Bernhardt's Edge, page 25
part #1 of Alan Bernhardt Series
Then she stirred, spoke softly: “Do you think it would’ve been better to pack up and leave—take our chances on the road?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “He’s got a Camaro. And these roads are deserted, at night. I was wondering about asking the sheriff for an escort out of town to the west. It’s only a few miles, to the foothills. But it’s pretty obvious that wouldn’t’ve worked, not with Deputy Foster, anyhow—the goddam jerk.”
“You said you were going to write a report about his behavior. Are you?”
“Probably not. All I’m thinking about now is getting through the next five or six hours, until it’s daylight. Then we can get packed. It’ll take you an hour or so to write your statement about DuBois. After you’ve done that, we can leave, go back toward Los Angeles. We’ll go convoy style, you in front, me following. I’ll talk to the sheriff in the morning, ask him for an escort for the first ten miles out of town. If he refuses, I’ll demand that he make a written report to verify my request. That’s one thing I’ve discovered about cops. If there’s something on file—a piece of paper, on someone’s desk—your chances are better of getting action. But even if we don’t get his attention, we’re still a hell of a lot safer in the daytime than we are at night. Especially if there’re two of us.”
“If the killer’s out there somewhere, watching, he’ll’ve seen Deputy Foster come. That’s bound to help. And Foster will drive past, too.”
Decisively, Bernhardt nodded. “Right.” Then, surreptitiously, he stifled a yawn. After another drowsy, darkness-shrouded silence she asked, “Are you married, Alan?”
“No. I was married, years ago. She died.”
“Oh—I’m sorry.” She said it the way most people meant to say it: quietly, respectfully. But most people failed. Pamela had said it like that, too: with deep, true compassion. He let a beat pass, then asked, “What about you?”
“No—” A small, pensive sigh. “No, I never married. I’m afraid that Nick was as close as I’ve come. And that really wasn’t very close. I thought it was—I thought it was as close as you get. But I was wrong. I can see that now. It hasn’t even been a week. But already I can see that it never would’ve worked, with the two of us.”
“I—I’m sorry.”
“Me, too—sorry for myself, for being too dumb to see it sooner.”
“It’s not a question of intelligence. That’s got nothing to do with it.”
“What does it have to do with?”
“Need, I suppose. And loneliness, too. If you’re lonely—if you need someone—then you can’t really afford to look too closely, sometimes.”
“Do you need someone?”
“Everyone needs someone,” he answered quietly.
“You included?”
“Me included. Definitely, me included. Listen—” He stifled a yawn. “Listen, why don’t you go to sleep? I’ll stay awake. Then you can keep watch, tell me if you hear anything, wake me up. Okay?”
“Yes—” She yawned, too. “Yes—okay.”
Twenty-five minutes ago, their lights had gone out. Fifteen minutes ago, the sheriff’s car had come back, driven among the cabins on the one-way driveway, engine idling. Hidden behind a tree no taller than himself, he’d seen the police car pass within a few feet of him. It had been a test, a test he’d set for himself, to prove his nerve, his courage—like deliberately cutting into his own flesh, to prove he could do it, stand the pain. He’d done it once. He’d been drunk, sure. But he’d done it—taken a knife and cut himself, the only one at the table who’d dared. The scar was still there, on the inside of his forearm—still there, like a badge.
If the sheriff had seen him, he would’ve been ready: same plan, really, but different, slightly, a little different. Because instead of using the Woodsman, for the noise, he’d’ve used the UZI, get the job done, never mind the noise. Then, with the shit already in the fan, he’d throw a trash can through the window, go in behind it, with the UZI.
But the sheriff hadn’t even glanced in his direction, hadn’t taken more than two minutes, to drive around the grounds. So he didn’t have to risk it, risk breaking in, risk making himself a target, if the tall man had a gun.
And then, suddenly, it had come to him, how he could do it, how he could get them out of the cabin, where they’d be the targets, not him. He’d heard how someone did it once, did exactly what he had to do. All it took was a knife, and a little hose. He’d already seen a hose, lying between two cabins—a garden hose. And he already had a knife, his Buck knife, that he always carried on a job. And the rest of it, everything else, he could find that in a trash can, almost any trash can.
