Ashes (12 page)

A party. That’s what she’d forgotten. She was prepared to beg off, then thought, no, she wouldn’t. If it was fun, well it had been a hell of a long time since she’d had any fun. She was entitled to it. And if it wasn’t fun, that’s why God invented cabs.

“So, Jenny, you in?” Alex asked.

“I’m all over it,” she replied with a smile. Yes, getting very good at it.

T
he old-timers were saying it was going to be a cold winter, and Tess Perkins believed them. Indian summer had decided to give Wisconsin a miss this year; the days were gray, uncomfortably chilly and damp, yet not quite cold enough for snow. People walked with heads down, leaning into the wind, ducking their faces away from the drizzle. Already Tess was weary of gray skies and brown mud. She lugged a space heater into the manager’s office of the Lakeview Terrace apartments and filled the room with ferns and African violets that flourished in the near-tropical heat. Her enormous gray tabby, Godzilla, would not leave this warm room except to eat or use the litter box, and she could not blame him.

Tess sat at the desk, looking over the books, wondering when the cable TV man would grace her with his presence. The cable had gone out yesterday, and Tess wanted to get it back up and running as soon as possible. She had inherited the Lakeview Terrace apartments from her father. In his day, it had been home to teachers and young couples on their way up. Now that the business center of Du Lac had shifted and the economy had gone sluggish, her renters were older people, divorced men, or people drifting from job to job and town to town in search of something they could not find. But while other managers would have yielded to this downturn and let the apartments slide into disrepair, Tess refused. To not fight the good fight was an insult to her father's memory. So she worked tirelessly to keep the walkways swept, flowerbeds full, repairs attended to, and complaints addressed. Her dedication paid off, for while her tenants were often transient, and many did not stay for more than a year, they left their apartments clean and kept themselves well-behaved. The police were seldom called to the Lakeview Terrace.

Outside, a gray van pulled up, and a few minutes later a man entered the office. “Ah,” he said, his pleasure in the office’s warmth evident. “I haven’t felt this cozy in ages.”

“Are you here for the cable TV?” she asked.

He smiled, shook his head. “No, I wanted to rent an apartment. I saw the sign, do you have places available?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I saw your van and thought ... My mistake. I’m Tess Perkins.”

“Sam Lewis. No problem with the mistaken identity.”

Godzilla, lolling on the desk, raised his head and regarded the new arrival with sullen yellow eyes. While Tess gathered her papers, Sam reached out and scratched the cat behind the ears. Godzilla, usually a standoffish cat, closed his eyes and purred.

Tess laughed. “Well, never mind references, Godzilla seems to like you well enough. Any preferences on which floor? You can choose from one, two, or three.”

“Floor doesn’t matter.” He cast his eyes down, as if shy or embarrassed to be making this request. “A corner place would be nice, if you have it. I have trouble sleeping sometimes and a corner place is usually less noisy.”

“Well, the neighbors here are pretty quiet, but we do have a corner unit on the second floor. Like to see it?”

Sam gave her such a nice, sweet smile that Tess caught herself wondering if her friend Allison would like to meet him. She filed that thought away in her mind for later, and took him on a brief tour of the apartments. Not that there was a whole lot to see, but it was the thought that counted. He was recently divorced, he said. He and his wife had split after he was laid off, and now he was picking up work where he could. A cousin had word of jobs in a nearby town, “and here I am,” he said with a shrug. It was a familiar enough story for Tess; the same thing had happened too often in her own family for her to be judgmental.

She showed him the corner unit. One bedroom with a Murphy bed that folded down out of the wall. One bathroom, tile on the floors instead of linoleum. A kitchen, a front room. Very clean. The windows faced out the back of the apartments, overlooking a cow pasture. Tess herself preferred to see lights and people outside her window; she was at times a lonely person, and seeing signs of human life soothed her. But cows seemed to suit the new tenant just fine. Within half an hour the papers were signed, money changed hands, and he drove his gray van around to the parking slot for 233. Didn’t have much, he said. She gave him the name of a local place where he could find decent furniture at low prices. He thanked her for her thoughtfulness.

