Time to Kill (22 page)

‘I can probably get back in time,' said Slater.

‘Why don't I ride to school tomorrow?' asked the boy. ‘I've done it before.'

‘You've got too much stuff to carry,' refused Ann. ‘I'll get away from the gallery early again.'

‘Worlack agreed to the CBS interview here tomorrow night so that the gallery will be featured,' reminded Slater. Because of the continuing publicity he hadn't yet risked the planned surprise visit with David.

‘They don't need me there.'

‘Of course you've got to be there,' insisted Slater. ‘I told you, I'll get back in time.'

‘I really don't see what the problem is,' protested David. ‘Practice is geared around schoolwork, because it's arranged that way. So I don't have that much to take with me tomorrow. I can easily get my gear into my backpack.'

‘It'll be dark coming home,' objected Ann.

‘Not properly,' argued David. ‘And I've got lights. How come I could do it before but not now?'

‘I don't like you riding around at night,' said Ann, inadequately.

‘I don't see it as a problem,' said Slater.

‘You don't!' challenged Ann, looking directly across the dinner table at him as she had at their earlier breakfast dispute.

‘No, I don't!' echoed Slater, facing her just as determinedly. He was totally aware of Ann's fear – just as he was totally aware she would never be able to lose it – but if it went unchecked or unopposed it would grow and become worse.

‘What's the matter? I don't understand!' protested the boy, looking anxiously between his parents.

‘Nothing's the matter!' said Slater, just as urgently, remembering the nonsense of David imagining he and Ann might be breaking up. ‘As you said the other night, there's a lot happening … a lot your mom and I have to fit in at the moment.'

David continued to look doubtfully between his mother and father. ‘It all just comes down to my taking my bike to practice tomorrow, so you can both get on with what else you both have to do.'

‘It does,' agreed Ann, with the same belated recall as Slater.

‘So it's fixed then!' persisted David.

‘Unless I can get there in time to pick you up; fit your bike in the trunk,' capitulated Ann. ‘If I don't, you call me at the gallery, the moment you get home, OK?'

‘I'll do better than that,' grinned David. ‘I want to see what all the big deal is about; why we're suddenly famous. I'll stop by the gallery on my way back. How's that?'

‘Perfect!' accepted Ann.

Which was exactly the word Mason muttered aloud to himself the following morning when he saw David leave home not to collect his friend and catch the school bus but on his bicycle, hunched beneath his backpack. It was Wednesday, Mason realized. Most probably after-school practice night.

Seventeen

J
ack Mason's knuckles stretched white with the force with which he had to grip the steering wheel to stop the sudden shaking in his hands. His left leg began to pump up and down as well and he needed to use his trembling left hand to press down to stop that, too. He was glad he hadn't tried immediately to drive away. It took several minutes for the tremors to stop – in his leg first – but he remained hunched forward, holding on, to make sure they didn't erupt again. He wasn't frightened, he told himself; not too nervous, unable to do it. Ridiculous to have thought it. It was anticipation: excited anticipation. Better now. Had to think now. Plan everything in sequence. And he had all day in which to do it. All day to put everything in place and make sure nothing went wrong.

Mason watched his hand, reaching out to the ignition. Steady as a rock. Everything was all right now, he decided, picking up the road back to Chesapeake, his mind clear, mentally ticking off what he had to do and the order in which he had to do it. First rule before initiating any intelligence operation was to guarantee an escape. So he had to be ready, no loose ends left dangling, the moment he made the hit. Which remained an uncertainty. The shaking – anticipation, not nervousness, he told himself again – had been a fucking nuisance. If there hadn't been that reaction he could have followed the kid, ensuring that he really was cycling to school. Too late now. Now he had to stay with the assumption that it was going to be another delayed return home, possibly involving training indicated by last week's sports bag and that for some reason his father couldn't that night pick him up. Assumption after assumption, Mason recognized. Second rule before initiating an intelligence operation: assume as little as possible, confirm as much as possible. Nothing he could do about that, either. It looked like his best shot and he had to go with it. But be ready to abort, at the first indication of danger.

