"Billy," I said. "Have you been out at Meade Payne's place?"
He shook his head. "I don't know no Meade Payne."
I clutched the bars of the cell. "Billy, this is important. I know you were heading out to Meade. You won't get him into trouble by admitting it."
He looked at me and sighed. "I didn't get out there. They picked me up before I even got into town."
I spoke softly and distinctly, trying to keep the tension out of my voice. "Then where did you hear that song, Billy?"
"What song?"
"The song you're humming, "Fair and Tender Ladies." Where did you hear it?"
"I don't recall." He looked away, and I knew that he did remember.
"Try."
He ran his hands through his hair, gripping the tangled locks at the back as if afraid of what his hands might do if he didn't find some way to occupy them, and began to rock back and forth again. "The old man, the one I saw at Rita's place, I think he might have been singing it to himself. I can't get the damned thing out of my head." He started to cry.
I felt my throat go dry. "Billy, what does Meade Payne look like?"
"What?" he asked. He looked genuinely puzzled. From behind me, I heard Jennings say: "I'm warning you for the last time, Parker. Get away from the prisoner." His footsteps sounded on the floor as he walked toward me.
"That's Meade over there, in that picture on the wall," said Billy, standing up as he spoke. He pointed to the framed photograph of three men which hung on the wall near the front desk, a similar version of that which hung in the diner but with only two faces instead of three. I walked over to it, nudging Rand Jennings out of my way as I went. In the middle of the group was a young man in a U.S. Marines uniform, his right arm around Rand Jennings, his left arm around an elderly man who grinned back with pride at the lens. A plaque below the photograph read "Patrolman Daniel Payne, 1967-1991."
Rand Jennings. Daniel Payne. Meade Payne. Except the old man in the picture was short, about five-six, stooped and gentle-eyed, with a crown of white hair surrounding a bald head marked with liver spots. His face was mapped with a hundred lines.
He was not the man I had met at the Payne house.
And slowly, tumblers began to fall in my mind.
Everybody had a dog. Meade Payne had mentioned it in his letter to Billy, but I had seen no dog when I was out there. I thought of the figure Elsa Schneider had seen climbing the drainpipe. An old man couldn't climb a drainpipe, but a young man could. And I recalled what Rachel had said about Judith Mundy, about her being used as breeding stock.
Breeding stock.
Breeding a boy.
And I remembered old Saul Mann, his hands moving over the cards, swiftly palming the lady, or slipping the pea from under a soda pop cap to take five bucks from a sucker. He never pushed them, never hailed them or tried to force them to come, because he knew.
Caleb knew Billy would come back to Meade Payne. Maybe he got Meade's name from Cheryl Lansing before he killed her, or it could have come up during Willeford's investigations. However he found out, Caleb knew that if he took away all the obstacles and all the options, Billy would have to turn to Meade Payne.
Because Caleb understood what con men and hunters all understood: that, sometimes, it's best to lay the bait, wait, and let the prey come to you.
I turned to find Jennings with his Coogan in his hand, pointing in my direction. I guessed that I had ignored him for just that little too long. "I'm tired of your shit, Parker. You and your buddies just drop your weapons and get on the ground," he said. "Now."
Ressler, too, drew his weapon and, in the rear office, the younger policeman was already holding a Remington pump to his shoulder.
"Looks like we just crashed a nervous cops' convention," said Angel.
"Jennings, I don't have time for this," I said. "You have to listen to me-"
"Shut up," said Jennings. "I'm telling you for the last time, Parker, put… " Then he stopped suddenly and looked at the gun in my belt.
"Where did you get that gun?" he asked, and menace stepped softly into his voice like a gunman at a funeral. He eased back the hammer on his pistol and took three steps toward me, his gun now inches from my face. He had now recognized the jacket and sweater as well. Behind me, I heard Angel sigh loudly.
"You tell me where you got that gun, dammit, or I'll kill you."
There was no good way to tell him what had taken place, so I didn't even try. "I was ambushed on the road. The old man who lived out by the lake, John Barley, he's dead. He died in my car. I was chased, I got to your house and Lorna gave me a gun. You may find some bodies in your living room when you get back but Lorna's okay. Listen to me, Rand, the girl-"
Rand Jennings let the hammer fall gently, hit the safety and then pistol-whipped me with the barrel of the gun, catching me a hard blow on the left temple. I staggered backward as he drew his arm back to hit me again, but Ressler intervened and caught his arm.
"I'll kill you, you fuck. I'll kill you." His face was purple with rage, but there was grief there too, and the knowledge that things could never be the same again after this, that the shell had finally been broken and the life he had lived up to then was escaping even as we spoke, dissipating into the air like so much stale gas.
I felt blood running down my cheek and my head ached badly. In fact, I ached all over, but I figured that was the kind of day it was. "You may not get the chance to kill me. The men who ambushed me work for Tony Celli. He wants Billy Purdue."
Jennings's breathing slowed, and he nodded at Ressler, who cautiously released his hold on Jennings's arm. "Nobody is taking my prisoner," said Jennings.
Then the lights went out, and all hell broke loose.
For a few moments, the station house was in total darkness. Then the emergency lighting kicked in, casting a dim glow from four fluorescents on the walls. From the cells, I heard Billy Purdue shouting: "Hey! Hey out there, what's happening? Tell me what's going on. What happened to the lights?"
From the rear of the station came the sound of three loud bangs like hammer blows, followed by the sound of a door hitting a wall. But Louis was already moving, the huge Roadblocker still in his hand. I saw him pass Billy Purdue's cell and wait at the corner, where the corridor leading down to the back door began. I felt him count three in his head, then he turned, stood to one side and fired two shots down the corridor. He moved out of sight, fired one more shot, then moved back into our line of vision. Jennings, Ressler and I ran to join him, while the young cop and Angel bolted the front door, Walter beside them.
In the corridor, two men lay dead, their faces concealed beneath black ski masks, both wearing black denims and short black jackets.
"They picked the wrong camouflage gear," said Louis. "Ought to have checked the weather forecast." He pulled up one of the masks and turned to me: "Anyone you know?"
I shook my head and Louis released his hold on the mask. "Probably not worth knowing anyways," he said.
We advanced cautiously to the open door. Wisps of snow flew into the corridor, blown by the wind outside. Louis took a broom and used it to nudge the door closed, its lock splintered by the impact of the blows it had received. No more shots came. He then helped Ressler to carry a desk down the corridor from the office and they used it to block the entrance. We left Louis to watch the door and returned to the main office, where Angel and the young cop were each at one side of a window, trying to catch a glimpse of the men moving outside. There couldn't have been many of them left, I figured, although Tony Celli was still among them.
Walter stood farther back. I noticed he had his old.38 in his hand. I was certain now that I knew where Ellen was, assuming she was still alive, but if I told Walter he would run hell-for-leather into Tony Celli's men in an effort to get to her, and that would serve no purpose at all, apart from getting him killed.