Twenty Plus Two

Chapter 27

Alder was aware of the pain in his head before he was aware of where he was or what had happened to him. It was a dull, throbbing pain, but every fourth or fifth throb the pain lanced through his brain, causing excruciating agony.

His eyes opened.

Nikki, watching him, rose swiftly from the chair on which she had been sitting.

“Keep away,” Dane snapped. He was standing by the door, alert, sometimes looking out, sometimes watching those in the room.

Nikki paid no attention to him. She dropped to her knees beside Alder.

“Nikki,” Alder said.

She caressed his face with her hand. “You’ve a bad wound on the back of your head. It ought to be taken care of, but he... he won’t let me.”

“It’s all right,” Alder replied. He grimaced, pushed himself up to a sitting position with Nikki’s help. He touched a hand gingerly to the back of the head. “I’ll live.”

“Not for long,” said Leroy Dane from the door. “Just until my big brother comes.”

“You’ve never met him, have you?” asked Alder. “You’ve a treat in store for you.”

“I’ve heard about him,” retorted Dane. “Spent most of his life in prisons. Big Frenchy — big jerk!”

“Think that,” said Alder, “and you’ll make the greatest mistake of your life.”

“He couldn’t keep out of jails. Me — I’ve done all right. I got a bad start, but I made it. The hard way.”

“You’re a very smart man,” said Alder, “in a stupid sort of a way. Like changing your name. Koenig — German for ‘king.’ Leroy — French for ‘the King.’ And Danny becomes Dane.”

Dane jerked as if an invisible fist had struck him. He came into the room and standing beside Nikki and Alder, looked down at Alder.

“You think I’m stupid? I was a punk with the mob, but I got out of it and I’ve done all right. I make over a million dollars a year. What do you do?”

“I haven’t made a million dollars in my whole life. But then there are a lot of things I’ve never done. I’ve never been a pimp, I’ve never—”

Dane’s foot kicked him in the face. Alder’s head snapped back. Dane said ominously, “The little time you got left, you keep your trap shut. You got to say something, you say, Mr. Dane, please...!”

Nikki’s soft palm covered the new bruise on Alder’s face and Alder felt no pain from it.

Dane moved away, back toward the door and Alder got to his feet, Nikki holding his arm, helping him.

“Mister Dane, please,” Alder said, “may I ask you a question?”

“Keep on, Alder,” warned Dane, “and I won’t wait. I don’t think it’s going to make any difference, anyway.”

“What I have to say might.”

Dane regarded him suspiciously. “I don’t think I’d believe you.”

“You might.”

Dane’s eyes slitted. Alder said, “I read your fan club magazine, Mister Dane, please—” He held up his hand. “You served in Omar Bradley’s tank corps. You told me yourself, how you won the Battle of the Bulge.”

“What the hell!”

“My colonel, during the war,” Alder continued, “he also happened to be my very good friend — is named Charles Mattock. He is today Major General Mattock. His office is in the Pentagon.”

“So what? You’re not impressing me,” snapped Dane. “I know generals, admirals, senators, congressmen.”

“The General,” said Alder, “is in a position to look up service records. No one named Auguste Pleschette served in our armed forces during the war.”

“Pleschette, hell, I’ve used a lot of names.”

“That is right,” agreed Alder. “I tried some of them on the General. He came up with the service record of Daniel Koenig.”

“It’s a common name,” Dane’s eyes were a little more open and they smoldered. “I wouldn’t believe a damn thing you said, anyway. I can think up generals’ names, too.”

“Follow me, then. ‘Inducted, February 10, 1943, at Fargo, North Dakota. Basic training, Fort Snelling, Minnesota. August, 1943, transferred to Luke Airfield, Arizona. AWOL twenty days. Thirty days guardhouse. Transferred to South Carolina. Served in Quartermaster Corps until August, 1945. Inducted as private, private first class, when discharged.’ Silver bars, lieutenant? Tanks?”

“You said your piece. You won the war, I suppose. All by yourself. You got yourself a trunkful of medals—”

“You’re missing the point, Dane,” said Alder. “I talked to General Mattock only two days ago. He knows Leroy Dane is Auguste Pleschette, alias Daniel Koenig.”

