Vengeance is Mine (4 page)

Ned jiggled the change in his pocket, a habit he recently acquired and wanted to break. “Got a toothache, Chester?”

The youngster shrugged.

Ned nodded, and recalled the prickly, numbing feeling that came with tucking the moist inner bark against a sore tooth or ulcer. “I used the same remedy when I was about your age, but I shoulda gone to see a dentist. Now I have to wear these dentures all the time.”

Still on the porch, Geneva folded and refolded the dish towel with nervous fingers. “Well, we don't have much money for such.”

The old constable considered her statement and nodded solemnly. “I reckon that's why you been away from the house for a while today, is that it?”

“Mr. Ned, you know Chester don't talk much.”

He studied the young man standing hunched and still as a statue. Ned knew that if Chester was in a mood, he could talk to the youngster all day and probably wouldn't get much more of a response than a nod, if he was lucky.

“Chester, did you see a deputy sheriff out on the dam road?”

“Mr. Ned!” Geneva's voice was shocked. “You ain't got no call to talk to him like that! He ain't right, but that ain't no reason to cuss.”

“I wasn't cussin' at the boy, Geneva. I meant the new road out there that goes across the Lake Lamar Dam.”

Embarrassed, she gave a nervous laugh. “We're all gonna have to get used to that thang, ain't we?”

“Sure 'nough. Now, Chester, look at me.” When the boy timidly raised his eyes, Ned gave him a grin. “It was you, wundn't it, that the deputy saw?”

“I didn't do it.” He shifted and looked uncomfortable. “I jist run oft.”

“Then it
was
you. How come you to run?”

Chester shrugged.

Knowing that was the only answer he was going to get, Ned sighed. “Sorry, Geneva, for bothering you. Can I take Chester with me for a little bit so's I can show them boys back there that he ain't no bank robber? They got it in their heads that some booger-bear is running these woods, and if I don't, somebody other than me is liable to come up here, and you don't want that.”

Thankful that Ned understood her son, Geneva pursed her mouth in the familiar way that had etched deep lines around her mouth through the years. She gave him a quick nod. “You'll bring him back, d'rectly?”

“Sure will, after we get some ice cream. That sound good to you, hoss? We'll go to the store and get you a banana bar.”

Instead of answering, Chester shuffled to the car and climbed in the front seat, still working the bark against his aching gum. Ned slammed his own door and turned around to the tune of barking dogs.

Four more cars were parked on the side of the road when they returned to the unfinished overlook. One of them belonged to Sheriff Donald Griffin. Ned coasted to a stop in his lane and killed the engine. “Y'all having a meetin'?”

The sheriff walked up to Ned's car and rested his hand on the open window. “You forget something?”

Ned glared at the mustached man in his large Stetson, fancy gun belt, Colt .45 revolver, and shiny black boots. He had no intention of exchanging pleasantries in the middle of the road with the pompous ass. He jerked a thumb toward his passenger. “Did your bad guy look like this?”

The sheriff set his jaw at the snub. Without taking his eyes off the young man in Ned's car, Griffin waved. “Deputy Stern. The constable has a prisoner. Come take a look and see if you can identify him.”

Frowning, Colton joined them and bent to look into the car. “Well, I'll be damned. You done caught him? Hey, boys? Ned's done caught our fugitive. Why ain't he cuffed?”

“Don't need no cuffs. This here's Frederick and Geneva Humphrey's boy, Chester, and he didn't run off, at least not the way you think. Chester here runs off from everybody. He's been nervous a long time.”

Before Deputy Colton could say another word, Sheriff Griffin interrupted. “I don't believe he'd-a run if he hadn't done something wrong. We don't even know it was him here, for sure, now do we? Since you say he's not right, he probably got in your car when you told him to, and the fugitive is still hiding in the woods somewhere, isn't that right,
Constable
Parker?”

Ned's attempt at a smile surrendered and froze on his face. “Me being constable still gets your goat, don't it Donald?” With an effort, he crooked his finger in a “come here” move. “Stick your hand out toward the boy there.”

Puzzled, the sheriff bent down, stretched his arm across Ned and waited. Ned tapped his cheek and pointed at the open hand. “Put it there, right now.”