Switching off the air-conditioning, Powers touched another switch, lowered a window on the driver’s side. The desert air was pure and sweet, an ecological revelation, after the chronic Los Angeles smog. And, yes, the stars were closer, brighter, more mysterious. Ahead, a sliver of moon had risen over the far desert horizon.
Was it a killing moon?
Could she already be dead, lying on a blood-soaked bed at the Ram’s Head Motel? Could Fisher already be far away, safe from pursuit, making preparations to meet him at LAX, collect the rest of his murderer’s pay?
He’d passed the Ram’s Head, driving into town from the south, more than an hour ago. It had been a shock, seeing the sign. Until then, that very instant, it had all been an abstraction: a report from MacCauley, a call to an anonymous number in Detroit, an envelope handed over at the airport—one of thousands of transactions he’d made during the year, buying low, selling high, bargaining for the best possible terms.
But when he’d seen it, that blue neon sign materializing out of the deep desert darkness, the sudden shock had been shattering. This wasn’t an abstraction. This was murder, bought and paid for.
Involuntarily, seeing the sign, his foot had come off the accelerator. Almost of its own volition, the Mercedes had slowed. Because, in minutes, it could have been over. He could have found her, told her that she was no longer in danger, that DuBois had decided to give her back her life. Then he could have warned her that she wasn’t safe until he found the man he’d hired to murder her.
But then, searing his consciousness, the truth had struck like a blow: If he warned her, saved himself from involvement in another murder, he admitted to her that he had ordered Nick Ames’ murder. He would put himself at her mercy.
So he must find Fisher, before Fisher found Betty Giles.
A black man in a black Camaro, the motel manager had said…
Setting the safety catch, he carefully laid the UZI on a large flat rock. But he must make sure, absolutely sure, that he remembered, about the safety catch. When it came down to seconds, kill or be killed, he couldn’t take time to snap off the safety. It had happened to him once. Only once.
Coming out of a crouch, he took the Buck knife from its case at his belt. As he opened the blade, he scanned the two nearest cabins, both of them dark. If someone was inside, looking out into the night through their big front windows, they could see him. But all they’d see, from twenty-five feet away, in the dark, was a figure who’d just bent over, put something on the ground, then straightened, taken something from under his shirt. And now they’d see him bend down again, make a motion with his two hands that could mean anything—while, quickly, two slashes of the knife got him a three-foot length of garden hose.
He replaced the knife in its snap-over sheath, picked up the UZI—still with the safety on, he must remember—and began the careful, dangerous walk back between two more cabins. One of the cabins still showed a dim light, and a blue-white TV glow. Ahead was the screen of close-planted trees that concealed the dumpster he’d seen earlier, before it got dark. This time, he must lay the UZI directly on the coarse, sandy soil, lay the length of hose beside it. Now, after another quick look at the nearby cabins, he leaned over the side of the dumpster. An instant’s flash of bitter memory was as strong as the garbage smell: stinking hallways, stinking alleys—stinking lives, his own and all the others.
On top of the trash, he found the perfect one: a half-gallon wine bottle. And rags, too—everything, right there. He straightened, thrust the rag in a trouser pocket. Carrying the bottle and the hose in his left hand, the UZI in his right hand, he moved cautiously to the rear of the motel grounds, to the split rail fence, just high enough and rickety enough to be a problem. This time, though, carrying everything, balancing like an acrobat, he giant-stepped over the fence, another flash of childhood memory: baby steps, giant steps, hide and seek, you’re it, you’re screwed. All of them, screwed before they even started. Everyone but him.
Another two hundred feet took him to the Camaro, doors unlocked, windows down. He put the UZI inside, on the driver’s seat—still safetied, remember, still on safety, loser lose everything, if he forgot. Moving to the rear of the car, he took off the gas cap, put it on the car—remember, the roof of the car. Remember. And the bottle was on the ground beneath the gas tank. And the hose—yes, it fitted—thrust down inside the tank. And now, suck—suck—as he lifted the bottle, ready as, yes, the gas was coming, gagging him. Hose into the bottle, back on the ground. Gurgling, gurgling—gas overflowing now. He freed the hose from the tank, reached for the rags, still in his pocket.
