A Bridge to Treachery From Extortion to Terror (42 page)

“Don’t fuck with me. You know who I am,” he screamed, walking toward the girl cringing on the floor.

“Speak!” he screeched.

“Please! Don’t hit me. Don’t hit me.”

“Who am I?”

“I met you at Mom’s office.

“Get up,” he said.

She stood slowly and huddled against the wall. “Stanfield and Copeland, where are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I don’t know. Please.”

Lou grabbed the girl by the sweatshirt, at the shoulder, and manhandled her into the kitchen. He shoved her into one of the chrome chairs. She slumped onto the table, burying her face in her arms. He stayed behind her.

“Since you know who I am, you know what’s going on. You’ve got one minute to get it all out on the table.”

The girl was sniveling and wiping her nose with her sleeve.

“I’m sorry. If you’re hurt, I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

He bumped the back of the chair, prompting her to speak.

“They said nobody could get hurt. I wanted to be involved with the election. Mom said they needed a girl for something. But not me. I mentioned Sydney.”

She started blubbering, her head buried in her sleeves and her shoulders heaving. Lou jabbed her with his knee. She squirmed in the chair.

“It’s all my fault. At first it was just that lunatic Red and his men. Then they got Sydney into it. And you. I’m sorry. I never knew this could happen. Where’s Sydney? I haven’t heard anything from her since it all started.”

“Who are these guys?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Lou came up fast behind the chair and kicked it, hard, out from the under the girl. She sprawled on the floor, covering her head with her arms. “You little bitch!” he screamed. “Don’t tell me some goddam smooth talkers turned you into a murderer! What happened?” He grabbed the scruff of her neck and jammed her back into the chair.

Now Ashley Corcoran blubbered tears that ran down her cheeks and into her mouth. It was a full minute before she could make herself understood.

“They went berserk. They said the plan went bad.”

“So they had to get rid of some people, including your mother.”

“No! They never said anything about getting rid of anybody. But they wouldn’t go away. Now Mom’s dead and they’re coming after me. I know it!”

“Do they know about this place?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. I have to get out of here. Please. Please.”

“Shut up,” he said. She burrowed her face into her hands and sobbed uncontrollably. “Listen...
listen
to me. Are there any other people in the houses around here?” She shook her head without lifting her eyes.

“There’s a ranger across the lake,” she mumbled finally. “But he drove out this morning in his pickup.”

“Is he alone in the house?”

“He has a dog, that’s all.”

“You stay right here. Don’t move. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

“I can’t wait here. I can’t. I have to get away.”

“You stay! Hear me? I’m going across the lake to the ranger’s cabin. I’ll call you from there with his number. As soon as you see anything, ring me on the phone. They’ll be coming. As far as they know, you’re the only one left who knows anything. One more thing: if you run, I’ll come after you, understand?”

Lou jogged toward the van as fast as his stiffened thigh would allow. He slammed it into gear and roared off down the gravel road past the peeling white bungalow. At first, he couldn’t see the cabin across the lake; a point of land that jutted up from the water blocked it from view. But as the road curved around the point, he could see the cabin clearly on the far side.

The dog was a big, black lab. He was tied to a stake at the side of the house. He had a deep throaty bark, but he wasn’t that anxious to get off the tether. Lou pushed on the front door. It swung back easily. The cabin was dark inside—a single man’s place.

The curtains were dusty and yellowing. A strong smell of pipe tobacco hung in the air. The breakfast dishes lay where the ranger had finished with them that morning. A lumpy armchair sat beneath a floor lamp in the back room. A mound of ashes filled the fieldstone fireplace. A glass doored gun rack sat in the corner. He picked up the plain black phone and twirled the rotary dial. She answered on the first ring.

“The number is 555-8943,” Lou said. “You see any car at all, you call. Hear?”

He had his choice from among several rifles and a shotgun. He took the Savage, double-barreled, over-and-under. He found the shells in the desk drawer on the other side of the room, loaded the weapon, and shoved the rest of the box in his pants pocket. The lab on the front porch didn’t even bother to look up at him. He limped down the front steps and to the van, squinting against the sun, trying to see across to the other side of the lake. Then he heard the telephone.

He made it back to the porch on the second ring. The door swung free and slammed against the wall. But that was all he heard, just two rings. Then he heard the lab outside again.

A boat tied to a steel hook embedded in a boulder bobbed at the edge of the water. It had an electric trolling motor but there was no battery. Lou propped the gun against the rock and went back to the van to scavenge. Carrying the heavy battery wasn’t easy with only one good leg. He made it back to the boat, pushed the two leads onto the terminals, and tried the rheostat. The engine sprang to life. The anchor was a cement block at the end of a soggy rope and Lou got wet to his knees hefting it into the boat, weapon tucked under his arm.

He steered toward the point of land that protruded from the water. The engine was barely audible even to him. He looked back at the ranger cabin receding into the trees above the slowly spreading
vee
formed by his wake. Up front, the barrel of the shotgun propped against the gunwale.

He felt the cold, morning air cutting through him. He shoved one hand, then the other, into his armpits. He slowed as he approached the shore and glided in for a gentle landing.

