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Kiss Me Twice

Page 32

by Thomas Gifford


  “Looks like a long climb,” Leary said doubtfully.

  “She said if we drove any farther we might alert Tash. She said she’ll come back down the hillside with us, a couple of minutes rather than twenty minutes of walking by the road. She knows the mountain.” Cassidy was winding his scarf around his mouth and chin to keep the deluge out. The gale whined at the car. The motor was still running, for the heat.

  They checked their guns, then jammed them deep into their trench-coat pockets. “I don’t like this, Lew. The weather aside, it’s too easy.”

  “She’s waiting for us. She told me which window to go to. She’ll come out and we take off. Benedictus will be wrapped up with the Englishman and Moller—”

  “Two bits says the Englishman never got through.”

  “Two bits says we’re on our way home in an hour.”

  “Well, we better get to it.”

  Cassidy cut the engine and the wipers stopped. Immediately rain flooded the glass. Together they headed across the slippery road and into the gully that was a muddy river, then up the side, wet stones and underbrush and scrub underfoot. He was suddenly on his knees, breathing hard, grabbing at sharp-edged rocks, feeling his palm slit by an icy point, hearing Terry swearing. “Dammit to hell,” the voice came to him, “I’ve torn my pants! Shit!” He kept pushing upward, holding on to ropes of underbrush, trying to convince himself that it was all a snap.

  He was licking blood off his hand, staring at the windows of the lodge, trying to keep the rain out of his eyes. The sharp edge had cut through the leather of his glove. Terry arrived panting. He’d lost his hat on the climb. “Brand-new Dobbs you owe me, amigo. How’s your leg?”

  “My leg is killing me. Make you feel better?”

  “A little. So where is she?”

  He was yelling to be heard above the screaming wind tearing up from the canyon. Cassidy shook his head. “Inside somewhere. She’s waiting for us. She said she’ll come to this window. So we wait.”

  They huddled in the overhang of the roof. It was a very modern building, a Hollywood Frank Lloyd Wright adaptation. Slabs of rough stone and redwood, plenty of glass, low-slung, stone fireplace chimneys, very elegant, perfect for Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. A fancy house with two cold men soaked to the skin waiting to rescue the leading lady. But she was missing her cue. It was like waiting after the director calls for action and nothing happens.

  “Lew, we’d better find her. I’m half frozen. This fucking wind.”

  They lifted themselves up onto the balcony running across the rear of the lodge, facing out across the slope of the mountainside. The night was flat black with rain whipping in all directions at once. They moved slowly, carefully, hoping the storm would cover whatever sound they made. Rain was dripping from the timbered balcony.

  Through the window Cassidy could see the warm, comfortable room. The walls of stone softened by paneling and heavy nubby curtains, huge throw rugs over polished wood, logs burning in the fireplace, a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket, large slipcovered chairs and couches … Not a living soul.

  They worked their way around to the front of the house where the rain made jumpy puddles in the forecourt. A single set of muddy tire tracks was filling up with water, leading to the six-car garage that matched the house. There had to be somebody home. But there was no movement, only the sound of the wind like a single endless shriek. And the rain lashing the night. Two men with guns in the shadows wondering what to do, both of them already knowing that this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Terry Leary said. “We did what we were contracted to do. …”

  Cassidy took the .38 from his pocket. His leg hurt and he limped through the rain to the house. Terry Leary was saying something but the wind blew it away. Terry’s hair was plastered to his head like a skullcap. Cassidy stood under the eaves and tried to listen for any identifiable sound but there was nothing, only the storm. He turned the handle on the door and pushed it open. The warm air came like the breath of life. They went inside.

  It didn’t take them long once they started looking.

  They were too late.

  They found the body hanging by a chain thrown over one of the exposed beams in the kitchen. The chain had been wrapped tightly around the wrists, then the body hoisted up so that it hung swaying in the center of the kitchen. The tile floor was slick with blood, a lake of it. A constant dripping from above, like a metronome. There was blood on the refrigerator and the stove and the cabinets and the walls. The throat, wrists, chest, and abdomen had all been slit open.

