The Headsman (48 page)

And then she saw him
.

The light exploded in her brain and he was there, tall and massive and forbidding, clad entirely in black and clutching the huge ax. She saw a door burst apart in a shower of splinters, saw two people cowering in a bed.

The couple was nude. The young man was muscular and blond and Karen had never seen him before. But to her horror, she recognized the girl at once. She was Alice Boggs, Charley Boggs’ daughter. The flashes continued, and there was a struggle between the youth and the headsman. Karen saw violent blows and glittering steel and blood pouring down the young man’s face, covering his chest with torrents of red. The Boggs girl had vanished.

As Karen watched, her fists pressed against her mouth, her body rigid, the headsman slowly raised the ax, lifting it high over his head, twisting his body so that the heavy double-edged weapon was poised for an instant over his right shoulder. The boy’s mouth opened in a silent protest, and then the ax hurtled downward. When it struck the naked throat the great steel wedge sliced through flesh and bone and buried itself in the floor.

The headsman leaned down and grasped the boy’s shock of blond hair, then straightened up and held the dripping head high, shaking it triumphantly.

The flashes diminished, growing smaller and smaller until they were mere pinpoints of light in her consciousness.

Karen fainted, her body slumping forward, her face falling onto the computer keyboard.

2

Charley Boggs was dozing in his favorite chair. It was close to the fireplace, and the heat from the blazing logs was like a warm blanket. He’d had his usual two scotches before dinner, and also as usual he’d eaten too much. Ethel had served one of the meals he liked best, pork chops with applesauce and mashed potatoes, and he’d come back for seconds, and then there’d been blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream for dessert.

He was aware that he was overweight. Doc Reinholtz had warned him to cut down on his intake of saturated fats, telling him after his last physical that his cholesterol count was over three hundred. But if there was one thing in the world Boggs loved to do, it was eat. He preferred bacon and fried eggs and hashbrowns and muffins dripping with butter for breakfast, and at lunch he was partial to a steak or roast beef, either at the Century Club or in the dining room of the Hotel Braddock. Dinner was his favorite meal, however, because that was when he could really indulge himself. Ethel would fix meat and potatoes with plenty of gravy, and there would be rolls and butter and of course the inevitable pie or cake for dessert.

He also subjected himself to as little exercise as possible. Once in a while he took a short walk during the day, but that was usually to get to a restaurant when it was simpler than driving a car from the dealership. He also belonged to the country club, and from May through September played golf at least once a week. But he always went around the course in an electric cart.

As a result, he was at least fifty pounds heavier than he should have been. In addition to harping on his cholesterol level, Reinholtz warned him that his blood pressure had been rising steadily over the past few years. Charley should take action, the doctor said. So he did. The action he took was to stop seeing Reinholtz.

After all, what good was it to be a successful businessman if you couldn’t enjoy yourself? He’d worked hard to get where he was, to carve out a good life for himself and his family. He considered himself an exceptional citizen, one of Braddock’s leaders. He had no bad habits, or hardly any. His drinking was confined to a single vodka martini at lunch and the pair of scotches at dinner, and maybe a beer along with his late-night snack before going to bed. The only times he exceeded that intake were at the dinner parties he and Ethel attended and the ones they frequently gave, or when he was on vacation, or when he’d finished a round at the club and was sitting around on the terrace with his friends, playing gin and hashing over the day’s scores.

And the only screwing around he did was very discreet.

He’d always had something going on the side. It wasn’t easy in a town the size of Braddock, but it could be done if you were careful. The trouble was, you didn’t have much to choose from. He’d had affairs with the wives of several of his friends, but the women who’d been responsive to him were impossibly boring. Their idea of conversation was to talk incessantly about their children, or to repeat the latest gossip going around the club, which like as not Boggs had already heard in the locker room. After a short time he’d found each of them no more stimulating than Ethel, who at least had the saving grace of being a great cook. And then, they too were all getting older. Sagging tits and cellulite were not his idea of a turn-on.

