The Demolishers Read online

  After a moment, Mac said, “I don’t condone what was done, of course. But to suggest that the death of one animal justifies in any way the kind of bloody revolt this man is planning…”

  I sighed. “I knew we’d get to that after-all-it’s-just-an-animal routine eventually, sir. But Bultman isn’t doing what he’s doing for an elderly bitch that would soon have died of natural causes anyway. He’s doing it for his right to keep an elderly bitch and, when her time was up, let her die in peace with her old gray head in his lap.”

  “Very touching, Eric, but…”

  I said, “I won’t go after him, sir. I won’t say he’s justified in what he’s doing. As you point out, it was only an animal, and a lot of human beings are going to die for it. But I can’t go after him because, as I said before, if it had been my dog, I’d have reacted in exactly the same way; so how can I hunt down the man for that? As a kid out west I learned that if you mess with a man’s horse or his dog you’ve only yourself to blame for what happens next. It’s time these people learned it, too, and I’m not about to stop Bultman from advancing their education. If you want my resignation, it will be on your desk as soon as one of the girls downstairs can type it up…”

  2

  When I was a boy, a Labrador retriever was always black. I was aware that the yellows and chocolates were permissible variations, but I can’t recall ever seeing one of those offbeat canines. Nowadays, however, every dog breeder is striving for something new and different. The yellow Lab has been rescued from obscurity and is starting to take over from the black.

  The pup that had been given me by the Swedish relatives on whose farm I’d stayed the previous spring ranged in color from pale red gold on the back to straw white on the chest. He was the biggest juvenile Labrador I’d seen. At eighteen months he weighed over a hundred pounds, with enormous feet and a head like a bear. His greeting was overwhelming, like being mauled by a grizzly; but I didn’t mind. I mean, it showed that he remembered me and, dammit, love is where you find it. There aren’t that many humans around eager to hug and kiss me.

  “Grown a bit, ain’t he?” Bert Hapgood said, grinning. He was a lean dark man in jeans and a denim jacket. “Down, pup, down! I ought to charge you extra, Matt, the grub he puts away. In the morning you can shoot him a duck or two and see what he’s learned about handling them…”

  Bert and his handsome, brown-haired wife, Doreen, ran what might be called a combination operation. They had their kennels, and they boarded and trained dogs throughout the year; but they also had boats in which they took people fishing in the appropriate seasons, and they had a considerable amount of local marshland under lease, on which they ran guided hunts in the fall and early winter from their rustic hunting lodge on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. It was a weathered building raised on stilts like the beach houses I’d passed on my way there, so high storm tides could wash underneath without damage. From my room, spartan but comfortable enough, I could hear the surf until I fell asleep thinking about tomorrow’s hunt.

  It was an improvement over some night thoughts I’d been having. I kept telling myself that I’d survived longer in the business than most, and that it had been only sensible to quit before the statistics of my profession caught up with me; but I’d have liked to have it happen in a more friendly fashion. I assured myself that it was ridiculous to entertain any sentimental or regretful thoughts about Mac; might as well start getting mushy about the public executioner. Still, we’d worked together a hell of a lot of years… But that night in Texas I thought only about ducks and dogs and shotguns, and fell asleep in record time.

  In the morning, after a hearty breakfast, we loaded the yellow pup into a crate in the back of Bert’s four-wheel-drive pickup and headed east along the highway, with another carload of hunters following along behind. It was a clear morning, with a good breeze and the sky already lightening in the east. The road followed the Gulf. Sizable waves were still breaking on the beach to the right. To the left was an endless expanse of marsh, into which Bert turned after a while, following an old, overgrown levee of some kind. At the end of it was a swampy pond.

  On the far side of the pond I could make out, in the growing light, a duck blind with a couple of dozen decoys floating in front of it.

  “It’s deeper than it looks; you’ll need the pup to fetch whatever you drop out there,” Bert said, leading me to the edge. “That’s why I gave you this spot, so you can see some water work. Don’t expect him to be steady when the gun fires; we haven’t insisted on that yet. I wanted to get him good and eager first. I’ll be back for you around nine; they generally stop flying about then. Good luck.”

