Winter and Night (40 page)

"What?" I said.

"Premador! I'm in a chat room with him! What do you want me to say?"

"You're talking to him now?"

"Bingo, dude! Eric+Dylan.com! What should I say?"

An electric jolt swept the dream images away. I swung my legs off the bed; my head pounded from last night's bourbon. "Eric and Dylan? Those were—"

"Columbine, dude! It's one of his sites I've been scanning. Come on, help me out here!"

"Shit," I said. "Okay, Linus. What's he saying?"

"He can't sleep. He's too excited."

"Ask him why."

"Some other dude already did. It's too close, he says."

"What is?"

"Like yesterday: He won't say."

"Okay." I rubbed my eyes, tried to think. "Okay, say this to him: Tell him you've been looking for him online. Tell him you admire him, you think he's cool, great, whatever."

"Yeah. Okay." I heard the click of a keyboard.

"Did he answer?"

A pause. I stood, headed into the living room. Linus said, "He says, wait. It'll get even better."

"Tell him you don't want to wait. Tell him you want to be part of it."

"What?"

"Tell him!"

"Okay."

I pulled on the cigarette.

"No answer yet," Linus said. "Other guys are posting, too."

"Tell him you're in— in Philadelphia. Tell him you want to be part of it, ask if he's somewhere you could get to in time. Tell him— Linus, tell him you have an AK-47."

"A what?"

"AK-47. Modified, semiautomatic, but still fast as hell. Powerful. And you have the clips for it, a lot of them. Tell him that."

"Shit, dude." More keyboard clicks. I listened while I reached for the desk phone, dialed Sullivan's number.

"Sullivan," I heard in my right ear, the alert voice of someone who'd been awake for hours. He'd probably already run five miles before the sun was up.

"Premador's online right now," I said.

"What?" said Linus.

"Both of you," I said, "I'm on two phones. Linus, keep doing what you're doing, let me know if he answers. Sullivan, he's on a Web site called Eric and Dylan dot com—"

"With one of those plus things, not the word and," Linus interrupted, catching on. "No spaces."

"Thanks. All run together, with a plus sign, Sullivan. He's in a chat room. Linus, do I have that right?"

"Totally."

"Live, right now," I said to Sullivan.

"I'll call Newark," Sullivan said.

"I'm hanging up. Not you, Linus. Sullivan, I'll call." I put that phone back, said to Linus, "What did he say? About the gun?"

"It's coming now. He says… he says thanks, but he's got all the weapons he needs."

"Make a case, Linus. Tell him you want to be there with him, with Premador, when it goes down. You want your name to be linked with his. You want to be someone, like him."

"Yeah. He says, no, that's cool, but no. He says this is something he has to do alone."

"Alone? Linus, I think there's someone with him. I don't think he's alone."

"Yeah… yeah, no, he is. I asked him, can't I be one of the other guys with him. He says no, this is just him, just Premador, on his mission."

"I—"

"But he says we should all check it out. He says it'll be different. Bigger, and better."

"Tell him—"

"Shit. He's signing off. Oh, shit, dude!"

"What?"

"He signed off. But the last thing he said, he said, good luck to all of us, keep the flame burning, make Eric and Dylan proud, make him proud. He said, when we see it, we'll know it's him. And dude, he says it's today."

* * *

Though it was early morning, the sky was a low leaden gray, the light dull and featureless. Because it was Saturday, the traffic heading east out of the city was about the same thin, smoothly flowing stream as the lanes heading in, but still I pounded the horn, slammed the brake when I had to, swerved around cars whose drivers had no sense of urgency, didn't seem to care. Beside me, Lydia held her tea out in front of her so it wouldn't slop over. "The police are probably already there," she said, but I knew that, and I didn't slow down.

As soon as I'd hung up with Linus I'd called Sullivan's number again. I'd gotten voice mail, which probably meant Sullivan was on the phone with the computer expert in Newark. I'd left a message, then called Lydia, got her voice mail, too. I'd just hung up from my message to her when Sullivan called back.

"He was gone by the time she got on," he said.

"We were wrong, Sullivan," I said. "It's not the school. It's Hamlin's."

"What?"

