Backtracker (83 page)

After a series of deep, shuddering breaths, the Miraclemaker opened his eyes and raised his head. He looked at the lamp but no longer felt the urge to smash it. For the moment, at least,
he'd
reasserted control over himself.

Stiffly, he marched into the kitchen and returned to his seat. Expressionless, he settled onto the chair and resumed a rigid posture, folding his hands on the table before him.

Inevitably, his eyes drifted back up to the clock.

The big milk bottle was on the number seven: it was twenty
-
five minutes before five o
'
clock.

The lemon
-
yellow cow was still grinning.

*****

The phone book; that was the only thing on Dave
'
s mind as he popped out of the Mustang.
He had
to get to the phone book, had to find Mike Moses, Michael Moses, M. Moses,
any
Moses...had to find any Moses that he could and
he'd
to do it
now
because time was running out and it was all up to
him
.

His feet hit the gravel driveway and he was off without a word or a backward glance; finally,
finally
he'd
reached Billy
'
s trailer, and he
finally
had a plan and there was a phone book inside. So intent was he on rushing ahead, Dave abandoned common courtesy,
didn
'
t
linger at the Mustang to thank the driver,
didn
'
t
even hurriedly shout his gratitude to the one who had delivered him from Route 26.

Billy, at least, stayed behind to politely express his appreciation. The guy at the wheel was a teenager, a kid with long, black hair and a heavy
-
metal T
-
shirt;
he'd
blasted ear
-
splitting music from all speakers in the Mustang the whole way from 26 to Barton...but
he'd
certainly been friendly enough, had been kind enough to pick up the hitchhikers and drive out of his way to tote them to the trailer.
He'd
performed an invaluable service and deserved at least a gracious
send
-
off.

Uncharacteristically, Dave
didn
'
t
even consider that he ought to thank the guy. Obsessed, possessed, he sprinted down the driveway, over the short walk, up the three cement
-
block steps to the front stoop. Flinging open the front door
--
which was unlocked, as always
--
he burst into the trailer and bolted to the right, to the kitchen.

The top drawer under the counter between the sink and the stove: that was where Billy kept the phone book. Wild
-
eyed, Dave leaped directly to that drawer, wrenched it open so violently that its contents clattered to the front of it.

The familiar yellow cover was right on top of the mess in the drawer, the jumble of cutlery, tools, odds and ends. Dave grabbed the beaten directory, clapped it onto the counter, began flipping through the white pages. Hastily, he peeled through the thin sheets, chucking aside the unimportant mass of the alphabet. His only interest was in the
"
M
'
s,
"
the
"
M
'
s
"
as in
"
Moses,
"
as in
"
Mike Moses,
"
as in
"
Mike Hoffman + Frank Moses = Mike Moses
"
and that was whom Larry would kill next.

"
MAY
"
...
"
MEL
"
...
"
MIC
"
...
"
MIS
"
; pages poured away, index letters zipped past. At last, the directory yielded the special page, three columns of fine print with the heading
"
MOR
-
MOW.
"
Heart slamming against his ribs, Dave quickly skimmed the tidy arrangement, slid his eyes over the inconsequential majority, and then...and then...

And then, there they were: the Moses. There were several of them, several entries; Dave planted an index finger underneath the first one.

Immediately, he felt a stab of disappointment;
"
Moses Beverly G.
"
wasn
'
t
what
he'd
hoped to see.

Shifting his fingertip down, Dave was again disappointed. The second name in the set was
"
Moses Herbert E.
"

For a split
-
second, Dave hesitated, felt reluctant to proceed. His finger obscured the other entries; he feared that the one which he sought
wasn
'
t
among t
hem, that the directory was a
dead
-
end and he would be stymied and he
didn
'
t
know
what
he would do then.

Drawing in a deep breath, he moved his finger, revealing the third entry:
"
Moses Linda T.
"

Again, he hesitated.
He'd
reached
"
Linda,
"
had come to the
"
L
'
s,
"
didn
'
t
have far to go before he would finally see or not see a
"
Mike
"
or
"
Michael.
"
He felt an impulse to just slap the book shut and toss it aside, be done with suspense and tension for once and for all.

As though it had a will of its own, his fingertip drifted.

Dave gazed at the page.

"
Moses Michael B.
"
The next entry read
"
Moses Michael B.
"

Dave sighed. All
wasn
'
t
lost; there
was
a Mike Moses.

The entry read
"
Moses Michael B. 1050 Central Av.
"

Central Avenue; that would be in Morton Borough, between the suburb of Highland and downtown Confluence. From Billy
'
s trailer, from Barton Township, it would take about twenty minutes to get to Central Avenue.

