All Through the Night Page 2

  “News flash, Hoss,” Jerry said. “The lady ain’t looking at you.”

  Wayne had to agree. The woman gave Wayne yet another intent inspection. His sister the reverend glanced back, then said something across the car before disappearing through the passenger door. The woman finally turned away, opened her door, and did the woman thing with her skirt, hiking up the material another inch or so before bending low and sliding behind the wheel.

  Jerry said, “She didn’t need to do that. That dress is so short she could handle an obstacle course under full fire without raising it up like she just did.”

  “I’m sure not complaining,” Foster said.

  The woman cast a final glance back to where Wayne stood, the x-ray vision strong enough to scalpel through the shadows and sink deep into his ribs. Then she shut her door and started the motor.

  “Houston, we have ignition.” Jerry again.

  The car did not pull away so much as vanish. They just stood there and watched the dust settle. The whining gradually dimmed into the distance. Foster said, “That’s an interesting way for a pastor to get around.”

  Wayne felt a pat on his arm. Up close, octogenarian Victoria Ellis was as ethereal as smoke. She smiled up at him and said, “My, but they grow you big wherever you’re from.”

  Jerry said, “I believe I recall Eilene saying she grew up in Dayton.”

  Foster harrumphed. “Leave it to Jerry to chat up all the cute gals.”

  The old woman had to twist her head slightly to make up for the slight hump in her spine and the inflexibility in her neck. She patted his arm again, as though judging the quality of flesh beneath Wayne’s jacket. “I believe you are an answer to a prayer, Mr. Grusza.”

  The three men watched her totter away. Then Jerry pulled back the sleeve of his sports coat, revealing a very old tattoo on his forearm. The marine emblem was almost lost to time and curly black hair and the mahogany tint of his skin. Jerry said, “Semper fido, baby.”

  Wayne gave the answer he knew Jerry was after. “I was army. Did two tours with Special Ops.”

  Jerry asked, “Where’d you watch your life flash before your eyes—Iraq?”

  “Afghanistan.”

  “And you don’t ever want to say nothing more about what went down, am I right?”

  Wayne turned his attention back to the outside. The portico roof cut a border with sunlight and freedom on the far side. Wayne knew all about borders. They were dangerous places. Safety on one side, mystery and peril on the other.

  Foster said, “Why don’t I go get the keys and we’ll show you your new home.”

  Jerry clapped him on the shoulder. “You thought barracks life was bad, man, you just wait.”

  It was then that Wayne realized he’d been fooling himself all along. He had already crossed the border. Entered the zone.

  He made a mental note to thank his sister properly.

  But only after he got properly introduced to the lady with the ride.

  THREE

  For five days Wayne adjusted himself to life in a tie. Which was how he thought of the job—even though he wore nothing more than shorts and a golf shirt and slaps. It was the regular gig, getting up and making breakfast and sitting down in his bare front room to work as an accountant for eight hours. After he was done, he shopped at the local Publix and fixed dinner with the television in the background, worked a couple of hours on his new home, and went to bed. As normal as normal could be.

  As though he ever belonged in a normal sort of life.

  The cottage they gave him was within nodding distance of derelict. The former cop told Wayne it had been a cracker house, built by the Florida farmers who had planted the original orange grove. A few of the ancient trees survived, scrawny things with knobby limbs. Wayne’s house had then been owned by a retired missionary couple, who had willed it to the community. It had since housed a trainload of temporary residents. Wayne spent his free time stripping off seven layers of awful wallpaper, ripping out rotten linoleum, basically working himself into a stupor.

  Despite his best efforts to the contrary, the sixth night he had the dream.

  The first thing that became clear was his breathing. Always his breathing. Loud and steady in his ears. Then the radio. His partner said something. He responded with, “Roger.” Speaking the one word brought everything into dead-sharp focus. He walked a ridgeline, so high he was more a part of the sky than the earth. He was on point and scouting for danger. His attention was snagged by an eagle drifting in the updraft from a green valley to his right. Wayne looked down on the bird and the wings as broad as a jet’s. It was the most beautiful sight he had ever known. Then they were hit. He never heard the incoming fire. Never felt a thing. Just bounced up and bam and gone.

