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He woke with a start, a bloodied mouth before him.
“Not a pretty sight, huh?” said the mouth without moving. “But it could be worse. I could make it much worse.”
Blood stained the lips like rust. The eyes squinted. They were Pickett's eyes, Pickett's lips.
“Sit up.”
Apparently, Pickett was speaking to himself. But he didn't move. The bloodied face wrinkled in pain. Pickett opened his mouth; so did the face. It said: “Mil-l-l—” but that was all.
Pickett tried to spit; he couldn't. Pink saliva ran down from the corner of his mouth.
Then the face before him fell away, and Ralph Kemp laughed. He got up from the side of the bed and handed the mirror to Tom. Tom glanced in the mirror at the white bandage covering his nose, then at his hand, covering a black .38. When he looked up at Pickett, he smiled.
“Well,” said Kemp, “let's get started, huh? Let's make it quick and easy.”
Pickett closed his eyes. Fingers closed on his chin; someone groaned. It was Pickett.
“Now, time to wake up and listen.”
Kemp shook the tall man's chin, and the eyes opened again. Pickett stared at Kemp. The grey stubble of Kemp's hair looked like weathered cypress planed smooth on top. Kemp's already tiny eyes narrowed.
“This is the way it'll go. You answer my questions, and Tom won't hurt you. See? Simple.” Kemp lowered himself to Pickett's bed. “Now. Where's Millie?”
“Car—Tom's car.”
Kemp looked to Tom, then back. “You know Tom then?”
“No, Mister Kemp, I never—”
“Shutup, dip-shit.” Kemp stood, hitching up a pair of grey double-knit slacks, and walked toward the man with the gun. Tom's eyelids quivered, and he stepped back. Kemp turned back to Pickett. “Answer me.”
Pickett sat up, knuckled his eyes, and looked around the room, blinking. “I ran into him. Tom, I mean. At the Temple.… I don't think it did him much good.” Pickett looked puzzled, as if unsure why he'd said that. Then he smiled and explained: “Didn't do him any good going to the Temple, I mean.”
Pickett was making a joke.
Kemp stepped forward and swung the back of his hand at Pickett's cheek. The jolt closed Pickett's eyes. When they opened again, they were brighter, less muddy.
“You aint nearly so funny as you gonna look when Tom gets through with you.” Kemp took a deep breath and hitched up his trousers again. “Now. I got three questions, simple and straight forward. Just answer them on the level, and we can all go home to bed.”
“You got one left.”
“What?”
“You asked me about Millie, then if I knew Tom. That's two. You got one left. One question.”
Tom advanced on Pickett, pulling the pistol back over the opposite shoulder. Kemp put an arm in his path, but his eyes never moved from the man on the bed. “Funny boy. Now let's see if you're smart. I asked you the first question already. Now you answer it. Where's Millie?”
“How would I know? I only met her this afternoon. Find her yourself.”
“Where?”
“Try the Personals.” Kemp swung the other hand at him, open palm. Pickett grabbed it with his own, and chucked Kemp across the mouth with his cast.
Kemp straightened, his pink eyes smaller than they'd been before. Calmly, he wiped red from his mouth with the back of his hand. He motioned to Tom. “Bernie,” he called.
Tom reached Pickett in two strides. Tom put a hand to Pickett's collar and a gun to his belly and pulled Pickett to his feet. Pickett looked down, apparently surprised that he could stand.
“Bernie!”
The un-soft man with the soft voice emerged from what must have been the bathroom. He held one finger to the side of his nose and inhaled sharply twice through the other. He squinted absently toward Kemp, then Pickett. As he moved toward the tall man on the bed, he dusted a smudge of white powder from the tip of his nose. Tom smiled at the prospect of violence, and turned to Bernie as he approached, a smart ass grin of expectation lighting his face. His revolver moved with his head. So did Pickett.
He brought his cast down hard on Tom's hand; Tom wailed, and bent to the blow. The gun exploded into the wall behind Pickett, then clattered to the concrete floor. Quickly, Pickett brought the cast back up into Tom's hairless face. Tom moaned and went over backwards into the advancing Bernie.
