Chat - Archer Mayor [86]
The spirit of the place struggled on, the efforts of its boosters telling and ongoing, but the sheer weight of its financial challenges was like an iceberg’s bulk—just under the surface and massive in proportion.
Sadly, as a result, Bellows Falls was a prime place to conduct police business. Which was why Willy was here now.
He checked his watch slowly, sensitive to making any sudden movements. He’d been here two hours. Ever since being told by old man Griffis that Wayne Nugent had raped Andy in prison, Willy had been in quiet pursuit of the man. E. T. hadn’t stopped at just the name. With prompting—and occasional breaks for more beer and some sobbing—he’d also delivered other pertinent details, all of which had helped Willy get a line on Nugent and begin tracking him down.
Not that it had been a huge challenge. Nugent was one of humanity’s too common opportunists—neither clever nor calculating, but certainly unhesitating to grasp every offer that came within reach. He randomly raped or robbed or simply self-indulged with drugs and liquor. He stayed with people, sleeping with them, robbing them blind, or both, leaving behind a wake of disgruntled sources all too happy to unload into Willy’s accommodating ear.
His latest harbor was a woman in Bellows Falls who lived on the second floor at the top of a narrow exterior staircase, across from where Willy had been waiting ever since he’d spotted Wayne downing shots at one of the watering holes on Rockingham Street.
It wouldn’t be much longer. It was after two a.m., when the bars closed. Nugent was guaranteed to push the limit and then stagger out toward his latest version of home.
It was then that Willy intended to intercept him, between one oasis and the next, and to begin a conversation he anticipated would result in Nugent’s arrest. Lord only knew how many times Willy had made just such things happen in the past—and Wayne Nugent was just the kind of guy he loved to go after. The fact that the man’s involvement with Dan Griffis’s misbehavior or Leo’s car crash was peripheral mattered less to Willy than his own discovery that a bad man had gotten away with driving a fellow human being to suicide. In Willy’s mind, this was merely a logical extension of Joe’s initial assignment to pump E. T. Griffis for everything he could get.
Nugent first emerged as little more than a dark motion against a somber background, although Willy, a combat-trained sniper, had little trouble spotting what most would have missed entirely. He pulled back farther into his own shadows and watched as his target drew nearer, studying his hands, his gait, his manner of dress, and estimating from his body language how he might react to a sudden crisis. He also studied the man’s clothing to see if any allowances had been made for quick access to a weapon.
Satisfied, he waited for Nugent to walk past, trailing a cloud of cheap beer and cigarette smoke, and soundlessly fell in behind him.
As Nugent reached the bottom of the exterior staircase and placed his hand on the wooden railing, Willy clearly but quietly ordered him, “Police, Wayne. Do not move.”
Nugent’s reaction was hair-triggered and totally unexpected. He didn’t freeze, startle, twist around, or shout in surprise. Instead, as instantly as if he’d been launched from a cannon, and using the riser under his foot as a push-off, he simply propelled himself backward, guided solely by Willy’s voice.
Caught completely by surprise, Willy tried fending off the sheer bulk of the body hurtling at him, sidestepping and throwing up his good arm for protection. He staggered backward, hit the hood of a parked car with the small of his back, and catapulted over as Nugent, deflected by the impact, came up against the car’s side instead, thereby managing to stay on his feet. As Willy rolled off the hood and fell hard to the