Horst was having trouble making up his mind about something. He said, “You look a bit like the description of Robert Matthews I was given.”
“Nah, I’m way prettier. Ask Beth. Ask Dani.”
Horst went to the little dresser, refilled his needle and came to Tom. Ouch! You could use a little more bedside manner, Horst. As he left, and the dizziness returned, Tom wondered if he could get Beth to let him tie her up tonight. That could be fun. The last thing he remembered was Horst talking on the telephone. He was saying, “This is where you will find the man who calls himself Tomahawk.”
****
Sinatra and Damone jumped off Harold’s lap yipping when the pink telephone sounded. What if he painted it red like the telephones Nixon and that Russian premier guy had? It was strange, red and pink were kissing cousins of colors, but one was so macho and the other was so girly. Harold raised the offensive receiver. “Hello.”
“Sir, this is Wyatt Stone reporting in.”
Ah, it was his goodie two-shoe gumshoe, the Swedish Dick Tracy. “What’s up Wyatt?” He picked some white Chihuahua hair off his black polyester slacks.
“I was right on top of Hawk, working in the same grocery store as him. Then, out of the blue, the sleazy little grocer, Gary, locked me in a meat cooler. It used to be a cooler, I mean. I think it’s just a storeroom now. It was dark, and moldy. I kept trying not to sneeze the first time because once I start…”
“Where is Hawk now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Gary locked me up so someone could take him.”
That sounded not at all good. “But you escaped.”
“Yes. I was alone there in pitch dark and then they changed their mind or something. The light in the hall came on and another guy, not Gary, came to the cooler like he didn’t know what was up. I flattened myself against a wall, tensed my entire body and waited for him to open the cooler door. The light came on too, and then this man stepped right through the door holding an enormous gun. I struck him right on that sweet spot of the neck with the side of my hand. He stumbled but he didn’t go down. My hand smarted. I knew from the toughness of the neck that I had the fight of my life fight on my hands.”
Such lurid descriptions. The kid must watch a lot of television. Harold voiced what he presumed was expected of him. “And then?”
“I braced myself. He came at me, but he tripped over a Campbell’s tomato soup crate and went down. Man, his head had hardly finished bouncing of the floor before I was on him driving his skull back down. I did it again, until he was quiet—breathing, but quiet.”
Wyatt too at last fell quiet. Good boy. You’re a hero. It makes up for all my complaints to your uncle Lester. “Who was he?”
“I don’t know. He’s no one you gave us a description of. I took his gun and frisked him, but there was no identification. I locked him in there just like Gary had done to me. No one else was in the store so I locked up the front, snuck out the back, and came to telephone you. I think I sprained my left ankle, and it hurt so much I vomited into some flower box—real pretty flowers. I felt bad about doing that, but I couldn’t make it to the sewer.”
“Can you describe the man you fought with?”
“He was average height, muscular but yet kind of pudgy, with this weird platinum hair. He looked like one of those California surfers except flattened and widened. He was ticked off, and with his face all screwed up that way, he looked like Porky Pig. He was a killer, all right.”
But with platinum hair he was no one from Tony’s operation; that much was for sure. What on earth was going on? “Wyatt, you have to go back there and question this man. Are you close to the store now?”
“Sure. I can see the whole front of the place. Ohmigod, it’s on fire. It’s burning, the whole front is burning!”
“You set it on fire?”
“No. I even turned off the electricity when I left to keep someone from finding the guy. I locked up. Ohmigod.”
“Get a hold of yourself and listen to me. You have to go back in the rear where you came out and get that guy out or he will die. Do you understand?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You have to get him and question him. Can you do that?”
“I don’t know. The front end of the place is burning.”
“Yes, but not the rear, you said. Get off the line now and go pull that man out the rear door. You can do it!”
“Yes, I can. I can. Goodbye, sir.”
He would probably fail. Harold cursed aloud, clapped a hand over his mouth, and glanced nervously at the desk photo of Reverend Timmy-Bob.
