C Box - Blue Heaven

Newkirk leaned across the car so his face was inches from Villatoro. When he talked, Villatoro could smell his sour whiskey breath.

“Tony risked everything. Not just for himself, but for all of us by paying his debts to a bookie in stolen hundred-dollar bills. Our money. When Singer found out he was afraid it would be a matter of time before someone like you came up here, tracing those bills back.”

“And here I am,” Villatoro said, not sure why he’d spoken.

“Here you fucking are,” Newkirk said, as if in pain.

“But where is Tony Rodale?”

Newkirk started to speak, then looked away. Beads of sweat sparkled on his forehead. The anguished look on his face was lit by dash lights.

“That’s what I’m going to show you,” Newkirk said.

“Oh no,” Villatoro whispered. “You killed him.”

“Not just me. All of us. The agreement was we all put a couple into him, so we were all equally responsible. All of us except for Swann, who was late.”

Another murder, Villatoro thought. It was too overwhelming to process. Steve Nichols, the inside witness, the convenience store clerk. Now, one of their own.

“It might have worked, too,” Newkirk was saying, “except that those two fucking kids saw us take Tony out. Hey, keep driving.”

Villatoro hadn’t realized he had slowed the car to a crawl. Things were connecting in a way he had not anticipated. He felt as if all of the blood had drained from his hands and face.

“The Taylor children,” Villatoro said. “Oh, my God.”

“Everything keeps getting worse,” Newkirk said, and this time there were real tears streaking down his face. “One crime, one perfectly planned crime. We were set for life. Then Tony fucked up, and those kids saw us, then the UPS guy. I feel like I’m already in hell.” His voice cracked. “In fact, I think hell would feel nice and cool to me right now.”

Villatoro sped up but realized his hands were shaking. He had trouble staying in his lane. What did Newkirk’s reference to a UPS man mean?

“This is so much bigger than I had imagined,” he said.

Newkirk’s reaction surprised him. The ex-cop laughed bitterly, then wiped tears from his face with his sleeve before reaching behind him to withdraw his black semiautomatic. He aimed it at Villatoro, shoving the muzzle into his neck.

“It’s about to get bigger,” Newkirk said softly, his voice sincere. “I’m sorry I’ve got to do this, man. Especially since you were a cop yourself.” It was as if Newkirk could not force himself to stop what he was doing, what was in motion, even though perhaps he wanted to.

“Slow down and turn here,” Newkirk said, nodding toward a wet black mailbox on the side of the pavement marking a dirt road.

“What are you doing?” Villatoro asked, his voice stronger than he thought it would be.

“Turn here,” Newkirk said, with more force.

“Someone is coming,” Villatoro said, nodding toward a pair of headlights approaching a quarter mile away on the highway.

“Shit, I wonder who that is.”

“They’ll see us,” Villatoro said. “They’ll see the gun.”

Newkirk lowered the weapon but jammed it into Villatoro’s jacket beneath his armpit. He hissed, “I said turn , goddammit.”

The road he wanted them to take was a two-lane dirt road pooled with rainwater that inclined up the hill into the trees.

“I don’t think this little car will make it,” Villatoro said. “We don’t have any clearance, and the road goes up the hill.”

“Take it fast,” Newkirk said, clearly worried. “Don’t slow down.”

“Go!” Newkirk yelled, jamming the gun hard into Villatoro’s ribs. “Go, now!”

As Villatoro floored it and drove up the hill, the rear tires fishtailing in mud, he recalled the name on the mailbox near the road, the name of the owner of the house they would soon be approaching: SWANN.

With a strange kind of calm, perhaps the calm of shock, Villatoro thought, I’m going to die.

JESS WAS picking up the telephone to try to reach Buddy again when he saw the lights of a car blinking through trees on his access road. He hung up the receiver and walked across the kitchen for his rifle, glancing into the living room, where Monica, Annie, and William were huddled up on the couch, talking softly.

He leaned into the room. “Turn off the lights and don’t open the door unless it’s me,” he said calmly. “Someone is coming down the hill.” He reprimanded himself for not taking a chain up to the gate and locking it closed.

Monica turned her face to him. It drained of color.

“There’s only one car,” Jess said. “Please, now. Turn off the lights.”

Annie disentangled from her mother and bounded across the room to flip the light switch. On the way back, she turned off the table lamp.

“It may not be anything,” Jess said, trying to reassure them.

“Where are you going?” William asked. “Are you coming back?”

“Sure,” Jess said, picking up the Winchester, turning off the lights in the kitchen, and feeling his way through the mudroom to the screen door.

HIS BOOTS crunched in the gravel as he walked across the ranch yard. The pole light in the corrals threw a pool of blue that lengthened and deepened the shadows. Jess didn’t have time to turn it off, judging by how quickly the car was approaching. So he walked away from it, to the side of the barn. From there, in deep shadow, he should be able to see the car and who was in it as well as the front of the house. Noticing that someone had left a light on in the bathroom, he cursed silently.

The car approached quickly, and there was a flash of brake lights before the engine was shut off. Jess timed the sound of working the lever action on the rifle to the car door’s opening. Looking down at his rifle, he saw a wink of brass as the cartridge slid into the chamber. He raised the rifle but didn’t aim.

As the door opened, the interior lights of the car showed one occupant, not three or four. The occupant was Jim Hearne.

Jess frowned in the dark, puzzled.

Hearne stepped out of the vehicle but kept the door open. The banker faced the front of Rawlins’s house, and called, “Jess? Jess Rawlins? Are you in there?”

“Behind you,” Jess said from the shadow.

The sound of his voice made Hearne spin and duck. “You scared me,” said Hearne.

“What do you need?” Jess asked, stepping out from the side of the barn but remaining in the shadows. While he wanted to trust Jim, he didn’t want to expose himself just yet.

“Jess, most of your lights are off, and I didn’t know if you were home. You didn’t answer when I called earlier. You’ve got to hear what’s going on.”

Jess lowered the Winchester and approached Hearne. He saw Hearne’s eyes shift to the rifle.

“Jesus, Jess-were you going to shoot me?”

“Maybe. Let’s go inside.”

“SO ALL of ’em are up there now,” Jess said, shaking his head and sipping from the mug of coffee he had just brewed.

“All except for Newkirk-I didn’t see him. But it was obvious they were waiting for someone.”

“Then what?”

Hearne shrugged. Again, he turned in his chair and looked through the doorway into the living room, where the Taylors were. “I still can’t believe they’re here,” he said softly. “What a relief.”

Jess nodded. He was rehashing what Hearne had told him about the sheriff giving up, about the FBI coming, about Fiona Pritzle and her damned gossip. About the conclave of the ex-cops at Swann’s house.

“Maybe we should gather everyone up,” Hearne said, gesturing toward the Taylors, “and make a run to town.”