10
“Take your right hand about one inch out of your pocket,” I said, “and stop.”
He did. There was no gun in it.
“Okay, now put both hands behind your back and clasp them.” I let go of his coat with my left hand and reached around and took the pistol out of his pocket. Target gun number four. I stuck it in my left-hand jacket pocket where it sagged very unfashionably. I patted him down quickly with my left hand. He didn’t have another piece.
“Very good. Now put both hands back in your pockets,” He did. “What’s your name?”
“Suck my ass,” he said.
“Okay, Suck,” I said. “We’re going down the corridor and pick up your buddy. If you have an itch, don’t scratch it. If you hiccup or sneeze or yawn or bat your eyes I am going to shoot a hole through your head.” I held the back of his collar with my left hand and kept the muzzle of my gun pressed in behind his right ear and we walked down the corridor. Past the elevator, behind the fire doors there was nobody. I hadn’t hit him hard enough and whiskers was up and away. He didn’t have a weapon and I didn’t think he’d try me without one. I had already killed two of his buddies armed. “Suck, my boy,” I said, “I think you’ve been forsaken. But I won’t turn my back on you. We’ll go to my place and rap.”
“Don’t call me Suck, you bloody bastard,” His English sounded upper class but not quite native. I took out my room key and gave it to him. The gun still at his neck.
“Open the door, Scum Bag, and step in.” He did. No bomb went off. I went in after him and kicked the door shut. “Sit there,” I said and shoved him toward the armchair near the airshaft. He sat. I put the gun back in my shoulder holster. Put the two target pistols on the top shelf of the closet, took my wig and mustache and tie out of my pockets, took off my blue blazer and hung it up.
“What’s your name?” I said. He stared at me without speaking. “You English?”
He was silent.
“Do you know that I get twenty-five hundred dollars for you alive or dead, and dead is easier?”
He crossed one pudgy leg over the other one and locked his hands over his knees.
I went to the bureau and took out a pair of brown leather work gloves and slipped them on, slowly, like I’d seen Jack Palance do in Shane, wiggling my fingers down into them till they were snug. “What is your name?” I said.
He gathered some saliva in his mouth and spit on the rug in my direction. I took two steps toward him, grabbed hold of his chin with my left hand and yanked his face up at mine. He took a gravity knife out of his sock and made a pass at my throat.
I leaned back and the point just nicked me under the chin. I caught the knife hand at the wrist as it went by with my right, stepped around behind him, put my left hand into his armpit and dislocated his elbow. The knife fell to the carpet. He made a harsh, half-stifled-yell. I kicked the knife across the room and let go of his arm. It hung at an odd angle.
I stepped away from him and went to look at my chin in the mirror over the bureau. There was already blood all over my chin and dripping on my shirt. I took a clean handkerchief from the drawer and blotted up enough of the blood to see that the cut was minor, little more than a razor nick, maybe an inch long. I folded the handkerchief over and held it against the cut. “Sloppy frisk,” I said. “My own fault, Suck.” He sat still in the chair, his face tight and pale with pain. “When you tell me what I want to know I’ll get a doctor. What’s your name?”
“Up your bleeding ass.”
“I could do the other arm the same.” He was silent. “Or the same one again.”
“I am not going to say nothing,” he said, his voice strained and shallow as he held against the pain. “No matter what you do. No bloody red sucking Yankee thug is going to make me say anything I don’t want.” I took my Identikit sketches out and looked at them. He could have been one of them. I couldn’t be sure. Dixon would have to ID him. I put the sketches away, took out the card that Downes had given me, went over to the phone and called him. “I guess I got another one, Inspector. Fat little guy with blond hair and a Colt .22 target pistol.”
“Are you at your hotel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll come over there, then.”
“Yes, sir, and he needs a doctor. I had to bend his arm some.”
“I’ll call the hotel and have their man sent up.” The doctor arrived about five minutes before Downes did. It was Kensy, same doctor who’d been in to treat me. Today he had on a three-piece gray worsted suit with the waist nipped in and a lot of shoulder padding and a black silk shirt with long collar rolled out over the lapels. “Well, sir,” he said as he came in, “how’s your arse?” And put his head back and laughed. “What do you wear in surgery,” I said, “a hot pink surgical mask?”