  The pup, released when we got out of the pickup, was already swimming happily in the pond, something I was pleased to see. They’re supposed to be water dogs, but they don’t all know it. I called him in, as Bert drove off to take care of his other clients. After the usual ritual of shaking himself all over me, the dripping youngster accompanied me around the pond to the blind, which consisted of several barrels sunk in the mud, concealed by reeds and brush. I climbed into the left-hand barrel, which seemed to be most strategically located. It was reasonably dry and had a comfortable seat. I loaded my shotgun, an old Remington automatic I’d had for years. I whistled in the pup and parked him on a water-level wooden platform beside me that had been built for the purpose.

  Oddly enough considering where he’d been born, his name was Happy. The Swedes seemed to like picking their dog names from the English language, judging by the three-generation pedigree I’d been given that was nicely sprinkled with champions of one kind or another—I didn’t know what the European titles signified, but they looked impressive. We sat and watched the marsh come to life as the sun rose; the reedy vista gradually turning from dawn gray to daylight gold. Some shots were fired in the distance; then the pup stiffened, staring off to the left at an incoming single that was obviously seeking the company of the friendly-looking group of decoys.

  It was a teal, a small duck, but I wasn’t being particular this morning; I just wanted to see my dog work. I waited for a close and easy shot. When I rose at last the teal, just lowering its flaps for the landing, flared away to the left, low over the decoys. I let it get clear so I wouldn’t blast Bert’s imitation ducks, and fired. Rifle shooting is a deliberate science; shotgun shooting is the instinctive art of sweeping a fast-flying target out of the sky with swinging gunbarrel. This shot felt good, and was good.

  At the report, and the resulting splash beyond the decoys, Happy launched himself like a rocket, sending spray flying in all directions. He surged out there, swimming powerfully—no heads-up puppy-paddling here—and came back with the colorful little teal drake cradled in his mouth. He made the delivery in proper fashion. There’s always something special about the first bird brought you by a new young dog; and we admired it together and I scratched his ears and told him what a great retriever he was.

  It had been a long time since I’d owned a dog and I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed having one. But as I praised the pup, the instinct developed by years of survival in a non-surviving business was whispering in my ear that it was too soon for me to relax and consider myself a normal, dog-loving, private citizen. I wasn’t through with them yet, the deadly ones, the killers I’d hunted all my life, not because I hated them so much, but because somebody had to hunt them and it took another hunter to do the job. They were still out there, somewhere; and I’d better keep a sharp eye on everything I valued, even a dog, because they could strike anywhere…

  I brought my mind back to ducks, but too late: a pair of pintails had dipped low over the blocks and disappeared before I could get to my feet and get the gun to my shoulder. I’d barely sat down again when a larger bunch of assorted ducks pitched in to the decoys. They flared in all directions as I rose; the sky seemed to be full of them. I picked the one that made the best target, and hit it, and saw it fall. Happy was after it instantly, a yellow streak exploding from the blind. I
swung on another and missed, but corrected my lead and dropped it into the marsh behind us.

  Suddenly the sky was empty again. I reloaded and waited for the pup to bring me the duck that had landed in the water, a shoveler drake with an outsize bill, very gaudy and handsome; but they usually taste a little fishy. However, Happy was proud of it, and that was what counted today. He hadn’t seen the second fall, but he followed me back there and went to work willingly, searching where I indicated. Soon he hit the scent and dug the bird out of the tall reeds, a nice pintail, the best duck of the day so far. Then back into the blind in time to repel the next airborne assault…

  By the time Bert’s truck appeared, I was sitting on the levee on the outer side of the pond, where it was more or less dry. I was field-dressing my ducks while Happy kept telling me that there were still birds flying, so why weren’t we shooting them? He didn’t understand about game laws and bag limits.

  “Looks like you did all right,” Bert said, coming up. “Any problems?”

