'll tell you why. It makes it tougher to explain why you're dead. And once I figured, sittin' by that broken-ass shed all night, that you'd spotted me, you had to get dead."

  I thought I should argue that point. "What about the clerk in the hardware store? He can identify you."

  Blakey unfolded his arms, and his face darkened.

  "How did you…?" Then he laughed. "Oh, I get it. You figured out that's how I found you. Well, you're right, but that clerk won't know whether I found you here alive or dead."

  I definitely didn't like his tone, but I was running out of deflections.

  "Just in case you might try and warn the kid, you're gonna hafta go to sleep for a while. But first," he said, as he wrapped a handkerchief around his knuckles, "a little warm-up for your swan dive."

  I got my left leg, the one he'd kicked, to bend a little. "I've got a secret about the kid that I'd like to share with you first."

  "Nice try, asshole," he said as he cocked his fist.

  "You think the kid'll climb up when he sees the open hatch?"

  Blakey straightened up. He looked at the hatch and pursed his lips. "Maybe you're right." He ambled over and lowered the hatch. What I didn't mention was that Stephen, who must have made the climb a dozen times or more, sure as hell would notice the broken rung on the ladder. I was banking that with the hatch shut, Blakey wouldn't notice him noticing. Blakey walked back to me, and I tried to think of more episodes of the Arabian Nights. No luck.

  "I've got another secret about Stephen," I said.

  "What is it?" he replied.

  "If I keep telling you secrets, will you keep me awake?" I thought about what Thom Doucette had said regarding Blakey's sensitivity.

  "What the fuck is it?" he demanded.

  "Well," I said, fluttering my eyelids, "Stephen told I me that big, strong court officers really turn him on." Blakey bent down and gave me a wicked shot at the back of the right side of my jaw and front of my ear. The other side of my head bounced off the floor. He then grabbed my shirt with both hands and lifted me to a semi-standing position. I'd known my only chance was to get him mad enough to treat me as harmless. He held my shirt with his left hand and let fly with his right. Before his fist could connect, I used his left hand as an anchorpoint and flipped back as violently as I could. With his left holding me, that brought my feet up toward his groin, and I lashed out with all the kick I could manage.

  I cracked my head against the sill as I came down. My eyes wouldn't focus. I could see one and a half of him doubled over, with his three hands futilely trying to stem the spread of a dark stain at the crotch of his pants.

  I shook my head as clear as I could and then levered onto my back. I swung my legs at his head and connected, but I got the impression that I'd only distracted him from his more immediate concern. As I flopped around, he swung backhand at my side, and I felt a rib break. The pain was incredible, and I prayed that it hadn't punctured a lung. Then he clouted me in the face with another backhand that sent me back into the sill. I could feel the room slipping away, and I knew I was going under. Thenheard a clacking noise, like a softball player opening a pop-top beer can. Then another and another and… A tree fell and pinned my legs under it.

  Twenty-Fifth

  – ¦ I couldn't move my legs, but I could rub them against each other a little. They felt sticky, as if ice cream had melted on them but hadn't quite dried. I opened the one eye that would open. The room was still light. The tree across my legs was Blakey. He was half on his side, and his blood had soaked through his pants. And mine.

  His head was about fifteen inches from my eyes, but his face was turned away from me. The back of his neck looked funny. There were round, raw holes in it, two just above his hairline. It was as if someone had thrown large, blunt darts at him, darts that had first stuck in, then had fallen away. There was one downward trickle of blood from each hole. I fell asleep again.

  The next time I woke up, someone was pouring water into my mouth. Just a little. It tasted salty, probably from the dehydrated blood flakes in my mouth. I opened my eyes. It was nearly dark. Stephen was over me. Blakey was not in sight. Stephen's hands were dirty.

  "Blakey?" I croaked.

  "I took care of him," he answered.

  I dropped back off to sleep.

  I woke up to birds singing, light again, and more water. I felt weak but not much pain. Then I noticed that my hands were untied. I started to get up, and it felt as if someone set off an A-bomb in my left side. I stopped breathing and clenched my teeth. As I eased back down, so did the pain.

  "Do you think you can handle some bread?"

  He was behind me in the room. "Yes," I said.

  "You won't try to grab me?"

  "No."

  "Okay."

  I looked down at my feet. Still securely tied. Given my present condition, I figured about two undisturbed weeks would let me get the knots undone.

  He came into my vision. He was wearing a polo shirt and loose-fitting hiking pants, cut like baggy army fatigues. He stopped three feet from me and lobbed a hunk of bread at me. It landed on Blakey's bloodstain, which had already dried. There were
about ten ants nibbling at the edge of the stain.

  "Still don't trust me, huh?" I said as I picked up the bread.

  "A1most," he said.

  In real life, he certainly appeared much older than fourteen. His face was somber and intelligent and his movements measured and sure, with none of the awkwardness of adolescence. There were still traces of blond in his dark hair, as though the sun were shining on him.

  The bread crust grated against a newly chipped molar on the lower left side.

  "How did you find me?" he asked.

  I regarded my bread crust and took another nibble, chewing on the other side of my mouth. I wanted time to review all the promises I'd made to people I'd spoken with, and my head wasn't reviewing as well as it might. "It's a long story," I said.

  He hopped his bottom up on the desk and, crossing his ankles, swung his legs slowly to and fro under the desk top. "We've got time," he said without smiling.

  "Well, I'm a private detective-"

  "I know," Stephen interrupted. "I looked at your identification after I… while you were asleep."

  "And, as I told you, your grandmother hired me to find you."

  "How did she fund you?"

  I gave him my warmest reassuring smile. "Your teacher. Valerie Jacobs. Valerie knows me from an earlier job I had."

  Stephen smiled back. A nice, good-kid type of smile. "Ms. Jacobs is a nice person," he said. "Go on."

  "Well, from what your grandmother said, you hadn't been kidnapped. She knew that, she said, because only you or she could have handpicked your survival kit."

  Stephen smiled more vividly. "Grandmother's shrewd like that. I should have known she would guess."