CHAPTER EIGHT::

When Parker got to the intersection he made a U-turn and stopped, facing back the way he had come. He and Angie waited in the Dodge while Henley took the ROAD CLOSED—DETOUR sign out of the trunk and set it up blocking the numbered county road, with the arrow pointing toward the smaller blacktop road leading off into the woods to the right. This was a completely empty intersection, the crossing of a minor county road and an almost-abandoned old connector road, with no buildings of any kind anywhere in sight. On two sides there were dense woods, on the third a scruffy weed-grown meadow, and on the fourth a cornfield now dry and brown after the harvest.

Henley got back into the car, and Parker drove a quarter mile back toward the city, then backed off into the dead-end dirt road he’d found last week. There was nothing to do now but wait; Krauss and Ruth had already been dropped off, Krauss would be setting up the other detour sign, and everything was set.

Six miles away, the black Lincoln limousine took the curving ramp down from Northern State Parkway to the county road and turned north. The chauffeur, Albert Judson, drove steadily at fifty-five, undisturbed by other traffic in this sparsely populated area early on a Tuesday afternoon. In the back seat, Bobby Myers read his comic books, sprawling comfortably across the seat.

Seven minutes later Henley said, “Here they come.”

“I see them,” Parker said, and put the Dodge in gear as the Lincoln sailed by them. The Dodge moved out from the dirt road and accelerated in the Lincoln’s wake.

Judson, at the wheel of the Lincoln, tapped the brake when he saw the sign blocking the road ahead. Bobby, behind him, looked up from his comic book and said, “What’s the matter?”

“Detour. We have to take Edgehill Road.”

“The detour wasn’t there before.”

Judson, turning off onto the secondary road, said, “I guess they just started. Maybe they’ll fill in those potholes down by the bridge.”

“Boy, I hope so,” Bobby said. “Sometimes I could throw up along there.”

“Don’t do that,” Judson said, grinning in the rear-view mirror at the boy, and as he did so he came around a curve in the road and saw vehicles stopped ahead. A school bus, facing this way, its red lights flashing, meaning it was unloading passengers and traffic wasn’t permitted to pass it in either direction. And a truck, a big tractor-trailer rig, facing the same direction as the Lincoln and obediently standing still. The two vehicles between them blocked the road completely. Judson braked, and the Lincoln slid to a stop directly behind the truck. Bobby said, “Why’s the bus stopped there?”

“Must be letting somebody off.”

“Nobody’s getting out.”

Judson, who was sometimes irritated by Bobby’s questions, said, “Then they’re waiting for somebody who’s supposed to get on.”

Back at the intersection, Parker stopped long enough for Henley to get out and move the detour sign so that it now blocked the road the Lincoln had just gone down. Then they drove on, following the Lincoln.

Judson too was beginning to think the school bus was taking too long to do nothing. Glancing in the rear-view mirror again, seeing the blue Dodge coming to a stop behind him, almost close enough to touch the Lincoln’s rear bumper, he said, “Pretty well-traveled road.”

In the Dodge, Parker and Henley and Angie were putting on the large rubber Mickey Mouse masks. “I feel like a clown in this thing,” Henley said. His voice was muffled and altered by the rubber.

“It’s to make it easier for the kid,” Parker said. “We don’t want a hysterical kid on our hands. Angie, you do the talking to him.”

“Right.”

“It’s a game, it’s fun, we’re all just playing.”

“I know,” Angie said.

“Let’s go,” Parker said.

They got out of the Dodge, Parker and Henley carrying revolvers, and walked swiftly up next to the Lincoln, Parker on the left and Henley and Angie on the right.

Judson, who was frowning now toward the school bus, wondering why it wasn’t finishing its business and moving on, caught a glimpse of something moving in his outside mirror. He looked at it, and saw a man coming this way with something glittery and strange over his head. “What the—?” He twisted around to his left, to look back, and the man closed the distance, pulled open Judson’s door, and said, fast and low, “Not a move. Not one move.”

There was a gun in the man’s hand, down by Judson’s elbow. “Uh,” said Judson The Lincoln’s engine was running, but the gearshift was in park. Also, the car was wedged in both front and back by the truck and the Dodge. Still, Judson’s hand started to move almost instinctively toward the gearshift lever, when the door on the passenger side opened, and another one got in. Another gun, another mask over the head. Judson, looking at him, suddenly terrified at this apparition sitting next to him, realized what he was looking at was a Mickey Mouse mask, and for some reason that only made things more frightening.

Meanwhile, Angie had gotten into the backseat. “Hi, Bobby,” she said. “Do you know whose face this is I’m wearing?”

Bobby hadn’t seen the guns of the two men dealing with the chauffeur, but he’d heard the toughness in the one man’s voice, and he sensed the strangeness of what was happening. Frightened, not sure what to expect or how he should act, he said, “Who—who are you?”

“Who do I look like, Bobby?”

“You’re not Mickey Mouse!” He knew that much; and being able to say so, loud and clear, helped to calm and reassure him.

“But I’m making believe to be Mickey Mouse,” Angie said. “We’re all going to play make-believe for a while now.”

Up front, Henley had pressed his revolver into Albert Judson’s side. His voice soft, muffled by the mask, he said, “Let’s not scare the kid. Nobody’s gonna get hurt.”

“What do you—?” Judson’s mouth was dry. He coughed, and started again. “What do you want?”

“Think about it,” Henley said.

Parker. seeing that the chauffeur was under control, shut the Lincoln’s door again and went up to rap on the rear doors of the tractor-trailer. The doors swung open, pushed out by Krauss, who looked critically out and down at the Lincoln and said, “You’ll have to back it up.”

“I know.”

Parker walked back past the Lincoln to the Dodge. Inside the Lincoln, Henley was controlling the chauffeur and Angie was controlling the boy. She was talking to him, chattering at him, keeping him calm with a soothing flow of words.

Parker got into the Dodge, ran it backward about fifteen feet, got out of it, walked up to the Lincoln, opened the chauffeur’s door again, and said, “Slide over.”

Henley made room, and Judson slid over into the middle of the seat. He said, “You’re going to kidnap the boy!”

Henley said, “Keep it down. I told you, we don’t scare the kid.”

Krauss had pulled the metal ramp out of the truck partway and now, when Parker put the Lincoln into reverse and backed up till he was nudging the Dodge’s bumper, Krauss brought the ramp out the rest of the way and lowered it to the ground. Parker shifted into low and eased the Lincoln forward, up the ramp and inside the truck.

Bobby, wide-eyed, said, “What are we doing?”

“Have you ever been inside a truck before?” Angie tried to make it sound like a treat, or a game. “Inside a car that’s inside a truck?”

“I don’t think I want to do this,” Bobby said.

“Don’t be afraid, Bobby,” Angie said. “Nobody’s going to hurt you, I promise.”

Parker switched off the Lincoln’s engine, took the keys, and climbed out. It was a tight fit between the side of the car and the inner wall of the truck. Parker went sideways to the rear of the truck, dropped down to the ground, and helped Kraus slide the ramp back up inside the truck.