I lifted the receiver. No dial tone. "Dead."
Bert took the phone, jabbed the receiver button, dialed O. Shook his head.
"Do you generally have phone problems?"
"No, sir," said Bill. "Not that we use it much, maybe-" He frowned. "I know that smell."
"What smell?" I said.
The concussion came from behind, from the rear of the house. The impact of something striking wood, followed by a loud sucking swoosh! Then the xylophone glissando of broken glass.
Bill turned toward the sound. Bert and I stared. Only Aimee seemed unconcerned.
Suddenly daylight- a false, orange daylight- brightened the bedroom, followed by a rush of heat and the cellophane-snap of flames.
Fire licked the curtains, a zipper of it, running up to the ceiling and down to the floor.
I ran for the bedroom door, slammed it shut over the spreading inferno. Smoke seeped from under the panel. The odor hit: metallic, acrid, the chemical bitterness of a flash storm ripping open a polluted sky.
The smoke from beneath the door fattened from wisp to wormy coil to clouds, relentless and oily, white to gray to black. Within seconds, I could barely make out the forms of the other people.
The room grew furnace-hot.
The second firebomb hit. Again, from behind. Someone was stationed out back, in the forest, where the phone wires ran.
I grabbed hold of Bill's chair, waved frantically to Bert and Aimee's smoke-obscured silhouettes.
"Get out!" Knowing that what I was sending them to was unlikely to be safety. But the alternative was roasting alive.
No answer, and now I couldn't see them at all. I rolled Bill toward the front door. From behind came roaring protest. The door collapsed and flames shot forward as I shoved the wheelchair. Groping the air for Aimee and Bill. Screaming with clogged lungs: "Someone's out there! Stay low-"
My words were choked off by convulsive coughing. I made it to the door, reached for the knob, and the hot metal broiled my hand.
Handicapped push door, idiot. I shouldered it hard, shoved Bill's chair, lurched outside, eyes burning, retching, coughing.
Running into the darkness and aiming the chair to the left as a bullet impacted against a front window.
Smoke billowed out of the house, a smothering curtain of it. Good cover, but poisonous. I ran as far from the gravel drive as possible, into the underbrush that formed at the house's eastern border. Racing with the chair, struggling to manipulate the contraption over rocks and vines, getting caught in the underbrush. Unable to free the chair.
Jammed. I lifted Bill out of the chair, slung him over my shoulder, and ran, adrenaline-stoked again, but his weight bore down and I could barely breathe and after ten steps I was on the verge of collapse.
My legs buckled. I visualized them as iron rods, forced them straight, lost my breath completely, stopped, shifted the load, panted and coughed. Feeling the dangle of Bill's ruined legs knocking against my thighs, the dry skin of one palm against the back of my neck as he held on tight.
He said something- I felt it rather than heard it- and I resumed carrying him into the forest. Pulled off ten more steps, counted each one, twenty, thirty, stopped again to force air into my lungs.
I looked back at the house. None of the Halloween glare of fire, just smoke, funnels of it, so dark it bled easily into the night sky.
Then, the spot where the little green house had stood was suddenly engulfed by a crimson ball haloed in lime green.
The kerosene stink of a stale campground. Something igniting- the kitchen stove. The explosion threw me to the earth. Bill landed on top of me.
No sign of Aimee or Bert.
I stared back at the house, wondering if the fire would spread to the forest. Not good for the forest, but maybe good for us if it attracted attention.
Nothing but silence. No spread; the firebreak serving its purpose.
I rolled Bill off me and propped myself up on my elbows. His glasses had come loose. His mouth moved soundlessly.
I said, "You okay?"
"I- yeah. Where's…"
"Let's keep moving."
"Where is she?"
"She's fine, Bill, come on."
"I need to-"
I got hold of his shoulder.
"Leave me here," he said. "Let me go, I've had enough."
I began lifting him.
"Please," he said.
My burned hand began to throb. Everything throbbed.
A raspy voice behind me said, "Dead end, Mr. Cadillac."
CHAPTER 44
Vance Coury's silver hair caught moonlight. A black leather headband held it in place. The musk of his aftershave managed to seep through the scorched air.
He shined the flashlight in my face, shifted the beam to Bill, lowered it and held it at an angle that brightened the forest floor. As the white spots cleared from my eyes, I made out the rectangle in his right hand. Columnar snout. Machine pistol.
He said, "Up." Businesslike. Tying up loose ends.
He wore light-colored, grease-stained mechanics overalls- outfitted for messy work. Something flashed around his neck- probably the same gold chain I'd seen at the garage.
I got to my feet. My head still rang from the explosion.
"Walk." He motioned to his right, back to the clearing.
"What about him?" I said.
"Oh, yeah, him." He leveled the pistol downward, peppered Bill's frame with a burst that nearly cut the blind man in two.
The fragments of Bill's corpse bucked and flopped and were still.
Coury said, "Any more questions?"
He marched me out of the forest. A pile of cinders, snarls of electrical conduit, random stacks of bricks, and twisted metal chairs were the remnants of the little green house. That and something contorted and charred, lashed and duct-taped to a chair.
"Playing with matches," I said. "Bet you liked that as a kid."
"Walk."
I stepped onto the gravel path. Keeping my head straight but moving my eyes back and forth. Nacho Vargas's corpse remained where it had fallen. No sign of Aimee or Bert.
A cloud of musk hit my nostrils, sickly sweet as a Sacher torte. Coury, walking close behind me.
"Where we going?" I said.
"Walk."
"Walk where?"
"Shut up."
"Where are we going?"
Silence.
Ten steps later, I tried again. "Where we going?"
He said, "You are really stupid."
"Think so?" I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the short man's silver gun and wheeling fast.
Inertia caused him to pitch forward, and we nearly collided. He tried to step back, free the machine pistol, but couldn't get enough room to maneuver. Stumbled.
He hadn't bothered to pat me down. Overconfident rich kid who'd never grown up. All those years of getting away with bad stuff.
The little silver gun shot forward, as if of its own accord. Coury's goatee spread as his mouth opened in surprise.
I focused on his tonsils, shot three times, hit with every bullet.
I took his machine pistol and pocketed the silver gun, scurried off the gravel, found refuge behind a sycamore. Waited.
Nothing.
Stepping on greenery to muffle my footsteps, I inched forward, heading toward the road. Wondering who and what awaited me there.
I'd been overconfident, too, thinking Vargas and the small man had made up the entire army. Too important a job for a pair of thugs.
Coury had been a precise man who specialized at deconstructing high-priced machines and reconstituting them as works of art.
A good planner.
Send in the B team while the A team waits. Sacrifice the B team and attack from the rear.
Another ambush.
Coury had come himself to take care of Bill. Bill was a living witness, and eliminating him was the primary goal. The same went for Aimee. Had he taken care of her- and Bert- first? I hadn't heard gunfire as I carried Bill away, but the firebombs and the kerosene blast had filled my head with noise.
I walked five steps, stopped, repeated the pattern. The mouth of the gravel drive came into view.