Eight
Parker drove the ATV southward through scrubland, looking for a way over or around the ridge separating him from the house. The thick brush-stroke of black smoke drawn upward into the sky was his guide to where he wanted to be, but for the first twenty minutes he couldn’t find a way to get there. Then the hill flattened somewhat, in an area where the trees grew thicker, and Parker worked his way through the trees as though through a labyrinth, occasionally having to back out of a spot where the trunks were too close together. He couldn’t see the smoke from in here, but he maintained his direction fairly well, and when he emerged at last to where the trees were once more sparse, the smoke was up to his left and he was on the correct side of the ridge.
Driving was easier over here, on the flats, but it still took a quarter of an hour to cover the distance back to the house. When he got there, he saw that the house too had caught fire, and both house and car were now little more than black skeletons, both still smoldering. He made a wide sweep around the spot, picked up the dirt road, and headed east.
Something over an hour later he came to a blacktop road which was also mainly east-west. He followed it east until he came to a town that called itself Tracy. At a pay phone in a gas station there, while the ATV’s tank was being filled, he made a long-distance call to Mackey. There was no answer from his room, so Parker told the desk clerk, “Send somebody out to the pool for him. He’ll be out there.”
It took a couple minutes, but abruptly there was a click and Mackey’s open voice: “Yeah? Hello?”
“Hello, it’s me.”
“What? Oh, yeah.” He sounded very cheerful. “How’d things go?”
“Good. What about things there?”
Mackey’s big grin could be heard in his voice. “It’s on,” he said.
Part 3
One
Stan Devers was walking. It was about eleven at night, traffic on the highway was light, and as he strode along the shoulder the crunching of gravel beneath his feet gave him a kind of company.
Lights up ahead—something useful? Yes. A motel. Devers smiled, but didn’t hurry, didn’t alter his pace. He had all the time in the world, unfortunately.
It took nearly ten minutes to get to the motel, a sprawled-out complex of buildings with a swimming pool, a restaurant, and a separate bar. Devers angled across the blacktop to the office and went inside.
There was a girl clerk on duty at the desk. Devers walked over to her, smiling his most easygoing smile. He was twenty-eight, tall, muscular in a beachboy way. with blond hair and a pleasant square-jawed face. He’d had a string of bad luck recently, but he still looked presentable in his sport jacket and slacks, and he only took it as his due when the girl returned his smile with warmth and some obvious interest.
Hustle the girl? No; better the original idea. He said, “Has Mr. Peabody checked in yet?”
The smile grew doubtful. “Peabody?”
“Henry Peabody. He might have been delayed.”
”I’ll just check,” she said, and took a minute to go through her cards. “Sorry,” she said. “Not here yet.”
Devers gestured toward the leatherette sofa on the opposite wall. “I’ll just stick around and wait.”
“Sure,” she said.
There were travel brochures in a metal stand near the sofa. Devers read about the Grand Canyon and other geographical celebrities, and from time to time a customer would arrive in the office and check in. Devers glanced up each time, then looked back at the photograph of the Golden Gate Bridge or whatever.
Once a drunk came in—somewhat heavy-set, fiftyish, well-dressed, florid, drunk but under control. His speech was too careful and his walk too careless, but he carried his alcohol with the assurance of long familiarity. Devers looked at him, put the brochure (”See Great Gorge!”) down on the sofa, got to his feet, and strolled over to the exit door. It was mostly glass, and he looked out at a bronze Toronado sitting out there with headlights and engine both on. But there was a woman in the passenger seat, a young redhead in a V-neck blouse, who gave him a look of flat disinterest and turned away. Devers shrugged and went back to the sofa and reached for another brochure.
The girl made a couple of efforts to strike up a conversation, during lulls between customers: “Looks like your man is really late,” that sort of thing. Devers replied with friendliness and smiles, but also with a remoteness that tended to stifle chit-chat; after a while the girl found paper work to busy herself with instead.
He’d been there almost an hour when the second drunk came in, a carbon copy of the first, except that he was carrying a somewhat heavier load. Once again Devers got to his feet and strolled over to the exit door, and this time it was a Mercedes-Benz sedan purring away out there. And no one in the passenger seat.
Devers stepped outside, looked both ways, opened the rear door of the Mercedes and slid inside. Sample cases, forms, all the paraphernalia of the traveling salesman were scattered around back here. Devers pulled a case up from the floor, put it on the seat, and got down on the floor himself. It was awkward and uncomfortable down there, but at the same time comforting, as though he were a kid again, playing a game. The engine throbbed throughout the car, and very little light came in and down to where Devers was hiding.
Three or four minutes later the drunk came back out, carrying his room key. He stuffed the key in his shirt pocket, got behind the wheel, and drove slowly around the main building and through the secondary buildings, tapping the brake from time to time, apparently while looking for room numbers on the doors going by. Devers stayed where he was, and waited.
At last the car made a slow tight turn and came to a slightly-too-abrupt stop. Devers raised himself from the floor as the drunk switched off the motor and lights. Devers’ left arm came around the drunk’s head, he caught the drunk’s throat in the crook of his elbow, and he used all his weight to pull backward and down, using the head support atop the seatback to hold the drunk’s head in position while his forearm cut off all air.
