The Next To Die Part 35

Nick s.n.a.t.c.hed his gun off the car floor, then stared at Sean. "Where are you hit?" he asked, trying to catch his breath.

"My upper chest," she murmured. "By the shoulder...can't feel my arm."

"s.h.i.t, you're bleeding bad. We have to get you to a hospital, doll."

"Don't call me doll," Sean replied in a shaky voice. "We-we can't go anywhere. The car's dead. The fuse box is shot...."

Nick tried and tried to restart Larry's Honda Accord. The engine made a grinding noise, but refused to turn over. Meanwhile, Larry had managed to sit up on the dirt path. He held on to his bleeding left hand. A trail of blood slid down from the gash on his forehead. Yet he was laughing like a crazy man. "You screwed yourselves!" he called, staggering to his feet. "You're trapped! You're not going anywhere...."

He kept laughing and taunting them, until finally Nick jumped out of the car. Half delirious, Larry didn't even see him coming. Nick coldc.o.c.ked him. He might as well have been swatting a pesky fly. One expedient, forceful hit, and Larry Chadwick went down.

The last thing Sean heard him say was: "She'll bleed to death. That c.u.n.t's going to die out here."

Earlier, when they'd driven up the dirt path, Sean hadn't noticed all the other forest trails merging into this one. Those few minutes in the car had covered several miles.

They'd been trudging through the woods for close to an hour now-lost, swallowed up in the darkness. Cursing, Nick stumbled over rocks and tree roots while she staggered behind him. With her good hand, Sean clung to his belt at the back of his jeans and faltered along with him.

She tried to ignore the pain in her shoulder. Her arm was in a sling-crudely fashioned by Nick from Larry's khaki trousers. Her arm and her right side down to the hip were sopping wet with blood that had turned cold. Sean could see her breath in the chilly night air, yet she was burning up inside. Drops of sweat trickled from her forehead. She had a fever-an infection from the bullet, or maybe from all the blood she'd lost. Still, she pressed on.

In addition to relieving Larry of his trousers, Nick had also stripped him of his shirt and undershirt. He tore up the shirt and tied Larry's hands in back of him with the shreds. After shooting a couple of breathing holes in the Accord's trunk lid, Nick had dumped the unconscious, underwear-clad Larry inside. Sean weaker protested that he'd freeze to death. Nick said he didn't give "a frog's fat a.s.s." He shut the trunk, then pocketed Larry's keys.

He found a bottle of water in the glove compartment. With that and Larry's T-shirt, he tried to clean the bullet wound by Sean's shoulder. Then he made a sling out of Larry's pants. As they started down the path, Larry must have regained consciousness. They heard him pounding on the trunk lid, the m.u.f.fled yelling and cursing.

That had been nearly an hour ago. Now, Sean blindly held on to Nick. For all she knew, they could be heading deeper into the forest, away from the highway. She felt herself growing weaker and dizzier with every step. Suddenly, the ground seemed to drop out from under her. She tripped over a tiny rivulet, almost pulling Nick down too. The fall knocked the wind out of her.

"You okay?" Nick asked, hovering over her. "From what I can see, you don't look so hot."

"Flatterer," Sean murmured. She didn't think she could stand up again. "How can you even see anything? anything?" For the last hour, she'd been praying for some point of light that might lead them to the highway-some wonderful, bright, artificial light. But there was only darkness.

"Let's rest here for a sec, okay?" Nick said.

Sean nodded again. Shivering and sweating, she listened for the sound of a car, a radio, maybe some people talking at a nearby campsite. Nothing. Yet she and Nick weren't alone. She could hear creatures moving in the shrubs all around, twigs snapping beneath feet-or claws.

"G.o.d, listen to that," Nick whispered. "I'm a city boy. Gentle Ben or Bambi, either way, I don't like this s.h.i.t...."

Sean laughed, but she felt herself slipping away. She didn't think the darkness could become any blacker, yet it was happening. She couldn't move. Nick was still talking to her, but through a fog.

Sean thought of Danny and Phoebe. She remembered them playing on the beach with their aunt a couple of nights ago. And she felt her body shutting down.

Twenty-five.

