Lynn looked to her father worriedly. Kain regarded her with trepidation, then regarded the farmer with a capitulating nod. So: it had finally come.
Al Hembruff opened the paper near the back section and folded it over. There was his grandson, game-saving hero of the Spencer High Tigers, reaching down to shake hands with one of the adoring mob. The grainy image didn’t show all of Kain’s face, but it showed enough.
“I don’t understand,” Lynn said.
The farmer looked at the drifter … the drifter looked at the farmer.
“Would someone please tell me what’s going on?”
It had been so much blur, so debilitating, the brilliant flash of lights, one upon another, that had sent Kain crashing. The local photographer, the same newshound who had nearly caught him during the Three-Legged Race, had popped up during the post-game celebrations and started firing. That had been worrisome enough, but his fear had not stopped there; almost instinctively from conditioning, he had slipped into a panic, his mind spinning, spiraling out of control. Perhaps the headaches had been the catalyst … who knew anymore. It had been the Crypt all over again, Brikker and camera, flash after flash after flash, and he had been unable to fight off the demons this time. They had devoured him, and he had nearly blacked out, falling away from the screaming crowd—running, really, running from the screams, running for his life, just as he had run through those dark, endless corridors during his escape. Lynn must have thought him insane, for she had barely been able to settle him after he had made his way behind the bleachers; she had found him shaking, cowering like a child. She had talked him through it, had held him when he had needed it most, and like the good woman she was, had tried so to comprehend his terror. How long they had been there he couldn’t know, but when they had finally emerged the ballpark was theirs alone. Big Al and Ryan had waited patiently for them in the car, showing only concern when he and Lynn had strapped themselves into the back. They’d had the decency not to ask.
He spoke so faintly he could hardly hear himself.
“Kain?”
He looked up at Lynn.
“A scrapbook,” he repeated. “He keeps a scrapbook.”
“What? Who?”
“Brikker,” Big Al said. He turned to Kain. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“But I still don’t—” Lynn cut herself off.
“I’m sorry, Lynn.”
She could say nothing.
“It’s the only way,” Kain said.
Big Al interjected. “I only know so much about this Brikker fella,” he said. “Only what you told me. But if only half of what you told me is true—Christ—Kain’s right, darlin’.”
“Listen to me,” Kain said. “Please.” He waited for her to look to him. “Lynn.”
There was a low, somber rumble of thunder. She raised her eyes slowly. Met his.
“This,” he said, tapping the newspaper. “This is what Brikker has been waiting for.”
“But it’s just a small-town newspaper,” she said. “Nobody sees it.”
He went on to explain Brikker’s dark obsession; how something so seemingly innocuous could—and in this case, would, if he failed to act—lead to his capture.
“How long?” she said dimly, finally.
His gaze drifted a moment. “I don’t know. A week … maybe two.”
“Then go to the police,” she said, her voice rising in restrained panic. “We’ll all go. We’ll tell them—”
“Easy, girl,” Big Al said, taking her by the hand. “First of all, there’s already enough people around here who know about this young man. Second of all … men like Berridge would more likely turn him in.”
“But he hasn’t done anything! He’s not a criminal.”
“He didn’t mean it like that,” Kain said. “But he’s right. And even if by some miracle Berridge did want to help me, it wouldn’t change a thing.”
His expression turned black.
“Brikker’s above the law,” he told her. “He doesn’t even exist.”
She turned away. She looked adrift, so lost. Her eyes were glossy.
“And if you stay? If you fight?”
The drifter shifted a glance toward Big Al a moment. He fell back to his daughter.
“You’ll be killed,” he said. “All of you.”
~ 30
The good Doctor signaled with barely a glance. Strong left him.
He turned up the oil lamp and eased back in his chair behind the Air Marshal’s desk. Smoke filled the room; filled his lungs. The lulling tick of the clock stirred him. He lit up a cigarette and savored it, savored it as he had not savored one for so long. Dali’s work sent a chill coursing through him.
