“Any idea who that guy was?” he asked as he worked, nodding toward Howie’s body.
Frankie cleared her throat. “Tom said he worked with Earl. That he was with Earl when he tried to grab Ali last night.”
Valenti nodded. “Yeah, I thought it was the same guy.”
Ali was looking at the dead man, fascinated and repulsed at the same time. Then she realized that Mally was gone. Down at the end of the road Mario’s van started up. The engine’s revving was followed by the sound of wheels spinning. A few moments later the van’s headlights appeared and caught them in its glare. Mario pulled over to the side of the road, then backed up so that they wouldn’t have far to carry Bannon.
“We’ll put him on the bed,” he said as he opened the back door.
With Frankie and Valenti’s help, he got the wounded man inside. Grabbing a first-aid kit, he crouched beside the bed and started to work on the wound.
“He’s gonna need blood,” he said.
“Is he…is he going to be all right?” Ali asked.
“Christ, I hope so. Tony, I got to go. I can’t help him here.”
Valenti nodded. “You want me to handle that?” he asked, indicating Howie’s body.
“No. Haul him up here. Then you got to go, Tony. I don’t know when Louie’s coming back and I don’t know how many soldati he’s bringing, capito? You can’t stay.”
“I’ve got to stay.”
Mario studied him for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. But then we got to play this at both ends, you know what I’m saying? If we get rid of Louie and his boys, they’re just gonna send more.”
“What’re you saying, Mario?”
“I’m going to New York after I take care of Tom. Can you hire any local talent?”
“Fercrissakes, Mario. I don’t want you involved anymore.”
“Too late. Broadway Joe gave me his word and he broke it. He owes me now. So are you gonna be all right? I’ll try to send someone, but my connections aren’t what they could be this side of the Atlantic. I had a hell of a time just outfitting this van.”
Valenti glanced inside. There was a small arsenal in there. It was outfitted for camping, but besides the weaponry there was a great deal of what looked like sound equipment. Valenti recognized a sonar device and a couple of listening hookups for taps or long-range microphones.
“You’d better get going,” he told Mario. “We’ll work things out here.”
Mario glanced out the back door to where Frankie and her daughter were standing off to one side. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Coraggio, Tony.”
Valenti shook his head. “So that was you on the phone, wasn’t it? What were you playing at?”
“I didn’t know who was listening—if anybody was, you know what I’m saying? Louie thinks it’s just you with maybe some muscle, he’s not gonna play it the same as he would if he knew it was you and the Fox.”
“There’s that.”
“Okay. I’m going. You sure you don’t—”
“You handle New York,” Valenti said, “but no big show, okay?”
“I’ve got some ideas—nice and simple ones. You take it easy.” Mario tipped his finger against his forehead. “Nice to meet you, ladies,” he added to Frankie and Ali. “I wish it could’ve been under more pleasant circumstances.”
He got into the captain’s chair on the driver’s side. Valenti stowed Howie’s body in the back, then slammed the door shut. Mario drove up toward the house where he turned the van around. As he passed them heading back he blinked his headlights. They stood, watching until his taillights disappeared, then slowly regarded each other.
“How’re you holding up?” Valenti asked them finally.
“I think I need a few things explained,” Frankie said.
“We can do that,” Valenti said. He collected the various weapons, including Mario’s crossbow. “Let’s talk about it up at the house—okay?”
Frankie nodded. She looked beat, Valenti thought.
Ali slipped her arm around her mother’s waist, and he followed at a slower pace. Christ, he wished things’d slow down a little. But he had the feeling that they were just going to get worse.
He paused at his front door, letting the other two go on inside while he turned back to look out across his front lawn. They had just appeared there, he remembered. Ali and the wild girl had appeared on his lawn as though they’d tumbled out of thin air.
“Tony?”
He turned to find Ali standing by the door. “Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “How about you?”
“I’m handling it.”
“I don’t think my mom’s doing too good. Are you coming in?”
