Gone 'Til November

TWENTY-TWO

Morgan moved through the woods in the dark. He pushed branches aside, stepped over fallen logs. Soon he could see the lights of the house below. He reached the edge of the trees, looked out across the dead cornfield.

The Camaro and truck were both in the carport, the Camaro’s trunk open. Figures moved past the lighted windows of the house.

The cornfield was a dark mass below him. He’d have to make his way through it, try to come up on the house from behind. And stay quiet while he was doing it, try not to break an ankle in a hole, or step into a nest of snakes.

He was halfway down the slope when the front door opened. Flynn looked out, scanned the yard, then disappeared back inside. When he came out again, he was carrying a suitcase and a long-barreled revolver. He walked to the Camaro, eyes on the yard, the cornfield. He set the suitcase in the trunk, went back in.

A few minutes later, he came out with a smaller case. He put it in the trunk, shut the lid, looked around, the gun still in his hand. Went back inside. Morgan waited.

Five minutes later, Flynn and the woman came out together. They spoke briefly, and she got behind the wheel of the Camaro. Flynn stepped away, looked down the driveway, then cut his eyes back to the cornfield, the woods beyond. His gaze seemed to pass over Morgan, move on.

She started the engine, headlights flashing on, illuminating the truck. Flynn watched as she swung the Camaro around, pointed it back down the driveway, the exhaust rumbling loud.

Morgan waited for Flynn to go inside, then walked back through the woods to the car.

Wisps of fog gathered in the Toyota’s headlights, grew thicker as he drove. The night air was cooling. Far ahead he could see the Camaro’s taillights, the glitter of the reflecting tape on the bumper.

They were on the county road, heading away from town, little traffic in either direction. He slowed to keep distance between them. The Beretta was on the passenger seat, beneath the half-folded road map.

Ahead on the right was an empty drive-in theater, the screen white and torn, the speaker poles beheaded. He’d passed it on the way here. Now, as he watched, a car came from behind the darkened cashier’s shack and bumped onto the road, lights off. It sped after the Camaro.

Morgan killed his own lights, gave the Toyota gas. Gradually he closed the distance. As he got closer, he saw it was a brown Volvo, wondered if it was the same car he’d seen at Delva’s. It settled in behind the Camaro by several car lengths, not speeding up or trying to pass.

He floored the gas pedal, powered down the passenger window. The rear of the Volvo loomed large in front of him. Feet from the bumper, he hit the headlights, then the high beams. The inside of the Volvo was flooded with light. Five dark faces turned toward him. Two in the front, three in the back. Dreads, bandanas.

He jerked the Toyota into the left lane, raised the Beretta one-handed, fired twice through the open window, the gun jumping with the recoil. He heard glass explode, and the Volvo swerved away, brakes screeching. It angled hard onto the shoulder, kicking up dirt, facing back the way it had come.

Morgan set the gun on the seat, gripped the wheel with both hands. He pulled back into the right lane and came up fast on the Camaro’s tail. In the glare of his high beams, he could see the woman’s face looking back at him in the rearview.

The Camaro leaped ahead with a throaty roar. He stayed on it, the road curving so she had to slow. They came to a bend, and he clenched the wheel, felt it vibrate, heard the Camaro’s tires squeal. Then they were back on a straightaway, trees disappearing, open fields on both sides, the Camaro starting to pull away again.

Ahead of them, another bend. He saw the fence where the road curved, the red reflectors on the railings. He started to brake, the wheels drifting, saw the Camaro’s headlights illuminate the fence.

The Camaro’s brakes screamed as it left the road. It hit the fence broadside, crashed through in a cloud of wood splinters and dust. It spun out in the dirt beyond, headlights tracking across the field, then pointing up at the sky as they came to rest. Dust and smoke swirled in their light.

He steered the Toyota onto the shoulder, dust drifting in his high beams. He picked up the Beretta, got out of the car.

The Camaro had left a ragged gap in the fence, coming to rest about twenty feet into the field, rear tires half-buried in the trenches they’d dug.

Fog crawled along the ground. He looked back down the road. No sign of the Volvo. He stepped into the field.

The Camaro had stalled out, its engine ticking as it cooled. The interior was dark, the back window partially covered with loose dirt. He raised the Beretta in a two-handed grip, stepped over torn-up mounds of earth. He looked down, saw clumps of strawberries.

The windshield was cracked, blood on the inside of the glass. The driver’s side window was open. He pointed the Beretta at it as he came around. The woman looked out at him, eyes unfocused. There was a deep cut over her right eye. Her braids were streaked with blood. Her top lip was split.

He moved closer, looked in. Her left leg was bent at an angle under the dashboard. No seat belt. She had a cell phone open, fumbling with it, numbly punching numbers. He reached in with a gloved hand, took it from her. Only two digits on the screen, bloody fingerprints on the keypad. He closed the phone and dropped it in his pocket.

