Spencerville

directions, and he didn’t see any police cars, or in fact any vehicles, not even the Porters’ car in their gravel driveway. “Pull in here, Chuck.”
    Chuck pulled into the drive, and Keith said to him, “Thanks, buddy. This is it.”
    “This ain’t Lima.”
    “I guess not. There’s the sixty, and here’s twenty more. See you next time I’m in Toledo.”
    “Hey, thanks.”
    Keith opened the door and got out. He said, “I love this van.”
    “Ain’t she somethin’?”
    Keith moved quickly to the back of the house. There was no one in the herb gardens, but the back door was unlocked, and he went inside. He called out, but no one answered. Keith put his briefcase on the counter, locked the back door, then went around to the front door and bolted it.
    He went back to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took a bottle of orange juice and a bran muffin, which he ate as he drank the juice straight from the bottle. He finished both and felt his stomach heave, but managed to keep it all down. He was definitely not well and was operating on pure adrenaline and hate.
    He had no idea where the Porters were, or when they’d be back, but he was actually glad they weren’t around.
    At some point, the Spencerville police, or the sheriff, or the posse, or the deputies, or somebody would come around again, and he had to get moving. It was nearly three hundred miles to northern Michigan, and he needed a rifle, a car, clothing, and the other odds and ends of the killing game.
    He went into the front foyer and started up the stairs, then heard a knock on the front door.
    Keith went quickly to the living room and peered out the window. Parked in front of the house was a Spencerville police car.
    There was no one in the car, so the question was, How many cops were around the house? Schenley said only one in each car. There was another, more insistent knock.
    Keith didn’t have to answer it, of course, but if it was one of the men who had accompanied Baxter to the motel, Keith wanted to say hello and maybe borrow the car and the shotgun in the car.
    He peered sideways out the window and saw Kevin Ward, his thumbs hooked in his gun belt, not looking very alert.
    Keith went to the front door and opened it. “Hi.”
    Before Ward could react, Keith delivered an uppercut to Ward’s groin, then as Ward doubled over, Keith pulled him inside, kicked the door closed, and delivered a powerful handchop to Ward’s neck. Ward crumpled to the floor, semiconscious.
    Keith took Ward’s handcuffs and cuffed his right wrist, then snapped the other cuff to the radiator’s steam pipe. Keith unbuckled Ward’s gun belt and pulled it off.
    Ward was coming to now, and Keith said to him, “You looking for me?”
    Ward lay on his side, and it took him a few seconds to realize he was tethered to the steam pipe. He stared up at Keith and said, “You fucking…”
    Keith drew Ward’s service revolver, aimed it at Ward’s head, and cocked it. “Where’s your boss?”
    “Fuck you.”
    Keith fired into the wooden floor in front of Ward’s face, and the man actually levitated off the floorboards.
    Ward shouted, “Florida! He’s in Florida!”
    “Where in Florida?”
    “I don’t…”
    Keith fired again into the floor near Ward’s head, and again Ward bounced, then yelled, “Stop! He went… I think he went to Daytona. Yeah, to Daytona.”
    “Where in Daytona?”
    “I… he never told us.”
    “Okay. She with him?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Did you have fun at the motel?”
    “No.”
    “Looked like you were having fun.”
    “I was scared shitless.”
    “Not as scared as you are now.”
    “No. Hey, Landry, I just follow orders.”
    “Every time I hear that, I want to kill the guy who said it.”
    “Give me a break. You got me down. I told you what I know. Hey, for all I care, you can go down to Daytona and kill the son-of-a-bitch. I hate him.”
    “And he’s not real happy with you either. You saw his wife naked. You better hope I kill him, or you have a career problem.”
    Keith holstered the revolver and climbed the stairs before Ward started to think about that. With any luck, Ward knew that Baxter was at Grey Lake and would call Baxter to say he’d been a good boy and sent Landry off to Florida. It didn’t matter that much either way, but you never passed up an opportunity to play the great flimflam game.
    Keith found the master bedroom, which had a very lived-in look, with clothes strewn around, the bed unmade, and