Page 65 of The Furies

“No, not Buker, and not Egon Towle either,” he said. “Did you speak to his sister? Yes, I’m sure you did. It would have been logical. But she doesn’t have it either.”

“Because Egon would have told you if he’d entrusted it to her,” I said. “You made sure of that.”

“Well done.”

“Is he dead?”

“Very.”

“Then let it stop here,” I said. “I can find Raum. I just need time to convince him to return what he took, but to do that I have to be assured of the safety of Dolors and Ambar Strange.”

“You may want time, Mr. Parker, but not for that alone. Are you seriously suggesting you won’t go to the police with what you know about me?”

“No,” I said, “I plan to tell them everything, but I’m also a realist. You know how to hide, and if the police fail to catch you, I don’t want my clients looking over their shoulders for the rest of their days. The coins aren’t important to me, but they’re very important to you, and one more than the rest. If I find a way to retrieve it for you, I’ll know my clients are safe. After that, the law can hunt you to its heart’s content, and I’ll be sure to book a good seat for the trial.”

“How close are you to locating Buker, Mr. Parker?”

“He’s gone north, to Aroostook County, which means you have no hope of tracking him. I do.”

“You’re lying. Buker is here, in Portland, near his women.”

He cocked the pistol, and instinctively I raised my hands, as though my fingers might somehow ward off a bullet.

“I’m telling you the truth,” I said. “Why would I lie? I have no reason to protect him.”

Not for the first time, my life hung on the pressure of a finger. Slowly, Kepler eased the hammer down.

“Yes, why would you lie?” he said, more to himself than to me. “All right, Mr. Parker, we’ve spoken long enough.”

Kepler reached into a pocket with his left hand and withdrew a plastic tie, already looped. He walked behind me, keeping his distance, the muzzle of the gun never deviating from my body.

“Hands extended behind your back,” he said.

I stretched out my hands, but prepared to move in the hope that the action of pulling the tie tight might leave him vulnerable or off-balance for just a moment. The tie touched my wrists. I tensed.

A Colt Single Action Army revolver weighs about two and a half pounds. Wielded with enough force, it will fracture a skull. Kepler didn’t hit me that hard, just hard enough to leave me seeing explosions in the sky. The plastic tie snapped taut as I fell. I lay in the dirt and listened to the sound of his footsteps growing distant, followed by a car driving west. I didn’t lose consciousness, but the pain made me wish I had. After a while I got to my knees and threw up, before using the edge of my car key to cut the plastic. When I was free, I dug a couple of bandages out of the first-aid kit in the trunk, used them to stanch the bleeding from the cut on the back of my head, and swallowed two Tylenol dry. I retrieved my phone from the bushes and tried calling first Will Quinn, followed by Dolors Strange. Neither picked up.

I now had a choice between two numbers, and one of them was 911. I opted for the other, either because I wasn’t thinking straight or because I was.

“Where are you?” I said, when the call was answered.

“Drinking cocktails in Terlingua,” said Louis.

Terlingua was an upscale BBQ place on Washington Avenue, within walking distance of Angel and Louis’s Portland apartment.

“How many have you had?” I asked.

“I’ve just ordered my second. Angel’s still on his first.”

“Cancel it, and pay the check. I need some help.”

“Gun help?”

“Would I be calling you,” I said, “if it was any other kind?”

* * *

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, I pulled up outside Ambar Strange’s cottage. I’d managed not to throw up again while driving, but it was a close-run thing. The lights were on inside the house, but the drapes were drawn. Will Quinn’s Jeep was parked in the driveway, as were Ambar’s red Toyota and Dolors’s old Buick. I rang the doorbell, but no one answered. Behind me, a black Audi pulled up at the curb. From it emerged Louis and Angel.

---