He was going to have to fly out there, to gosh-darned Outer or Upper Michigan or whatever. He’d probably have to fly coach next to tourist families on their way home from Disneyland. Was there still a flight today? He checked his watch with irritation. Damone was trying to hump Sinatra again. “Bad doggie, get down. Get down now or Daddy will spank!”
Chapter Twelve
Beth and Gary were in the recessed entry of an empty building across from the fire, transfixed by the blaze and the frenzy of activity by the three fire departments called to the scene. Gary, not in command of himself for the first time Beth could remember, said, “Beth, what am I going to do? The people who are after Tomahawk must be after me too now. My place is burning, and I had a man locked up in that cooler and he could die. Tomahawk has gotten me into an awful mess.”
She looked around nervously to see who might be near them. She bent to his ear. “We don’t know that Wyatt was still in there when the fire started. If he is, the fireman will probably get him out.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. We don’t know yet that anybody’s been hurt, so shut up before you do get Tom killed. You’re going to expose him with your blubbering. Besides, the fire isn’t your fault. Think about it. Buildings don’t just burst into flames at lunchtime in the end of August. Your store has stood there for over a hundred years while a quarter of the village burned down in one bad winter or another. Someone was working with Wyatt. They freed him and torched the place.” Dani came to Beth’s mind and she pushed the thought away
“Oh. I didn’t think of it that way. I guess that could be what happened.”
Not totally believing what she’d invented, but also knowing him an expert at eventually reaching conclusions that excused, endorsed or acclaimed dubious action on his part, she watched him come to embrace her narrative. He said, “Yeah, that had to be it. Why, those bastards. I’m still out of business, though. I’m ruined.”
“The grocery store isn’t insured for fire?”
“Oh, the store, the whole building, the inventory, they’re all insured.” He averred this so quickly that she suspected maybe he’d had a future fire of his own in mind.
“What then?”
“The ‘pizzas,’ they’re all in there. I have clients who prepaid their pizza deliveries for the entire semester. All lost. My list of people faculty members have slept with that they shouldn’t have is in there. My list of names of the friends I’ve made on all those draft boards is in there. Now what do I do?”
“Gee, maybe you should go straight. For now, shut up before anybody hears you talking about all that stuff. Are you under control enough to drive your car?”
His eyes were glassy, unfocused. He kept unbuttoning and buttoning his shirt pocket, but he conceded, “I guess.”
Beth doubted it, but they couldn’t stay there. “Then you follow me out to my place for a couple hours to come up with a good fire story just in case Wyatt was in there.”
“Oh, your place, that’s right, Beth, I’m going to have to move in with you for a while.”
It was the end of a perfect morning, right? “Yeah Gary, I figured that.”
Had someone actually rescued Wyatt? Was it better for Tom if Wyatt was in fact dead? Now there was a thought for a nice Baptist girl to have. And where was Tom? Her head ached. A week ago all she’d had to worry about was impending bankruptcy and how she was going to re-de
corate those bedrooms.
****
Beth and Gary had hardly gotten through the door of the B&B when Robert rushed to them. “Thank God you’re back. Renada is still gone and I don’t know where and you need to maybe go and talk to Dani too. She’s in her room sobbing her eyes out. I don’t know why. Maybe that tall football player she was studying with dumped her.”
If Dani had managed to find a horny six-foot-five undergraduate and then been scorned by her catch, that was too bad, but Beth was not interested right now. “Have you seen Horst?”
“No, thank God. No one has been around except Dani and me.”
“What about Tom? Do you have any idea where he is?”
“Oh yeah. Some guy telephoned. Tom’s at this motel; I wrote it down. That’s strange, don’t you think?” He handed Beth a slip of notepaper. His note spelled Cottage Three and added the address of a run-down old-fashioned tourist court along the secondary highway. It was a place all but the most uncaring of the pipeline workers would reject.
“We have to go and get him. Both of you come with me.”
But Gary had collapsed on a sofa. “I can’t move. My whole operation is burned up,” he muttered, biting his lip ferociously. He wasn’t fit to go anywhere.
She looked to Robert, who blanched. “I can’t leave. I’ve got to warn Renada about Horst.”
