by Dane Hartman
Marsh studied Harry for awhile, he didn’t seem to know what to make of him. “You got feathers in your hair,” was what he finally said.
He slumped down on a stair and gazed balefully down at the oblong patch of Lou Reardon’s blood that was drying on the floor.
“I have a feeling I’m going to have to speed up my retirement,” he muttered. “Between you and Turk, I don’t know which one is worse. You both fucked everything up.”
It was clear that he was like Davenport in this respect, if you kept to yourself and tried not to make any waves, life could be enjoyed to an advanced age. Then Harry came along and disrupted everything.
“You’ve got to break eggs if you want to get an omlette,” Harry reminded him, borrowing some revolutionary rhetoric for the occasion. The sheriff didn’t seem to understand.
“I suppose there’s no sense trying to work this out now, is there? You got your view, I got mine, the people out there, they got theirs. To tell you the truth, I don’t hold you in high esteem, but I’d rather not have another body to explain. There’ve been more than enough bodies since Turk lit out for Rain Mountain. Lost too many good men.”
“It warms my heart to hear you say that.”
“Yes, indeed it must. What I would like to propose is this. You come along with me now, of your own free will. We’ll get into my car and drive to the courthouse. There we can put you in protective custody.”
“Protective custody? I don’t like it. My sense is that the people you have to protect me might decide to lynch me at sunrise if they got in the mood.”
The sheriff nodded. He could see Harry’s point. “Well, there’s either that or I order my men to come in and get you. You can be the judge of which appeals to you more.”
He stood up to go. “Well?”
“It looks like you have a guest for the night, Sheriff.”
C H A P T E R
F o u r t e e n
Protective custody so much resembled imprisonment that Harry was hard-pressed to figure out what the difference could be. He’d been placed in a cell that duplicated in every respect the one that he’d been housed in only a few nights before. Only this time, he had the cell to himself.
He fell into a restless sleep from which he would wake every hour or so. Each time he returned to consciousness, he would have to take stock all over again. In the first few moments of coming to, he would remember Elsie. He then would remember she was dead. It was not easy falling back to sleep.
The corridor outside the holding cell was eerily silent particularly in view of the commotion that had dominated it two days ago when dozens of officials were scrambling around in preparation for the march up Rain and Lunar mountains. Two overhead fluorescent lights flickered noisily down the corridor, but other than that there was no illumination. The 60-watt bulb in Harry’s cell was black and dead. It stood to reason that there were other prisoners. Perhaps they were just sleeping. In any event, they were loath to signal their presence. Not even a loud snore could be heard.
Towards midnight there was a loud clanging of doors, accompanied by raucous voices.
Now two guards appeared, holding onto a man who squirmed and swore but could do nothing to escape from his captors. He was about thirty, unshaven, with unruly hair, and the pallor of a drug addict. His eyes were bloodshot, his lips gray, in sum, he was no one you would invite home to dinner.
The guards dragged him down the corridor until they were directly outside of Harry’s cell. The door was unlocked and the prisoner was thrown in. “You can keep each other entertained,” one of the guards said, slamming the door closed.
Why, Harry wondered, if other cells were empty, which seemed to be the case, was a roommate being inflicted on him? He was in no mood for company, especially when the company was this unsavory character.
He now raised himself off the floor and regarded Harry with indifference. Then he moved over to the empty bunk and slumped down on it. “Shit,” he said after a while. “Keith Monk is what people in these parts call me.”
“I’m glad they call you something,” said Harry, stretching his legs out. He closed his eyes.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“I’m going to sleep.”
“Don’t go to sleep yet!” Monk pleaded. “We haven’t even gotten acquainted.”
“That’s just how I’d like things to remain.”
