Leaning back against the car, Pete fed ammo into his revolver. His bullets looked about three times the size of Larry’s.
“I’m gonna have to get me a forty-five or something,” Larry said.
“Yeah. Get yourself a piece with some real stopping power.” Pete holstered his magnum. Squinting into the camera, he poked a cigarette into the corner of his mouth. He lit it with a Bic. “Ready to go after our man?” he asked.
“How about a beer before we start?”
“Reckon that’d hit the spot.”
They leaned against the side of the car while they drank. Larry kept looking up and down the road, hoping someone might show up and ruin their plan.
Pete finished his cigarette. He tossed it down and mashed it under his boot. “This’ll be great in our book,” he said, “the two of us coming out here to kick ass.”
“Yeah. We probably won’t find him, though.”
“Hey, man, think positive.”
“I am.”
“Get outa here. You mean to tell me you came all the way out here hopingwe won’t find the guy?”
“I’m not exactly looking forward to it.”
“You’re not gonna chicken out on me, are you?”
“Came this far.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“The thing about Uriah, though...” He stopped, shook his head, and drank some more beer.
“Yeah?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, man. Spit it out.”
“Well, he’s real”
“No fooling.”
“You’ve been to Vietnam and everything. It’s different for you. The closest I ever came to real trouble was when some neighbors got shot up back in L.A. I just hit the floor and prayed none of the bullets would come our way. I’ve never actually gone afteranyone.”
“Me neither. I wasn’t a grunt, you know.”
“You’ve never shot anyone?”
“Nope. Or been shot at. Closest I ever came to getting plugged, ol‘ hoss, was when you drew down on me last Friday.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” He laughed. “Hey, buck up. It showed you had balls. If you can stick a gun in my face, you’ll do it when it counts.”
“Hope so,” Larry muttered.
“Don’t worry, you will.” Pete stepped away from the car, tossed his beer can high and went for his gun.
“No!” Before he could clear his holster, Larry grabbed his wrist.
The can clinked on the street and rolled.
“Hey, man...”
“Are you out of your gourd? That cannon...”
“We didn’t exactly sneakinto town, Lar. If Uriah’s around, I reckon he knows we’re here.”
“Well, Jeez.”
“Okay okay. You done there? Let’s get this show on the road.”
While Pete retrieved his can, Larry finished his beer and stepped to the trunk. They dropped both cans inside. “What about the camera?” Larry asked.
“It’ll be too dark in the hotel.”
“Better take this, then.” Larry searched a corner of the trunk. Along with the jack, tire iron, and flares was a flash-light he kept there for emergencies. He took it out and started to shut the trunk.
“Whoa there. We might need this, too.” Pete reached in. He lifted out the tire tool.
Looking over his shoulder, Larry saw that the hasp on the hotel doors still dangled loose. “Think we’ll need the bar?”
“We’re gonna check the rooms, aren’t we?”
He hadn’t thought of that. He realized, in fact, that he’d avoided thinking about what they would actually do once they were here. “I don’t know about breaking into rooms.”
Pete shook his head and chuckled. Tire iron in his hand, he closed the trunk. “You really don’twant to find this guy, do you?”
“I sure don’t want to shoot him,” Larry said as they approached the front doors.
“I don’t aim to shoot anyone, either. But it’s nice to know we’ve got some protection.” He patted the handle of his revolver. Then he slipped the tire iron under his belt, swung open one of the doors, and stepped into the hotel.
The light from the doorway swept across the lobby floor and faded, leaving the far areas of the room in darkness. Larry could barely make out the vague shape of the registration counter, could only see halfway up the stairs to his left. As he tried to see more, the light was squeezed out. The door bumped shut.
“Let’s get our eyes used to it,” Pete whispered.
Larry felt as if a black hood had been dropped over his face. But when he turned around, he found strips of sunlight coming through cracks in the boarded windows, and a glowing band across the bottom of the doorway.
Pete stood beside him, silent.
Larry faced forward again. Soon he was able to make out the faint shapes of things: the long counter, the cubbyholes behind it, the banister and stairs. They were almost invisible, but there. Soft around the edges. Flowing. Melting into the blackness. He saw some shapes he wasn’t sure about. Something above the distant counter that might be a face. Something partway up the stairs that might be a man standing motionless, staring down at them.
It was better, he thought, when I couldn’t see at all.
“The lair of the madman,” Pete whispered.
“Cut it out.”
“That’d be a good title for you, huh?”
“Shhh.”
“You’re gonna get a lot of good material from all this.”
He wished Pete would hush. He wanted silence so he could hear if anyone...
“Go ahead and turn on the flashlight,” Pete said.
He thumbed the switch. Swept the light up the stairs. His breath snagged as shadows from the banister squirmed on the wall. But nobody was there. The beam reached all the way to the top. It cast a dim glow into the second-floor hallway. Larry quickly swung it away and darted it across the top of the registration counter. Nobody there, either. Breathing more easily, he probed each corner of the lobby.
“Let me have it,” Pete said.
