What of Terry Conniston? (15 page)

Floyd paused and took out his wallet. From it he withdrew a dog-eared snapshot. Mitch held it close to the lamp and leaned forward to examine it. The photograph showed part of a street—half a block of single-story adobe buildings jammed together along a chuck-holed street that had no sidewalk. Centered in the picture was a building with a pale stucco front and a wooden sign fixed above the door:
FARMACIA
—
G. von Roon
.

Floyd said, “Keep it if you like. The town's called Caborca.”

Mitch lifted his eyes from the photo to Floyd's somber dark face. “How do I know you didn't just make up the whole yarn to fit some old snapshot you happened to pick up? Maybe there
is
a guy named von Roon but how do I know he's a plastic surgeon like you said?”

Floyd opened his wallet again and took out a one-column newspaper clipping. It was yellow and brittle, ready to break at the folded seams. Mitch scanned it briefly. The article, clipped from a three-year-old
New York Times
, was an inside-page feature tracing the whereabouts of Nazi war criminals who had been released from prison after serving Nuremberg sentences. One paragraph was circled in ball-point ink:

Gerhard von Roon, 71, was once a surgeon at the Vorbeckberg hospital complex, where human guinea pigs suffered and died in surgical experiments. Israeli sources allege von Roon, a plastic surgeon, has disguised a score of top Nazi fugitives who have disappeared and never been brought to trial. Authorities in Mexico, where von Roon now has a pharmacy in a small village, have been unable to confirm such charges. Recently interviewed, von Roon laughed with the expansive air of a man without secrets. He said, “They suffer from paranoia. I am only a pharmacist—see for yourself.” He lives quietly, seems well liked in the community of Caborca where he works, and talks freely about any subject except the Nazi years—a subject he considers closed. “I have served my sentence.”

Floyd Rymer said quietly, “The point is, old cock, I was forced to tell you the truth. Otherwise if you thought you had no way out you'd most likely turn yourself in to the law. But I'm giving you a way out. A hundred thousand dollars tax-free and a new face.”

“Aeah,” Mitch said dully.

“It's my only guarantee you won't betray me—you see? Because if I didn't give you this choice you'd turn state's evidence and put the FBI on my tail. But even with time off you wouldn't get out in less then ten or fifteen years. This way you're free and rich. And so am I.”

“And nobody gets killed?”

Floyd smiled. “Now you've got it.”

It made a kind of sense. But he still didn't trust Floyd.

Floyd added, as an afterthought, “One thing, Mitch. When you dump Terry out make sure she's far enough from civilization to give you a good head start before she gets a chance to start talking. Ditch her car somewhere and buy a clean car—don't take buses or planes. Always travel by car. It's hardest for anyone to find out where you came from or where you went.”

Mitch half-heard the last of it: he was looking past Floyd at the crumpled shape by the far wall. He said nervously, “What's wrong with him?”

“Who?” Floyd swiveled to look. “Georgie?” He got to his feet and raised his voice: “George!”

Georgie didn't stir. Floyd walked forward, increasing the pace as he approached; he was almost running when he reached his brother. He went down on one knee and gripped Georgie's shoulder and shook him. Georgie rolled over sluggishly, blinked and laughed. “The hell time's it?”

Floyd said without turning, “Mitch. Bring that food sack over here.”

The noise had roused the others. Terry was sitting up, looking back and forth, puzzled; the two in the back corner came forward into the lamplight and watched. Mitch took the knapsack over to Floyd and watched him paw through it. Floyd dumped everything out, opened a cracker tin and drew several packets from it. His eyes counted them; he tossed them aside and said something in his throat. Mitch couldn't make out the words.

Floyd's head skewed back. “Well?” he demanded.

“Well what? I didn't hear what you said.”

Georgie mumbled, “The hell time's it?”

Mitch said uncertainly, “He's freaked out.”

Georgie cackled. His mouth worked and after a moment he said in a slurred breathless whisper, “Man, blowin' my—mind!” He simpered and crawled around on the floor, rolling up in a fetal ball. The pupils of his eyes were pinpoints; the irises around them seemed enlarged with bloodshot veins. He was having a great deal of trouble getting his breath.

