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I STOPPED at the Dugan house onunnecessary but reassuring extra turns before getting there

The neglected pile looked forlorn, like an old lady left behind by careless grandchildren I wondered if Dugan had some kind of sentimental attachment to the place or if it was pride that ht have had nowhere else to go, hanging on until his kidnapping gamble paid off or the bank foreclosed I couldn&039;t feel sorry for hih He was able-bodied and sharp- a cream-puff job in the fairl and herhi-in, I looked around, found it ed from my last invasion

The cops or his attorney had come by, for the note Escott and I had propped on the phone was gone No way to tell who&039;d gotten it, though

I picked up a few things, shifting others over with a gloved hand to close the gaps so they wouldn&039;t be

After soainst the wooden flanks of the house, a creepy sound when you&039;re alone

And daot out quick, sought the fa the Gladwells&039; back gate Escott had left it open Apparently the flood of reporters had eased since Dugan&039;s disappearance At this late hour-it was getting on tounless they had business, like yours truly I drove through and parked next to Escott&039;s Nash

The lights were on in the back of the house, and Escott answered the door tocoffee in the kitchen I&039;d egg him about domestication later, e&039;d all be in a ot a polite reply and a question of what I was planning to do She didn&039;t look worried, which I took as a good sign Re my overcoat-careful to conceal the bullet holes in the back-I explained a couple things, and she agreed and went off in search of help

"What&039;s up?" I asked Escott "Servants&039; night off?"

"Most of them are asleep Is that a problean&039;s place, and the eavewouldn&039;t cheer that dump up"

"You don&039;t care much for darkness and silence, do you?"

"Who does?"

"Good point, it just seeiven your condition"

"Das ever happen to people-supernatural or otherwise-

ander around by thes"

"Even better point Any sign of Bristow and his friends?"

"Not that I saw, and thanks for re me" I went to the kitchen phone and called Clarson&039;s office This time Shoe Coldfield answered

"You sure put the corncob up Isha on?"

I told him, with more detail, what he should know andho shot," I said to them both "Maybe one of his cronies turned up and they went out for a drink, but I don&039;t want to take chances that Bristow got to him"

"That&039;s two of us," said Coldfield

"Are Bobbi and Adelle out of there?"

"Yeah They didn&039;t like it, but they&039;re gone"

That was a big relief "Where?"

"I sent &039;euys ork there also work for me They can keep an eye open"

"Shoe, I owe you"

"You just get the next singer I date a spot in your club for a week, and we&039;ll call it even"

"Deal Consider that a handshake How&039;s Gordy?"

"The saht in a nurse to look after hione"

"Can he be moved?"

"Not unless you want hiured a way around that"

"Oh, yeah?"

He told , I said, "For that I&039;ll have spots open for the next dozen singers you date"

"I&039;ll hold you to it, kid What are you going to do about Bristow?"

"I got soht, toht for sure

I&039;ll let you know if it works"

"You let me know if it doesn&039;t Until then you and Charles keep your heads down I don&039;t want to scrape either of you off any sidewalks"

"No arguments from us on that"

"On what?" Escott asked when I hung up

"Shoe hates a mess, so we can&039;t let Bristow kill us"

"Or anyone else, one would hope What news of Gordy?"

"He&039;s the saenius"

"Indeed?"

"One of his car repair shops has an ao back to work toonna put soht Gordy couldn&039;t be onna bundle a bunch of laundry together under a blanket, strap it to a stretcher eights, and take it downstairs to that ahts flashing, bigger than Broadway They&039;ll get the stretcher into it, then drive off the same way Everyone on the street will see

Clarson will put some of Shoe&039;s ood, and all the while Gordy&039;s still safe upstairs in bed"

"Heavens, that is brilliant But what if Bristow isn&039;t there to notice?"

"Won&039;t uess is Stroot people on the watch-from a re-spectful distance They won&039;t miss that The ambulance proceeds to shake any tails and take itself far, far away

Shoe&039;s people will seehts at Clarson&039;s place"

"I wish I could be there to see, but it&039;s probably best to let things run their course"

Vivian returned, carrying a squarish box with a suitcase handle and ?"

Escott hurried over and took it off her hands, putting it on the broad kitchen table and opening it up

I checked "It&039;s perfect Let&039;s get started"

Hurley Gilbert Dugan sat up straight on his cot as though this was a fancy parlor, not a dank and chill underground cell I&039;d just unlocked the heavy door and stood on the threshold, peering inside He looked tired and disheveled, his shirt buttons undone and a growth of beard shadowing up his face and jaws, but his dignity-or sense of superiority-was intact Not a bad front to keep up with no shoes and thoseon his wrists

"I expected you to keep er than this," he said

"Unlike you, I have places to be and things to do I had a et some small-fry errands out of the way"

He sently, the way you do with self-i on in the orld? They&039;re not tellingto hiive orders like "Take your food," and "Push that onto the shovel" I heard the rule of silence was practiced on Alcatraz to good effect "It&039;s spinning on as usual Without any help from you"

"What time is it? Someone took ht he ht like to confirm what day it was, but he didn&039;t ask Not that I&039;d have answered

"I want my watch back"

"You don&039;t need it"

"I won&039;t turn it into a weapon or a lockpick, if that&039;s orries you"

"It wasn&039;t, but I&039;m happy to hear it"

"That watch is a family heirloom Is it in a safe place?"

"Yeah"

"You won&039;t tell me where? Is it supposed to add to my punishment? I&039;ve read that such tortures are inflicted on prisoners to destroy theirwhere your watch is makes for torture, wait awhile, you&039;ll learn better"

"What are you doing there?"

