“He knew him,” Mandy answered before Neil had a chance. “I heard him say so. He kept yelling that the guy looked like someone he knew. Then …” She took a breath, a shuddering deep one, and lowered her gaze to the table. “Not very good, is it.”

  “That he was killed just because he thought he knew who the guy was?” He took another drink and pushed himself to his feet. He couldn’t just sit. “No, not very, because we all saw him too. And Nes was pretty drunk; he’d’ve been lucky to recognize his own wife. Besides, it wouldn’t make much sense, even as some kind of graphic example. Except for Mr. Davies, i think Nester probably has more money squirreled away than the rest of us put together.”

  Havvick laughed scornfully. “Yeah, in your dreams.”

  Ceil looked at him from a distance without moving an inch. “Do cows make that much money, Mr. Havvick?”

  The front door opened as Havvick launched a protest, and the two men entered noisily, stamping their feet, blowing vigorously on their hands, Davies announcing irritably that none of the other damn vehicles worked either and he was getting a bit fed up with all these ridiculous games, didn’t they realize he had to be back in New York City by morning, what the hell was going on here?

  Neil listened as he crossed the floor, mumbling, clapping his hands, cut himself off and said, “Jesus, this is too much.”

  Something; he had to do something.

  “Damn right it is,” Ken declared, and swaggered to the window, posed with hands on his hips, legs apart. “Bastard.” He laughed. “Bastard has to shoot drunks, hasn’t got the guts to shoot real people.” He snorted. “Bastard.”. Rapped the glass with his knuckles. “Hey, stupid,” he yelled. “Hey, you want to stop screwing around and … you want to come in …”

  Silence.

  Ken snapped his fingers nervously. Nodding, shaking his head, nodding again. Right foot tapping.

  “Ken, honey?” Trish said, a child’s voice. “Ken, please don’t stand there, please?”

  “Sure, sweetheart,” he said. Nodded quickly. “Sure.”

  Neil understood at once what had turned the young man’s bravado. Despite what he had said before, all that glass, all that open space, was too much exposure. A shooting gallery. Come and get me, you big bully; only, the bully had a weapon. Suppose the guy had more than a shotgun? Suppose he had a rifle, or some high-powered semiautomatic? He took his time, however, moving over to the switches by the door, calmly announced he was turning off the lights, and did it.

  The outside leapt in.

  The snow reduced to flurries.

  It seemed much colder.

  Too cold.

  A moment, and his vision adjusted. He could see them all, twilight ghosts drifting toward the restaurant stairs, away from the light, whatever white they wore glowing, everything else simply black.

  “What about the cars?” Davies wanted to know. Composed, not demanding.

  Neil beckoned to Julia, nudged her gently to join the rest. She didn’t protest, didn’t look around when he moved over to the register and unlocked the cash drawer, and the false bottom beneath it. He took out the revolver lying below; he didn’t have to check because he knew it was loaded.

  “The cars,” Davies repeated, not two feet away.

  Neil jumped, but kept his expression blank as he stuffed the gun into his waistband. The barrel was cold, unyielding, and it didn’t feel comforting at all.

  “Mr. Ennin claims they weren’t tampered with.”

  “He should know, 1 guess. He fixes mine all the time. The poor thing’s a real clunker.”

  Davies was surprised. “You have a car?”

  Neil’s smile was sour. “Oh yeah. It’s in a garage now in Deerfield, getting operated on.” He laughed shortly as he came around to the floor. “Willie’s good, he’s not a genius.”

  There was no response, not even a polite laugh.

  So what do you want? he demanded silently; you want me to go out there and find the son of a bitch, hogtie him with my bare hands, bring him to justice?

  He paused on the steps, looked up at Davies’s back, and nodded.

  Yep; that’s exactly what they want.

  “Mr. Maclaren?”

  Willie sat at a table with Julia and Mandy; Davies joining Ceil and Ken at another. Trish stayed by the plants as if they could afford her cover from the nightmare. The drapes were closed, the booths empty. He could barely see the rifle’s barrel against the wall behind the counter.