Dave grunted, wishing that the location were closer. Larry already had such a tremendous head start, every delay increased the chance that he would finish his work and escape before Dave could get to him. Of course, there was also a good chance that Dave was on the wrong track to begin with, that the
"
Mike Moses
"
theory
wouldn
'
t
even lead to a place where Larry had
been
.
In the end, Dave could very well come up empty; still, he could think of nothing else to try, no better idea.

Dave supposed that he should be grateful that Michael B. Moses
wasn
'
t
further away. With a sigh, he lifted his finger from the directory page and plucked the book from the counter. His next step would be a preliminary call, a check over the phone to see if anyone was home at 1050 Central Avenue; such a call would prove useless if Larry was already at the site...but if someone did respond on the other end of the line, Dave might be able to better determine if his theory was correct, might even issue a warning to whomever he contacted.

Turning from the counter, Dave started for the living room, the phone beside the sofa. He glanced down at the directory in his hands as an afterthought, as if to reassure himself that the crucial entry was indeed real.

Then, he stopped. Frowning at the book, he lifted it higher and tipped his face closer to it.

He'd
missed something. In his first examination of the all
-
important page,
he'd
been so relieved and excited by his discovery of
"
Moses Michael B.
"
that
he'd
ended his scan prematurely.

There was another one, another candidate. Beneath the listing for
"
Moses Michael B.,
"
there was an entry for
"
Moses Michael W.
"

"
Moses Michael W.
"
; Dave now had a second
"
Mike Moses
"
to investigate. There were no more, just the two...but the two were enough, more than enough to lend hope to the hunt.

According to the entry,
"
Moses Michael W.
"
lived at 41 Park Road, Kline. Dave shook his head as he read the address; it would take a good deal longer to reach that location than to get to 1050 Central Avenue.

Whereas Central Avenue was in a borough adjacent to Confluence, Kline was a small town some distance from the city. On the other side of a pass through the mountains, Kline was about twenty minutes to a half
-
hour from downtown Confluence; it was even further from Billy Bristol
'
s home in Barton. Dave estimated that it would take about forty
-
five minutes to reach Kline, perhaps as much as an hour if the traffic was bad.

Not only was there straight travel time to consider, but the time that it might take to find 41 Park Road, as well. Dave
wasn
'
t
very familiar with the layout of Kline, certainly had no idea where 41 Park Road might be; he could waste an awful lot of time driving around in a search for the site.

He hoped that he could quickly dismiss 41 Park Road; if it turned out to be the location to which Larry had most likely gone, Dave
'
s chances of finding the killer
--
already next to nothing
--
would be further diminished. If Larry
hadn
'
t
already
vacated the area
--
and it seemed hard to believe that he
hadn
'
t
, given that nearly two hours had passed since
he'd
left Wolf
'
s Rock
--
then he would
surely
be gone by the time that Dave drove the forty
-
five minutes or an hour to Kline.

Wagging his head, Dave entered the living room and dropped onto the sofa. Spreading the directory wide in his lap, he reached to his left and plucked Billy
'
s phone from the end table.

As he tugged the receiver from its cradle, Dave heard the Mustang roar outside, then crackle over the gravel drive away from the trailer. Starting at the noise, he swung his gaze up to the door and waited for Billy to enter.

Billy
didn
'
t
immediately appear; Dave felt a sudden twinge of fear, had a vision of his friend deserting him, driving off with the teenager to go to the cops. Dave wondered why it
hadn
'
t
occurred to him to watch over his reluctant partner; it made sense that Billy might try to flee with the kid, might do just about anything to avoid Dave
'
s dangerous plan and seek out the police.

A long moment passed. Dave leaned forward, preparing to rise from the sofa and look outside.

Then, he heard footsteps on the gravel, and he slumped back.

"
So,
"
Billy said gruffly as he strolled into the trailer.
"
You find the son of a bitch yet?
"

Dave shook his head.
"
I
'
m just getting ready to make some calls,
"
he said, pointing at the directory.
"
There
'
re two
'
Michael Moses
'
listed...
'
Michael B.
'
on Central Avenue and
'
Michael W.
'
in Kline someplace.
"

"
Huh,
"
grunted Billy.
"
So what good is calling
'
em gonna
'
do? Why don
'
t we just get on the road?
"

"
Hopefully, I
'
ll be able to narrow it down,
"
explained Dave.
"
I mean, they
'
re pretty far apart, so we
'
d be wasting a lot of time if we went to the wrong one first.
"

"
Well, how
'
re you gonna
'
tell which one
'
s the right one
?
"
Billy asked cynically.
"
You think one of
'
em
'
s just going to say
'
Yeah, the psycho killer
'
s here, come on over
'
?
"