Playtime (21 page)

Todd has gone someplace, and he has the house to
himself. He pulls the guns back out and works them over again. He loves the
sheer functionality, the efficiency of them, the way they do just what they are
supposed to almost all the time. They are sleek and shiny and gleaming under
the oil and rag. He has done this so many times his hands know the way; he
doesn't even need to focus hard as he works. They are like most things and
people, he thinks. If you treat them right they do right.   

 But there are always the exceptions to the rule,
guns and people both. 

 Where does Sketch have her? 

 He thinks of the last few days, the strange turn
that his life had taken. He could have lived all of it without seeing this type
of madness. He had never pulled a gun on anyone before and now has pulled one
twice. Clocked some jail time. He thinks back to the bike wreck. If he hadn't
died, or almost died, that day on the street, he would never have gotten back
together with Renee. Just wouldn't have happened. He wasn't seeking her, and
she hadn't been chasing him. Just came over to do the right thing. Wasn't that
true? 

 He reloads the .22 and the .357 both and stares
down at them on the table. He isn't a gun nut, though he likes them well
enough. A realist is what he is. When two countries negotiate over something,
it is almost never because one of them has a lot of power and the other has
none. No. They each usually have armies and navies and air forces, and when
things don't work out at the table then they go to the fields, and men begin to
die. And because it concerns entire nations and not just the petty peccadillos
of individuals, we glorify it and say we are fighting for our country. Salute
the flag. Sing songs. He has the highest respect for the warriors who fight to
keep his country safe. They are willing to make the greatest sacrifice
imaginable. It is the wisdom of the guys that send them that makes him wonder
sometimes. 

 So we go to war. And to the victor go the spoils.
Blaine had always resisted that thought. For years, when he was a kid, the
mantra had run through his mind that might did not make right. And he was
convinced of that fact. But he had come to know also that right had to be
backed
up
by might. Kind words were not enough.   

 It all comes down to this. 

 The rules are great. They keep society moving
along a path that at least approximates, sometimes intersects with, the concept
of justice, in this day and age, though exceptions could always be found.   

 But the rules aren't always enough. 

 Nielson has a strong feeling about Sketch. Blaine
does too. If they are correct, Renee's life is hanging in the balance. But
Sketch is afforded the same protections the rest of us have. Innocent until proven
guilty. Protection from undue harassment from the law. Reasonable doubt and all
that. The system is slow and clunky, but the wheels do turn, and most of the
time, finally, it produces results. It protects us all to have that system in
place. Even the monsters like Sketch. 

 He loads up, .22 in an ankle holster, .357 in a
shoulder rig, slips a light windbreaker over it. 

 Goes out to the garage and fires the Shadow up,
listens to it run a minute, slaps the heavy bag a few times as he passes. When
the SWAT team and the rest of the cops had surrounded Sketch's place a few days
ago, they had seen his truck. 

 But, as far as he knows, none of them have seen
the Shadow. 

 He lets it warm for a few minutes, then hops on
and dons the helmet and leather gloves. Checks the weapons one last time to
make sure they are secure and then jets down the driveway, pauses at the
street, guns it and flies right past the place he died.   

 It's like most scary things you do in life, he
thinks. The first time is the hardest.   

 
Hang on, Renee. I'm coming. 

He had tuned the bike up, made all the necessary
repairs, and it sounds good. The fanatics were always talking Harley this and
that, but for Blaine's money the Honda is a better machine. Doesn't have that
deep roaring rumble, but the engine is great, and what is a rumble but noise?   

 He runs it up to the beach, eases into the usual
stop-and-go traffic, and turns east toward Sketch's end of town. He focuses on
the driving because on a bike you always need to. It doesn't matter how right
you are if you are lying on the street like he was the day the Corolla nailed
him. The best defense is a good offense.   

 The traffic is heavy near Sketch's place, too,
and he cuts into the side streets until he can make the turn onto the street
where the big man lives. Down the block a ways, like he hoped, is an unmarked
car with two guys in it, parked and talking casually as he passes. One of them
looks over at him and then continues his conversation with no sign of
recognition. Blaine has the dark visor on his helmet, and to them he is just a
guy on a motorcycle. 

 Which is exactly what he wants. 

 Now he knows that Sketch is home. 

