Day of Wrath (22 page)

I sat there trying to excuse the runaway girl of blame,
and suddenly realized that I was in the same position that Bobby Caldwell
had been in—that instead of explaining the girl, I'd ended up explaining
him. Sittings there, in the dead midnight, I felt as if I'd been retracing
his steps all along, right up until that very moment, as I prepared to
make my own attempt at rescuing a girl who didn't seem to know how lost
she had become. Maybe she could explain herself, I thought, when I finally
found her.

I flipped on the inside light, opened the glove compartment,
and took out a pair of binoculars, a flashlight, and a flask of Scotch.
The special deputy approach was useless, I decided. Any direct approach
was useless if they girl didn't want to cooperate. And if she hadn't gone 
away with Bobby, there was no reason to think she'd come out with me. Or
that Clinger would even let me try to persuade her to come. Followers must
have been getting hard to come by for Theo, and those that were left had
to be hard-core fanatics. What I wanted to do was to case the farm from
a distance, trying to spot the girl or, if I was really lucky, to catch
her there alone. Or virtually alone. Then I'd either take her out by force
or I'd sit on the place until the chance to grab her came up.

It was little better than a kidnapping, but I couldn't
see any other way to bring her out. I flipped off the car light and opened
the door. Before stepping outside, I reached under the dash and pulled
the Colt Gold Cup from the pistol rack. I checked the magazine, cocked
the piece, locked it, and stuck it firmly in my belt. Then I strapped the
binoculars around my
neck, stuck the flashlight and the flask in my coat pockets,
and walked into the night.

The open, fallow field provided no brake against the wind,
which was running down the hillside like an ice floe. I was cold through
and through by the time I reached the crest of the hill. I turned my back
to the wind, sat down in one of the furrows, and pulled the flask out of
my coat. The liquor brought tears to my eyes, cleared my nose, and unblocked
my ears. And suddenly I could smell the damp earth all around me and hear
the wind whistling across the barren field.

I took a quick look at the Pinto—parked beside the gate—then
turned around and trained the binoculars on the south slope. The field
was plowed for sowing for another hundred yards. Then it died away in a
muddy swale full of day lilies and tall green rushes. Beyond the marsh,
lilacs were planted in a row, their grape-like flowers glowing like blue
velvet in the night. And beyond the hedge row, the tall, irregular silhouette
of a farm house and a barn and a silo rose out of the earth like a nighttime
shadow.

I swept the binoculars across the farm yard, where daffodils
clustered in the dirt. There weren't any signs of life—in the yard or
in the house or in the outbuildings. No lamplights. No glowing cigarettes.
No parked cars or farm machinery. And no sound, except for the wind. I
glanced at my watch, which was showing a quarter of one, and thought that
the Clinger family had either gone to sleep or gone out for the night.
I looked back at the Pinto, as if it were a warm, inviting bed. But the
chance of having that farmhouse to myself was too good to pass by. I got
back to my feet and started down the hill.

I skirted the muddy swale at the edge of the yard and
came out behind the barn, on the eastern side of the farm. There was a
window set in the barn's rear wall. I shined the flashlight through it
and peered in. A tractor was parked in the middle of the floor, between
two rows of feed stalls, but there weren't any cars inside or any fresh
tire tracks in the dust. Which made it that much more likely that there
was no one at home. I clicked off the light and slid around to the front
of the barn. The farmhouse was about twenty yards from the outbuildings,
facing northwest toward the access road. When I was satisfied that there
really wasn't anybody else around, I scampered across the open ground to
the rear porch. A compressor was throbbing dully nearby. I hadn't heard
it until I'd gotten to the back of the house. I figured it was located
at the base of one of the walls, lying in the grass like an overturned
water tank. The fact that it was still running made me feel better, because,
from the deserted look of things, I'd been wondering whether Clinger hadn't
flown the coop altogether.

