Ashes (20 page)

“So how come no one wants to buy, huh? How come we got Feds snooping around the shows? We can’t even get a frigging church hall to give us space for a meeting, and it’s all your fault.”

“That’s because you and your yahoo friends are more interested in waving flags and having people think you’re a big bad man than in real change. You don't know how to do things quietly, Carl. None of you ever learned that. Well, I have.” Blaine stood up straight, raised his voice so all the assembled men could hear. “None of my people have been given any grief by the G. Have you, gentlemen?”

There was a general murmur of
No.

“That’s because they’re smart,” Blaine said, turning his attention back to Miller. “This — ” he plucked at Miller’s jacket. “This is the only camouflage you know about. And that won’t help you.” Blaine looked up. “Steve.”

“Yeah?” Steve Wickersham seemed to be enjoying having his gun against a person’s head just a little too much.

“You and a couple others take Carl out in the woods and shoot him. Make it look like he was mistaken for a deer. And no unnecessaries this time, OK?”

“Sure thing.”

Sean had been standing in silence, observing. This was better than anything he could have planned. He had saved Blaine’s life, and Blaine was not a man to forget such a thing. He also knew that he had erased any suspicions that he was a Fed. They would not think that a Fed would let a person be murdered in cold blood.
Ah, Richard, but you don’t know the type of Fed I was.
As far as Sean was concerned, Miller deserved what he got; was a means to an end, and that end was gaining the full and complete confidence of Richard Blaine.

Now for the finishing touch. “Wait,” Sean said. They all turned to look at him, Blaine regarding him with interest, and something like warmth. “Is there an ice fishing shack nearby on the lake?”

“Yeah,” Eddie Wickersham said. “Old man Marston’s, right nearby.”

“Well, instead of leaving our uninvited guest in the woods, why not weigh him down and toss him down the ice fishing hole? They won’t find him for months and when they do, time and the elements will worked him over. It’ll take a while to figure out he’s not a drowning.”

“Who asked you, new guy?” snapped Steve.

“Cool it, Steve,” Blaine said. “It’s a good idea. Every year they fish at least one idiot out of that lake come springtime. Another one won’t matter. I’m ashamed I didn’t think of that myself.” He gave them all a long, cold look that said he was ashamed of them as well. “And how did you let him get this close, anyway?”

“We were watching —” Eddie began, then shut his mouth with a snap.

Sean saw Eddie glance his way and turn red with embarrassment. Sean suppressed a smile.

“Do it,” Blaine said. “Goodbye, Carl.”

They stood watching as Steve Wickersham and two others dragged Carl away. “Doug. Eddie. Walt. Go on, relax, see if you can’t get a deer. Just let me have some steaks. I promised Anna we’d have venison this week. No, Sam, you stay with me.”

Only when all the men had left did Sean see any crack in Blaine’s composure. Blaine leaned back against a tree, tilted his head back, up to the sky, his eyes closed, and sighed deeply.

Sean took his hip flask out of his pocket, handed it to Blaine.

“Thank you,” Blaine said.

“Don’t mention it.” Sean noticed that Blaine’s hands were shaking the tiniest bit as he took a swig. And why not? Sean didn’t hold that against Blaine; for a civilian he was doing marvelously well.

“I meant for saving my life.”

I have him.
“Don’t mention it.”

Blaine grinned ruefully. “Well, if I can ever return the favor, I will. In the meantime, here’s a belated Christmas present.” Blaine handed him Carl Miller’s hunting knife. “My apologies for the surveillance, by the way.”

“You can’t be too careful. As recent events just proved.”

“True. We’ve been a bit jumpy lately.”

“Feeling the heat?”

Blaine shook his head. “Nothing like that. Most of the heat’s gone overseas. No, a couple months ago one of our members disappeared. We sent him down to some shows to do some buying and he never came back.”

“They find his car or anything?” His mind offered up a clear image of Henry Connolly’s truck, with Connolly in it, taking a slow, almost graceful plunge into a quarry, sending up a storm of bubbles as it sank to the bottom.

“No, and that’s the weird thing. Near as we can find out, he left the show OK and then,” Blaine snapped his fingers. “Like that. Gone. As you can imagine, we have to take precautions. And even more so now.”

