that had caught his eye.
It was a plastic wrapper. Cheap stuff. Day-Glo pink. Wrapped around some sort of food advertisement. His stomach rumbled at the thought of groceries as he idly unwrapped the ads, glancing at the listings of munchies while he considered his next move. If there was a current newspaper here, that meant there'd be a dwelling close at hand, so it wasn't an abandoned pasture after all. No mailbox. Maybe there'd be a cottage tucked away behind those trees. Should he investigate or move along? He took pleasure from reading about food:
Butter and eggs, beans and bacon, cinnamon rolls and chocolate cake. Somewhere between the Velveeta and the hot pepper cheese, the word CONSPIRACY caught his eye.
“WE BELIEVE THAT THE MURDERS OCCURRING IN THIS COMMUNITY MAY BE DIRECTLY LINKED TO THE CLANDESTINE DRUG LAB'S CONSTRUCTION.” His coughing bark shook his gigantic stomach like a bowl full of jelly.
Those arrogant fools. The second he fed the words into his computer, he matched it to a newspaper story he'd read about an unlikely construction project, and felt the hot juices dripping through his thoughts. He saw himself in the house where he'd had a live one, reading about a monkey “theme park called Ecoworld.” It stretched his face into a fierce mask of hatred when he read about the poisoned dog.
They wanted a scapegoat, it seemed. One who could be put into play to divert attention from whatever lame nonsense they were concocting.
No. He didn't think so. Instead he thought he might go sniff around this construction project and see if he couldn't help them with their problem. If people thought there was a conspiracy afoot, then obviously the monkeys needed a helping hand. Perhaps he could redecorate the thing.
First things first. He unbuckled his belt, a huge thing big as a blacksnake whip, and began taking his custom-made boots and voluminous pants off.
It took him all of three minutes to find the small devices, which he knew must be microbugs, that his benefactors had secreted in his clothing. No wonder they knew exactly where he was at all times. In due course he would eliminate that bothersome problem too.
32
If Royce's fears alone had been ruling him, it might have ended differently, but he was bone-weary. He just couldn't go through the long hassle of driving all the way out Market to the back road, taking another twenty minutes of driving to get to Whitetail Pond, especially tonight, with the headlight glare as blinding as he could remember seeing it. Maybe he needed glasses for night driving—or perhaps he was just more tired than he had realized.
He decided to take Cotton to W.W. south, and that was how they picked him up. The car must have come fishtailing all over W.W. when it pulled out, which in fact is how he happened to notice it, headlights all over the highway in his rearview, coming like a bat out of hell, one second two little dots of fishtailing lights, the next second some fool with his high beams right in Royce's eyes.
Then the lights disappeared, but the inside of his ride lit up. They were on top of Royce's car! He swore just as they cracked him hard, reaching out with his right hand to catch Mary, slamming his foot to the gas, swerving left to right as the car stayed with him, dangerously close.
“Get that safety belt on!'
“Who is—'
“Do it!” he screamed, catching a glimpse of the car enough to see what it was as the cars shot past a bright yard light. Not that there was any doubt who was behind them.
“Shit,” he said, his foot to the floorboard, “it's Happy.” Happy Ruiz, and, for all he knew, a load of bikers. The black LTD. Happy with his foot in the carburetor, both of them with the pedals mashed, Royce's needle crawling in the direction of 110. Then 115 mph as they rocketed down the long, straight stretch of W.W. southbound.
He took the curve before he got to Industrial and careened around the curving road in the direction of Ecoworld, trying his best to shake them. Royce's weird car, a 1970 Ranchero junker, was painted in a charming shade of murrey primer and mismatched paint. A brownish, purple-black sort of rotten mulberry color, with tints of mauve, lilac, purple, and violet were all visible along with the rust. But that was on the outside.
He had one of the last models made with a 351 Cleveland high-performance engine. Once in a rare while a ‘69 or ‘70 would surface in a junkyard; an old Ranchero with that original big-block Cleveland in there. Compression ratio like a damn diesel. Four-barrel-carb gas-sucker—and in this case, Royce'd had a guy bore it and cut a high-lift cam to make it step out and pony. They dropped a four-eleven rear end in the lady, and she could flat out strut to the party!
The first shot hit the tailgate as they were almost on the next straightaway, inching toward 120, and you take a round moving that fast, it's like somebody bounced a concrete block off one of the fenders.
There was another bark, and the back window spider-tracked. Whoever was doing the shooting was damn good—too damn good!
“We're going off.'
“Jesus!'
“Hold on!'
“You're going too fast! We won't make it!'
“Hang tough!” he shouted, as much for his own courage as anything, praying to God—with both hands clenching the wheel in a death grip—getting ready to reach down and yank the taillight wire.
He'd had it rigged so he could jerk the wire if somebody was right behind him, and in theory you could tap the brake and the car in pursuit would be denied that extra half-second warning before it had to duplicate your sharp, high-speed turn.
All that's well and good in theory, but in actual practice, doing 120 miles per fucking hour down some dark road, in a 1970 Ranchero, with Happy Ruiz on your case—you reach down and jerk something, it's likely to be the ignition wiring or your dick!
It was a two-handed job, just to keep it from rolling as they went fishtailing like a bandit, swerving down onto a stretch of service road leading into Ecoworld, those brights still in his eyes as he zoomed past crop stubble and onto concrete—miraculously, rubber side down.
33
The beast waited, having parked at the edge of the vast sprawl of construction. He'd spotted an old smokehouse and penetrated it, wrapped himself in cammo tarp and let the darkness close in around him.
He was waiting for his night eyes. It was still very black. Stars were barely visible out there in the measureless void. But he simply shut his internal engines down and relaxed, thinking of a time when he'd waited for a night ambush very far away. He pictured the mist that clung to the jungle floor, watching it swirl through the darkening foliage like a cottony, solid thing, as he waited for the ones he would kill. It was pleasant to fantasize about these things, and the time passed quickly for him.
The moon had come back out, and inside the small, ramshackle smokehouse he watched clouds move across the killer's moon, and remembered the house where Mrs. Irby lived, where he'd filled his tanks and watched dust motes falling like snow imprisoned in an antique paperweight. He was in a fine mood again, and with a massive grunt he lurched to his feet and waddled down toward the nearest concrete, the full weight of his weapons and munitions cases in hand.
There were two guards, and they were both imbeciles. Amateurs. He ignored them and went about his
