by Blake Banner
I took a sip and flicked the butt of my cigarette into the flames. The horrific reality was clear, even if, as Al said, the particular details were missing. I had as little desire to know them as he did. But there was another, equally disturbing level to this story. I reached for my Camels and pulled another from the pack. I flipped the Zippo and sparked the flint, leaned into the flame, and sucked. I flicked the lid closed and stared at the battered brass in my hands, turning over in my mind how one thing led to another. It was barely credible. I looked at him and shook my head.
“So the mine. The mine was not about the gold.”
He glanced at me and the flames danced in his wet, swollen eyes. “No. Never. Not for me. I knew there was gold there. I didn’t know how much. It was in my mind to make a deal with one of the big Nevada corporations before I died, to secure Arnold’s future after I was gone. But Karen and Joe came up with another plan.” He shook his head. “I am not shirking my responsibility. I colluded. I am as guilty as they.”
“Joe had the contacts in Arizona?”
“Yes. He was from Arizona. Most of the hands you met and disposed of were from Arizona or New Mexico. They had all done time. They were all involved one way or another in trafficking Mexicans across the border. He had this brilliant idea, bring in families to work the mine. It was an idea that was easy to sell to the Mexicans! No need to leave your wife and kids. Bring the family. We’ll look after you all. It’s a gold mine! Good pay and you all stay together.”
I finished for him, “But when they get here, you separate them. You feed them and house them, at a minimal cost, and force them to work the mine. The threat that keeps them going, and stops them escaping, is what will happen to the kids if they do.”
“And for the kids, what will happen to their parents.”
“And meanwhile you have an unlimited supply of girls for Arnold to fall in love with. And when the time comes to get rid of them, nobody is going to be asking any questions. As far as Mexico is concerned, they left the country illegally. As far as the U.S.A. is concerned, they never arrived. They don’t exist.”
He nodded. “That is correct.”
“And meanwhile, you clean up at the mine.” I gave a small laugh. “This is Nevada! Home of Las Vegas, Reno, the Mafia! How hard could it be to find a sympathetic partner to take tons of gold ore off you on the quiet, no questions asked. You mine it at practically no cost, they buy it, process it, and sell it. Everybody wins, excepts the Mexican families and the kids who do the mining. But who cares, right? They are expendable.”
“I am not proud of what I have done. I believed it was best for my son.”
“And that’s your excuse?”
He shook his head. “There is no excuse. It’s my reason.”
“What happened to Peggy?”
He stared at me for a long time. His face twisted, his bottom lip trembled. When he finally spoke, his voice was ugly with tortured emotion. “He wanted little blonde girls, with blue eyes. Karen hates Mexicans… So he hates Mexicans!”
I snarled at him, “She didn’t want him with any girl. But if he had to have one, she had to be blonde and blue-eyed. Only an Aryan was good enough to die for her son.”
He fell back in his chair and sobbed.
“How many little Mexican girls died before you decided they weren’t good enough?”
“Five.”
“Where are they buried?”
“Behind the lodgings.”
“You son of a bitch. What about the other families?”
“After a year, they were returned to Mexico, and a fresh lot were brought in. Threats of retribution if they spoke were enough to keep them quiet. Not that any officials over there would care, or take them seriously, if they did speak out.”
I stood. “Where is she?”
“Upstairs, with the boy.”
I left the study. I climbed the stairs feeling like I was in some kind of surreal nightmare. I walked down the long, dark, narrow corridor to his room and opened the door. I stood on the threshold. He was alone on his bed, still curled in the fetal position. He gazed at me with empty, hungry eyes.
“Did you bring Primrose for me?”
I stepped into the room, gazed down at him and shook my head. I could hear Al’s feet, weary on the stairs. I said, “No,”
And then there was a sudden, terrible explosion of pain in my head.
