George Graveline lay there with his head in the moist dirt, his groin throbbing. He lay there worrying about his brother the doctor, about what horrible things would happen to him all because of George’s big mouth. Rudy had confided in him, trusted him, and now George had let his brother down. Lying there dejectedly, he decided that no matter how much pain was inflicted upon him, he wasn’t going to tell Mick Stranahan what had happened to that college girl. Rudy had made a mistake, everybody makes mistakes. Why, one time George himself got a work order mixed up and cut down a whole row of fifty-foot royal palms, when it was mangy old Brazilians he was supposed to chop. Still they didn’t put him in jail or anything, just made him pay a fine. Hundred bucks a tree, something like that. Why should a doctor be treated any different? As he reflected upon Rudy’s turbulent medical career, George Graveline removed one of his hands from his swollen scrotum. The free hand happened to settle on a hunk of fresh-cut mahogany concealed by his left leg. The wood was heavy, the bark coarse and dry. George closed his fingers around it. It felt pretty good.
Still kneeling, Mick Stranahan nudged George Graveline’s shoulder and said, “Penny for your thoughts.”
And George hit him square on the back of the skull.
Stranahan didn’t see the blow, and at first he thought he’d been shot. He heard a man shouting and what sounded like an ambulance. The rescue scene played vividly in his imagination. He waited to feel the paramedics’ hands ripping open his shirt. He waited for the cold clap of the stethoscope on his chest, for the sting of the I.V. needle in his arm. He waited for the childlike sensation of being lifted onto the stretcher.
None of this came, yet the sound of the ambulance siren would not go away. In his crashing sleep, Stranahan grew angry. Where were the goddamn EMTs? A man’s been shot here!
Then, blessedly, he felt someone lifting him. Lifting him under the arms, someone strong. It hurt, oh, God, how it hurt, but that was all right—at least they had come. But then he was falling again, falling or dying, he couldn’t be sure. And in his crashing sleep he heard the moan of the siren rise to such a pitch that he wanted to cover his ears and scream for it to stop, please God.
And it did stop.
Somebody shut off the wood chipper.
Stranahan awoke to the odd hollow silence that follows a sharp echo. His eardrums fluttered. The air smelled pungently of cordite. He found himself on his knees, weaving, a drunk waiting for communion. His shirt was damp, his pulse rabbity. He checked himself and saw he was mistaken, he hadn’t been shot. There was no ambulance, either, just the tree truck.
Al Garcia sat on the bumper. His gun was in his right hand, which hung heavily at his side. He was as pale as a flounder.
There was no sign of George Graveline anywhere.
“You all right?” Stranahan asked.
“No,” said the detective.
“Where’s the tree man?”
With the gun Garcia pointed toward the bin of the tree truck, where the wood chipper had spit what bone and jelly was left of George Graveline.
After he had tried to feed Mick Stranahan into the maw.
And Al Garcia had shot him twice in the back.
And the impact of the bullets had slammed him face-forward down the throat of the tree-eating machine.
26
Chemo got the Bonneville out of the garage and drove out to Whispering Palms, but the receptionist said that Dr. Graveline wasn’t there. Noticing the dramatic topography of Chemo’s face, the receptionist told him she could try the doctor at home for an emergency. Chemo said thanks, anyway.
After leaving the clinic, he walked around to the side of the building where the employees parked. Dr. Graveline’s spiffy new Jaguar XJ-6 was parked in its space. This was the Jaguar that the doctor had purchased immediately after Mick Stranahan had blown up his other one. The sedan was a rich shade of red; candy apple, Chemo guessed, though the Jaguar people probably had a fancier name for it. The windows of the car were tinted gray so that you couldn’t see inside. Chemo assumed that Dr. Graveline had a burglar alarm wired on the thing, so he was careful not to touch the doors or the hood.