Swing (Gun Pedersen Book 2)

by L. L. Enger

  Call him.

  “Hard time down south,” he said.

  “That’s it?” Carol asked.

  “That’s it.”

  “Well,” she said, letting down some. “Over now.”

  When the buzzer went off a little later she said, “The goose.” But it was the phone ringing in the middle of her sentence that really got his attention.

  40

  Not Diane, though.

  Rott Weiler, calling collect, from his plain square room in the hospital. Gun knew the voice even though it seemed notched up somehow, skidding ahead word to word.

  “Gun, you gotta listen to me. I got some serious trouble here.”

  “I’ll go along with that.”

  “I’m not talkin’ about jail, Pedersen. I can take jail. But nobody’s listenin’ to me—not my lawyer, even.

  I’m telling you, I killed Ferdie Millevich—but I never touched Billy Apple, or the Ibbinses.”

  “Rott. I’m hanging up.”

  The voice clicked up another notch. “I’m not dodging blame. If I hadn’t done Ferdie, God help me, the others wouldn’t have been necessary. But I didn’t do the killings, not these last ones.”

  Carol was watching Gun and he saw her understand, even as he did, that this wasn’t all over. Not yet.

  He said, “Who’s with you there?”

  “Nobody. They brought in a private line. My lawyer did that much.” A little of the old peevish Rott.

  “All right, go ahead. Who’s got the dirty hands?”

  “You know him. My uncle, Casper Leavitt.”

  Gun was quiet. It was the only answer Rott could’ve given that didn’t deserve a hang-up. He needed time to think.

  “Explain Ferdie, first.”

  “I thought it was the only way.” Rott leapt into it without pause or any attempt at self-justification. As if, Gun thought, he had to get through it fast before he could make whatever pitch Gun knew was coming. “Ferdie’d figured it out, what Neil Faust and I did to him. He was gonna take it public.” His tone changed. “It ain’t like some people say, Pedersen. You murder once, you don’t wanna do it again.”

  “So you had Casper fix the others.”

  “Yes, goddamnit. Yes. Apple wouldn’t quit He had Faust by the nose hairs. I didn’t go to Casper, though —he came to me, wondered if he could help. I thought he was gonna freeze Apple off the story somehow, you know? I didn’t know he was gonna use Louis. Louis, he’s always a mistake. He likes to tie his knots.”

  Gun remembered the man, the animal lights in the corners of his eyes. “Louis killed Harold, too? Miss Mary?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So I guess the question, Rott, is what am I supposed to do about all this? Why call me?”

  The skidding fear came off Rott’s voice altogether and he said it slowly: “My uncle is going to kill me.”

  Gun found this an easy thing to believe. Casper had plenty to hide. “Tell the police.”

  “Listen. Today I’m in the big room here, eating my dinner, and the orderly next to me, I’ve never seen him before. I’m leanin’ over sayin’, ‘Pass the salt;’ and this guy leans into me just enough so I’ve got something sharp under my bottom rib, and he says to me, ‘Casper’s got no ratfìnks among his kin.’ That’s all. He don’t need to say more.”

  “Like I said, Rott: Why call me?”

  “Like I said: You know my uncle. You think I didn’t hear about your little war out there? There ain’t nobody here got the ears for it when I say he’ll have me cut before I get to trial. But you dealt with him. You talked to him. You know it’s so.”

  The goose for all its fat was not as tender as the wild kind and worse there was none of the good arch flavor of field and long migration. Gun had learned to mellow a wild bird with a ripe orange split in the deep cavity and strips of bacon laid over the breast to roast; Carol had done the same with this goose, but the domesticated meat was floored by the attention and barely showed up at all except as a sponge for bacon and cooked orange. Still Gun ate willingly and for Carol’s sake attempted heartiness, without success. The last of daylight folded into low clouds and flurries. She cleared the table away in silence, poured them coffee. Finally she said, “I don’t think you’re ready to be home.”

  “Don’t know what to do. It scrapes me to believe Rott, but I think he’s being honest.”

  “So what will you do? Fly back south?”

