trying to sneak up on him. Luv grinned at the idea. The idiots. Who did they think he was? He was Luv, too good, too smart, too inspired to be caught. He relished a challenge, didn't they understand that? That is why he did it in the first place.
Let them try to find him. He was the will-o'-the-wisp, the phantom lover, able to do whatever he liked and to vanish without a trace.
Suppressing a groan from the effort, he lifted Inge's corpse in his arms and moved deeper into the woods.
Metzger wished he had the dog with him. He felt as if he was going to bump into something with every step, and each sound that he heard made him think how vulnerable his back was. His fingers itched to turn on the eighteeninch flashlight, but he knew that to do so prematurely would ruin his chance of surprising whoever it was he was after.
When he reached the spot from which he thought the peculiar light had emanated, he stopped, listening. He did not delude himself that he had been all that quiet in his approach. He had stumbled a couple of times and gasped in surprise as he fought for his footing. Twigs had broken under his feet, leaves had rustled. Still, if someone had been digging, he would have been making enough noise on his own to cover Metzger's.
The problem was he had heard no indication of digging since the first rasp of shovel on stone-if that was what he had heard. He began to wonder if he had not simply awakened too early, dragging some part of a dream's illusion with him into consciousness. His apprehension sliding into embarrassment, Metzger stood still for as long as he could bear it, listening for any sign of another living thing. After a moment he saw a shape materialize in front of him over his head. The shape grew within the darkness, coming straight at him with speed, looming larger and larger. With a gasp, Metzger ducked and an owl swooped silently over him, winged death. As he stooped, his foot moved forward and suddenly lost its grip on the earth. Metzger stumbled, arms flailing, and fell into a hole. Even as he fell he could hear the squeal of something small giving up its life to the owl.
Back in the car, Metzger looked at the time. Dawn would be upon him in less than an hour and he could assess the damage to his uniform then.
The damage to his pride was already evident enough. He had gone down face first, breaking his fall with his arms, and with good fortune the flashlight had preceded him into the hole. He did not like to think about having to find the flashlight in the dark, crawling about on hands and knees in the dirt that had been piled up beside the hole, Metzger drove back down the winding dirt road leading away from the preserve. It was the sort of incident he was supposed to record on his activity report, and the kind of thing most cops would omit. There was little incentive to include material that made you look like ai ass. He could imagine how much unpleasant fun McNeil would have with the occurrence if he knew about it. On the other hand, someone had taken the trouble to dig a hole in the woods in the middle of the night. Before the discovery of the Johnny Appleseed bodies it would have been easy enough to shrug off. There were a lot of strange things policemen saw that were never mentioned and never explained. But now, since the bodies had been discovered, it might have an entirely different significance. Or not. Metzger shriveled when he imagined McNeil's nasty laugh.
Metzger drove a mile in each direction when he came back to the main road, making a note of every parked car. There were none along the side of the roadway, but there were several in driveways. It was unlikely that it meant anything, but he wrote down the license plates and the house addresses, thinking to match them up later when he had time. When no one else was around to ask him what he was doing. If it turned out there was no good reason to report his incident in the woods, his close encounter with aliens-that was the take McNeil would have on it, he realized. A light coming from a crack in the earth, an eerie glow like massed fireflies? McNeil would make him look like an idiot, and it wouldn't be hard. He already felt like one. No, if there was no good reason to report it, he would not, he decided. And if any of the license plates were where they shouldn't be, if the cars were stolen, if anything was out of the ordinary, then there would be time enough to report it. He would find a way to explain the delay. The chief was understanding.
Luv watched the car's lights creep away to the south, then turn and head slowly back to the north. He sat just inside the treeline where it came down to the road, resting his back against the trash bag. He was winded and sore from the two-way hike carrying Inge's remains, but he felt exultant as he saw the lights moving toward him in one last sweep. Luv eased himself slowly onto the ground, careful not to make any sudden movement to catch the driver's. He knew how difficult it was to see anything clearly eye in the headlights of a moving car. He had but to remain still on the ground-could probably even have stood bolt upright-to be undetected. This time past Luv saw that it was a police car, and stifled a laugh. Run, run, as fast as you can, he thought merrily. You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man. Grunting with the effort, he lifted his burden again and moved as quickly as he could toward his waiting car. He would put Inge back in the trunk and wait for another chance to get rid of her. He would not let the police, of all people, panic him into doing anything precipitous. He knew how they worked, they would not be hard to avoid. There were hundreds of square miles of woodlands to choose from and he would not be interrupted again.
But Inge would have to wait for another night, he had to get home to his wife before she awoke. She took two sleeping pills every night and slept like a bear in winter, then complained all day that she never got a wink.
He staggered the last few yards to his car, his labored breathing breaking the silence of the night. If I had known how hard this was going to be, he joked to himself, I would have taken up another line of work. Luv was in a wonderful mood; the stupid cop had turned an ordinary bit of business into an evenin of excitement. It was almost better than luvvving.
12
Kom played tennis with the uncontrolled energy of a natural competitor with little athletic ability. He flailed away from the back of the court, impinging on his wife's territory on every ball that came her way, trying to do the work of two. He would surge to the net, calling 'Up!' to Tovah who remained on the baseline, watching him dis dainfully. When Becker or Karen lobbed the ball over him, he would race backward awkwardly with a startled yelp, all widening hips and duck-footed shamble, calling 'Mine!' no matter where the ball was headed. When he lost the point, and the game, as he almost inevitably did, it did not seem to bother him in the slightest.
Sweating profusely, he pronounced it all 'terrific,' and looked dead keen for more.
After the first set, a massacre, they changed partners and Becker walked to Tovah's side of the net while Kom traded places with him.
Tovah watched Becker approach with the same look of disdain she had showered on her husband.
'You'll hate me,' Tovah announced.
'Why would I do that?'
'I can't play,' she said.
'Doesn't look to me as if you've had much opportunity yet,' Becker said.
'I'll just stay out of your way,' she said.
'And I'll try to stay out of yours.'
'Karen is such a good player. I can't play like that.'
'She's a tiger,' Becker agreed. He looked across the court at his wife, already in position at net, swaying lightly on her toes, eager to get on with the game. She looked every inch an athlete, and was. It was hard to say just what Tovah looked like other than a model in a tennis outfit. She sported a wide red headband but had not yet moved enough to break a sweat, despite the heat. Becker wondered what she got out of a game like this, it certainly was not the exercise. Not that she appeared to need any. Tall and lean, she looked beautiful in whatever she wore, transforming even the worst of fashions into raiments of adornment with a mannequin's air of indifference. He realized that he was getting used to the jewelry-although it appeared that she was wearing fewer bracelets than at dinner-and the face paint, which today was an unnatural shade of pink.
'But it's a team game,' Becker continued. 'One strategy we might try is to avoid the stronger player and concentrate on the weaker. What do you think?':,How?' 'Hit every ball to your husband,' he said.
Tovah burst into laughter, the first genuine expression of amusement he had ever seen from her.
'Wonderful,' she said with relish. 'Let's kill him.'