He had never been this close … not since Miami.
Brikker stared at the envelope for the longest time.
Two hours later, he was on his way.
~ 31
He could hear the rains.
The sharp break of the balls … the haunting vocals of Jimmy Dean. So, too, could he hear Sarah-Jane and her down-home sweetness, just as he heard the rocking sounds of the King as the wind rustled through his hair from the back seat of that ’58 Sunliner on his way to Des Moines. He could hear the excitement, the freedom, in that young girl’s voice. What had she said? Jobs and adventure? Yes, she had. He could hear the Little Duke, too, the kid mimicking his famous namesake with just the right drawl of Dukeness. And as he looked out over those boundless Iowa cornfields into that deepening sky from his perch on the Hembruff veranda, he could hear his heart break.
Just passing through, he had told Sarah-Jane. Told anyone he’d ever met. He wondered how she was; wondered if she had ever gotten out of dead-end Rocheport.
“Penny for your thoughts, Kain.”
He turned to the good woman. Smiled wanly.
“I’m off,” Georgia said, and she rose from her rocker. She went to him, and she put a soft hand to his cheek. She felt warm; her eyes were reassuringly bright. “You’re a good man, Kain Richards. You deserve better.”
She smiled warmly and kissed him tenderly on the forehead. She sniffled, and she hugged him; she smelled of talcum. She left him then, and he nodded after her. Big Al joined him a few minutes later and took up across from him.
“I know,” Kain said, as if reading the farmer’s thoughts. It had been five days since the photograph in the paper. Five days too long.
“Wisconsin?”
Kain regarded him, downcast. “Maybe Canada.”
Big Al nodded. “Damn cold there,” he said. “But it’s nice in British Columbia.”
A crow spread its wings, rising in the distance.
“It’s so quiet here,” Kain said. He was turned away, losing himself in that endless prairie again. The first stars were barely winking through the twilight.
“What do you see, son?”
“Sorry?”
“You’re always looking,” Big Al said.
“I am?”
“You am.”
Kain drew pause. “I don’t really know, I guess.”
“… It’s big enough, you know.”
“Big enough?”
“For everyone. The world, I mean. You’re gonna find whatever it is you’re looking for.”
“I wish I knew what that was.”
“I think you do,” Big Al said. “We don’t always know it when we want to … but deep down … we do.”
Kain’s expression dimmed. “Big enough,” he said.
“Plenty big enough,” the farmer told him. “Big enough they won’t find you.”
“I’m tired,” the drifter said. His head ached. “Just … tired.”
“I know, son.”
They sat silently for a time, the crickets wakening to a soothing chorus. Finally, the farmer spoke.
“It’ll be all right.”
Kain looked up. “Am I that obvious?”
“Know my little girl pretty well,” Big Al said. “She’s strong. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out how she
feels about you … and that it goes both ways. Fact is, if things were different … well … they aren’t. But she’ll survive this. She understands.”
“Yeah,” Kain said flatly. “And Ray?”
Al Hembruff stiffened. Stroked his ample chin. “I know Ray Bishop,” he said. “He killed that boy. Know that as sure as I know hell is waiting for him. For now, he’ll lay low … he has to. Is he finished?” He shrugged.
Kain stirred.
Big Al raised a brow.
“There’s more than Ray Bishop, Big Al.”
“Brikker.” The farmer paused to take a long gaze toward his daughter’s farm. “He’ll be coming,” he said. “He’s gonna bring it all down right here.”
“I’m sorry,” Kain said. “I should have left a long time ago.”
“Listen … this is nobody’s fault. Look at me, Kain.”
Kain did.
“Let it come,” Big Al said. “Brikker and his thugs will do what they do. But this family’s a lot tougher than you give it credit. If that man thinks we’ll give him anything that will lead him to you … he’d better think again.”
Kain could only swallow something thick. “Do you … do you think they’ll find him?”
