F Paul Wilson - Novel 04 (41 page)

“I didn’t—”

“I hope you’re not
telling me you’re that Poppy.”

This wasn’t working. She knew
she should go now. No sense trying to say any more to this stone-faced man. But
she had to tell him…

“I guess I am that Poppy, and
I guess I’m not. Not anymore. A lot’s happened since I left. Most
of it bad. I need some help now. I thought I could like come back here. I
thought maybe you’d…” The ache had moved up to her throat and
was pulling it tight. Almost too tight to talk. He was turning her away; no
more than she deserved. She should have known shouldn’t have even
bothered coming here…

She just couldn’t believe how
much this hurt.

She took one look last look at
Uncle Luke before turning away, and thought she saw a softening in his eyes.

“That your kid?” he
said, jutting his chin at Katie.

Poppy shook her head. Don’t
ask me about Glory! She felt the tears welling in her eyes, spilling over. Her
voice sounded like a gasp.

“No. She died… when she
was three months.” He looked stricken.

“Dead?”

She couldn’t talk about
Glory. She had to get away from here before she made a complete Appleton of
herself.

“Sorry to bother you. Uncle
Luke.” She couldn’t say any more. As she lifted Katie and took her
first steps back to the truck, she heard a tortured sound. Almost like a…
hiccup.

She looked back at Uncle Luke and
saw him leaning against the doorjamb, his face all screwed up and his mouth
turned way down at the corners.

Through her blurred eyes he looked
just like the sad mask she’d seen outside theaters. His chest heaved and
he made another sound—this was a sob.

And then he was motioning her
toward him. She stepped back up on the stoop and he enfolded her in his arms,
pressing her against him. She felt his chest begin to heave.

“Oh, Poppy,” he said,
his voice high and strange. “I miss him. Oh, God, you got no idea how
much I miss your dad.” And then they were both crying—loud,
wracking wails and sobs.

And for the first time in days.
Poppy felt safe.

She was home.

“I don’t get it,”
Vanduyne said, packing back and forth in the Pineconer Motel parking lot.
“Why are we waiting for tomorrow? We should be doing something.”

Bob Decker saw Canney make a little
“be my guest” gesture. Bob sighed.

Maybe it had been a mistake bringing
Vanduyne along, but he did feel he owed the guy something. And besides, this
was the best way of keeping the doc under control. “We are doing
something. Doc,” Bob said. “We’ve got men checking out
Sooy’s Boot right now, getting the lay of the land.”

“They should be doing more
than that. And why aren’t we there instead of way the hell out here in
Tuckerton or whatever this place is called?”

“First of all,” Bob
said, “do you have any idea how many Mulliners there are in these parts?
Take a look at the phone book later—and those are just the ones with
phones. We have to get census records to find the others, and even then we
won’t have all of them. Second, they don’t have a motel in
Sooy’s Boot, or anywhere near it. And third…” Bob gestured at
the pine woods that surrounded the motel, seeming to grow thicker by the minute
as the light faded. “Look around you. Doc. This may be New Jersey, and
you may be just thirty or forty miles from Philadelphia and the northeast
corridor, but you are on the edge of very deep woods. Thousands of square miles
of scrub pine. No streetlights out there. No street signs. Most of the roads
are unpaved, and the ones that are don’t even have lines down the middle.
People get lost out there in broad daylight. What do you think we’re
going to accomplish in the dark? Poppy Mulliner could be hiding anywhere.”

“So we just give up?”

“You know damn well
we’re not giving up. We—” He capped his anger; the guy was
half crazy worrying about his kid. “While we’re questioning all the
Mulliners we can find, a pair of helicopters from Lakehurst Naval Air Station
will be flying a grid pattern over the area looking for that red panel
truck.” Bob wished he could set up a full-scale search—bring in
state cops, the county sheriff, the National Guard—but he still had a
mandate to keep a low profile. “But we need light. When that sun comes
up, you’ll see plenty of action. We’re going to run a finetooth
comb through these woods tomorrow. We’ll find her.”

“If she’s here,”
Vanduyne said.

“Oh, she’s here,”
Canney said. “We would have caught her if she tried running north or
south. She knows these woods, and she knows she can hide here. But not for
long.”

