American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,82

the cube, it does not come.

“You brought her here,” he says. “I don’t know how you did it from so far away, but you pulled her here.”

Still the cube does nothing: it simply sits in the center of the room, gleaming darkly in the light of the lamp.

“Why?” he asks. “What are you doing? What do you need her for?”

No response. But is Parson mistaken, or is the work lamp moving a little bit, as if the cube is pulling it closer and closer?

“Answer me,” he says. “Answer me. I deserve that. I deserve one answer, at least.”

The work lamp keeps getting closer and closer, its cord stretched to the breaking point, until finally it can take it no longer and with a snap the lamp breaks free and flies to the cube like a bullet from a gun. The light goes out, and there is a clang and the sound of glass shattering from somewhere in the darkness. Then nothing.

Parson gazes into the darkness. “Fine,” he says bitterly. “Have it your way.” And he stomps back upstairs to his office.

WE ARE NOT HAVING THIS CONVERSATION

CHAPTER TWENTY

Okay, so.

Mona knows now, or at least generally feels, that she isn’t insane. She is not hallucinating, nor is she schizophrenic, nor is any of this a result of years of profound and bitter depression, depression she thought she was escaping when she came to Wink. No, she now feels that this madness is being done by Wink itself, as if the little town is toxic or soporific in some way and she’s slowly being drugged or poisoned just by being here. Why this town has such an effect on her, she isn’t sure; but she knows now that it’s not some genetic defect in her brain that may one day send an impulse to her hand telling it to please pick up that loaded Remington in the closet, lift it to her temple, and await the hot kiss of cordite-perfumed lead. Which is a pretty big relief.

But if she’s not crazy, she thinks as she drives the Charger through town with evening rushing on above her, then why is she still here? And, more importantly, why is she suddenly so cavalier about committing very prosecutable breaking and entering on behalf of a semi-lucid old man who runs an empty motel on the outskirts of this town? Because, she reminds herself as she parks her car on the side of the road next to a steep cliff, that’s exactly what she’s about to do.

She gets out and peers down the cliff and sees the home nestled in the pines below. It is a huge, sprawling mansion, and though she cannot see much of it from here she can tell it’s one of those houses in Wink that’s absolutely perfect, a house that should exist only in the backgrounds of fashion magazines and Rockwell paintings.

It’s getting quite dark out by now, and she checks her equipment one last time. She’s wearing her black boots, a pair of dark jeans, and a dark coat she borrowed from Parson. Around one shoulder is a black, compact backpack that contains a set of improvised lockpicks (and Mona, having worked quite a few burglaries in her time as a cop, knows these are frequently all that’s necessary), a small flashlight, a utility knife, and a pair of gloves. Tucked in the back, as usual, is her Glock, but she hopes to Christ she’s not going to need it. Mona has never shot anyone, and she doesn’t want her first time to occur when she’s doing something ridiculously, ridiculously illegal.

“I do not expect for there to be anyone there, or anyone watching,” Parson told her back at the motel. “The death happened weeks ago, and I expect all eyes will be on Macey’s residence, since his passing is so much more recent. So getting in and out of Weringer’s house should be no issue.”

“The way you say that makes me think there’s problems somewhere else,” Mona said.

“You are correct,” Parson said. “It’s what’s inside the house that may be an obstacle for you.”

“I thought you said Weringer was just an old man who lived by himself?”

Parson squirmed uncomfortably, and Mona knew they were skirting one of the many subjects he couldn’t discuss directly. “There are very few ‘justs’ in Wink,” he said. “Let me simply say that what you encounter in the house, even if Weringer no longer lives there, will probably be unlike many things you have ever seen