The Devils Punchbowl

“Paul—look, I know you’re in trouble, but I’'ve got something really big going on right now. I’'ve got to make some calls.”

He’s shaking his head again. “No, no, I told you, I was supposed to come see you this morning. I just couldn'’t do it. That'’s why I started drinking. I couldn'’t face you, man.”

“What are you talking about?”

At last all his frenetic twitching stops, and he looks me dead in the eye. “They sent me to talk to you. To give you a message.”

“Who did?”

“Sands’s security guy. Quinn. It’s about Caitlin.”

For a moment I'm not sure I’'ve heard right, but then my face goes cold.

“Whatever it is you’re doing,” Labry says, “you'’ve got to stop it for thirty-six hours. That'’s the message. They don'’t have any intention of hurting her. They’ve got her in a hotel somewhere.”

I'm pushing myself slowly away from my desk, trying to process what I'm hearing as panic and rage rise in me. “How long have you known this, Paul?’

“Quinn came to the store this morning. Look, I know it sounds bad. But they have some big deal about to go down, and they said you guys were going to screw it up somehow, by going public with something. I don'’t even know if you know about it. Maybe it was mostly Caitlin, but…Penn, don'’t look at me like that. You look like I took her or something. I love Caitlin. She’s got more—”

“Get out of my sight, Paul.”

Labry stares as though I’'ve slapped his face, then begins sobbing. I stand and walk past him, heading for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” he cries, running after me as Rose gapes.

“To see Shad Johnson.”

“Shad? Why?” He catches up with me on the staircase and pulls me to a stop. “Penn, if you report this, they’ll kill her.”

“You just said they wouldn'’t!”

Labry is fidgeting again, trying to think of anything he can to stop me. “I don'’t

know

! I have no idea what’s really going on. But you must, right? Just do whatever it is they need, and she’ll be fine!”

“Get out of my way, or I'’ll throw you down these stairs. I'm not going to Shad about the kidnapping.”

He backs away, looking stricken. “Why, then?”

“He has something I need.”

“What?”

“You’re still trying to get something for Sands, aren'’t you?”

“No! I had to do this, Penn. He was going to tell my father everything! Pop would die of shame, man.”

I leap down the stairs and race out of the building, headed down the block to the DA’s office. Labry chases after me, yelling where anyone can hear. A deputy going into the sheriff’s office looks up and stares after us.

“Let me make it up to you, man!” Labry screams. “I'’ll do anything.”

“Get her back for me!” I shout over my shoulder. “Can you do that? That'’s the only way to make this up.”

As I enter the building that houses the district attorney’s office, a sudden epiphany hits me. I run up the stairs, knowing that Labry will follow. When I reach the top, Paul calls out from the landing, trying to keep from being heard by the people on the upper floor.

“Penn, don'’t! Don’t say anything you can’t take back! Let’s go talk to Sands. I'm sure we can work something out. You’ve got money—”

“They don'’t care about

money!

Not the kind we have. They could buy this town a thousand times over!”

“There’s got to be something we can do!”

“There is. Come up here, and I'’ll tell you.”

Labry climbs warily toward me, then stops one step below the top as I make room for him at the head of the staircase.

I reach out and pull him up to the top step, then speak quietly. “You’re going to come into Shad’s office with me and tell him just what you told me. The message you gave me, and who told you to give it.”

Labry jerks back, his eyes wide, then tries to turn to go back downstairs. I reach out and grab his shirt, half to hold him here, half to keep him from breaking his neck. But panic has seized him. He windmills his arms to get his balance, then strikes out at me hard enough to disengage us. As we separate, he falls backward, but the wall catches him, and he practically rides it to the bottom of the steps.

“How could you do it?” I shout. “Our children

play

together!”

Labry is sobbing again, staring up in despair. “I had no choice,” he says in a dead voice. “No choice.”

He looks as if he’s about to say something else, but then his eyes go wide, and he backs out of the building.

“What the hell was that about?” asks a clipped baritone voice behind me.

I turn and look into the face of Shadrach Johnson. He regards me with cool detachment, waiting for me to explain my presence on his territory.

“You and I need to talk,” I tell him. “But first get rid of your secretary. You don'’t want any witnesses to this conversation.”

CHAPTER

52

Caitlin is staring out the window of her plywood cell, into the sharklike eyes of a giant white dog. After Quinn took Linda to the storeroom, her screams stopped, but soon men arrived in a pickup hauling a long trailer behind it. What caught Caitlin’s attention was a man wearing a heavily padded suit that made him look like the Michelin tire man. She assumed this was for working with dangerous dogs, and her assumption soon proved correct.

The trailer unloaded four white dogs that dwarfed the pit bulls outside. Their heads reached the men’s waists, and they had wrinkled faces with cropped ears that gave them the look of some hybrid fighting creature she had never before seen. The pit bulls went wild when the white dogs appeared; several cowered near the kennel. A few minutes later, a second trailer appeared with more men. They opened the gate of the kennel yard, gathered up the pit bulls, loaded them into their trailer, and drove away in a cloud of dust. Then the white dogs were released into the kennel yard.

After studying them for a while, Caitlin felt sure these new dogs must be Bully Kuttas, like the dog Penn described on his porch the night Sands revealed himself. Penn had thought the dogs that attacked him and Kelly on the river island were also Bully Kuttas, but he couldn'’t be sure. In any case, these white dogs frighten

Caitlin more than the pit bulls, something that hadn'’t seemed possible an hour ago.

The sound of a closing door pulls her away from the window. Linda’s door rattles the wall of Caitlin’s room, then she hears Linda’s gate close. Quinn says something too soft for Caitlin to make out, and Linda doesn’'t reply. Then the booted feet stump off down the kennel.

After the door closes, Caitlin says, “Linda? Are you all right?”

“My stomach hurts.”

“Did he hurt you again?”

“No. He gave me some different pills. I think that’s why my stomach hurts.”

“Well, try to hold them down. Drink some water if you can. That will dilute your urine, and it won'’t hurt as bad when you pee.”

A sound like a scoff comes through the wood.

“Linda, I’'ve got an idea about how to get out of here. I want you to listen to me. Will you do that?”

After a brief silence, Linda says, “I'm listening.”

Quickly, Caitlin describes her plan to use a cat as bait to distract the dogs to one side of the kennel, while she and Linda make a break for the fence on the other side. She makes it sound as plausible as she can, but Linda’s lack of questions worries her. “Well?” she asks at last. “What do you think?”