by Cliff Black
“I guess he thought I'd let him off with an apology. Maybe his first wife would have, but I didn’t. I told him to come home with the deed to the house made out to me, or I’d come into his office and show everyone my black eyes and bruises. Then I’d go to his favorite judge and swear out a warrant for his arrest.”
I had to admire her spunk. “You do believe in getting evener.” I said.
“I figured if I didn’t get title to the house, as soon as I was healed up he’d pull one of his sleazy lawyer tricks, and I’d be out on the street. He owed me.”
“Did he give you the house?”
“He did, but he didn’t like it.” She looked up at the stars, then looked down and said, “For almost a year I actually thought he was sorry for what he’d done. He took to drinking more, but he was careful not to get mean drunk again. Then he started trying to get back half ownership of the house. When I wouldn’t go along, he showed his true colors.”
“Ezzy told me he disappeared. What really happened?”
“He came home a little too drunk one night and hit me again.”
“So what did you do to him this time?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I didn't want to know.
“I ran out to the garage and locked myself in this brand-new Jaguar. Other than that, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t have to. He was scared spit less. He didn't want to damage his new car trying to get to me, and he was afraid to go inside and go to sleep. He even tried one of his phony apologies, but when I wouldn't get out of the car, he made some lame excuses, packed up his hunting gear, got in his truck, and said he was going hunting. He never came back. I hope he never does come back. I hope he’s maggot food.”
That last statement shocked me. “You think he’s dead?”
“I wish.” She sounded sincere.
“How could he just leave like that? Didn’t he have an active law practice? Didn’t he have clients?” I asked.
“All of the above. His partner had to pick up the slack, and he’s not been a happy man. He brought in a new lawyer straight out of college this spring. I guess that’s helped. I haven’t heard much from him lately.”
My curiosity was raging again, so I said, “Strange that your husband would disappear like that. Did he clean out his bank account?”
“Not unless he had money stashed where I didn’t know about it. I wouldn’t put it past him.” She sounded bitter.
“You don’t miss him much, do you?” I asked.
“Not hardly. And there’s something else. I found out this wasn’t the first time he’s skipped out. He did it to his first wife, and his kids, and another law partner, ten years ago.”
“How did you learn that?”
“I wanted to be certain he was out of my life forever. I hired a detective agency from Denver to find him. They dug up his past, but they couldn’t find him. Then I found out I had to wait seven years to have him declared legally dead, so I divorced him a month ago.” She slumped back in her seat.
“Sounds like you still hate him.”
“You wish you’d stayed home don’t you, Daniel Corbin?” A tentative smile was back on her pretty face.
“Not until this last few minutes. I rather enjoyed being with you, until . . . .”
“Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t have dumped on you, especially on our first date.”
“Why did you?”
She turned to look out the windshield. “I’m not sure. I think it’s because I like you. I’ve had two men run out on me. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you’re going to bail out I want it to be now, not later.”
“I’ll see you at the ball game,” I got out of her car.
I stood in the park entrance and watched while she started the engine and sped away. Then I pulled my crutches from their hiding place and took off for my trailer. I made good time. I was getting quite mobile with crutches. I stopped on the little wooden porch to get my keys out and unlock the door. As I turned the key in the lock, I sensed movement behind me, and then something hit my head so hard all I saw was flashes of light. I fell against the door and would have gone right on down if not for the crutches under my arms.
Chapter Seven
Something pulled me away from where I was mashed up against the trailer door. The next thing I knew I was being dragged roughly inside. There were two men.
“Sit him on the couch,” one of them said.
The other only grunted. Together they pulled me the rest of the way inside, turned me around, and flopped me down. I tried to help, but my legs weren’t hooked to my brain.
“Here, put these on him,” One said. My hands were yanked roughly in front of me and fastened together.
“No, no, you never cuff a man in front.” There seemed to be some confusion and pulling on my arms then the in-charge guy said, “Oh, never mind. I'll be right here watching him.”
