Lights Out Page 24

  “Stop whining,” said the driver. “You’re making more money in a month than your father made in his life.”

  “My father was an idiot.”

  The doors slammed shut. The driver straightened the wheels, inched forward, the tires spinning in the snow. Squealing conveniently, Eddie thought, as he came out of the woods, got his hands on the edge of the cargo floor that protruded beyond the slatted sides, and pulled himself up. As the truck picked up speed, he climbed over and down into the cargo space.

  He got on his hands and knees, crawled along the floor. The chicken cages were gone. There was no cargo but the canvas bags, about a dozen, piled against the rear of the cab, and a small suitcase nearby. In the light reflected off the falling snow, Eddie could see the Mickey Mouse decal glued to its side.

  He rose, picking up one of the canvas bags. Over the top of the cab he saw the bridge, snow-covered and deserted. He dropped the canvas bag over the side, picked up another, dropped it out too, and then the rest. He counted them: eleven.

  The truck slowed as it came to the bridge. Eddie crawled to the back, climbed over, jumped down. He lost his balance, fell, rolled to the side of the track, the covered blade of the ax digging into his back. Other than that, everything was perfect. So far so good-punch line to a joke he didn’t know. Jack could tell him on the way back.

  The truck kept going. It rolled across the bridge, making a loud creaking sound, then went around a bend. For a few moments its taillights blinked through the trees; then they vanished. Eddie rose, ran to the stream, down the bank, under the bridge.

  He heard a footstep behind him, felt something hard prod his back. “Don’t move,” Jack said.

  “For Christ’s sake.”

  “Sorry. I thought they’d got you. That honking.”

  “They’re not going to honk us to death. And I said no guns.”

  “That didn’t seem prudent,” Jack replied. “How many?”

  There was no point arguing. “Eleven,” Eddie said. “We don’t have room for them all.”

  “I’m a good packer,” Jack said, strapping on one of the backpacks. Taking the other, he wheeled one of the bikes up the bank.

  Eddie unhooked the ax from his belt, unclipped the blade cover. He felt for the notch in the downstream bridge support, then stood back and chopped at the remaining core. In six swings he was through. The bridge made a creaking sound.

  Eddie wheeled the other bike up the bank, onto the track. Jack was kneeling there, transferring banded wads of cash from a canvas bag into one of the backpacks.

  “Just throw the whole bag in,” Eddie said, taking the other backpack and sticking the ax inside.

  “Can’t fit as much in that way, bro,” Jack said. “Should have brought bigger packs.”

  “How many have you done?”

  “This is the first.”

  Eddie looked down the track, saw the dark forms of the bags lying here and there like boulders. “Hurry,” he said.

  “How much time have we got?”

  Eddie glanced up, saw no lightening of the sky, heard no engine from above. At the airstrip, they would sit in the shelter of the cab until they heard the plane. That was when Julio would climb into the back and see the Mickey Mouse suitcase lying there all by itself. “Just hurry,” Eddie said.

  He walked the bike down the track, counting bags and stopping at the last one, planning to work his way back. He removed the backpack, put the canvas bag inside, went on to the next one. The second bag fit comfortably, but he had to take out the ax to jam in the third. Enough.

  He looked toward the bridge. Jack was kneeling in the snow, stuffing money into his backpack, a handful at a time.

  “Jack. Let’s go.”

  “Almost done,” Jack called. He rose, buckled the flap of the backpack, swung it on. He moved toward his bike, noticed another canvas bag, paused over it.

  “Jack.”

  Jack bent down, opened the bag, grabbed a handful of cash, stuffed it in the pocket of his jacket. Then he filled the other pocket and was shoving more money down the front of his shirt when a light shone on him. He froze in it.

  “Jack! Move!”

  The truck came barreling around the bend in the track, straight at the bridge.

  Eddie swung a leg over his bike. “The bike, Jack.”

  Jack took a step toward his bike, then another. He bent, righted it with one hand. The other still clutched a wad of bills. Eddie started toward him.