Should the rag be soaked in the gas, before he—?
The cap. He’d forgotten the gas cap, on the roof of the car. He twisted the gas cap down tight, tested it. This was the time when everything counted, when he couldn’t forget anything. This was the time when—
A match.
He’d done it all, a fucking miracle. Found a hose, a bottle, everything. Made the cocktail—whatever they called it, named for a Russian, some kind of Russian.
All useless. Nothing, without a match.
A match…
At a store, in town? No, not now, not after midnight.
In a house, someone’s house? Break into someone’s house, risk everything, just for a fucking—
A bar.
It had to be a bar. Two bars in town, one at the circle, one at the airport. It was no better than fifty-fifty, out of season, that they’d be open after midnight. But he had to do it. Either do it, get a match, or forget about it, about everything but crashing in, glass breaking in the middle of the night, the middle of nowhere, taking a chance, maybe that one last chance, one chance too many.
“Yeah,” the bartender said, “there was a black guy in here, left maybe fifteen minutes ago.” He nodded, poured Powers a brandy, took the five-dollar bill to the register to make change. “Nice fella, very nice spoken, too, very polite. Said he just wanted to use the bathroom, and get a book of matches. Smiled about it, very good-humored. And then I noticed he left two dollars on the bar. How about that?”
He placed the bottle on the ground close beside the house, placed the UZI beside the bottle. Then, as he’d done before, once before, an hour ago, maybe longer, he moved inch by inch to the right, until he could see into the bathroom through the small, high, screened bathroom window. The window was open about six inches. It was an aluminum window, and slid side to side. But the screen was nylon, not aluminum. It was a break, that the screen was nylon. Possibly his biggest break of all. Because if he could cut away the screen, and slide back the window another six inches, he could do it, throw the gas bomb inside—throw it hard, so it would break. Or, no, just lob it in, a grenade, so it would break on the tile floor of the bathroom, not go as far as the carpet of the other room, maybe not break.
Instantly, the gas would explode. Inside, they’d panic. With the UZI—safety off, remember, safety off—he’d go around to the front, wait for them—do them when they came out, screaming. Two bursts—one clip—and they’d go down. Clip out, new clip in. Remember to release the slide, release the fucker, make sure there was a bullet in the chamber. Then another short burst, the insurance burst, to her head. Then back over the split rail fence, back to the Camaro—fifty thousand richer. Start the car, drive, disappear in the night, sixty-five miles to Palm Springs, across the open desert, gone.
The monster was turning, coming back, leering down on him, a fire-breathing, four-wheeled monster, shattering the high, wide, raging sky with a doomsday roar. And he was helpless, trapped, held fast by—
“Alan.”
Opening his eyes, he saw her face close to his, saw her eyes, fearfully wide in the half light. It was Betty, whispering his name. Betty Giles, the target. Terrified.
“Wh—”
“Shhh.” With her hand on his arm, to quiet him, she moved her head to the left, in the direction of the bathroom door. “Listen—”
And as he sat up straight in the chair, he heard it: a faint, alien sound. Was it an animal, gnawing?
A man, coming for them?
As he rose to his feet and picked up the sawed-off, his heart began to hammer, his knees went weak. Gripping the shotgun, his hands trembled violently.
The safety…
He must take off the safety, right thumb pushing the catch forward.
Twenty-five dollars, he’d paid for the shotgun. Not enough, not nearly enough. Not now, not enough. Suddenly not now.
“Get back,” he whispered, gesturing with his head for her to move aside, away from the bathroom door. Then, with legs that were leaden, with the roar of blood pounding in his ears, throat gone dry, he was moving forward—one step, two steps—and one last step, bringing him squarely facing the bathroom door. Taking his left hand from the sawed-off’s forestock, fingers cravenly trembling, he slowly, gently, pushed the door fully open.
In the rectangle of the bathroom window, slid to the side, fully open, he saw something changing the quality of the outside darkness. Not a hand, or a head, or a solid shape, but a film without substance, a thickening, then a thinning—
—the screen.