  “Mr. Maclaren, I don’t think I understand.”

  Neil remained by the steps, perched on the railing. “You got me too, Willie.”

  “How can he stop the cars?”

  “Well, obviously, he’s done something to them,” Davies answered.

  “He didn’t,” the cook insisted.

  “He’s right,” Trish said. She pointed to the entrance. “I was closing the drapes, right? He couldn’t have done anything, or I would have seen him.”

  With a sigh Ken shook his head. “Honey, it’s dark out there and the guy’s wearing black, for Christ’s sake. You wouldn’t see him until he jumped up and bit you.” He laughed—what can you do, huh? all bed and no brains. “Brother.”

  Trish took a step toward him.

  Neil wasn’t sure he liked the way she moved. The sweet little hysteric had heard one word too many.

  Ceil coughed lightly. “So it seems as if we’re just going to sit here for the rest of the night? Is that right? Eight of us and two guns, and we’re just going to sit here. Have I got that right, Mr. Maclaren?”

  “We could always have an orgy,” Ken said, poking her with an elbow.

  “You’d never live through it,” she answered tonelessly, still looking at Neil.

  “Tracks,” Trish said to Ken, arms stiff at her sides.

  “Miss Llewelyn,” Neil said.

  “Ceil.”

  “Ceil. Look, 1 guess 1 can understand what you’re thinking, but whoever that guy is, he’s crazy. And we are not stuntmen in the movies, no offense. I can use a gun, can you?”

  She only stared at him—what a stupid question.

  He lifted a hand in a shrug. “And it’s dark. We’ve got woods all around us. He apparently knows his way around pretty well and he can shoot.” He felt his patience begin to unravel but refused to lose his temper. “Besides, neither you nor Mr. Davies—”

  “Hugh. Please.”

  “—are really dressed for the weather, and I’m not about to try to get to my place just to see if I have clothes to fit.”

  “But you have a telephone there.”

  “Ken,” Trish said. Another step. “Are you listening to me?”

  “If he cut the line here, he cut the line over there.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Easy, he thought; easy does it.

  He waved to the door. “Okay, go ahead. You just go down the path that starts on the other side of the parking lot. The door’s unlocked.” He waved again. “Be my guest.”

  She blew smoke toward him. “As you said, I’m not dressed for it.”

  He gave up, turned, and collided with Trish, who grabbed his arm and leaned on it while she said, “Kenny, there weren’t any fucking tracks!”

  Ken gaped at her.

  Davies looked confused. “I’m sorry, but I don’t—”

  Trish looked up at Neil, pleading. “You went out to get… him, and the snow’s all messed up where you went. There aren’t any other tracks, Mr. Maclaren. If that guy out there messed around with the cars, there’d be tracks or something from the road.” She glared at Ken. “There aren’t any goddamn tracks!”

  Ken pushed his chair back and stood. “Christ, what the hell are you talking about?” He stomped over to a booth, knelt on the seat and shoved the drapes aside. “I was out there, remember?”

  “Little prick,” she muttered.

  Neil was inclined to agree, but held his peace. And he wasn’t about to say anything about the tracks. She was wrong, but forcing her temper farther along to real explosion wasn’t going to do any of them any good.

  Then Ken said, “She’s right.” Looked over his shoulder, wonder on his face. “I’ll be damned, she’s right.”

  “Ravens,” Julia said, watching her fingers twine and twist. “They never come out at night.”

  Willie covered her hands with his.

  She stared at him, and pulled away.

  “There’s been a lot of snow,” Neil reminded them. He pushed away from the window, sat on the edge of the seat, hands clasped between his knees. “He had plenty of time to do … whatever … while Ken and 1 were taking Nester to the storeroom.” He told them about the tracks he hadn’t found by the birch. “The wind blows, the tracks are covered pretty quick.” A thumb jerked over his shoulder. “If we were out there, we’d be able to see the depressions.”

  Trish remained by the stairs, backlit by the bar windows. “Do you believe that, Mr. Maclaren?”

