The Terror of Living (18 page)

    THE GIRL SWEATED THROUGH THE SHEETS. NANCY sat by her with a bowl of ice water. They were waiting now and hoping she would come out of it. Thus eyes were just slits of white with the small, dark sliver of her irises visible through the lids. Her face was red where Nancy had slapped her a moment before, saying, "Come on!" Slapping her and then taking her by the shoulders and shaking her till her eyes opened. "Stay awake, goddamn it."

    Hunt could see the outline of Thus body beneath the clothes. He took in the sweat all over and the way the pores on her face beaded with water, which collected and then ran down her face onto the bed, making dark patches on the sheets. His phone vibrated again. Nancy looked up. Hunt didn't know where Roy was.

    "Who is this?" Hunt said, holding the phone. The call had come from his own house.

    "You know who this is."

    Hunt walked out into the living room. He could see the backyard, the big canister in which Roy had burned the sheets.

    "What a silly question," Grady continued. "Who did you think it was going to be?"

    "Do you think you're going to find me?"

    "I was thinking I'd start with your wife and ask her."

    "She's not there."

    "Yes, it's unfortunate for me, though I think it's more unfortunate for you."

    "There's nothing unfortunate about it." There was a pause and then Hunt heard something break; he thought it was glass, though it could have been a lamp or a mirror.

    "What's the name of the brown horse with the white notch along the nose?"

    "Hermes."

    "Clever," Grady said.

    There was the sound of the rifle, a quick three-shot burst. Hunt didn't hear anything else. He didn't hear the horse, or the bullets hit. The phone just hung there in his hand and he listened, not sure what to say.

    "How many horses do you keep in your stables?" Grady asked.

    Hunt didn't say anything.

    "To me, they're just animals. I'd bet they're something altogether different to you."

    "Why would you do that?"

    "You know I'm going to find your wife. I'll find her and we can do this again. Would you like me to call you back then?"

    "If you were going to find her, you would already have done it. You were just hoping she was there."

    "No. I was hoping you were here."

    Hunt heard the rifle fire once more. This time he heard the horse call out. He heard it call again.

    "I'll take this one slow," Grady said.

    "I'm going to kill you," Hunt said, and he thought he really meant it. For the first time he felt he really did. The sound of the rifle again.

    "She'll never run in the races."

    "You're sick."

    "You could make it stop."

    "You've got nothing and you're desperate."

    "I can start with your wife, then I can get the girl. I expect I'll need to kill her anyway to get the drugs out of her. I can do this all before I do you. I'll probably make you watch. You want to save someone, you want to save this last horse? You should come over here and meet me. I guarantee it will be fast. You're already dead anyway."

    "The girl is dead."

    "That would be very unfortunate for you. She was buying you time."

    "You don't know a goddamn thing."

    "I know where you'll be very soon."

    "Yes, I bet you do."

    "You're not going to meet me, are you?"

    "What do you think?"

    "Maybe you'd like to listen? This will become very familiar to you."

    Hunt heard Grady put the phone down. He guessed Grady was in the bedroom, where the windows looked onto the pasture and the horses. The injured horse was making that whining sound, a sound he'd heard from a horse only once, a horse with a splintered bone lying on its side on the track. Hunt heard the shot, then nothing else.

    GRADY WALKED DOWNSTAIRS. THERE WAS A CERTAIN pleasure he'd taken in shooting the two horses. He trailed a hand along the wall, and as he went, he hummed to himself. It was a song of his own creation, perhaps something he'd heard in the past, though now changed and used in a different context. In his other hand he carried the rifle. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he went to the small fireplace in the living room and made a fire. He built it up. He sat on the couch and watched television. He relished the idea of taking Hunt's life apart piece by piece, like separating sinew and tendon, skin and muscle, breaking him down.

    When the fire had burned for about ten minutes and he could see the coals beginning to develop, he took red, glowing logs and placed them under the couch. He put others beneath the drapes.

    The smell of smoke and burnt plastic began to fill the room. He went into the kitchen and turned every valve of the range until he could hear gas.

    Outside, the rain was still falling. He stepped down onto the yard and he felt the wet earth beneath him. The smell of horses and something new, something of his own creation, smoke and fire, almost claylike. At the pasture, he stopped to look over the bodies of the two horses he'd shot. The first had taken the three shots lengthwise, one to the neck and then the others falling farther back. The second horse he'd taken his time with, a shot at the front quarter, then the back, and the final in the head. Trails of blood ran off the wounds and down onto the ground.

    The third horse stood nearby but did not make a move as Grady came to the fence and looked him over. The rain kept falling. There was that faint earth smell to the air, puddles, and raindrops. Grady watched the horse, the light from the house reflected in its big eyes.

    The house blew then, startling the horse. Grady raised a hand to look at the house, as if shading his eyes from a strong sun. Flames in all the windows. He wished Hunt could hear the sound; he wanted him to know there was no coming back.

    Grady felt the rain's cold touch already soaking through his clothes and on his skin. Streams of water rolled down from his hair and dropped from his nose, collecting along his jawline and falling from his chin. The fire was a brilliant hue of orange and red, alive in the gray falling rain. He saw the horse back there, still running along the far fence, rounding the corner and returning almost to the midpoint of the pasture and looking on. "Nothing to be afraid of," Grady said. He was watching the horse. Then with both hands he raised the rifle and took aim.