It was the screen, moving, folding back, disappearing.
With his right shoulder pressed against the cabin wall, with the gasoline-filled bottle on the ground beside the UZI, both of them in front of him, he crouched, swept the nearby darkness one last time with quick, probing eyes. Then he looked up at the window; two feet above his head, its nylon screen folded back.
A lob—a hook shot, really, from his crouched position beneath the window—a left-handed hook shot, followed by a right-handed grab for the UZI. And then the sprint around the side of the cabin, UZI cocked, safety off, finger on the trigger, ready. Followed by the ten, twenty-second wait, listening to their screams from inside, trapped in the flames—trapped until they tore open the front door, desperate to escape the fire.
As he held his breath, listening, he took the matches from a hip pocket, opened the folder. Had someone spoken, inside the cabin? Had something stirred? He allowed himself five more seconds, the last five seconds, listening. Then, winner take all, he struck the match, hesitated one last, final moment, then touched the tiny flame to the gas-soaked rag, the wick. Instantly, orange flame blossomed; bits of burning rag flared, fell away from the bottle. He dropped the matches, used both hands to grip the bottle below the flaming wick. He straightened from his crouch to stand close beside the window. Pain seared one hand, both hands.
Quick. It had to be quick.
He was out there. The black man, come to kill them. He was out there, just outside the window. Was this the time to run, tear open the front door, try for safety, scream for help? Frozen at his center, Bernhardt could only raise the shotgun, trained on the window’s foot-square opening. At five feet, six feet from the window, the buckshot would—
Beneath the window a glow began, followed instantly by a tiny flame in the dark rectangle of the window. The shotgun bucked; the blast was palpable, a flash of gouted orange in the darkness, deafening him—
—as fire filled the window frame, an explosion of flame, blinding him, the black of night flaring daytime-bright, acrid, deadly dangerous.
He braced himself, used both hands to lift the bottle level with the window—
—heard the shotgun blast, saw flame explode, felt the heat searing nostrils and throat, saw the darkness fuse with the fire, first into a blinding-bright whiteness, then into the last long, sudden darkness…
…as his voice, screaming, filled everything: the last sound so quickly fading: all the pain, finally gone. Too late.
16
AS POWERS SWITCHED OFF the bedside lamp he heard the siren: a high, thin wail, rising and falling in the night. He’d heard this same sound in small towns before: the siren on the firehouse, summoning the local volunteer firemen.
Or it could be the police: the Borrego Springs sheriff, or the state police, racing to answer the homicide call. Betty Giles, dead. Murdered at the Ram’s Head Motel.
In the darkness he sat up in bed, listening. If it was the police, the sound of the siren would soon fade as the car left the center of town, outward bound.
But even if it was the police, it wasn’t necessarily murder. It could be an accident, on the highway. Or a robbery. Anything.
But it wasn’t the police, because the sound was stationary, still rising and falling, a monotony of undulating shrillness. And now, close by, he heard excited voices, heard car doors slamming. The motel manager, doubtless, was a volunteer fireman, and was answering the call.
He got out of bed, went to the window, drew back the drape. Yes, an engine was revving nearby, a car was moving, spurting gravel from its rear wheels.
Grimacing at the sound of the siren, he switched on the lights and strode to the bureau, and the bottle of Cutty Sark. Was there still ice in the ice bucket? Yes, enough for one drink, one generous drink. He filled the plastic glass with ice, poured in the Cutty Sark. The TV was beside the brown plastic tray that held the bottle, the glass, and the ice bucket. Giving the ice in his drink time to melt, he looked at the local TV log, on top of the set. An old John Wayne movie had just come on: Flying Tigers, made during the war. He switched on the TV, turned the channel selector, saw John Wayne in the cockpit of a vintage fighter plane, maneuvering to elude a villainous Japanese, a propaganda turn.
