You're nobody 'til somebody kills you

Sixty-three

"Pain in the ass?” I asked. “Me? I don’t even know you guys.”

“Start walkin’,” Harris said.

We headed back to the house with me in the lead.

“Not the big one,” the man with the scar said.

Damn it. I was hoping to lead them away from Marilyn.

“Yeah, you’ve been a pain,” the scarred man said. “Because of you we had to kill that Johnson guy.”

“Why?” I asked. “He lied when I came back with the cops. And he wiped the records clean.”

“He would’ve talked eventually,” Harris said. “Nope, we agreed he had to go.”

“And your buddy, Bardini-” the scarred man started. “Did you kill him, too?” I asked, cutting him off. “Or is he alive somewhere?”

“And you were seen in the club,” Harris said, “you and your private eye.”

“Only we can’t kill him,” the scarred man said. “He’s got too high a profile-or so we’re told.”

“Told by who?” I asked. “The FBI?”

The two men looked at each other.

“Boy,” Harris said, “any chance you had of walkin’ away from this just went out the window.”

Me and my big mouth.

I thought about making them kill me right there and then, so that they wouldn’t go any farther and find Marilyn. Maybe I wasn’t brave enough to do it, or maybe I was just holding onto my life as long as I could, figuring that something would happen to save me.

I headed for the front door of the guesthouse, but once again they directed me.

“Back door, sport,” Harris said.

“What were you doin’ in the house yesterday?” I asked. “Why’d you hit Jerry?”

“What are you talkin’ about?” Harris asked, his eyes going all jerky.

“Who’s Jerry?” the scarred man asked. “That your big buddy?”

“Come on,” I said, “you laid him out and put him in the hospital by ambushing him.”

The scarred man looked at his partner and asked, “What’s he talkin’ about, Harris?”

“Nothin’,” Harris said. “He’s just tryin’ to save his ass.”

We reached the back door.

“You got a key?” Harris asked.

“Of course.”

“Maybe it’s open,” Harris said, reaching for the door.

“No,” I said, pushing past him, “I locked it. I’ll use the key.”

The door was unlocked, but I jiggled the doorknob like I was using the key, hoping Marilyn would hear us and hide.

“Hold it,” Harris said, as I pushed the door open. “I’m goin’ first.”

I backed away. “Be my guest.”

He walked in ahead of me and suddenly there was a scream and a sound, like metal on bone. Harris went down like he’d been poleaxed.

I didn’t wait, I reacted and backed into the scarred man, who stood startled by what had just happened to his partner. We got tangled up, stumbled back together and fell to the ground. I tried to grab his gun hand, but he managed to roll away from me. He got to his feet with his back to the house. I was on the ground on my back. He pointed the gun down at me and I waited for the sound of the shot, or the muzzle flash. Suddenly Marilyn came flying out of the house with a cast-iron frying pan in her hand.

“Leave him alone!” she screamed, and swung the frying pan.

The man turned at the sound of her voice and the frying pan caught him right on the forehead. I saw blood fly and he went down, the gun dropping from his hand.

“Eddie-” Marilyn said.

“Bitch!” Harris shouted, staggering out of the house. His face was covered with blood and he was trying to clear it from his eyes so he could use the gun in his hand.

I scrambled on all fours, grabbed up scar face’s gun from the ground and turned it on Harris. He was still blind, but if he decided to start squeezing off shots Marilyn might get hit. I pointed the revolver at him and pulled the trigger three times. All three shots hit him and drove him back through the doorway and into the house.

I got to my feet and Marilyn came running over to me.

“Are you all right, Eddie?”

“Yeah, I am, thanks to you.”

I hugged her tightly. “Are you all right?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “I heard you at the door, and the voices. I looked out the window over the sink and saw that man with the gun. I didn’t know what to do, so I grabbed a frying pan and hit the first guy through the door.”

“I’m glad it wasn’t me.”

“Are they dead?”

“I’m gonna check,” I said. “Just stand here a minute.”

I checked the one on the ground first. Marilyn’s frying pan had split his head right along that old scar line. He was deader than dead.

I went into the guesthouse and leaned over Harris. He was dead.

“Damn it!” I shouted.

“Eddie? What’s wrong?” Marilyn stuck her head in the door.

“They’re both dead,” I said, “now we can’t find out what they did with Danny.”

“Oh.” She looked like a scolded little girl.

“Hey, hey,” I said, taking the pan from her and setting it aside, “I’m not mad at you. You did the right thing. Marilyn, you saved our lives.”

“I did?” she asked, and then nodded and said, “I did.”

“Why don’t you go and sit in the living room?” I asked. “I’m gonna call the cops, and Otash.”

“Okay, Eddie.”

She went into the other room and I wondered how long it was going to take for it to dawn on her that she had killed a man.