Dane’s breath came out of his mouth so heavily it almost became a whistle. “You’re stupider than you look, Alder. The little chance you had you just kicked in the teeth. No reason for me to wait for big brother now.”

“No reason for you to kill me now, Dane. Or anyone else. You’re through.”

“Maybe,” said Dane. “Maybe I am, but I’ll kill you for the fun of it. One more don’t make any difference. Or two—” His eyes went to Nikki. “I got to hand it to you — you’re better looking than any of the babes I’ve knocked off. Even the young ones. Might be fun before I give it to you. Especially if you give me a good tussle like you did the first time, when I—”

He broke off as Alder came toward him. “You crazy—!” he gasped.

Alder lunged for the barrel of the shotgun. Dane jerked it aside, just in time. He brought it back, a slashing blow that Alder could not quite break. The stock of the gun crashed against his chin. He reeled, clawed for Dane even as he went down. His hand gripped the stock, clung to it.

Dane fought to get it clear. He whipped Alder back and forth in the savage struggle. Nikki sprang forward, but at that instant Dane got clear. He sprang back into the open doorway.

“That’s it!” he snarled.

He brought the muzzle of the shotgun forward toward Nikki, but then moved it down to where Alder was on his knees, bracing his hands on the dirty floor, trying to win back enough strength to rise and make the supreme attempt of his life.

Old Frenchy cried out: “Gus — a car! I hear it.”

Dane wheeled, half stepped out of the cabin. “Don’t shoot now,” the old man babbled. “He hear shot, get ’fraid.”

Dane came back into the cabin, circling Nikki, but lashing out at Alder with his foot. He knocked him over.

“Everybody keep their traps shut,” he snarled.

The droning of the automobile motor was clear now. It was approaching the cabin. Even Alder, getting back to his knees, heard it. He looked up.

“Bash him, old man,” Dane ordered. “Hit him with something to keep him quiet.”

An automobile horn honked outside. It was an incongruous sound, breaking the tenseness of the scene in the cabin.

“Hallo, Papa!” called a voice outside. “It’s me, your long-lost son!”

“Go out,” said Dane. “Set him up.”

Dane pointed the shotgun at Alder. “One peep out of you—”

Old Frenchy was loath to go outside, but he went, shuffling through the door.

The car motor was shut off and the voice of Big Frenchy boomed. “Papa, it’s me, Jacques, your first-born son! Your wayward, wandering boy. Ah, the time we will have today and tonight — reminiscing about old times—”

A car door slammed and then Dane stepped through the door into the open air.

“Welcome home, big brother!”

“Brother! Of course, my dear, dear younger brother. Auguste.” Big Frenchy’s arms were thrown wide. He was going to enfold his father in his embrace, possibly his brother. Then he saw the shotgun in Dane’s hands.

“What is this? A gun. My dear boy! Is that a way to greet the older brother you have never seen? The oldest son of your father? Dear old papa!”

“I never saw you,” said Dane savagely. “I never wanted to see you, but I heard about you. When I first went to the big town they’d talk about you. I got fed up with hearing about Big Frenchy, the king of the con men. Some people even called me Little Frenchy until I knocked out a few teeth. I changed my name because of you. And I guess I’m here now, holding this gun on you, because of what you did — what you’re trying to do.”

“To you, dear Auguste? I try to do something to you — my very own brother?”

“Shut up, you bag of wind. I’ll do the talking. You and that damn hag that worked for me, you were in cahoots. You put the pieces together, traced me down.”

“I traced you, yes, but—”

“I said shut up! You were with her in the shakedown.”

“My dear brother. Shakedown! I abhor the word.”

“Blackmail, then. Call it by its right name. I killed her and you got scared. Enough to run off, but I see it now. It was you sent me the telegram. Not Alder, like I thought.”

“Telegram, my boy?”

“Telegram, I said. I’ll give it to you. ‘Go to the scene of your youth. Go to the Dakotas, where danger stalks the unwary.’ I heard you were a flowery bastard.”

“Bastard, brother!” cried Big Frenchy. “You insult our dear father. Papa, tell him I am no bastard.”