As he picked up the highball, the sound of the siren suddenly died. Enough firemen had responded; the truck was ready to roll. He carried the glass to one of the room’s two easy chairs, sank down, propped his bare feet on the edge of the bed, and sipped the scotch as he watched the whirling, roaring, smoke-spiraling dogfight.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “He’s got a Camaro. And these roads are deserted, at night. I was wondering about asking the sheriff for an escort out of town to the west. It’s only a few miles, to the foothills. But it’s pretty obvious that wouldn’t’ve worked, not with Deputy Foster, anyhow—the goddam jerk.”
“You said you were going to write a report about his behavior. Are you?”
“Probably not. All I’m thinking about now is getting through the next five or six hours, until it’s daylight. Then we can get packed. It’ll take you an hour or so to write your statement about DuBois. After you’ve done that, we can leave, go back toward Los Angeles. We’ll go convoy style, you in front, me following. I’ll talk to the sheriff in the morning, ask him for an escort for the first ten miles out of town. If he refuses, I’ll demand that he make a written report to verify my request. That’s one thing I’ve discovered about cops. If there’s something on file—a piece of paper, on someone’s desk—your chances are better of getting action. But even if we don’t get his attention, we’re still a hell of a lot safer in the daytime than we are at night. Especially if there’re two of us.”
“If the killer’s out there somewhere, watching, he’ll’ve seen Deputy Foster come. That’s bound to help. And Foster will drive past, too.”
Decisively, Bernhardt nodded. “Right.” Then, surreptitiously, he stifled a yawn. After another drowsy, darkness-shrouded silence she asked, “Are you married, Alan?”
“No. I was married, years ago. She died.”
“Oh—I’m sorry.” She said it the way most people meant to say it: quietly, respectfully. But most people failed. Pamela had said it like that, too: with deep, true compassion. He let a beat pass, then asked, “What about you?”
“No—” A small, pensive sigh. “No, I never married. I’m afraid that Nick was as close as I’ve come. And that really wasn’t very close. I thought it was—I thought it was as close as you get. But I was wrong. I can see that now. It hasn’t even been a week. But already I can see that it never would’ve worked, with the two of us.”
“I—I’m sorry.”
“Me, too—sorry for myself, for being too dumb to see it sooner.”
“It’s not a question of intelligence. That’s got nothing to do with it.”
“What does it have to do with?”
“Need, I suppose. And loneliness, too. If you’re lonely—if you need someone—then you can’t really afford to look too closely, sometimes.”
“Do you need someone?”
“Everyone needs someone,” he answered quietly.
“You included?”
“Me included. Definitely, me included. Listen—” He stifled a yawn. “Listen, why don’t you go to sleep? I’ll stay awake. Then you can keep watch, tell me if you hear anything, wake me up. Okay?”
“Yes—” She yawned, too. “Yes—okay.”
Twenty-five minutes ago, their lights had gone out. Fifteen minutes ago, the sheriff’s car had come back, driven among the cabins on the one-way driveway, engine idling. Hidden behind a tree no taller than himself, he’d seen the police car pass within a few feet of him. It had been a test, a test he’d set for himself, to prove his nerve, his courage—like deliberately cutting into his own flesh, to prove he could do it, stand the pain. He’d done it once. He’d been drunk, sure. But he’d done it—taken a knife and cut himself, the only one at the table who’d dared. The scar was still there, on the inside of his forearm—still there, like a badge.
If the sheriff had seen him, he would’ve been ready: same plan, really, but different, slightly, a little different. Because instead of using the Woodsman, for the noise, he’d’ve used the UZI, get the job done, never mind the noise. Then, with the shit already in the fan, he’d throw a trash can through the window, go in behind it, with the UZI.
But the sheriff hadn’t even glanced in his direction, hadn’t taken more than two minutes, to drive around the grounds. So he didn’t have to risk it, risk breaking in, risk making himself a target, if the tall man had a gun.
And then, suddenly, it had come to him, how he could do it, how he could get them out of the cabin, where they’d be the targets, not him. He’d heard how someone did it once, did exactly what he had to do. All it took was a knife, and a little hose. He’d already seen a hose, lying between two cabins—a garden hose. And he already had a knife, his Buck knife, that he always carried on a job. And the rest of it, everything else, he could find that in a trash can, almost any trash can.
