Shallow Graves

least drink like a man.”
    “Fuck you, Pellam,” he wheezed.
    “You tried that. It didn’t work. Drink.”
    When he’d gotten down five, six good mouthfuls, Pellam took the bottle and threw it, open, into the GT.
    “Aw, shit, what you want to do that for?”
    “Well, I’ll tell you. I’ve evened things up a bit. You’re a little bigger’n me but now you’re a littledrunker. So we’re driving out of town and I’m going to whip your ass one on one.”
    “You got that gun.”
    “I’ll leave it in the car. Drive out toward the highway to the forest preserve. I’ll be right behind you. Don’t try to get away. I’ll be aiming for the tires but I might hit your gas tank.”
    “You asshole,” the boy muttered as he got into the car. The big Pontiac engine exploded to life and Nick pumped the accelerator.
    They pulled out of downtown, the camper right behind the GT.
    It turned out even better than Pellam’d thought it would be. They’d gotten two miles out of town, to the stoplight, when Nick did just what Pellam knew he was going to do: Looked for cross traffic, slipped the clutch and shot through the red light, running up through the gears with his fancy shifter, sounding like a buzz saw.
    The boy was probably in fourth when the state trooper Pellam had seen on his way into town, hidden in the bushes, a speed trap, started to pull out.
    Nick came within two or three inches of taking the front end of the trooper’s Chevy with him.
    Pellam drove slowly past the scene of the arrest. Then past the sign that said Welcome to Cleary and continued into the blackness.
    Good night, officer.
    Good night, sir. . . .
    PELLAM TURNED THE camper off Barlow Mountain Road, and eased along an overgrown side road up the hill that he supposed was Barlow Mountain. He nosed the Winnebago forward into a clump of hemlocksthen killed the engine. He pulled the Colt out from under the seat and slipped it into his waistband then stepped outside. His boots made gritting taps as he walked along the asphalt toward the warm yellow house lights that glowed in the fog, a quarter mile away.
    A hundred yards from the house he made his way off the road into brush and sparse woods. He smelled wet pine and ripe leaves. A hit of skunk. He saw the glistening lights reflecting on a lake to his right. A late, lone cicada made its deceptively cheerful sound and somewhere a dog barked. He moved slowly toward the house, stepping around branches.
    The house was a rambling old monster, easily two hundred years old. A drab, ugly brown, Plymouth Rock chic. He heard water lapping and saw the lake clearly; it came right to the edge of the property. The dog barked again, the sound rolling across the lake. There was no other noise or motion, not even wind. The house was still and the lights were dim; Pellam wondered if they’d been left on while the residents were out to discourage the potential intruders that Pellam now understood Ambler would have good reason to worry about—the state police, for instance.
    He thought of the drugs that had been planted on Marty—and on him—and the odd heroin Sam had taken. He recalled that Meg or someone told him about other overdoses and murders in the area. Ambler was responsible for it all . . . and desperate to make sure a movie wasn’t made here, drawing all sorts of unwanted attention to Cleary.
    He knelt in the grass and felt the cold dew through his denim. After five minutes, during which he saw nomotion, he ran in a crouch to the separate garage, a two-story saltbox, and looked in the window. Only one car inside, a Cadillac. And there was an oil stain on the concrete, about ten feet to the left of the Caddie, which told him that Ambler had two cars.
    A family out to dinner on Sunday night? Probably. But even when he walked to the house Pellam stayed in the shadows and edged up to the first-floor windows slowly. He bobbed his head up and looked in one quickly, seeing small rooms, decorated with rough, painted furniture, wreaths of dried flowers, primitive Colonial paintings of spooky children and black-clad wives—everything stiff and spindly and uncomfortable.
    He saw no movement at all.
    The windows, he noticed, were mostly unlocked.
    The third room was the one he wanted.
    It was dark paneled and inside were two large gun cabinets, glass faced, set against the wall. Several trophies were mounted near the low ceiling—a couple of antelope and a good-pointed buck. But they were on one wall only,