. . . 30 Hours and Counting . . .
Johansen snapped the cell phone shut and brought his fist down on the steering wheel. “Damn.”
“What?” asked Vasquez. She put down the headphones and turned off the player. The sound of Vance’s voice cut off. She wondered how many times she had replayed that conversation between the foggy-minded Mrs. Trumble and Vance. It had to be at least thirty times.
“The squad car they sent over to Brenda Hastings place reported a break-in,” he explained. “It looks like Vance forced his way in and ransacked the place. If we’d just been more on the ball, we could have caught up with him there.”
“That might have been a bad call on my part. I just wanted to listen to the recordings,” she said. “At least we know now that he has fixated on Ingles, his colleague. He left that message for Sarah and for me, putting the blame on him. Clearly, he needs us to believe it too, maybe to assuage his guilt.”
Johansen swung left onto Bovine. They were near Brenda’s place now. Starling Lane was just ahead. “What I don’t get is why he spent the night in the lab with her body.”
“It looks like Brenda got in a blow before he shot her. That paper-cutter looked pretty solid. Maybe he was out cold for the night on the floor.”
“Hmm. But how to you hit someone with three rounds in your chest? And how do you shoot someone when you’ve just been conked on the head?”
“I know,” she said. “The whole thing looks odd. We’ll have to wait for the forensics team to give us their version. It’s not really our field.”
“Okay, let’s go over the time line then. We need to catch Vance on his next move.”
Vasquez nodded. “Brenda’s car was in the parking lot, so it looks like he was on foot. That means he would have to walk for about an hour to get there.”
“I don’t get that either,” he said. “Why did he leave the car? He’s already killed her, so who cares about a wrap for car theft?”
Vasquez frowned. “Well, California law does allow the death penalty only in the case of an additional crime committed in junction with the murder. I don’t think car theft is on the list, but Vance might not know that.”
“You think Vance was trying to avoid the gas chamber?” Johansen shook his head. “No, I don’t think in his state of mind that he would be thinking that clearly.”
“Maybe not,” she admitted. “We don’t know. But we do know enough to pinpoint the time he had to be at Brenda’s place. The janitor came in and surprised him at seven. Let’s say it took till eight to get to Brenda’s. Maybe eight-thirty. Then he wrecks the place, let’s say that takes an hour or so, that puts us up to ten. Now it’s noon. That means we are only two hours behind him, max.”
“I agree. Should we hit Brenda’s place now?”
“Okay,” she said. “Then we’ll talk to Ingles.”
#
Ray worked his way around the house, staying in the green shadows of the orchard. The gun was in one hand now, the cell phone in the other. Now that he was so close to Ingles, his body tensed up. His neck ached when he turned his head, to say nothing of his head itself. After he had completed a circle around the place and had seen no activity, he crouched down behind the thickest black trunk he could find. There, about a hundred yards from Ingles’ house, he inspected the gun he had been carrying for hours now.
He looked at the gun carefully, with new eyes and new concerns. It was a vastly different thing to look at a weapon when he knew his life might depend on its performance. He marveled now that he had come into Brenda’s garage and surprised Nog with a gun that might have been empty, for all he knew. Why should he assume that Ingles would give him a gun that worked at all?
He looked it over carefully and hefted it in his hand. It was a heavy chunk of steel. The black-painted surface was worn down to the shiny metal in places. The grip was textured so that it wouldn’t slip in a sweaty palm. He looked down the slim barrel, but without aiming it directly at his head. The muzzle was a black eye that stared back at him. His father had been in the Navy, and had taught him a minimum of safety about firearms.
He recalled that the caliber of a gun was a measurement of the diameter of the barrel in inches. A .38 caliber bullet was 0.38 inches in diameter, a little more than a third of an inch. It was hard to tell, but to his untrained eye it looked about that size, maybe a little smaller. It might be a nine millimeter gun, he figured. That was a popular size.
