This damage seemed far more acute than the gunshot. More fundamental. Winchester knew precisely where to press his thumb, how deep his gouge should be, how long sustained. The nerves in Thorn's arm felt torn beyond repair.
At the steel entrance gate, Winchester brought the car to a stop. He got out, opened the gate, got back in, drove the car through and stopped again to close it. Dully, Thorn realized this was an opportunity to escape, a chance to throw open the door, stagger off into the sawgrass and marsh, see how far he could go before the man caught him from behind, tackled him and forever deadened all his limbs.
But he didn't move. Watched in the rearview mirror as Winchester closed the gate and started back to the car, coming up behind the big chrome bumpers of the Oldsmobile. Thorn leaned left, and with his good arm, tugged the shifter into reverse and with his left foot flattened the accelerator. The engine roared, and the car lurched but stayed put, wheels digging a trench in the sand.
Thorn wrenched the shifter into drive and floored it, trying to rock it free, but still the car did not move, wheels spinning, throwing grit into Harden's face as he continued to the car, not changing his pace or direction, squinting, walking into the fray as serenely as into a mild wind.
Thorn let off the gas and Harden stood by the driver's door and dusted himself off. He got inside. Stared out the windshield.
"I would've been disappointed," he said, "if you hadn't tried something."
He put the car in gear, eased it back and forth until it surged out of the gully Thorn had made.
"You know what this means," Thorn said. "You can damn well forget about me introducing you to Warren Beatty."
Harden kept his face forward as he steered them into the farmyard.
"That was you last night, wasn't it? Running through the woods. That was you."
"It was me, yeah. And I found your little funeral pyre back there. Got all your secrets now."
"A lot of good it's going to do you."
Harden gazed over at him again, shook his head and smiled without amusement.
"Your friend Sugarman fought much harder than you. He was a real scrapper, that one. A worthy opponent."
"You goddamn son of a bitch."
"When you reach my level, Thorn, it's impossible to find competition anymore. The only way to stay in condition is to shadowbox. Practicing against people like you only blunts my skills."
"They're coming for you, Winchester. They know what you've done, every detail. It's all over. You might as well put your hands up now."
"What people?"
"The people with guns. The people with badges."
The afternoon rain showers had begun. Coming down in a spiritless drizzle. A token rain, no heart in it. But growing gradually heavier, starting to thrum on the roof of the Olds.
"Guns make people dumb," Harden said. "And badges too. Someone with a badge and a gun together, they assume they're invincible. But let me tell you, it takes a lot more than that to make somebody invincible."
"Like special forces training school?"
Harden glanced over at him as they pulled into the yard. Sugarman's Mustang parked near the house.
"Who the hell are you anyway?"
"I'm Thorn."
"I know your goddamn name. But why're you here? You're not just another one of Sylvie's schemes, are you? You're not that stupid."
"I'm here because of Darcy Richards. Remember her?"
Harden's eyes retreated, going slightly out of focus as if he had moved inward for a moment to wander through a library of names. His private gallery of victims.
Thorn could feel the tingle of current draining back into his right arm. Out of view of Winchester he jiggled a finger. Opened his palm, pressed it hard against the seat.
"Darcy Richards?"
"The woman in Key Largo. The drowning woman."
He shook his handsome sun-baked head. Ran a finger back and forth across the bristles of his cheek as if playing scales on the teeth of a comb.
"There've been so many," Thorn said. "How's a man to keep track?"
"Ordinarily, I'd crack your neck," said Winchester. "And pitch you out with the rest of the trash. But I believe I'd like to talk with you a little bit more later on. Hear exactly what else you know about me. A little private debriefing session. So I'm going to treat you with more civility." He turned his head, smiled at Thorn.
"It won't work, Winchester. Judy Nelson's coming for you."
"Oh, Judy," he said. "Yes, yes, you're the one who sicced Judy on me."
Thorn felt his head sag.
