She flipped down the visor mirror and frowned. “Liar. My hair looks like a rat’s nest, and my face looks like someone used it for karate practice.”

  Kurt accelerated through the light when the green arrow finally appeared. But it was true, she did look better. She had her color back, and though the frightfully large bandage was still on her forehead, the bruises and overall swelling in her face had receded dramatically. Kurt had the privilege of being the very first to sign her cast. She could look forward to taking showers with a plastic garbage bag over her forearm for the next six to eight weeks.

  “But at least I feel better,” she went on. “And thank God that son of a bitch didn’t break any of my teeth.”

  Kurt would not comment on Lenny Stokes, even if she did. Earlier, he’d told her how he came to be suspended. Busting Stokes in the jaw made the knight in him expect her to be delighted, but she’d reacted with disappointment, and a touch of anger, instead. He realized now that in punching Stokes he’d resorted to the least mature, least responsible motives available, and Vicky’s disappointment made him feel like he belonged on a playground rather than a police department.

  He wheeled into Uncle Roy’s cracked driveway, parked, and rushed Vicky into the house to keep the drizzle off her. Inside, she said, “I don’t care how much you like this town—that’s one thing you can’t deny.”

  “What?”

  “Maryland weather sucks.”

  “Nonsense,” Kurt replied, hanging up her coat. He would not admit that Maryland weather did indeed suck, and that right now it was sucking voraciously. “Spring’s just off to a lazy start. Another week or two and it will be warm and sunny— you’ll see.”

  “Now I get it. You must be drunk.”

  They went into the family room, where Melissa lay on the floor in front of the TV, her usual position of worship. She gave a careless “hello” to Vicky without parting her attention from the screen on which a young couple was arguing heatedly in bed. The woman’s nipples could be seen very plainly through the bedsheet.

  “What is this?” he remarked, faintly nettled. “Since when do they show sex movies on TV?”

  “It’s not sex movies,” Melissa said. “It’s Search for Tomorrow. Isn’t Mark Goddard a dream?”

  Kurt shook his head. She should be doing homework or something. “Well?” he said to Vicky.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Then it’s settled. You’ll stay with us till you figure out what you’re going to do.”

  “All right,” she agreed. “But only if you’re sure I won’t be in the way.”

  Kurt flouted. “How can you be in the way? Melissa doesn’t mind sleeping in the laundry hamper.”

  Melissa’s head snapped around.

  “Only kidding,” he assured her, though it was a nice thought. “Just wanted to see if you were still with us; you can go back to the wasteland now.” To Vicky, he said, “I’ll drum something up before tonight—”

  But before he could finish, Melissa interrupted, “I forgot to tell you. Fat man called a little while ago.”

  “Who?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “You mean Chief Bard.”

  “Yeah, Chief Lard. He said Higgins will be by to pick you up.”

  “Pick me up for what?” The now-common annoyance prickled him. Melissa’s messages were always like this—incomplete.

  “How should I know?” she said, face still glued to the TV screen. “I don’t work for the police department.” She stopped to giggle. “But then neither do you, for that matter.”

  “Funny,” he said. He could strangle her. It was one subject he didn’t want mentioned in front of Vicky. He heard tires pull up outside and spied the town cruiser through the window.

  “Your ride’s here,” Vicky said. “How’s that for perfect timing?”

  “I shouldn’t be too long.”

  Vicky smiled. “I can watch Mark Goddard with Melissa. We’ll fix you something good for dinner.”

  “Yeah, Mexican TV dinners,” Melissa said.

  “Remind me to strangle you later.” He half-trotted out of the house and got into the passenger side. Despite the extra load of hours he’d been forced into, Higgins appeared fresh and in good humor, which made Kurt feel even more negligent.

  “You know, Mark, I’m really sorry about all these long shifts you have to work because of me. When my suspension ends, I’ll make it up to you.”

  Higgins pulled back onto 154, checking the rearview as a formality. “Not necessary,” he said. “Been short on money this week anyway. The extra time and a half I’m getting for your hours is a godsend, if you want to know the truth.”

