Last Call (21 page)

And right now even Jim’s breathing sounded loud to him, huge and raspy and betraying, and he sucked in a stealthy lungful and held it, in that moment certain the man really
was
listening, his stillness almost preternatural, as if he’d somehow melded with the scene, slipped into some sort of sensory oneness with his surroundings and simply
knew
that Jim was out here somewhere.

As if to drive that perception home, the man broke his stillness and moved into the bush, his gaze keen and unblinking. At one point he passed within a foot of Jim’s position and Jim realized he was still holding his breath, the urge to release it almost overmastering now.

Then the man angled away, doubling back toward the house, and Jim breathed and tried not to vomit.

* * *

Bobcat came back to the kid bleeding in the grass and bent to search him for ID or maybe a cell phone, anything to tell him if trouble was coming. But the kid had nothing on him, not even change in his pockets.

Fucker’s just a boy
, Bobcat thought, standing now, fascinated by the sheen of sunlight on the blood in the weeds. So what was he doing
here
, storming the house in broad daylight with his little bean shooter? Playing the hero?

Then it dawned and Bobcat said, “Boyfriend.” He must have grabbed the kid’s girl at some point and the little dipshit found out. But how? And how had he tracked him here?

Bobcat thought,
The trading post
. He’d just come from there. Could the kid have figured out what the carvings were made of and just hung around the place waiting for him to come back?
Fuck, no.
That was stupid. It didn’t make sense.

So how had the kid put it together? Had he witnessed one of the snatches? Hitchhiking with those two little toads maybe, hiding in the trees till they got somebody to stop? Or just in there taking a piss? But no, he would’ve had plenty of time to come back out and grab a ride with them, and the toads wouldn’t have left him behind.

What about that flag girl?

No. Wrong guy.

Rattled, Bobcat started back to the house, screaming at the Rotties to shut the fuck up, his mind whirling out of control now. He had to grab hold, think this thing through. Under the circumstances,
how
the kid had found him didn’t matter as much as the fact that he’d been found. And if one asshole showed up, others would follow. It was just a matter of time.

His location was compromised. He had to move.

He went inside and leaned the rifle by the door, thinking he’d take the camper and leave the pickup behind, shoot those damned dogs, burn this place to the ground and head back to Louisiana, set up shop down there. He might have to do some other kind of work for a while, until he found an outlet for the carvings—although the Internet scheme Hank had come up with was working out pretty well—maybe poach gators like his daddy taught him when he was a kid.

Whatever it was, he could make it work.

It felt good to have a plan, his mind calming itself now, moving on to list the things he’d want to take with him, the chores that needed doing before he left.

But it was coming on to sundown now and he was hungry and he was tired. He’d dispose of the kid at first light—and maybe dig up the old hermit he’d ‘borrowed’ the farm from and burn him along with the house, let the cops find his bones and call it a mattress fire—then pack up the camper and hit the road. Sunday tomorrow. Twenty-four hours driving time, eight hours a day would put him back home in St. Francisville by Tuesday night, Wednesday morning at the latest.

Jesus Christ, Louisiana in July, hot as a motherfucker.

Sammy came into the kitchen now, toenails clicking on the linoleum, and Bobcat bent to scratch the little guy’s neck, laughing as he always did when the mutt’s tail sped up to double time, Bobcat saying, “What do you want for supper, little buddy? You want hot dogs? Boar’s Head franks?” The terrier barked it’s approval and Bobcat stood, saying, “Franks it is, then.” He opened the fridge and brought out the weiners, earning another cheerful bark from the dog.

Getting a saucepan out of the cupboard, Bobcat said, “You’re gonna like it down south, Sambo. You’re gonna like it a lot.”

* * *

Jim broke cover to watch the shooter return to the house. He waited until he heard the clap of the screen door, then crept back to the tree line, picturing his forehead in the crosshairs of that rifle scope now.