"Yes, Judy stopped by this afternoon. We had a nice chat. She and her men prowled around to their hearts' content. She even apologized to me on the way out. Apologized for bothering me when I had company. Doris had arrived by then, you see. So, if that's who you thought was coming to save your life, the men with the guns and badges, well, I hate to be the one to shit in your soup, Mr. Thorn, but Judy Nelson isn't going to rescue you. No one is."
Winchester smiled pleasantly and reached out and took hold of Thorn's left elbow, going to give him another dose of pain. But before his fingers could clamp shut, Thorn jerked his arm from his grasp. Then drew his arm across his body, and with a surge of strength, snapped it straight, a backhand punch to Harden's nose. It hit, drew instant blood, but Winchester caught hold of Thorn's wrist, immobilized it in his grip, and stared into Thorn's eyes while he pried open his fist, finger by finger, then bent Thorn's hand backward, straightening his elbow. All the while looking into his eyes, daring him to try anything more.
Thorn squirmed but couldn't break his grasp.
With his left hand holding Thorn's arm rigid, Harden used his right to probe Thorn's left triceps. After a moment he found the pressure point he was searching for. Thorn felt a tentative galvanic jolt. His vision darkened, then flickered on again as Winchester backed off the tension. Toying with him.
Then with a sly smile, a bead of blood rolling from his nostril, Winchester reset his grip, made a husky moan of pleasure, and sunk his fingers into the junction box in Thorn's arm, crushing synapses and circuits, and twisting his fingers like a pianist performing a complex chord, mangling crucial connectors, tendons, ligaments, the hundred strands keeping that arm intact.
Thorn roared and slumped back against the door. A dark tide washed across his vision, and his stomach rolled. When finally he could open his eyes again, there was only a dim yellow smog.
He blinked and squinted hard, and through a hazy stupor he was aware of Harden Winchester getting out of the car, walking through the light rain past the hood of the car, opening the passenger door. Catching Thorn as he tumbled out, standing him up, looping his arm around Thorn's waist, shrugging his dead left arm over Winchester's shoulder, and carrying him like a drunken guest to the middle of the yard.
Thorn looked up at the wobbling sky, a silver rain stinging his eyes. He took a painful breath and brought his eyes down. Harden was smiling at him, standing a foot away. In his hands was a shovel, which he gripped like a bat.
Thorn lurched forward, started a loose-jointed run, heading for the river, an awkward stride through the summer shower toward the Okehatchee beyond the pines, but he made it only a few feet before he stumbled, and caught himself, and heard a loud chime, steel against bone, and saw a shower of gold sparks. And his head became a great cathedral bell, cold and hard and weighing thirty tons. Gonging.
With perfect clarity, he looked down at his feet but they were not there, only black water, water coming up to meet him, rising fast, the earth seemed to be covered by a thin layer of black water, water coming up at him, splashing in his face, filling his nostrils with its dense perfume, the scent of primeval bogs, of tidal pools trapped far inland, those pools where tiny organisms first bred, the slithery one-celled creatures that swallowed each other and grew bigger, and swallowed each other again and fattened until they were large enough to stand, large enough to walk, to roam the earth, large enough and mean enough to swallow everything in t
heir path.
Into the water he fell. Down into that ancient black water.
***
"Casablanca," Sylvie said. "You remember that afternoon we went to see Casablanca, Mommy? How we all cried. You remember that?"
Doris, on the edge of Sylvie's bed, looked at this young woman, her daughter. Her short black hair in a wild tumult, wearing blue jeans, torn at the knees and thighs, and a badly wrinkled long-sleeved cream jersey with smears of dirt, black tennis shoes. Sylvie trying for a mangled, grotesque look, but still beautiful to Doris. Still the smiling little girl, the mischievous one, the one who listened so intently to her bedtime stories. Tried so hard to please.
"I remember that afternoon very well."
"You remember how after that I got so hooked on Daddy's Super 8, started taking home movies all the time?"
"I remember." Saying it quietly, just beyond a whisper.
"Lights, camera, action. Remember how I used to say that all the time? Lights, camera, action. Lights, camera, action. It drove you crazy. You forbid me to say it anymore. Lights, camera, action. "
"I remember it all, Sylvie. All of it. As though it were yesterday. Every second of it."
