The door stuck some, so I had to put some shoulder into it, but I tried to do that gently too—the nine mil with its endless silenced barrel was in my right hand now—and the door gave and I stepped in. I left it ajar, which I didn’t love doing, but making a sound was the greater risk.
I could hear a voice echoing down the boxcar rooms. All the doors were open. That might or might not be a good thing.
“Now, li’l man,” somebody drawled, the Charger owner no doubt, “you best loosen up your lip ’fore I wipe it the hell off your ugly puss.”
I toed off my sneakers, oh so carefully. In my stocking feet I crept to the open door to my bedroom, where the lights were also off. Peering around I could see all the way down to the living room, where a big guy in a green-and-black plaid shirt and jeans and clodhoppers paced an area of four or five feet slowly in front of Boyd, who was in a chair with his hands tied behind him. Probably duct-taped, because that was how his ankles were bound to the kitchen chair he was in. I was two rooms away, and they were in the middle of the living room, but I could easily see that Boyd’s face was a battered bloody mess.
Boyd, knowing our target was out of town, had probably been loafing today, watching TV, in a white t-shirt and pajama bottoms and bare feet. Well, it had been a white-shirt. It was splotched scarlet now, like a tie-dye job that never really got off the ground.
“What in the fuckin’ name of our lord and savior Jesus H. Christ are you doin’ here, Jewboy? Best open that piehole now. Or you rather die in that chair?”
Boyd wasn’t Jewish, at least as far as I knew, but he didn’t correct the guy. He seemed barely awake, his eyelids swollen till only slits were left, his mouth puffy, welts and abrasions at odd angles on his cheeks, like war paint applied by a drunken Indian.
The big man—a good six-three, broad shoulders, narrow waist, muscular legs, a regular lumberjack in that plaid shirt—backhanded Boyd with a left. His right had a Smith and Wesson .22 auto in it. Not a small weapon, yet it looked like a purse gun in that massive fist.
I was in Boyd’s room now. By the door. Or anyway by the nightstand where his latest fairy porn paperback was folded open. Funny, the lumberjack sported a thatch of blond hair, like he’d walked off the cover of one of Boyd’s books—a dream man, giving him a nightmare time of it.
“You been watchin’ them niggers across the street, ain’tcha? Why? What the fuck you up to, you kike sumbitch?”
Boyd’s surveillance set-up was over by the window, the pillows, the radio, the binoculars, the notebook.
Boyd licked his puffed-up lips and said, “I’m not Jewish, you big steaming pile of shit.”
That cleared that up.
He backhanded Boyd again. “Don’t get mouthy with me, you little cocksucker!”
“You’re…you’re getting warmer, asshole,” Boyd said. He was smiling a little. Not defiance in the face of fear and pain, no—he saw me in the doorway.
But our guest didn’t.
Not wanting to fuck up the suppressor—it had taken a long damn time to find one worth a damn—I shifted the gun so that I held it by its barrel, tubing angled down, and swung the nine-mil butt like I was pounding a stake into the ground, making a satisfying mushy crunch. Still, he was so big I had to reach up to do it, and I wondered if he’d just say, “Owww!” and turn and look at me with one eye squinting.
But instead he went down like a felled tree, only less dignified, shaking the floor and the furniture. The .22 auto seemed to jump from his hand of its own accord, landing over by the couch.
Now he was down on the carpet on his left side, mouth open like a big slumbering baby, and I cautiously moved him onto his back with a foot on his shoulder. Should he be faking, and make a grab for my leg, the nine mil was turned around in my hand again and he’d be fucking dead.
If he wasn’t already.
Through the thick lips, Boyd managed, “Is it alive?”
Blows to the back of the head like the one I’d delivered killed you often as not. Wasn’t like on TV where Mannix got clocked on a weekly basis.
The lumberjack had a peaceful look, the kind they pay morticians to achieve. But he was breathing, all right, and quite a specimen. His hair was a golden yellow many a female would covet and his jaw was strong and firm in a way some men might envy. His eyes, however, were close-set, his nose flat above and lumpy below, broken so often that the point was moot.
