He found the path, went along it a short way to where it crossed a little creek, dry now and so narrow it was nothing more than a natural drainage ditch. He followed the creek to the north, on a course he’d taken three days ago. It led him to a shelflike overhang topped by two chunks of granite outcrop that leaned against each other like a pair of old drunks. Below the shelf, the land fell away sharply to the Shooter’s driveway some sixty yards distant. Off to the right, where the incline wasn’t so steep and the trees grew in a pack, was the split-bole Douglas fir where he’d stood waiting last night. The trees were fewer and more widely spaced apart between here and the cabin, so that from behind the two outcrops you had a good look at the Shooter’s property, Little Cove Road, the concrete pier, and the lake shimmering under the late-afternoon sun.
The Caddy Eldorado was still slotted inside the carport. It was the only car in sight. Deighan knelt behind where the outcrops came together to form a notch, rubbed tension out of his neck and shoulders while he waited.
He didn’t have to wait long. Less than ten minutes had passed when the car appeared on Little Cove Road, slowed, turned down the Shooter’s driveway. It wasn’t Mannlicher’s fancy limo; it was a two-year-old Chrysler — Brandt’s, maybe. Brandt was driving it: Deighan had a clear view of him through the side window as the Chrysler pulled up and stopped near the cabin’s front door. He could also see that the lone passenger was Mannlicher.
Brandt got out, opened the passenger door for the fat man, and the two of them went to the cabin. It took D’Allesandro ten seconds to answer Brandt’s knock. There was some talk, not much; then Mannlicher and Brandt went in, and the door shut behind them.
All right, Deighan thought. He’d stacked the deck as well as he could; pretty soon he’d know how the hand — and the game — played out.
Nothing happened for maybe five minutes. Then he thought he heard some muffled sounds down there, loud voices that went on for a while, something that might have been a bang, but the distance was too great for him to be sure that he wasn’t imagining them. Another four or five minutes went by. And then the door opened and Brandt came out alone, looked around, called something back inside that Deighan didn’t understand. If there was an answer, it wasn’t audible. Brandt shut the door, hurried down to the lake, went out onto the pier. The Chris-Craft was still tied up there. Brandt climbed on board, disappeared for thirty seconds or so, reappeared carrying a square of something gray and heavy. Tarpaulin, Deighan saw when Brandt came back up the driveway. Big piece of it — big enough for a shroud.
The Shooter’s hand had been folded. That left three of them still in the game.
When Brandt had gone back inside with the tarp, Deighan stood and half ran along the creek and through the trees to where he’d left the Ford. Old Lake Road was deserted. He yanked open the passenger door, leaned in, caught up the mobile phone, and punched out the emergency number for the county sheriff’s office. An efficient-sounding male voice answered.
“Something’s going on on Little Cove Road,” Deighan said, making himself sound excited. “That’s in Pine Acres, you know? It’s the cabin at the end, down on the lake. I heard shots — people shooting at each other down there. It sounds like a war.”
“What’s the address?”
“I don’t know the address, it’s the cabin right on the lake. People shooting at each other. You better get right out there.”
“Your name, sir?”
“I don’t want to get involved. Just hurry, will you?”
Deighan put the receiver down, shut the car door, ran back along the path and along the creek to the shelf. Mannlicher and Brandt were still inside the cabin. He went to one knee again behind the outcrops, drew the .38 wadcutter, held it on his thigh.
It was another two minutes before the door opened down there. Brandt came out, looked around as he had before, went back inside — and then he and Mannlicher both appeared, one at each end of a big, tarp-wrapped bundle. They started to carry it down the driveway toward the lake. Going to put it on the boat, Deighan thought, take it out now or later on, when it’s dark. Lake Tahoe was sixteen hundred feet deep in the middle. The bundle wouldn’t have been the first somebody’d dumped out there.
He let them get clear of the Chrysler, partway down the drive, before he poked the gun into the notch, sighted, and fired twice. The shots went where he’d intended them to, wide by ten feet and into the roadbed so they kicked up gravel. Mannlicher and Brandt froze for an instant, confused. Deighan fired a third round, putting the slug closer this time, and that one panicked them: they let go of the bundle and began scrambling.
There was no cover anywhere close by; they both ran for the Chrysler. Brandt had a gun in his hand when he reached it, and he dropped down behind the rear deck, trying to locate Deighan’s position. Mannlicher kept on scrambling around to the passenger door, pulled it open, pushed himself across the seat inside.
Deighan blew out the Chrysler’s near front tire. Sighted, and blew out the rear tire. Brandt threw an answering shot his way, but it wasn’t even close. The Chrysler was tilting in Deighan’s direction as the tires flattened. Mannlicher pushed himself out of the car, tried to make a run for the cabin door with his arms flailing, his fat Jiggling. Deighan put a bullet into the wall beside the door. Mannlicher reversed himself, fell in his frantic haste, crawled back behind the Chrysler.
Reloading the wadcutter, Deighan could hear the sound of cars coming fast up on Little Cove Road. No sirens, but revolving lights made faint bloodred flashes through the trees.
From behind the Chrysler Brandt fired again, wildly, Beyond him, on the driveway, one corner of the tarp-wrapped bundle had come loose and was flapping in the wind off the lake.
A county sheriff’s cruiser, its roof light slashing the air, made the turn off Little Cove onto the driveway. Another one was right behind it. In his panic, Brandt straightened up when he saw them and fired once, blindly, at the first in line.
Deighan was on his feet by then, hurrying away from the outcrops, holstering his weapon. Behind him he heard brakes squeal, another shot, voices yelling, two more shots. All the sounds faded as he neared the turnout and the Ford. By the time he pulled out onto the deserted road, there was nothing to hear but the sound of his engine, the screeching of a jay somewhere nearby.
Brandt had thrown in his hand by now; so had Mannlicher.
This pot belonged to him.
6
Fran was in the backyard, weeding her garden, when he got home late the following afternoon. He called to her from the doorway, and she glanced around and then got up, unsmiling, and came over to him. She was wearing jeans and one of his old shirts and a pair of gardening gloves, and her hair was tied in a long ponytail. Used to be a light, silky brown, her hair; now it was mostly gray. His fault. She was only forty-six. A woman of forty-six shouldn’t be so gray.
She said, “So you’re back.” She didn’t sound glad to see him, didn’t kiss him or touch him at all. But her eyes were gentle on his face.
“I’m back.”
“You all right? You look tired.”
“Long drive. I’m fine; it was a good trip.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to hear about it, not any of it. She just didn’t want to know.
“How about you?” he asked. “Everything been okay?”
“Sheila’s pregnant again.”
“Christ. What’s the matter with her? Why don’t she get herself fixed? Or get Hank fixed?”
“She likes kids.”