A Maiden's Grave (40 page)

"Where are you now?"

"Hold on." Potter asked Budd, who gave him their whereabouts. Into the phone he said, "Charlie says, Hitchcock Road, just off Route 345. About two minutes away."

A pause.

"Charlie Budd's with you?" Tobe asked uncertainly.

"Well, sure. You saw him leave with me."

"But you took both cars."

"No. We just took mine."

Another pause. "Hold on, Arthur."

Uneasy, Potter said to Budd, "Something's going on there. At Melanie's."

Come on, Tobe. Talk to me.

A moment later the young agent came on. "She's gone, Arthur. Melanie. She left the shower running and took the other car."

A chill ran through him. Potter said, "She's going to the Holiday Inn to kill Marks."

"
What
?" Budd cried.

"She doesn't know his name. But she knows the room number. She saw what I wrote down."

"And I left him trussed up there without a guard. I forgot to call."

Potter remembered the look in her eyes, the cold fire. He asked Tobe, "Did she take a weapon? Was there one in the car?"

Tobe called something to LeBow.

"No, we've both got ours. Nothing in the car."

"Well, get some troopers over to the hotel fast." He had an image of her madly going for Marks despite the troopers. If she had a gun or knife they'd kill her instantly.

"Okay, Arthur," Tobe said. "We're on it."

Just then the sulky landscape took on a familiar tone – deja vu from a recurring nightmare. A moment later the slaughterhouse loomed ahead of them. The battlefield was littered with coffee cups and tread marks – from squad cars, not the swales of covered wagons. The field was deserted. Potter folded up the phone and handed it back to Budd. He cut the engine and coasted silently the last fifty feet. "What about Melanie?" Budd whispered.

There was no time to think about her. The agent lifted his finger to his lips and gestured toward the door. The two men stepped outside into the fierce wind.

They were walking through the gully down which Stevie Gates had carried Shannon and Kielle like bags of wheat. "Through the front door?" Budd whispered.

Potter nodded yes. It was wide open; they could enter without having to risk squeaky hinges. Besides, the windows were five feet off the ground. Budd might make the climb but Potter, already exhausted and breathing heavily, knew that he wouldn't be able to.

They remained motionless for some minutes but there was no sign of Handy. No cars in sight, no headlights approaching, no flashlights. And no sound except that of the extraordinary wind. Potter nodded toward the front door.

They crouched and hurried between hillocks up to the front of the slaughterhouse, the red-and-white brick, blood and bone. They paused beside the spot where the body of Tremain's trooper had been dumped. The pipe by the window, Potter remembered. Filled with half a million dollars, the bait drawing Handy back to us. They paused on either side of the door. This isn't me, Potter thought suddenly. This isn't what I was meant to do. I'm a man of words, not a soldier. It's not that I'm afraid. But I'm out of my depth.

Not afraid, not afraid…

Though he was.

Why? Because, he supposes, for the first time in years, there is someone else in his life. Somehow, existence has become somewhat more precious to him in the past twelve hours. Yes, I want to talk to her, to Melanie. I want to tell her things, I want to hear how her day went. And, yes, yes, I want to take her hand and climb the stairs after dinner, feel the heat of her breath on my ear, feel the motion of her body beneath me. I want that! I…

Budd tapped his shoulder. Potter nodded and, guns before them, they stepped inside the slaughterhouse.

Like a cave.

Darkness everywhere. The wind roared through the holes and ill-fitting joints of the old place so loudly that the men could hear virtually nothing else. They stepped instinctively behind a large metal structure, some kind of housing. And waited. Gradually Potter's eyes became accustomed to the inky darkness. He could just make out two slightly lighter squares of the windows on the other side of the door. Beside the closest one was a stubby pipe about two feet in diameter, rising in an L shape from the floor like a vent on a ship. Potter pointed to it and Budd squinted, nodding.

As they made their way forward, like blind men, Potter understood what Melanie had gone through here. The wind stole his hearing, the darkness his vision. And the cold was dulling his sense of touch and smell.

They paused, Potter feeling panic stream down his spine like ice water. Once he gasped as Budd lifted his hand alarmingly and dropped into a crouch. Potter too had seen the leveraging shadow but it turned out to be merely a piece of sheet metal bending in the breeze.

Then they were five yards from the pipe. Potter stopped, looked around slowly. Heard nothing other than the wind. Turned back.

They started forward but Budd was tapping his shoulder. The captain whispered, "Don't slip. Something's spilled there. Oil, looks like."

Potter too looked underfoot. There were large dots of silvery liquid – more like mercury than water or oil – at the base of the pipe. He bent down, reached forward with a finger.

He touched cold metal. Not oil. Steel nuts.

The end plate was off the pipe. Handy had been here al -

The gunshot came from no more than ten feet away. An ear-shattering bang, ringing painfully off the tile and metal and exposed wet brick. Potter and Budd spun around.

