And then the manager gave Charles Lane away. Just the way he glanced down the hall to an office marked Private. Maybe in time Brolan would have figured this out for himself, but the manager had done him the favour of confirming the obvious suspicion.
'I think he's gone home, sir.' He made a big deal of thinking hard for a moment-sort of like an eighth-grader in a play about Einstein contemplating nuclear energy-and then said, 'Yes, now that I think about it, I'm sure I saw him pulling out of the lot about twenty minutes ago.'
'Darn,' Brolan said. 'I'll just have to try again tomorrow.'
'Is there a name you'd like to leave, sir?'
'No. I'll just try him again tomorrow.'
'Well, see you, then.'
'Thanks,' Brolan said, waving goodbye.
He went back down the corridor, glimpsing the babes in aerobics, sneering at muscle boy, who was still demonstrating the weights to the two helpless damsels, and then sucking up the odours of chlorine as he passed the swimming pool.
The manager was not around. The door marked Private stood unguarded.
Brolan put his hand on the doorknob. He was surprised to find it unlocked.
He turned the knob and pushed inside.
The office was spacious, done in earth tones with mahogany wainscoting and mahogany furnishings. A long row of filing cabinets stood on one wall; a smaller desk with a phone and adding machine was pushed against the other. The overall effect was of a serious rather than simply decorative place.
One other thing: The office was empty.
This confused Brolan. The way the manager had looked nervously at the door, Brolan had expected to find Charles Lane in there.
A few seconds later a noise came from inside the closet door at the rear of the office. At first Brolan thought it might be a furnace kicking on. But then the faint but unmistakable noise came again. Inside the closet something was swaying against the wall.
Brolan walked across the office to the back. He leaned carefully to the door and listened.
He heard somebody saying, 'Go, babe. Give it to her, babe.'
What the hell was going on here?
Brolan pulled the door open and found out for himself.
Inside the small closet a videotape camera had been set up flush against a piece of one-way glass. On the other side of the glass, an old man was humping a frail young girl who was probably not much older than twelve.
Brolan recognized the man immediately. Say hello to Harold McAlester, the client with the bald head given to leather jumpsuits, the man Brolan had seen earlier that morning in the office with Foster. The motel room was a mess of whiskey bottles and food trays.
The man operating the camera-the man urging McAlester on-turned, abruptly aware of Brolan's presence, and it was just then that Brolan hit him hard enough on the side of the face to draw blood from his nose. The man slammed against the wall, and the camera fell in a noisy heap as the man started to stumble.
If McAlester, on the other side of the glass, heard anything, he didn't let it deter him.
He turned the little girl over on her stomach so he could back-door her. Even in a glimpse a naked McAlester was an obscene sight, white chest hair and sagging little titties. The little girl looked virginal as an eight-year-old on First Communion Sunday. Brolan wanted to go in there and kick in McAlester's face.
But right then Charles Decker Lane was closer, so Brolan proceeded to kick in his face.
33
It took Foster an hour to find Greg Wagner's place. Not that it was hidden or anything, just that the roads were getting that bad.
He parked across the street and sat there for a time thinking about winter, how it howled, how it raged, how it made almost anything going on seem insignificant. You could lose yourself in winter and its furies, and that's just what he did for a time. Shut off the engine. Listened to the trees above creaking with ice. Listened to wind rattle shutters. Watched a city snowplough moving down the street like a giant yellow electric monster. Thought of his mother and father. His father, especially. Sometimes he imagined himself reaching out across die black gorge separating life from death. Touching his father's hand. Comforting his father. As his father had comforted him. Somewhere his mother was still alive. He hadn't talked to her in fifteen years and didn't plan to; he had not even gone to her when that heart condition showed up, and she pleaded with him to come to Rochester and see her there in the hospital. No fucking way, bitch. Why don't you count on your football player now? The man who'd been such a cutie and such a celebrity and such a hunk was now a lard-ass alcoholic who spent his time talking about what pussies the new generation of ballplayers were. Yeah. Hope you're enjoying yourself, Mom. Nobody deserves it more than you.
Then he didn't think of anything at all. Just sat there with the wind rocking the car and cold air seeping in through the doors, and the windows fogging up a ghostly grey.
Finally it was time. Go across the street and push the gun in the door and demand that the cripple tell him where the tape was.
On the seat was the. 38 he sometimes took out to the gun club when he wanted to relax and zone out. There was something about the feel of a weapon clutched in your hand-you could easily imagine that the targets were really people. Starting with Mother. Dear, fucking Mother. Blam, blam, blam, Ma. Blam, blam, blam.
Five minutes later he stood on the doorstep, hunched over because the wind was like a thousand tiny razors cutting his face and neck. The way the wind whined, he wondered if they could even hear his knock. Faintly he could hear a TV set going. He knocked again, let his eyes rest on Emma's part of the duplex. In a peculiar way he'd liked Emma. She was like a kitten. So gentle, even when you were pushing her around. He knew she hadn't liked him, not ever. She was one of those women who'd sensed instinctively who he really was and what he was really about. So, he'd been forced to pay her very well indeed for his various favours over the past couple years. Because otherwise she wouldn't have worked with him.
The door was opened by the young girl he'd tried to kill Wednesday night. 'Yes?' she said, making it sound as if he were trying to sell them unwanted Boy Scout cookies or something. She didn't recognize him. He saw that instantly. No recognition whatsoever.
'My car,' he said. 'It stalled across the street. I wondered if I could come in and use your phone so I could call a service station.'
'Oh, sure,' she said. She smiled then. It was a very healthy, clean-cut smile. She was very good at hiding the fact that she was a little whore. 'We'll even give you some hot cocoa.'
'Gee, I really appreciate this,' he said, standing back so she could push the front storm door open and let him come inside.
He took two steps across the threshold, glancing over at the man in the wheelchair; then he jerked the. 38 from his overcoat pocket and put it dead against the girl's temple.
'You're Foster,' the man in the wheelchair said. 'You're the killer.'
Foster saw recognition in the girl's eyes.
'Do I look a little different from Wednesday night, Denise?' he asked, smiling.
Before she got a chance to respond, he cracked her hard across the mouth, knocking her backward to the couch.
He pointed the gun at the man. 'I want the tape, pally. I don't want any lies, any excuses, any stalling. Either I get the tape right now, or I kill her. Do we understand each other?'
Wagner said, 'I don't have the tape anymore.'
Foster leaned down and grabbed the girl by the hair and jerked her to her feet. She cried out from the pain and tried to kick out at him. He just yanked on her hair all the harder.
Finally he yanked the girl close to him-so close he could smell the sudden sweat on her body and feel the
