Prime Suspect

by A. W. Gray

  There was a slight hesitation, and Lackey pictured the homicide guy thinking of putting on a trace, then changing his mind. A series of clicks followed.

  Dick snapped his head around to face Lackey. “You holding, huh?”

  Lackey nodded.

  “How much it run you, rich guy?” Dick said.

  “Well, there’s an installation fee,” Hardin said, “then it’s about the same as a phone in your house.”

  “Pretty slick, huh?” Dick said. “Jesus, I got to get me one of them. They got a deposit? My credit at the phone company ain’t so hot, tell you the truth.”

  On the line, Morrison’s voice said, “Ferguson?” His tone was urgent.

  Lackey said, “Hey, you guys.” Then he said to Morrison, “Hi.” He sat up straighter in the seat to peer over Hardin’s shoulder through the windshield. The squad cars were lined up on both sides of the street, rooflights flashing, and illuminated in the swirling red glow was an ambulance. Lackey supposed that there was a fire truck nearby as well. Uniformed policemen milled around and stood in small groups near the squad cars.

  “We guarantee your safety if you’ll surrender,” Morrison said. He sounded as though he were reading from a manual.

  “No way,” Lackey said.

  “Yeah? Well, what’re you up to?”

  “Right now I’m looking at you. We just pulled over to the curb, two blocks south of you on Sylvania.”

  “That’s you, huh?” Morrison said. “Yeah, we saw you. What you got in mind?”

  “Well, I got in mind doing something that I need you to back me up on,” Lackey said.

  “Ferguson, you’re crazy as a loon. Just a minute.”

  There was static on the line, then a new voice that Lackey didn’t recognize at first said, “Ferguson, this is Assistant District Attorney Favor. Now I’m not offering any deals, but I assure you it’ll go a lot easier on you if you’ll quit fucking around and just come up here quietly. “

  Lackey blinked. Oh, yeah, Favor. The chubby young D.A. who’d recorded the interview, the first time Morrison and Henley had taken Lackey downtown. Lackey said, “Hold on a minute.” He offered the phone over the seat to Hardin. “Talk to this guy,” Lackey said. “Tell him I might blow your head off.” Hardin shot a wide-eyed glance over the seat. Lackey gestured with the .45.

  Hardin took the phone. “This is Percival Hardin. If you do anything to endanger me, I’m holding you responsible.”

  Hardin cocked his head and held the receiver jammed against his ear. Lackey imagined that Favor was giving instructions on how to handle the lunatic desperado in the back seat. After Hardin had listened for a few seconds, Lackey said, “Gimme the phone back.”

  He took the receiver and heard Favor say, “—and above all, don’t act like you’re afraid. These guys all—”

  “This is Lackey again,” Lackey said.

  There was sudden stony silence.

  “I got a whole car full back here,” Lackey said. “Now here’s what I want you to do.” He’d seen a movie a few years back, Dog Day Afternoon, where Al Pacino had held a bunch of hostages in a bank and kept the police at bay. Lackey wondered if he sounded anything like Pacino.

  “You’re really piling up the charges, Ferguson,” Favor said. “Endangering citizens.”

  “Yeah, well, I used to be a citizen myself, before you started fucking me around. Now I got Mr. Hardin, you just talked to him, and I got Miss Monroe, that’s Mrs. Hardin’s sister, and some friends of theirs.” Lackey was getting really hot under the collar. Nancy didn’t have much time, if she had any at all.

  “What friends?” Favor said. “We need to know.”

  Lackey covered the mouthpiece. “What’s your name, teen queen?”

  The hooker said in a small frightened voice, “Paula White.” Probably an alias, Lackey thought.

  “You, Dick,” Lackey said. “You, too.”

  Dick sneered. “Man, I got a rap sheet long as Johnny Wadd’s dick.”

  “Yeah,” Lackey said. “Yeah, you got a point.” Then, into the phone, “Mr. and Mrs. Richard White. Couple of socially prominent friends of the Hardins, you hear me? Now first, you tell those guys to douse those roof flashers. No more lights, you hear me? Or else.” Lackey wasn’t sure “or else” what, but thought he sounded pretty good. “You got thirty seconds to get it dark up there,” Lackey said.

