into the muzzle of the Uzi without fear, without the slightest fear, so he
grinned up at Cornell. “Look at me, look! I’m your worst nightmare.”
Cornell said, “Not even close,” and opened fire.
In the kitchen Travis sat in a chair, with Einstein at his side, while Nora
dressed his wound. As she worked, she told him what she knew about the man who
had forced his way into the truck.
“He was a damn wild card,” Travis said. “No way we could ever have known he was
out there.”
“I hope he’s the only wild card.”
Wincing as Nora poured alcohol and iodine into the bullet hole, wincing again as
she bound the wound with gauze by passing it under his armpit, he said, “Don’t
worry about making a great job of it. The bleeding’s not that bad. No artery’s
been hit.”
The bullet had gone through, leaving a hideous exit wound, and he was in
considerable pain, but for a while yet he would be able to function. He would
have to seek medical attention later, maybe from Jim Keene to avoid the
questions that any other doctor would surely insist on having answered. For now,
he was only concerned that the wound be bound tight enough to allow him to
dispose of the dead man.
Einstein was battered, too. Fortunately, he had not been cut when he smashed
through the front window. He did not seem to have any broken bones, but he had
taken several hard blows. Not in the best of shape to begin with, he looked
bad—muddy and rain-soaked and in pain. He would need to see Jim Keene, too.
Outside, rain was falling harder than ever, pounding on the roof, gurgling
noisily through gutters and downspouts. It was slanting across the front porch
and through the shattered window, but they did not have time to worry about
water damage.
“Thank God for the rain,” Travis said. “No one in the area will have heard the
gunfire in this downpour.”
Nora said, “Where will we dump the body?”
“I’m thinking.” And it was hard to think clearly because the pain in his
shoulder throbbed up and into his head.
She said, “We could bury him here, in the woods—”
“No. We’d always know he was there. We’d always worry about the body being dug
up by wild animals, found by hikers. Better . . . there’re places along the
Coast Highway where we could pull over, wait until there’s no traffic, drag him
out of the bed of the truck, and toss him over the side. If we pick a place
where the sea comes in right to the base of the slope, it’ll carry him out, move
him away, before anyone notices him down there.”
As Nora finished the bandage, Einstein abruptly got up, whined. He sniffed the
air. He went to the back door, stood staring at it for a moment, then
disappeared into the living room.
“I’m afraid he’s hurt worse than he seems to be,” Nora said, applying a final
strip of adhesive tape.
“Maybe,” Travis said. “But maybe not. He’s just been acting peculiar all day,
ever since you left this morning. He told me it smelled like a bad day.”
“He was right,” she said.
Einstein returned from the living room at a run and went straight to the pantry,
switching on the lights and pumping the pedals that released lettered tiles.
“Maybe he has an idea about disposing of the body,” Nora said.
As Nora gathered up the leftover iodine, alcohol, gauze, and tape, Travis
painfully pulled on his shirt and went to the pantry to see what Einstein had to
say.
THE OUTSIDER IS HERE.
Travis slammed a new magazine into the butt of the Uzi carbine, put an extra in
one pocket, and gave Nora one of the Uzi pistols that was kept in the pantry.
Judging by Einstein’s sense of urgency, they had no time to go through the
house, closing and bolting shutters.
The clever scheme to gas The Outsider in the barn had been built upon the
certainty that it would approach at night and reconnoiter. Now that it had come
in daylight and had reconnoitered while they were distracted by Vince, that plan