“Do it?” Neal mumbled. “Do what?”
“It,” Karen repeated, her motion demonstrating her meaning. She smiled and added, “Yeah, I think you want to do it.”
“Are your guests asleep?”
“My shy boy,” she said. “They’re in the living room watching ‘The Jack and Candy Family Hour.’ We can be quiet. I can, anyway.”
Afterward, she asked, “Do you think she’s attractive?”
“Who?”
“Who,” she mocked. “Polly!”
Neal recognized dangerous ground when he saw it.
“I think she’s more attractive now than she was,” he said.
Karen elbowed him in the ribs.
“You’re such a diplomat,” she said. “Would you like to do it with her?”
Would I? Neal thought.
“No.”
“Good answer.”
“Thank you.”
But he still couldn’t get to sleep.
Candy leaned across the sofa and studied Polly’s face. Candy was in that phase of inebriation that is like the eye of a hurricane. For a little while, everything is still, calm, and clear. It is more sober than sobriety. It is the time when the terrible truths come.
“Did Jack really rape you?” she asked Polly.
Polly nodded.
Without all the makeup, Polly’s eyes were remarkably expressive. Candy knew right then that the woman was telling the truth.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You really want to know?”
“I don’t. But I need to know.”
“Jack comes to my apartment,” Polly answered. “I tell him it’s over, that I don’t want to see him anymore because I feel so guilty, I can’t ask Saint Anthony for even an earring and I’m too ashamed to go to confession. He says that’s superstitious Catholic bullshit and that I don’t have anything to feel guilty about because the two of you-”
Polly suddenly stopped.
“Didn’t have sex anymore?” Candy asked. “That’s a lie.”
We just weren’t having good sex anymore, Candy thought.
“Yeah… anyway, I tell him it doesn’t make any difference, that I just don’t want to see him anymore, and I try to close the door, and I guess that makes him mad, because he pushes it open and grabs me and starts trying to kiss me.
“I slap him, but I guess that just makes him madder, and he rips my nightgown open, which makes me pretty mad, because I’d just bought it and it was expensive, so I punch him and he pushes me on the floor, but I have hold of his jacket, so he falls on top of me, which isn’t so smart on my part, I guess.
“He’s strong, you know, and he pushes my legs open and says something like, ‘You wanna play, huh?’ And I’m telling him to stop, but he doesn’t stop.
“After a while, he gets up and leaves. I call my friend Gloria and tell her and she doesn’t think I should call the cops-you know, ‘you play, you pay’ attitude-but I did, and I guess you know the rest of it. And Candy…I’m really, sorry I did that to you. Even though I’d see you on TV, you were never a real person to me, but now you are, and I am so, so sorry.”
Candy had seen a lot of young women cry, most of them ex-convicts who had stolen stuff. She had handed them tissues and recipes and monthly budget planners, but now she scooted across the couch and held this young woman and let her cry into her shoulder. She didn’t think that’s what a priest did in confession, but that’s what she did. She watched the strange image of herself on television, a picture that now looked like some old documentary, held the young woman to whom she was strangely related, and wondered what would happen next.
13
Overtime was experiencing what von Clausewitz had called “the frictions of war.”
His wrist was raw and radial pain throbbed into his hand. He had driven near the target house, couldn’t find a decent angle from the front, so he had to work his way laboriously to the uphill slope behind the house before he found a workable shot.
But when he peered through the scope, the operational situation became confused. There were two women, not one, and neither looked like the picture he had of Polly Paget.
Problem: insufficient clarity of identification.
Analysis: Risk increases with proximity.
Solution: Nevertheless, there is nothing to do but move closer.
Charles Whiting heard a sound that was distinctly human. The long hours hiding in the drainage ditch were a testament to his bureau training and his own personal discipline. Hungry, cold, and tired, he had heard nothing but coyotes, an owl, and the occasional rabbit. But now he sensed movement, human movement, headed toward the house and Mrs. Landis. Charles started to bear-crawl toward the house.
It wasn’t exactly a sound that woke up Neal; it was the feeling of a sound. He lay still for a few moments and identified the electric chatter from the television set and the nondistinct sound of the two women sitting in the living room. Karen slept beside him, breathing softly. But there was something else, something outside.
He slipped out of bed, put on a black sweatshirt, jeans, and tennis shoes, went into the bathroom, and lowered himself out the window.
That goddamn Walter, he thought as he moved quietly around the corner. Dead-drunk and he doesn’t give up.
Overtime worked down the slope to get a better view through the window. He was almost in the backyard. He dropped into a sitting marksman’s crouch, wrapped the sling around his aching arm, and looked through the scope.
Lesbians, he observed as he saw the women embracing. What a town: mad dogs and dykes.
There was nothing to do now but get in the house, identify the target, and dispatch her. And if someone got a look at his license plate, too bad for Walter Withers.
He started to edge down toward the house.
Then he saw the man crawling across the lawn. He raised his scope.
The force of the hit slammed Neal against the wall and drove the air from his lungs. A spectacular jolt shot up his spine and his legs collapsed under him. He would have fallen to the ground if the guy who’d rushed him hadn’t grabbed him and held him against the wall.
“Who are you?” the guy hissed.
Neal didn’t waste breath on an answer. He stalled with an unfeigned effort to catch his breath, then wrapped his ankles behind the tall man’s knees, twisted his own body away from the wall, and pulled his heels back. The man’s knees buckled and he started to fall forward. As Neal fell backward, he grabbed the man’s shirt and pushed his upper arm so that they spun and he landed on top of his attacker. He brought his elbow forward and smashed it against the man’s nose.
Neal heard a grunt, then his attacker came up with a knee, pivoted his hip, and threw Neal off. Lunging forward, he took Neal clean in the chest and knocked him backward. Neal rolled before the guy could grab him again, then kicked out and hit the side of the man’s knee. The intruder crumpled to the ground.
Overtime watched the fight as he screwed the silencer onto his pistol and pulled the ski mask over his head. If he moved quickly enough, he could be out of this job tonight.
