Damnation Street

Part Six
The Midnight Nowhere
47.

He came to the middle of nowhere at midnight. He'd been driving for hours through the rain.

He'd spent a night and a day at the Frontier, the Union City motel, waiting for the hooker's call. Lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, staring at the water running down the windowpanes, staring at the TV news. It was a long night and a long day. He tried not to think about what was coming, but he did think about it. He thought about how it had felt to have the killer close to him in the airport. He thought about how they would be close again, soon.

Then the phone rang and it was the hooker from the House of Dreams, Kristy. It was sunset by then. Weiss sat on the edge of the bed. He held the phone to his ear. He watched the windows as the lifeless daylight went out of them and the streams of rain began to glitter in the beams of headlights passing on the main drag outside. He listened to the whore's instructions. There would be a house at the end of the drive, she said. Julie would come to him there. She wouldn't run away. She would stay, and that's where they would finish it.

Weiss put the phone back in the cradle. He sat and watched the blackness at the window, the glittering lines of water on the glass. Finally, he pushed off his knees and stood. He pulled his shoulder holster off the back of a chair, slipped it on, secured the. 38 beneath his arm. He pulled his trench coat on over it. He went out to his car.

He drove north as the whore had told him. North and then east. The roads got smaller and smaller, each smaller road coming off the larger one before it as if they were the branches of a tree. The last road was nothing but broken macadam and stretches of dirt. Rain on the pavement, mud in the spaces between. Nothing, just nothing, on either side. Nothing in front of him, nothing behind. Weiss started to wonder if the whore had sent him wrong. If the killer had gotten to her and she'd sent him out of the way.

Then there it was, just as she said it would be: a town-or a cluster of houses anyway, houses and trailers huddled together in the dirt at the base of a hill. There was no road sign to announce its presence. The place didn't even seem to have a name. The first he knew of it were the shadows at his window: an ancient gas station, an auto body shop, a small hotel-all closed up, all dark. Behind them, there was a small grid of paved lanes tapering into dust and dead ends. Weiss couldn't imagine what the place was doing here. But here it was, the middle of nowhere.

He followed the whore's directions. He drove the Taurus down a street, then down another street. He found the house midway between one corner and the next. It was small, a run-down, gray one-story with fake brick siding. There was a patch of lawn, a couple of aspens growing up around it. The aspens grew straight and stood tall above the low roof.

He parked the car in front of the house. Buzzed down the window. He could hear the aspen leaves whispering in the rain.

He sat and watched the place. It was dark. It had a big front window by the door and a smaller window off to one side. Blinds were drawn down over both windows. There was no light behind the blinds.

He sat like that while midnight came and went. His eyes moved over the area. The other houses all around were dark-dark shapes with no lighted windows. There were cars parked along the street, all empty. There was no light anywhere. There were no signs of life at all.

His thoughts went to the killer. There had been no trace of him on the roads coming here. He might've come ahead. He might already be sitting in one of the parked cars along the street. Or he might be inside the house, waiting for Weiss in the darkness.

Weiss made a noise. He was angry at himself for being so afraid. But there it was: he wanted to go on living, like anyone.

Grunting, he pushed the door open. He hoisted his big body out of the car.

The aspens whispered louder as a soft wind blew. He felt the wind on his face. He felt the rain in his hair. He walked heavily up the front path to the gray wooden door. He tried the knob. The door swung open. He stepped into the house.

He stood very still in the deep shadows just within the threshold. He scanned the unlit room, trying to pick out shapes. He saw a sofa maybe, maybe a chair, a lamp. It was very dark. He wasn't sure of anything.

After a while he realized he'd been holding his breath, waiting for the blow to fall. He let the breath out. He found the light switch on the wall beside him. He flipped it up. A dull yellow light went on in the ceiling. He looked around.

He was in a small living room. Scarred paneled walls. A yellow sofa and a brown chair. A phone on a phone table. A television set on a stand. A wooden floor with a braid rug worn raw.

There was a coffee table in front of the sofa. There was a mug on the table, a yellow mug with brown coffee scum at the bottom of it. There was lipstick on the rim of the mug. That got to him-her lipstick.

He checked out the rest of the house, turning lights on as he went. There was a kitchen off to the right. Linoleum counters and scarred wooden cabinets. A card table set up in a corner with a couple of folding chairs. A couple of windows looking out the side of the house and one on the front, that smaller one he'd seen from outside.

There was a door here with another window, this one uncovered. He twisted the knob. This door was unlocked too. He held it open. Outside, there was a small alley of turf separating this house from the next. The alley led one way to a small patch of backyard, the other way to the front of the house. He could hear the rain falling into the alley grass.

He closed the door. He turned out the light and left the kitchen. He walked back across the living room to the bedroom on the other side of the house.

There was a double bed in here with a white crocheted bedspread skewed to one side. There was a closet with a few skirts and blouses hanging in it, two pairs of shoes and a pair of sneakers on the floor. There was a faint scent of a woman coming off the clothing. Her scent. That got to him too.

He went in the bathroom. There was makeup all around the sink. A toothbrush in a dirty glass. A hairbrush. Strands of hair in the bristles. Julie's red-gold hair.

He went back into the bedroom, switched off the lights. Now the light in the living room was the only light still burning. Weiss went to the threshold between the two rooms. He stood there, looking over the living room again.

He could feel her presence in the house-Julie's presence. She'd made sure he would know she'd been here. The lipstick on the coffee mug, the hair in the brush, the scent: she had not been gone long. Weiss felt almost as if she were standing next to him, speaking to him, trying to tell him something. She had been here and she had gone out, waiting for him to come-waiting to make sure he was the one who came. Then she would return and draw out the killer. That's how he figured it. That's what he figured she was trying to say.

But there was something else too. His eyes kept scanning the lighted room. There was something else she wanted him to know. He could feel it. The lipstick on the coffee mug, the hair in the brush

… She'd had time to choose this place, this house. She had chosen it knowing he would come, knowing it was where they would finish it. She had chosen it for a reason. She had left him something, something he could use.

Then he saw the trapdoor. It was cut into the wooden floor. It was hard to make out. It blended with the floorboards and only a small section of it stuck out from under the braid rug. It ended just in front of the coffee table. The mug-the mug with her lipstick on it-marked the spot.

He stepped to it. He stooped down. He found the iron ring embedded in the wood. He lifted the trap. The smell of damp earth came up to him from the square opening.

There was a steep, rickety wooden stairs. He had to back down it, as if it were a ladder. A string brushed his face as he descended. He pulled the string. A naked bulb went on. He looked over his shoulder and saw a dirt cellar. There were some empty boxes down there, an empty suitcase. Nothing else.

He killed the light. He climbed back up. Closed the trapdoor. He left the rug askew so that the trap was easier to find, easier to get to.

He went to the wall and pressed the light switch down. The little house settled back into darkness. There was silence except for the rain pattering softly on the roof.

Weiss felt his way across the room until his fingers lit on the ridged upholstery of the armchair, next to the phone table.

He settled himself into the armchair, facing the front door. He reached into his trench coat and drew out his. 38.

He waited.