Time Out of Mind (91 page)
Authors: John R. Maxim
Tags: #Horror, #General, #Psychological, #Suspense, #Memory, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Time Travel
“
What friend?” Lesko called after him. “Right about
what?”
”
... head
...
tire,” was all Lesko could hear in the
wind..
“
Wait a minute. What?”
He saw Corbin half turn as he walked. “He said the
Poles have heads like truck tires.”
Then the storm swallowed him.
Lesko didn't wait. His hands were good enough to turn a wheel, and his feet had enough touch to stamp on a pedal.
He was not about to sit there getting toasty warm just on
Corbin's word and all of a sudden feel Burke's Beretta
stuck in his ear. He cut the steering wheel left and put Mr.
Makowski's car in gear, taking out one of Burke's taillights
as he swung onto the hill of Maple Avenue. He left his
own lights off.
came into view. One porch light. Drapes over the windows.
No sign of Burke or Ballanchine. No sign of anyone. He coasted by, his foot ready on the accelerator. Two houses past Corbin's, he switched on his headlights. They lit up a
small red Datsun parked on the road, its hood only begin
ning to accumulate snow, as if it had recently been driven a substantial distance. Corbin's car, he was sure. The one
he uses to putz around town and get to the station. He's
got a car, why's he walking? Lesko continued on almost to
the Post Road. Putnam Avenue. And the statue of General
Israel Putnam on his horse, escaping from the British who
almost captured him because they heard he was in town shacking up with one of the townies. So everything around
here is Putnam. Putnam Travel, Putnam Trust, even Putnam
Liquors.
Fucking Greenwich.
one damned thing he was best known for was not getting
caught.
Lesko swung into a U-turn back up Maple Avenue. Driv
ing was easier. His feet were working well enough that he
remembered there was no shoe on one of them. Pull in
behind Corbin's car, he decided. If I have to dig back into
that trunk, better do it down the hill here.
sweating when he scrambled back out because he remembered how near he'd been to being dead there. He wondered how long it would be before he could enjoy riding in some
one's trunk again.
Right.
going up to that front door without at least a flack jacket and a riot gun? We can kill a little more time wondering
why Corbin was acting so weird, but what else is new? We
can always—wait, wait a second. Poles—Polacks—have
heads like truck tires? That's what Dave Katz said. Dave
Katz's ghost said that to the Tilden guy when I was on
queer street on old lady Beckwith's floor.
Ohhhh, shit.
bet I come up empty. Not another dime out of it. He took
a long breath, then reached for the tire iron he'd left in the
well behind him.
On the left-hand edge of Corbin's property there is a long
high privet hedge that separates it from the lot of his nearest
neighbor. Corbin's driveway is along the right-hand edge,
its entrance softly lit after dark by a street lamp just up and
across the road. If you were sneaking up on the house,
Lesko knew, you would pick the hedge side and stay in its
shadow. He looked for tracks. There were two sets. One continued on toward the backyard, where he could see an oddly shaped tree through the snow. The other crossed the
lawn on a bias. This second set headed up the front steps
but crossed older tracks already there and then seemed to
angle off along the porch. Lesko stayed with the hedge.
He was abreast of the house, cut off even from the dim light of the distant street lamp, and deciding whether to try a window or to first circle the house as Burke and Dancer
must have done. His coat snagged on a broken branch of
the hedge. His foot came down on another. Several more
were on top of the snow, and a portion of the hedge was
bent inward as if someone had crashed through it. The snow
was trampled. He saw a small, dark lump that might have been a dead animal. Lesko squatted and picked it up. A fur
hat. The Russian kind with flaps on four sides. He could
tell by feel it was made for a small head. Dancer's hat? But
grabbed the hedge to break his fall. Lesko moved on.
He almost didn't look at the tree he'd noticed. As he reached the rear of the house, his intention was to follow
its perimeter. But the shape became more peculiar as he
passed it. Its upper trunk seemed to be separating. Lesko dropped into a crouch. He held that position until his mind could confirm what his senses chose to doubt. There was a
man in that tree. And he was part of it.
Lesko stepped closer, his tire iron held ready. The legs were the first part he saw clearly. They were swaying to
ward him, pushed by each gust of wind, their shoe tips
barely brushing over the surface of the snow. Then he saw
arms hanging limp. Lesko patted his pockets for the pen-
light he carried. It was worth the risk. He found the light
and aimed it, before switching it on, at the shape of a head that seemed welded to a branch at a height not much taller
than himself. He thumbed the switch.
Burke.
