still sleeping, and that made Blaze cry again, this time from relief. But the cave was cold. Snow had blown in and put the little fire out.
Blaze began to build it up again.
Special Agent Bruce Granger watched Blaze come down the ravine and crawl into the slit mouth of the cave. Granger had been lying there stolidly, waiting for the hunt to end one way or another so someone could carry him out. His leg hurt like hell and he’d felt like a fool.
Now he felt like someone who’d won the lottery. He reached for the walkie Corliss had left him and picked it up. “Granger to Sterling,” he said quietly. “Come back.”
Static. Peculiar blank static.
“Albert, this is Bruce, and it’s urgent. Come on back?”
Nothing.
Granger closed his eyes for a moment. “Son of a bitch,” he said. Then he opened his eyes and began to crawl.
8:10.
Albert Sterling and two State Troopers stood in Martin Coslaw’s old office with their guns drawn. There was a blanket squashed up in one corner. Sterling saw two empty plastic nursing bottles, and three empty cans of Carnation Evaporated Milk that looked like they had been opened with a jackknife blade. And two empty boxes of Pampers.
“Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit,
“He can’t be far,” Franklin said. “He’s on foot. With the kid.”
“It’s ten degrees out there,” someone in the hall remarked.
Sterling thought: One of you guys tell me something I don’t fucking know.
Franklin was looking around. “Where’s Corliss? Brad, did you see Corliss?”
“I think he might still be downstairs,” Bradley said.
“We’re going back into the woods,” Sterling said. “The moke’s got to be in the woods.”
There was a gunshot. It was faint, muffled by the snow, but unmistakable.
They looked at each other. There were five seconds of perfect, shocked silence. Maybe seven. Then they broke for the door.
Joe was still asleep when the bullet came into the cave. It ricocheted twice, sounding like an angry bee, chipping away splinters of granite and sending them flying. Blaze had been laying out diapers; he wanted to give Joe a change, make sure he was dry before they set out.
Now Joe started awake and began to cry. His small hands were waving in the air. One of the granite chips had cut his face.
Blaze didn’t think. He saw the blood and thought ceased. What replaced it was black and murderous. He burst from the cave and charged toward the sound of the shot, screaming.
Chapter 22
BLAZE WAS SITTING at the counter in Moochie’s, eating a doughnut and reading a Spider-Man funnybook, when George walked into his life. It was September. Blaze hadn’t worked for two months, and money was tight. Several of the candy-store wiseguys had been pinched. Blaze himself had been taken in for questioning about a loan-office holdup in Saugus, but he hadn’t been in on that job and had come across so honestly bewildered that the cops let him go. Blaze was thinking about trying to get back his old job at the hospital laundry.
“That’s him,” someone said. “That’s The Boogeyman.”
Blaze turned and saw Hankie Melcher. Standing with him was a little guy in a sharp suit. The little guy had sallow skin and eyes that seemed to burn like coals.
“Hi, Hank,” Blaze said. “Ain’t seenya.”
“Ah, little state vacation,” Hank said. “They let me out cause they can’t count right up there. Ain’t that so, George?”
The little guy said nothing, only smiled thinly and went on looking at Blaze. Those hot eyes made Blaze uncomfortable.
Moochie walked down, wiping his hands on his apron. “Yo, Hankie.”
“Chocolate egg cream for me,” Hank said. “Want one, George?”
“Just coffee. Black.”
Moochie went away. Hank said, “Blaze, like you to meet my brother-in-law. George Rackley, Clay Blaisdell.”
“Hi,” Blaze said. This smelled like work.
“Yo.” George shook his head. “You’re one big mother, know it?”
Blaze laughed as if no one had ever observed he was one big mother before.
“George is a card,” Hank said, grinning. “He’s a regular Bill Crosby. Only white.”
“Sure,” Blaze said, still smiling.
