by Rex Burns
Finally, “Try again.”
Julie, anxiously moving back and forth, dialed one more time. Each step took her nearer the fireplace with its rack of fire tools. When Wager answered this time, she played it straight. Lidke listened intently as she slowly gave him the message.
“Jesus H. Christ! Let me talk to the guy!”
“Lidke wants to talk with you.” She held the phone away from her ear.
The round man took a step closer, staring at the receiver.
Julie wagged it at him. “How much time do we have?”
Lidke glanced at his wristwatch and, as he did, Julie threw the receiver at the man. He reflexively reached for it, the pistol muzzle lifting momentarily toward the ceiling. Julie whirled to grab the poker and swing hard at the man’s thick wrist.
“Caitlin—run! Now! Run!”
From the corner of her eye, Julie saw Caitlin dash for the front door, fumbling with the dead bolt as the poker glanced off Lidke’s knuckles and Julie swiveled it to jab viciously at Otto’s face. The man lifted both hands to guard his eyes, and Julie swung again, snapping her wrists to make the iron bar whistle. It thudded hard on Lidke’s forearm. The man’s wide hand slacked with shock and numbness and the pistol dangled as he grunted with pain and lunged for her. Julie did not have time for another full swing, just a quick parry, a nudge, a desperate jab with the poker at the loosely held weapon to send it flying over the skewed couch and clatter against the wall. Lidke grabbed the poker with his left hand and ripped it out of Julie’s grasp and, roaring now, lowered his head and lunged like a bull to crush her. She slapped a palm under Lidke’s elbow and canted the charging man aside just enough to slip past, but Otto’s large arm grappled back at Julie’s waist and he turned quickly, expertly, to try and tangle her throat in a hammerlock.
She caught the point of Lidke’s elbow in the crook of her arm and dropped to one knee, using his momentum and her back as a fulcrum to throw the heavy man. Otto, ominously silent, whipped through the air to crash on the rug and jar the entire house. Julie heard glass break somewhere, but Otto bounced up almost before she could stand and he charged again.
He was a wrestler. Now he wasn’t opening himself up to counterpunches by swinging wildly or using his fists. Instead, he used his fingers and hands to grab for a controlling hold, to find a joint to bend backward until it broke. Julie rolled out of one of the man’s grips by ripping the arm off her jacket, but it only gave her a second or two. Lidke, pale eyes stretched and blind with rage, lowered his forehead and came at her once more.
Julie dropped to scissor Otto’s legs with her own, the wide body crashing on one of the chairs and splintering it. But the man was quick; Julie could not tangle the short, thick legs that pulled away, and Lidke was up again, a little more careful this time, a little more calculating.
“You know a little something about wrestling, don’t you, Miss Julie. You could go on the dyke circuit.”
Julie did not bother to reply. She sucked air and kept her eyes on Lidke’s legs. They would tell her what he would do next.
“I love this.” A grin stretched his lips wide. “This is what makes my dick hard: a genuine death match!” He feinted another high charge and then dropped low to go for Julie’s legs. It was the classic move of a shorter man and Julie saw it coming. She braced off Lidke’s heavy shoulders and kicked her legs back out of his reach. Knocking away the flailing arms that tried to tangle her own, Julie slid over the man’s shoulders and snaked an arm around his thick neck to squeeze it in the bend of her elbow. The short man flailed, lifting Julie off the floor, then tried to run backward to smash her into the wall as Julie squeezed tighter and, somewhere in the back of her jolting mind, she wondered if the move had been a mistake: Lidke didn’t seem to have a neck.
Julie dug her fingers deeper into the back of her own neck, feeling a slickness that could have been sweat or blood, but it made no difference. Either way, it threatened to break her grip, to slide her fingers off her flesh and let the jolting, heavy man wriggle away. She clenched her teeth and buried her head closer into Lidke’s thick shoulder and squeezed even tighter. Fending off the stabbing fingers that frantically dug for an eye or ear or mouth, she hauled back to keep her arm across the man’s windpipe and to press shut the arteries that fed his brain. Lidke’s breath was shorter and louder now, a steady series of brief grunts that matched the convulsive heaves of his body and the flailing of his hands. She heard her blouse rip somewhere but felt only slightly the burning scrape of the carpet on her flesh. She squeezed tighter, the effort beginning to cramp her bicep as she wondered how much longer either of them could hold out. Clinging even closer to the shelter of the man’s shuddering and hot back, Julie finally forced her mind to stop thinking about the stabbing pain of her elbow, the aching knot in her bicep, the numbness of her fingers and straining neck. She had to hold on. That was all there was to it: she had to hold on.
