The Autumn Dead

Chapter 31

The small scarred houses of the highlands were dark in the rain as I followed the street leading to Pierce Park. The business district came next, and even in the rain glow of neon and wet pavement it looked shabby, the windows with beer signs and the porno shops with long posters of fat strippers promising the least redeeming of pleasures.

Two blocks later I was up in the hills, driving on a two-lane asphalt road that cut through deep hardwoods. The trees looked slick with rain, as if they'd been varnished. On my right, in a clearing, I saw playground equipment yellow in the sudden jut of my headlights, and then a park pavilion with all its benches and tables piled up for winter. Nearby, I cut my lights and pulled off the side of the road, into a grove of timber, so that my car could not be seen from the asphalt. The radio was off. No kind of music could soothe me now. The rain banged on the metal roof. The windows steamed over immediately. Somewhere on the far side of the woods I could see the sprawling lights of downtown, a radio tower with soft blue lights as warning for airplanes a watercolor against the gloom. I checked everything in the big flap pockets of my green rubber rain jacket. Shiv. My.38. Diaz's brass knucks. From the flask in the glove compartment I took a long drink of Jim Beam. It felt hot in my throat but it felt good, and by the time it reached my stomach it felt wonderful. I put up the hood on my jacket and took another quick drink, not so deep this time, and got out of the car.

Where I wanted to go was a quarter mile away. I kept to the timber. The night smelled of dead wet leaves and a skunk that had been killed within half a mile or so. I could see my silver breath. The most real sound was my breathing. I carried just enough extra weight that moving through undergrowth winded me. Twice more I took hits from the flask. To keep me warm, I told myself. A dog came up, some kind of collie whose coloration I couldn't tell because he was soaked. He looked me over and apparently didn't think I was worth bothering with. He went right, deep into the timber, and disappeared. A few times I glanced up at the quarter moon behind gray clouds promising a continuation of the rain. It was a very bright moon, luminous enough to cast long shadows here in the timber. My heavy work shoes crunched pop bottles, beer cans, the plastic odds and ends left here by children playing on sunny days. Then I came to the edge of the timber and stopped, making sure to keep behind the cover of the trees. Here was Pierce Point.

Lovers had moved on to other places these days, but back in the fifties, this was the preferred spot for making out. If you were a male you came to show off your girl, and if you were a rich male you came here to show off both your girl and your car, some of the fancier ones running to chopped and channeled black '49 Mercurys, the kind James Dean drove in Rebel Without a Cause, or red street rods with white leather interiors and soft white dice hanging from their rearviews, or customized '55 Chevys with glass-pack mufflers that turned motor sounds into symphonies of power and prowess. The times I'd come up here with Karen Lane, we'd come in my '49 Ford fastback, and once or twice I'd had the impression that she was vaguely embarrassed by the car, as if it marked us-which it did, I suppose-as being from the Highlands, when obviously the rest of the kids were from the better areas of the city.

On the northeast corner of the Point was the edge of a cliff that was a straight quarter-mile drop to pavement below, a road used mostly by heavy trucks on their way to the power plant that squatted like a shining electric icon from a terrifying future. This was where Sonny Howard had dropped to his death.

I held my Timex up to the moonlight. In ten minutes the exchange was to take place. I had no idea how it was supposed to happen, just that it was. I sat in the cold and rain of the timber and waited. In a few minutes I'd meet Karen Lane's killer.

They came in Forester's new Mercedes.

They came right up the muddy road to the middle of the clearing and stopped, leaving their headlights on.

I got out my.38.

The rain was heavier now, almost cutting with ferocity, and in the yellow headlights it was the color of mercury.

The Mercedes just sat there for several minutes. I could see the shapes of three silhouettes through the steamy windows.

Then the driver's door opened up and Ted Forester got out. He wore a London Fog raincoat and a golf hat. In his black-gloved hands, he carried a black briefcase.

In the downpour, he walked to the center of the Point, where a formidable smooth boulder lay, a vestige of the Ice Age, and a perfect surface on which to write the name of the girl you loved. By now thousands of names must have been put on that rock.

Forester walked over to it and looked around as if he knew very well he was being observed, and then he set the black briefcase on top of the boulder that was maybe three feet wide and two feet tall.