I may have drifted off for a few seconds there. I was beginning to discern shapes when I heard, “I believe that’s all I need you for. Here you go and forget you ever saw me.” Through a hazy tunnel I saw the smaller of the two–the man who had just spoken–take something from his pocket and hand it to a man built like a tree trunk. The big man grunted again and went out the door. I was aware of the trailer shifting with his weight.
I tried to focus on the man who remained. He was strongly built, but he wasn’t very big, maybe five-seven or eight. I thought I could take him, if I could only get my arms and legs working. I was beginning to fall over sideways, so my assailant grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled me back up straight. He slapped my face a few times then went to the sink, found a glass, and filled it with water. He threw the water in my face, which at the time didn’t bother me as much as his getting my newly upholstered couch wet. When I didn’t react to the water, he slapped my face a few more times and went back to the sink for more water. I knew my eyes were open because I could see. I really didn’t want more water on my couch, but I was unable to speak or move. Another glass of water hit me. It felt colder this time. Then my tormentor pulled one of my new folding chairs up facing me and sat down.
I tried to shake the water out of my eyes. The tunnel I’d been looking through got a little bigger. I wiped at my face and noted my arms were beginning to work, but the cuffs on my wrists dug into my nose. It was the realization I was handcuffed that woke me to the personal danger. I quit worrying about water spots on the couch and tried to concentrate on the man facing me. It wasn’t easy. He wouldn’t stay in focus. He looked like a reflection in a pool of water after a rock breaks the surface. I noted black shoes with a mirror polish, slacks with a sharp crease and a shirt with no tie covered by a sport coat. He kept snarling words at me, words which mostly made no sense. And he kept waving something in his hand. I decided it was a gun with a big, heavy-looking silencer that was mostly pointed right at me. I began to understand words.
“All right, Smith,” the man said. “Come to the party. Shape up before I have to find some more painful way to get your attention.”
“What do you want?” I said, only it came out more like “Ungh, ungh?”
“Tell me what you did with Sam,” He said, “and don’t give me any crap.”
“Ionn unghm.” I wanted to say, “I don’t know any Sam.”
“Oh, please. What am I gonna have to do to get some straight answers? For a big guy, you’ve sure got a soft head.”
At that point he rose up from his chair and cracked me across the cheek with the silencer on his pistol. It knocked me down sideways on the couch. He again grabbed a fistful of my hair to sit me back up. I remember wishing I’d made it to my barber.
As he yanked me roughly upright, I decided I’d had enough of this little twerp’s working me over. Maybe my mouth wasn’t working, but my arms were. He had his left hand in my hair, and his right cocked back to paste me with his gun barrel again. When he swung the gun, I caught his wrist with both of my hands and dang near broke his arm taking the gun away. At the same time, I stood up and kneed him as har
d as my giddy balance would let me. I got him more in the belly than the groin, but it doubled him over on the floor.
The only casualty was my trailer. The gun went off as I twisted it away from him. The report was a lot louder than a silenced gun is in the movies, and my ears were ringing from the blast in my tiny living room. I was ready to stomp a mud hole in my visitor because my trailer now had a bullet hole in it.
I sensed I was holding a Ruger .22 automatic. I shifted the gun to my right hand. I sank back onto the couch and tried to clear the ringing in my ears and the fog from my brain.
I probably sat there five minutes. My mind slowly cleared, and the guy on the floor stopped writhing around so much. I figured he’d try something if I let him get comfortable. I got up and kicked his behind as hard as I could–but I was wearing canvas shoes. It probably salved my anger more than it hurt him.
I sat back down. The man on the floor rose up and turned so he could see me. “Stop right there,” I said. Then I pointed to where the stove cabinet met the wall and said, “See that fire extinguisher? Slide over there and put your back in the corner, and do it with your hands on your head.” Some of the words came out mushy, but he understood.