Nothing, blackness. The faint motion of shadow as clouds obscured the moon.

Then the choked sound of Charlie Budd whispering, "I'm sorry, Arthur."

"What?"

"I'm… I'm sorry. I'm hit."

The shot had been fired into his back. He fell to his knees and Potter saw the ragged exit wound low in his belly. Budd keeled over onto the floor.

The agent started forward instinctively. Careful, he reminded himself, turning toward where the gunshot had come from. Guard yourself first.

The piece of pipe caught Potter squarely on the shoulder, knocking the wind out of him. He dropped hard to the ground and felt the sinewy hand yank his pistol from his grip.

"You alone? You two?" Handy's voice was a whisper. Potter couldn't speak. Handy twisted his arm up behind his back, bent a little finger brutally. The pain surged through Potter's hand into his jaw and head. "Yes, yes. Just the two of us."

Handy grunted as he rolled Potter over and bound his hands before him with thin wire, the strands cutting into his flesh.

"There's no way you're going to -" Potter began. Then a blurring motion, as Handy was slammed sideways into the pipe where the money'd been hidden. With a hollow ringing sound, the side of his head connected with the metal.

Charlie Budd, face dripping sweat as copious as the blood he shed, drew back his fist once more and slammed it into Handy's kidney. The convict wheezed with pain and pitched forward.

As Potter struggled futilely to get to his feet, Budd groped in the dark for his service automatic. He felt himself starting to black out and lurched sideways. Recovered slightly then staggered into a large cube of stained butcher block.

Handy leapt at him, growling in fury, throwing his arms around Budd's neck, pulling him down to the floor. The convict had been hurt, yes, but he still had his strength; Budd's was draining rapidly from his body.

"Oh, brother," Budd coughed. "I can't -"

Handy took Budd by the hair. "Come on, sport. Only round one."

"Go to hell," the trooper whispered.

"There's a boy." Handy got his arms around Budd and pulled him to his feet. "Ain't heard the bell. Come on. Fans're waiting."

The trooper, bleeding badly, eyes unfocused, pulled away and began flailing at Handy's lean face. One blow struck with surprising force and the convict jerked back in surprise. But after the initial burst of pain dissipated, Handy laughed.

"Come on," he taunted. "Sugar Ray, come on…"

When Budd connected a final time Handy moved in close and rained a half-dozen blows into his face. Budd dropped to his knees.

"Hey, down for the count."

"Leave him… alone," Potter called.

Handy pulled the gun from his belt.

"No!" the agent cried.

"Arthur…"

To Potter, Handy said, "He's lucky I'm doing it this way. I had more time, wouldn't be painless. Nosir."

"Listen to me," Potter began desperately.

"Shhh," Handy whispered.

The wind swelled, a mournful wail.

The three gunshots were fast and were soon replaced by the sound of Potter's voice crying. "Oh, Charlie, no, no, no…"

Through the murky chutes, where the condemned longhorns had walked, between rectangular boulders of butcher block, beneath a thousand rusting meat hooks, clanging like bells…

And all the while the wind screamed around them, hooting through crevices and broken windows like a steam whistle on a tug.

Potter's wrists stung from the wire. He thought of Melanie's hands. Of her perfect nails. He thought of her hair, spun honey. He wished fervently that he'd kissed her earlier in the evening. With his tongue he pushed a tooth, loosened in his fall, from its precarious perch and spit it out. His mouth filled and he spit again; blood spurted to the floor.

"You poor fuck," Handy said with great satisfaction in his voice. "You just didn't get it, did you, Art? You just didn't fucking get it."

Ahead of them, some illumination. It wasn't light so much as a vague lessening of the darkness. From outside, faint starlight and the sliver of moon.

"You didn't have to kill him," the agent found himself saying.

"This way. Go there." Handy pushed him into a moldy corridor. "You been in this line of work how long, Art?" Potter didn't answer. "Probably twenty, twenty-five years, I'd guess. An' I'll bet mosta that's been doing what you did today – talking to assholes like me." Handy was a small man but his grip was ferocious. Potter's fingers tingled as he felt the circulation cut off.

They passed through a dozen rooms, black and stinking – the bloody dream of Messrs. Stoltz and Webber.

Handy pushed Potter through a back doorway. Then they were outside, rocking against the blast of wind.

"Whoa, bumpy ride tonight." Handy tugged Potter toward a grove of trees. He saw the outline of a car. Engine blocks take three hours to cool. If he'd had an infrared viewer they'd have seen it.

And Charlie Budd would still be alive…

"Twenty-five years," Handy shouted over the wind. "You always been on the other side of the police line. The safe side. You ever think what it'd be like being a hostage yourself? Wouldn't that be a fuckin'
experience
? Come on, Art, hustle. I want you to meet Pris. She's a ball buster, she is.

