Moonbog, page 25
Les took a large gulp of beer, then slipped the half-full glass onto the bar. He covered his mouth with his hand and belched softly, then finished the glass with four huge gulps.
“Lemme buy you another,” Wescott said. He took his wallet from his pocket and slapped a fiver on the bar.
“Naw. I gotta’ get goin’,” Les said. He straightened up and tugged at his belt. Beneath his shirt and jacket, he felt the cool pressure of the revolver against his side.
“You mean to tell me that you’re gonna’ leave here after only two beers?” Wescott’s voice rose with amazement. “Am I talkin’ to the real Les Rankin, for Christ’s sake? Come on! Hey! Over here. Another beer!”
“Shit, man, I gotta’ get goin’,” Les said.
“Not until you have another drink,” Wescott said, forcing Les back to his position at the bar-rail.
“Yeah, well, I guess one more won’t hurt. But then I gotta’ get goin’. It’s almost dark.”
VII
The sun had set, and the western sky was deepening to purple as Les drove down the Little River Road. He had stayed at the Sawmill for three “last” beers, and the alcohol was beating on his head with soft hammer blows. The car window was open, and the cool evening air rushed over him, refreshing him and just taking the edge off his drunkenness. He knew that any other night he would have been blind drunk by now.
Reaching down to his waistband, he felt the bulge of his pistol and patted it. That reassured him slightly and forced him to keep his mind on what he had to do.
All afternoon he had been plagued by one dominant thought —
—How much does that fucking old man know?
How much does he know, and what the Christ is he gonna’ tell Shaw at that lie detector test?
If Marshall had seen him uncover the Hollis boy’s body, there was no doubt that he would have said something to Shaw then and there in the office.
Why the hell didn’t he say something?
Of course, it was possible that Marshall hadn’t seen anything until he had the body out on the path. Still, Les had to admit to himself, only a fool would have thought he was not trying to hide the body.
So why hadn’t he said anything there in the office?
If the old fucker didn’t know, he must at least suspect the truth. By all rights, Les knew Shaw should at least suspect him of something, but old man Logan couldn’t have said too much . . . not yet, anyway.
“That may be why he’s waiting until the lie detector tests,” Les muttered, punctuating with a loud burp.
It was possible, Les allowed, that Marshall didn’t know or suspect the truth. That was a possibility, but with even the slightest chance that the old fucker was going to talk, well. . . .
Les patted the revolver again and let a thin smile twist the corners of his mouth upward. He felt content, knowing that tonight he would find out—for sure exactly what that old geezer knew.
When Les came to the driveway of the old Logan homestead, he slowed the car to a bare crawl. He considered dousing his headlights, but then thought that if he did meet anyone on the road, it would look too suspicious. Around the next bend in the road was Marshall’s driveway. He took the turn, dropped the car into neutral, and coasted to a stop just at the foot of the driveway. He leaned forward, scanned the sloping land that went up to the old man’s house.
For several minutes, he sat there, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and peering up at the dark slash of the roof—it was all that he could see of the house from the road. He debated driving right up to the house but considered that if Marshall did have an “accident,” he wouldn’t want to chance having his car seen up there. He put the car into gear and drove slowly down the road until he came to a rutted, dirt turn-off. He pulled in behind a row of trees that would screen his car from the road, cut the motors and lights, and then stepped out.
He stood beside the car, aware that he was breathing rapidly and his heart was racing. He calmed himself, trying to feel secure that, after tonight, he would no longer have the threat of the old man to bother him.
Off in the Bog, the spring peeper chorus swelled in the darkness. What at first sounded like distant jingle bells, slowly rose in intensity, filling the night. The sound began to work on Les’ already overwrought nerves, and he imagined that he heard another sound. This sound seemed to compete with the peepers song as it grew steadily, braiding in and out of the darkness. It swelled and rose until it joined with the song of the peepers, fusing the night sounds into one long, pulsating scream.