Big Al sighed deeply. He got out of his chair and hobbled across the deck. He looked as if he’d aged ten years since that first day when he’d backed up in his pickup and offered Kain a job. He drew a pair of cold ones from his hiding place, then placed the lid back on the barrel as quietly as a mouse. He handed one to Kain as he pulled up in the rocker, and suddenly, the drifter realized what was happening.
The Coming.
The farmer cracked his beer, and as Kain had seen, raised it in toast. Kain cracked his and followed the man’s lead. It was as if he were powerless to stop this madness, as if God had laid out their future, with no turning back. It was all happening … and the worst was yet to come.
“To Jimmy,” Big Al said, and with a brave face that only Allan Jefferson Hembruff could muster, he winked.
~ 32
He wanted to tell the man what he knew. But he couldn’t.
He could only pray he was wrong.
He finished his Schlitz, then held a lingering gaze along the horizon. He tried to see his way to whatever it was he was looking for, but the way north would have to wait just a little bit longer. Life would have to wait … just a little bit longer.
“You want a ride?” Big Al said.
Kain shook his head. “I need to get my thoughts together,” he said. “I’m not sure what I’ll say to her.”
The drifter stood, and the farmer joined him. There was a nervous silence between them, and then they simply shook hands as men. As friends.
“Canada,” Big Al said, a trace of choke in his voice. “Send a postcard.”
Kain offered a slim nod; it was all he could muster. He stepped down from the veranda and into the grass. He looked up wistfully. The sky teased with the first stars; he could follow any one of them. He started to say something, but then he turned to the man, his heart heavy, and simply thanked him for the last time.
Kain Richards walked away.
~
A half hour later, Big Al was dead.
~ 33
Just as Georgia Hembruff was planting a soft kiss on Kain Richards’ forehead, a crimson Ford pickup pulled up quietly beside some trees, on a dirt road about a half mile from Lynn Bishop’s farm. It sported a shiny black bumper lifted from scrap and a new headlight from stock. Small patches of dull jade paint along its slightly crumpled hood had been scraped off, touched up with a deep rusty red that didn’t quite match. The back had been scrubbed clean, and now held nothing but a siphon hose and a large metal gas can that had been filled with regular not an hour before.
Ray Bishop killed the lights and the engine and eased up on the wheel. He peered into the deepening twilight. No moon. The road was a long black snake. He finished the bottle and set it beside him, and tried to settle himself with his last cigarette. He hadn’t slept in days. Bags hung from his dark, bloodshot eyes, and his black stubble had grown thick. He stank of sweat, grease, and whiskey. He wiped the spit from his lips.
He sat brooding. He opened the glove box and eyed the small tin box he’d stuffed inside. He wasn’t quite sure why he was keeping it. Holding on to it scared him a little, just like the dark had always scared him a little. Still, it gave him a strange kind of pleasure. But if the cops found it … shit … didn’t matter now. In all likelihood—as if he were powerless to change his destination—this ticket was a one-way. Finding the kid’s tongue meant squat. Ha. They’d never find his body anyhow, and that sat just about right with him, right as rain.
Once old Frankie had gotten through it, once he’d finally stuffed a cork in it—Christ, you could still smell the puke in here, you never got that shit out, not completely—they’d righted the Mercury. He’d had Jake run it up to the shop, but it had died halfway and they’d had to tow it the rest of the way. Despite the wound in his foot—thank fuck it had looked a lot worse than it was, just yesterday it had finally healed up—they’d worked like bastards all night. The Merc was in about a hundred pieces now, rotting at the bottom of the river.
At the bottom … where the stinking half-breed was rotting. Hog-tied with two blocks of concrete round his ankles.
Oh, Frankie had put up a stink out on the water, but not much of one. Not when it was pointed out that there was another pair of cement shoes with his name on them if he didn’t shut the fuck up. The look on his sorry face … you couldn’t buy that for all the tea in goddamn China. All that yellow bastard could do was hack up a lung like he always did—and just stand there and bleed. Old fat ass hadn’t said shit either, but Jake’d damn near pissed himself again. And really, when he figured it, what could they say? Shit, that’s what. They were as fucked as he was if it all came down.