  Cassidy stood looking at the frayed remains of Manfred Moller, taking it all in, the thick, sickening smell of blood and waste. The caked butcher knife lay on the floor by the wall. In the blood on the floor, tiny and pathetic, lay his penis.

  Cassidy slipped in the blood, nearly fell down, vomited into the sink. Terry Leary stood staring out the window where the rain was snapping at the glass. Cassidy washed his mouth out at the faucet, stood up, tried not to look at the mess. “This is insane,” he said.

  “It’s torture,” Leary said.

  “You don’t say.” Where was everybody? This job on Moller was warm and fresh. He caught a glimpse of the blood-streaked legs, the sodden trousers pulled down to the ankles.

  “Why would Benedictus torture Moller? Weren’t they in cahoots, Lew?”

  “Moller had been sleeping with Mona, that’s one thing. But it’s the minotaur. … Moller was holding on to it, it was his hole card. He could trade it for Karin—that was what it had come down to. He couldn’t let Benedictus have it … then he would have lost everything.”

  “So Benedictus wanted the minotaur. He knew about it from the time Moller arrived in Maine.”

  “And he must have played a part in getting it to Brenneman in Boston. Benedictus, Karl Dauner, that bunch.” He kept hearing the dripping blood. Something was mixing with the smell of blood and death. Something was making him sick again. “I think he did this to him to get information—not for revenge. He’s crazy, Terry. This is all crazy. … It’s like it was with Max Bauman, when everything went out the window and there was nothing left but the craziness—” He sniffed. “What the hell is that smell?”

  “Did Moller tell him?”

  “If he did, it was because he wanted Tash to finish him off as a favor.”

  Cassidy turned his back on the scene and went back down the hallway to the living room. The door still stood open. The fire crackled.

  “They’re still here,” Cassidy murmured, staring out into the storm. The single set of muddy tire tracks was barely visible now. “Nobody’s left. No fresh tracks.” He led the way outside, lurched against the wind, almost blinded by the downpour until he reached the right angle where fifteen feet away the garage building stood. He turned and ran back toward Terry Leary, who was halfway between house and garage, standing like a statue in the expanse of gravel and mud seeping down from the hills.

  “They’re in the garage,” Cassidy called.

  Terry Leary turned, cupped a hand to his ear.

  Cassidy thought: Gas, it was gas. …

  He was flat on his face, skidding full length in the wet, engulfed in a rumbling explosion that shook the ground. Pain shot through his ears. Wooden beams, aflame, cartwheeling through the blowing rain, bouncing, skittering like drunken skaters in the mud puddles. Glass shattering, filling the air. The house was gutted, the roof gone or hanging inward like something melting. For a moment, through the framework and the leaping yellow flames, Cassidy saw the body of Manfred Moller twisting below the beam. Then with a roar and a crash the kitchen ceiling collapsed, sparks rose in a massive bright bouquet of red and yellow and blue and the body was gone.

  Cassidy rolled over, got to his knees, felt his bad leg collapse, crawled toward Terry Leary, who was on his back. A flaming piece of wood had struck him a glancing blow, knocked him down, and he was struggling to get into a sitting position. He stared past C
assidy to the house. “So much for the evidence,” he gasped. Rain and gritty, acrid smoke swirled everywhere.

  “They’re in the garage,” Cassidy said. The wind choked him. He pulled his gun from his pocket.

  He looked from the house to the garage.

