F. Paul Wilson - Gateways

Luke snorted. “What makes you think you know so much about him? You ain’t spoke to him but twice.”

She turned to him. “Let me tell you somethin, Luke. That’s a man who keeps his promises.”

She’d seen that in his eyes. Not a lick of fear, just stubborn as all get out. And that made him all the more special. Brave and loyal, two traits any woman wanted in a man. But Jack wasn’t just any woman’s man. He was destined to be hers.

The way things was fallin into place…it was like it was all part of a plan. His daddy gets chosen to die, but he don’t. He lives and that brings Jack down here where he and Semelee can meet and be together. She lost an eye-shell, but now Jack was gonna find it, and that was gonna bring them even closer together.

“What do you need that other eye-shell so bad for anyway?” Luke said. “You been doin all right with just the one.”

“No, I ain’t. Ain’t the same. Much harder to keep control and see where I’m goin. I need the two of them.”

“Awright awright. But you was kiddin bout layin off his daddy, right?”

“Wrong. We ain’t interested in his daddy no more.”

“But Se me—”

“We got us a new target.”

She didn’t know how, but Jack had somehow connected her and the clan to what had happened to his daddy. If his daddy got killed, he’d blame her, and that might keep them apart and wreck their destiny. No, she had a better victim, someone whoneeded killin.

Luke was starin at her. “Who?”

“The old lady. She’ll be takin daddy’s place.”

7

How was he going to find that damn shell?

The question plagued Jack as he drove toward Novaton.

Semelee had been right: It hadn’t been all that hard to find his way back to the real world. He’d left the canoe beached by the air-boat dock and headed toward town. The clouds persisted but hadn’t dumped drop one of rain.

Where to start? The hospital was the obvious place, but Dad had checked himself out almost twenty-four hours ago. Jack was sure the room had been stripped and scrubbed by now. Probably even had a new occupant. That meant he might have to go pawing through the hospital’s Dumpsters.

He shook his head. Maybe if he had half a dozen people helping him they might—justmight —come up with that shell. He doubted it.

He decided that before he gave the hospital another thought, he’d check out his dad’s place. Maybe by some freaky turn of good luck the shell had wound up there. But again, the chances—

If nothing else, he could get out of these sodden sneakers.

He’d stopped at a red light. A dump truck was turning in front of him, going the opposite way. He wouldn’t have given it a second thought except for the insignia on the door of the cab. It looked like a black sun…a shape that might be mistaken for the head of a black flower.

Jack would have hung a U right there if he’d been in the left lane. Instead he had to cut through two parking lots to turn himself around. By the time he was heading north, the truck was out of sight. Racing along as best he could in the Friday afternoon traffic, trying to catch up, he almost missed the truck parked in a Burger King lot.

Jack pulled in next to it and got out. It had been backed diagonally across two spaces at the rear of the lot where it was out of the way. The cab was empty but the big diesel engine was running. He checked out the logo—definitely a black sun. And beneath it:Wm. Blagden & Sons, Inc.

He walked around it. It sure as hell looked big enough to inflict heavy damage on any car, even a Grand Marquis. He wondered what the left end of the front bumper looked like.

Jack stopped and stared at the dent in the fender…and the streaks of silver paint ground into its black surface.

“Can I help you with something?” said a voice behind him.

Jack turned to find a prototypical truck driver—big cowboy hat, big gut, big belt buckle, big boots—walking his way with a bag of burgers in one hand and a travel mug of coffee in the other.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Just admiring the ding in your fender here.” A euphemism; the “ding” was a deep dent. “Looks pretty fresh.”

“It is. Best I can figure it must’ve happened Monday night when the truck was stolen.”

“Stolen? No kidding? By who?”

The driver unlocked the door to the cab, put the burgers and coffee inside, then shrugged.

“Damned if I know.” He rubbed his weather-beaten face. “Never happened to me before. After she got the first part of her load Monday evening, I locked her up and hit the hay. I got up the next morning and she was gone. Couple hours after I reported her missing the cops found her in a liquor store parking lot. I was so glad to get her back—I mean, you don’t know what kind of shit was gonna come down on me if she was gone for good—that I didn’t notice the ding till later.”

“You report it to the cops?”

“No. Why?”

“Because your rig might have been involved in a hit and run.”

His eyes narrowed. “You a cop or something?”

“Nope. Just an interested party.” He saw the questioning look on the trucker’s face. “My dad’s car took a wallop early Tuesday morning.”

“He okay?”

“Luckily, yeah.”

“Good.” He hauled himself into the cab. “Because I can’t hang around for no investigation. I ain’t running or nothing, but I got a schedule to keep.”

“I hear you,” Jack said.

He thought about stopping him but decided against it. If his story was true—and Jack sensed it was—what good would it do? If he hadn’t reported his truck stolen, Jack could call Hernandez and the Novaton cops would pick him up.

Of course, the reported theft could have been a cover, but Jack doubted that.

As the cab door slammed shut, Jack said, “What’re you hauling?”

“Sand.”

“Where to?”

“North Jersey.”

Jersey? Jersey was loaded with sand.

“What the hell for?”

The driver shrugged. “I don’t set up the jobs or choose the loads; I just get it where it wants to go.”

Then Jack remembered Luke saying something about Semelee sucking all the sand out of the cenote and selling it. Could this be…?

“Where’d you get the sand?”

Another shrug. “It got boated in from somewheres in the swamp. That’s all I know.”

With that he threw the truck into first and headed for the exit.

Jack watched him go. He made a mental note of the company name. Wm. Blagden & Sons. He might look them up when he got back north, maybe find out who’d hired them. Shipping sand from a Florida nexus point to New Jersey…he couldn’t imagine the reason, but it couldn’t be good.

He started back toward his car. At least now he knew what had hit his father’s Marquis. And he had a pretty good idea who had been driving it.

But he still didn’t know why. Had a pretty good idea about that too, and hoped to nail that down this afternoon.

8

By the time Jack reached Gateways South he’d stopped at a local hardware store for a roll of duct tape, then called the Novaton Police where he reached Anita Nesbitt. After a quick check she told him that, yes, on Tuesday morning a dump truck had been reported stolen during the night and was found shortly thereafter.

Okay. So Wm. Blagden & Sons, Inc., was covered.

Jack parked in the cul-de-sac and hurried into his father’s place.

His father was watching TV. Classic ESPN was running the 1980 Wimbledon slugfest between Borg and McEnroe. McEnroe was screaming at himself for missing a bullet passing shot.

He looked up at Jack and grinned. “Right about now I bet McEnroe wishes Borg had never been Bjorn.”

Normally Jack would have groaned, but a bad pun was a good sign. His father loved puns. He was getting back to normal.