Whatever the size, what mattered was getting it to rip a hole in a man’s body, and to do that you had to have bullets and the ability to aim. Aiming was up to him, but was this thing loaded? He examined it anew. It had no revolving chamber, so he figured it had to have a clip inside the grip. He hunted for a catch, found one and immediately a clip of bullets fell into the dirt. There were seven rounds in it. He continued fooling with the gun, feeling like a kid in his dad’s closet, until he managed to pull the slide bolt and get a round into the chamber. Then he found the safety button. He pushed it into the firing position.
With all that done, he decided to call Mrs. Trumble and leave another message for Sarah. Whatever happened next, she needed to understand what he was doing.
He flipped open the phone and pressed the buttons. To his surprise, it actually worked. He had expected Nog’s phone to require some kind of password to be used. He knew that Brenda’s was like that. She had always been paranoid about the wrong things.
“Mrs. Trumble?Hello,” he began. He told her he was outside Ingles’ house and that he was going to look for Justin inside. He told her to call his wife and police if he didn’t call back in a few hours.
Ray stood up then and looked at the house. It was time to act. He put the cell phone into a dusty pocket, wondering if he had just written his epitaph with it.
#
Sarah got both of Ray’s latest messages at the same time. She hadn’t checked recently, as her mother had come over to comfort her. When she finally managed to slip away from Mom, (who had, of course, been the one who needed the comforting most) she headed for Trumbles’ house. At the door, Abner Trumble appeared. He had an odd look of wariness on his aged face. He invited her in with a hand-gesture. Sarah hesitated, not looking forward to a formal visit. Their house was always dark and dank inside. The house belied the dry, dusty climate of the Central Valley, like a tropical oasis in a desert. The humidity was such that water droplets condensed on the inside of all the windows and Sarah knew she would sweat immediately upon entering. She had long suspected that they kept the shower running twenty-four hours a day.
She sighed and followed him into the living room. She supposed that she owed them the courtesy. The classic sunken living room had frozen in time during the sixties. It was all there: The green shag carpet, the fireplace of painted brick with the sunburst clock over the mantle, all of it matched by furniture of ochre velour. A planter full of redwood chips with a half-dozen plastic inhabitants guarded the archway entrance. Next to the coffee table sat a large ceramic fish with gold-painted eyes and no clear purpose. The fish had a huge open mouth that aimed upwards, as it were gulping air from the surface. Or possibly, Sarah thought to herself, swallowing a duck whole. Sarah avoided the thing as one might a strange, sleeping housepet.
Abner waved her to a couch and took up a velour armchair himself once she had been seated. He reminded Sarah of her own grandpa, recently departed. He wore a white tee-shirt over his sagging body. A black leather belt held up his baggy trousers. A tiny, flesh-colored plastic knob was embedded in his right ear. He stared at her intently.
Right away, Sarah thought to herself that they had finally figured it out. They had finally heard about Ray, and the virus, and the fact that he was now considered to be Justin’s murderer. They had not learned the truth from CNN, not these two, but rather on AM radio, or from one of their bridge club friends.
“Is there something you wanted to talk about, Mr. Trumble?” she asked.
He looked at her oddly, then stared suspiciously about the room. His eyes alighted on his hands and stayed there. Sarah frowned, wondering if he had perhaps a touch of some grim disease named after a dead physician. Alzheimer’s perhaps, or Parkinson’s.
Mrs. Trumble finally made her appearance. She seemed nervous and apologetic. She worked her hands and sat down on the couch beside Sarah. The ceramic fish sat on the floor between them and both of them glanced at it.
“Would you like coffee?”
“Ah, no thank you,” said Sarah.
“It’s a newspaper bin, you know,” said Mrs. Trumble.
“What?”
“The fish. He holds rolled up newspapers, you see, in his mouth. Herman, we call him. Everyone asks about Herman, so I thought you might like to know what he is.”
“Oh,” said Sarah, feeling surreal. What were they thinking? Were they going to cut off her only communication path with Ray?
