It is. The passing plows have buried all but the last eighteen inches or so, but that bright red is impossible to miss or mistake. Hodges feathers the brakes, brings the Expedition to a stop, then turns it so it’s facing the snowbank. He tells Holly what he sometimes used to tell his daughter, when he took her on the Wild Cups at Lakewood Amusement Park: “Hold onto your false teeth.”
Holly—always the literalist—says, “I don’t have any,” but she does put a bracing hand on the dashboard.
Hodges steps down gently on the gas and rolls at the snowbank. The thud he expected doesn’t come; Thurston was right about the snow not yet having a chance to pack and harden. It explodes away to either side and up onto the windshield, momentarily blinding him. He shoves the wipers into overdrive, and when the glass clears, the Expedition is pointing down a one-lane camp road rapidly filling with snow. Every now and then more flumps down from the overhanging branches. He sees no tracks from a previous car, but that means nothing. By now they’d be gone.
He kills the headlights and advances at a creep. The band of white between the trees is just visible enough to serve as a guide track. The road seems endless—sloping, switching back, then sloping again—but eventually they come to the place where it splits left and right. Hodges doesn’t have to get out and check the arrows. Ahead on the left, through the snow and the trees, he can see a faint glimmer of light. That’s Heads and Skins, and someone is home. He crimps the wheel and begins rolling slowly down the righthand fork.
Neither of them looks up and sees the video camera, but it sees them.
28
By the time Hodges and Holly burst through the snowbank left by the plow, Brady is sitting in front of the TV, fully dressed in Babineau’s winter coat and boots. He’s left off the gloves, he wants his hands bare in case he has to use the Scar, but there’s a black balaclava lying across one thigh. When the time comes, he’ll don it to cover Babineau’s face and silver hair. His eyes never leave the television as he nervously stirs the pens and pencils sticking out of the ceramic skull. A sharp lookout is absolutely necessary. When Hodges comes, he’ll kill his headlights.
Will he have the nigger lawnboy with him? Brady wonders. Wouldn’t that be sweet! Two for the price of—
And there he is.
He was afraid the Det.-Ret.’s vehicle might get by him in the thickening snow, but that was a needless worry. The snow is white; the SUV is a solid black rectangle sliding through it. Brady leans forward, squinting, but can’t tell if there’s only one person in the cabin, or two, or half a fucking dozen. He’s got the Scar, and with it he could wipe out an entire squad if he had to, but that would spoil the fun. He’d like Hodges alive.
To start with, at least.
Only one more question needs to be answered—will he turn left, and bore straight in, or right? Brady is betting K. William Hodges will choose the fork that leads to Big Bob’s, and he’s right. As the SUV disappears into the snow (with a brief flash of the taillights as Hodges negotiates the first turn), Brady puts the skull penholder down next to the TV remote and picks up an item that has been waiting on the end table. A perfectly legal item when used the right way . . . which it never was by Babineau and his cohorts. They may have been good doctors, but out here in the woods, they were often bad boys. He pulls this valuable piece of equipment over his head, and lets it hang against the front of his coat by the elastic strap. Then he pulls on the balaclava, grabs the Scar, and heads out. His heart is beating fast and hard, and for the time being, at least, the arthritis in Babineau’s fingers seems to be completely gone.
Payback is a bitch, and the bitch is back.
29
Holly doesn’t ask Hodges why he took the righthand fork. She’s neurotic, but not stupid. He drives at a walking pace, looking to his left, measuring the lights to his left. When he’s even with them, he stops the SUV and switches off the engine. It’s full dark now, and when he turns to look at Holly, she has the fleeting impression that his head has been replaced by a skull.
“Stay here,” he says in a low voice. “Text Jerome, tell him we’re okay. I’m going to cut through those woods and take him.”
“You don’t mean alive, do you?”
“Not if I see him with one of those Zappits.” And probably even if I don’t, he thinks. “We can’t take the risk.”
“Then you believe it’s him. Brady.”
“Even if it’s Babineau, he’s part of this. Neck-deep in it.” But yes, at some point he has become convinced that Brady Hartsfield’s mind is now running Babineau’s body. The intuition is too strong to deny, and has gained the weight of fact.
God help me if I kill him and I’m wrong, he thinks. Only how would I know? How could I ever be sure?
He expects Holly to protest, to tell him she has to come along, but all she says is, “I don’t think I can drive this thing out of here if something happens to you, Bill.”
He hands her Thurston’s card. “If I’m not back in ten minutes—no, make it fifteen—call this guy.”