He could sympathize now with Benny. It wasn’t easy getting the car turned around. The ditches cut into his maneuvering space. Pulling a one-eighty meant a cumbersome five-point turn. But he got himself heading in the right direction, and the GPS unit seemed unbothered by the violent interlude and the change of driver, the chevron symbol leading him onward through the dark.
The SUV was nice to drive. Responsive and quiet, and the steering wheel had a button for everything. Stereo volume and station, cruise control, hands-free calling. He’d been worried about the phone timing out, not letting him back in again without a fingerprint, so he had it playing a video off the guy’s Facebook feed: highlights from Seinfeld, Marshall was pretty sure, the sound low and just the canned laughter audible every so often.
It took seven minutes to reach the GPS’s programmed destination. The chevron disappeared, and a message on the screen told him he’d arrived. It wasn’t clear what exactly he’d arrived at. This stretch of road appeared no different from the previous eight miles, dark and dense forest to either side, regular as wallpaper. Then he rounded a bend, and he saw the clearing beyond the left shoulder.
It was a graveled parking lot. He braked and swung in off the highway, details emerging piecewise in the slow sweep of the headlights. The mouth of a hiking track, a public bathroom, a low wooden sign with a Department of Environmental Protection logo. He stopped for a second and read it. There was a little stylized map, and an extensive range of symbols describing various prohibited activities. Maybe when they found out about all of this, they could add a couple to the list: no kidnapping, no murder.
The map had a you-are-here arrow, and emanating from its tip were two lines meandering away from each other at a right angle, more or less. One line was labeled TRACK and the other was labeled FIRE ROAD.
He took his foot off the brake and let the car roll on, and a second later the headlights found the entrance to the fire road. It was just a gravel track, deeply rutted, wending slightly uphill as it disappeared into the trees. There was a barrier arm supported by a bollard at each shoulder, but Marshall couldn’t see a lock. As far as he could tell, there was nothing to stop someone just swinging it aside.
The phone in the console beside him issued a sustained burst of canned laughter. He had it face-down so it wouldn’t light up the cabin. He held a hand up level so he could see it against the light of the windshield. Still a faint tremor. The phone issued another round of tinny laughter. He breathed carefully a few times, oddly distant from the jubilation. Then he backed the car around and parked where he had a sight-line to both the highway and the mouth of the fire road, shut off the lights but kept the engine idling.
He figured Frank Cifaretti and his people were on to a pretty good system: drive someone out here at midnight, bury them up the top of the fire road in the offseason. Probably be months before anyone else even went up there. He checked the phone. No messages. Still eighty-six percent battery. Chris had obviously been diligent with his charging. Marshall opened YouTube, and found a highlights reel of Jean LaPierre and Larry England at the ’ninety-seven Jigsaw Masters in Spokane. LaPierre had been tailing with a twelve-piece deficit, but then made it up in the closing seconds of the final quarter. The puzzles that year were all Claude Monet, and England seemed to hit a wall right at the finish. LaPierre though stayed cool through the whole thing, operating with surreal form and laying down pieces in no rush whatsoever.
Marshall had the shotgun leaning against the seat in the passenger footwell, the SIG pistol in his lap. Every so often he hit the turn signals, one side and then the other, using the glow to check he was still alone. The Masters replay was into the final minutes, the commentators almost drowned out by the crowd, Saul Tarrant shouting he’d never seen someone lay down a piece-chain that smooth.
He watched cars go past: shadows through the trees, and then the long blade of white out on the road, red taillights fading off into nothing. He worked the turn signals, and checked his mirrors in the jaundiced glow. Empty parking lot all around. The little dashboard clock numerals read 1:22. Marshall saw headlights, starry at first in the distance, and then dazzling as the car swung into the parking lot. It came broadside to him as it turned, materializing out of the glare, and Marshall saw it was the van from the flower shop last night. FRANK’S FLOWERS.
He started the engine and flicked on his lights. The van sat idling. Tempting to ram it. That would give them a fright. But there was no telling how many people were inside. He didn’t want to be stuck out here with a written-off SUV, having to face three or four people with automatic weapons. Except, why bring four people? It’d be Frankie C, and one other guy, maximum.
He thought about it another second, wondering too what questions were being posed behind the black glass of the other vehicle. Probably wondering why he was still sitting there.
Marshall had the SIG held low in his right hand. He reached across himself with his left, picked up Chris’s phone and composed a text message: WE’LL FOLLOW YOU.
He sent it to what he’d guessed was Frank Cifaretti’s number – the number Chris had called when they picked him up.
Nothing for a moment. Both vehicles sat waiting.
Then Marshall saw the glow behind the windshield of the flower van as his message was received. Driver’s side: Frank Cifaretti was at the wheel.
The light vanished. The flower van rolled on, nosed up to the barrier across the fire road. Marshall swung the SUV around and pulled in behind it.
The van’s front passenger door opened. A man climbed out.
Shortish, medium build, dark hair combed back and gleaming.
He walked up to the barrier arm and swung it open with a faint screech of metal, and when he turned to walk back to the van, Marshall saw the expression on his face: strange in its openness and innocence. Bright eyes and a red-lipped smile.
The smiley man got back into his seat and shut the door, and the flower van proceeded slowly up the track between the trees, grit crunching beneath its tires.
Marshall let the brake off, and followed.