Charlie Parker Collection 1

by John Connolly

  On the banks, figures moved, but only one light was visible now. They were waiting for me to appear, still fearful of the gun I no longer had. I took a breath and dived again, keeping barely below the surface as I swam, one handed, away from them. I did not rise again until my hand brushed the bottom of the pond in the shallows by the bank. Keeping my injured side raised, I dragged myself through the shallows, looking for a point where I could safely climb onto land. The automatic spoke again, but this time the bullets struck far behind me. Other shots came, but they were random, unfocused, hoping for a lucky hit. I kept moving onwards, my eyes on the deeper darkness ahead where the woods lay.

  To my right, I saw a break in the bank and water falling over stones: the river. And that river, I knew, flowed through Dark Hollow. I could have headed for the farthest shore and the woods beyond, but if I fell down among the trees or lost my sense of direction, the best I could hope for would be death from freezing, because no one would know I was there except for Tony Celli’s men. If they found me, I would not have to worry about the cold for long.

  I found a footing at the mouth of the river, where it flowed from the lake, but I did not stand, preferring instead to keep pulling myself along until an outcrop of trees masked me enough from the men behind to enable me to rise and move into the river itself. My side ached badly now, and every movement sent a fresh surge of pain through me. Water tumbled over a small bank of stones and it took me two attempts to gain a foothold. I pulled myself up and lay, once again, in the water as a flashlight beam moved by and shone in my direction before continuing on past the mouth. I counted to ten, then stumbled for the bank.

  The snow had eased a little as the wind dropped. It was less driving now but still falling thickly, and the ground around me was completely white. The pain in my left side grew as I struggled through the deep snow, and I stopped against the trunk of a tree to examine the wound. There was a ragged hole in the back of my jacket, and the sweater and shirt beneath, with a small entry hole around the tenth rib, and a larger exit hole at the front at more or less the same level. The pain was bad but the wound was shallow: the distance between the entry and exit holes was little more than an inch. Blood dripped through my lingers and pooled on the snow below. That should have warned me, but I was scared and hurt and was not as careful as I should have been. I reached down, gasping at the pain it caused, and took two handfuls of snow. I packed the snow into the wounds and moved on, slipping and sliding on the bank but remaining close to the water so I would not lose my way. My teeth were chattering uncontrollably and my clothes clung damply to my body. My fingers burned from the icy water. I was nauseous with shock.

  It was only when I had travelled some distance, stopping occasionally to rest against a tree, that I recalled where I was in relation to the town. Ahead of me and to my right, perhaps two hundred yards away, I could see the lights of a house. I heard the noise of a set of falls, saw before me the steel skeleton of a bridge and I knew where I was, and where I could go.

  A light burned at the kitchen window of the Jennings house as I fell against the back door. I heard a noise from inside and Lorna’s voice, panicked, saying: ‘Who’s there?’ The curtains at the door parted a little and her eyes widened as she saw my face.

  ‘Bird?’ There came the sound of a key turning in the lock and then the support of the door was taken away from me and I fell forwards. As she helped me to a chair, I told her to call room six at the India Hill Motel and no one else, and then I closed my eyes and let the pain wash over me in waves.

  Blood bubbled from the exit hole as Lorna cleaned the wound; the skin around it had been wiped down and she had removed some tattered pieces of cloth from within with a pair of sterilised tweezers. She passed a swab over the wound and the burning sensation came again, causing me to twist in the chair.

  ‘Hold still,’ she said, so I did. When she was done, she made me turn so that she could get at the entry hole. She looked a little queasy, but she kept going.

  ‘Are you sure you want me to do this?’ Lorna asked when she was done.

  I nodded.

  She took a needle and poured boiling water on it.

  ‘This will hurt a little,’ she said.

  She was being optimistic. It hurt a lot. I felt tears spring from my eye at the sharpness of the pain as she put two stitches in each wound. It wasn’t textbook medical care, but I just needed something to get me through the next few hours. When she had finished, she took a pressure bandage and applied it, then took a longer roll and wound it around my abdomen.

