Cage Of Night Part 24

Mom nodded, seeing my logic. "That's true, Robert. It is nice to see him up and around."

"You just be careful."

"I will, Dad."

"Very careful," Mom said.

"Very, very careful," I said, and left.

After about twenty minutes, you sort of exhaust all the riding-around possibilities of our little town.

I drove past Pizza Hut, Arby's, Motel 6, Holiday Inn, Ramada Inn, McDonald's, Burger King, Long John Silver's.

I drove past the old school, the new school, city hall, the library, I went out by the old skating rink, the new skating rink, the football field and the city park.

It was a cold but lovely winter night, everything a crisp pure white, a full proud moon riding the sky.

I kept driving, punching station to station to find some really heavy duty rock songs. I wanted heavy metal tonight. I needed to feel invigorated.

And then I saw them.

Cindy and Garrett.

In his car.

Her sitting close-as-she-could-get as he drove.

And it happened again.

I wasn't even aware of doing it at first.

I just started following them.

CHAPTER NINE.

The country road was a roller coaster of steep upslopes and equally steep downslopes. There was just enough snow and ice on them to make them dangerous.

I followed Garrett's Firebird deep into the country, the farmhouses getting fewer and fewer the longer we drove, timber becoming more and more dominant.

The moon was behind clouds and the snowy land had a dirty, gritty feeling.

I had no idea where he was going and I wondered if Garrett did. Maybe they were just driving around. Maybe they were having an argument and needed to talk it out and weren't paying any attention to where they were at all.

Then Garrett did a peculiar thing.

About half a mile from the Swenson farm, he cut his lights. He didn't pull over to the side of the road. He didn't even slow down.

He just cut his lights and headed straight for the Swenson place, turning into the gravel drive as soon as he reached it.

He stopped right at the head of the drive.

And sat there.

A quarter mile behind them, I pulled off to the side of the road.

I grabbed my binoculars and got out.

Icy snow crunched beneath my feet. The below-zero temperature bit at my nose and cheeks. The night seemed vast and somehow alien, as if I'd been set down on a world that was not quite earth. Only the lonely bay of a timber wolf rea.s.sured me that I was still earthbound.

I focused the binoculars and had a look.

They sat in the front seat of Garrett's Firebird, talking.

Garrett smoked a cigarette.

They didn't seem to be arguinga"no angry faces, no sudden sharp gesturesa"but the conversation didn't seem relaxed, either.

Then I saw that Garrett had spread a piece of paper on the dashboard.

He pointed to it, spoke.

Cindy seemed to be listening intently.

He pointed to the paper again, several times.

Then they were up and out of the car.

Mae Swenson was an aged and wealthy widow who kept her farm running with a succession of managers and hired hands. She was no easier to work for than her husband had been, and he'd been known to fire a dozen people in a single month. The Swensons had inherited several large farms from Mae's father. They sold them off back at the peak of land values in the late seventies, when corporations were paying ever-sillier prices for rich black Midwestern soil.

Now Mae had just this one farm.

But according to local legend, Mae had something else, too.

Her own father having lost most of his money in a bank failure, Mae had an almost psychotic fear of banks.

It was said, therefore, that she kept her valuables, including large amounts of money, right in the house with her.

She didn't have any security alarm to protect her, it was further said, nor any kind of security surveillance team driving by.

But she did have Poker.

Poker was a German shepherd that delighted in landing on and tearing to pieces any living thing you put in front of him.

It was said that a little girl came with her folks to visit Mae one sunny Sunday afternoon.

The little girl brought her kitten with her.

Once they were outside the car, the kitten jumped out of the little girl's hand.

Poker took it from there.

Not even Mae herself, who shouted and beat at the German shepherd with a broom handle, could quell Poker's appet.i.te until the kitten was nothing but a b.l.o.o.d.y carca.s.s.

Poker, it was further claimed, preferred human meat to all else.

A drifter had heard tell of Mae's goodies tucked away inside her house. He decided that he was man enough to overpower a widow woman and take her treasure.

The drifter jimmied one of the downstairs windows and climbed inside.

Poker found him pretty quickly. He'd broken a leg the day before and Mae had kept him inside for a time. Usually he stayed on the front porch.

My dad happened to be downtown that same night, when the ambulance brought the drifter in.

My dad swears that Poker ripped the man's windpipe right out of his throat, leaving only a b.l.o.o.d.y cavity.

No charges were pressed.

Everybody knew that Poker was a killer and that uninvited guests visited Mae at their peril.

So here were Cindy and Garrett walking up to Mae's house late at night.

I trotted down the road after them. I wanted to get a better look at what Garrett held in his left hand.

My first impression was that it was a pistol. But there was something odd about ita"pistol-like but not a pistol. It was the difference between a .38 and a starter's gun for a race. They resemble each other until you look closely.

They went right up to the porch of the large two-story white house with gables and a few spires added to show some creativity.

You could see they were waiting for Poker.

They looked left, right, straight ahead.

Now that they were within his domain, they moved more slowly, carefully.

I could hear them wondering, Where is Poker?

And that's when Poker appeared.

He came straight for them, flying off the porch, his knife-like teeth dripping saliva, his eyes glowing.

I have to say that Garrett was a lot cooler than I would have been in his situation.

He stood his ground.

When Poker was airborne, and about to knock him to the ground, Garrett took two careful steps to the left, raised the weapon in his hand and fired.

If there was a sound, I didn't hear it.

I just saw Garrett's hand jump from the recoil. Otherwise I wouldn't have known he'd fired at all.

Poker's trajectory took the dog a foot past Garrett.

Poker ended up slamming into a s...o...b..nk.

The enraged way he pulled his snout from the s...o...b..nk, the furious way he turned his long, lean body around to face Garrett, I a.s.sumed that Garrett was in deep trouble.

Then Poker collapsed.

No other way to say it.

One moment he was standing there growling, ready to pitch himself at the hated Garrett, and then he was flat on the ground, his head lolling to the left.

Unmoving.

I wondered if he was dead.

Cindy had covered her face, didn't want to see.

Garrett approached the animal, knelt down next to him. He felt for vital signs.

He looked up and said something to Cindy. The way she took her hands from her face, I could tell that Garrett had rea.s.sured her that the dog wasn't dead.

Garrett stood up. Walked over to Cindy. Took her in his arms. Kissed her.

I brought my binoculars down.

I still couldn't watch her kissing anybody else.

Then they were moving again, this time toward the house, walking on tiptoe as they ascended the three steps leading to the porch.

Only on the porch did Garrett show any hesitation. He glanced around, as if looking for something important.

Then he walked over to the door, took a bulky ring of keys from his pocket, and started searching for the proper one.

Cops have as many keys and tools as burglars. That's why a number of cops go bad. Simply can't resist the temptation. Who would suspect a cop of being a B&E man?

Garrett found what he wanted on the tenth or eleventh try.

The front door opened.

The interior of the house, as seen from the front door, was much darker than the night outside.