Switching off the air-conditioning, Powers touched another switch, lowered a window on the driver’s side. The desert air was pure and sweet, an ecological revelation, after the chronic Los Angeles smog. And, yes, the stars were closer, brighter, more mysterious. Ahead, a sliver of moon had risen over the far desert horizon.
Was it a killing moon?
Could she already be dead, lying on a blood-soaked bed at the Ram’s Head Motel? Could Fisher already be far away, safe from pursuit, making preparations to meet him at LAX, collect the rest of his murderer’s pay?
He’d passed the Ram’s Head, driving into town from the south, more than an hour ago. It had been a shock, seeing the sign. Until then, that very instant, it had all been an abstraction: a report from MacCauley, a call to an anonymous number in Detroit, an envelope handed over at the airport—one of thousands of transactions he’d made during the year, buying low, selling high, bargaining for the best possible terms.
But when he’d seen it, that blue neon sign materializing out of the deep desert darkness, the sudden shock had been shattering. This wasn’t an abstraction. This was murder, bought and paid for.
Involuntarily, seeing the sign, his foot had come off the accelerator. Almost of its own volition, the Mercedes had slowed. Because, in minutes, it could have been over. He could have found her, told her that she was no longer in danger, that DuBois had decided to give her back her life. Then he could have warned her that she wasn’t safe until he found the man he’d hired to murder her.
But then, searing his consciousness, the truth had struck like a blow: If he warned her, saved himself from involvement in another murder, he admitted to her that he had ordered Nick Ames’ murder. He would put himself at her mercy.
So he must find Fisher, before Fisher found Betty Giles.
A black man in a black Camaro, the motel manager had said…
Setting the safety catch, he carefully laid the UZI on a large flat rock. But he must make sure, absolutely sure, that he remembered, about the safety catch. When it came down to seconds, kill or be killed, he couldn’t take time to snap off the safety. It had happened to him once. Only once.
Coming out of a crouch, he took the Buck knife from its case at his belt. As he opened the blade, he scanned the two nearest cabins, both of them dark. If someone was inside, looking out into the night through their big front windows, they could see him. But all they’d see, from twenty-five feet away, in the dark, was a figure who’d just bent over, put something on the ground, then straightened, taken something from under his shirt. And now they’d see him bend down again, make a motion with his two hands that could mean anything—while, quickly, two slashes of the knife got him a three-foot length of garden hose.
He replaced the knife in its snap-over sheath, picked up the UZI—still with the safety on, he must remember—and began the careful, dangerous walk back between two more cabins. One of the cabins still showed a dim light, and a blue-white TV glow. Ahead was the screen of close-planted trees that concealed the dumpster he’d seen earlier, before it got dark. This time, he must lay the UZI directly on the coarse, sandy soil, lay the length of hose beside it. Now, after another quick look at the nearby cabins, he leaned over the side of the dumpster. An instant’s flash of bitter memory was as strong as the garbage smell: stinking hallways, stinking alleys—stinking lives, his own and all the others.
On top of the trash, he found the perfect one: a half-gallon wine bottle. And rags, too—everything, right there. He straightened, thrust the rag in a trouser pocket. Carrying the bottle and the hose in his left hand, the UZI in his right hand, he moved cautiously to the rear of the motel grounds, to the split rail fence, just high enough and rickety enough to be a problem. This time, though, carrying everything, balancing like an acrobat, he giant-stepped over the fence, another flash of childhood memory: baby steps, giant steps, hide and seek, you’re it, you’re screwed. All of them, screwed before they even started. Everyone but him.
Another two hundred feet took him to the Camaro, doors unlocked, windows down. He put the UZI inside, on the driver’s seat—still safetied, remember, still on safety, loser lose everything, if he forgot. Moving to the rear of the car, he took off the gas cap, put it on the car—remember, the roof of the car. Remember. And the bottle was on the ground beneath the gas tank. And the hose—yes, it fitted—thrust down inside the tank. And now, suck—suck—as he lifted the bottle, ready as, yes, the gas was coming, gagging him. Hose into the bottle, back on the ground. Gurgling, gurgling—gas overflowing now. He freed the hose from the tank, reached for the rags, still in his pocket.