  ‘It’ll hold until we can get you to a hospital,’ she said. She gave me a small, nervous smile. ‘Red Cross first-aid classes. You should be grateful I paid attention.’

  I nodded to let her know that I understood. It was a clean wound. That was about the only good thing that could be said for high-velocity bullets: they didn’t deform on impact, tearing up the flesh, but continued on their merry way with most of their energy, and their jacket, intact.

  ‘You want to tell me what happened?’ asked Lorna. I stood up slowly and it was only then that I noticed the blood on the tiles.

  ‘Damn,’ I said. A wave of nausea swept over me, but I held on to the table and closed my eyes until it had passed. Lorna’s arm curled around my upper body.

  ‘You’ve got to sit down, Bird. You’re weak, and you’ve lost blood.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, as I pushed myself away from the table and walked unsteadily to the back door. ‘That’s what I’m worried about.’ I lifted the curtain and looked outside. It was still snowing but in the light from the kitchen I could see the telltale trail of red leading from the direction of the river to the door of the kitchen, the blood so thick and dark that it simply absorbed the falling snow.

  I turned to Lorna. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come here.’

  Her face was solemn, her lips pinched, and then she gave another small smile. ‘Where else could you have gone?’ she said. ‘I called your friends. They’re on their way.’

  ‘Where’s Rand?’

  ‘In town. They found that man, Billy Purdue, the one they’ve been looking for. Rand’s holding him until the morning. Then the FBI and a whole lot of other people will arrive to talk to him.’

  That was why Tony Celli’s men were here. Word of Billy Purdue’s capture would have spread like wildfire through the agencies and police departments involved, and Tony Celli would have been listening. I wondered how quickly they had spotted me when they arrived. As soon as they saw the Mustang, they must have known and decided that it would be less trouble to kill me than to risk my interference.

  ‘The men who shot me, they want Billy Purdue,’ I said quietly. ‘And they’ll kill Rand and his men if they won’t hand him over.’

  Something flickered on the window, like a falling star reflected. It took me a second to figure out what it was: a flashlight beam. I grabbed Lorna by the hand and pulled her to the front of the house. ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ I said. The hallway was dark, with a dining room leading off to the right. I stayed low, despite the pain in my side, and peered through the space beneath the window blinds into the front yard.

  Two figures stood at the end of the yard. One held a shotgun. The other had his arm in a sling.

  I came back to the hallway. Lorna took one look at my face and said: ‘They’re out front as well, aren’t they?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Why do they want you dead?’

  ‘They think I’ll interfere, and they owe me for something that happened back in Portland. You must have a gun in the house. Where is it?’

  ‘Upstairs. Rand keeps one in the dresser.’

  She led the way up the stairs and into their bedroom. It contained a large, country pine bed, with a yellow bedspread and yellow pillows. A matching country pine dresser stood across from a large closet. In one corner was a small bookshelf packed with books. A radio played softly in another corner, The Band singing ‘Evangeline’, with Emmylou Harris�
�s vocals snaking in and out of the verse and chorus. Lorna pulled socks, men’s underwear and T-shirts from a drawer and threw them on the floor until she found the revolver. It was a Charter Arms Undercover .38, with a three-inch barrel, a real lawman’s weapon. The five chambers were loaded, and there was a speed loader beside it, also fully packed. Close by, in a Propex holster, was a second gun, a Ruger Mark 2 with a tapered barrel. ‘Rand sometimes uses it for target shooting,’ said Lorna, pointing to an almost empty box of .22 Long Rifle rimfire cartridges in the corner of the drawer.

  ‘God bless the paranoid,’ I said. On the bedside cabinet stood a large plastic bottle of water, almost empty now. I steadied myself against the dresser. In the mirror facing me, my skin appeared deathly pale. There were smudges of hurt and exhaustion under my eyes and my face was pockmarked by glass cuts and smeared with sap and the old man’s blood. I could smell him on me. I could smell his dog.

  ‘Do you have tape, adhesive tape?’