 He runs the bike back out to the end of the
street and turns the corner. Comes up that street, and with another right he is
on the road directly behind Sketch's. Goes down it till he sees the big two-story
house on the built-up lot, jutting into the sky behind a smaller, gray one-story
on this street. No sign of cops here. So much for the vaunted surveillance, he
thinks. Unless he is missing something, Sketch could get out the back way
without the cops knowing. Though he would be taking a good-sized risk that a
neighbor might see him scaling that high wooden fence. Probably the only thing
keeping him in the house, if he was in it.   

 He parks the bike, bends down like he is
examining something on the engine. Looks around. Last chance, he thinks. Last
chance to be a good citizen, let the law handle things, the wheels of justice
turn. Last stop before the State Prison express begins to roll. He sees no sign
of life in the gray house in front of him. Or on the rest of the street for
that matter. Hears the drone of a mower, but it is far down the way. Still no
activity in front of him. 

 He walks swiftly to the gate on the fence and is
inside the yard in an instant more, at the side of the house, out of view of
the street. Crosses the back yard to the fence that butts up against Sketch's
house. Watches the gray house as he moves across the lawn. There are sliding
glass doors but they have drapes across them. Then he is at the fence behind
the pool house in Sketch's yard. He grabs the top and walks himself up the wall,
and with one heave he is over. 

 He drops to the pavement with a slight thump. He
is standing on the sidewalk that runs behind the pool house. Eases up to the
corner and peeks around it. It is quite a distance to the house, some 20 yards,
he thinks. He can see through the sliding glass into the big living area, and into
most of the windows. Studies them for a few minutes, gaze going back and forth,
but sees no sign of Sketch. Hope he didn't get out the way I got in, he thinks.
What kind of half-ass surveillance was this, anyway, for a suspected murderer?
Did they think they were going to scare this guy by putting a pair of cops in
front of the house? Probably just didn't have the budget to put more. Thought
that their show of force in front would be enough to scare Sketch into line
till they could get more solid evidence, call the cavalry in. He snorts softly.
They don't know Sketch like he does. 

He is contemplating his next move when he feels the
vibration of the phone in his pocket. He walks back to the far corner of the
pool house, takes it out and squats behind a trash can, flips it open. Marge.   

 "Yeah," he whispers. 

 "Found something else," she says.
"House way out on the west end." She gives him the address and he
focuses on it for a second so he will remember. "And a boat." 

 "A boat?" 

 "Right. It is probably kept at that address.
That is on the water, I believe." 

 "Thanks," he says. 

 "These were under a separate corporate
account, let's see, Playtime," she is saying, as he looks up at the fence in
the far corner and sees Sketch go flying up and over, not a glance in his
direction. Blaine flips the phone shut. He moves to the fence and peers through
the slats in the wood, sees him just vanishing around the corner of the gray
house. 

 Blaine is up and over again in a flash himself,
and when he gets to the corner of the house he hears an engine, then a sky-blue
sports car of some sort pulls out into the road, Sketch at the wheel. He
hustles to the bike, wondering if he should follow, or just head for that
address in the west end. Fires it up, but lets Sketch turn off the road before
he heads that way. Sketch has never seen the bike either. It was behind a car,
and he doubts Sketch noticed it during his run for the sports car, but still. 

 He'll follow him for at least a bit, he guesses,
as he guns the Shadow down the road, running the bike up through the gears. He's
not sure how obvious the bike will be as they get farther out near the house.
For now, as Sketch turns on to the road that runs to the ferry one way and the
beach the other, and heads for the beach, the traffic is heavy, with plenty of
places to be inconspicuous. But a bike isn't a car. Thousands of cars are on
the island but, comparatively speaking, only a few bikes. Just as he thinks
that, he comes up on one of those groups of bikers that travel together, must
be thirty or so, and he eases into the back of their pack as they head down the
seawall. Sketch is about 10 cars in front of him as they move down the jammed
beach. 

 He feels that strange lightness of being that
comes from the waiting coming to an end and action commencing, but keeps his
focus on the road. A wreck would be disaster now. Beside him a convertible
filled with teens has that heavy bass going, and two girls in bikinis are up on
the back seats, rocking back and forth in time to it. Damn Nielson and the
surveillance, he thinks as he drives. Were the cops just incompetent or was he
playing me some?   