When he looked back, she was pointing a small automatic at him, the muzzle wavering. He put a hand over it, tugged it from her grip, tossed it behind him.

“You fuckers,” she slurred. “You bastards.”

He reached in, and she batted weakly at his hand. He switched the ignition off, pulled the keys out. She looked at him, no fear in her eyes.

“You didn’t have to do him like that. You didn’t.”

He went around to the trunk, found the key to open it. He looked back down the highway, then put the Beretta in his waistband, opened the suitcases in turn, and dumped them out into the trunk. Clothes, cosmetics, a small photo album. A teak box of cheap jewelry. In the larger suitcase was a Lady Colt.38, a box of ammunition.

He turned the bags upside-down, shook them. Felt for false bottoms. He pulled up the spare, looked beneath it. Nothing. He shut the trunk.

When he went back to the window, her head was resting on the steering wheel, her breathing shallow. There were bubbles of blood on her lips. He looked into the rear seat. It was empty.

Headlights far down the road, growing brighter, the car coming slow.

He looked at the woman again, thought about nubbed fingers, bloody pruning shears, dominoes.

He knelt, found the automatic, blew dirt from it, worked the slide to chamber a shell. He touched her shoulder through the window.

“Wake up,” he said.

She coughed, shook. He dropped the gun in her lap.

“You may need this.”

He walked back to the Toyota, got in, killed the lights. When he pulled off the shoulder, the tires fought for traction for a moment, then gained the blacktop. A quarter mile down the road, he looked in his rearview and saw foggy headlight beams illuminate the breach in the fence, the silhouette of a vehicle coming to a stop.

Another quarter mile and he put the lights on. From far back in the distance, he heard faint noises, wondered if they were gunshots.

The Beretta in his lap, he turned into the unpaved driveway, driving slow, lights off. He pulled up into the yard, looked at the house. A light burned over the front steps, but nothing was on inside. The truck was gone.

He got out and went around to the back of the house, the gun at his side. Fog hung over the dead cornfield. No sounds from the house.

The back door gave way on the third kick. He went in with the Beretta up, muzzle pointing into darkness and silence.

He went from room to room. In the bedroom, he turned the light on, saw an open closet door. Clear spaces in the dust where suitcases had been.

In the kitchen, he opened cabinets. Circles in shelf dust, cans missing. The refrigerator empty except for a carton of milk, a bottle of ketchup. A cracked mason jar of preserves lay on the linoleum, contents leaking. No ants yet.

He went back to the Toyota, took the cell phone out, wiped at the blood, pushed buttons until he found the contact list, clicked down, and found BILLY. One entry marked HOUSE, another CELL. He selected it, pushed SEND.

It buzzed three times and then the line opened, faint hissing. Morgan didn’t speak.

“Lee-Anne?”

“No,” Morgan said.

More silence.

“What did you do to her?”

“You need to talk to your Haitian friends about that.”

“Where is she?”

Morgan didn’t answer.

“What do you want?”

“Same thing everybody wants. Only difference is, I don’t care about you. You can walk away, don’t make any difference to me. These others, though, you won’t have that luxury.”

“So I give it to you and I walk away?”

“That’s right. You really think you were going to get to keep it all? That it belonged to you?”

“I need it. To get clear.”

“You need some of it. You take ten grand out, leave the rest, tell me where to meet you. Then I’m gone and you can do whatever you want.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Way I look at it, you don’t have any choice.”

Breathing on the line.

“I need to think on this.”

“Nothing to think about,” Morgan said. “You give it up, you walk. You don’t, you go down, one way or another.”

“I need time.”

“You got two hours. If I don’t hear from you, I start looking. And I won’t be the only one.”

He left the Toyota by the barn, used a rag to wipe down anything he might have touched without gloves. In the Monte Carlo, he took his own cell out. Midnight and no missed calls. Nothing from the twins.

He gassed up at an all-night station, went inside, and asked for a phone directory. There was only one Holiday Inn in the county. The attendant gave him directions.

Fifteen minutes later, he was cruising slow past a row of parked cars outside the motel. No Range Rover. He parked, took out his cell, punched in the number he’d gotten from the directory. When the night clerk answered, he asked for Dante Coleman’s room. The clerk put him through. They’d used their real names, as he’d guessed.

The line rang a dozen times. The clerk came back on and asked to take a message. Morgan ended the call.

They hadn’t wasted any time. They were out there already, looking for the money. His money.

He pulled out of the lot, headed back toward Hopedale. Wondering how much information they had, where they would start.

He needed to calm himself, to think. He turned the stereo on, pushed in the Sam Cooke tape. “Keep Movin’ On” came from the speakers.

On the seat beside him, the blood-smeared cell phone began to ring.