  Kurt hoped he wasn’t just saying that to be a nice guy. “Where are we going, by the way?”

  “Didn’t the chief call you?”

  “Yeah, but I only got part of it.”

  Higgins waited for some radio crackle to pass. “South County hasn’t been able to make positive ID on that body Glen found.”

  “Body is a pretty lenient term,” Kurt said, fingering his top pocket for a cigarette.

  “So I heard, but it could’ve been worse. It could’ve been a bloater or a spatula special. Anyway, Bard wanted to call this Harley Fitzwater to find out the name of his dentist and the hospital his daughter went to when she broke her back, but there was no phone number listed on your 85 report.”

  “That’s because Fitzwater doesn’t have a phone. He uses the pay phone at the liquor store. But then I thought I’d made that clear.”

  Higgins cracked a smile. “Well, you know how the chief gets when things turn hairy. In one ear and out the other. He wants us to get the info from Fitzwater himself.”

  “Fitzwater’s a hermit,” Kurt warned. “He lives like a Cajun. I wouldn’t be surprised if he never took his daughter to a dentist. Let’s not get our hopes up about a quick ID from dental records.”

  “Sure, but he must’ve taken her to a hospital when she busted her spine. South County needs those X rays to match with the ones they made last night.” Higgins slowed through one of the road’s more unmanageable bends. “Bard said you know where this place is.”

  “Just a little bit past the marsh.” Kurt strained his eyes looking for Fitzwater’s ravaged mailbox. “Here,” he said, and pointed. “Turn here.”

  Higgins cut left. They crept down the ruined road, clunking over holes and branches. Fitzwater’s ramshackle trailer faced them sullenly, squalid in the pillared shadows of the woods.

  Kurt lit a cigarette and let it hang from his lips, speechless. The trailer looked demolished; one side of it had come off the cinderblocks that formed its foundation, which caused the trailer to sit lopsided. Rain-sodden garments weighed the clothesline to the ground like scraps of raw meat. Amid bald tires and stray auto parts, several bizarre white piles of fluff dotted the front yard, and Kurt remembered the chickens he’d seen when writing up the initial report. The same cat he’d also seen disappeared behind the trailer, significantly more plump.

  But that was not what the two men gaped at.

  The front door of the trailer lay yards out to the left, as if thrown there. It had been torn off its hinges.

  “What the fuck’s this?” Higgins asked.

  “Wahoos,” was Kurt’s answer. “A bunch of wahoos having some fun with a man who never bothered anyone.”

  “Fitzwater’s dirt poor—he’s got nothing of value. Why would burglars waste time sacking his place?”

  “This is the worst county in the state for crime,” Kurt said. “Shitheads don’t need a reason to tear the shit out of things and kill people.” He took the Remington 870P out of the cruiser’s ready rack and pumped a round into the chamber. “Check the back. I’ll go inside.”

  They fanned out, trotting across the yard. Higgins peeled off to the right around the trailer, his revolver tipped forward. Kurt approached more slowly, the shotgun muzzle pointing down, crossing his left knee. He clicked off the safety with his right index finger.

  A puddle of flat rainwater shone dully beyond the torn-open doorway, suggesting that whoever did this had come and gone hours or even days ago. He suspected he’d find Fitzwater dead inside or somewhere nearby. Why else wouldn’t he have contacted the police?

  Kurt stood a few yards back from the doorway, looking in at an angle. He held his breath and listened. His finger parallel against the trigger guard, he raised the gun barrel and stepped into the trailer.

  He crossed the threshold in a swift, diagonal movement, making a complete circle, like a three-point turn, and after a quick visual sweep of the inside, he stood still again and listened. There was an odd, acrid smell that reminded him of the qualification range, but mixed with another far more nameless odor.

  The trailer’s tiny windows and the dark day made it difficult to see. There’d be no lights; Fitzwater had no electricity. Kurt waited, shotgun poised, and as his eyes grew used to the poor light, he discerned that no one else was in the trailer, hostile or dead.