“Abner wants to tell you something,” said Mrs. Trumble.
Sarah glanced at him and found that he was no longer studying his hands. He was staring at her intently. She looked from one of them to the other. “What? Have you heard from Ray?”
They both fidgeted. “Abner was in the war, you see. He was an intelligence officer. He knows about these things.”
“What things?” asked Sarah. And what war? Korea? Vietnam? she wondered, but didn’t ask.
“He wants to tell you that someone is—listening.”
“Listening? What do you mean?”
“On the phone lines, and with tiny microphones, maybe even with devices aimed at your windows and ours,” she said.
Sarah’s mouth fell open. She glanced at Abner, who watched them intently. She wondered if he could speak, or if he had written all of this down for her.
“Well, thank you for the warning. I’ll keep it in mind. But have you heard from Ray?”
Mrs. Trumble glanced at Abner again. He was back to studying his hands. “Yes, we have. Twice in fact. It seems that he believes a certain Mr. Ingles has taken little Justin. He is on his way to his house now, I believe.”
Sarah’s eyes widened in shock. “Dr. James Ingles?” she asked.
“Um, possibly. I didn’t get his complete name.”
Sarah’s stomach fell away below her. In a moment, she knew that Ray was right. She should have thought of this before. Ingles had taken Justin. Of course he had. And she knew why.
She felt dazed. She looked at her own hands and some distant part of her mind wondered how soon they would be as old and careworn as Mrs. Trumble’s. All the lotion in the world couldn’t really stop the years. Deep down, all women knew that, but they kept trying anyway.
Sarah felt a touch. “Are you all right, Sarah?”
She looked up. “Yes,” she said, standing. “I’ve got to go now.”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Trumble. She stood as well. “I’ll see you out. You must come by more often.”
“I will,” Sarah said, almost running for the door.
When she reached it, she flung it open and marveled at the brightly colored world outside. Before she could step out, however, a hand closed on her shoulder. It had a surprising strength in it and it stopped her dead. She sensed the warmth of a man’s breath on her neck.
“Remember, this line has been compromised,” Abner’s voice hissed in her ear. She had never heard him speak before. Perhaps he only knew how to whisper.
The hand released her. She stumbled out onto the porch. She looked back to see eyes glinting in the dark interior of the house. The eyes retreated and the door quietly shut.
She shivered. Pulling her keys out of her purse, she headed for her car.
#
Ray walked up to the back door, took a breath and aimed the 9mm pistol at chest-level. He checked the safety one last time. It was still ready to fire. He tried the knob. It wasn’t locked. He opened it and stepped inside.
The back porch was a screened-in affair. Laundry baskets decorated the tiled floor and two white Kenmore machines sat quietly by their feeding pipes. A door led deeper into the house, into the kitchen. It was ajar. Ray looked through the crack.
The kitchen was full of rich oak cabinets. A white tile countertop bordered two of the walls. Embedded in the tiles were a sink and a gas stove. The stove had a steaming teapot shaped like a white swan on the front burner. An island topped with matching tile sat in the middle of the kitchen. A hundred pots, pans and implements hung from a rack suspended over the island.
Ray watched the teapot. He decided to wait to see who came when it started to whistle.
The wait seemed incredibly long. Gas stoves burned hotter? Ray began to doubt that piece of ancient wisdom. His whole body ran with sweat, despite the cool waft of air conditioning that came out of the kitchen. His wet palms gripped then regripped the pistol. Now he knew the true foresight of its makers. If it hadn’t been for the textured handgrip, he might have dropped it.
The swan-shaped teapot began to warble, then whistle, then finally scream with abandon. It fired a two-foot plume of vapor that licked the oak cabinets like a dragon’s breath. Still, no one came.
Ray’s breathing became erratic. He began to doubt the wisdom of his plan. Had Ingles spotted him? Was he outside, starting up his car even now? Was his only chance at finding Justin fleeing the scene even while he stood motionless, staring at a fucking teapot?
