by Stephen King
“City fellas usually are.” Thurston puts down the Field & Stream he’s been reading. “What is it, then? Directions? Man, I hope it’s somewhere close, the way this one’s shaping up.”
“I think it is. A hunting camp called Heads and Skins. Ring a bell?”
“Oh, sure,” Thurston says. “The doctors’ place, right near Big Bob’s Bear Camp. Those fellas usually gas up their Jags and Porsches here, either on their way out or their way back.” He pronounces Porsches as if he’s talking about the things old folks sit on in the evening to watch the sun go down. “Wouldn’t be nobody out there now, though. Hunting season ends December ninth, and I’m talking bow hunting. Gun hunting ends the last day of November, and all those docs use rifles. Big ones. I think they like to pretend they’re in Africa.”
“Nobody stopped earlier today? Would have been driving an old car with a lot of primer on it?”
“Nope.”
A young man comes out of the garage bay, wiping his hands on a rag. “I saw that car, Granddad. A Chev’alay. I was out front, talking with Spider Willis, when it went by.” He turns his attention to Hodges. “I only noticed because there’s not much the way he was headed, and that car was no snowdog like the one you’ve got out there.”
“Can you give me directions to the camp?”
“Easiest thing in the world,” Thurston says. “Or would be on a fair day. You keep on going the way you were heading, about …” He turns his attention to the younger man. “What would you say, Duane? Three miles?”
“More like four,” Duane says.
“Well, split the difference and call it three and a half,” Thurston says. “You’ll be looking for two red posts on your left. They’re tall, six feet or so, but the state plow’s been by twice already, so you want to keep a sharp eye, because there won’t be much of em to see. You’ll have to bull your way through the snowbank, you know. Unless you brought a shovel.”
“I think what I’m driving will do it,” Hodges says.
“Yeah, most likely, and no harm to your SUV, since the snow hasn’t had a chance to pack down. Anyway, you go in a mile, or maybe two, and the road splits. One fork goes to Big Bob’s, the other to Heads and Skins. I can’t remember which one is which, but there used to be arrow signs.”
“Still are,” Duane says. “Big Bob’s is on the right, Heads and Skins on the left. I ought to know, I reshingled Big Bob Rowan’s roof last October. This must be pretty important, mister. To get you out on a day like this.”
“Will my SUV make it on that road, do you think?”
“Sure,” Duane says. “Trees’ll still be holding up most of the snow, and the road runs downhill to the lake. Making it out might be a little trickier.”
Hodges takes his wallet from his back pocket—Christ, even that hurts—and fishes out his police ID with RETIRED stamped on it. To it he adds one of his Finders Keepers business cards, and lays them both on the counter. “Can you gentlemen keep a secret?”
They nod, faces bright with curiosity.
“I’ve got a subpoena to serve, right? It’s a civil case, and the money at stake runs to seven figures. The man you saw go by, the one in the primered-up Chevy, is a doctor named Babineau.”
“See him every November,” the elder Thurston says. “Got an attitude about him, you know? Like he’s always seein you from under the end of his nose. But he drives a Beemer.”
“Today he’s driving whatever he could get his hands on,” Hodges says, “and if I don’t serve these papers by midnight, the case goes bye-bye, and an old lady who doesn’t have much won’t get her payday.”
“Malpractice?” Duane asks.
“Don’t like to say, but I’m going in.”
Which you will remember, Hodges thinks. That, and Babineau’s name.
The old man says, “There are a couple of snowmobiles out back. I could let you have one, if you want, and the Arctic Cat has a high windshield. It’d still be a chilly ride, but you’d be guaranteed getting back.”
Hodges is touched by the offer, coming as it does to a complete stranger, but shakes his head. Snowmobiles are noisy beasts. He has an idea that the man now in residence at Heads and Skins—be he Brady or Babineau or a weird mixture of the two—knows he’s coming. What Hodges has on his side is that his quarry doesn’t know when.
“My partner and I will get in,” he says, “and worry about getting out later.”