 The speed limit is 40 on this part of the seawall
that shelters the island, but nobody is moving anywhere near that fast. The
road is full of tourists gawking at the girls in bikinis, dogs hanging out
windows, guys in sunglasses. Trucks loaded with coolers and beach balls.
Playtime, he thinks grimly as he steers the bike. Is that what Marge had said
as he was getting off the line? Playtime. The grim irony of it draws his mouth
into a straight line. Sketch has a macabre sense of humor. He wouldn't have
expected a sense of humor at all from the son of a bitch. 

 They are finally to the spot where the seawall
ends, and descend from their 17 foot altitude to sea level. The wall only
protects the east end of the island. The rest of the more than 20 miles
westward is unprotected, and those with any sense at all put their houses on pilings
and use the ground-level area for garages and laundry rooms and playrooms. Thirty
years ago there hadn't been that much out here, but the developers hadn't been
able to resist all this land sitting empty, and now million-dollar homes dot
the sides of FM3005. Three story homes with cupolas and elevators, and rec
rooms on the ground floor. They are not in Galveston proper any longer, but
moving through different small incorporated entities with names like Indian
Beach, Jamaica Beach.   

 The bikers are still obligingly in front of him,
and he nods at a girl riding bitch on the rearmost. So far he has no worries at
all about Sketch noticing him. He is hay in a haystack. But they have reached a
point where Blaine is debating strategy with himself. He can continue following
Sketch, allow him to reach the house or boat and get inside. Then come after
him. Or, he thinks the distance to the house is about 10 miles. There is a
little-known side road coming up in a mile or so that runs parallel to this one
for most of that distance, then comes out almost at the address Marge had given
him. No traffic on that road, and he could get far enough ahead of Sketch to be
waiting for him when he pulls up. Maybe. Have the element of surprise going for
him. 

 Of course, if by some off-chance he is headed
someplace else Blaine could lose him entirely. Blaine thinks the odds of that
are slim to none, but does he want to take more risk with Renee's life than he
absolutely has to? Still, he hates to let the big man pull up and get inside.
No telling what he's got in there. Might be hard to dig him out.   

 His best shot would be to come up close behind
him and take him on the way in. If Renee isn't out here she is probably dead.
The thought flits through his mind like a ghost haunting him, and he pushes it
away. The quiet side road slides by on his right. The decision is sealed.
Follow him, get close: take him on the way in. 

 The bikers decide to rumble off the road into a convenience
store coming up on the right, and suddenly Blaine is alone on the highway,
cover stripped away.   

 It doesn't matter now, he thinks. They are still three
or four miles out, and he is a good distance back from Sketch. The dangerous
part will be when he makes the turn off the main road onto the street where the
house is. Then, most likely it will be just him and Sketch, and he will be
suspicious and looking, though the bike itself means nothing to him. He
reconsiders, but shakes his head in the wind. If he lets Sketch get inside he
will never get him out. He has to take him as he pulls up. 

 He remembers that street, though he hasn't been
out here in some time. The entire neighborhood is million-dollar homes, not on
the beach side, but on the right. This developer had been too smart for the
beach side. You never could tell what the big storms would do to the beach.
Entire lines of vegetation disappeared sometimes. And the vegetation line was
where private property ended and state property began. People lost property to
the state whenever a big storm moved the line like that. Some of them were
unaware that possibility even existed. Bad enough you were completely
vulnerable to the big blows. 

 But this neighborhood is still on the water, over
by the bayside. The developer had dredged out the bayside a bit and put in a
community docking area, someplace they could keep midsize and bigger boats.
That would be where Sketch's boat is, Blaine is guessing, though he doesn't
know for sure. Marge hadn't given him any more information than it was a boat.
No idea what size it is, though from what he knows of Sketch so far, it will be
a big boat. 

 They are approaching the turn to Sketch's
neighborhood, and Blaine hangs back a bit. The timing is delicate here. He
wants to stay far enough back not to raise suspicions until the last minute,
but close enough to get him before he gets inside.   

 His breath has slowed and his focus narrowed to
the sky-blue vehicle in front of him, which he now sees is some model of Mercedes.
Sketch makes the turn and then Blaine does too. The huge, expensive beach homes
rise all around them. He doesn't think that Sketch has any idea it is him
behind, just checks the mirror in the normal fashion and proceeds at a cautious
pace toward the rear part of the street. Thank God for the tinted visor.