She remembered this Appleton from when she was a little girl, even though almost everything about him had changed. Everything except his tongue. He kept licking his lips. Every two or three seconds his beefy red tongue would zip out and run along his lips, then disappear. Poppy remembered that tongue.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “You look like a Mulliner.”
“And you’re Lester, aren’t you?” Uncle Luke said. “I haven’t been out here for a while.”
“That’s right,” Lester said, lowering the shotgun. He didn’t offer to shake. “C’mon. I’ll take you up the house.” He eyed the jug dangling from Uncle Luke’s finger.
“Here for some jack?”
“Yep. Been a while since I had some and I miss it.”
“It’s awfully good, ain’t it.”
“That it is.”
Poppy remembered stealing some of her dad’s stock of applejack when she was a teenager. Powerful stuff— Jersey lightning. And no one made better applejack than the Appletons. Matter of fact, she’d been high on Appleton applejack when she and Charlie did it and conceived Glory.
But that wasn’t the Appletons’ fault.
Another hundred yards uphill and they came to a large clearing hazed with blue-white woodsmoke, and sprawled in its center… the house.
Poppy stopped and stared as it all came back to her.
The house… the crazy Appleton house.
It looked like it might have started out as like a oneroom shack. Then somebody must have added a shed to one end, and then maybe an extra room to the other, then an extension on to the shed, and so on… and so on…
That was because as the Appleton kids grew up, they didn’t move away, they just like added a section for themselves. Poppy guessed that if the Appletons had been some rich and respectable clan like the Kennedys, this sort of thing would be called a compound.
But this was no compound—this was a… sprawl. A sprawl with lots of galvanized pipe acting as chimneys, and all those chimneys smoking. The place looked like they’d built it out of whatever scrap material they could find with little or no thought to matching it with what they’d used before. No section looked like it was any kin to any of the other sections nuzzling up against it. Corrugated metal nailed to marine plywood abutting particle board and cedar shakes. Roofs of genuine shingles, vinyl siding, sheet metal, or old rugs and linoleum tacked over wooden slats.
The hide of a deer was tacked to one wall; and over to the right, three dead rabbits hung head down from a clothesline. She turned Katie slightly so she wouldn’t see them and ask what had happened to Bambi and Peter Cottontail.
The Appletons had lived here as long as anyone could remember. All of them. Nobody left, and nobody new was allowed in. And that meant that with no outsiders to choose from, you had to like pair off with somebody who was a pretty damn close relation. Which was why a lot of the Appletons tended to be soft in the head and look the way they did.
“Company, everybody!” Lester shouted. “Companeeee!” And then they started coming out. The men in dirty shirts and jeans or work pants, the women in stained housedresses, hardly any shoes on anyone, and the bare feet as tough as shoe leather and just as brown. Some folks with no hair and misshapen skulls, some heads too big, some way too small, some with pure white skin and hair and pink eyes, some looking pretty normal at first glance, but a second look telling you that not all the circuits were making contact inside. And the kids… some of them were running in endless circles while others sat and rocked… and rocked… and others just stared.
Poppy felt Katie’s arms tighten around her neck in a fearful strangle-hold.
“I want to go h-home,” she whimpered. “I want my Daddy.” And deep in her breaking heart Poppy knew that had to be. Katie couldn’t stay here—couldn’t stay anywhere with Poppy. Maybe it had been all the fear and stress and near panic, maybe it had been the heat, but for a crazy time yesterday she’d really thought she could keep Katie. Now she knew that was impossible. Too many people were looking for them. She wanted what was best for Katie, and a life on the run wasn’t it.
“I know you do, honey bunch. And I’ll see that you get back to him. As soon as it’s safe.” They’d stay here today—just today, but not overnight. No way overnight. Maybe Uncle Luke could go back to Sooy’s Boot and find the feds… make sure they were real feds, and help her like cut a deal.
Yeah. That could work. She’d saved Katie’s life—two, maybe three times—and took good care of her. Why couldn’t she get a suspended sentence and like some sort of protective custody in return?
Hell, even a short jolt in a federal joint would be better than moving in with the Appletons.
2
Dan Keane had barely seated himself behind his desk when Decker called.
Please let this be good news, he thought, knowing that good news for him would be quite different than for Decker.
Dan so desperately wanted this nightmare over. Another call had come from Salinas last night, telling him about a tape that Poppy Mulliner had, a tape that would topple the entire house of cards. And then he was demanding phone numbers and call frequencies, and when Dan asked why, he was told not to worry about it, just do as he was told.
“Just do as you’re told…” Carlos Salinas speaking that way to him! Giving Dan Keane orders. Just two days ago that would have been unthinkable!
“We found Poppy Mulliner,” Decker said.
“Alive?” Dan’s heart and lungs suspended operations while he waited for an answer.
Please say dead.
“Very much alive.”
He almost sobbed as his heart and lungs kicked back into action in triple time. Oh God oh shit oh Christ!
“Is she talking?”
“I said we found her—we don’t have her.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She’s in a motel in a town called Tuckerton—the Adamston Motel. She’s got the little girl with her. We could pick her up now, but since they both seem pretty safe and healthy, we decided to wait and see what she does. We’ve got her phone tapped. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll call one of her accomplices. We’ll give her the day. If nothing shakes out by tonight—or it looks like she’s moving out—we’ll pick her up.”
Dan’s mind screamed: It’s over! They’ve got the woman, they’ll get the tape. What do I do now?
“Dan?” Dan cleared his throat and managed to keep his voice calm.
“Great work. Has she called anyone yet?”
“Nope. But it’s still early.”
“That it is. Keep me informed, will you?”
“Want to come up here and be on the scene?”
“I’d love to. Bob.” That was the last place he wanted to be right now. “But you guys are doing such a great job, I’d feel redundant. I’ll hold the fort here. By the way, any word on how the patient’s doing?” Dan had tried every avenue he knew to ferret out details on Winston’s condition, but it was as if a wall had been erected around the presidential suite at Bethesda, and only one message filtered through: “The President’s fine. Nothing but routine tests that should be finished soon.” Which told him nothing. Winston could be sick as a dog right now and the message would be the same.
“All I hear is that he’s doing fine. How about you?”
“Same thing. I hope that’s true.”
“We’re all praying for him,” Decker said.
Not all of us, Dan thought as he hung up. He dropped his head into his trembling hands and squeezed his eyes shut.
Only a matter of six or eight hours—maybe less—before Decker got that tape. He wanted to run, but where? He had no place to go. He had to stick this out.
He took a deep breath. All right. Six or eight hours. Maybe that was time enough for Salinas to do something. His fat ass was on the line too. What was the name of that motel… ?