The two boys had hit the ground and rolled out of harm’s way. Jamie was the first to his feet. He reached out for Scott and helped him up. For a brief moment, he wondered if the driver of the car and his passenger had been knocked out. But his hopes were dashed when the car doors opened and two men staggered out, one of them with blood oozing from a cut in his head, but both of them otherwise unhurt.
“Move!” Scott commanded, and Jamie set off, making for Virginia Street. They had to get out into the open where there would be other people, witnesses. But as they went, Jamie felt something streak past his ear and realized that one of the men had fired another dart at him. At least it wasn’t a bullet. The plan was to take the two boys alive. But what then? What had brought these people to the theatre in Reno? For years, nobody had cared about him and Scott. Why was all this happening now?
The boys reached the main road and suddenly the darkness of the parking lot gave way to the brilliance of the Reno night. The casinos were illuminated by a thousand lights: flashing, spinning, rotating, cascading, doing anything they could to draw people in. There was the casino called Circus Circus with its huge clown, pink and blue plastic, ten metres high. It was holding a lollipop that rotated in its hand, advertising the games inside. The Eldorado was further down the street on a corner, its entrance illuminated by a neverending firework display of multicoloured lights. Jamie couldn’t see anyone on the pavements, but there were a few cars, their headlights pushing back what little night remained. Which way? Jamie looked around him desperately. He had no idea. He didn’t know how many people were chasing him and there was nowhere to hide.
Scott cried out. The front doors of the theatre had burst open and the two men who had started it all had emerged into the street. Jamie was prepared to run but then he saw that his brother was standing quite still, one hand against his chin as if he had bad toothache. His face was completely white. Slowly, the hand fell and Jamie saw the black tufts of a dart, sticking out of his cheek.
“Oh no…” Jamie whispered.
“Run, Jamie,” Scott said.
“No. I’m not leaving you.”
“Just do it! You can’t help me if they get you…”
Of course it was true. There was nothing else he could do. If he stood there, they would simply grab both of them. Jamie hesitated just one second more, then turned and was about to run when he felt something like a wasp sting, high up on his right shoulder. Instantly he knew that he, too, had been hit. The two men were twenty metres away. It was the bald one who had fired the shot. Jamie saw him lower the gun. He had stopped moving, knowing the chase was over. Jamie heard another man shouting something in the parking lot. The motel alarm was still screaming. There was the thud of rubber shoes against concrete. Scott fell to his knees. Dully, Jamie looked at him, knowing he would be next. In a way he was glad. Whatever was going to happen, he’d stay with his brother after all.
And then there was the screech of tyres and a second car came out of nowhere, veering across the path of the oncoming traffic. Jamie heard the blast of horns. The neon lights were blurring and the whole night seemed to be folding in on itself. He thought the car was going to run him over and he wondered what would be the point of that. Drug him and then kill him? It didn’t make any sense.
The car shuddered to a halt. One of its tyres had mounted the pavement. The car was between him and the two men – just as the German shepherd had been earlier. A door swung open and a voice called out to him.
“Get in!”
The dark-haired man had produced a second gun. But this one didn’t fire darts. There was a sharp crack and one of the car windows shattered, the glass frosting before it collapsed out of the frame. A second shot and the mirror disintegrated.
“Get in!” the voice urged again.
Jamie took one last look at his brother. Scott was lying face down on the pavement, one hand outstretched, the other folded beneath him. The dart was still hanging out of his cheek. His eyes were closed. There was nothing Jamie could do for him. He fell forward into the car.
He wanted to know who was driving but he didn’t have the strength to look up. He was half in the car, half out, but already they were moving. He felt his feet being dragged along the road and reached out with one hand, searching for something to hold onto, something to help pull him in.
A hand reached down and grabbed his arm.
“Hold on!” the voice commanded.
They were reversing. Jamie heard a third shot then a howl of an engine and more blaring horns as other cars swerved all around them. But the traffic had lost its shape. To Jamie the other cars were just blurs of colour, ricocheting off each other, firing off in every direction. The neon lights spun round and round. He thought he saw four huge playing cards – the aces of hearts, clubs, spades and diamonds – light up, one after the other. The giant lollipop turned in the hand of the clown. A bright red shop sign flashed on and off. EZ CASH SUPER PAWN. Somehow he was in the car. He could feel soft leather pressing against his face but his feet seemed to be clear of the road.
After that, he remembered nothing more. As he drifted into blackness, all he knew was that, somehow, he had got away.
Don White was waiting in his office when Mr Banes got back. Kyle Hovey was with him. His jacket was torn and blood had spread all the way up his arm.
“Did you get them?” Don asked.
“We got one of them,” Banes replied.
“That’s too bad.” Don had a half-bottle of Bourbon. He poured himself a glass. “You’re still going to have to pay me for two.” Neither of the two men said anything. Don White assumed that meant they agreed. He lifted the glass and drank. “What happened?” he asked.
“You never told us about the dog,” Banes murmured.
“I didn’t know about the dog.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Banes said, slowly. “We have one of them. And the police will be looking for the other.”
“Oh yeah? And why is that?”
