A Long Walk Up the Waterslide (14 page)

Overtime lowered the pistol, then brought it up in an arc against the side of the man’s head. The man and his shotgun dropped at Overtime’s feet. The dog whimpered, crawled to his master’s prone body, and started to lick the blood from his head.

“You recognize a gun, don’t you, you bastard?” Overtime asked the cowering dog. He stepped over to the cash register and emptied the till. Then he picked up the keys and let himself into Withers’s rented car.

The dog’s fangs had shredded his right wrist but had missed the artery.

He was mad—at himself, at the dog, at this job. He’d come here to do a simple and clean removal. Instead, he’d tried to get too cute—a quality he despised about other so-called professionals in his business. They made things too complicated. The thing to do was spot the target, fix the target, and then walk in and shoot the target. And there was only one acceptable option now: Go to the target location and get it done.

Just in, just out.

Brezhnev licked and whimpered until Brogan opened his eyes and moaned. After his master pulled himself to his feet, Brezhnev wagged his tail and stopped whimpering. He sniffed the blood on the floor until he distinguished his master’s from the intruder’s, until the intruder’s blood filled his senses. He would remember it.

He’d just been doing his job before. Now it was personal.

Karen slid under the covers and pressed against Neal. She slid her hand down and touched him until his eyes opened.

“You wanna do it?” she asked in a startlingly good imitation of Polly Paget.

“Do it?” Neal mumbled. “Do what?”

“It,” Karen repeated, her motion demonstrating her meaning. She smiled and added, “Yeah, I think you want to do it.”

“Are your guests asleep?”

“My shy boy,” she said. “They’re in the living room watching ‘The Jack and Candy Family Hour.’ We can be quiet. I can, anyway.”

Afterward, she asked, “Do you think she’s attractive?”

“Who?”

“Who,” she mocked. “Polly!”

Neal recognized dangerous ground when he saw it.

“I think she’s more attractive now than she was,” he said.

Karen elbowed him in the ribs.

“You’re such a diplomat,” she said. “Would you like to do it with her?”

Would I? Neal thought.

“No.”

“Good answer.”

“Thank you.”

But he still couldn’t get to sleep.

Candy leaned across the sofa and studied Polly’s face. Candy was in that phase of inebriation that is like the eye of a hurricane. For a little while, everything is still, calm, and clear. It is more sober than sobriety. It is the time when the terrible truths come.

“Did Jack really rape you?” she asked Polly.

Polly nodded.

Without all the makeup, Polly’s eyes were remarkably expressive. Candy knew right then that the woman was telling the truth.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You really want to know?”

“I don’t. But I need to know.”

“Jack comes to my apartment,” Polly answered. “I tell him it’s over, that I don’t want to see him anymore because I feel so guilty, I can’t ask Saint Anthony for even an earring and I’m too ashamed to go to confession. He says that’s superstitious Catholic bullshit and that I don’t have anything to feel guilty about because the two of you—”

Polly suddenly stopped.

“Didn’t have sex anymore?” Candy asked. “That’s a lie.”

We just weren’t having good sex anymore, Candy thought.

“Yeah … anyway, I tell him it doesn’t make any difference, that I just don’t want to see him anymore, and I try to close the door, and I guess that makes him mad, because he pushes it open and grabs me and starts trying to kiss me.

“I slap him, but I guess that just makes him madder, and he rips my nightgown open, which makes me pretty mad, because I’d just bought it and it was expensive, so I punch him and he pushes me on the floor, but I have hold of his jacket, so he falls on top of me, which isn’t so smart on my part, I guess.

“He’s strong, you know, and he pushes my legs open and says something like, ‘You wanna play, huh?’ And I’m telling him to stop, but he doesn’t stop.

“After a while, he gets up and leaves. I call my friend Gloria and tell her and she doesn’t think I should call the cops—you know, ‘you play, you pay’ attitude—but I did, and I guess you know the rest of it. And Candy …I’m really, sorry I did that to you. Even though I’d see you on TV, you were never a real person to me, but now you are, and I am so, so sorry.”