  He couldn’t see her face.

  Hell, no, I don’t believe it.

  “Sure.”

  He could see her shrug, could tell she wasn’t sure about the lie—if it was a lie, if he was humoring her, if he wasn’t lying at all.

  Suddenly she turned. “My god.”

  Neil stood, and saw him.

  On this side of the creek now, on the bank, standing in a faint mist rising from the snow, from the water. Collar up on a black duster that reached the ground, a flat-crown wide-brimmed black hat that kept his face in shadow in spite of the light shining directly at him, black gloves.

  Standing there.

  The mist shifting, curling around him and over the water that just for the moment seemed frozen.

  His right hand moved into his coat.

  “Down!” Neil shouted.

  Chairs toppling, tables scraping, the girl not moving.

  “Trish!”

  Two shots.

  Explosions.

  Flares of flame.

  Two floodlights went out.

  The silence almost hurt.

  The wind came up again.

  A minute, maybe more, before Neil shook his head clear of the gunshot echoes and rose unsteadily to his feet. The revolver was in his hand. He tucked it away quickly, but not before he saw Mandy looking at him oddly.

  Trish marched over the table and grabbed Ken to his feet by the front of his shirt. He tried to smack her hands away, but she yanked him, virtually dragged him across the restaurant floor and down the steps to the lounge. When he called her a bitch, she swung him around in front of her and slapped him. Hard. With the back of her hand. Turned him around again and shoved until he collided with the window.

  Then she leaned close, grabbed a fistful of hair, and shouted directly into his ear, “See, you shithead? Do you see?”

  Neil grabbed her arm before she slammed Ken’s face into the glass.

  But she was right.

  The man was gone.

  The snow was clean.

  We have got to get out of here,” Ceil whispered to Davies.

  They were alone at the table, the others joining Maclaren at the bar window.

  “Hugh, are you listening to me?”

  He ran a manicured finger down the side of his glass. “What do you suggest we do, darling? Make a run for it?”

  She decided to slap his face, decided against it, decided that yes, she did want to run for it, decided that that was just as stupid as it sounded. She coughed. She cleared her throat viciously. She wanted to walk away from him, away from all of them, but there was no place to go and she knew her legs wouldn’t hold her up for more than a few steps.

  “Ceil, are you all right?”

  God, she hated him.

  Sometimes in the middle of loving him, she wanted to cut his throat. So smug, so damn knowing, so almighty sure of himself that if he walked on water, he’d probably bitch about his precious shoes getting wet. Nothing surprised him. Nothing. When she had told him she was pregnant, he hadn’t blinked, hadn’t smiled, hadn’t frowned, hadn’t yelled. He hadn’t done anything. Until she had started to cry with frustration because she was goddamn tired of making all the goddamn decisions, goddamn tired of having to assemble his wardrobe and make his appointments with all the right people and make the reservations at all the right restaurants and sit there practically all night in that goddamn stupid, smelly, smoky radio station booth and decide which people calling in wouldn’t make him look like an ass.

  “Ceil, darling, would you like a drink?”

  Why the hell didn’t he know how scared she was? They were going to die! There was a creep out there sneaking around like a goddamn Indian, blowing people away, blowing out the lights, and when they were all frightened enough, he was going to blow away the door and come in and kill them all. Why the hell couldn’t he see that? What the hell was the matter with him?

  “Here, Ceil, let me put that out for you before you burn your finger.”

  He took the cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray.

  He smiled at her.

  She didn’t want to tell him.

  She wanted him to know.

  Like she had wanted him to know that she hadn’t wanted the abortion; like she had wanted him to know that she truly hated New York, wanted to be back in Chicago; like she had wanted him to know goddamnit that she thought it an extraordinarily stupid idea to call Mandy, of all goddamn people, to join them in a drive out here into the middle of nowhere, a stupid idea when they had all of Manhattan to find things to do in, a stupid idea when he had her, for god’s sake, if he wanted excitement; like she wanted him to know now that if she loved him one more minute, she would have to kill him.

