Kurtz turned to look at him. "Isn't that just sort of a controlled crash, just using the turning rotors without the motor on?"

"Yeah." Baby Doc killed the twin turbines. The night grew silent except for the slowing rush of rotors and the rising sound of the wind.

CHAPTER FORTY

"Arlene? Are you there? Arlene?"

It was her sister-in-law, Gail DeMarco, calling. Arlene answered in a whisper, although it was doubtful that the burned man could hear from this distance.

"Is everything all right?" asked Gail. "We were going to talk after the weather…"

The two women spoke almost every night after the Channel 4 weather, before the sports, before going to bed. Arlene had been looking forward to tonight's conversation because they were going to talk about Rachel's fifteenth birthday later in the week—although Arlene was dreading being asked if Joe was going to attend. Rachel looked up to and adored the occasional dinner visitor, Joe Kurtz—the girl's real father, Arlene was absolutely sure—and Joe seemed oblivious to it all. It had reached the point where Gail almost couldn't stand Joe—"a jerk" Gail had called him during a recent conversation with Arlene—but Gail understood the situation, and wanted Rachel to know the man who was probably her father.

"I'm sorry," said Arlene, still keeping her eye on the dark pest control truck near the mall. "I'm out running an errand for Joe and just forgot the time."

"An errand for Joe?" said Gail. "At this hour?" Arlene could hear the disapproval in her friend's voice. Arlene had been close to her husband's sister when Alan and her son were alive, but they'd grown even closer in the years since those deaths.

"Something that had to be done," said Arlene. I'd kill for a cigarette, she thought, and then realized that was an option. Just walk up to Mr. Burned Face in his bug truck and put two.44 slugs into him. As he waits for his girlfriend on the night custodial shift to come out for a midnight lunch. Arlene decided that if she went that way, she'd use the nicotine-withdrawal defense in court. Maybe the jury would be composed mostly of ex-smokers. Hell, it would only take one.

She and Gail chatted for a few minutes, Arlene keeping her voice down and the Buick's window up. If the Burned Man was still in the cab of the van, he wasn't showing any movement.

"Well," said Gail, her voice changing slightly, "will Joe Kurtz be coming to dinner on Friday night?"

Arlene chewed her lip. "I haven't asked him yet. He's been… busy."

"Yes. Dr. Singh asks me about Joe Kurtz almost every day. I imagine Joe's been in bed a lot, recovering. It must mean extra work for you at the office."

"Not that much," said Arlene, commenting on the first part of Gail's sentence but letting her think she was answering the second part.

"But do you think he'll be up to coming to Rachel's birthday party? It would mean the world to her."

Arlene knew that although Rachel was a sensitive and lovable girl, she had few friends at school. Besides Gail and Arlene—and maybe Joe—there would be only one other teenager besides Rachel at the party, a skinny, bookish girl named Constance.

"I'll ask him tomorrow," said Arlene.

"I mean, he does remember it's Rachel's birthday, doesn't he?" asked Gail, voice rising a bit.

"I'll ask him tomorrow whether he feels up to coming," said Arlene. "I'm sure he will if he can. Gail, by any chance do you have Rachel's phone around? The one I gave you in the spring?"

"Rachel's cell phone?" said her sister-in-law. "Yes. She never carries it I think it's in her room. Why? You want it back?"

"No, but could you go get it right now? And check the battery."

"Now?" said Gail.

"Yes, please," said Arlene. There was movement in the cab of the pest control van. The Burned Man was shifting positions, perhaps getting ready to step out.

Gail sighed, said she'd just be a minute, and set her phone down.

Arlene looked at her options here. They were awkward. She wanted the Burned Man out of the way so that she could pick up this Aysha person in… she looked at her watch… twenty-one minutes. Even if the Burned Man wasn't also waiting for the Yemeni girl—although Arlene's instincts told her that he was—it would be better if there were no witnesses. The girl was illegal in more ways than one. What if she didn't want to get into the car with Arlene? Well, to be truthful, that was one reason Arlene had brought the.44 Magnum.

So how to get this guy out of the way? And what to do if he suddenly drove toward her Buick or began walking her way? Arlene had no idea why this scarred man in the bug truck might want to grab Aysha, but she felt that this was precisely what he was going to do in… nineteen minutes… unless Arlene intervened.

How? She had the Niagara police on speed dial, but even if she got through to someone who actually called a patrol cruiser who actually got here in time, they'd almost certainly still be here when the Canadians dropped Aysha off at the mall door. And if the people-smugglers from the north caught one glimpse of red and blue lights flashing or police cars here in the parking lot, they'd keep going and drop Aysha somewhere else, far from here.

Maybe I could fallow their car and…

Arlene shook her head. After getting even a glimpse of the police, the already paranoid smugglers would probably be more paranoid. The streets were empty in this wet, botched caricature of a city, and there was little to no chance that Arlene would be able to tail the smugglers without them seeing her. And if she spooked them enough, they might even kill the girl and just dump her out somewhere. Arlene just didn't know the stakes here—for Aysha, for the people smuggling her in, for the Burned Man in that bug truck straight ahead, or even for Joe.

I could just go home. That was certainly the option that made the most sense. In the morning, Joe would probably say, "Oh, that's all right—I just wanted to chat with the girl if possible. No biggee."

Uh-huh, thought Arlene.

"All right, I'm back with the phone," came Gail's voice in her ear. "What next?"

"Ahh…just hold onto it for a second," said Arlene, knowing how foolish she sounded. It was like those old practical jokes in high school where some boy would call up pretending to be a telephone repairman and get you to take the cover off the phone—back when phones looked alike and had covers—and then made you do one thing after the other to help «fix» it, until you were swinging a bag of parts over your head and clucking like a chicken.

Joe had talked Arlene into purchasing a cell phone for Rachel a few months earlier. He was always worried that the girl might be in danger, that someone might go after her the way her late stepfather had, and he liked the idea of Rachel carrying around a phone with Arlene's numbers set to speed dial.

Gail had been a little nonplussed at the gift—"If Rachel wanted a phone, I'd buy one for her," she'd said logically enough—but Arlene had convinced her that this was Joe's awkward way of establishing some contact with the girl, of watching over her from afar. "He can establish contact just by coming to dinner and seeing her more frequently," Gail had said sternly. Arlene couldn't argue with that.

She'd thought of the phone right now because although its bills were paid by WeddingBells-dot-com, if someone tried to use reverse-911 on it, the records would show just the WeddingBells PO box number.

Fourteen minutes before midnight. It was quite possible the smugglers could get here a few minutes early with Aysha—any second—and Arlene didn't have a clue what to do. If the Burned Man nabbed Aysha, she could try following the bug truck so at least she could tell Joe where the girl was taken, but the same empty, wet streets in the same empty, wet town here made that no more feasible than following the smugglers themselves.