Candy had seen a lot of young women cry, most of them ex-convicts who had stolen stuff. She had handed them tissues and recipes and monthly budget planners, but now she scooted across the couch and held this young woman and let her cry into her shoulder. She didn’t think that’s what a priest did in confession, but that’s what she did. She watched the strange image of herself on television, a picture that now looked like some old documentary, held the young woman to whom she was strangely related, and wondered what would happen next.

13

Overtime was experiencing what von Clausewitz had called “the frictions of war.”

His wrist was raw and radial pain throbbed into his hand. He had driven near the target house, couldn’t find a decent angle from the front, so he had to work his way laboriously to the uphill slope behind the house before he found a workable shot.

But when he peered through the scope, the operational situation became confused. There were two women, not one, and neither looked like the picture he had of Polly Paget.

Problem: insufficient clarity of identification.

Analysis: Risk increases with proximity.

Solution: Nevertheless, there is nothing to do but move closer.

Charles Whiting heard a sound that was distinctly human. The long hours hiding in the drainage ditch were a testament to his bureau training and his own personal discipline. Hungry, cold, and tired, he had heard nothing but coyotes, an owl, and the occasional rabbit. But now he sensed movement, human movement, headed toward the house and Mrs. Landis. Charles started to bear-crawl toward the house.

It wasn’t exactly a sound that woke up Neal; it was the feeling of a sound. He lay still for a few moments and identified the electric chatter from the television set and the nondistinct sound of the two women sitting in the living room. Karen slept beside him, breathing softly. But there was something else, something outside.

He slipped out of bed, put on a black sweatshirt, jeans, and tennis shoes, went into the bathroom, and lowered himself out the window.

That goddamn Walter, he thought as he moved quietly around the corner. Dead-drunk and he doesn’t give up.

Overtime worked down the slope to get a better view through the window. He was almost in the backyard. He dropped into a sitting marksman’s crouch, wrapped the sling around his aching arm, and looked through the scope.

Lesbians, he observed as he saw the women embracing. What a town: mad dogs and dykes.

There was nothing to do now but get in the house, identify the target, and dispatch her. And if someone got a look at his license plate, too bad for Walter Withers.

He started to edge down toward the house.

Then he saw the man crawling across the lawn. He raised his scope.

The force of the hit slammed Neal against the wall and drove the air from his lungs. A spectacular jolt shot up his spine and his legs collapsed under him. He would have fallen to the ground if the guy who’d rushed him hadn’t grabbed him and held him against the wall.

“Who are you?” the guy hissed.

Neal didn’t waste breath on an answer. He stalled with an unfeigned effort to catch his breath, then wrapped his ankles behind the tall man’s knees, twisted his own body away from the wall, and pulled his heels back. The man’s knees buckled and he started to fall forward. As Neal fell backward, he grabbed the man’s shirt and pushed his upper arm so that they spun and he landed on top of his attacker. He brought his elbow forward and smashed it against the man’s nose.

Neal heard a grunt, then his attacker came up with a knee, pivoted his hip, and threw Neal off. Lunging forward, he took Neal clean in the chest and knocked him backward. Neal rolled before the guy could grab him again, then kicked out and hit the side of the man’s knee. The intruder crumpled to the ground.

Overtime watched the fight as he screwed the silencer onto his pistol and pulled the ski mask over his head. If he moved quickly enough, he could be out of this job tonight.

Just in, just out.

He ran for the house.

Karen reached the phone by the fourth ring. It was Brogan, and he sounded drunk. Karen couldn’t make out what he was saying. She reached for Neal and was surprised that he wasn’t there. He was probably in the kitchen getting his usual postcoital snack.

She found her sweatshirt and jeans on the floor, crawled into them, and hurried for the kitchen.

Neal put a headlock on his man and found himself flying through the air a second later.

He pulled himself to his knees and peered through the darkness at the tall man who likewise knelt in front of him sucking air.

“You wanna discuss a truce?” Neal asked.

Overtime raced up the steps to the deck, ducked under the kitchen window, and slid along the wall to the sliding glass door.

