One Good Deed

Chapter 32

The buick had not yet reached Jackie’s house when Archer told Shaw to pull to the curb.

“Don’t want to warn anybody we’re coming.”

They leapt out and Archer led the way, approaching the house from the back.

It was nearly midnight now, and the silence was complete except for the movements of the two men.

His shoes skimming across the dry grass, Archer quickly reached the back door with Shaw behind him.

“Didn’t see Duckett’s truck out front,” said Shaw.

“Wouldn’t expect to.”

“You sure you’re barking up the right tree here?”

The scream inside the house made Archer put his shoulder to the door and burst the lock from its frame. They both rushed inside, their guns drawn. Another scream was heard, and Archer shot down the hallway and kicked open Jackie’s bedroom door. It was pitch-dark inside.

In a flash of illumination from Shaw’s flashlight, Archer saw Dickie Dill next to the bed, a raised knife in hand as Jackie cowered below.

“Dickie!” shouted Archer, pointing his gun at the man and firing.

At the same instant, something hit Archer and sent him tumbling against the wall face-first. He felt warm blood gush from his nose and a shiner swell under his eye.

Shaw got off a shot, too, and this time Dill let out a sharp cry. The pilot had hit his target after the infantryman had missed.

“Archer, look out!” screamed Jackie from her bed.

Another shot was fired. This time from the second assailant, who had slammed into Archer when he’d fired at Dickie. After Jackie’s warning cry, Archer had ducked. He felt the bullet fly past and then slam into the wall. He kicked out, catching the shooter’s arm, and the pistol went flying. Archer lost his balance and fell back against the wall, then turned and pushed off from it.

But this gave the man an opening. He flew forward, his arm encircling Archer’s neck. He commenced trying to pull his head backward to a point necks weren’t supposed to bend. Archer felt the ligaments in his spine begin to howl and buckle in protest. However, a sharp elbow to the gut, a gasp of air forced from a pair of lungs, and Archer quickly gained the upper hand. A stiff palm strike to the nose drove cartilage back into the man’s face, then Archer spun the man around and the thrust of his shoulder slammed the man with force up against the wall. Archer finished him off the way he’d been taught in the military, with a knee to the base of the spine and a hard punch to the kidney. Then he grabbed the man’s hair, jerked it back, and then, using all the leverage he could muster, slammed the man face-first into the plaster wall. The fellow fell with a groan, then didn’t move.

Archer had no time to dwell on this victory.

Dill had flung his knife across the room and had caught Shaw, betrayed by the beam of his light, in the upper arm. He dropped his gun, groaned, and fell back against the wall.

Dill used the bed as a trampoline and bounced to the other side of the room, something in his hand.

Jackie screamed and tried to reach for Dill to stop him, but missed, falling out of the bed with the effort.

Dill landed on the floor and lifted the thing high over his head.

It was a sledgehammer.

With a murderous yell he began to drive it downward, but it never reached Shaw’s head. Archer tackled him hard and the men tumbled to the floor, slid across it, and hit the wall, leaving them both momentarily stunned. Dill recovered first and tried to wedge the wooden handle of the sledgehammer against Archer’s throat, but two rapid punches to the smaller man’s face and Archer was able to seize the hammer and throw it clear. Then Archer felt the very thing he’d been afraid of — Dill’s steel-like fingers around his throat, trying to suffocate the life out of him. Although Dill had been shot in the arm and was bleeding badly, he still had the upper hand.

“Shoulda killed me when you had the chance, boy,” roared Dill gleefully.

Something hit Dill on the head. Archer saw Jackie standing there with a lamp. However, Dill let one hand go from Archer, flung his fist around, and knocked Jackie off her feet. She fell with a thud.

But Dill’s actions allowed Archer an opportunity, of which he took full advantage.

Archer reached what he needed in his pocket and then stabbed Dill in the side with the clasp knife, driving it up to the hilt in the man’s belly. Then a second time and then a third just for good measure.

Dill coughed up blood in Archer’s face, his grip lessened, and he finally let go and fell on his back onto the floor.

Archer stood on unstable legs and looked down at the man, just as Dill gazed up at him and snarled something incomprehensible. He tried to rise up as Archer took a step back, his knife held at the ready. Archer put his foot on the man’s chest and pushed him down, holding him there.

Archer had killed even more men in the war than he had let on to Jackie. And he had no compunction about ending the lives of any of them. He only thought about it later, actually, and then there had been no real remorse, only anger at the situation in which he’d been placed to have to kill another. He had no remorse this time, either. Not even close. Just relief.

“Dammit, just die, Dickie,” he said quietly.

And a few moments later, after a throat curdle and a body shiver, the man’s eyes grew rigid and his chest grew still as his life ended.

Archer turned to Jackie and helped her up. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said shakily. “I’m fine. Just sore from where he hit me.”