“Nice and quiet, huh?” Duane says, and puts a finger to his lips, which are curved in a smile.
“That’s the ticket. Is there someone I could call for a ride if I do get stuck?”
“Call right here.” Thurston hands him a card from the plastic tray by the cash register. “I’ll send either Duane or Spider Willis. It might not be until late tonight, and it’ll cost you forty dollars, but with a case worth millions, I guess you can afford that.”
“Do cell phones work out here?”
“Five bars even in dirty weather,” Duane says. “There’s a tower on the south side of the lake.”
“Good to know. Thank you. Thank you both.”
He turns to go and the old man says, “That hat you’re wearing is no good in this weather. Take this.” He’s holding out a knit hat with a big orange pompom on top. “Can’t do nothing about those shoes, though.”
Hodges thanks him, takes the hat, then removes his fedora and puts it on the counter. It feels like bad luck; it feels like exactly the right thing to do. “Collateral,” he says.
Both of them grin, the younger one with quite a few more teeth.
“Good enough,” the old man says, “but are you a hundred percent sure you want to be driving out to the lake, Mr.—” he glances down at the Finders Keepers business card—“Mr. Hodges? Because you look a trifle peaky.”
“It’s a chest cold,” Hodges says. “I get one every damn winter. Thank you, both of you. And if Dr. Babineau should by any chance call here …”
“Wouldn’t give him the time of day,” Thurston says. “He’s a snooty one.”
Hodges starts for the door, and a pain like none he’s ever felt before comes out of nowhere, lancing up from his belly all the way to his jawline. It’s like being shot by a burning arrow, and he staggers.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” the old man asks, starting around the counter.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He’s far from that. “Leg cramp. From driving. I’ll be back for my hat.”
With luck, he thinks.
27
“You were in there a long time,” Holly says. “I hope you gave them a very good story.”
“Subpoena.” Hodges doesn’t need to say more; they’ve used the subpoena story more than once. Everyone likes to help, as long as they’re not the ones being served. “Who called?” Thinking it must have been Jerome, to see how they’re doing.
“Izzy Jaynes. They’ve had two more suicide calls, one attempted and one successful. The attempted was a girl who jumped out of a second-story window. She landed on a snowbank and just broke some bones. The other was a boy who hung himself in his closet. Left a note on his pillow. Just one word, Beth, and a broken heart.”
The Expedition’s wheels spin a little when Hodges drops it into gear and rolls back onto the state road. He has to drive with his low beams on. The brights turn the falling snow into a sparkling white wall.
“We have to do this ourselves,” she says. “If it’s Brady, no one will ever believe it. He’ll pretend to be Babineau and spin some story about how he was scared and ran away.”
“And never called the police himself after Library Al shot his wife?” Hodges says. “I’m not sure that would hold.”
“Maybe not, but what if he can jump to someone else? If he could jump to Babineau, who else could he jump to? We have to do this ourselves, even if it means we end up getting arrested for murder. Do you think that could happen, Bill? Do you do you do you?”
“We’ll worry about it later.”
“I’m not sure I could shoot a person
. Not even Brady Hartsfield, if he looks like someone else.”
He repeats, “We’ll worry about it later.”
“Fine. Where did you get that hat?”
“Swapped it for my fedora.”
“The puffball on top is silly, but it looks warm.”
“Do you want it?”
“No. But Bill?”
“Jesus, Holly, what?”
“You look awful.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Be sarcastic. Fine. How far is it to where we’re going?”
“The general consensus back there was three and a half miles on this road. Then a camp road.”
Silence for five minutes as they creep through the blowing snow. And the main body of the storm is still coming, Hodges reminds himself.
“Bill?”
“What now?”
“You have no boots, and I’m all out of Nicorette.”
“Spark up one of those joints, why don’t you? But keep an eye out for a couple of red posts on the left while you do it. They should be coming up soon.”
Holly doesn’t light a joint, just sits forward, looking to the left. When the Expedition skids again, the rear end flirting first left and then right, she doesn’t appear to notice. A minute later she points. “Is that them?”