  “Yeah, this dumb dog doesn’t know when to quit,” I said. I grinned, scratching the pup’s ears and trying to keep him from climbing into my lap. “No, no problems. He did just fine.”

  “I was a bit worried when you first brought him here,” Bert said. “We’ve had some yellow Labs that didn’t have a lot of hunt in them, if you know what I mean; not compared to the usual run of blacks. But this one’s turning out pretty good. Give us a little more time to teach him manners and you’ll have yourself a retriever.”

  When we drove up to the lodge in the bright morning sunshine, a big car was parked by the stairs that led up to the veranda that ran around three sides of the raised building. Bert glanced at it curiously.

  “Rental car from the airport,” he said. “But we’re not expecting any… Doreen?”

  His wife was coming down the wooden stairs, looking slender and competent in jeans and a checked shirt. She didn’t respond to her husband’s implied question, but came straight to me.

  “You’ve got some visitors, Matt,” she said. “They’re waiting for you in the living room.”

  “Visitors?”

  Instinctively, I unzipped the shotgun case I was holding and reached into my hunting coat pocket for shells. If people had gone to the trouble of tracking me here, I preferred not to meet them unarmed. A duck load will do as well as buckshot at short ranges.

  Doreen laughed in an odd, strained way. “Oh, no, you won’t need a gun, Matt. It’s nothing like that. But… but I’m afraid you’d better brace yourself for bad news. I’m sorry.”

  I looked at her for a moment, but she obviously wasn’t going to tell me, so I went past her and up the stairs and around the veranda to the front door. The sea view was great from up here, except for a few oil rigs, but I wasn’t into scenery at the moment. I slid the door back and stepped inside, closing it behind me, a little hampered because I still held the cased shotgun.

  Of the two women who sat on the sofa side by side, the smaller was the one who’d have drawn a normal man’s attention first. Basically a pretty girl, and quite young, she was spectacularly beat-up-looking at the moment. In the glance I gave her, I noted a sling, a head bandage, and some ugly facial bruises; but I’d already recognized the woman beside her and couldn’t be bothered with taking the inventory any further. To hell with the battered kid. I wasn’t a normal man. I was an ex-husband facing his former wife. She rose as I crossed the room towards her.

  “Hello, Beth,” I said.

  “Matt.” She swallowed hard. “I… I can’t say it, Matt. It’s easier if you read it. Here.”

  She held out a page torn from a newspaper, folded to put a certain story on top. Tucking the shotgun under my arm, I took it and studied it warily. At first glance it was just another terrorist incident. A bomb had been flung into a small restaurant called La Mariposa, in West Palm Beach, Florida. I read on and came to the kicker: Killed by the blast were… Ernesto Bustamente, West Palm Beach, Fia.; Simon Greenberg and Rosa Greenberg, New York, N.Y.; Matthew Helm, Jr., Old Say brook, Conn…

  Mac would have been proud of me. My first thought was that my older boy was dead, murdered by a bunch of terrorist thugs, while my instinct was telling me to keep a careful eye on a damn dog.

  3

  I looked from the newspaper page to the woman I’d once married. She hadn’t changed very much. She still had that fresh, healthy, almost boyish, New-England-nice-girl look. Just slightly taller than average, she had light brown hair that still showed no hint of gray. Her figure, in blue tweed, was still slim and youthful; and her legs were still fine in sheer nylon. Her blue shoes had moderate heels. The color of her expensive suit, and matching cashmere sweater, emphasized the blueness of her eyes. There was something intent and hypnotic about the way they watched me. I didn’t gather that she was in a very stable mental state at the moment; but, then, who was?