  ‘Maybe downstairs, but there’s a roll of adhesive bandage in the bathroom cabinet. Will that do?’

  I nodded, took the plastic bottle and followed her into the yellow-and-white tiled bathroom, loading the Ruger as I walked. She opened the cabinet and handed me the roll of inch-wide bandage. I emptied the last of the mineral water into the sink, inserted the slim barrel of the Ruger into the bottle and held it in place by wrapping the bandage repeatedly around it.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Lorna.

  ‘Making a suppressor,’ I replied. I figured that, if Celli’s men searched the house, I could take one of them out with the suppressed .22 if I had to and buy us five, maybe ten seconds of time. In a gunfight at close quarters, ten seconds is an eternity.

  From below came the sound of the back door being kicked in, followed by the shattering of glass and the sound of the front door being opened. I tucked the .38 into my pants and slid the Ruger’s safety down.

  ‘Get in the tub and keep your head down,’ I whispered. She slipped off her sandals and climbed silently into the bathtub. I removed my shoes and left them on the tiled floor, then moved softly onto the landing and back into the bedroom. The radio was still playing, but The Band had now been replaced by Neil Young, his high, plaintive tones echoing around the room.

  ‘Don’t let it bring you down . . .’

  I took up a position in the shadows by the window. The Ruger felt awkward in my hand after the Smith & Wesson, but at least it was a gun. I cocked it, and waited.

  ‘It’s only castles burning . . .’

  I heard him on the stairs, watched his shadow moving ahead of him, saw it stop and then begin to move into the room, following the music. I tightened my grip on the trigger, and took a deep breath.

  ‘Just find someone who’s turning . . .’

  He pushed the door open with his foot, waited a moment, then darted fully into the bedroom, his shotgun raised. I swallowed once, then exhaled.

  ‘. . . And you will come around.’

  I pulled the trigger on the .22 and the top of the bottle exploded dully with a sound like a paper bag bursting. It was a clean shot, straight through the heart. I advanced and fired again as he stumbled back against the wall, then slid slowly down, leaving a dark, red trail across the cream paint. I caught the shotgun, a pistol-grip Mossberg, as it slipped from his grasp. Dropping the .22, I stepped over his body, my stocking feet soundless on the floor, and moved back into the hallway.

  ‘Terry?’ called a voice from below, and I saw a man’s hand, a .44 Magnum held in its grip, then his arm, his body, his face. He looked up and I took him in the head, the noise of the shotgun like a cannon’s roar. His features disappeared in a red haze and he tumbled backwards. I pumped and was already moving onto the stairs when a bullet struck the wall close to my left ear, a muzzle flashing in the darkness of the dining room. I fired, pumped, fired, pumped: two rounds into the darkness. Glass broke and plaster disintegrated, and no more shots came. The front door now stood ajar. What remained of its glass burst and wood splinters flew as more shots came from the kitchen. I stayed on the stairs, jammed the shotgun between the supports of the bannisters, turned it and fired the last round.

  In the kitchen, a shadow detached itself from the wall and moved to the edge of the long hallway, firing a barrage of shots, sending wood singing from the bannisters and yellow dust clouding from the wall beside me, as his aim gradually grew closer and closer. I reached for the .38, yanked it from my belt and fired three shots. There was a cry of pain as, from the corner of my eye, I saw movement at the front door. It distracted me and, as I turned, the wounded gunman in the kitchen exposed himself fully and moved into the hall, his gun hand raised, the other hand holding onto his shoulder. He bared his teeth and then a noise came, louder than any gunshot I had ever heard before, and a hole appeared in his torso, big enough for a man to put his fists through if he chose. I thought I could see the kitchen through it, the glass on the floor, the sink unit, the edge of a chair. The gunman remained upright for a split second longer then tumbled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

  At the door stood Louis, a huge Ithaca Mag-10 Road-blocker shotgun in his hands, the rubber stock still fast against his shoulder. ‘Man just had himself a 10-gauge handshake,’ he said. From the back of the house came more shots and the sound of a car accelerating fast. Louis jumped the corpse, with me close behind, and we headed through the ruined kitchen and into the yard. Angel stood at the gate, a Glock 9mm in his hand, and shrugged at us.