Boyd’s fat lips flapped. “Duct tape…he brought…on the couch.”
Got to admire a pro attitude like that. Tied to a chair, beat to shit, he doesn’t yell for me to untie him or help him or any such nonsense. First make sure the intruder is out of commission.
I used the duct tape to tie the lumberjack’s wrists behind him, then wrapped it around his ankles, and finally wound more of the stuff around his legs under the knees. Then I checked for a wallet and found none. A couple hundreds in fives, tens and twenties were in one pocket, and went into mine. In the other was a small pouch of lockpicks, not unlike the one I carry in my wallet. Also the keys to his Dodge Charger. Nothing else. Certainly no I.D.
Only then did I use a pocket knife I’d found in a denim jacket our guest had tossed on a chair. I cut Boyd loose and got him to his feet.
“Go clean yourself up,” I told him. “Take half a dozen aspirin, why don’t you?”
He nodded like that was a fine prescription and trundled off.
I sat in the now-vacated kitchen chair, some Boyd blood spattered at my feet. Several yards away, Boyd’s slumbering questioner breathed hard, scarlet dripping through his longish hair like somebody had cracked a bloody egg on his skull.
Who was he?
My first thought was that this was somehow a result of the other night. That Becky and her Nazi boyfriends had called in help to settle the score. But I felt I’d had a meeting of the minds with Commander Starkweather—he certainly wouldn’t have sanctioned this. And, anyway, the questions the blond good-old-boy had been asking Boyd, in a decidedly pointed way, indicated he wanted to know who we were. What we were up to.
Hell, Starkweather already knew. He’d hired us, hadn’t he?
Hadn’t he?
But the Broker hadn’t really confirmed that. And something was glimmering in the back of my head.
Before long Boyd came back in. He’d spruced up for our caller—the bloody t-shirt replaced by a blue sportshirt, pajama bottoms by navy slacks, bare feet shod now in navy sneakers. I wondered if I’d tidy up like that, if somebody rescued me from a Mamie Van Doren blonde who was torturing my ass, and I wanted to look good when I questioned her. Maybe.
Of course, my partner’s face was a puffy horror, his eyes slitted and swollen, like the ref should have stopped the fight a lot of rounds ago. But the blood was washed off, and his left hand held some ice wrapped in a washcloth that he moved around to sore places on his face.
Without a word, we pitched in and lifted the lumberjack up by the arms and flopped him into the chair. It wasn’t any harder than moving a roadkill buck off the highway. I left the additional duct-taping to Boyd—we wanted him secured to the chair—and, without my asking, Boyd filled me in.
“He was just suddenly in the room with me,” Boyd said. “I was watching the game, and it was pretty dull and I fell asleep. And then there the son of a bitch was, big as a redwood.”
Four beer cans were beside the recliner Boyd pulled up to watch TV.
“You got yourself a back-door man,” I said. “He had lockpicks. How long was this going on, before I showed up?”
“Felt like hours. Probably ten minutes.”
“You got lucky on the timing. Is the gist that he spotted us keeping tabs on the Reverend?”
He nodded, getting to his feet, starting in with the tape around the guy’s chest. “I never said jack shit to the mother-fucker. He just kept hitting me. I’m surprised he didn’t bust his damn hand.”
“Does he figure us for cops?”
“Ask him.”
Boyd nodded to
our guest, who was coming around in his chair, wincing, licking his lips, raising his eyebrows, like that’s what it would take to get his eyes open.
“You…you’re the other one,” he said, looking at me, his upper lip curled back.
“Am I?”
“Who the fuckin’ hell are you bastards, anyhow?”
“Well, I’m the guy with your gun.” I showed him the .22, which was in my right hand, the silenced nine mil in my left at my side.
He looked at the .22, almost crossing his eyes to do so, and I laughed a little and slapped him with it. A cut on his cheek opened, two inches or so, and blood dripped out. It was like he’d cut himself shaving. With a Bowie knife.