Burke's swollen face stared back at him.
a crook between one stout bough and a smaller branch, the
smaller one across his throat. A wool scarf, wound once
around his neck and then cleated through the branches, held
him there. Lesko saw a Brooks Brothers label on the scarf's
loose end. He raised the beam once more to the face. It
was turning black. One side, the right, was strangely
shaped, as if the cheekbones had been moved. Lesko flicked
off his light. In deeper darkness than before he ran his
hands over Tom Burke's body, searching for his weapon.
There was none. He retraced his steps back along the hedge
toward where he'd found the cap, once more using his pen-
light. There he found an L-shaped depression near the spot
where Tom Burke must have begun to die. Lesko reached
down and pulled the Beretta free.
“
Jesus.” He shook his head. Old Tom Burke, he said to
himself, could fuck up a two-car funeral. He
could
also
fìnd
more ways to get killed than any two men Lesko had ever
met. The Beretta's safety was on and locked.
Lesko turned back past Tom Burke's dangling body and
c
ontinued on his path around Corbin's house. He walked
more confidently now. It wasn't just the gun. He was walk
ing in tracks made by another man who, he knew, had to
be Jonathan Corbin or whoever Jonathan Corbin turned into
when it snowed. He also knew pretty much what he'd find
on the other side of the house. Besides, his feet were getting
numb again. And he would kill for a handful of aspirin and
a very large belt of Seagram's.
What are you doing, Harry?” Ella's brother called from
his chair, a drink in one hand and the Weatherby lying
carelessly across his lap. He'd been crying. The tears came
when he asked Gwen Leamas whether it hurt to die, and
she answered that it hurts most, she thought, to leave those
you love. She'd answered with feeling. Gwen didn't know
whether she could stay with Jonathan, and whether any
thing could ever be sane, simple, and happy between them
again. But as the liquor further loosened this sad old man's
tongue, she also found herself wondering, with a deep
thumping dread, whether she would even see him again.
Oh, let him be alive. Let him, please God, show up at that
door. Then we'll see. We'll see.
“
Harry? What are you doing out there?”
Sturdevant had been in the kitchen, standing with one
hand on the earpiece of a reproduction antique wall phone.
At last he lifted it from its hook.
I'm getting us some reinforcements, Tillie. I'm calling
the police.”
“
That's a good idea, Harry.” He nodded stupidly.
“Have them bring some bullets.”
“
Bullets, Tillie?”
”
I forgot to take some.”
“
Good grief,” Sturdevant muttered.
He gave his name and the address of Corbin's house to
the sergeant who answered and told him he had reason to
think that there were prowlers outside. Harry, in fact, had heard a sound while he was on the phone. But it came from
in the house, not outside. He dismissed it and completed the call. The receiver back in place, he felt a coldness on
his neck. Whether it was a chill or a draft he was not sure.
His eyes fell on a block of carving knives. His hand moved
toward it.
“
Easy.” He heard the voice behind him. “The porch
door wasn't locked.''
Harry Sturdevant turned slowly. He saw a thickset man
whose legs wore a crust of snow up to the knees. A second,
smaller set of legs draped down from his shoulder. Several
lines of dried blood crossed the rough-looking face he'd
first seen at the Greenwich Library.
“
You would be Mr. Lesko, I take it.”
“
Uncle Harry?” Gwen Leamas came rushing down the
short hall from the living room. Ella's brother, rifle in hand,
reeled behind her. Sturdevant, who now saw the automatic
in Lesko's free hand, neatly plucked the rifle from Tillie's hands as he came within reach and laid it atop the refrig
erator.
“
I'm Lesko.” One eyebrow raised at the sight of Gwen's
long dress and the other at the appearance of the batty old
man, Black Homburg, he'd followed most of Saturday.
“This here”—he cocked his head toward the pair of legs—
“is Lawrence Ballanchine. He's been looking to kill all of
you.” Lesko hitched his shoulder and let Dancer slide to
the kitchen floor. Sturdevant could see at a glance that his jaw was shattered and his nose cartilage crushed. From the
bubbly sound of his breathing, he guessed that his throat
was damaged as well.
“
If you're still in the mood,” Lesko said wearily, “he
could use a doctor. Tell you the truth, I'm not feelin' so
hot myself.”
“
Tilden,” Ella's brother whispered, staring at Dancer's
face.
Lesko looked at him.
“
You did this?” Sturdevant asked,
“
Tilden did it,” the old man answered for him.
ing as if trying to deny the thought that was forming in it.
“Do you. know Jonathan Corbin?” she asked Lesko.
“Have you seen him?”
”
I seen him.”
“
He didn't
...
he didn't do this.” She shook her head.
what's hanging from your tree outside.
”
I have to go.” He picked up the Glenlivet bottle from the kitchen counter and took a long swallow. ”I got one
more stop. Tell the cops I'll be back.”
'Tilden did it.” Ella's brother's head was nodding.