He turned to peer through the screens out toward the driveway. He saw no sign of a car or Ingles. He turned back to the kitchen, and his breathing stopped altogether.
Ingles was there, pulling two mugs from the cabinets. He popped in two Lemon-Lift teabags and poured hot water over them. Ray paused, looking at the two mugs. Who else was in the house?
Screwing up his courage, he told himself it didn’t matter, even though he knew it did. He pushed open the door and aimed the pistol at Ingles’ back.
#
Vasquez followed the sheriff’s deputy into Brenda’s house. Johansen followed her like a silent shadow.
The place was a wreck. The cabinets had been pulled from the walls in the kitchen. The living room cushions had been torn apart. Everything in the bedrooms had been overturned, slashed open and gutted. Books, smashed lamps and piles of clothing were everywhere. A spilled collection of rare CDs lay in a broken pile near the stereo. A pair of suntan queen-size pantyhose lay across them.
“Anything obviously missing?” asked Vasquez.
“Not a burglary,” replied the young deputy. He was a short man with broad shoulders and a tight crew cut. He sported a yellow scarf and black shades. Vasquez tried not to smile at his get-up.
“Not necessarily just vandalism, either,” he told them. “Seems to me that they were searching for something. See how the pictures on the walls aren’t slashed? Only the big cushions were opened up.”
Vasquez followed his pointed finger and his reasoning. He may look like a webolos boy scout with that scarf on, but he seemed to know his business. “Any prints yet?” she asked.
“No, must’ve been wearing gloves.”
“Where did they break in?” asked Johansen over her shoulder.
The deputy led them to the garage. “Pried open the doorway here.”
“Where did Vance get a crowbar?” asked Johansen as he took notes.
“More importantly, where did he get the time to do all this? This would take too long to do. Every piece of furniture has been smashed and gone through. Every box in the garage has been emptied. Besides, why did he do it?” she asked.
The deputy shook his head. He had no more answers. He headed back into the kitchen where the fingerprint crew was dusting and taping the countertop and some water glasses.
“Maybe she had something on him,” suggested Johansen.
“Possibly,” she said. “Hypothetically, then, he could have done this last night, then Brenda came home and surprised him.”
“Right, so then he takes her to the lab, they fight and she gets shot?”
“Hmm. We’re not seeing the whole thing yet,” she said. She stood in the garage, looking around in a circle. It was then that saw a light flash outside the window. It was a red light.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Johansen squinted through the dirty window, but the light had stopped blinking. “What?”
“There was a flashing red light out there, in that tree,” she said. Quickly stumbling and sliding her way through the destroyed house, she reached the front door. She headed outside and examined the trees in the front atrium. In one of them, a liquid amber, she found a box of black plastic.
“Is that it?” asked Johansen over her shoulder. He startled her a bit. He always managed to move more lightly on his feet than she did, even though he was twice her size. Sometimes, it was disconcerting.
She reached for the box.
“Don’t,” said Johansen, “it might be a bomb.”
Just then, it flashed again. Both of them backed away. Out on the street, they heard the deputy calling in on his car radio to the dispatcher. The red light stopped flashing while he waited for the response. It came crackling across the radio, and when he responded: “Ten-four,” it flashed again.
“It’s no bomb,” said Vasquez, reaching for it.
Johansen frowned down at her and the device. She glanced back and up at him. There he was, hovering over her protectively again, she smiled to herself as she peered at the little box in her hand. It was about the size of a pager.
“It’s too small to be a bomb,” she said. “Besides, I think it’s just here to detect police radio transmissions. To detect us.”
She flipped it over and could clearly see the batteries and the circuitry. “See this? Someone has built this thing with parts of a radio receiver and a pager.”
“Vance?”
“Maybe, I don’t know,” she said. “But it seems unlike Vance. This whole thing does. Maybe we should be looking for a third party.”
“Like who?”
“Well, where have we seen a mess like this before?” she asked. “Who is the type to make gizmos?”