    “WHAT'S YOUR REASON FOR COMING TO CANADA?"

    The border guard looked into a black Lexus with the two Vietnamese men sitting in it. The man in the driver's seat leaned forward, his teeth stained a cigarette yellow. He spoke with a slight accent. "Shopping, sightseeing."

    The border guard looked from his face to the passport she held in front of her. She put his name into the computer. "Where are you coming from?"

    "Seattle."

    "Whose car is this?"

    "Mine."

    "What line of work are you in?"

    "I'm a plumber."

    "Nice car for a plumber," the guard said.

    "You should see my house," the man joked. "It's a real dump."

    "Can you tell me your license plate number?" He gave it to her. "What about you, sir?" She leaned down to see the second man, sitting in the passenger seat. She typed his name into the computer. "What line of work are you in?"

    "I'm his boss."

    "You own the plumbing business?"

    "No, I run it."

    "You must do a good business."

    "Not really," the second man said.

    The guard turned back to the driver. "How long will you be in Canada?"

    "Just for the day."

    "Any firearms or drugs in the vehicle?"

    "No."

    "Anything you'll be leaving in Canada?" "No."

    "Have a good trip, guys." The Lexus pulled forward.

    EDDIE LEFT THE TELEVISION RUNNING, THE VOLUME up high, and all the lights on in his room. Outside, he could feel the cold that had come with the rain and the dull gray of the day as it came on. To the right he could see Nora's motel window, shades drawn, but the light on, and he assumed she was still there. He went to his car and was careful to ease the door shut behind him. From his pocket he dug out his cell phone and dialed the number. All over the car roof he could hear the rain falling. He saw it on the windshield, and he thought that even if Nora looked out the window, she wouldn't be able to tell he was in there.

    After the secretary patched him through to the house, the lawyer came on, saying, "This must be some kind of joke."

    "No joke at all," Eddie said.

    "I thought I'd explained this clearly to you."

    "You did."

    "Then why did your man know about it?"

    "I didn't say a thing to him. I just told him where to be and at what time. I didn't say anything else."

    "Don't lie to me, Eddie."

    "I'm not lying."

    "This has been made clear to you, correct?"

    "Yes, it is all clear. It's a bad deal, but it's the only deal I was given."

    "It's a good deal, Eddie."

    "Not from where I'm standing."

    "I'd be very happy to be alive from where you're standing."

    Eddie didn't say anything; he was sorry enough as it was, felt shame like he'd never felt before, even knowing from the beginning about the kid. It was shameful, all of it. Nothing would ever make him feel better about what he had done. He thought about taking his own life, but then it wouldn't matter, Hunt was still dead, it didn't matter.

    "You know this is turning into a real headache for us."

    "I imagine it is."

    "Don't be smart, Eddie."

    "I didn't mean to be."

    "Sympathy, then? You feel sympathetic for the fuckup your man has put us in?"

    "Yes," Eddie agreed, "that is what I feel toward the situation." There was a pause on the other end. Eddie cursed himself, cursed his mouth, but didn't say anything and waited for the man to come back on the line.

    "I'm going to send someone to see you. He's an old acquaintance of Phil Hunt's. He should be able to help us out, figure this whole thing out for us. We're not the types to give second chances, Eddie. You should know this. You should feel grateful."

    "I am," Eddie said, though he didn't feel that way at all. He felt a sickness in his stomach, an ache he could not fix. He gave the man the address of the motel. Then, after it was done, he sat in the car and listened to the rain.

    DRISCOLL WALKED BACK INTO THE DINER, CLOSING his phone. "Three dead horses and a burnt-up house," Driscoll said to Drake. They had spent the night at the gas station, Driscoll going through paperwork, Drake trying to give the place a look but instead just drifting off to look out on the ocean. The boat was there, about a half mile off, beached up on the rocks. "They just pulled a two twenty-three round out of one of the horses. Same as what they found all over the deck of that Coast Guard cutter."

    Driscoll sat down across from Drake and read him the address.

    "Any people?" Drake asked.

    "No one."

    "That address," Drake said. "I was there yesterday. Doing my detective work."

    Driscoll stared at him. "You're kidding, right?"

    "Didn't seem to be the type to be mixed up in this."

    "Opportunity knocks."

    "Yes, but they just didn't seem to be the type for this kind of thing."

    "Did you meet this man?" Driscoll slid a black-and-white print across the table. "Just took it off the computer. Owner of the property. Convicted for second-degree murder thirty years ago. Dumb asshole didn't even run, just stayed right there till the cops showed up to take him away. Even pleaded guilty at his own trial."

    Drake held the picture and looked it over, an old mug shot, but he could tell right away it was a picture of the horseman from the mountains. "Looks like you were right about them wanting that second man dead."

    "You know him?"

    "Met him three nights ago in the mountains. He's the rider."

    "You couldn't have identified him yesterday?"

    "Wasn't there yesterday. Just a woman and a man, not this one, though, stockier and darker, Mexican."

    "Not Phil Hunt?"

    "No."

    "You think the man you met yesterday was this assassin going around killing everything he comes across?"

    "No. The wife seemed very comfortable with him. Maybe a neighbor?"