by Barry, Mike
“Kill me,” she said. “I’ll identify you otherwise. You don’t want that, do you? Go on. You’ve killed everybody else.”
“I don’t want to kill you.”
“Yes you do. You want to kill everyone. I can see it in your face, your eyes. You’re a killer.”
The sirens were much closer. Wulff knew that his time for escape could not be within a margin that exceeded thirty seconds. Farther behind there was dim clanging; they were sending the fire trucks too. They would send everyone to this, and they would spend the next hours pouring, sifting, photographing, arguing. “No I’m not,” he said, “not by choice, anyway. It just turned out that way. I’m made. I’m a made killer.”
“Killer!”
“All right,” he said then, “all right, if I’m a killer, then have it your way, say it, the hell with it,” and dived within the car, leaped for the steering wheel, and turned on the ignition. The car started reluctantly, moved.
“You’re a killer!” the woman screamed as he backed quickly off the street, bumping prone bodies, and as he looked at her ravaged face, her thin outstretched arms, the keening and penitential thrust of her body, it occurred to him that somewhere there was a profound irony here, one of the greatest so far, because what she was trying to convey to him and what he deeply and sincerely was beginning to believe was that in a dark but yet innocent way she had really loved her husband.
XVII
After the cops quit questioning and went away, after the newspaper stories had appeared about the massacre on the Alley, but somewhat before the moment of last confrontation, Maury put the pieces together painfully in his mind. Obviously the man who had robbed them was the same man who had then gone up to the Alley and killed a lot of people, and in both cases the man was the one called the Wolf, who had been running around the country for some months now knocking off all kinds of the criminal element. It had been quite an honor for Maury, in a way, to be held up by him, but it also—and the cops made this clear during the interrogation—in a certain way implicated him in everything that had happened. They hadn’t quite connected the grenades to Maury yet, but sooner or later if they did there was a chance that Maury would be netted as some kind of accessory after or during the fact, and if there was one thing that he did not need, it was shit like that. He could wind up going to prison because of something that some lunatic had done. The grenades were strictly private stock; he had had no intention of giving them to anyone who could not pay a stiff price and guarantee that Maury would not be connected with them, and now look at what had happened. Well, it meant that he had very strong, very personal reasons to want that bastard out of the way.
Sure. Wulff was the only one who could tie him, after all, to the grenades, and if he were out of the picture, that would seal Maury’s safety. Of course, there were a lot of people who had tried to put Wulff out of the picture for even stronger reasons and had had no success … but Maury had a feeling. He just had a feeling that he might be able to do it for exactly that reason: who the hell would suspect him of having any interest in Wulff? What would Wulff himself care? Maury was just some insignificant clown, already forgotten, whom he had knocked off somewhere down the line.
And there was something else, too. An awful lot of people wanted to see Wulff dead. An awful lot of people had tried and failed, but that only made his death more valuable. There might, Maury thought, there might be a hell of a lot in it for him if he could do it. Risky, a long shot, but the rewards were real. It certainly looked better than looking forward to running in the sporting-goods business for the next thirty years or so. The hell with it.
Of course, there was the little problem of finding out where Wulff was and tracking him and doing the job, but he had one great advantage. No one else really knew that either, and Wulff for sure wouldn’t be looking for him. He was completely forgotten to Wulff, minor history. He could come up and have a clear shot.
It was worth it. It was worth investigating, anyway. Wulff would leave a spoor, and Maury would track it. Wulff would leave a trail, and Maury would be there. Close call at the shop; now Wulff’s turn.
“Don’t bother me,” he said to his wife, who had said something irritably to him from the kitchen. “Don’t bother me now, Liz, for Christ’s sake. Can’t you see that I’m trying to think something through?”
He shut off the light and for a while just sat in the living room smoking a cigarette and thinking about his main chance. That idiot Fred could tie him to the grenades too, come to think of it. He might have to do something about Fred as well. Later. Later on. All of the pieces would interlock like machinery winching its way toward the completion of something very complicated and deadly.