After a while, Lidke stopped heaving. Julie felt the body lose its rigidity and sag more heavily. But she did not ease up. Instead, as Lidke’s neck and shoulder muscles began to soften, Julie worked her arm even tighter, sweating and quivering from the effort to keep the clamp against Lidke’s windpipe. Her arm wanted to quit. Now it was an effort of will more than of flesh to keep the grip. She closed her eyes and tried to push her mind somewhere else, somewhere that did not hurt. Finally, in the growing silence, she became aware of the tiny voice coming from the telephone and she concentrated on it to keep from thinking about her melting arm: “Julie—anybody—hang on. We’re on our way… .”
She did not know how long it was. Eventually, she slowly lifted numb fingers from her nape. Alert to any move he might make, she gingerly unpeeled her arm from the sticky flesh of Lidke’s neck. But he remained limp. Her own neck was stiff and hot and could find no position that did not ache. Facedown, Lidke lay like a beached whale, mouth agape and face a mix of purple and pallid flesh. Julie, gasping on hands and knees with her head hanging, stared.
“Julie?”
She winced as her neck lifted her head.
Caitlin, crouched behind the overturned couch, held the .38 leveled at the prone man. “Are you all right?”
“I thought—” Her voice was squeaky from strain and dryness. She wearily cleared her throat the tried again. “I thought I told you … to run.”
“I couldn’t. He made me call you here. I couldn’t just leave you. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Fine. You?”
“Yes.” The pistol sagged and she leaned against the couch and closed her eyes for a long moment. Then Caitlin picked up the receiver and began talking into it.
24
Julie was embarrassed to have Detective Wager find her wrapped in a blanket and not much else. You don’t hear about detectives having their blouses ripped off while rescuing people, and Caitlin, giggling with near hysteria, had nothing large enough to fit Julie. No one giggled when the bills came in for repairing Caitlin’s living room and replacing the broken furniture and television. The Denver Police said they had not destroyed the property—Lidke was peacefully unconscious when they arrested him, so they bore no responsibility. Caitlin’s insurance company argued that they were not responsible either. They said Miss Campbell should have waited for the police to arrive and make the arrest, so it was reasonably avoidable damage. Which, her father said, could be the definition of life, too. So Touchstone did the right thing and covered the damage. Caitlin said she would repay them a little at a time, but neither Julie nor her father accepted that.
Mrs. Lidke got an even better deal. She turned state’s evidence against her husband in exchange for custody of the children and the prosecution dropping any and all charges for abetting two homicides. Moreover, Salazar, saying it was out of sympathy for Lidke’s unfortunate wife, hurried to buy American West from her. He got it at a steep discount.
When Julie and Raiford were both out of t
he hospital and limping around the office shuffling papers and answering telephones, Wager called to see how they were doing. He was happy to draw Julie’s attention to an item in that morning’s paper. “You see the Post? Gargan’s big story?” It raised the question of collusion between Sidney Chertok, a local businessman who had a hidden interest in a new Central City casino despite vague ties with organized crime, and Senator Roger A. Morrow who was the chair of the state’s Senate Transportation Committee. The alleged collusion involved the alleged illegal use of state funds to build the new parkway that linked Central City with I-70 and bypassed the rival town of Black Hawk. The problem was that parkway was supposed to be paid for entirely by private funds from Central City casinos and boosters. Moreover, the Honorable Mr. Morrow turned out to be another silent partner in Mr. Chertok’s new casino. “The people in Black Hawk are pretty stirred up about it. They’re talking a grand jury investigation.”
Wager sounded almost as happy to learn that the X-rays had shown no spinal injury for Raiford, and that both he and Julie were well on the way to recuperation. “And something else, Julie: I got a letter of commendation for our work on the two homicides. It’s nice when things work out for a change.”
Julie allowed that was the case.
Colonel Crush called to say he was sorry he and Raiford wouldn’t be a tag team anymore, but he wished his ex-partner good luck and offered to bring over some home-cooked lasagna.
Salazar called to say he would be happy if Raiford had both a concussion and a broken spine, since he’d wasted a hell of a lot of his, Raoul Salazar’s, very important time and money. And by the grill of Saint Lawrence, he, Raoul Salazar, would burn in hell before he gave another chance to a guy who was too damn chicken to get back into the ring just because he got a little bit hurt.
As Raiford hung up on that call, he said to Julie, “When American West gets our bill, Salazar will squawk even louder.”
“Bill for what? Lidke’s in jail!”
“We weren’t hired by Lidke, remember? You wrote the contract with Rocky Ringside Wrestling. It was bought by American West for one dollar. Otto’s wife sold it to Salazar who now owns its assets and its liabilities.” He grinned. “And one of the liabilities is a bill for our services, including Ms. Morgan’s new furniture.”
A day or so later, Uncle Angus dropped by the office to thank Julie for her suggestion about hiring an office manager. Caitlin was, Julie’s uncle said, honest, capable, efficient, and bright. As well as, he added with a glance at Raiford, a very attractive divorcée with two great kids.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Rex Burns
Cover design by Michel Vrana
ISBN: 978-1-4804-4568-0
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