Т Паркер - The Room of White Fire

“I will from now on.”

“You don’t have a now on,” he said. “Your fault. Here you are — amateur cop, amateur good guy. Amateur human. I explained to you out in your barn, very clearly, what you were up against. I told you point-blank that we’re thorough and we don’t stop until the job is done. But no. You wouldn’t leave Clay to the pros.”

He shoved me into the driver’s seat of my truck, ran his free hand through the map compartment on the door, then slammed it. DeMaris was already waiting in the passenger seat, his pistol pointed at my ribs. He fished around in the center console. Then the glove box. Then under the driver’s seat, switching his pistol to his left hand and holding it tight against my side. Bodart got into the backseat behind me, touched something cold and hard to the back of my head.

“Drive, baby.”

South on Interstate 15, light traffic to Pala Road. Then winding through the farms to Pala village and past the casino toward the hills. Night close and foggy, moon a smudge. Windshield wipers framing the chaparral-covered hills. I thought of Justine on her last flight, just after she realized something was wrong. How she must have felt.

“Hey, Ford,” said DeMaris, “did you ever get into Paige’s pants?”

I said nothing.

“Wanted to myself, but I have a wife to consider.”

I couldn’t help it. “That was good of you, Alec.”

A beat. Tires on wet asphalt. I could see half of Bodart’s face in the rearview. Shining bald head and the cowcatcher mustache. Small eyes. He kept looking behind us.

“Ford, I can never tell if you’re serious,” DeMaris said. “It’s another reason I can’t stand you. That, and the superiority thing.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Semper fi doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?”

“It does. But I’m surprised the Marines would take an imbecile like you.”

DeMaris nodded intently, seemed to consider this. “She’s an odd one, that Dr. Hulet. Do anything for her patients. Not surprised she almost got killed for Clay Hickman today. Can’t figure what goes on in that brain of hers. What a sweet piece she must be when she lets her hair down, though. And I mean exactly that — down from that damned bun. If she ever does. Maybe I’ll give her another try.”

“Did you help Spencer and Tice dope up Clay for three years?”

“Help? I supervised.”

“Was it you or Bodart who let the Vazquez interview get out of hand?”

DeMaris stared at me, then glanced behind him. “Joe?”

“He can ask all the questions he wants,” Bodart said from behind me. Touched his gun to my head again. “You wouldn’t have that dwarf Burt try to follow us, would you?”

“No, sir. No dwarf.”

“Amazing he got my gun. One of my few professional embarrassments.”

“So what happened up in Mendocino?” I asked again.

“It was Joe and his buddy,” said DeMaris. “You know how those company guys can get.”

“They gave me a youngster to work with,” said Bodart. “Turned into a mess. I liked John very much.”

Silence then as the truck hummed along. Wipers clunking off and on. Solemn DeMaris lit by dashboard lights, animal twinkles in his eyes. Elevation rising. Pines now outside the windows, faintly darker than the night, tapered and tall.

“Coming up on South Grade Road, Ford,” he said. “Make the stop, then turn left. Go nice and slow.”

The road climbed, switchbacks and downshifts. Through the fog I saw a wall of trees and three staggered yellow signs with warning arrows marking a curve ahead.

Bodart leaned forward. “There’s a turnout on your right, just past the arrows. Pull in, shut down the engine and the lights. We’ll see if your little friend is on his way.”

We waited in the dark for five minutes. Cold at this elevation, the air humid and sweet. Only one car passed, going down-mountain and away. Another five minutes and no one.

“Onward,” said Bodart.

Another winding mile to State Park Road. A sign for Palomar Observatory, seven miles. Huge boulders pale in the darkness, scattered like some god or giant had tossed them there. Arcadia not far to the east. I wondered if they were planning to put me in Arcadian dirt. Good idea, really. Clay dug out. Roland dug in. Not many prying eyes, with Arcadia security on the job. Requiescat in pace, Roland.

Another turn onto an unmarked ribbon of asphalt, and I recognized it as the same way I’d come to Arcadia that first day. I remembered the morning, so April and hopeful. Up we climbed, the transmission gearing down on the steep curves, upshifting on the short straights. Then the unmarked Arcadia entry road, unpaved and obscured by trees. Half a mile of gravel until the asphalt started up again, thick and black and freshly resurfaced. We finally came to the guardhouse, closed this late. DeMaris aimed a remote at it and the barrier went up.

Arcadia, hunkered in forest and fog, rose from the base of the mountain ahead. Bevels of glass and concrete, dully reflective and shifting. “There’s a turnaround,” said DeMaris. “Swing in and park. Off with the engine and lights.”

We sat in the dark for another five minutes. Nobody. Then we took the wide north loop around the buildings, which gradually angled west. The road pinched down to a bumpy two-track. Sixty acres of forest is a lot of ground. The truck straddled the trail, climbing through pines and manzanita until it leveled off in a small clearing. Oaks and toyon rising high.

“Circle around and park facing out,” said DeMaris. “Good boy. There.”

Engine and headlights off. Ticking under the truck hood. Under my hood, heart artillery. Ear sirens. Mouth of sand and eyes wired wide. Door-to-door, Fallujah. No M16. Nothing but the plan. Fight it off. Stay alert. Stay alive. Stay. Oorah.

Bodart stood back from the driver’s-side window, gun holstered.

“Get out slow, Roland,” said DeMaris. He waved the autoloader impatiently.

When I stepped out, Bodart got me by the coat collar and pushed me face-first and hard against the truck bed. I heard him step away. DeMaris took his place, gun barrel to my head. In the distance and through the trees twinkled Arcadia.

“Might want to get your thoughts in order,” said DeMaris.

“Give me a minute.”

“You bet.”

Past the truck I could see Bodart standing inside the trees on the far side of the clearing, his phone utility light throwing a circle of bright white on the ground. Not exactly ground. Absence of ground. A hole. Longer than a man, and no bottom visible. A mound of red mountain dirt behind it. Two shovels jammed in.

“Donny used a Bobcat with a backhoe,” said DeMaris.

“Thing’s at least six feet deep,” said Bodart.

“Don’t do this, DeMaris,” I said.

“Why not?” he asked. He sounded sincerely interested in my answer.

“It will cost you your life.”

“You mean spiritually?”

“No.”

“Then you’re mixing you and me up,” he said. “Probably the stress.”

“No one has to die,” I said.

“I one hundred percent disagree.”

Bodart turned his utility light on us. Came in our direction. “Is Ford bellowing, bargaining, blubbering, or begging? We could always tell a lot about a detainee by what stage they were at, Roland. We called it the B list.”

“You enjoyed it, didn’t you, Joe?” I said. “White Fire.”

“It got my monster up, that’s for sure.”

I thought for a moment before I spoke next. I saw no other way out. Bodart was upon me, gun in hand again, and I wanted to stay alive. The scar on my forehead was molten. “I’m going to ask you a favor.”

“Ask away,” said Bodart, aiming the gun at my head. “I feel gener—”