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"I know, I know. You told me. Where to?"
Valentine checked the contents of his pack and a spare feedbag, which held extra restraints and a few packets from the Carlsons' kitchen. "Your uncle's house. You can tell me everything you remember about it on the way."
Frat covered the twenty miles in just over an hour, switching to tractor trails and cattle paths as he drew close to Monroe. The roads were empty, and the night seemed to be waiting for the curtain to go up on the last act of the play. The radio squawked occasionally, reporting from the patrols looking for two men on horseback. Valentine mentally prepared himself for a tragic ending to the drama. As Frat drove, leaning far forward as if the extra foot and a half of viewing distance made a difference, Valentine applied a hacksaw to the double-barreled shotgun, taking off the barrels from the edge of the wooden grip onward. He then filled the pockets on its leather sling-bandolier with buckshot shells. A second pump-action shotgun lay on the wooden backseat of the car.
"Okay, we're in the fields behind his house. It's right beyond that line of trees there," Frat informed him. "We've stayed over here a few times, back when he had a wife."
"Whatever happened to her?" Valentine asked.
"Don't know. Nobody does. One day she was just gone, and we learned not to ask."
"So he's not much for answering questions, then?" Valentine stepped out of the car and took the pump-action shotgun, pocketing shells into his stolen uniform. "I'll try to change that. Keep the scattergun handy, Frat. Don't be afraid to use it, and pull out if something comes after you. Keep alert."
"I will, sir. You be careful."
Valentine walked silently up to the line of trees, listening and smelling for the guard dogs. Their scent seemed to be everywhere across the lawn. Perhaps they were around front.
The extravagant house had bright security lights mounted high up just under the roof, angled out to bathe the lawn in white light. Their brilliance threw the surrounding terrain into harsh, black-and-white relief, blazing white wherever the lights touched and utter black in the shadows. Valentine whistled softly.
One of the great black rottweilers appeared from around the garage corner. Valentine reached into his feed bag and placed a few strips of meat on the flat of his parang. He whistled again. The dog growled and took a few steps closer. Valentine stayed very still, offering the meat from the brush at the edge of the woods.
"Good dog, good dog," Valentine said soothingly. The dog licked its chops and padded forward. Valentine lowered the blade to the grass, and the dog began eating. Flanagan obviously used the dogs only for show; a real guard dog would be trained not to take food from anyone but its keeper. Having made friends, Valentine stood for a moment patting the hopeful-looking dog.
Valentine watched the sleeping house for a few moments then jogged across the lawn to the back door. The rottweiler trotted along happily. The second hound, curled up on the mat at the door fast asleep, startled at their approach. Seeing the other dog, it came forward to greet the late-night visitor. Valentine issued more tidbits to the dogs and began feeling along the top of the windowsill to the left of the door for the key Frat said was hidden there. He found it, placed on a small nail hammered into the top of the windowsill.
The key fit the dead bolt on the back door, but Valentine was able to open the door only an inch or two. A heavy chain across the inside of the door barred further progress. He reached into his bag of tricks for the rusty crowbar from the patrol car's trunk, fixed it to the chain near its mounting on the doorjamb, and pulled. The chain parted with a loud ting.
Valentine entered the kitchen behind the business end of the shotgun. The tabletop was a mess of dirty dishes and paperwork. The main light over the table was still on, bathing the littered octagonal surface in a puddle of yellow. A heavy electric typewriter sat before a chair, a cold mug of coffee next to it, nestled like a small brown pond in a forest of empty beer bottles. A raspy snoring echoed from the living room.
He looked at the typed report on the table, flipping to the second page. Apparently it was a statement by the one patroller standing sentry outside Touchet's VIP suite door at the New Universal Church building. A paragraph caught Valentine's eye.
When the cook entered with Mr. Touchet's nightcap of coffee, I heard him scream. I drew my gun and entered the bedroom. Mr. Touchet was facedown on the bed, nude except for a pair of socks. The young woman was trying to force up the window of the bedroom, not knowing that it was nailed shut. As I entered, she smashed it with an ashtray but I was able to restrain her.
After she was handcuffed and held down by the cook, I examined Mr. Touchet for a pulse. He was dead. He had a steak knife handle sticking out of the back of his head right were the neck meets the skull. His back was coated with some kind of oil and he lay on a towel. There was very little blood on the towel. Mr. Touchet's brass ring had been removed from his finger and was placed around the handle of the knife.
The young woman was screaming obscenities at us, so I hit her. She had not been injured by Mr. Touchet; the bruise on her face was from me.
Valentine walked to the living room and looked in. Virgil Ames lay stretched out on a leather sofa, sunglasses finally off, pistol belt looped around his arm. The air around him smelled of beer breath and stale flatulence. Beyond, in the glass turret-room, he could make out Maj. Michael Flanagan. The major slept in his chair, phone in his lap, widespread feet propped up on his desk.
The prowling Wolf shifted the shotgun to his left hand and took up the parang. No making friends with this dog, he thought, putting the wedge-shaped point just above Virgil's Adam's apple. At the swift inward thrust, the late Virgil Ames opened his eyes. Valentine wiped his knife on the rich leather sofa and moved toward the office.
Major Flanagan woke when the blued steel of the shotgun barrel poked him between the eyes. As Flanagan sputtered into surprised wakefulness, Valentine changed the angle of the shotgun barrel, pointing it between Flanagan's outstretched legs.
"You wanted to see me, Major?" he asked.
"What the-?... Virgil!" Flanagan shouted.
"Dead, sir," Valentine reported. "Better speak up, or you'll be joining him in five seconds. Tell me, is Molly Carlson still alive?"
"Virgil!" Flanagan cried.
Valentine stuck the shotgun toward Flanagan's screaming mouth. "Major, your screaming is not doing you any good, and it's giving me a headache, so cut it out. Or I might cut your tongue out and have you write down your answers."
"Fuck you, Saint Croix. We don't just have Molly, we've got all the Carlsons, as of eleven this evening. If you back out of here and never let me see your face again, they might live. You might even live."
The powerful, spearlike thrust of the shotgun shattered two incisors and left a worm-tail of lip dangling as it hung from a thin strip of bleeding skin. The major's hands flew to his wounded mouth, and Valentine clipped him on the side of the head with the shotgun butt. The major fell over, knocked senseless. Valentine busied himself with handcuffs and rope.
The house was dark when Major Flanagan came to. Valentine splashed cold coffee into his face. Groans rose from the Quisling just before he vomited all over himself. The paroxysm showed how securely he was tied into his office chair.