He scrabbled over to the corner and pushed himself upright. Sitting in the corner, his pants were hiked up, and I could see something on his left ankle. “Keep your right hand on your head,” I said, “with your left pull up your left pant-leg.” He didn’t say anything but did as I asked. He had a small backup pistol in an ankle holster strapped to his lower leg. “Take that holster off and toss it over here,” I said.
I don’t know what I could have done differently. I still had tunnel vision and trying to watch his left hand I missed what his right was up to. Fortunately, I noticed his weight shift and his belly muscles contract. I ducked, and my fire extinguisher rocketed past my head, hit the Venetian blinds behind me, broke the window, and bounced back in my lap. My prisoner was on his feet and had a hand on the door handle when I dropped the gun, grabbed the extinguisher, and threw it like a football. He had the door open when it hit him square in the back of the head and knocked him as cold as last summer’s romance. I was amazed I hit him, considering my wrists were still manacled together.
He fell forward onto my little porch with his head down the steps. I wondered how many of my neighbors were watching–or listening–to the commotion. The most likely neighbor to hear anything would be Clyde–the old guy with phlebitis.
I caught my visitor by a foot and dragged him back inside, spread eagled him on the floor, and went over him top to bottom. I found a knife taped to his right ankle and a very small .32 automatic in the holster strapped to the left ankle. I also relieved him of his wallet, the sap he’d hit me with, a ring of keys and a Hertz car key.
I found the key to my cuffs, and after fumbling around managed to get them unlocked. I used them to cuff my unconscious prisoner’s hands–behind his back. I left him lying on the floor, either out cold or dead. I didn’t care which.
I dumped everything but the money out of his wallet. There was a Kentucky driver’s license made out to Philo Carter. There were also a couple of credit cards with the same name and a third with C & M Confidential Investigations printed on the face. Finally, there was a business card indicating Philo Carter was licensed as a private investigator in the state of Kentucky. His office was in Louisville.
My head throbbed, and my mind was staggering along at a snail’s pace, but something meshed. Nat had sent an inquiry to A. A. McLaughlin in Louisville, Kentucky. Now here was a Louisville P.I. knocking on my head. Why had a private investigator come here? And why didn’t he come to the door and politely ask what he wanted to know?
I looked at Philo and tried to decide whether to cripple him for life or kill him. I was as angry as I’d ever been. I wanted to stomp him into the floor. I tried to keep my temper under control, so I wouldn’t do something stupid. I thought I'd learned a lesson on my last adventure not to let an assailant have a second chance. Now I’d done it again. I was partly angry with myself. I thought of calling the police, but the possibility of another encounter with Corporal Brown discouraged that. After thinking it over for a couple of minutes and having not heard any signs of alarm from my neighbors, I decided both my anger and my curiosity could best be handled away from curious neighbors. I wanted to know who this guy was, why he was here, and anything else I thought of during the interrogation. Besides, my head hurt, my nose hurt, and my cheek hurt. I had a broken window and a bullet hole in my trailer. Serious retribution was in order. My Apache ancestors had a method for getting answers. The possibilities intrigued me, and this guy deserved it.
I backed the rented pickup up to my trailer door, lowered the tail gate, and slid my midnight visitor out the door and into the bed of the truck. I took off his belt and tied his legs with it. He was alive, and I didn’t want him to wake up and get any silly idea about jumping out. I picked up my crutches and cane that were scattered by the door, went back inside, and found my Bowie knife. I locked the door on the way back out, ripped up the stakes and twine enclosing a bit of new grass, tossed them in back of my pickup with Mister Carter, and drove out of the court.
It was a typical Four Corners August night, cool, but not cold. Most of the day’s clouds had dissipated, the moon was down, and the sky was filled with stars. It was past midnight and few cars were out and about. I drove west to the highway, then south on 666 toward Shiprock. I drove slowly with my eyes peeled for some little-used side road. I found one leading east before I’d gone two miles. I followed it until it became too rough to continue. We were in a slight depression, but when I got out and stood up I could see cars on Highway 666, half a mile away.