A whimper escaped from Les as he turned, leaned his forehead against the still warm car hood, and jammed his fingers into his ears to stop the sound that grew to maddening intensity. With his ears blocked he could still hear the peepers’ song, but it dulled it enough to give him a moment to regain his composure. The screaming sound receded into the night.
He lost sense of time as he leaned there, pressing his ears closed, fighting the panic that rose and fell in washing waves, whirring with dentist-drill intensity.
This is no goddamn time to fall apart, for Christ’s sake! he shouted in his mind, trying to force the sound of the peepers further back. Hang on! Hang on!
His eyes focused on the dull reflection of the night sky on the hood of his car. His breath misted over the metal with small droplets. His heart was still racing with heavy, sledge-hammer beats, but he felt the tide of fear—or whatever—slowly recede.
He slowly removed his fingers from his ears, keeping them poised, ready to jam them back if he heard that bone-chilling scream. He gritted his teeth, waiting to see if he could listen to the night sounds without hearing . . . something else.
A shallow, ragged expulsion of breath shook his shoulders as he stood up and looked around. The night pressed closely like a thin veil. Straightening up, he hitched his pants and then patted the hidden revolver. That brought back a small measure of reassurance, but in the corner of his mind, Les feared that the sounds of the Bog could at any moment turn on him. He grunted once, piglike, and then started down the road toward Marshall’s house.
As he came up the driveway, he saw that there was just one light on in the old man’s house. The gravel of the dirt driveway crunched underfoot so he walked on the thin grass to muffle his approach.
The house stood out starkly against the night sky. Les allowed himself the childish impression that it was a haunted house—the home of the boogeyman. He tingled with the excitement of a ten-year-old as he challenged himself to go boldly—right up to the house.
As he got nearer to Marshall’s house, Les was grateful that the old man didn’t have a dog to warn of his coming. The old fucker just had a flea-bitten old cat that everyone said he talked to like it was his goddamned wife or something.
At the foot of the walkway Les paused, watching the one lit window with intensity, waiting to see if Marshall was home or had just left a light burning. The yellow rectangle of light seemed warm, almost comforting, and Les was a bit angry that it removed the haunted house atmosphere that helped spur him on.
Suddenly, a vague shadow passed by the window. Les dropped to the ground and slid the revolver from his waistband. He flattened himself, as close to the ground as he could while still keeping his eyes on the window. The shape didn’t reappear again, but it had been enough to let Les know that Marshall was home.
“Time you had a bit of an accident, old man,” he whispered as he got onto his hands and knees and made his way across the lawn to the front door.
He crouched on the doorstep, his breath rapid now as he considered what to do next. He knew he didn’t want to burst in on the old man and just waste him—that would be the quickest, but Les wanted to make sure the old fucker had plenty of time to realize he was being hunted. Hell, if he got so scared and died of a heart attack, all the better; there was no way a heart attack could be traced through ballistics. The revolver was Les’ last option, not his first.
Pressing his ear against the door, Les listened for sounds of activity in the house. Faintly, he could hear the garbled sound of Marshall talking. At first, Les thought he might be on the telephone, but then he figured he was probably just talking to his cat. He couldn’t make out any of what Marshall was saying.
Suddenly, a loud crash from within made Les jump. He hopped off the front steps and pressed his back flat against the wall. His revolver was pointed at the front door.
“Alf! For Christ’s sake! What in the hell did yah do that for?”
There was the sound of heavy footsteps inside. “Come on! . . . Come on!”
The outside light snapped on. As the front door started to swing open, Les dashed around the corner of the house and ducked behind the woodpile beside the barn. He peered up over the split wood and watched as Marshall tossed the cat out into the night.
“You get on outside ‘n find a mouse or somethin’. Leave my damn supper alone!”
Marshall stood in the doorway a moment, watching the cat, who sat in the walkway calmly licking his paw to show that he was completely unruffled. The faint light behind Marshall made him look thin and frail almost ghostlike, Les thought, tightening his grip on his revolver. He pressed his chin against the splintery wood and whispered, “Only I’m gonna’ waste you away tonight! You ain’t gonna’ haunt me any more!”
