partner Frank somewhere down here. Maybe at the Heidelmans, or even inside Les' cabin. Of course if Elgin was smart, he wouldn't have been so damn easy to spot on the highway. I figured we had a fighting chance.
We climbed what passed for steps-old boards hammered perpendicularly into the clay of the hill. The stairs to the deck were on the side of the cabin. Nobody on the highway could've seen us from there. Nobody jumped out of the woods in commando gear. We made plenty of creaks and cracks getting to the front door. If anybody was inside, they'd sure as hell know we were coming.
The door was padlocked-one of those loops slotted through a metal hinge. Dumb.
I got Allison to hand me a Phillips head out of my backpack and removed the base of the hinge in less than a minute. We could've gone through the window pretty easily too, but I wasn't ready to break glass just yet.
We went inside the hut.
Allison said, 'Yuck.'
It was dark. It smelled like rotten food and sour laundry. In the light of my pencil flashlight it was difficult to piece together exactly what we were seeing, what happened here. There was an unmade single bed against the left wall. A portable stereo against the right littered all around with CDs and cassettes. The CD carriage was sticking out-the 'drink holder,' as my brother Garrett called it. The floor was covered in grass mat that was starting to tear into separate squares. The curved roof was covered with black cloth that just made the space seem more claustrophobic. In the back was a kitchenette and a phone and one shuttered window and a tiny walledin area that must've been the bathroom.
When our eyes adjusted to the dark Allison went into the kitchen and lifted a pan of halfscrambled eggs from the electric grill. They were rubberized in places, crystallized in others.
'Two eggs for breakfast,' Allison said. 'Every day, no exceptions.'
'He left halfway through making those,' I said. 'What do you think-about two or three days ago?'
Allison shuddered, put the pan down. 'Something like that. So the bastard's alive.'
She sounded less than thrilled. She gave me a tentative smile. 'I guess I figured that.
It's just-'
She hooked her thumbs in her borrowed Banana Republics, looked around at her feet where men's clothes were strewn around as if somebody had walked through a laundry pile. Then she kicked one of Les' shirts with a vengeance.
I went into the bathroom. A man's toiletry bag was in the sink, next to a propanepowered Destroilet with directions on the lid about how to avoid a house fire when you flushed.
I got out my Polaroid and took a picture of the toilet. Nobody would believe me about it, otherwise. Then I took some pictures of the rest of the cabin-the eggs, the laundry, the scattered CDs.
I went to the kitchen counter and picked up the phone. The line was active. I set the switch from touch tone to pulse and pressed redial. I was pretty sure I got the number on the first listen but I hung up before it rang, then tried it again. I wrote the number on my hand and let the phone ring. No answer on ten, no answering machine.
Allison said, 'Tres.'
I turned. She was looking at me reproachfully, holding the frying pan with the eggs. As quietly as possible she said, 'Well? This or the Mace?'
'Wha-'
Then I heard the creaking, from outside, like someone trying to climb the old porch steps with at least some semblance of stealth.
38
A shadow moved across the yellow curtain into the doorway and became Frank the Bubba, my courteous shakedown deputy from the night before. He scowled and smushed his nose against the screen door, trying to see into the interior gloom. He was wearing jeans and an orange Hawaiian shirt. More advanced surveillance techniques.
I looked at Allison. 'You're a lot of fun. But right now I want you to put down the frying pan, okay?'
'Are you crazy?'
'Put it down.'
Frank's eyes adjusted to the dark. He focused on me. I smiled and waved. He looked at Allison. Slowly, she lowered the pan and waved too.
'If we had a gun,' she speculated quietly, 'we could've shot him five or six times by now.'
'Shut up,' I told her. 'Please.'
Frank opened the door and came inside.
His face was lyescrubbed red and his eyes were bleary. His blond moustache whiskers spiked at weird angles. He looked groggy and irritated but not particularly surprised.
'That's right,' he said. 'You two really need to be here.'
The walkietalkie on his belt made a click, then a metallic crackling sound. He kept his eyes on me while he picked it up. 'Never mind, Garwood. False alarm.'
The garbled response sounded vaguely like Elgin's voice. I couldn't make out what he said but apparently Frank could.
'Yeah,' he said. 'It was nothing.'
Frank turned the volume knob down to zero.
'False alarm?' I asked.
Frank scanned the room, tapping the walkietalkie against his thigh. 'Elgin has some ideas what he might do if he ever sees you again. I don't want him to get too excited.'
Frank looked around for a place to sit, opted for the bed. He sank into the foam mattress, hesitated, then crossed his legs and began to pry off his left boot.
'Got to excuse me,' he grumbled. 'Feet are killing me.'
Allison said, 'You want us to rub them for you?'
She was leaning against the kitchen counter, head on her hand like she was bored.
She glanced at me and said, 'This guy managed to get you on the pavement?'
Frank's ears turned the same colour orange as his Hawaiian shirt. He raised his eyebrows at me. 'New woman?'
'Allison SaintPierre. She's charming, really.'
The name registered, maybe the reputation, too. Frank gave me a weary look of condolence. He switched legs and tugged off the other boot. His socks were two slightly different shades of blue.
' I didn't like what happened last night, Mr. Navarre. I didn't like it worth a damn.'
'Try being the one with your nose in the gravel.'
A smile flickered underneath the moustache. 'You don't get what I'm saying. People bother Mr. Sheckly, I got no problem pushing them around a little. That's not my beef.'
'Reassuring.'
Allison sighed. She fiddled wistfully with the Mace on her key chain, picking at the little plastic tab.
'Sheck takes care of his people,' Frank continued. 'It's a closeknit county out here.
P.I. s come around all year long, sticking their noses into the Paintbrush's business, looking for paternity suits, blackmail photos, you name it. I don't have any problem dissuading them.'
'Planting guns in their cars,' I said.
Frank sat quiet for a long time, then apparently decided something. He sat forward, reached into his wallet, and pulled out a photograph.
'Look at this.'
I took the photo. It showed Frank in white shorts and a different Hawaiian shirt, his arm around a similarly dressed plump blond woman. The woman was holding a white bundle that was either the world's largest QTip pad or a wellswaddled baby.
'Got a family now,' he said.
