After the Rain

This was different from Virgil.

Unlike at the bar, now she got nothing overtly sexual off Dale Shuster, who stood in the compartment, bland and white as the Pillsbury Doughboy. It was hot in this tight space, but still Dale wore a long-sleeve blue Carhartt work shirt buttoned down to the wrists and up to his neck. The bloodless white of his skin was something you see on the inside of a seashell.

Hard to gauge reactions and focus. She thought she knew her body. Always counted on hemorrhages of adrenaline. But that old surge had turned on her, had congealed into a cold, heavy coil that pressed down on her chest. Hard to breathe with Dale studying her. His flat, patient eyes were teaching her stuff she didn’t want to know. Like how fear was a fast surface blast of pins and needles. Fear was fight or flight. Fear helped you survive. She’d swept right past fear into something deeper. More permanent. This was dread.

Dread was no way out, looking down into darkness. Getting ready to die.

To hold dread at bay she reached deep for hate. With difficulty, she forced a breath into her lungs. Let it out.

Face into the wave. Easy for you to say.

Still, she had to know.

She forced herself to look directly into Dale’s eyes and said, “What was that you gave me?”

“Ketamine. It’s a general anesthetic. Makes you paralyzed. I hit you in a large muscle group, so it came on slow. Like, say, when you have to use the bathroom. I’ll give you half a dose and you’ll be like a puppy. Easy to handle.”

Nina couldn’t help making a face.

Dale shrugged. “I have this problem with women. Ketamine helps me get over it. You didn’t eat any breakfast this morning, did you?” he asked blandly.

Nina shook off the weird question, gritted her teeth, and said, “Do you know who I am?”

He nodded. “You’re the government. You came looking for me because a Saudi named Rashid was arrested in Detroit earlier this week. He talked.”

That stunned her, and though she was still trippy from the drug, she had to know. She pushed up against the restraints. “Dale, is there a bomb?”

“Oh yes. Maybe you’ll get to see the windows rattle when it goes off. From a safe distance, of course.” Dale pushed the last bite of his doughnut into his mouth, and she noticed the milky flesh under his fingernails. A sign of a congestive heart. His blood was probably white too. Clots in his veins like maggots.

He chewed, took a final gulp of Coke, and set the can on the carpet. Then he lowered his bulk to the side of the bed. His weight depressed the mattress and she shifted toward him. Their hips touched. Almost blushing, he shyly moved away.

Nina started to tremble. It wasn’t his casual talk about a bomb that undercut her nerve. It was his creepy fit of shyness. The weird things he said.

You didn’t eat breakfast this morning?

After several false starts, she managed to say, “Rashid used the word nuclear.”

“Yes. There is a nuclear component,” Dale said.

“How”-she shook her head, concentrated, then continued-“did they get it in?”

“They?” Dale drew himself up. “They didn’t. I did. It’s my bomb. Well, actually, George and Joe made it, but it was my idea first.” His smile, though modest, showed half an inch of gum.

“George?” her voice rose.

“Yeah. You met him last night. He faked you guys out, huh?” Dale jerked his thumb at the rear of the van. “He’s right outside, parked in back. Probably smoking one of his cigars. We’re on our way to blow it up.”

She wasn’t processing this. She was losing it to the shakes. Her hip and left leg started to charley-horse, and out of reflex she stretched against the cords, causing her to arch her back, raise her hips to flex the cramped muscles. Dale averted his eyes and immediately rose from the bed.

“Don’t do that,” he said.

Nina couldn’t stop blinking, as if rapid eyelid movement could clarify the confusion. On their way… then a spasm circled her spine and she fought off a deep tremor, afraid her bladder and sphincter would let go. She had lost control and now she would lose her dignity. She would be reduced to mere fluids: sweat, tears, piss, shit, and blood. She knew if she allowed herself to think of her daughter right now she would cry.

Suddenly, enveloped in shivers, she got it. He wasn’t your ordinary sexual predator. He wasn’t some high- prairie militia whack job. They figured how to use him because…

He was crazy.

Dale edged around the bed, went to a small wicker basket by the toilet, and removed a folded sheet. Methodically he opened it, shook it out, and held it at arm’s length. It was as white as his face. He returned to the side of the bed and carefully spread it over her, pulling it up to her neck. “That’s better,” he said.

Then he reached up and closed the window and pulled the curtain shut so it was dark in the compartment.

“Movie time,” he said.

Chapter Thirty-eight

It was turning into the kind of hot July day when you want to stay inside, draw the blinds, and turn up the A/C. Broker lit another of the cigarettes from Nina’s pack. As he smoked, he continued to hold the pack in his hand, like it was a link to her. He felt the remaining cigarettes in it, resisting the urge to actually count them. About half left. In the back of his mind a scared little kid made up a game.

As long as I have her cigarettes, she’ll be all right.

As they drove in Wales’ truck, Broker wondered if these cops had been waiting for this ever since they swore an oath and strapped on a gun-a killing in their town. Now it was on them; three people shot dead in less than an hour. One of them by their hand.

Barry Sauer was in the hospital ER getting his face stitched. The Border Patrol was in charge of the site where Joe Reed had been stopped. Kruse was searching the Shuster home. Druer, the part-time deputy, was now helping Fire and Rescue organize a search party to comb through the fields and ditches along Joe Reed’s escape route. Looking for Nina and Dale. They were covering all the bases.

Norm Wales drove up in front of the Missile Park and parked next to the county car. Deputy Vinson ushered them into the bar with a stern proprietary admonition: “Now, nobody touch nothin’.”

The older men glared at him. He glared back. “I mean it, I been keeping this site clean.”

Ace and Jane lay about three feet apart. Ace was facedown, curled slightly, compact, his arms tucked under his chest. Two red rosettes had spread no more than three inches wide in the back of his T-shirt, between his shoulder blades. Jane’s position was more dynamic-pitched on her right side, her right arm outstretched. A 9-mm Beretta lay on the pine floorboards about six inches from her spread fingers. He couldn’t see Ace’s eyes, but he could see Jane’s. They were open but had become things, mere organic matter, no longer human. Hardly any blood was evident on her broad forehead, but her chest was still soggy with it. A wet copper stench hung in the musty room.

“There’s five ejected cartridge casings by the rear doorway,” Vinson said.

Broker took a deep breath, let it out. You can get used to being around the dead but you never get used to the questions they pose.

“Broker, you been around some shootings?” Norm Wales said.

“A few,” Broker said.

“What do you see?” Wales said.