“That Nog guy?” suggested Johansen, wrinkling his nose as if catching wind of something bad.
Vasquez turned back to the gizmo. “A third party. Someone who could have made that bashing-shooting mystery at the lab make sense.”
“Let’s hit the neighborhood kids and see what they know.”
She nodded and followed, pocketing the gizmo.
#
“You took your time in getting here,” said Ingles. He turned around and faced Ray with a knowing smile. “I was beginning to suspect the police had caught up with you after all.”
Ray kept the gun leveled. He wondered if he would shoot Ingles today. Perhaps in the next ten minutes. He felt there was a very good chance that he would. It was a cold thought. He knew he was ready to do it. The very smugness of the man, that was enough of a reason.
“Why did you do it, Ingles?” he asked.
“Why? Why did I do what? I’m not the one the police are after, Vance.”
Ray was almost beyond words. He drew in a breath, and remembered why he was here. “Who else is here?”
“No one,” said Ingles. “I assure you, we are quite alone. Ah! You are wondering about the two cups. The second is for you.”
If it had been anyone else, Ray would have thought he was lying. But Ingles always made an art of such things. “Into the other room,” he ordered.
Taking both teacups with him, Ingles walked calmly into the living room. Ray followed, careful not to get too close. He checked every direction as he walked through the entryway into the living room. At any moment he expected Nog or Agent Vasquez or some other accomplice to show up and bash him again.
The living room was decorated with ducks. Mallards, mostly, in many forms. There were duck-images woven into the couch upholstery amid patterns of cattails and ponds. The wallpaper boasted of more ducks. Strewn about the room and the walls were the heads and bodies of more ducks: some were plastic, some porcelain, others were real, stuffed corpses. One green-headed corpse eyed him with black beads from its perch on top of the big-screen TV.
“Have a seat,” said Ingles, setting the teacups on either side of the coffee table. He placed cork coasters under each of the cups. In between them sat a porcelain coaster holder with a proud mallard’s head on it.
Ray remained standing. “I want to know where my son is. I want to know now. If you bullshit me, I’ll shoot you.”
“Well, well,” said Ingles, leaning back on the couch with his cup. He spooned in two cubes of white sugar from a jar on the table. The jar was hand-painted with a pond scene. “This stance is a trifle more aggressive than I had hoped for. Don’t you want to know what this is all about?”
“I only want to know about my kid.”
“No, no. You want more than that,” said Ingles, calmly stirring sugar into his tea. “You want to know about Sarah, and the fate of the internet.”
Ray thought about smashing the gun into his face. He almost did it. He held back, deciding that since Ingles was in a talking mood, he should let him talk.
“You always loved to talk, Ingles, so talk.”
“That little bit about Sarah surprised you, did it?”
“No,” said Ray in a dead voice. By now, he had figured she was involved somehow. He kept pushing that thought away. Justin came first. But it was hard not be curious.
Briefly, Ingles explained his love for Ray’s wife. It had been a lingering thing for him, Ray gathered. Ray stood silently the entire time. He was relieved to learn she had not been cheating on him. At least, not since they were married. It still hurt, somehow, despite everything.
“So for that, you burned down the net and pinned it on me?” asked Ray giving a bemused snort. “You are crazier than I would have believed.”
Ingles waved his words away. “No, no. I’m destroying the net because I hate it. I pinned it on you, however, because I hate you. Some people decide to go out by taking a gun to work. This is simply my way. I think if a man is going to make his mark on this world, he might as well make an impressive one. Don’t you agree?”
“So, why do you hate the net?”
Ingles frowned and steepled his fingers. “You remember that old joke about a million monkeys and a million typewriters eventually reproducing the works of Shakespeare?”
Ray nodded. He eyed the clock and wondered if Ingles was stalling. Could this all be bullshit to waste time? Justin wasn’t getting saved with all this. He had to either call the cops in, or get something useful out of Ingles. He checked the gun again, and it was loaded. The little button showed red, meaning the safety was off.