XVIII
Sperber, blinking in the sudden light, took the receiver off the shrieking pedestal. Four a.m. He couldn’t talk in the dark, though, never could. “Hello,” he said, “what the hell is it?”
“Leon?”
“What?”
“This you, Leon?”
“It’s me,” he said. He looked for his cigarettes. They were somewhere, had to be somewhere here. He found them, got one out, looked for a match. “What the hell is it? Who is this? It’s four o’clock in the morning.”
“I’m coming to kill you, Leon.”
“What?”
“I’ve left my calling card in Mobile, and now I think I’ll give Raleigh a try. Just moving north, Leon. Are you ready to die?”
“Who is this?” he said.
“This is your destiny,” the voice said, “this is your destiny, Leon. This is retribution.” It laughed in an easy and offhand way. “Four-o’clock retribution, my friend. It is four up there, isn’t it? You don’t have different time zones.”
“Who is this?” he said again. Looking desperately for matches. “What do you want?” The body in the bed behind him moved and said, “Leon, stop talking in your sleep,” and began to snore again.
“Destiny and retribution. You know, Leon,” the voice said conversationally, “I thought one thing, and then I thought the other. Should I call you and give you warning that I was coming, with the chance that you’d sneak away, or should I just come and nail you? It was kind of a hard decision to make. But I wound up making the same decision that I always do. I’m calling to tell you because I want you to sweat and know that it’s coming and just wonder when and how. You don’t have the guts even to run, Leon, so you’ll just stay there and wait. And I’ll get you. You know I’ll get you.”
“You’re crazy. You’re a crank.”
“So hang up, Leon. That’s what you do with crank calls, right? Just hang up. Go ahead.”
He did nothing. He held the phone tightly, looking at the receiver. The receiver seemed to be sweating, of all things, but more likely it was moisture dripping from his forehead into his eyes. He lit a match one-handed finally, got the cigarette going, brought it away from his lips.
“You haven’t hung up, Leon. You’re still holding.”
“You bastard,” he said.
“That’s it. Start swearing at me. That’s what I like; it’s a lot of fun when they start to curse, because that means that I’m really getting through. You can even start shooting if you want. Get your crack troops in and prepare a welcome for me. But I don’t care. I’ve gotten through everybody’s crack troops. Read about Jim Nolk, Leon?”
He felt the uneven palpitation beginning to move across his chest, the trembling that was the sign, his doctor had said, of nervousness, nothing to worry about, he didn’t have a heart condition, shouldn’t be concerned, but then again, he should do everything within his power to avoid situations of tension so that he didn’t get himself into trouble; that was so easy to say. “You got the wrong man,” Sperber said. “If you’re who I think you are, you are talking to the wrong party.” Palpitation and all, he began to feel slightly better, more in control. At least he knew with whom he was talking now, with whom he was dealing. That was better than the strange call in the night, the absolutely unknown
assailant, which he had dreamed of now for thirty years. “I have nothing to do with Nolk,” he said.
“Of course you don’t.”
“Really.”
“Really. Of course really. You and Nolk were in competition, fighting for position. Getting him out of the way must have made you feel good, eh, Leon? Less to worry about. You must have felt really on top for a while then. Well, you had a short ride. You’re next.”
“You’re crazy.”
“True,” the voice said, “I’m crazy. But that’s not going to do you any good when you see your heart and lungs pouring out of you,” and then the phone clicked.
