The Homecoming (56 page)

He was carrying a sack of cat food tins, a forty-pounder of Tanqueray, and three fresh limes, so when the door clicked loose he just shoved it open with his toe and walked through into his open-plan kitchen and entertainment area and set the sack down on the Corian counter.

There were no cats around.

This was odd.

They usually came slinking in or they were already gathered around the door waiting for him when he came home. Not that they loved or even liked him in any way, but none of them could handle the electric can opener or change the kitty litter.

But no cats today?

He walked around the counter and out into the great room, a large stone-walled space centered around a gigantic flat-screen TV and an entertainment system capable of reaching out into the stars and catching talk shows live from outer space, if outer space had talk shows, which so far it did not.

The walls were covered with pictures of Warren Smoles sharing handshakes and glassy-eyed grins with all sorts of celebrities and sports stars and politicians, none of whom looked as delighted to be in the picture as Warren Smoles did.

No cats here either.

He looked down the hallway that led to the front door.

No cats there.

Odd. Damn odd.

Well, fuck ’em
, he thought, turning around to start in on his bucket of Tanqueray. A tall, well-dressed but vaguely funereal gentleman was standing behind his Corian counter and smiling at him.

“I know what you’re going to say,” he said.

“Who the
fuck
are you?”

“There you go. Now ask me how I got in.”

“I don’t give a fuck how you got in. What the fuck are you? An insurance salesman?”

“No. I’m a private collector. My name is Harvill Endicott.”

“Jeez Louise!” said Smoles, relief in his voice. He had never met Endicott personally. All their business had been conducted over phone lines or through the Internet. Even the way Endicott had retained him had been through PayPal.

“I did not mean to alarm you,” said Endicott in a soothing tone.

“Fuck that. I want to know why my
alarm
didn’t alarm me, that’s what I want to know. And where the hell are my cats?”

“Your alarm system is not very effective. I suggest you invest in a better one. Your cats were gathered around the side door when I came in. When they saw that I was not you they took the better part of valor and skittered away. I’m sure they’ll be back when things quiet down.”

“Thanks. Setting aside the break-and-enter thing for now, what do you want?”

“I do apologize. I dislike waiting about in the open. So I came in. I wanted to thank you personally for your help in establishing myself with Mrs. Maranzano. We have reached an understanding. For which I am grateful.”

Smoles walked over to the fridge and pulled out an ice tray, got a silver bucket down from a cupboard, and started to build himself a drink.

“Glad to be of service, Harvill. What was the understanding?”

“A confidential matter. Forgive me.”

“I got paid. No skin off me. You want a drink?”

“Pellegrino, if you have it?”

“Perrier do?”

“Lovely.”

Smoles, still a bit rattled but calming down, got the man a Perrier. His gin and tonic came together out of habit and he walked across the slate floor to his big burgundy armchair by the fireplace. He sat down, put his feet up on an ottoman the size of a Cape buffalo, crossed his lizard-skin cowboy boots, and sipped at his drink.

“Well, I don’t like you coming in like this, Harvill. I’ll let it go for now. But don’t do it again, or I’m not gonna be so fucking amiable.”

Endicott came over and stood in front of him, holding his Perrier in his left hand. His other was in the pocket of his gray sharkskin pants.

Smoles gave him a once-over.

Guy looks like a cross between an accountant and a mortician. Dresses pretty good. Pants a bit baggy. Wouldn’t go for pleats myself. Well, like the Froggies say, shack-oon a son goot
.

“Nice pants, Harv. Are they sharkskin?”

“They are.”

“Who’s the maker?”

“Zegna.”

“Yeah? I’m a Brioni guy myself. This suit’s a Brioni.”

“I can see that it is. Well, your health.”

“Yeah. Salut! This you bailing out? Work all done? I trust I gave satisfaction?”

“You were all that I expected. And more.”

“Yeah? Good. I got a rep, like to keep it. Tough about Deitz, hah? He was an impossible guy to control. That thing at the mall, that was pretty fucking extreme. I’ve heard about this Coker guy. Whispering Death, right? He’s taken out a whole shitload of perps.”

“So I understand.”

“Sit down, will ya? I don’t like people standing over me. Makes me cranky.”