  The truck hit the bridge, moving fast. It was halfway across when Eddie heard the crack, a loud crack, like the sound just before the boom in thunder, and the bridge gave, planks flying through the air like loose piano keys. The truck flew too, but not high enough. The right side of its front bumper caught the top of the bank. The truck flipped, skidded on its side, knocked down a small pine, and came to rest at the edge of the woods, one headlight out, the other shining at a low angle on Jack and the bridge.

  Jack gazed at it, raising a handful of money to shade his eyes from the glare. Except for popping-metal sounds, it was quiet in the woods, as though nothing had happened. Things started slowly, slowly enough for Eddie, standing outside the pool of light, to record all the details, details, none of them foreseen.

  First Gaucho stepped out of the woods, no longer wearing his cowboy hat but otherwise unharmed. He glanced at the remains of the bridge, at the empty money bags on the road, at Jack. His hand dropped down to his holster.

  Eddie shouted, “Shoot him, Jack.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your gun.”

  “He’s just a kid,” Jack said, “playing cowboy.”

  Then Gaucho had his pistol out, pointing at Jack. “Pow pow,” he said.

  Jack started to smile his smile. Gaucho pulled the trigger. Jack spun around, coughed, coughed again, this time a bloody one, fell and lay still.

  Things speeded up. Gaucho turned in Eddie’s direction, fired into the darkness. Something roared from the other side, and a single headlight came into view. The gateman: he’d heard the bridge collapse, heard the crash, heard something. Eddie slipped back into the edge of the woods. Gaucho fired another shot. The bullet smacked into a trunk, not far away. Gaucho on one side, the gateman on the other. Then Julio came limping out of the shadows, carrying a shotgun and changing the geometry.

  “He’s dead,” he said in Spanish, thumbing back at the cab.

  “So’s this guy,” said Gaucho. “And there’s another-”

  The rest was drowned out by the motorcycle, flying toward them. At the last moment, Eddie stepped out of the woods and swung the ax, butt first, into the visor of the driver’s helmet. The impact tore the ax from his hand and knocked him down. He caught a glimpse of the gateman spinning in the air, his machine gun strapped to his back, and the motorcycle somersaulting down into the stream.

  Gaucho fired another shot into the darkness.

  Then came a blast from the shotgun.

  Eddie, the pack on his back all but forgotten, jumped on the bike and pedaled away as fast as he could.

  The tires squeaked in the snow. That was the only sound Eddie heard. He concentrated on it all the way to the end of the track and onto the dirt road that led to the steel gate, listening to that squeaking in the snow, shutting out everything else, every sickening image and second thought that tried to force its way into his mind. He almost didn’t see headlights rounding the turn that led to the farm, almost didn’t get off the road and into the trees before a car sped by, with Senor Paz behind the wheel, his round face almost touching the glass. And then, pedaling on, he didn’t immediately notice the milky tones in the sky, or hear the airplane flying in from the south.

  He reached the steel gate, tossed over the bike, the backpack, then climbed over himself, strapped on the pack, rode on. The sound of the plane grew louder.

  A few minutes later, just as the airplane sound ceased abruptly, Eddie came to Jack’s car. It was easy to see now in the gathering light, backed in between some skinny pine
s. He got off the bike, threw it in the woods.

  Is there another set?

  Why would we need another set?

  Eddie kicked in one of the rear side windows, opened the door, yanked up the floor mat, found the keys. He unlocked the trunk, dropped the backpack inside, closed it. Then he got behind the wheel, started the car, drove out, onto the dirt road.

  He drove. That was all he did. Dirt road to paved two-laner, paved two-laner to the turnpike; where he lost himself in the traffic, flowing slowly in the falling snow. Once or twice he glanced in the rearview mirror, saw only the sights of normal commuting life.

  Cold air blew in through the smashed window. Jack’s car had a good heater, and Eddie cranked it up to the max, but there was nothing he could do about that icy feeling on the back of his neck.

