Butcher's Moon

Fifty-one

Approaching the rear of the house, Parker moved with wary caution. He knew Handy and Dan Wycza and Fred Ducasse were on his flanks, but he could neither see nor hear them. The house was dead ahead, but invisible; the closer he got to it, the less help he received from the car headlights around on the other side.

The glow from the headlights didn’t reach all the way through the house; there were too many rooms, too many walls, between there and here. There was no definition of the windows along the rear wall, though occasionally still an upstairs window became pinpointed for an instant by the red flash of someone firing a gun at shadows. Parker was moving toward his memory of the French doors, though he was deflected at times by shrubbery. Still, it was the French doors he wanted; Calesian and Buenadella and Dulare had all been inside there, with another man.

A sudden flurry of shots came from the right, five or six shots, and the sound of breaking glass. Parker moved forward through the grass, forcing himself not to hurry. The house was very close now. He reached out, took two more steps, and touched wood. The frame of something. His hand moved to the left, touched siding, moved to the right, found a small pane of glass. More glass—the French doors.

They opened inward. He pressed slightly, and the door eased open without a sound. Cool air-conditioned air came out through the opening. Standing next to the frame, not to outline himself against the sky in the doorway, Parker listened to the interior of the room.

Nothing. A door was apparently open on the other side, and through it came sounds of movement, shouting, hurrying, gunfire; but from the room itself no sound at all.

Parker went down on hands and knees. His pistol was in his right hand, and now he held a small pencil flash in his left. He moved into the room, keeping low, patting his left hand out ahead of him onto the floor as he went. Once clear of the doorway he angled to the left, still on hands and knees.

His probing left hand touched something: cloth, a trouser leg. He crawled up the length of the body, aware now of the odor of blood, and when he reached the face he clicked the flashlight on and off, giving himself light for a milli-second. He studied the afterglow in his mind, and recognized the face: Calesian. So it had been a good shot.

And the rest of them had left the room. Moving without thought, leaving this entrance unguarded.

It wouldn’t be for long. Dulare would think of it in time, and send some people back here. Parker got to his feet, crossed the room toward the space the sounds came from, and found the doorway. He stepped through and noise came from the left. Looking that way, he saw a faint blue-whiteness: headlight glow. And two bulky shapes came trotting around the corner, belated guards for the French doors.

The shapes stopped. Parker could make them out against the pallid light, but for them he was shielded by total darkness. One of them said, huskily, “Jesus Christ, it’s dark back here. Where is this fucking den?”

“Wait a minute. I’ve got a match.”

Parker shot them both, before they could light a match and alter his night vision. Then he turned the other way, moving along a black hallway. In a house this size there had to be a rear staircase, and if Grofield was still alive, it was upstairs that Parker would find him.

A doorway. From the floor on the other side, this was the kitchen. He took a step, halted, listened. Breathing? In a quiet but confident voice, Parker said, “Where are you?”

“Huh? Over here, by the window.”Parker moved diagonally away from the voice till he saw the rectangle of window, and the darker shape within it. The shape said, “You think there’s any of them around this side?”

“Yes,” Parker said, and shot him, then turned to the wall, felt his way along past appliances, found a swinging door with another room beyond it, ignored that, came to a wall turning, another door. This one opened inward toward the kitchen, and beyond it narrow stairs led up to the left.

He was halfway up when a frightened, heavily breathing man started down, muttering to himself. Parker waited, and felt the bulky leather bag before he touched the man. He had put his flashlight away, and now his free hand skittered up the man’s sleeve to his throat.

“Aaa!”

Parker pressed the pistol against him. Quietly he said, “Where’s Green? Where’s the prisoner?”

“I— Dear God. I don’t have anything to do with this, I’m a doctor.”

Parker pressed him harder against the side wall hemming in the staircase. “You work on fingers?”

The man shuddered all over, like a horse. His throat worked beneath Parker’s fingers, but he didn’t say anything.

“Where’s Green? Fast!”

“Upstairs! Second door on the left. You’ve got to understand the position I was in, I didn’t have any—”

Parker held the pistol back three or four inches and fired. He let the body tumble down the stairs, and went on up.

Blackness up here. No way to define the space, but it was probably some sort of hallway. Parker moved along the left wall past an open doorway and then to a door that was closed. He opened it, and saw a room lighted by a match in Buenadella’s hand. Grofield lay under blankets on a bed, either dead or unconscious.

Buenadella saw him in the doorway and threw the match away, hiding himself in the darkness. But then he stepped backward till he was between Parker and the window, making a silhouette that was as good as sunshine.

“Goodbye, Buenadella,” Parker said.