Tom glanced in his rearview mirror at the white Taurus-his escort to the studio. He wore his blue seersucker-along with his disguise: gla.s.ses and a fake mustache. Beside him in the front seat, Hal was reviewing details for Dayle Sutton's execution one last time. When he started to explain about the "getaway" afterward, Tom told himself not to believe a word.

"In the ambulance," Hal said, consulting a notepad, "you'll be furnished with a new pa.s.sport and all the necessary papers. By the way, your pa.s.sport photo is just an old picture of you that we doctored up. Your new name is Robert Allen Bryant. You'll receive ten thousand dollars' worth of traveler's checks in the van-"

"Ten thousand?" Tom interrupted. "But you told me-"

"You have reservations tonight at The Best Western Golden Park in Rio," Hal went on. "Under the name Robert Allen Bryant. It's not the Hilton, but it's affordable until you find your retirement villa. Three days from now, you'll receive an another eighty thousand in traveler's checks. It'll be sent to the hotel. After that, additional payments will arrive every month. You'll end up with a quarter of a million-as promised, Tom." Hal grinned and patted his shoulder. "Or should I say 'Robert'?"

Gazing at the traffic ahead, Tom bit his lower lip. Suddenly, the whole Rio dream didn't seem like such a lie. He thought about last night. He could still see that drag queen dropping his self-incriminating letter to the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times in the mail. Had he screwed up his chances for a clean break? in the mail. Had he screwed up his chances for a clean break?

"Um, where will you find a body of someone who looks like me?" he asked, stopping at a traffic light. "You'll need a body...."

"I know." Hal glanced out the pa.s.senger window. "It's a nasty detail we've already taken care of, Tom. The less you know about it, the better." His cellular phone rang. He took it out of the zippered pocket of his designer sweatshirt and answered, "Hal speaking."

The light changed, and Tom pressed on. They weren't far from the studio. Soon he'd be on his own.

"Well, where's Larry?" Hal said into the phone. "Hasn't anyone heard from him?"

Tom kept hoping against hope that the call was about canceling Dayle Sutton's a.s.sa.s.sination. He'd done a prison movie years back, in which a last-minute call from the governor had saved him from the electric chair. Was it too much to ask that this last-minute call be his salvation?

"I want them tracked down," Hal continued. "Have Larry call me right away.... Well, then keep paging him. Over and out." He pressed a b.u.t.ton, and quickly folded up the phone. "d.a.m.n it," he grumbled.

"We're still-doing this?" Tom asked, feeling his stomach lurch.

"All systems are go," Hal said. "Pull over. I'm switching cars."

Swallowing hard, Tom followed Hal's orders. In the rearview mirror, he saw the Taurus veer over to the curb and stop behind them.

"Don't forget," Hal said, opening the car door. "At the studio gate, your name's Gordon Swann, and you're an old friend of Dennis Walsh."

Dennis was in a good mood this morning. He'd had a particularly amorous evening with Laura last night, then slept over to help her move today. They'd had another go at it about a half hour ago. Now she was in the shower, and he was dressed, fixing them breakfast.

Someone knocked on her door. "Just a sec!" Dennis called. Threading around storage boxes, he checked the peephole. He didn't recognize the guy; then again, he didn't know Laura's neighbors. "Can I help you?" he called.

"Um, I live upstairs," the man called back from the other side of the door. "Some of Laura's mail was put in my box by mistake."

Dennis opened the door. The neighbor was a small guy, about twenty-five, with athletic good looks, and straight blond hair. He handed Dennis an envelope from Pacific Bell. "Sorry. I wasn't looking when I opened it up. I thought it was mine-until I saw all those calls to Idaho."

Dennis stared at the man, then at the envelope.

"I don't know anybody in Opal, Idaho," the neighbor explained.

Dennis studied the phone bill. One call to Opal after another, and always the same number: 208-555-4266. She'd phoned every day-at all sorts of hours.

Dennis managed to smile at the neighbor, and nodded vaguely. "Um, thank you." Closing the door, he glanced down the hall toward the bathroom. He could hear the shower's torrent. In a stupor, he wandered back into the kitchen, picked up the telephone, then dialed the Opal number.

It rang twice before a man picked up. "Hey, there, Laurie Anne," he said. "How are things with you and fatso?"