  Outside: Day 8

  27

  The clouds disappeared, just like that. The sun came out. The skies were blue. The snow melted. It was spring.

  Eddie was too busy to notice. He lit a fire in Jack’s fireplace and burned every scrap of paper in the suite. When the fire was at its hottest, he added all the computer disks. Not knowing how to erase the computer’s internal memory, he unplugged it, unscrewed the back panel, tore out everything that would tear out, and tossed it in the fire too.

  The rest-clothes, books, pictures, office equipment-he packed in boxes addressed to Uncle Vic. Then he phoned the desk.

  “Mr. Nye is checking out,” he said. “What’s the bill?”

  “Checking out? But he just paid his account to the end of the month.”

  “Change of plan.”

  “I’m afraid we have no prorating mechanism for situations like this.”

  “Meaning there’s no checking out?”

  Tentative laugh. “Meaning there’s no refund. Regrettably.”

  Eddie called the Mount Olive Extended Care Residence and Spa.

  “The account,” he was told, “is paid up to the thirtieth.”

  “What’s the monthly rate?”

  “Three thousand dollars.”

  “Mr. Nye would like to pay for a year in advance.”

  “I’m afraid we have no discount mechanism in situations like that.”

  Eddie waited for her to add “regrettably.” When she did not, he said, “Cash a problem?”

  “Cash is never a problem, sir. Checks are the problem.”

  Then there was nothing unburned or unpacked but the phone and the bottle of Armagnac. Like cognac, Jack had said, but snobbier. Eddie sat by the fire with the bottle in his lap, facing away from the window. He had noticed those blue skies. He didn’t drink, just sat with the bottle in his lap.

  The phone rang.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Jack?” It was Karen.

  “No.”

  “Eddie. You sound so much alike.” There was a pause. He could feel her thinking, as though the electric impulses in her brain were somehow feeding into the wire. “Is Jack there?”

  “No.”

  “When will he be back?”

  Eddie searched for the right sort of lie, settled on one, opened his mouth to utter it only to find he physically could not. Something was choking him. He was all right as long as he didn’t speak about Jack. He saw himself in the mirror, completely distorted.

  “Eddie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think you and I’ve had a little misunderstanding.”

  “Have we?”

  “I’d like to clear it up,” Karen said. “Maybe I could see you.”

  Eddie said nothing.

  Karen said: “Could I come over?”

  It hit him then: the desk clerk had called her, told her that Jack was checking out. Why not? She was some kind of cop, and it was an obvious cop move.

  “Why don’t I come over there?” Eddie said.

  “Over here?”

  “What’s your address?”

  She gave it to him.

  “See you in an hour,” Eddie said.

  Eddie called down for a cardboard box, wrapping paper. He opened one of the canvas bags and counted out $230,000. There was a knock at the door.

  He opened it. The bellman. “Can you wait a minute?” Eddie asked him, taking the box and the wrapping paper.

  “Certainly, sir.”

  Everyone was calling him sir all of a sudden, as though money had a smell. Eddie closed the door, leaving the bellman in the hall. He put the $230,000 in the box, wrapped it, wrote Karen’s address on the front, adding, “From Windward Financial Services,” gave it to the bellman.

  “I’d like this delivered right away,” Eddie said. “By you.” He gave the bellman fifty dollars.

  “Right away,” said the bellman, but there was no “sir.” Maybe fifty wasn’t enough.

  The bellman left. Eddie counted out another $36,000, for the Mount Olive Extended Residence and Spa, dropped it in a shopping bag. What else? He remembered Raleigh, and then forgot him.

  He counted the rest: $488,220.

  Eddie stuffed it into the backpack, threw the canvas bags on the fire, slung on the pack. He looked around the room. He had taken care of Jack’s obligations and destroyed the records of any possible financial impropriety. That didn’t make him feel any better. He hadn’t belonged in Jack’s world and Jack hadn’t belonged in his. Bringing them together had been a mistake. He toyed with the idea that the two worlds had come together within him, due to circumstance, and therefore it was no one’s fault. A bad idea. Jack was dead and the fault was his.

