Start Screaming Murder

Chapter Eight

Smith revealed his experience in such activities in the way he herded me in the alley. He stayed about three paces behind me. It gave him time and space to use the gun, even if I’d been the fastest fool on earth.

I heard the groceries slide down his body, thunk on the crushed shell paving of the alley.

“Keep moving,” he said.

As I passed down the scabby brick profile of the building, there was a change in the sound of the footsteps behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. I guessed it was Kincaid who’d slithered out of the shadows to join Smith.

“Stop,” Smith said. “Right there.”

I stopped, in the exposed, most open part of the alley where it widened at the car shed.

Kincaid circled cautiously, coming in behind me. He was as tall as Smith, not as heavy. He moved lithely, a man of perfect reflexes and coordination. The after-glow in the alley from the street didn’t give me much of a look at his face. I got an impression of hard bone and sharp angles, with the eyes set under a high forehead.

“Put your hands on your head, Rivers,” Smith said.

I caressed my thinning crown.

Behind me, Kincaid’s hands started at my ankles. He passed up my wallet. Reaching in my side pocket, he appropriated my keys. Then he lifted the .38 from under my lightweight jacket.

The sheath of my knife was a comforting touch between my shoulder blades.

“I’ve been wanting to meet you,” I said.

“We’ve shared the desire,” Kincaid said behind me. He had a low, crisp voice. Each word was well enunciated. I wondered if he’d ever conned his way into reasonably cultured circles. “Our inquiries regarding you, Rivers, have been thorough, if discreet. For one thing,” he laughed softly, “we heard a rumor about a knife, a flat piece of steel honed to razor sharpness.”

His hand jerked the collar of my jacket. My shoulders reacted, snapping the collar tight on his fingers. My right hand dropped from the crown of my head, clamped on his wrist. At the same time, the rest of my body was in motion. I collapsed against Kincaid as the gun in Smith’s hand coughed. The lighting was bad, and he was afraid of hitting his partner. The slug whined off the brick wall behind us.

With Kincaid off balance, I used my legs like steel springs. He gasped as the top of my head slammed up against his chin.

I spun Kincaid as Smith sprang to one side to get in another shot. Without breaking motion, I pile-drivered the reeling Kincaid at Smith. The three of us collided. Kincaid went to his knees. Tripping over him, I grabbed for Smith’s gun. Smith was tearing himself free of the melee, trying to keep his footing.

Smith’s backward moving bulk and my grip on his wrist threw my weight against Kincaid. He went prone, threshing and grabbing at me. Kicking at Kincaid, I kept the direction of motion constant against Smith.

Smith tripped, tottered backwards. His face was a slick, white smear in the night. His gun wrist was slippery as he threw his bulk behind the effort to bring the gun to bear.

Sprawling toward Smith, I tried to get a steady footing. His free hand was a fist, slugging at my face. I turtled my head between my shoulders. His knuckles cracked on my forehead. The alley tilted for a second.

I butted Smith in the belly. I sensed his heels catching in the loose shell paving. He clubbed at me with his fists as we reeled on insecure footing. The blows struck my shoulders and back. I stayed with him like a babe clinging to its mother.

Then Kincaid’s weight hit me from behind. The three of us went down in a tangle of stabbing arms and legs. I heard the breath grunt out of Smith. His grip on the gun weakened.

Kincaid grabbed my hair and tried to jerk me loose from Smith. I took the eye-watering punishment, my knee in Smith’s groin. A sharp hiss of pain came from him.

I was gambling on them being unwilling to risk an un-silenced shot in the alley. I was right about that. I almost had the silenced gun ripped from Smith’s fingers, the authority to command.

Then Kincaid collected his senses, cooled his head. He ceased his ineffectual attack on my back. I felt his weight leave me. My skull split open. He’d taken aim and done a perfect place kick.

The night was an empty sinkhole, draining my strength. I felt Smith writhing from under me, but there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

The two of them stood over me a few moments, getting their wind back, the toe of Kincaid’s shoe touching me now and then in grim speculation.

“Well,” Kincaid said, pulling breath into his lungs, “we heard he was a tough old grizzly.”

“Yeah,” Smith said in a thick voice.

“The way you’re supposed to be tough,” Kincaid said.

“I didn’t expect...”

“I know,” Kincaid said, “but he saw it as his last chance, and what did he have to lose?”

“I’ll fix him for it,” Smith said. “I’ll fix him good. I’ll make him wish he’d never got greedy with Bucks Jordan.”

“You’ll do what I tell you to do,” Kincaid said. “And next time you shoot off a gun with me that close around, I’m going to make you eat it.”

“Now, Kincaid, you know I...”

“I know you get rattled. You should have kept your head, slugged him with the gun. It would have spared us much.”

Dimly, I heard the slapping of his hands as Kincaid brushed himself off. “I should charge you for this suit.”

“We’ll get plenty of suits when we finish dredging Rivers,” Smith said.

“Ha, ha,” Kincaid said sarcastically.

“I thought it was pretty good,” Smith’s tone echoed rebuff.

“At least we’ve got him now,” Kincaid said. “And I’ll be sore in every muscle and joint for a week because of it. Put him in the car and let’s get out of here before some wandering joker puts an end to our run of luck.”

Weak as a half-drowned dog, I lay and took it as Smith put his knee in the small of my back and jerked my hands behind me.

“Lend me your necktie, Kincaid.”

He used the tie to lash my hands. Then he slid his own soiled handkerchief to make a gag. With the dirty linen tearing my jaws, I really began to hate Smith.

He grunted as he clutched my shoulders and dragged me toward my own car. He stuffed me in the back seat, got under the wheel, and Kincaid slid in beside him.