"Today. He says it's today. Different, he says, bigger and better. The Warrenstown game at Hamlin's, Sullivan, next year's team against the seniors. It's got to be."

"Jesus Christ."

"Call it off."

Silence. Then, "I'll call my chief."

I took a fast, cold shower to quiet the pounding in my head. I was dressed, reaching for my shoes when Sullivan called back. "The game's still on."

"Are you crazy?"

"The chief talked to the mayor. The idea that it's the game is completely conjecture."

"You want to wait for proof?"

"Even if it is the game, if we call it off, they'll know we're on to them. They'll disappear again, turn up somewhere else, somewhere no one's prepared. The chief wants to flush them out."

"Not them. Premador says he's alone. He made a point of telling Linus that."

"He also made a point of telling his mother he was going camping."

"This is insane, Sullivan. You can't let them play the game."

"That game," Sullivan said, "is the second-biggest thing that happens to this town, after the play-offs."

"Shit," I said. "This isn't about flushing him out, is it? Letourneau can't call this game off. Not even with a threat like this."

"Vague postings on the Net, Smith. He never said there, he never said Warrenstown. He didn't mention a game, Hamlin's, anything. It might not even be Paul."

"He said today."

"The mayor said, play the game. The Booster Club said, play the game. Al Macpherson said, play the game."

"You tell them who Hamlin is?"

A pause. "I told them. They wanted to know where I got that."

"And when you told them that, they said it was all bullshit. They'll have to deal with it sooner or later, Sullivan."

"But not before this game."

"Shit," I said. "What about Plaindale? It's their territory. They could close it down."

"Hamlin's generates a lot of jobs, pays a lot of taxes. We called Plaindale. They have a dog; they'll sweep for a bomb."

"Premador could see that."

"He won't risk being there this early, there's no place to hide."

"If the place is clean?"

"If the place is clean, the bus'll come, the parents, like normal. You've been there, Smith. It's a hard place to sneak up on, especially the football field. Plaindale can secure it, stay out of sight, and then we wait."

"When the bus arrives—"

"Plaindale can secure that," he said again. "And it won't be then. If it's today, because of the game, he won't be going for the team off the bus. He wants the headlines, Smith. No one's shot up a football game yet."

Sullivan had moved from them to he. That was to appease me, I knew, but it didn't work. "It's too risky," I said.

"The boys won't take the field unless it's safe."

"How will you know?"

"Either we'll have him, or he won't get close. He'll have to come around the back to get to the stadium, through those trees, it's the only way. Plaindale will be there, we'll be there."

"Warrenstown cops? You don't think that'll scare him off?"

"It's a big game. A couple of cars always escort the bus."

"Police cars? All the way the hell from Warrenstown to Plaindale?"

"This is Warrenstown," he said.

"What about you, Sullivan? What do you think?"

I heard him lighting a cigarette. "I'm a cop, Smith, and I was a marine. If this is the operation, I'll carry it out."

Different, Premador's post had said. Bigger and better. I had no arguments left for Sullivan and who the hell cared if I did? I didn't like it, but I wasn't a cop. I wasn't anybody, just the uncle of a fifteen-year-old boy who'd left home to go do something important. A boy tied somehow to another kid who'd been pushed over the edge. And now this other kid was ready for slaughter, and he said he was alone.

Lydia had called back just as I'd left the house. "Sorry," she said. "I was at the dojo, at the early class. What's up?"

I told her and I picked her up on the corner, grateful for the coffee she'd bought while she waited.

* * *

"They might not let us near the place when we get there," Lydia said now, sipping her tea as I moved up to seventy-five to pass an SUV.

"You think we should forget about it, go home?"

She looked at me sharply. "I think you should figure out exactly why we're going and what you're going to do when we get there and the police tell you to back off, besides punch somebody."

"Where's Gary?"

"Is that the question?"

"Goddamn right it is. Premador says he's alone."

She sipped again. "Listen to us. We're all afraid of him and we call him Premador. In real life he got stuffed in lockers and called a geek."

"This is real life, too."

She reached into the paper bag on her lap, pulled out two buttered rolls, handed one to me. I looked at her in surprise.

"You'll be even crabbier," she said, "if you don't eat."

I took the roll.

"If Gary's not with him," she said, "then maybe wherever he is, whatever he's doing, it has nothing to do with this."