Another car was parked directly in front of the bungalow. Lou crouched in the bushes beside the lake, waited. There was no movement at the house. He rose slowly, hobbled to the other side of the road, and doubled back behind the line of cabins that ran parallel to the lake. Now he had a covered route to within fifty feet of the bungalow. He edged up to the corner of the cabin next door and peeked around at the back door. Nothing.

Slowly, with the shotgun up and at the ready, he stepped into the clearing between the buildings. He paced cautiously across the open, fifty-foot span, his eyes straining to detect the slightest movement. He made it to the bungalow; still hearing nothing inside, he edged along toward the front. At the corner, he pressed his back against the crumbling, whitewashed clapboards and peered around the building’s edge.

There! Right in front of him—Stanfield—walking from the car to the front door. They came face to face. Lou stumbled backwards, caught the heel of his bad foot on a clump of sod, and fell backward to his rump. Stanfield stood frozen; his face a mask iced in complete surprise.

It was comic: Stanfield paralyzed, his hands stuck out in front, fingers clutching air; Lou on his ass, staring for what seemed an eternity in suspended animation. Then, simultaneously, they broke into wooden motions like clutching athletes: Stanfield reaching for a shoulder holster, Lou raising the shotgun.

“Don’t do it!” Lou screamed. But it was no good. He saw the blue steel of the pistol barrel and he pressed the trigger.

Stanfield disappeared in the blast, sprawled twisted against the rear wheel of the car. Stanfield was the big mouth, but he wasn’t a coward. Lou rose to his feet, propping himself against the clapboards until the sudden wave of dizziness passed. He stumbled along the wall toward the back of the house, and then turned the corner, ready.

Copeland was halfway out the back door, his shoulder pointed directly at Lou, his pistol, the Lorcin L-25, up and ready. Five feet separated them.

“Hold it!” Lou screamed with all his strength. It came out high-pitched and panic-stricken. He was crouched with the shotgun at waist height and pointed directly into Copeland’s face. The pistol in Copeland’s hand canted upward. He didn’t move.

Lou knew he was thinking, thinking. “I’ll do it. You know that,” he said softly.

Copeland let the pistol fall from his hand to the leaves at the bottom of the step. Lou released his breath and felt his knees go limp with the release of panic-driven energy.

“Back yourself right into the kitchen.”

Inside, Ashley Corcoran cowered in the corner of the front room, her face buried in her arms. She refused to look up when he spoke to her.

“You all right...? Okay, screw it then. Copeland, you get your ass over there on the floor with her. We’re staying right here.”

He slumped to the floor himself, his back against the wall directly across from them, the stock of the shotgun wedged under his arm.

“All right, Christopher. Tell me what you want. One thing I know about you is that you like money.”

That was it, the final indignity, the last blast of punk bravado.

“Stand up!” Lou screamed. “Get on your feet!”

Copeland stood. Lou roughly rammed the shotgun muzzle into Copeland’s cheek, shoving him to the wall, forcing him to the corner, pinned to the wall shelf.

“I’m going to kill you, punk!”

“Do it.”

Lou pushed harder on the butt of the shotgun, mashing Copeland’s ear against the wall, forcing him to his tiptoes.

“Who are you?” Lou’s voice broke.

Copeland gasped out the words. “My name is Aguirra.”

“Yeah, and mine’s Cook!” Lou cocked the weapon erratically.

“Aguirra.”

“Panama.”

“Yes.”

“You did all of this for Panama?”

“Yes.”

Lou jerked the shotgun down and wheeled to slam the butt hard against the side of Copeland’s head. He lurched along the wall. Lou moved forward and kicked him viciously in the ass. He rolled into the corner. Lou pinned him to the wall with the muzzle again.

“Three seconds, mister! I want answers! One...two...”

“What answers?”

“Why?” Lou screamed. “Why? One...two...”

“You. You fucking Americans think you can fuck with us all you want.” The words were laced with a heavy Latin accent.

Lou pointed the shotgun at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The room rocked with the roar. The two men shielded their heads from a shower of plaster and dust. The girl screamed.

“Now, you phony prick, spill your guts or I’m doing it for you! Why? That’s what I want. Why?”

“Why? You know why!”

Lou jerked the trigger. The wall beside Copeland’s head disintegrated in dust and plaster shards. Lou’s ears rang as he jammed two more shells into the chambers.

“Liar! You’re going to die! One...two...”

“Kill me!”

Lou pulled the butt of the shotgun back to club him across the room.

From the bedroom, the jangle of the telephone, like the sudden scream of an incoming rocket, froze them all.

“Who the hell...?” Lou croaked, looking at Ashley. She shook her head. “Get it,” he said.

* * *

She looked around the doorframe: “They say to take a look out the window.”

“Move and you’re dead,” he said to Copeland.

He limped to the window; pulled back the curtains; looked up the gravel road toward the water tank. A blue and white police patrol car blocked the road; at the other end, where the road curved around the point of land, sat a plain green Plymouth. Three other black vans with red lights on the roof lined the road, parked at crazy angles.