With a look of terror, Chester dug out the soggy chunk of bark from his cheek. He placed it in the sheriff's hand. With a disgusted start, Griffin jerked up right and stared at the soaked wood leaking into his palm.

Ned shifted into gear and jerked his thumb toward the passenger window. “Now, if you'll get your team of crack investigators on the stick, Sheriff, you'll see that piece of toothache bark in your hand fits that little bitty trunk behind Colton there. So I reckon I'll rest my case. If you don' believe me, you can go ahead on with your manhunt by yourselves. We'll be up at the store eatin' a banana ice cream if y'all need anything else.”

Chapter Five

In Los Angeles, Anthony watched the tanned young girls swimming in a small pool behind the bright white Hotel Continental, on Sunset and Benedict.

He and Samantha sat at a metal table beneath a white shade structure near the busy pool bar. “You should get a bikini like that.”

Samantha glanced down at her much more modest one-piece swimsuit and wiggled her painted toes. “I'm not that kind of girl.” She sipped her drink after removing the little paper umbrella.

For some reason, her comment pleased him. “You're not like any other woman I've ever known.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“It is.”

She spun the umbrella handle with two fingers. The colors were a blur. “I think I'm falling for you, Mr. Anthony Agrioli.”

He thought about his feelings the night before in the Cheetah Club, their nighttime hangout. “You don't know much about me.”

She watched a barefoot young woman walk by and grin at Anthony. She idly wondered what the woman's flip hairdo and false eyelashes would look like if she kicked her into the pool. “You don't know much about me, either.” She paused. “I'm sure of one thing. You're a good man.”

“I'm not sure that's true.”

“It is.”

In the past week their relationship grew in depth and understanding, despite holding large chunks of themselves back. After talking for hours on end, it was obvious there were certain holes in both their lives they avoided filling.

Anthony found the similarity appealing, because he always played his cards close to the vest. This time was no exception, even when he realized he was in love with the little blonde.

He lit two cigarettes and handed one to her. “We can't stay here forever.”

“I won't go back home. There's nothing for me there.”

He bit the question off. If a woman holds things back, a man doesn't need to know the details. He drew heavily on a cigarette and exhaled through his nose. “I don't have any marketable skills, Doll. No matter where we go, I'm afraid I'll make a lousy handyman.”

“You might surprise us both. How are you at pumping gas?”

“I was good at stealing it when I was a kid.”

She laughed.

“I'll have to find something else with a better future. So where do you want to go?”

Samantha threw her head back, puffed her own cigarette, and watched the smoke dissipate in the warm air. “Somewhere away from all this concrete. I want a house with a picket fence and a barbecue in the back.”

“You'll get bored. The city is in your blood.”

“I need a transfusion.”

They sat silent, watching the tourists. Anthony pulled at his hula shirt to adjust the shoulders. “We'll need to go back to Vegas to get our things.”

“And then what?”

“I have an idea.”

Best flew to New York or Kansas City on a regular basis, and even more frequently when summoned. Anthony remembered hearing about a meeting scheduled for the next night. He picked up a paper menu and handed it to Sam. “Let's order lunch, and after that, we'll check out. It's time to leave.”

Chapter Six

I crawled behind Pepper underneath the Ordway house. “We're gonna get in trouble in here.”

Sitting about a hundred and fifty yards behind Neal Box's country store, the two-story was built back in the 1890s and had been empty for the last few years. It had a huge wraparound porch and giant burr oaks shaded the entire house. There was even a cherry tree in the front yard, and we stopped by each year to grab a handful when they were ripe.

Uncle Cody tells a story about when he spent the night there as a kid, and watched ghosts come down the dark wood stairs and leave through the front door to get into a phantom buggy pulled by spirit horses.

Pepper stopped beside a pipe jutting up through the floor above. “C'mon. It's easy.” She reached up and slid a peeling piece of plywood out of the way. She stood and pulled herself inside.

When her feet disappeared, I followed, climbing up into the kitchen. “How'd you know about the floor?”

“I saw it when Daddy let me come in with him last week. He heard it was for rent, so we came over to look around. He said it needs a lot of work.” She stepped over to the painted plywood cabinets and jumped up and down on the floor. The linoleum bounced like a trampoline. “See?”