He followed her inside to find Frankie curled up on the farthest end of the couch from the door. Ali sat down beside her and took her hand while Valenti settled on the couch opposite them. Frankie held Ali’s hand gratefully and gave them both a wan smile.
“Busy night,” Valenti said.
Frankie nodded. “Will your friend be all right?”
“Yeah. I think so. He seemed like a tough guy.” Valenti regarded her, hearing again the touch of hoarseness in her voice. Then his gaze settled on her bruised throat. Oh, Christ. “Frankie, what happened to you?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I…I was attacked when I got home. There was this man in a pickup…waiting for me….”
Ali’s hand tightened on hers.
“Jesus,” Valenti muttered. “That Howie guy?”
She shook her head.
“You mean it was some guy that had nothing to do with your ex?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Fercrissakes. What’s going on around here?” Valenti shook his head. “It’s like the whole world’s gone crazy all of a sudden. Did this guy tell you what he wanted?”
Frankie swallowed. “Me,” she said in a quiet voice.
There was a long moment of silence, then Ali snuggled closer to her mother and put her arm around her. “It’s going to be okay, Mom.” She looked at Valenti. “Isn’t it, Tony?”
“Well, we’re sure going to give it our best shot.”
Silence fell between them again. Ali just held her mother. Valenti sat watching them, wanting to comfort them both while trying to fight the anger that was rising in him. Frankie’s eyes held a distant, hurt look. When they finally cleared, she looked at Valenti.
“That man with the van,” she asked. “Is he one of your old business associates—from when you were doing the study on the mob?”
Valenti blinked. “Who told you that?”
“Ali did.”
“Oh.” He glanced at Ali, who shook her head slightly from side to side. Right, kid. Maybe we’ll leave it like that for now. But you and me, we’ve got a long talk coming to us. “Yeah,” he said. “Mario taught me everything I knew about the mob. He was sort of my…” He searched for the word.
“Your mentor?”
“Yeah. That’s close enough.”
“Well, he certainly seemed to know what he was doing. And all that equipment.”
“Yeah. Mario’s always been good with toys—gadgets, that kind of thing. Listen.” He looked from Ali to her mother. “Maybe we should think about getting some sleep—what do you say?”
“I’d like that—oh, my bag! I had some things in it….”
“It’s by the door,” Valenti said. “I brought it up. Look, you know the way upstairs. You take my bed, Frankie, and Ali can have the guest room again.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going to be fine down here—don’t worry about it. Besides, somebody’s got to keep an eye on things in case, well, you know. I’ll sleep lighter down here.”
He got the Adidas bag. As Frankie started up the stairs he caught Ali’s arm. “We’ve got to talk,” he said.
“I know. Tomorrow—okay? I’ll get up early. Mom’s a pretty heavy sleeper.”
“Okay. You got
a date.”
“She’s going to be okay, isn’t she, Tony? I mean, she looks so…I don’t know. Sort of washed out.”
“She’s been through a lot of crap. She’s not young and resilient like you, and she hasn’t been through it all before, like me. But she’s going to pull out of it fine, Ali. Trust me. She’s a tough lady—she just don’t know it.”
Ali nodded. “G’night, Tony.”
“Yeah. Buena notte. You call me if you start feeling weird or you hear anything, okay? And tell your momma the same thing.”
“I will.”
He watched her go up the stairs, then headed back to the couch. He sat there for a while, massaging his leg, thinking. Then he got up and took all the weapons into the kitchen. The .38 Howie had used was the only one that had been fired, but when he had finished taking it apart and cleaning it, he started on the others. With his hands busy, it was easier to think.
* * *
Considering how little time they’d spent in their own house, Ali was already beginning to feel as comfortable in Tony’s guest room as she did in her own bedroom. Once she was washed up and had tucked her mother in, she sat on the bed in the nightie that Frankie had brought up for her and stared out the window.