Sperber held it for a while, smoking the cigarette and closing his eyes against the light. He could shut off the light, of course, and lie on the bed; that would have been the easier way around it, but he needed the light. He needed it in his room; he did not want to sit in the dark with this just now. The woman beside him murmured in her sleep and groaned, then yanked at the covers on which he was sitting, unseating him, and pulled them over her head. She was an attractive woman and a good fuck, but hell to sleep with. Where did that expression “sleep with” come from, anyway? You didn’t want to sleep with a woman, you wanted to have sex with her, that was all. But most of the time you wound up sleeping together too, and that was the least part of it. If you could only truly compartmentalize your life so that you could use the parts of women you needed and otherwise not have to mess with them, not have all the goddamned bullshit, you would be a hell of a lot better off, that was for damned sure.
Well, too late for that now.
Nolk, Sperber thought meditatively, Nolk had been an asshole. The caller, though, was absolutely correct in one detail: he had been glad to get the news. Getting Nolk out of the way had been one less problem with which he would have to deal. But the caller was right too; he should have suspected that this Wulff had information and that somewhere Sperber was on the list.
That fucking Díaz talked too much.
Oh, well, Sperber thought, and put out the cigarette with one savage thrust against the wall, letting the spray of ashes come out like fireworks and momentarily consume the light, a pretty picture, something he had always liked to do. Sooner or later it had to happen; Wulff was absolutely correct, and it might as well happen now. The advance warning had been a mistake. There was a slight chance that he might have been taken by surprise, but Wulff, crazy Wulff, did not have the patience to simply do a job. He had gotten emotionally involved in it somewhere along the way. And now it was going to kill him.
Sperber stood, shut off the light, lay down in bed, drew up his knees, and thought about his plans. With the first light he would be on the phone and calling. Everything would be tight, all set. He would give Wulff a nice welcome all right.
Make the calls and arrangements by first light. And for God’s sake, get this bitch out of the house first.
XIX
When Wulff walked into the bar to get some change for another phone call, the two men standing there attacked him, while the bartender, as if by prearrangement, dived for cover.
The attack was so savage, so little anticipated, that Wulff felt in real physical danger for the first time since Carlin had abducted him. It was just a quiet suburban roadhouse, too, on U.S. 1, just south of the city; that was the hell of it: you were all set for something like this in the inner city, but on the road, at noon … well, the hell with it. No time to think of that now.
The first man ran at Wulff, coming in low at shin level and knocking him down, and then the second, swinging a set of brass knuckles, came down on him hard, and Wulff felt the blows coming in around his kidneys, radiating pain. The first man was jammed underneath him, kicking, and Wulff could do nothing but reach out, grab what he could, and squeeze, his hands on the man’s stomach, digging in; the man began to gasp. But even as he felt the strength begin to go from him, the one on top, swinging down, had hurt him with blows to the back of the neck, stunning blows that radiated pain up and down, and Wulff found his hold on consciousness beginning to weaken, as if his fingers were slipping from some bar of attention. Squealing, the man underneath him heaved, tried to unseat him, and reciprocally, Wulff’s fingers came in, he felt the skin beginning to yield all the way. “No!” the man bellowed. “No, don’t do it,” and Wulff kept up the pressure, moving in desperately now, almost ignorant of the pain from above. Something cracked beneath, him and then he was lying on loose pulp, something horrid and slack underneath him, what had been a struggling form; and he rolled, rolled hard on the polished but splintered surfaces of the floor, not thinking of the second man now, only trying to establish some kind of distance, and reached inside his jacket to seize the gun, the pistol like a claw coming up against his hand, and then he had it, but the other man was charging, low to the floor, bent in upon himself, his body in an arc of concentration, and there was no time to level and fire. Glasses smashed on the bar, and then one went by Wulff’s head, coming close, breaking on the wall just behind him. So the bartender was in that too, he thought, and then the diving man was around his knees, and Wulff was to the floor again.
It came up hard; he felt his face rebounding from the horrid impact, much faster and more painful than he would have thought, and, half-stunned, feeling that his features had grown to enormous size, he rolled on his back. The first kick came in, catching him low in the ribs, and then the second, aimed directly for his groin. But the assailant had kicked too fast, gotten eager, misjudged, and the kick went wide; as the leg came back slowly, Wulff grasped it, digging his fingers into the ankle. He squeezed, and the man gave a high, despairing shriek, not from pain but from a different hopelessness, knowing then that he was falling. Wulff yanked it back, and the man came tumbling, spattering onto the floor, landed with a groan.