Finally, I started to see what was going on here.

Forester looked around some more, hunching under the battering rain, and walked back to the Mercedes.

He got inside and slammed the door.

The Mercedes was put into reverse almost at once. It swept magnificently back onto the muddy road and then proceeded to back all the way out of the Point to the asphalt road, taking the warm civilized illumination of its headlights with it.

Then it was dark again, the quarter moon gone entirely behind clouds now, and there was just the rain and the smell of cold dead leaves. I took out my flask and had another belt. Not a big one or one that was going to impair me. But one I needed.

I didn't, of course, take my eyes from the boulder or the black briefcase resting on top of it.

Ten minutes passed, which surprised me.

Most money drops depend for success on speed. You get in fast and get the loot and leave.

The black briefcase was just sitting here and I wondered why.

But then when the man appeared from the east side of the timber where he'd been hiding, I knew exactly why this had taken so long.

Because he was not a man given to courage. Because he was not a man given to cunning. Because he was not a man given to success in any kind of venture, not even one like this, where he had something that other people wanted very badly.

He came moving awkwardly out of the woods on his clubfoot. He wore one of those disposable plastic raincoats you can buy for a dollar. On his head was a Cubs baseball cap and in his hand was a baby blue suitcase covered with travel stickers.

Halfway to the boulder, he tripped on something and started to fall, arms pushing out to make the fall easier, but then he righted himself and continued on.

He had no trouble making the exchange. He took the black briefcase down and opened it up and looked inside. I thought I saw him smile but I couldn't be sure. Then he closed the black briefcase and set it on the ground next to him and he took the baby-blue suitcase and set it up on the rock, and then he turned and started away.

And that's when I moved.

"Stop!" I said.

Terrified, he started moving away. I called, "I've got a thirty-eight sighted right on your back. One more step and you're dead. You understand me?"

That was all it took, that was all it ever took with somebody like him.

I walked across the soggy ground. The rain was relentless. When I reached the boulder, I grabbed the baby-blue suitcase. For a moment, it felt strange in my hand-so many people wanted this, it held the secret to so much. Then I hefted it and walked over to him.

I put the.38 right against his forehead and pulled off the safety.

"What the hell you going to do?" Chuck Lane said.

"I want to kill you."

"Jesus, Dwyer. Please. Please."

"She was your own goddamn sister."

"Dwyer, listen."

"Your own goddamn sister." I was getting crazy. I really did want to kill him.

"Whenever she needed money, Dwyer, she'd tap them. I was just going to tap them once myself. The same thing. No different from her." He was gibbering.

"Why would they pay her?"

"Because of something that happened."

"How'd you get the suitcase?"

"I went over to that spade's condo. No sweat." He sounded proud of himself.

"Why is Forester willing to pay for it?"

"You really don't know?" His spaniel eyes looked perplexed.

He had just started to speak when I heard a car come roaring down the muddy road, and before I could even turn around to confirm that it was Forester's Mercedes, the shotgun started firing.

In front of me, Lane's left shoulder exploded into blood and shattered bone. But what was amazing was his gaze. Perfect and complete bafflement, as if this was something he could not fathom. He stared at the large red hole where his shoulder had been and then glanced up at me as if I could explain it.

I pushed him behind the boulder as the Mercedes started its circle. All they had to do was keep circling, firing from a moving car, cutting us both down.

They started on their first pass. I dropped to one knee, grabbed one wrist, steadied the gun and myself, and let go.

I got Dave Haskins, who had been leaning out the back window with a shotgun, right in the face.

For a moment, the car veered toward the trees, lights spraying over the sodden black night. All I could hear was screaming-the sounds Haskins made as he was dying, the sounds Forester and Price made at the terrible prospect of his dying.

Chuck Lane was in a pile against the boulder, unconscious. He smelled now of blood and vomit and his own feces. I reached into his belt and found a.45. I jammed it into my pocket.

The Mercedes started to back up.

I shot out both rear tires. The back end of the car sank abruptly lower.