  “Wine?”

  She closed her eyes and felt the tears. “Yes,” she surrendered quietly. “That would be nice.”

  “I thought so.”

  His hand patted her shoulder, gripped it, squeezed it, caressed her back tenderly before pulling away.

  When her eyes opened again, she was alone, and the room looked as if it had been flooded. She grabbed a napkin and dabbed at her eyes. Carefully. Mustn’t mess. Mustn’t let him see.

  Mustn’t let him.

  Mustn’t.

  After looking at the snow with everyone else, Willie decided it would be better if he waited in the kitchen. All the people were making him nervous, they were even starting to talk about ghosts and stuff like that which didn’t even exist. Next thing he knew, they’d be doing things like he saw in the movies, putting garlic around the doors and finding silver crosses to wear around their necks and saying prayers and beating drums and doing dances, and none of it was going to do them any good. The man outside wanted it that way. He knew that. It was clear as a bell. As the nose on his face. As mud in a stream. The man wanted them all so scared they wouldn’t be able to see straight, think straight, find their noses in front of their faces, find their ass with both hands. Then he was going to come inside and kill them all just the way he had killed the drunken prick. He didn’t feel bad about that at all, Nester dead and rotting. Julia had hit him, he was bad, he deserved to die, no question about it. Willie would have made sure of that himself if the man outside hadn’t done it first. But Julia didn’t deserve to die. It wasn’t like they were going together or anything, it wasn’t like she had let him touch her, but she was a pretty good friend all in all, and she sure didn’t deserve to die like the drunken prick. And he was going to try to make sure that it didn’t happen. He didn’t have a gun. He could use one, he’d used them before, but he didn’t have one now. What he had was his kitchen. And everything in it. He knew how to use all that, too, and if the man came in the side door, he’d never leave the kitchen alive.

  Willie knew how to use everything.

  He knew how to use it well.

  She twisted her wrist out of Maclaren’s grip and walked away from them, to the bar. She didn’t have to look out there a second time. She knew what she saw. The man in the black coat didn’t leave any tracks. The wind was screaming quietly across the roof, but the snow wasn’t that dry, and even if it had been, it couldn’t have covered the tracks all that fast.

  He just didn’t make them.

  She didn’t know how, and she didn’t care right at the moment. She did care that no one touch her because then she’d have to start screaming, and if she started screaming, Ken would say something nasty and she’d have to scream at him. And then. And then. Then maybe he wouldn’t marry her.

  She leaned over the bar and flipped open a chrome lid, found a beer down there and pulled it out, twisted the cap off, and drank from the bottle.

  She burped.

  She saw herself in the mirror and blew a mocking kiss at her reflection.

  Married-Jesus.

  He was a cold bastard, a cruel bastard, a sometimes sadistic bastard, and about as stupid as they come. Men, that is. Tight sweaters and tight jeans and bikini panties and black or red bras and a little feel now and again, a long, loud, submissive fuck now and then, and their balls were hers. Sometimes it was so easy, she had to throw up afterward. Sometimes she actually enjoyed herself, and still threw up later.

  Ken was something else again.

  There were days when he smelled like cowshit, days when he smelled like the damp inside of a barn, days when he smelled like everything that ever came out of the ass end of a chicken, even though he had never worked his old man’s farm a day in his life. He, the hero, worked in the office. Counting the money. Helping his old man make the money. Helping himself to the money and spending it on her. His old man hated her. When Ken was in the kitchen once, getting coffee after dinner, the old man called her a slut and told her it would be a cold day in Hell when she got a single penny of his business.

  She didn’t want his fucking business.

  She wanted the money.

  But she wasn’t going to get it if they didn’t get out of here, and soon.

  She drank.

  She watched herself drinking.

  Ken called her. Ordered her to get over to his side.

  Heel, Trish, good girl.

  The man out there, the man with no face … she shuddered and swallowed and emptied the bottle before taking another breath.

  Hugh, still wearing his muffler, sat on the last stool near the rest rooms, Neil standing beside the window.

 

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