  It had crossed his mind. Not in connection with Rott, though.

  “Think it over, I guess. He wants me to bargain with his uncle, tell him Rott won’t squeal on him as long as Casper pays his legal defense fees on all four murder charges.”

  Carol frowned. “If all this is true, why doesn’t Rott bargain with Casper himself?”

  “He says he’s tried, that Casper won’t talk. And now this guy tickles his ribs, gives him a warning. On the other hand, if I go talk to Casper, then Casper’s got to wonder who else knows about it. Maybe that’s Rott’s thinking.”

  They sat in the yellow-pine light of the kitchen, thinking thoughts as separate and whirling as the flakes coming fast now outside.

  “Gun, couldn’t somebody nail Casper another way? What about those relatives of Clarence Coldspring’s that he buried in the swamp?”

  “They were so long ago. Somebody’d have to pursue it, and even the Coldsprings aren’t interested in that. They found the bodies, remember, and they just buried them again.”

  Carol smiled, rose, went for her coat. “Well. You let me know what you decide. You fly south, maybe I could find someone to baby-sit the newspaper if you want company. Otherwise, I’ll be home.”

  He turned on the outside floodlight and saw how white the air was getting. “What happened to getting snowed in?”

  “Do you want me to be?” Her coat on already.

  He let himself hesitate and she reached him a kiss, said, “Do what you have to for Rott and not an ounce more,” and left with snow sweeping past him through the door.

  Later, Gun would admit to himself that Rott’s predicament that night didn’t cost him too much

  peace, except for one tiny back-of-the-mind moment when he knew, just before sleep reached up and pulled him in, that there were times you told the truth too late, and then it didn’t matter.

  41

  Sometime during the night Gun’s mind gave over its reluctance and he woke early planning to go back, what the hell, and give Casper a go. Maybe it would keep Rott off somebody’s spit, although Gun didn’t delude himself that his decision was based on mercy. Maybe, he thought, going south would raise other opportunities; a chance to pay off Casper for killing Billy Apple. A way to make the old man see that sending a madman to toss Harold Ibbins off his roof and shoot his wife through a mattress had been the wrong, wrong thing to do.

  The snow, though. It was going like a carnival now, filling up the panes on his lakeside windows. He’d have to wait it out. Diane came to his mind again and he allowed himself to miss her. It sweetened his coffee, and when the phone rang he knew it was her, let it ring an extra time so he wouldn’t seem hurried.

  “Gun. It’s Diane.”

  Yes, but the voice was wrong. Shaking all over the place, and some idiot restaurant music in the background.

  “Gun, it’s really bad ... what’s happened, it’s impossible, but listen: They came out to the boat—”

  “Who? Who came to the boat?”

  “Casper’s guys. Last night, maybe two o’clock. It was a beautiful moon, I was out walking the dock... and I heard them drive up. Three men. They came straight for the boat and I jumped into the cockpit of an empty cruiser or they’d have seen me. Gun, they went into the Napper looking for me. I could hear them laughing as they stepped aboard. Saying horrible things. Then when I was gone I heard snouting, and they came up grim and took off. I didn’t dare go back on board.” Diane’s voice had calmed some but now went watery with fright. “I was still standing there when the whole back end of the Napper bl
ew off. Like when you’re a kid, you blow tin cans apart with firecrackers, that’s what it was like. The whole transom lit up and stood out by itself on the water, and then in ten seconds the boat was down.”

  Gun felt a dry swallow crawl down his throat. “Where are you now? I’ll come.”

  “Don’t. I’m on the road, and as long as I stay this way I’m out of trouble. Listen and I’ll tell you how lucky I am. I was driving up the coast half an hour ago with the radio on and got the news. Rott Weiler’s dead. Right there in his room. You want to guess how?”

  Gun shut his eyes. “Hanged. Right.” Thinking: The wheel turns.

  “This is the worst part. It’s Clarence. The police found him in a ditch last night, partly covered over. He’d been tortured, burns all over his body.”

  It made Gun sting with the memory of the prod and Christian’s moans. He felt it again, too, all along his arms. “Dead?”