  When he jerked awake, the dream lingered so strong it was almost like he had left reality behind and entered the real dream.

  Wayne rolled from his mattress. The floor smelled of raw wood and cleanser. He padded into the bathroom, the project he had planned to start that morning. Then he dressed and entered the kitchen and boiled water in a battered pot. He preferred his coffee black, but the instant was so bitter he added milk to smooth out the bite. He sat on his front porch and pretended to study the night. Doing what every addict did when coming off a dry spell. Drawing out the exquisite agony, pretending he had the strength to resist.

  He finished his coffee and set the cup aside. He rose and stretched and looked around. Dawn was still at least a couple of hours away. He saw nothing but night. All the nearby houses were black. A pair of streetlights flickered off to his right, overlooking the parking lot fronting the community center. His truck was parked between them. Waiting. Beckoning.

  Wayne reentered his house and went to the closet in his bedroom. He pried out the three central floorboards and reached down inside the crawl space. Pulled out the black canvas bag. It clanked softly as he settled it on the closet floor. He unzipped it and used his flashlight to sort through the contents. Sniper rifle, night scope, trio of serious blades, plastic explosive and a cluster of detonators, silenced assassin’s pistol, lock picking set, wiretap system.

  All the gear required for a high old time.

  He pulled out the one item he was searching for. Rezipped the bag and settled it back in the hideaway. Fit the boards into place.

  Wayne jogged to the truck, gunned the motor, and headed out.

  Off to get himself a fix.

  Wayne hammered his way across the entire Florida peninsula. A hundred and sixty-three miles in two hours and a trace. Racing the dawn and winning. Almost regretting the absence of a cop to pull him over and keep him from his appointment with destiny.

  Lantern Island was an enclave for the super rich located just south of Naples. Owning a property there was a declaration of financial superiority. A private bridge exactly one hundred and sixty-seven feet long separated the resort from reality. Even at a quarter past dawn the guardhouse was manned and the gates electronically locked. Wayne did not need to check this out. He knew from long experience.

  He parked behind the strip mall a quarter mile away, on the highway linking the island to all the hourly wage peons who kept their myth neat and hedges trimmed. He jogged back to the bridge, slipped down the edge to the concrete embankment and did the hand-over-hand to the island. The pattern so familiar he could have done it in his sleep.

  He ran the cobblestone path rimming the golf course, flitting from palm tree to hedge to live oak. Never in the clear for very long, and even if he was, the homeowners would just assume he was another health nut out for his morning dose. Which, truth be known, was exactly the case.

  Lantern Island’s residential compound had been one of the first of its kind, established back in the late forties when lawns were still measured in acreage instead of inches. The island was shaped like an elongated T, with the guard station at the base. The golf course formed the central aisle. All the residences were walled and ornate, and all fronted the water.

  Wa
yne arrived at his destination and climbed a live oak so massive it probably pre-dated Florida’s first white settlers. The middle branches formed a protective cover so that from his top perch he could not be spied by any passing security guards. He settled into place and waited.

  An hour passed. Two. He checked his watch. A quarter past eight and the house was still silent. Maybe they had gone off somewhere. But that broke the pattern. The guy lived for his work and his family. And after more than two years of surveillance, Wayne knew basically everything. The guy was an oncology radiologist. He had a doctor’s attitude, used to getting his way with everything. His lawn, his house, and his world were as clean and orderly as an operating room.

  At 8:37 the front door opened. The guy stepped out. He grabbed the newspaper on his front porch and set it on the iron table between the two padded porch chairs. He wore a jacket and a knit shirt and pressed slacks. He glanced at his watch and called back into the house. He walked over and coded a number into the garage, which was connected to the main house by a covered walkway. The door swung up. He got in behind the wheel of his Lexus and started the motor. He drove to where the drive connected to the home’s front walk of red brick.

