It was my firm conviction that, somewhere behind the scenes, there was not only consternation—mixed with some relief—among the evildoers, but plans being laid for more evildoing. And that in connection with the evildoing my name was being bandied about in all kinds of reckless ways. I doubted, however, that any bombs or machine guns—or even small artillery—would go off before dark, thus I meant to prepare myself as much as possible for whatever my immediate future might be, if I had any. So, after a splendid and long-overdue meal, I went back to my suite, left a call for six P.M., and turned down the sheets on my dandy double bed.
It was about one minute until noon, so before conking out I switched on the TV, then climbed into the sack and caught the noon news. I thought there was a chance mention might be made of this morning’s events at the Sunrise Villas council meeting. To be perfectly candid, I kind of hoped there would be, maybe including even a complimentary, if fleeting, reference to me. I did feel the morning’s adventure had been quite newsworthy. If, of course, one didn’t mind being sued.
Sunrise Villas, yes; council meeting, no.
First crack out of the box, the announcer mentioned the Villas and I pricked up my ears and maybe smiled, sort of hopefully. But, no; the reference was to Sunrise Villas as one of four retirement communities in Arizona—the others being Sunrise Villas’ “twin” or sister-city at Tucson, called Tucson Villas, Del Webb’s Sun City, and Festival Town up near Flagstaff in northern Arizona.
And: to AGING, to Kerwin Stephens, and to the glorious opportunity just around the corner for many of Arizona’s senior citizens. I listened with only half an ear, and watched with a droopy eye, but when Congressman Stephens himself appeared on the screen I recognized not only his avian features but his huskily cooing voice.
He mentioned the Commission of the Agency for Gerontological Investigation and Need-Grants—using the whole handle—and the fact that, as its chairman, he was deeply concerned with the need evidenced in Arizona and elsewhere, which I gathered meant all fifty states.
Then he said something like, “We begin with the premise that as long as some men have more than others, we have not achieved social justice. Thus it is our task to work diligently until no man has less of anything than everybody else, or more of everything than anybody else. I am sure we all look forward to the day, perhaps in the not-too-distant future, when no man is more underdeprived or less overpoverished than any other man.”
Well, it was something like that. Whatever he said, it was pretty tough to take on a full stomach. So I let my mind wander. On my way back to the Shadows I had stopped by Professor Elliott Irwin’s home and left with him the cassette of tape I’d recorded at the Villas. By now he was, I imagined, playing with it and letting out little elfish yips of excitement. Having by then heard the original tape, he’d been having a great time making spectrograms of the seven “definitely criminal” specimens, and had attempted to involve me in his enthusiastic elucidation of this decibel level and that apparently vestigial epiglottis, and had even showed me some of the black-on-white spectrograms or “contour Voiceprints” which he’d already made. They resembled aerial maps of aerial maps, a bunch of waving lines forming squarish circles and oblongish dollops, and had not been of huge interest to me.
Of huge interest to me was the fact that the professor’s work was progressing well, and he was certain he’d be able to get the results to me—by telephone—within a few hours, perhaps before sundown. He agreed to call as soon as possible, and we worked out a simple method for him to convey his findings to me.
There were, I realized, other avenues of investigation I could pursue, but the professor’s research might well make some of them unnecessary, and even open up entirely unsuspected directions in which I might more profitably go. So I didn’t feel I was losing any time, really, but merely recharging the physical battery while awaiting—hopefully—revelation.
Nothing about me on TV yet.
In fact, though I was pretty sleepy and may not have caught every single one of his words exactly, Congressman Kerwin Stephens was really going lickety-split now: “I am happy to say we are making real progress, my friends. We have made great advances in aiding the underprivileged and providing advantages for the disadvantaged. But this—even AGING—is only a beginning! We must—and we will—aid not only the overaged and the underyouthed, the underaged and the overyouthed, but also the overpovertied and the underluxuried, the underovered and the overundered. This, of course, will cost money.”
