Nameless Night (32 page)

He watched in openmouthed amazement as Kirsten grunted, threw both hands over her head, and then convulsed over back-ward, landing heavily on her shoulders and the back of her head. He looked right at the wires and still didn’t get it. The second twang of the spring and he watched, in one of those slow-motion moments, as the barbs crossed the six feet and plowed into his chest. Reflexively, he reached to put the stinger from his body and then the current hit him like . . . like . . . like nothing he’d ever felt before. He staggered but did not go down. The form in the darkness stepped forward as if to hand him something . . . a rod? . . . a scepter? A great blue spark arced through the darkness. Fade to black.

46

He was humming while he worked. Show tunes. Gilbert and Sullivan, Randy thought. Using miles of silver duct tape to connect Kirsten to one of the rolling desk chairs from the office, winding it around her forehead, rendering her completely immobile. Randy was already taped hand and foot, lying on his side on the wet carpet. He noticed Randy was coming around, pulled a Buck knife from the pocket of his AG&E coveralls, cut the tape securing Kirsten’s head to the back of the chair, and then walked over to him.

The guy was as strong as he looked. He grabbed Randy by the arms and pulled him to his feet for long enough to slide the other desk chair under him with his foot and push him down into the seat. He kept humming as he taped Randy to the chair. Something from The Pirates of Penzance, humming away until he was finished and stepped back a pace to admire his handiwork.

Kirsten’s eyes were closed but her chest was moving. Two streams of blood ran from her nose, rolling down over her chin before they disappeared into her blouse.

He bounced the knife in the palm of his hand. “Okay, lover boy,” he said. His voice was pure New England, all filled with elongated A s and dropped R s.

“Just so you understand. This is quite simple. The only question is whether the two of you go easy or whether you go haaaad. Either way, the pair of you have to go. You just get to decide how.” He bent over Randy. “You understand?”

Randy managed to move his head up and down.

“Good,” he said. He smiled. “Smaaat call on clearing the street, by the way. It’s going to make all of this so much easier . . . anyway . . . The first matter is the diary.” He placed the tip of the knife in the corner of Randy’s eye. “I’m going to ask you one time where it is. If I’m not happy with the answer, I’m going to take one of your eyes.”

He put a little pressure on the tip of the knife. Randy’s eye began to water uncontrollably.

“Now . . . where’s the diary?”

Randy tried to talk through the tape. The guy smiled again and ripped the tape from his mouth. “No noise,” he whispered. “Now . . . where’s the diary?”

“Over there by the front door,” Randy said. “Under the table in that Nike bag.”

He replaced the tape over Randy’s mouth and then walked over and retrieved the bag.

“Smaaat move,” he said. Once again he bent low enough to make eye contact. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s how it’s going to be. I don’t like to leave a mess if it can be helped. I’m going to wheel the two of you out of here and then we’re going to take a little ride, and then it’s all going to be over. If you make it difficult for me in any way, I’ll cut both your throats right then and there. Her first and then you. You understand?”

Once again, Randy indicated he understood.

The guy straightened up and looked down at him. “Twenty-four years,” he said. “All that time . . . all those jobs and you’re the only one ever walked away from me.” He smiled. “Actually you rode away from it.” He shrugged. “I always figured you fell off that railroad car and ended up unda the wheels.” He squatted down in front of Randy and looked closely at his face, “You don’t look nothing like you looked before,” he annnounced. “You must lead a chaaamed life, my friend. I hit you haaad enough to kill three guys and all you do is go staggering off the catwalk, fall off, and land on the damn supply train.” He looked around as if searching for more of an audience. “What in hell was I gonna do? I’m standing there with the other guy dead at my feet when you come blundering in. What . . . I’m gonna go off chasing you and that friggin’ train? Just leave the Howaaad guy laying where he is?” He answered himself with a shake of the head. “No way. I gotta finish up what I staaated.”

On the far side of the foyer, Kirsten stirred for a moment, groaned, and then became still again. The guy stood up again.