A rifle shot rang out. Both knew what it meant. Neither flinched. Both took note of this.

“Why is that?” Sean asked as if they had not been interrupted. And really, they hadn’t.

Blaine took one more swig, handed the flask back to Sean. “Los Angeles was just the beginning. We’ve laid low for a while, and I feel that enough time has passed that we can start on the next phase. That’s what the New Year’s meeting was about. To find out if the men are ready for that. They are.” Blaine smiled, pride evident in his eyes. “Some of them will only have a small role to play. And others will be in from the first steps all the way to the finish. But they’re ready.”

“And so am I.” He even meant it, though not in the way Blaine thought. Because he needed to get inside, win Blaine’s confidence, soothe any suspicions of the others. A simple snatch and grab would not do; if he did it now, he wouldn’t get past the state line. The men were devoted to Blaine and would come after him.

“Well then, I’m glad to have you,” Blaine said, gray eyes locking on Sean in that compelling way. “And I hate to say it, but I’m not really in much of a hunting mood any more. Care to head back to the lodge and talk over sandwiches and a few beers?”

“Are your wife’s sandwiches as good as her muffins?”

“Of course.”

“Then twist my arm. Please.”

They laughed and began the walk back to the lodge.

T
he stairwell was dark, with only a flickering fluorescent light for illumination, and even that light was muted by a fog of dust. Jennifer’s head throbbed, blood trickled into her hair with sticky warmth, her arm wouldn’t move.
Have to get out of here before the whole thing comes down.
But she couldn’t get up, couldn’t even move. Something was holding her down. She saw what held her, not Lilliputian ropes but hands, hands that came up out of the debris like grotesque plants. Dead hands, cold hands, holding her pinned. She heard the grinding roar of the building coming down, tried to scream for help and one of those hands clamped over her mouth.

She woke with a startled gasp, felt something smothering her and kicked out frantically at the covers, pushing them off. From the foot of the bed came an indignant mewing. “Oh, Pete, I’m sorry,” she said. Turning on the lamp, she squinted in the sudden flood of light. The kitten squinted as well. She’d stopped by the shelter yesterday and adopted the kitten, hoping it would help get her out of the funk she’d been in since the conversation with Gene Tally. The kitten was fuzzy and orange, with noticeably crossed eyes and a habit of forgetting to put his tongue all the way back in his mouth when he was done washing himself; she’d christened him Pete Puma after the cartoon character.

“Sorry, Pete,” she said again. Pete mewed — Jennifer took this to mean
All is forgiven if you give me some Kitten Chow
— and went back to sleep. Kittens had it easy. Jennifer looked at the clock. 4:37 a.m. She sighed. It had been three weeks since the last nightmare. But she was familiar enough with the dreams to know that sleep was over for the night.

Might as well make herself useful. She put on sweats and slippers, made her way out to the kitchen and turned on the coffee maker. When the brew was ready she poured a cup, sat drinking it while she leafed through some of the recipes she’d started clipping from the magazines her predecessors had left behind. Alex Salto had asked what her New Year’s resolutions were, and now she finally had an answer. She would stop drinking (done), try a new recipe once a week (done, and only once had she burned anything), and she would not, of course, sleep with Alex Salto again (easily done).

She thumbed through the recipes, tired but not sleepy, trying not to think about Gene and Matthew. Trying not to think of how Gene had called her Miss California, and trying not to worry that he was right, she didn’t belong here.

“I do,” she said. “I want to.”

Her only reply was a mew from Pete Puma, who had followed her to the kitchen and was now looking up at her with his huge kitten eyes. At least he was one member of the Jennifer Thomson fan club, along with Suzanne Delacroix and Mr. Bradbury. A small group, she thought with a rueful smile. Exclusive. She reached down and scooped up the kitten. “Care to help me make some cookies, Pete?” Had to do something until it was time for work.

* * *

“L
ovely cookies, Jennifer,” said Mr. Bradbury. “Is it all right if I take some home?”

“Sure thing. Got a sweet tooth?”

“Actually, I have a friend who would just adore them.”

“Take as many as you want. Who’s your friend?”

“Mrs. Holloway. She runs the embroidery store on Elm. She lost her husband just before Christmas and I go to her place once a week to visit with her.”

