Jan Burke - Bloodlines

Corrigan felt the wind and the chilled earth beneath him and shivered into something like wakefulness. He had passed out again. For how long? He slowly rolled onto his stomach and then pushed himself to his knees. He tried to take inventory. He was sore every damned where. His bad ankle-the one that had doomed his efforts to enlist-hurt like hell. Nothing new there.

He felt along the ground for his hat, but saw no sign of it. He half-hoped the lummox who had attacked him-and yes, at least one other man-had left it with his coat at Lillian’s place. If not, it had probably blown away. Corrigan sighed. Young O’Connor told him hats were going out of style, but Corrigan couldn’t feel dressed without one.

Still on his knees, he patted his vest, pleased to find the pocket watch still on its chain, not as pleased when the crystal fell out in little pieces. The hour hand was gone. He put the watch back in its pocket, feeling the sore spot where it had been driven into a rib. He had a bruise on his thigh from where something similar had happened with his keys. He eased his cut and swollen fingers into his pants pockets to make sure the keys were still there, and was relieved to find them. A small saint’s medal had been lost off the chain, but at least he’d be able to get back into his house without calling O’Connor. And checking his back pocket, he discovered he still had his wallet. He hadn’t been robbed.

He rose painfully to his feet, staggering from the double influence of blows and drink.

It was a noisy, shadowy world he had awakened to, one smelling of earth and something medicinal-menthol or camphor. No, he slowly realized, it was eucalyptus. He was standing beneath a eucalyptus, along the outer edge of a narrow grove of the spindly giants, trees probably planted as a windbreak. On the other side of the road, a barbed-wire fence surrounded an empty pasture; in the distance, the tin roof of a dairy barn reflected the moonlight. He was wondering if he could make it that far, maybe sleep it off in the barn, when he heard the sound of an engine starting up somewhere behind him.

Corrigan was seldom a cautious man, but the beating had shaken him, so he stepped back into the moving shadows of the trees, concerned that the giant and his friend might be seeking further amusement at his expense. He frowned at the injustice of it. He hadn’t known the woman was accompanied, let alone married, and only the inertia brought on by a forgotten number of martinis had kept him sitting near her as she pressed her attentions on him.

Except for a fleeting image of awakening once in a sedan-a Bel Air? What made him think that? A moment of being propped up against its two-tone paint job? He wasn’t sure. He had no certain idea of how they had brought him here. He thought he remembered smelling the woman’s perfume coming from somewhere within the car, but he couldn’t swear that she had been in the sedan with them.

He watched the road for several minutes before he understood that no car was on it. He moved forward toward the source of the noise, his usual slight limp now a hobbling, uneven gait. He paused at the edge of the grove, peered out from behind one of the wider trees. He could only see from his right eye now, which added to his sense of disorientation.

Before him lay a fallow field. His attention was drawn to an object that sat not far from him: a blue Buick sedan.

The Buick had clearly been in an accident; the front end was crumpled into sharp folds that angled back toward the windshield, so that the car seemed to be forever frozen in a posture of flinching, its metal-toothed grill caught in a buckled grimace. The windshield was darkened and webbed with cracks.

Corrigan steadied himself against the tree, fighting memories of another car accident, long ago. The motor sound drew his attention again. It was not coming from the car, but from somewhere beyond. Not a car motor, but a diesel engine-perhaps a truck or a bus. Where was it? He heard the engine strain as gears shifted.

Suddenly there was light, light from the ground-a beam tilting over the field at a forty-five-degree angle. He watched in disbelief as headlights emerged somewhere behind the car, seemingly from the earth itself. A tractor, coming toward him.

The headlights of the tractor shone through the car from behind, eerily illuminating the Buick’s interior, the shattered windshield. Corrigan’s stomach lurched as he saw the fractured glass was covered with a brownish red glaze. Bloodstains.

The sight of that blood made Corrigan obey an impulse to hide himself from the driver of the tractor. He moved clumsily farther into the trees and crouched near a low, leafy branch. His head was pounding now, pulsing with the throb of the tractor’s motor, refusing to cooperate with his struggle to comprehend what he was seeing.

The tractor circled the car and came to a stop. The gears shifted again and the tractor stood idling as a small, wiry man climbed from the seat. He wore a cap and kept his head down as he marched back to the car, a heavy chain on his shoulder. Corrigan heard more than saw the man attach the chain to the back axle of the Buick.

Soon the driver was back on the tractor, the gears shifting as he pulled the Buick across the field toward the place where the tractor had emerged. Corrigan stepped out from behind the tree, tried to make out the odd shapes of earth and man and machinery across the field. The headlights of the tractor and the moonlight combined to provide just enough light to see an earthen ramp leading down into a shallow pit. Tall piles of loose soil stood at its edges.

The man on the tractor climbed down again, removed the chain, and then maneuvered the tractor so that it pushed the car with a gentle shove, sending the Buick down the ramp and into the pit. Corrigan heard the last loud groan of metal as the car came to a rough halt somewhere against the earth below.

A sharp barking came from the dairy farm across the road, dogs reacting to the unfamiliar noise. The tractor driver turned and saw Corrigan.

Corrigan hobbled back into the trees. He kept moving, tried to stretch his agonizing, clumsy stride as he heard the tractor motor start up again.

It was coming closer now, had crossed the field too fast, much too fast. His ankle was on fire, he couldn’t breathe for the ache in his ribs, but he pushed on, held down the bile of fear that rose in his throat. He stayed in the grove, watched the shadows of the tree trunks sharpen as the headlights of the tractor drew closer.

The little sodbuster couldn’t come in here with his big damned lummox of a tractor, Corrigan thought, just before he stumbled and took a hard fall into blackness.

G US RONDEN RAN THE WASHCLOTH OVER HIS ARMS AND CHEST, THEN rinsed it out before going to work on his hands. He used a small brush to scrub his nails until the skin at the tips of his fingers bled. He smiled as he washed it down the drain, thinking of his blood mixing with all the other blood.

He had kept the gloves on for most of it, and the boss might have been unhappy to know he had taken them off, even for a moment. But he had never been able to resist the warm, slippery feel of blood, and so he had permitted himself a little barehanded touching. He had been careful, though. The gloves went right back on again.

He would have liked to take a shower, but he didn’t want to risk not hearing the door. This had been a busy evening, and he knew the boss was pleased with him. Hinted at a bonus. Well, he wouldn’t hear any bitching from Gus if he didn’t come through. The truth was, it had all been exciting as hell. He closed his eyes, reliving some of the best parts, then shook himself. He washed down the sink with bleach.

There was still much more to do. He had plenty of time, he was sure, before anyone who was expected would arrive, but he wanted to be ready for the unexpected. That way of doing business had kept him alive.