Monday morning, 6:30 a.m. Billy Rain woke up with a start. He hadn’t slept well—sleeping was one of the things that everybody else in the world seemed able to do, but not him. He hadn’t slept properly since he was a kid, and last night wasn’t any different: Nathan Quinn and the continuous coverage of the Blue Ridge murders had not done much to improve his sleeping patterns.
After coming back from the bar, he had knocked himself out with some sleeping pills, seeking at least for a few hours the comfort of that blessed darkness. He came to, drowsy and thirsty. The dim light in the gloom of his one-room apartment came from a neon sign on the outside of the building that flashed yellow on the floor above him.
He had a carton of milk in the fridge. His six-foot-four frame could cover the length of the room in three steps. He slid one leg out from under the covers, and his foot touched the tiled floor.
“Stay down,” the voice said, and Billy felt a thump as if he’d been hit in the chest. He stayed down.
“I have thirty dollars on me, no plastic, my wallet is on the dresser. Take it and leave.”
He could hear him but not see him. Someone stood up from his armchair. Billy heard the springs creak and footsteps crossing to the chest of drawers in the corner. The table lamp was switched on.
“Oh, fuck,” Billy whispered as John Cameron sat back in the armchair.
“Billy Rain,” Cameron said.
Billy nodded and sat up, grabbing the covers around him while his heart pounded away. He shouldn’t have called Quinn. Fuck the reward; he shouldn’t have gotten involved.
“Do you know who I am?”
Billy nodded.
“I would like you to tell me what you told Nathan Quinn. Everything you remember, everything you know. Can you do that?”
Billy nodded.
“Do you want a glass of water?” Cameron asked him, and for a moment he flashed back to another time, to a night somewhere in his distant past and a man about to die.
“Okay.”
“Stay down. I’ll get it. You’re doing fine. Just relax, and don’t be a fool.”
Cameron took a clean glass from the sink and poured some water from the tap. He put the glass on the nightstand and went back to the chair. Billy picked up the glass and drained it.
“Do I need to tell you what will happen if you lie to me?”
“No.”
“Good. Start at the beginning, and tell me everything.”
“You want to know what I saw?”
“Everything.”
“Okay.” Billy took a deep breath and went into it. John Cameron listened without taking his eyes away from him, the words seeming not so much heard as absorbed.
Billy had calmed down a little. For years every detail of that day had been a tiny hook caught in his skin. It all came out like poison.
“You’re doing well,” Cameron said. “You mentioned it happened in the laundry. Is that where you normally worked?”
“Yes, it was my second month there. It’s part of the rehabilitation program—it was a rotation. You learn a skill, and then you get a job when you get out.”
“Everybody was on the same rotation? I mean, Rabineau and the man who was killed?”
“Yes, it was a group of ten inmates from my block. Before the laundry we were in the kitchen.”
“The kitchen,” John Cameron said.
“Four months of washing trays.”
Cameron looked as if he’d gone away for a second there, and Billy found the silence unbearable. He continued. “It works for some; they get jobs in restaurants or whatever. It didn’t work for me.”
“No,” Cameron said as he suddenly stood up. “You work in your brother-in-law’s garage.”
That was more than Billy would have liked him to know. Cameron headed for the door.
“Is that all?” Billy said. “Are we done?”
“You can keep your wallet,” John Cameron replied, and he was gone, the door closing softly behind him. Billy, quick out of bed, locked it gently and leaned with his back against it, eyes closed.
John Cameron looked left and right: the narrow corridor was empty, all four other doors shut. He left the building and took a left into the alley behind it. It was no more than a twenty-foot-wide gash between the brick walls; the frost had sealed the litter on the ground, and it crunched under his boots. He dialed a number from memory.
“Donny? It’s Jack.”
Donny O’Keefe took a sip of his coffee. “I thought you might call,” he said. “You spoke to Nathan?”
Cameron thought of their last conversation, and he realized that Quinn had known since last night. “Tell me exactly what you told him; I need to hear it from you.”
O’Keefe did as he was asked, because Harry Salinger had worked in his kitchen, and he had not seen it, not until last night, and now, in spite of himself, he was glad that Cameron had called.
Cameron drove home. He had ditched the Jeep after Poulsbo, thinking, quite correctly, that the entire Seattle Police Department would be after the guy who had smashed Detective Rosario into a wall and driven away through the police blockade. The red GMC pickup had been on standby. It was a little battered and worn; in the back a few crates of building equipment were covered by a tarp in case anybody wanted a peek. On the side it read SCOTT CARPENTRY SEATTLE in white letters.
Cameron had liked the Jeep and had been sorry to get rid of it. It was the second car he had had to lose that week, but he hadn’t liked the Explorer quite as much.
He had decided that he would not think about Harry Salinger until he got home, until he could devote all his attention to how to find him and kill him. He could not afford to be distracted with a police cruiser stopped at the traffic light next to him, the driver seeing an unshaven, tanned face under a faded Seahawks baseball cap.
The light changed, and the cruiser took a right. Cameron made it home without a glitch. He poured himself some orange juice and dialed Quinn.
“I spoke to Billy Rain,” he said, and he knew that Quinn was bracing himself for bad news.
“You did?”
“Yes. He told me about the rehab program where they learn new skills for life on the outside, like kitchen work.”
“Yes.” Quinn had hesitated, but there was no point now.
“I just spoke with Donny,” Cameron continued.
“I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“Harry Salinger. We must have seen him dozens of times.”
“I know.” He had been thinking about little else since last night.
“Maybe we could have dinner tonight and talk things through.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Today I need you to stay put. Detective Madison is working on reversing your warrant and getting a lock on this guy.” This guy. “It’s almost over. Don’t go out, don’t talk to anyone, don’t do anything.”
“Sure.”
“Jack?”
“What?”
“Do you even know him?”
“No. I have no idea who he is.”
“I’ll call if I have any news.”
“You mean like last night when you found out his name?”
“I’m sorry. That’s just the way it has to be.”
“No, you’re not sorry. You’re my attorney. You were protecting me. And you’re very, very good at it. I’ll see you later.”
They hung up, and both knew they had just exchanged lies. Quinn would never tell him how to find Salinger, and he would never stop until he did.
Cameron ran himself a hot bath and took a couple of Tylenols; he had felt cold since his unscheduled swim last night. He took off his clothes and untied the holster on his ankle, took out the weapon, and placed it on a folded towel on the floor by the tub. The hot water felt wonderful.
He slid into it and let his head go under for as long as he could bear it. He didn’t know Harry Salinger, had never met the man before he had come to the restaurant, never heard his name mentioned by anybody before that morning. The first time he had ever laid eyes on the guy, he was wearing a waiter’s uniform, or maybe it was kitchen whites. He honestly could not remember. Harry Salinger was the black hole into which everything was disappearing, and Cameron came up for air.
He would find him. After all, he had found Billy Rain pretty quickly. Salinger might take a little longer, but when the two of them met face-to-face, he would get his answers, and Salinger’s reward would be swift and final.
It was all the compassion Cameron was willing to show him, and even so he was going to enjoy that moment a great deal. The dead stay dead, but we are allowed our small pleasures.