I looked at the pixie lawyer and showed the way with my hand. “After you, Counselor. I prefer to make a dramatic entrance.”
He turned that courtroom stare on me again. “One day your entrance and exit will be simultaneous.”
“Like getting into a car with a hot charge on it?”
“An excellent example. The day is coming closer all the time.”
“When it gets here, we’ll worry about it.”
He nodded, his face bland. “This could be the day, my obstreperous friend. I have heard a certain nasty rumor.”
“All rumors are nasty.”
“Not like this one.”
“Care to tell me about it?”
“I’m not given to promulgating rumors. If this one is true, you’ll know about it soon enough.”
“Fine. Not ... shall we?” I nodded toward the library and followed him up to the big doors.
They were all there. The scene wasn’t much different from the first time, with one exception. Nobody was sitting behind the big desk now. They were all grouped for mutual protection at the far end of the room, drinks in hand, faked joviality in their lowered voices, hostility seeping through every pore, but with something hidden in their demeanor that meant they had a time bomb ready to hand me and if ever the picture of the old man on the wall was contemplating the gathering with absolute pleasure, it was this moment. The painted eyes followed me with a challenging dare that said I might jump the trap if I had been a real Barrin, but bastards didn’t have a chance at all. The try had been good, but that’s all it was ... a try ... and you don’t try to leap the chasm; they make it or die at the bottom.
Nobody heard me when I said, “Fuck you, old man,” then went over and sat on the edge of the desk while Hunter took his place behind it.
So far nobody had even said hello.
The lawyer didn’t have to tell them. Dennie and Alfred simply nodded when Hunter took out the stock certificates and handed them to me, but the way they watched me was the same way the picture watched me and when Hunter said, “Ten thousand dollars’ worth of nothing, Dog. All yours.”
“It would have been the same had I not come back.”
“Are you satisfied?”
I pushed the pretty green sheets back to him. “Hang on to them for me. And yes, I’m satisfied.” I lit a cigarette and looked at my cousins who seemed to be enjoying their drinks. The only one who wasn’t all the way happy was Marvin Gates and he seemed to be ashamed of himself for some reason or another. The booze had already taken hold and, whatever his problem was, it was disappearing in an alcoholic blur.
Alfred settled himself back into the big wing chair and made a mock toast at me with his glass. “At least we still have Grand Sita, Dog. Paid for now, of course. No outstanding mortgages, no debts. All free and clear with a standing offer to buy for quite a few cash millions of dollars.”
“Good for you. I never wanted this place anyway.”
“Ah, but the solvency of having it is an enjoyable experience.”
“Fine.”
“Our position here dictates the value of all the other properties. We can make Mondo Beach either worthless or of immense value. Of course, we have no intention of enhancing your section. Eventually it will erode into sand, grass and rubbish.”
“Unless Barrin Industries takes a sudden turn for the better.”
“And there’s little chance of that, is there?” Dennie asked smugly.
“One never knows,” I told him.
I heard Hunter’s finger tap the desk for my attention. “They’re well aware of the situation. Cross McMillan has bought a small piece of the estate here for an exorbitant price. Ergo, they are now free and clear and well situated for the years to come.”
“Only until prices and taxes rise, Counselor.”
“The same holds true for you.”
“I didn’t think they’d be that shrewd. What’s the gimmick?”
Dennie came out of his chair sideways. He still reminded me of a snake slithering from its hole and if he had had a forked tongue he would have stuck it out and hissed. His smile was deadly as hell and he was tasting his big moment of satisfaction as he walked over to the desk and tossed a pair of black and white two-by-two photos in my lap.
His voice was maliciously soft when he said, “You’re a dead man, Dog.”
I looked at the pictures, clear, sharp, absolutely identifiable photos of Sheila McMillan and me all naked as hell in the big bed at the old beach house, positioned as pornographically as the best Swedish double-X rated jobs and when I showed them to Hunter I heard him grunt and tear them up.
“Oh, there are plenty of copies,” Dennie said. “Cross McMillan has a set too. These went with the property sale. Now he has you earmarked for a grave. Unfortunately, since you are illegitimate, the burial site will remain unmarked. Something like your mother’s.”
When I hit him his whole face exploded into a shower of blood and teeth and before he was able to fall I caught him with a right to the ribs that make them crackle like broken sticks under my fist. Dennie’s skull bounced off the wood, but he was still conscious when I hauled him up again and tore one ear off the side of his head and he tried to scream through his shattered mouth, but all that came out was a faint squeak before he fainted. I let him drop and turned around to the rest. ,
They weren’t looking at me. The solitary ear, still bleeding from the shards of skin surrounding it took all their attention and I said, “My time bomb was better than yours.”
Alfred got sick to his stomach.
Pam said something about getting a doctor, but the phone was on the desk and they had to pass me to get it. Nobody wanted to.
Then Marvin Gates said, “I took the pictures, Dog.”
He thought he was going to die and wondered why I didn’t bother killing him right then. I said, “Why, Marv?”
He gave me a mute shrug, waited a few second and finished his glass. “I’m a weak character. I talk too much, I give in too easily.” He twirled the glass in his fingers, staring at it. “I don’t give a damn what you do to me.”