Floyd said lamely, “Take it easy—take it easy.”

Georgie made no response. His eyes turned dull like slate; they closed. He lay curled up, wheezing.

Mitch said, “What's the matter with him?”

Floyd didn't answer for the longest time. Mitch felt a hand on his arm—Terry, clutching him for strength. Billie Jean and Theodore hung back at the edge of the shadows, watching, afraid to speak. Afterward, remembering it, Mitch' wondered how it was that they had all
known
, before anyone had said much of anything at all.

Finally Floyd said without tone, “I think he's had it—I think he's had it.”

Mitch felt his muscles go rigid. He cleared his throat. Floyd seemed to think the sound was a question. He said, “Overdose of heroin depresses the respiratory system. Slows down all the vital functions. He's got congestion in his lungs now—I think he's had it.”

None of them moved. Floyd said, “You may leave me alone now. All of you.” When he looked up his expression was astringent, unforgiving. It lay against Theodore and then it came around against Mitch like a bladed weapon. Mitch backed up, dragging Terry with him. The four of them retreated beyond the lamp and stood in a loose knot. None of them said anything. From where he stood, Mitch saw Georgie's face change. Georgie began to frown like a small child sleeping—solemn, innocent. The sound of his labored wheezing became louder and slower in the silent dim store.

Georgie must have found the heroin in the cracker tin when Theodore left him alone inside; Georgie's trips to the bathroom had given him the time to mainline the stuff. He had injected too many shots in too short a time—that was all.

Mitch felt Terry's fingers crawl up his arm and clamp onto his shoulder. She turned her face against his chest. He slipped his arm around her and gripped her waist. She stopped shaking and stood rigid, waiting. The only sound was the rattle of Georgie's breath. It became raspy and irregular; the intervals of silence grew longer. All the while, Floyd squatted on his heels with one hand on Georgie's neck, not blinking, not stirring. Georgie's skin turned gray and grainy like a matte finish. Hunched over him, Floyd resembled a pagan priest entranced in some macabre rite. It was as if he intended the power of life to flow through the tips of his fingers, lightly resting on the side of Georgie's neck, to resurrect the dying: as if by the sheer force of mental concentration he could will life into Georgie.

A time came when Mitch took a deep breath and realized he had himself stopped breathing; it had been a long time since he had last breathed; he panted to get air in his lungs—and realized in that moment that he had begun to hold his breath when Georgie had stopped gasping.

Floyd stood up briskly and turned. His face was composed: his expression like a natural law left nothing open to dispute. “Strip off his clothes—don't forget his watch and ring. Dump him out in the desert.”

Billie Jean said, “You mean bury him?”

“No.” Moving like a mechanism, Floyd walked to the back of the room and sat down in the debris with his back against the wall. “No. Leave him out there naked where the coyotes and buzzards can get at his face. The ants will finish the job.” Momentarily his eyes flashed: “Or do you want the cops to identify him and track us all down through him?”

Terry shuddered violently. Her little cries were muffled against Mitch's chest. He tightened his grip and muttered, “You do it, Theodore.”

Theodore glanced at him, lugubrious; if Theodore had any feelings about it he did not display them. He went slowly toward Georgie and bent down and Mitch turned away, unable to watch; he cupped his hand at the back of Terry's head to keep her face against his chest. Floyd, sitting with his knees drawn up, lowered his face and closed his eyes. Billie Jean began to whimper.

Floyd never glanced at any of them after that. Theodore went out, carrying Georgie. Billie Jean lit a stick of pot and even offered it around but no one wanted it and Billie Jean settled down in a corner, hunched around her smoke, taking quick little furtive puffs. Mitch held Terry close to him until she stopped trembling, whereupon she turned away from him and settled to the floor much the way a pneumatic tire settles when punctured. She watched Floyd the way she might have watched a clock ticking toward—what? Mitch kept his uneasy stare on her; he pressed his hands together until he heard the knuckles crack.

Withdrawn and brooding, Floyd sat surrounded by a coiling charge of electric malevolence which tightened notch by notch as the night passed. His immobile silence was more sinister than a furious rage.

