He was thrown to the floor by the impact of the bullet, and he slumped against the wall beneath the windows. He clutched his left shoulder with his right hand, but for all the pressure he applied, blood still streamed between his fingers. Pain pulsed rhythmically within him, deep within him, exactly as the power had once done: tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat…
A man came toward him. Blue-eyed. Curly-haired.
He couldn’t see very well. His vision was blurred. But the sight of those bright blue eyes was sufficient to catapult him back in time, back to the memory of another pair of blue eyes, and he said, “Parker.”
The blue-eyed man said, “Who’s Parker?”
“Don’t tease me,” Salsbury said. “Please don’t tease me.”
“I’m not teasing.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“Who’s Parker?”
“Please don’t touch me, Parker.”
“Me? That’s not my name.”
Salsbury began to cry.
The blue-eyed man took him by the chin and forced his head up. “Look at me, damn you. Look at me closely.”
“You hurt me bad, Parker.”
“I. Am. Not. Parker.”
For a moment the blazing pain subsided. Salsbury said, “Not Parker?”
“My name’s Annendale.”
The pain blossomed again, but the past receded to its proper place. He blinked and said, “Oh. Oh, yes. Annendale.”
“I’m going to ask you a lot of questions.”
“I’m in terrible pain,” Salsbury said. “You shot me. You hurt me. That isn’t right.”
“You’re going to answer my questions.”
“No,” Salsbury said adamantly. “None of them.”
“All of them. You’ll answer all of them, or I’ll blow your damned head off,” the blue-eyed man said.
“Okay. Do it. Blow my head off. That’s better than losing all of it. That’s better than losing the power.”
“Who were those men in the helicopter?”
“None of your business.”
“Were they government men?”
“Go away.”
“You’re going to die sooner or later, Salsbury.”
“Oh, is that so? Like hell I am.”
“You are. So save yourself some pain.”
Salsbury said nothing.
“Were they government men?”
“Fuck off.”
The blue-eyed man reversed the revolver in his right hand, and he used the butt to rap hard on Salsbury’s right hand. The blow seemed to send jagged shards of glass through his skinned knuckles. But that was the least of the pain. The shock was transmitted through his hand, to and into the tender, bloody wound in his shoulder.
He gasped. He bent over and almost vomited.
“Do you see what I mean?”
“Bastard.”
“Were they government men?”
“I… told you… to… fuck off.”
Klinger parked the car on West Main Street, two blocks from the town square.
He slid out from behind the wheel, closed the door — and heard gunfire. Three shots. One right after the other. Inside muffled by walls. Not far away. Toward town. The municipal building? He stood very still and listened for at least a minute, but there was nothing more.
He took the snub-nosed.32 Webley from the ankle holster and flicked off the safety.
He hurried into the alleyway beside the Union Theater, taking a safe if circuitous route to the back door of the municipal building.
9
10:55 P.M
In the ambulance Lolah Tayback lay on a cot, strapped down at chest and thighs. A crisp white sheet was drawn up to her neck. Her head had been elevated with two pillows to prevent her from choking on her own blood during the trip to the hospital in Bexford. Although her breathing was regular, it was labored; and she moaned softly as she exhaled.
Behind the ambulance, at the open bay doors, Sam stood with Anson Crowell, Thorp’s night deputy. “All right. Let’s go through it one more time. What happened to her?”
“She was attacked by a rapist,” the deputy said, as Sam had programmed him to say.
“Where did it happen?”
“In her apartment.”
“Who found her?”
“I did.”
“Who called the police?”
“Her neighbors.”
“Why?”
“They heard screaming.”
“Did you catch her assailant?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“No. But we’re working on it.”
“Have any leads?”
“A couple.”
“What are they?”
“I’d prefer not to say at this time.”
“Why not?”
“I might prejudice the case.”
“By talking to other policemen?”
“We’re real careful in Black River.”
“That’s being too careful, isn’t it?”
“No offense. That’s just how we operate.”
“Do you have a description of the man?”
The deputy recited a list of physical characteristics that Sam had made up off the top of his head. The fictitious assailant did not remotely resemble the real one, Ogden Salsbury.
“What if the state police or the Bexford police offer assistance in the case?”
“I tell them thanks but no thanks,” the deputy said. “We’ll handle it ourselves. We prefer it that way. Besides, I don’t have the authority to allow them to come in on it. That would be up to the chief.”
“Good enough,” Sam said. “Get in.”
The deputy clambered into the passenger bay of the ambulance and sat on the padded bench beside Lolah Tayback’s cot.
“You’ll be stopping at the end of Main Street to pick up her boyfriend,” Sam said. He had already talked to Phil Karkov on the telephone, had primed him to play the role of the anxiety-stricken lover at the hospital — just as he had primed Lolah to play a bewildered rape victim who had been attacked in her apartment. “Phil will be staying at the hospital with her, but you’ll come back as soon as you’ve learned she’s going to be okay. ”
“I understand,” Crowell said.
Sam closed the doors. He went around to the driver’s window to reinforce the story that he had planted in the mind of the night duty volunteer fireman who was behind the wheel.
At first it seemed that there was no way to break through Salsbury’s iron resolve, no way to open him up and make him talk. He was in great pain — shaking, sweating, dizzy — but he refused to make things easier for himself. He sat in Thorp’s office chair with an air of authority that simply did not make sense under the circumstances. He leaned back and gripped his shoulder wound and kept his eyes shut. Most of the time he ignored Paul’s questions. Occasionally he responded with a string of profanities and sex words that sounded as if they had been arranged to convey the minimum of meaning.
Furthermore, Paul wasn’t a born inquisitor. He supposed that if he knew the proper way to torture Salsbury, if he knew how he could cause the man mind-shattering pain without actually destroying him — and if he had the stomach for it — he could get the truth in short order. When Salsbury’s stubbornness became particularly infuriating, Paul used the butt of his revolver to jar the man’s shoulder wound. That left Salsbury gasping. But it wasn’t enough to make him talk. And Paul was incapable of any more effective cruelties.
“Who were the men in the helicopter?”
Salsbury didn’t answer.
“Were they government people?”