he was planning on wearing them himself; he wanted to get a picture of the man he would have to kill. They were narrow around the waist, short in the leg. Small, skinny bastard, then? He selected one of the shirts and found that it was surprisingly bulky. Who was this guy, Dantalion wondered, a goddamn ape?
There was only one way to find out. He went through into a kitchen. It had only the most basic of utilities. Cooker and hob. Sink with a couple of neatly stacked dishes on the draining board. One cup ringed with coffee stains waiting to be washed under the faucet. A drawer in a cupboard disclosed silverware. Dantalion took out a heavy-bladed bread knife. It was better for stabbing than the screwdriver, and he kept it fisted in his right hand.
Moving towards the living area, he passed an upright vacuum cleaner standing in the hall. Ambient light came in through the front door so he avoided tripping over the pipe that lay at his feet like the coils of a boa constrictor. On his right now was the living room. He gave it only cursory attention, then turned to the door on his left.
He listened, an ear to the door.
From within came the tell-tale sounds of snoring. Just a light buzz, but it did appear to be from only one person. He tried the handle and the door swung silently inwards. He stepped inside and squared his feet on the carpet. The figure lying on his back beneath a sheet didn't even stir. Dantalion was a child of the night; his condition had ensured that, so he had no problems with the darkness. He could make out the man's sleep-relaxed features where they poked from beneath the sheet. Younger than he'd thought. The man had a shaved head and a thin moustache that hooked round the corners of his mouth. One shoulder looked muscular where the sheet had dropped away. Strong, farm strong, but maybe something to do with gymnasiums and heavy weights, too. Could be a handful in a hand-to-hand tussle.
A quick stab to the carotid artery would do it.
No. The man would wake, thrash about, his blood jetting around the room, growing less with each failing heartbeat.
Maybe not the best way to kill him.
Club him senseless with the lug wrench, then cut his throat? Less thrashing but still copious amounts of blood.
A single stab to the heart would be best. Very little blood if the heart died instantly. The only problem with that was he couldn't be sure of an immediate hit. The man had a sheet over his upper torso and it appeared one of his arms was draped across his chest. It would mean lifting the sheet to get a clear view. If the man woke up there would surely be a fight.
Choices, choices, Dantalion thought, always choices.
And with each choice a myriad tangents to choose from.
The man muttered in his sleep. Maybe some primal instinct was warning him about the presence of danger hovering so close by.
Maybe I should let him choose how to die, Dantalion thought.
But no. This killing wasn't for pleasure.
Dantalion lifted the lug wrench with his left hand. Brought it down in a sweeping arch. It struck the man's head on the left temple, making a deep depression in the skull above his ear. That could prove a killing blow in itself. The man's eyes shot open, but his pupils didn't contract, they stayed wide and bewildered. He didn't even see the knife that Dantalion drove through his chest. And that wound definitely did kill him.
Dantalion leaned over and flicked on the bedside lamp. Pearlescent light shone. He pulled back the sheet until it snagged against the shaft of steel protruding from the man's chest. Just left of dead centre. Dantalion smiled at his precise stab. But he still needed a gun. He was going up against men who had guns and he had to at least even his chances of a fair fight.
He checked the bedside table. No gun.
He checked the closet but found only more of those plaid shirts and jeans. Another pair of cream nylon trousers, too. These were sheathed in plastic, as though kept for best. He took them out and saw that the leg length was much longer than the worn pair in the utility area. These hadn't seen a trip to a seamstress yet. He held them alongside his own legs and found that they stopped a full inch above his ankles, but though he'd probably look like Pee-Wee Herman they would do at a push. He set them on the bed at the foot of the mattress. He selected the less gaudy of the shirts, pale blue with a white plaid. There was also a battered stetson on a shelf at the top of the cupboard. That joined his growing pile of clothes. He found socks too. He'd be going commando, however; no way was he going to wear the man's underwear.
He drew the knife from the man's chest, wiped it clean on the sheet, and then threw the remainder of the sheet over the man's ceiling-staring face. Taking the pile of clothes he went in search of the shower.
On his way he dipped his head into the living room. Glancing around, he noticed a wooden chest pressed up against the wall below the photographs. Switching on the overhead light, he placed his supplies on a worn couch and approached the chest. It was held closed by a flimsy hasp and cheap padlock. One smack of the lug wrench was all it took to break off the lock. He threw back the lid.
He bared his teeth in a grin of pleasure as his eyes took in the contents.
32
As dawn broke over the Atlantic, Harvey headed north-west towards Tampa. He took the Ford and he also took Marianne. Harvey was one of only two people on the planet that I felt easy handing the girl over to. The other, Rink, was already in San Francisco. He called to tell me he'd be on his way back as soon as his parents stopped hugging him. I asked him to hug his mum for me. For my part, I had another job to do. Several, actually, but all involving locating Bradley Jorgenson and delivering him to the safe house where Marianne would be waiting.
While I waited for my rental car to be delivered, I took a run through the state park. A tourist pamphlet in the motel room said that there were more than four and a half miles of trails through the swamps and hummocks of brush. By the time I was finished I'd have covered twice that distance. I needed the exercise. In my line of work you have to remain at a peak level of fitness. All being equal in other areas, it was always the man with the greatest endurance and conditioning who would win a fight. I pushed myself hard. My lungs laboured for the first mile, but then I settled into a rhythm and my breathing evened out so that I was running at a steady gait and my breathing came easy.
Finding myself on a stretch of sand overlooking the ocean, I stopped for a while. I watched the sun come up while performing a yoga 'sun salutation', stretching my muscles and limbering up. I dropped and pushed off two hundred press-ups and the same number of crunches. Then I spent ten minutes going through a series of prearranged patterns of movement that involved punching, kicking, and elbow and knee strikes. Nothing fancy; not karate or t'ai chi or anything so flamboyant. The moves I did were short and brutal and designed along the lines of a simple equation: minimum effort? maximum impact = devastating effect.
Sweating like a pig in a sauna, I ran back through the swamp, detoured so I completed the course again, then headed back to the motel room. My rental was waiting for me, and I signed an assumed name and showed the delivery guy a fake driver's licence courtesy of Harvey Lucas.
Taking the keys for the imported Audi A8 from him, I went inside and immediately checked that my SIG Sauer was where I'd left it inside a tissue box stuffed behind the TV.
Dripping from my workout, I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Then I stripped out of my damp clothes and stepped gratefully under the hot water. My muscles were pumped with blood from the exercise, and I relaxed under the steaming flow, working the kinks out of my body with a soaped-up sponge. When I stepped out of the shower my mind was back on the job.
I slipped into fresh boxer shorts and pulled on a pair of crisp denims that clung to my damp body. Shirtless, I retrieved my SIG from its hiding place and sat on the bed to clean it. I had rags and oil and I stripped down the gun so that I had all the working parts laid out on the bed. When I was done, I inserted a full clip, racked the slide so that I was good to go. Police forces the world over teach a method of safe gun handling. They absolutely will not condone carrying a gun with a bullet in the firing chamber. In case of lawsuits, that was. Or to avoid a fumbling cop shooting off his toes. I come from a different school of thought and practise a method called 'point shooting'. A bit like the quick-draw heroes from Western movies, I could draw, point and fire in an instant. The thinking behind the