“That’s what the net is, Ray. Don’t you see? It is our new Tower of Babel. It’s destroying the works of real value by burying them in a billion videos of cats on toilets and nude women doing mirror-shots. If there is another Shakespeare out there today, no one will ever know it. That’s why I hate the net.”
“Okay, I get it, you are an elitist dick,” Ray said, “but I’m done listening. You are going to lead me to my kid. Now.”
“Look Ray,” began Ingles in the slightly patronizing voice that he reserved for students who complained about their poor grades. He put down his tea cup. “Let’s put our cards on the table. Or rather, I will, because you don’t have any.”
Ray breathed deeply, trying to clear the rage from his mind. Ingles simply wouldn’t give up on bantering. Ray believed that if he had simply shot him, the man would still be admonishing him even now.
With a smooth motion, Ray aimed the gun at the TV set and fired. It imploded nicely. Shards of glass and plastic shot out in a flash of sparks. A few of them sprayed far enough to leave glittering chips on the coffee table.
“I always wanted to do that,” Ray said, “and now I know that this thing works.” He leveled the gun on Ingles’ chest again. “Talk,” he repeated.
Ingles didn’t look up, but Ray could tell he was rattled. It felt great to do something the bastard hadn’t calculated an hour ago.
“You are trying to convince me that you will kill me if I don’t help you,” said Ingles. His tone was no longer patronizing, it had shifted into his reasoning, philosophizing mode. “But what if I can’t help you? What if I don’t care about dying? How will that help Justin? Another murder on the list?” he shook his head and took a sip. “No, another murder makes no sense.”
“You’re logic is flawed, Ingles,” said Ray, enjoying the raised eyebrows this evoked, “I didn’t say I would kill you. There are six more bullets in this gun. They will serve to cause a great deal of pain.”
A look of concern crossed Ingles’ features. Ray grinned upon seeing it. Ingles stirred his tea. “Perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement, then,” he said.
“Yes, certainly. I’d like to know which foot you use the most, Ingles. The right, I believe? I will be kind then, and begin with your left. Please be so good as to place your left foot on the coffee table.”
Ingles made no move to obey. He frowned and seemed to be thinking.
“Here,” said Ray, pulling one of Ingles’ ties from the back of an armchair. He tossed it to Ingles, who finally looked up at him. “You will want that to tie off your ankle. I don’t want you bleeding to death on me. I need you lucid and alive.”
Ingles picked up the tie. He dusted some of the glittering chips of glass from the table. “You are proving to be a poor houseguest, Vance.”
Ray laughed. “You have no idea.”
Ingles cocked his head. Ray had the strange feeling that his soul was being examined. Ray realized right then Ingles was a genius, but it didn’t matter. Ray had the gun, and Ray had nothing left to lose.
“You’ve changed,” said Ingles at last. “I suppose I should have foreseen that.”
“Correct on both counts.”
“I’ll strike a bargain with you, Ray. I don’t know exactly where your son is at the moment, but I can get that information.”
Ray gripped and regripped the pistol. He felt a new tickle of sweat under his arms. “You’re saying that he is definitely alive?”
Ingles looked him in the eye. He inclined his head in a faint nod. Ray couldn’t tell whether or not he was lying.
“You’ve already killed Brenda, so why not Justin?”
“Saying, for an absurd moment, that I was a murderer, what would stop any man from committing more such crimes?” he asked rhetorically. “Bodies. Human bodies are incredibly hard to rid oneself of, Ray. People have buried them, dropped them into rivers, they’ve slathered them in concrete and even fed them into wood-chippers. But they are often unsuccessful in hiding them. Oh, for a few years, perhaps, but not forever. I’m a meticulous man and such loose details would be intolerable.”
“What about Brenda then?”
Ingles snorted. “You killed Brenda, Ray. And every court and cop in the land knows it by now. Why, you’re brandishing the murder weapon even now! If you hadn’t shot out my set, I could have shown you your own unsmiling, murderer’s face on CNN.”