I shook my head in sleepy wonder as Kerwin cooed, or so it seemed to me he cooed: “The Committee on AGING is at present funded with only one and one half billion dollars, a mere pittance. In time, of course, a few more pittances will be required. But surely the wealthiest nation in the world can afford a small percentage of its Gross National Product to bring security, health, joy, happiness, intelligence, success, peace, prosperity, and superiority to every man, woman, and child …”
Believe it or not, even though there was a chance something nice might yet be said about my morning’s work at Sunrise Villas, I didn’t even get to hear Kerwin finish telling me, and everybody else, what he was going to do for us. I fell into dreamland, with the TV still on.…
The insistent ringing pulled me out of sleep, and my first sluggish thought was of Professor Irwin. But it was the operator, calling me at six P.M. I hung up, clicked off the TV, phoned room service and ordered coffee. Then I dressed—with care, and in a brand-new suit, since the first wearing of a new suit always elevates my state of mind, which could use some elevation.
When I sat down to coffee I was clad, gorgeously, in a lovely custom-tailored garment of shimmering fabric, sort of bluish with a little green and slight pinkishness and faint gold threads running every-which way—I thought of it as the color of a drunken dragon’s eye. Thus appareled, like a matador going forth to joust, after my second cup of coffee I was not only nearly awake but felt splendid, recharged and optimistic.
It was a bit too early for Elliott Irwin to call. In the meantime, I felt it would be wise to figure out what I intended to do this night no matter what the results of his Voiceprint comparisons were. While my public playing of the Jenkins tape had undoubtedly been helpful in many ways and, I believed, necessary, in another way it had at least diminished what might have been a golden opportunity. Because I felt it would be very helpful if I could get my hands on one of the hoods I’d run up against in the past twenty-four hours.
I knew Ace and Fleepo had been present at that meeting of the seven, and thus would be able—if I asked them in a way sufficiently persuasive—to tell me who the other five had been. Or, rather, the other four, since I figured Frankenstein had been there, too. He wouldn’t be of any help to me now, however, not in his condition. But neither would Ace and Fleepo if they’d skipped as far and fast as I assumed they had.
There was also Lucky Ryan, who might know much I would be pleased to hear. But unless a very slick con job was pulled on him—or info about the Jenkins tape failed to reach his ears—Lucky was not likely to be available, either. I ticked them off. Frankenstein, Ace, Fleepo, Lucky Ryan. Thus from the total of five, Lucky Ryan plus the four boys with whom I’d tangled at a distance there on Willow Lane last night, only one likely choice remained. There was …
It was funny, but every time I thought of that monstrously wide and massive egg, the same treacherous little words I’d thought upon first lamping him sneaked in, unbidden, and scampered around inside my skull like tiny rats: Man, I hope I never get clobbered by Bludgett.
It wasn’t that I was afraid of Bludgett. Not really. Not exactly. It was merely, I told myself, that it would be infinitely simpler to extract information of value from comparative weaklings such as Ace and Fleepo, or a gorilla, if I could get them off alone someplace. Probably you could pound on Bludgett with a ball-peen hammer until he yawned. The problem, then, was how to get my hands on one of those other creeps. Hell, maybe some were still around. It was possible. Sure. There
was hope.
At that very moment there was a soft knock on my door.
For a few seconds I almost believed my problem had been solved, that one of the lads I’d been thinking about had come here to kill me. What luck! After all, thoughts are things, and if you think about something long enough and hard enough you usually get it. All I had to do was dream up something sufficiently clever, and capture whoever it was who’d come to kill me, and—
My plans were interrupted by a voice outside the door.
“Mr. Scott? You there? This is Artie Katz.”
I let him in.
“I just saw something I figured you ought to know about.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I went out to pick up a Lincoln for a guest and I saw a guy looking inside your car. You know, like he was looking at the registration, making sure who it belonged to.”
“That’s interesting. And it might be a very lucky break for me, Artie. You keep it up, you’re going to retire awfully young.” I slipped him a bill.
