Reapers (8 page)

He didn't hesitate. "Two, three months."

"You sure it was her?"

"You don't forget that accent," he said. "Or that face. I would have made a run at her if not for her dude."

"She only had one?"

The man laughed and licked his fingers and pinched out the cherry of his cigarette. He pulled apart the roach and sprinkled the remaining tobacco into his new baggie.

"My coffee's getting cold. Name's Reese. You need anything else, leave a note with the mustache in there."

She walked to the intersection and got out one of her government-issue tourist maps. The Chelsea Piers were only a couple miles away on the other side of the island, but she was beat. Long day. She fetched her bike from the sidewalk and rode the few blocks to her apartment on Third and 9th. At the bottom of the stairwell, she thought she heard feet rasping above. She tipped back her head to the darkness and listened. Wind whistled through the street.

The stairs were pitch black. She lit a candle and ascended to her room. Inside, she locked the door and opened the shades and blew out the candle. No sense wasting it when you had moonlight to work with.

She was still full from the fried fish, so she spread her blankets on the bed and brushed her teeth with water and spat out the window. As she withdrew her head from the frame, a gunshot popped from far to the north, the report echoing down the towers. She didn't hear a second.

She lay in bed but couldn't sleep. It was quite the piece of luck to have picked up the trail again. She supposed there weren't so many people here. A girl like Tilly stood out. She looked like bottled sunshine with a pair of breasts. She'd smile for anyone, even Lucy, who none of the other kids had spoken to except to tease her about her mother or when the boys circled her on their bikes and squawked like crows protecting the nest.

Tilly didn't take no for an answer, either. They had first met in the lot beside the irrigation ditch where Lucy liked to explore. Lucy was throwing a knife at a tree and getting madder and madder that she couldn't cause it to stick. Feet crunched through the brush. Figuring to face one of the bicycle boys, Lucy picked up her knife.

A girl walked out and tipped her head to the side. "What are you doing?"

Lucy lowered the knife, then whirled and slung it at the tree. It clanked away. "Baking cupcakes. Want one?"

The girl had big eyes and an expressive mouth and she used both to display her confusion. She looked to be nine or so, Lucy's age, but you could tell she was going to be real pretty when she grew up.

"But that's a knife."

"You're smart." Lucy picked up the knife and clenched her teeth. She couldn't get the dang blade to stick and now this pretty little thing was watching her fail. "This tree's too tough. Think you'd make a better target?"

The girl laughed and pinched the skin of her tan, spindly arm. "I hardly got any bark at all."

Lucy drew back the knife. "Why don't we find out?"

"Can I try?" The girl entwined her fingers in front of her stomach and tried out a small smile. "Maybe we can figure it out together."

Bugs droned from the grass. Water trickled in the ditch. It smelled like wet green leaves and the girl seemed oblivious to the heaviness of the air between them. Lucy lowered her elbow and walked over and held out the knife point-first so the girl had to take the blade without cutting herself.

"You got to throw it hard," Lucy said. "Otherwise it won't stick."

The girl pursed her mouth and glared at the tree. She wound back her arm and flung the knife. It fluttered wide of the tree and plopped straight into the ditch.

The girl burst out laughing. "Did you see that?"

"You lost my knife!"

"I throw just like a girl!" She laughed some more, folding in on herself, hands on her knees. Lucy could only stare. The girl composed herself and managed to look sheepish. "I'm sorry about your knife. Let me fetch it out for you."

Lucy had seen water moccasins down in the ditch, but the girl strolled down the bank and squatted by the stream and plunged her arm into the water, groping carefully. Her eyes lit up and she brought out the gleaming steel blade.

"Your turn." She used both hands to present Lucy with the knife. "Can you show me how you throw so good?"

Lucy was so disarmed that all she could do was nod. "When you throw, it's like watching a busted spring. You got to use your whole arm like a whip."

That was Tilly. She seemed to float along in a world of her own, one completely free from bicycle boys and pit vipers and little girls who might decide you make a more tempting target than a tree. For the first time in her life, Lucy had a friend. Someone to share time with beside her mom, whose wicked eyes and sour words told Lucy she was born to die, and that mothers weren't there to care for their daughters, but to scorn and resent them.

