Thicker Than Blood - Crouch Blake (лучшие книги онлайн TXT) 📗

"What was that?" Orson asked, his words dragging, his eyes beginning to tire.

"A tranquilizer. You got a staggering overdose. I might not have to shoot you."

"What about Mary?" he asked, his eyes now half-closed.

"What do you care, huh? Don't pretend with me."

"I'm not…" His words trailed away, and he exhaled deeply, painfully.

"I caught your lecture on Caligula," I said, taking the radio out. "You were a good teacher, Orson. Should've devoted your life to it."

His eyes closed.

"Remember that poem you recited for me at the cabin when I was going under? "The Road Not Taken" by Frost. Hell, I'd recite it for you if I could remember the words."

Orson slumped over onto the floor, and I pressed the talk button. "Bring it home," I said.

# # #

Orson was too heavy to carry, so I dragged him through the hallway, into the living room, across the smooth, hardwood floor. Through the front windows, I could see Walter's Cadillac at the end of the driveway, the trunk closed, Walter waiting inside. I left Orson lying in the foyer and ran out to the car. Crossing the lawn, it felt colder than it had been three hours ago. My breath was now a white vapor, vividly exposed, and the air tickled my throat when I inhaled.

I knelt down by Walter's window as it lowered. "You're gonna have to help me bring him out," I said. "He's too heavy, and it'll look funny, me staggering around out here."

We ran up to the house and went back inside. Orson was still unconscious, lying on his stomach on the floor, his skin now a stormy, yellow pallor.

"Don't touch anything," I said, closing the door behind us. The phone rang, and we both jumped. Walter looked at me, tangible fear dripping from his eyes. "Don't worry about it," I said, and the phone continued ringing until the answering machine cut on. I turned Orson over on his back and grabbed him underneath his armpits.

"Take his feet," I said, but Walter didn't move. "What? You wanna stay for dinner?"

"That's not your twin," he said. "Who the fuck is this, Andy?"

"This is Orson Thomas," I said. "The man we came to get. Don't pull this shit now, Walter. Pick up his feet so we can get the hell out of here."

"Tell me who this is right now," Walter said.

I let go of Orson and stepped up into Walter's face. "This is my twin," I said, my voice intentionally calm, "the Heart Surgeon. Every second that Cadillac sits in the driveway, we're risking getting caught. So, please, pick up his feet, so we can leave."

Walter grabbed Orson's feet up angrily and glared murderously into my eyes.

"I'll fucking kill you if this isn't Orson," he said as I lifted my brother again off the floor. "You had to lie to me?" he asked as we edged towards the doorway.

"I didn't lie to you…"

"Don't insult my intelligence by telling me this is your brother. He doesn't look a thing like you. I ought to fucking leave you here. Make me drive with a woman yelling in my trunk."

"She woke up?" I asked, turning the doorknob.

"That's why I didn't open the trunk. She's been screaming for the last hour."

"Shit."

"Yeah, shit's right, you prick…"

I kicked the door shut and dropped Orson. His head smacked onto the floor. I grabbed Walter by his shirt and flung him against the door, my right forearm digging into his soft neck.

"I'm not lying to you." I said. "That's my fucking brother whether he looks like it or not. How the hell do you think he's been able to kill for so long? And you want to walk out and leave him here. Suppose he lives? You just killed twenty or thirty more innocent people, because he won't ever stop. You've been tepid this whole trip, and even if you don't believe me, guess what? Too late. He's probably dead now, and you think that lady would forgive you if you opened the trunk and said you're sorry? Her husband's nearly dead. Her head's got a big fucking knot on it. You quit now, you go to jail, so do what you have to to finish this." I released him and he gasped for breath, clutching at his throat. Rage sizzled in his eyes but fear along with it.

We lifted Orson for the third time and walked back out into the night. I closed the door behind us, and we carried him carefully down the steps and across the grass. My eyes kept cutting back and forth from the icy blades beneath my feet to the surrounding houses with their warm, yellow lights and open curtains, the inhabitants moving carelessly about inside. It'd take one person glancing outside and seeing two strange men carrying something across the Parker's front lawn, to turn a mysterious disappearance into a murder investigation.

We set Orson down on the cold concrete, and Walter went to unlock the trunk. I could hear Mary crying inside, and her despair touched me in a very distant place.

"Don't open it yet," I whispered. "She's gonna scream bloody murder."

"No blood in my trunk," Walter whispered, as I took the Glock from my fanny pack.

"She's gonna wake the neighborhood when we throw Orson on top of her."

"I'll risk it," he said. "Nobody's blood is gonna stain that trunk."

"Then you lift that heavy bastard off the ground," I said, putting the Glock back into the fanny pack. I took the keys from Walter, and when he'd hoisted Orson up against the rear bumper, I turned the key and the trunk popped open. Mary didn't scream. Curled up in a corner with wild eyes like a caged animal, she looked at me and then Walter. She started to speak when her husband rolled on top of her and the trunk slammed shut, leaving her again in darkness.

# # #

"I wish it was misty again," Walter said as we sped along the highway. "Last night was perfect. That moon's worse than a fucking spotlight."

"You watching the mileage?" I asked, annoyed at Walter's apparent lack of attention to the most important detail of the night.

"3.7."

"The second it turns over to 4.8, you stop."

"Quit telling me the same…"

"I'll tell you as many times as I think it's necessary. You feel like digging another hole? It's a different ballgame when the dead people are with you."

4.8 miles north of the coffee shop in downtown Middlebury, Walter eased across the road, onto the wide shoulder of 116. He parked the car as close to the forest's edge as he could get, using the pine shadows to obscure the white Cadillac from moonlight. We stepped out and slammed the car doors, their echoes racing down the empty highway.

I buried my hands in the pockets of my suit before they could go numb. The air stung my cheeks, and I could only be thankful that the night was without wind or snow. The moon, rising now above the Green Mountains in the east, was as bright and full as I'd ever seen it. It turned the sky navy instead of black and kept the most luminous stars from showing.

"I see it!" Walter yelled, running through the stiff grass. He pointed to the large, flaking trunk of a pine, ten yards ahead, and I saw the shovel, too, it's head stabbed in the frozen earth.

"Get the flashlight," I said, running ahead of him.

The brilliance of the sky did not extend down into the trees. The stand of pines remained black and gloomy, and it was harder than hell finding our way back to the gravesite. I counted twenty-nine steps, walking straight back into the woods, before we began walking parallel to the highway again, in search of the hole.