“Turn a light on,” he said. He dropped his bloodied knife and raced over to Shaw, who was on the floor, his back against the wall.

Jackie turned on the nightstand lamp. Shaw was holding his arm where blood was leaching out. He had pulled the knife free, which might not have been a good thing.

Archer helped him off with his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeve.

“Jackie, get me a towel. Do you have any bandages? And I’ll need some hot water and soap. And some liquor. And some hydrogen peroxide if you got it.”

Jackie rushed out of the room and returned with all of the items, including a bottle of brandy. Archer used his belt as a tourniquet above the wound, stanching the flow of blood.

“Give him the liquor,” said Archer.

Jackie helped Shaw to drink it straight from the bottle.

Archer cleaned and bandaged the wound.

“We got to get you to the hospital,” said Archer, helping the other man up. Shaw, gray faced, merely nodded.

“Jackie, get dressed and grab a few things. I’m taking you some place safe.”

She looked over at the dead man and the unconscious man and didn’t argue.

Shaw said slowly, “Got cuffs in my jacket pocket. You cuff that SOB over there so he can’t get away.”

Archer did as he was told, and when he turned the man over, he saw that it was Malcolm Draper. The man had finally turned up. He cuffed his hands behind his back and said to Jackie, who was getting dressed in her closet, “Throw me a belt.”

She did so, and he hog-tied the man’s legs with the belt, intersecting it through the handcuffs.

Archer drove the Buick straight to the hospital, which was a block over from the Derby. While the doctor attended Shaw, the detective had Archer call the police station and tell them what had happened at Jackie’s. Deputies were sent over to secure the area and arrest Draper.

As Shaw lay on the gurney he stared up at Archer. “You saved my damn life, Archer.”

“Just glad I was there. And you saved Jackie’s life. Dickie woulda killed her for sure if you hadn’t winged him. And you saved me, too, when you think about it. Not sure I could’ve got the upper hand with him if he hadn’t been wounded. You rest easy now. I’ll be back.”

He left with Jackie and drove her over to Ernestine’s, where he rapped hard on the door.

When a sleepy Ernestine opened the door, she looked confused when she saw Archer. But when she spied Jackie standing there, her features froze.

“Ernestine Crabtree, Jackie Tuttle,” said Archer by way of introduction.

The women, Archer thought, looked like two prizefighters about to do business in the ring.

“Miss Tuttle,” said Ernestine.

“Miss Crabtree,” said Jackie.

He succinctly explained what had happened and what he wanted Ernestine to do with Jackie.

Ernestine’s face had paled as Archer had described the horror at Jackie’s home. He thought she might actually faint. His hand shot out and steadied her.

“Steady there,” he said. “You okay?”

She composed herself and said, “I’m all right. My goodness. You poor thing,” she said to Jackie, gently draping her arm around the other woman’s shoulders.

“And Ernestine, you got your gun handy?” asked Archer.

“Yes.”

“Keep it that way.”

Jackie gripped Archer by the arm as he was about to leave.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Just glad you’re still with us, Jackie. And if it weren’t for you, I’d be dead.”

He hustled back to the Buick. As he started the car, he looked back to see the women turn and head into the house. Ernestine’s arm was still around Jackie and the other woman was leaning into her for support. Then the door closed.

Well, thought Archer, that had gone better than he could have imagined.

However, as he thought about it some more, he began to grow worried. The women separately had gotten to know Archer fairly well. And he had slept with Jackie. If the two started comparing notes on him?

He let out a sigh. Well, there’s nothing perfect about life. But at least I still got a life after tonight.

He drove off.

Shaw was sitting up and looking much better when Archer returned. The lawman had been placed in a private room and had bags of blood flowing into him.

“Deputies have been by. They got Draper. And they picked up Dill’s body.”

“Good,” said Archer, sitting next to the man. “But you just rest easy now.”

“Why do you think they went after Jackie Tuttle?”

“She knew Hank Pittleman as well as anyone did,” said Archer. “They were afraid he told her something, I suspect. Like you said, tying up loose ends. That’s what made me think to go over there in the first place. She asked me to stay with her last night for that very reason.”

“Soon as I get outta this bed, I’m gonna ask Marjorie Pittleman point-blank what the hell is going on.”

“Like to be with you when you do.”

“Don’t worry, you will. You earned that right tonight, son.”

“And I think I’m retiring from the slaughterhouse business,” said Archer.

“Good call,” replied Shaw, looking drowsy.

Noting this, Archer said, “Now you need to get some sleep. And so do I.”

Archer tipped his hat over his eyes and leaned back in his chair.

“What, you mean you’re gonna sleep here?”

“’Course. Want to be around in case somebody wants to try to come after you to finish the job. Don’t worry, I’m a light sleeper.”

“You always been that way?”

“Nope. But something about fighting a war and spending time in prison just does that to a man.”

He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

A minute later, so did Irving Shaw.