The Night Parade(19)

“Sir,” said the officer, placing a hand against David’s chest. “I said to step back. Everyone’s doing their job.”

“You don’t—” David began, but was silenced as something exploded inside Deke’s house. It was a deep-bellied whump, followed by a rolling wave of thick, hot air. One whole side of Deke’s house blew out, spraying debris across the lawn and against the Bannisters’ house next door. A ball of flame roiled out, casting the faces of the nearest onlookers in a pale yellow light. Cops and firemen quickly motioned for people to get back, get back.

After a time, it began to rain harder, but it did little to douse the flames. When the roof caved in, a second fireball belched up into the night sky. A few people cried out, and many more sobbed. By morning, Deke Carmody’s house was nothing but a charred frame of struts and smoldering black boards, and it took firefighters much of the afternoon to locate Deke’s remains.





10


The stranger staring back at him in the mirror had his eyes. Beyond that, there were no other similarities. His hair was freshly cropped and dyed black, his complexion sallow and seamed with hairline creases around the eyes, mouth, and nose. It was like staring at himself wearing the mask of another.

He cleaned up the dye and the shorn bits of hair, collecting them in the plastic shopping bag where he’d previously stowed Ellie’s hair clippings. He cleaned the dye from the sink, a task that proved more monumental than he would have thought. He kept dumping wet globs of dye-blackened tissues down the toilet. He had gotten some dye on one of the bath towels, so he tucked that into the shopping bag, as well. After he finished, his fingertips looked as if he’d been printed at a police station.

When he stepped back into the room, he said, “So, what do you think of the new ’do?” He was grinning like a fool, trying to mitigate the seriousness of it all, but he stopped when he saw Ellie peeking through a part in the drapes. The smile fell from his face. “What are you doing?”

“There’s people fighting outside, I think,” she said, quickly pulling her face away from the drapes. “A lady’s out there crying.”

“Get away from there.”

He went to the window himself and peeled back a section of drapery. At first he could see nothing but the shiny chrome of the Oldsmobile’s front grille, and he realized that he had parked it right out front out of habit instead of behind the Dumpsters as he had done the night before. He could see no one outside, and he was just about to turn away from the window when he heard the strong baritone of a man’s voice barking some indecipherable order, followed by the pained mewl of a woman David could not see. The man’s voice had sounded very close—possibly even in the room next door—but the woman had sounded even closer, and less muffled. David pressed his forehead against the glass and craned his neck. A shadow moved along the walkway outside his door. He heard scuffling along the tiny bits of sand and gravel that had collected in the cracks between the stamped pavers. David felt his bowels clench. For a moment, he couldn’t remember where he’d hidden the handgun.

Then he saw the woman. She came ambling into his line of sight, moving in a defeated stagger behind the Oldsmobile and across the parking lot. She wore a plain white T-shirt that fell to midthigh and nothing else, as far as David could determine. Her hair was short, spiky, the color of pennies. She was sobbing. The lower half of her face was a slick and blotchy mess, and something dark had dribbled down the front of her T-shirt. It looked like blood.

The man with the baritone voice barked again, though his words remained indecipherable. This time, David caught a glimpse of him along the walkway, too—a robust fellow with a meaty forearm braided with wiry black hair. A bluish tattoo near his shoulder. Indeed, the man was standing in the doorway of the room right next door. His thick voice reverberated behind the wall of their room.

The woman paused beside the Oldsmobile’s rear bumper and seemed to sway momentarily on her feet. As David watched, she brought up a hand and touched her mouth. When she looked at her fingers, she whined like some injured animal.

David jerked away from the window, letting the drapes swing back in place.

Ellie was standing on the far side of the room, as if determined to get as far away from the commotion outside as humanly possible. Her eyes were wide, staring, terrified. Somehow inquisitive, too. “Is that lady okay?” she asked. Despite the fear in her eyes, her voice was remarkably calm.

“It’s not our business,” David said. “Let’s just get our stuff and get out of here.”

“Right now?”

“Yes. Before the police show up.”

“But I haven’t showered.”

“You’ll have to go without.”

“But I didn’t shower last night, either.”

“We don’t have time for this, Ellie.”

In the bathroom, David took the Glock from the duffel bag and jammed it down the back of his pants. He shouldered the bag, then glanced at himself in the mirror. His hair was still wet, the dye job looking too dark and suspiciously artificial. Yet he wouldn’t risk hanging around here, in the event someone called the cops on the sobbing woman in the parking lot.

He hurried back into the room. Ellie was standing by the front door clutching the suitcase handle in one hand, cradling the shoe box of bird eggs to her chest with the other.