We walked down the hallway from the kitchen. The temperature inside was surprisingly cool, making me think the last heat wave of the year was long gone. The place smelled of dust, mice, and dried leaves. We wandered through two bedrooms and found ourselves in the living room. Most of the paper blinds were down. The whole place was spooky, like those haunted houses in the movies, with old sheets draped over furniture.

We stopped in the entry hall. A set of plain, narrow stairs bent to the right at a landing. I shivered. “I ain't going up there.”

She grinned and started up, but then stopped when a creak filled the air. “Uh, that's the house settling. Let's sit in the living room.”

Dusty sheets covered the furniture. Pepper plopped down on a couch facing the fireplace. She dug a crumpled pack of Viceroys from her pants pocket and lit one. “This is a lot better than your stupid tree house. We can stay in here as long as we want to and no one will ever know.”

I saw the smoke rise. She'd decided she liked smoking and it worried me sick. Instead of watching, I concentrated on the toes of my U.S. Keds. “I'm not sure it's a good idea. We'll get caught and they'll beat the whey out of us. You ought not smoke them things, either. You'll probably burn this house down around us.”

She snorted and dug the transistor radio out of her back pocket. “Don't bring me down.”

There she was again, talking like them California kids. “It ain't like Miss Becky won't be able to smell the smoke on you.”

Instead of answering, she clicked the radio on and “White Rabbit” blared out. Pepper pitched the radio on the couch and jumped up into the middle of the room, jerking and throwing her hair and arms around.

“What are you doing?”

“Dancing. This is how the kids do it in California.”

“You're not a hippie.”

She kept flailing around. “They have it figured out. It's cool because they're all about love and peace. This song is far out.”

“We're loved, and it's peaceful here.”

Pepper stopped and glared at me. “Peaceful? Have you lost your damn mind?” She stomped over and turned the radio down. “Have you forgot what happened to us? What about Uncle Cody and Grandpa? Things are getting worse and you don't see it.”

Bad memories tried to surface, but I forced them back down into those dark rooms I kept locked away in my mind. “Grandpa and Uncle Cody will make sure nothing ever happens again.”

Grandpa wasn't scared of the Devil.

“Something
always
happens, again and again. We're safe right now, but who knows what'll happen the minute we walk out that front door. Hell, for all we know there's an ax murderer creaking around upstairs.”

I wished she hadn't said that, because the house popped again.

We stopped to listen. Pepper picked up the radio and dialed it up once more, but it was some dumb love song. She chewed her lip. “I asked Daddy if I could go spend Christmas with Aunt Ludie and Uncle Stant in California. Why don't you go too?”

I was only half listening to her, and half listening to the house. “No, I believe I'll stay here. I ain't interested in no dirty hippies. They all need haircuts.”

Pepper flopped down on the couch again. “Long hair is antiestablishment.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” She looked around the room. “This must have been a great place back in the olden days. Bet they didn't have no Skinners, or crazy people who cut off heads and stuff.” She stopped and hugged herself like I'd seen her do. It wasn't really hugging, she was trying to feel for that scar on her shoulder The Skinner burned there. “I'm so tired of this jerkwater town that I could spit. I wish we could live in Dallas, or Austin. I'd love Austin, because they don't have crazy murderers down there.”

“That shows what you know. They had a guy shooting people from a tower down there last year.”

“Just once.” A dusty farm truck rattled down the oil road past the house. Pepper sighed. “But I guess we'll keep going to school, smelling cow shit, and watching old people grow older.”

I tried to think of something good. “City people don't have horses.”

She snorted. “When was the last time we rode horses? The only thing Grandpa has is that old plow horse, Jake.”

“Your daddy had one 'til last year.” Uncle James kept horses and cows on his place until a couple of months earlier. He sold them to make a little money, but I knew he'd buy some more soon and start all over.

Pepper started to answer, but a loud pop overhead caused us to look upward. The sound of a wooden door closing was enough to make us both stand. Her face went white. “Someone's in here with us.”

We listened. A sound like light footsteps crossed the room overhead. I looked at the staircase that Uncle Cody talked about when he was a kid. “Ghosts.”

“Ghosts don't walk.”

That's when we heard footsteps approach the staircase and start down.

It was too much.

We charged across the living room. Pepper shot the bolt on the front door and we raced out of the house.

Once safely outside, I looked over my shoulder, but there was no one on the stairs.