I ran until my lungs caught fire, and even then I kept staggering forward through the undergrowth. I could barely see what was in front of me, the moon all but obscured, but it was better that way, some protection in the darkness.
I stumbled up against the trunk of a red pine and clung on to keep myself upright, sucking down air as fast as I could. I looked back but the woods behind me were quiet, no sign of anyone. I couldn’t square what I’d seen and what I’d heard. Didn’t matter now; all I wanted was to get to a telephone before Tindall.
I took off again, Barrett’s gun still locked in my grip. Best guess, I’d headed south away from Coughlin’s house, and I kept going in that direction in the hope I’d come out on Park, the same road we’d taken out of town. Helped that the land sloped gently downwards – the path of least resistance.
It felt like I ran all night. Lizzie was with me all the way – but not how I wanted her to be; terrible images of hooded men seizing her in the dead of night, then of her body, snapped and broken like a discarded plaything. I remembered how Alice’s corpse looked on the railroad tracks in Texarkana, and saw it now with Lizzie in her place.
There was a noise ahead, and suddenly I passed through the tree line and was on a road. My feet went from under me on the new surface and I crashed to the asphalt. I pushed myself up and tried to get my bearings, but it was a road surrounded by the woods, could’ve been anywhere.
Seeing no cars in either direction, I gulped down some air and started running along the verge, hoping I was heading north, back to where I’d left Barrett’s LaSalle. One dread thought broke through my Lizzie nightmares: Layfield was in these woods somewhere. Running. Desperate. If he saw me first, I’d be dead before I even heard the shot.
I kept moving. After a half-mile or so, I came to the turnoff that led to Coughlin’s. There were no headlamps on the lane, nothing moving as I sprinted past it. I sped up, knowing I was close now, running on empty.
I almost fell to my knees with relief when I saw the LaSalle. I leaned against the chassis, gasping for air. I lifted my head to scan the area around me, but the road and the trees and the night were still.
I got in and checked the glove compartment. Layfield’s gun was still there, wrapped in my handkerchief. It felt like an empty victory; I wasn’t sure it even mattered any more. One way or another, I didn’t think Layfield would ever see the inside of a courtroom.
*
I redlined the engine heading back to town. The liquor store with the blinking sign was the first place I came across I thought might have a telephone. I burst through the door, startling the woman behind the counter. The blood on my shirt drew her eye as I approached. I pulled out my wallet and tossed a bill down in front of her. ‘I need to make a call, my wife is in danger.’ I looked over her shoulder, saw a telephone on a desk in a small room at the back.
‘What on— What manner of danger?’
‘Please, I don’t have time.’ I lifted the countertop to step inside, but she took hold of it to stop me.
‘You been drinking, mister?’
‘They’ll kill her. There are men coming to take her—’ I dipped my head, choking up. When I looked up again, my eyes were wet. ‘Please, ma’am. Please. This is my only chance . . .’
She looked shocked to see me dissolve in front of her. She eyed me a second longer, then lifted the countertop herself. ‘So you know, I keep a Winchester right here – case you was of a mind to take liberties.’ She pointed to the rifle stashed next to her stool.
I snatched up the receiver and asked the operator to place a call to our home line in Venice Beach. The woman at the desk stared at me openly as I waited for the connection. A clock on the wall ticked the minutes away, playing on my nerves. Pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up—
‘My apologies, sir, but there’s no answer on that line.’
My insides turned to liquid. ‘Try again.’
I counted off almost a minute. The operator came back, ‘I’m sorry, still no—’
‘Try the offices of the Pacific Journal. Please.’ I reeled off the number.
When the call went through, it was a voice I didn’t recognise that answered.
‘This is Charlie Yates calling for Lizzie Yates.’
‘I’m afraid she’s not here, Mr Yates.’
‘When did you see her last?’
‘I’m not sure I could say. I believe she’s off today.’
‘Is Acheson there?’
‘Mr Acheson is in his office.’
‘Go get him.’
‘Well, I don’t know—’
‘Go get him now. Tell him it’s urgent.’
She made a clucking sound, then said, ‘Very well.’
In my mind I saw them come for Lizzie, snatching her off the sidewalk as she arrived home. I told myself she was more use to them alive than dead. It was grim solace.
‘Charlie?’
‘Buck, I’m looking for Lizzie.’
‘What’s wrong, you sound frantic?’
‘Buck, have you seen her? This is serious.’
‘No, I haven’t seen her today. You’ve tried the house?’
‘She’s not answering. I need you to send someone over there. I don’t know what I’ve done.’
‘Done to whom? Slow down and tell me—’
‘Send a man, right now. If she’s there, bring her back to the office and don’t let her out of your sight.’
He hesitated a moment, then I heard him press the receiver against his chest as he issued a muffled instruction to one of the staff. Then he came back on the line. ‘I’ve sent Bunny Edwards.’
It felt like I could breathe again for the first time in an hour. ‘Thank you. Tell him to be careful.’
