Son of a bitch! Was it empty?
“Mrs. Benson, or whatever your name is, pick that up. When I tell you to, step outside and show it to the cops. Then step back in, let the two of them in past you, and then take the kids and the bag and get out of here. Understood?’ ‘
“Yes, sir,” Mrs. Benning whispered. The kids were dead silent.
“Open the door. Do what I told you to do.” Mrs. Benning tried to open the door, but it was locked. With shaking hands, she unlocked it and opened it. There were two figures silhouetted against the lights coming from the drive. Mrs. Benning stepped out onto the porch and waved the bag around like some kind of signal lamp. Then she stepped back inside.
“You two out there, step in,” Carson called out. “Step in and close that door.”
Stafford watched helplessly from the floor as Gwen and Jessamine came through the door. He wanted to warn them about the bag, but if he did, Carson might start shooting. “Now, take those children and the bag and get out of here.” Mrs. Benning did not hesitate, and they were out of the house in a flash.
“Close that door,” Carson ordered, Stafford heard the front door close.
“No lights,” Carson said. “Stafford, get up. Move back here toward me.
All of you. Back toward me, into the kitchen.”
Stafford got up slowly off the floor, and then the three of them felt their way along the hallway to the kitchen door. The light was still on out on the back porch, so they could just make out the shapes of the stove and the big refrigerator, the tables and chairs. Carson had backed into his former position at the end of the dining table. He remained in deep shadow.
Stafford could hear the man, but he still couldn’t see him, couldn’t see his eyes, gauge his readiness: It made it impossible for him to formulate any plan, any course of action. It was maddening.
And he had traced the police outside.
“Sit. All of you.”
As they sat down, the phone on the table began to ring. Carson barked out a laugh that ended in a dry, congested cough, but he didn’t pick it up. He did something at the end of the table, and then there was a heavy metallic thump. Dave saw the gleam of metal. The cylinder. He’d been right: Carson had kept the damned thing.
“Insurance, that’s what this is, so no SWAT team comes lunging through the windows with their stun grenades. Not until I’m done in here.” “You are done in here,” Gwen Warren said from her side of the table.
Then, to Stafford’s amazement, she slid her chair back, reached over her shoulder, and hit the light switch.
“Turn that off!” Carson shrieked, but she ignored him, sitting back down in her chair. When Stafford’s eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness and he finally got a look at Carson, he was stunned at what he saw: pale, parchment white face, deep green-black circles under red-rimmed eyes, his hair damp and plastered down on his head like wet weeds, and an angry red swelling like a necklace visible around his neck. The cylinder gleamed malevolently on the table.
Carson stood up in front of his chair, weaving noticeably, and menaced all of them with the gun, a .38 revolver. “I mean it,” he yelled. “Turn that fucking light off, or I’ll … I’ll kill all of you! Turn it off!”
“No,” Gwen said. “If you’re going to kill us anyway, we’re going to look you in the eye while you do it.”
Carson put his left hand down on the edge of the table to steady himself. Stafford cursed himself mentally for not having made a move earlier: The guy was a wreck, obviously on his last legs. But that gun looked pretty functional. Jessamine sat next to Gwen, staring blankly across the table at the far wall, looking as if she were trying to transport herself somewhere else. Gwen held her hand. Then the phone started ringing again. This time, Carson picked it up.
“What do you wanrt” he screamed into it. He listened for a moment. “Of course I have it” He looked up at Stafford. “My partner changed his mind at the last minute. Said you people would storm the house the moment I sent it out.” Another pause. “Stafford. Who else, you fucking idiot? He’s been in on this thing from the start. Why the hell do you think he’s here? Why the hell do you think he hasn’t tried to jump me?”
His feverish eyes were gleaming with triumph. “That’s right, Mr. FBI Man. All along. See, he was a smart little civil servant. Wanted it both ways, especially when the deal started turning to shu” Another pause.
Stafford just stared at him and shook his head.
Carson laughed again, a horrible sound. “How else could he have known about the cylinder, Einstein? Don’t tell me the FBI believes all that psychic bullshit!” Another silence. “Yes, I have it. What I don’t have is my god damned money. You guys need to ask Stafford about that.”
He slammed down the handset, ripped out the wall cord, and pushed the phone onto the floor while he sat down heavily in his chair. He pulled the dripping cylinder over toward himself and rested the barrel of the gun on it.:
“I owed you that,” he said. “You fucked up the best chance I was ever going to have. You and your little spirit medium there.” When he said the word spirit, the girl turned to look at him. Her expression had changed. She no longer looked like some wild animal about to bolt. She shifted her body slightly so that she could look right at him, and Stafford felt a tingle at the base of his spine. Gwen was still holding the girl’s hand, and she, too, was staring at Carson. The expression on her face was unfathomable.
Carson leaned forward, his face getting redder and his wild eyes blazing. “Oh, no you don’t, little girl. I’m ready for you this time. No more mind-fucks like in the airport.
No more bad dreams.” He tapped his forehead with the barrel of the gun.
“You want to take a look in here, you’re going to have a meltdown, because if you do, I’m going to kill you. I’m going to point this gun right into your ugly little face and blow your warped little brains all over the kitchen. You want to take a reading on that, do you? You go right ahead. See what I’m thinking; it’ll fry your fucking circuits!”
Carson’s face was now purple with rage, and there was a thin line-of spittle on the right side,of his mouth. He stopped to gather his breath, but his eyes never left the girl’s. Stafford could almost feel the desperate hatred emanating from this man. Carson had brought the gun down to the table again, and he was pointing it in the girl’s direction.
His left hand maintained a white-knuckled death grip on the cylinder.
Stafford looked over at Jessamine. To his amazement, she had closed her eyes. Her hands appeared to be shaking. She again looked like she was about to cry. Damn! Carson had beaten her. He looked back at Carson, and then something happened. Carson’s eyes began to lose their focus. His right hand, the one holding the gun, began to tremble, and his face became even more distorted. Stafford thought he saw an opening to make a move, but to his surprise, found himself frozen in his chair. Carson was trying to say something, but all that came out was a series of strangulated grunts. His mouth twisted to one side, and then the gun barrel drooped to the table and began to tap, faster and faster, beating out a frantic cadence like some animal thrashing in its death throes. He looked like a man in the grip of a stroke. Then Carson’s whole body relaxed, and he slumped forward with a great sigh, his forehead descending to the table, where it lay against the smooth wet steel of the cylinder.
Stafford finally found his legs and stood up. Gwen had not moved and her eyes remained locked on Carson. He moved carefully around the table to get the gun. Then he stopped short. To his astonishment, he realized Carson was not unconscious. His eyes were still open, fixed on a point two feet in front of his face. The expression in them reminded Stafford of the off-center look a dog gives just before it bites. He was almost afraid to reach for the gun.