Shotgun Opera Read online

  She eventually did fall asleep, and she didn’t dream.

  30

  There was only ash and dirt and burnt timber.

  Andrew Foley had hiked down from Linda’s house to see if he could salvage anything, but really there was nothing left. It almost made him cry, thinking how utter and complete a loss it was. He tried to imagine how his uncle must feel.

  His uncle. There had been no word from Mike Foley since he’d driven away in the Cadillac with murder in his eyes. Where could he be?

  The morning sun was still low, the day not yet so oppressively hot. The salvage mission had only been an excuse to get out of the house. Andrew thought Linda was feeling the strain of the last few days. She needed a little elbow room, and had hinted she’d like to take a long nap after her bath. Linda was nice, polite, but Andrew sensed an edge in her, that maybe having a houseguest underfoot was getting old. So he slurped a cup of coffee, shouted up the stairs he was going for a hike, and left her alone.

  He stood with his hands on hips, looked around. Under other circumstances, he might have thought this beautiful country, but all he could think now was that he wanted to go home. He missed New York, the pizza joint down from his apartment, the bagel place he went to on Sunday mornings, browsing the used record store near Juilliard, the constant, comfortable racket of life in the city.

  It was too damn quiet out here in the woods. Eerily quiet, in fact, after the recent craziness.

  He looked in the direction of the downed helicopter. He’d been meaning to have a look, but the time never seemed right. Also, he wasn’t sure he wanted to see a charred corpse. But now he had all the time in the world and began walking toward the ridge.

  The hike up was steeper than it had looked, and by the time he reached the top he was sucking wind hard. He sat on a fallen tree trunk and smoked a cigarette. He let himself sit there another five minutes and finally got up and started down the other side.

  The woods were thick, and he realized he wasn’t sure where he was going. What had he expected? A nice path, winding its way down to the wreck? I reckon I’m a city boy all right. He supposed his uncle had been able to follow the smoke.

  He wandered, the woods thicker on this side of the ridge. One tree looked pretty much like another. He headed generally downhill and hoped for the best.

  When he heard something rustle the underbrush behind him, he whipped around. He stood frozen, listening and looking. His uncle had told him there were plenty of deer. He’d also seen foxes and some kind of game bird. Once, about ten years ago, his uncle had seen a coyote in the yard.

  Andrew didn’t mind a deer or a bird but found the idea of a coyote a little spooky. He stood another second, holding his breath and scanning the trees. When he didn’t see anything, he moved on down the hill. He hit the floor of the shallow valley, flipped a mental coin, and turned left. He followed flat ground until he came to the groove of plowed ground that ended at the blackened husk of the helicopter wedged against a scorched tree.

  A thick canopy of branches hung over the chopper. Andrew looked at the sky, back down at the helicopter. When it crashed deep in the narrow valley, it had slid into thick stuff. The army could search for a thousand years and never find it.

  He approached slowly, taking in the sight. His morbid curiosity had brought him this far. Might as well go all the way. He came to within a foot of the chopper. A layer of soot almost completely obscured the US Army insignia. A series of questions spun through Andrew’s brain. How long did it take to learn to fly one of these things? How often did they crash? How high could they fly? How fast?

  What he really wondered was why somebody would go to such trouble to make him dead. He didn’t hold his breath expecting answers to any of these questions.

  Also he was stalling. He wanted to see what was in the cockpit, yet he didn’t want to see.

  He stepped up next to the door and looked. It took him a moment to get used to what he was looking at. The body looked like a movie prop, like something from The Mummy, but black from head to foot, contorted in the seat, the instrument panel and the entire rest of the cockpit black, gauges shattered. It was all so gruesome and fascinating.

  He reached out to touch the body but jerked his hand back at the last second. He wasn’t quite willing to go that far.

  “Who are you, lady?” Andrew said out loud.

  “She was my sister,” said a sudden voice.

  “Oh, fucking shit!” Andrew jumped, grabbed his chest, and fell back against the helicopter.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you.” The girl in the orange T-shirt lit a cigarette, puffed.

  “Where did you come from?”

  “I followed you.” She was somewhere between plain and pretty, glossy black hair not quite to her shoulders. Jeans and combat boots.

  “Are you here to kill me?”

  A smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. “That’s a funny question. Is there a lot of that going around? People trying to kill you, I mean.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  * * *

  Enrique Mars had hiked in circles, his throat dry with thirst. He was hungry, too, and getting pissed. Where the hell was civilization? Since waking up to darkness with a thin layer of rocks and dirt and leaves over him, he’d wandered confused and lost. Somebody was going to pay for this. He touched the back of his head near the base of the skull. It still hurt, but at least the blood had dried.

