For present purposes, he left the automatic, pocketed the revolver in case he needed to do in-close work, and headed back for the lit-up cottage, carrying the shotgun at port arms.
And now at last he looked at his watch: five minutes to two! Jesus Christ, they’ll be back any minute! He had to get rid of those people, he had to get those lights switched off.
It’s getting complicated again, goddam it, it’s getting screwed-up again. Get it under control. Don’t let things spin away into disaster like every other time, this is the last chance, the last chance. The last chance.
The leader first. Moving cautiously along, stooped to stay under the shafts of light, Becker found him in the bedroom off the kitchen, in semi-darkness, looking through the mostly shut doorway at the kitchen, patiently waiting. He had a beer can in his left hand, a big automatic in his right, like the one Becker had left in the truck.
Take care of this now. Take care of it all right now. Get it simple again.
Becker rested the tip of the barrel of the shotgun against the wood frame at the bottom of the screen over the window. The window was open, so it was only the screen in the way. Focusing past it, not seeing the screen at all when he did, Becker aimed the shotgun carefully at the center of the back of that head, just at the knot in the ponytail. His finger slowly squeezed down on the trigger.
FOUR
1
“We didn’t leave lights on,” Parker said, and a shot sounded from up there, on shore.
He had both guns in his hands, the one he’d carried onto the ship in a shoulder holster and the one he’d taken from the guard on the stairs, because he’d planned to throw them out into the river as they left the boat, but now he turned and put the barrel of the Colt Python against Hanzen’s near temple. “Turn us around,” he said, being very quiet, because sound travels on water. “Take us out of here.”
Hanzen did it, without an argument, without a reaction at all, as though he’d been expecting this.
“You know,” Wycza said, speaking as quietly as Parker had, “I thoughtthis thing was going along too easy.”
Parker said, “We’ll head for your landing.”
“Oh, shit,” Hanzen said, but that was all. Behind them, a second shot sounded, and in quick succession a third.
Parker hadn’t one hundred percent trusted Hanzen, but had felt he could take care of things if a problem came up. But why would people be shooting back there? Had they been shooting at this boat? What would be the purpose in that?
Nobody spoke for a good three minutes, as Hanzen steered them at a downstream angle out toward the middle of the river. They’d come from upstream, and Hanzen’s landing was further on down. For those silent three minutes, Parker held the barrel of the Python against Hanzen’s temple, and Hanzen hunched grimly over his wheel, looking straight ahead, asking nothing, offering nothing.
Finally, Parker tapped Hanzen’s head lightly with the gun barrel. “I can’t hear you,” he said.
“You know the story,” Hanzen said. He sounded bitter.
“Not all of it.”
“Shit, man, Idon’t know allof it. Who’s shooting back there? Beats the shit out of me. Maybe they got stoned, they’re shooting at little green men. Wouldn’t put it past them.”
That was possible. Or there could be more players in the game. Parker said, “Just how many people you told my business?”
“Only them as leaned on me,” Hanzen said, “and you met them.”
“They didn’t buy our restaurant story, is that it?”
“A businessman don’t offer to run over one of them’s bikes. You come on too hard, so they wanted to know about you. I figure it’s your way, you can’t help it.”
Wycza said, “What have we got, exactly?”
“Three bikers,” Parker told him. “Friends of Hanzen.”
“Not friends,” Hanzen said.
“They do drug deals together,” Parker said. “They saw me one time, I was with Hanzen, the story was I was lookin for a site for a waterfront restaurant. Seems they didn’t buy it, and they got curious.”
“They leaned on me,” Hanzen insisted, “like I said.”
Wycza told him, “I look at you, friend, it don’t seem to me you’d need much leanin.” To Parker, he said, “So Hanzen here told these biker friends of his where they could expect to find us with some money on us.”
“And went there first,” Parker said.
Lou Sternberg had been silent all this time, seated on the bottom of the boat because his balance wasn’t good enough to permit him to stand when it was running through the water. But now he said, “Parker, why are you still talking to this clown? This is a deep enough river, isn’t it?”
“We couldn’t find his landing on our own,” Parker said.
Hanzen said, “That’s right, and we all know it. I’ll take you to my place you probably want my car.”
“Naturally.”
“So there it is,” Hanzen said. “I’ll take you there, you’ll go ashore, you’ll kill me, you’ll take my car, my problems’ll be all over and yours’ll still be goin on.”
“Maybe not,” Parker said. “You’re cooperating, and you didn’t tell them till they made you.”
“Don’t try to give me hope,” Hanzen said, “it’s a waste of time.”
Which was probably true, too, so Parker didn’t lie to him anymore.
“Leaned on him,” Wycza said, scoffing. “They leaned on him. Made faces and said boo.”
“That’s right,” Hanzen said, “they did that, too. They also kicked me in the nuts a couple times, kicked me in the shins so I got some red scars you could look at, twisted my arms around till I thought they broke ‘em, closed a couple hands down on my windpipe till I passed out.” He turned away from the wheel, though still holding on to it, and looked Wycza up and down. “You’re a big guy,” he said, “so you figure it don’t happen to you. The day it does, big man, when you got seven or eight comin at you, not to kill you but just to make you hurt, you remember Greg Hanzen.”
“I’ll do that,” Wycza promised.
“And remember I told you this. They got wonderful powers of concentration, those boys, they never forget what they’re doing. They don’t stop. They won’t stop, no matter how long it takes, until you say what they want you to say.”
“I’ll remember that, too,” Wycza said.
“Good.” Hanzen turned back to the wheel. “We’re coming in now,” he said, and angled them toward shore.
It was still possible that Hanzen had some other scheme in mind, so Parker kept both guns in his hands and peered at the black and featureless shore as the boat slowed and the river grew wider behind them. How could these river rats find their way around in the dark like this? And yet they could.
“I’ll run it on up on the shore,” Hanzen said. “Make it easier for you all to get out.”
“Good,” Parker said.
Hanzen said, “I hope you take them, and not the other way around. Them’s the bunch I got a grudge against.”
“We’ll do what we can,” Parker said.
Now the shore was close, very close. There was a little moon, not much, just enough to glint off glass in there; probably the windshield of Hanzen’s car. Parker said, “Where are the car keys?”
“In my pocket. Wait’ll we stop.”
“Fine.”
“Brace yourselves now.”
Hanzen switched off the engine. There was a sudden tingling floating silence, and then the keel of the boat scraped pebbles in the mud, angled up, ran partway up onto the bank, and jolted to a stop. Hanzen reached into his pocket, came out with a small ring of keys, and extended them toward Parker, who took them. “It pulls to the left,” Hanzen said.
Wycza stepped over the side first onto the bank, then helped Lou Sternberg over. Parker jumped over the side, and Hanzen jumped after him. Then Hanzen stood there, just waiting.
Wycza took Hanzen by the elbow, walked him farther from the water’s edge, into the oval clearing, very dark now. They stopped, and Wycza stepped to one side. He said, “Greg.”