“Shithead,” said Bernie, kicking Tom aside and moving toward Pickett.
Kemp's hand went inside his coat.
Pickett came up with Tom's revolver; it roared.
The slug careened off the floor in front of Bernie, whined between his legs, and smashed into the door behind him. Bernie froze.
Kemp slowly removed his hand from his coat, and held it, palm up, in front of him. “Easy, man.”
Tom moaned and rolled onto his stomach. Bernie looked down at him without emotion, and then put his hand to the purplish brown stain on his own left cheek. Both he and the bruise looked angry.
“Just take it easy.” Kemp pushed at the air with open palms. “Nobody wants to do anything they'll—they'll be sorry for.”
Pickett smiled, painfully, and wiped his mouth with the finger tips at the end of his cast. “You oughta be sorry. Kidnapping's a capital offense—or'd you forget that, Ralph?”
Bernie cocked his head to one side and took a step toward the man with the gun.
“C'mon, Bernie, show's over.” Bernie stopped with one foot forward. “I think I'd feel a whole lot better if both of you put your hands behind your head.” They did. Though it seemed to cost Bernie considerable effort and no little embarrassment. “And sit on the floor.”
“Oh for Chrissake—”
“Sit!”
Kemp sat.
“Now… just sit tight.” And Pickett lowered himself back to the edge of the bed. He took a few deep breaths, all the while swinging Tom's .38 back and forth between the two men on the floor, as if trying to decide which to shoot first. After a moment, Pickett smiled with half his mouth and chuckled. “Let's make this quick,” he said in imitation of Kemp; then, in his own voice, he added, “I got a headache.”
Kemp chuckled. “He's got a headache.”
“Let's talk about yours first. What about Millie? What did you want from her?”
“Oh, come on man… It's business.”
“What sort of business? Blackmail business—”
“You're way off—”
“-- or murder business?”
“Hey, come on now. You can't connect us with that Herb Purdy shit.”
“Why not? He worked for you and he's connected to Millie. And you're after her. Want her enough to risk capital crime to get her. And Purdy… well, he's dead.”
“Hey man, hold on. What I want with Millie aint got nothing to do with Purdy. And I don't know nothing about him and Millie.”
“Why is it I don't believe you, Ralph?”
“Who cares,” said Bernie.
“Shut up, for Chrissake,” said Kemp.
“Uh-arghf,” said Tom. He pushed up from his stomach to his elbows and rolled over. Blood matted his face from nose to neck.
“You better turn him over before he chokes,” said Pickett.
Bernie gave Tom a shove.
Kemp muttered: “He might as well for all he's good for.” Bernie chortled. Pickett smiled.
“Hard to get good help, Ralph?”
“You better believe it.”
“Then why burn Herb?”
“You don't hear so good. I said I didn't know nothing about that.”
“Like hell.”
“Look, I went after the girl. Okay, it's business. She ran out on me. It's hard enough getting good meat for a dump like that, let alone let em think they can just up and leave whenever they want.”
“You're breaking my heart, Ralph.”
“She was holding out, too. Doing overtime with the customers, and not paying the management. We got overhead, you know.”
&
nbsp; “Overhead? Hell, that place's hardly got a roof.”
“Overhead, man. What we're selling out there aint exactly legal in neither county. So, I put the joint on the county line. A little overhead sprinkled in each county and they can say it's the other one that aint doing their Christian duty. Get me?”
“You want me to believe that Millie's the only one that ever held out on you?”
“No, no, they all do, I know that. But they know they aint supposed to, y'understand—that I don't like it when they do. I let em though, cause it keeps em there. Soon as they start talking about leaving, I stick it to em. They gotta pay back the hold-backs. I even keep tabs on it. Sort of. That's what the old man's there for. See? It's just sort of a—”
“You expect them to fall for that?”
“Look—” Kemp was talking man to man now. “Those beavers I got out there aint too bright.”