  During Mars’s career as a hired killer, he’d been shot, stabbed, and beaten numerous times. He’d even, on occasion, been left for dead. He was a tough bastard. This was the first time he’d actually been buried. He hadn’t enjoyed it.

  Ahead he saw a clearing. He jogged for it. The trees parted, and he sighed with relief. He didn’t know where he was but he saw a truck and a building

  The buildings had been burned. He recognized the grapevine rows even though half were destroyed. This was the Foley place. But what the hell had happened?

  No time to wonder. Enrique’s need for water and food took priority over his curiosity. The pickup truck had two flat tires, and there was no sign of his Cadillac.

  His gaze lifted, and he saw the house up the hill. This place hadn’t burned. There would be food and water and maybe even a hot shower. And he needed rest. He was dead on his feet. Then he would convince the owners that he should borrow their car. He patted his pockets. Somewhere he’d lost his guns. He didn’t even have a knife. It didn’t matter. Enrique Mars could be very persuasive, even with his bare hands.

  * * *

  Andrew Foley and the girl stood staring at one another for long seconds. She puffed a cigarette. Andrew licked his lips. His mouth was dry, heartbeat still rapid-fire against the inside of his chest. He didn’t see that she had any kind of weapon.

  He pulled out his own pack of cigarettes and lit one.

  She puffed. He puffed. They continued to stare.

  “So what happens now?” Andrew asked.

  She shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. I came to find out if my sister was alive or dead. Now I know.”

  Andrew looked at the corpse, then back at the girl. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why would you be sorry? She was trying to murder you, wasn’t she?”

  Andrew nodded. “That’s a good point.”

  “What happened?”

  “It wasn’t me,” Andrew said quickly. The girl didn’t seem threatening, but if the body in the chopper was really her sister, then Andrew didn’t want to be on her revenge list. He explained what had happened, the helicopter roaring into the valley, the bullets and grenades ripping everything to shreds and how his uncle stood atop the demolished cabin and machine-gunned the helicopter like a Sam Peckinpaw movie hero.

  She nodded as she listened, face blank, taking in the information like it was stereo instructions. “She was a teacher.”

  “What?”

  “A teacher,” the girl repeated. “She almost had a whole new life. She’d just about made it. Then this. So fucking stupid.”

  Andrew didn’t know what she was talking
about, didn’t know how to respond. He flicked away the cigarette butt.

  She flicked hers away too, although she hadn’t smoked it down as far. Andrew had seen this before. A friendly rhythm, smokers lighting up, tossing away the butts and lighting up again. Like some kind of ritual between animals. Better than sniffing each other’s asses.

  “What are you smoking?” she asked.

  “Parliaments. You?”

  “Camels. Trade?”

  “Sure.”

  He smoked one of hers. She smoked his. Puff puff.

  “You don’t seem that upset, considering, well, you know.” He gestured at the helicopter.

  “I didn’t like her. But she was my sister. I had to find out.”

  “I’m Andrew.”

  “I know. I’m Lizzy.”

  Thirty yards up the ridge, something crunched dry leaves. Andrew and Lizzy both went stiff, turned their heads to look. Andrew didn’t think he could take any more surprises.

  But it wasn’t another assassin. The white tail of a big buck flashed among the trees. He ran twenty feet, stopped, and looked back at them.

  Lizzy’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Oh. A deer.”

  She took a step toward it, and the deer bolted deep into the woods. “I’ve never seen one. Out in the wild, I mean.” She started walking after it.

  Andrew followed. “They’re all over the place. Other animals too.”

  “I want to see.”

  “What about ?” She didn’t seem too broken up about her sister. She’d claimed not to like her. Still

  “I want to see animals. I want to see everything I’ve never seen before.”

  They climbed the ridge, Lizzy stopping to ask the names of birds and Andrew admitting he had no idea at all.

  31

  By the time Enrique Mars reached the house, he was nearly ready to collapse. The sun baked him. His feet screamed pain. His throat was so dry, he was unable to utter a single word. He wanted water, food, and sleep, in that order.

  He twisted the knob on the front door. It was open, and he went inside. He tossed caution over his shoulder and found the kitchen. He didn’t care who might be home. It wasn’t important. Nothing mattered but water. He turned on the faucet, stuck his head underneath, and gulped. The water splashed cool in his mouth, down his throat. He splashed some on his face and the back of his neck and sighed.