  “Now listen, Ferguson,” Favor said.

  “You got twenty-five seconds,” Lackey said.

  “You don’t go around telling—”

  “Twenty seconds.”

  “Now hold on,” Favor said. “We’re doing it. Yeah, we’re doing it, right now.”

  “I’m watching you,” Lackey said. Up ahead there was a flurry of activity as cops disbanded their huddled groups and sprinted toward squad cars. One set of rooflights stopped flashing and went dark, then another. In a few seconds there was nothing visible over the nose of the Mercedes other than the tall illuminated streetlamps at Sylvania and Northeast 28th Street. The darkened outlines of the squad cars and ambulance blended and mixed with other darkened shapes. “That’s better,” Lackey said.

  “Glad you approve,” Favor said.

  Lackey let it pass, the fat little D.A. being cute. “So now,” Lackey said, “we’re about to drive past you, real slow. You-all get in line behind us and follow.”

  “Follow where?” Favor said.

  “We’re going to surround a guy.”

  “What guy? You’re not really in a position to be funny about this.”

  You’re not, either, Lackey thought. “I don’t have time to go into it. Just follow.” Lackey pressed the button to disconnect, then glanced at Betty Monroe— who was still showing a lot of thigh and shooting sultry glances in Lackey’s direction—as he said to Percy Hardin, “Okay. Now we’re going to drive. Not over twenty miles an hour, Mr. Hardin. I’ll be watching the speedometer.” Lackey bent slightly forward and now directed his words to Dick the longhair. “Dick, you give Mr. Hardin the directions. We’re going to make a couple of blocks, and then we’re going to park in front of your buddy’s apartment house. Those cops are going to follow us.”

  Dick was watching Lackey. The longhair’s expression was respectful. “I’ll say this,” Dick said. “You got some cods. Say, what you going to do if old Everett ain’t home?”

  Lackey hadn’t thought of that. He bunched his eyebrows together. “Worry about it when the time comes, I guess,” Lackey Ferguson said.

  23

  Lackey had been improvising as he went along, and as the caravan approached the condemned apartment house he had still another idea. He told Hardin to pull over, and after the line of cars followed by the ambulance were parked at the curb, one behind the other, he called the sheriff’s department and told the homicide detective to put him through to Morrison again. As he listened to the series of clicks and buzzes on the line, Lackey scanned the apartment building with his gaze. It was a two-story brownstone with a second-floor landing. Streetlamps illuminated a ragged, un-kept lawn with stalks of Johnson grass waving here and there and with runners of Bermuda infesting the sidewalks. An iron staircase bisected the front of the building and led up to the landing. Light streamed from the window of the second-floor apartment, two doors to the right of the stairs. Be in there, babe, Lackey thought. There was a final click on the line, and Morrison said, “Yeah?”

  “This is Ferguson. I got problems.”

  “You ain’t shittin’,” Morrison said.

  “I got to get inside that apartment up there,” Lackey said, “without getting shot by you guys.” Visible ahead of the Mercedes, a dark sedan was parked across the street from a little foreign car. A white Volvo, Lackey thought. Bingo.

  “That’s easy,” Morrison said. “Just get me to promise that we’ll leave you alone while you go in. Hell, I’ll promise. That ain’t no problem.”

  “Stop being funny,” Lackey said. “What’s going to happen is, I’m going to release these people here a
nd send them back to you.”

  There was a rustling inside the car, a slight intake of breath by Betty Monroe on Lackey’s right, a nearly inaudible click as Percy Hardin undid his seatbelt. Dick the longhair said in a stage whisper, “Man, you fucking crazy!”

  “Except one,” Lackey said. “Mr. Hardin up here’s staying with me.”

  Directly in front of Lackey, Percy Hardin froze like a statue.

  “This is Favor,” a different voice said, and Lackey pictured the porky D.A. grabbing the phone, taking charge, and suspected that Detective Morrison wasn’t too in love with Favor at the moment. “Now, no deals unless you release all of „em, Ferguson,” Favor said.

  “You’re not getting it,” Lackey said. “I’m not looking for any deals.”

  “Tell you what,” Favor said. “How about if Detective Morrison takes Mr. Hardin’s place? How about that?” Muffled and in the background, Morrison’s voice said, “Fuck you.”