This Karen Wilson, on the other hand, was something else again. Ever since he’d hired her, he’d been thinking about making her his mistress. From what he’d been able to observe, she had every qualification he could ask for. She wasn’t beautiful exactly, but she certainly was attractive. With her chestnut hair and her green eyes she was striking, the kind of woman who’d turn heads anywhere.

And what a body. Just watching her move around the office was enough to get him fired up. He sometimes fantasized about what it would be like when he finally wore down her resistance, when he could maneuver her into becoming sufficiently dependent on him to be unable to say no.

He liked to imagine the little dates they’d have, slipping over to one of the nearby towns for dinner once in a while, stopping in at a motel afterward. Or maybe he’d even set her up in her own apartment. She was single, apparently with few friends here in Braddock, virtually a stranger. And she lived with her grandmother, which must be suffocating.

Sooner or later she’d say okay to a drink with him, and then he’d give her a raise as a subtle indication of the good things that would be coming her way. Inch by inch he’d get her there, easing her into it.

Lately he’d backed off somewhat, just to see how she’d react. She’d be wondering now if maybe she was no longer attractive to him, or if he’d simply lost interest in her. She’d be worried about her job, and her self-confidence would be shaken.

And then the next time he made a move, right out of the blue, she’d be relieved and even pleased. One thing Charley Boggs knew about was people and how to deal with them. He smiled to himself as he thought about her and about his plans. His eyes closed and he settled deeper into his chair, enjoying the warm glow from the fire.

A scream jolted him awake, piercing his consciousness like a hot knife.

He stumbled to his feet, sputtering. “What is it? What—”

His daughter ran into the living room. She was stark naked and shrieking as if the devil were chasing her.

Ethel Boggs had been watching television. She leaped up from her chair and grabbed the girl’s arm. “Alice, what’s wrong? What happened?”

Alice was screaming and shouting something unintelligible and crying all at the same time. She pointed behind her. “He’s there. He’s, he’s—”

Her brother came running into the room. “What the hell’s going on?”

The three family members surrounded the girl, all yelling at once.

Charley Boggs shouted loudest. “Goddamn it, Alice—will you tell me what it is?
Who’s
there?”

She was shuddering, tears streaking her face, the words coming from her throat in choking gasps. “The headsman. He’s there. In my room. He’s going to kill Billy.”

Charley was staggered. “The
headsman
?”

“Yes, yes. He’s up there—he’s going to kill him.”

Boggs had never confronted physical danger in his life. Or even the threat of it. He hadn’t spent time in the service, had never even so much as participated in a contact sport. But he’d always thought of himself as a pretty tough customer if it came to a showdown—a guy who could take care of himself.

“Holy Christ,” Boggs said. “Holy Christ.”

There was a pistol in the desk. He owned a number of firearms, mostly hunting rifles he’d collected and never used, but also several handguns. He kept one in the drawer of the table beside his bed and another down here.

He ran to the desk and pulled open the top drawer, rummaging around until he found the pistol. It was a .38-calibre Colt Police Special. He’d owned it for ten years and had never fired it. His hands were shaking as he took it out of the drawer. He was suddenly short of breath and his chest hurt.

The
headsman?
Here—in this house?

Boggs looked at the pistol. Suppose the thing didn’t fire, or he missed? Suppose it wasn’t loaded? His wife and his son and his daughter were standing there staring at him, their faces expressing shock and fear. More thoughts raced through his mind. Why was Alice naked? What was Billy Swanson doing in her room?

But most of all he thought of the headsman, and his knees turned to jelly.

It was all he could do to check the cylinder of the revolver. He fumbled with it, remembering at last that it had a latch on the left side you had to push before you could swing out the cylinder. He got it open and saw that each of the six chambers held a brass cartridge. He snapped the cylinder back into place.

“Hurry, Daddy,” Alice shrieked. “Hurry—he’s going to kill Billy!”

Clutching the pistol in his right fist, Boggs made his way out of the living room and down the center hall to the rear of the house. There was a jog and then the corridor led to the back hall, where the stairs were on one side and the door leading to the side porch was on the other.

