The Prophet

39

BY THE TIME ADAM WAS BORN, there were only two steel mills still going in Chambers, and now there were none. Many of the structures remained, though, including the old Robard Company plant, which had once employed Hank Austin. Its blast furnace carved the skyline with ancient smokestacks, and at its base, rows of abandoned rails, rusted and overgrown and untouched by a train’s wheels in years, ran like the lingering scars of an old addiction. To the east and west of the plant, the streets made a slow shift from industrial to residential, brick and iron giving way to narrow wood-framed houses. The sidewalk had been jackhammered out in a three-block stretch but not yet replaced, lined by orange plastic fencing, footpaths worn into the weeds beside it. A low-rent district in a low-rent town.

Number 57 Erie Avenue had boards over the ground-floor windows, but the glass upstairs was exposed and unmarred by blinds or curtains. At first glance most people would say that the house had not been occupied in many years. There was plywood over the broken windows and weeds protruded through torn porch boards, no car parked outside, no lights on inside. But Adam had found plenty of people staying in less hospitable-looking places, and Rodney Bova had visited this address in the middle of the night and stayed for thirty minutes.

He parked across the street, took a series of photographs of the property, and then sat with the engine off as the chill seeped into the car, staring at the house and trying to determine his next move. Did he go in, or did he wait to see if someone came out?

Sometimes you could enter a place easily enough and leave without a trace, as he had at Bova’s house, but Sipes was on guard. This was a hiding spot for him, a safe house, and he would likely be attuned to any signs of danger checking for intruders. The last thing Adam wanted was to put him on the run again if in fact he was staying here.

He decided to give it time. If Sipes was in there, he’d have to move at some point, and if he was already gone, with luck he might return.

This decision meant a grudging pact to settle in for a lengthy wait, but it didn’t take long. Just twenty minutes after Adam arrived, the side door of the house opened and a man stepped out and walked down the driveway to the sidewalk, then up the road to a white Buick Rendezvous. Adam’s adrenaline spiked at the sight of him, then fell. It was not Clayton Sipes. Not even close. Too heavy a build, a head of thick dark hair instead of a shaved scalp, no tattoos. Adam took five photographs of him as he got into his car, then decided to follow. It would be good to know who Rodney Bova had visited in the night. It had not been Sipes, but maybe it was someone connected to him. You had to chase the leads you found.

Still, he couldn’t help feeling defeated. It had seemed like a promising chance, and now that it hadn’t panned out, he had to consider the possibility that it might never pan out, that Rodney Bova could be a dead end. He started the engine and pulled down the street, wondering how long he should pursue this. The glance he gave the house at 57 Erie was a distracted, indifferent flick of the eyes.

But it was enough to see the man in the window.

Somehow he avoided hitting the brakes. It was his first instinct, and it was strong, but he overrode it and managed to keep on driving.

The man had been watching the street from the upstairs window, the one that had neither boards nor curtains, and the view of him was clear. He had a shaved head and he stood shirtless in front of the glass and colored tattoos ran the length of his left arm.

Adam drove to the end of the block, reached the stop sign, and stared in the rearview mirror. He could still see the house but not the figure in the window, not from this distance. He turned right, heart hammering, and lapped the block, sliding into a new parking spot on the other side of the street. Unholstered his gun and set it in his lap.

He’d found him. Clayton Sipes was inside that house.

Watching and waiting no longer felt like the best option. Not at all. Not with the son of a bitch so close, not now that Adam had actually laid eyes on him. The patience he could force himself to have on the hunt was evaporating, because he’d seen the prey, he’d seen the target. The hunt was over. All that remained was finishing it.

I will find him and I will kill him.

That was the promise. He had not wavered when he spoke the words. He could not waver when the chance to deliver on the promise came. Should not, at least. But it was on him fast now, the hunt had reached a sudden end, and after all the days of hungry anticipation, he found himself unprepared for it, uncertain.

Kill him? He was really going to kill him?

Yes, damn it. Do what you promised you would do.

He removed the holster with his Glock and put on a pair of thin black cotton gloves. Then he retrieved a new weapon, this one from under the seat, another gun he’d stolen from a skip, similar to the piece he’d left in Rodney Bova’s truck. It was easy to acquire guns from skips if he caught them armed; most of them knew damn well the possession charge might add years to their jail stay. Often the guns were cheap, poorly maintained crap, but this was a Ruger .45-caliber in mint condition. He preferred the Glock, but the Glock was registered to him. The Ruger was not.

He ran his gloved thumb over the stock of the gun. He was so familiar with them and yet not truly familiar at all. He’d shot them, cleaned them, oiled them, experimented with ammunition and shooting stances and grips and speeds. He’d done everything one could possibly do with a gun except the one thing for which it was designed.

He ejected the magazine and checked its load even though he knew it was full. Slipped it back in, racked the slide, and heard the click of a round chambering. One trigger pull away.

His eyes drifted from the gun to the cell phone.

Just call it in.