“Jesus!” Bernie jumped as Tom threw himself over and sat bolt upright. Tom looked quickly at Bernie, then Kemp, then Pickett, then back to Kemp, without seeing any of them.
“Di' we ge' hiwm?” Tom managed through swollen lips.
Kemp rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Sure, shit-head. We hog-tied him, beat the crap out of him, then gave him your gun so he could finish himself off. What the hell you think—”
“Ah, Mifer Kemp—”
“Shutup, for pete's sake,” said Bernie.
Pickett cut in: “What were you doing at the Ayers' place?”
All three were silent. Tom looked at Bernie; Bernie looked at Kemp. Ignoring them both, Kemp barked: “Business.”
“You sure as hell do a lot of business. What sort was it this time? Blackmail business, maybe?”
Kemp looked relieved. Bernie looked down and smiled. Tom showed the whites of his eyes.
“What's with you, man? I said business. Legit. I got a construction company up Umatila. We done most of the work on the Temple. They was hitting those suckers for more dough for an extension to the TV studio, and Ed invited me over. I'm the contractor.” He and Bernie actually looked proud.
Tom looked ready to pass out again. Pickett just looked tired.
“Yeah, and I'm the Shah of Iran. Where's my flying carpet?”
Bernie looked up.
“My car, Bernie. Where's my car.”
Bernie tossed his head toward the door. “Outside.”
“Keys,” said Pickett.
Bernie looked at Tom.
“Keys.”
Bernie stuck his hand into Tom's coat and tossed car keys at Pickett. They fell to the floor. Pickett watched them hit. When he looked up, Kemp's hand was fumbling inside his coat again, and Bernie was standing, violence in his eyes.
“Now, now…” Pickett rose, flourishing Tom's .38.
Tom fell over onto his side senseless.
The other three men stared at him, exasperation on two faces, a wearied amusement on the third. He knelt and picked up the keys.
“I'm gonna take my car and leave. After I'm gone, you'd best get him to the hospital.”
“You're gonna be sorry for this,” said Kemp.
Pickett pulled the back of his hand across his mouth, and looked at the blood that collected on it. “Like I'm not already… Anyway, you're the one, Kemp. I make it two counts of attempted kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, battery… That's without accessory on Purdy's murder.”
“You're crazy. You know that?” said Kemp. “Fuckin. Crazy.”
Picket laughed. “You know, Ralph, that's about the only thing you've said tonight that I believe. And Ralph… You best get yourself a new sling for that thing under your arm. That one's not for shit.”
Pickett went out the door backwards.
It was a motel, The Rambling Rose. And the Nova was outside.
The third try, it started.
16
Bodie Pickett drove back to the boat-house with his good hand on the wheel and Tom's .38 in his lap. The windows were dark.
The clouds, dark as well, were low and heavy. Large drops fell irregularly into the dust of the driveway.
He pushed open the boat-house door with his cast and waved the revolver at the dark. He pulled the string without effect. He crept up the stairs, which cracked and groaned with every step, and went through the apartment door like Eliot Ness. The place was empty.
None of the lights worked, but the water did and Pickett stripped and showered in the dark. When he emerged, it rained softly and steadily. The air was heavy with moisture and the steam from asphalt streets still hot from the afternoon sun.
Pickett dressed, fried two eggs, and chipped the remaining coffee out of the jar. The grimed floor of the porch was slick beneath his bare feet with the spray from screen-filtered rain. And the rain fell hard now.
The palm fronds bent, and the canal frothed below. But as suddenly as it had come, it left. The roar became a patter, then measured pops, then, finally, the random drip-drop that would go on till morning. The usual night sounds returned, and with them, a wrinkle in Pickett's brow.
He went back inside to the phone. It was as dead as the lights. J.B. had finally slipped from the register of the living.
Pickett swallowed the rest of the coffee, and then went down to the Nova. The air was clear, and relatively cool. Moonlight glistened off the wet car. It looked showroom new.
It sounded in need of a tune-up.
Pickett tucked Tom's .38 under the seat and headed back toward Belle Haven.
Slow Fall Page 4