All the way back to the sheds, driving the straining truck with its load of melons and pickers, and all the rest of that day driving back and forth he thought about Mark Triple, about the airplane that could put him over the mountains clear to Vegas in an hour or so, a four-hour trip or better by car. Looking off toward the hills, where the plane could so quickly vanish, he started counting the days until Triple would return, until he could bring Mark Triple innocently into the scheme he was building. He needed to get into Blythe, he needed to look the town over with more care, and to study the surrounding area. It had been many years since he’d spent any time there, things change, new and different businesses opening up. Now, with the anticipation of a perfect getaway, he found his excitement growing; this heist would not involve Jake Ellson, and that made him feel lighter, easier in spirit. Even his lust for Lucita settled into a dull ache as his common sense kicked in and his thoughts rallied to a more sensible robbery.
In the next days there were fewer times when he couldn’t get his mind off Lucita, fewer nights when his dreams were filled with her, when he tossed and fought his pillow—or when the dark presence returned to wake and hassle him and urge him in his lust. If he did lie wakeful, he would instead sort through various schemes, ever impatient to get into town and take a look, get the lay of the place and pick out a new mark, now that he had an inspired and, he hoped, reliable getaway. And then, on the nights when the dark presence came stronger, pushing him to pursue Lucita more forcefully and to follow the more certain path to the Delgado payroll, the ghost cat would crowd close to Lee. Then, Misto seemed almost to become one with Lee, fighting the dark force, hissing and snarling and even seeming to grow in stature as he sought to ward off the evil that would crush Lee. The power of the cat beside Lee strengthened him so much that some nights he would scoff and laugh at Satan; and as the dark and angry spirit drew back, Lee would stroke the cat’s rough coat, and smile at Misto’s rumbling challenge.
But Lee feared, and perhaps rightly so, that there would be times ahead when his own strength wouldn’t hold, when, alone perhaps, he would be overwhelmed, when he must watch Satan take the lead and, try as he might, Lee would be unable to best him, when it would be too easy to let the dark wraith bully and intimidate him into following the devil’s plan.
18
When Morgan Blake was mustered out of the navy, the minute he got home he had floated a loan to make the down payment on the old Wilson gas station. Working from early dawn through the evenings, it didn’t take him long to convert the building into a spacious automotive shop. He kept one gas pump, removed the other three, turned the remainder of the open, roofed area into parking for his repair customers. The shop itself was a white frame building with two bays and two hydraulic lifts. There wasan office attached, a storeroom behind that, and a small bathroom. The little office, with its plate-glass window looking out under the overhang held an old metal desk, three wooden chairs, and a small wooden table cluttered with automotive catalogs. Both the shop and the office smelled comfortablyof grease, metal, and the sharp scent left by the arc-welding equipment.
Now as he moved away from the raised lift where he had been greasing a forty-two Plymouth, a white delivery van pulled into the drive and parked to the left of the bay entrance, emitting the scent of fresh bread and pastries that traveled with it. He watched his motherin-law step out of the cab, waving and smiling in at him. He grinned and waved, and lowered the Plymouth to the concrete, as she went on into the office. Caroline Tanner was a handsome woman, tall like Becky, her dark hair peppered with white, her Levi’s fitting her lean body easily, her white shirt freshly starched. She carried a white bakery box, she set it on the table, balanced on a stack of papers. It was just noon, she had obviously come to share lunch, and he wondered why. She was more than welcome, but she didn’t do this often. He stepped into the little bathroom to wash up, and retrieved his lunch bag from a shelf among boxes of small automotive parts.
In the office he spread some paper towels on the desk as Caroline drew up another chair. They had exchanged no word, nor needed to. He laid his sandwiches out on the paper towels, one roast beef, one tomato and bacon. Caroline accepted half a roast beef sandwich, and poured coffee from his thermos into the two mugs he had rinsed out. He watched her with apprehension, and when she looked up at him, her gray eyes were filled with something so unpleasant that before she could speak he reached out, put this hand over hers.“Caroline, I already know.”
“Brad Falon’s back in town,” she said softly.
He nodded.“I heard he was out on the West Coast. L.A., I think. I wish he’d stayed there.”
“You haven’t told Becky?”
“No.” He sat looking at her, remembering the pain he had caused Caroline when he and Becky were going together in high school and he ran with Falon. In those days he wouldn’t listen to Caroline, any more than he’d listen to his own parents.
She looked at him steadily.“Brad’s mother was in the bakery yesterday, we sat back in the kitchen, had a cup of coffee. I don’t like the woman much, she’s so …”
“Righteous,” Morgan said.
Caroline smiled.“But she’s been through hell with Brad. And now, knowing Brad, it’ll start all over again.”
The Falon house stood three blocks from the house where Morgan had grown up, Morgan and his parents had gone to the same church as the Falons. Morgan’s mother had lost many nights’ sleep over his friendship with Brad, over the scrapes they got into, and there was a lot his parents had never known, the stolen car radios and batteries they had fenced outside of town. When Morgan went in the navy, Falon was already in jail, he had been in and out of jail ever since.
For Morgan, the trouble they got into had all been boyhood pranks. When he joined the navy, he was done with that. But for Falon, that early beginning had added up to more than pranks. Long before Falon went to jail as an adult for the first time, he did a hitch in Juvenile Hall for trying to kill a little girl’s puppy. He was stopped only just in time, but the judge said the intent was there. With Falon’s previous juvenile record, he wasn’t cut much slack.
That was when Morgan took his first honest look at Falon, saw Brad for what he was—and saw himself mirrored there. But even then, even in high school, he wouldn’t stop running with Falon.
Now he watched Caroline cut her homemade pie, the blueberries oozing juice. She had brought a container of whipped cream, which she spooned liberally onto the pie as he refilled their coffee mugs. Caroline had spent plenty of sleepless nights when he and Becky were kids. Becky wouldn’t stop seeing Morgan, and he wouldn’t stop associating with Falon. Caroline had told him, long before he would admit it to himself, that Brad Falon was an emotional cripple, that Falon had no conscience. Morgan hadn’t believed her, then, but of course she’d been right. Whatever it was inside a normal person that made them care about others, whatever it was that made them separate right from wrong, was missing in Brad Falon. Whatever made Morgan love Becky and Sammie so much he would die for them in an instant, had no meaning at all for Falon, love was a word without context, Falon could only pretend to love, just as he pretended to separate right from evil.