“Go on!” Marshall shouted, waving his hands, “go find your own damn supper.”
Alfie waited one moment longer, then sauntered off into the field. Marshall went back inside, and the outside light winked off.
Les walked slowly from the woodpile to the side of the house. He forced himself to breathe small, shallow breaths, even though in his excitement he found that difficult. He edged his way along the side of the house, keeping his back against the wall until he was directly under the lighted window.
Inside, he could hear the sound of clattering dishes and silverware as Marshall apparently cleaned up the mess his cat had made. Les could hear the faucet running and the faint sound of Marshall talking to himself.
Once the clattering had stopped, Les decided to chance a peek inside to see what the old man was doing. Slowly, he turned to face the wall and straightened up until just the corner of one eye was above the windowsill. Les breathed a sigh of relief to see that Marshall was sitting at the kitchen table with his back to the window.
Marshall was eating, sopping up gravy with a crust of bread. Les chuckled to himself, thinking that Marshall had probably scraped the meal right off the floor and put it on his plate. For some reason, that made Les’ disgust with Marshall deepen, and he was thankful that tonight he would be getting rid of him for good.
Marshall ate quickly; it wasn’t long before he got up from the table and walked to the sink to rinse his dish. Les jerked his head down and listened to the sound of running water. Once it had stopped he cautiously looked in through the window again. Marshall had filled the tea kettle, put it over the blue gas flame of the stove, and resumed his seat at the table. Les noticed that he was reading the newspaper.
While Marshall leaned over the paper, Les noticed that the paper looked old, yellow and brittle. Maybe it was the dim lighting of the kitchen, he thought, but it looked as though Marshall was reading something other than today’s news. Another thing that struck Les as odd was that Marshall never turned the pages of the paper. He read for over three minutes and never turned from page one.
Whatever that old fucker’s reading, it sure must be interesting, Les thought.
Even when the water in the kettle was boiling, blowing a plume of steam up at the ceiling, Marshall lingered over the front page of the newspaper. Finally, he glanced at the boiling water and walked over to the stove. He took the kettle from the stove and reached for his stained coffee mug on the sideboard.
Les stood on his tiptoes, straining to see if he could read the headlines of the paper Marshall had been studying. All he could see was one word of the headline: ANOTHER. Just below that was a grainy photograph that Les could not make out.
Concentrating so much on the newspaper, Les forgot about Marshall, who was standing by the counter mixing sugar and milk into his coffee. As Marshall turned to put his spoon into the sink, their eyes met and locked.
Les was frozen for a second, like an animal in the glare of approaching headlights. He heard Marshall shout, “Hey! What the hell?” as he ducked down, pressing his back against the clapboard side of the house. He heard the thumping steps of the old man as he started for the front door.
“Goddamn!” Les muttered, squeezing the butt of his revolver as he aimed it at the door. “Goddamn!”
When a light suddenly washed over Les, he thought for a moment that the old man had turned on his outside light. But the light moved. Les glanced down the driveway, and saw that a car had turned into the driveway and was nearing the house.
“Fuck!” His eyes jumped nervously from the approaching car to the front door. As the door opened a crack, Les dropped into a standing crouch and started moving away from the house, back toward the woodpile. All the while his eyes shifted from the car to the door and back again.
The light beside Marshall’s front door came on as the door opened wider. Les raised the pistol and shot once, the report deafening him for a moment. He ran to the woodpile, not bothering to see if his shot hit. The headlights from the car in the driveway shot up over his head, illuminating the large bulk of the tree in the backyard.
As the car pulled to a stop, Les glanced back and saw Marshall dash from the house. He knew he was safe, undetected at least for the moment. The old man stood in the center of his walkway, gawking this way and that as he scanned the surrounding night; Les couldn’t tell if he had been hit or not.