  Wayne took a deep breath. He was trembling. Like always. He breathed again and flexed the fingers of his right hand. When they steadied he slipped his hand into his pocket and came up with the scope. He fitted it to his eye, adjusted the sight, and waited. No longer breathing at all.

  She came out first. Patricia wore her hair short, the new highlights burnished by the morning sun and his scope. She turned and smiled at the car. Said something lost to the distance. But the message was clear enough anyway.

  This was one happy lady.

  Then her son ran out. All youth and energy and laughter, so delighted with the day he could not bear to merely walk to the car. He wore a starched little shirt that was almost blue in the sunlight and navy shorts and white socks and little black shoes. He did a quick circuit around the front lawn, his arms out like wings. His three-year-old lungs shouted a joy Wayne did not need a scope to catch.

  The lady scooped the air between them, calling the boy into the car’s open door. Her hand held a black book.

  Only then did Wayne realize it was Sunday.

  He remained where he was until the car had driven away and the day was as empty as his spirit. He stared up at the sun, wishing it were a few degrees hotter, strong enough to melt him down.

  The more Jerry saw of this new kid, the more he liked him. Even now, when the kid was so deep into pain he crawled from his truck like the walking wounded.

  Jerry and Foster were busy fishing. Or they would have been, if the lagoon held anything worth catching. They actually used their poles as an excuse to get under the skin of the retired pastors and missionaries who made up over half of the folks who lived in the community. Normally the sight of Foster and him standing by the lagoon casting their way through a late Sunday morning was enough to have the residents doing the stork walk, all stiff-legged and indignant. It had been like that ever since one of the do-good ladies had walked over and given them the saccharine invitation to come do something worthwhile with their Sabbath. And Foster had quoted a line from the Koran. To a missionary. The line went, “God does not count hours spent fishing against a man.” It was doubtful the woman knew where the words came from, but she sure knew it wasn’t the gospel. That was the last time the Sunday crowd had done anything more than lob stare-grenades at them.

  Today was a little different, since the churchgoers were all shooting their blanks at Wayne. Only the kid was so internally wounded he didn’t notice.

  Victoria was seated in the fold-up aluminum chair Foster had brought down to the waterside. He always brought it down but never used it. Sometimes Victoria came and did needlepoint while they fished. Victoria and Foster had a thing going—or at least Foster wished they did, and they might have, except for the fact that Foster had deposited everything to do with religion in last year’s compost heap.

  Which sort of chopped off any chance he had with Victoria right at the knees.

  Foster was fishing with his hands only. His attention was fully on the kid. “The boy Grusza looks in pain.”

  Victoria did not even look up from her needlepoint. “That’s because he is.”

  “What is it, an old injury?”

  Victoria pulled the thread up high, gave it a gentle tug, and dipped down again. Half of the houses in the community had pillows with her needlepoint. “In a manner of speaking.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “That’s because you insist on looking at the outside.”

  They were both watching Victoria now. Foster said, “The only reason you’re talking like you are is because you got the scoop from his sister.”

  “Anybody with an open heart would see a lonely, troubled soul.” Another stitch. “Jerry, why don’t you call him over.”

  So he did. Which was only a little strange. He had been known on the force as having a problem with people ordering him around. Which was why he had never made it to the higher grades, even after he aced the lieutenant’s exam. Jerry laid down his pole and headed off without a murmur. Because there was something to Victoria that he couldn’t bring himself to argue with, a power strong enough to remain gentle.

  Jerry angled his path so that he met Wayne up near his front door. Close enough so the kid could bug off if he so chose. Only he was not a kid at all. Jerry realized that as the man lifted his gaze from the pavement and the sun illuminated the caverns around his eyes. The guy might carry less than half Jerry’s years. But whatever Wayne held inside had aged him so hard and so fast the number of days just didn’t count anymore.

