He struggled to his feet, threw off the sheet, and made his way into the bathroom, still caught somewhere in the hazy, mystical numbness that inhabited the gap between dream and waking. In the mirror over the sink, he looked like a tired old man: two days growth of beard, red eyes, sallow cheeks. Not enough sleep, he told himself as he splashed cold water on his face. Not enough sleep and too much of Richard Boyle.
He dried his face, then carried the towel into the other room and sat on the edge of the bed, staring out through the window at the night. The room was on the second floor and he could see across several blocks of city lights, bright and shimmering and almost as real as the dream he had had. He used the towel to dab at a new rise of perspiration across his forehead, then leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes.
The dream had been about Brandon. It hadn’t been a bad dream, a nightmare, as much as it had been a reminder that life rarely played by the rules. It was usually after such a dream that he felt the worst of his loneliness, a thick, black brume that settled over him and wouldn’t let him up.
Brandon.
Something was wrong with a God that would take a man’s child.
Something was wrong.
[48]
Mitch arrived early at the dam, parked the car outside the tourist center, and sat there a moment, taken by the moon over the lake and amazed at how quiet it was here. It was well after midnight. The halogen lights cast an eerie glow over the empty lot, and he supposed that ever since the sun had gone down, the lot had been as empty or nearly as empty as it was now. If it was privacy a man wanted—and that was certainly the case in this instance—then this was as private a place as he was going to find at night.
He closed the door, locked it, and wandered over to the concrete wall that overlooked the dam. Beneath the spillway, water gushed out in a white, frothy rage and made a mad dash down the Sacramento River. He had been here before, and though he could only hear the white water raging at this particular moment, the picture of its mad dash was clear in his mind. It was both peaceful and tumultuous, both safe and dangerous.
“You’re early,” a voice said from behind him.
Mitch turned and saw the outline of a man standing in the shadows. He was on the small side, thin, little more than five-eight or -nine. It was not the first time he had met this man face-to-face, though such occasions had been rare throughout their association together.
“So are you, sir.”
“Like minds, like deeds.”
Mitch shrugged. His throat tightened, a reflection of his unease, and he swallowed with a degree of difficulty that surprised him. The idea of being here, in this place, at this time, under these circumstances… nothing good that he could imagine could come of this. “So why are we here?”
“You don’t know?”
“Oh, I think I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
“He’s a ten-year old kid, Mitch. How hard can it be?”
“We caught a couple bad breaks, that’s all. It won’t happen again.”
“But I’ve got it right, haven’t I? You are the one responsible for tracking him down and hauling him back?”
“It’s my responsibility, yes sir.”
“And you are the professional? You’ve done this before? I’ve got that right, too, haven’t I?”
It’s never been children before, Mitch thought. But all he could say was, “Yes.”
“Seems clear enough, then, doesn’t it?” the man said softly. He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. In the brief flare-up, his face came momentarily into focus: his eyes half-lidded, his coloring dark, his lines drawn. He held the cigarette without bringing it to his mouth, the tip glowing hotly in the darkness.
“You want to bring in someone else?” Mitch asked. “Is that what this is about?”
“That’s not my preference, but—”
“I can finish the job.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. What I don’t think you understand is we don’t have the time to dick around on this one. We need him under control as soon as possible.”
Mitch nodded, relief loosening its grip around his throat. The worst was over. If he were going to be pulled (or worse, if he were going to be silenced), it would have been clear by now. In his coat pocket, where he had been hiding the Servicemaster in case things had gone bad, he pulled his finger off the trigger and felt the tension ease.
“This Knight woman – she’ll keep the kid on the move.”
“I know. We’re back watching the house in case she shows up again. We had a lead through a tap on her ex-husband—the one in Tennessee—and know that she and the kid spent last night at a motel south of town. A place called the Royalty. I’ve got a man there, too. And there’s an uncle we’re still trying to get a fix on.”
The man tapped the tip of his cigarette with his index finger, effectively smothering the burning embers. A wisp of gray smoke lingered momentarily in the darkness then disappeared. “No more screw ups, Mitch. This thing’s bigger than both of us. It’ll swallow us whole and spit out the bones if we aren’t careful. You understand that?”
Oh, he understood all right. He understood that this was need-to-know only, that the bigot list was maybe a handful of people, and that even though he was operating mostly in the blind, he had seen enough and heard enough to make himself expendable if the fire ever jumped the line. He understood all right. And he didn’t like it much. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it now.
“I’ll finish it,” Mitch said flatly.
The man broke the cigarette in two and placed the pieces in a pile on the concrete retaining wall next to him. He looked out into the darkness, in the direction of the dam, where the roar of the water was like the wind racing up a canyon. “The boy’s sick,” he said softly.
“Sick?”
“He’s got a medical condition that could potentially be fatal.”
Mitch, who was rarely surprised by anything in this line of work, found himself surprised by this only because it added another element into a picture that he had thought was already complete. He leaned into the wall, and took a breath from the clear night air. “And how do we fit into this thing? Are we trying to help him or do we need him to help us?”
“Serve it up either way. It doesn’t matter much.”
“Maybe not, but I’d still like to know which one’s closer to the truth.”
“Whichever one helps you sleep better at night. All right?” the man said with a sternness in his voice that displayed his growing impatience. He took out another cigarette, but this one went unlit. Instead, he began to manipulate it, one-handed, through his long, thin fingers as if it were a coin. Down and back. Down and back. “Anything else?”
“You still want him alive?”
“He’s no good to us dead.”
“Same drop off point?”
“Nothing’s changed, Mitch. I just wanted to make sure you understood how far our dicks are hanging out on this one. And like I said, there’s a time element involved here. The kid’s sick. We need to find him before he gets any worse.”
“What about the Knight woman?”
“What about her?”
“You want her alive or dead?”
“I don’t want her at all. Do what you have to do. Got it?”
Mitch nodded without saying anything, and though the night was black it wasn’t so black that he couldn’t see the man across from him nod in return. Fair enough, then. They both understood each other now. He leaned back against the concrete wall, feeling the coolness of the night air against his face.