So simple. He could stay right here, right where he was, and he could call Stan Salter. They’d send out a SWAT team, they would not let Clayton Sipes escape from that house. He would be arrested, back behind bars before the day’s end.

Would he be convicted, though? Would they find evidence of a homicide inside that decrepit home, or would they find only a very smart and very evil man? He would serve some time, no question. How much time was harder to say. When would he walk back out? When would he return to the world?

That’s why you don’t call it in, Austin. That’s why you made the promise in the first place, and that’s why you have to come through on it now. Because if the system was worth a shit, your sister would have made it home, and so would Rachel Bond.

He started the engine and moved the Jeep, then went five blocks east until he was parked on the other side of the old steel mill. Out of the car and across the abandoned plant’s grounds, stepping through weeds and over old cinders as he followed the railroad tracks up to Erie Avenue. There he crossed the street quickly, keeping his head down, and entered a narrow alley four blocks down from the house where Clayton Sipes waited. There he turned left, the wind off the lake blowing gravel dust into his face, and slid behind a low concrete wall that separated the old homes. He followed that until he reached the back of 57 Erie Avenue, and then he broke across the small backyard without pause, went into the driveway and up to the side door.

The gun was positioned in the pocket of his sweatshirt so that the muzzle was pointed straight out from his waist, his right index finger curled around the trigger, as he knocked on the door with his left hand. The aluminum frame of a storm door still remained, but all of the glass had been broken out, so he had to reach through the frame to find anything solid. He rapped his knuckles off the wood in three calm strikes. Not aggressive, just clear and loud.

Come on down, Clayton, he thought. Or I can come in. It’s totally up to you.

Footsteps. Just like his knock—measured, steady, and clear. Sipes was not trying to hide his presence inside the house, and he was not trying to run. He was coming to the door. Adam’s breathing and heart rate had slowed at the sound of the approaching steps, and his finger tightened on the trigger, adding a few pounds of pull, bringing it to the brink.

You can hold him here. Hold him here and call the police, you’ll be a damned hero, everyone will see your picture in the paper again and this time they will think different things.

Then the door opened, and the slender man with the shaved head and the ring of tattoos around his neck looked at Adam and smiled, and any thought of holding him here and calling the police evaporated. Sipes was still shirtless—he had a sheen of sweat across his torso and his chest and arms were swollen, as if he’d been working out—and his smile was amused, taunting, and he held a gun in his left hand. Unlike Adam, though, he held his pointed down.

“He sent you instead of coming himself?” Sipes asked.

“You know who I am. Good for you.”

“Yes, Adam, I know who you are. Your brother sent you instead of coming himself. An interesting choice. Not a surprising one, but a little disappointing, don’t you think?”

If being discovered rattled him in the slightest, Sipes didn’t show it.

Adam said, “I would like to talk with you.”

“Weapons aren’t conducive to good conversation, Adam.”

“That didn’t stop you from using the same approach with my brother.”

“Come on in then. Enter, please.”

Adam shook his head. “We’ll walk together. The guns go away, and we walk.”

Sipes considered this, the two of them staring at each other through the empty storm door frame. Beyond him the chipped, mildewed linoleum stairs led up to darkness.

“Fine, Adam,” he said. “We will walk. If you’ll allow me to put on a jacket, then—”

“You’re good,” Adam said. “I think you can stand the chill, Sipes.”

The smile returned, and Sipes pushed open the storm door frame and stepped out to join him, Adam moving backward and keeping the gun up. He shut the door behind him, and then he tucked his pistol into the waistband of his pants, looked at Adam with mock reproachfulness, and said, “What was that promise about the guns?”

Adam slipped the Ruger back into the pocket of his sweatshirt but did not remove his finger from the trigger.

“There we go,” he said. “Let’s walk, Sipes. We’ll walk, and talk, and then you’ll leave.”

“I’ll leave,” Sipes echoed, leading the way out of the yard and to the sidewalk. When he was in front of Adam, the gun tucked into the back of his pants was visible for the first time. He made no move to reach for it, and offered no comment about it. A car passed but no one looked at them. “That sounds like an ultimatum.”

“It is.”

“How very Wild West. I like the touch. Your idea or the coach’s?”

“Mutual.”

They were moving north on Erie Avenue, the steel plant to their right, the dead end ahead, and the great gray lake beyond.

“My understanding was that you were not close with your brother.”

“We’re brothers,” Adam said. “It does not get much closer.”

“Are you proud of him?”

Sipes was three feet ahead of him and just to the left, walking exactly as Adam wanted him to without requiring any instruction. The butt of the gun protruded above the waistband of his jeans. Sweat ran down the small of his back toward it.

“I think you’re confused on a few things,” Adam said.

“How so?”

“I’m not here to answer your questions, Sipes.”

“I’m sure that you’re not. I assume your intent today is to threaten, perhaps to assault? Because you didn’t come here without the police to do anything within the bounds of the law, did you? That wouldn’t make much sense.”

They’d covered several blocks and the dead end was approaching. Sipes said, “I’ll need to know where we’re going, Adam.”