"Yessir, that's what you're gonna be – a hostage. You know, people don't experience stuff. Most people've never shot anybody. Most people've never walked into a bank and pulled a gun. Most people've never looked at a girl and not said a fucking word but just stared and stared while she cried like a swatted pup and then started taking off her clothes. 'Cause she figured that's what you want her to do.

"And most people've never been up close when somebody dies. I mean, touching 'em when it happens. When the last cell of somebody's body stops swimming around. I done all that. You don't even come close to feeling stuff like that. Like I've felt.
That's
experience, Art.

"You tried to stop me. You shouldn't've done that. I'm going to kill you, you probably know that. But not for a while. I'm taking you with us. And there ain't nothing you can say to stop me. You can't offer me a six-pack, you can't offer me a M-the-fuck-4 priority to Canada. When we're safe and away then the only thing I want is you dead. And if we don't get safe and away, then I want you dead too."

Handy suddenly quivered with fury, grabbed Potter by the lapels. "You shouldn'ta tried to stop me!"

There was a crinkling sound in Potter's jacket pocket. Handy smiled. "What've we got here?"

No! Potter thought, twisting away. But Handy reached inside the sports coat and lifted the photo from the pocket.

"What's'is?"

The picture of Melanie Charrol. The one that had been pinned up on the bulletin board in the van.

"Your girlfriend, huh, Art?"

"There's nowhere in the world," Potter said, "you'll be safe."

Handy ignored him. "We'll be away for a while, Pris and me. But I'm gonna hold on to this snapshot here. We'll come back and visit her. Melanie, she's a pistol. She got me down on my back, knocked the wind clean outta me. Did this – see these scratches? And she pitched that little girl out the door 'fore I could say boo. And got that other one, the pretty little one Sonny had his eye on, got her out too. Oh, Melanie'll get her payback." As if revealing trade secrets Handy added, "A man can't let anybody walk on him. Especially a woman. May be a month, may be two months. She'll find Pris and me in her bed waiting for her. And she can't even scream for help."

"You'd be nuts to come back here. Every cop in the state knows your face."

Handy was angry again. "I'm owed! I am fucking owed!" He shoved the photo into his pocket and dragged Potter after him.

They were headed for the airport – "
Bumpy ride tonight
." They'd kill him as soon as they were safe. Maybe drop him from the airplane, three thousand feet over a wheat field.

"There she is now, Pris." Handy nodded at the Nissan, parked in a grove of trees. "She's quite a gal, Art. I was shot one time, got hit in the side, and the same shit trooper got me'd drawn down on Pris. She had her piece in her hand but he could've nailed her 'fore she could lift it even. What happens but, cool as ice, she unbuttons her blouse, smiling all the time? Yessir, yessir. He wanted to shoot her, that man did! But he couldn't bring himself to. Soon as he glanced down at her titties she lifted her Glock and took him out, pow, pow, pow. Three in the chest. Then walked over and put one in the head in case he was in armor. You think your girlfriend'd be that cool? Oh, I'll betcha not, Art."

Handy stopped, pulled Potter to a halt and then looked around, head up, sniffing the air, frowning. Melanie had called him Brutus and given the other two the names of creatures but the agent knew Handy was more animal-like than either Wilcox or Bonner.

Handy's eyes turned toward the car.

Potter could see the open driver's door and the woman inside, who'd impersonated Sharon Foster, gazing out the windshield. Her blond hair was pulled back in the same ponytail as before. But she'd changed clothes. No longer in uniform, she was now wearing pants and a dark turtleneck.

"Pris?" Handy whispered.

She didn't respond.

"Pris?" Louder. "Prissy?" Rising on the wind.

Handy shoved Potter to the ground. The agent fell and rolled helplessly on the grass then watched as Handy ran to the driver's seat and cradled his girlfriend.

The convict howled in horror and rage.

Potter squinted. No, not a turtleneck, not a garment at all. The slit in the woman's throat extended from one jugular vein to another and the dark sweater was half the blood in her body streaming down over her shoulders and arms and breasts. Her sole plea for help had been to lift a bloody hand to the windshield and gesture madly, leaving a finger-painting of her terror on the dirty glass.

"No, no, no!" Handy cradled her, rocking frantically back and forth.

Potter rolled to his side and tried to scrabble away. He got only three feet then heard the snap of brush and rush of feet. A boot slammed into his ribs. Potter dropped to the ground, lifting his bound hands to his face. "You did this! You snuck up on her! You did this, you fuck!"

Potter curled up, tried to ward off the vicious kicks.

Handy backed up and lifted the pistol.

Potter closed his eyes and lowered his hands.

