He remained slumped over the wheel, mimobil% silent
And under his jacket he held the ugly automatic he had taken from the dead
man in the raincoat on the slope of East Gorge. It was pointed under his
left arm at the door.
He could hear the mushed crunch of footsteps on the soft earth outside the
station wagon. He could literally feel-as a blind man feels-the face
peering through the shattered glass looking at him. He heard the click of
the door button as it was pushed in and
THE MATUXZ PAPER 299
the creaking of the hinges as the heavy panel was pulled open.
A hand grabbed his shoulder. Matlock fired his weapon-
The roar was deafening, the scream of the wounded man pierced the drenched
darkness. Matlock leaped out of the seat and slammed the full weight of his
body against the killer, who had grabbed his left arm in pain. Wildly,
inaccurately, Matlock pistol-whipped the man about his face and neck until
he fell to the ground. The man~s gun was nowhere to be seen, his hands were
empty. Matlock put his foot on the man!s throat and pressed.
0 stop when you signal you~re going to talk tD me, you son of a bitchl
Otherwise I doret stopf”
The man sputtered, his eyes bulged. He raised his right hand in
supplication.
Matlock took his foot away and knelt on the ground over the man. He was
heavy set, black-haired, with the blunt features of a brute killer.
“Who sent you after me? How did you know this car?”
The man raised his head slightly as though to answer. Instead, the killer
whipped his right hand into his waK pulled out a knife, and rolled sharply
to his left, yanking his gorilla-like knee up into MatlocJ6 groin. The
knife slashed into Matlock’s shirt, and he knew as he felt the steel point
crease his flesh that Vd come as close as he would ever come to being Wed.
He crashed the barrel of the heavy automatic into the maes temple. It was
enough. The killer’s head snapped back, blood matted itself around the
hairline. Matlock stood up and placed his foot on the hand with the knife.
3oo Robed LucUum
Soon the killees eyes opened.
And during the next five minutes, Matlock did what he never thought he
would be capable of doing-he tortured another man. He tortured the killer
with the kiWs own knife, penetrating the skin around and below the eyes,
puncturing the Bps with the same steel point that had scraped his own
flesh. And when the man sczeamed, Matlock smashed his mouth with the barrel
of the automatic and broke pieces of ivory off the WWs teeth.
It was not Iong, rho paperf-
OWhat elser
The writhing killer moaned and spat blood, but would not speak. Matlock
did; quietly, in total conviction, in complete sincerity.
‘You’ll answer me or I’ll push this blade down through your eyes. I don1
care anymore. Believe m&”
‘Me old ninni” The guttural words cum from deep inside the man’s throat “He
said he wrote it down… No one knows…. You talked to hini. . . .”
“What old . . .” Matlock stopped as a terrifying thought came into his
minti- “Lucas HerronRf Is Mat who you mean?r
‘He said he wrote it down. They think you know. Maybe he hed… For Chrisfs
sake, he could have lied. … 0
The killer fell into unconsciousness.
Matlock stood up slowly, his hands shaking, his whole body shivering. He
looked up at the road, at the huge black limousine standing silently in the
diminisbing rain. It would be his last gamble, his ultimate effDrL
But something was stirring in his brain, sonuthing
TM MATLOCK PAPM 302
elusive but palpable. He had to bust that feeling, as he had come to trust
the instincts of the hunter and the hunted.
The old maul
The answer lay somewhere In Lucas Herron s house.
29
He parked the limousine a quarter of a mile from Herron’s Nest and walked
toward the house on the side of the road, prepared to jump into the
bordering woods should any cars approach.
None did.
He came upon one house, then another, and in each case he raced past,
watching the lighted windows to see if anyone was looking out
No one was.
He reached the edge of Herron7s property and crouched to the ground.
Slowly, cautiously, silently he made his way to the driveway. The house was
dark; there were no cars, no people, no signs of life. Only death.
He walked up the flagstone path and his eye caught sight of an
official-looking document barely visible in the darkness, tacked onto the
front door. He approached it and lit a match. It was a sheriffs seal of
closure.
One more crime, thought Matlock.
He went around to the back of the house, and as he stood in front of the
patio door, he remembered vividly the sight of Herron racing across his
manicured lawn into the forbidding green wall which he
THE MATLOCK PAMM M
parted so deftly and into which he disappeared so completely.
There was another sherifTs seal on the back door. This one was glued to a
pane of glass.
Matlock removed the automatic from his belt and as quietly as possible
broke the small-paned window to the left of the seal. He opened the door
and walked in.
The first thing that struck him was the darkness. Light and dark were
relative, as he’d come to understand during the past week. The night had
light which the eyes could adjust to; the daylight was often deceptive,
filled with shadows and inisty blind spots. But inside Herron~s house the
darkness was complete. He lit a match and understood why.
The windows in the small kitchen were covered with shades. Only they
weren~t ordinary window shades, they were custom built. The cloth was heavy
and attached to the frames with vertical runners, latched at the sills by
large aluminum hasps. He approached the window over the sink and lit
another match. Not only was the shade thicker than ordinary, but the
runners and the stretch lock at the bottom insured that the shade would
remain absolutely flat against the whole frame. It was doubtful that any
light could go out or come in through the window.
Herron~s desire–or need-for privacy had been extraordinary. And if all the
windows in all the rooms were sealed, it would make his task easier.
Striking a third match, he walked into Herron’s livIng room. What he saw in
the flickering light caused him to stop in his tracks, his breath cut
short.
The entire room was a shambles. Books were strewn on the fioca~ furniture
overturned and ripped apart,
3o4 Robert Ludlum
rugs: upended, even sections of the wall smashed. He could have been walking
into his own apartment the night of the Beeson dinner. Herron~s living room
had been thoroughly, desperately searched.
He went back to the kitchen to see if his preoccupation with the window
shades and the darkness had played tricks on his eyes. They had. Every
drawer was pulled open, every cabinet ransacked. And then he saw on the
floor of a broom closet two flashlights. One was a casement, the other a
long-stemmed Sportsman. The first wouldrA light, the second did.
He walked rapidly back into the living room and tried to orient hunself,
checking the windows with the beam of the flashlight. Every window was cov-
ered, every shade latched at the sill.
Across the narrow hallway in front of the narrower stairs was an open door.
It led to Herron~s study, winch was, if possible, more of a mess than his
living room. Two Me cabinets were lying on their sides, the backs torn off,
the large leather-topped desk was pulled from the wall, splintered, smashed
on every flat surface. Parts of the wall, as the living room, were broken
into. Matlock assumed these were sections which had sounded hollow when
tapped.
Upstairs, the two small bedrooms and the bath were equally dismantled,
equally dissected.
He walked back down the stairs, even the steps had been pried loose from
their treads.
Lucas Kerron~s home had been searched by professionals. What could he find
that they hadet? He wandered back into the living room and sat down on what
was left of an armchair. He had the sinking feeling that his last effort
would end in failure also. He lit a cigarette and tried to organize his
thoughts.
Moever had searched the house had not found
Tim mATuxz PAPE:R 305
what they were looking for. Or had they? There was no way to tell, really.
Except that the brute killer in the field had screamed that the old man “bad
written it down.” As if the fact was almost as important as the desperately
coveted Corsican document. Yet he had added: “. . . maybe he lied, he could
have lied.! LiedP Why would a man in the last extremity of terror add that