A Long Line of Dead Men

" 'Cept I thought maybe he's bein' slick. Maybe he just goin' to duck into the movies and then slip out a side exit. Minute he bought the large-size popcorn I knew I didn't have to worry. Man's in for the duration, Jason."

"You're in the theater?"

"Phone in the lobby. I went in, saw where he's sittin'. Soon's I hang up I'll go back where I can keep an eye on him. Won't be keepin' no eye on the screen, tell you that. You know what he had to see?"

"What?"

"Jurassic Park."

"You already saw that, didn't you?"

"Seen it twice. Man, I so sick of dinosaurs. They wasn't extinct, I'd go out an' kill 'em myself."

The show was scheduled to break at 10:15, and we added a new signal to our battery of codes. At twenty after ten the beeper sounded and I saw that he'd punched in 5-6, indicating that they had left the theater. In the course of the next hour he beeped me three times, each time with the same code, 2-4, indicating he was still in contact with Severance. Another beep came at ten to twelve, and the 1-1 meant Severance was entering the building.

I switched off the beeper. I didn't want it making any sounds. I moved to a chair to the left of the doorway.

I got out the gun, the one I'd been carrying since I got the first call that afternoon. I turned it over in my hands, trying to get accustomed to the feel of it.

I put it in my lap and sat there, waiting.

I was listening carefully but I didn't hear any footsteps. The hallway was carpeted and I guess that must have muffled them, because the first warning I had of his presence was the sound of his key in the lock. He opened one lock, and then there was a long pause, just long enough for me to wonder if he'd somehow sensed something. Then I heard his key again and he opened the second lock. I watched the doorknob turn, watched as the door opened inward.

He came in, reached automatically to switch on the overhead light, turned automatically to lock the door behind him.

I said, "Severance!"

He spun toward the sound of my voice. I had the gun raised, and as he came around to face me I aimed it at his middle and gave the trigger a squeeze. It made the sound of a small twig snapping.

He looked at me, then down at his chest. A three-inch dart hung from his T-shirt. His hand groped for it in slow motion. The fingers would not quite close on the dart. He tried, God how he tried, but he couldn't do it.

Then his eyes glazed over and he fell.

I got another dart from the case, loaded the pistol. I stood watching him for a few minutes, then bent over him to check his pulse and respiration. I had brought two sets of handcuffs and I used them both, cuffing his hands together behind his back, cuffing his feet together with the chain looped around a table leg.

I went over and picked up the phone.

32

When he woke up I was the first thing he saw. I was sitting on a folding metal chair. He was lying on a mattress atop a low plywood platform. His hands and one leg were free, but there was a thick steel cuff fastened around one ankle. A chain was attached to it, its other end anchored to a plate in the floor.

"Matt," he said. "How'd you find me?"

"You weren't that hard to find."

"I spend two hours watching dinosaurs, I walk in the door, and whammo! What did you get me with, a tranquilizer dart?"

"That's right."

"Jesus, how long was I out? Couple of hours, it must have been."

"Longer than that, Jim."

" 'Jim.' That's not what you called me just before you shot me."

"No."

"You called me another name."

"I called you Severance."

"Any point in pretending I don't know what you're talking about?"

"Not really."

"Of course if there's a tape recorder running-"

"There's not."

"Because I don't remember anybody reading me my rights."

"Nobody did."

"Maybe you ought to, huh?"

"Why? You're not under arrest. You haven't been charged with anything."

"No? What are you waiting for?"

"There's not going to be a trial."

"I get it. You son of a bitch, why didn't you use a real gun? Why not get it over with?" He sat up, or started to, and noticed the chain on his leg. With the discovery came the realization that he wasn't still lying on an Oriental carpet in the Tierneys' apartment in Morningside Heights.

He said, "What's this, fucking leg irons? Where the hell am I?"

"Red Hawk Island."

"Red Hook's no island. It's just a bad part of town."

"Red Hawk, not Hook. It's a small island in Georgian Bay."

"Where the fuck is Georgian Bay?"

"In Canada," I said. "It's an arm of Lake Huron. We're a couple of hundred miles due north of Cleveland."

"You're telling me a story, right?"

"Sit up, Jim. Look out the window."

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, sat up, got to his feet. "Whew," he said, sitting down again. "Little groggy."

"That's the drugs."

He stood again, and this time he stayed on his feet. Dragging the chain, he walked over to the room's single window. "Pine trees," he said. "There's a fucking forest out there."

"Well, it's not Central Park."

He turned to face me. "What the hell is this? How'd we get here?"