  Eddie picked up the Armagnac bottle and was on his way out when he noticed the Monarch lying by the couch. He tossed it in the fire. Then he went down to the street, where Jack’s car was waiting. A uniformed man held the door for him. Eddie gave him money.

  “Nice day, isn’t it, sir?”

  Eddie glanced up at the blue sky. It hurt his eyes. He drove away from the Palazzo with Jack’s heat on full blast and the icy feeling on the back of his neck.

  He was out of the northeast and out of Armagnac before the obvious lines lit up in his brain.

  The man hath penance done,

  And penance more will do.

  Then he couldn’t get rid of them.

  28

  Karen de Vere knelt in front of the fireplace. She saw a half-burned canvas bag, warped computer disks, ashes. Mostly ashes. She pinched some in her fingers and sniffed them.

  “Smell anything?” asked Raleigh Packer.

  “The end of your parole.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’re going back to finish your sentence. What else?”

  He reddened. “Why? I cooperated, didn’t I?”

  Raleigh was whining. Karen didn’t like whiners. “With no result.”

  “I did everything you asked. I tried.”

  “Try harder.”

  “How.”

  “Think of where he might have gone. You know him.”

  “Yeah, I know him. He’s out romancing a prospective client, or sucking around for tips, or having a few down at the Seaport or some place like that. He’ll be back soon.”

  Karen blew the ashes off her hands. Raleigh was wrong. Jack Nye was gone, period. She was left with a fireplace full of ashes, $230,000 in well-used currency, and no case against him. And a question: why had he run? She could understand running and not paying, or paying and not running; she couldn’t understand running and paying.

  No explanation. No note with the money, not even his business card. Just a scrawl on the wrapper: “From Windward Financial Services.” Karen had compared it to samples of Jack’s handwriting, found it didn’t match. She wished she had a sample of Eddie Nye’s handwriting too.

  “Are you trying to tell me that he’s taken off?” asked Raleigh.

  “No interpretation required,” Karen said. She poked at the ashes with the toe of her shoe, saw something red and charred. She picked it up: a fragment of the cover of the Monarch Notes guide to “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”


  “Taken off?” said Raleigh. “And not coming back, you mean? The fucking bastard.” He pounded the wall, although not hard enough to hurt himself.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing personal,” said Karen, dropping the fragment in her bag.

  “The fucking bastard,” was Raleigh’s only reply.

  Karen waited on a bench. A guard in a gray uniform sat at the other end, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. Through the closed office door across the room came a laugh that made her think of crows. Then the door opened and a red-haired man in denim came out. He reminded her immediately of Goya’s portrait of Charles IV of Spain. The guard rose. The red-haired man nodded toward her-it was almost a bow-and smiled. He had beautiful teeth but was missing a canine. He left the waiting room with the guard following close behind.

  The receptionist said: “You can go in now.”

  Karen entered the office, smelled a piney smell she didn’t like. She handed her card to the man behind the desk. He studied it. She studied him. He looked like Santa Claus gone sour.

  “Take a pew, uh, Miss de Vere,” said Floyd K. Messer, M.D., Ph.D., sliding her card across the desk. “I haven’t heard of this agency of yours, but I made some calls and apparently it’s legit.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  Messer blinked, sat farther back in his chair. “I’m a little pressed for time,” he said, “what with this bit of business we’ve got lined up for tonight. So if you’d tell me how I can help you.”

  “What bit of business?”

  Messer looked surprised. “Wasn’t there a lot of media outside when you came in?”

  “I didn’t see any.”

  Messer checked his watch. “They’ll be along. Just like vultures. Execution tonight, Miss de Vere. We’ll be going into a precautionary lockdown in forty-five minutes.”

  “Who’s being executed?”

  She’d surprised him again. “You haven’t heard of Mister Willie Boggs? I thought he was a national figure by now.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Found a way to wrap a lot of bleeding-heart lawyers around his little black finger.”