Cage Of Night Part 35

He laughed but I could tell he was nervous. "I'll even bring you the frozen Snickers I have in the fridge."

I laughed, too. "Just what I need tonight. Cold food."

CHAPTER FIVE.

It took him an hour and a half.

I waited up in a pine tree just behind the line shack. I could see everything in front of me for maybe a quarter mile. If anybody followed Josh, I'd be able to see them.

Josh came alone.

He had a paper bag tucked under his right arm and a huge flashlight waving from his left hand.

I swung down from the pine, the sweet scent of the juices filling my nostrils.

He didn't know where I was until he heard me land, and then he turned around as if he was going to jump me.

"It's me," I said, realizing that he couldn't pick me out in the shadows beneath the tree.

"Scared the h.e.l.l out of me."

"Sorry."

He came up to me and handed over the paper bag he was carrying. "Goodies," he said.

Heavier pair of gloves than the ones I was wearing, a couple of roast beef sandwiches, half a box of Oreos and a some dental floss.

I held up the little white plastic rectangle the floss was packaged in. "Now there's something every wanted fugitive needsa"floss."

I guess I'd expected him to laugh. That's why I was so surprised when he looked hurt.

"Hey, Josh, I was just kidding."

"I did the best I could."

"Hey, listen, I really appreciate it."

"I just figured that after a day, you might like to floss. I hate it when I have stuff in my teeth."

"Aw, G.o.d," I said, and gave him a manly sock on the arm.

He was Josh the basketball star, and Josh the lady killer, but he was still, for a least a moment every now and then, Josh my younger brother.

And it was sweet. d.a.m.ned sweet.

"I really appreciate it," I said.

"Thanks. Mom and Dad didn't want me to bring you anything."

"Want me to just give up, huh?"

"Yeah. The man hunt is what scares them. Dad knows some of the men who're in it. They're kind of spooky guys."

"Yeah, they are."

"So I'm supposed to convince you to come back."

"I'd give up in a second if I was sure that Cindy had already talked to the Chief."

And there it was again.

The same nervous silence I'd heard when I'd brought up Cindy on the phone.

"There's something else in the sack," he said.

"Yeah, it felt a little heavy."

I opened the sack and stuck my hand way down and wrapped my hand around plastic-covered clothesline rope.

"That was the best I could do."

"It's great, Josh. It'll work fine."

"I'm just kind of surprised you're going to do it."

"I have to do it, Josh. Just to be sure."

"She's really got you going."

The way he said it, I realized for the first time that he didn't care much for Cindy.

He drifted over to the line shack, looked inside the empty doorway.

"Nice place you got here."

"Josh."

He pretended not to hear me. He knew what was coming.

He walked around the west side of the line shack and pounded on a few boards to see how st.u.r.dy they were.

"Josh."

Finally, he turned and said, "I don't want to talk about Cindy."

"Why not?"

"Because anything I say is just gonna hurt your feelings."

"Josh, I love her."

"I know that."

"And I think she loves me."

Silence.

"And I think she loves me."

"I think she loves herself," Josh said. "Not anybody else." He huddled deep into his pea jacket, a big, rangy Midwestern kid who managed to look knowing and naive at the same time.

"She'll go to the Chief and get me out of this mess. She said she would."

Another silence.

Then: "She isn't going to the Chief, Spence."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I asked her."

"You asked her?"

"I went over to see her right after dinner tonight."

"I didn't tell you to do that."

He looked irritated.

"No, you didn't tell me, Spence. But I decided to because I don't like the idea of my brother having to hide out in the woods."

He was hurt again.

"I'm sorry, Josh."

"After what you told me, about her and Garrett going out to Mae Swenson's and everything, I decided I'd go see her and ask her if I could take her to see the Chief."

"Yeah?"

"She said she didn't know what I was talking about. She said that she'd never had any conversation with you about Garrett, and that she'd thought about lying to help you out but she just couldn't bring herself to lie."

"G.o.d."

"Yeah," Josh said, "that's what I thought."

"She's my only hope."

He shook his head, came away from the shack, stood in the pale moonlight once again.

"No, you've got one other hope."

"What's that?"

"Garrett's apartment."

"I don't understand."

"He's at work now. Doesn't get through until after midnight. Then he usually spends an hour at Smiley's Tap playing bad-a.s.s for all the barflies."

"We break in?"

He tapped his pea jacket. "I've got a gla.s.s cutter. I drove by his apartment a couple of times. He's got the whole downstairs. We should be able to get in the back door."

"Maybe we won't find anything."

"Maybe. But we've got to try."

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I guess we do."

"But we should get going."

I held up the coil of white plastic-sheathed clothesline rope. "In other words, you don't want me to check out the well?"

"I think it's pretty crazy."

"I have to know."

"All right. I just hope you don't slip and break your leg or something."

I smiled. "My brother, the optimist."

Once we got the rope securely tied to the crossbar under the hood of the well, I jumped up on the fieldstone that surrounded the well.

I had to duck down to move around but soon enough my gloved hands held the rope.

I slowly started to lower myself into the well.

Josh was there with his flashlight.

"It's pretty far down," he said. "The bottom, I mean."