Should the rag be soaked in the gas, before he—?
The cap. He’d forgotten the gas cap, on the roof of the car. He twisted the gas cap down tight, tested it. This was the time when everything counted, when he couldn’t forget anything. This was the time when—
A match.
He’d done it all, a fucking miracle. Found a hose, a bottle, everything. Made the cocktail—whatever they called it, named for a Russian, some kind of Russian.
All useless. Nothing, without a match.
A match…
At a store, in town? No, not now, not after midnight.
In a house, someone’s house? Break into someone’s house, risk everything, just for a fucking—
A bar.
It had to be a bar. Two bars in town, one at the circle, one at the airport. It was no better than fifty-fifty, out of season, that they’d be open after midnight. But he had to do it. Either do it, get a match, or forget about it, about everything but crashing in, glass breaking in the middle of the night, the middle of nowhere, taking a chance, maybe that one last chance, one chance too many.
“Yeah,” the bartender said, “there was a black guy in here, left maybe fifteen minutes ago.” He nodded, poured Powers a brandy, took the five-dollar bill to the register to make change. “Nice fella, very nice spoken, too, very polite. Said he just wanted to use the bathroom, and get a book of matches. Smiled about it, very good-humored. And then I noticed he left two dollars on the bar. How about that?”
He placed the bottle on the ground close beside the house, placed the UZI beside the bottle. Then, as he’d done before, once before, an hour ago, maybe longer, he moved inch by inch to the right, until he could see into the bathroom through the small, high, screened bathroom window. The window was open about six inches. It was an aluminum window, and slid side to side. But the screen was nylon, not aluminum. It was a break, that the screen was nylon. Possibly his biggest break of all. Because if he could cut away the screen, and slide back the window another six inches, he could do it, throw the gas bomb inside—throw it hard, so it would break. Or, no, just lob it in, a grenade, so it would break on the tile floor of the bathroom, not go as far as the carpet of the other room, maybe not break.
Instantly, the gas would explode. Inside, they’d panic. With the UZI—safety off, remember, safety off—he’d go around to the front, wait for them—do them when they came out, screaming. Two bursts—one clip—and they’d go down. Clip out, new clip in. Remember to release the slide, release the fucker, make sure there was a bullet in the chamber. Then another short burst, the insurance burst, to her head. Then back over the split rail fence, back to the Camaro—fifty thousand richer. Start the car, drive, disappear in the night, sixty-five miles to Palm Springs, across the open desert, gone.
The monster was turning, coming back, leering down on him, a fire-breathing, four-wheeled monster, shattering the high, wide, raging sky with a doomsday roar. And he was helpless, trapped, held fast by—
“Alan.”
Opening his eyes, he saw her face close to his, saw her eyes, fearfully wide in the half light. It was Betty, whispering his name. Betty Giles, the target. Terrified.
“Wh—”
“Shhh.” With her hand on his arm, to quiet him, she moved her head to the left, in the direction of the bathroom door. “Listen—”
And as he sat up straight in the chair, he heard it: a faint, alien sound. Was it an animal, gnawing?
A man, coming for them?
As he rose to his feet and picked up the sawed-off, his heart began to hammer, his knees went weak. Gripping the shotgun, his hands trembled violently.
The safety…
He must take off the safety, right thumb pushing the catch forward.
Twenty-five dollars, he’d paid for the shotgun. Not enough, not nearly enough. Not now, not enough. Suddenly not now.
“Get back,” he whispered, gesturing with his head for her to move aside, away from the bathroom door. Then, with legs that were leaden, with the roar of blood pounding in his ears, throat gone dry, he was moving forward—one step, two steps—and one last step, bringing him squarely facing the bathroom door. Taking his left hand from the sawed-off’s forestock, fingers cravenly trembling, he slowly, gently, pushed the door fully open.
In the rectangle of the bathroom window, slid to the side, fully open, he saw something changing the quality of the outside darkness. Not a hand, or a head, or a solid shape, but a film without substance, a thickening, then a thinning—
—the screen.