Still—he had wanted to kill them, right then and there. Just to be safe. Lucky for them the sun had been coming up.
He closed the compartment door with a soft click.
He stared blankly into the growing darkness. Things were fuzzy; had been for days. He blinked a few times. Rubbed his eyes.
No. NO.
But there she was, his woman, standing there in the road beside the drifter. Hanging on his arm like the fucking whore she was. He felt that rage rising, burning within him. It made him crazy … made him sick. He closed his eyes, waiting for this madness to flee. Finally, he opened them.
Only darkness. Always the darkness.
His mind reeled as he raced through his plan. Steps had to be taken: scores needed settling. Ryan might give him some trouble, but that was nothing he couldn’t handle. Little fucker was just like Frankie, a goddamn coward … good for nothing.
But what about the drifter?
His chest tightened as he nearly succumbed to that rising rush—as he often did when things got out of hand, got a little crazy—as he drew out his switchblade and flicked it to life. It scared him sometimes, like the dark scared him, how things got all wired up … how he lost control. Sometimes he heard voices, a voice, really, swimming inside his head. It was as if he were someone else, as if he had stepped outside of his body. As if his mind and his will were not his own. Like when—
He took a deep breath and held it. He fought the Voice.
No. NO. Not now. Not yet.
He shut his eyes and held them tight, but he could still see those drifter eyes mocking him. He sat silently rocking, his arms wrapped round his chest. He prayed for his heart to settle, his blood to stop boiling … prayed for the Voice to flee.
At long last, he opened his eyes. He could breathe again. Could think again. It was always the same.
He stared at the blade. If only he’d had those ten seconds back in the diner. If only.
He knew what he had to do. Steps had to be taken.
He’d take care of the drifter first. Carve him up like a roast. Like he’d carved up the kid.
After all, the s
onofabitch had it coming … they all did.
He felt better. He did.
He palmed the blade closed.
Ray Bishop slid the knife into his back pocket. And then, as quietly as a lamb, stepped out for the slaughter.
~ 34
Brikker’s private military aircraft touched down at Sioux City Air Base at precisely 4:30 p.m. local time. Strong and Christensen, attired in civilian clothes, joined him in the waiting four-door Plymouth Valiant. The good Doctor—he too dressed in simple casuals, save the holstered service pistol tucked inside his jacket—had specifically requested something nondescript, and he had not been disappointed … it had even come in black. Strong had been instructed to drive, while Christensen would ask the questions. The locals would take kindly to his girlish face, Brikker had told him, and should they ask why he was looking for the man in the photograph, he would simply tell them they were old friends. Upon their arrival in the tranquil town of Spencer, they wasted little time, visiting perhaps twenty establishments, yet twilight was nearly upon them when Strong pulled up in front of a rather ordinary hardware store that held no more promise than any of the others.
“Maybe I’ll pick up a fan,” Christensen joked. “This place is hotter than the desert.”
“Perhaps you should do your job,” Brikker said. “Or should I send Strong in your stead?”
The private’s face fell as he swallowed something unpleasant. Strong cast him a deceptively sexy, disapproving glare, that in his bunk would have given him cause to masturbate. He fumbled for the door release, found it, and stepped out. He went inside, stayed far longer than he had at their previous stops, and when he got back in the car, regarded his superiors anxiously.
“What’s up your ass?” Strong barked. “You were in there for ten fucking minutes.”
“Guy had one hand,” Christensen said. “A vet. Lost it in the Ardennes during the war. Talked my bloody ear off.”
“How touching,” Brikker said. “You’ve found a friend.”
Christensen turned slightly, clearly not wanting to face the one-eyed man in the back. He held up a folded piece of paper.
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