“Gary will. Leave her a note too, but you have to come with me and get Tom. Otherwise I’ll throw you and Renada both out, do you hear me?”
“Beth!”
“I mean it. I’m getting a ball bat. Gary, you have to handle Wyatt if he shows up alive. And you have to tell any blond German guy who comes around we’ve never heard of Renada.”
“I’m not feeling at all well, Beth.”
“Gary! I am capable of throwing you out too.”
“All right, calm down. Hope to see Wyatt walk in the door and not have him kill me for locking him in the cooler. Lie to the German spy while you find Tomahawk. Okay.”
“What’s his problem?” questioned Robert, a severe nervous twitch distorting his words.
“He’s had a fire. I’ll tell you all about it in the car.”
She did. Then, when he started shaking, she made him pull over and let her drive. All the men in her life were disappearing, turning out to be villains or coming unglued.
They reached the motel and it looked abandoned. There was no car at the manager’s office. They parked in front of cottage three and were hardly to the door when they heard the pounding inside. Beth used her bat to remove a pane of glass above the door lock. They found Tom in a little corner bedroom. He was expertly trussed, lying on a cot and kicking wildly at the wall paneling. She pulled a gag from his mouth. “We were looking for you. How did you get here?”
His eyes were crazily unfocused. “Oh, hi Beth. I guess Horst gave me a lift. No, that’s wrong. I know. He had this humungous needle he stuck in my arm and he made me come here with him. I had a sex dream about you and Dani,” he confessed guiltily.
“That’s nice. I imagine that was Horst’s doing too.”
“Oh. Yeah, that’s right. He does good knots, Beth.”
Beth realized that was true as she and Robert labored to undo them. They got him on his feet, although he was shaking more than Robert had been in the car. “We need to go home, Tom. Can you walk?”
“Oh, fucking-A yes.” He took a step and tumbled to the floor.
He was heavier than he looked. Beth and Robert struggled to get him into the back seat of the Plymouth. Robert was at last regaining his composure, or they wouldn’t have made it. Beth sat at the wheel drumming it with her fingers. Robert, sitting shotgun, said, “Beth, please, we should get going.”
“One minute. I’ve been thinking mostly about Tom, I admit it. But you and Renada may be in the greater danger for now. Horst intended to come after you, not Tom. If you want, we can go to the police, and send them after Horst.” She trembled as she played this bluff and envisioned the headline: Presidential assailant Kessler involved in Communist plot; gets ten years.
Robert whimpered, “No police. I’ve got that draft board issue and Renada’s not in the country exactly legally. But it was good of you to offer.”
Grateful, Beth sent him back to the cabin to wipe down their fingerprints around the front and bedroom doors. They drove home, Tom still chattering about ropes. Back at the B&B, it was all they could manage to park him in the parlor with Gary, who had opened a new bottle of scotch and sat on the floor, clutching it with his back against the sofa.
“All our pizzas are burned up, Robert.”
“I know, Beth told me.”
“I am a ruined man. I may have to lay you off.”
“I quit, Gary, remember?”
Tom interrupted, “That’s a bummer, man. Hey, I got kidnapped by the commies—a commie. He had a big fucking gun.” He giggled.
“Our operation is down the toilet,” sobbed Gary. “Ah, screw it. Want a drink, Robert?”
“I do not mind if I do,” said Tom, starting to crawl across the floor.
“You’re not Robert.”
“M-a-y-b-e, but it seems everybody fucking thinks I am.”
“This is not the language of a gentleman,” barked Renada, entering the front door and peering at Tom with disdain as she set down two bulky packages. Then she looked curiously at Gary.
Tom looked confused, then he blushed. “Aw goddamn it, I’m sorry I swore. I was in the Marines.”
Beth introduced her cousin. “Renada, this is my cousin, Gary Grant.”
Gary nodded absently.
“Renada, are you all right?” asked Robert.
“Of course. I was out shopping. What is wrong with Thomas?”