Mason's mind jumped forward at the word, at the thought of what would be the most dangerous moment for him afterwards, glad he hadn't cleared the town but wishing he'd begun to look earlier, at the first thought of escape. Mason forced himself to remain calm, which became even more difficult after he detoured to pick up David's obvious and most direct route between the school and Hill Avenue and failed to find anything remotely suitable within the necessary walking distance of the shopping precinct. He was luckier retracing the parallel routes, isolating a ramp to an overpass that in turn led on to the interstate link, again curbing his impatience at the necessity to park and examine its possibilities on foot. In the cavern created beneath the ramp was the predictable bedstead and old chair dumping place, additionally littered with the empty bottles and several identifiable syringes and cooking spoons of an improvised shelter and shooting gallery for druggies and winos, although at that moment it was empty. It stank of stale piss. Mason estimated that the search had delayed him by forty-five minutes and decided against looking any further, adding more unpredictability to his list.

He'd hardly bothered to unpack and needed less than five minutes to clear the fishing cottage, leaving his laptop as the last item to go into the car's trunk so he could access his monitoring sites. Nothing had been added to the correspondence he'd already read, the letter to Patrick Bell the only one outstanding. The letting agent was in his office when Mason stopped to return the key with a story of his sudden and unexpected recall to New York. With only four days to go before the expiry of the three-week rental he didn't, of course, expect any refund adjustment. The only telephone calls had been incoming, so the utilities deposit would be more than adequate but if it wasn't any extra could be deducted from the inventory down payment. He'd call to tell the man where to send any balance, with no intention of doing so or expecting it; whatever the amount was – $450 maybe – was a lost business expenditure. The realtor said he hoped Mr Peterson had enjoyed himself sufficiently to visit again and offered his card and Mason said he might well do that.

Mason stayed in Lexington Park long enough to buy six plastic jerry cans at a supermarket, as well as an almost forgotten but necessary copy of the
Frederick News-Post
, but he only stopped twice on his way to Annapolis, limiting himself to just one gallon of petrol at each gas station to avoid attracting attention by bulk buying. He still arrived before noon, so sure he was well up to schedule that he allowed an hour for lunch, not sure when he'd be able to eat again. He found a store selling phone cards for the necessary untraceable calls he had to make on the same street as an American Express travel office and bought one to the value of fifty dollars. At the travel office he booked another ‘red eye' flight to San Francisco, the last out that night from Washington's Dulles airport.

He decided to use the card from the main post office in Annapolis and made his first call to Patrick Bell, prepared for the conversation by having read the Pennsylvania Prison authority response the previous night but more intent upon establishing a double insurance alibi for what was to happen later that day. He was sure there was no way he could be linked to David Slater but the one unanswered, hovering question was whether he had been picked up on the CCTV.

‘Sorry I haven't been in touch before,' Mason opened. ‘I'm calling from the West Coast. San Francisco.'

‘What are you doing there?'

‘Job hunting. I'm thinking of relocating, like I told you. The parole authority know all about it. They think it's a good idea.' Caught by an after-thought Mason added hurriedly, ‘I haven't even had time to check my Post Office box.'

‘Any luck?'

So he hadn't missed a letter, Mason realized, relieved. ‘It's looking good but nothing definite. What about the compensation claim?'

‘They're offering a non-liability payment of $5,000,' said the lawyer.

‘They can stick it up their ass!' dismissed Mason, his reply ready.

‘That's what I thought you'd say.'

‘By making the offer they're actually admitting liability, aren't they?' Mason had expected the approach to be rejected outright.

‘I think so,' agreed the attorney.

‘So it's a bluff. And a cheap one at that,' said Mason. ‘So we call it, like we've already agreed.'

‘If those are your instructions,' accepted Bell.

‘They are.'

‘What sort of figure will you accept?' asked the lawyer.

‘Their best,' said Mason. ‘We'll talk about it when we see their response to the threat of a court case.' And which I'll read before I telephone you, he thought.

It was ten thirty in the morning, California time, when Mason made the call to Beverley Littlejohn's San Francisco office. ‘Where have you
been?'
she gushed, the moment she recognized his voice. ‘I didn't know what was happening!'

‘Legal things, my mother's estate,' said Mason. ‘I'm coming back out.'

‘When?'

‘Tonight. You want to see if Santa Barbara is vacant? We could go down late on Friday.'

‘If I took Friday off we could go down late tomorrow … if you wouldn't be too tired, that is.'

‘I won't be too tired, not until after I've said hello,' promised Mason, heavily. ‘I've fixed it with Glynis, so there's no need to talk to her, OK?' He was glad this was the last time they were going to be together. She had her use as a good fuck but he didn't like the claustrophobic cloying.

