flattening against his teeth, when he saw that the only set of wheels down there was Verriker’s van. All by himself tonight. Perfect. Now he could take his time, make Verriker sweat and beg before he blew him away.
The road jogged up ahead. On the far side, he found a place to turn around, rolled back past the Ramsey cabin to the hidden parking spot among the trees. He slid the Charter. 38 into his pocket, locked the truck, and made his way along the verge of the empty road. Slower going tonight-he couldn’t see as clear with the clouds keeping the moon covered up. But he could see the cabin lights all right through the trees.
He went all the way to the driveway this time, down along its edge. No need to go skulking around in the trees tonight. No need to look for an unlocked door or window. Just walk up, walk right inside if the lock was off. And if it wasn’t, knock on the door-Verriker wouldn’t have no reason not to open up for him. Wouldn’t be afraid of him until he was looking down the barrel of the. 38.
The closer Balfour got to the door, the softer he walked. Excitement made his heart hammer, sharpened his senses-the same as when he had a buck in his sights, ready for the kill. Only better, much better, because shooting a deer wasn’t personal, and this was as personal as it got.
He had the revolver tight in his hand when he reached the door. He listened, didn’t hear anything inside, reached out real quiet to test the latch. Locked. He let go of it, sucked in a breath, and rapped on the door panel. Not too heavy, not too loud.
Nothing for several seconds. The. 38 felt big in his hand. Enormous. His palm was itching again, his mouth dry, his thoughts full of blood.
Come on, Verriker, come on!
Footsteps then, slow. “Who is it?”
He almost said, “The mayor.” It was right there on the tip of his tongue. He bit it back, said his name instead.
“What do you want, Balfour?”
“I got something to tell you. Real important, Ned. Can I come in?”
A little more silence. Thinking it over. Open the fucking door!
Verriker opened it. The bolt lock snapped, light spilled out through a three-inch slit between the door and the jamb. Balfour shoved inward with his free hand, moving forward at the same time, bringing the. 38 up. Saw Verriker backing away fast to one side, snapped at him, “Stay where you are!” as he bulled ahead into the room.
Movement at the edge of his vision.
Warning flash… too late.
Something slammed down on his forearm with enough force to paralyze his fingers, break his grip on the gun.
From the other side, something hit him across the side of the neck, took his breath away, and dropped him to his knees.
He tried to get up, but his legs and arms wouldn’t work. Another blow sent him sprawling onto his back. He lay there dazed, staring up through a haze of pain. Two faces swam into focus above him, faces he recognized No!
Panicked disbelief surged through him. He tried to scuttle backward away from the hands that reached down for him, but all he could do was flop and jerk like a deer with a busted spine.
Verriker dead, Idaho… never happen now. Screwed again. Why couldn’t nothing ever turn out the way he planned it, why did the shit always have to happen to him?
27
Runyon scooped up Balfour’s snub-nosed revolver and shoved it into his pocket, then helped me haul him up off the floor. We dragged him to the couch and threw him down on it and slap-frisked him to find out if he had another weapon. He didn’t. Runyon had brought in the set of handcuffs he keeps in his car; he snapped one circlet around Balfour’s wrist, the other around the shaft of an old, heavy pole lamp.
While he was doing that, I got up beside Balfour on my knees, bunched my fingers in the neck of his shirt, and put my face close to his. He wouldn’t look at me, kept jerking his head from side to side. I shook him, hard.
“Where’s my wife, you son of a bitch?”
He made gurgling sounds, mouth twitching and spraying spittle, his little black rodent’s eyes bright with fear and confusion. Kept up that rolling motion with his head to avoid eye contact.
“What did you do with her? Where is she?”
“Uh… uh…”
I cuffed him with the back of one hand. Shook him again with the other, hard enough to snap his head forward this time. “Where is she?”
“Bill!” Runyon’s voice sharp behind me. His hands on me then, wrestling me backward. The cloth of Balfour’s shirt ripped before my fingers came loose; he bounced back against the cushion. “He can’t talk if you break his neck.”
I struggled a little, not much. Jake held onto me until I quit, but when he let go, his body was still blocking me from Balfour. The initial burst of rage had banked some; I leaned against the couch arm, trying to get my breathing under control. Balfour was still twitching, but only the right side of his body moved; his left arm hung limp across his lap. The gurgles had become grunts, and one of the grunts shaped out into a pair of words.
“Crippled me…”
Temporarily, that was all. Runyon had learned judo when he was on the Seattle PD; the nerve paralysis from his chop across Balfour’s neck would fade pretty soon, but we weren’t about to tell him that.
Verriker had crossed to stand alongside the pole lamp, his heavy face mottled with a fury that matched mine. I watched him lean down and spit in Balfour’s face. “You miserable sack of shit, you blew up my house, you killed Alice.”
“No, I never-”
“Yeah, but it was me you were after. Why? I never done anything to you.”
“Hell you didn’t. You and your mayor crap.”
“Crazy, you’re crazy as hell!” Verriker hit him hard on the side of the head, half punch, half slap. “I ought to-”
Runyon said, “You won’t do anything,” and shouldered him aside. “Stand over there by the fireplace, stay out of it.”
Verriker glared, muttered something under his breath, but the look on Runyon’s face pulled his gaze down. He went without argument.
I was all right now, in control again. I nodded to Runyon to let him know it, tried to push in next to him so that both of us would be looming over Balfour. It was like trying to push a hunk of cement.
“Let me handle this, Bill.”
Taking charge. Okay with me. My thinking had straightened out enough to understand that he was the only one of the three of us who had his emotions in check. So I didn’t put up an argument, just nodded again and backed off. He’d been a rock through all of this. If it hadn’t been for him and his long shot idea, we wouldn’t have been lucky enough to catch Balfour. Jake’s reasoning had been that Balfour could have found out where Verriker was staying, hadn’t been able to get at him last night because Verriker told us the cabin’s owners had stayed over, and might risk delaying escape to come gunning for him tonight. So we’d staked out here before dark and waited, waited, waited. My screaming nerves wouldn’t have stood much more of it.
The ugly little bastard was still twitching, sweat leaking out of him in oily pustules. But his shock and pain had diminished; his face was set tight again with some of the same belligerence he’d shown at the fairgrounds this morning. Only, it didn’t run deep, and I could see behind it. Coward, all right. When push came to shove, the yellow would show through like jaundice, and he’d crack wide open.
Runyon leaned down close. “Where is she, Balfour?”
“Who? I dunno what you’re talkin’ about.”
“The woman you kidnapped. Kerry Wade.”