“He’ll be wanted for murder.”
Don White looked surprised – or tried to. It was always difficult to read emotion in his face. There was too much flesh. “Whose murder?” he asked.
Banes smiled. “You shouldn’t have asked.”
The sound of the bullet was very loud in the confined space of the office. Banes had shot Don White through the heart. For a few seconds, the man that Jamie and Scott had known as Uncle Don inspected his whisky as if acknowledging the fact that, sadly, he would never now drink it. Then his hand fell. The liquid spilled. He sat back, unmoving, in his chair.
Colton Banes took one last look at the corpse. Then he slipped the gun back into his pocket and the two men left the room.
TENTH STREET
Jamie opened his eyes and saw that he was no longer in Reno. He wasn’t even in America. Somehow, impossibly, he had been transported to a deserted beach that stretched out along the edge of a black, lifeless sea. Was it day or night? He looked up but the sky seemed to be caught somewhere between the two. Jamie gulped for breath. He was still in the grip of his first panic, the knowledge that he was somewhere far away and utterly strange, that he was on his own. There was nobody in sight. Nothing. Just the beach and the sea and, in the distance, what might be an island, rising up to a needlepoint high above the waves.
“Scott!”
He called out the name but the single word seemed to die on his lips. That was more frightening than anything. He could shout as loud as he liked but there was no one to hear him. He wasn’t just lost. He was completely abandoned. Where was he? Even the deserts of Nevada had offered more life and colour than the place where he now found himself.
And yet…
He had been here before. He knew where he was. Jamie drew his legs towards himself, wrapping his hands around his shoulders: not so much to keep himself warm but to create a sort of protective cocoon. He forced himself to take a deep breath, to relax. Yes. It had been a long time ago, maybe years, but he knew this place. The isla
nd… The last time he had come here, there had been two boys making their way towards him in a boat made out of straw. He had wanted to meet them – he didn’t know why – but he had woken up before they arrived. And he hadn’t been alone: Scott had been here with him.
And, standing next to them, there had been a girl.
“This is a dream,” Jamie muttered to himself. His voice still sounded very small but it was reassuring to hear anything at all. The waves were hitting the shore right in front of him, but they were sluggish and hardly made any sound, as if someone had turned down the volume.
A shaft of light flashed in the sky, far away. A storm. Jamie got to his feet. He was shivering. It wasn’t cold – like everything else here, the temperature seemed to be fixed in some sort of neutral – but there was something about the lightning that set his teeth on edge. There it was again. He watched it flicker twice more – white forks of electricity so brilliant that they seemed to tear into the world as if determined to smash it. Somehow he knew that this was no ordinary storm. It was an announcement. Something was happening. It was still far away but soon it would be closer. There was a very slight breeze now. He could feel it, clammy and dead, batting against his face.
“Scott!” he called out again. At the same time he wished, miserably, that he could wake up right away.
He heard something on the shingle, over to one side.
He glanced round, expecting to see his brother, but instead there was a man kneeling beside the edge of the sea, holding a large, flat bowl which he seemed to be filling with water. Jamie had no idea where he had come from. He certainly hadn’t been there the moment before. The man was huge – and he was completely grey. His face, his hands, his clothes, even his eyes were the colour of stone, and if he hadn’t been moving, Jamie would have assumed he was a statue. He was wearing old-fashioned shapeless trousers tied with a leather belt and an open-necked shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He also had a hat – not a cowboy hat but something similar – and boots that came up to his calves. He was completely focused on what he was doing.
Jamie stood up and went over to him. He was about to speak but his feet, crunching on the shingle, gave him away. The man twisted around and straightened up. At that moment Jamie saw that he really was huge – at least seven feet tall with hair curling down to his neck and a face that was hard and craggy and full of anger. He had dropped his bowl. Now there was a large knife in his hand.
“I’m sorry…” Jamie didn’t know why he was apologizing.
The man looked down at him but said nothing.
“Can you help me?” Jamie asked.
“He’s gonna kill him,” the man said. He had a peculiar accent. It was American yet strangely old-fashioned, like something in a black and white film.
“Who are you talking about?”
“You know that. You know who I’m talking about.”
“You mean … Scott?”
The man nodded. “He’s gonna kill him. And it’s your job to stop him.”
“But who’s going to kill him? You have to help me find him–”
That was all Jamie had time to say. The man suddenly lashed out with the knife. Jamie heard it as it came sweeping through the damp air. Something slammed into the side of his head and he thought he’d been stabbed. But the man had struck with the hilt, not the blade. With a single cry of pain, Jamie was thrown off his feet and went crashing down onto his back. He could feel blood oozing out of his hair and wondered if his skull had been broken. The man stepped forward and loomed over him. He was holding the knife in both hands, as if about to make a sacrifice. Lightning shimmered one last time.
“Stop him!” the man commanded.
His hands came plummeting down.
Jamie woke up.
His head was throbbing and for a moment he thought he really had been attacked. He raised a hand and touched it to the side of his skull. There was nothing. No blood. No sign of a wound. He was lying, fully dressed, on a bed. For a moment he lay completely still, allowing his thoughts to swirl around him, separating what was real from what he had dreamed, trying to work out what had happened to him, where he was now and how he had got here. The attack at the theatre. That was real. He remembered the blare of the traffic, the neon lights, the car cutting across the street to pick him up.
