A Touch Of Death Part 8

I took off the white shirt. It could be seen too easily in the timber. I found an old blue one in the storeroom and put it on, and shoved the gun back in my belt.

She was still watching me. I went over to the table, picked up the bottle of whisky, and poured what was left on the floor.

"You're going to have to be at least partly sober for this," I said. "Now. The only reason he hasn't walked in here and shot you is that he knows I'm here and that I've got a gun. It's his gun. You still following me?"

She nodded, saying nothing.

"Well, I'm going out there. I'm going to try to get behind him. I hope I can get out the back without being seen. But the gimmick is that he might not shoot if he did see me. It's you he wants. So he may pretend he doesn't see me, and let me go. And when I'm out there on the wide part of the swing he may come in for you.

"The front door is locked. After I go out, bolt the back one. Sit in the storeroom, because it hasn't got any windows. And if you hear him on the porch or if he starts to kick in one of these other windows, scream. And keep screaming. Close the door to the storeroom and pile everything in there against it. And if you smell smoke, scream twice as loud."

"Smoke?"

"That's right. It's one way."

She got it, but it didn't scare her much. "All right," she said. "And thank you for your solicitude. It's touching."

"Isn't it," I said.

I opened the back door and stepped out. Nothing happened.

I dropped off the porch and ran bent over toward the bushes at the edge of the water, the muscles bunched up and icy in the middle of my back. Guessing where he was and what he'd do was fine on paper, but out here in the open I could feel the cross hairs of a telescope sight crawling all over me like long-legged spiders. It was the dead silence all around and not ever knowing that made it bad.

I hit the bushes and dropped into them. A mosquito buzzed around my face and got in my nose. I stifled the impulse to sneeze, and searched the timber along the lake sh.o.r.e in both directions, turning my head very slowly. Nothing moved. I looked behind me, out across the lake, just for the sheer relief of seeing one place he couldn't be. It was gla.s.sy under the sun. Out in the middle a mud hen swam, jerking its head, and left a V-shaped ripple on the surface. The trees were dark green along the other sh.o.r.e. It looked like the picture on a sporting-goods calendar.

I started crawling to the right, between the screen of bushes and the water's edge. I had to slide under the little dock where the two skiffs were tied up. I was behind the shed now. A down log blocked my way. I crawled over it. A limb broke, snapping loudly in the hush. I fell to the ground and waited. Nothing happened. Three minutes went by. Four. I started again.

Mud sucked at my hands and knees. Sweat ran down my face. I kept watching for snakes. I looked back. The house and shed were lost in the trees, but I could see the dock. I had come over a hundred yards. A little more would do it. Wherever he was, he'd still be near enough to the edge of the timber to see the whole meadow.

I had to be behind him now. I stood up, wiped some of the mud off my hands, and began slipping through the timber, circling and heading away from the lake. Here in the low ground, underbrush was heavy, but ahead I could see it thinning out as I approached the foot of the hill. I stopped in a minute and held my breath to listen. If he had seen me leave, he'd be closing in now. I'd have to get there fast if she screamed. It was silent except for a squirrel chattering up on the hillside.

The grade began to pitch upward into the pines and stunted post oak. The soil was sandy here and matted in places with pine needles. My feet made no sound at all. I could see the meadow now and then through the trees, two or three hundred yards off to my left and a little below. I went straight up toward the crest of the ridge. In a few minutes I came out on level ground, turned sharp left, and began searching for the tall pine with the dead top. After another hundred yards I found it and faced down toward the lake for a glimpse of the house to orient myself. Through a small opening in the trees I could see part of the roof. I turned ninety degrees and went straight ahead for a hundred and fifty steps, going very slowly now and taking advantage of all the cover I could.

I stopped and squatted down at the foot of a pine. I should be directly above him. Somewhere in the trees below he was lying with his rifle beside him, watching the house. Moving nothing but my eyes, I began covering it foot by foot, every tree trunk, log, bush, every patch of mottled sunlight and shadow. As my eyes probed, I rubbed my hands in the sand and then together, to get the rest of the mud off. I checked the gun in my belt, to be sure it would come free when I needed it.

I could see nothing. No movement, no bit of color that could be clothing. He was farther down. I picked out a clump of bushes ten yards ahead and crept toward it, moving noiselessly on the sand. Crawling up beside it, I lay flat on my stomach and studied the hillside below me for five minutes. There was no sign of him.