The rear porch was just a concrete abutment, leading to
a screened wooden door. I walked up the steps and tried the handle, but
it was locked tight. There were two windows on either side of the door,
only they were both closed and they were both too far off the ground and
too far from the rear stoop to be jimmied. I examined, the door again,
pulled a credit card from my wallet, and tried to force the lock. I almost
broke my Mastercard in two. The latch was a deadbolt—impossible to open
without a hacksaw or a set of files or a key. That left the front door
and windows.

I climbed back down the steps and walked around the north
side of the house to the front yard. The aluminum windows in the north
wall were screened and latched. The whole house had been freshly sided
in aluminum strips and painted the mealy color of combread. The renovations
must have cost Clinger a bundle; but then I figured they'd probably been
done in the good old days before money problems had forced him into the
drug business.

There was an apple tree planted in the front lawn with
clumps of sedge scattered like cabbage leaves around its trunk. I stared
at the tree for a moment before turning the comer. I knew what I'd find
in front—I guess that was why I paused. And it was there, all right,
when I finally stepped into the yard-the wooden porch with its six steps
and its railed landing. I'd been looking at a photograph of it for four
days, and seeing it in reality unnerved me—filled me with an eerie sense
of
déja vu
, as if I'd actually been there before. I carried that
feeling with me up the stairs onto the dark landing. Another half-step
led tothe front door. There were two storm windows flanking it.

I tried the door handle and was about to try the left
window when I heard a footstep on the stairs behind me.

The sound sent a chill up my spine.

"Wha'chu doing, fella?" a man's soft, mocking voice said.

"Trying to get in," I said meekly. And then I put a little
iron in my voice and added: "I'm a cop."

"
Sure you are," the laughing voice replied.

"
I've got I.D.," I said quickly, but when I reached for
my coat pocket, I let my right hand drop onto the cold butt of the pistol.
My Special Deputy's badge wasn't going to fool this one—I could hear
that in his voice.

"You best put your hands above your head," the man said.
"I'd hate to shoot an officer of the law."

"You've got a gun?" I said stupidly.

"A Remington pump. And it's pointed at the back of your
head."

"I don't suppose we could talk this over?"

He laughed. "You just raise your hands."

I slipped the gun from my belt and started to raise my
arms.

"Higher!" the man said with sudden sharpness.

I had about five seconds to decide what to do. If I dropped
the pistol and went along with him, there was a chance I could talk my
way out of it. But I figured it would have to be some mighty straight talk—the
kind that would blow any chance of getting the girl out quietly, although
I knew that chance might already have been blown. j

I shifted my eyes to the left and looked at the porch
rail. It was about a step and a half from where I was standing, and it
was low enough that I could vault it easily. I didn't want to shoot anyone,
but I didn't want to put myself at the mercy of one of Clinger's followers,
either. Mercy didn't appear to be their strong suit.

"I'm not fucking with you, mister," the man said. "Either
you raise your arms or you're going to be tasting your own brains."

"I'm moving," I said and jumped for the rail.

The shotgun went off behind me with a terrific bang.

The left front window exploded in a hail of glass and
splintered aluminum. I could hear the pellets spattering through the house,
breaking glass and slamming into furniture with dull, concussive thuds.
But I was over the rail by then.

I hadn't counted on the drop. It was a good six and a
half feet from the porch rail to the yard, and I landed badly, twisting
my left ankle in a nest of sedge and rock. I was still trying to pick myself
up when the man came ambling around the comer. I didn't even have the pistol
unlocked. I heard him pull the pump back and knew that if I pointed the
gun at him I'd be dead.

"All right," I said. "All right."

I tossed the Colt on the ground. I could see the man smile.
His teeth and his eyes and the gun barrel were about the only things I
could see in the darkness.

"
Kick'it on out here," he said.