Larry was reluctant, for a moment, to give up control of the light. Then he realized that it should belong to the one leading the way. He preferred Pete to be the leader. He passed the light to him and rested his hand on the grips of his revolver.
They started forward, their boots making gritty sounds on the sandy hardwood floor. Larry watched where the flashlight went. It stopped briefly on the crucifix. It moved around the edges of the panel, which was flush with the other sections enclosing the area under the stairway. It swept along the length of the counter and lingered on a closed door near the far end.
“Let’s check that out,” Pete said.
They climbed over the counter and dropped into the space behind it. Pete led the way to the door, eased it open and leaned in. Larry peered past his head. The pale shaft of light revealed an empty room with a boarded window on its far wall.
“The hotel office,” Pete whispered. “Let’s try upstairs.” He pulled the door shut.
They swung themselves over the counter again and crossed the lobby to the stairway. Pete aimed the light at the top as if to make sure nobody was waiting up there. Then he lowered it to the steps just above them. He started to climb.
The landing was still covered by loose planks.
Seeing them, Larry wished to God that Barbara had never broken through.
How can you wish such a thing?
The voice was Bonnie’s, sad and accusing.
I thought you loved me.
“Think I’ll take a peek,” Pete said. He sank to his knees and carefully lifted two boards out of the way. Ducking low, he lowered his head into the gap. The flashlight followed. “I don’t see anything,” he said.
“What did you expect?”
“Who knows?” He straightened up, replaced the boards, and got to his feet. Again he shined the light at the top of the stairs. Then he began to climb.
Larry took a long stride to avoid
stepping on the planks.
Just above him Pete switched the flashlight to his left hand. With his right hand he drew the revolver from its holster.
“Be careful,” Larry whispered. “I mean, don’t go blasting anything that moves. There might be a bum living here, or something.”
“Don’t worry, huh?”
“We’re the ones trespassing, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
One stair from the top Pete leaned forward and glanced both ways. He stepped into the corridor. Larry followed. The corridor ended just to the left of the stairway. To the right it stretched long and dark with doors on both sides.
They stopped in front of the first door. Pete pressed his ear to it, shoving his cowboy hat crooked. After listening for a moment, he moved back. “You wanta do the honors?” he whispered, pointing the flashlight at its knob. “I’ll cover you.”
Heart thudding, Larry gripped the knob. He tried to twist it, but there was no give. “Locked.”
Pete tapped the muzzle of his revolver against the end of the tire iron in his belt.
Larry pulled the bar out. Holding it with both hands, he forced the wedge into the crack between the lock plate and the door frame. He looked at Pete.
“Well, go on.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, shit.”
“We shouldn’t be here.”
“Don’t go pussy on me now.”
“Maybe we ought to just go shooting like we told the gals.”
“The book, man. The book. Uriah’s the missing piece, remember?”
He murdered me. Bonnie’s voice again. You can’t let him get away with it. He’s got to pay.
“Okay,” Larry muttered.
He put his weight against the iron bar. He felt it move a bit sideways, digging into the wood. There were soft crunchy sounds.
Then came the blare of a car horn.
He froze.
“Uh-oh,” Pete said.
Larry jerked the bar free and spun around. “That was ourcar!”
Thirty-four
Pete in the lead, they raced down the stairs. The wood clamored and creaked under their pounding boots. The loose planks across the landing jumped and clattered. If the horn was still honking, Larry couldn’t hear it.
His stomach was a ball of ice. His chest ached. He could barely breath. There was a tightness in his throat like a scream trying to force its way out.
Somebody was out there. Uriah? Curious strangers? A gang? Cops?
“Don’t go running out with a gun in your hand,” he gasped as he rushed after Pete to the front doors.
Pete stopped. Larry, at his back, grabbed his shoulder.
“Take it easy,” Pete whispered, and eased the door open a crack. A strip of daylight jabbed Larry’s eyes. “I don’t see anybody.”
“A car or anything?”
“Just yours.” The daylight spread. Pete stuck his head through the gap and looked from side to side like a kid getting ready to cross a busy road. “Nope. Nothing.” He holstered his revolver, swung the door wide and stepped onto the sidewalk.
Larry, just behind him, squinted at the bright red Mustang. He saw no one. He looked both ways. The street was deserted.
“The horn didn’t honk itself,” he muttered.
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“I don’t like this at all.”
“Join the crowd.”
“You think he’s behind the car?”
“Let’s find out.” Eyes on the car, Pete sidestepped his way to the middle of the street. There, he saw something that made him scowl and shake his head. He dropped to his knees, set down the flashlight and peered beneath the car. Rising, he stepped close to the driver’s side and glanced through the windows. He took a deep breath. He looked at Larry. Nobody here,“ he said. ”But we’ve got a flat.“
“Oh no. Jesus.” His head seemed to go numb inside. His legs felt wobbly as he staggered into the street.
The Mustang’s left front tire was mashed against the pavement.
Crouching, Pete fingered its sidewall. “Slashed.”
“He doesn’t want us to leave,” Larry said. His voice sounded far away.