“Thirsty,” Tom croaked. He reached for the scotch bottle as Beth snatched it up and put it on a lamp table. He rolled on his back and looked up at her soulfully. Scratch my tummy, his face begged.
Beth said, “Tom, listen, you’ve been drugged. You can’t have any alcohol.”
“Oh, okay. Hey, where’s Horst?”
“You have met Horst?” Renada’s eyes widened to silver dollar size.
Beth ordered, “Sit down. You won’t like this. Yes, he’s here. He took Tom from Gary’s store and drugged him. He knows about you and Robert but he got him confused with Tom. I think he gave him sodium pentothal or whatever it is in those spy movies.”
“Swine,” snarled Renada.
“Someone burned my store,” Gary whimpered.
“Horst would do such a thing, the evil bastard.” Renada slumped deeper in her chair.
Gary was sobering up. “We need to find Wyatt.”
Yeah, thought Beth. Was Wyatt alive for that matter? She had a kidnapping, a fire, and a boyfriend who was acting seven years old. Robert had just taken a deep pull of the scotch straight from the bottle and was offering it to Renada. They were having the Mad Hatter’s tea party in her parlor. She intercepted the bottle and took a belt. It didn’t help.
She heard noises overhead, reached for her ball bat and realized it was only Dani, making a dreadful keening sound. She told Robert and Renada, “I’ve got to go and see what’s wrong with Dani. Take my bat. Go to the windows and watch for Horst. He may not be done with us today.”
As she trudged up the stairs she told herself the world was not ending. They were alerted to Horst’s presence and he had not murdered Tom, although he had him functioning on a second-grade level. They had unmasked Wyatt before he’d harmed them. Maybe he’d burned Gary’s store, but Gary had fire insurance for the legal part of his operation. It was not the end of the world. Nobody had died for certain, had they?
She reached the open door of Dani’s room, seeing the big girl and the kitchen Chianti bottle on the floor at the same time. The wine bottle was empty. Her liquor supply was being wiped out. Dani looked up at her, eyes wet and scarlet. She sniveled, “I must have started the fire. It was an accident; I just wanted to find Tom. Everyone will blame me when they find out.”
“Relax. We already know you did the Quonset hut fire. It was wrong, but you did it to protect Tom and I guess we are grateful in a way.”
Dani looked at her as though she were a dim first grader. “I’m not talking about that. This was today. That kid at the dorm told me I was too old for him, too old! I went to the grocery store to try to find Tom. It was locked, and I went in a window in the back, and the lights didn’t work. Up near the front it was still dark. I smelled kerosene, I guess, but I didn’t make anything of it, Gary sells the stuff. All of a sudden, everything started burning. I must have knocked over some kerosene. I only just barely got out in time. Gary will kill me.”
“How did everything start burning? Did you light a match?”
“No. Well, I don’t think so. Oh, God, what if I did?”
“If you don’t remember doing it you didn’t do it,” said Beth with a confidence she did not feel. She told Dani to go downstairs and get something to eat and she’d feel better. Surprisingly, she complied. Just settle for my food and keep your hands off Tom, Beth thought.
Now, where was that scotch?
****
When Beth got back downstairs her bedroom door was open and Gary was hanging up her personal telephone. She snapped, “That’s my private line. The phone extensions in both halls, downstairs and upstairs are for my guests.”
“I’m family.” His feelings were hurt.
“I didn’t mean to yell at you. I can’t handle it, Gary. Crooks are after Tom, this Horst is after Renada and Robert, and now the fire. It’s all I can think of. It’s more than I can handle.”
“I know. It’s all I’ve been thinking of too. Look, it gets worse. I just called one of my clients, a guy I can trust who lives across the street from my store. Beth, he just saw them bring out a body.”
She took a step backwards, away from unwanted news. “Oh, God, It has to be Wyatt.”
Gary threw her a strange look. “No, I’ve been thinking about it. It doesn’t, actually.”
“Pardon me?”
He closed her bedroom door. “I know you’ve got scotch in here. Pour us a drink and give me a couple minutes to work this out.”
Hiding Tom Hawk Page 15