Dennis quickly hung up. It took him a moment to realize that the party in Opal had Caller I-D. But who was Laurie Anne?

The phone rang. They were calling her back. Dennis let it ring. Her answering machine came on, and they hung up.

Eyeing the bathroom door, Dennis tried the machine for old messages.

Beep. "Hi, honey-" It was him. He skipped to the next message.

Beep. "This is your mother, Laurie Anne. Pick up. Are you there? Oh, you're not there. Listen, someone from your old job at the clinic called me last night, asking for a Lauren Lauren Schneider. Anyway, this Grace somebody says they owe you over a thousand dollars from some kind of social security withholding mix-up. I gave her your number. She'll be calling. Maybe now you can pay me back some of that loan, Laurie Anne. Call me, okay? G.o.d bless." Schneider. Anyway, this Grace somebody says they owe you over a thousand dollars from some kind of social security withholding mix-up. I gave her your number. She'll be calling. Maybe now you can pay me back some of that loan, Laurie Anne. Call me, okay? G.o.d bless."

"End of Messages," announced the prerecorded mechanical voice.

"Laurie Anne" must have erased all the calls from her Opal cohorts. Dennis didn't want to think it was true. Once again, he picked up the phone and dialed the number in Idaho. It rang once. "Yeah?" the man said warily.

Dennis hesitated. "It's Ted," he grunted.

"Ted? What are you doing at Laurie Anne's? It's execution day, for G.o.d's sake. Why aren't you at the studio with the b.i.t.c.h? Ted?"

Dennis hung up on him. In a daze, he wandered down the hall-past all the packed boxes-to the bathroom door. He tried the k.n.o.b. She hadn't locked it, trusting soul. Quietly, he opened the door. He saw the figure on the other side of the pink-tinted shower curtain. Dennis ripped the curtain aside.

Laurie Anne swiveled around and automatically covered her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Then she saw him and burst out laughing. "You silly-"

Dennis grabbed her and slammed her against the tiled wall. She struggled helplessly. The shower matted down his hair and drenched his clothes as he held on to her. "I just got off the phone with a friend of yours in Opal, Idaho," he growled. "I know you set me up. I figured out about Ted too. But tell me this, Laurie Anne Laurie Anne. Who's this Gordon Swann you wanted me to smuggle onto Dayle's film set?"

Tom didn't need to mention this Dennis person at the studio gate. All he said was, "My name's Gordon Swann," and the guard gave him a pa.s.s-along with directions to the administration building and visitors' parking.

He felt sickly, and couldn't stop trembling. Within an hour, he would be dead-or riding to the airport in an ambulance.

The thin, pretty Asian girl at the front desk must have seen it in his face. After calling for his escort, she asked if he was feeling all right. She made him sit down, then fetched him a drink of water.

He felt a bit better by the time the studio's young page pulled up to the building in a golf cart. He reminded Tom of himself-about fifty years ago, a good-looking kid with black, wavy hair. Driving down alleyways past the vast soundstages, the kid started in about how big the studio was, the different movies and TV shows shot there-the standard tour-guide spiel. His words were just background noise, like the prayers the prison chaplain reads for a man led to his execution.

Tom felt another wave of dread when Soundstage 8 came into view. The page dropped him off at a side door, where Tom showed his visitor's pa.s.s to the security guard. He tried to keep his hand over the bulging pocket of his seersucker jacket. The gun felt heavy and awkward.

The security man led him into the building, down a hallway to a door with a green light above it. The guard opened the door for him. Tom was overwhelmed with a million memories as he stepped onto that movie-making soundstage. The McDonald's ad two years ago had been filmed at a tiny studio. Nothing major league like this. The cameras and lights were different from his heyday, but the feel of it was the same: they created magic here.

He gazed at the movie set: a town hall meeting room. Extras sat in folding chairs facing a podium on a small stage. Some folks had cigarettes going-for the scene obviously, since NO SMOKING NO SMOKING signs were plastered on the soundstage walls. Behind the podium stood Dayle Sutton in an unflattering gray wig. She looked bored. No one seemed to pay any attention to her. signs were plastered on the soundstage walls. Behind the podium stood Dayle Sutton in an unflattering gray wig. She looked bored. No one seemed to pay any attention to her.

