"Aw, shit, what you want to do that for?"

"Well, I'll tell you. I've evened things up a bit. You're a little bigger'n me but now you're a little drunker. So we're driving out of town and I'm going to whip your ass one on one."

"You got that gun."

"I'll leave it in the car. Drive out toward the highway to the forest preserve. I'll be right behind you. Don't try to get away. I'll be aiming for the tires but I might hit your gas tank."

"You asshole," the boy muttered as he got into the car. The big Pontiac engine exploded to life and Nick pumped the accelerator.

They pulled out of downtown, the camper right behind the GT.

It turned out even better than Pellam'd thought it would be. They'd gotten two miles out of town, to the stoplight, when Nick did just what Pellam knew he was going to do: Looked for cross traffic, slipped the clutch and shot through the red light, running up through the gears with his fancy shifter, sounding like a buzzsaw.

The boy was probably in fourth when the state trooper Pellam had seen on his way into town, hidden in the bushes, a speed trap, started to pull out.

Nick came within two or three inches of taking the front end of the trooper's Chevy with him.

Pellam drove slowly past the scene of the arrest. Nick, handcuffed. The trooper, writing down Breathalyzer results.

He drove past the sign that said Welcome to Cleary and continued into the blackness.

Good night, officer. Good night, sir…

Pellam turned the camper off Barlow Mountain Road, and eased along an overgrown side road up the hill that he supposed was Barlow Mountain. He nosed the Winnebago forward into a clump of hemlocks then killed the engine. He pulled the Colt out from under the seat and slipped it into his waistband then stepped outside. His boots made gritting taps as he walked along the asphalt toward the warm yellow house lights that glowed in the fog, a quarter mile away.

A hundred yards from the house he made his way off the road into brush and sparse woods. He smelled wet pine and ripe leaves. A hit of skunk. He saw the glistening lights reflecting on a lake to his right. A late, lone cicada made its deceptively cheerful sound and somewhere a dog barked. He moved slowly toward the house, stepping around branches.

The house was a rambling old monster, easily two hundred years old. A drab, ugly brown, Plymouth Rock chic. He heard water lapping and saw the lake clearly; it came right to the edge of the property. The dog barked again, the sound rolling across the lake. There was no other noise or motion, not even wind. The house was still and the lights were dim; Pellam wondered if they'd been left on while the residents were out to discourage the potential intruders that Pellam now understood Ambler would have good reason to worry about-the state police, for instance.

He thought of the drugs that had been planted on Marty-and on him-and the odd heroin Sam had taken. He recalled that Meg or someone told him about other overdoses and murders in the area. Ambler was probably responsible for it all.

He knelt in the grass and felt the cold dew through his denim. After five minutes, during which he saw no motion, he ran in a crouch to the separate garage, a two-story saltbox, and looked in the window. Only one car inside, a Cadillac. And there was an oil stain on the concrete, about ten feet to the left of the Caddie, which told him that Ambler had two cars.

A family out to dinner on Sunday night? Probably. But even when he walked to the house Pellam stayed in the shadows and edged up to the first-floor windows slowly. He bobbed his head up and looked in one quickly, seeing small rooms, decorated with rough, painted furniture, wreaths of dried flowers, primitive Colonial paintings of spooky children and black-clad wives-everything stiff and spindly and uncomfortable.

He saw no movement at all.

The windows, he noticed, were mostly unlocked.

The third room was the one he wanted.

It was dark paneled and inside were two large gun cabinets, glass faced, set against the wall. Several trophies were mounted near the low ceiling-a couple of antelope and a good-pointed buck. But they were on one wall only, as if the hunter had gotten tired of displaying his kills. Pellam, squinting, saw a number of rifles in the cases. Several looked like they were.30 caliber and at least two of them had telescopic sights.

Pellam lifted his hands up to the window and tested it. Unlocked. He stood completely still for a moment, his face millimeters away from the smooth, expensive paint job. Then he eased up the window, which moved slowly. He opened it about two feet. A hard climb, though, he thought-considering his bruised thigh, his damaged joints.

It was then that he glanced inside and noticed something odd.

What's wrong with this picture?

The second gun cabinet. The third space from the left.

Empty.

Thinking: If a man was as organized as Ambler seemed to be, and he didn't have enough guns to fill a cabinet, he'd probably keep the ones he did have centered in the rack. Which meant-

"Don't move," the man said.

The jump was involuntary, though the cold touch of the shotgun barrel at his head brought the movement under control real fast.

The voice was that of a middle-aged man. He asked, "You have a gun?"

"Yes."

"Hand it to me."

If he was impressed with the Colt, the man didn't say so. He slipped it into his pocket and, leaving the Remington over-under at Pellam's neck like a nesting kitten, said, "Let's go inside."

20

Pellam moved back and forth slowly in the bentwood rocker he'd been politely invited toward by the blunt 12-gauge trap gun. (Pellam hated shotguns. Shotguns were really loud.)

The man-he was Wex Ambler, according to his muttered introduction-studied Pellam carefully. Pellam gazed back. It was an odd contrast-hateful dark eyes and an L.L. Bean Sunday gardener's outfit, complete with bright green Izod shirt.

"What were you doing?" Ambler asked.

"Thinking of shooting a movie here. I was-"

"You know I could shoot you now. Blow your head clean off and all the sheriff'd do is tell me how sorry he was I lost a window and bloodied my floor."

Pellam saw the stillness in Ambler's eyes and knew this was a man who could easily kill.

He said, "I wanted to see if you were really the man who was trying to send me to Attica for ten years."

Ambler said, "I didn't want you to go to prison. I wanted you to leave town. Get the hell out and not come back."

"You could've asked."

"You were asked. Several times."

Goodbye…

Ambler's eyes flashed. "You people… We have a decent town and you think you can come here from Hollywood, and make your movies, but you're laughing at us. Behind our backs you're laughing. I hate you people."

Pellam was laughing. "Bullshit. I came to town to rent a few houses and stores for a couple of weeks. That's all we wanted. My friend gets killed and I get beat up and somebody plants drugs on me…"

Ambler shook his head, whipping Pellam's words off like they were gnats.

Pellam's eyes measured distances, noticing that the shotgun's safety was on, that Ambler's finger was outside the trigger guard, that the muzzle was aimed sixty or seventy degrees away from him. Noticing a carving set on the counter, antler handled, a burnished, well-honed blade on the knife. Even the serving fork looked vicious.

"Sin city," Ambler said.

Pellam rocked forward. His legs tensed, thinking he could probably make it. He wondered what it was like to stab someone. "It's just a business," Pellam said.

Ambler didn't hear him. "People here go to church, they have children, they teach them Christian values, they work hard, they-"