Meara was convinced he had one chance: boogie. They reached the barn, went inside its dark confines, and he made his move, McClanahan's unforgettable warning echoing in his head.
“Some stuff on this side, some stuff under those corner boards,” he told the man, and bent to start unearthing the first silenced AK-47. The second he saw the huge shadow move toward the other side of the barn he took off running for his life. The shot never came, which was almost as scary as if he'd felt lead whacking into him, but Chaingang was smart. He knew it would take x amount of time to unearth the munitions and if he fired, one: he might not hit Meara, who was a fast runner; two: the shot might compromise the time he had to resupply. He analyzed Raymond Meara as a low-priority threat and decided, since the fool could hardly go to the cops about illegal guns he'd hidden, to let him go. Also, the drug's aftereffects still exerted some gentling influence on the killer. He wasn't really paying for the stuff, so perhaps this was quid pro quo.
As he was digging and pulling up goodies, he heard Meara splashing around out in the water nearby. The sound was oddly touching to him for reasons he'd not have been able to verbalize, even if he'd cared to, but as he loaded up for grizzly he dug around in his pockets and found a little trinket, which he tossed into the empty cache hole. He was paying for the goods after all. Next time old Raymond was down in the barn he'd discover a token from his good buddy Daniel—the smaller of the rocks belonging to Porky Pig's late and lamented Skunkie. Maybe $25,000, give or take, but meaningless to Chaingang.
Would he have whacked Ray had the asshole not been smart enough to run? Is bird shit white?
Fifty minutes later the big man was back at the water's edge. Somebody else who lived on or near Bayou Ridge had a big metal V-boat with a monster muscle motor on the back. Not rinky-dink like Meara's tippy piece of shit. Chaingang stepped carelessly into the larger boat, nearly sinking it, and deposited his heavy load of goodies, then his own heavy load, choked the motor, yanked the starter with a vengeance, and the thing wisely started on the first pull.
Down in the woods, where a freezing Raymond Meara was hiding, the sound of his neighbor's Evinrude was the loveliest thing he'd heard in years. It meant, a, that enormous bastard was leaving, and b, he wasn't taking Ray's boat.
Then again, he thought, he'd stay down in the woods a while longer, just in case that had been the sound of Chaingang laughing.
60
Bayou Ridge
Meara was fucking freezing. Chaingang be damned, he had to get out of the water. Silently as he could, he worked his way around to where he could see the boat. It would be just like that fat shit to start an outboard and send another boat out into the backwater with a wired throttle and ... Paranoia was getting the better of him. If Bunkowski had wanted his ass in the grass he'd be planted. Meara looked into the boat and didn't see any new holes but—who knew? He pulled it up a bit further and staked it.
On the way back he saw his .22 in the mud. That settled it. Unless the big boy had tampered with his piece he wouldn't leave a weapon around somebody he was going to plant. Meara wiped it off, racked the thing back, and a .22 slid into the pipe. He removed the mag, ejected the live round, cleared it, peered up the spout at moonlight. Put the magazine back in and reloaded the weapon. He noticed he was shaking a little.
The house looked and felt empty. Spooky but empty. He made himself go down to the barn while he was gutted up for it. Nobody home. In the open weapons cache he spotted something shiny and picked up his paycheck. It appeared to be real enough but, again, who knew?
He went back to the house, built a roaring fire, changed into dry clothes, and sat huddled up in bed with a pile of blankets on, the .22 still in his right fist. Shit. You could probably put a round into the big boy's brain and he'd still rip your pump out. He put the piece away and went to bed, but the shakes kept him from sleeping. He couldn't get warm.
He got up and brought his blankets in and sat huddled close to the blazing wood stove. Burning up and freezing simultaneously, dead tired and too stoked to sleep. Chaingang in his fucking life from out of the black. How had he found him? Why had he come to look for him? What did it mean? Suddenly he remembered a couple of news stories about recent Bayou City killings and shuddered as he perspired profusely under the blankets. There'd be no reason for him to bother Meara again. He'd taken what he wanted.
Ray thought about being with Sharon again. He wanted to show her how much she meant to him. He wondered if she'd like the ring. On the other hand ... Jesus! Think where it might have come from. Who wanted to know? Perhaps he could sell it or trade it to a jeweler and...
He woke up drenched in sweat, still in front of the stove, inside a wet cocoon of blankets, sick inside as if he were coming down with a bad virus, gripped by a terrible headache and the notion that it was later than he thought. He cursed aloud when he looked at the clock.
Eleven o'clock. Eleven in the fucking morning? He hadn't slept past nine in years. He had a distorted memory of having dropped off to sleep around five-thirty. His neck and head felt as if Fritz von Chaingang had held him in an iron claw all night long. He felt like hammered shit. He got up, sat back down, and tried to think.
Meara got up again, with some effort, and looked out the window. Judas! It was raining. He flung clothes on, pulled hip boots on, and topped the ensemble with a poncho, hurrying outside and slogging down the road to the boat. It was a short walk, as the water had pushed further in, and he was relieved he'd pulled the boat up thirty feet into the drain ditch. It was already sitting anchored out in the backwater, and by that evening he'd have to come in through the woods and tie up in the field behind the house. Thank God his folks had built on a high knoll.
It was the richest kind of bottom land one found in the Bootheel, but it could be costly to farm there. Backwater alone could push in during wetter years, leaving in its postdiluvian wake a stinking mudhole covered in water-logged trees. Even if they didn't blow the levee, this much water already meant Meara would spend a butt-kicking month hauling logs, picking up chunks, and doing the hard manual labor that would be necessary to farm in the flood's nasty aftermath.
Ray was not one to complain or give in to illnesses. He thought most people ran to the doctor for the least little thing, and he believed a man could will himself to stay well. When he felt bad he'd toss back a straight shot, chase it with a big glass of cold orange juice, gobble a few aspirin, and drive on. This was something else. He was sick as a dog, so much so that it was overpowering his efforts to reclaim the boat, and he shook it off as best he could.
The boat was completely full of rainwater. He tried to start bailing with the milk jug but gave up. Too much water and he was in too deep to tip it, so he untied the boat and turned to pull it back out of the water but lost his footing and stepped off into the ditch, plunging down into icy water, the mud seizing his hip boot and damn near drowning him before he could get himself unencumbered. He was beyond swearing. A quiet, slow anger was starting to build inside.
He got the boots off, tried to clean out what mud he could, gave up, and jammed them back on, sitting in the middle of the road, drenched, shivering in the rain, finally emptying the water from the boat and getting in. He got it pushed off at last and started the motor, easing the boat out the drain canal past the large oak trees and into the rainy chop.