Rescue

a couple questions to ask you about my brother, Lonnie.“

24

    T he redhead spread-eagled me against the wall, frisk ing for the gun, which he found with no problem. “All right, inside.“
    Cody grunted. “Axel, you going to go first, or me?“
    The redhead took his weapon. “You first, Code. He gives you any trouble, snap his neck for him.“
    Cody said to me, V/Clear enough?“
    “Yes.“
    We entered the double bungalow, a smell of antiseptic and stale urine hanging in the air. There was a tiny foyer, just big enough for a desk with an old rotary telephone that had a lock through the 9-hole. A second door past the desk opened, and Clark from Mercy Lodge came through it. He was wearing Compound white-on-whites now, though.
    The crossed eyes. “Mr. Francis.“
    “ Clark .“
    He sat at the desk with the locked telephone as we went by it to the door he’d come through.
    Axel Severn said, “Inside again, Samaritan.“
    I opened the door, the mixture of antiseptic and urine stronger now. It was a short corridor ending in another T.
    Severn said, “Now down and to the left.“
    We moved past the T, and I saw a third door. Cody reached past me to knock twice, quite politely. The commanding voice from the other side said, “Bring the in -fidel to us.“
    The knob disappeared in Cody’s hand as he turned it and pushed.
    The room was about twelve feet by fifteen. There were three straight-back armchairs, but one was reinforced at the joints with steel elbows and bolted to the floor. That chair had leather straps for wrists and ankles, an improved version of Lonnie’s setup at the hunting camp in New Hampshire.
    Royel Wyeth sat in one of the straight-back chairs, a pad and pencil in front of him on a small writing table with a single drawer. He wore a white shirt and maybe the same blue suit. Lutrice Wyeth sat in another chair, a different gingham outfit on, her eyes glittering with spiritual anticipation or chemical enhancement.
    The Reverend said, “Sit down.“
    I said to Cody, “After you,“ and Severn rapped me in the right kidney with the butt of his rifle.
    I buckled but didn’t fall as Cody shoved me toward and into the bolted chair. He said, “You want me to strap him, Reverend?“
    “No.“ Wyeth turned his gaze on me, the madness crackling behind his eyes like the logs in Lonnie’s woodstove. “I wish to question him in a nat -ural state, for he appears not to be one of them himself.“
    I started to say, “One of what?“ when there was another polite knock on the door.
    Wyeth’s eyes never left me. “Come.“
    The door opened, and Sergeant Whit Tidyman joined us, still armed and not under guard. “Severn, you get his hide away gun?“
    “Calf holster.“
    Tidyman looked at me. “You check for other weapons, too?“
    “A course I did, even though I figured maybe you dressed him up to come here.“
    Wyeth said, “A x- el, no im- per -tinence.“
    “Sorry.“
    Tidyman said, “Reverend, with your permission?“
    “Yes, Whit.“
    The sergeant pointed. “All right, Francis, assume the position, that wall.“
    I stood up. “Not Billups, huh? You.“
    Tidyman used two hands to spin and push me against the wall. He did a much more thorough pat-down than Severn had, but didn’t find anything else.
    “Clean, Reverend.“
    Severn said, “I already told you that.“
    Tidyman used a pinch come-along hold on my elbow to move me back to the bolted chair and sit me into it. Then he went up to Severn, bumping him back a step with his chest. “Don’t you ever... ever mouth off to me again, boy, you hear?“
    Wyeth simply said, “Whit,“ and Tidyman backed away, Severn grinning a little.
    The Reverend looked at Tidyman and said, “Report, please.“
    “His rent-a-car’s behind my shed, so I don’t think anybody’ll spot it for a while. We can move it tonight to wherever makes sense, wipe it clean of prints so nobody can trace him, whoever he is. The deputies who tossed his room at the Lodge found some literature on the Church, which would have been a big help if Severn here hadn’t turned a simple killing into Friday the Thirteenth: Mercy Key.”
    “Cody and me was just trying to make it—“
    I filed that as Tidyman interrupted Severn with, “You even messed up the note.“
    “We made her set down and write it. She was glad to.“
    “The woman intentionally misspelled things on it.“
    “So what do you think I am, a schoolteacher?“
    Tidyman said, “Including her