Shakeup

46

Alfie shrank inside his coat, making himself as small as possible. He knew the man with the gun would pay more attention to Eddie, the larger burglar. Alfie coughed a couple of times, holding his hands over his mouth, turning the man’s focus to him, then away. He put his hands into his pockets and felt the cosh and the air gun.

The man with the gun stepped forward, put out a hand and spun Eddie around, a policelike move, as if he were going to cuff him. Alfie, seizing the moment of distraction, swung the cosh and struck the naked man in the back of the neck. He collapsed in a heap on the floor. Alfie put away the cosh and took out the air gun, previously reserved for a dog. It would work as well on a man.

Eddie turned, drew back a leg, and aimed a kick at the unconscious man’s head.

“No!” Alfie said, but the leg was already swinging. Alfie put out his own leg and tripped Eddie, who fell backward onto the floor. Unfortunately, in so doing, he inadvertently pulled the trigger on the dart gun and shot the projectile into his own calf. He must have caught a vein, Alfie thought, because he felt a sudden rush that clouded his mind. Then he, too, collapsed, on top of the naked man.

Eddie got to his feet. “Alfie? It’s Eddie. Are you all right?” Alfie was out.

Eddie turned his friend on his back and felt for a pulse. Slow and steady. He tried to be cool, now, as Alfie would have been. He knelt beside the paintings, put each of the forgeries into a frame, and fastened them to the wall again, then he tucked the originals into his bag and tidied up, putting the cosh, the tool kit, and the air gun into his coat pockets. He tried to find the dart, but couldn’t.

Eddie was strong and Alfie was thin and light. He got his friend to his feet and over his shoulder, in a fireman’s carry, then he picked up the bag containing the paintings and walked out of the study and down the hall to the kitchen door. He didn’t bother relocking it behind him.

Eddie hurried down the steps and walked to the place where they had climbed over the wall. He set down his bag, hoisted Alfie to a position facedown on the top of the wall, then picked up the bag and scrambled up and over. From the other side, he got Alfie back on his shoulders, picked up the bag, and walked back to the waiting car. He found the keys in Alfie’s pocket, then laid him on the back seat, stripped off his own raincoat and made a pillow for his friend, then he put the paintings in the boot.

A moment later he was behind the wheel, sweating freely, and starting the car. At the first roundabout he turned the wrong way, traveled 360 degrees around, and finally, came out on the correct road. He thanked God he had not met any traffic. All he had to do now was follow the signs to the motorway and stay on the wrong side of the road.

Felicity woke and found Stone gone. She couldn’t hear him in the bathroom, so she put on a robe and went downstairs, where light was coming from the library door. Stone was lying on his belly, stark naked and, apparently, asleep. What the hell?

She kissed him on the shoulder and got no response. She pinched him on the ass, hard, and still, no response. She got him turned onto his back and felt his neck for a pulse: strong and steady. He coughed, and his eyelids fluttered.

“Stone, wake up,” Felicity commanded, pinching his cheeks.

“Not now,” he muttered. She slapped him smartly across the face. This time he responded, getting himself up on one elbow. “What the hell?”

“That’s my question exactly,” she said. “What are you doing downstairs and naked in the library?” Then she spotted the gun next to a chair leg. She helped him to his feet and into the chair. She thought of offering him a brandy, but decided that was not the thing to do; she wanted him awake, not drunk. She picked up the pistol, then expertly popped the magazine, racked the slide, and put down the hammer. “There, now you can’t shoot me.”

“Why would I want to shoot you?” Stone asked, rubbing his eyes.

“Why would you come downstairs, naked and armed?”

He thought about that and failed to come up with an answer. Dino walked into the library clad in a guest-room dressing gown, and saw Stone naked. “Jesus, Stone, you’ve got a perfectly good bed upstairs. What are you doing here?”

“He was out like a light when I came in. This was lying nearby,” Felicity said, handing Dino the reassembled weapon.

“Who were you planning to shoot?” Dino asked him, dropping the pistol into the pocket of his dressing gown.

“He must have heard someone in the house,” Felicity said.

“I must have heard something,” Stone repeated tonelessly. He made a face and put a hand behind his head.

Felicity took the hand away and looked at his neck. “He’s been coshed,” she said.

“Is that some kind of a sex thing?” Dino asked.

“It’s a club,” she said. “He’s been clubbed into unconsciousness.”

“You want a drink, Stone?” Dino asked.

“That’s not what he needs,” Felicity said. “Can you walk, Stone?”

“Of course I can walk,” Stone said, rising from the chair, then falling back into it.

“Let’s get him upstairs,” Dino said. He and Felicity each took an arm, got him to his feet, and marched him to the elevator. Upstairs, they got him into bed.

“I’ll take care of him,” Felicity said.

“I don’t doubt it,” Dino replied.

“You go back to bed, Dino.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dino replied, then left the room.

Felicity went into Stone’s bathroom, found a hand towel and got some ice from the machine in the bar. She wrapped up a handful of ice, then went back to the bed and tucked it under Stone’s head. “That should make it feel better by the morning,” she said.

She slipped out of her dressing gown and found the button that turned off all the lights, then got into bed.

Eddie made it back to Belgrave Square with no problems, parked the car, then got Alfie upstairs and onto his bed.

His wife got out of bed in her nightgown. “What’s happened?” she asked. “Has Alfie had a stroke?”

“No,” Eddie replied, “he accidentally received an injection intended for a dog.”

“What dog?”

“There wasn’t one. Just let him sleep it off.” He helped her get Alfie’s clothes off and found the dart in his leg. He pulled it out and held it up. “He shot himself with this.” Eddie went back to the car and removed the bag with the pictures and his raincoat from the car, put them in Alfie’s study, then went back upstairs to bed. Nice payday coming, he reminded himself, as he drifted off.