(48)

I knew Ronnie was coming by later, but I didn’t have time for that. I had to call her.

I went to the front door. The wood around the frame was cracked. I pushed the door to. It hung awkwardly, but it was some barrier against the howling wind and the blinding rain.

I called Ronnie at the cop shop, trying to sound friendly and not scared. I had to be careful who I talked to and how I talked. A nice lady, maybe the young lady I had met the first day I’d gone into the cop shop, said she wasn’t in, that she was working something, but they’d give her the message when she was back inside her car with her radio.

When I hung up, I only took a minute to consider. I couldn’t wait because Mrs. Chandler couldn’t wait. They might not have bothered with taking her to the country club; she might already have given them information about the files I planned to steal. She might have told them where Bert’s Moonshine Castle was or she might’ve said I had the files, and I did have the important ones.

I couldn’t blame her either way.

*  *  *

With the ax handles in the back seat, the pistol shoved down under my shirt at my spine, the shotgun on the passenger seat beside me next to the flashlight, I drove through bullets of rain over to Buck’s garage.

There was a light on in the office window, to the side of the building.

I parked, got out, and tried the door. It was locked.

By the time I waded through the downpour to the office window, I was drenched and damn near blind from the rain.

I tapped on the window.

No answer. I tapped again.

Nothing.

All right. Who was going to be at work in this weather anyway?

It was me and my weapons and a sinking certainty in my belly that tomorrow they would pull out that insurance policy that would be filed somewhere, and in a few days, I’d turn up bloated and fly-swarmed, and they’d be cashing checks. Kate and Jack Sr. touching champagne glasses together, Judea sleeping nearby with his oxygen mask over his face. Jack Jr. chuckling over his garrote.

When I got back to the car, there was a shape next to it. Someone, I couldn’t tell who, until Buck said, “Who are you? Don’t get funny. I got a gun.”

“It’s me, Buck.”

Buck flicked on a flashlight and I couldn’t see anything but a ball of wet light.

“Damn, Danny. What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.”

“Let’s sit in your car,” he said.

When he climbed in, he saw the shotgun and moved it to the back seat with the ax handles.

“Either you have a plan in mind or you are terribly paranoid,” he said, sliding wetly onto the seat, resting what I knew to be Jefferson Davis’s revolver on his knee.

“Why are you out in the rain?” I said.

“You tapping on the window. I didn’t know who that was. And after what I heard from you and Jeff, I was being cautious. Snuck out the back way and came around.”

“Listen, Buck. I have no right to ask you, but I need your help, and if you can’t, you can’t, but I couldn’t think of anything else. And I’m scared.”

“Help for what?”

I told him about Mrs. Chandler. Told how I had to get some of those files as well.