Endless Night Part 31

I told myself to stay calm.

A lot of good that did.

Anyway, the tape recorder didn't pick up s.h.i.+t. Oh, it got what I said. But Lisa's voice didn't come through at all, even though I'd held the thing right up tight against the phone's earpiece. You've got to have special equipment, I guess.

I figured the Target store in Culver City might still be open. It had an electronics section. I could drive out there and maybe buy a speaker phone or an answering machine. Either of those might let me record Tom's side of a conversation. But the last thing I needed, with nothing to wear except Hillary's clothes and hair, was to go wandering around in a crowded store.

Besides, I didn't have much confidence in my ability to hook up any sort of telephone equipment.

On top of which, anybody who isn't deaf can tell by the sound of his own voice if there's a speaker phone at the other end of the line. It sounds like you're talking with a metal waste basket on top of your head.

It probably took me about one minute to think about all those angles and decide to forget trying to tape Tom's side of our conversation.

I know his number by heart. I know it even better than Lisa's. That's because he lives in the same big old mansion where he's always lived, and its phone number hasn't changed in at least fifteen years.

He picked up after three rings.

Here goes the conversation. It isn't exact, since I couldn't tape his side of it, but it's close. I've got a good memory for what people say, even when it happened years ago, and this was only a little after nine o'clock tonight.

"h.e.l.lo?" Tom answered.

"Hey, man. It's me."

"Well, well."

"I guess you're p.i.s.sed, huh?"

"We were counting on you, Si." He sometimes calls me that. It's short for Simon, of course. It sounds like sigh.

"I could've used some help," 1 told him. "You all bugged out on me. There's only so much one guy can do, you know?"

"They're kids, Si."

"Hey, I couldn't find 'em."

"Kids. And you let them get away."

"I didn't let them get away. You sound like I did it on purpose. Christ! I did everything I could to ..."

"They're eyewitnesses."

"I know. I know that."

"They could foul up everything for us."

"I know."

"Do you also know they murdered Minnow?"

"What?"

"Minnow. They bashed in his head."

"You're kidding."

"We found him in the boy's bedroom."

"s.h.i.+t." Minnow had been an okay guy, but I hadn't loved him or anything. I didn't like hearing he'd been nailed, though. It made things worse for me.

"And you let them get away," Tom said. Which is how it made things worse for me.

"Which one did it?"

"Which one had the baseball bat?" Not as if Tom didn't already know the answer. Even if he hadn't seen her with it, himself, Mitch and Chuck must've already filled him in on our chase.

"The girl," I said.

"Jody."

"You know her name?"

"Jody Fargo."

"How'd you find out? The news hasn't been ..."

"The news is lying about everything. The girl is Jody Fargo. The boy is Andrew Clark. His sister's the one that Ranch brought in, just before the s.h.i.+t hit."

"s.h.i.+sh ka-sister."

"Knock it off. If you think there's anything funny about this situation, you'll be changing your mind very soon."

"Sorry," I told him.

"Jody wasn't part of the family. From the look of things, she was nothing but a friend of the Clark girl, spending the night. We found some of her things in the girl's bedroom."

"What sort of things?"

"Her clothes, her purse. And her driver's license."

"A driver's license?"

"She turned sixteen last month."

"It has her home address?"

"What do you think?"

"s.h.i.+t! Let me have it!"

"You'll get it." He meant that both ways. I could tell by the tone of his voice.

"Look, give me her address. I'll take care of everything. I'll take care of her tonight."

"You're so full of s.h.i.+t."

"I'll nail her. You think I won't?"

"I think you'd better."

"So, where is she?"

"Safe at home. That's 2840 Shadow Glen Lane."

"Got it."

"Do you know where that is?"

"Sure. Just below Castleview, right?"

"Right."

"I can be there in twenty minutes."

"Where are you calling from?"

Nice question. It felt like a hammer pounding me in the heart. "Nowhere," I said. Great answer.

"Tell me."

"Why do you want to know?"

"You don't have a car, do you? I'll have one of the guys pick you up."

"I don't think so. Thanks, anyway. I've got a car. I can get to the gal's house on my own steam. Anything else?"

"I don't want you f.u.c.king up again."

"I won't."

"You'd better not. But when I said she was *safe' at home, I meant it. You'd think she was the President, all the security she's got. Dusty already put a try on her."

I was shocked to hear they'd gone after the girl. It must've been a failure, though. "He missed? Dusty missed?"

"He missed, all right."

"s.h.i.+t," I said. I'd never heard of Larry Rhodes missing a shot with that .30-30 Winchester of his. That's why we called him Dusty. Anyone he ever shot at, he dusted. Except for Jody, obviously.

An omen, maybe.

Nothing short of a miracle could save a person from Dusty, but my Jody had survived him.

"Is Dusty okay?"

"He got away, if that's what you mean. Which is very lucky for you."

I didn't want to ask why.

But Tom told me anyway.

"I wouldn't be in any mood to give you a second chance if you'd gotten Dusty killed tonight."

There was good news in with the bad.

"Thanks, Tom. I mean it. I'll take care of everything."

"Both of them."

"What?"

"Jody and the boy, Andy."

"Where's he?"

"That's for you to find out."

"You don't know, or you won't tell me?"

"We don't know. He might be on the way to Arizona. Someone with Arizona plates picked him up at the girl's house..."

"She'll know where he is," I said.

"More than likely."

"No problem. She'll tell me."

"You know your problem, Si?"

"You mean there's only one?"

"Your main one."

"What's that?" I asked.

"You don't know your own limitations."

"Magnum Force, right? The second Dirty Harry movie."

"f.u.c.k you and your movies."