Dead Man's Song (Pine Deep 2)
They started running toward the forest and this time Newton ran as fast as Crow.
(5)
Vic punched the dashboard lighter in and when it popped he lit his cigarette and then handed it to Ruger. They smoked in silence for a long time, watching as the sun slipped below the treeline. Vic’s pickup was tucked back into a copse of trees, safe within shadows as dense as the bottom of a well. They could see the sun, but the rays did not penetrate even as far as the truck’s hood. Ruger’s ski mask, hat, and gloves were on the backseat. He wouldn’t need them again tonight. Vic looked at his wristwatch. “Sun’ll be down in ten minutes. ”
“Vic,” Ruger said softly, and when the man turned Ruger said, “You know that I know about the sunlight. ” He smiled. “Don’t you?”
“I guessed. ”
“Why the bullshit?”
Vic shrugged.
Ruger said, “It bothers me, but that’s it. I don’t turn into the Human Torch. ”
“Some of your boys do. ”
“Most don’t. ”
“Well…we don’t know what we got all the time. It’s pretty clear that there are a lot of different kinds of you sonsabitches. ”
Ruger said nothing.
“You got dead heads like Boyd. Like extras from Night of the Living Dead, Part Ten. I mean…are they even vampires?”
Ruger just looked at him.
“Then there’s your core group—you and Golub, Gaither Carby, the twins, those guys. There’s your true fang gang. ”
“‘Fang Gang. ’ That’s cute. ”
“But in between you got a bunch of weird spins on this thing, some of them I never even heard of before. I know you’ve been reading my books. Do you have an answer?”
Ruger looked out the window at the fading light. Turned away so Vic couldn’t see his smile.
Vic waited for a moment, then gave it up. It’s something he would take up with the Man. Too much of what was happening was not part of the Plan, and that made Vic nervous. Even within the Plan itself there were variations popping up, and for the first time in his life he wondered how much control the Man had. Were there things he didn’t know, even about his own kind? Just thinking that made Vic’s stomach hurt.
To hide his discomfiture, he said, “Wonder how things are going down in the Hollow. ”
“They’re still alive,” Ruger said, closing his eyes. His voice was tinged with surprise.
Vic stared at him, and the sickness in his stomach worsened. “Yeah, I can feel that, too. Son of a bitch!”
Ruger wore a knife-slit smile and was slowly nodding to himself. “I guess I’m not the only one who trips over bad luck when that asshole Crow is in the mix. ”
Vic shot him a vicious glare. “You watch your mouth!”
“Oh, face it, Wingate,” Ruger snapped, “that little bastard has the luck of the devil, and you know it as well as I do. Even the Man couldn’t take him down on the first try. Don’t even try to tell me there isn’t something else at work here. It’s not just me. ”
They smoked in silence as the sun continued to fall. Vic gave a sour grunt and said, “Yeah, maybe. But at least that bitch’ll be dead soon. ”
“Recruited,” Ruger correctly mildly. “Dead’s just a by-product. ”
“If Terry Wolfe hadn’t been going off his nut, I’d have popped Crow weeks ago,” Vic mused. “He’s always been a pain in the ass. ”
“You think Wolfe would make it to Halloween if Crow was off the board?”
Vic shrugged. “The Man thinks so. He says he has the mayor on a leash, and maybe he is. Hard to say—talk around town is that he’s really starting to crack. ”