House of Gold (30 page)

What would the Man do?
she answered.

Now it was obvious. The Man would
follow a plan.

Yes, a plan,
he calculated.

Buzz inched backwards, staying low, conjuring a plan, until he was sure he could dart back to his bike.

Is this why he had suddenly gotten the cramps as his friends glided before him down the hill?

He would never
know.

He lifted his bike into the air, then took it into the woods beside the road.

Hurry!

He covered it with leaves and pine needles as best he could. He pulled the backpack off, ripped it open, and rummaged through it. What to keep?

Need a plan. Like the Man.

His hand came to the bottle. The little something Deacon Samuels had stowed away as a gift before he left Blackstone.

Bowmore Mariner.
The Scotch. "Buzz, I know you don't drink, but I thought that you could use this for trading–Bob," the note, in careful script, had said.

Trading. A plan. The Man.

He zipped open the side pocket and grabbed his reference letters, then ran further into the woods and hid his pack beneath a log, along with the Ruger, which he wrapped in his winter jacket. He took his Zippo, hesitated, then left it
in an open knot on a nearby oak tree.

Run away! Take the bike. Remember Mel. Ride away!
the coward in him, the part that valued life over duty, urged.

He batted it away. Johnny was down there, alone, a babe in the woods. Alone.

You can take the boy out of New Jersey, but you can't take the New Jersey out of the boy. He had his bottle of Scotch. But Buzz felt he needed more than a plan, he needed–a
conceit. An organizing theme. He prayed.

It came to him. He would...

Tell lies based on truth.

As he hurried back to the road, then over the crest, mumbling the Saint Michael prayer, he found it.

+  +  +

"Here comes your friend," Ralph, the one who had been on the cab of the truck, told Johnny. "We were just about to go after him."

Ralph was standing next to Lloyd now.

Johnny, face down on the
ground, his hands on his neck, with Lloyd's gun pointed to his head, turned to see a shoe-eyed view of Buzz casually walking toward the roadblock, a happy grin on his face, hands in the air.

Where's his bike?
Johnny thought.

"Buzz–" Johnny croaked.

"Shut up," Lloyd growled, poking his muzzle into Johnny's shoulder blade.

Ralph flicked on a large flashlight.

Light,
Buzz thought. That was all he
needed to know. Electric light. It gave him just enough to make a guess. A Buzz guess.

"Halt," Ralph ordered. "Identify yourself."

"I'm Buzz."

"Buzz who?"

"Buzz nobody. Who are you?" His tone remained casual. Almost jovial.

"I'm asking the questions here," Ralph barked tersely.

"Yeah," Lloyd said.

"Would you just shut the hell up, Lloyd?"

It was dark, but Buzz could tell–just tell–that Lloyd had
bristled at that.

The killer is named Lloyd,
Buzz filed away.
This other guy is in charge.

"Are you armed?" Ralph asked.

"No," Buzz replied. "Can I put my hands down?" he added.

"No."

Buzz kept his eyes off Johnny, and what was left of Tom, and concentrated on the bad guys.

He squinted into the flashlight. How he wished he could see their faces.

"What are we gonna do next?" Lloyd asked.

"For the
last time, shut up, wouldya, Lloyd. Go search him. I'll cover this other one."

Lloyd stepped over Tom Kasovich's corpse, then walked to Buzz. He searched him with one hand. Buzz's arms, still in the air, were beginning to ache. Lloyd found the fifth of Bowmore tucked into the back of Buzz's pants.

"He's clean. Nothin' but this bottle, Ralph. Shine the light here..."

The leader's name is Ralph,
he repeated mentally, trying to ignore the shotgun barrel inches from his face.

Ralph shone the light.

"Bowmore Marine-er," Lloyd spelled out. He had mispronounced
Mariner
the way one would say
Marine
as in Marine Corps.

"You some kind of Marine?" Ralph asked.

"Me a Marine? Hell no," Buzz replied, inserting down-home charm. "It's Scotch. Lloyd sure is a dumb sonufabitch."

"Hey!" Lloyd said.

"You
heard me," Buzz told him.

"You got that right," Ralph said, laughing.

"I just wanted to thank you, and thank old Lloyd, too, of course," Buzz pressed on, trying desperately to keep the tension out of his voice, trying not to look at Johnny.