Twenty-five
I could hear screaming. My mind told me it was Primrose screaming. But as I surfaced from the darkness, I became aware that it wasn’t. It was the gale. It was hurtling off the plain to the north, breaking around the house, screaming in the pylons and the trees, and then groaning around the building. I groaned, too. There was a terrible pain in my head. I felt sick, and as I tried to raise myself to stand, I felt dizzy. By degrees, I got myself to a kneeling position, then leaned over and retched sour whiskey onto the carpet. I leaned against the foot of the bed, closed my eyes, and waited for the pain and the nausea to pass.
Memories filtered back. I had come up to the room. I had seen him on the bed. He had asked me about Primrose. I had said that I had not brought her for him. And then the explosion of pain that had ripped at my skull.
I opened my eyes and looked down at where I had been lying. The poker was there, on the floor. There was blood caked on it. I felt the back of my head. The hair was matted, sticky. Maybe one day I would learn to live by my own creed. Be in the moment. React in the moment.
I forced myself to stand. Another wave of nausea. The black glass in the window showed flurries of snow. That and the wind told me I had been out for a long time. Too long. An hour at least. I tried the door. It was locked. I reached for my gun. Naturally they had taken it, along with my knife. Sergeant Bradley looked at me from within my mind and shook his head. I told him to shut up, took my Swiss Army knife from my pocket, and started removing the hinges from the door frame. People always focus on the lock, but too often forget about the hinges.
After a couple minutes, I wedged the screwdriver into the crack, levered the door enough to get a hold of it, and ripped it out of the frame. Then I was running down the stairs, trying to ignore the blunt hatchet in my skull. The front door was open, like the last person to leave had been in a hurry. The gale was blowing snow in across the cold marble floor. I stepped out and needles of ice lashed my face and drove through my jacket and my shirt to tear at my skin.
There were no vehicles. The Q7 was gone, the Jeep was gone, the Dodge was gone. They were all gone. It was almost three miles to the guesthouse. There was no doubt in my mind that three miles in a blizzard, while suffering from a concussion and exhaustion, was more than enough to kill you. I thought of the red Toyota with the smashed windshield. I might be able to make that work. Toyotas are pretty much indestructible.
I set off down the track at an unsteady, sliding run, trying not to slip and fall on the freezing road. After a minute I came to the Toyota, and a knot of anxiety twisted my gut. The hood was up and, when I looked, the battery had been riddled with gunshots.
That left only one way to get to Abi and Primrose, and Sean. I had to go on foot. I didn’t hesitate. You don’t hesitate in the face of the things you know you have to do. You just do them. I put my hands in my jacket pockets and started to walk. There are no good ways to die. But nobody gets out of here alive either, and this was as good a way to go as any I could think of. I summoned up the memory of Sergeant Bradley again, smiling at me with his big, bearded Kiwi face, taunting me with his weird Kiwi accent, “Come on, you big girl’s blouse! Couple of miles in the snow—do you good! Make a man of you!”
The fact was, the storm was not as bad as it had been the night before. The wind was fierce and the temperature was well below zero, but the snow was not so heavy, and because what had already fallen had frozen, it was not being whipped up into clouds by the gale. At least, not much. Visibility was not too bad, and pretty soon I could see the icy twinkle of the lights in Independence. I was shivering badly
, but I picked up my step, telling myself it was not so bad. I could make it.
I came at last to the road and stopped. On my right, I could see the black hulk of the snow plow. That would get me to Independence in a matter of a few minutes. It would deprive me of the element of surprise. It would give Al and Karen advance warning of my arrival and give them the chance to escape. But it might also save Abi, Primrose, and Sean’s lives. But even as I was thinking it over, I heard, among the howl and groan of the wind, another sound: the sound of a straining engine, the sound of tires spinning, trying to grip onto ice. I ran.
I sprinted, heedless of the possibility of sliding and falling, not giving a damn if I did or not. I had to get to that vehicle before the tires bit into the earth under that layer of ice. I sprinted across the blacktop, hit the dirt road on the other side, lost my footing and sprawled facedown on the frozen ground, skinning my hands and my knees. I didn’t pause, I got up running and hurtled forward, pounding the ground with my boots, digging deep, finding reserves of strength and energy I didn’t know I had. And then it was there, twenty yards ahead of me, the Audi, with its back wheels stuck in a drift, all four wheels spinning ineffectually, achieving nothing.
