Blaze

He had to call the Gerards now, tonight. They couldn’t drop the money from a plane in this snowstorm, but the snow would probably stop by tomorrow night. He would get the money, and keep Joe, too. Fuck those rich Republicans. He and Joe were for each other now. They would get away. Somehow.

He stared into the fire and fell into a daydream. He saw himself lighting the road-flares in a clearing. Running lights of a small plane appearing overhead. Wasp-buzz of the engine. Plane banks toward the signal, which is burning like a birthday cake. Something white in the air — a parachute with a little suitcase attached to it!

Then he’s back here. He opens the suitcase. It’s stacked with dough. Each bundle is neatly banded. Blaze counts it. It’s all there.

Next he’s on the small island of Acapulco (which he believed was in the Bahamas, although he supposed he could be wrong about that). He’s bought himself a cabin on a high spur of land that overlooks the breakers. There are two bedrooms, one large, one small. There are two hammocks out back, one large, one small.

Time passes. Maybe five years. And here comes a kid pounding up the beach — a beach that shines like a wet muscle in the sunlight. He’s tanned. He’s got long black hair, like an Indian brave’s. He’s waving. Blaze waves back.

Again Blaze seemed to hear the sound of fugitive laughter. He turned around sharply. No one was there.

But the daydream was broken. He got up and poked his arms into his coat. He sat down and pulled on his boots. He was going to make this happen. His feet and his head were set, and when he got that way, he always did what he said he was going to do. It was his pride. The only one he had.

He checked the baby again, then went out. He closed the office door behind him and clattered down the stairs. George’s gun was tucked in the waistband of his pants, and this time it was loaded.

The wind coming across the old play-yard was howling hard enough to push him into a stagger before he got used to it. Snow belted his face, needling his cheeks and forehead. The tops of the trees leaned this way and that. New drifts were forming on the crusted layers of old snow, already three feet deep in places. He didn’t need to worry about the tracks he’d made coming in anymore.

He waded to the Cyclone fence, wishing he had snowshoes, and climbed awkwardly over it. He landed in snow up to his thighs and began to flounder north, setting off cross-country toward Cumberland Center.

It was three miles, and he was out of breath before he was halfway there. His face was numb. So were his hands and feet, despite heavy socks and gloves. Yet he kept on, making no attempt to go around drifts but plowing straight through. Twice he stumbled over fences buried in the snow, one of them barbed wire that ripped his jeans and tore into his leg. He merely picked himself up and went on, not wasting breath on a curse.

An hour after setting out, he entered a tree farm. Here perfectly pruned little blue spruces marched away in rows, each one growing six feet from its fellows. Blaze was able to walk down a long, sheltered corridor where the snow was only three inches deep — and in some places, there was no snow at all. This was the Cumberland County Reserve, and it bordered the main road.

When he reached the western border of the toy forest, he sat on top of the embankment and then slid down to Route 289. Up the road, almost lost in the blowing snow, was a blinker-light he remembered well — red on two sides, yellow on the other two. Beyond it, a few streetlights glimmered like ghosts.

Blaze crossed the road, which was snow-coated and empty of traffic, and walked up to the Exxon on the corner. A small pool of light on the side of the cinderblock building highlighted a pay phone. Looking like an ambulatory snowman, Blaze stepped to it — hulked over it. He had a panicky moment when it seemed he had no change, but he found two quarters in his pants and another in his coat pocket. Then — bool! — his money came back in the coin return. Directory Assistance was free.

“I want to call Joseph Gerard,” he said. “Ocoma.”

There was a blank pause, and then the operator gave him the number. Blaze wrote it on the fogged glass that shielded the phone from the worst of the snow, unaware that he had asked for an unlisted number and the operator had given it to him per FBI instructions. This of course opened the flood-gates to well-wishers and cranks, but if the kidnappers didn’t call, the traceback equipment couldn’t be used.

Blaze dialed 0 and gave the lady the Gerard phone number. He asked if that was a toll-call. It was. He asked if he could talk three minutes for seventy-five cents. The operator said no; a three-minute call to Ocoma would cost him a dollar-ninety. Did he have a telephone credit card?

Blaze didn’t. Blaze had no credit cards of any kind.

The operator told him he could charge the call to his home phone, and there was a phone at the shack (although it hadn’t rung a single time since George died), but Blaze was too clever for that.

Collect, then? the operator suggested.

“Collect, yeah!” Blaze said.

“Your name, sir?”

“Clayton Blaisdell, Junior,” he said at once. In his relief at finding he hadn’t made this long slog just to come up empty for lack of phone-change, Blaze would not realize this tactical error for almost two hours.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Thank you,” Blaze said, feeling clever. Feeling cool as a fool.

The phone rang only once on the other end before being picked up. “Yes?” The voice sounded wary and weary.

“I’ve got your son,” Blaze said.

“Mister, I’ve had ten calls today saying the same thing. Prove it.”

Blaze was flummoxed. He hadn’t expected this. “Well, he’s not with me, you know. My partner’s got him.”

“Yeah?” Nothing else. Just Yeah?

“I seen your wife when I come in,” Blaze said. It was the only thing he could think of. “She’s real pretty. She ‘us in a white nightie. You guys had a pitcher on the dresser — well, three pitchers all put together.”

The voice on the other end said, “Tell me something else.” But he didn’t sound tired anymore.

Blaze racked his brain. There was nothing else, nothing that would convince the stubborn man on the other end. Then there was. “The ole lady had a cat. That’s why she came downstairs. She thought I was the cat — that I was—” He racked his brain some more. “Mikey!” he shouted. “I’m sorry I hit her so hard. I sure didn’t mean to, but I was scared.”

The man on the other end of the line began to cry. It was sudden and shocking. “Is he all right? For God’s sake, is Joey okay?”

There was a confused babble in the background. A woman seemed to be speaking. Another was yelling and crying. The one yelling and crying was probably the mother. Narmenians were probably specially emotional. Frenchies were the same way.

“Don’t hang up!” Joseph Gerard (it just about had to be Gerard) said. He sounded panicky. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’s good,” Blaze said. “Got another tooth through. That makes three. Di’per rash is clearing up good. I — I mean we — keep ‘is bottom greased up real good. What’s the matter with your wife? Is she too good to grease his bottom?”

Gerard was panting like a dog. “We’ll do anything, mister. It’s all your play.”

Blaze started a little at that. He had almost forgotten why he called.

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s what I want you to do.”

In Portland, an AT&T operator was speaking to SAC Albert Sterling. “Cumberland Center,” she said. “Gas station pay phone.”

“Got it,” he said, and pumped his fist in the air.

“Get in a light plane tomorrow night at eight,” Blaze said. He was beginning to feel uneasy, beginning to feel he’d been on the phone too long. “Start flying south along Route 1 toward the New Hampshire border. Fly low. Got it?”

“Wait — I’m not sure—”

“You better be sure,” Blaze said. He tried to sound like George would. “Don’t try to stall me, unless you want your kid back in a bag.”