He found it unlocked, so he pushed it open and stepped into the living room. The two women on the couch looked up.

Which one? Overtime asked himself. Which one?

“Oh my Gawd,” Polly said.

Then he knew which one was Polly.

A professional makes his own luck, Overtime decided.

He raised the pistol.

Neal heard the glass door slide open. He got up and sprinted toward the house.

Chuck Whiting raced after him.

They both heard the scream.

A lot of purists complain about the cheap
ping
an aluminum bat makes when it hits the ball. They miss the solid
thunk
of wood on leather. But Karen really leaned into her swing and her aluminum bat made a very traditional
crack
when it ripped into Overtime’s lower back. There were some bonus sounds, too, because softballs don’t generally scream after they’ve been hit or whimper after they drop to the ground.

Overtime held on to the pistol, though. He pointed it up at Karen even as pushed himself along the floor back toward the door. He was half-tempted to put one in her stomach as she stood there with the bat raised over her head, poised to bash his brains in.

Let’s see how tough you are with your guts hanging out and your life pouring onto the floor, he thought.

Then he glanced outside to check his escape route and saw a pair of yellow eyes flashing in the night, and he popped the shot off at the eyes instead.

And missed.

That’s what Overtime couldn’t believe as the dog bit into the tendon above his collarbone. He had never missed a shot before and it was that bitch’s fault.

He tried to squeeze another shot off but couldn’t feel anything in his right hand.

He was remotely aware of the front door bursting open as he reached his left arm out the deck railing and pulled himself to the edge. Squeezing under the bottom rail, he levered the dog against the railing until the hell beast let go. Then he pushed himself under and dropped to the ground.

He remembered to roll, somehow got to his feet, and kept one thought in mind: Get to the car.
Get to the car.
The chaos in the house should let you get to the car.

As he ran, he could hear footsteps behind him.

And the panting of the dog.

“Are you all right?” Neal asked as Karen stood shaking in his arms.

She nodded her head in his shoulder and tried to stifle her crying. She looked up, embarrassed at her red eyes and tears, and said, “I’m sorry. I was terrified.”

“You were great,” Neal said. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”

Sorry I ever put you in this situation. Sorry I took this job so lightly, that I misunderstood Withers—not once, but twice—sorry I was out in the yard rolling around with the wrong guy while I left you to deal with a killer in our home. Sorry I got out there in time to see Withers’s car roaring away. I’m one sorry son of a bitch.

“The dog’s going to be all right,” Candy said. She daubed Brezhnev’s neck with antiseptic. The dog lay panting on the floor, with what looked like a satisfied smile on its face.

Karen bent over, stroked the dog’s neck, and said, “You have a lifetime’s supply of biscuits coming from me, kid.”

I put her in a position where an old dog saved her life, Neal thought.
Just
saved her life.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked again.

“I’m okay. I’m shaken … I think we all are … but I’m okay.”

Neal kissed the top of her head, then walked over to Polly, who stood in the middle of the floor with that stupid expression on her face. It made him even angrier. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her toward the bedroom.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

But he noticed that she didn’t resist.

“We’re going to have a talk,” he said.

He didn’t wait for an answer or an argument, but hauled Polly into the bedroom and sat her down on the bed.

“I want the truth from you now,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Like who is Gloria?” Neal snapped.

“She’s my best friend,” Polly said, “and my supervisor at work.”

“Well, your best friend gave you up,” Neal said.

“She wouldn’t do that.”

“How’d she know where you are?”

She chewed her lip.

I have to control my temper, Neal thought, because my temper isn’t getting anywhere. She’s perfectly capable of just dummying up if I keep getting angry.

He sat down next to her.

“You have to help me now, Polly,” he said. “Someone wants to kill you, and someone came very close to killing Karen, so you have to help us.”

“I called her.”

Neal felt his face turn hot with anger. He fought to keep the bite out of his voice as he asked, “Why?”

“She’s my best friend,” Polly repeated. “We talk.”

Not anymore, you don’t.

“Does she have a man friend named Walter?”