“That’s kind of you.” Jennifer meant it. But it galled her as well, for reasons she couldn’t understand.

She understood it that afternoon, when the third-graders came in. “I thought they weren’t here for two more days,” she said.

“Oh, they traded. The fifth grade has a field trip today to the aquarium in Vancouver,” Mr. Bradbury replied, taking what remained of the cookies into the back room, away from the mass of eight-year-olds.

Jennifer abruptly got up and wheeled her cart to the far side of the main room, to shelve the economics books. As far away from the juvenile room as she could get. She could not help feeling that she had failed Matthew Tally, and did not want to see accusation of her failure in his eyes.

But as she was heading back to the circulation desk, she saw the third-graders filing out. There was Matthew at the back, head slightly down. As he passed, he looked up, saw her, and smiled, that sweet smile that nonetheless hurt her more than any reproach.
Even when I try to do something good I mess it up. Why can’t I be like Mr. Bradbury, do the right thing and do it right. What is wrong with me?

She let the children pass and went to the circulation desk. She started shoving books onto the cart, heedless of the noise. The titles blurred and her eyes stung. She told herself she wouldn’t cry, not in front of Mr. Bradbury, not at work, but her eyes wouldn’t obey.

From a distance she heard the sound of pen on paper. Mr. Bradbury said, “Here. Let’s go in the back and talk.” He taped a note to the desk that said
Meeting in the back room. If you need us, ring the bell. If you have a fine, be honest and leave it here.

He pulled the chairs from behind their respective desks. Jennifer had her own desk now, a tiny one to be sure, but her own. Her cyclamen and her picture of herself and Cindy were here, along with the red lava lamp that Bill and Suzanne had given her for a housewarming present. A print was taped to the wall,
Midsummer’s Eve,
the picture of the woman standing in the circle of fairies.

Jennifer sat down, and Mr. Bradbury handed her a mug of tea. Jasmine, her favorite. He handed her a handkerchief as well. When would she stop needing peoples’ hankies?

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She swabbed at her eyes with the hankie. She was not crying, really, but her eyes had started a slow leak she couldn’t seem to stop. “It’s nothing. If I can just have a couple minutes I’ll be fine. We should get back to the desk.”

He laughed softly. “It’s a library, not a hospital. The books can wait a few minutes. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she answered, truthfully as she always did to Mr. Bradbury. “But I will anyway if that’s all right.”

He spread his hands out as if to say,
That’s what I’m here for.

She told him about Matthew and Gene. “It really bothered me, him saying that. Because maybe he was right. I’m just using this place to get over what happened.”

“What was that?” he asked. The steam from his tea seemed to hover around him.

“Last year. In Los Angeles, the federal building that got bombed. I was in the building.” Except for telling her story to the ghostwriter, Jennifer had never actually said what had happened. There had been no need. It had become part and parcel of who she was, required no explanation. “They say I was the last one out. I don’t know, I was just trying not to die. And when I came here, all I wanted was to start over. Just start a new life. I thought I was getting somewhere. Now I don’t know.”

“Did what he said bother you that much?”

Jennifer mulled it over. “Now that I think about it, it’s not so much that. You see, I got out of that building but I didn’t help anyone. I just got out. And that’s always...bothered me.”
Oh yes, Jennifer,
bother,
that’s a good word, that’s why you dream about dead hands holding you down in the wreckage.
“I wanted to help Matthew and I feel like I didn’t get anywhere with that.”

Mr. Bradbury shook his head. “You helped. I know the Tallys, and now that Gene knows there’s a problem, he’ll do something about it.” He poured more tea for them both. “It’s hard, I know. Leaving everything you know behind and starting over. Some people say that’s running away, am I right?”

“And how.” Thinking of things her mother had said.

“Running away is only bad if that’s all you ever do. Running is easy. Staying still is hard. And so is leaving behind everything in your old life to find something new.”

Jennifer nodded, thinking of that poem again.
I learn by going where I have to go.
“Thank you, Mr. Bradbury.” Before she knew it she blurted out, “How come you stopped being a priest? Oh, I can’t believe I just asked that.”

To her relief he smiled, his garden gnome smile. “I wondered when you were going to yield to curiosity. You lasted longer than I thought.”