Wulff tried to separate himself, stand to give the killing shot, but he could not disentangle. The man was squealing like an animal, a mixture of anticipation and fright, trying to grab Wulff, hold him in, and he went prone, seeing the slick and drenched surfaces of the bald head underneath him, finding himself forced in parody of embrace further down, and the second glass went by him, even closer. The bartender had poor aim, but everything was a matter of percentages; sooner or later he would get one of those glasses in, and then what? Then what? Fury vaulted Wulff above the man; he was on his feet, above him, and he began to kick, the first one driving through the man’s ribs, caving them in with an audible splintering, which the man responded to in an almost incidental fashion, one absent scream as he shook on the floor and attempted to bring the brass knuckles up into Wulff’s groin. Wulff barely got out of the way, tried a tentative second kick, which missed the man’s neck and then on the follow-through got everything that he wanted, the kick, light and tentative, made while he was skittering away, catching the man in the temple. He could feel the man’s skull give, thin and tentative at this point, and then the sigh he made as his brains exploded from within. Wulff recovered his balance and got his pistol fully in his hand, looked at the bartender, who was frantically digging below counter level. Something to throw, obviously, something stronger than glasses; if the man had had a gun, Wulff would have been dead by now. The bartender made a squealing noise as he saw Wulff bring the gun in on him, and then dived frantically to the boards; below there was a dim crash. Wulff came up to the bar, poised on the railing in a parody of a man about to order a drink, bent forward, peered over the bar, and aimed the pistol in.
The bartender came up fast, like a long-distance swimmer breaking to surface, using his head as a butting tool, eyes squeezed shut, panting, and the blow caught lucky, smashed the pistol from Wulff’s hand and sent it skittering away. The bartender screamed and came up with a hand, swung blindly, and got Wulff on the forehead; Wulff, stunned, back-pedaled, and the bartender, reaching his hand across frantically, got a bit of Wulff’s jacket and pulled him in again, got off another punch, which bounced off a cheekbone. He was fighting underwater, the bartender was, mumbling high prayer
s under his breath, but his luck was phenomenal; Wulff could appreciate it, even through the dull mask of pain that the blows brought, and then he could think no more, because the bartender, getting underneath the counter again, had found something really deadly, a small blackjack, which he threw with force and accuracy directly toward Wulff Wulff could not dodge it, saw that instantly, could only bring up a hand to block the blow to some degree, and the hand up against the bridge of his nose took a stunning blow from the blackjack; he could tell from the way that it hit and the instant numbing that if it was not broken, it was close to, there was at least severe damage … but then again, the blackjack went skittering off his hand, banged against a wall, and the bartender, as if unmanned now by the failure of his one great gamble, had put up his hands, was staggering backward, reeling, crashing into the mirror.
He said nothing at all as Wulff came upon him with the pistol. At least you had to give him credit for that; the bartender was a professional, and how many men in this trade were? Practically none; only the old man in Miami had shown as much class as the bartender did now. Having played the game by the rules that he devised, he now seemed willing to die by them. He did not plead, he did not whine or beg, he did not even make a last, hopeless attempt to somehow cancel out Wulff’s advantage. Instead he backed against the mirror, his back tight to it, and put his hands behind him, his head slightly bowed, and closed his eyes.
Waiting then. His apron, incongruously, dropped suddenly, held by only one of the strings, and then fell to the floor. He was wearing cheap corduroy pants. He was about fifty, but because of the bald head and blunt figure, looked considerably older than that. Nevertheless, he was very strong.
Wulff held the gun, looked at him. “Why?” he said.
The bartender said nothing at all.