“Forget it,” I said.
Veda got sick then too. She didn’t heave. The vomit just dribbled out of her mouth. Very slowly her eyes rolled back in her head and she passed out, bubbling through her own lunch.
Marvin looked up from the empty glass, for a moment or two his eyes clear. “Cross is going to kill you, Dog. He has to. Everybody knows about you and his wife now.”
I waved a thumb toward the family. “You get paid enough for the job, buddy?”
“My checking account has been fattened considerably by a cash gratuity. If I live, I can live the life of a fat, grubby worm. But independent.”
“You’ll live,” I informed him. “Stay happy.”
“Not knowing I helped kill you.”
My face must have looked pretty weird because he seemed to draw back into his stupor again. “Don’t wipe me off the list until you see me autopsied, my friend.”
I heard Leyland Hunter gathering up the papers and stuffing them into his attaché case. He followed me outside and took his coat and hat from the butler in the foyer. Harvey looked at me with the same enigmatic smile and said, “I’ve already called the doctor, sir. I hear they can do wonders with detached extremities if the parts are rejoined in time.”
When we were back in the car we drove two blocks before we stopped. Leyland Hunter decided the time had come for him to get sick too. When he finished, he wiped his mouth and watched me a full minute before he said,
“Where can you go now, Dog?”
That grin came back and I swung the wheel at the next comer. “Why, to see Cross McMillan, of course.”
The little VW pulled out of a driveway a block farther on and stayed behind us another quarter mile before it turned off. It wasn’t a killer’s type of car, but I wondered why one just like it picked me up at the intersection just a short way from the plant. It hung back there, then it was gone again. The
afternoon was gray and wet, almost like dusk, but nighttime was still a long way off.
Arnold Bell liked to work at night.
So did I.
XXIV
Five days. In that length of time all the interior and exterior shots of the Barrin complex would be completed and the Fruits of Labor cast and crew could go on to other locations and into their rented studios to wind up the intricate slot structure of the story with closed sets for the nudie scenes and galleries of exuberant spectators for the wide-open stuff. The story was all Barrin-oriented and the local facilities of Linton were enjoying a time of prosperity as if it had never happened before.
Publicity and public relations are terrible professional mind benders, and the smiling faces of the reborn never knew what was happening to them. Barrin Industries were alive again. They thought they knew that. Their talents were needed and they were there. The beehive was open. Suck the flowers, store the honey. The queen was laying her eggs, the drones were in attendance, and they didn’t know the beekeeper was ready with the insecticide.
He didn’t like the taste of the honey.
Someplace the stockholders were home all nestled snug in their beds and the little room was sprinkled with the men carrying the briefcases and folders of efficiency reports. The chair was held by the guy with the scar on his skull who had to kill me and he kept looking down the long table at me with a benign expression I couldn’t quite comprehend, but he had the money to buy the kill if Arnold Bell missed, and even if it never happened, to pay for destruction piece by piece.
The Farnsworth Aviation report was brief. Barrin couldn’t handle its projected output, but certain McMillan plants could.
And the raid was on.
Until the recess when the Farnsworth vice-president asked me over a cup of coffee if I had full title to a certain piece of arid desert land and I told him I did ... acres and acres of it. In fact, quite a few square sections of the damn snake-infested place where the tourists took photographs.
Would I sell?
Conditionally, yes.
Leyland Hunter liked to have had a shit hemorrhage.
The picture of the old man was smiling more broadly now. I was taking the big run prior to leaping the chasm and he was waiting for me to fall in because I didn’t quite get up enough speed. All the dirty slob wanted was for me to hit the side and carom down into total disaster knowing I almost made it. And almost isn’t enough.
Pathos didn’t become the old lawyer. Sympathy wasn’t his bag at all, even when it came to me. He could purse his lips and remember the two broads in bed and even old Dubro, but legal sympathy he couldn’t afford. He shook his head politely, took a bite of his tuna fish salad and said, “It isn’t enough to save Barrin, Dog.”
“What do they need?”
“A miracle,” he suggested.
“Money won’t do it?”
“Didn’t a certain Roland Holland tell you the pros and cons of the great fiscal situation?”
“Somewhat, Mighty Hunter, but I’m no mathematician. Numbers come hard to me.”
“Only your dick comes hard to you.”
“Save the dirty talk for the dolls.”
“Your land sale can keep Barrin alive for a month, and that’s only because the public spotlight is on the scene. The minute it’s off ... good-bye.”
“You sound depressed,” I said.
“Naturally. I lived through an era. No, an epoch. I hate to see it destroyed. You opened the Pandora’s box and let them all take a peek. They went for the bait and now the world collapses around them.” He paused, looked at me intently, then asked, “How much are you worth in cash?”
“A few million left.”
“Forget it, unless you feel like playing Santa Claus in a town of unbelieving kids. In one day they’re all going to know and go home to broken dreams. I told you the worst thing to do was come back.”
“Horseshit.”
“You’ve lost, Dog.” The way he said it was adamant.
This time I had to fake it. “Bullshit.”