She was young and resilient, was she? She wasn’t so sure about that. She was dealing with it all by pushing it aside and filing it under “Handle This Stuff Later.” She’d had a lot of practice with that kind of thing. Previous problems hadn’t been quite as stunning as what she’d experienced over the past forty-eight hours, but she was finding that she could deal with them in the same way. It hadn’t been easy moving around as much as she had, always having to fit into a new school, a new neighborhood. That was why she’d learned to depend on herself first. She could handle herself. Hadn’t tonight proved it? But when she really thought about it all…
Strangely enough, it wasn’t the mystery, as either stag or Green Man, that came to the fore of her thoughts, but wild-haired Mally. The riddle of just what she was and what she really wanted nagged at Ali. Lewis had been very eloquent in explaining how things should be, even if he wasn’t working with the whole story, while Mally had an offhand manner that made her reasoning a little too pat. But Mally had taken her to that other place. Ali still didn’t really know where or what it was, but it had been something that couldn’t be faked.
So should she do what Mally had said, call the mystery to her with a bonfire and set him free? But what if that was a mistake? She just couldn’t know what to do until the mystery told her what he wanted and she supposed the only chance she’d have of finding that out was by calling him to her. The idea both excited and frightened her.
Talk to Tony, she told herself. Maybe even to Lewis, though she’d have to be careful with what she said to him. And what about her mom? What should she tell her? Jeez, it was all so confusing.
Something disturbed her thoughts then. It was a sound—not Tommy’s piping—but it sent a similar shiver up her spine. Moving from the bed to the window, she opened it and leaned close to the screen. She could her it more clearly now. It was the pack. Hunting. Still chasing the stag, she supposed. But the sound grew closer and closer, and as she watched they came out of the forest, dark shapes on the lawn, now dogs, now hooded monks. She wanted to draw back from the window, but their gazes locked on hers, holding her in place with the sheer force of their wills.
If they catch our scent here, she remembered Mally saying in that other place, they’ll think we’re from here…the dark man set them on the trail of any mystery, you see. We can’t escape them as easily as the stag….
Oh, God. Was that why they were out there now? Did they think she was another loose bit of mystery in the shape of a teenager?
Uneasily, she watched them moving back and forth at the edge of the trees. Call Tony, she told herself. Though what was he going to do against things like these? Shoot them? She remembered the men trying to shoot the stag a few nights ago. They hadn’t had much luck. Why should these creatures be any different?
She opened her mouth to call to Tony anyway, but her throat was so tight that the sound only came out as a squeak. She swallowed drily, went to try again, but then saw the pack slip back into the forest, one by one. When the last of them was gone, the spell holding her in place was gone. She closed the window quickly and lay down on the bed, all her muscles feeling like jelly.
If the stag were set free, what would happen to the Hunt? God, never mind that. If the pack was really after her, what was she going to do? Lying on her back, she stared up at the dark ceiling and wished that the world would slow down. This is what happens when you think an adventure would be fun. You forget about the scary parts, but by then it’s too late. You’re stuck right smack dab in the middle of it.
She didn’t think she’d sleep, not wound up as she was, but as she started planning how she’d try to find Mally tomorrow, her eyelids began to droop and she fell asleep right in the middle of a thought.
* * *
Frankie didn’t find sleep as easily. The shakes hit her soon after she lay down and nothing seemed to ease them. She grabbed a fistful of sheet with each hand and twisted and turned and then the cramps started. No matter how she lay, she couldn’t alleviate them. They were like menstrual pains, only far more severe. The muscles of her abdomen seemed to knot in a series of muscle spasms that left her weak and teary-eyed from the pain. This was the second time they’d hit tonight.
The first time had been when Sherry had taken her upstairs at her own house and was helping her from the shower. If she’d been alone, she would have collapsed right there in the bathtub, but Sherry had seen the problem immediately and helped her into the bedroom and onto the bed.