I kicked the gun away from me and stared at it for a second,
lying in the sedge. Then I got to my feet, leaned back against the wall,
and dusted some of the dirt off my pants leg. My ankle was beginning to
throb and burn. I wouldn't be able to run on it—or, at least, not very
far. I watched the man as he walked up to me. He was wearing a leather
Hyer's jacket and jeans, and he looked more like a bodyguard than one of
Clinger's followers. I figured that was probably what he was-hired muscle,
like Jerry Lavelle. Only this one was the local variety. A young, brainless
Kentucky thug.

"Hurt yourself, did you?" he said with a generous smile.

"My ankle."

He nodded and slapped the shotgun barrel across the right
side of my head. He hit me so quickly and so hard that my skull bounced
against the aluminum siding of the farmhouse. I think the only thing that
kept me standing on my feet was sheer surprise. I touched my temple and
felt the blood running down my cheek. Then I stared goofily at the man
standing in front of me. He was still smiling.

Back to the wall, I slipped to the ground and sat there—legs
stretched out in front of me—looking at the pattern my blood had made
in the dirt. Someone else came up beside me, but I blacked out before I
could lift my head to look at him.
 

WHEN I WOKE UP I DIDN 'T KNOW WHERE I WAS OR WHAT had
happened to me. I could hear someone playing a piano—toying with it like
a kid practicing the scales. And there was a bright light overhead. It
made me wince when I opened my eyes. Then I remembered that I'd been hurt
and touched gingerly at the right side of my head. Something inside my
skull throbbed like an infected tooth. I groaned aloud and the sound of
the piano stopped.

It took me a few seconds, but I managed to sit up. I was
on a couch—an old Victorian number with velvet cushions and a dark, glossy
wooden frame. I stared dully at the carpeted floor and waited for my mind
to clear. judging by the pain in my head, the blurred vision, and the faint
nausea I was feeling, I figured I'd suffered a concussion.

I rested my head against the cushion and watched the room
come into focus: a small parlor, with white plastered walls and second-hand
Victorian furnishings. There was an upright piano on the wall across from
the couch, and a man was sitting in front of it, with his back to me. He
ran his fingers down the keyboard and turned around. I thought I knew his
face.

"
Clinger?" I said.

The man nodded. "I'm Theo Clinger."

He stared at me intently, as he'd stared into the camera
in the photograph. He had long black hair, streaked with gray, and black,
heavy-lidded, vaguely oriental eyes. The rest of his face was thin, fleshless,
and as white as bone. Even his lips were whitish. His dark eyes looked
like the lumps of coal in a snowman's head.

"Where am I?" I said to the snowman.

"You're at my farm. In the house."

I suddenly remembered the man with the shotgun and how
I'd been hurt. I asked Clinger why the man had hit me and he laughed.

"You were trying to break in. And we've had some trouble
lately. The only reason you're not lying in a ditch right now is that you
have a friend here who told us who you were."

Robbie's name popped into my head and I spoke it.

"She's not here," Clinger said. "She left with Bobby on
Wednesday."

"
Bobby?" I said stupidly. I wanted to ask him about Bobby,
but for a moment I couldn't think of what to say.

"
What happened to Bobby?"

Clinger tapped his fingertips together and considered
the question. "I'm going to be honest with you. I know who you are and
who you're looking for. And I don't want any trouble with the law. Bobby
took Robbie with him when he left here on Wednesday. That was the last
time I saw either one of them."

"What happened to him?" I said again. My head was clearing
and I was beginning to get a sharper sense of the man in front of me. He
had a cool, candid, melancholy voice that didn't quite match the arrogant,
fleshless face. I wondered vaguely if he was putting on the candor for
me or if he always spoke in that sad, considered way.

"
I believe Bobby was killed by my enemies," he finally
said. "I've already told the police this earlier tonight. I see no reason
not to tell you. A lot of people don't understand where we're coming from
here at the farm. They don't approve of our lifestyle, and they express
their disapproval in violent ways—poisoning our wells and our livestock.
I believe Bobby was killed by some of them, as a warning to me."