  “Not yet. Apparently they thought he was. He’s in intensive.”

  “I’m coming.”

  “Wait This is the thing: Rott knew all about Casper, and now Rott’s dead. Clarence only knew part of it, and they got to him. They’re trying for me. Gun, you’re last on the list. They’re not going to forget you.”

  The phone at Jack Be Nimble’s rang tiredly on until Jack picked it up and said “LaSalle” in his I-don’t-open-till-eleven voice.

  “It’s Gun.”

  “Hey. You got back just in time, we got a blizzard here.”

  “Yup. Makes you wish you were back in school, listening for the closings. Jack, that old Scout of yours still run?”

  “Such questions you ask.”

  Gun reached into a drawer for tobacco and papers. He rolled as he spoke. “Down Florida way I met a gentleman who is unused to disruptions in his routine.”

  “Naturally, you bumbled into his path,” Jack said. “Don’t tell me you left something undone down there.”

  “It’s something I’d rather tell you about in person. I have reason to suppose that this gentleman has asked some friends of his to visit me.”

  Jack went serious. “You really got people after you? This have anything to do with that Faust fellow who went through the crust?”

  “Long story, and it never seems to end.” Gun inhaled and felt the calm tobacco work. Outside his window a long pine limb gave under a foot of new snow, let go with a muffled crack and landed in a waist-high drift. “I don’t think anyone’s going to come calling while the storm’s on. Maybe they won’t come at all. But I want to be ready.”

  There was quiet on the line and then Jack said, “Take me a while in this weather. The Scout never dies, though- Gun—you think I should bring some fireworks?”

  “Jack. Such questions you ask.”

  42

  By ten-thirty Gun had swallowed enough coffee to slow down every clock in the house and still Jack hadn’t arrived. Wasn’t answering his phone, either. Three hours was more than enough time to make seven miles. Weather or not. Gun layered on wool pants and shirts, pulled on an army parka still stained from the last World War and over it all the pure white wind-shell his daughter, Mazy, said made him look like the Abominable Snowman. He’d bought the wind-shell for hunting snow geese, for lying in the fields among the white-rag decoys until the birds were in range and he rose up for them, but he wore it most in winter. It sealed the army parka’s gappy seams.

  The wind stripped the storm door from his grasp when he opened it, slamming it wide and wrenching the closing mechanism off the doorjamb. Ungodly cold. He grabbed for it, tried to get it shut but another blast tore it away again and this time the hinges went and the door hung an instant before separating from the house and skimming over the snow like a kite. It hit a rock at the edge of Stony Lake and the glass shattered. Gun made sure the inside door was latched and worked his way along the house. The wind drove tiny hard-edged flakes into his eyes, his nostrils. Snow filled his tracks almost as fast as he made them. He reached the garage. The old Ford pickup sat within, backed against the workbench on the rear wall like it

  knew what was out there and wanted no part of it. He heaved open the big front door and saw four-foot drifts and waves for at least fifty feet before the pines started blocking the wind.

  He’d never bothered to get a snowblower. “I like the work,” he’d told Mazy.

  He didn’t like it this much. He closed the door, told himself he’d take a little walk down the driveway, see if he saw headlights out on the tar. Then go in and try calling Jack again. Then, start shoveling.

  Halfway down the drive he saw headlights turn in off the blacktop and thought, He made it, but that was before he saw a second set of headlights, and a third. They came toward him slowly, towering four-wheel-drives rumbling in redneck satisfaction. He stepped off the driveway behind a slender pine. How had they made it so fast? Rott not dead twenty-four hours, Diane’s near-miss only this morning. The trucks stopped, killed lights and engines and Gun thought at first they’d seen him. No. They’ll walk in. Of course.

  Squatting in the snow he counted six of them. Heavily parka’d and armed. They convened briefly at the cab of the lead truck, then split into pairs and came, rifles cradled in their arms, the barrels glistening through the snow. Gun stood and tried to step back farther into the trees. He couldn’t. The little pine had snagged the hood of the wind-shell. The men came on. He yanked but the snag was up where he couldn’t see it. Twenty yards away he heard their voices high in the rough wind. Then a gust threw a curtain of white across the drive, and Gun let his weight fall back and the snag let go, dropping him soundlessly into a drift. He rolled onto his stomach, breathed in ice, pulled the white hood forward. Waited.

