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KROUN

THE lines on the map and the written directions bore no resemblance to the actual lay of the road, Gabe decided

He&039;d planned to be patient, aware he was exploring unknown territory, knowing it ht turnoff, but after a futile hour of cruising up and down, backtracking, and finding one dead end after another, he was justifiably irritated

So had written things dorong

Or Sonny had given the wrong-

Gabe allowed hiust, then hauled the wheel around in yet another U-turn He went back three long miles in the country darkness to the last intersection, where a crooked sign pointed the way to the nearest town The na for him; it was ten miles distant and not on the route

He stopped the Hudson, letting it idle, and got out to look at the sign

As he thought, it was loose in the ground So in the wrong direction A swell joke to play on a nonlocal, yessiree, that&039;s a real knee-slapper

Gabe slan was parallel with the road, then checked the written directions against the map

Okay, that made sense

Back in the car, he turned left fro therew close to the road, their black branches arching over anda skeletal tunnel Snow, unbroken except for animal tracks, lay heavy over humped shapes that marked brush and stumps Plenty of deer were about; he&039;d seen a few dead ones on the way up No roadside bodies h If Farmer Jones hit one with the old truck, then it would be fresh venison for supper that night Country folk knew better than to high-hat a free h the snow No one had been up this way at least since the last fall, however long ago that had been

So the brake without benefit of thought, and the Hudson slewed and skidded to a reluctant halt

He stared at three oak trees on the left, each more than a foot thick and planted so close that the trunks were fused together for about fifteen feet before separating into different directions Sole to obtain round was distorted on one side where the roots were exposed, poking up fro on under the earth Rot had set in on one of the trees, and in the course of tih not in the directions, this was a landnized; he could not recall details, only that it was i the road, no rown, very easy to miss The snow looked deep, and not even animal tracks crossed it This was the turn he wanted, the one that would lead to the cabin

He worked gears, fed the car gas, and urged it in The Hudson rocked and slid over ruts hidden by the snow until it bue It pressed gah; no point in breaking an axle He ell out of sight froht notice the tire tracks, but he doubted there was ly isolated

He cut thedeep into a drift There was less snow under the trees, so he floundered toward their cover, then threaded cautiously forward Ahead, he heard thewater, lots of it

The cabin was a few hundred yards in and dark He expected asfor fresh prints in the snow as he made a wide circle No recent visitors Good

The structure was about twenty feet to a side, with a stovepipe piercing a roof that extended out over a porch that ran the width of the front Its one door faced a gradual doard slope that led to a wide black river The far bank was a thin gray line covered with unbroken pine and beeches

Gabriel couldn&039;t res hanging over the edge of a boat dock, bare feet in the water, a blue, blue sky above, and sweet sus and late afternoons, the sun would spark on the water, the reflected light dazzling him

Very unexpectedly he choked and felt chill, wet trails from his eyes He swiped at them, embarrassed, ashamed and suddenly afraid Men don&039;t cry Especially if but he couldn&039;t carry the thought further than that; his ain

He&039;d fished in that river, but not here No dock was in sight, nor the reo summer vanished from his mind&039;s eye

When Gabe refocused, he took in the cabin and grounds in ht would kindle so was fa had been constructed God kno long ago It needed paint but seemed sturdy, the walls and roof solid A pump stood in the middle of what served as a front yard, and about a hundred feet to the right, downstreaing open No prints marred the snoeen it and the cabin

The wind kicked up The place had been silent except for the river and his footfalls Now he heard the soft whirring song that only pine trees sang, sounding exactly as it did in the drearaveyards and ghosts He didn&039;t think he believed in ghosts, but if he did, then that was the kind of noise they&039;d make Gooseflesh shot up his ars He wanted to put his back to soun

When no invisible beast from the beyond leapt out, Gabe shook off the fit, if not his apprehension He was sensibly afraid of what he ht not find it

He had to knohat had happened in December, the why behind his very quiet trip to this lonely place, what had happened to the girl, what had happened to his driver

And who put the bullet inan ice-coated wood step to the shallow porch A save a li fancy, plank floor, so, but once upon a tiood place to live