“All the way to the end of the street. Through the fence. I’d like to look at the lake.”

“Then let’s have a look.” They reached the end of the road, and Sipes stepped through the weeds and pulled loose one of the torn sections of chain link and ducked through. Adam kept the gun pointed at him while he did this, but Sipes made no move to reach for his own weapon. Adam was tensed as he slid through the fence himself—this was the best opportunity for Sipes to strike—but the man made no attempt, just stepped over a broken vodka bottle and continued on, out to the slabs of rock where the lake slapped and sloshed, some of the waves breaking high now and then and trapping themselves in puddles behind the stones.

“What interests me,” Sipes said, “is that he sent you and not the police. That seems so unlike him. Unless the fear is beginning to extract its pound of faith, of course. Unless the—”

“Kent did not send me,” Adam said.

“Forgive me if I call you a liar on that point.”

“Kent did not send me,” Adam repeated. “My sister did. And so did Rachel Bond.”

Sipes nodded in approval. “That’s wonderful stuff. Wonderful. I told your brother you might be more fascinating than him, and I think I was right. It’s a shame we haven’t met before.”

They were alone on the lakefront. A few miles out, a low shadow on the horizon, a freighter moved northeast for the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the ocean at its end. Sipes spread his arms wide.

“Here we are,” he said. “You have your view of the water. You have your captive audience. Let’s hear what you came to tell me, Adam. What you were sent to tell me.”

Adam ran the tip of his tongue over his lips. “Why Kent?” he said.

“Because he said he could not be broken,” Sipes told him. Voice calm, patient. “Because he believes it.”

“That’s enough reason for you to murder a girl who had nothing to do with him?”

“Nothing would be a stretch, I think. He promised me that his faith could weather any challenges, Adam. I’ve come to see that for myself. Tell me, do you agree with your brother? I’ve heard otherwise. I’ve heard that you were anything but pleased with his decisions.”

Adam was listening to the waves break on the rocks. It was so quiet out here today. Usually it was, this time of year. The day they’d found Marie, the quiet broke, though. There’d been helicopters, Adam remembered that, television cameras watching from above. It had been maybe two miles from this spot. Not far. Not all that far.

“There’s something I would like to know,” Sipes said. “Is your brother aware of this?”

Adam shook his head.

“That’s a shame,” Sipes said. He seemed to mean it.

Shoot him, Adam thought, and he wanted to, but he couldn’t. So close, so close, all he needed was to add that last bit of pressure. Find a way to call it up. Somehow.

“Go ahead and take your gun out, Sipes.”

Sipes smiled and shook his head. “I’m fine, thanks.”

Adam’s hand was starting to tremble. He tightened his grip, felt old aches. He’d broken that hand once, a long time ago. The bones knit back together fine, but sometimes, in cold weather like this, you still had the aches.

“You’re here to protect your brother,” Sipes said. “That’s the idea?”

“I’m here to make you accountable,” Adam said.

“For what?”

“All that you’ve done.”

“You know nothing about what I’ve done, Adam. You know nothing. I understand all that you are, and you understand not the first thing about me. You’re not here for your brother, or even for Rachel Bond. You’re here for your sister, you said that much yourself, and you know what? I didn’t kill her. I never laid eyes on the girl. Now, I do feel some level of… closeness, I think that’s the word. You’ve preserved her so well in that bedroom that when I entered it I honestly felt her presence. It was remarkable. I’m sure you understand that, though. You and I are certain to agree on that point. She has a remarkable presence after all these years, doesn’t she? And yet I never saw her. Pictures, that’s all. You look a bit alike. The eyes, certainly. The cheekbones. There are traces of her. And in your niece, well, that’s quite different. More than traces there. They look so similar, it’s almost as if—”

Adam brought the trigger home, and the Ruger blew a .45-caliber bullet through the center of Clayton Sipes’s chest.

Sipes did not show any panic, not even surprise. The smile was gone, at least, the smile was gone as if it had never existed, but he wasn’t panicking. He took a stumbling step away, and reached behind his back for the gun he’d believed he did not yet need, and Adam shot him a second time. This time the bullet caught him higher, just below his throat, and he went down, and life went with him.

The thing that had once been Clayton Sipes existed no more in this world.

Adam used his shoe to roll the body over, and then he wiped the gun on his sweatshirt, pulled his arm back, and whipped it toward the water, flinging the Ruger into the lake like a discus. The wind was with him and it carried well out, splashed, sank. He considered dragging Sipes out into the water but saw no point. The waves would carry him back fast enough. Adam’s gunshots had echoed loud over the water, and it was time to move, and move fast.

He turned on his heel and left the way he had come, walking fast but not running, crossing the rocks and sliding through the fence and returning to Erie Avenue. There were no sirens yet. He thought someone might have been able to hear the shots up here, but maybe not. Or maybe it didn’t even matter if they had. It was a bad neighborhood, and most of the people who would be occupying it in the middle of the day were not the type who would rush to call the police.

He walked to the old Robard Company plant where his father had once worked, and then, finally out of sight from the street, he began to run.