Every movement of the car jolted through the lump on my temple, where Kincaid’s shoe had left its imprint. The night was miserably hot. Flares of light came and went as we passed street lights, filling stations, drive-ins.

I judged we were on Nebraska, headed away from town. The intervals between the light flares lengthened. Smith turned on a side street. When he turned again, the car jounced slightly. Wild palms and thickets crowded in. Smith slowed. The car weaved in the ruts of a sandy street.

Smith stopped the car and Kincaid said, “Get him out.”

Smith did so, by taking hold of my collar and dragging me out. When he released me, my cheek fell against sand still hot from the sun. I drew my legs up, got my knees under me. Smith and Kincaid stood back and waited until I struggled to my feet.

I was standing in heavy shadows of palmetto and scrub pine. The harrumping of frogs came from not far away. I guessed we were in a swampy area not too far from Tina La Flor’s cottage. The location might as well have been the moon.

“Now, Rivers,” Kincaid said in the manner of a confident high school coach, “let’s get with this thing. First, we’re going to take the gag off and have a little talk. Okay? From there, it depends on you.”

At a nod from Kincaid, Smith moved behind me and untied his handkerchief. He took it from my mouth and I spit. He used the handkerchief to wipe sweat off that pleasant, dumb face.

With a few of the cobwebs in my brains, I had the silly urge to tell him the truth: Look, mister, I don’t know who you are or what you’re after. Or what caused the most beautiful three-foot doll in the world to shinny over my transom. All I know is that I was minding my own business when a boat appeared one day and a chain reaction started. The circumstances surrounding the death of Bucks Jordan prohibit me from the police; so why don’t you spend your time where it would do you more good?

I didn’t say it, of course. As my head cleared, I faced up to the situation. The truth was a death warrant, now that they’d tipped their identity and connection with the unknown factors behind Bucks Jordan’s murder. I’d live so long as they believed my living was worth something to them.

“Why don’t you,” Kincaid asked conversationally, “just tell us all about it?”

“Sure,” Smith said, “we don’t mean no real harm.”

“With guns in your groceries?”

“It was you that started the fracas in the alley. The gun was just to be sure we talked to you.”

“Kincaid,” I said, “this guy’s going to get you in serious trouble one of these days. He’s even dumber than you think.”

“All right,” Kincaid’s tone cooled, “so we weren’t balky at the thought of roughing you up, if necessary. On the other hand, we wanted to avoid it if we could. There’s plenty to go around.”

“Not the way Bucks told it,” I said.

They exchanged a glance. Kincaid said, “Maybe he was holding out on you.” He took a package of cigarettes from his jacket side pocket. He didn’t light the cigarette but stood rolling it gently in his fingers until half the tobacco had dribbled out. “Or maybe you’re thinking of holding out on us.”

“Listen,” Smith said, “we don’t have to do business with this guy. Give me the blade you took off him and I’ll save us some money.”

The idea appealed to Kincaid. He stood thinking about it, and I did too — with the dismal frogs singing a dirge for me, a pale moon, remote and desolate, the single witness for me.

Sweat seeped down my arms and seemed to shrink the necktie binding my wrists.

“What do you want to know first?” I asked.

Kincaid nodded. “I’m glad to see that you recognize the odds are ten thousand to zero, in our favor, Rivers. Where is the little woman?”

“Tina?”

“Is there another?” he said impatiently.

“I don’t know.”

“Gimme the blade,” Smith said.

“No, I think he’s telling the truth. It’s possible that he wouldn’t know right at this moment. Are you to meet her later?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

I licked my lips. “In a week.”

“Fine. Now let’s see if I have it straight. We never would have connected you with the little woman and Jordan, if she hadn’t gone directly to you. We’ve learned in Ybor City that you’ve known her a considerable time. Did she ring you in early — or after she decided Jordan was too great a risk?”

“You’re doing the summing up,” I said. “Find out how bright you are.”

“It doesn’t matter when you entered the picture. Jordan’s death meant a double-cross — and you’re the only possible answer.”

“You make me sound pretty rough,” I said.

“You are pretty rough. And don’t hand me a lot of malarkey about that private operator’s license you carry. Even official cops take a chance, when the odds look right and stakes are high enough.”

“Now we want the stakes,” Smith said. “Pronto. No more gassing, understand? Kincaid, I’m tired of gassing.”

“So am I. You heard the man, Rivers.”

“I haven’t got...” I broke off. Got what? What were the stakes?

“The little doll’s got it?” Kincaid asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Look, friend,” Smith said, “I’m going to carve you up unless...”

Kincaid cut him off with a gesture. Edging closer to me, Kincaid said, “You seem to have a dearth of knowledge to be in the middle of the thing, Rivers.”

“It’s the truth. But I’m not the only one in the middle. You keep me alive and kicking and I’ll try to make a deal with Tina.”

“Think you can?”

“Why not?”

“You don’t seem to have done too well for yourself.”

“I came in late,” I said.

“After Bucks took Tina out to the Sprite?”

“Sure,” I said, “after she met the Lessards.”

Grope in the dark, you fall in the ditch. I felt myself go in right then. I saw a sudden realization come to life in Kincaid’s eyes. His face quickly went acid with anger.

“Why you...” he said in a choked tone. “You’ve let us think... You’re nothing but a strong-arm the little doll hired. You don’t know where the stuff is!”

I didn’t bother to ask how I’d slipped. I had an idea. Somehow, and for some reason, Bucks had taken Tina to the Sprite without anyone knowing it, until later. Until Kincaid and Smith had come ashore and started searching.

They didn’t need me now.