Johnny, please play along,
Buzz beseeched.

"Thank me? Thank me for what?"

"For shutting that preacher up. God, he was driving me up the frickin' wall. Jesus
this, Jesus that. If I did have a gun, I might have popped him myself."

Ralph walked up to him. They could see each other now. He looked carefully at Buzz, who put his hands down. Ralph, still holding his own rifle on Buzz, put his hand on the barrel of Lloyd's shotgun and pushed it down. "Go watch the other one," he ordered.

"Thanks," Buzz said. "My arms were killing me."

"You're just trying
to save your skin," Ralph stated uncertainly.

"Of course I am. The world is a dangerous place, Ralph," Buzz said, nodding sagely.

Buzz spun the words gently, like silk streaming from a spider's abdomen. He was gaining confidence by the second.

"But I really do want to thank you for taking that preacher out. Always running his mouth. This other one ain't so bad."

Buzz spit in Johnny's direction,
and stifled an urge to wink.

You'll get a chance to let Johnny know later,
he advised himself.
If there is a later.

"Lloyd!" Buzz called over with a command voice, surprising Ralph. "You best take care not to drop that god-damned bottle! I just carried it all the way here from–" Buzz almost hesitated "–New York."

"Hey," Lloyd said, startled.

"Shut the hell up, Lloyd," Ralph repeated wearily, then
to Buzz, "Rheumy's gonna love you. But I still think you're full of it. I could shoot you right here."

"Sure you could, but you won't," Buzz bluffed coolly, then paused.

He could tell in the ensuing pause that Ralph had taken the bait, and was waiting for an explanation, and after a lifetime of saying whatever popped into his head, he found that the words came smoothly–almost gracefully–

"Because
you're going to bring me to see Roomy, because you don't like Scotch, but Roomy does. He loves Scotch. And he's going to like me a lot. "

"How do you know Rheumy loves Scotch?" Ralph asked, true curiosity in his voice.

Buzz's gift of guessing never failed to impress.

"I just know. Just like I know that you and me, we're the same. We let the other guy do the killing."

Boom, take that,
Buzz thought,
knowing that taking charge when one was not in charge was the only way out of this mess–for him and for Johnny.

Ralph bought it. He bought it all.

A few minutes later, as Johnny dug Tom Kasovich's grave, Ralph offered Buzz a cigarette.

Buzz turned it down. He knew he was in.

+  +  +

There was a dirt road adjoining Route 100 directly behind the roadblock. It wound through the woods for two miles
before opening into a clearing. A cluster of buildings stood before them. It was not easy to see details in the darkness.

The group of men followed a stone path around the first building to a courtyard in front of a main building–a fairly ordinary-looking, modern split-level with vinyl siding. Buzz was only mildly surprised to see that it had electric lights. He listened, and heard the soft
whop-whop-whop
of a wind turbine in the distance. Wind power. Buzz was certain that there was an array of batteries somewhere in the compound, and filed this information.

"Take the preacher to the work house, Lloyd, and have the boys fit him with cuffs if they've still got the blacksmith shop up and running," Ralph ordered mildly. "I'll take Buzz here up to see Rheumy. And hand me that bottle."

"Hey, okay,"
Lloyd muttered before giving the Bowmore to Ralph.

Buzz took this chance to wink at Johnny, who was surprisingly calm. Johnny winked back.

Kid's not so dumb after all,
Buzz thought, relieved.
I bet he's prayin' up a storm.

Buzz decided to count on it.
Johnny's praying for me, Lord. Answer his prayers. Give us all the grace You've got.

Lloyd departed, his gun at his side, leading Johnny toward
the dark form of a building to the left of the main building.

"Let's go to the bighouse," Ralph told Buzz. He no longer held the rifle on his captive. Buzz briefly considered jumping him, but rejected the idea. That wouldn't do Johnny any good.

Ralph led Buzz into the house up a flight of stairs. They stopped before a closed door. Ralph nodded at the armed guard–an older gentleman sitting in a
chair beside the door.

"Rheumy up?"

The guard shrugged his shoulders.