Scott. They had taken him. Jamie sat bolt upright, instantly searching for his brother even though there was little chance that he was anywhere near. But it didn’t matter. It was instinctive. He sent out his thoughts, first into this room, then into whatever room might be next door, then further. He was shouting his brother’s name but without uttering a word.
There was nothing. Jamie felt a sense of blankness that told him exactly what he feared. He was on his own.
He slumped against the pillow, feeling the stiffness in his shoulder where the dart had hit him, and knew that he had been drugged. How long had he been asleep? The sun was shining. A blind had been drawn across the window but he could see the light streaming in along the sides.
His mouth was dry and he felt sick. He looked around him and saw that he was in some sort of hotel room. He could tell from the emptiness of the place, the cheap furniture, the prints on the walls – black and white photographs of Reno as it had been fifty years ago. There was a glass of water beside the bed. He picked it up and drank. It was still cool. A few lumps of half-melted ice floated on the top. He was thirsty. He emptied the glass, then swung his legs over the side of the bed, preparing to stand up.
The door of the room opened and someone came in, morning sunlight streaming over her shoulders. At first he couldn’t make out who it was. Then the person closed the door and Jamie saw a young black woman, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt with a brightly coloured cotton shirt hanging loose on the outside. She was carrying two supermarket shopping bags.
“When did you wake up?” she asked.
Jamie didn’t answer her question. “Who are you?” he demanded. “How long have I been here?”
“It’s after ten. I was getting worried about you. I thought I was going to have to call a doctor.” The woman paused. “You’re going to have to help me out here. Are you Scott or Jamie? The two of you are so alike.”
Jamie tried to stand up but he still didn’t have the strength. He felt as if he had been lying down for a week. “Where am I?”
“You’re in a motel,” the woman replied. “We’re still in Reno, right next door to the airport. The Bluebird Inn. Do you know it?” She put the shopping bags down on a table. They were full of food. A couple of apples spilled out and she scooped them up. “I thought you might be hungry so I went out shopping. I’m glad I timed it right. I didn’t want you to wake up on your own.”
“You were in the theatre.” Jamie recognized her. She had been the woman with the photograph at the last performance. She had volunteered to come up onto the stage.
“Yeah.” The woman nodded. “Actually, I saw you three times. I was there at the seven-thirty show. And the night before.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to see how you did it. Your act…”
Jamie forced himself to his feet. He was weak and his head was still throbbing, but he didn’t want to stay here, on his own, in the room with this strange woman. Scott had gone. Someone had taken him. That was all that mattered.
“Where are you going?” the woman asked. She placed herself between Jamie and the door.
“I have to find Scott.”
“I know how you’re feeling.” She shook her head. “But you can’t just walk out of here. It’s too late.”
“What do you mean?” Without knowing it, Jamie had clenched his fists. His eyes were fierce and bloodshot. “You were there. Why? Did you know what was going to happen? Were you part of it?”
Now it was the woman’s turn to become angry. “I think you’re forgetting what happened,” she replied. Her voice was still soft but Jamie could see that she was having to control herself. “I saved you. If it wasn’t for me, t
hey’d have taken you too.”
Of course. She had been in the car. Jamie hadn’t seen her he’d only heard her voice before he’d passed out. But there could be no doubt. He recognized it again now. “Do you know where he is?” he asked. “Do you know who they were?”
“No.”
“I have to look for him.”
“I know how you’re feeling, Jamie. Can I call you that? You said you were looking for Scott so I guess that answers my question.” Again he didn’t answer, so she went on. “Just try to think straight for a minute. You want to find your brother. But where are you going to start?” She walked over to a table and picked up a small, silver object, shaped like a bullet but with a needle jutting out at one end and a black tuft at the other. “Do you know what this is?”
Jamie felt his blood run cold.
“I dug this out of your shoulder,” the woman said. “God knows what was in it but you’ve been asleep for eleven hours. Your brother was hit too, and right now he could be anywhere. You can look all over Reno if you want. You can look all over Nevada. But you’re not going to find him.”
She was right. Jamie knew it. But it didn’t matter. He couldn’t stay here, not without Scott. “I have to see Uncle Don,” he said.
“Don? The woman blinked. “You mean Don White? The man on the posters? Is he your uncle?”
“No. He’s nothing – but he made us call him that. He’ll be wondering where we are. He was there at the theatre last night. Maybe he can help.”
“I’m not so sure…”
“I don’t care what you think.” Jamie took a deep breath. “We were renting a house. It’s over in Sparks. There’s him and Marcie. I have to tell them what happened. They’ll contact the cops.”
The woman thought for a moment. Then she nodded. “Why don’t you call them?”
There was a telephone on a table beside the bed. Jamie picked it up and dialled the number. He waited, listening as it rang at the other end. There was no reply. He let it ring a dozen times. Then he hung up.
“If they cared about you, they’d have called the police already,” the woman said.