He was moving slowly, telling himself it was because he was being cautious, but knowing the truth was that he was scared to death. At least it was reassuring to have the pistol in his hand. As he made the turn into the back hall he stepped very carefully and drew back the hammer of the revolver. The click when he cocked the weapon sounded startlingly loud.

The hallway was empty, and Boggs felt a surge of relief. But Christ, wait a minute. That meant he had to go up the goddamn stairs to Alice’s room. He gripped the pistol in both hands, the way he’d seen them do it on television, and went into a spraddle-legged crouch. A combat stance, he’d heard it called. Then he slowly approached the stairway.

From above him came the rumble of heavy feet descending the stairs fast. He froze, gulping for air, trying desperately to keep the revolver pointed straight ahead. It was nearly dark in the hallway and he wished he could flip on the overhead light. He groped for the switch, afraid to take his eyes off the stairs.

His hand found the switch and he turned on the light at the instant a dark, massive shape bounded into the hall from the staircase.

Boggs recoiled in horror.

The headsman was immense, his hulking form seeming to fill the hallway, and he was dressed all in black. The eyes that burned from within the slanted holes in the hood were fixed on Boggs. He stopped, and one of his gloved hands raised Billy Swanson’s head high, the face frozen in an expression of terror, blood dripping from the severed neck.

Boggs fired the pistol. The report was like an explosion clapping his eardrums, and his eyes closed involuntarily in reaction to the muzzle blast.

He fired again and again, pulling the trigger double-action, cringing from the roar of the shots, not aiming or even seeing his target in front of him, but shooting blindly, impelled by revulsion and overwhelming fear. Only the click of the hammer on an empty shell told him he’d expended all six cartridges. He blinked, acrid gunsmoke biting his nostrils, and then opened his eyes wide, staring in disbelief.

There was no one in the hallway; the headsman was gone.

Boggs shuddered. He drew air into his lungs, and as he did he became aware once more of the pain in his chest. It was a searing sensation, sharp and very intense, in the direct center of his upper body. From there it spread its tentacles into his left arm and shoulder.

He suddenly found it hard to see. The light in the hallway was growing dimmer. He felt the revolver slip from his fingers, heard distant cries from his family somewhere behind him. Boggs was tired, terribly tired. He slumped against the wall and then slowly slid down it into a sitting position. The pain had become even worse, but somehow it didn’t matter. All he wanted to do was sleep.

3

This storm was a piss-whistler. The flakes were thick and crystalline and they stung Jud’s eyes and the skin on his face when he walked into the wind. It made him think of what it was like to ski when it was snowing and you were going downhill fast and it was impossible to see without goggles. He kept his face turned away as much as he could while he made his way by flashlight out to the shed behind the house. The drifts were up to his knees in places and he had to lift each foot high to take the next step.

Even in its relatively sheltered place in the shed, the Blazer had collected snow on its roof and hood and against its windows. Jud opened the door and got out a scraper, finding a coat of ice under the snow on the glass. When he had the windows clear he started the engine, then turned on the defroster full blast.

Now for the moment of truth. He shoved the floor lever into four-wheel drive and slowly backed out of the shed. The Chevy strained against the drifts, but it kept going. There was a snow shovel around someplace that he ought to take along, but he wasn’t sure where it was.

Backing out of the driveway he saw that the patrol car had become a mound of white, vaguely resembling an igloo. Once on the road he found the going not much better than the driveway had been, but at least out here he’d have more room to maneuver.

The streets were deserted except for the occasional car that was stuck in a drift and abandoned, another ghostly figure in the night. Tree limbs were bent low under their burden of snow and ice. His headlights were all but useless, and even with the defroster roaring and the wipers ticking at high speed, visibility was terrible.

The storm seemed not to have abated at all from what he’d encountered earlier in the day; if anything it was worse. The only signs of life he saw were the faintly glowing spots of light that revealed the location of houses he passed. He wondered again how long it would be before the electric power failed.