Tess went back to her office, where Godzilla, no fool, still slumbered in the warmth. She went back to her bookkeeping, not even minding that she still had to wait for the cable TV man. Getting a good new tenant always put her in a cheerful mood.

* * *

I
t was true, what Sean had told Tess Perkins. He had a few things — essentials for the mission, for he was going to be here a while. Dishes, a few pots and pans, bedding. A decent TV and DVD player (he couldn’t resist, he could always say that he’d gotten those and his ex had gotten everything else). But there were a few boxes, labeled “kitchen” or “misc.” that contained supplies of a different sort. Hidden under concealing layers of excelsior and crumpled newspaper were the things he’d taken from Henry Connolly’s truck.

In fact, Henry’s truck and what it contained had proven as informative in their own way as Henry himself. Hidden under army blankets and camping gear he’d found three Mini-14 semiautomatic rifles, four nine-millimeter Glock pistols, and several shotguns, along with a large amount of ammunition for all the weapons. Also a couple of knives — good quality and practical, not sword-and-sorcery shit — and two Kevlar vests.

There was also nearly $2,000 in cash. Last but certainly not least, a Ziploc bag full of reefer, which was no doubt for Henry’s personal consumption. “Naughty boy, Henry,” he’d said when he made that last find. Most of the goods he’d left in Connolly’s truck, along with Connolly himself, but he’d kept a few things: one of the Minis, the vests, the knives, and all the ammo. Sean had been a Boy Scout once, and knew that it was good to be prepared.

* * *

H
e lay awake on his bed, eyes open. The room was in darkness but that suited him perfectly, for his focus was inward. Gathering and sorting information. He did not need to write anything down, it was all organized in his brain, ready when he needed it.

Most of the militias and antigovernment groups favored the leaderless resistance approach. Tiny cells or individuals striking out against the government without plan or leadership. The idea was that if captured, there was no leader for a member to betray, and that the law would be busy swatting at many wasps rather than aiming for the hive and its queen.

It was a good theory, but someone had realized that it wasn’t working. Instead of stinging, the wasps buzzed about ineffectually, talked about attacking but never put stinger to flesh. Someone understood that the wasps need a reason to sting, need to be fed a potent brew of anger and inspiration. And someone knew that it was best to let the weak and the stupid strike out on their own. Let a person with both brains and authority gather the capable and the clever — but not too clever, not anyone who would want to seize power — and there was something to be reckoned with.

Thanks to Henry Connolly, he had a name for that someone. Richard Blaine, who owned, of all things, a Christmas tree farm outside of Du Lac, Wisconsin. Blaine sometimes spoke at local meetings, more often spread his message by way of emissaries. They kept their eyes open and their ears to the ground, approaching those they thought would be good candidates and inviting them to join the group.

Sean’s assessment of Connolly as a mere spear-carrier was on target. He had been an errand boy, sent for supplies and coordinating transportation; he didn’t know who actually had set off the bomb. Surely it had not been Blaine, who clearly was smart enough to delegate the dirty work. But, Sean thought now, staring up at the ceiling, that didn’t matter. If he had been in search of a legitimate arrest, it would be important. But really, all he needed was a name, which he had, and a location, which he also had. Now it was a matter of insinuating himself into the outer circle, and then getting them to offer him an invitation.

It would take time, for he would need to play his hand carefully. The group was, in a strange way, like his former employers. You did not go to them. They came to you. He could not wheedle an invitation. He needed to come across as competent and dedicated, not too eager, content to be a reliable follower rather than a leader. To be...what?

A good soldier,
Sean thought with a faint, cynical smile. Yes, a good soldier. Well then, that should be easy. It was the role he’d played for nearly all his life.

With that thought he fell asleep. His sleep was, as always, without dreams. The last image to flicker across his brain before he descended into sleep’s oblivion was Jennifer Thomson crying in her rescuer’s arms.

* * *

T
he invitation came a few days before Christmas.

It was at a weekly meeting, one held in the hall of Du Lac’s Grace Methodist Church. A town hall meeting, they called it, but though some of the local government occasionally attended it, they did not sponsor it. It was a meeting like so many others he had attended, one where tales of economic woe were shared, where the moral decline of the country was decried, where webs of dark theories and conjecture were spun. He sat in the middle of the hall, in the middle of the row, not too eager, not too reticent, asking good questions and volunteering comments that were neither too cautious nor too outlandish. During the last few meetings, with the sixth sense innate to those who are both hunter and hunted, he'd known he was being assessed.

