A little after two A.M. on Monday morning, Daniel Clifford began what was in many respects a replay of his first visit to the ranch-style house in the small, upscale housing development off 16th Street in Moline, Illinois.
He again parked one street over, but tucked into an alley this time, and left the basket and machete in the parked Dart on the passenger seat. Rather than carry those items in a grocery bag, as he had on the last two visits, Daniel preferred—now that he knew Nolan and his new wife were back in the Cities— to concentrate on taking care of the pair before dealing with Maw’s need for a trophy.
What the youngest Comfort brother needed was his wits about him. Nolan was, even when taken unawares, a hardass who had apparently even gotten the best of brother Cole, who was after all one vicious son of a bitch. That Daniel must enter the house undetected, corner the couple in their bedroom, and dispatch the woman before disabling Nolan, was a dizzying prospect. Every time it played out in his mind, the part where he wounded and incapacitated Nolan refused to come to life. It stayed abstract, even absurd.…
So before tending to Maw’s grotesque request, Daniel would concentrate on the first orders of business—remove the woman, and clip Nolan’s wings before forcing from him the answer to the key question: What happened to Cole?
Wasn’t that enough to do?
Afterward, he could return for the basket and perform Maw’s grisly collection instructions, though that was the other step he couldn’t quite visualize. So he had stopped trying.
But at least this time around, Daniel knew Nolan and the girl were back from their Vegas jaunt. He had been there to greet them, in a way, going to the Moline airport and blending in with others on hand to greet loved ones and friends arriving home from their journeys. No risk to it—Nolan had never met or even seen Daniel. And vice versa being true, he’d decided to take the opportunity to get an in-person sizing-up look at them.
He had hoped that Nolan would just seem like a man to him, a human being like Daniel with assorted frailties like any member of the species…only that hadn’t been the case. Nolan looked like that actor in the Italian westerns—not Eastwood, but the mustached, narrow-eyed one. Dangerous, deadly. A devil in human form, which that casual summer attire didn’t diminish a whit. The wife was a beauty, curvy and pretty and self-confident.
He felt so out of league, compared to them.
But he could almost hear his Maw saying, They bleed and die like everybody else. Don’t be afraid, boy. Don’t be a fool. You’re a Comfort.
Daniel followed the couple to the riverbank restaurant where he’d dined that first night after making it to Moline. The eatery was crowded, and sitting alone in a corner at a tiny table made him feel conspicuous. But the honeymooners didn’t spot him. He might have been invisible. And this made him smile to himself. He might appear to be an insignificant mustached little man with thinning hair. But he knew something they didn’t, didn’t he?
He was in town to kill them.
This knowledge built his confidence, strengthened his resolve. He didn’t even puke up his meal this time.
After lunch, Daniel followed them home and saw the silver Trans Am turn into the housing development and then pull into the driveway. He drove on, not slowing, not giving himself away even a little bit.
Returning to the Starlite, he called his mother and told her that Nolan and the girl were finally back from Vegas and that tonight would be the night. He intended to drive straight to her place after the deed had been done and deliver her prize. Maw had, for once, sounded proud of him.
That afternoon he again tooled over to the Milan Cinemas and bought a ticket for one film—Poltergeist III—which he watched before sneaking into a second—Friday the 13th Part VII. A double feature like that required him stepping out into the lobby several times to smoke, and once to pee. He had popcorn and a Coke and Milk Duds and kept it all down. The horror movies didn’t scare him at all, and he didn’t jump once. Excitement was building in him.
Daniel returned to the Starlite Motel and called home and Heather talked dirty to him and he came gloriously into a warm moist washcloth. Marriage was wonderful. Heather was worth everything he was going through, and that privileged pair in their expensive rambling ranch-style digs were just going to have to sacrifice their happiness for the sake of the Cliffords.
After a post-orgasm Kent, he was even able to catch a nap, though he first called the desk and asked for a one A.M. wake-up call. And when that call came, he showered and shaved and shat, as if preparing for a night out with his honey back home, everything but aftershave. He got into the windbreaker, navy polo and matching khakis he’d worn that first night, a night he was now viewing as a dress rehearsal.
When he approached the house, the Trans Am was still in the drive, a quarter moon providing more illumination than previous visits. Again, no lights were on in the house. He checked for any signs of off-hours activity in the nearby houses, and found they were as dark and silent as this one.
But when he peeked into the double garage through its row of eye-level windows, he was taken aback by the absence of the Nissan ZX.
Why was the wife’s car gone?
Was that significant? If so, why exactly?
Troubled but not dissuaded, he headed around the house, down the sloping lawn, to the patio. Again, he used the lock picks, and was soon inside. The alarm had not been set, which seemed to confirm that the man of the house was almost certainly at home this time, even if his wife wasn’t—Cole’s notes made it clear Nolan did not set the alarm when one or both were at home.
