Dream Town

Chapter 72

At first, it seemed that Little Tony didn’t know he’d been shot. A second later, it became all too apparent. To him. The bullet had gone into his chest and stayed there, about two inches to the right of the heart. Blood spurted out and sprayed across Green’s fine negligee and sofa like someone had let go of a fire hose filled with plasma. She screamed and jumped back, toppling over the sofa, as Little Tony fell sideways to the floor. By the startled, fixed state of his eyes, he would not be getting back up.

With a shriek, Bonham dropped her Gaulois Bleu and took cover behind the chair.

Paley calmly fired up the stairs at where the shot had come from. He fired twice more, and that was all the time Archer needed to grab the dead Tony’s weapon, aim, and pull the trigger.

Paley had a different idea, though, and he had flipped over a thick, wooden-topped table and took cover behind it. Archer’s slugs lodged in the wood. Archer glanced up the stairs to see who was up there. Had Swinson or Reid somehow gotten into the house and upstairs after hearing everything over the walkie-talkie? He couldn’t imagine how they would have managed that so fast.

He ducked down as the cracks of bullets fired by Paley whizzed by overhead.

“Oh, God, help me.”

He looked over to see Green clutching her bloody arm. Her skin and sleepwear were stained with red from the blood seeping from her wound.

Archer looked back as a window shattered.

He saw that Paley had thrown the table through one of the huge windows and was climbing into the opening and pulling Bonham along with him. Archer pointed the gun, but the only thing he would hit was Bonham in the back. And despite everything, he couldn’t bring himself to do that. His finger slid away from the trigger, even as a bullet smacked near his head. He looked up and saw the muzzle of a pistol resting on the handrail. He fired until his gun banged empty. The muzzle disappeared. He heard the sounds of running feet.

“Help me!” cried out Green.

He knelt beside her, looked at her wound, and said brusquely, “That won’t kill you. Wrap your robe belt just above the wound as a tourniquet. Now, shut up and sit tight.”

Archer searched Little Tony’s pockets and found his gun, which they had taken.

He took the steps two at a time and reached the second-floor landing. He looked back at the window and saw Paley and Bonham reach the boat they had come in. He was torn between going after them or seeing who had just tried to kill him. The latter won out.

Archer took the hall to the right when he heard a door slam down that way.

He kicked open three doors in a row and then peered inside. The fourth door he kicked open answered him with two shots. They ended up in the wall behind him because he had ducked out of the way. He was getting a little annoyed with all the gunplay. He fired two well-placed shots into the gap between the door and doorjamb. He heard a scream, and something fell.

Archer pivoted into the open doorway, his gun swiveling in front of him.

She was lying on the floor, the gun next to her.

Eleanor Lamb was dressed in striped pajamas. She was clutching her hand, and the gun was a foot away from her. She had gone back to being a curly blonde.

Archer raced over and kicked the pistol out of the way as she lunged for it.

“I’ve been shot,” she said, gripping her hand. “You shot me. My finger is bleeding.” He looked at the minor wound there.

“That’s always a possibility when you shoot at someone.”

“I’m a guest here. And I was defending myself.”

He picked up her gun. “You’re not a guest, Lamb. You’re an inmate in waiting.”

“I’ve done nothing.”

“You’re a blackmailer, a dope dealer, a killer, and a thoroughly rotten piece of work. I want to throw up just looking at you.”

Feet pounded up the stairs, and Archer ran to the doorway with two guns in hand. He pointed them both, ready to fire, but lowered them when he saw it was Swinson and Reid.

“We heard everything over the walkie-talkie, Archer, and came running,” explained Swinson. “What the hell is going on? There’s a dead guy and a lady bleeding downstairs.”

“Call the cops and an ambulance,” he told them. “And watch the bleeding lady. And especially this one,” he added, pointing at Lamb.

“Where are you going?” said a breathless Swinson.

“I got a couple more to round up.”

“You can’t keep me prisoner here, Archer,” said Lamb. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Lady, your arrest sheet will be so long the cops are going to need a really fast typist.”

He and Swinson ran down the stairs just as Green staggered to her feet.

Archer barked at her, “You need to do two things: Give me the keys to the Packard and tell me how to get to wherever you keep your plane.”

She looked up at him in defiance. “Why should I help you?”

“Because it might be the difference between you living or dying. And in Nevada they let you pick, firing squad or hanging.”

Thirty seconds later Archer was running flat-out for the prewar Packard, dead body in the trunk and all.