"You&039;ll find out"

I&039;d been uncoiling an electric extension cord; now I brought in the portable phonograph Vivian had brought to the kitchen, setting it just inside the roo around as a refrigerator, not the sort of thing you could easily lug downstairs This smaller one had been volunteered by her cook to the cause I put the ently on the floor and hooked it up to the cord&039;s plug, then went out again, taking a flat box from Escott

It contained the two records we&039;d

He stood just out of sight, but not earshot, of the cell, Vivian right next to hiht talk more freely to me without any additional audience

"Are we to hearhis tone neutral, with neither hope or dread attached He h

Except for such faint sounds of the household that h theits effect I know I&039;d go nuts in ht, the freedom to move around within, a radio to play, and books to read, in the end it was still a tiny, confining vault

"Yeah, you&039;re gonna hear so for me are the police," he ventured "That&039;s why you put me here So they would think I fled"

"You&039;re real smart"

"It won&039;t work I&039;ll make sure it doesn&039;t work"

"You think a lot of yourself"

"No ht the repercussions"

"By sending out o ahead I talked with my friends They said they could take little heat for me"

"That&039;s a lie"

"You should know Truth is, once I&039;et a priest in a confession box to listen to you with a straight face Write all the letters you want to good old J Edgar and see what happens You&039;ll have to write theonna have an effect on their credibility"

"When my lawyer learns what you&039;ve done-"

"I&039;ll have a little talk with hi you Lawyers like to get paid, and you&039;re short of funds now and getting shorter Must have pissed hi, and after all those stories in the papers about your innocence The judge read hian listened, sucking in every word He&039;d know at least one day had passed just froht down and their type I thought of asking the cook to switch thes for supper and roast beef for breakfast They could skip a ether Then he&039;d have only his beard growth to estie of time That would confuse hier than necessary

The last thing I brought in was so those aside

They were his own, taken from his table-turned-desk when I slipped into his ereen ink, the paper his stationery

I also pulled out a few more paper animals and tossed them within reach of his chain tether One of the boats lay on its side, a fragile shipwreck on the bare concrete

"All right," he said after staring at thehts and within your li So?"

"I figured it shouldn&039;t be too hard to find a newspaper editor looking to ined confession but wouldSince they&039;re in your handwriting, some of them with dates at the top"

"Yes, I see what the threat is Publish and be damned"

"Sure about that?"

He tried throwing a withering look of conte into it, I turned raph

I couldn&039;t tell hoell Escott and Vivian could hear Dugan I talked loud enough, but his voice ht not carry well and was a little distorted because of echoes off the harsh walls

"Fle"

"I&039;m still here"

"I understand what you&039;re doing If I write ainst you, you send these in to the papers Move and countermove, we neutralize each other"

"Sounds about right But I&039;"

Flash of annoyance He really didn&039;t like that moniker "Then what? What do you want?"

"You knoritten confession I think Mrs Gladwell may have hed, and it sounded sincere "Even were I to write such a thing, it would be useless to you because of the means you used to obtain it Our system of law forbids confessions obtained under duress"

"I&039; up the law? After what you did?"

"The law is to keep the accused from the hands of the mob I&039;ll use it to the limit, use whatever means necessary to savefor you here, bo Consider this room to be an independent country that never heard of the Constitution"

"You&039;re bluffing That sense of honor you have won&039;t allow you to carry this charade too far, else you&039;d have killed me instead"

" That could still happen The others in this place will sooner or later get tired of bringing you food and carrying away your crap Wouldn&039;t take et to come down here After a couple of days with no water, you won&039;t have enough spit to shout for help No one&039;s around to hear you, anyway" I could see I was hahts that had already occurred to him

"Maybe the whole point of this is literally an eye-for-eye We keep you on ice here for teeks, same as you did for Sarah Then at the end of it we drop you into a cesspit There&039;s a prospect to keep you warhly dead before we do it"

He shook his head, so that far"

Good He was starting to repeat hi on fear

"You want my confession because you still have respect for the justice system

If you were as bloody- to be, it wouldn&039;t matter

You&039;d kill me"

"Don&039;t think I won&039;t But if I don&039;t have to, if the state can do it for h"

"What do youisn&039;t a capital offense"

I paused work on the phonograph, straightened, and paced over to hi his alar, ood to me, but I abstained this time He flinched when I picked up his cot and carried it out of reach

"What are-" He al to shut down his curiosity

Next I removed his roll of toilet paper and the chamber pot, which was fastidiously covered with a towel I carried the them on the floor well outside the roos Dugan raph and records Escott and Vivian shot me interested looks, but I didn&039;t break stride, just winked in passing

When I returned, Dugan had his back to the wall, very vulnerable He didn&039;t knohy I had removed his few co through his head about now I could s off him like sweat It was about damn ti about the bodies found at his for it over, I waited until he&039;d read enough "I can&039;t remember Does Indiana have a death penalty or not?"

He let the clipping drop, shaking his head, see to relax "There&039;s no proof who did this Certainly none that could ever involve ht have been killed by the other men"

"I&039;m sure I can ask Vinzer and the rest what they reet the truth out of theuess is they&039;ll be more than happy to sell you out to save their own hides-and for that I won&039;t have to talk to theet it from them"

"Then what-?"

"Concentrate, Gurley, you&039;re showing sloppy in the brain department The confession We want your confession just to keep things tidy I don&039;t like loose ends You disappearing and leaving behind a state"

"Oh, that threat should er I live"