He tried to picture Marian but she wouldn't come to mind. No, only Melanie was in his thoughts as, for the second time tonight, he prepared to die.

Arthur Potter was suddenly aware of the wind around him. Howling, hissing, it rose and formed words. But they were words not of this earth: eerie syllables rising deep from within some banshee mimicking the language of pitiful humans. He couldn't make out the content at first, a phrase repeated manically, spoken in pure loathing and fury. Then the scream coalesced, and as Handy whirled around Potter heard the malformed words over and over, "I hate you I hate you I hate you…" The knife plunged deep into Handy's shoulder and he cried in agony as Melanie Charrol's strong hands pulled the long blade from his flesh and drove it again into him – into his right arm. The gun dropped to the ground. Potter rolled forward and scooped it up.

Handy swung a fist at her face but she leapt back easily, still holding the knife in front of her. Handy dropped to his knees, eyes closed, gripping his arm, from which blood poured and poured, spiraling down his right finger, extended like God's in the Sistine Chapel.

Potter struggled to his feet and walked around Handy, stopped beside Melanie. She looked at his hands and untied the wire binding them. The young woman was quivering fiercely. So she too had made the same deduction about Handy that he and Budd had – that he'd be returning here for his money. She hadn't gone after Marks at all.

"Go ahead, do it," Handy snarled to Potter, as if he were the long-suffering victim of tonight's events.

Feeling the weight of the Glock in his fingers, Potter glanced down at Handy's creased, hating face. The agent said nothing, did nothing.
Have you ever done anything bad
?

Then suddenly Arthur Potter understood how different he truly was from Handy and had always been. During the barricades the agent was like an actor – he became someone else for a short while, became someone he distrusted, feared, even loathed. But this talent was mercifully balanced by his uncanny ability to relinquish the role, to return.

And so it was Melanie Charrol who stepped forward and drove the long knife deep between Handy's ribs, all the way to the bloody handle. The thin man choked, coughed blood, and fell backwards, shivering. Slowly she drew the knife out.

Potter took the weapon from her, wiped the handle on his sports coat, dropped it on the ground. He stood back, watching Melanie crouch beside Handy, who was trembling as the last of life fled his wiry body. She crouched over him, her head down, her eyes on him. In the dimness of the night Potter couldn't see her expression clearly though he detected what he believed was a faint smile on her face, one of curiosity.

And he sensed something else. In her posture, in the tilt of her head near his, it seemed as if she were inhaling the man's pain like spiced incense wafting through her house.

Lou Handy's mouth moved. A wet sound rose, a rattle, but so soft that Arthur Potter was nearly as deaf to it as Melanie would be. When the man quivered violently once, then again, and was finally still, Potter helped her to her feet.

His arm around her shoulders, they walked through the night while around them saplings and sedge and buffalo grass whipped from side to side in the sinewy wind. Fifty yards up the road they came to the government car Melanie had commandeered for the drive here from Hebron.

She turned to him, zipping up her battered brown leather jacket.

He gripped her shoulders, felt the wind slap her hair against his hand. A dozen things he might have said to her came to mind. He wanted to ask if she was all right, ask what she was feeling, tell her what he intended to explain to the troopers, tell her how many times he thought about her during the barricade.

But he said nothing. The moon had slipped behind a lesion of black cloud and the field was very dark; she couldn't, he told himself, see his lips anyway. Potter suddenly pulled her to him and kissed her on the mouth, quickly, ready to step away at the least hesitation. But he felt none and held her tightly to him, dropping his face to the cool, fragrant skin of her neck. They remained in this embrace for a long moment. When he stepped back the moon was out once again and there was pale white light on both their faces. But still he remained silent and merely guided her into the driver's seat of the car.

Melanie started the engine and, glancing back, she lifted her hands off the wheel and gestured to him in sign language.

Why would she do that? he wondered. What could she be saying?

Before he could tell her to wait, to write out the words, she put the car in gear and drove to the dirt road, rocking slowly over the uneven field. The car made an abrupt turn and disappeared behind a row of trees. The brake lights flashed once and then she was gone.

He trudged back to the bloody Nissan. Here, he smudged all the fingerprints but his own and then rearranged the bloody knife, the guns, and the two bodies until the crime scene told a credible, if dishonest, story.

"But what exactly is a lie, Charlie? The truth's a pretty slippery thing. Are any words ever one hundred percent honest?"

He was surveying his handiwork when, suddenly, it occurred to him what Melanie had said a few moments before. The words were among the few in his own paltry vocabulary of sign language, words he in fact had signed to her earlier in the evening. "I want to see you again." Was this right? He lifted his hands and repeated the sentence to himself. Awkwardly at first, then smooth as a pro. Yes, he believed that was it.

Arthur Potter saw a car approaching in the distance. Turning his collar against the relentless stream of wind, he sat down on the rocky ground to wait.