‘You sure?'

‘Of course I'm sure!'

‘OK. Please don't get angry.'

Shut up, for Christ's sake, Mason thought. Aloud, softly, he said, ‘I'm not angry. I'll see you tomorrow. I'll come to the apartment.'

‘I'll be there.'

Mason made four separate gas station stops on his way back to Frederick, only just able to close the trunk after the last petrol can. A feeling of sickening emptiness, as if he needed to eat, settled in his stomach as he got close to the town and he gripped the wheel more tightly, but there was thankfully no repetition of that morning's shaking. He drove up Hill Avenue and past Slater's seemingly deserted house to loop on to the cross street and get the space next to the corner slot in which the 4x4 was customarily left. The Cherokee swept in precisely on time, the Latino owner walking immediately away without glancing at the car next to him. By the time the Volkswagen arrived Mason had established that there was no telltale alarm light flashing on the Cherokee's dashboard and that there was a lot of encouraging rust, particularly around the door lock and sill.

Mason remained where he was for a further fifteen minutes, psyching himself up as he pulled on the latex gloves, waiting for the school bus to arrive. David wasn't among those who disembarked, although the overweight friend was. Mason wished the empty hollowness would go but it didn't. He'd positioned the car perfectly to hide what he was doing when he thrust the door open. The rusted door lock collapsed inwardly at the first thrust of the hollow pipe against it. There was no scream from a disturbed alarm. It took him just minutes to transfer the petrol cans between the two vehicles, still hidden by the open door. The Cherokee ignition caved in after two heavy jabs from the pipe and fired the moment he crossed the wires behind the automatic steering wheel lock, which released immediately.

As he drove, unchallenged, out on to the highway Mason wrinkled his nose at the stink of cat's piss, worse than the smell beneath the road ramp. It had to be that making him feel sick, not the empty sensation in his stomach.

‘I'm not going to make it,' said Slater. ‘The assessor's been delayed. We haven't properly started yet.'

‘Neither am I,' said Ann. ‘I phoned the school. Got a message to David about him stopping off at the gallery. I wish I could have got there.'

‘It'll be all right.'

‘I know,' said the woman. ‘It's just …'

‘I can't see my getting home much before eight.'

‘I guess I'll be about the same time. I'll phone the house later and tell David, if he doesn't stop by. Maybe he could eat with Brad. I might suggest that to him and then call Cathy to see if it would be all right. I should have thought about it last night.'

‘That's a good idea. How's Andre?'

‘Very flattering. They want me to go on camera with him at the end. It's embarrassing.'

She hadn't refused, Slater recognized; that was a good sign. ‘I don't think it's embarrassing. Go for it.'

‘You think you're going to get the contract?'

‘The guy's talking as if it's part of the assessor agreeing the extra cover … he's just walked through the door! I've got to go. Tell David I want to hear what it's like to be trained by a professional instead of me.'

‘I'll see you about eight.'

‘I love you.'

‘I love you too.'

Mason didn't want to turn the engine off. How to hot-wire a car in an escape emergency, which he'd remembered perfectly, had been part of a CIA training session, coupled with the warning that a constantly running engine attracts attention. What he couldn't recall was if an engine would start a second time if it were turned off. He could only guess – wildly – at when David would emerge, although there were several obvious parent-collecting cars around the immediate entrance, from which Mason was parked at least twenty-five yards away. Mason let the engine idle for ten minutes before abruptly disconnecting the wires. He was at his most exposed, at the wheel of a stolen vehicle, loaded with six gallons of petrol and with the break-in equipment on the seat beside him; avoiding attention or curiosity from the other waiting vehicles, from anyone, was more important than the expected opportunity. If it wasn't possible it had to be aborted, some other way of attack found. His stomach was in turmoil, his mouth clamped tight against the need to throw up, his hands occasionally twitching, although not enough to hinder him making tapers from the local newspaper. Two waiting parents, a man and a woman, were talking by their cars, appearing to look directly at him. Mason didn't have any lights on, and was sure they wouldn't be able to see him or make out the mud-smeared registration. No way they could have heard the vehicle was stolen. The smell of cat's piss was stuck in his throat, in his mouth, and he retched, the sound coming out like a belch. His mouth was sour, filthy. He could do it. Had to do it. Couldn't back off now. Come on, you long-legged little asshole! For Christ's sake come on! Where was the brat?