“Only time I’ve missed,” he mused. “Bothered the hell out of me all these yeaas and then what happens? It’s like something out of a friggin’ movie. All these yeaaas later and I get a chance to atone.” He slapped his own forehead. “I mean . . . what are the chances? Here I am on my last job and I get a chance at atonement. How many times does a guy get do-ovaaas? I get to off the only guy I ever missed.”

He looked down at Randy as if expecting some kind of validation. “I was thea to discuss offin’ some guy namea Barber and outta the friggin’ blue this guy Howard comes waltzin in when he was supposed to be long gone.” He shook his head. “Both of youze just blundering in. Wrong place at the wrong time. Go figure,” he said, before turning and walking away.

Randy watched helplessly as the guy grabbed the back of the desk chair and wheeled Kirsten through the foyer. A minute passed before he came back for Randy. The wheels on the chair squeaked as they crossed the sodden floor.

The guy cracked the door and peered outside for a long moment.

Satisfied. He pulled the door all the way open and then wheeled Kirsten out. He turned left on the porch and disappeared from Randy’s line of sight as he wheeled Kirsten down the ramp. The rain was steady. The wind in the tops of the trees sounded like freeway traffic. A moment later, they reappeared. Randy watched helplessly as he wheeled her up the metal ramp and disappeared into the back of the van.

Once he was out of sight, Randy struggled with his bonds, pulling for all he was worth, trying to free his hands, twisting, turning his wrists. He kept at it until he broke a sweat and his hands went numb. The tape had no give to it and he didn’t have enough leverage to tear it. Something between a groan and a sob escaped his chest. The guy reappeared, walking down the ramp, whistling now as he rolled down the rear door of the van and started Randy’s way. He wiped his hands on his coveralls, and then the street lit up a little. A set of headlights was coming down the street at him. He held up a hand and shielded his eyes.

A black sedan pulled to the curb behind the power-company van. The circular logo on the door said fbi. The eagle held lightning bolts in its talons. Funny how things work. If anyone had asked Randy about his religious beliefs an hour ago, he’d have told them he was a nonbeliever, and now all he could think was, Thank God. Thank God. Thank God . . .

They came piling out of the car like clowns at a circus. They encircled him, leaning in close to intimidate. Randy watched as he pointed at the house . . . at the tree bisecting the roof. He kept talking. Randy could see the FBI’s body language relax. Whatever the guy was telling them, they were buying it. No doubt about it. Behind the duct tape Randy was screaming at Kirsten, telling her to wake up. As close as she was to the feds, any sound at all would surely attract their attention. “Come on, wake up!” He tried to tip himself over but the chair wouldn’t budge. He thrashed around, giving it his all, making adenoidal noises through the sticky silver tape.

Outside, the fake power-company guy was waving his hand and smiling and then pointing toward the south. The wind ripped through the trees, drowning Randy’s pathetic attempts to call attention to himself. He was bellowing behind the tape but they couldn’t hear anything except the freight-train rustle of leaves. One of the agents shook the guy’s hand.

Randy watched in horror as the FBI got back into the car and drove off down the street. His captor stood rocking on his heels with his hands thrust into the pockets of his coveralls. He stayed that way until the feds passed through the barricade at the far end of Arbor Street and disappeared.

He moved faster now, hurrying up the steps. He smiled at Randy.

“Close one there, lover boy.” He grabbed the back of the chair.

“Wouldn’t want to fuck up just as I’m about to enta a whole new phase of my life.” Randy threw himself violently from side to side, but the wide wheelbase of the old chair absorbed the shock instead of toppling over onto its side. “Take it easy. Take it easy,” the guy chanted as he began to push Randy toward the door. “Some you win, some you—” The noise was hard to describe. Hollow but hard, like somebody planting an ice ax. The chair stopped moving. Behind him, Randy heard the splash of a body hitting the floor. Silence prevailed for a moment and then squishy footsteps approached from the rear. He held his breath and waited.

Eunice was a mess. Blood all over the front of her. One eye swollen closed. The odd angle of her right leg and the way she dragged it behind her said it was surely broken. She held the fire ax in both hands as she shuffled around in front of Randy.

“He pushed me,” she said before raising the ax over her head and starting it down. Randy closed his eyes.

