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Diana was climbing the stairs. “I’m tired. Wake me up when Brad comes.”
Dogan had ingested his usual royal portion of spirits. “You gotta help me out.”
Had Dogan heard that he was on Mister Man’s priority boarding list for evacuation from the planet? “I’m getting sick of this, you idiot.”
“You think you’re smarter than everyone,” Dogan slurred. “Well, I’m not the idiot. You’re the idiot.”
“Brilliant comeback,” Stagg said. “Repartee worthy of Dorothy Parker.”
“Never met the bitch,” Dogan said. “We got a problem,”
“We do, huh? Let me guess. You got another drunk-driving arrest on that stupid motorcycle, and I have to fix things with the cops. No, your supervisor on the county road crew called, and you told him you’d kill his children if he didn’t back off. No, you were drunk and groping women at T.G.I. Friday’s happy hour, and one called the cops. I’ve bailed you out so many times for so much asinine behavior that I’m losing track.”
With a moan, Dogan said, “Have you seen him?”
“Who?”
“Brad Acton came to me in a bar in H Town this afternoon. He said he wanted to see us. Both. Tonight.”
Stagg sighed. “My wife had the same hallucination. Her, high on meds. You, high on booze. Astute observers, the two of you.”
“He was real, man. I mean, not like a ghost. I couldn’t, like, see through him.”
“I can see through you. You are a serious alcoholic. Go get dried out.”
“He knew how much you paid me to do him. Plus, the no-show job on the county roads. How could he know that?”
“Because it is in your drink-addled head. Today is the a
“He knew you are go
“You know nothing,” Stagg snarled. “Brad was ten times as dirty as me. He came from family money, but wanted more. He introduced me to Mister Man. Then when Javers came sniffing around, Brad wanted me to be the fall guy. He wanted me to take Mister Man down, too.”
“I remember every minute from a year ago.”
“Meantime, King Brad stays simon-pure. Well, ha-ha, Brad. For the first time in your pampered life, you lost.”
Dogan didn’t seem to be listening anymore. “I tell you, he seemed like flesh and blood. Like you and me. I bet I could put another bullet in him, and that’d be that.”
“Check yourself into rehab, you cretin.”
“I don’t want to face him alone tonight, man.”
Stagg slammed the phone down.
A wind came up and blew about the budding branches of the ghostly trees. Winter and summer warred in the sudden draft off the river, and Dogan shivered. What was he doing sitting here like a frozen pond toad?
Dogan got on his bike and blasted away from the riverfront park. In a jiffy, his Harley’s loud engine was invading the smooth, quiet roads of Haddonfield, Brad Acton’s hometown. In Haddonfield, trees flower first, and their perfume seeped down from the elegant mosaic of branches that covered the old lanes.
The Harley brayed down King’s Highway, the town’s main street, where subtly lit colonial storefronts displayed chic clothing and leather goods. Tomorrow, the slender, blond women of the marvelous men of Haddonfield would float past those storefronts, browsing, blasé.
A year had gone by and beer had fuzzed his thinking, hence Dogan took a while to find Brad Acton’s house. He clattered through the lovely streets until he saw the right landmarks. Left at the three-century-old church, right at the giant white-board mansion, left onto Cypress Avenue.
Front yard carriage lamps shed soft glows on the brick and flagstone walkways flowing from the smooth road to the fine wood doors that guarded the aristocratic stone houses. Through the latticed windows of those handsome homes came the lamplight of the Haddonfield elite, who ran the world.
Acton’s house, though, lay in darkness. Girded by vigilant firs, watched over by towering oaks, it seemed almost uninhabited. Then Dogan saw the two cars parked to the side: Stagg’s Volvo and Diana Acton’s Jaguar. He killed the bike’s motor and dismounted.
It had been a year ago, around midnight. About now, his watch said.
He couldn’t stand there forever, hypnotized by the house, the night, the clock. Dogan walked cautiously up the sloping, well-barbered lawn, bathed in intense moonglow. The wind, a devilish mix of warm and cold, made small gasps among the trees’ flowers.
A shadow shimmered among the tree trunks. Dogan gave a start and yelped. He yanked his .45 out of his coat pocket, tearing more fabric. “Killed you once, I’ll kill you twice, bastard,” he said through bared teeth.
His gun moved in small semicircles, pointed at where the movement had been, as he marched up the lawn. With his attention fixed on the trees, he missed seeing the ankle-high miniwall bisecting the lawn in front of him. Dogan went down hard, swearing.
Hell, last year, making this same approach, he’d tripped on the miniwall. He had been drunker then, but this couldn’t be a coincidence.
The wind came again, colder now, and enveloped him with a harsh sense of dread. Was he reliving the same night from a year ago?
The castlelike front door loomed in front of him. Dogan punched the doorbell button, and heard sweet chimes inside. As he had a year ago.
He hit the button again. As he had a year ago.
Somehow, he smelled burnt gunpowder. As he had a year ago.
Stagg had clumped wearily up the stairs, left his clothes on the floor of his dressing room and climbed into his pajamas. He heaved into the broad bed, where Diana lay, asleep. Good. No more nonsense from her. He had barely slipped into sleep’s welcome oblivion when the doorbell chimes rang. Repeatedly.
Diana was screaming. “Don’t go down there, Brad. Don’t go.”
He was fully awake. “I’m Robert, dammit.”
Finally, Dogan heard footsteps beyond the door. A muffled voice asked him who he was and what he wanted. Just like a year ago.
He replied the same. “It’s me. Joe Dogan. Robert’s guy. It’s about Mister Man.”
An inside light went on. The bolt slid open. The door swung inward. A man was in the threshold.
Brad Acton stood there, in his nice suit, with his nice hair, smiling. No one could smile like Brad.
Dogan raised the gun and pulled the trigger. The first shot splattered that handsome head. He pumped bullet after bullet into the body, as it lay on the Persian rug.
He stumbled down the lawn. He needed a drink. Was he out of beer?
A Mercedes slid to the curb, beside the parked Harley. A large black man, in a white suit and fedora, climbed out. He glanced at the motorcycle, then spotted Joe Dogan weaving toward him. Joe carried a gun. In the moonlight, Mister Man could see the slide was back and the weapon was empty.
“I’m on my way home and I see that this human garbage has blown into Haddonfield. They don’t allow your punk-ass kind here.”
“I killed Brad again,” Dogan said.
“Do tell. A lotta killing going around.”
Mister Man pulled his Glock out of its shoulder holster and blew a large hole in worthless Joe Dogan’s chest. The fool fell backward onto Brad Acton’s fine lawn and began to bleed on it.
Mister Man turned to his car, then stopped when he glimpsed the silhouette of a man up in the Acton house. A tall man standing in an upstairs window, taking in all that had happened on the moon-bright lawn. A witness.
Was it Stagg? Mister Man had better find out the state of play, before the neighbors called the cops. Of course, the lots here were far apart and the refined folk nearby may not have heard the gunfire. Or if they did hear, they wouldn’t know what it was. This was Haddonfield, not H Town. He had a little time, he figured.
Mister Man loped up the lawn, Glock at the ready. The tall fellow in the window waved. He was blond, well-dressed and familiar. Then he stepped out of sight.