  He opened cabinets until he found a large plastic cup. He filled it, and drank more water. He opened the refrigerator, grabbed a large chunk of chedder cheese wrapped in wax paper. He unwrapped it and took a huge bite, swallowed. He took out bread and a jar of pickles. So many choices. A leftover slab of lasagna covered in aluminum foil. He found a fork and dug in.

  More water.

  Enrique Mars felt almost human again.

  Time to take in his surroundings. The sound of water shutting off grabbed his attention. Someone had either just run a bath or just gotten out of the shower upstairs.

  He wasn’t alone in the house.

  * * *

  Jack looked around the dingy motel room. Mavis deserved better than this. When they finished the job and got the money, they’d pack up and go to California. It was what she wanted, even if the thought of Hollywood made him a bit ill.

  He sat on the bed, doing his stretching exercises. He brought one leg up and behind his head, then the other. He was forty-one years old. How long would he be able to do this? Soon his joints would give in to age.

  Mavis sat by the table near the window. She was working on her sixth Lucky Dog. So greasy. It was enough to make Jack go vegetarian. Time to worry about their health later.

  “How did the security look, love?”

  Mavis smacked her lips, wiped her mouth with a towel. “It’s an older system. No problem.”

  “Right.”

  The old girl was a whiz with wires and electronics and whatnot. Occasionally, when the money got tight, they’d case a house in a fancy neighborhood. She’d handle the alarm system, and he’d squeeze in through an upstairs window, grabbing whatever jewelry or other valuables might be lying about.

  But they wouldn’t be grabbing loot this go-around. Mavis might break the Sheila’s neck or maybe Jack would slip a knife between her ribs. Go in quiet and get out the same way. Get paid and head to Hollywood.

  Mavis burped, and the room smelled like Lucky Dog.

  * * *

  Mike Foley crossed the state line into Louisiana, and the first fat splats of rain pelted the Caddy’s windshield. He pulled into an Amoco station and put up the car’s roof. He resumed driving, jaw set, eyes hard, hands on the wheel at ten and two.

  The rain came harder. The sky grew darker. The pain crept up his spine.

  32

  They walked in the woods for an hour. They chatted casually, awkwardly at first, but eventually they eased into the rhythm of one another’s conversation. He asked about New Orleans. She asked about music school and the mandolin. It all had that slightly tentative but reasonably pleasant feeling of a first date. She seemed strangely delighted when she saw a bunny or squirrel.

  When they reached the summit of the ridge they traveled along the top, up a gentle slope. They found themselves in a small clearing, three enormous boulders leaning against one another. Lizzy scrambled to the top boulder, and Andrew followed. The view was amazing. Andrew realized they’d left his uncle’s property far behind, three different valleys stretching out in different directions below them. Was this how the pioneers felt?

  Lizzy sat on the edge of the boulder and lit a cigarette. Andrew joined her.

  Lizzy said, “When I was thirteen, she lied for me.”

  “What?”

  “To our father she lied,” Lizzy said. “I can’t even make you understand how brave that was. Or stupid. I got into Daddy’s gun cabinet. You want a kid to be interested in something, then lock it up. If they’d have locked up the complete works of Shakespeare, I’d have every play memorized word for word. You know?”

  She went quiet, puffed her Camel. Andrew didn’t take her silence as an invitation to comment. He sat and waited.

  A few seconds later she said, “Anyway, Dad came in and caught me. I’d picked the lock on the cabinet, and I had three of his pistols out. Dad was about to go crazy— he was big on discipline— but Meredith jumped in and said she’d been showing me the guns. She was older, so it was okay for her to be in the gun cabinet. I never knew why she did that, why she lied for me.”

  “To help you,” Andrew said.

  “I thought so for a long time. Now I think maybe it was something against Dad.”

  She exhaled, shoulders slumping. “You can see a long way from here.” She leaned in close to Andrew, kissed him lightly on the cheek.

  Andrew took it as a friendly gesture, a thank-you for listening to the story about her sister. He was about to go all aw-shucks, when she grabbed his face and turned it to hers, mashed her lips hard against his.

  He pulled away. “What’s that for?”

  “It’s not for anything,” Lizzy said. “I just need it. I’ve been locked up for eight months, and you seem nice.”

  “But—”

  She covered his mouth with hers, tongue stabbing urgently against his. Her hands went under his shirt. A surge of longing spread through Andrew, a sudden primal excitement. He tugged her shirt over her head, worked the clasp on her bra as she tugged his belt loose and unzipped him.