The rain came in spurts throughout the first part of the night, falling heavily, with cracks of thunder and lightning strikes out over the ocean for the initial hours of his wait, before tapering off into a steady irritating drizzle. As the storm passed overhead, the temperature dropped a half-dozen or more degrees, giving the darkness a chill that seemed perversely out of place. There had been some wind with the line of thunderstorms, strong currents that tugged at the edges of his poncho, and made the rubble and charred remains around him creak, as if they, too, had unsettled business that night. Ricky remained hidden, like a hunter in a blind, waiting for the quarry to come into sight. He thought of all the hours he had spent silently seated behind the heads of patients on his couch, barely moving, rarely speaking, and thought it funny that all that time spent in contemplation had prepared him well for the wait that night.
He moved only occasionally, and then just to stretch and flex his muscles enough so that they wouldn’t seize up with disuse but be available to him when needed. Mostly, he leaned back, the mosquito netting about his head, the poncho spread over his body, more a shapeless lump than human. From where he was concealed, he could still see across the open field that had welcomed visitors to his home, especially when the sky was streaked by bolts of electricity. He was situated in a position that allowed him to spot slices of headlights penetrating the stands of trees out by the main road, and he found that he could hear the car engines above the thick folds of black darkness.
He had only one fear: that Rumplestiltskin would find more patience than he had.
Ricky doubted this, but wasn’t completely certain. After all, the child had harbored so much hatred for years, and waited so long before springing his traps, it was possible that now, in this last stage, he might hesitate, and simply take up a position in the tree line and do more or less what Ricky was doing, which was waiting for some telltale motion before closing in. This was the gamble that Ricky was taking that night. But he thought his bet was well hedged. Everything he’d done was designed to provoke Mr. R. Anger, fear, and threats demand responses. A professional killer was a man of action. An analyst was not. Ricky believed that he had created a situation where his own strengths compensated for those of his adversary. His own training countered the killer’s training. He will move first, Ricky insisted. Everything you know about behavior tells you this is true. In the game of memory and death that the two men were locked in, Ricky held the higher ground. He was fighting on land he knew.
It was, he thought, the best he could do.
By ten p.m. the world around him had funneled itself into a damp, musty arena of blackness. He found his senses heightened, his mind alert to all the nuances of the night. He hadn’t heard a car, or spotted distant headlights in over an hour, and the rain seemed to have driven all the nocturnal beasts into their dens, so not even the scratching sound of an opossum or skunk searching for something to eat penetrated the air about him. It was, he thought, right at the moment when his heart and his determination should fail him, that doubt should creep into his imagination, trying to persuade him that he was waiting foolishly for someone who would not arrive. He mocked this sensation within him, insisting that the only thing he knew for certain was that Rumplestiltskin was close, and would be closer still, if only he persevered and waited. He wished that he’d had the sense to bring a bottle of water, or a thermos of coffee, but he hadn’t. It is hard to plot murder, he thought, and remember the mundane at the same time.
He wiggled his fingers occasionally, and silently drummed his index finger along the side of the trigger guard. Once he was startled by a bat swooping through the air above him; another time a pair of deer emerged for a second or two from the woods. He could make out only the vaguest elements of their shapes, until they spooked and turned white tails and bounded away with unmistakable ballet leaps.
Ricky continued to wait. The assassin was likely a man accustomed to the night, and comfortable in it, Ricky thought. Daytime compromises much for a killer. It gives him vision, but makes him recognizable, as well. He thought: I know you, Mr. R. You will want to end all this in the dark. You will be here soon enough.
Some thirty minutes after the last car’s headlights had swooped past in the distance, shrouded by the trees, a cone of light heading steadily away, Ricky spotted another car approach on the roadway. This one traveled a little slower, almost hesitant. Just the slightest element of indecision in the speed it traveled.
The glow paused near the dirt road entrance to his property, then sped up, and disappeared around a corner some ways away.
Ricky shrank back, burrowing deeper into the hole that concealed him.
Someone found what they were searching for, he thought, but did not want to display the discovery.
He continued to wait. Twenty more minutes passed in utter darkness, but Ricky now was curled like a snake, waiting. The glow of his wristwatch helped him to measure what was happening just beyond what little sight he had. Five minutes, time enough to find a spot where he could leave the car unseen. Ten minutes, time to walk back to the entranceway to Ricky’s property. Another five minutes to slide along quietly, beneath the canopy of branches. Now, he’s in the last line of trees, Ricky thought. Surveying the ruin of the house from a safe distance. He drew back into his lair, pulling his feet under the edge of the poncho.
Ricky looped tendrils of patience around his heart. He could feel adrenaline pumping wildly through his ears, and his pulse racing like an athlete’s, but he calmed himself by silently reciting passages from literature to himself. Dickens: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” A line from Camus: “Mother died today, or maybe it was yesterday.” This recollection made him smile through the terror that lurked within him. An appropriate passage, he thought. His eyes darted back and forth, searching the darkness. It was a little like opening one’s eyes underwater. Shapes were in motion, but not recognizable. Still, he waited, because he knew that his only chance was to see before he was seen.
The drizzle had finally stopped, leaving the world slick and glistening. The chill that had first accompanied the thunderstorms fled, and Ricky could feel a thick, humid warmth seize hold of the world around him. He was breathing slowly, afraid that the asthmatic raspiness in every breath could be heard for miles. He glanced at the sky, and saw the outline of a cloud, showing up billowing gray against the black, scudding across the air, almost as if it was being rowed by some unseen oarsman. A little bit of moonlight slid into a hole carved by the cloud’s passing, dropping like a shaft through the night. Ricky pulled his eyes from right to left, and saw a shape step away from the trees.
Ricky fixed on the figure, who stood outlined for just an instant by the wan light, more a shape of darkness that was colored a richer black than the night surrounding them. In that time, he saw the person lift something to his eyes, and then slowly pivot, like a lookout high on a boat’s tower, searching for icebergs in the waters ahead.
Ricky shrank back farther, pressing himself back against the ruins. He bit down hard on his lip, for he knew immediately what he was facing: a man with night vision binoculars.
He froze in position, realizing that the outlandish costume of poncho and bug hat was his greatest defense. Amid the charred slabs of wood and piles of burned rubble, he would appear as just another shape of twisted wreckage. Like a chameleon who can change his color depending on the shade of leaf that it occupies, Ricky remained in position, hoping that there was nothing outward that presented even the smallest suggestion of humanity.
The shape moved subtly.
Ricky caught his breath. He did not know whether he’d been spotted.
It took every bit of mental energy he could collect to maintain his position. Panic lapped at the edges of his imagination screaming at him to run while he still had a chance. But he replied inwardly that his only chance lay in doing what he was doing. After so much that had happened, he had to bring the man moving through the darkness toward him within arm’s reach. The dark shape moved obliquely across Ricky’s field of vision. Moving cautiously, slowly, but not fearfully, slightly crouched over, presenting little profile, an experienced predator.
Ricky let out a long slow whistle of air. He did not see me.
The shape reached the onetime garden, and Ricky watched the man hesitate. He could see that he wore some cover over his head and face, matching his dark clothing. The shape seemed far more a part of the night than a person. Again something was lifted up, and again Ricky burned with tension as the night