Then the driver’s door opened and Al climbed out. He took two steps toward me, his face twisted and distorted with rage. He raised his hand and I saw he was holding my gun. With the momentum of my run and the frozen ground, I could not stop. I couldn’t change direction. I had no control. All I could do was hurl myself in a dive at his feet. The Sig spat and I heard the bullet zing past my ear. Then I was smashing into his legs and he slammed onto the road, sprawling across my shins. I heard the gun clatter onto the road.
I scrambled to my knees, turning as I did so. I could hear him gasping, “Oh God… Oh God…”
I stood, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him to his feet, shouting at him, “Enough, Al! Enough!” As I did, I saw his right arm flash and I knew he had my Fairbairn & Sykes fighting knife in his hand. I didn’t think. My left hand flashed to his inside elbow as I stepped back. My right grasped the outside of his wrist and I shoved, turning the blade inward, guiding it into his heart.
We were just inches apart. We stared into each other’s eyes. He looked astonished, frowned. I have little time for philosophy, but sometimes when I look into the eyes of a dying man I remember what the Buddhists say: that your dying thought conditions your next becoming. Aloysius Groves had become a monster, had conspired in the murder and enslavement of children, yet in that moment, a pale flame of compassion burned inside me; maybe because I knew that he hated himself for what he had become.
I heard my voice rasp, in spite of myself, “Wherever you’re going, Al, whatever awaits you there, you can be better than this.”
Let that be his dying thought. His eyes glazed and his life left his body. I reached down and picked up my Sig. Then I dragged his empty carcass by his ankles to the front of the Audi and wedged his legs under the front wheels. I climbed in, put it in drive and accelerated slowly. The tires bit into the legs and slowly pulled the SUV out of the drift.
I kept it steady at fifteen miles an hour. I half expected to find Karen buried in a drift too, but there was no sign of her. There was no sign of her on the road, or in the village when I finally arrived. I parked the SUV beside my Zombie, climbed out, and trudged through the deep snow in the front yard up to the door. I rang on the bell and hammered on the wood. I heard a door open and close inside, then silence. I rang again and hammered again, and shouted, “Abi! It’s me! Lacklan! Open up!”
Then there was the rattle of a lock, the door wrenched open, and Abi was there, reaching for me with both hands.
“Oh, thank God! I was so worried!” She held me close and I held her back, but only for a second.
I said, “Abi, there is no time. Get inside. Where are the kids?”
She let me go and stepped back. I closed the door. “Abi, the kids, where are they?”
She frowned. “Upstairs, in bed. They were exhausted. Why…?”
“I can’t explain now.”
I turned and sprinted up the stairs, moved swiftly along the landing until I came to Primrose’s door. I opened it quietly and went in. The room was dark. The drapes were closed. I could hear the soft, steady flow of her breath. I moved to her side, hunkered down, and folded back the duvet. She was sleeping peacefully. I stood and moved to the window, pulled back the edge of the drape and peered into the garden. The window was closed and locked. The back yard was empty. There were no prints in the snow.
I turned. Abi’s black silhouette was framed in the doorway. I moved to her, we stepped out onto the landing, and I closed Primrose’s door behind me, then went to Sean’s room.
He was out cold under his bedclothes. I folded them back. He was sleeping soundly, breathing deeply and slowly. I checked his window. It was securely closed. I could see down into the small square, my Zombie, the Audi, the doc’s house and the dark plain beyond. There was nothing, nobody. Where was she?
I stepped out onto the landing. Abi took hold of my lapels, staring up into my face. “What is it, Lacklan? What’s going on? Tell me.”
I looked into her face for a moment, then pushed past her and ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. She was close behind me. I checked the kitchen door. It was locked. There was a deadbolt at the bottom and another at the top. They were both driven home.
I turned. She was standing at the table, watching me, her face tight with anxiety.
“Lacklan…? You’re hurt. You have blood on the back of your head.”