"No, you don't. You don't remember anything. How could you?"
The door to Sylvie's bedroom was locked, the windows covered with metal grillwork, a cell of a room. And Sylvie taking it as normal when an hour ago Harden had shoved her in with Doris. Told them both to stay right there, he had some things to take care of.
What have you done with Mr. Sugarman? Doris asked him.
Nothing yet. He's fine. We'll all talk later.
And Harden left them, locked the door. That's when Sylvie said, Well, look who's here. Mommy. Finally came back like she promised. Finally.
Doris tried the knob, rushed to the window, shook the bars.
So, Mommy, how've you been?
Doris rattled the solid bars. Holding back her tears, trying to think clearly.
You know, Sylvie said. I have an excellent idea how we can fill our time. Yeah, yeah. We'll watch a home movie. Wouldn't you like that? Catch up on old times. See how Sylvie got to be Sylvie. Get to know each other again. A home movie, yeah.
Now Doris turned from the window, watching as her daughter went about the room, hauled a projector out of a closet, set it on a small desk, erected the screen, told Doris that she looked at this movie a lot, once a week at least, it was her way of remembering how it had been, remembering her mommy, like a picture album.
"Remember how Humphrey Bogart turned to mush at the end of the movie? How Ingrid Bergman wrapped him around her finger? Is that why you cried, Mother? Thinking about Daddy, wishing you could turn him to mush. I know that's why I cried."
"Sylvie, we have to talk. Something awful is happening here."
"Awful ain't the half of it, Mommy. Not the half of it."
Sylvie fed the film through the slots and wound it onto the sprocket, and aimed the bright light at the screen leaning cockeyed against the wall. Then she turned off the overhead light and switched on the projector and suddenly the screen was filled with garish color.
"Lights, camera . . . action!"
Two girls in frilly Easter dresses and wide-brimmed bonnets stood beneath a jacaranda tree blooming purple. Sylvie at ten or eleven, a gangly girl with rich black hair falling to the middle of her back. Her blond sister, a few years older, but already with the rounded body of a woman, not smiling like Sylvie, but staring moodily into the camera. The scene moved in the herky-jerky double time of Super 8 film, and it had a silent-movie graininess.
The Winchester family on one of their rare outings off the farm, on their way to Easter services. Sylvie, basking in the attention of her father, doing little half turns, a flounce of her skirt. Her sister not moving except once to touch her hat, keep it from being unseated by a breeze.
"Gwyneth and her little sister, two girls on their way to pray," Sylvie said. "One girl happy, one girl sad. Guess which is which."
"Sylvie," Doris said. "Please. We have to talk."
Sylvie said, "The girl with the black hair, she's the one that's happy, or at least she thinks she is. Of course, how it turns out is, you never know how happy you are till later, looking back. You think you're happy, but actually you're not. Or you think you're sad, and much later you see, that was as happy as you're ever going to be.
"But anyway, little Sylvie's all dressed up, new shoes, new purse, new underwear. She thinks the world was created just for her. But her sister knows better. Look at her, look at Gwyneth. She knows what's going on. She knows what's about to happen."
Doris sighed heavily and sat down on the edge of Sylvie's bed.
The Easter morning flickered and disappeared, became a sunny afternoon picnic in a grassy field. A thirty-year-old Doris sitting on a checkered tablecloth spread out on the ground. Doris with her blond hair long, in a simple white dress, opening a picnic basket, setting drumsticks on china plates. Her eyes weary, losing the battle with depression. Then the camera lifted to show Sylvie and Gwyneth in the field behind their mother, Sylvie in jeans and a T-shirt holding the string of a kite, Gwyneth in a shapeless dress standing by her side looking down at the ground. The camera lifted, showed the kite twitching in the wind.
"Sometimes when I watch this, I try to tell it different ways, make it come out a happy story, but that's usually too hard. Usually I just give up doing that."
The projector whirred. Doris felt herself falling away into the images on the screen as if she'd slipped through some weak spot in the here-and-now and was back there, completely gone.