After mounting the steps, the man had seemed to vanish into the shadow of the porch, and Jim wondered if the slam of that door had merely been a ruse intended to draw him out. The man had shot Dean from that same pocket of shadow—Jim had seen the muzzle flash out of the corner of his eye as Dean fell—and at this very moment the killer might be getting ready to do the same thing to him. It was simple logic. If there
were
anyone else hiding out here, it would only be natural for that person to want to check on his fallen companion as quickly as possible. A shrewd hunter would do whatever it took to create a false sense of security in his intended victim—like slamming that screen door—and then
bam
. Lights out.

Still, the temptation to check on Dean was huge...but he decided to sit tight, at least for the time being.

Furious, frustrated, he sat with his back against a tree and stretched out his legs. His vantage here was perfect, affording him clear sightlines to both Dean’s position and the farmhouse. And if Dean moved or if Jim even
thought
Dean moved, he’d belly-crawl the fifty yards out to him and let the chips fall where they may.

Jim didn’t wear a watch, but the sun was low in the west now and the shadows were growing longer. In an hour, maybe two, it’d be dark enough to—

To what?

Check on Dean, of course.

Coward.

Okay, yes, he was afraid. Terrified. Who wouldn’t be? Waiting for that bullet to come.

But his every instinct told him Dean was dead. And if he ran out there now and got himself shot, what purpose would it serve? He couldn’t avenge Dean and Trish if he was dead, too.

He got out his cell phone and flipped it open, common sense telling him that what he
should
be doing right now was calling the cops. But a deeper, colder part of him couldn’t abide that idea. Besides, there was no signal on his cell, no surprise out here in the back country.

He tucked the phone away and picked up the rebar, liking its heft, his original plan—to wait until the killer fell asleep, then go in there and shoot him in the skull with the .22—played out in his imagination, but with the rebar now instead of the gun. Go in there and drive a spike into that sick mind, eliminate even the remotest possibility that some canny defense lawyer might eventually squeeze the guy out through some unforeseeable loophole.

No, this piece of shit was going to pay for what he’d done. And Jim was going to collect the debt.

But the rebar wasn’t going to do it.

He shifted his gaze to the outbuildings, thinking there was bound to be a nice heavy axe waiting in one of them. Or a pitch fork. Something with a little more reach than this stubby hunk of metal. He just had to wait for nightfall.

With a last look at the grass where Dean lay dead or dying, Jim got to his feet and faded back into the bush, angling through the trees toward the outbuildings now.

* * *

Bobcat ate a few hotdogs, then sat on the back porch to smoke a Cigarillo and watch the sun go down. But the franks weren’t agreeing with him, sitting in his stomach like a sauna stone now, and he didn’t like the way the Rotties were looking at him, all of them pacing the fence, glaring at him like they knew what was coming. And maybe they did.

His old friend the bobcat made one of its rare appearances as the hills took the sun and the horizon began to bleed, the cat trotting through the yard bold as you please with a rabbit in its jaws, sparing Bobcat a brief yellow glance as it hustled off with its prize. He’d miss that beauty.

The bugs found him when the full moon rose, and Bobcat pitched his cigar butt over the railing and went inside to chug some Pepto-Bismol.

* * *

In the thin creep of light from the farmhouse windows, Jim watched the killer flick his smoke into the night, the ember arcing out through space to land in the dooryard, spewing sparks as it bounced off the hard pack. Then he watched him go back inside, moving like a man who’d done a hard day’s work and wanted only to rest.

Jim was still crouched at the tree line with the rebar in his hand, but closer to the outbuildings now, the barn only about twenty yards from his position. He’d seen the bobcat earlier, scooting into the barn with its dinner, and wondered if the animal had a litter hidden in there somewhere. The sleek cat had ducked under the camper before Jim lost sight of it, and every once in a while he thought he could hear the faint mewling of kittens, the sound eerily human, like the plaintive cries of a newborn.

The mosquitos were swarming him now, and he decided it was time to move. A lone drift of cumulus had shrouded the moon, dimming its silvery light, and he knew there wasn’t going to be a better time.

Jim rose to his full height, the muscles of his thighs punishing him for the bad posture, and started down the shallow incline to the barn, his movements quick and silent. His foot came down in standing water in a wheel rut, then he was in the shadow of the building as the moon shed its cover, burnishing the night again.

