“Jesus.”

“He kept doing it after she was dead. He sat there stabbing her corpse. And her kid was in the house.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. He was hiding in the bedroom. This little kid. He’s already terrified, and he’s going to walk into the kitchen and find his mom in a great big pool of blood, stabbed to death by a madman. I should have gotten him out of there. Should’ve taken him to a neighbor or something. He’s five, Lou. He shouldn’t see that. What’s going to happen to him?”

“He should be okay, right? I mean, Ivan’s gone.”

“I’m not talking about whether or not he gets killed by a goddamn werewolf. I’m talking about him seeing his dead mom!”

“Okay, okay, I dunno what to tell you, George! It’s heartbreaking, but we didn’t have a choice. We couldn’t hang out there any more. Protecting the kid from psychological trauma isn’t worth going to prison, right?”

“I guess not.”

“No, no, don’t use the word ‘guess.’ This is a definite. I’m not going to jail for a kid.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“I am right, and we need to get this perfectly clear: we’re not heroes. If you wanna be sad about the kid, I completely understand--it’s disturbing as hell. But don’t sit there thinking that we should’ve taken him by the hand and led him over to the nice old lady who lives next door. You got me?”

“I’ve got you.”

“Good. I’m not a cold-hearted monster. I’m gonna have some sleepless nights over this whole thing, but the reason I’ll get to have those sleepless nights is that I’m still alive.”

“I said I’ve got you! Quit hammering in the goddamn point!”

“And now I think we should call Ricky.”

“Aw, shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s Ricky?” Michele asked.

“If we’re lucky, he’s going to be the guy who covers our butts.” George took his cell phone out of his pocket.

“You want me to do it?” Lou asked.

“Nah, I’ll take the heat.”

“Don’t throw up on the phone.”

“I won’t.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

A Difficult Confession

George took a deep breath, exhaled slowly in an effort to calm himself, then called Ricky. He hoped that the little prick didn’t give him any crap, because George was positively not in the mood for it.

Ricky answered. “George?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, I was half a second away from calling you. Your dog problem is on the news. I thought you were just yanking me, but I’m looking at it right now. Anyway, I just got off a conference call with Bateman and Dewey. Intense stuff.”

“Intense how?”

“Manic depressive intense. Anger and joy. I’m glad I only have to deal with them over the phone. So here’s the deal: get off the road ASAP. Find someplace safe to hide out. Get as far off the beaten path as you can. They weren’t anticipating any problems like this, so they’re going to send out a bunch of reinforcements and collect the furball from you.”

“Oh.”

“Your voice sounds funny.”

“Yeah.”

“Just relax. It’s all going to be taken care of. Your buddy Ricky makes your headaches go away.”

“So, Ricky, what if there was another problem that they hadn’t anticipated?”

“What do you mean?”

George could almost feel the new ulcer burning into his stomach lining. “What if we lost our cargo?”

“Oh, shit, George. Don’t tell me that. Please don’t tell me that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You lost him? For real?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my God. This is--you’ve got to be--how the hell do you lose a guy in a cage?”

“He escaped! He changed into a werewolf and escaped!”

There was a long silence, and then Ricky let out a sigh of relief. “Ah, okay, you’re just screwing with me. Good one. I almost had a heart attack over that.”

“I am absolutely dead serious! He transformed into a wolfman and got out of the cage!” George didn’t see any reason to confess to his own starring role in the escape.

“What?”

“That’s what happened!”

“Listen to me. I’ve got to report back to Bateman and Dewey, and it’s fine if you want to goof around with me, I deserve it, but these men have no sense of humor and I need to know the truth: do you still have Ivan with you?”

“No.”

“Shit!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shit! Oh, shit! How could you lose him? You idiot!”

George bristled. Whether he was an idiot or not, he didn’t appreciate being called one by a little punk like Ricky. “He changed into a wolf, that’s how I lost him! I wasn’t expecting it!”

“But everybody told you he was a werewolf! I know for a frickin’ fact that it came up in the conversation!”

“I didn’t believe it! You didn’t believe it either! Why the hell would I believe something like that? If there’s a real-life werewolf involved, that’s a concept you need to do a better job of selling! You need to give me pictures or video or expert testimony! I thought he was just some skinny guy in a cage! And it’s not even the full moon! The full moon was supposed to be a crucial element! I’m sorry things went bad like this, but we were not given enough information to successfully carry out this task!”

Ricky sounded as if he were about to hyperventilate. “You have no idea how bad this is. They’re going to execute you!”

“Execute us? Nobody said this job had the risk of us getting executed!”

“Every job has the risk of you getting executed! You know that!”

“Why did they pick us to do it? If this was so important, why didn’t they get one of their own men?”

“Because you and Lou are good! And because it was supposed to be an easy transport job!”

“Well, it wasn’t!”

“Look, George, this is a nightmare scenario, but I’ll do everything I can to keep you guys alive. I’ll stick out my neck for you. Is there anything else I should know?”

George hesitated. “No.”

“Why’d you hesitate?”

“Okay, the werewolf murdered somebody. A lady.”

“Aw, damn it.”

“And when we were at the gas station, we picked up this girl who was being attacked by the dogs. She ‘s in the van with us now.”

“Are you tugging my dick?”

“No.”

“You brought a witness? Are you on crack?”

“The dogs were going to kill her!”

“You didn’t have to let them kill her, but that doesn’t mean you had to--you know what, I’m not going to have this conversation. I’m going to get back on the phone with a couple of very violent men, and get my ass chewed out while I try to figure out how to unfuck this disaster. Did your werewolf buddy bend the bars?”

“No.”

“Then lock the girl in there.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Do I sound like I’m kidding? We’re in hardcore damage control mode. This is ‘fingernails ripped out before they drown you’ bad. You need to put that girl in the cage, hide out, and pray to God that we can clean up the loose ends. Now I have to go.”

George flinched as Ricky slammed down the phone in his ear.

“Did that go as bad as it sounded?” Lou asked.

“It did go poorly.” George’s head was pounding. “It’s not our fault, right? How could we know? Even if we believed in the werewolf thing, it’s not a full moon. We specifically discussed the full moon issue when we picked him up, right? I made that comment about not following the lunar cycles that closely. It’s not our fault, right?”

“Well,” said Lou, “you’re right that it’s not our fault...”

In addition to all of his other physical discomfort, George felt his upper lip begin to twitch.

“...but I’m not gonna say anything else about it,” said Lou. “It’s done and we can’t take it back. We’re just gonna start from where we are and stick together.”

“Thanks, buddy.”

“However, I’m hoping that the plan involves finding someplace to hide out until reinforcements arrive.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Crap.”

“We can’t let him go on a killing spree,” said George. “He’ll leave a trail of bodies just to prove he’s better than us. If we don’t stop him, ten bucks says that the police will find our names spelled out with somebody’s intestines.”