‘Charlie, is this a matter for the police?’
‘No. No cops.’
‘Because if she’s in some kind of danger . . .’
‘I don’t trust them to do anything.’ The part I didn’t say: I don’t know where this leads any more. I asked the clerk for the liquor store’s number and recited it to Acheson. ‘Call me back on that line as soon as you hear from Edwards.’
‘What if she’s not there?’
I held my face in my hand. ‘Have him call you straightaway.’
*
It was a ten minute drive from the Journal to our apartment. I stood over the telephone, feeling like my nerves were being stripped away a fibre at a time. The clerk watched me, her curiosity obvious, but saying nothing.
I jumped when it rang. In the split second before I picked up, I tried to gauge if the time elapsed indicated good or bad news.
‘Yates.’
‘Charlie, it’s Buck. She’s not answering the door.’
I slammed my fist onto the desktop, making the clerk jump.
‘Edwards said the lock has been forced. He’s holding on the other line, he’s asking if he should go inside.’
I felt riven. ‘Yes. Tell him not to disturb anything.’
He went away and came back. ‘He’s doing it, he’s going to call right back. Charlie, what in god’s name is going on?’
‘The men I’m investigating here were behind the burglary. It was a warning shot. They wanted me gone, and now they’ve threatened Lizzie.’
‘How . . . how is that possible?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t— Jesus, Buck, what do I do?’
‘Keep your head. You don’t know anything yet.’
He was right, but I had the same feeling in my gut as when Alice disappeared all those months before. One you never forgot; the feeling that she was never coming back. ‘When did you see her last?’
‘She was at the paper yesterday. She seemed . . . she was fine.’
Something sudden. A bad sign.
He started talking away from the receiver and I closed my eyes, waiting, gripping a fistful of my hair.
I felt a touch on my forearm, opened my eyes and saw the clerk had laid her hand there in a gesture of concern.
A telephone rang on Acheson’s end. Someone shouted over to him, but I couldn’t make out the words. Then he called down the line. ‘There’s no one there. It’s empty.’ The relief in his voice was evident, but I didn’t feel any of it. ‘Bunny says the place is a wreck, though, Charlie. I’m going to call the police, it’s the only course. If someone’s taken her . . .’
I said nothing, my thoughts crowded out by a barrage of brutal images. He took my silence as agreement.
‘What are you going to do now?’
I put my hand on the wall, my arm trembling with adrenaline. ‘I’m going to find out if they have her. Then I’m going to get her back.’
‘Where can I reach you?’
‘You can’t. I’ll call you.’ I went to hang up, then thought again. ‘Wait. She’s got a cousin in Arizona. Phoenix.’ The place she ran to after Texarkana. A shot in the dark. ‘Get in touch with her, would you? Just in case. I don’t know her number but her name’s Clemence Anderson, she lives on Encanto Boulevard—’
‘We’ll track her down for you.’ He couldn’t hide the pity in his voice.
‘Thanks, Buck.’
‘Charlie?’
‘What is it?’
‘Try to stay calm. Don’t let your fears run away with you on this.’
‘It’s too late for that.’
I set the receiver down, clinging to the hope that Tindall might still make a deal to spare Lizzie: Layfield’s gun for her life. I didn’t like the chances; easier for him to lure me with her and kill us both. Except—
Except that he let Layfield escape without firing a shot. And the same for me – maybe. I was sure he’d seen me in the bushes; he could have put a bullet in me before I ran. Just maybe that meant Layfield – and therefore the murder weapon – still had value to him. Even after he’d taken that pot-shot at Coughlin.
I picked up the telephone one more time and called the Southern Club.
A man answered. His voice was partly drowned out by the band in the background, but I could hear enough to make out his accent wasn’t local – sounded more like Chicago.
‘This is Yates calling for William Tindall.’
The man paused, and I thought I heard him talking to someone. The music came over clearer. A slow number – Vaughan Monroe’s arrangement of ‘The Things We Did Last Summer’.
‘Mr Tindall isn’t available for calls.’ Odds on: Tindall was there, told him to say it.
‘He’ll want to talk to me.’
‘Then he’ll talk to you when he’s good and ready.’ The inflection in his voice said he knew all about my business.
‘Listen, you son of a bitch, you tell him—’
The line went dead.
I dropped the receiver and slumped against the wall.
The clerk was looking at me, wringing her hands. She looked scared and sympathetic all at the same time. I nodded to say thanks and made my way to the door, thinking about going straight to the Southern Club to speak to Tindall. It felt like the worst play I could make, but I couldn’t see an alternative.
Then another thought: get the message delivered in person. An insider. Someone who could walk right up to Tindall without suspicion. Someone who owed me.
I opened the door to a night that was bleaker than any I could remember. I felt the pull of Barrett’s gun in my pocket, started shaking when I thought about what I’d done already, and the lengths I was willing to go to before the sun rose again.