Wind gusted against the window. Lucy lay in bed and listened for the breathing of the man with the scythe, but he was elsewhere that night. She slept.

Her window faced west and the dawn was slow to come. For whatever airs the Feds put on, there was no water in the faucet or the toilet. She went down to the courtyard meaning to use a planter and found that someone had dug an outhouse.

Her mother had been a bitch but her taunts had taught Lucy to be free with her money. She wasn't one to sit on her riches like a suspicious old dragon. Dragons lived forever. When it came to people, you were lucky if you got a blink; if you had it, spend it.

So she biked to the coffee house, which was manned this bright yellow morning by a right ogre of an old woman, and parted with a bit of her stash in exchange for eggs, biscuits, gravy made from bacon grease, and all the coffee she could drink. Feeling good, she saddled up her bike and rode toward the Chelsea Piers.

Leaves tumbled down the streets. To get a feel for the place, she zigzagged northwest through the city's grid. A tall white clock tower watched over 14th Street. As if it were keeping out the shabby apartments south of it, the digs improved notably from there, twenty-story towers with proper balconies and snazzy stone corners. Glass-fronted clothing stores took up the bottom two or three floors.

She coasted down 21st. The green-gray river winked a couple blocks ahead. Shouted orders and the clatter of labor drifted on the chilly marine air. To her right, a horse whickered from somewhere behind a building.

A horse. Lucy braked hard and leaned her bike against a brownstone. She jogged through its front door and tried the rear apartments until she found an open door. The back windows overlooked a courtyard shaded by thick trees that had just begun to shed their leaves. As the foliage shifted in the wind, beads of sunlight danced across the unkempt grass.

Eight mounted men gathered in a loose circle. Each bore an assault rifle and a sidearm. A couple of them were smoking. The window was closed and she couldn't hear their words but one of the men pointed dead west and made a series of sweeping gestures.

Lucy sank down until she could no longer see the riders, then crawled from the room, jogged outside, got on her bike, and pedaled straight to the piers.

Just as Reese had promised, men worked in the thin morning light, offloading crates and barrels from a sailboat tethered to the broad docks. While stevedores wheeled hand carts through the open doors of a former seafood restaurant, a man in a pinstriped suit and mirrored shades reclined in a deck chair atop a dais, propping himself on one elbow to bark orders at his men.

No one paid Lucy any mind. She swung out her kickstand and walked to the dais.

"Hola," she said to the man in the suit. "I wonder if you might be interested in swapping information?"

The man jerked, spilling a mug of brown liquid. He glanced from side to side, as if searching for someone to whip for this breach of security, then sighed and set down his cup.

"Get off my dock. I got traffic to direct."

"Surely your staff is competent enough to handle its own affairs for sixty seconds without burning down the pier."

"Spoken like someone who's never been in management."

She cast a baleful gaze at his high platform. "Unless you want to manage their funerals, you better get down and talk to me."

"Is that a threat?" He twisted to face her, lowering his shades like that goofus from the cop show.

"No sir. It's a warning." She smiled and ducked her chin. "Unless the caballeros with the machine guns are friends of yours."

He glanced down the dock, then at her, then back to the men lugging sacks and boxes off the barge. He stuck his pronged fingers in his mouth and whistled.

Too late. Hooves racketed into the street. Lucy made a face, spat, and ducked behind a barrel.

6

She ran flat-out, shoes slipping in the pine needles and damp leaves. She was conditioned by farm labor but had to slow after the first mile. Hard autumn light sliced through the branches. Mist whirled from her mouth.

She hadn't heard any more shots. It was possible she was winding herself for nothing. Locals hunted deer and rabbits. Took warning shots at bears and dogs. People were conservative with ammo these days, but gunfire wasn't that uncommon in the lakes and mountains.

But this felt different.

It was half an hour before she cleared the trees and caught sight of the house. The fields were empty. Yellow light played on the patchy wheat and weedy yard. She slowed to a jog, gasping for breath. Dee came out to the front stoop while Ellie was halfway across the field.

"I heard shots," Ellie panted.