Tom touched the gun in his pocket.

"Mr. Swann? h.e.l.lo, I'm Beverly. Is this your first time on a film set?"

Startled, he managed to smile at the woman with the blond beehive hairdo. She was around sixty, in great shape, carefully made up and decked out in a pink suit. "No, I-I've been on a movie set before," Tom said, carefully taking his hand out of his jacket pocket. "I used to be an actor."

"Oh, really?"

He shrugged. "Bit parts mostly. That was a long time ago."

"How interesting," she said. "Then you must already know, sometimes they'll ask for 'quiet on the set...'" Beverly went into a long, elementary explanation of how to behave on a film shoot. The only other visitors on the set were three j.a.panese businessmen. Beverly paid more attention to them, which was all right by Tom. He didn't want her watching his every move.

He glanced over at Dayle Sutton, leaning sluggishly against the podium. "Um, Beverly," he said. "Would it be all right if I moved a bit further down along the wall? I want to get a better look at Dayle Sutton."

Beverly grinned. "Certainly, Mr. Swann. But she's Ms. Sutton's stand-in. Dayle's in her trailer right now." Beverly pointed to the mobile unit against the soundstage wall-past of an array of lights and sound equipment.

Beverly started explaining the various duties of a stand-in. Tom didn't hear a word. He noticed a lean man with thin blond hair standing by the trailer door. He wore a blue suit. Her bodyguard. Was he really with the organization-as Hal had said?

The bodyguard scanned the set. He checked out the group of j.a.panese businessmen; then those eyes kept moving along the outer wall until his gaze locked onto Tom's. They stared at each other for a moment. The bodyguard gave a single nod, and smiled ever so subtly.

"Quiet please!" someone called.

A dozen spotlights switched on, illuminating the set. Somebody held a light meter to the stand-in's face. Amid all this, Dayle Sutton emerged from her trailer. She looked older and careworn in the dowdy tweed suit, and with her trademark auburn hair hidden beneath a brown-gray wig. She started onto the set, studying her script. The director was talking to her.

Tom felt a little short of breath. He checked his target. He wished the director would move out of the way. Accompanying her up to the podium, he kept stepping into the line of fire. He patted her back and whispered to her.

Tom held on to the semiautomatic in his pocket.

"Quiet on the set!" someone yelled again. The director finally moved away. A mike, hanging from a boom, descended closer to Dayle's head. Both hands on the podium, Dayle took a deep breath. Tom had a clear shot, but then the man with the clapboard stepped in front of her. "Scene eighty-seven. Take four!" He slapped the clapboard together, then stepped aside.

"Roll cameras," the director barked.

She stood alone up there. He had her in range. No one was looking. Tom took the gun out of his pocket and brought it up to his chest, burying it in the folds of his jacket. He glanced up toward the podium.

Dayle Sutton seemed to be staring right at him. She had tears in her eyes. "h.e.l.lo," she said. "My name is Susan...and I-I'm an alcoholic."

Tom took a step back, b.u.mping into the wall.

The congregation applauded her and called back, "h.e.l.lo, Susan!"

The smile she gave them was heartbreaking. For a moment, the dowdy woman had the face of an angel. "Thank you," she replied in a stage whisper.

Mesmerized, Tom forgot that he was holding a gun-until, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Dayle's bodyguard coming toward him. The tall, blond man glowered at him and angrily muttered something under his breath.

Tom nodded sheepishly. He raised the gun, and aimed it at Dayle Sutton. Just another c.o.ke bottle on that front porch railing Just another c.o.ke bottle on that front porch railing.

"Cut!" the director bellowed. "Does everyone in the meeting have to smoke? Looks like a G.o.dd.a.m.n Turkish bath! I can hardly see Dayle...."

While the director complained, a woman stepped up on the stage to dab powder on Dayle Sutton's chin. She blocked the line of fire. Another woman approached Dayle, pointing to the trailer. Tom couldn't get a clear hit. He watched Dayle retreat back into her trailer, and then he turned to see the bodyguard scowling at him.

Tom looked away. With a shaky hand, he slipped the gun back into his coat pocket.