up. Now we’ve got to break one for telling me you were left-handed. We have to discover a basis for trust in our relationship. Now, put your hand back on the table:’
Mark’s hand had already swollen to twice its normal size as blood poured internally from ruptured vessels. Movement of any sort was excruciating, but the mental agony of going through this one more time was almost more than he could bear. Without the gentle support of his other hand, the broken finger wobbled back and forth at the break line, grinding bone ends against each other. He hoped he would pass out, giving Pointer the option of ending this while he was unconscious. But of course, no such thing happened.
This time, Pointer made it easy, grabbing Mark’s pinky even as he rested it on the table and wrenching it quickly backwards and sideways, nearly severing the finger at its root. This time Mark howled in agony, unable to control his voice, and he slipped from his chair down onto the filthy floor. Pointer considered shooting him on principle, but decided to ignore it. The son of a bitch had held out longer than he would have thought, anyway. He eased the hammer down and reholstered the Magnum. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Bailey. Write when you can. I’ll call you when we need you.”
As deliberately as he’d entered, Pointer strolled to the exit, telling the bartender as he passed, “My friend over there will pick up the tab. Be patient with him, though. Might take a few minutes for him to get the money out of his pocket.”
In reply, the bartender nodded politely and studiously avoided making any eye contact. No one in the Hillbilly Tavern had seen a thing.
Chapter 14
Nathan licked the last of the pizza sauce off his thumb and forefinger and slumped backwards into the soft leather cushions of the sofa, thoroughly satisfied. Where a family-size frozen pizza had once resided on a cardboard tray, there were now only crumbs and a single orphaned pepperoni, which he quickly dispatched with one bite. He launched an enormous belch, and laughed aloud as the sound reverberated off the walls of the family room.
After hanging up with The Bitch, he’d listened for another hour or so in the bedroom as callers branded him either innocent and cute—Jeeze!—or guilty and vicious. There seemed to be no middle ground. He thought it was pretty cool that The Bitch was supportive. The more he listened, the more he became convinced that she was on his side.
A guy could only ignore his stomach for so long, though. He was getting bored with the radio anyway, so he switched it off with an hour still left in The Bitch’s time slot and headed downstairs, where he launched a search- and-destroy mission looking for something to eat. The pantry proved to be as empty as the refrigerator had been the night before, but a quick look in the mud room revealed a freezer full of his favorite foods. Once he realized that the pizza was too big for the microwave, he followed the directions on the back of the box and cooked it in the oven. While he waited the required twelve to sixteen minutes, he mixed a vat of orange juice from frozen concentrate. He couldn’t find a pitcher, so he used a stew pot.
Once lunch was ready, Nathan camped out on the floor of the family room, in front of a round coffee table. The remote control he found for the entertainment center looked like something invented. by NASA, with blue, green, red and yellow buttons. He pushed buttons at random until the big screen popped to life. None of the cable cartoons he liked were on, so he settled for a Star Trek rerun. Those guys were so lame. By, the time the twenty- third century came around, you’d think people would wear something more hip than high-heeled boots and skin- tight polyester. Captain Kirk was in the process of being beaten up—with his shirt off, of course, while everyone else was fully clothed. Nathan wondered with mild amusement why anyone would agree to be the guest star. Sure as hell, when you got beamed down with the regulars, you were doomed.
At the bottom-of-the-hour break, Nathan saw his face again on the screen—from a fuzzy video picture he hadn’t seen before—with a teaser voice-over for the News at Noon. Being famous was getting to be pretty cool. He wasn’t afraid anymore; at least not the same way he had been. He wasn’t sure where that shot of emotion on the telephone had come from, but he still hated himself for nearly breaking down. He still had friends, after all— somewhere. There was Jacob Protsky, his best friend and soccer teammate, and David Harrellson, who’d shared every classroom with Nathan since first grade. They’d undoubtedly be paying attention to all of this, and a guy had to be careful about his reputation.
Nathan thought about Huck Finn—not the one in the book, which was too boring for him to finish, but the one in the movies. When Huck was about his age, he outsmarted everybody, and got away from the law. Even helped people along the way. That’s what Nathan was going to do. He was going to live an adventure, moving from house to house, maybe sometimes camping out in the woods. Problem was, Huck had Jim to talk to and help him figure out his problems. Much as Nathan hated to admit it, grown-ups just knew more about certain things that he really needed help with. Like coming up with a plan. Huck and Jim had a plan. They used the cover of night to raft upstream to the free states, where Jim could find his family and Huck could start a new life.
What am I going to do?
He knew that his first priority should be putting distance between himself and the JDC, and though he had no real concept of where he was, he figured he couldn’t be more than a mile or two from where he started. That put him in the hottest part of the search area. The morning news shows had shown pictures of search parties and roadblocks, all looking for him. The reporter had even gone so far as to say that there were no leads as to his whereabouts. He figured, then, that he’d made a “clean getaway,” as they said in the movies. Now he just had to work out the next step.
Huck was little help to him here. Nathan had no raft; hell, there wasn’t even a river. And Huck didn’t have to worry about everybody in the country seeing his picture on TV and knowing what he looked like. He also didn’t have to worry about police cars and radios and faxes and radar and all the other stuff the cops had today just to make your life miserable.
On the other hand, Huck didn’t have access to those things either, did he? In one morning, Nathan had heard people change their minds about him, just because he talked on the radio. If he could change minds with a single call, what could he do with more calls? He was already the lead story on all the news shows, but television was still portraying him as the bad guy. He had to figure out a way to switch that around. He was a decent guy who’d gotten into trouble. He’d killed only to protect himself. If he could get the opportunity to tell the truth often enough, then people might start believing him. Television commercials did the same thing all the time, didn’t they? If people could accept what a make-believe psychic said, they had to believe his story, didn’t they? It was the truth, after all. All he had to do was call every radio station in the state and tell them his story.
Shit! Cops can trace phone calls!
Sure, The Bitch said they couldn’t trace the calls to her show, but what about the others?
Maybe The Bitch was wrong and the cops were outside waiting for him right now. Maybe there were rules about breaking down the doors to houses this nice. A quick and cautious check of the street from behind the small seam in the living room drapes out front revealed just a normal, empty summer street. Not even any kids running around. He figured that in a neighborhood like this everybody went away to day camp in the summer. That’s what he used to do.
So The Bitch was right after all—at least so far. And if she was wrong and cops were still on the way, well, that wasn’t something he could worry about. But he decided to cancel his planned telephone blitz. No sense taking unnecessary chances.
So now there was the matter of distance. Walking wouldn’t do. Not only was it too slow, but the news had said something about dogs trying to sniff him down. There had to be another solution.
If I could only drive.
Wait a minute! Why couldn’t he drive? Driving Uncle Mark’s pickup truck was what had gotten him into this mess in the first place. And it wasn’t so long ago that Nathan had driven Granddad’s ancient pickup truck around the fun farm in Gainesville. Purchased for a song in 1979, the eighteen-acre spread with its squalid little ranch house and collapsing barn had served as a place for Granddad to play farmer during his retirement years. Nathan loved going out there, mostly for the well-stocked ponds, but also for the old standard-shift ’68 Ford, which he was allowed to drive anywhere on the property so long as he stayed away from the water and the buildings. Granddad
