Crease could see it happening. He thought, this guy, he doesn't have much longer to go. Maybe if Crease could get some answers, Burke would start seeing himself in the mirror again.

Burke's clipped, darting style of speech went on and on. "There isn't much to tell, really. It was the fifth of June, a warm day, a sunny day, but not especially hot. Mary didn't want to wear long sleeves, she hated long sleeves, and she and Vera-my wife, Vera-fought about that, but not much, really, and Mary usually won such battles anyway. She was just going to play in the back yard, alone, with some dolls and their accessories. Everything has accessories, the cars and the pools and the wardrobe for the dolls, an entire city set up in the yard. She was very popular, Mary was, she had many friends in the neighborhood, but that day she was alone."

"You were home?"

"Until noon or so. I went in to work late, being the owner does have some advantages. I spent the morning watching a film I wished to watch. A doc.u.mentary on VHS, rented right next door to my hardware store, Bob's Video. It's not there anymore. Don't ask me which doc.u.mentary it was, I don't recall. I remember a great deal about that day, but not the film I wanted to watch so badly that I spent the morning at home. Afterwards, Mary, Vera, and I had lunch together-chicken salad. I didn't say goodbye to her. She ran out the back door to play and I left through the front. Vera followed me down the driveway to get the mail from the box, and I drove off. An hour later, she phoned me at the store. Mary was gone."

Crease stubbed out his cigarette. "Had they made contact yet?"

"No. I rushed home and we searched the house . . . we thought perhaps she was playing hide-and-seek again, although Mary never did this when we spoke firmly with her and demanded she show herself. She would always come out then, smiling, happy to have fooled us for so long, and that was all right. It was always all right so long as she showed herself when we finally asked, you see? But she didn't come out that day. We searched the yard, we visited our neighbors, we called the police. I-"

Here it comes, Crease thought.

"-spoke with your father." Burke wasn't able to keep the hostility out of his voice, and the fever started up in Crease's chest, began to burn. "He told me he'd be right over. It took less than ten minutes. He was very powerfully built, your father, with an air of authority. He seemed very a.s.sertive, effective, despite the recent death of his wife. I'd always found him trustworthy, even though at that moment I smelled the alcohol on his breath. But I was a near-sniveling mess. Vera was already in shambles. We held onto each other and dragged ourselves around together like cripples. The phone rang again. It was a man. A voice I'd never heard before. He said he had Mary. He would return her for the sum of fifteen thousand dollars. He was specific in his instructions. No police."

"But my father was already there."

"Yes, you see, your father was already there. I couldn't even follow his demands because the sheriff was already there."

"What did the man on the phone say exactly?"

"He was brief. He wanted fifteen thousand dollars. He wanted me to bring it to the abandoned mill and leave it. No police involvement. Mary would be returned to us within twenty-four hours without harm."

"How easy was it for you to get your hands on that kind of money?"

"Very easy," Burke said. "We weren't especially well-to-do, but fifteen thousand dollars isn't an outrageous sum of money. We had sixty thousand in our savings. It seemed like such a ridiculous amount to ask for in exchange for the life of our daughter."

"Yes, it does."

Burke made as if to change position, maybe move over on the couch an inch, but then he resettled himself to the same position."The details, do they still need to be so broad, or are you familiar with what happened afterwards?"

"The dolls," Crease said. "Were any missing? Broken?"

"Only her teddy bear. It was her favorite, her sidekick as it were. Her best friend. The other dolls were toys that she and Teddy both played with, you see?"

"s.n.a.t.c.hed out of the yard. That points to someone she knew. You didn't recognize the man's voice, so it was probably a two-person team. Children are more likely to be lured away by women. They feel safer."

"I don't recall anyone telling me that before. In any case, everyone knew her. She was friendly like that. We all were. My wife and I, back when we were together. This was a nice town, or so we all thought. Sarah didn't agree, but she was growing more fond of Hangtree as time went on."

"Sarah?" Crease asked.

Burke's head c.o.c.ked, like it was a name he hadn't heard in so long that he didn't recognize it despite just having said it. "Yes, Sarah, my older sister. Older by nearly four years. Mary's aunt. She was living with us at the time. Recuperating. She'd suffered through a broken relationship."

"Was she home that day?"

"No. No, she wasn't. She'd gone to spend the day in the park. To read and relax." Burke was clearly speaking by rote, repeating what his sister had told him, word for word.

"Can I speak with her?"

"No, I'm afraid not. It wouldn't be worth your time, you see. She's . . . unresponsive."

Crease waited for Burke to tell him more, but the man didn't continue. His energetic burst of speech had come to a standstill. The man's eyes were now glazed. He was going even deeper. Crease said, "I don't understand."

