Jack repressed a sigh of relief. He fished his car keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Gleason.

“My Buick’s in front of the Burger King sign. Wait for me there. I’ve got one more matter to settle with Mr. Prather.”

After Nadia and her beau had hurried from the scene, Jack turned to Oz.

“Where’d the rakosh break out?”

“About a mile back. Right near mile marker fifty-one-point-three, to be exact. We stopped but could not stay parked on the shoulder—we’d have the police asking what happened—so we pulled in here.”

“We’ve got to find it.”

“Nothing I’d like better,” said the boss, “although I have a feeling you’d prefer to see it dead.”

“You’ve got that right.”

“An interesting area here,” Oz said. “Right on the edge of the Pine Barrens.”

Jack cursed under his breath. The Barrens. Shit. How was he going to locate Scar-lip in there—if that was where it was? This whole area was like a time warp. Near the coast you had a nuclear power plant and determinedly quaint but unquestionably twentieth-century towns like Smithville and Leeds Point. West of the parkway was wilderness. The Barrens—a million or so unsettled acres of pine, scrub brush, vanished towns, hills, bogs, creeks, all pretty much unchanged in population and level of civilization from the time the Indians had the Americas to themselves. From the Revolutionary days on, it had served as a haven for people who didn’t want to be found. Hessians, Tories, smugglers, Lenape Indians, heretical Amish, escaped cons—at one time or another, they’d all sought shelter in the Pine Barrens.

And now add a rakosh to its long list of fugitives.

“We’re not too far from Leeds Point, you know,” Prather said, an amused expression flitting across his sallow face. “The birthplace of the Jersey Devil.”

“Save the history lesson for later,” Jack said. “Are you sending out a search party?”

“No. No one wants to go, and I can’t say I blame them. But even if some were willing, we’ve got to be set up in Cape May for our show tonight. And frankly, without Dr. Monnet buying its blood, I can’t justify the risk of going after it.”

“That leaves me.”

If Scar-lip got too much of a head start, he’d never find it which he could live with… unless the drive to kill Vicky was still fixed in its dim brain. Seemed unlikely, but Jack couldn’t take the chance.

“You’re not seriously thinking of going after it.”

Jack shrugged. “Know somebody who’ll do it for me?”

“May I ask why?” Oz said.

“Take too long to tell. Let’s just leave it that Scar-lip and I go back a ways and we’ve got some unfinished business.”

Oz stared at him a moment, then turned and began walking back toward his trailer.

“Come with me. Perhaps I can help.”

Jack doubted that but followed and waited outside as Oz rummaged around within his trailer. Finally he emerged holding something that looked like a Game-boy. He tapped a series of buttons, eliciting a beep, then handed it to Jack.