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Linski was on the floor, unconscious, his arms out like wings at his sides,
as if he were a bird that had fallen from the sky and broken its back on a
thrust of rock.
Ben wiped his face with one gloved hand. His stomach, knotted with fear,
now loosened too quickly, and he felt as if he might be sick.
Outside, a car full of shouting teenagers went by, screeched at the corner,
sounded its horn, and peeled off with a squeal of rubber.
Ben stepped across Richard Linski and looked out the window. There was no
one in sight. The lawn was dark. The sounds of the struggle had not carried
any distance.
He turned from the window and listened to Linski's breathing. Shallow but
steady.
A quick examination of his shoulder indicated that the bullet probably had
passed straight through. He wasn't bleeding much, but he'd have to take a
closer look at the wound as soon as possible.
In the half bath off the kitchen, he found two rolls of first-aid adhesive
tape, enough to securely bind Linski. He dragged the killer into the kitchen
and bound him to one of the breakfast chairs.
In the master bathroom, Chase took off his gloves and set them aside to
avoid getting them bloody. He stripped out of his blood-soaked shirt and
dropped it into the sink.
He took a bottle of rubbing alcohol from the medicine cabinet. When he
poured it into the wound, he nearly passed out in agony. For a while he bent
over the sink, paralyzed by the pain.
When he could move again, he packed the wound with wads of paper towels
until the bleeding slowed even further. He slapped a washcloth over the wound
and then wound wide adhesive tape over the entire mess. It wasn't a
professional bandage, but it would ensure that he didn't get blood over
everything.
 In the bedroom, he took one of Linski's shirts from the closet and
struggled into it. He was stiffening fast from the wound.
In the kitchen again, he found a box of large plastic garbage bags and
brought one to the master bathroom. He dropped his bloody shirt into it. He
used paper towels to wipe his blood off the sink and the mirror, and threw
those in the garbage bag when he was done. Standing in the doorway, pulling on
his gardening gloves, he studied the bathroom, decided that there was no trace
of what he had done, turned off the light, and closed the door.
On his way downstairs, he stumbled and had to grab the railing for support.
A spell of vertigo pulled a spinning darkness into the edges of his vision -
but then it passed.
Judge's second shot had missed Chase, but it had thoroughly smashed a
three-foot-square ornamental mirror that had hung on the wall above the bar at
the far end of the living room. All the glass had fallen out of the ornate
bronze frame, and fragments were scattered over a six-foot radius. In five
minutes he had picked up all the major shards, but hundreds of slivers still
sparkled in the nap of the carpet and in the upholstery of nearby chairs.
He was considering this problem when Richard Linski awoke and called out.
Ben went to the chair in the kitchen. Linski's wrists were taped to the
arms, each ankle to a chair leg. He twisted and tried to break free, but
stopped when he realized that he wouldn't be able to pull loose.
Ben said, "Where is your vacuum sweeper?"
"What?" Linski was still groggy.
"Vacuum."
"What do you want that for?"
Ben threatened to backhand him.
"In the cellarway," Linski said.
Ben took the vacuum to the living room and swept up every piece of
shattered mirror that caught his attention. Fifteen minutes later, satisfied
with the job that he'd done, he put the sweeper away again, just as he had
found it.
He secreted the damaged mirror frame in a corner of the garage, behind a
stack of other junk.
"What are you doing?" Judge asked.
Ben didn't answer him.
In the living room again, he replaced the television on its stand, plugged
it in, switched it on. A situation comedy was playing, one of those in which
the father is always an idiot and the mother is little better. The kids are
cute monsters.
Afraid that his spells of dizziness were soon going to progress to
disorientation, Ben righted the overturned floor lamp and examined the metal
shade. It was dented, but there was no way to tell that the dent was new. He
unscrewed the damaged lightbulbs; along with the larger scraps of the broken
mirror, he threw them into the plastic garbage bag on top of the bloody shirt
and paper towels. He used the pages of a magazine to scoop up the smaller
pieces, and threw those and the magazine into the garbage bag.
Returning to the kitchen, Ben said, "Where do you keep spare lightbulbs?"
"Go to hell."
Ben noticed that there were no red marks on the skin over Linski's carotid
arteries. The pressure had been pinpoint and too briefly applied to produce
bruises.
Without Linski's help, Ben required almost five minutes to find the spare
lightbulbs in the back of a kitchen cabinet. He screwed two new 60-watt bulbs
into the living-room lamp. The lamp lit when he switched it on.
In the kitchen again, he got a bucket of water, soap, ammoniated cleanser,
and a carton of milk - his mother's favorite spot remover - from the
refrigerator. Back in the living room, with several rags and a sponge, he
worked on the few small smears of his blood that marred the carpet. When he
was done, the faint stubborn stains that remained were all but invisible in
the long dark-brown nap. The room wouldn't have to pass a full forensic
investigation, anyway. As long as it appeared that nothing had happened there,
the police wouldn't take a closer look.
He put the cleaning materials away. He threw the rags into the garbage bag
with the other items.
After that, he stood in the center of the room and slowly searched it for
traces of the fight. The only thing that might draw anyone's suspicion was the
pale, soot-ringed square where the ornate mirror had hung.
Ben pulled the two picture hangers out of the wall; they left small nail
holes behind. He used a handful of paper towels to wipe away most of the dirty
ring, successfully feathering the dirt to blend the lighter and darker
portions of the wall. It was still obvious that something had hung there,
though one might now think that it had been removed several months ago.
After locating the pistol that had flown out of Linski's hand, Ben returned
to the kitchen. "I have some questions to ask you."
"Fuck you," Linski said.
Ben put the muzzle of the pistol against the bridge of his captive's nose.
Linski stared. Then: "You wouldn't."
"Remember my war record."
Linski paled but still glared at him.
"The silencer's homemade. Is this something the average physics teacher
does for a hobby?"
"It's part of what we learn in the Alliance. Survival skills."
"Real Boy Scouts, huh?"
"It may be funny to you, but someday you'll be glad we taught ourselves
good defense. Guns, explosives, lock picking - everything we'll need for the
day when the cities burn and we have to fight for our race."
"What does the Aryan Alliance have to do with this, anyway?"
Linski's manner changed. He grew less arrogant and nervously licked his
lips.
"I've got to understand what's going on. I have to know if they're going to
come after me," Ben said, "this whole crazy group. And if they are - why? What
did I step into the middle of when I pulled you out of that car on lovers'
lane?"
When Linski didn't reply, Ben put the muzzle of the pistol against his
right eye, so he could look directly into the barrel.
Linski sagged in the chair. A sudden despair seized him. "It goes back a
way."
"What does?"
"The Aryan Alliance."
"Tell me."
"We were in our twenties then."
"We?"
"Lora, Harry. Me."
"Karnes? His parents?"
"That's how we met. Through the Alliance."
The connection so surprised Ben that he wondered if he were hallucinating
the conversation. The pain in his shoulder had spread to his neck and up the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]