  Suddenly, without time to realize that one set of doors had opened, he was blinded by the glare of two huge headlamps. There was another explosion in the wreckage of the house. The car surged to life, burst out of the darkened garage, smashed through the sheets of rain, swerving as it came, then slanting toward them. It was the big Rolls-Royce Mona had driven out to the motor court. From where he knelt in the mud the grille seemed high as an iron gate, the tires bore down on them like the great grinding wheels of a tractor, the Rolls moved sluggishly and quickly all at once, swerved and skidded, roaring, gears grinding, mud spitting from beneath the wheels. … It came skidding toward them, tons of coachwork, the lights cutting at the rain and the night, two people inside, a voice screaming over the wind and the fire reaching for the trees and the roar and the grinding, run for it, run for it, her pale face behind the window, eye sockets like black holes in a death’s head, the car turning, now moving slowly, swinging around, the driver’s side across their path, a hand at the window, the car floating on the mud, the muzzle flash once, twice, the crack of the gun lost in the wind, water spurting up in front of Terry Leary, the second shot hitting him, Terry stumbling and falling to his knees in the mud, pitching sideways, the son of a bitch only has one hand, how can he drive and shoot at the same fucking time, and the Rolls was straightening out, the target practice was over, that one goddamn hand back on the wheel, foot to the pedal, water spraying, Terry Leary sprawled bleeding, feet kicking, the headlights picking him out, a cop is down, a cop is down, Cassidy on his knees, fumbling to get the gun free with his wet glove, losing precious moments, the Rolls turning, determined, evil, bearing down on Terry Leary—Christ, the first shot, it hit some metal work, flew away with a twang, too fucking late, the wheels crossed the fallen body, grinding Terry into the gravel, his legs kicking wildly, reflexively, the life being ground exceeding small, coming at Cassidy, swerving again, her face like goddamn murdering buggering empty dark death at the window, he felt the rush of power as it swept past and he fell backward, felt the heat from the underworld, the scorching fiery furnace that had been the house, and some of the wet black trees were shriveling and burning and the Rolls was headed away, lights poking ahead at the night. …

  Terry Leary lay badly twisted, his trench coat torn, crisscrossed by tracks, blood soaking through, blood on his face. Cassidy knelt over him, peered into his face, saw eyelids flutter, the beginning of a wet bloody grin. “Where’s the happy ending? Shit, amigo … take my gun. …” He coughed, blood bubbling. “I don’t feel so hot, amigo. … Take the fucking gun. … Make the bastard pay. …”

  Cassidy took the gun, jammed them both into his pockets, and turned without a good-bye, began to move without thinking. Two minutes to get down the hill on foot, two minutes the hard way, two minutes through the rain and mud and past the sharp icy rocks, and he was staggering, running past the crackling conflagration, feeling the flames hot on his face, slipping and falling, trying to slide feet first down the hill, scarf ripped away by an unseen branch, hold on to the guns, asshole, the miserable fucking mick bastard killed Terry back there and he’s about to wish he hadn’t. …

  Cassidy slid down to the road, gasping for breath, saw his sad little Plymouth drowning where they’d left it. He steadied himself on the fender, tried to breathe like a human being, tried to get his hands steady, took both guns in his cold bare hands, stepped out into the road, the wind smashing him like a giant fist across the chest, shaking him. He stood in the blowing, raving wind and rain, staring into the night, straining to see the powerful headlights of the Rolls curving around the mountain road, waiting, seeing her white mummy’s face behind the glass, seeing the tires ripping Terry’s trench coat, the blood, the pink bubbles looking black at the corners of his mouth, in his pencil-thin mustache. …

  The Rolls took the turn at the crawl on the slippery road, slid toward the abyss, straightened out, gathering speed as it came toward him, oh, Terry, my old amigo, here goes nothin’ and he raised the two guns, waiting for the Rolls to come close, waiting until the lights had caught him so Benedictus could see him like Grim Faceless Fate waiting in the road, and then he began blazing away, firing into the great black beast, aiming as best he could between the massive round headlamps, unable to tell if he was hitting a goddamn thing, but his soul and his anger and his pain were in every bullet, like driving a knife home again and again, for Terry and Karin and old Pilkers and the Brothers Moller and the poor dead Gypsy in the road, not an end to killing but an exclamation fucking point, and he blew one of the headlights out and he knew the Rolls was going to run him down, and as it closed on him, visible in the reflections of its last cyclopean headlamp against a billion raindrops, as it closed on him one door flew open, a body swung out into the road, was yanked back as if it were on a spring, the Rolls skidded, spun slowly, almost gracefully, to the edge of the narrow road, hung suspended in space like a nightmare that might come true, and then slowly plummeted over the edge. …

  Cassidy stood at the side of the road, staring into the darkness, following the descent by means of the one sturdy headlight, spinning, poking now at the night sky, now at the darkness below, and then the light went out and the wind shrieked at itself and above it all the sky was bursting with the colors of the fire raging up the mountain, in the rain.