I ignored her comment. “There’s no deadbolt on the front door?”
She shook her head. “No… Please tell me what’s going on.”
A wave of nausea flooded over me. I moved to the big pine table. I took off my jacket, pulled out a chair, and sat. “Make some coffee, would you? Very strong, and sweet.” I put my head in my hands. Where did you begin to explain?
“Al is dead.”
She was opening a coffee percolator, watching me. “Did you kill him?”
I nodded. “In self-defense. He was on his way here. Karen is here, somewhere. Abi, she’s crazy. She is behind all of this.”
She finished preparing the coffee and put it on the cooker to brew. The wind rattled the kitchen window. She came to the table and sat, took hold of my hand. “Are you sure?”
“Oh yeah, I’m sure. If it weren’t for the gash on the back of my head, I might think I was out of my mind and had imagined it all. But that crazy bitch hit me with a poker.”
She frowned at me like she herself was wondering if I had lost my mind. I started to talk, to tell her about my conversation with Al, and the more I talked, the less skeptical she looked. The coffee percolator began to gurgle. She rose and crossed the room to pour the hot, black brew into a mug. As she did it, she said, “It was Karen’s idea for the girls to go over and visit. I remember because Pamela Gordon, that was their mother, talked to me about it. She wasn’t sure what to do. Everybody knew that Arnold was a bit… odd. But she didn’t want to offend the Groves. They carried a lot of weight. It was the same with Sally’s Mom. It was Karen who asked for Sally to visit.”
She returned, handed me my mug, and sat. And it was in that moment that the terrible, tortured shriek split the night, and something big and heavy smashed against the kitchen door. It pounded again and again, and the scream wouldn’t stop.
I went to stand but Abi was clawing at my arm, screaming, “Oh dear God! Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!”
I yanked my arm free, pulled my Sig from my waistband and ran across the kitchen floor. I crouched, slid back the bolt at the bottom of the door, and reached up and slid the one at the top, feeling my fingers were made of lead. I turned the key and pulled the door open, aiming the gun straight ahead of me.
There was nothing there.
I took the gun with both hands and stepped into the snow, scanning left and right. There was nothing, only the deep tracks that led acros
s the snow to the plum tree. I stepped out and scanned the wall of the building. There was nobody hiding there. I waded to the tree, pulled myself up, and looked over the fence.
Nothing.
Abi was silhouetted black in the open kitchen doorway. I could see the warm light coming through the window from the inside. I could see the kitchen table, the blue iron range, the chairs where we had been sitting. She had seen all that too, from up here. It had been a distraction. A distraction from the only other point of entry.
The front door.
Twenty-six
I leapt down from the tree and tried to run through the deep snow. Each wading step took a whole, interminable second. Abi stood staring at me, her eyes wide with fear. She kept asking, “What? Lacklan, what is it? You’re scaring me!”
I got to the door and ran, slipped on the snow on my boots and fell, scrambled to my feet, and took off through the living room toward the reception. Abi was just behind me. I ripped open the door. Freezing wind fingered my face. Snow swirled at my feet. I stared out at the black night, because the front door was open.
I swore violently and ran up the stairs, taking them three at a time, screaming, “Primrose! Sean! Wake up! Wake up!”
I hit the landing and ran for Primrose’s room. The door opened as I got there. Primrose was staring at me, wide eyed and sleepy.
“What is it? What’s going on?”
I said, “Sean!” and turned. Abi was already opening his door. I shouted, “Abi! No!” But it was too late, she’d pushed it open. I threw myself at her as Karen lunged. Abi fell sprawling on the floor. For a second I saw Karen’s face, twisted with frenzied hatred. Then I felt the hard blade of a kitchen knife slash deep into my arm. The Sig fell from my hand. I grabbed her wrist and tried to twist her arm, but her strength was terrifying and she clawed at my face with her free hand. We staggered back toward the banisters. I felt my foot knock my gun and heard it clatter through the rails and down the stairs. I tried to kick at her legs, but she was rushing forward and I was off balance.