“So get some sleep,”
Bob told Vanduyne. “We’re up and moving at the crack of
dawn.”

Vanduyne hesitated, as if he wanted
to say more, then shrugged and headed for his room.

“Finally,” Canney said.
“And I thought my little Martha was tough to get to bed.”

“Let’s get back in the
car,” Bob said. “I heard from Jim Lewis.”

Canney’s expression
brightened. “He got to the remailer?”

Bob nodded but didn’t speak
until they were safely cocooned in the car.

“I don’t know how he
did it and I didn’t ask, but I suspect he had somebody sneak in and copy
the database from the remailer’s server. Whatever, they found a
‘Snake’ account with an IDT return address. IDT was very
cooperative. Turns out ‘Snake’ is the handle of an ‘Eric
Garter’ who pays for his Internet services with his Visa card. The Visa
bills go to a mail drop. The house address in the Visa computer is a fake.
‘Eric Garter’ doesn’t exist.”

“
‘Garter?’” Canney said. “As in ‘Snake?’
Shit.” He rubbed his face. “My news isn’t so good either. I
had a long talk with Trevor. He says the only one who trailed Vanduyne to
Atlantic City was his ex.”

“He’s got to be
wrong.”

“That’s what I said,
but he told me there were times when he and Vanduyne and the ex were the only
cars on the road. No way anybody else followed. He was pretty adamant about
that. And Trevor’s damn good.”

A worm wriggled through Bob’s
gut. “You know what you’re saying.”

“Yeah. Someone’s
rotten.”

“But only three of us
knew.”

“All right. Let’s look
at that. Let me ask you a question: Is the Secret Service going to be hurt by
decriminalization?”

“Hell, no. We’ll
probably have to beef up to provide extra security.”

“Right. And as far as the
Bureau is concerned, drugs are mostly a sideline. So our appropriations
won’t be much affected.”

“Stop,” Bob said.
“I know where you’re going and—?”

“Who in federal law
enforcement gets hurt the most, Bob?”

“You’re talking about
Dan Keane—”

“All right, I’ll answer
my own questions: DEA gets gutted by decriminalization.”

Bob felt his anger rising. This was
groundless, unfair.

“I’ve known Dan for a
dozen years. Nobody hates the drug trade more. Nobody has fought harder against
the traffickers.”

“Right. And maybe he hates
them so much that he doesn’t want to stop fighting them.” The
simple logic of the conclusion struck Bob dumb for a moment. But logic
wasn’t always the truth. He’d spoken to Dan not thirty minutes ago.
It was unthinkable…

“It just can’t be. I
won’t buy it.”

“All right,” Canney
said. “You know the guy. I’ll go with your judgment.”

“There’s another
explanation,” Bob said. “We just haven’t thought of it
yet.” Another explanation… had to be… But what? Who?

“I’ve looked all over
town and can’t find her,” Snake told Salinas.

He’d used the phone in his
motel’s parking lot for the call. Not the best section of A.C., but his
appearance attracted less attention here.

“That is because she is not
in town,” Salinas said. “She has fled into the big woods in the
center of the state.” Snake winced as another stab of pain shot through
his head and eye. The pills had eased the agony since this afternoon, but these
stabs were still frequent enough and severe enough to keep him on edge.

Poppy pain… all because of
that bitch. What the hell was the matter with her? The damn kid belonged to
someone else, yet she’d attacked him like a mother lion protecting one of
her own cubs… hadn’t even sounded human, screeching like that.

Crazy bitch.

“ ‘Big’ woods?
This is Jersey. There’s nothing big here.”

“The others who are looking
for her disagree. They are launching a wide search for her tomorrow. And they
expect to find her and the package. Tomorrow.” Salinas left the words hanging,
and the emphasis was not lost on Snake.

Tomorrow…

Snake closed his good eye and tried
to organize his thoughts. If they found Poppy, they’d find the tape.

Maybe she hadn’t had the tape
with her this afternoon, but after the big scene he’d made about it, he
was willing to bet the rest of his life that she’d gone back and got it
and listened to it, and knew what a bargaining chip she had.