When Theodore returned he dropped Georgie's clothes in a bundle on the floor and obliviously opened a can of beer and drank it quickly, afterward belching with loud satisfaction. So far as Mitch could tell Floyd didn't even glance at him. In her corner Billie Jean mewed like a frightened kitten but Theodore only turned his head to stare at her; he did not go to her. They all remained like that, squatting in their individual solitary caves of silence across a lengthening stretch of time which to Mitch seemed almost visible, like a sheet of glass slowly disintegrating into brittle frosty fragments.

Mitch waited through the awful stillness without reckoning the passage of hours. A point came when he found himself sitting crosslegged, his hand on the silken warmth of Terry Conniston's forearm, her head propped gently against his shoulder—he did not remember moving to her, nor remember her responding to his intrusion. Her eyes had gone dark behind their opaque placenta of fear; he understood that she was clinging to him only because it was better than sitting alone, untouched, in taut terrible emptiness.

She seemed unaware of the fact that he was looking at her, or perhaps indifferent to it. Her lower lip jutted in profile—afraid, defiant, infuriated by her own despair. The bare triangle of smooth golden skin at her throat held his attention: the round thrusting solidity of her breasts, the concave crescent of her narrow waist, the round line of strong hip and long flank outlined against the dying lamp, and on her face the traces, etching deeper, of heavy and desperate strain.

The lamp went dry and the flame flickered out and it slowly penetrated Mitch's dulled consciousness that streaks of gray light were sharding in through cracks around the windows and door. He got up, stiff in all his joints, slipping Terry's hand out of his grip, and crossed to the front of the place. When he dragged the door open it squealed and scratched its way across an arc of sand and pebbles on the floor. The indeterminate half-light of dawn sprawled in through the opening, throwing a vague splash across the floor toward the spot where Georgie had died. Mitch stood in the open rectangle breathing the crisp air, pushing the residue of stale pot smoke from his nostrils.

When he turned back inside the light was growing stronger; Floyd's eyes lay against him like glass-cutting diamonds, motionless but ready to slice. Mitch stood bolt still in his tracks.

Floyd was getting to his feet. Straightening up, looking at each of them in turn, walking slowly forward trailing uncertain mystery like a cloak: he passed Mitch a foot away and went on out through the door, ducking his head beneath the tilted beam.

Mitch waited ten seconds; then his eyes grew wide and he wheeled under the beam, outside.

Floyd stood out in the street, ten feet from the porch, frowning thoughtfully at the eastern sky. Half the sun was a red ball on a mountaintop. Floyd seemed to have the peripheral vision of a professional basketball player: he swiveled his head to look at Mitch, who had taken one step onto the porch and was standing still in deep shadows. The adrenaline pumping through his body made Mitch's hands shake.

Floyd bent down slowly and picked up a clot of clay the size of his thumb. He rubbed it between his fingers until it disintegrated in a little shower of sand. Turning his face toward Mitch, he spoke from his semi-crouch:

“About that time.”

Floyd's eyes seemed voracious. He put his right hand in the slit pocket of his jacket—the pocket where he kept the revolver. Mitch did not stir; he only breathed again when Floyd turned with a sharp snap of his shoulders and stalked across the street toward the barn.

The Oldsmobile started up and came out of the barn slowly, crunching stones. It stopped below the porch and Floyd leaned across to the open right-hand window. “Enjoy yourself,” he said, and tossed the revolver to the ground below the porch.

Mitch glimpsed Floyd's hot quick smile and then the Olds-mobile's engine roared. The tires spun, spraying back salvos, then gained purchase. The big car surged away, covering Mitch with dust.

He stepped down off the porch and picked up the gun. It occurred to him then that Floyd's own emotions were no more important to Floyd than his tonsils, which had been removed in his childhood. Nothing would distract Floyd from his logically constructed plans.

Mitch had not known what to expect; frozen with fear, he had half believed Floyd would explode against them all. Now his brain slowly clamped onto the new realization after numbly dislodging from its former suspicion. Floyd meant to go through with it all as if nothing had happened.

The weight of the gun was unfamiliar in his hand. He turned and saw Theodore and Billie Jean standing just outside the door.

Billie Jean said matter-of-factly. “I don't think he's gonna come back.”