  Jerry said, “Why don’t you come down and help me hold my pole?”

  Jerry knew the look Wayne gave him. He had seen it before. Officers involved in a shootout, especially one where a good guy took a hit. They carried that look. The one where the body might be intact, but the gaze was fractured. So Jerry didn’t do what he had planned on, which was to slip in the invite and then walk away. Instead he gripped Wayne’s arm and tugged. Gently, but with enough pressure for Wayne to know this was half an invitation and half a command. “I’d say come fish with us, only the biggest thing we’ve ever pulled out of the lagoon was a leech, and that was the day Foster slipped on the edge and we almost lost him to the quicksand. That may look like marsh, but it’s really a bottomless pit. Consider yourself warned.”

  Wayne let himself be led forward, but it was doubtful he actually digested anything Jerry was saying. Victoria had turned in her chair and was watching their approach. Jerry switched verbal gears and gave it to Wayne straight. “You remind me of what I’ve seen coming into a house when the cordite is still thick enough to choke you. The place is quiet because the gunfire that just ended has blasted away all the air. That sound crazy to you?”

  Wayne was listening to him now. “No.”

  “Yeah, I figured you for somebody who’s tasted his share of dread. Me, I was the clean-up guy. You know how it is. The brass are outside singing for the cameras. I’m the one back in the cave of horrors, talking down a kid who’s suddenly found himself about half an inch away from his last breath. He’s shaking so hard his teeth rattle ’cause he’s coming down from the most awful high on earth.” Jerry pointed with his chin toward the water’s edge. “The reason I’m saying this is because I want to make sure you hear what I’m about to tell you. That lady up there? She’s the real deal.”

  Victoria smiled in that special way of hers, not so much sweetness and light as distilled wisdom. “Hello, son. I don’t need to ask how you are. Why don’t you come sit down beside me?”

  Wayne hesitated only a moment before sitting on the ground beside her chair. Jerry didn’t say anything more, just walked back over and picked up his pole and cast into the setting sun. Feeling for once like he’d done the right thing, getting the man to walk over and join them.

  Victoria just started
straight in. “Twenty-two years ago, my husband felt called to go work in regions under attack by the child soldiers of Sierra Leone. He was a doctor. The Foreign Mission Board refused to authorize it—they said it was too dangerous. We went anyway.”

  Foster cast Jerry a look. Jerry lifted his eyebrows in agreement. This was totally new.

  “We spent four years in the war zone. It was an awful place. I saw things you can’t imagine.” She paused a moment, then, “Well, perhaps you can.”

  Wayne Grusza was a big man. Well over six feet. Panther lithe. His sister’s dark hair. Features made for the stone carvings of a primitive race. A warrior’s face. He said nothing, just drew up his legs and wrapped his arms around them, hiding half his face in the crevice between his knees. Trying to make himself small, but instead highlighting his muscular frame.

  “I tell you this because I want you to understand where I am coming from. I can’t say I have been where you are. But I’ve been close enough to speak as a kindred spirit.” Victoria was no longer smiling. “I’d like you to take two things away with you. The first is this. The worst kinds of addiction, the very worst, are those of the heart. Anger and bitterness don’t wound the body like drugs. They gnaw down deep, where the lie can be hidden from almost everyone. The addict even lies to himself and claims no one knows. Outsiders might not be able to name what they see. But the truth is visible just the same. And the truth is this: the addiction hollows out your soul.”

  Wayne raised his head and stared at her. The air around Wayne had become so compressed a cardinal’s song sounded as ragged as a knife.

  “And here is your second takeaway,” Victoria went on. “No matter what you carry with you, no matter what dark night brought you to where you are, the Lord can make something good of this, if you let Him.”

  Wayne’s voice carried the tattered quality of a man who had forgotten how to speak. “That’s impossible.”

  Victoria gave her gentle smile. “Oh my, I do love a challenge.”