After the meeting, punch and coffee and cookies in the back of the hall. Sean was pouring himself a cup of coffee when there was a tap on his shoulder.
Now it begins.

“Yes?” He turned and saw a man, in his mid-forties. Scandinavian ancestry, with sandy blond hair and a slightly upturned nose, receding chin.

“Mr. Lewis, I presume?”

“Call me Sam.”

“Sam.” The man nodded. “I’m Doug MacReady. I liked what you had to say in the meeting tonight.”

He shrugged. “Just my thoughts on things, that’s all.”

MacReady gave a slight tilt of his head toward the end of the hall, away from the madding crowd, and they began to casually stroll that way. “Well, I’ve seen you at a few of these meetings. You say they’re just your thoughts on things, but you know, it’s a shame to let good thoughts and good people go to waste.”

Sean kept silent, kept his face attentive, inquiring. Waited for the invitation.

“A shame,” MacReady repeated. “But it doesn’t have to be. There’s a meeting we think you’d be interested in attending.”

“We?”

MacReady smiled. “Some people who share your thoughts on things. Good people. Give you a chance to talk about things and...” MacReady shrugged enigmatically.

“That could be interesting,” he replied, his tone noncommittal.

“I think it will be.”

“When and where?”

“New Year’s Day, at the Deer’s Head Lodge. We’ll watch the bowl games.” And more, of course, that was clear in MacReady’s eyes.

It was the chance he'd been waiting for and he had only to take it. He wanted to, but an interior voice — the one you learned to listen to unless you wanted to end up dead — urged him to wait. Too much eagerness was a betrayal greater than any slip of the tongue.

But he wanted it badly, so it was with real regret that he said, “I can’t. New Year’s I’m over to St. Paul.”

“Time with the family?”

“Yes. My mother, mostly. It’s her lungs, all those years of working in the mills.” He sighed. “I think this is her last Christmas with us.”

MacReady shook his head in commiseration. And why not? Even members of antigovernment groups loved their mothers. “I understand. Well, I hate for you to miss it. But I’ll keep a weather eye out for you after the new year. Sound good?”

“It does. And thank you.”

They shook hands. MacReady nodded, turned, and disappeared into the crowd. Sean lingered, making small talk, having another cup of coffee. His mask did not slip away until he was in his apartment, in the safety of darkness and a warm bath. Only then did he smile, like a hunter hearing the deer approach.

I
t was snowing lightly when they left Haven Cove. The limo rolled on, untroubled by the weather; its dark, sleek bulk gave it the appearance of a lambent-eyed whale cruising through the sea. Inside the limo there were laughter and giggles, and the scent of five different perfumes intermingled.

“I am
so
glad we got this limo instead of driving,” Brandy said, pausing to adjust her stockings. “Let some poor sap be designated driver.” She playfully thumped the partition between passengers and driver. The limo driver paid her no heed.

“Well, it certainly makes sense, what with Alex hosting the party,” said Cammie.

“What do you mean?” Jennifer asked.

“Oh, didn’t you know? Before his dad retired Alex was a bartender. Went to bartending school and everything.” Brandy smiled. “Ask him to make you a Blue Floyd, you won’t regret it.”

“Speaking of hooch, I say we break out the champagne,” said Tracy, producing a bottle of Bollinger from her handbag.

Jennifer, who had only seen Bollinger in James Bond movies, asked, “Tracy, where did you get that?”

Tracy shrugged. “New Year’s Eve present from Alex.”

“The soul of generosity,” sighed Betty.

After a good deal of fussing with the wires and foil and complaining about chipped nail polish, they got the bottle open. “Don’t spill that in here,” the driver said in a bored tone.

“We won’t,” five voices sang out.

Soon plastic glasses were found and a substantial amount of Bollinger poured into each. “Ladies,” said Cammie, holding her glass high. The words
Happy New Year
on the glass in bright pink letters. “To a new year.”