It is. The passing plows have buried all but the last eighteen inches or so, but that bright red is impossible to miss or mistake. Hodges feathers the brakes, brings the Expedition to a stop, then turns it so it’s facing the snowbank. He tells Holly what he sometimes used to tell his daughter, when he took her on the Wild Cups at Lakewood Amusement Park: “Hold onto your false teeth.”
Holly—always the literalist—says, “I don’t have any,” but she does put a bracing hand on the dashboard.
Hodges steps down gently on the gas and rolls at the snowbank. The thud he expected doesn’t come; Thurston was right about the snow not yet having a chance to pack and harden. It explodes away to either side and up onto the windshield, momentarily blinding him. He shoves the wipers into overdrive, and when the glass clears, the Expedition is pointing down a one-lane camp road rapidly filling with snow. Every now and then more flumps down from the overhanging branches. He sees no tracks from a previous car, but that means nothing. By now they’d be gone.
He kills the headlights and advances at a creep. The band of white between the trees is just visible enough to serve as a guide track. The road seems endless—sloping, switching back, then sloping again—but eventually they come to the place where it splits left and right. Hodges doesn’t have to get out and check the arrows. Ahead on the left, through the snow and the trees, he can see a faint glimmer of light. That’s Heads and Skins, and someone is home. He crimps the wheel and begins rolling slowly down the righthand fork.
Neither of them looks up and sees the video camera, but it sees them.
28
By the time Hodges and Holly burst through the snowbank left by the plow, Brady is sitting in front of the TV, fully dressed in Babineau’s winter coat and boots. He’s left off the gloves, he wants his hands bare in case he has to use the Scar, but there’s a black balaclava lying across one thigh. When the time comes, he’ll don it to cover Babineau’s face and silver hair. His eyes never leave the television as he nervously stirs the pens and pencils sticking out of the ceramic skull. A sharp lookout is absolutely necessary. When Hodges comes, he’ll kill his headlights.
Will he have the nigger lawnboy with him? Brady wonders. Wouldn’t that be sweet! Two for the price of—
And there he is.
He was afraid the Det.-Ret.’s vehicle might get by him in the thickening snow, but that was a needless worry. The snow is white; the SUV is a solid black rectangle sliding through it. Brady leans forward, squinting, but can’t tell if there’s only one person in the cabin, or two, or half a fucking dozen. He’s got the Scar, and with it he could wipe out an entire squad if he had to, but that would spoil the fun. He’d like Hodges alive.
To start with, at least.
Only one more question needs to be answered—will he turn left, and bore straight in, or right? Brady is betting K. William Hodges will choose the fork that leads to Big Bob’s, and he’s right. As the SUV disappears into the snow (with a brief flash of the taillights as Hodges negotiates the first turn), Brady puts the skull penholder down next to the TV remote and picks up an item that has been waiting on the end table. A perfectly legal item when used the right way … which it never was by Babineau and his cohorts. They may have been good doctors, but out here in the woods, they were often bad boys. He pulls this valuable piece of equipment over his head, and lets it hang against the front of his coat by the elastic strap. Then he pulls on the balaclava, grabs the Scar, and heads out. His heart is beating fast and hard, and for the time being, at least, the arthritis in Babineau’s fingers seems to be completely gone.
Payback is a bitch, and the bitch is back.
29
Holly doesn’t ask Hodges why he took the righthand fork. She’s neurotic, but not stupid. He drives at a walking pace, looking to his left, measuring the lights to his left. When he’s even with them, he stops the SUV and switches off the engine. It’s full dark now, and when he turns to look at Holly, she has the fleeting impression that his head has been replaced by a skull.
“Stay here,” he says in a low voice. “Text Jerome, tell him we’re okay. I’m going to cut through those woods and take him.”
“You don’t mean alive, do you?”
“Not if I see him with one of those Zappits.” And probably even if I don’t, he thinks. “We can’t take the risk.”