“No matter what animal drops it, the stuff is still feces,” he told me. “I’ll never know why you did it.”
“All I wanted was to come home.”
“You see what happened when you did?”
“Shit.”
“What happened to the animals?”
“Look behind you.”
Bennie Sachs hitched his gun belt up, nodded and took a seat beside my lawyer, but he didn’t bother to even look at him. “We traced the car.”
“I could have told you it was mine,” I said
“Plastics.”
“Uh-huh. On the exhaust pipe. Heat sensor.”
“Pretty smart, aren’t you?”
“Right, friend.”
“I had a call from New York.”
“To be expected.”
“I don’t like you, Mr. Kelly.”
“And I didn’t ask for any admiration, either. What’s your problem now?”
“Certain McMillan personnel are in town.”
“Good for them.”
“They’re guards in his other plant. They seem to have a project in mind.”
“Why haven’t they hit me then? I haven’t been hiding.”
“That’s what I can’t figure out. Yet. But I will.”
“Very nice, Officer. Just remember that you’re here to protect your constituency.”
“Go piss up a stick, Mr. Kelly.”
I said, “I tried that once, but it all ran down on my hand.”
When he left, Leyland said, “I didn’t get that.”
“I didn’t either,” I said. “Let’s go back to the meeting. The raid ought to be about over.”
The legal language sounded like a papal encyclical and it all boiled down to one thing. Cross McMillan owned Barrin Industries and Cross McMillan was committed to destroying Barrin Industries and there was no possible hope of keeping Barrin or Linton alive. The current contracts would be honored, but executed in other factories, leaving Barrin a shell without even a hermit crab to take occupancy.
Inside the building the machines were humming and the operators were smiling, but the crunch was on the way and the lunch buckets and thermos bottles would be just another nostalgic memory of days that almost were. How many times could a guy say “shit!” ... so that it was an expletive like saying something when you bashed your finger with a hammer?
Screw the money. They all had their social security, their guaranteed pension, and if the government kept up its comlib policies, they could get even more, except these weren’t the ones to ask for it.
All they had was a hope and I smashed it.
There sure would be a lot of people at my funeral.
Everyone would be laughing.
I lit a cigarette and lounged back against the wall until he came out and when I saw him I said, “Hello, Cross. I hear you want to kill me.”
He stopped, told the two with him to go on and pulled a cigar from his pocket, accepting my light. When he blew the smoke away he said, “Your semantics is lousy, Dog. I merely said I was going to have you killed.”
“No guts, Cross?”
“Plenty, nithead, but why should I pay the big bill when I could have it done for me.”
“Your tense stinks, if you want to play semantics. The shooters should be here now. Have trouble recruiting them?”
Cross smiled and I felt myself stiffen up. If they have to smile, I don’t want any friendly overtones in the way a mouth twists because it means your back isn’t clear like you thought it was and you made the biggest mistake of all. I had my hand on the .45 without taking it out of my jacket and nothing happened except McMillan smiled again and gave me a small pathetic look. “Come on outside,” he said.
I let him get way ahead of me, and when the entrance was clear I followed him out and stood there in the big doorways of Barrin Industries with the man who had just destroyed it, looking out at all the smiling faces who thought the world had
come home to roost and they had the lunch pails to collect the eggs in and I knew what I felt like ... the stuff you put five pounds of in a two pound bag.
“I called them off,” Cross said.
Hell, I didn’t even pay any attention to him. I heard words and not intent. I took a drag on my butt, flipped it out into the rain and looked right past him when I asked, “Who?”
“The ones that were going to kill you.”
“Balls.”
“Got a cigarette?”
I shook one out of my pack, lit it for him and stepped back. His cigar was still smoldering on the step.
“They could have done it, you know,” he stated.
“Maybe.”
“I could pay for a lot of them.”
“They’d get tired after a while. Expecially after I knocked off their gold mine.”
“Not quite, Dog.”
“Then let them go.” I blew a stream of smoke in his face and he didn’t even blink.
“I like to return favors, my canine compatriot.”
“Talk sense.”
“You get your life ... because you gave me a wife.”
“Buddy, you ain’t no Ogden Nash. Stop rhyming.”
He smiled again. His teeth showed too and his head flushed a little so I saw the scar across the bald spot where I had creamed him with the brick. But that was years ago and all I was interested in was the smile. “You’ll live, Dog. But that’s all. Absolutely all. You gave me back something I wanted all my fucking life ... a wife I loved who could love me sexually. You knew she was frigid, didn’t you?”
I couldn’t figure where the hell he was driving in this weather. “I thought everybody knew it,” I said. All I wanted was to put a permanent crease in his head and he didn’t know how close he was coming to getting one.
“So they did,” Cross smiled. He took another puff on the cigarette and reached in his pocket. He took out a fat manilla envelope folded carelessly in four sections and handed it to me. “Sheila loves me, Dog. I finally got really laid for the first time. Laid. Hell, that’s not even the term. I got everything out of her I ever wanted and it took you to shake her out of whatever the hell was wrong with her.” He sucked on the cigarette again and let it fall at his feet. “Care to tell me what it was?”
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