Tripwire

Fixed on the gun. It was aimed at his face. He was shaking and sweating. The guy was stepping quietly, and the gun was coming closer, and Stone’s eyes were crossing, following it in. The gun came to rest with the muzzle on his forehead. The guy was pressing with it. The muzzle was hard and cold. Stone was shaking. Leaning backward against the pressure. Stumbling, trying to focus on the black blur that was the gun. He never saw the guy’s other hand balling into a fist. Never saw the blow swinging in. It smashed hard into his gut and he went down like a sack, legs folding, squirming and gasping and retching.
    “Take the pants off, you piece of shit,” Tony screamed down at him.
    The other guy landed a savage kick and Stone yelped and rolled around and around on his back like a turtle, gasping, gagging, wrenching at his belt. He got it loose. Scrabbled for the buttons and the zip. He tore the pants down over his legs. They snagged on his shoes and he wrenched them free and pulled them off inside out.
    “Get up, Mr. Stone,” Tony said, quietly.
    Stone staggered to his feet and stood, unsteadily, leaning forward, head down, panting, his hands on his knees, his stomach heaving, thin, white hairless legs coming down out of his boxers, ludicrous dark socks and shoes on his feet.
    “We could hurt you,” Tony said. “You understand that now, right?”
    Stone nodded and gasped. He was pressing both forearms into his gut. Heaving and gagging.
    “You understand that, right?” Tony asked again.
    Stone forced another nod.
    “Say the words, Mr. Stone,” Tony said. “Say we could hurt you.”
    “You could hurt me,” Stone gasped.
    “But we won’t. That’s not how Mr. Hobie likes things to be done.”
    Stone raised a hand and swiped tears from his eyes and looked up, hopefully.
    “Mr. Hobie prefers to hurt the wives,” Tony said. “Efficiency, you see? It gets faster results. So at this point, you really need to be thinking about Marilyn.”
    THE RENTED TAURUS was much faster than the Bravada had been. On dry June roads, there was no contest. Maybe in the snows of January or the sleet of February he would have appreciated the full-time four-wheel drive, but for a fast trip up the Hudson in June, a regular sedan had it all over a jeep, that was for damn sure. It was low and stable, it rode well, it tracked through the bends like an automobile should. And it was quiet. He had its radio locked onto a powerful city station behind him, and a woman called Wynonna Judd was asking him why not me? He felt he shouldn’t be liking Wynonna Judd as much as he was, because if somebody had asked him if he’d enjoy a country vocalist singing plaintively about love, he’d have probably said no he wouldn’t, based on his preconceptions. But she had a hell of a voice, and the number had a hell of a guitar part. And the lyric was getting to him, because he was imagining it was Jodie singing to him, not Wynonna Judd. She was singing why not me when you’re growing old? Why not me? He started singing along with it, his rough bass rumble underneath the soaring contralto, and by the time the number faded and the commercial started, he was figuring if he ever had a house and a stereo like other people did, he’d buy the record. Why not me?
    He was heading north on Route 9, and he had a Hertz map open beside him which went up far enough to show him Brighton was halfway between Peekskill and Poughkeepsie, over to the west, right on the Hudson. He had the old couple’s address beside it, written on a sheet from a medical pad from McBannerman’s office. He had the Taurus moving at a steady sixty-five, fast enough to get him there, slow enough to get him there unmolested by the traffic cops, who he assumed were hiding out around every wooded comer, waiting to boost their municipal revenues with their radar guns and their books of blank tickets.
    It took him an hour to get level with Garrison again, and he figured he would head on north to a big highway he remembered swinging away west over the river toward New-burgh. He should be able to come off that road just short of the Hudson and fall on Brighton from above. Then it was just a question of hunting down the address, which might not be easy.
    But it was easy, because the road that dropped him south into Brighton from the east-west highway was labeled with the same name as was in the second line of the old folks’ address. He cruised south, watching for mailboxes and house