Dee gazed to her left. "That would be me."

"You?" She climbed the step and grabbed Dee's shoulder. "Did you hurt someone?"

"I wish. I was just getting their attention."

"Sit down. Tell me exactly what happened."

"Did you run the whole way?" Dee smirked. "Want a glass of water, Mama Bear?"

She ducked inside. Ellie paced across the stoop. When she'd mentioned the shots, her daughter had glanced leftward. Toward their neighbors. Dee came back with a cool glass of water and sat beside her on the steps.

Ellie drank half in one go. "Did Sam Chase come by?"

"You're spooky," Dee laughed without much humor. "He showed up hollering for Quinn. He was drunk."

"How do you know that?"

"When he tipped back his Jack, he got more on his chest than down his throat."

"What was he saying?"

"I don't know, I don't speak Shitfaced. He wanted Quinn to stay away." She pointed to a patch of grass ten yards from the stoop. It was as trampled and divoted as the day after Augusta. "Quinn went to tell him to go away. They just started fighting. Like a couple of bobcats."

Ellie nodded. "And the gun?"

"I was afraid they were going to hurt each other. I fired into the air to make them quit." Dee stared at the torn-up grass. "Sam wasn't armed. He wasn't even wearing shoes."

"I take it everyone's all right."

"Quinn's got a black eye, but I think they hurt the grass more than each other." Dee scowled through the trees toward the Chase house. "What the hell's his problem?"

"I'm afraid it's me." Ellie drank the rest of her water and pulled herself to her feet. "Is George inside?"

"He's with Quinn."

"I'm going to ask a few questions. If Sam comes back, stay inside the house."

Dee nodded and followed her inside and locked the door. Ellie left her glass beside the sink and headed down the hall to Quinn's room. The door was half open but she tapped it with her knuckles.

"Knock knock."

Father and son swung up their heads. They were seated on the edge of the bed and Quinn had his shirt off. Welts reddened his chest. His left eyesocket was swollen and the color of an underripe plum.

"Yeah, but should I see the
other
guy?" Ellie said.

Quinn cocked his head. "Huh?"

"What happened out there?"

George planted his palms on his knees. "That trash who lives beside us was spoiling for a fight."

"I'm asking Quinn."

The boy shook his head. "Sam came over drunk and shouting. Next thing I know he's throwing punches."

"Rest assured I'll be speaking to the sheriff," George said.

Ellie didn't know whether to laugh or sigh. "Let's go out back, George."

He touched Quinn's shoulder and smiled paternally, then followed her to the back porch. The air was brisk and now that Ellie's pulse had slowed her sweat felt cold on her skin.

"The way that Chase boy carried on, you'd think I stole his favorite dolly." George shook his head. "The youth are crazy these days."

Ellie made a noncommittal noise. "This wasn't the first incident."

"Oh, I know they have a history. Chase seems to think Dee is a prize to be won."

"Last week, I saw someone lurking around your yard. Yesterday morning, Quinn found Ringer in the woods. He'd been stabbed."

George's jaw dropped. "Sam Chase did that?"

"He has an unhealthy fixation on Dee."

"And when were you intending to tell me?"

"Once I had hard facts."

The man slowed his voice like an idling car. "A man has the right to know when his family is being terrorized."

She met his eyes. "That's a little dramatic."

"My dog has been stabbed. I can think of few things
more
dramatic." He tugged down the hem of his coat. "I am off to see Sheriff Hobson."

"Why?"

He thrust his finger in the direction of the Chase house. "That fool assaulted my boy! He belongs in jail."

"Last I checked, we don't have one of those," Ellie said. "And the esteemed Sheriff Hobson is both self-appointed and a civilian. I checked up on him. He taught literature in Buffalo. Big fan of Chandler and Arthur Conan Doyle."

George laughed harshly. "I know what this is about. As usual, you think the most qualified man in the room so happens to be yourself."

"I used to work for the government."

"Doing what, exactly?"

"That's classified." She gestured at the scraggly wheat fields. "Why don't you bring in the grain already? The mice are getting at it."

His brows met in a peevish glower. "I had intended to. Now my assistant's hurt."