“I say dump him.”
The hard-eyed man asked solemnly, “You a cop, Frank?”
“Sure,” said Carmody. “You’re under arrest. Pull over to the side of the road.”
They both laughed, and the shorter man said, “You’re the coolest, Frank. Why so?”
Carmody saw no reason to explain. “Let’s say I’ve seen the elephant and heard the owl and I just don’t give a damn anymore.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Just that.” His voice was tight and hard. “You want to let me out, fine. You want to pull that trigger, go ahead.”
The driver turned his head for a quick, startled look. “He’s a nut.”
“You a nut, Frank?”
“Sure,” said Carmody. “A Grade A goober.”
They both thought that hilarious. “We ought to keep you around for laughs,” said the hard-eyed man.
“You couldn’t do that,” said Carmody. “Living in those false faces would be too uncomfortable.”
“You’d turn us in?” The man with the gun pretended to be hurt. “After all, Frank, we’ve been nice to you.”
“Be nicer,” said Carmody, testing him. He kicked the bag holding the money. “I could use some of this. Say a couple of thousand. You have enough so that you would never miss it.”
“Dammit, Frank, you’re the coolest I ever met. Right, Harry?” Carmody filed the name away in his memory.
“He has guts,” said Harry. “I told you he was no scared rabbit. Those other hostages would have paid us to let them go. He wants a piece of the action.”
“I’m earning it,” said Carmody. ‘Tm keeping the cops off your back. You give a waitress a tip, and she’s only doing her job. I’m doing a lot more for you.”
“Frank boy, you’re not helping us out of the goodness of your heart. You’re doing it because you got no choice.” The man jabbed Carmody in the ribs with the gun. “We’re already paying you by not killing you.”
They rolled past a hillside cemetery, polished marble headstones reflecting the sinking sun in a stuttering glimmer; and the idea hit Carmody and refused to be put aside until he accepted it; and accepting it, he felt the month-old anger inside begin to fade.
“I’ll have a choice later,” said Carmody quietly.
“Frank,” said the gunman, “you can’t hurt us later, either.”
Carmody folded his arms, erased a moment of doubt, and committed himself. “Don’t count on it. Those other hostages didn’t look. I did. Take the car. Probably stolen, but it’s this year’s model, metallic blue, four door, long scratch down the left side, dented cover on the left rear wheel, slight chip on top of the molding of the right front door, cigarette lighter missing, upholstery on the back of the front seat has a slight tear at the bottom on the driver’s side, plate number AF11742. You think those masks mean everything? They don’t cover your necks. You’re both tanned, and you don’t find many like that around here at this time of the year so you spend a lot of time down south. The driver gave himself a quick hair dye job, so he’s probably blonde or gray; from the wrinkles in his neck I’d say he was gray, maybe in his late fifties. He’s two inches taller than I am, which makes him six feet, weighs a good twenty pounds more, which makes him close to two hundred. He has a small scar behind his right ear where the hair won’t grow. His hands are big and his little finger was probably broken at one time because it’s crooked. Now take you—”
“Give old Sharp Eyes a medal,” interrupted Harry. “Now what? I knew this guy was bad news the minute I looked at him. We let him go and the cops will have our names and descriptions out by morning.”
“You put your foot in it, Frank, you know that?” The hard-eyed man shook his head. “Here we could have had a nice ride together and parted friends but you spoiled everything.”
“Money talks,” said Carmody, trying to box them in. “I can be bought.”
“But can you be trusted? We don’t know you.”
“Take your choice,” said Carmody. “Pay up or I give it to them word for word.”
“You’ve given us two choices. What about the third?”
The cemetery they had passed popped up in Carmody’s mind. “Didn’t know there was one,” he said innocently.
“There always is, Frank. A guy like you should know that.” He jabbed the gun harder against Carmody’s ribs. “We can get rid of you.”
“You’d better give that a lot of thought first,” said Carmody drily. “Murder is a lot different than what you’ve been doing.”
