reached it, moved to one side, and held the door. Nora began walking toward the hotel. When the last of the family had waddled through, Davey held it open for two men in business suits. One of them wore black sunglasses. Davey shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. Nora's breath caught in her throat, and she took a step backwards. The men in suits were Mr Hashim and Mr Shull.
Conversing like old friends, Davey and the FBI men were walking around the street side of the tables, going toward the steps.
Too shocked to process what she had just seen, Nora began moving up the street. About twenty feet away was a parking lot for shops fronting on the lower end of Main. If she could get into the lot without being seen, she could walk through one of the shops and work her way to Helen Day's house.
She looked over her shoulder. Mr Shull was jabbing his thumb toward the hotel and talking to Mr Hashim, who glanced at Nora. Her heart struck her ribs, and her knees seemed loose. She marched past faded posters of handsome old buildings and trees in their fall colors in the windows of an empty information booth. A big black- and-white CLOSED sign, spotted brown by the sun, had been taped to the inside of its door. Nora turned into the lot and risked another glance over her shoulder.
Davey and Mr Shull were moving toward Main Street. Mr Shull was ticking off points on his fingers, and Davey was nodding.
An arm wrapped itself around her neck. Shock and terror locked her heart, and the arm tightening around her throat turned her scream into a croak. The man bent her backwards and dragged her into the lot.
'Love these reunions of ours,' said Dick Dart. 'So important to keep up with old friends, don't you agree?' Nora pulled at the arm cutting off her breath, and her feet scrabbled on the dirty asphalt. 'Especially those who have reached out and touched you.' She tried to kick him, and then her balance was gone. Dart circled her waist with his free arm, lifted her off the ground, and carried her deeper into the lot.
'You'll love the car,' he said. 'As soon as I saw it, I knew that the time had come to gather in my little Nora- pie, and if you don't stop thrashing around I'll slit your throat right here, you stupid piece of shit.' He let go of her waist, and her body sagged against his chest. Beneath his forearm, a sharp point jabbed into her neck. 'Don't want that, do we?'
She shook her head the eighth of an inch his grip would allow. A dry rattle came from her throat.
'I'm a forgiving person,' Dart announced into the rush of blood filling her ears. 'Understand your distress; your confusion. Gosh golly gee, you're a human being, aren't you? I bet you'd love to take a breath right about now.'
She did her best to nod.
'Let me get us out of sight, and we'll take care of that.'
He carried her between two vans and pulled her to the wall. His arm loosened. A single breath of burning air rushed into her lungs, then he tightened his grip again. 'There, now. Like another one?'
Braced against the wall, Dart held her back over his knee. If she struggled she would drop to the ground. Her feet dangled on either side of his bent leg. She nodded, and the arm relented for the length of another gasping inhalation.
She twisted her head and looked at him out of the side of her right eye. He was grinning, his eyes alight with pleasure below the brim of a black poplin cap which revealed a strip of white bandage above his ear. She could just see the shining edge of the knife where it met the hilt.
'I've missed you, too,' he said. 'To prove it, I'm going to let you breathe again.' His arm dropped. 'We'll be nice and quiet now, won't we?' Gulping air, she nodded. 'Darling Davey turned you in, didn't he? Thrill for the boy, hanging out with the big, bad FBI. Think he's bonded with the one in sunglasses.' He yanked her farther up his leg and closed his arm around her throat a little less tightly than before. 'Over the initial shock of joy? Adjusted to the delightful reappearance of an old friend? Do we understand that any outburst will result in a little rough-and-tumble throat surgery?'
Nora came as close as she could to saying yes.
'I'm going to prove something to you.' He stood up and deposited her on the ground. She was standing with her back to Dick Dart in the three feet of space between a battered brown van and an even more battered blue one painted with the words MACMEL PLUMBING & HEATING. At the end of the tunnel formed by the vans lay an asphalt parking lot scattered with crumpled candy wrappers and cigarette butts. Amazed to be alive, she turned around.
Dart was leaning against the side of the tourist center, one leg bent under him and his arms crossed over his chest. The black cap came down to just above his glittering eyes. A faint stubble covered his cheeks and chin, and in his right hand was the stag-handled German knife he had bought in Fairfield.
'Do you see?'
'See what?' Her hands trembled, and something in her stomach trembled, too.
'You're not running away.'
'You'd kill me if I did.'
There is that. But I'm your best bet for getting out of this mess. You're afraid of me, but you're beginning to believe that I'm too interested in you to kill you out of a simpleminded motive like revenge, and you're furious with Davey. As long as I seem reasonable and calm, you'd rather take your chances with me than let that weak sister see you get arrested.'
She stared at him - this was almost right.
'The difference between Davey and me is that I respect you. Am I going to lose my mind because you acted like a woman when I let my guard down? Not at all. You hurt me, but not that much. I have a truly hard head, after all. I'll have to take more precautions with you, but don't we still have things to do together? Let's do them.'
'Okay,' Nora said, thinking fast and hard. 'Whatever you say.'
'I suppose you did your best to make yourself up, but that's ridiculous. You smeared it on with a trowel.'
'Are you going to get me out of here or not?'
Dart uncoiled from the wall, gripped her arm, and led her out between the vans. Two uniformed policemen ambled past the entrance. 'You're responsible for my acquiring this wonderful work of art.' She turned from the policemen to see the antique car owned by the tyrant in the ascot and blazer. 'We'll even be able to keep it for a while.'
He led her to the driver's door and helped lever her up onto the running board. 'Know how to drive stick shift?'
'Yes.'
The perfect woman.' Dart sighed. He trotted around the back of the car to get in on the passenger side. Nora looked at the seats and floor carpeting and was relieved not to see bloodstains.
BOOK IX
MOUNTAIN GLADE
'Nice and easy, now. This is an actual Duesie, treat it with respect.'
'A doozy?'
Dart rolled his eyes, and Nora backed smoothly out of the parking spot, shifted into first, and drove toward the King Street exit. 'A Duesie. A Duesenberg, one of the greatest cars ever made. An aristocrat. It's really delicious, the way these plums fall into my hands when you're around.'
Davey and the two FBI agents stood at the center of a group of uniformed policemen in front of the hotel. Some of the men looked at the Duesenberg as Nora turned toward Main Street.
'People are so busy looking at the car that they don't pay any attention to who's driving it.'
Out of habit, she turned right on Main. Two college-aged young women crossing Gothic Street watched them go by with smiles on their faces. Dart was right, people stared at the car, not the people in it.
'You've had time to consider things, see what the world is like without me, so all you need is some consistent supervision and we'll be back on the right track. How'd you learn to work a gearshift, anyhow? Most women don't have a clue.'
'I learned to drive in an old pickup.' Dart was leaning against a walnut-paneled door, smirking at her and