  She was no longer my wife, of course. Her name was Logan now and had been for more years than I cared to remember, Mrs. Lawrence Logan, but we still shared something unique that belonged only to us: the memory of a small child in a crib, our first. There had been two after that, and we’d eventually become hardened to parenthood, but the first is the scary one, particularly when you’re as young as we were. You don’t know anything about it, either of you, in spite of the baby books you’ve been reading. You’re afraid of holding it too hard and breaking it, or not hard enough and dropping it. You can’t believe it’s really alive. You expect it to stop breathing any minute…

  “Kill them,” Beth said very softly, regarding me with that intent blue-eyed look. “That’s what you do, isn’t it, Matt? That’s why I left you, when I finally learned that about you, all those years ago. I was… a rather gentle person back then. But now I’ve come back asking you to find them and kill them for me. For us. For… for Matthew. Kill all of them!”

  Then she buried her face in her hands and began to cry. She swayed dangerously and I thought she was about to collapse. I started forward, but the kid got to her first, and led her back to the sofa, and looked up at me.

  “Would you mind putting away that firearm, Mr. Helm?” she asked calmly. “Guns make me very nervous.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, and zipped up the case and set the shotgun in the corner. Then I went to the little bar across the room and found three glasses and my private bottle. The Hapgoods didn’t have a license. You provided your own booze; they just supplied what you drank it with and out of. I took two glasses to the sofa, set one on the end table for Beth, and gave the other to the girl, although I wasn’t quite sure about the ethics of that. She was really pretty young. “Scotch is what there is,” I said.

  “Thank you,” said the beat-up kid, still with an arm around Beth. “Incidentally, Mr. Helm, I’m your daughter-in-law. We sent you announcements and invitations at the time, if you’ll remember, two years ago.”

  “I remember,” I said. “You were both still in college.”

  “Is that why you didn’t come, because you disapproved?”

  I shook my head. “A man in my line of work does better to stay away from public occasions involving his kids. There were other reasons why I figured the ceremony would proceed better without me. I didn’t think one absentee daddy would be missed.”

  “You were wrong,” she said stiffly. “But I believe we thanked you properly for the present and the check.”

  “You did,” I said. I looked at her for a moment. “So you’re Cassandra. Cassandra Varek as was, if I remember correctly. Cassie or Sandra?”

  “Sandra. I might answer to Sandy if you yelled loudly enough.” We’d both been intent upon the business of getting acquainted; now the kid glanced at Beth, who’d stopped sobbing and was groping in her purse for a handkerchief. Sandra asked me, “Where’s a bathroom?”

  “Through those doors and down the hall to the right.” But when she’d helped Beth up and started to lead her that way, I said, “Wait a minute. Why don’t you take her to my room? There’s a
small john there, and she can rest on the bed if she wants to. Out the front door and around the veranda to the left. Here’s the key; the number’s on it.”

  When the girl returned alone, I was leaning against the bar, sipping the drink I’d made for myself, although I didn’t want it very badly. I’m not a morning drinker. But it seemed like something that should be done, a gesture that should be made. You get a big tragic shock, you take a stiff drink, right? Sandra made a detour to pick up her glass and came over to face me.

  “Elizabeth will be all right. She’s just been holding it in, and it was a long plane ride.”

  “Sure.”

  “She doesn’t mean it, of course. What she said to you. She’s not really a vengeful person.”

  I studied her carefully, trying to estimate what she’d look like when she wasn’t a walking disaster area, this girl my son had married. She was shorter than Beth, sturdy and dark, with black hair cut very short. Perhaps, after having a significant part of it shaved away to permit treatment of the head injury, she’d decided to chop it off totally and let it all grow back at once. The area of tape above her right ear was quite extensive.

  She had a rather wide dark face, snub-nosed and full-lipped, with thick eyebrows that had never heard of tweezers. It was a good strong face, very attractive in a young and sultry way. I wouldn’t have judged it to be the face of a girl who’d fear guns and forgive her enemies; but on the subject of girls I’ve been wrong before. Her eyes were brown, and there was an ugly discoloration around the right one; she also had a bruise on the side of her chin. The sling I’d noted earlier supported her right arm. There were small dressings on both hands. She was wearing a tailored gray pantsuit with a black blouse, open at the throat. I could see through her trousers a suggestion of a bandage on her right thigh; I’d already noticed that she favored that leg slightly.