It was the screen, moving, folding back, disappearing.
With his right shoulder pressed against the cabin wall, with the gasoline-filled bottle on the ground beside the UZI, both of them in front of him, he crouched, swept the nearby darkness one last time with quick, probing eyes. Then he looked up at the window; two feet above his head, its nylon screen folded back.
A lob—a hook shot, really, from his crouched position beneath the window—a left-handed hook shot, followed by a right-handed grab for the UZI. And then the sprint around the side of the cabin, UZI cocked, safety off, finger on the trigger, ready. Followed by the ten, twenty-second wait, listening to their screams from inside, trapped in the flames—trapped until they tore open the front door, desperate to escape the fire.
As he held his breath, listening, he took the matches from a hip pocket, opened the folder. Had someone spoken, inside the cabin? Had something stirred? He allowed himself five more seconds, the last five seconds, listening. Then, winner take all, he struck the match, hesitated one last, final moment, then touched the tiny flame to the gas-soaked rag, the wick. Instantly, orange flame blossomed; bits of burning rag flared, fell away from the bottle. He dropped the matches, used both hands to grip the bottle below the flaming wick. He straightened from his crouch to stand close beside the window. Pain seared one hand, both hands.
Quick. It had to be quick.
He was out there. The black man, come to kill them. He was out there, just outside the window. Was this the time to run, tear open the front door, try for safety, scream for help? Frozen at his center, Bernhardt could only raise the shotgun, trained on the window’s foot-square opening. At five feet, six feet from the window, the buckshot would—
Beneath the window a glow began, followed instantly by a tiny flame in the dark rectangle of the window. The shotgun bucked; the blast was palpable, a flash of gouted orange in the darkness, deafening him—
—as fire filled the window frame, an explosion of flame, blinding him, the black of night flaring daytime-bright, acrid, deadly dangerous.
He braced himself, used both hands to lift the bottle level with the window—
—heard the shotgun blast, saw flame explode, felt the heat searing nostrils and throat, saw the darkness fuse with the fire, first into a blinding-bright whiteness, then into the last long, sudden darkness…
…as his voice, screaming, filled everything: the last sound so quickly fading: all the pain, finally gone. Too late.
16
AS POWERS SWITCHED OFF the bedside lamp he heard the siren: a high, thin wail, rising and falling in the night. He’d heard this same sound in small towns before: the siren on the firehouse, summoning the local volunteer firemen.
Or it could be the police: the Borrego Springs sheriff, or the state police, racing to answer the homicide call. Betty Giles, dead. Murdered at the Ram’s Head Motel.
In the darkness he sat up in bed, listening. If it was the police, the sound of the siren would soon fade as the car left the center of town, outward bound.
But even if it was the police, it wasn’t necessarily murder. It could be an accident, on the highway. Or a robbery. Anything.
But it wasn’t the police, because the sound was stationary, still rising and falling, a monotony of undulating shrillness. And now, close by, he heard excited voices, heard car doors slamming. The motel manager, doubtless, was a volunteer fireman, and was answering the call.
He got out of bed, went to the window, drew back the drape. Yes, an engine was revving nearby, a car was moving, spurting gravel from its rear wheels.
Grimacing at the sound of the siren, he switched on the lights and strode to the bureau, and the bottle of Cutty Sark. Was there still ice in the ice bucket? Yes, enough for one drink, one generous drink. He filled the plastic glass with ice, poured in the Cutty Sark. The TV was beside the brown plastic tray that held the bottle, the glass, and the ice bucket. Giving the ice in his drink time to melt, he looked at the local TV log, on top of the set. An old John Wayne movie had just come on: Flying Tigers, made during the war. He switched on the TV, turned the channel selector, saw John Wayne in the cockpit of a vintage fighter plane, maneuvering to elude a villainous Japanese, a propaganda turn.
As he picked up the highball, the sound of the siren suddenly died. Enough firemen had responded; the truck was ready to roll. He carried the glass to one of the room’s two easy chairs, sank down, propped his bare feet on the edge of the bed, and sipped the scotch as he watched the whirling, roaring, smoke-spiraling dogfight.