The man refused to take the hint and continued rambling. Harry surmised that Monk must be a speed freak because he was incapable of shutting up. It was essential for him to talk and it made no difference what the subject was, why he detested his girlfriend, why he’d been busted, why his father should be killed and his mother put out to pasture, why he’d been fired from his last job. Life was just generally unfair to Keith Monk and he’d always gotten the short end of the stick. It wasn’t even his fault. It was his father’s fault and his girlfriend’s fault—“the goddamn cunt” as he repeatedly referred to her—and one day they’d all see.
Harry was so exhausted that most of Monk’s tirade never penetrated. It was like the white noise a fan makes or the ocean breaking against the rocks. Then, abruptly, he stopped. Had he fallen asleep or had he just decided to quit? Harry didn’t know or care what his motives were, he was only thankful that he was silent.
How many minutes passed after that Harry could not be sure, but it could not have been very many. Keith Monk evidently was not asleep. Harry could hear him begin to move, but he was taking care to make no more noise than necessary. Harry doubted that this was done out of politeness. Monk had not shown himself to be a man much bound by etiquette.
Unquestionably, Monk was under the impression that Harry was asleep and Harry did nothing to disabuse him of this notion. He lay still, but he opened one eye—just a slit. In the dimness of the cell, Monk was a shadowy figure who was slowly bridging the distance that separated his bunk from Harry’s. Something caught the distant light from out in the corridor and glinted with it. A razor.
Now Harry understood why Keith Monk had been put into the cell with him. It made perfect sense; one prisoner kills the other in a heated dispute. The officials in charge would deplore the incident and order an investigation. After enough time had gone by for the furor—should there be any—to die down, Monk would be quietly transferred and rewarded for his help in ridding Russian River of a threat to its peace and illegal prosperity. What form that reward would take was hard to imagine. It might be that Monk would in turn be killed, hanged in his cell in a suicide attempt. Not that he’d have much say in the suicide.
And why had Monk rambled on and on if not to assure himself that Harry was finally completely out of it?
Monk hesitated for an instant. He stood over Harry, ready to slash Harry’s throat with one sweeping motion. Although he was tempted to strike, Harry remained still. He wanted Monk to think that he enjoyed the advantage, that he had all the time in the world to carry out his murderous enterprise.
It was only when Monk was about to run the blade straight across his throat that Harry leaped up, butting his head into Monk’s chest.
Monk was so surprised that he gave way immediately. His legs buckled and he fell back. But he still clung to the razor which he proceeded to slash the air with in an effort to keep Harry at a distance.
He was breathing hard and he kept leaping from one point to another as though he were attempting a strange little dance, a dance that was necessarily confined given how small a space he had available to work in.
“Come on, sucker, what are you waiting for?” he said, beckoning Harry toward him with his free hand.
Harry decided he wasn’t about to squander his energy chasing this clown around and around the cell. Instead, he stayed where he was, his posture challenging Monk to take the initiative.
Monk had no patience. As Harry suspected, he soon tired of doing his little jig around his victim-to-be. He still hadn’t recovered from the shock of discovering that Harry was prepared for him. As a result, he was ta
king greater risks, hoping to speedily conclude this business. Because he was armed, and Harry was not, he still believed that the odds were in his favor.
He lunged forward and when he swung his blade down, aiming for Harry’s wrist, he succeeded only in ripping his sleeve. Still he laughed victoriously as though, whether it was cloth or flesh he still had scored.
All Harry would do when he came at him was to turn to the other side or swivel in such a manner that Monk’s momentum would carry him to the far end of the cell. Harry was playing the matador and Monk, unwittingly, had fallen into the role of the bull.
He advanced again, grinning maliciously, his eyes wild with the frenzy in his blood. It was just possible that he really didn’t care whether he died.
This time though, Harry kicked out his leg. Monk was not expecting this and he virtually somersaulted right over it, banging his head as he landed.
Slightly stunned, he did not get up right away, which was fine with Harry. He seized hold of Monk by the scruff of the neck and knocked his head twice more against the hard stone surface of the floor.