I moved again. I could see the edge of the meadow in places below me now and knew this was as far as I could go. If I missed him and got in front of him I was dead. I stopped, lay still, and searched the hillside on both sides and ahead. My eyes made the slow, complete swing from right to left, stopped, and went back again.

I saw him.

I saw a shoe. It grew into a leg and then into two legs half screened by the low-hanging branches of a dogwood twenty yards straight down the hill from where I was. The underbrush was heavier here than it had been on top of the hill, but by moving a little to the right I could see him clearly.

I took a deep breath, feeling tight across the chest. One of us might be dead in the next minute or two. I could try to bluff him with the gun, but suppose he didn't bluff? He was desperate; he had nothing to lose.

I could still go back.

I thought of those three safe-deposit boxes in Sanport and knew there was never any going back now. I started crawling down the hill.

I watched his legs. There was no movement. I could see his whole body now. The rifle, with its telescope sight, lay across a small log in front of him while he watched the clearing and the house. I searched the ground ahead for any leaf or twig that would make the slightest sound if I stepped on it.

Ten feet behind him I straightened up on my knees, pulled the gun out of my belt, leveled it at the back of his head, and said, "All right, Mac. Turn around. Without the gun."

His face jerked around. He started to lift the rifle.

"You'll never make it," I said.

His eyes were a little crazy, but he knew I was right. He didn't have a chance, lying down that way and facing in the other direction.

"Slide the bolt out," I said. "All the way. And throw it-"

I was careless. I'd been intent on him to the exclusion of everything else. It was almost too late when I heard the sound behind me. I started to turn, and the club missed my head just far enough to land on my arm, numbing it out to the fingertips.

He was scrambling to his knees, trying to get the rifle swung around. I clawed at the tree limb with the sick arm and reached back with the other and found her. I put the hand against her belly and threw her at him like a bag of laundry. She took a long step backward and crashed down on top of him and the two of them rolled across the rifle. I reached down for the gun I had dropped.

It was the blonde, but she'd turned off the Southern belle. Her eyes were hot with fury as she untangled her long legs and arms and tried to sit up. She had pine needles in her hair, and a scratch on her knee oozed blood over the ruin of a nylon stocking.

She didn't like me. And you could see the cords in her throat while she was telling me about it.

"Shut up," I said.

I walked over to them. They were both sitting up. The rifle was under her legs in the sand. I pushed them out of the way and dragged it from under her with my foot. She liked me even less. He didn't say anything. He just looked at me with his crazy eyes.

I shoved the rifle backward, stepped back to it, and squatted down. I took the bolt out and threw it twenty yards down the hill into the underbrush. Then I swung the rest of it against a tree. The stock splintered, and broken gla.s.s trickled out the end of the scope.

"Where's the car?" I said.

Something had been eating him away inside for a long time. You could see it in the hot, crazy eyes, and in the way his hands twitched as he rubbed them across his mouth. "Who are you?" he asked. His voice was ragged. "What do you want?"

"A car," I said. "I thought I mentioned that."

There was something odd about them, and I saw what it was now that I had time to take a good look. They were brother and sister. He was big, and a lot younger, probably not over twenty-one or twenty-two, but it was unmistakable. Maybe it was the identical ash blondness and the well-formed bone structure of their faces. They were good-looking as h.e.l.l. And full of it.

"You'll never take her out of here," he said. "You'll never take her out of here alive. I'll kill her. I'll kill you."

I gestured with the gun. "On your feet."

He hesitated a moment, watching me; then he got up. She continued to sit there I caught her by the arm and hauled her up. Red fingernails slashed toward my face. I brushed her hand away and shoved her. She bounced against him and he caught her to keep her from falling.

"If she won't walk," I said, "carry her."

He stared hungrily at the gun. "Where?"

"Out to the road. We're looking for a car, remember?"

She looked at him with contempt. "Are you afraid of this miserable thug?"

"What do you want me to do?" he said. "He's got the gun."

"So you're going to let her get away?"

"She hasn't got away yet."

"All right, break it up," I said. "You can yak some other time."

"What are you going to do with Mrs. Butler?" she asked.

"I'm going to adopt her. I think she's cute."

"Maybe you don't know what you're getting mixed up in. The police want her for murder. She killed her husband."

"I don't care if she killed c.o.c.k Robin," I said. "I just work here. Now shut up and start walking."

They started out toward the road. I kept about six feet behind them. When we struck it we were near the edge of the meadow. I didn't see the car anywhere. It had to be above.