He gave me some more curled upper lip. “You think I’m afraid of you?”
“As long as I have the guns, I don’t care. As it sits…as you sit…your odds for survival are about one in ten. And that’s a generous estimate.”
“All right,” he said, and let air out of his big chest. “I admit it. You fellas got the upper hand at present.”
“Think so?”
His chin came up, his wound crying little ruby tears. “Let’s back ’er up a step. Who are you boys anyhow? You ain’t cops or feds or we wouldn’t be havin’ this party.”
“Right. You’d be arrested. Nobody official would do this.”
I slapped him with his .22 again. Other cheek. Opened another cut. Really sloppy shaver, this boy.
His eyes, which were a dark blue, blazed. “You better hope I don’t make it outa this chair, you little punk-ass prick.”
“Yeah. Obviously. Let’s back ’er up a step. To where the guy with the guns gets to ask the questions. Oh, and my friend here, who you beat the piss out of earlier? He’s also got a gun now.”
Our captor flicked his eyes toward Boyd, off to the side, pointing the long-barrel .38 at him.
“So I see,” the lumberjack said. “What if I took that gun away from him and stuck it up his fuckin’ ass?”
“You’d have to ask him,” I said. “Now let’s start with a name.”
“Eat me,” he said, through a wide smile.
“For a guy who’s obviously been in his share of brawls, you have good teeth. Or did you pay for those? Either way, you probably wouldn’t want me to break them.”
He stopped smiling. “I ain’t gonna give you my name. Who cares what my teeth is like if I’m dead?”
That made more sense than I’d have guessed he was capable of.
“I don’t need a last name,” I said. “Just a first.”
“Bite me.”
“I’m Jack.”
He glanced at Boyd. “Jack, huh? And who’s he?”
“Not Jill. This conversation is just you and me. Never mind him. What’s your name, friend?”
“…Delmont.”
“I said first name.”
“That is my first name.”
“Okay. You’ll recognize these questions. They’re the ones you were asking when I came in.”
He frowned, not following.
“Who are you?” I asked. “I don’t mean your name. Why are you here? What’s your function?”
“Function? What the fuck—”
“Your job. You came here to do a job, right?”
He said nothing.
“Delmont, you came here to a job. Right?”
He sucked in breath. Let it out. Nodded.
I knew. Or anyway I thought I knew. At least one way that this, and some other things, would make anything close to sense had just occurred to me.
“Delmont, you don’t have to tell me why you came north. You don’t have to tell me what job you came to St. Louis to do.”
Boyd was frowning at me, not getting it.
I said, “You came to town to kill the nigger across the street. You’re here to whack the Reverend Raymond Wesley Lloyd.”
His bloody-cheeked astonishment was priceless. He had the same expression as a magician’s volunteer from the audience hearing, “Is this your card?”
Boyd was just slightly astonished himself. He said, “Jack…what the hell?” At least he’d had the presence of mind not to call me Quarry.
I gave him a look that said stay out of it.
Then I said to Delmont, “You know, some pretty strange coincidences happen from time to time.”
“Huh?” Now he was squinting at me. The blood from where I’d whacked him had dried and gone black and looked like a lace cap on his head. A lace cap sewn by a blind, brain-damaged seamstress. The blood on his cheeks wasn’t flowing anymore but the scarlet streaks that had been left still glistened.
“You see,” I said, “my friend and I are watching Reverend Lloyd because we’ve been hired to kill him.”
“What? But I…uh…uh….” Then he clammed up. His brain was overloading. In a cartoon, steam whistle sounds and engine gears grinding would have accompanied smoke coming out his ears.
“Jack!” Boyd said, and he came over and took me by the arm. Walked me to the doorway to his bedroom, and then pulled me in there. Delmont, tied to his chair, was trying very hard to think.
“What the hell’s the idea?” Boyd whispered. “Now we have to kill this guy.”
“Before we had to,” I said. “Now, maybe not. Look, it’ll be my responsibility either way. Just go along with me.”
Boyd swallowed hard. His face looked like he’d stuck his head in a beehive and it hadn’t gone well. But he nodded.