“Do you have any Valium?” she’d asked Frankie. “Any kind of muscle relaxant at all?”
Mutely, Frankie had shaken her head.
“Okay. Just lie still. Your body’s having a reaction to what you went through. Sometimes it takes a little while to hit, but nobody gets off clean. Try to straighten your legs. That’s right. Now lie still. Don’t breathe too quickly—you’re going to hyperventilate. Just take it a breath at a time. In. Hold it. Okay, now let it out. Hang on. Now in again…”
The pain had eased after a while, and as Frankie followed those instructions now, the new knots began to slowly unravel. These cramps were longer in leaving, but they’d been far more severe. She wondered if she should ask Tony if he had any Valium, but didn’t dare get up. What if she collapsed at the top of the stairs and fell right down them? Or…if she stumbled at all…she couldn’t bear the thought of him helping her up, of him touching her. It wasn’t Tony personally. She couldn’t stand the idea of any man touching her right now.
In and out. She went back to the slow breathing as her panic fed new torment to her abdomen. God, why did her body have to be so weak? Why couldn’t she step out of this…this memory? For that was what it was. She felt unclean—even after two showers, one at home earlier, another here before she went to bed. But no matter how hard she had scrubbed, she still felt soiled. In. Hold it. Let it out. Wait a moment. In.
What if this feeling never went away?
Stop it, she told herself. In. Hold it. Out.
She was going to pull out of this. She was going to rise above Earl and this goddamn rapist. That’s why she’d moved back to Lanark. Not to find someone new to lean on, whether it was Tony, some other man, or even Ali. She was here to stand on her own two feet and nobody was going to stop her. In. Hold it. Let it out. It was hard to maintain the slow breathing as her anger grew, and finally she just let it wash through her. The cramps didn’t get worse. Instead, the anger seemed to clean her. If only she weren’t so goddamned useless!
No, she told herself. There was a big difference between leaning helplessly on someone and letting someone be a friend, helping out like a friend would. That’s what Tony was doing. Being a friend to both her and Ali. Like she had been a friend to Joy Goldman. That wasn’t giving up control to someo
ne else. That was just doing what everybody was here on this earth to do. Not just looking out for number one, but doing what they could to leave the world a better place than it was when they came.
God, that was such a sixties ideology, she thought. But then she was a child of the sixties. Those years had shaped her, leaving a far more lasting impression than the subsequent decade and a half. So she had to follow it. She had to go on. Deal with Earl, deal with the bastard who’d attacked her, but then go on. Just because they were dead to what was around them, didn’t mean they were going to leave her feeling the same. She wouldn’t let them win.
But she couldn’t help wondering, as she looked around the shadowed corners of this strange room, what that man in the pickup was doing right now. What kind of thoughts were going through his head? How could he just go out and do what he did to someone he didn’t even know? Or had he driven by her house, seen her working out in the yard perhaps? Or spotted her in Perth or Lanark and followed her home one day to see where she lived? What hole did people like that crawl out of?
She got up as the last of her cramps eased and went to look out the window. I’m not going to let you win, you bastard, she thought into the night. Not you in your pickup and not Earl. This is it. I’ve run as far as I’m going to run. The next time you come for me, remember that. Because if hurting you is what it’s going to take to leave the world a better place, then that’s what I’m going to do. Believe it.
She felt strong for the first time in days. Just standing there, the floor cool under her bare feet, her arms wrapped around her flannel-clad body, she felt as though she really could deal with things.
She thought about the walk up from her house, the sudden violence, a man dying, Tom Bannon hurt, the guns… Surprisingly, she wasn’t disturbed by that aspect of what she’d gone through. Maybe it was because she’d still been in a state of semi-shock. It had all happened around her with a certain blur.
All she could think of was that in the morning she was going to ask Tony for one of those handguns. She was going to ask him for it and get him to show her how to use it. How to take it apart and put it back together. How to do whatever it was you did to things like that to keep them in good working order.