Gabe pushed the door open It had no lock, just an old metal latch to hold the panel shut After a ht vision was such that the ah to see by Even so, he made use of a candle stub shoved in a holder on a shelf across fro it to life The action re in to the old bastard&039;s ravaged face, ser joints Gabriel had felt unco so physically close, but he&039;d taken care not to show it

He pushed away the memory and turned his attention on the rest of the cabin It was depressingly plain A sagging bed leaned in a corner next to a rusting potbellied stove, a narrow table, and two simple benches made fro forear-and a dusty white fedora

He looked it over carefully before picking it up It was his size, and the label matched that of identical ones in his closet back in New York No doubt of it now, Whitey Kroun had been here This was the source of his nickna to wear at any tiet in a crowd Maybe that was part of his bravado: Whitey Kroun, afraid of nothing and nobody, just try starting so

Clearly someone had, or the hat wouldn&039;t still be here He put it back

I must have been an idiot He touched the dark brirown more sensible in the last couple oods so old the labels had faded gray Beloas a stash of wood for the stove and several booze bottles, empty or nearly so

All very innocuous-except for the splashes of dried blood on the floor by the bed A rumpled and moldy blanket on top was also stained with the stuff

He first took it for black paint that soht the thick, rusty scent

After a long, long ti, he realized the stains were also from his bad dreams In the drea for soain

Was that his blood? His head wound would have bled

He felt physically sick as possibilities slithered through his mind He&039;d seen blood before, damn it He drank the stuff, for God&039;s sake

He still wanted to voirl? What had happened to her?

The left side of his head throbbed wearily He swept off his fedora and gently touched the ridge in his skull The nascent pain blooh his brain had swollen too large for the surrounding bone

Gabriel stu at a support post to stop his fall He forced his legs not to buckle

He clawed for a handful of snow and pressed it against his scalp, biting off a cry The agony was so bad that for a long, terrible moment he couldn&039;t see He held hard to the post and waited for the torture either to fade on its own or kill hin to hi to happen He wouldn&039;t allow it He blinked until the black veil dissipated

The compress of snow helped, really helped, but it was slow Minutes crawled by, then bit by bit the pain reluctantly ebbed

Breathing in icy river-tainted air helped, too He er for his brain to clear Speculation about what had happened in the cabin could wait until he was cal a door Out of sight, out of htened, brushing snow froers looked blue, but didn&039;t feel cold He cautiously put on his hat No internal explosions sparked He should have bought earht for woodland expeditions

Once he was sure his legs could e the labor, heoutward

He struck off,away from the river No conscious memory prompted him, only some wisp of dream that made him think the area was fah The place would look very different after the thaw in a couple months; he should come back then

Like hell He couldn&039;t live with the not-knowing for that long He had to get this over with-

The wind started up again,louder He paused and kneas close to soed hilow through a sideseelow flared and died, and he had to work to keep frouttered, that was all No one had blown it out He&039;d have heard co followed ht have so; his ability to vanish was damned handy He could have hidden in the trunk and-

Gabe held still and waited, but no ghostly gray shapeless thing floated between the trees That was how Fleh Gabe had the understanding that regular humans couldn&039;t see it Just as well, too; it was hellishly creepy

He wondered what it felt like: being bodiless, able to go through walls, instantly heal Damned useful, all of it

The snow layer thinned The pine branches above had prevented serious drifts fro He picked out animal tracks: deer and rabbit, and several kinds of paw prints He couldn&039;t tell wildcat froht be lurking in the silent woods Those he didn&039;t round, a mound hidden by the snow, nearly tripped his The snow lay sular surface beneath He crouched and brushed until reaching old leaves and earth Nothing to get excited about, probably just a covered-over garbage pit dug for whatever wasn&039;t burned or tossed in the river

But the ainst a pine trunk, only a few paces aas a shovel

Its wood handle was aging fast in the weather, the metal rusted Sootten it, or was it to mark a special place?