  He opened the curtains—old towels tacked over the minuscule windows—careful not to touch any surface that would take a good print. Gray light streamed in and revealed a shambles. Long crescents of glass sparkled on the floor. Makeshift furniture lay in pieces, splintered like tinder. Overall, the interior of the trailer looked as though it had been grenaded.

  He tiptoed through the wreckage, searched more closely. Two ragged concentric holes had been punched into the far left wall, and verified the tinge he knew must be gunpowder. He was not shocked to find the antique side-by-side on the floor by the baseboard. What shocked him, though, was the condition of the old shotgun—its long, twin barrels had been bent nearly in half.

  Still, there was the smell. Not the combusted nitrates, but something else.

  Then he noticed the great dark shape opposite the pocked wall, the position from which Fitzwater must’ve discharged the old double barrel. First he thought it must be a shadow, but then his own shadow darkened it as he stepped closer. It was a vast wash of blood.

  The reality of what he saw hit him with the impact of a shout. So much blood, he thought. So much. The stain engulfed the entire corner walls, like deformed wings. The floor glistened, slippery with blood, as though it had been dumped there in buckets. Kurt convinced himself that Fitzwater had wounded several of his attackers—surely a single human being could not contain so much blood.

  There was one last thing, the finishing mark of the rampage.

  Kurt’s foot brushed something light as he moved back. He froze and looked down. Glared. Focused.

  He thought it was an animal skin. Many of this county’s poor sold hides for extra cash. A possum hide, for example, brought about a dollar and a half from local tanners, and a racoon skin went for up to forty dollars, depending upon the season.

  Higgins came into the trailer. “Nothing out back except—” but he stopped to look around in obtuse dismay. “Judas J. Priest.”

  Kurt backed up, his guts crawling.

  “I better call this in,” Higgins said. “I take it Fitzwater’s not here.”

  “You be the judge.” Kurt pointed to the floor.

  Higgins squatted before it. He examined the thing with a tiny Tekna micro-lith light he kept on his belt. He poked at it apprehensively. “Holy Mother—” he said, not looking at Kurt. “What is this thing?”

  ”A scalp,” Kurt replied. “I think it’s Fitzwater’s scalp.”

  — | — | —

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Time had escaped him. He was aware only of the weapon.

  Night fell on the sedate motel, the sun stealing away without Sanders ever realizing it. Inside, shadows expanded and eventually filled Room 6, save for the nebulous trapezoid of lamplight ablaze over the desk. He sat quite still, quite transfixed. Soft light touched his face, and he looked at the weapon.

  Veneration, or perhaps an abstract kind of loyalty, made his eyes shine. Sanders trusted his relationship with guns. It was not a false one. There were many people today who regarded weapons erroneously. There were the gun shop commandos, the underground Nazis, and all these civilian jungle troopers who pursued an interest in guns because guns were cool, guns were power, guns were things of men. They wore camouflage jackets on the weekends, DEATH FROM ABOVE T-shirts, and caps and belt buckles embossed with names of their favorite gun companies; yet they knew nothing of the military, of killing, and of the reality of guns. These were the people on which the gun industry flourished, the very people who should not have guns. Never mind the right to bear arms—what good were guns when wielded by jackasses? Guns were the stilts of this lot, making little men tall. To them, guns were proof of masculinity, but they never saw the falseness of their ideals. They worshipped guns behind the sheer lack of faith in their own penises.

  Sanders knew guns in an honest way, and he had business with them. There was still much he didn’t know about his potential enemy.

  The weapon lay before him on the desktop. He appraised it in reverent silence. M16A1 Colt Firearms Mfg. Co., Hartford, Conn. How did the classic saying go? Be a man large or small in size, Samuel Colt will equalize? The weapon’s black anodized finish shone dully in the lampglow. It was long, lithe, light— the dominatrix of assault rifles. The simple look of it stifled him. He felt the puzzling beauty of this weapon, a structural beauty derived from functional ugliness.

