Elkins, sounding aggrieved, said, "I don't see why we can't just ask. It Wouldn't kill them to be friendly."
"Besides," Wiss said, "my own opinion is, we're kinda lost."
Parker turned to face the lodge. "Well," he said, "if we just keep going downhill, we'll get to the road some time or other."
Wiss said, "But where on the road? This thing isn't panning out at all."
"Move along, fellas."
"Screw this," Elkins said. "What are they gonna do, shoot me? I'll be right back." He took a step toward the house, then stopped and said, "Jesus, wait a minute, I'm carrying a rifle." Turning, he extended the Remington to Wiss, saying, "Here, you hold it for me."
"Sure."
Without the rifle, Elkins started toward the lodge again, and made about half the distance before the door over there opened. This north side of the lodge featured a wide white door, heavily framed with half columns. Leading to it were four broad shallow wooden steps, gray-painted, up from where the road curved around close to the house before circling it to meet the even more elaborate entrance at the front.
This entrance was elaborate enough, with plenty of room on the top step for the guy who now came out, looking stern. He was a tall man, not heavy, and wore what seemed like a military greatcoat in dark blue over a flannel shirt and blue jeans. A dark blue hard-billed officer's cap was on his head. So this would be the state CID inspector, casual in the house, putting on his official wear to repel the interlopers. Pointing a rigid finger at Elkins, he said, 'This is a restricted area, my friend. Move along out of here."
Instead of which, Elkins kept moving forward. He was about twenty yards from the CID man now, not hurrying, closing the gap. Behind him, Parker and Wiss also moved forward, more slowly. Holding his hands out, Elkins said, "Mister, this isn't a very friendly way to treat a fella. We're just trying to—"
"Stop right there," the CID man said. "I am a peace officer, and I am ordering you off this property."
"Listen," Elkins said, still moving forward, "if you're a lawman, that's fine, here, I'll show you my ID," reaching in under the orange coat, on the right side, toward his back pants pocket, "my friends and me are just up here to"—bringing out the Colt Super Auto .38, suddenly rushing forward, Parker and Wiss coming fast—"keep your hands where I can see them or you're a fucking dead man! Back! Back! Back!" Crowding the astonished CID man back across the broad top step toward the open door.
'You mean— You can't—"
"Moxon!" Elkins shouted, using the CID man's name to give him a second shock. "Shut up and listen! You want to stay alive!"
All four crowded through the doorway, Moxon backward, the color draining from his face. He was a craggy rangy man, a little over the hill, who kept himself in shape and hadn't known anything like this could happen to him.
Parker's gloves were off now, the Remington cocked as he pushed it past Elkins into Moxon's stomach, saying, "Call Hayes. Tell him to show his face."
"I—I'm alone here," Moxon stammered.
Elkins slapped Moxon's military hat off with the barrel of the automatic. He was the one being dangerous, unpredictable. "Do we look stupid?" he demanded. "We know your names, the two of you."
Wiss shut the door, and Parker poked Moxon in the stomach again with the barrel of the Remington. "It's just as easy for us," he said, "we work in here, without you alive."
"Easier," Elkins said, and laid the automatic against Moxon's left cheek.
'There are law officers," Moxon said, and started again, "this is secure, there are law officers all over this mountain."
Parker said, "That's how we got in here." He looked past Moxon at the room, a large, broad, wood-walled place with brick floor and brass wall sconces, several coats hanging on a row of wooden dowels along the back, over a broad rough-timber bench, boots of various kinds under the bench, wide doorways open on both sides. He called, "Hayes! Come out now, or we shoot Moxon, and then come in for you."
Lloyd's little voice said, "I just told him help's on the way."
Elkins laughed. "Come out, Hayes!" he cried. "You're done with your phone call! Oley oley in free!"
Moxon, sounding worried, said, "Phone call?"
Wiss stood to one side, his Remington loose in his hands, pointed at the brick floor. He was the calm one. "It was a friend of ours," he said, "who just told Hayes that help was on the way. He lied. Every message you send out of here, phone, e-mail, whatever you want, goes to our friend and nobody else."
"So there's no reason to stall," Parker said.
Moxon looked at him. He considered Parker's face a long time, not as though to remember it for some lineup farther down the road but as though to read the truth there, whatever it might turn out to be. Then, still looking at Parker, he angled his head back a bit and called, "Bert, come on out. The criminals have returned to the scene of the crime."
6
The second lawman was also in jeans and flannel shirt and boots. This one, Bert Hayes from Washington, was a sandy-haired, short, angry-looking man in his mid-forties who came through the doorway on the right with his hands held out in front of himself, arms spread wide and palms forward, not as though he were surrendering or showing himself without weapons but as though he were making a point in an ongoing argument: You see? You understand now? What he said, in a raspy aggravated voice, was, 'There isn't one fucking thing you people are going to accomplish around here."
Parker stepped back, to cover them both with the Remington. With a look at Elkins and a nod toward the lawmen, he said, "De-fang."
"Right."
Elkins went in a half-circle, to get around Moxon and
Hayes without being in the line of fire from either Wiss or Parker. Putting his own .38 away, he patted down first Moxon, finding a small hip-holster pistol, and then Hayes, bringing out another small pistol, this one from an ankle holster. 'That's all."
Parker said, "No cuffs?"
"No." Elkins shrugged. "There's closets."
Moxon, sounding surprisingly mild beside the glowering Hayes, said, 'You're the people who broke in last time."
Grinning, Elkins said, "Naw. We just saw your light."
'The thing is," Moxon said, "there's a hidden room in this place somewhere, and we've been going nuts trying to find it."
'Three rooms," Wiss said.
Both lawmen were surprised at that. 'There can't be," Hayes said. 'That's like hiding a tank in your backyard."
Moxon said, "I'm beginning to think you people've been keeping tabs on us."
Parker wanted to get this thing moving. He said, "What's your point?"
'You'll lock us in a room or tie us up or whatever," Moxon said. "I don't think you'll kill a peace officer if you don't have to, and you won't have to, and you figure those moustaches and glasses can confuse identification just enough, so we'll cooperate. If we see a chance in our favor, naturally, we'll take it."
"Fucking A," Hayes said.
Wiss said, 'That's all we'd expect. You take care of yourselves, we take care of ourselves, nobody gets hurt."
"All I ask," Moxon said, "is to know where the hidey-hole is."
Elkins laughed. "It really got to you," he said.
Wiss said, 'That's okay. Somewhere down there is where we'd stash you anyway." Looking at Parker, seeing his impatience, he said, "It's okay. It keeps everybody calm, and it moves us along. We're going down there anyway."
'Then let's go."
Moxon and Hayes looked at Elkins, who said, "We come in last time from the other side. There's a hall off a big dining room, with a flight of stairs down to the basement."
"We've been down there a lot," Moxon said.