“I don’t know you,” in a big bass rumble. “Stay where you are, you know what’s good for you.”
“Gus Mayerhof?”
“Got eyes, ain’t you? Know how to read signs?”
“Your gate was open.”
“You better have a goddamn good reason for driving through it.”
“I’m looking for a kid named Jerry Belsize. Lives down in the valley-Gray’s Landing. Twenty-two, husky, drives a dark blue ’fifty-seven Impala.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“I was told he came up here to see you last Friday.”
“Then you got told wrong.”
“You haven’t seen him recently?”
“Nobody comes to see me without they’re invited. Nobody.”
“That’s not what I asked you, Gus.”
“Mr. Mayerhof. Nobody calls me Gus unless I say so.”
The new headache had put Runyon in a bleak, dark mood. He didn’t like pit bulls; he didn’t like hard-ass pot growers with shotguns; he didn’t like the situation he’d let himself into. And he didn’t like having to put the kind of tight hold on himself that Mayerhof had on the dog, even if it was the only option given the circumstances. He said, slow and reasonable, “I don’t want much from you, Mr. Mayerhof. Why not just give it to me and I’ll be on my way.”
“Yeah? Why should I?”
“Be in your best interest.”
“Who says so?”
“I say so. My name’s Runyon, Jake Runyon.”
“Fuck Jake Runyon,” Mayerhof said. “You’re a trespasser, not a cop.”
“Close enough to a cop.”
“… What’s that mean?”
“Private investigator. Close ties to the law.”
“Bullshit.”
“I can show you my license.”
“Fuck your license.”
The leash on Runyon’s temper was starting to fray. “Look, Mayerhof, I didn’t come here to make trouble for you. It’s none of my business what you do for a living, but I can make it my business if you push me. I can make it the law’s business.”
“Not if you don’t leave here in one piece,” Mayerhof said. His body turned slightly as he spoke; the shotgun barrel came up on a level with Runyon’s face framed in the open window. His glare was as malevolent as the pit bull’s.
“Cold-blooded murder? I don’t think so. People know I’m here. How do you suppose I got your name, found out where you live?”
“You never heard of self-defense? Man’s got a right to defend his property against trespassers.”
“Not when they’re sitting inside a car.”
“Say you threatened me. Nobody here to call me a liar.”
“There’d still be an investigation. How’re you going to hide what you grow and sell up here?”
“So maybe you just disappear, you and your car both. Happens all the time in country like this.”
“All right then, go ahead and shoot me. But do it quick, Mayerhof. I’ve got a. 357 Magnum in here and the longer you wait, the better my chances of using it. Miss me and I’ll blow your head off before you can lever up another shell. The dog’s head, too, if you try to let it do the job for you.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m a good fast shot, better than you are one-handed with a pump gun, faster than a pit bull can jump through a car window. I was on the Seattle PD for twelve years. Give me the chance and I won’t miss.”
Standoff. But it was the kind that couldn’t last very long. If he’d gauged Mayerhof wrong, he could get himself killed right here and now-put an end to his misery. He cared and he didn’t care at the same time. But he hadn’t misread the man. He’d had confrontations with dozens of Gus Mayerhofs over the years, the petty criminals with hard-as-nails exteriors and guts that melted and ran when push came to shove.
Nothing changed in Mayerhof ’s expression and he didn’t break eye contact, but inside of thirty seconds the shotgun barrel moved slowly off dead aim until it was pointing at the Ford’s sideview mirror. He said, “You got two minutes to ask your questions and haul ass out of here.”
“Jerry Belsize. You know him or don’t you?”
“I got no memory for names.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Only answer you’re gonna get.”
“How often does he come here?”
“Who says he was ever here? Not me.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
Shrug. “Real scarce cars, ’fifty-seven Chevys.”
“You better not be jerking me around, Mayerhof.”
“And you better not make trouble for me, man. I ain’t no backwoods hick. I got friends do me any favor I ask.”
“Sure you have.”
Mayerhof relaxed his grip on the chain slightly. The dog tensed and began to growl. “Two minutes about up.”
Runyon let him have another ten seconds of stare before he put the Ford in gear and backed up. In his rearview mirror as he turned around, he saw Mayerhof and the dog still occupying the same piece of ground, neither of them moving, like sculpted juts of granite among the corpses and skeletons. His shoulder muscles didn’t loosen until he was over the rise and through the woods.
Had Mayerhof been lying? Didn’t figure that way. Nothing in it for him if he wanted to avoid trouble. Nothing for Brody or the fat woman in the general store or the saloon bunch in lying, either. So Belsize not only hadn’t come up to the mountains to hide out; he also hadn’t been here last Friday buying pot or having car trouble. Then where was he all that day? Why had he lied to his girlfriend? Why had he left the migrant camp so suddenly and where was he now?
Maybe Rinniak and Sandra Parnell were wrong about the kid. Maybe Jerry Belsize wasn’t so innocent after all.
12
FIREBUG
Burn!
Come on come on come on- burn!
“What’s taking so long? You sure you set the timer right?”
“I know how to do it, don’t I?”
“It’s been fifteen minutes already.”
“I set it for twenty. I just wanted to be sure we had enough time.”
“Shit. Fifteen was all we needed. What’s the matter with you?”
“You know what the matter is. I just don’t think we should be doing this again so soon.”
“Why not? You like it as much as I do.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling, that’s all. So soon after… Manuel.”
Burn, damn you, burn!
“We had to kill him. We didn’t have any choice.”
“I know, but God, I can still see his face. It makes me sick.”
“Everything makes you sick. Here, smoke a joint, get calmed down.”
“I don’t want one right now.”
“It’s better when you’re high, you know that.”
“I’ll just take a hit off yours…”
“No. Fire up your own.”
Small flame, hot, bright, but gone too quick.
“Doesn’t it bother you? A little?”
“What?”
“What we did to Manuel.”
“No. I’m just glad he came to us first. If he hadn’t…”
“I keep having nightmares about it. The sound when you hit him with the board, the blood, the way his head looked. And his face after we dragged him up on the rope… we didn’t have to do that.”
“I had to. I never saw anybody hanging before. Besides, it wasn’t as messy as beating his head in.”
“He was already dead, wasn’t he?”
“No, he wasn’t. He was still breathing.”
“Oh Jesus!”
“Why do you think he danced like he did when we pulled him up, why his tongue turned all black? He strangled on that rope.”
“Don’t!”
“You’re a baby, baby.”
“I can’t help it. It took so long, we almost didn’t get away after you hit that detective. You didn’t have to hit him; he didn’t know we were there.”
“I wanted to hit him. So I did.”
“He’d be gone by now if you hadn’t. He scares me. He’s not stupid. What if he-?”
“Not stupid, but not as smart as I am. None of them are.”
“But if we keep on the way we have been-”
“We’re not going to.”
“We’re not? No lie?”
“We’re going to get even more creative. More fun, more payback.”
“Oh God, fun. Do we have to… you know?”