“I say nothing,” growled Old Frenchy, who had spawned these two monsters. “Jacques, you are no son of mine. In forty-five, fifty year, you never send one dollar to me.”

“I’ve been saving it,” cried Big Frenchy. “I have money for you now. Thousand-dollar bills. Look—”

His hand went to his breast, but the muzzle of the shotgun was jabbed at him.

“Move that hand out of sight,” snapped Dane, “and I’ll blow your head off.”

Big Frenchy looked at his brother, appalled. “You mean that, too. You are a killer. Alder warned me.”

Alder came out of the cabin. He was twenty feet behind Dane, but Dane heard him. He pivoted so that he could look from Alder to his brother, Big Frenchy. He gestured with the shotgun.

“Get over by him,” he ordered. “I want you both where I can see you.”

Alder started out, circling Dane. Big Frenchy watched him come.

“My dear fellow,” he said, anxiety heavy in his sonorous voice. “I should have listened to you. That razor-sharp brain of yours, it saw to the bottom of this — this man’s character. I could not believe that a man could be so evil. My brother, no less!” He sighed so that his entire body shook.

Old Frenchy said, “T’ousand dollar, you say. Not one piece of silver I ever get from you. Gus, he come home one time. He buy me television set. He give me money.”

Big Frenchy grasped at that straw. “A television set, dear papa! I have ten thousand dollars in my pocket. It is all yours — every one of the ten, beautiful thousand dollar bills. I have saved for you, Papa, it is your money. I want you to—”

“You’re a few years too late,” Dane said. “A few bucks before I came along might have helped you. Now—”

“’Guste!” cried Big Frenchy. “Wait — here is the money! You take it.”

Before it had been his left hand that had reached for his breast pocket. Now it was his right hand and it was darting under the lapel. He saw that he wasn’t going to make it, in that last instant. He bleated and threw himself aside. He missed the main force of the blast, but pellets from the shotgun struck his face and he screamed like a wounded boar.

The flat automatic he had reached for dropped from his fingers. Big Frenchy fell to the ground. His hands beat the ground, and one covered the automatic.

Leroy Dane saw the movement of the man on the ground as he was pumping a second shell into the chamber of the weapon. He cried out hoarsely, snapped the breech shut, and then the automatic in Big Frenchy’s hand exploded sharply. The bullet caught Dane in the face. He reeled back, started to fall, but was so intent on making his second shot that he managed it. The blast caught Big Frenchy full in the head. He kicked but once, lay still.

Dane fell on his back. One hand retained a grip on the gun, but his wound was serious. He could not quite manage to raise the gun.

Alder, moving toward him, stooped swiftly, tore the shotgun from the nerveless hand.

Leroy Dane’s eyes were open. Blood was welling from the wound just below his left eye. Blood was gushing from his mouth.

“Damn you,” he croaked. “Damn you to hell!”

Nikki was coming swiftly from the cabin. Old Frenchy stood, rooted to the ground, a few feet away.

“Die,” said Alder tonelessly.

Dane still had a few moments of life.

“Bitch,” he choked out, “should have—”

He never finished the sentence. A jerk went through his entire body, his mouth clamped shut, and then slowly opened.

He was dead.

Nikki came to Alder and stood beside him. They both looked down at Dane.

“He was evil,” said Nikki.

“He was one of the most evil creatures who ever lived,” said Alder. “He should never have been born.”

Then Alder took her hand and turned away.

Old Frenchy still stood where he had been when the shooting began. They walked to him.

“We will notify the Bismarck sheriff,” Alder said.

“Once I have wife,” mumbled Old Frenchy. “She talk too much, she scold too much — but she is good woman. I also have two son. No goddam good. Better I kill them when they babies. I do not and they now kill each other. Soon I die, too.” He blew breath from his mouth, a heavy discharge.

“You don’t tell sheriff nothin’. What he don’t know, don’t bother him. Save trouble. I tell sheriff two son come home, fight — shoot each other. Better all around. I bury them by their mama.”

“There’s ten thousand dollars in Jacques’ wallet.”

“If he don’t lie.”

“He didn’t lie — about that. The money’s yours.”

“Sure, he my son. I take money. You go now. I drive town, make call to sheriff.”