  Cassidy’s arms were sore from absorbing the kicks, his legs were shaking, but by God he was the last of the gunslingers, which just went to show you: Hollywood could turn a man into a hero of its own.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THE MOUNTAINSIDES PRESSED IN AROUND him. He couldn’t see the Rolls anymore. But in his mind the gunfire racketed on, trapped, and he wished it would stop. But it just kept roaring and he kept seeing the Rolls fishtailing and skidding and spinning, the blur of the body dragging along, bouncing on the road like a rag doll, the door slamming on it as if it might be cut in two. …

  He went back to the Plymouth, took the flashlight from the glove compartment, and went over the edge where the Rolls had skidded off the road. It was no damn different than the last hillside he’d slipped and fallen down about ten minutes before. He dropped the flashlight twice, fell, skidded, slipped, swore, and finally came to a stop with the enormous car nose-down in front of him. It was wedged against a tree, standing almost on end. It was a lot like poking around the airplane in Maine.

  He wanted to see Tash Benedictus dead.

  From below, wailing on the mountain road, he heard the siren, saw the red glow of an ambulance, then a fire truck from the village. Of course. The explosion, the fire: hard to ignore, storm or not. They’d find Terry. They’d do what they could. They wouldn’t leave him there in the mud like another piece of wreckage. The sky was aglow, angry. The ambulance and the fire truck were pushing steadily up the road. He saw them dimly, in outline, through the rain.

  He found Mona Ransom first. She was no longer entirely recognizable. Her mink coat was torn, hanging in furry matted shreds, and her body was hopelessly broken. She was still handcuffed to the hand grip on the door panel, unable to free herself. Tash hadn’t been taking chances. Maximum agony for everyone. She’d been held in place, dragged and beaten and smashed to pulp. He shone the light on her and it was like seeing Manfred Moller hanging from the timber all over again. Her face was gone. He hoped to God he’d shot and killed her before the door had flown open. He hoped he’d saved her from that at least.

  Shining the light across the car’s interior he saw no trace of Tash Benedictus.

  He must have been thrown free. Maybe he was somewhere in the mud, suffering, dying. Maybe Cassidy could find him and watch him die. Help him along the way. He clung to the framework to keep from falling, worked his way over the freezing stones and brittle,
cutting branches, around to the other side of the car. The driver’s door hung open. He was thrown clear, all right.

  He searched the area looking for any signs but found none. In the darkness and the cold and the rain there was no Tash Benedictus, no one-armed, one-eyed Irish bastard … just a dead woman and a wrecked car and the wind and the sound of sirens.

  How could he have survived?

  Well, he could have. He did.

  But where could he have gone? Alone, banged up, on the mountain, in the storm?

  Exhausted, Cassidy climbed back up to the Plymouth. The road below was empty. They must have reached the blazing house by now.

  They’d found Terry by now.

  There was nothing Cassidy could do, not for Terry, not for Mona. But he could still put paid to Benedictus. He could avenge Terry, avenge Manfred Moller, avenge Mona Ransom.

  But he had to find him first.

  Even while it was happening he knew he was in shock, knew that his thought processes were gummed up, moving sluggishly, so he just hung on, trying to get things done. He kept seeing the faces. Manfred Moller, teeth clenched, tongue bitten through, hanging by a string of gristle … Mona Ransom with her exquisite features obliterated, a pulpy mask … and Terry Leary, trying to smile at the end, the blood at his mouth, just like the movies but it wasn’t chocolate sauce … It was Terry’s face he couldn’t shake, his oldest, best friend, friend to the death. …

  The Plymouth needed gas. He coaxed it down the twisty road to the village. The gas station was an oasis of light and activity. A snowplow was getting ready to attack the mud on the mountain road. A young man in a yellow slicker was talking to the driver of the plow. “All hell’s broke loose up there at the Benedictus place,” he told the driver. “I heard it, woke me up, sounded like one of them blockbusters going off—”

 

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