“My dear man, I don’t do surgery. I’d better have a look at that chin though.”
“Nope, just look at this guy’s arm,” I said. He knelt beside the chair and looked at the kid’s arm.
“Dislocated,” he said. “Have to go to a hospital to have it set.” He looked at me. “You do this?”
I nodded.
“You’re quite a lethal chap, aren’t you?” he said.
“My entire body is a dangerous weapon,” I said.
“Mm, I would think so,” he said. “I’ll put a kind of splint on that, my man,” he said to the kid, “and give you something for the pain. And then we’d best bundle you off to the hospital and have an orthopedic man deal with it. I gather you have to wait on the authorities, however.” The kid didn’t speak.
“Yeah, he has to do that,” I said.
Kensy took an inflatable splint from his bag and very gently put it onto the kid’s damaged arm. Then he blew it up. He filled a hypodermic needle and gave him a shot. “You should feel better,” he said, “in just a minute.” Kensy was putting the needle back in the bag when Downes came in. He looked at the kid with his arm in the temporary cast that looked like a transparent balloon.
“Another half a car, Spenser?”
“Maybe. I think so, but it’s hard to be sure.” There was a uniformed cop and a young woman in civilian clothes with Downes. “Tell me about this one,” Downes said. The young woman sat down and took out a notebook. The uniformed bobby stood by the door.
Kensy had his bag closed and headed for the door. “That’s only a temporary cast,” he said to Downes. “Best get him prompt orthopedic attention.”
“We’ll get him to the hospital straight away,” Downes said. “Fifteen minutes, no more.”
“Good,” Kensy said. “Try to avoid hurting anyone for a day or two, would you, Spenser. I’m going on holiday tonight, and I won’t be back until Monday.”
“Have a nice time,” I said. He left. “Can you hold him for Dixon to look at?” I said. “I imagine we can. What charges are you suggesting?”
“Oh, what, possession of a stolen weapon, possession of an unlicensed weapon, assault.”
“You assaulted me, you red sucking son of a bitch,” he said. “Using profanity in front of a police officer,” I said. “We’ll find an appropriate charge,” Downes said. “Right now I’d like to hear the story.” I told him. The young lady wrote down everything we said. “And the other one ran off on you,” Downes said. “Unfortunate. You’d have had the start, perhaps, on another car.”
“I could have killed him,” I said. “I am aware of that, Spenser. It’s one reason I am not pressing you harder about all this.” He looked at the bobby. “Gates,” he said. “Take this gentleman down to the car. Be careful of his arm. I’ll be right along and we’ll take him to the hospital. Murray,” he said to the young lady, “you go along with them.” The three of them left. The kid never looked at me. I was still holding the handkerchief to my chin. “You ought to clean that up and get a bandage on it,” Downes said. “I will in a minute,” I said. “Yes, well, I have two things I wish to say, Spenser. One, I would get some help, were I you. They’ve tried twice in two days. There’s no reason to think that they will not try again. I don’t think this is a one-man job.”
“I was thinking the same thing. I’ll put in a call to the States tonight.”
“That’s the second thing I wish to say. I am ambivalent about this entire adventure. So far you have probably done the British government and the city of London a favor by taking three terrorists out of circulation. I appreciate that. But I am not comfortable about an armed counterinsurgency movement developing in my city, conducted by Americans who operate without very much concern for British law or indeed for British custom. If you must import help, I will not allow an army of hired thugs to run loose in my city shooting terrorists on sight, and, in passing, making my department look rather bad.”
“No sweat, Downes. If I get help it will be just one guy, and we’ll stay out of the papers.”
“You hope to stay out of the papers. But it will not be easy. The Evening Standard and the Evening News have been very insistent on getting the story of last night’s shooting. I’ve put them off but inevitably someone will give them your name.”
“I don’t want ink,” I said. “I’ll shoot them away.”
“I hope so,” Downes said. “I hope too that you’ll not be staying with us a great many more days, hmm?”
“We’ll see,” I said. “Yes,” Downes said. “Of course we will.”