Gabe&039;s hands closed on it, and that felt faed it free and used the blade to clear the snoay

The pine tree he looked up, hoping for a clue, but nothing came to him Still, this had to be the place The wind in the branches sounded the saround was not as solid as it should have been, but he had to work at it His ih a few tio easy as the handle threatened to break if he applied too much pressure He slammed the blade in, cut deep, loosened, then cleared, hishim to understand that he was used to such labor He felt like he was acco

About three feet down, the shovel hit so that was not dirt, and he stopped

By noas sure of ould be there The scent of the turned earth had done the trick, had ed what lay before him hat he&039;d dreamed

He hated it, but continued, slowly

The stink of decay rose and mixed with the pine, snow, and river air

Soon he uncovered the nize features, but Gabe&039;s patchyfarther to reach the rest of the body to check the pockets, finding a wallet It held a few hundred in twenties, the tough paper still intact as legal tender A New York state driving license was readable, identifying one Henry Ramsey, born July 15, 1912 Date of death? Sometime in December, 1937 Just a kid His friends probably called hiht the daht have been caused by bullets There was a leather shoulder rig siun in it That lay in what reers curled around the grip, index finger against the trigger It was a32 revolver, rusted and caked with dirt

Gabe carefully worked it clear of the dead rasp Four bullets were still in the cylinder He wondered if one of the two one? Since Raood he&039;d not been caught unawares HeThen what? The killer had dug a long hole and rolled hi thaw, anie the re hunter, curious about the cabin, ht discover it It was a miracle that hadn&039;t already happened Was the hole deeper yes sorave

Mine

Instinct, not memory, provided that conclusion

With a bullet in his skull and all signs of life gone, someone had buried Gabriel Kroun a few yards from the foot of the pine The first shovelful of wet earth had covered his face and, quickly after, the rest of hi the way, Raether? Or was I first, then Ramsey?

In the drea aside so he&039;d touched, recognized, and recoiled from had been Ramsey&039;s head What happened afterward Gabe could not recall His resurrection was a hazy, disjointed, painful event The agony in his skull frohly distracted After dragging free fro on That didn&039;t seehtened, the wallet and its contents in hand He put the license back and, after a moment, the cash as well It made little sense not to keep and use the money, but with so for robbing the dead He returned the wallet to its pocket and went to ith the shovel, burying the ed by the time Gabe finished He&039;d not be able to make it to that town before the dawn overtook him but had allowed for the possibility

He was exhausted and half-frozen by the tiot to the car and folded himself into the backseat The four heavy blankets wrapped around hi body war the day No one had been out to the cabin into the wind beyond the rolled-up s It whirred between the pine needles and hissed through the bare branches of other trees Rather than being at peace, he felt lonely and afraid

Gabe sensed the sun, the change it forced upon his body, the slowing of his perceptions and thought as conscious control slipped away This day&039;s bout of dreah it somehow; he had to know

He shifted to a more comfortable position, arms and shoulders stiff from the recent exercise It didn&039;t work He&039;d be creaking around like an old man when he woke He should have ordered up a small panel truck He could have stretched out in the back

Why hadn&039;t he dropped off yet?

He should be out by now, not grousing to hi kind of vehicle What the hell?

He sat up, pushing off the blankets

Yes, he was sore and cold and creaked, his -the whole dalance at the painfully bright sky with its last gilding of sunset, and he understood he&039;d slept right through the day, no dreams, no memories at all

He&039;d been cheated

He needed that internal hell With the things he&039;d just learned, he had to dreaain to find out what had happened Awful as they were-

Da around as though to find someone to blame The woods were as empty as before and silent; the wind had died

Hoas it that, after all this time, he&039;d finally-

Gabe looked down His shoes and pant legs were caked with dried-out h to do the job He knew fro kept packets of his ho areas He even carried soht away from those shelters Until now Gabe had been dubious about the idea of the stuff providing true rest during the day It struck hi another kind of superstition associated with his condition The sight of a cross and the touch of holy water didn&039;t bother hirave dirt have such an effect? What a da that was It had robbed hiotten hirumbled and stretched out the kinks, which weren&039;t too bad, considering He did feel rested, far etic than he&039;d been in weeks Okay, there was a good side to hisanother,

The dried blood still very much in place, he lit another candle and checked every corner, every stick of furniture, tapped each board, looking for anything rese an explanation