Again, Daniel held the silenced .22 automatic in his right hand and the little flashlight in his left. Yet even without it, he might have navigated the finished basement in this darkness, as he was now used to the layout—the pool table, the bar, the TV area, the open stairway. The latter he went up slowly, switching off the flash. On the off chance Nolan had somehow got on to him, and was up there waiting, he would not tip his presence.
But as he searched the rest of the house, with the bright narrow beam clicked back on, he established fairly quickly that the place was empty. The master bedroom had not been slept in. The guest rooms also had their beds made. Closets held nothing but clothes. And the john was unoccupied, too—the shower stall empty.
When he panned the flash around the good-size bathroom, Daniel caught sight of something that initially did not grab his attention. Then he frowned and returned the beam to a small object on the counter by the sink.
A Starlite Motel matchbook.
At first all that got from him was a confused frown looking back at him in the bathroom mirror; but then he stared at the thing, agape. He realized with sudden clarity that he’d left the matchbook in the house, on one of his visits, and that Nolan had found it.
And now the king of this castle had left it out for Daniel to see, to let the intruder know that he was busted.
Panicking now, his confidence shattered like a dropped china cup, Daniel rushed out of the bathroom and moved fast, following his flashlight beam back up the hall and over to the stairs and then down them, hoping if he was quick enough Nolan wouldn’t jump out at him like Jason in Friday the 13th, no matter which number.
But if that did happen, Daniel was ready—he had the silenced .22 tight in his hand, arm pulled back with his inner forearm resting on his torso so that the gun couldn’t be easily swatted from his grip. He barreled down the stairs into the darkness of the finished basement, almost but not quite losing his balance, terrified that flowers of orange gunfire might blossom out of the blackness.
And when he slipped out into the night, shutting the glass door but not bothering to re-lock it, the world strikingly warmer than the air-conditioned inside, Daniel did a semi-pirouette, in case Nolan was waiting, the prey now become the hunter.
But nothing happened.
And the only sounds were crickets, night birds, and the occasional traffic on the thoroughfare nearby. That and his own heavy breathing, heavier even than it had been when Heather was encouraging him over the phone earlier.
On the way back to the car, gun still in hand but in his windbreaker pocket now, flashlight tucked away too, he made himself walk slowly, or at least held back from running—he did not wish to call attention to himself. And no car slowed, not even a police cruiser that spooked him.
That matchbook, that goddamn matchbook.
It had told Nolan where Daniel was staying. At the motel the bastard could have found out about the long-distance calls. Some of the calls had been to Heather at home, the others to Maw—how much might Nolan have figured out?
He got quickly into the Dodge Dart, tossing the silenced .22 onto the seat next to the basket and blade, got the car started, pulled out and swung left in an opening in traffic, heading toward 3rd Avenue, where he could catch I-74 over to Iowa.
As he headed down the 16th Street hill, through a mixed commercial and residential area, he would glance every so often into his rearview mirror, with such frequency that he almost rear-ended other drivers twice. The lights of a car behind him, seeming to stay right with him, might be Nolan taking pursuit.
That seemed at once ridiculously paranoid and all too real a possibility.
When the car neared him, Daniel could see it wasn’t a Trans Am at all, but a Buick Regal. And the driver was bald with glasses and certainly not Nolan.
Another car was behind the Buick, though, and it might be a Pontiac, it had those kinds of lines and shone under the street lights.
When Daniel cut over on a side street to start weaving his way over to 3rd, the Buick didn’t make the turn, which flushed him with relief; but then the other car came along for the ride. Daniel, still impulsively checking the rearview, saw that this was a Pontiac, all right, a Firebird. He picked up his pace, as best he could, hitting stop signs every few blocks, then he realized the Firebird wasn’t silver, but a metallic blue. And a woman was driving, heavyset and older, not Nolan’s bride.
His fucking imagination was fueling the paranoia.
Calming himself, Daniel crossed the westbound bridge over the Mississippi and halfway across, for the first time in as long as a minute, he checked the rearview mirror again, breathed a sigh, then a few moments later, did it again and almost threw on his brakes.
Nolan was sitting back there.
Arms folded, all in black, a big long-barreled revolver in his right hand, just kind of casually draped.
“Eyes on the road, Daniel,” he said calmly.
“What the fuck!” the driver said. “Nolan! How do you know my name?”
“How do you know mine?…Take River Drive to Davenport. That’s the way you were heading, anyway, right? Going back to St. Louis, but taking the Iowa side.”
Daniel kept looking at the calm face in the rearview mirror, angular features wearing unsettling shadows. “It was the matchbook. It was the fucking matchbook!”
Nolan’s nod was barely perceptible. “That and the smoking. My house smells like a bar before closing, thanks to you. Don’t you know smoking kills you?”
“How did you know what my car looked like?”
“A neighbor saw you. You’re not exactly subtle, Daniel.”