  ‘He got away, the ugly fuck. I didn’t even see him until he was in the car.’

  ‘Mifflin,’ I said, wearily.

  Louis looked at me. ‘That freak still alive?’ He shook his head in wonder.

  ‘Maybe we could blast him into space and hope he burns up on re-entry,’ mused Angel.

  I shivered in the cold, with only the bandages to cover my upper body. They were already soaked with red. My ears rang from the noise of the gunfire in the enclosed space of the house. Louis slipped off his overcoat and put it over my shoulders. Despite the cold, I felt like I was burning.

  ‘You know,’ said Angel. ‘You oughta be more careful. You’re gonna catch your death like that.’

  The three of us started at a noise from behind, but only Lorna stood at the door. I walked up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, keeping her eyes on me and away from the bodies on the floor behind her. ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘We’re going back to Dark Hollow. I need Billy Purdue alive.’

  ‘And Rand?’

  ‘I’ll do what I can. You better call him, tell him what’s happened.’

  ‘I tried. Our phone is dead. They must have cut the wires before they came in.’

  ‘Go to a neighbour’s house and make the call. With a little luck, we’ll get to Dark Hollow shortly after.’ All of which assumed that the lines hadn’t been cut from outside town, in which case Dark Hollow itself would be cut off.

  It was time to go, but Lorna raised a hand. ‘Wait,’ she said, and went back upstairs. When she returned, she had a thick cotton shirt, a sweater and a padded jacket from LL Bean, along with a box of cartridges for the .38. She helped me to put on the clothes, then touched my hand gently.

  ‘You take care, Bird.’

  ‘You too.’

  Behind me, Angel started up the Mercury, Louis in the front seat. I climbed in back and we moved off. I looked back to see Lorna standing in her yard, watching us until we were gone from her sight.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  The roads were deserted as we drove, the silence around us broken only by the purr of the Mercury’s engine and the soft thud of snowflakes impacting on the windshield. The pain in my side burned fiercely and, once or twice, I closed my eyes and seemed to lose a couple of seconds. There was blood on my fingers and an ochre stain on my pants from my groin to my lower thigh. I caught Louis taking careful looks back at me in the rear-view mirror, a
nd I raised a hand to let him know that I was still with them. It might have looked more convincing if the hand hadn’t been covered in blood.

  When we pulled into the parking lot in front of the police department there were two cruisers parked ahead of us, along with an orange ’74 Trans-Am that looked like it would take a miracle to start it and a couple of other vehicles that had remained stationary long enough for the snow to blur their lines, including a rental Toyota out of Bangor. There was no sign of Tony Celli, or any of his men.

  We entered through the front door. Ressler stood behind the desk, examining the jack on the telephone. Behind him was a second, younger patrolman whom I didn’t recognise, probably another part-timer, and farther back again, standing across from the station house’s two holding cells, was Jennings himself. In a chair beside the desk sat Walter Cole. He looked shocked at my appearance. I was kind of unhappy about it myself.

  ‘The fuck do you want?’ said Jennings, causing Ressler to rise from his position and cast a wary eye first over Louis and Angel, then me. He didn’t look too pleased at the sight of our guns and his hand hovered near his own side arm. His eyes widened a little as he saw the marks on my face, and the blood on my clothing.

  ‘What’s wrong with the phones?’ I returned.

  ‘They’re out,’ Ressler said, after a moment’s pause. ‘All communications are down. Could be the weather.’

  I moved past him to the cells. One was empty. In the other, Billy Purdue sat with his head in his hands. His clothes were filthy and his boots were stained with mud. He had the haunted, desperate look of an animal caught in a snare. He was humming to himself, like a little boy trying to block out the world around him. I didn’t ask Rand Jennings’s permission to talk to him. I wanted answers, and he was the only one who could provide them.