  “No soap,” Lackey said.

  “Well, then,” Favor said, “no deals. Safe passage back here to give yourself up. That’s all I’m guaranteeing, and you’re lucky you’re getting that.”

  Lackey gently closed his eyes and listened to static crackle. Finally Lackey said, “Listen, you dumb bastard. I’m going in that apartment house because the guy you’re looking for is in there, and if he hasn’t already he’s about to hurt my girl. Now, you shut up. Not another word until I’m through talking, you hear?”

  There were five seconds of static-punctuated silence, after which Favor said, “Go ahead.”

  “Now after I let these people go,” Lackey said, “we’re pulling on ahead a little bit. You stay parked right where you are. Then Mr. Hardin and me, we’re going in. You don’t get out of your car, any of you, until we’re on that second-floor landing up there. If anybody’s door opens before then, Mr. Hardin’s a dead guy. After we get up there, I don’t care what you do.”

  “What the hell are you going to do once you get up there?” Favor said.

  Lackey thought that one over, then said, “If I knew I’d tell you. Depends on what I find. I’m signing off, now. See you, huh?”

  Lackey disconnected. Except for Percy Hardin, who remained frozen in place with his gaze to the front, the passengers looked at Lackey expectantly. Dick the longhair’s nose was wrinkled below his sunglasses. The hooker’s jaw was moving from side to side. Betty Monroe actually looked a little bit disappointed.

  “Okay, time to unload,” Lackey said. Then, as Dick opened the front passenger door and the interior lights flashed on, Lackey said, “Wait a minute.” Then, he said to Betty Monroe, “You ought to think about some things. You really ought to. Now, if I go up there and find . . . well, the worst thing I can find, then Mr. Hardin’s not going to have a thing to worry about, ever again. I’m going to kill him. But if things work out and Nancy’s all right, then that guy up there’s going to match the physical evidence they’ve got on your sister’s murderer. Not even Morrison and Favor can get around it, he’s the guy. Now you can do what you want to, Betty, but if I was you I’d be telling those cops a few things. Kind of cover your fanny, you know?”

  Understanding crossed Betty’s classic features. She glanced to the front as Percy Hardin turned in his seat and said, “Betty.”

  She grinned an impish grin. “It’s something to think about,” she said. “Bye, bye, Percy. You have a good time, you hear?”

  About halfway up the walk in the direction of the staircase, Lackey began to wonder if Percy Hardin was going to make it. Percy had refused to budge from the car until Lackey had aired back the hammer on the .45, and now Lackey wondered if Hardin wasn’t more afraid of the guy in the apartment than he was of Lackey shooting him. Hardin moved as if in a trance, shooting glances back to where the squad cars were parked, his breathing ragged and his eyes wide in fear or shock. His blond hair was falling down and partially covering his eyes, but Hardin didn’t seem to notice.

  As they approached the foot of the stairs, with Lackey keeping Hardin between him and the squad cars, Hardin shied away and held back. “Anything,” Hardin said. “Anything, you name it.” He sounded like a man with laryngitis.

  Any pity that Lackey might have felt for this guy had died when he’d found Nancy’s shoes in Frank Nichols’s bedroom. Lackey glanced toward the waiting police cars; he’d have bet all he had at that moment that a scope sight was hidden somewhere and trained in his and Hardin’s direction. He grabbed the back of Hardin’s knit shirt and bunched the material up in his fist. “I’m taking you up there one way or the other,” Lackey said. “Get a move on.” He shoved Hardin bodily onto the bottom stair.

  Stumbling, grabbing the banister for support, his feet grappling for purchase with a series of metallic thuds, Lackey half-dragged Hardin upward. Hardin wheezed like a cardiac patient. Lackey’s arm and shoulder grew numb from the effort, but he wasn’t about to release Hardin’s collar. The two men had almost reached the top of the stairs when a gunshot sounded.

  There wasn’t any doubt that it was a pistol shot, a muffled explosion coming from within the lighted apartment two doors down from the head of the steps. Lackey’s blood was suddenly icewater. Hardin recoiled as though hit with a sledgehammer. Jesus, thought Lackey, oh, sweet Jesus. He doubled his effort and yanked Hardin with him up on the landing. Lackey glanced down at his bandaged forearm; two red wet spots had soaked through the elastic from underneath. He hauled his gasping hostage over in front of the apartment and stood with his back to the door and his nose an inch from Hardin’s nose.

