She switched off the lamp and left the room.
For about an hour, Jon worked at the cuffs, tried to see if the headboard of the bed could be unscrewed or otherwise come loose from the bed itself.
Then sun was coming in the window, and Ron was coming in the door. She was still wearing jeans and T-shirt and had a plate of eggs and ham in one hand and orange juice in the other.
“Did you sleep?” she asked.
“I guess,” Jon said, not sure.
“If I give you this stuff, will you be good?”
“I won’t try anything,” he said.
“All right,” she said, and gave him the food. She stood over by the dresser and leaned against it while he ate. She fingered one of the trophies on the dresser.
“This was my brother’s room,” she said. Out of nowhere.
“Really? Where is he now?”
“Dead.”
“Uh. I’m sorry.”
“Stock car accident. That’s what the trophies are.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“He was about your age when he cracked up.”
“Really? When was this?”
“Fifteen years ago, June.”
“You must’ve loved him.”
“Yeah. I thought a lot of him. He was what kept this place going.”
“Oh?”
“I had three little sisters. My mom and dad drank, and Billy... my brother... he was tough. If Dad tried to hit one of us, he’d belt him. From about thirteen on he could beat the crap outa my old man.”
“No kidding.”
“When Billy got killed, I... kind of took over. Stepped in. Otherwise my old man would’ve started in on us again. Boy, did it shock the shit out of him.”
“What did?”
She laughed. “When he found out his little girl could beat the crap out of him too. He only stuck around about a year after that.”
“Where’s the rest of the family now?”
“Mom’s dead. Bad liver. The girls are all married. One of ’em just this last summer. Too young: sixteen. I didn’t raise her right, maybe. Pregnant. Oh well. Maybe she’ll be happy.”
In the distance, bells were sounding.
“It’s Sunday,” she said. “I’m gonna be gone a while. Think you can get along without me?”
“Do I have a choice? Where are you going?”
“Mass, stupid,” she said.
She went out, shutting the door this time.
“Light a candle for me,” Jon said.
James Dean and company stared at him while he struggled with the cuffs and the headboard. About fifteen minutes later, he heard her go out; he wondered what she looked like dressed for church. Then he got back to his struggling. And got nowhere. He fell asleep after a while.
He woke and it was dark in the room. It wasn’t night: the shades were drawn. A little light crawled in under the shade and from around the edges, but the nightstand lamp was off, and there was no other light in the room.
She was standing near the bed. She wasn’t wearing anything. Her body wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad; she had a square-ish frame with modest breasts, but there was no fat on her. It was a supple, vaguely muscular body. She had a tattoo of a black rose near her right hipbone, just above her pubic thatch. Her pouty face didn’t look pretty, exactly, but she wasn’t ugly.
He didn’t say anything as she undid his pants.
“No man ever made me come,” she said. “Do you think you can, Jon?”
“I’ll try,” Jon managed.
She sat on him
4
12
NOLAN ALMOST missed the sign.
It was over to the left, a barn-wood sign about four by four, with the following words painted on in faded red: “THE BARN, Turn Right.” This was lit from beneath by two small floods.
He turned right, off the highway onto gravel. The road was narrow, its ditches deep, and to stay out of them, Nolan slowed to about thirty. He could see the structure up ahead, beyond the flattened cornfields, up to the right. It was stark in the moonlight, a barn with a tin shed growing out of it, like an outstretched arm.
In front of the barn was a graveled parking lot, and he pulled into it. There were no other cars in the lot. He got out of the little red Datsun, which he’d gotten from Sherry, tucking the silenced 9 mm, which he’d gotten from dead Sal, into his waistband. He hadn’t taken time to change clothes — he was still wearing the corduroy jacket and turtleneck and slacks he’d worn to Iowa City today, though that seemed like a year ago — and he felt less than refreshed.
The drive from the Quad Cities had drained him. He’d had a long day, too much of it spent behind the wheel of a car, and the rest poring over the books with Wagner and the Pier’s accountant, and drinking a little too much afterward. And then the shit had hit the fan, and he’d pulled the energy out of somewhere; the adrenalin had pumped and he’d managed to save that nice ass of Sherry’s and rid the world of that cocksucker Sal, whose body he’d dumped on a side road between the Quad Cities and Port City.
Right now he felt every one of his fifty-odd years, after a cramped hour-and-a-half in a small car, on a rolling, narrow two-lane highway, watching for speed traps, popping No-Doz to force his alertness to an artificial edge.
He stood and stretched and looked at the barn that was the Barn, letting the chill air have at him. Between the full moon and a number of tall posts with outdoor lights, the exterior of the structure was well lit, though its windows were dark. He didn’t bother trying the front, restaurant, entrance, but walked around to the side door.
He could see the rustic bar, with its booths and wanted posters, through the steel-cross-hatched window of die door; there were enough beer signs lit to get a look. Not a soul. He walked around the long tin shed — it seemed a block long — and found some more empty parking lot at the rear.
On the other side of the building, though, in still more parking lot, were several vehicles.
There was a big four-wheel drive, a Land Rover, two-tone tan; a snow plow; and a van.
The van was light blue with a painted logo on it that said “THE NODES.”
Jon’s group.
Jon’s van.
Nolan slipped out of his shoes.
It hurt to walk on the gravel in his goddamn socks, but it was quiet. The van had no side windows, but there were windows in back. On his toes (ouch — fuck!) he could peek in. He saw a lumpy bundle on the floor, a blanket over some stuff, he guessed. Could be a small person sleeping. He couldn’t tell.
He looked in the front windows; the driver’s and rider’s seats were empty. He quietly tried the doors on either side. Locked.
Now what?
Somebody was in the Barn. There had to be, or the owners were goddamn dumb. A big place like this, stuck between a couple of cornfields, full of booze and other inventory, not to mention furniture and fixtures — hell, there had to be a sleep-in watchman. Without one, you’d go broke in a week.
So somebody was in there — somebody who belonged to the tan Land Rover.
Which meant Nolan could go to a door and start banging his fist till somebody inside answered. And that somebody might know something about the abandoned Nodes van. Julie couldn’t have grabbed the whole goddamn band, could she?
He went to the nearest door, which wasn’t far from the parked Land Rover, and stopped.
Jon’s phone call had brought him here, but Jon was, obviously, in trouble. The kind of trouble Sherry had been in, no doubt, or worse. What guarantee was there that Nolan wasn’t walking into some setup right now? Knocking, announcing himself, could be very stupid...