Praying for Sleep

away.
    The madman was oblivious to Heck and hiding in a stand of bushes overlooking the garage.
    Lord, he’s a monster, Heck thought, his face burning at the first sight of his quarry. He trained the Walther, still in the Baggie, on the man’s back. He flicked up the thumb safety and, walking as silently as he could, closed the distance between them. When he was thirty feet away Heck took a deep breath and called, “Hrubek!”
    The big man jumped and barked out a frightened, pathetic cry. He looked back through the streaming rain toward Heck, his eyes scanning the darkness.
    “I want you to lie down on the ground. Do it. I got a gun here.”
    Okay, Heck thought, he’s going to run. You going to shoot him or not? Decide now. Otherwise you chase him.
    Hrubek’s eyes darted and his tongue appeared, circling his open lips. He seemed like a confused bear, rearing in fright.
    Heck decided. Shoot. Park one in his leg.
    Hrubek ran.
    Heck fired twice. The bullets kicked up leaves behind the fleeing figure, who was covering ground like a wide receiver, dodging trees and crashing over saplings, falling, scrabbling through leaves then leaping to his feet again. He howled in fear. Heck pursued in a fast lope. Though Hrubek carried nearly twice Heck’s weight, he set a furious pace and kept his distance for a long ways. But slowly Heck began to gain.
    Then suddenly he cried out at a searing eruption of agony. A cramp seized his game leg from calf to hip. Heck dropped to his side, his leg out straight, twitching, muscles hard as oak. He contorted desperately, trying to find a position that would ease the pain. Slowly it subsided on its own, leaving him exhausted and breathless. When he sat up and looked around him Hrubek was gone.
    Heck rolled upright and stood, gasping. He scooped up his gun and hurried along the low ridge near where Hrubek had disappeared. Orienting himself, he located the house, a hundred yards away. Through the rain he saw a thousand trees and ten thousand shadows, any one of which might be hiding his prey.
    As he started toward the house, hurrying as fast as he dared on the trembling leg, Heck heard the gunshot not more than ten feet behind him. At the same time he felt, with more shock than pain, the tug of the bullet as it tore through his back. “Oh,” he gasped. He staggered a few steps, wondering why no one had ever suggested that Hrubek might have a gun. He dropped his pistol and looked down at the pucker of his work shirt where the hot bit of metal had exited.
    “Oh, no. Damn.”
    Dimly, in his mind’s eye, Trenton Heck saw his ex-wife Jill in her freshly pressed waitress uniform. Then, as in his actual life, she vanished from him quickly, as if she had far more important matters to attend to, and he dropped to his knees, falling forward and beginning an endless tumble down the hill of slick leaves.
     
    “Lis!” Portia called, as her sister returned to the kitchen and hung up the bomber jacket, shaking the water out of her hair.
    Glancing at Portia she locked the door then turned and stared into the backyard, which was just a blur in the heavy rain.
    “That noise,” Portia blurted.
    “What noise?”
    “Didn’t you hear it?” The younger sister paced, and wrung her hands compulsively. “It seemed . . . I mean, it wasn’t thunder. I thought there were gunshots. I was worried—where were you?”
    “I had trouble getting through the mud to the basement door. It was locked after all. Waste of time.”
    Portia said, “Maybe we should tell the deputy.” Lightning struck nearby and she jumped at the thunder. “Shit. I hate this.”
    It was fifty or sixty feet to the police car. Lis stood at the door and waved but received no response from the deputy. Portia said, “He can’t see you. Let’s go tell him. With the rain he might not’ve heard anything. All right, don’t look at me that way. I’m scared. What do you expect? I’m so fucking scared.”
    Lis hesitated then nodded. She put on the jacket again and a black rain hat that was Owen’s—more for camouflage than to protect her drenched hair. Portia pulled on the baseball cap and a navy-blue windbreaker—useless against the rain but less conspicuous than the slicker. Then Lis flung open the door. Portia stepped outside and Lis followed, clutching the gun in her pocket. They were immediately overwhelmed by the storm. They leaned into the torrent of rain and wind and struggled toward the car. Halfway there Lis’s hat