“Not so different,” said Harry. “First they have to find you, then they have to prove it.”
“He’s right,” agreed the other man. “We’re already tagged for armed robbery and kidnapping. If we let you run loose they have us for that, but if we don’t we stand a chance of getting clear of everything.” He leaned forward. “Take the next exit, Harry,” he ordered.
They swung down an exit ramp, picked up a two-lane blacktop and headed north into The Barrens. Flat, sandy, growing nothing but scraggly pine and weeds, civilization had passed it by except for a few roads that sliced through, an occasional two-pump gas station and some ramshackle houses. If you wanted to hide out or get rid of a body, The Barrens was a better place than most.
“You married, Frank?” asked the hard-eyed man.
“I was,” said Carmody shortly. “My wife died.”
“Too bad. How long ago?”
“Last month.” It could have been yesterday, or a year ago. Time had stopped that night in the hospital and Carmody felt the slow anger return.
“Nobody to cry for you if you don’t get back?” The sun had set and the interior of the car was cold.
“Not one tear,” said Carmody. “You’re definitely not going to cut me in, is that it?”
“That’s it, Frank. A man cool enough to try to hold us up while a gun is in his ribs is too cool for his own good. You make me feel you’ve got ice water in your veins, a heart like a rock and a machine for a head. Depending on a guy like that when he’s out of my sight doesn’t make me one bit happy.”
It had been easier than Carmody thought. “I didn’t intend to make you happy,” he said.
“With a gun in your side, you should have,” said Harry, spinning the wheel to send the car up a pair of faint ruts in the sand until they ended a good half-mile in from the road. The light was fading and it was dim under the trees. “Out,” he said.
Carmody kicked at the loose sand. “Easy to scrape a grave out of this. Doesn’t look like anyone will ever find me.”
“You really don’t give a damn, do you?” said Harry.
“Some people are like that,” said Carmody. “You’ve just never run into one until now.”
“So you’re just going to stand and take it?” asked Harry, contempt in his voice.
Carmody pivoted to face him, coming up on the balls of his feet and flexing his knees, hands half raised. “Guess again. I said I didn’t care. I didn’t say I was going to make it easy for you.”
Harry had left the shotgun in the car, a situation he remedied quickly by producing a short-barreled revolver. “Here and now,” he said.
“Watch yourself,” said the other man sharply. “You can’t make a mistake with a guy like this.”
“Then lets get it over with.”
“You want to drag almost two hundred pounds of dead weight into the trees?” asked the hard-eyed man sarcastically. “Make him walk.”
“I don’t feel like walking,” said Carmody, stalling for time.
The shorter man sighed. “I like you, Frank, so don’t make me shoot you in a place you won’t like. Move.”
Carmody walked slowly into the pines, eyes moving from side to side, looking for some way to delay them, to manage a postponement.
“Hold it, Frank,” the tough man ordered. “This is far enough.”
Carmody watched them narrowly, waiting for one or the other to move first. Harry was to his left, the hard-eyed man to his righ
t, separated just enough and standing back so that he couldn’t get to one or the other before being hit. They were professionals at this, too. Not testing them when they had the other hostages had been no mistake.
“You know, Frank, I finally figured you,” said the hard-eyed man. “You could have kept your mouth shut in the car. You gave us that description routine so we couldn’t afford to let you go. You’re using us.”
“Spell it out, Kaz,” said Harry.
Carmody had two names now, if he ever had the chance to use them.
“His wife,” said Kaz. “She’s dead and he doesn’t see much sense in living. He’s not the type to knock himself off, so he set us up to do it.”
Harry stared at Carmody. “I told you he was a nut but if that’s what he wants, he picked a sure way to get it. We can’t let him talk. The cops would pin us down in an hour.”
The other man shook his head regretfully. “You’re too good a man for this, Frank, but we have no choice. You’re a fool. You could have walked away free and clear. There’s always another woman someplace.”