"Unless," I said, "this is Gary."

"What?"

"Premador. It's just a screen name. What if Paul Niebuhr's camping at Bear Mountain, and Gary's planning to shoot up Hamlin's?"

She stared at me. "Why?"

"Who knows? None of these kids are sane, who do this."

"But they all have reasons. Gary has no reason."

"Tory Wesley?"

Lydia frowned, the way she does when she's thinking. "No," she finally said. "No, I don't buy it."

"Any reason?"

"I… nothing you've said about Gary, or that we've heard anywhere else… no, no reason. Just instinct. But I'm sure."

Until we reached Plaindale, we didn't speak again.

* * *

It was half past nine when I turned onto the long drive into Hamlin's. The sky was a flat heavy gray above the playing fields. Sprinkles of rain had started and stopped twice on the drive out. Right now the rain wasn't falling and the winds were still, but above us the clouds were moving and this storm wouldn't hold off forever.

A Plaindale cop stood a few feet down from the road, by the big sign: BUILDING MEN BY BUILDING CHARACTER THROUGH COMPETITIVE SPORTS. When he waved me to stop I punched the button to roll down the window; before I could say anything Lydia leaned across me and smiled. With a hand on my arm to keep me quiet she told the cop we were here for the Warrenstown game. He nodded and directed me to a parking spot, as though this were his regular job, organizing the parking for Hamlin's Saturday games. I thanked him, gave Lydia a nod of thanks, too, and pulled the car over where he'd waved me.

As Lydia and I got out of the car I looked around. I spotted sharpshooters on the roofs of Hamlin's buildings, as they had been on the roofs of the diner, the garage, the warehouse across the street. We walked down the drive to the smaller lot in front of the barracks entrance. A Plaindale police car sat in that lot. Next to it stood a broad-shouldered cop with gold bars on his uniform jacket. He was carrying maybe fifteen pounds more than he needed and he smiled at us pleasantly. "You folks are early."

"Wanted to be sure to get parking. Place fills up for the big game."

"Uh-huh. You're Smith. Jim Sullivan said you'd show."

I shrugged. "Trouble with this modern world, no one has secrets anymore."

"I'm Chief McFall. Sullivan's on his way. He said if I told you to get lost I'd be wasting my time, said as long as you behaved I didn't need to arrest you. On that assault complaint from the other day."

"Macpherson," I said. "I forgot about that."

"Sure you did. I don't have time to bother with it right now, but that could change."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Just do me a favor? Stay where I can see you until he gets here."

It was another half hour before Sullivan arrived, in an unmarked Caprice with Jersey plates. In that time the sky darkened and rain flew briefly as though in practice. It stopped again, an athlete satisfied with timing and agility, saving strength for later, when it would be needed. Lydia and I waited with the Plaindale chief, standing off a ways while he talked to other cops by two-way and sometimes in person, someone coming up to coordinate something, walking off again. Plaindale had brought in a handheld metal detector, was methodically sweeping the kids, their gear, Hamlin's staff, the furniture and equipment. The dogs— Plaindale had two— had come and gone by the time Sullivan got there. They'd covered the buildings, the playing fields, the bleachers in the baseball and football stadiums, and come up with nothing.

"You must have flown under the radar to get here this fast," I greeted Sullivan as he stepped from his car.

"I am the radar. This your partner you told me about?"

"Lydia Chin. Lydia, Jim Sullivan."

"You have your work cut out for you," Sullivan said to her, nodding toward me.

"But I get to meet such interesting people," she said, and Sullivan gave her a small smile as they shook hands.

Sullivan turned to the Plaindale chief. "Joe. Everything under control?"

"Everything. You in command for Warrenstown?"

"My chief's coming, with the bus. It's me until he gets here. But we're observers. It's your show." Sullivan, I noticed, was not wearing his gun. I was, under my jacket, but if he noticed that, he didn't show it. "How's Hamlin taking this?"

"Told me we could knock ourselves out, just keep out of his fucking way. Excuse me, ma'am," he added, to Lydia. "Guy seems to be getting some weird kick out of this. It was me, I'd be having a cow. He's walking around with a shit-eating grin. Excuse me, ma'am," he said again.