A Killer in the Wind (21 page)

I worked the holster on. Checked the gun: still loaded. I worked my jacket on. I slipped my wallet and the manila envelope into my pockets. Finally, I checked the phone. There was no signal out here in the middle of nowhere. Just as well, I thought. I didn’t plan on calling anyone. Who would I call? The cops? The cops weren’t going to stop Stark. By the time they got here, he’d be long gone. Even if he wasn’t, even if they caught him, even if they slung him behind bars for a while, that wouldn’t end it. Not for me. The skeleton-man would keep coming after me. He would keep sending his people, his thugs. I had killed his brother, the only thing on earth he loved. As long as he was alive, I would live in a world of waiting. Waiting for him to find me. Waiting for him to drag me into whatever hell of vengeance he could imagine. There would be no end to his vengeance. Not as long as he was alive.

I stood up out of the car. Peering down through the deepening darkness, I found the thug’s fallen Taser. I scooped it up, tossed it into the car. Then I went to the fallen thug. I squatted beside him. Pressed my fingers into his neck. No pulse. He was dead. Oh, well. I wasn’t all that fond of him anyway.

I came out of my squat and grabbed the corpse by the ankles. I dragged it around to the back of the car. It was a big corpse. Thick and heavy. It wasn’t easy to lift the flopping awkward weight of it and work it over the edge of the trunk. But I did it. The cadaver tumbled in. I took hold of the trunk lid. Before I closed it, I paused—just a second. I looked down at the body in the trunk—in the trunk where I had been just moments ago, tied up, helpless. I sneered at the thug lying dead in there, thinking about how he’d Tasered me and drugged me.

Fuck you, punk,
I thought.

Then I closed the lid.

The trunk latch was broken now and wouldn’t catch but the lid stayed down. I walked back around the car. Lowered myself behind the wheel. Pulled the door shut after me.

Through the windshield, the headlights illuminated a few feet of dirt road. I could see the road beyond the glow, rising sharply up the forested hill. I took a breath. I knew that I was sick with fear and half-crazy with rage. But I didn’t care. I didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to find Stark. I just wanted to put an end to him. I wanted to silence his voice in my head.

Count the minutes till it begins
. . .

I put the car in gear and started up the road.

That’s right,
I thought.
Count the minutes, Stark
.

9

The Cabin

I
DROVE THE DIRT
road climbed. It got steeper and began to wind and went on climbing. The moon rose, a full moon, misty and enormous, sometimes in the windshield, sometimes at the window as the road switchbacked. The moonlight shone on the standing pines, on a forest that seemed to go on forever all around me, vanishing from sight in the deep shadow that closed over the distance. I kept driving, up the hill.

I figured there’d be a place at the end of the road. I figured Stark would be waiting there. He’d be waiting for the car, expecting it. He’d be expecting the thug to bring me to him. I figured when he saw the car, he would think I was the thug and come out to greet me. I figured that’s when I would shoot him and put an end to this. That was my plan anyway.

The road crested suddenly and I saw the cabin, just as I’d figured. But it looked empty. There were no lights on. It was just a black shape in the moonlit mist: a rustic one-story house stretched against what looked like the edge of a cliff.

I had been wrong then. Stark wasn’t waiting for me here after all. At least he didn’t seem to be.

I stopped the Chevy. Killed the engine. I got out, drawing my gun as I did. I felt the mist chilly and damp against my skin. I approached the cabin cautiously, my shoes making soft crunching noises on the dirt. I knew I was visible in the moonlight. If there was anyone inside the house, I would make a pretty easy target for him, a pretty easy shot.

But I didn’t think there was anyone inside.

I moved around the side of the cabin. I moved to the edge of the cliff. That’s what it was, all right: a sharp drop-off into thick brush. I looked out over the steep slope and saw a big river far below, the rising moon glittering on its running surface. I saw the scattered lights of towns winking in the distance straight ahead and to the south. I saw cars as small as Christmas lights moving over a highway.

I turned back to the cabin. Went around the rear of it. Found a door. The door rattled against a lock when I tried to open it. I stepped back and kicked it under the knob. I didn’t have to kick it very hard. It flew open.

I went inside.

I turned the lights on in each room as I moved through the place. I wanted the cabin to look occupied. I had a new scenario in mind now, a new plan. I figured Stark would be here soon. I figured he’d think the thug was inside, holding me prisoner. I figured Stark would come into the cabin and that’s when I’d kill him. Seemed as good a plan as the first one. I didn’t care when I killed him, as long as he died.

I turned on the lights in the kitchen first. A country kitchen with copper pots and pans hung up on the rough wood walls like decorations. I went through and turned on the lights in the big front room. It was a wide, open room, done up like a hunting lodge. Braided rugs by the fireplace. A sloppy old comfortable stuffed sofa and a couple of rocking chairs. The heads of a stag and a bear mounted on the wall.

There were doors to the left and the right. I checked them out. Two bedrooms and a bathroom on one side of the main room. I turned their lights on as I checked them out. On the other side of the main room, there was a master bedroom with another bathroom. There was also a study there.

I ended up in the study. It was a large room. There was a large desk in there that looked as if it had been made from the cross section of a massive tree trunk. There was a computer on the desk. I turned the computer on and let it boot up while I looked around. There were bookshelves built into the wall; the books were about fishing and hunting mostly. There was a mounted salmon a yard long. Another braided rug. A leather easy chair.

There were two windows here, one behind the desk chair, another one, a longer one, on the front wall. There were drapes with prints of stags on them. The long window looked out at the driveway. When I pressed my nose to the glass, I could see the Chevy sitting out in the moonlight, low mist curling around the tires.

