Middle Of Nowhere

   He glanced back toward the car, wondering if he could beat the arrival of whoever was coming through the woods toward him—whoever had parked a street away and was now breaking twigs and brushing past bushes to reach him. With a good leg he might have made it. But as it was, he simply stopped and listened.

   He had believed that Pendegrass would demand an exchange of tapes. He'd made contingency plans, but he didn't want to exercise them.

   The sounds from the woods stopped. Whoever was there was quite close now. Boldt switched the weapon to his left hand, grabbed the wooden rail with his right, and started the climb up the back porch stairs, one clumsy step at a time. He slipped, let go the rail and fished his keys out of his pocket. Only a few feet more to reach the back door. He wanted to get the key in the lock and the door open as quickly as possible.

   This was how Sanchez felt, he decided. Someone had cut the lights, the walk from the garage to the house impossibly far.

   He fingered his keys.

   Again, noise came from behind him in the woods.

   Boldt turned at the top of the stairs. "I thought you were going to call," he shouted, eyes straining to see in the dark.

   "I thought you would have headed straight downtown," the muffled voice of Pendegrass said. He stepped out from the thick shrubbery that separated Boldt from his backyard neighbors. "That would have been the right card to play. Coming home. That was a stupid move."

   He heard someone immediately behind him, in the dark of the porch. "Riorden?" he asked.

   Whoever was back there didn't answer. That troubled him. If it was negotiation they were after, why remain silent?

   Pendegrass stepped closer, barely visible in the dark. He wore a balaclava over his head. "You think too much," he said, adding, "Sometimes a person is better off just accepting the way things are."

   "You haven't seen Sanchez," Boldt reminded him. "To me, that's the way things are."

   "She's getting better, I hear," Pendegrass said. "Movement in both legs. She'll pull through this, you watch, and then what'll be the point of all the fuss?" He repeated, "What'll be the point of all these heroics on your part? Who'll care? Flek did Sanchez, and Flek's dead. Case closed."

   "If only it were true," Boldt lamented.

   "And that's worth getting the shit beat out of you?"

   "Already had the shit beat out of me," Boldt re

minded him. "Is that all? And here I was thinking you're going to kill me."

   "Giving up the tape buys you a simple beating. Call me generous." He had reached close enough for Boldt to make out the dark clothing and the ugliness of the faceless balaclava.

   "I thought we were going to trade."

   "That's what I mean: you think too much," Pendegrass said. "And don't be thinking about that gun. You're outgunned here, old man. Drop the gun. Keep it at a simple beating." He waited only a moment before ordering Boldt for a second time to drop his weapon. But Boldt held onto his gun, albeit with his left hand.

   "Is that Riorden or Smythe behind me?" Boldt asked the night air. "Because whoever it is . . . he gets my first shots."

   "Drop the gun. You think that vest is going to save you?" Pendegrass asked.

   "It forces you to aim," Boldt replied, disappointed that Pendegrass had spotted the bulk of the vest.

   "I'm aiming right at your head," came a deep voice from behind Boldt. Smythe.

   Chills ran down his spine. Boldt didn't know the man well, but he knew him to be a crack shot. He tossed his weapon into the grass at the base of the steps, mentally marking its exact location. "You missed the first time you tried," Boldt said, assuming the attempt on his life had come from Smythe, not Pendegrass, who drank too much to be a good shot.

   Pendegrass said, "I thought that was your friend from Colorado. Your dead friend."

   "Have you informed Smythe here, that if he hadn't been so greedy and had returned the rifle as Krishevski ordered you to do with all the other rifles . . . if he hadn't been so stupid as to use it on me . . . maybe I'd never have been the wiser about any of this?" Boldt saw Pendegrass's hand twitch—the one holding the sidearm. Body language, Daphne would have told Boldt. The bulge at the man's ankle filled in the blanks. It was a drop gun— a second gun. And its purpose became clear.

   Boldt had half expected a confrontation like this. But only then did he understand Pendegrass inviting Smythe along. It wasn't for the man's marksmanship. Boldt sensed a hesitation in Pendegrass that he blamed on how dark it was up on the porch. The man's handgun carried a barrel-mounted silencer. He'd come prepared.

   Turning his head slowly, Boldt asked the shadows, "Why'd he ask you along, do you think?"

   "Shut up," Pendegrass called out, a little loudly for a residential neighborhood. If Boldt could keep him at that volume, maybe someone else would notice the dog had been silenced.

   Boldt answered his own question. "One guy against a guy in a cast? How hard can that be? I'll tell you why he invited you—"

   "Shut up!"