Inside the car you could still hear Haskins screaming. That and the rain were the only sounds. After thirty seconds or so, Forester cut the headlights. I heard Price say, "Shut up, Dave! Shut up, Dave!" I had to agree with him, the dying sounds were getting unbearable. I wished I'd hit him cleaner. Then I heard the crunch: something heavy against bone. Price had shut him up, apparently crushing what was left of his skull.

Then there was just the sound of the rain and the occasional low moan of Chuck Lane.

A few minutes later the sound of the far back door opening impressed itself on the gloom even above the noise of the rain.

I didn't know which of them it was but it was obvious what they were going to do.

I got Lane by the collar and dragged him to the other side of the boulder.

Then the firing started again. It was impressive. The bullets kept coming for three or four minutes without stop and all the time the only thing I could do was hunch down and say prayers because I was so afraid. I could barely swallow and my stomach was burning all the way up my windpipe. He had an automatic rifle, maybe more than one of them. I did not want to die. I thought of Donna's advice about involving Edelman. I should have.

"They're going to get us, aren't they?"

Lane was awake again, and crying.

"Shut up," I said.

"You're scared, just like me."

"Shut up," I said again.

The gunfire had abated. I tried to listen through the rain. The leaves betrayed him and so did a furtive glimpse of moonlight.

Larry Price was circling to the east of the boulder, fanning out wide, setting himself up for some easy target practice. I shot him once in the face and twice in the chest.

He made no sound other than falling into the leaves. A moist, final sound.

Forester called out, "Larry? Larry?" He was still in the car, sticking his head through the window.

"He's dead," I shouted back.

He had an automatic weapon too. He opened up with it and he kept up with it for two full minutes. Next to me, coming awake, Chuck started to scream. Then I started screaming, too. I was tired of being afraid of dying. I thought of the old number about the man who was so afraid to die, he committed suicide. Only I wasn't going to give Forester that satisfaction.

I put my final two bullets into the gas tank of the Mercedes and watched it go up.

It was impressive against the night-for a moment it was hot and bright as a July noon-and you almost couldn't hear him scream and then you couldn't hear him at all, there was just the beautiful white noise of the explosion itself.

I was watching it all when I felt something bump the back of my head, and I knew that Chuck Lane was even more of a loser than I'd imagined.

"I always carry a spare, man. I'm not a dummy."

"Right, Chuck. You're not a dummy."

"I don't give a shit what you think of me, Dwyer."

He kept punching the gun into my head. It hurt. From inside my jacket I took the shiv. I eased it into my hand. Ready.

"You killed her, your own sister, man," I said.

"Bullshit. I didn't kill her. No way. I stiffed that crazy broad, Evelyn, because if she went to the cops, then the whole blackmail number would be ruined. But not my sister, man. Whatever else, she was blood."

He jammed the gun into my head again. His breath was coming in heaves that were almost sobs. "You're gonna help me to my car, man."

"Sure, Chuck."

"You're gonna help me or I'm gonna kill you."

All it took was ducking a little to the right. He got a shot off but it went wild. Just what you'd expect from a sad, desperate man like Chuck Lane.

I got him up clean, just under the sternum, and I put it all the way in and I twisted it twice, liking the sound of his surprise, and the sound of death.

"Jesus," he said.

And then I saw his face and I had to look away.

"Jesus," he said again. But he wasn't cursing. He was praying.

"You gotta help me, Dwyer," he said.

"There's nothing I can do, Chuck." I still couldn't look at him. All I could do was shake my head.

He started to cry and then he started to vomit and then he started to scream and then he just went silent. Like that, silence.

I knelt there, my back to him, soaked now, listening to the night, the rattle of rain against the trees, a factory whistle announcing a change in shifts.

The fire that had been the Mercedes was burning lower.

I got up then and walked around and stared at each one of them.

In the distance I could hear sirens.

I went back to doomed Chuck Lane, the screw-up. He was still piled up against the boulder. His eyes were open. I got down on my haunches and closed them for him and then I put my hand on his shoulder and said a prayer, a long one, and it was only partly for the men who'd died here tonight. A lot of it was for me, a whole lot of it, and what might be happening to me, the way I hadn't minded taking off Haskins' face, the way the shiv felt right and good jamming up inside Chuck Lane.

The sirens got closer.