room, Mary was sitting in a chair with the baby in her arms and Edward was still stretched out on the couch. The shoulder bag was beside Mary, the compact Magnum on top of the melange of formula, Pampers, Handi Wipes, and baby toys. 'Here it is.' Didi showed the article and picture to Mary, and Edward struggled up from the couch to take a look.
'Right there.' Didi touched the image of the man's face.
Mary studied the picture. 'That's not Jack,' Edward decided after a minute or two. 'That guy's nose is too big.'
'People's noses get larger as they age,' Didi told him.
Edward looked again. He shook his head, partly disappointed and partly relieved that he didn't have to travel any farther with Mary Terror. 'No. It's not Jack.'
Didi turned the plastic-covered pages backward. Like a time machine, the dates on the articles regressed. She stopped at a photograph of a young, arrogantly smiling Jack Gardiner, resplendent in hippie robes and with long blond hair cascading around his shoulders. The article's headline said Storm Front Leader Tops FBI Wanted List and the date was July 7,1972. 'Then,' Didi said, and she paged forward to the Sierra Club story, 'and now. Can't you see the resemblance?'
Edward flipped ahead to the newer picture, then back to the old one again. Mary simply sat holding the baby, her eyes dark and unfathomable. 'Okay, so he looks a little like Jack,' Edward said. 'Maybe. It's hard to tell.' He looked closer. 'No, I don't think so.'
'Hold Drummer.' Mary offered him to Edward, and Edward took the baby with a trace of a scowl. Then Mary held the photo album and began to turn back and forth between the two photographs. She stopped at an article on another page. 'Shit,' she said softly. 'The son of a bitch lived.'
'What?' Didi peered over her shoulder.
'The son-of-a-bitch pig I shot outside the house that night.' Mary tapped the plastic sheet over the newspaper story, which had the headline FBI Agent Survives Attack. There was a picture of a man on a stretcher, an oxygen mask to his face, being loaded into an ambulance. 'Remember him, Edward?'
Edward looked. 'Oh, yeah. I thought you'd wasted him.'
'So did I. A throat shot usually does it.'
Didi felt frost in her veins. 'A… throat shot?'
'Right. I hit him twice. Once in the face, once in the throat. I would've blown his fucking brains out, but I didn't have another bullet. Edward, it says his name was Earl Van Diver. Thirty-four years old, from Bridgewater, New Jersey. A wife and a daughter.' She laughed quietly, a terrible laugh. 'Get this: his daughter's name is Mary.'
Didi was reading the story, too. She'd forgotten about clipping this from the Philadelphia newspaper several days after the Shootout in Linden. She had saved everything she could find about the Storm Front: her own book of memories, like a roadchart through Hades. Earl Van Diver. Off the critical list, the story said. Severe facial and larynx damage.
Oh my God, Didi thought.
'I remember him,' Mary said. 'I bet he remembers me, too.' She turned ahead to the Sierra Club newsletter's article and picture. She'd thought this would be easy, that she would recognize Jack at once, but this photo showed only a portion of a blond man's face. She read the men's names in the story: Dean Walker, Nick Hudley, Keith Cavanaugh. None of those held any significance for her, no magic weavings. Her heart had become leaden. Drummer started to give a mewling cry, and the sound made her head ache. 'I can't tell,' she said.
Didi took the album from her. Where were Laura and Mark? They should've been here by now! Her stomach was a solid knot of tension. 'Come see what I've made,' she offered. 'Then tell me what you think.'
In the workshop, with the overhead bulbs on, Mary circled the clay head that still sat on the pottery wheel. Didi laid the photo album down beside it, opened to the picture. The baby's crying had gotten louder, and Edward was doing his best to shush him. Mary stopped, staring at the face of Lord Jack.
'I made it from the picture,' Didi said. A nervous quaver had crept into her voice again. 'It looks like Jack. Older, I know. But I think it's him.'
The lead had cracked and fallen away from Mary's heart. It had become a bird, flying toward the sun. It was Jack. Older, yes. But still handsome, still regal. She lifted the plastic sheet up from the photo album and took out the article and picture. Could it be? After all these years? Could it really be that Lord Jack was in Freestone, California, and this photographer had caught a slice of his face? She wanted to believe it in the most desperate way.
The baby's crying was strident, a demand for attention. Edward rocked him, but he wouldn't stop. Didi's nerves were about to shred. 'Give him to me,' she said, and Edward did. She rocked him, too, as Mary kept looking from the picture to the clay face again. The baby, bundled up in a downy white blanket, was warm in her arms, and she smelled the aromas of formula and pink baby flesh. 'Shhhh,' she said. 'Shhhh.' His blue eyes blinked up at her. 'That's a good boy. David's a good ba -'
It was gone. Could not be recaptured. Gone through the air, and into Mary Terror's ears.
Though the workshop was chilly, Didi felt pinpricks of sweat rise on the back of her neck. Mary circled the clay head once more as she folded the newsletter's article into a little square. She put it into a pocket of her brown corduroys. When she looked up at Didi again, Mary was smiling thinly but her eyes were as dangerous as gun barrels. 'My baby's name is Drummer. You knew that. Why did you call him David?'
There was nothing to be said. Mary came toward her with a smile like a razor. 'Didi? Give Drummer back to me, please.'
Standing outside the workshop's door, Laura heard Mary Terror step on a shard of clay that cracked beneath her shoe. Her heartbeat was thunderous, her face tight with fear. In her right hand was the Charter Arms automatic, its safety off. It was now or never, she thought. God help me. She stepped into the corridor of light that spilled from the doorway, and she aimed the gun at the hulking woman who had stolen her child. ' No,' she heard herself rasp in a stranger's voice.
Mary saw her. It took maybe four seconds for the face to register. Mary's mind worked like a rat caught in a closing trap. She had left her shoulder bag and the Magnum in the house. Her Colt was up under the driver's seat in the van. But she still had two weapons.
Mary reached out with one arm, hooked Bedelia Morse's throat, and jerked her around between herself and Laura's pistol. Then she clamped her other hand firmly over the baby's mouth and nose, cutting off his air. The baby began struggling to breathe.
'Finger off the trigger,' Mary commanded. 'Point the gun down.'
6: Light Hurts
Laura didn't. Her hand trembled, and so did the gun. David's face was blotching with red, his hands clawing at the air.
'He'll smother in a few seconds. Then I'll come at you, and you don't know shit about killing anybody.'
Rage thrashed within Laura. The woman's big hand was clenched tight over David's nostrils and mouth. Laura could see his eyes, wide with panic. Didi couldn't move, her own throat squeezed by Mary's other arm. Edward said, 'Wait a minute. Wait,' but who he was babbling to wasn't clear.
'Finger off the trigger,' Mary repeated, her voice eerily calm. 'Point the gun down.'
Laura had no choice. She obeyed.
'Take the gun, Edward.' He hesitated. 'Edward!' Mary's voice snapped out like a whip. 'Take the gun!'
He walked forward, grasped the automatic, and it was gone from Laura's hand. Their eyes met. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I didn't know -'
'Shut up, Edward.' Mary removed her hand from the baby's face. His mouth gasped, and then a shriek welled up out of it that almost destroyed the last of Laura's sanity. 'Bring the gun to me,' Mary said.
'Listen. We don't have to -'
'BRING IT TO ME!'
'Okay, okay!' He delivered the pistol to Mary's hand, and she placed the barrel against Didi's red-haired skull and took the child away from her with one arm. The shrieking went on as Mary backed away from Didi and turned