“Then you believe it’s him. Brady.”
“Even if it’s Babineau, he’s part of this. Neck-deep in it.” But yes, at some point he has become convinced that Brady Hartsfield’s mind is now running Babineau’s body. The intuition is too strong to deny, and has gained the weight of fact.
God help me if I kill him and I’m wrong, he thinks. Only how would I know? How could I ever be sure?
He expects Holly to protest, to tell him she has to come along, but all she says is, “I don’t think I can drive this thing out of here if something happens to you, Bill.”
He hands her Thurston’s card. “If I’m not back in ten minutes—no, make it fifteen—call this guy.”
“What if I hear shots?”
“If it’s me, and I’m okay, I’ll honk the horn of Library Al’s car. Two quick beeps. If you don’t hear that, drive the rest of the way to the other camp, Big Bob’s Whatsit. Break in, find somewhere to hide, call Thurston.”
Hodges leans across the center console, and for the first time since he’s known her, kisses her lips. She’s too startled to kiss him back, but she doesn’t pull away. When he does, she looks down in confusion and says the first thing that comes into her mind. “Bill, you’re in shoes! You’ll freeze!”
“There’s not so much snow in the trees, only a couple of inches.” And really, cold feet are the least of his worries at this point.
He finds the toggle switch that kills the interior lights. As he leaves the Expedition, grunting with suppressed pain, she can hear the rising whisper of the wind in the fir trees. If it were a voice, it would be mourning. Then the door shuts.
Holly sits where she is, watching his dark shape merge with the dark shapes of the trees, and when she can no longer tell which is which, she gets out and follows his tracks. The Victory .38 that Hodges’s father once carried as a beat cop back in the fifties, when Sugar Heights was still woodland, is in her coat pocket.
30
Hodges makes his way toward the lights of Heads and Skins one plodding step at a time. Snow flicks his face and coats his eyelids. That burning arrow is back, lighting him up inside. Frying him. His face is running with sweat.
At least my feet aren’t hot, he thinks, and that’s when he stumbles over a snow-covered log and goes sprawling. He lands squarely on his left side and buries his face in the arm of his coat t
o keep from screaming. Hot liquid spills into his crotch.
Wet my pants, he thinks. Wet my pants just like a baby.
When the pain recedes a little, he gathers his legs under him and tries to stand. He can’t do it. The wetness is turning cold. He can actually feel his dick shriveling to get away from it. He grabs a low-hanging branch and tries again to get up. It snaps off. He looks at it stupidly, feeling like a cartoon character—Wile E. Coyote, maybe—and tosses it aside. As he does, a hand hooks into his armpit.
His surprise is so great he almost screams. Then Holly is whispering in his ear. “Upsa-daisy, Bill. Come on.”
With her help, he’s finally able to make it to his feet. The lights are close now, no more than forty yards through the screening trees. He can see the snow frosting her hair and lighting on her cheeks. All at once he finds himself remembering the office of an antique bookdealer named Andrew Halliday, and how he, Holly, and Jerome had discovered Halliday lying dead on the floor. He told them to stay back, but—
“Holly. If I told you to go back, would you do it?”
“No.” She’s whispering. They both are. “You’ll probably have to shoot him, and you can’t get there without help.”
“You’re supposed to be my backup, Holly. My insurance policy.” The sweat is pouring off him like oil. Thank God his coat is a long one. He doesn’t want Holly to know he pissed himself.
“Jerome is your insurance policy,” she says. “I’m your partner. That’s why you brought me, whether you know it or not. And it’s what I want. It’s all I ever wanted. Now come on. Lean on me. Let’s finish this.”
They move slowly through the remaining trees. Hodges can’t believe how much of his weight she’s taking. They pause at the edge of the clearing that surrounds the house. There are two lighted rooms. Judging by the subdued glow coming from the one closest to them, Hodges thinks it must be the kitchen. A single light on in there, maybe the one over the stove. Coming from the other window he can make out an unsteady flicker that probably means a fireplace.