Nolan leaned up and Daniel stiffened, but his passenger was merely taking the silenced gun from the rider’s seat where it had been stuffed behind the basket and machete.
“Best remove temptation,” Nolan said.
They were on the downslope of the bridge.
Daniel said, “First sign of me on your property, you started looking for the car, right? Knew I wouldn’t park far away.”
“Right. A risk, but a small one.”
Daniel swallowed. “What now?”
They had turned off the bridge onto River Drive, a brightly lit commercial area.
“Keep driving,” Nolan said.
Then they were gliding along with the Mississippi at left and near-mansions to the right. The moonlight looked silver on the water. An air of timeless unreality seemed to settle over them.
As they moved past the village of East Davenport and under a railroad bridge, Daniel said, “Now what?”
Nolan said, “Straight on out. Past the downtown. Past Oscar Mayer. Then stay on 61 a while.”
Daniel was almost crying, hands gripping the wheel. “What… what do you want from me?”
Nolan’s voice could not have been more matter of fact. “I want the whole story. I know your last name’s Clifford, but your real one is Comfort. I don’t see much resemblance, but I’m guessing you’re Cole and Sam’s brother. Last Comfort standing… except for Mabel. Never met the lady, but she seems to know me. Of me, anyway.”
Daniel’s words came quick: “This was her idea. I didn’t want any part of it. She made me.”
Nolan’s face in the rearview frowned. “What are you, twelve?”
He was shaking his head. “No…no, I needed the money. Maw has a lot of cash stashed in that house. Doesn’t believe in banks. Shoe boxes, jars, canisters. She paid me to…to do this.”
“To do what, exactly?”
Daniel didn’t answer that, not directly. “She said if I didn’t do what she wanted, I was out of the will. That she’d leave everything to Pat Robertson and some goddamn chapel that makes cutesy kid figurines. And I need money now.”
“Tell me, Daniel.” Nolan’s tone was strangely unthreatening, as if, despite his fearsome features, he was sympathetic.
It all spilled out. The loans Daniel had faked, the bank examiner on the way, the old wives who wanted alimony and child support, the current wife who wanted nice things, the new house with the cost overruns. How Maw wanted Daniel to force Nolan to tell him what happened to Cole.
“Well, that’s easy,” Nolan said. “I killed him.”
Daniel frowned uncomprehendingly at the mirror. “But you and Cole were doing a job together! How could you kill one of your own crew?”
“Oh, it was no double-cross, Daniel. Cole blackmailed me into helping him pull a heist in my own back yard. Made me shit where I eat, which I don’t find appetizing.”
Daniel knew his late brother well enough to find that credible.
“Plus,” Nolan went on, “he kidnapped my woman—the one I just married. I told him if he so much as mussed her hair, I’d shoot him in the head.”
“What…what did he do?”
“He mussed her hair.…Make a right.”
A sign said WEST LAKE PARK—TWO MILES, then added in smaller letters beneath BOATING, HIKING, FISHING, SWIMMING. They moved through a deserted wonderland of glimmering lakes and trees reflecting ivory moonlight. Now and then there would be a turn-off.
Finally Nolan said, “Just another five minutes or so. It’s the upper tip of the park.…How were you going to make me talk, Daniel?”
Daniel avoided the rearview mirror. “Just, uh…you know. Hold you at gunpoint.”
An edge came into the backseat voice. “You’d have killed my wife, wouldn’t you? Right there in bed where she slept. And if I woke, you’d’ve put a couple of non-fatal rounds into me, to handle me better.…right?”
“No! No, never. Just…”
“Right. Like you said. Just hold me at gunpoint and I’d tell you everything…and then what?”
“Kill me,” Nolan said flatly. “You couldn’t leave me alive. And I’m guessing your ‘Maw’ doesn’t have a forgiving nature.”
“She doesn’t,” Daniel admitted. He let himself look at Nolan in the mirror again, and once more the words came fast: “What if I told her you were dead? And went in the house and kept her talking and you sneaked in? And killed her. Wouldn’t be hard. She’s an old woman with a walker. Do it quick so it doesn’t hurt. Then we go treasure hunting and split the money.”
“Kill your mother.”
Daniel raged at the mirror. “She’s a monster! She’s a witch! Do you know what she wanted me to—” He stopped himself.
Nolan smiled at the driver in the rearview. “Cut off my head? Put it in that pretty basket? Deliver it to her like flowers and a box of Russell Stover?”
Daniel said nothing.
The area on the northwest corner of the park was densely wooded off to the right. A graveled apron gave access to a trio of picnic tables, beyond which—starting up without preamble—a narrow gravel service road led into the woods. At night, not a soul was around.
“Pull in here,” Nolan said.
“Why?”
“It’s what your mother wanted.”
“What is?”
“I’m going to show you where your brother is buried.”