  They said nothing as they went by, six feet to his left.

  his breath, except when he held it to let them tramp past, melted a tiny iced depression in the snow.

  When he looked up, snowy browed, he saw by the slope-shaped parka rising over the others that Louis had come along north.

  He saw them reach the house and walk into it without so much as peeking through a window. The weather gave them confidence. He made the best time he could getting back to their trucks. Unlocked, all of them, but the cautious bastards had taken their keys. Every weapon, too—a check under seats yielded one brass cartridge, .30-.30 caliber. Spent. On impulse Gun looked in the beds of the trucks. They were half full of sand, covered with a layer of new snow. In bad winters Gun had sometimes done the same thing with the old Ford. Traction.

  He went with the wind into the pines and leaned against one, his forehead against the ruddy bark. Inspect the circumstances. He was weaponless, without a vehicle. He couldn’t leave on foot—he’d seen too many blizzards, knew he couldn’t fight this one when he reached the open ground. Besides, Jack was coming. Probably be here soon. And his attackers—who he’d been expecting, who he’d prepared for by laying out his old Model 12 and two boxes of double-ought upon the kitchen table—these men were inside the house, laughing at his little arsenal, drinking coffee from his stove. Waiting for him.

  Where in the name of Heaven was Jack?

  A shred of wind snake tailed down Gun’s back and he realized the wind-shell was coming undone from where it had snagged earlier. The cold told him he couldn’t wait long. Move. He could go back to the garage, look for a weapon. Fight six men with a tire iron? No. Besides, it was too near the house; put a guy near the right window, they’d see him. The boat house, maybe. Yes, the stone boat house. He closed his eyes, trying to see what he’d left in the place when he closed it up in the fall.

  He saw enough to move.

  It was a twenty-minute circuit through the woods and down to the shore. He navigated tree-to-tree, the house sometimes coming into view when the wind lulled. Then he could see lights burning in the windows, an occasional shape going by. They looked warm.

  He got to the boat house at last, the stone-and-wood shelter finally showing itself when he got within fifteen yards of it. The padlock was frozen, the keyho
le stuffed with snow. He took his time, put his mouth to the lock, blew. The metal stuck to his lips. He kept blowing. Five breaths later the lock came off his mouth and he got the key in, turned slowly and felt the give.

  Inside, calm. Looking about him in the low light from the single snow-plugged window Gun praised the silence. The wind’s a voice at your ear, all the time there until you can’t think with it and you commit your last mistake. Slamming the boat house door he’d shut the voice up, forced it to the background. Now he scavenged among summer stuff, marine tools, oars, the dented Alumacraft. From his tackle box he took a spool of woven forty-pound test line and a fillet knife. He used the knife to free his anchor, a folding Danforth all points and edges, from its nylon rope. He rummaged in the dark rafters with his bare fingers until he found long cold steel and brought it down: an old triple-tined fishing spear, its middle tooth gone but two still thick and strong like barbed fangs. He’d broken it the winter before, missing a pike and hitting a big quartz rock on the bottom. Had meant to fix it but instead went out and uncharacteristically bought a new one, a big four-pointer.

  Four points or two. If the fish was big enough, it didn’t matter.

  He was ready ten minutes later and felt for the first time a charge of real fear, as if the cold were radiating out from his belly. His fingers shook in the big leather mitts. Carrying the spear and a lidless Folgers coffee can he went out the lakeside door. The wind spoke again but he did not listen. He reached up with the spear and swept clear a space on the roof, the new shingles showing black and green. He’d built the boat house himself, only last summer. He leaned the spear against the side and used the Folgers can to slosh gasoline on the shingles. Hateful work. Most of it ran off and he got more from the red tank in the Alumacraft. When he had it done he went in the boat house one last time, dropped a lit match into the can, carried it out with his mitts on, and tossed it to the roof.