This had the effect of severely debilitating him for afterwards he didn’t move. He was alive in spite of the blood that was oozing out of him. And the blood, as Harry shortly discovered, was not from his battered head. It was swollen and red and the skin was broken, but it was not bleeding. No, the source of it was his hand. In falling, he’d cut himself badly on the razor and the gash across his palm looked as if it went quite deep.
Harry started shouting and banging on the bars until he elicited a response from one of the two guards whom he’d seen earlier with Monk.
The guard probably had expected to see Harry’s body sprawled out on the floor like this, not Monk. He scowled and shook his head.
“How did this happen?” he asked wearily.
“Fucking guy attacked me with a razor.”
“I don’t understand how that could’ve happened.” The guard rattled his keys as he unlocked the cell. “We searched him.”
“Not good enough.”
Just as the guard stooped down to inspect how serious Monk’s injuries were, Harry took hold of him from behind and heaved him across the room, then leapt out of the cell, closing the door and locking it behind him.
The guard was fumbling with his gun, but by the time he could extract it from the holster, Harry was no longer around to be shot at.
But the guard’s cries of alarm did not go unheard. As Harry was proceeding up the corridor two more men materialized. Their movements were slow, as though they’d just been roused from a profound sleep. Nor had they drawn their guns out, probably because they couldn’t quite hear what their colleague was yelling about. In an instant, they realized their mistake but by then Harry was upon them.
He grappled with one while the other kept circling idiotically around, trying to sight him and fire. But to do this he was apt to risk shooting his partner, so he held off.
As Harry struggled, the pain from the wound he’d sustained earlier asserted itself, and with such intensity, that Harry thought he might black out. But he couldn’t allow that to happen. He might never recover consciousness.
He threw his opponent into the wall and locked his wrist with his hands and twisted it enough so that the bone audibly cracked. The gun clattered to the floor.
The second guard now chose to fire, but Harry was no longer where he just had been and the bullet slammed into the wall, scaring his partner far more than Harry. Scooping up the .38, Harry directed it at the second guard. He was an older man, little accustomed to contending with situations this dramatic, so he promptly surrendered his weapon into Harry’s hands.
Harry ordered them to lie down and this they did. Particularly the man whose wrist he’d broken, he was in such pain that he could barely stand up as it was.
Being familiar with the layout of the courthouse, he had no difficulty finding his way to the exit. It seemed too easy; there was no one else about to block his progress and the guards that he’d just disarmed showed no intention of pursuing him.
When he got to the courthouse doors that would lead out to Van Buren Street, he felt instinctively he might be in trouble. He couldn’t say why he had this feeling exactly but it was a very powerful one.
So what he did was gently depress the brass handle and open the door on his right, then jump back.
There was a sudden blaze of fire. Somebody was waiting for him on the other side. The tactics had changed; if a mad junkie couldn’t kill him with a razor then they would try and kill him another way. The police would announce that he was shot while attempting to escape. Moreover, he was armed. In both cases, they’d be correct too, though that would hardly be of any consolation to Harry as he lay moldering in the ground. No, on second thought, he considered, they’d cremate him, making good and sure he was gone and wouldn’t be back to haunt them on Judgment Day.
He decided on an old trick. The police in Russian River weren’t so very clever, an old trick might work on them. It would have to. Harry was running out of ideas.
Firing both appropriated guns simultaneously, he exposed himself in the open doorway for just a moment, then immediately dropped to the floor as the answering fire came.
Harry didn’t stir, he lay just where he was, feigning death.
Two figures rose into view. One of them was Ham Kelso, behind him was Mike Kilborn. Which of them had taken it on himself to deliver the coup de grâce? Harry wondered.
He was not about to wait to find out. Ham was the first up the stairs which made sense since he thought of himself as the leader. Kilborn, characteristically, lingered in the background always prepared to make a hasty retreat should circumstances warrant it.