“Thanks a lot,” he said. “It just seemed peculiar to me.”
“Seems peculiar to me, too. Can you describe the guy?”
He smiled. What’s to smile about? I wondered.
“No trouble,” he said. “He was a real big guy, actually enormous—”
“What?”
“Not real tall, no more’n six or seven feet, I guess. I mean, six feet. He’s so wide, you just naturally think of him like, seven feet tall maybe.”
“You do, huh?”
“I never saw anybody so wide—”
“Forget that for a minute. We want to be sure of … identification. Precise and accurate identification. Mustn’t accuse anyone falsely, or even think falsely about any innocent—”
“Why’d you sit down so quick, Mr. Scott? You feel all right?”
“Of course I feel all right, you idiot.”
“Can I get you some water or something?”
“Will you shut—I mean, I’m trying to think. Can’t seem to … get it working up there. Ah, identification. Tell me—think carefully now—the color of this man’s hair.”
“It didn’t have any color.”
“Come, Artie, everybody’s hair has some—”
“He didn’t have no hair. Bald as a egg.”
I sighed. “It’s him.” I sighed again. “It’s him. Can’t be two monsters on one earth like Bludgett.”
“Bludgett?”
“Bludgett. I hate the sound of the word. Bludgett!”
“Who’s he?”
“Merely a thug who took a shot at me last night. Who tried to kill me last night. Merely a human Alp who—”
“Shot at you? Tried to kill you?”
I’d forgotten Artie was still there. I had been talking to myself. I looked up. “Yes,” I said. “He did that. And I daresay, had the opportunity presented itself, he would have done infinitely more—”
“Oh, boy!”
“That’s a funny—what do you mean, ‘Oh, boy!’?”
“Well, if he tried to do that to you, you’ll sure get even with him, I’ll bet.”
“Artie—”
“I’ll bet you fix his wagon, huh? I’ll bet he’ll be sorry he tried to shoot you, Mr. Scott.”
“Artie—”
“You’re going to catch him and beat him up, aren’t you?”
“Artie, what kind of grades do you get in school?”
I don’t think he heard the question. In his mind’s eye, David again—after all these years—was going to slay Goliath. I had often wondered if that story was apocryphal. And never had I wondered more than now. “Tell me, Artie,” I said, “how did it go when you delivered the flowers this morning?”
“Not so hot. Some old lady with flour on her face came to the door. But this huge guy, Mr. Scott, are you going to go get him now?”
“Will you shut—Artie, let me put it in the form of a stupid question. Do you, ah, visualize me going out there and squaring off with Bludgett, and striking him down with tremendous blows?”
“Isn’t that what you’re going to do?”
“Well …”
“He’ll get away if you don’t hurry.”
“Artie, you’re old enough to begin learning the real truths of life. I feel I should pass on to you some of the wisdom I’ve gleaned over the years. Consider: what good would it do me to beat this man up?”
“Well, he shot at you, he tried to kill you—”
“That’s all well and good—bad. Artie, look at it this way. Brute force is the weapon of the savage, right? The instinctual reaction of the primitive, the animal, the throwback to the jungle, the hulking beast. Now, surely man is more than a hulking beast. Man’s brain elevates him above the savage, his intelligence raises him beyond the brute. What would I prove by beating Bludgett up? Merely that I’m stronger than he is, right? Where’s the joy, the pride, in that? No, I propose to outwit him.”
“Outwit?”
“Yes. It seems more sporting, a battle of mind against mind, brain against brain!”
“How?”
“Well …”
It was a good question. How was I going to outwit him? It was a good question, because first I had to catch him. How do you catch an elephant? I sent Artie on his way. Then I futzed around in the room a little, took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and went out.
I walked around behind the hotel, down an alley there, approached the Mountain Shadows parking lot from the east. In only three or four minutes I’d spotted Bludgett. I used up another five minutes before moving toward him, though, because if Bludgett was here, one or more of his pals might be nearby. But, finally, having spotted nobody else in the lot, I made my move.