Buzz took a careful look around. There was clean blue carpeting on the floor–
I guess they vacuum the place.
Power. All the old luxuries were here, obviously. The walls were painted a light beige, and there were cheesy paintings–the kind found in mid-priced hotel rooms–hanging here and there in the hallways. No pictures of people.

Roomy has no taste,
Buzz filed.

Ralph reached toward the doorknob–

"Hold on," Buzz said. "What's his last name?"

Ralph stopped, not even aware that he was taking orders from Buzz now.

"Same as mine," Ralph replied. "Marks. He's my older brother. Rheumy Marks. His real name is Ben. But don't call him that."

Buzz nodded. In the lights of the house, he realized that Ralph was young–perhaps in his
late twenties. He had brown, well-cut hair, and his features were handsome in that rounded kind of way. He didn't look evil. He didn't look like a murderer.

"Where does the nickname come from?"

"It's short for rheumatoid arthritis, same as our dad. My brother is in a lot of pain most of the time. You better be what you said you are–"

"Relax. You want to give him the bottle?"

Ralph nodded. Buzz
smiled.

He had kept his words and his tone conspiratorially friendly and intimate since the roadblock, but now found it difficult to force from his mind the image of Tom's corpse being lowered into the shallow grave–next to three other graves.

Ralph opened the door without knocking as Buzz prepared for the performance of his life...

Forget that they're murderers,
he told himself.
Or it will come
out in your voice. We're all friends here, we're all friends here...

And there was Rheumy, sitting in a cushy leather chair, a beer in his hand, facing away from them. Buzz couldn't see his face–only the small bald spot in his crewcut, and beyond it, a television and VCR.

A television!
Even in these circumstances, Buzz couldn't help but get excited. It had been so long!

And a movie! Buzz recognized
it immediately.

As Good as It Gets,
featuring Jack Nicholson giving his Oscar-winning performance.

"Hi Rheumy," Ralph said to his brother's scalp. "I've brought somebody to meet you."

"Shsssh," Rheumy hissed without turning around. "I love this scene. Sit down, sit down."

Buzz and Ralph walked around the chair and sat on the matching couch. Buzz smiled at Rheumy, who was even more good-looking
than his brother, but got no verbal response. Rheumy waved but kept his eyes on the screen, smiling, taking Buzz in from the corner of his eye.

Buzz watched the movie, which was about halfway finished, and despite himself, got caught up in the story. He figured this was a better strategy than taking careful glances at his host.

"Get our guest a beer," Rheumy said a few minutes later, eyes on the
screen.

Ralph went to the bar on the far side of the room, ducked under the back, and returned with two bottles of beer. He handed one to Buzz. Bud Light.

A moment of decision.

Take the beer? Set a precedent?

"Thanks, man," Buzz said.

He twisted the top, and took a small gulp, trying to make it look natural. Like he had just downed a few beers with the boys at the pub before dropping into this
nightmare for a nightcap. On top of it all, he was truly thirsty.

A thirsty alcoholic. This sucks. This is an act.

It was his first beer of the millennium.

Dear Lord, forgive me. Dear Lord, don't let me get drunk. For Mel! For Johnny!

In times of war, no matter the battlefield, good men are forced to do bad things.

The beer went right to his head. Or maybe he just imagined it. Ten years since
his last drink. It brought back memories–of the storm, the dark jetty. The attempt.

He shoved them aside.

He had a job to do. He concentrated on Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. God, she was awful plain-looking for a movie star. Nothing like Grace Kelly.

He immediately thought of Ellie, and felt a vague longing. Buzz had forgotten how easily movies could rev up his emotions. Or maybe it was the
beer.

Saint Michael the Archangel...
he prayed twenty or thirty times, the whole prayer, as the movie dragged on.

Suddenly, it was over. Rheumy reached up with the remote control, and clicked it off.

"What's your name?" he asked Buzz, looking at him for the first time, a charming smile on his clean-shaven face. It was a damned winning smile.

Buzz was ready with his cover story...

"Buzz Woodward.
I'm just passing through on my way to Maine. Caribou."

"What's in Caribou?"

"Nothing much. A few New Jersey buddies with a place. A place they got ready–just like you did here. Shoulda listened to 'em. I waited too long to take off. I figured it would take several months for the bug to turn off the lights. I was wrong."