“Either that, or he’s just pissed off. You’ve got a spare, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
Pete stood up and turned his back to the car. Eyes narrow, he scanned the storefronts across the street. “He’s probably over there laughing at us.”
“Let’s change the tire and get out of here.”
“This is our chance to get him.”
“It might not even be Uriah.”
“Bet it is.”
“Well, I’m gonna change the damn tire.” Larry dug the car keys out of his pocket and stepped toward the trunk. “Keep an eye out, huh?”
“Uriah, all right,” Pete said. “And I’ll bet he knows we’re the guys who took his stiff. That’d explain why he slashed the tire. Wants to keep us here and nail us.”
Larry moaned. He opened the trunk, leaned in and took out the jack.
“Maybe he thinks we’revampires.”
“Jesus, Pete.”
“I’m serious. What if he thinks we already pulled the stake and she bit us?”
“It’s daytime, for one thing.”
“So?”
Larry lifted the spare tire, swung it away from the trunk and lowered it to the pavement. As he rolled it toward the front of the car, he said, “Vampires can’t survive in the sunlight.”
“Maybe that’s just movie crap.”
“It’s in all the books.”
“You believe everything you read?”
“Of course not.” He let the tire fall and hurried to get the jack. “I don’t believe in vampires, for godsake.”
He imagined Bonnie laughing at that, shaking her head, her golden hair swaying.
“But Uriah believes in them,” Larry went on. “He believes in using crucifixes and garlic and stakes.” Setting down the jack beside the spare, he reached up. Pete handed him the tire iron. “So he must know that vampires can’t be out in the sunlight the way we are.”
“Unless he knows different.”
Larry pried the hubcap loose. It fell and clanked on the pavement. He covered one of the nuts with the lug wrench. He yanked on the bar. It slipped off and he stumbled backward.
“I’d better do it,” Pete said. “You keep watch.”
Larry gave him the tire tool, turned his back to the car and scanned the buildings across the street. A few of the doors stood open. Some of the windows were boarded, but others weren’t.
“One down,” Pete said.
The hubcap rang as a nut dropped into it.
“Besides,” Larry said, “if he thinks we’re vampires, he’d have to kill us with stakes.”
“Good point. No way, right?” Another nut rang into the hubcap. “He must thinkhe has a chance, though, or why the flat tire?” Pete grunted. Seconds later a third nut hit the hubcap. “Three down, one to go.”
“Maybe it wasn’tUriah. Could’ve been anyone. A hermit, or somebody. Maybe doesn’t like strangers, did it to teach us a lesson.”
The last nut clanged into the hubcap.
“You got the emergency brake on?”
“Yeah.” Larry looked around. Pete, on his knees, was putting together the jack. He dropped lower to study the undercarriage, then shoved the jack beneath the car and started pumping it up with the tire iron. The car began to rise.
The arrow missed Pete’s hat, skimmed above the hood of the Mustang, flew across the sidewalk and thunked into the hotel wall.
“What the...” Pete blurted.
Larry whirled, crouching and drawing his gun. Nobody. Just shadows beyond the doors and windows.
“Shit! That’s a fuckin‘ arrow!”
Then Pete was on his knees beside Larry, arm out, sweeping his revolver slowly from side to side.
“Where’d it come from?”
“Over there someplace
.”
“You were supposed to keep watch, man. Thing coulda killedme!”
“What’re we gonna...”
Larry still saw nobody. But he saw the next arrow. It shot out of the gloom beyond a window directly across the street. The big display window of a shop, partly crisscrossed by weathered boards, mostly open.
“Pete!” he shouted as he threw himself at the pavement and the arrow hissed by. A moment later he heard it punch into something.
Then his ears were pounded. He felt as if they were being slapped hard by open hands determined to destroy his eardrums.
Huge, horrible explosions.
Pete’s .357 magnum.
Pete was on his knees, eyes narrow, teeth gritted, arms straight out and jerking upward as another blast struck the air. Larry fought an urge to cover his ears. Facing forward, he was hit by another explosion and saw a hole get punched through the wall below the window. There were three or four other holes nearby, spaced about a foot apart.
He started firing, aiming to the left of Pete’s holes, making new ones he could barely see, stitching a line toward the open door. His gun made sharp, flat bangs that seemed insignificant compared to Pete’s thundering weapon. But he knew the .22 magnums were strong enough to penetrate the wood. If the walls inside weren’t lined with plaster or Sheetrock, his bullets would be flying through the room.
His hammer clanked on a spent round.
“Reload, reload!” he heard Pete yell through the ringing in his ears.
He rolled onto his side and started to eject the casings.
Pete, still on his knees, was shoving fresh cartridges into his cylinder. Then he was rising, rushing the window.
“Wait!” Larry shouted. Though his gun was still empty, he scurried up and ran for the door.
Lot of use I’ll be, he thought.
He half expected Pete to dive through the window and come up inside firing like a movie cowboy. But his friend proved more cautious, and ducked below the windowsill and peeked in. Larry slammed his shoulder against the doorframe. Pressing his back to the wall, he flicked the last two shells from his revolver.
The Stake Page 30