He soon found a six-shot22 revolver, bullets spent, blood-s over its surface It was behind one of the benches, not hidden, just not in plain sight Perhaps the shooter had dropped or thrown it there The nurip that didn&039;t hold fingerprints A feeble weapon for soun&039;s small size and low level of noise Fold a pillow around it or hold it directly against a target and it sounded like a balloon popping, if that much

Gabe didn&039;t kno he knew that, but was not surprised such details lurked in his un, unless a fourth person had crashed the party

Coht They annoyed the hell out of him, but Gabe had to keep theerly, with thuer, he pulled the top blanket off and spread it out on the floor There was no pattern to the bloodstains; it was a ray sheet beneath was also bloody, most of it in the middle He recalled what Lettie had said about Nelly Cabot&039;s injuries and fought past a bout of nausea He lifted the sheet to reveal an ancient stained mattress that also stank of mildew The stuff was all over, dor as little as possible, he dragged the mattress away from the bed, which wasstore-bought about that operation

In the spaces between the planks, the floor beneath was visible, and soot it Got them

Should have looked there first

He closely exae Whatever had been inside theone

Michael

The fourth person

A coirl

And maybe he killed me Or had Ramsey do it, then killed hiht the job had been botched and that I didn&039;t suspect him No wonder he didn&039;t want me up here

Upon his return to New York, Gabe had been very careful not to let on about his loss of memory It was easier to do than he&039;d hoped He was in a position where no one questioned hi a stern look and not saying much

Michael had been out of the country at the time, or so he said Distracted by his own probleh the sideinto a very silent night The wo in his drearief? While Rarave, Mike could have been in the cabin with her, doing God knohat to ensure she would keep quiet

Then I get the blame since she was last seen with ainst the rusted revolver He shifted the gun to a different pocket and found that his hands were shaking

Rage Yeah, he had plenty of that

Soon as I see Mike again

He pinched out the candle fla the white fedora, he let the latch fall on the door and walked to the pump Its works were frozen for the winter The bucket next to itwater was topped with snow He went down to the riverbank, loaded the inside of the hat with a few rocks, using a handkerchief to tie the bri the hat far out over the water It splashed once and vanished in the black flow

Next he scooped sand and icy water and scrubbed his hands until thethe dark cabin and as inside

He wanted to burn it

Te, but a bad idea However secluded, fla kind of attention to this place Soht feel bound to track down the property owner Gabe realized he could be the owner He just didn&039;t know

Better to leave it for now He could always return with a few gallons of kerosene

That would cleanse the place every square inch of it

The o seemed to have stretched themselves He had too , with his endless questions, would have been welcome Gabe turned on the car&039;s radio, and the noise of a coht; he was probablyDerner&039;s life htcraas probably out looking for the green Hudson and itsdriver Fine Let &039;e at the next street, got lost, and pulled over to study thelost was part of his lack of memory or if he&039;d always been like that

His clearest postdeath recollection aking in a cold barn loft where he&039;d hidden froone groggily doashed off blood and grave dirt in an ice-crusted water trough, and taken his first feeding froh the agony in his head kept hi He see food, of knowing how to deal with his change if not the hohy of it

The circuht sleep, lack of otten into such a spot, and all that came before-didn&039;t really bother hi himself was just how the world ran, and his instincts told hi license that provided a nahon country roads, then taking a train, then a taxi, he used a key froh he couldn&039;t remember it, he assumed it to be his Old mail scattered over a desk bore the name on the license The flat was nice, and the clothes there fit He er&039;s life

Pretty soon friends turned up

Well, acquaintances

They showed hinize as fear A very few asked about the white streak in his hair He found a smirk and a shake of the head to be sufficient reply

Mike had walked into the flat as though he&039;d been there uard In retrospect could it have been guilt? He was the only one who h

They had a businessin a booth across fro man Michael talked a lot of business that didn&039;t ed him on a point Mike looked at Gabe At a loss for what to do, Gabe looked at the , then left, sweating Mike said thanks in a flat voice and departed as well

From that point Gabriel decided he&039;d better learn what the hell kind of job he had

It didn&039;t take long He killed people He was good at the work

He wasn&039;t sure how he felt about that Not then Later, he decided that coldhe wanted to do to anyone

The roughhouse when he and Fle had taken on Mitchell didn&039;t really count Heat-of-the-, but to walk up and coolly put a bullet into a stranger that was just wrong