Kaz was a lot smarter than Carmody supposed him to be, but he was wrong. There would never be another like her, ever again; none other so precisely right for Carmody. A slender, will-o’-the-wisp woman with a gamin’s face and a voice like the whisper of wind in the trees, filled with promise and laughter and warmth and tenderness, she had seen through the Carmody everyone knew and found the real Carmody, and had made time move quickly, too quickly. No one could take her place.
“You like this spot?” asked Harry.
Carmody looked around. “What happens if I say no?”
Harry’s mask moved as he smiled. “You get outvoted.”
How long now? Carmody wondered if it would be one minute, two minutes—and if that would be enough. The loneliness and weariness had weighed heavily on him for too long and he could think of nothing else that could relieve the dull ache and the anger he’d carried for a month. Somewhere his wife was waiting and Carmody wanted desperately to join her, but the time had to be of his choosing, not theirs.
Kaz lifted his head suddenly. “I hear something.”
“I don’t,” Harry snapped. “What’s wrong with you? Let’s finish and get moving.”
“Something about this guy is bugging me,”
“Let it bug you later. We have to move!”
“Shut up and let me think,” said Kaz. He examined Carmody critically. “You said it in the car yourself. He did push himself into the picture so we would take him along, and just as you said, we stirred no action this time. Now, if all he wanted was to get himself killed, if he was a private citizen working this on his own, the cops would still have been after us. But there were no cops! You expect me to believe they’re going to sit back and let us knock over banks without lifting a finger?”
“What difference does it make now?”
“He has to be some sort of a cop, you idiot! He was there for some reason and we were stupid enough to take him along. Look at him. He’s a pro and a good one. We knock him off and they have us for murder one!”
Harry was disgusted. “Cop or not, how are they going to do that? Nobody followed us. There wasn’t even a helicopter.”
The faint squealing of car tires protesting a sharp turn at high speed sounded faintly on the thin evening air.
“You see?” screamed Kaz. “I don’t know how he did it but they’re right on us. They’ve been on us all along and he knew it.”
Harry lined the gun up on Carmody.
“No!” Kaz yelled at him. “Not now! It’s too late!”
Carmody could hear the cars closing in, engines racing. The two men glared at each other, only the eyes alive in the dead rubber masks. There wasn’t enough time to turn the car around and no chance to get past the cars coming up the rutted tracks.
“We take him with us. That will keep them off our backs.”
“What good is a hostage who doesn’t care if he gets killed? He’ll force us to get rid of him and we’ll be wide open. What do you think will happen then? He’s useless. Leave him.”
“Then I’ll leave him dead!” said Harry savagely. “We owe him!” His gun darted forward and Carmody dropped, rolled and came to his feet running. Harry fired and missed, missed again as Carmody dodged behind a tree trunk.
“Fool!” yelled Kaz. “Let him go! They’re almost here!”
Harry hesitated, cursed, then the two of them took off through the trees. Carmody watched them disappear. How close had it been, he wondered. An inch? Six inches? How close had he been to joining his wife, and how could Harry have missed at that range?
The idea hadn’t really been there in the beginning. He had volunteered to stand around in the bank they thought would be hit next, in the faint hope the two would take him along as the hostage. The plan had worked. With three stations triangulating on the small transmitter hidden in the cigarette pack he’d tucked alongside the rear seat, the car’s location was pinpointed as it moved along, the cars following just out of sight, taking directions over the radio. They were to move in only if the car stopped, because it was when the car stopped the hostage was turned loose.
Carmody slowly brushed sand from his clothes.
For a month now, he had felt himself moving like an automaton, going through the motions of living. Glimpsing that cemetery had put the thought in his head—what for? Was he to spend the rest of his life like this? If he could get Harry and Kaz to kill him, and still get the job done, who would be hurt except himself?
It had almost worked. A few minutes later and the cars closing in would have found him dead, but still would have been able to catch up to Harry and Kaz. However, Harry had missed twice, which Carmody still couldn’t understand, and there was no way Carmody could have prevented that except by standing still. While he didn’t mind dying, it went against the grain to be executed like a sheep led to slaughter.
