"Night vision," I heard him say. "Fuck these professionals."
"You're supposed to be a professional," I reminded him. "That's why you're here."
"Keep forgetting," he replied, "what with being surrounded by amateurs and all."
I wondered how long Stritch had been watching us, waiting to make his move. Long enough to see me with Lorna, and to understand that some kind of bond existed between us. "Why did he try to take her in such a public place?" I wondered aloud.
Louis risked a look around the edge of the stone, but no shots came. "He wanted to hurt the woman, and for you to know it was him. More than that, he wanted to draw us out."
"And we followed him?"
"Wouldn't want to disappoint him," replied Louis. "I tell you, I don't think the man gives a fuck about that money anymore."
I was getting tired of hugging the big fir. "I'm going to make a move, see how far I can get. You want to take another peep out of your hole and cover me?"
"You the man. Get going."
I took a deep breath and, staying low, began to zigzag forward, tripping on two concealed roots but managing to keep my feet as Stritch's gun barked twice, kicking up snow and dirt by my right heel. It was followed by a burst of fire from Louis's SIG that shattered branches and bounced off rocks but also seemed to force Stritch to keep his head down.
"You see him?" I yelled, as I squatted down, my back to a spruce and my breath pluming before me in huge clouds. I was starting to warm up at last, although, even in the darkness, my fingers and hands appeared to be a raw, vivid red. Before Louis could reply, something off-white whirled in a copse of bushes ahead and I opened fire. The figure retreated into the darkness. "Never mind," I added. "He's about thirty feet northeast of you, heading farther in."
Louis was already moving. I could see his dark shape against the snow. I sighted, aimed and fired four shots into the area where I had last seen Stritch. There was no return fire and Louis was soon level with me but about ten feet away.
And then, again to my left but this time farther ahead, there came the sound of movement in the woods. Someone was moving quickly and surefootedly toward Stritch.
"Bird?" said Louis. I raised a hand quickly and indicated the source of the noise. He went silent, and we waited. For maybe thirty seconds nothing happened. There was no noise, not even a footstep or the falling of snow from the trees. There was nothing but the sound of my heart beating and the blood pumping in my ears.
Then two shots came in close succession followed by what sounded like two bodies impacting. Louis and I moved at the same instant, our feet freezing, our legs held high so that they would not drag in the snow. We ran hard until we burst through the copse, our hands raised to ward off the branches, and there we found Stritch.
He stood in a small, stony clearing doused in silver moonlight, his back to us, his toes barely touching the ground, his hands gripping the leafless trunk of a fallen pine that lay at an upward angle in the snow, supported by hidden rocks beneath the drifts. From the back of his tan raincoat, something thick and red had erupted that glistened darkly in the light. As we approached him, Stritch shuddered and seemed to grip the tree harder, as if to force himself off the sharp tip on which he had been impaled. A fine spray of blood shot from his mouth and he groaned as his grip weakened. He turned his head at the sound of our footsteps and his eyes were large with shock, his thick, moist lips spread wide against gritted teeth as he tried to hold himself upright. Blood coursed from the wounds in his head, dark rivers of it flowing over his pale features.
As we were almost upon him, his mouth opened and he cried out as his body shuddered hard for the last time, his grip failing, his head falling forward and coming to rest against the gray bark of the tree.
And as he died, I scanned the glade, conscious that Louis was doing the same, both of us acutely aware that beyond our line of sight someone was watching us, and that there was a kind of joy in what he saw, and in what he had done.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I sat in Rand Jennings's office in the Dark Hollow police department and watched the snow falling on the windowpane against the early morning darkness. Jennings sat across from me, his hands steepled together, the fingertips resting in the small roll of fat that hung beneath his chin. Behind me stood Ressler, while outside the office uniformed patrolmen, mostly part-timers called in for the occasion, ran back and forth down the hallway, bumping into one another like ants whose chemical signalers had been interfered with.
"Tell me who he was," said Jennings.
"I already told you," I said.
"Tell me again."
"He called himself Stritch. He was a freelance operator: murder, torture, assassination, whatever."
"What's he doing attacking waitresses in Dark Hollow, Maine?"
"I don't know." That was a lie, but if I told him it was an attempt to gain revenge for the death of his partner then Jennings would have wanted to know who killed the partner and what part I had played in the whole affair. If I told him that then the chances were that I would be locked up in a cell.
"Ask him about the nigra," said Ressler. Instinctively, the muscles on my shoulders and neck tightened and I heard Ressler snicker behind me. "You got a problem with that word, Mr. Big Shot? Don't like to hear a man being called a buck nigra, especially if he's your friend?"
I took a deep breath and brought my rising temper under control. "I don't know what you're talking about, but I'd like to hear you talk like that in Harlem."
Ressler grew redder as Jennings unsteepled his hands and jabbed an index finger at me. "Again, I'm calling you a liar, Parker. I got witnesses saw a colored follow you out that door; same colored checked into the motel with a skinny white guy in tow the day you arrived; same colored who paid cash in advance on the room, the room he shared with the same skinny white guy who hit this man Stritch with a bottle; and the same colored…" His voice rose to a shout. "The same fucking colored who has now left his motel and disappeared into the fucking ether with his buddy. Do you hear me?"
I knew where Angel and Louis had gone. They were at the India Hill Motel on Route 6 outside Greenville. Angel had checked in and Louis was lying low. They would eat out of the McDonald's nearby and wait for me to call.
"Like I said, I don't know what you're talking about. I was alone when I found Stritch. Maybe someone else followed me out, thought that I might need some help catching this guy but, if he did, then I didn't see him."
"You're full of shit, Parker. We got three, maybe four sets of prints running in the direction of that clearing. Now I'm going to ask you again: why is this guy attacking waitresses in my town?"
"I don't know," I lied, again. If the conversation had been a horse, someone would have shot it by now.
"Don't give me that. You spotted the guy. You were moving after him before he even went for the girl." He paused. "Assuming it was Carlene Simmons he was after to begin with." His face took on a thoughtful expression, and his eyes never left my face. I didn't like him. I never had, and what had passed between us gave neither of us any particular reason to mend our fences, but he wasn't dumb. He stood and went to the window, where he stared out into the blackness for a time. "Sergeant," he said at last, "will you excuse us?"
Behind me, I heard Ressler shift his weight and the soft, deliberate tread of his footsteps as he walked to the door and closed it quietly behind him. Jennings turned to me then and cracked the knuckles of his right hand by crushing them in his left.