have made me join her cult, no questions asked.
“But Freed hasn’t appeared in public much,” I said.
“Not in recent years,” she said. She laughed humorlessly. “He thinks the Russians want to kill him, and the Mafia… I think he’s as self-deluded as his followers.”
“If he’s such a recluse, how does he control these followers?”
“Well, he goes on retreats with party members and staffers and such. And he’s got that weekly cable TV show.”
“TV show? I don’t know anything about that.”
“Oh, sure-it’s a weekly half-hour show that he buys time for on all these cable channels. It’s a ‘news’ show- only it’s his version of the news-like pointing out which members of the President’s cabinet are Soviet agents. He sells ‘subscriptions’ to his monthly magazine, Freedom News, and memberships to the party.”
“Expensive?”
“The subscriptions are five hundred dollars a year. Party memberships are a thousand.”
“Jesus. And people send in money?”
“Every day. I used to work for him; part of his secretarial staff at first, then helped produce the TV show. I was privy to this stuff-saw the envelopes with the cash.”
“He’s pocketing it?”
“Oh, sure, but he does plow a lot of it back into his campaign. He means it when he says he wants to be president. It’s just… well.. look, I’ve said enough. We’ve got way off the track here.”
“No, I find this interesting. What soured you on Freed?”
Matter-of-fact facial shrug. “He’s a hypocrite. He preaches against drugs, but he has a cocaine habit that puts Hollywood to shame. He rants and raves about the ‘permissive society’ and then sleeps with every female follower he can lay his paws on. And that’s plenty of ’em.”
I looked at her hard. “He tried to lay paws on you, too.”
“Yes, he did. And I don’t mean he was just ‘handsy,’ either. It was… much more serious than that. And when I told Bob…” She swallowed, shook her head. “This… this is too personal.”
“Bob didn’t care.”
Eyebrow shrug. “Bob didn’t believe me. I walked out. On Bob, and on that fucker Freed.” She stared at the tablecloth.
“Where does Lonny Best fit in?”
“He was a loyal Freed supporter, too, once upon a time. But he got disgusted about a year ago and dropped out. Freed’s excesses, personal and political, finally got to Lonny.”
“So he sympathized with your situation and gave you a job.”
She nodded. “That about sums it up, I guess.”
“Is the same true of Werner?”
“Pretty much. He stopped by Best Buy one day-just a few months ago-to talk to Lonny about something. Then he came out on the lot and talked to me, asked how I was doing. I said making ends meet, and he asked me if I was interested in moonlighting here, on the weekends. I said sure.”
“Nice of him.”
“He had his hand on my hip when he asked, so I knew what I might be up against. But he wasn’t around here much. Actually, tonight was his night. Saturday night, I mean. He and his wife would have dinner. Even with her along, though, he’d manage to cop a feel.”
“At least you don’t have to put up with that anymore.”
“Hey. Please. I didn’t wish the guy dead.”
“Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean you have to start thinking nice thoughts about him.”
“Yeah,” she said, indignantly. “What do I have to feel guilty about? I didn’t kill him.”
“Me either,” I said, and smiled.
That made her laugh.
“You’re a character. Whoops, I finally got customers.”
“How late do you work tonight?”
She stood. “We serve till ten.”
“Can I stop by for you?”
“I have my own car.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Excuse me,” she said, and went and tended to her customers.
A waitress came by and I ordered the barbecued ribs.
I was just finishing up when Angela stopped by the table and dropped a cocktail napkin before me.
“See you at ten,” she’d written.
It was just a little after five now. That should give me time to do what I needed to do.
11
I’d been down this road before. But it had been years ago, and the road had been dark then and was darker now. The moon, just a faint blur in an overcast sky, was no help; only my headlights lit the world, which is to say the stretch of concrete immediately before me.
This was the River Road, the road in question being narrow two-lane Highway 22, the river the Mississippi, although its presence over at my left-not at all far away-couldn’t be proved by me. A blackness of trees, beyond the railroad tracks, obscured any river view.
Soon-not far from Davenport, really-the quarry began, or signs of it anyway: dunes of crushed rock rose at my right like monstrous anthills; my headlights caught swirls of powder, which built into a modest but steady dust storm. Then, at left, skeletal steel buildings and machinery mingled with silo-like structures, awash in a greenish- gray glow, amber lights winking here and there, white billowing smokestacks lathering the dark sky, tempting God’s razor.
And now on my right was the vast quarry, acres of emptiness, beautiful in its barrenness, a natural wonder enduring this ongoing invasion stoically. An enclosed conveyor mechanism slashed across the sky diagonally, from the plant to the quarry, going again and again to this limestone well to make little bags of cement, and bigger bags of money.
Beyond the mile-long quarry was Buffalo, a village whose small business section-a few unpretentious restaurants, antique shop, gas station-was scattered along the right, with railroad tracks and, finally, the visible Mississippi at left, its surface reflecting the gray filtering of moonlight.
And beyond Buffalo was another quarry, an abandoned one, filled with water now, put there by man or nature or somebody, so that it was, in effect, a lake. And on that lake, above its shimmering surface, above the ledges of limestone, was a house. It was not small; its lines were modern in the Frank Lloyd Wright sense, with the central part of the house a story taller than the rest. A few lights were on, glowing yellowly behind sheer curtains. From the highway, looking across the expanse of what for lack of a better term I’ll call Lake Quarry, it seemed not just distant, but abstract.
Behind the house, the bluff rose, thick with trees; those trees were bare, but no matter-tonight they were an ebony blot against the charcoal sky. The home-the estate-of Preston Freed was seemingly impregnable. Fuck it; I was going calling, anyway.
Half a mile or so down, there was a road-two narrow lanes of gravel-that seemed the most likely access to the Freed estate. My Sunbird stirred up dust, climbing the bluff until it leveled out, and dipped and farmland began appearing on my left; but on my right was forest, and barbed wire with signs that said, PRIVATE PROPERTY- TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT. Added to one of the signs, by somebody unimpressed by these cornfield threats, was: AND EATEN.
Soon, off to my right, a paved driveway materialized, blocked by a heavy, unpainted steel gate-nothing fancy, just formidable. A car, a brown Ford, was parked on the other side of the gate, on the grass, and somebody was in it; the orange glow of a cigarette showed on the driver’s side.