He wove his way through the trees to the car. Harry or Kaz might make it, perhaps even both, but it didn’t matter. Carmody had the names, and the car would be loaded with prints.
A police cruiser and a sedan slammed to a stop, men pouring out.
“That way.” Carmody pointed. “Watch yourself. Each of them has gun.”
One of the men dove for the radio. “They’re not going anywhere. Not in there. I’ll start the boys from the other road moving in.”
Larson, the special agent in charge of the local office and responsible for the transmitter plan, joined Carmody quietly. “For a while there I was sure I’d lost a man. When the radio told us where the car stopped, I thought you were through. They always let the hostages off near a small town. Letting you go here in the middle of nowhere didn’t make sense so we moved fast. Lucky we did. I heard the shots. How close was it?”
“Close,” admitted Carmody.
“Well, the thing worked just like the lab men said it would. I don’t think we were more than two miles behind all the way. I was feeling real good up until the time they told us where the car stopped. Dammit, I wouldn’t have let you volunteer if I thought anything would happen, but they always let the hostages go before. They find out you were with the bureau?”
“No. At the end they had the idea I was one of the local police.” Carmody regretted the words the moment he said them.
Larson picked them up immediately. “At the end? Then why did they bring you here in the first place?”
Carmody smiled thinly. “Just pushing them a bit. Guess I pushed too hard.” He imagined trying to explain to Larson but gave up. Larson went by the book and when he gave you orders, you did as you were told.
“Frank,” said Larson slowly, “I told you very specifically to play it safe. The way you’ve been acting lately, I had a hunch—”
“Doesn’t matter now,” said Carmody wearily. “Let’s get that transmitter turned off. We still have people with earphones glued to their heads.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Carmody caught movement between the trees a
nd whirled to see a crew-cut man step out, gun leveled. He shoved Larson aside and dove for the ground.
Harry had slipped off the mask, doubled back, picked his way between the men in the dim light and headed for the cars, hoping to find them unguarded, finding Carmody and Larson instead—an unarmed Carmody and a Larson stunned momentarily because his head hit the car when Carmody shoved him—and Harry took it all in at a glance, added it up and sprinted for the last car in line, still unnoticed by Larson.
Carmody did the only thing he could do. He picked himself up and charged at Harry, who broke stride just long enough to throw a shot at him. Larson, still dazed, reacted automatically. Seeing a running figure shoot at Carmody, he drew and fired, and Harry stopped, stumbled and went down.
It took Carmody a few minutes to recover from the shock of the bullet. He sat up slowly, fingers exploring his numbed leg, only now beginning to send the first faint waves of pain.
Larson knelt beside him, the first aid kit from the cruiser in his hand. “He one of them?”
“Harry,” said Carmody. “The driver. He missed me before.”
“Your guardian angel must be watching over you real close tonight.”
Pulsating pain was beginning to move up Carmody’s leg while Larson fixed the wound as best he could.
The night had finally rolled in and someone turned on the cruiser spotlight. The pain was intense now, causing Carmody to clench his teeth. Harry must have nicked the bone, he decided, the agony beading his face with perspiration and making the faces in the harsh brightness swim before his eyes.
As they helped him toward the car, his head lifted. Listening, Carmody wasn’t sure if it was the pain, the sudden cold wind whispering in the trees, or his imagination, but it seemed he could hear his wife’s voice from the darkness outside the blinding light, gently scolding him for thinking she would ever really leave him and telling him that she wanted no nonsense like this from him again.
Carmody found himself smiling. The pain no longer mattered. The anger was gone. The loneliness would remain, but it would be different.
“Maybe I should get a hearing aid,” he mumbled.
“A what?” Larson’s voice sounded far away, interlaced by a thread of tenderly teasing laughter.
The Cutthroats and Criminals Megapack Page 5