Thomas Perry: The Butcher's Boy

He bent his knees and hung down behind the fence to keep from showing a silhouette. The area around the house was impossible. It had to be another way. He inched along the fence, with his body away from the house. It would have to be the stables. It was another ten minutes before he made it to the fence beside the long, low stable building. He studied the ground inside the exercise yard. There were only a few patches of snow, and the rest looked like mud. He cautiously tested the earth with one foot and smiled. It was mud all right but it was frozen solid into an uneven mold of hoofprints and footprints, ruts where wheelbarrows had passed, and tire tracks from what must have been a tractor. He set both feet on the ground and stood erect.

He walked along the fence across the yard to the stable. He could smell the strong acidic scent of the animals; he could feel their presence. He walked around the building and the scent grew stronger, almost overpowering in the cold, still, night air. He heard a horse’s hoof clop on a wooden surface somewhere inside, and then a low neigh. They can smell me too, he thought. It’s because I don’t smell like horseshit.

He stood still for a moment to let the animals quiet down. As he waited he looked around. A few feet away was a mound of earth about ten feet high. No, he realized suddenly. That’s not dirt. It’s horseshit. That’s why the smell is so strong on this side of the stable. It’s a compost heap.

He moved away from the building to the other side of the mound. As he came near he sensed a very slight steam coming from the mound. He took off his glove and held his hand six inches above the mound. It was actually warm. Keeping low, he took out the shovel and began to dig. The manure wasn’t frozen, nor was the ground under it. He dug down about two feet before he hit the frost. He thought, sorry, Edgar. This is it. He put the pistol inside the other plastic bag, tossed in Orloff’s checkbook, and buried the bundle. He took the shovel and headed back the way he’d come.

When he reached the corner of the stable, he heard a horse neigh again, and then something else. He stood perfectly still. It was footsteps. A man. Suddenly, above his head, a light came on. The whole yard was bathed in brightness. He moved back into the shadow of the stable and waited. If only he’d brought a second pistol, he thought. I’m here, half a mile from the road, with a shovel, and the bastards are awake.

Suddenly he heard other footsteps behind him, coming along the back of the stable. He opened a door, stepped into the stable, and found himself standing next to a horse. The animal seemed gigantic. The horse turned its long, wise face to stare at him, its eyes rolling to fix him in its gaze. Outside, footsteps scraped on the frozen ground. They passed and he could hear voices. One of them said, “I don’t give a shit what he thinks. If Toscanzio sends somebody it won’t be through the stable. If he’s so worried he should come out here and slide around on the horseshit himself.”

“Relax,” said the other one. “We’ll just make the rounds and go back inside.”

Guards, he thought. Balacontano has them doing regular patrols. The horse seemed to be getting nervous. It blew out a sputtering sigh and edged away from him in the stall. Just a few more minutes and I won’t trouble you, he thought. Just a few more minutes and I’ll be out of here, you big dumb son of a bitch. He thought, you’re supposed to talk to them to calm them down. I can’t risk it. He decided that patting the horse would help. It seemed so huge, looming beside him in the dark. He reached out and patted the horse’s flank gently. He felt the skin quiver beneath his hand, then settle, but it was too late. The horse in the next stall seemed to sense his fear or the nervousness of the horse beside him. It whinnied and kicked the wall behind it. The noise was like a shot in the still night air.

He heard one of the voices say, “What the hell was that?”

The other said, “We’d better look in the stalls. Something’s bothering them.”

He had no time to think. He opened the stable door and watched the horse turn and make its decision to go outside. As it passed him he leaped astride it and it trotted out into the yard. He was high in the air now, bouncing on the animal’s back. Behind him he heard one of the men shout, “Look.” He didn’t know what to do, but he had to do something. He leaned forward. With his left hand he grabbed the horse’s mane, and with his right he smacked the horse’s flank with the flat of the shovel. “Go,” he hissed. Before he was prepared for the response, he felt the animal’s massive muscles tense as it leaped forward, almost unseating him. He clung to its mane with a grip that wrenched the muscles in his hand, and his legs hugged the horse’s sides.

The men had left the gate open and the horse headed for it. He hung on with all his strength as it galloped through the opening and out across the pasture. Behind him he heard a shot, and the horse, terrified at the sound, dashed forward still faster, out into the darkness. He didn’t dare look back for fear he’d fall off. At the far side of the pasture he saw the fence looming before him, a white barrier getting closer and closer. He said to the horse, “Calm down, you bastard. Stop.” But the horse seemed to pick up speed as it neared the fence.

He thought, if I jump off I’ll be hurt and they’ll find me. He thought of hitting the horse over the head with the shovel, but there was no way to know what the horse would do, so he just hung on. And then suddenly he was airborne, and the fence floated past beneath him. He braced for the shock, but the horse landed easily and kept going, out across the second pasture at full speed.

When he saw the second fence he thought, I’m in for it again. But this time the horse ran up to the fence, slowed down, and trotted along it toward the far corner of the pasture. It doesn’t like the road, he thought. It just wants to be away from the lights and noise. When it reached the corner the horse stopped. He jumped off and climbed the fence. His legs were sore, and for some reason his rib cage hurt almost as much, but he managed to bring himself to a run.

The important thing was to cover as much ground as possible. He sprinted in the direction he’d come from, but as far from the road as he could go. He was already to the next farm before he saw the first headlights on the highway. They were moving fast, at least sixty miles an hour, racing for the entrance to Route 87. The second set of headlights moved along the road at a slower rate. That would be the one searching for a parked car, he thought. He was careful to stay in the wooded areas now. A few minutes later more cars followed, but none of them stopped. There would be others moving off in the opposite direction too, he knew. None of them would try to follow on foot.

32

When it came it wasn’t the way Elizabeth had imagined it. She was sitting in the Bureau office going over the morning field reports when the secretary came through and left the first of the afternoon communications in a stack on the table beside the door.

Elizabeth stood up and walked to the table. She was getting tired of being the one who had to come in here every day and suffer the silent enmity of a building full of people. All morning nobody had found it necessary to speak to her. And now the secretary had taken to leaving the reports in a stack by the door, as though Elizabeth were a prisoner in solitary confinement, or a pet that had to be fed but didn’t require attention.

It was the sheet on top of the pile. It said, “The following personnel will report to the office of the Organized Crime Division, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., by 0800, February 28: Dornquist, William; Kellogg, Bertram; Smith, Thomas H.; Feiler, Eleanor; Goltz, Ann K.; Waring, Elizabeth. Travel authorized: air only.”