Уильям Макгиверн - Summitt

Selby joined him, ducking to clear the low roof. The red-bone hounds raced about in their narrow run, howling at Selby because they associated him with guns and open woods. Gideen spoke a command and the hounds loped away and settled down in their shelter.

“I may need some dogs, Casper.”

Gideen grunted with surprise. “You want to go coon hunting, them redbones is ready.”

“I don’t need redbones for what Fm after.”

Gideen was silent a moment, then said, “You got some notion where she was taken that night?”

“I think so. A stretch of country on Dade Road past the Rakestraw Bridge.”

“How big a stretch?”

“I’m not sure. Six, eight miles.”

“More we narrow it down, the better. You planning to ask anybody else to help out?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Good. I don’t think you ought. I ain’t got no bloodhounds and there’s nary one in the county. Cousin of mine in Lancaster has a pack. Keeps ’em for old times. Still calls ’em buck hounds, like my granddaddy did.”

Gideen took out a big silver watch. After studying it he said, “I can be back a couple of hours after supper. You and me, we’ll meet at the bridge, Harry, one or two in the morning.” He was thoughtful for a moment, then went on, “My granddaddy taught me houndin’. He was a prison guard. Told us how they used to watch the stores of turpentine and black pepper. If the cons stole ’em they was planning to run. Put black pepper in their boots and turpentine all over themselves, no hound this side of hell-fire could nose out their stink.” Gideen was still staring at his watch. “We got to meet late, Harry, and work fast. They’ll be singing, them hounds.”

“You got to do what you’re thinking, Harry, because something ain’t right. First Goldie Boy and the Kane woman. Then I saw a black car the other day cruising slow past Tenn and Pyle’s Corners. Saw it twice. A Lincoln car, a Connie. Strangers in it. Fella with some red in his sideburns, I seen that much.”

He put his watch away and pointed to a twisted pear tree. “See that fruit tree, Harry? It’s dead now, dead as a hammer nail. Last spring it had a death crop — know about that? One last suck at the earth, a million white blossoms, and more fruit all summer than Lori could put up. Then it died, said goodbye like, plain died. Well, that’s how I look at Ollie Jessup and the cops and strangers nosing around here, Harry, like a death crop, things busy and green and blooming, but something’s coming to an end.”

Gideen threw a stick into the run and watched the redbones scramble to fight for it. “Don’t know why I’m talking about a dead tree this way. Let’s get to business, Harry. We need two points tonight, one to stir the hounds up, the second to make ’em hunt. We push the second point into their noses and hit ’em around the ears with it, and that tells ’em what we’re hunting for. So you get two things of your daughter’s, gloves, boots, a sweater, a skirt. Okay, Harry?”

“How about a pillow she sleeps on?”

Casper looked at him and nodded. “Do fine, Harry. Do fine.”

A few minutes after midnight Selby went down the hallway to his daughter’s room. He wore a windbreaker and leather boots. Shana’s room was dark, with only a faint spread of moonlight glowing on surfaces.

She was sleeping on her side, the bandaged hand touching her swollen cheek. Her breathing was soft, shallow. He picked up the sweater she had worn that day, the gray pullover with red trim.

Slowly and gently he pulled the warm pillow from beneath her head and replaced it with its mate. She murmured something, pushing at her hair, but didn’t wake.

Crossing the Rakestraw Bridge, Selby parked near the cemetery. He waited in the silence and darkness until he saw the light of Gideen’s pickup coming toward him on the road from Buck Run. As he stepped from his car he could already hear the eager bugling of the buck hounds.

That same night George Thomson paced his office in Harlequin Chemicals headquarters, a glass-and-steel structure which rose in tiers from a ten-acre concrete slab softened by fountains and graveled walks.

Through his windows he could make out the bridges above the shining curve of Delaware Bay and the flaming grids of oil-cracking towers.

A buzzer sounded on his desk and a moment later his door clicked open and Dom Lorso came in. Lighting a cigarette from the stub he was smoking, Lorso said, “George, we better talk straight now. Like this was any other business problem. Let me explain something first. I’m worried about Earl’s car—”

“Dom, I’ve just been talking to Mr. Correll. He’s in New York. You know that Senator Rowan died?”

“I heard something about it on the news. But I want to finish this other thing, Giorgio.”

Thomson frowned but nodded and turned from the windows. “All right, let’s have it, Dom.”

“The car,” Dom Lorso said, “a forty-thousand-dollar set of wheels don’t disappear like some goddamn magician clapped his hands. A professional thief wouldn’t touch it. A chrome-and-red Porsche comes off an APB like a Roman candle. Every traffic cop in a dozen states is hoping to eyeball it. Only a punk stoned out of his skull would rip it off in the first place, and he’d dump it the minute he got his head straight.” Lorso inhaled deeply, began coughing. “Number two, Earl’s whole story hangs on Santos and—”

Thomson stopped him. “Dom, you’ve got your priorities screwed up. You’re talking about details Slocum is taking care of. And everything you’re saying is based on some half-assed assumption that Earl might be lying. Why are you assuming that? I want Earl to use his brains and balls without any hangups. I’ve got more than my share, and so have you, Dom. You still make the sign of the cross when you’re in a bind, so let Earl alone, don’t worry about him. There are two secrets — not being afraid of other people and not being afraid of yourself. I learned that much from Correll. You need worries, you can share mine. I taped the talk with Mr. Correll. He told me to.

“Listen to this, Dom, and you’ll see what we should be worrying about.”

Pressing the conference tab on his telephone console, Thomson looked expectantly at the webbed speakers. After a hum of static Simon Correll’s amplified voice sounded through the office.

“—his death may be a serious inconvenience, Thomson. From private sources I know that Harlequin is close to the top of Senator Lester’s hit list. Senator Rowan belongs to the ages now, as they say. The halls of Congress have been resounding all day with resolutions honoring his memory, his dedication and so forth. What that means, George, is that Rowan’s no longer any use to us. Even while they’re holding Air Force Two to fly him home, Lester was striking, before the old boy’s flesh was hardly cold.”

Dom Lorso coughed and pulled a face at the speakers, but Thomson held up a hand. “Get this...”

“... immediately impounded Rowan’s files and correspondence, which implemented a court order Miss Kim filed not more than minutes after Rowan’s death. A district court judge has granted Lester broad subpoena powers to investigate — well, you heard him at his news conference, George.”

Thomson’s recorded voice sounded then. “That’s the main thing he’s after, Mr. Correll, if you ask me, prime-time news shows. If you want to make a reputation today, you’ve got to invent something raunchy or sensational to grab those TV dummies.”

Lorso nodded, and lit another cigarette.

“... could well be, George,” Correll’s voice continued, “but the practical and immediate results of this investigation will be these: government accountants and lawyers will be swarming over your office by next week. Cooperate with them. Tell your senior echelons to give Senator Lester’s people whatever they want. Minutes of staff meetings, appointment books, schedules of company plane trips, communications between Dupree and Summitt and your other plants.