The tape would land him in a
federal prison and force Salinas to close up shop and leave the country.
Salinas would be gone, but he wouldn’t forget. No matter what the prison,
no matter what the security, Salinas would see to it that somebody got to him.

And even if Poppy had lost the
tape, she could still finger him as the guy who set up the kidnapping. And
then, as the only guy who could link Salinas to the plot, how long would he last?

Either way, betting the rest of his
life didn’t seem a particularly heavy risk. So tomorrow it was do or
die—literally.

But he was Snake. He could do it.

And not just to save his skin.
Poppy had hurt him twice now—twice. Both times she’d taken him by
surprise. No third time. No messing around with threats. He’d pop her as
soon as he saw her and search her body and the truck. And if he didn’t
find the tape, then so be it. But no games this time: Poppy was dead.

“I think you’d better
come in,” Salinas said. “We need to make contingency plans should
this tape be found.” Snake knew what that meant. Fat chance.

“I’ve still got
tomorrow. Plenty of time.”

“You are one man. They are
many, with helicopters. You cannot hope—”

“If I can get a little
goddamn support, I can get to her first, dammit!” He wanted to scream at
Salinas. Didn’t he know who he was dealing with?

This is Snake talking here. I can
turn the tables on the feds and stupid greaseballs like you any day. I can take
this big-ass search and turn it to my advantage.

“What sort of support do you
need?”

“Mostly information.
You’ve got a pipeline. Here’s what I need.” Snake began
reeling off his list.

“That was you?” Katie
said, pointing to the photo in the scrapbook.

Poppy sat on the sofa in Uncle
Luke’s front room and stared at her seventeen-year-old self, dressed in
her old number 23 basketball uniform, hair pulled back into a ponytail that trailed
halfway down her back, long legs bare, knobby knees bent, poised at the foul
line to make a free throw.

Only ten years ago… yet it
totally seemed like some one else, like a photo from another century.

She looked at that fresh face,
those clear eyes that had a whole different future planned out… no idea
at all what the next ten years would hold.

“Yeah, that was me.”
The other me.

She glanced at her Uncle Luke.
“I can’t believe you like saved all this stuff.”

“What else was I going to do?
After your father died, I couldn’t just throw it out. And
besides…” He turned his head away.

“Besides what?”

“He asked me to keep your
scrapbooks and trophies. He said he… he knew you’d come back some
day.” Poppy closed her eyes and tilted her head back. She didn’t
want to cry again.

All the pain she’d caused in
her life. What was wrong with her? She’d been around for like a quarter
century… Jesus, you’d think I’d be able to get something
right by now.

“Uncle Luke.” An
urgent-sounding knock on the door interrupted her. In a surge of panic, she
wrapped her arms around Katie.

“Wait!” she said in a
fierce whisper. “Don’t answer that!” But then a voice called
from the other side.

“Luke! It’s
me—Matt!” Poppy relaxed, but only a little. Uncle Matt. That was
okay—she hoped.

Uncle Luke gave her a strange look,
then opened the door. Uncle Matt, a thinner, bearded version of Uncle Luke,
stepped in, all excited and talking a blue streak.

“Luke, there’s been men
in town asking about—” His voice cut off as he spotted Poppy and
Katie.

“Hi, Uncle Matt.”

His eyes widened. “Is that
you. Poppy?” She nodded.

He gulped. “Then it’s
true. People are looking for you. They say they’re from the government
and that you—”

“Don’t believe
them,” she said, quickly overcoming her shock. How could anyone—Mac,
the feds, anyone— know to look for her here?

“Not even about being from
the government.” She gave them a slightly cleaned-up version of events,
something to the effect that she and Katie had witnessed a crime and the bad
guys were trying to shut them up. She was trying to get Katie back home to her
dad but her plans kept getting messed up.

“So those guys who’ve
saying they’re feds might not be the real thing?” Uncle Luke said.

Poppy nodded and hid a smile.
Announcing you were from the federal government—or any government, for
that matter—was one sure way to get people in these parts to clam up.

“You always were trouble.
Poppy,” Uncle Matt said. “You went and broke your father’s heart.
You know that, don’t you.”

“Easy, Matt,” Uncle
Luke said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We been through all that.
What we got to do now is put her someplace where no one’ll find her till
we straighten out who’s who.”