Ham offered a terrific target area with the wide expanse of his stomach. His jaw was bandaged and one eye was banded in black—Davenport’s parting legacy. But he was walking with a swagger nonetheless, obviously pleased that he could kill so easily and be spared the indignity of being punished for it.
“Freeze!” commanded Harry.
This was something he did not expect that Ham would do, but he thought he’d give the man some kind of choice.
Ham looked vastly surprised, almost hurt. It seemed to take him a very long time to make his decision. Then he swore and dropped his gun.
“Now have Kilborn do the same.”
Ham gazed bleakly at Kilborn and Kilborn shrugged. He couldn’t tell exactly what Kilborn was thinking because of the shades which kept his eyes hidden from view. Still, Kilborn wasn’t disposed to throwing down his gun. Instead, he was backing away, a foot at a time, down the courthouse steps.
“That’s it, Kilborn. As far as you go.”
“Shit, man, you can’t get anywhere anyhow. There ain’t no cause for you to become so excited. Men in front of you, men in back of you, you are surrounded, man.”
Harry had not detected anyone behind him but he could not be absolutely certain—he was tired and the exhaustion had taken the edge off—he could still slip. Almost involuntarily, he glanced in back of him, and in that single moment of inattention two things happened.
First, Kilborn split, running towards his car.
And second, Ham reached for the gun at his feet and raised it to fire.
But Ham was too fat and too slow, before he could press the trigger the two .38’s in Harry’s hands came to life.
Ham’s stomach opened up like a ripe melon. Bleeding, it looked vaguely like a melon that had just been gouged. The cop went toppling back down the stairs with a strangled cry. For a while he lay in the bed of roses planted proximate to the stairs and thrashed frantically about, trying somehow to regain his balance. As he did he left half of himself in the rosebed. He took one look at how much blood he’d deposited on the small garden and collapsed again. He wept like a little boy with a cut knee until he died.
Harry could do nothing to stop Kilborn. He fired on his car but while the bullets did a number on the fender and crumpled in some of the rear chrome, the
y failed to cripple the vehicle in any significant way.
A second car presently appeared on Van Buren. A squad car with its beacon busy sending shafts of red light out onto the darkened street.
Harry watched it carefully. The two .38’s were ready if necessary. He hoped they wouldn’t be. He was growing tired of this.
It was Wardell Marsh. Alone.
Obviously Marsh was growing tired of this too, although in a totally different way. He approached Harry without concern. He noticed the guns in his hands but he assumed that they would not be used on him. He was right.
“My boys just called me. Told me you’d escaped,” he said. Then he stared down at Ham and sighed. “I expected something like this to happen to him. Was bound to happen someday. I just didn’t think it’d be this soon.” He paused, still not looking at Harry. “I don’t know how to put this exactly, son, but it seems to me that you’ve put me in a real bind.”
“You tried having me killed in there. It’s not something I appreciate.”
“I didn’t try to have you or anybody killed. Those orders came from somebody else.”
“McPheeters?”
“But you see, I get the blame one way or the other,” he continued, ignoring the question. “Before I got the call, I was doing some serious thinking. I’ve concluded that I would rather collect only half of my pension than stay in office for another five years to get it all. You see, I don’t have the feeling I’ve got another five years in me for this. Fact is, I don’t think I’d be allowed to serve out my time. Half a pension is better than a full pension you never get to collect, don’t you think?”
Harry was obliged to concur with this assessment.
“What has happened is, that you just speeded up things is all. I am going to turn in my resignation tomorrow morning. I’ve already packed. I see no reason to stick around Russian River the way things have developed.” Now for the first time he looked Harry in the eyes. “Since you started it, I see nothing wrong with you finishing it. I just want no part of it, you understand? No part of any of it. You get your ass wasted. You deserve it. They get their asses kicked in, they deserve it too. I want you to know I really don’t give a good goddamn what happens because I’m getting out of here.”