I turned out the lights in the study. I figured this would be a good place to wait. I would see Stark coming up the drive from here. He would be focused on the front door. When he got close enough, I could take my shot.

As I stood in the darkness, the computer finished booting. The very next moment, it started to give off a musical tone. I hurried around the desk and looked at the monitor. Someone was calling on the computer phone system. A video call, the readout said. Whoever it was, they must’ve been standing by, waiting impatiently for someone to turn on the machine.

I took hold of the mouse. Clicked the program. “Video loading . . .” the readout said.

But the audio came on first. A voice said: “Are you there, Stark?”

I’d thought my rage had died down but I guess not. I guess it had just sunk to a low flame, ready to spring to life again at any moment. It sprang to life now, burning high, filling my heart with red murder.

Even before the video came on, I knew who was speaking. It was the Fat Woman.

I leaned into the screen, waiting to see her image.

Then there she was. Horrible. A horrible creature. Obese, gelatinous, practically shapeless. The features of her bloated face had been destroyed—by fire, I thought; I was almost certain. Her nose and lips had been burned away. Her skin had been left a paisley pattern of pulsing pink and cancerous brown. Her lidless eyes—of some pale color—gazed merciless and viperlike out of unnaturally smooth flesh.

“Have you got him?” she said eagerly.

I almost spoke—but before I could, she must have realized something was wrong. Even if there was a camera on my side—and there must have been—I don’t think she could’ve seen me clearly in the dark. But something unnerved her. I saw her move. The connection shut down. Her image winked out and vanished.

A second later, headlights appeared at the study window. A car was coming up the drive.

I had to move fast. I hit the “off” button on the computer to kill the monitor light. The study sank into shadow, though the out-glow from the living room still came through the door, making the space visible. I moved to the side of the window. Drew back into the stag drapes to keep out of sight. I peeked around the drapes carefully, my gun held up by my face, ready.

A car—a big black Audi—pulled to the edge of the dirt driveway. It came to a stop a bit behind and to the side of the Chevy. The engine died. A second passed. The headlights went out.

I waited. Watched through the window, keeping my body back in the drapes, keeping my gun held high.

The front two doors of the Audi opened together. Two big men got out and stood guard. More of Stark’s killers. Both had automatic rifles. They paused there with the stocks braced against their hips, the barrels raised, so I could make out the deadly, insectile shape of the weapons. Brand-new Colts of some kind, I guessed. Probably a hundred rounds in each. They could shred me with them if I didn’t get them first.

Now the back door opened too and Stark got out. God, he looked like Death. That was the way I remembered him but it was still a shock to see that face again in the flesh. If it was flesh. The white skin glowed in the moonlight like bone. The sunken, skull-like shape of it cast the cheeks into deep shadow and made the big, yellowish eyes seem even bigger, even brighter. The rest of him was harder to see. He was dressed in black and melded with the night. But his hands were as white as his face and visible enough. I could see he wasn’t holding a weapon.

Stark nodded at the two gunmen and they started walking toward the house. They looked relaxed. They weren’t expecting trouble. They were expecting to find their fellow thug here—and me hog-tied, ready to be butchered. Stark trailed behind a few steps, his big eyes moving, taking in the scene.

I slipped my finger off the Glock’s guard and let it curl around the trigger. I had to play this just right. Two or three more steps and I’d have the gunmen within fairly easy range, but Stark himself would still have time to bolt when he heard the shots. If I took out Stark first, the riflemen would riddle me with bullets. I had to let all of them get closer—very close—so I had a chance of getting them all in three fast shots.

I waited. They took another step toward the house, and another, crossing the driveway.

My finger tightened on the Glock’s trigger. Another two steps and I might take out all three of them before they had a chance to react.

Then Stark said, “Wait.”

I could hear the rough rasp of his voice clearly through the window. Just the sound of it sent a chill of fear through my groin. He was a spooky son of a bitch, there was just no doubt about it. And I guess his threats of torturing me forever added to my negative impression of him.

He had stopped moving. Now, at his command, the riflemen stopped as well. I cursed under my breath. I started to lower my gun, to take aim through the window. But no, it was too late. At a gesture from Stark, the gunmen retreated, backing away as their eyes scanned the house, searching for signs of trouble.

I thought of taking my shot, but I had no chance. I couldn’t get them all at this range, and in a running battle between me with my Glock and them with their automatic rifles, I’d be a dead man for sure.

Stark moved across the driveway now, moving toward the Chevrolet. He’d noticed something about the car. The trunk. He’d noticed the dent in it, I guess, or maybe the fact that it wasn’t fully shut. In any case, he moved to it with his two gunmen trailing after, watching the house, scanning the dark, ready for anything. Stark opened the lid and peered into the trunk. His bright eyes gleamed in his skeleton face as he saw the dead thug in there.

I bolted just before they opened fire.

I was diving for the door as the window shattered. The night pulsed and pounded with the rattle of the Colts. The room exploded with flying lead. The wall splintered, a lightbulb burst, a lamp fell over. The stuffed salmon dropped off the wall. The leather chair danced into tatters. Glass broke everywhere.

I heard Stark shout, “Cut off the rear exit! Don’t kill him! Take out his legs!”

I hit the floor and rolled and was out in the living room, in the light, exposed. But I dived again, and got to my feet and ran—just as I heard the front door come crashing in behind me.

I was in the kitchen now, at the rear, racing for the back exit, hoping to make it before one of the gunmen came running around to cut me off. I felt weirdly, wildly exhilarated. As bad as this was, it was better than waiting. It was battle, them or me. I had been in battle. It was something I knew how to do.

One of the gunmen was right behind me, marching inexorably after me, firing as he came. The kitchen tiles chipped and sang as he stepped down the little hall, as I rushed for the door. The back window dissolved into sparkling shards of glass.