"Now, there's a happy family," Sylvie said. "June, it was. Gwyneth's birthday party. A picnic by the Okehatchee, where the fish ponds are now."
Sylvie flew her kite for a moment or two more, then the screen went white for an instant then came back to color, the camera out of kilter, Gwyneth sitting with Doris on the checkered tablecloth now, a middle-aged, athletic Harden between them, his arms around his women. A roughly handsome man. That man who had swept Doris out of her small Tennessee town and taken her off to Florida and hidden her on this farm. Cut her off from her parents, friends. Forbidden the girls from going to school. Paranoid. Not allowing them any contact with the outside world, saying that his job in the military had made him a great many enemies. Very dangerous enemies. The only way to protect his family was to keep them totally sequestered from the world. Doris obeyed. Frightened that what he said was true, that they were in constant danger of being discovered, and frightened just as much of Harden's rage if she disobeyed.
She had little choice anyway. When Harden was home, they went nowhere but to the grocery. And when he was away, he hid the car keys, left behind a pantry full of food.
In the home movie, Doris's dark prince was sitting between two of his women, Harden the only one smiling. His black hair cut short. Doris speaking to Sylvie behind the camera, probably scolding her, telling her to be careful with that expensive piece of equipment. Gwyneth looking away at where the kite would have been if it were still flying.
"This was right after we saw Casablanca. You found where Daddy hid the car keys, and we drove into town when he was away. Remember? That was a big day. The day you found those keys. And after that I became Sylvie the movie maker. Sylvie the mogul. Remember? Lights, camera, action."
The camera held on Gwyneth as she stared off at nothing. And then the screen turned white again. And came back on in brilliant overexposure, showing the lawn beyond the house, a white Ford parked out in the grass. A '63 four-door with its trunk open. Several suitcases sat on the ground nearby and Doris stood stiffly beside them.
"Now, who would that be?" Sylvie said. "Is that my mother? Doris Winchester? Yes, I believe it is. We're in August now. The day of the great escape."
"Oh, God, Sylvie," said Doris. "Please don't do this."
"The camera work is a little awkward, I admit. But Sylvie was having trouble keeping her arms steady on that day."
The camera
panned to the side and there, standing in the shadow of the porch, was Harden, wearing his short-sleeved marine uniform, his left arm wrapped tight around Gwyneth, restraining her. She was in her Easter dress, two small suitcases perched on the edge of the porch in front of her. In Harden's right hand was his .45 service pistol. He was aiming it with great precision toward his wife.
CHAPTER 30
The camera turned slowly and refocused on Doris standing twenty yards away beside the family car. Then the back window of the Ford exploded. A second later the rearview mirror shattered and spun off. Doris was crying. She wore a white summery dress.
"Daddy's a great shot, huh? He could've hit you. Could've blown your heart out your back, Mommy, but he didn't. He could've shot out the tires, exploded the gas tank, but he didn't do that either. He let you live, Mommy. Don't ask me why."
The Ford's side window ruptured, became a thousand diamonds and fell into the grass.
"Great stuff, huh?" Sylvie said. "Lights, camera, action."
The camera swung around and came into focus on Harden, standing on the edge of the porch. He was still pointing the pistol, screaming at his wife. His face contorted, the muscles in his neck cording up. Even from that many years away Doris could hear his voice, the curses.
"Daddy surprised you. He came home from Iran a day early. Caught his three girls before we could make our getaway. You fucked up, didn't you? You really fucked up, Mommy. Didn't you?"
"Oh, Sylvie," Doris said. "Turn this off. Please."
"No," she said. "I can't shut it off. The switch doesn't work. Once it starts, Mommy, it never turns off. Lights, camera, action. Lights, camera, action."
"I was taking you with me," Doris said. "I was. You know that. Your bags were packed. We were all going together."
"But you didn't take us, did you, Mommy? You didn't. That's not how it turned out, is it? You changed your mind."
Mean High Tide (Thorn Series Book 3) Page 29