"My sister has had a great deal of upset in her life. She loved Mary so much, almost like she was her own daughter, really. When we lost her, she . . . well, she collapsed. She's never recovered, I'm told."

"Where can I find her?"

Burke's face tightened, his features folding in on themselves. "I don't want you visiting and bothering her."

"Who was the man from the broken relationship? What other upset did she have?"

"I don't want you to see her and I don't wish to discuss this any longer. I think it's time for you to leave."

Crease waited. He watched Burke wrestling with himself, thinking of his dead daughter, his absent wife, all of the pain throbbing under his face, pulsing, like it would shatter his flesh and come flying through the shards at any second. "What other upset?" Crease asked.

"As I said, a broken love affair. We've all had them. Are you going to tell me you haven't?"

"No."

"Then, it's settled," Burke said.

"What's settled?"

"This discussion. It's over. I hope you understand, surely you do, but quite simply I don't wish to speak with you any longer. There's nothing you can do for me. Nothing that can be done for Mary. Or your father. He's dead and good riddance to him. To think I stood in awe of him once, in my own home. How pitiful, how foolish." He reached over and drew the now dirty ashtray closer to him, pulled it into his lap like it was a child. "You've accomplished absolutely nothing. Now, leave. Please leave."

Crease stood and walked out the door.

He thought, Okay, that was easy.

Chapter Ten.

He was in a downtown bar parking lot, at a payphone trying to call Joan, when he heard them walk up around him. They coughed and kinda muttered, sniffing loudly, scuffling their feet. A sure sign of hesitation.

Crease sighed and put the phone back in its cradle and turned to meet them.

There was Jimmy Devlin and three other guys who might as well have been Jimmy. All of them cut from the same colorless cloth, ex-jocks who'd gone to flab but still had a lot of brawn. Mooks who'd discovered too late that running touchdowns might get them laid by a cheerleader but it wasn't going to get them anywhere far in the world.

The disappointment scrawled in their faces was offset by a perpetual confusion, like they still didn't understand where their lives had taken the left turn. Forty years down the line, they'd still be wearing that expression in their coffins.

These guys, Crease imagined them taking out their old trophies, hissing hot breath against them, and wiping them down with a greater gentleness than they'd ever shown their wives or kids. He had nothing but disdain for these kinds of mooks because in an adjacent universe he was one of them.

He still had Jimmy's knife sheathed on his belt. He drew it and held it out to him, handle-first. "Hey, you want this back? It's okay, I've got another one now."

Jimmy-all four Jimmys-stared at Crease like they didn't know what to make of him. They had no idea how dangerous this was yet, how fast things could go nuclear. Funny how many guys walk around looking mean, flexing what muscle they have left, doing their best to appear brutal, but then act all baffled when somebody takes them seriously.

He saw the bulge of a .32 under one of their jackets. It wasn't in a holster, just stuck in the guy's tight inside pocket like it wasn't any big deal. If he had to draw it in a hurry, he'd be dead before he got his hand on it.

The others weren't carrying. They had no leader. Each one of them was waiting for the other to make the first move.

Jimmy Devlin didn't move to take his knife, so Crease put it back on his belt. He thought about playing around with the b.u.t.terfly blade for a minute, see what kind of impression it made on these idiots, the speed he could work it, but he didn't want to go to the trouble. It would be easier and more practical to nip this as quick as possible.

Jimmy Devlin's nose was taped up, but Crease knew he hadn't broken it. Jimmy actually took a step backward, trying to center himself, one fist covering his solar plexus to ward off another punch there.

The other Jimmys, now a step out in front, didn't know which way to move, forward or back. They shuffled around some more.

Maybe Crease hadn't come back to town because of his father. Maybe the girl's murder didn't mean as much to him as it should have. Maybe it was just for this kind of scene right here that he'd bolted north. Because no matter how old you got, how much you saw or did, how many children you had or medals you stowed, the adolescent pain clung to your back like a clawed animal.

Jimmy pointed a finger at Crease and said, "You! You s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g my girl?"

"You want me to?" Crease asked.

"No! What kind of sick question is that?"

Sometimes they were too dumb to even toy with. "You boys sure you want to do this?"

"Do what?" one of the others said, and he cracked his knuckles. The rest chuckled and bared their teeth in befuddled, bitter smiles, trying to ramp themselves up.

The taped nose caused Jimmy Devlin's voice to go high and nasal. He sounded like his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es hadn't descended yet. "Where'd you come from, huh? Why are you here? I want to know why you're here."

"I wish I could answer that, I really do," Crease told him. "But the truth is, I'm not certain myself. Let's just say I needed to see Hangtree again. And there's some stuff about my old man. And kidnappers. And a serious drug dealer and a bent sheriff. And a dead six-year-old girl. And money."