Les cursed softly under his breath and wished that he now had the time to take a careful aim. He’d get that old fucker right between the goddamn eyes!
Les watched from the border of the lawn, confident that even if he was seen he could easily lose any pursuit in the woods. No one knew the Bog at night better than he did. He waited for a moment, listening, tensed, then turned and ran into the dark woods. The last thing he heard from the direction of the old man’s house was the sound of the car’s engine idling.
After he had run about a hundred yards or so into the woods, Les halted and listened. The night sounds of the Bog filled his ears. The memory of his earlier panic filled him with apprehension, but he mastered the fear, held it in check. As far as he could tell, no one was following him. He wondered if the old man would be fool-hardy enough to try to run him down.
“Let him try,” Les muttered, slapping his revolver in his hand. “Just let him try.”
Les stood in the darkness of the woods for a long time wondering what to do next. He knew he should probably just get on home before Leah wondered where he was. But he was also wondering who had driven up into Marshall’s yard.
What if it was Shaw and that statie, Porter? Les thought. What if they were coming out now to talk with that old fucker and find out what he knows? Should I go back and find out?
Les was pretty sure Marshall hadn’t recognized him outside the window. Pretty sure—but it wouldn’t take a hell of a lot of brain power to figure out who would be creeping around his house at night; not if Marshall knew what Les had done.
And if it did turn out to be Shaw and Porter, they just might come out looking for him if the old man had gotten scared enough to spill his guts.
“Shit!” Les hissed, kicking at the decaying leaves underfoot. He wanted to know, but the chances were just too great.
One final thought crossed Les’ mind before he turned and started through the woods, making a wide circle that would bring him down to the road where he had left his car: What if that one shot—one-in-a-hundred—one-in-a-thousand—hit the old fucker? What if that old son of a whore is lying on his doorstep right now, slowly bleeding to death?
“It’ll serve that bastard right,” Les whispered, walking silently along a narrow trail. The swelling sound of the spring peepers grew in intensity, but it hardly bothered Les now, he barely heard it; his mind was filled with what he had to do next—provided he hadn’t gotten his one-in-a-thousand shot already.
VIII
After the phone call from Allison, David had spent another hour or so sitting on his bed, blowing smoke rings at the ceiling. After the initial nausea of smoking again after a year, he was surprised at how rapidly his body adjusted to the intake of nicotine. An occasional wave of dizziness made him glad that he was lying on the bed, but he realized as he looked over at the nearly full ashtray, that he should eat something soon—if only to help settle his churning stomach.
Grunting loudly, he stood up beside the bed. For a moment he felt as though he would crumple back down, but he braced himself and walked into the bathroom. After splashing water onto his face and brushing his teeth vigorously, he got dressed. It was time to go for a drive—to get something to eat to help him clear his head.
He stepped outside the motel room and tugged on his jacket. The late afternoon sun hit his eyes. He squinted, shielding his eyes as he walked down to the car.
His first thought was to go down to the Sawmill and have a quick bite to eat, then come back to the motel and sleep. As he drove down Main Street, though, he realized that in all likelihood, everyone at the Sawmill would be talking about yesterday’s discovery of the Hollis boy. He decided that the last thing he needed was a fresh reminder of finding Billy Wilson last weekend, so he drove straight through town and down Route 302 to North Windham. There was a restaurant there, just out of town, called The Red Sands. They had a reputation for the best seafood in the area, and David wanted to see if their reputation was still deserved.
Two hours later the sun had set. Feeling well-stuffed with boiled lobster and a hearty salad in his stomach David drove back to Holland satisfied and tired. He had bought another pack of cigarettes, but had restricted his smoking because he was already thinking about stopping again.
As he drove up Main Street, he considered going back to the motel, but then the thought that Allison might call just to get in one more last dig made him turn around and head back on into town. He drove the length of Main Street again and was about to turn around and go back when he got the idea to go out to his uncle’s house for one final visit.