There had been a couple of tih to do violence, such as when he&039;d thought Fle up the car But Gabe had wanted to punch hiun had been a tool, little et attention

On the other hand, Fle had been pretty clear about what had happened after the car crash last night Gabe couldn&039;t re had upset the kid The lapse was disturbing, but there was damn all to be done about it

In that first month in New York, Gabe worked out how to hypnotize people They told him a lot he didn&039;t like and much he didn&039;t believe He decided the whole crowd, including Michael, were considerably crazier than he and farconsu-established outward front

Strangely, no one noticed anything different about him They all had certain expectations as to how he should behave, and, when he drifted outside those expectations, the s simply stretched their limits to accommodate It was their fear of him They put on their own fronts, acted friendly, shook his hand, laughed at his jokes, but were still pissing in-their-pants terrified of him

Yeah, crazy

Gabe observed carefully and from them learned how to impersonate the man he&039;d been It wasn&039;t perfect; he&039;d souy never said anything

Down deep he had to be terrified of Whitey Kroun, too

That covered who he had been, next ca library with the lions out front and looked up stuff about vampires It was crazy as well, but since soed, accepted, andhis lip shut

Gabe had yet to find out exactly how he&039;d come by the condition

So&039;s reckless dig notwithstanding-had done so quite out of the ordinary to Gabe The details were lost, taken ahen the bullet had ripped into his brain

Very da, that

Once the dust was settled on his current probleradually thinning traffic, pulling up in front of Flehts showed, just like the cabin He pushed the thought away, strode up the walk, and used his picklocks to get in

That was also a skill he could not recall learning Useful, though

He listened before shutting the door, noticing that the brokenat the far end of the hall had been replaced Hand it to Gordy, he ran a tight ship

The place was ehts He didn&039;t need the know company was present should he return If the kid had any sense, he&039;d be cheering up that sweet blond girlfriend of his Bobbi Funny naot both suitcases and went up to the third-floor guest room The rumpled bed was as he&039;d left it, and it almost looked like the one in the cabin, but without the blood

I gotta stop that kind of thinking

He straightened the top spread, opened the cases, found a crisp new shirt and the second suit he&039;d bought It was identical to the one he had on, black with a charcoal pinstripe, very sharp He didn&039;t like to fuss over clothes, just pick good quality and forget about it

Stripping and taking a shower-bath was a little piece of heaven He stayed in until the hot water ran out, but erave dirt well, clearly it worked He&039;d have to start sleeping with a bag of it in the bed What a luxury to be dreaht he should save the residue on his discarded clothes and bundled them into a pillowcase and put it in the small wardrobe Was it too close to the bed?

Only if he slept here for the day He would use that abandoned store again Broder and Michael didn&039;t know about it

Gabe dressed slowly, liking the feel of new clothes Fresh and ready for anything, he went downstairs to phone the Nightcrawler

Derner sounded harried "Mike&039;s on the warpath and wants to talk to y-"

"Give him a Bromo-Seltzer and a blonde"

"I would, I really would, but he&039;s in Cicero"

"Well, that&039;s his hard luck What&039;s he doing in-no, forget it" It would be business With Mike it was always business He could do half a dozen things at once and give each his full attention Suy Very s Broder et hirenade job-unless Mike had lied and faked his surprised reaction If Broder&039;s task had been to kill Gabe, then it made sense for Mike to keep hieneral principles or for a specific reason? Why wait two months for another try?

"When will they be back?"

"Didn&039;t say, but I&039;ve got a number you&039;re to call"

Gabe wrote it down on a notepad by the phone Cicero wasn&039;t that far He was reasonably sure he could find it, but a local guide would be better to have along "Has Fleht?"

"Huh? Uh-no Probably at his club He usually calls in before now You gonna talk to Mike?" Derner seemed worried More so than usual, that is

"In about two h for the connection to break, then tried the new nu to a hotel He asked for Mike and got put right through

He picked up on the first ring

"Hello, Michael" Gabe used a friendly, cheerful tone, intending to be as irritating as hell "Probleo back to New York again? Because the answer&039;s no Now that that&039;s settled, how long will you be in Cicero?"