"Turn right," I said. "Up the hill. And stay in the road."

We went silently uphill through the sand.

"You could tell me where it is," I said. "But that would be the easy way. So we'll just walk. It's only eight miles out to the road, and eight miles back."

They made no answer. They walked side by side in icy silence, not looking back.

"If we pa.s.s it," I said, "don't bother to say anything. We've got all the rest of the day to walk around."

I watched the ruts, fairly sure I'd see where they had pulled it off the road even if they had it hidden. And just before we reached the crest of the ridge I did. It was pulled off in a clump of dogwood. It was the same car the girl had driven up in.

"Who's got the keys?" I asked.

They stared at me in silent hatred.

It was obvious she didn't have them, because she didn't have a purse. I looked at him. "All right, Blondy. How'd you like one through the leg?"

He took the keys out of his pocket.

"You drive," I said. "And Toots will sit in the middle."

We got in. He backed it out on the road. "Downhill," I said. "To the camp. And don't get any funny ideas about giving it the gun and crashing into a tree. I might walk away from it, but you wouldn't."

We were jammed in together, but I held the gun in my right hand over against the door, where she couldn't grab for it.

She turned her face and stared into mine from a distance of three inches. She was lovely. "You son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h," she said.

I patted her on the leg. "Did you ever find Gillespie, honey?"

Nine

We stopped in front of the cabin.

I got out. "Inside," I said.

We went up on the porch. I heard Madelon Butler unlocking the door, and knew she had watched us from the window. The door opened and the blonde went in, followed by her brother. I was in the rear, not expecting it, and they almost pulled it off.

He jumped inside, making some kind of hoa.r.s.e roaring sound in his throat, and the blonde tried to slam and bolt the door ahead of me. I got a foot in it just before it closed, and leaned on it. She shot back into the room and sat down. I almost fell over her.

He was on the floor, with Madelon Butler under him, groping wildly to get both hands on her throat. She was kicking and beating at his arms, but uttering no sound, while that insane racket kept coming from his open mouth.

I shoved the gun in my belt and hauled him up. He wouldn't turn her loose, and tried to bring her with him. I hit him. He turned his face a little, and finally let her go and looked at me as if he'd never seen me before. I hit him again and felt the pain go up my arm. He was standing there rubber-legged as if he couldn't fall until somebody told him where, so I put my hand in his face and pushed. He stretched out alongside the blonde on the floor. I felt of my hand. It hurt and it had blood on it, but I couldn't feel any broken bones.

Madelon Butler stood up. The dark hair was wild and her eyes were like winter smoke as she came toward me. I didn't know what she was trying to do until I felt the gun sliding out of my belt. I grabbed her wrist, broke her grip on it, and shook her hand off.

"No, you don't," I said. "Sit down."

She didn't seem to hear me, so I shoved her down in the chair at one end of the table. The other two were getting off the floor, and now they both looked crazy. He was crying, and her face was white and her eyes blazed.

I pointed to the chairs at the other end of the table. "You'd better sit down," I said. "I'm tired of wrecking my hands. From now on I use the gun."

His mouth was working. Tears ran down his face. "I'll kill you," he said. "I'll kill you."

"Quiet," I said. I pointed at the chairs again.

They sat down.

I pulled a chair up to the table, halfway between them and Madelon Butler, and sat down myself. I tilted back in the chair a little, put the gun in my lap, and took a cigarette out and lit it.

After all the violence it was suddenly quiet in the room, so still I could hear the sound of my own heavy breathing. Then the blonde's voice came up through it.

Her hands grasped the edge of the table so tightly her fingers were white around the nails. I could see the cords standing out in her throat. Her voice wasn't much more than a whisper that sounded as if it were being pressed out of her by a heavy weight on her chest, but some of the things she said I'd never heard before myself.

It went on and on. Madelon Butler watched her curiously, the way she might study something brought up by a deep-sea trawl. When the blonde finally stopped for breath, she said, "You are a vulgar little gutter rat, aren't you?"

But the blonde was finished. She could only stare silently. She drew her hands across her face and shuddered, and at last she turned to me.

"What are you going to do with her?" she asked.

"Never mind," I said.

"Let me have the gun," she begged. "Just let me have it for five seconds. Let me kill her. I'll give it back to you. You can kill me, or turn me over to the police, but just let me have it."

"Relax," I said. "You'll get ulcers."