Bludgett sat in the front seat of a gray Chrysler sedan, parked where he had an unobstructed view of my Cadillac, on his left. He was keeping his eyes fixed so intently on my car that moving close and getting the drop on him was easy.
I leaned in the open window on the driver’s right and said, “It’s loaded, Bludgett. All you have to do is get smart, and I’ll unload it.”
He didn’t even jerk.
“It, by the way, is a Colt Special aimed at your ear.”
Still looking to his left he said a foul word, then without haste cranked that big bald head around and let sad eyes, above the little nose, rest on me. “I had a feelin’,” he said. “I had a feelin’ it wasn’t gonna work.”
“Where are your pals?”
“There ain’t none. I come alone.”
“I’ll believe that the day you take up toe-dancing. How many, and where?”
“Lord’s truth,” he said. “I come by myself.” He shrugged. The sedan wiggled slightly. “Come to get you, I admit, but it wasn’t nobody else’s idea.”
“Why?”
“You hit little Frankie in the biscuit,” he said simply.
“Frankenstein?”
“He didn’t like being called that. He was funny-lookin’, like me. I always called him Frankie.”
The words gave me an odd feeling. But I said, “I had a little reason, didn’t I, Bludgett? Franken—Frankie, and you, were flinging hot little pills at my biscuit.”
“Sure. So what? Fact still is, you drilled his conk. So I figure I come and get you.”
Simple, matter of fact, his tone was. I hadn’t any doubt he was telling me the truth, telling it his way. Still, there was something quite grisly about the flat, unemotional words: “I come and get you.”
There was a newspaper on the seat beside him. I opened the door and, with care, lifted the paper. Beneath it, as I’d expected, was his gun, a Colt .45 automatic. I took it, dropped it into my coat pocket, and said, “Come on. Out this side.”
His eyes dropped to the revolver in my hand, then flicked over my face. He didn’t try anything. Apparently Bludgett—like most men who know guns, who have used them—had a healthy respect for the heat.
We walked back the way I’d come out, passing only a young couple on the way. For t
he few seconds while they were near us I put the snub-nosed Colt into my pocket, but kept it pointing at Bludgett’s back. He just kept marching ahead.
When he reached the door of my suite I said, “Here it is. Take a right. Inside.”
I closed and locked the door. Then I looked at Bludgett. Well, I had him. My dream had come true. And what the hell was I going to do with him?
“Sit down, pal,” I said. “We’re going to talk a spell. You’re going to tell me a few things I’m curious about.”
“Not me, Scott.”
That was all. He didn’t make a big thing out of it. But I’d have bet my Cad against a scooter that to him it was a simple statement of irrevocable fact.
It was, also, a fact that I couldn’t—or at least wouldn’t—beat the big ape over the head with a monkey wrench until he spilled. For one thing, I’d need an ape-wrench. For another, though I feel it is entirely acceptable to ruin a guy when he’s attempting to do the same to you, simply to pound on a man who is sitting quietly, stolidly, waiting for it—well, it’s a little out of my line.
I remembered telling Artie I proposed to outwit Bludgett. I had not told Artie how I proposed to do it. That was because I hadn’t the faintest idea how to do it. Bludgett was not so bright that beams of light shot out of him, true; but that didn’t mean I could outwit him.
What I needed was a brilliant flash of—of brilliance, like one of those light bulbs that meant “Idea!” which cartoonists used to draw in cartoons.
And, quite naturally, that was—or, rather, those were—the ideas which gave me the idea.…
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The problem was how to crack a tough nut like Bludgett.
One man might stand up to physical punishment all day but grow faint at the sight of snakes. Or rats, or spiders. Or bugs might bug him. Another might cheerfully climb Mount Everest barefoot but refuse to fly in a plane. And another—well, it was worth a try.
Kill Me Tomorrow Page 14