My initial impulse was to unbuckle the harness, but I realized if I freed him, he’d be out of there like a shot. If he made a beeline for the vent opening and escaped, he’d be vulnerable to Ned’s recapturing him, which was unthinkable. I waited and when he was calmer, I leaned back and straightened my body so I could reach into my jeans pocket where I’d stashed the Leatherman. Oops. Not there. I remembered then that I’d slipped it into the pocket of my windbreaker, which was a good twenty feet away. I reached up and felt for the eye screw, which I was able to turn, but only with great effort. I was using my thumb and index finger, which gave me very little purchase. I’d been weight lifting in the months since Ned half choked me to death, so at least I had strength in my arms. Even so, it was a strain holding the cat in my left while I was forced to work with my right arm lifted above shoulder height. I found sweat trickling down my face and twice had to stop to mop the side of my face on my sleeve.
I renewed my effort, knowing the sooner I got out of there, the better. This was slow going and once I succeeded in unscrewing the piece, I’d still have the cat to contend with as I hunched and dragged myself back over to the vent. I heard a car door slam out on the street. My heart did a quick two-step. I paused. As though sensing my worry, the cat contorted himself, arching his back in a bid for freedom. He was agile and quick and though I managed to subdue him temporarily, I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to maintain control of him. There had to be a better way to go about this.
My gaze fell on the telephone company handset that had allowed Ned to eavesdrop on every phone call I made. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me before. All I had to do was call for help, which was a more sensible solution to the problem than wrestling with a cat and unscrewing a metal eye at the same time. I picked up the sound of footsteps scratching on the walk between bungalows. I snatched the handset in my right hand and punched in Henry’s number with my thumb, trying to keep the cat calm at the same time.
One ring.
Under my breath, I was saying, “Come on, come on! Pick up.”
I leaned sideways and looked toward the vent hole, which was now eclipsed by someone standing there, the light dimmed by half.
Two rings.
Henry and Pearl and Lucky must still be out hunting for the cat.
Three rings. Four.
The answering machine picked up and I had to wait while Henry went through his cheery greeting. At the beep, I whispered, “Henry, this is me. Listen I’ve got a situation here. I’ve got Ed and I’m un—”
The line went dead.
I closed my eyes. I’d left the junction box open and the trellis leaning against the side of the bungalow. Now my navy windbreaker was clearly visible inside the opening. I knew who was out there. My old friend Ned had come back from a trip into the world at large and he wasn’t going to appreciate finding me in his personal space. I looked down at the cat in my arms. He’d be better off fending for himself. Carefully, I steadied him with one hand while I unbuckled the harness. In the blink of an eye, he raced into the darkness in the far corner of the crawl space and disappeared.
I reached around behind me and carefully extracted the H&K from my waistband. I pivoted and pulled myself out of sight. For a moment, I sheltered in the lee of the pier, leaning against the cinder block while I gathered my wits about me. I leaned forward and checked the vent. Ned had moved away from the opening, but I was sure he hadn’t gone far. I pushed away from the pier and rolled forward until I was stretched out on my stomach with my arms extended in front of me. I gripped the gun with my right thumb wrapped around and touching the middle finger on the grip. I wrapped my left hand around my right with my left thumb lapped over my right thumb. The butt of the H&K rested on the dirt, which meant I could maintain a steady grip on it without tiring. I kept my right arm stiff, with my left hand pulling back slightly. This served to steady my hands and wrists.
The Heckler & Koch VP9 is manufactured from a stamped steel main frame with a polymer trigger guard. The high-profile fixed sights are fitted with two red rectangles on the rear sight and a white stripe on the drift-adjustable front blade sight. There is a lever on the left side of the pistol grip to both decock a cocked hammer or manually re-cock it for a single-action first shot. A manual firing-pin safety is located at the left rear of the slide. Putting it in the down position locks the firing pin, and flipping it up to the level position unlocks it. I flipped up the safety and pulled the slide back.
So far, the two of us hadn’t exchanged a word. He knew I was under the bungalow, but he couldn’t be sure where. I knew he was out there between the two bungalows, but I had no visual verification of his location. There’s something about human nature that inclines us to make eye contact when we’re having a conversation. I didn’t want Ned to stick his head in the opening because if I was forced to shoot, my target would be the top of his skull, a fatal injury in most cases. Let’s not even talk about the mess.
I was hyped. I focused on my breathing, clearing my mind of everything but the task at hand. My brain, for reasons of its own, suddenly replayed my phone conversation with Phyllis, almost word for word. We’d talked about Ned wanting his trinkets from the young girls he killed. I’d asked her if Celeste had given them to her, and she said if she’d had them, she’d have turned them over to the police as evidence. The implication was that the items were still in Celeste’s possession. I’d asked her twice if she knew where Celeste was. The first time, she blew me off, breezing right over the question to something else. The second time I asked, she told me Celeste had changed her name and location and, even then, had an unlisted phone number. She’d said she’d written it on a scrap of paper that she tossed in a U-Haul box six weeks before. At the time, she hadn’t unpacked everything so she couldn’t lay hands on it. I’d told her to keep the information to herself. All I wanted was to have Celeste informed that Ned was back. Shortly after that, Phyllis had invited me for drinks and that’s when she’d given me her new address. Ned, in the crawl space where I was now, had probably been scribbling down the information at the same time I was.
He’d beaten Phyllis senseless on the assumption that she’d found the scrap of paper with Celeste’s new name and location. He must have thought she was holding out on him. His subsequent tearing into her moving cartons suggested that he hadn’t gotten the answer he wanted and was forced to search. He must have been frantically hunting for the information when I rang her bell.
From outside, he said, “You know what I’ve got out here?”
I kept my mouth shut, sighting down the barrel.
“Can of gasoline. I was going to use it to set the Olds on fire, but I can use it just as easily to burn this place down.”
“My landlord has insurance so I don’t give a shit.”
“I think you will. Because even if the flames don’t get you, the smoke inhalation will.”
“Well, Ned, dear, I’m looking at a can of gasoline so unless you went out and bought a second one, you’re lying through your teeth.”
“If you think I’m lying, why don’t you put me to the test?”
“Because right now it’s your turn to guess what I’ve got.”
He sounded amused. “I know what you have. A fucking cat that scratched the hell out of me.”
“Aside from the cat.”
“Okay, what?”
“A gun.”
“Not relevant. Because you know what this is?”