Back in front of our guest, his gun in my right hand, mine in my left, I said, “We were hired to kill the black bastard. Now I want to hear why you’re here.”
“I…I…I…”
Aye yai yai.
I said, “You were hired to kill him, too.”
“I was hired to kill him, too!”
Boyd’s eyebrows went up. His puffy eyes otherwise stayed put. They had no choice.
“Delmont,” I said, “my friend and I handle contracts. Is that what you do? Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Delmont swallowed thickly. “Maybe so. Maybe so.”
This was not one of Broker’s people. Not by a long shot. But there were other Brokers around, some not so sophisticated. Like Delmont wasn’t quite as sophisticated as Boyd and me.
“Popular guy, the Reverend Lloyd,” I said. “Looks like two people with money want him dead. Two separate contracts.”
Delmont was trying to make that work in his head. “That’s…that’s….”
“A coincidence, yeah, I said that before. It’s also possible that we were hired by the same party, and this is some kind of half-assed attempt to make sure the hit really goes down. Like we fail, you step in. Or vice versa.”
“But that don’t work,” Delmont said, goggling at me. “Not without us knowin’ about each other. Without us knowin’ about each other, somethin’ really bad could go down.”
“Right. Like you stumbling in on us and taking us for cops or feds or interlopers.”
“Right,” Delmont said, nodding, then he winced, because that hurt. “So…so what happens now?”
“Chances are,” I said, “though we’re not likely working for the same party, that those parties are aligned.”
“A what?”
“Well, allies. On the same side. Delmont, you’ve heard that expression, the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing?”
“I heard it.”
“That’s what happened here. I’m almost sure of it.”
He squinted in apparent thought. “I’m workin’ for one hand and you for the other.”
“That’s it. You got it.”
His eyes widened. “Well…where do we go from here? If we’re on the same job…sort of…could you maybe let me out of this here chair?”
“I like the way you think, Delmont. And there’s a good chance you’ll be getting out of that there chair. A good chance you’ll live through this and wind up in the black.”
“In what black? If you mean pussy, I ain’t interested, ’less maybe sh
e’s high yellar or somethin’.”
“No, no, Delmont. I mean, you wind up with what you’re supposed to get paid, and we wind up with what we’re supposed to get paid.”
“But that nigger can only die once.”
“Nothing wrong with your math skills, Delmont. But the right hand, who hired you, and the left hand, who hired us, won’t know that. All our employers will know is that the hit went down successfully. Everybody wins. Except Reverend Lloyd.”
Smoke was threatening to come out his ears again. “Okay…but…”
“Delmont, what I’m saying is…I suggest we partner up.”
Boyd sighed. Applied the homemade ice pack to his face.
Delmont shrugged, as much as he could, duct-taped up like that, and said, “I’m willin’. How ’bout I kill his black ass, and we all get paid, and we all go our separate ways?”
“Close. I’m going to suggest much the same thing. I suggest that my partner and I do the hit. We get paid for doing it, and you get paid for doing nothing.”
He was starting to smile.
“And if we screw up,” I went on, “and wind up dead or something, with Reverend Lloyd still aboveground? Well, then you can come in and finish the job. And get paid.”
“Will you still get paid?”
“No, Delmont, we won’t—we’ll be dead.”
“You’ll be what?”
“Dead or in stir. This happens if we screw the job up, and you have to come in and do it after all. But right now you just sit back and wait to see how we do.”
“Not in this chair I won’t.”
“Just a figure of speech, Delmont.”
“Not to me it’s not. And anyway, this’ll all go tits up if I don’t get out of this chair and out of here, lickety damn split.”
“Why is that?”
He looked at me like I was really, really dumb. “The money drop is tonight. I pick up my share. That’s the way it works where I come from. Night or two before I do the job, they got to pay me. But I don’t have no direct contact. Everything’s done through a middleman.”
This all sounded a little too familiar.
I asked, hoping I wanted to hear the answer, “What do you call your middleman, Delmont?”
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