Endicott stepped back a few feet.

“Sorry about that. People say I have a tendency to loom. I have a question, actually. It concerns Byron Deitz.”

“Okay. Here’s me turning my meter on.
Ching-ka-ching ching
. Now, how may I be of assistance, Harv?”

“Deitz transferred a substantial amount of money to an unknown recipient. I have now established to my own satisfaction who this recipient was—”

“No shit? Who was it?”

“Allow me to keep my own counsel. My inquiry is ongoing—”

“Anything to do with that shoot-out up at Charlie Danziger’s ranch on Saturday afternoon?”

“Again, I shall keep my own counsel. What I still need to know is the means by which this exchange was effected.”

Smoles narrowed his eyes.

“Hey. You’re still
working
, aren’t you? You’re still chasing that fucking
bank money! You cagey old prick. I’d be careful with that. Whoever did that bank, he’s a crazy mother—”

“I was asking about the method of transfer?”

“Well, it was an offshore thing.”

“Deitz never told you the details?”

Smoles took a long swig of his gin and tonic, drained it, and let the ice drop into his mouth, where he started cracking it, with his mouth open, all the while staring up at Endicott with a sly grin on his leonine face.

“Might have, Harv. Might well have. He dropped hints, for sure. How bad do you want to know?”

“How badly do you want to tell me?”

Smoles hooted at that.

“Not too fucking badly, Harv, ’less I see something in your hand. Show me something makes it worth my while and maybe we can do business.”

Endicott smiled down upon his broad grinning face, pulled his Sig out of the pocket of his sharkskin pants, and shot Smoles in the meaty part of his upper left thigh. Harvill Endicott was a creature of habit.

Smoles shrieked and blew out a whole lot of ice chunks and clutched at his leg.

“What the
fuck
?”

“I’ll ask you again, Warren. How badly do you want to tell me?”

Lemon called Nick while Nick was driving down to the CID HQ to file some Monday afternoon paperwork. The shootings at Danziger’s house had generated more PISTOL interrogations, and the investigation into Danziger and Coker’s involvement in the Gracie robbery, and Coker’s subsequent disappearance, had drawn media in from all over the country. They were all descending on the CID HQ on Powder River Road. So Nick was headed down there, thinking about Coker and Charlie and Kate and Rainey and what Reed had said about killing Rainey if it came to a crisis, and he also had the words of a Billy Ray Cyrus song going around in his head—
Where’m I gonna live when I get home—

In other words his plate was full and what was on it wasn’t at all appealing.
LEMON FEATHERLIGHT CALLING
appeared on his cell screen, so he scooped the phone up and hit
RECEIVE
.

“Nick, how did it go?”

“Depends on your point of view. We still have custody of Rainey. Kate’s pleased. I’m not.”

Lemon gave that some thought.

“Kid went pretty far, didn’t he?”

“Too far for me, Lemon. I’ve seen wild kids. This one is something else. You got a minute?”

“I do. I was only calling to see how it went.”

“Let me pull over … How’d the bone basket thing go?”

“I’ll wait until you’re stopped.”

A pause.

“Okay. I’m on the shoulder.”

“Me first?”

“Yeah. I’m interested.”

Lemon filled him in, just the basics, but the basics were crazy enough. Lemon ended with the connection to the old Cherokee legend about the soul-eating demon that lived in Crater Sink.

“You buying that?” Nick asked.

“Those things are real, that much I’m buying. How they got there, and what happened before they got there, I have no idea.”

“Maybe your pro from UV will sort it out.”

“She was a happy lady. Thinks there’s a Nobel Prize in it. They’re going to name the things after me, she says. One of those Latin names.”

“Good for you.”

“Look, there’s another thing …”

“Okay.”

“Remember the streetcar lady who helped me get Rainey down those stairs—”

“Doris Godwin. A babe, you said.”

“Yeah, that too. When we were up there she took a sort of 360-degree bunch of shots—”

“Why?”

“Why. Because she was scared bootless. She thought there was something out in the woods. She sent me the jpegs the next day. They’re pretty hairy, Nick. You’ll want to see them.”

“What was in them?”

“People. The entire forest was full of people, standing there, staring back at us. There might have been hundreds of them. Far back into the woods. Maybe even more. Maybe thousands. Just standing there, those old trees hanging over them.”