"What money?" one of the other Jimmys asked, his eyes wide.

The setting sun dropped heavily from the sky, the silhouettes of distant stands of pine and maple raised against its face. Night swarmed in around them, the stars appearing in great moving washes like a black ocean stirring as a storm approached. Wind swept across the street and blew bronze leaves with slashes of fiery ember along the walks. Inside the bar things were starting to crank, the dull thrum of music and belligerent laughter rising and falling in swells. Front porch wind chimes tinkled and tolled up and down the roads, all across the neighborhood. He didn't hear any children laughing. He seemed to want to hear children laughing. He was getting maudlin again.

Jimmy Devlin said, "You aren't from here, are you?"

"I could read you the license plate of your orange '84 Camaro, if you want. But you probably don't remember it, do you, Jimmy?"

"Christ, you do know me."

"I know you."

"I want your name. Tell me your name."

"No," Crease said.

There was always a problem with talking too much, even if you only did it to squeeze a little entertainment out of the situation for yourself. You got to chattering and pretty soon the others started believing you weren't going to do anything more. You were all talk. It gave them time to quell their nerves and pump themselves up again. Crease knew he should shut up, but he couldn't help himself. Talking to Jimmy was scratching a few places deep inside him that he hadn't fully realized he still had.

He could see these four on the streets of New York, swaggering downtown in the East Village. Looking for a place to get a brew and the first spot they hit is a gay bar. They walk in and see two guys holding hands and suddenly they need to start bashing in order to prove to each other they didn't want to take bubble baths together. They'd get half an insult out before they got their a.s.ses kicked.

Crease sighed again.

Another Jimmy said, "Answer the man. The man wants an answer. You should give him one. You're being rude."

"What's that?"

"You're being very disagreeable!"

It got Crease grinning. He thought, That's the worst the guy can say? That I'm disagreeable?

Another Jimmy said, "Yeah, who do you think you are? You coming around here causing all kinds of trouble. Irritating our friend. s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with his girl. Asking sick questions. We don't like people who ask sick questions around here."

Jimmy with the .32 said, "Don't make us do something we don't want to do."

"Like what?" Crease asked.

"Like what we don't want to do."

"Yeah, but what is it you don't you want to do?"

"We don't want to do something you might make us do!"

"What am I making you do?"

"Just get in your car and get out of here. Or else you might make us-"

Taking a step forward and getting back in line with the others Jimmy Devlin said, "Just stay away from Rebecca. She's my girl."

"You sure about that?"

"You don't know her, you don't know who you're dealing with. You got no idea what she's all about." He let out that laugh again, the one from the old days. "You should've listened to me when I was talking to you the other night. She'll spit you out. I love her. You can't handle her."

Crease heard that laugh and everything that went along with it, the sound of the Camaro's engine kicking into fourth gear. The tires squealing down Main Street, the smash of the beer bottle. His old man saying, "Take cover."

The four Jimmys moved up another step, the two on the ends easing out in a wide spread, cutting off any exit. All of them dropping their shoulders, shifting their weight. They were on the front line. Coach had them by the birdcage. They probably saw bleachers around them all the time, girls waving in the stands. Talent scouts taking notes.

They were stupid and they would be easy, but the chances were high that at least one of them would get hurt badly. Or somebody would get a lucky punch in. Crease couldn't afford to be off his game when it came to the final drop with Tucco. He didn't need any more trouble right now. Not when the real thing would be coming along soon enough.

Crease said to Jimmy Devlin, "Let me get this straight, okay?"

"Okay," Jimmy Devlin said, being very agreeable.

"You gave Reb four hundred bucks for bills, then two weeks later she tells you that you stink, sends you to the shower, steals two bottles of Jack and a hundred and eighty bucks out of your wallet." Crease had a good memory too. It threw guys off, hearing their own stories word for word coming back at them. "Then she lures you to the diner fifteen miles out of town, steals the plastic jug at the gas station, makes you an accomplice after the fact, then tries to ride off with a trucker. You slap her around some and she runs inside, meets me, has me work you over even while she's telling you to work me over. All this, and she's still your girl, you want her back. You love her. That right?"

The other three Jimmys looked at the fourth, waiting to hear his answer. n.o.body could put the pressure on you like your best friends. Especially when they thought you were losing your manhood to a chick who treated you like trash.

Crease lit a cigarette and leaned back against the phone, letting their eyes do all the work for him.

Jimmy Devlin said, "This isn't about her right now, it's about you jumping me the other night. Doctor's bill was eighty bucks and he couldn't do anything for me but tape my face up. I'm p.i.s.sing blood from those cheap shots you gave me."