“How exactly would do you propose to free my son then?”
“I will anonymously e-mail his location to you later today. That will give me time for other... priorities.”
“How can I trust you?”
“You can’t. You can only trust logic, which as you know, I will follow implicitly. It is a trade, Vance. You will take the fall for the virus and Brenda. There’s nothing you can do about that now, anyway. In turn for this service, I will arrange to release your son unharmed.”
“Why would you keep your part of the bargain?”
“As I said, Vance: Bodies. I have no interest in becoming a murderer in the eyes of the state. There is no reason for me to kill your son. Therefore, I won’t do it.”
“So I’m supposed to just give myself up, is that it?”
“Exactly. If you had been caught and put up on charges earlier, your son would have been freed by now.”
Ray and Ingles eyed one another for some time. Finally, Ray shook his head. “If it was anyone else, I might do it,” he said, “but I simply don’t trust you.”
Ingles pursed his lips. He nodded. Moving slowly, he took a last sip from his cup before placing it back on its coaster. Then he removed his left shoe and sock, and placed his bare foot on the coffee table.
“Let’s get on with it, then,” Ingles said, tying his tie around his lower calf.
“You have no better offer?”
“No. As I said, I don’t have the information you request as yet. If you are hell-bent on adding to your list of crimes, I had best cooperate.”
“You think that I’m bluffing, don’t you?”
“I sincerely hope so, but in any case, I have no other options.”
Ray stepped forward and aimed the pistol at his bare foot. He noted that Ingles’ big toe was actually shorter than the next one in line. Some part of his mind wondered vaguely if that particular genetic trait was recessive or dominant.
He moved even closer and sat down on the loveseat opposite Ingles. He placed the muzzle of the pistol within inches of Ingles’ foot. He glanced up and noted that Ingles watched the muzzle too, with the fascination of a petshop rat watching an approaching snake.
Then there was a sound behind him. Before Ray could turn around, someone pushed something cold under his jawbone on the right side of his neck.
“Hold it right there, cowboy,” said a stinking cloud of breath. “I’ve got a hangover, so don’t go and make this my first Murder One.”
Ray froze. “I’ll shoot him,” he said flatly.
“Go ‘head,” chuckled Spurlock. “But you’ll have to take a number, cause old Santa-Frigger here is about to answer to me, too.”
Ray blinked and breathed quickly, his mind freezing over. What should he do?
“Blow a few toes off, if you’re in the mood!” urged Spurlock, ramming the pistol harder into Ray’s throat. “I won’t stop you. But don’t kill him, ‘cause he knows things that both of us want to learn.”
Ray glanced up at Ingles. He still seemed fascinated by the muzzle pressed against his flesh. Ray considered it. This was his chance to hurt this man who had caused him such grief. Quite possibly, he would never get another chance.
The pink bulbs of flesh rested against the muzzle. They seemed so soft against the black metal.
“I’ve already done it, Ray,” said Ingles quietly. “I’ve already sent the e-mail message. However, now that Mr. Spurlock has joined us, I doubt that it will matter.”
Spurlock jostled Ray as he moved to gain a better hold on him. The pistol under his neck slid down to his larynx. The 9mm went off in Ray’s hand. A wet, red spray hit Ingles’ pants.
“Ha!” shouted Spurlock. He grabbed Ray’s hair in a hard fist. “Now drop it, boy! You had your fun!”
Ray watched Ingles crumple into a ball on the couch. He dropped the gun.
Spurlock twisted his head around by his hair. Standing behind the couch, he leered down at him. “You got balls! I’ll say that for you, Vance!” he laughed. “You blew two of this fucker’s toes clean off!”
Then he brought his pistol down on Ray’s head. Methodically, he pistol-whipped him. Ray lost consciousness as the third blow faded into the fourth.
As he passed into oblivion, he realized that today was Justin’s birthday. How odd, he thought hazily, that he remembered only now.