“Like what? Ghosts? Zombies?”

“No. Nothing like that. Citizens, that’s all. People of Niceville. People you’d see on the streets. But I’m looking at the shots, and they’re all dressed different. Style, I mean. Some old-timey, some yesterday. Mostly men, too, but a couple of older women. Some old cowboy types, even. Some soldiers, Confederate and Union. Now I’m looking, I can even see some men, look like they might be Indians. Cherokee or Creek, looking at their clothes, the way they’re painted up.”

“Fakes?”

“No. Doris was pretty freaked. So am I. It’s like they’re ghosts from a bunch of old-time photographs. But they’re not, are they?”

Nick was quiet for a bit.

“Man. It all fits.”

“Fits what?”

“With the general weirdness of Niceville.”

Nick told Lemon what had happened to Reed up at Candleford House, and what he had learned from Beryl Eaton at the Archives and Records Office in Sallytown.

“Reed
saw
Clara Mercer?”

“He’s pretty convinced he did.”

“Man. How’d he take it?”

“Like I said. Out the window and four floors down. He’s lucky to be alive.”

“Where is he now?”

“Believe it or not, back in an Interceptor. Marty reinstated him after the shoot-out at Charlie’s place.”

“Still can’t believe that. Coker, I could see it, but Charlie?”

“Well, keep the Charlie end to yourself. Charlie got shot taking a bullet for Mavis Crossfire. That oughta be worth something. I talked it over with Mavis and she thinks we may be able to work it that Coker takes the freight.”

“Whose idea was that?”

“Coker’s.”

A silence.

“Man, what a town.”

“Niceville?”

“Yeah. A Hell of a town.”

“No argument from me. Lemon, I gotta—”

“Yeah. Just one thing. Where’s Rainey now? In a clinic, maybe?”

“On his way to WellPoint. Kate’s taking him—”

“Kate’s
alone
with him?”

“I think so. After the trial, in chambers, she and I had a blowup over the kid. I got told to leave. I left. Tig Sutter was there—”

“She was going straight to WellPoint?”

“That was the plan. Look, Lemon, I really gotta run. There’ll be media all over the HQ in a couple of hours. You okay?”

Probably nothing to worry about she won’t go to Sylvia’s house she’ll take him to WellPoint and everything will be fine
.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Whole thing has me rattled.”

“No shit. Send me those jpegs. Talk later.”

Lemon shut his phone down, looked at the screen, picked it up again, speed-dialed Kate’s cell.

It rang six times and went to voice mail.

“Kate, this is Lemon. If you get this—”

Forget that!

No time!

Wherever Kate was, there was one place she could not go. Not alone, and sure as hell not with Rainey. He hit the pedal and powered out into traffic. He figured he was fifteen minutes away.

Ten if he broke all the rules.

He decided to break all the rules.

Lemon parked his truck across the road from 47 Cemetery Hill. The big stone pile looked exactly the same as it had last Friday. Dappled sunlight on the slate roof, the wind sighing in the live oaks. Down the way a dog barking. The sound of the traffic on Bluebottle. Kids shouting in a backyard somewhere. Kate’s Envoy wasn’t there.

He tried her cell again. Three rings and voice mail. Was she in the house already?

He had to go look.

Lemon got out of the truck and walked across the street to the foot of
the driveway. The dark light was still there. He moved closer and it solidified into two separate shapes that gradually took on the form of the Shagreen brothers. They stood there, lifeless but living.

“Is Rainey Teague here?”

“Leave this place,” said the blond one.

Lemon pulled out a large black Smith & Wesson and pointed it at the blond man. There was no reaction from either of them. He put a foot on the staircase. The blond came closer, becoming quite solid now. The same dappled light that was on the roof was now moving over his face and shoulders.

“You leave now.”

Lemon aimed the revolver at the thing’s head. He heard an engine behind him, and a woman’s voice.

“Lemon?”

He turned and saw Kate sitting at the wheel of the Envoy. Rainey was in the passenger seat, leaning forward so he could see Lemon.

Lemon backed away down the driveway, but he kept the Smith in his hand. He came across to the truck, put his hands on the window frame.