  He was pleased that he had not forgotten how to do the field strip; within a minute, he had reduced the rifle to a layout of parts, each of which he examined and found free of defects and dirt. He checked the gasline for dents, the select switch for play, the buffer spring, the bolt-carrier, and everything else within the 11 Bravo maintenance echelon. No pits, no stress marks. He raised the upper receiver to the light and peered down the barrel, glimpsing what idiom had dubbed the flower of death.

  The weapon was immaculate and in close to mint condition, as Wilson had said. After lightly lubricating the bolt-runner with LSA-medium and wiping the parts down, Sanders reassembled everything.

  In addition to three 30-round clips and four percussion grenades, Wilson had also supplied five 20-round boxes of 5.56mm tracer, bullets which traveled at a rate in excess of 3,000 feet per second. If they didn’t work, nothing would.

  He pushed the many statistical question marks from his mind. He knew that before he made his move, he needed to familiarize himself with the target area, and maybe drop a few questions on some of the locals. It was almost nine o’clock.

  He hid the weapon, the ammunition and grenades, and his vest in the box spring of his bed. Though he was sure no one had seen him bring it in, he didn’t like the idea of leaving such sensitive items here unguarded, but driving around with them in a stolen car wasn’t much in the way of brains, either. All he brought with him then was a compact Almar folding knife with a three-inch blade, which was about all that might conform to Maryland’s foggy, uninterpretable knife laws.

  Outside, he locked the door, looking quickly left and right. He closed the glass-louvered storm door and affixed a piece of Scotch tape across the gap, a simple but proven tactic. He didn’t like unexpected guests.

  He had only general knowledge of where he was going, though it couldn’t be far, according to the signs. He drove steadily but unhurried. A county police cruiser screamed past on the right with its light flashing. It gave Sanders a momentary, thrilling jolt. Must be on his way to a fletch party, he thought. That’s what the Saigon prostitutes had called it. “Fletch for extra dorra, G.I.!” Animals. He watched the cruiser’s taillights go tiny and vanish over the slow rise of the highway. It reminded him that he would have to be careful on all accounts.

  It reminded him of the spontaneity he’d known all his life. Spontaneity such as this. He’d always loved a gamble, and he was always hearing how gamblers were all looking for the same thing—they were looking to lose. On a moment’s notice he could pull a U at the next light, return the weapons and the station wagon, and be on the next 707 to Florida. It would be easy.

  His life had been a string of gambles, and he’d always won. Was this really so different? He was blind, he was conspicuous, he didn’t know for the life of him what he was walking into. Maybe I am looking to lose. He didn’t care about the money, or evening the score. He didn’t care about what had happened to his face, the restless memories, or how he had spent the last seven years.

  He didn’t care about any of that.

  So why go?

  But he was going to do it. He just had to know.

  Route 301 rolled on, barren and perfectly straight. The only other vehicles he saw were a couple of refrigerated semi rigs. They roared up out of the dark, huge and unheeding, oblivious to the 50 mph speed limit, and were gone as fast the police car. A traffic light twinkled from far up the road, and then a big green sign: TYLERSVILLE, NEXT LEFT.

  He made the turn and crossed town limits on an incline. The cant of the road made him feel as though he were ascending. He passed an old muddy-colored restaurant, a shopping plaza and several apartment complexes, all glowing murkily within the perimeter of vapor lamps. Then a quarter mile of darkness until a road sign: MD RT 154. From what he made of his map, Tylersville existed entirely along this queer forested lane, where it all but isolated the town. There was very little open land, just some clearings and some cramped cornfields. For the most part though, Route 154 seemed to plow through woods. He wondered where the population lived.

  Clouds lolled overhead, blotching the twilight. Way off and up in the distance, he saw the flashing red aerial lights of a television tower, though it seemed peculiar to him that such a thing would be located so remotely. The road continued its steady rise, then at last began to even out and bend and turn. Now he noticed houses set back in the woods, quite a few of them, made discernible by porch lights and softly lit windows. It seemed that the trees were gradually growing around the houses, as if to keep them out of sight.

  Originally he wanted his first exposure to Tylersville to be under the cover of darkness, but now he was beginning to think he’d made a mistake. This “town” was dead, just sullen houses screened by trees and this long twisting stretch of misplaced highway.