47

He pushed me,” Eunice said again.

Randy cracked one eye, hoping like hell they hadn’t died and gone to heaven together. Mercifully no. Eunice had used the ax to cut his left hand free. He breathed a sigh of relief, used the left hand to free the right and then both of them to untape the rest of him.

He got to his feet, gently took the ax from her hands, and made her sit down in the chair. “Hang in there,” he said to her. “I’ll be right back.”

He dropped to one knee, fished around in the power company coveralls until he came up with the Buck knife, and then sprinted for the door, long-jumped the stairs, and was at the back of the power-company van in four long strides. Kirsten’s eyes were the size of saucers. A sob caught in her throat at the sight of him. He had her separated from the chair in less than a minute. She threw her arms around his neck. “Hurry,” he said, pulling her up and out of the chair. Her legs were a bit shaky. He helped her up the stairs and into the foyer. The sight of Eunice snoring in the chair and the dead guy sprawled in a pool of blood stopped her in her tracks.

He sat her on the bottom step of the stairway and then made his way to the body on the floor. He’d thought of feeling for a pulse, but the up-close sight of the guy’s head dispelled any such idea. Eunice had driven the hooked front part of the ax completely through the top of his skull, creating an open wound the size of a baseball through which most of his brain had now seeped into the carpet. Randy patted him down, coming up with a thin wallet and a disposable cell phone and a plastic hotel key from the Vintage Gate Hotel. He rolled the guy up onto his side. He had a gun under his belt buckle. Randy left it there, pocketed the rest of it, and then hurried over to Kirsten.

“We gotta get some help for Eunice,” he said. She nodded. Her eyes were locked on the guy on the floor.

“He’s dead.”

She nodded again and opened her mouth to speak. Nothing came out.

“I can’t be here when help arrives,” he said. “You understand?”

She looked at him as if he were speaking Turkish.

“As long as the world doesn’t know what I look like, I’ve got a chance of living something like a normal life. If I’m here when the help arrives, life as I know it is over.”

“What . . .” she began. “What do you need me to do?” she choked out.

“I want you to sit right there until your legs get right. I’m going out the back way. As soon as you’re feeling better, hustle down to the corner. Tell the cops what happened here. Tell ’em everything . . . just like it happened . . .” He waved his hand in the air. “Get an aide car on the way.”

He bent over and patted her on the back. She threw an arm around his neck and struggled to her feet. She put her face close to Randy’s and looked all the way to the back of his skull. “You saved my life,” she said.

“Eunice saved your life,” Randy corrected. As if on cue, Eunice emitted a loud series of snores and snorts.

Kirsten grinned. “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” she said.

“Something like that,” Randy offered.

“They’re going to want to know what Adrian Hope looks like.”

“So maybe you’re not much of a visual person,” Randy said. She smiled again. “I guess I can do that,” she said. “I owe you that much.”

“Thanks,” Randy said.

She wagged a long finger at him. “You can’t run away from yourself, you know.”

“I don’t want to be Adrian Hope.”

“But you are Adrian Hope.”

He shook his head. “I’m whoever I decide I am.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Sure it does,” he said. “I’ve had time to think about it. The way I see it, people spend their whole lives making themselves up. All they come into this world with is a name. After that, they pick and choose from the all the things they come into contact with . . . from the TV, from the movies, from their parents, their relatives, their friends, from everywhere.”

“Interesting idea,” she said tentatively.

“We reinvent ourselves all the time.”

“I’ve got a feeling I’m about to do exactly that.”

“How’s it feel?”

“To tell you the truth, it’s kind of exciting.”

“Why is it exciting?”

She thought it over. “I seem to like a little subterfuge in my life.”

“You’re a lawyer,” he said.

“This is different,” she said. “I’m messing with the authorities . . . usually I am the authorities.”

Randy smiled. “Who knows . . . you might get to like it.”

“I do like it,” she said. “That’s what makes me nervous.” She checked the room.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” she said. “I was always the good girl. Top of my class. Always knew the answers. I can’t . . . I just can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“Never?”

She thought it over. “Once.”

He waited.