He slipped in through the open archway, losing sight of the house now, and in the moonlight saw an old Chevy pickup parked to the right of the camper. It made him wonder if the guy was sharing the house with someone; but once his eyes adjusted, he could just make out a set of heavy-duty snow tires on the Chevy and assumed the killer stored the camper for the winter and used the pickup instead.

Jim got moving again, squeezing along the narrow corridor between the barn wall and the driver’s side of the camper, feeling in the dark for an axe or a spade, anything he could use as a weapon. But there was nothing.

On the far side of the camper he caught his toe on a hard edge and stumbled, losing his grip on the rebar as he flailed for balance. The rebar struck the barn floor with a hellish clatter, metal against metal, the sound carrying in the rural quiet, and Jim cursed under his breath, certain the blunder was going to cost him his life.

He froze, snatched a breath and listened—

And thought he heard a voice—
“Please
...”—the sound distant and weak, seeming to emanate from beneath his feet.

Jim took out his cell phone and flipped it open, directing the dim light of the screen at his shoes. He was standing on the edge of a large metal plate of the sort city workers used to cover excavations in the street, this one extending out of sight beneath the camper. Sinking to a crouch, he aimed the light under the vehicle and saw that a series of one-inch holes had been drilled through the plate, and he thought,
Air holes
.

He lay on his belly and shimmied partway under the camper, shining the light through one of the holes, whispering, “Is somebody down there?”

And Trish said, “Dad?”

Jim felt tears scorch his eyes. “Trish? Oh my God, Trish, is that you?”

“Yes, yes, Daddy, it’s me...I knew you’d come.”

He could hear her moving down there, her feet shifting in water, but he couldn’t see her, the light too dim.

He said, “Hang on, sweetheart, I’m going to get you out of there,” and Trish said, “Dad, he’s crazy,” and Jim said, “I know.” He said, “Sit tight, baby, I’m going to have to move this plate.”

He wiggled out from under the vehicle and had a terrible moment when it occurred to him that one or more of the camper’s wheels might be resting on the metal plate. But a quick inspection dispelled his worry and he thought,
Thank God
.

In the light of the cell phone he noticed an aluminum extension ladder propped against the wall, a hefty wood-splitting maul leaning next to it, and now he bent to his task, slipping his fingers under the edge of the plate and heaving with all of his strength. But the plate didn’t budge, not even a fraction, and he cursed and tried to think.

There was a vertical support beam next to the camper and Jim sat with his back to it, wedging his heels against the edge of the plate and pushing with everything he had.

The plate shifted, moving about a foot and a half to reveal a narrow crescent of darkness, just enough room for Jim to stick his head in and shine the light down on his daughter. And what he saw filled him with rage, almost turning his stomach.

Trish was down there, wobbling on her feet, looking up at him with lidded eyes, every inch of her wasted frame caked in mud, her bare feet submerged in filthy water. She was naked and shivering and her cheeks were caved in, and even though he could see that she was too far down for him to reach, he extended his hand to her, reaching into the pit as far as he could; and when she raised her own hand Jim could see that she barely had the strength left to do it. But she did.

There was still five feet of space between their questing fingertips.

Jim said, “There’s a ladder,” and pulled away, saying, “I’ll be right back,” his heart breaking when he heard Trish say, “Please hurry, before he comes back.”

He got the ladder and slid it in through the gap, telling Trish to be careful it didn’t hit her on the head. When it was firmly planted in the pit, Jim shone the light down there and said, “Okay, Trish, come on up. Come on up, honey, and we’ll get the hell out of here.” She nodded and leaned in to grasp the ladder rails, pulling her right foot out of the muck to rest on the bottom rung, her thin arms trembling as she tried to pull herself up. Jim said, “Come on, sweetheart. Dean’s car is parked right down the road. Climb up out of there now and we’re gone. We’ll bring the cops down on this animal and they’ll put him away for a dozen lifetimes.”

But when she tried to get her left foot up, her right one skidded on the rung and she toppled into the water, the last of her strength spent.