My guest was beginning to stir when I dragged him out of my pickup. I had his sap in my pocket. I'd use it if necessary, but my anger had subsided a little, and I didn't really want to hurt the guy–much. I mostly wanted to know who he was and why he had come after me.
I wondered what my doctor would think of how I was treating my leg as I dragged my visitor out in front of my pickup where I could see by the headlights. I picked out a likely looking mound and spread-eagled him over it. By the time I had driven four stakes into the ground and had his hands and feet tied to them, he was almost fully conscious. I turned off the truck lights, checked the time by the dash clock, and shut off the engine. It was nearly one o’clock. Four hours and it would be getting light. I hoped my little experiment wouldn’t take that long.
There was no moon. Cortez was an orange glow beyond a ridge. I decided a fire might provide the atmosphere I wanted and give enough light to see each other. I scrounged a little sage brush. I was thinking tinder when my eye fell on Philo’s sport coat.
Philo was taking this lying down, but he wasn’t taking it quietly. He ranted and raved and swore and made dire predictions for someone named Smith’s future. All of which I ignored. I cut a big chunk out of his jacket lining and put it under the wood. I soon had a small, cheery fire by which Philo and I could see a little.
I was beginning to think Philo’s store of swearwords and threats was bottomless, but he finally fell silent.
“Are you done?” I asked.
“I won’t be done until I see you in hell,” was his answer, but he didn’t sound quite so sure of himself.
“That is as may be,” I said, “but for now my time is yours. Whenever you’re ready to stop displaying your colorful vocabulary, I want to know why you came to visit me tonight.”
He let loose with another great string of profanity and managed to sandwich in the words, “I don’t have to tell you a thing, Smith.”
I waited for silence, and then I said, “You're lucky I didn't shoot you and dump your body out here. I'm not a violent man, but you nearly pushed me over the edge. My name isn’t Smith, it’s G. Daniel Corbin. The ‘G’ is for Geronimo. My mother was half Apache. I brought you out here tonight because you attacked me, and I was angry. I’ve cooled off now, but you have a lot of expla
ining to do. You can take your time. As I said, my time is yours. We’ll stay right here until you tell me everything I want to know.”
Philo cut loose again. In between swearing, he managed to tell me he’d been a P.O.W. in Viet Nam for five and a half months, and all he’d divulged was his name, rank, and serial number. He said, “I’ve been tortured and questioned by experts. Either kill me or let me go.”
“I won’t kill you, Philo, although I might let you die. And I will let you go, if you survive, but not until you tell me why you’re here, who’s paying you, who this Smith person is you’ve mistaken me for, and anything else I decide I want to know. My grandfather told me the buffalo soldiers would betray their mothers when the sun came up, the ground got warm, and the ants came out.”
“Ants! What do you mean ants?”
“You know. They're these little critters with six legs. . .”
“You're bluffing. There are no ants here.”
“Wrong, Philo. There's an ant hill right under your back.”
“You wouldn’t do that. That’s inhuman. You didn’t really stake me over an ant hill–did you?”
“Relax, Philo. You’ve been tortured by experts. You’re tough. You can put up with ants crawling into your eyes and up your nose.”
“All right. All right. You win. This has all been a big mistake. I’m sorry I hit you. I thought you were someone else.”
“Tell me about this Smith person.”
“You don’t need to know. Come on now. Cut out this charade and let me up.”
“It’s been a long night, Mister Carter. I’m tired, my face hurts, and my head hurts. I think I’ll go stretch out in my pickup until the sun wakes me up.”
I did what I said I’d do, followed by a string of invective that would rip the hide off a wild boar.
I think I actually dozed off before I heard a bellow, “All right, all right, you win. I’ll tell you what you want to know, if you’ll untie me.”