  “Be still, you fuck,” Lackey snarled. “I’m letting go of you, and if you move one step I’ll shoot you. I hope you try me, tell you the truth.”

  One look at Hardin’s face told him that he didn’t have to worry about his hostage going anywhere. Hardin’s jaw was slack and his eyes were glazed; he didn’t seem to know where he was. Lackey turned his back on Hardin and leveled the .45 at the doorlock. He didn’t have the slightest idea where to aim, but by God Lackey Ferguson was going to shoot that fucking lock until he hit something that knocked the door open. Come hell or high water, he was going inside that apaitment and tear it apart until he found Nancy. Without really thinking about it, he reached out and tried the knob.

  The handle turned easily in his grasp and the door swung inward.

  For an instant, Lackey couldn’t do anything except stare at the partially open doorway. He’d been so charged-up to splinter the wood with bullets that he nearly fired the pistol anyway. At last, realization dawned. He turned back to Hardin, who hadn’t moved a muscle. Lackey grabbed the rich man’s son by the upper arm and used Hardin as a shield, shoving the blubbering hostage in front of him toward the apartment, conscious that he was now in the police line of fire for the first time since he’d dragged Hardin from the Mercedes.

  Far below and from across the ragged lawn, a voice amplified by a bullhorn said, “Hold it, Ferguson. Right there.”

  Simultaneously, Hardin clutched both sides of the doorframe and wheezed, “No. Oh, Jesus, please don’t.”

  A rifle cracked and echoed. Something whined past inches from Lackey’s ear and thunked into the doorframe below Hardin’s clutching hand. Splinters flew. Tiny pieces of wood danced before Lackey’s eyes.

  Lackey murmured, “Shit.” He backed off, raised his foot and placed its sole dead-center between the cheeks of Hardin’s butt, and shoved with all he had. Hardin stumbled forward; his head banged into hardwood and the door swung open wide. Lackey put the heel of his hand in the small of Hardin’s back and pushed even harder. Hardin fell across the threshold and went down in a heap; Lackey dived inside behind his hostage as the rifle cracked again and more splinters whistled through the air. He had a whirlaround glimpse of a table, chairs, an old TV set as he rolled over, climbed to his feet and slammed the door. A third rifle bullet whined through the door and buried into the wall at the back of the apartment. Lackey had barely drawn his breath, and had bent over to check on Hardin, when
movement in the corner of his eye caused him to turn. A man was coming from an adjoining room, a stumpy-ugly man whose nostrils were flared and whose lips were pulled back from crooked teeth in a grimace of hatred.

  Helpless, her hands and feet still bound, Nancy Cuellar said a prayer as the crazy left the fallen woman and approached the bed. Please God, Nancy prayed, let me have one shot at his eyes. Just one free hand is all it would take. Please, Master. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is . . .

  The lunatic was sobbing, dragging one foot behind him, his pistol flopping loosely by his side. Nancy shut out everything from her mind, the dead black man in the doorway and the tiny woman whose highheeled shoes were visible below the foot of the bed, and concentrated on just one thing. Her right hand. Her right hand, as she twisted her wrist and gave her all to get the hand free from the ropes. Please, God, please.

  From outside the bedroom came the sound of the front door banging open, followed closely by the faraway noise of a gunshot. Or it could have been a firecracker. Nancy looked quickly toward the bedroom door and into the sitting room beyond.

  The crazy stopped in his tracks and slowly turned toward the noise.

  Everett’s mama (daddy?) was gone, and all he had left to live for was his baby. That’s what he wanted to tell her as he approached the bed, that he wasn’t never going to leave her side, and that everything was going to be all right. Jesus, if he could only stop blubbering and tell her that. Jesus, if he could—

  More noise behind him. A door crashing open and a gun going off. Somebody wanting to hurt his baby. Everett turned and moved woodenly toward the sounds, walked outside the bedroom and stared. Who were these two guys? One face-down on the floor, another climbing to his feet. Everett had seen these two. Where? Didn’t matter none, they were here to do harm.