"No, Mr. Paco."
"Okay, here, and keep your traps shut. Get lost and forget today ever happened.
Fred, you stay with me. Georgie, take the car back home."
"Right."
Men shuffled away. It didn"t sound like a very large room and I still had a slight feeling of movement all around, which I attributed to my half-conscious state. My head hurt and I was sick in the stomach, and the more awake I got, the more hurts made themselves known. I started remembering other things, none of them too pleasant.
"What did they do to him?" said Paco."He took a fall when we put him in the boat."
"Wake him up."
Some water was dribbled in my face. That was when I realized they"d been talking about me. I thrashed around and shot fully awake and painfully alert. I couldn"t move much, being firmly tied to a chair, but the blindfold was off, not that what I saw was very rea.s.suring.
The large lump holding the water gla.s.s was Fred. The shorter, more bullish man behind him was Paco. Neither of them looked friendly.
The room was long with a low ceiling. The walls were oddly curved. I deduced we were on a boat and a big one. That explained the movement and my bad stomach; I was a poor sailor.
"He"s awake," said Fred. He and Paco drew back from my field of vision. My chair was in the middle of the bare floor facing a table. Leaning on the table was another man, darker and thinner than his friends. He unhitched his hip from his perch and came over to me. I heard a click and a slender, long-bladed knife appeared in one hand. The edge was so sharp it hurt to look at. I stiffened as he bent down near me.
"Take it easy, buddy," he said, and cut the ropes. I could hardly move as they dropped away but tried flexing my limbs. Not a good idea, they went from numb to pins-and-needles pain as the blood started resuming its job.
"You want a drink?"
I managed a nod. He made a sign and Fred brought me a stiff double whiskey. I would have preferred water, but took what was offered. It was good stuff and made things comfortably warm inside. My benefactor smiled at me, I"d have smiled back if he"d put the knife away. Fred took my empty gla.s.s and returned it to the built-in bar.
He was looking at Paco as though waiting for a signal. Paco was looking at the third man, whose attention was on me.
"I think you know why you"re here," he said. He had thick long lashes on his eyes, a woman"s eyes, and I didn"t like the expression in them. "Stand up."
There was no reason not to, though I wobbled a bit and had to use the chair for support. Fred came over and pulled everything from my pockets and dumped it on the table. They went through it. I said good-bye to the thousand-dollar note. They looked at me and Fred was smirking.
"I knew the little shrimp pa.s.sed him something."
"What else did you get off him?" asked Paco.
They found the napkin my notes were scribbled on, but it wasn"t what they wanted.
"He"s a reporter," said the third man. Fred laughed. They looked with interest at an old press pa.s.s he"d taken from my wallet and read my identification. "How long since you seen New York, Jack R. Fleming?"
"Look, I don"t know what you want, I just got off the train today-"
"Did little Galligar call you in to help him?"
"Galligar?" Probably Benny"s Chicago name. "I don"t know what you"re talking about. This little guy starts talking to me in the street. He"s got some kind of crazy story right out of Black Mask that I don"t believe and says he"ll give me a thousand bucks if I can get him out of town. I figure maybe the bill is a fake and he"s trying some kind of new con game, then somebody shoots him so I took off."
"Why don"t you tell me the story?" he said, looking at my notes.
"He just said some guys were after him because he lifted some dough from the wrong people."
"Who"s L. L. ?"
"Louie Long or Lang, I think, I don"t remember offhand." I sank back into the chair, tired. "The initials are only for my memory, I"ll make up something later."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I"m a reporter, but I also write fiction. A real-life experience like that is too good to waste. I was thinking to do the whole thing up as a story and sell it to one of the detective magazines, maybe even make a book out of it. If I had to live on a reporter"s pay I"d starve to death, so I write stories as well."
They stared at me. For a few seconds I thought they believed it, then Paco burst into laughter. The other two joined him and my hopes sank.
They next made me strip and I swayed for several minutes wearing nothing but gooseflesh while they went through my clothes. Piece by piece they tossed everything back, even my wallet and papers, except for the large bill, which remained on the table.
"I know he had it, Mr. Morelli," said Fred, using the man"s name for the first time. He didn"t seem annoyed at the slip, which disturbed me. I"d heard the name before and something of the man who owned it, but saw no advantage in letting them know that, figuring my best chance with them was to pretend ignorance. "The other boys with me will tell you that, too."
"Was he in your sight the whole time?"
"Well, no, but we were right with him and we got him-"
"Put a lid on it, Fred," said Paco. "You lost him long enough for him to stash it somewhere.""Hide what?" I tried to sound frustrated and angry. It was easy.
"The list."
"What list?"
"The one Galligar slipped you."
"All he gave me was a c.o.c.k-and-bull story and that money, and then someone shoots him. I figure they"d shoot me, too, so I ran. Take the money, I don"t want it, just let me go."
Morelli interrupted Paco"s reply. "All right, Fleming, we will he happy to let you go and you can keep the money. I"ll even give you another thousand for all the trouble we put you through. You tell us where you put the list and you can go."
"I don"t have any list!"
"I believe you. Just tell us where it is."
"I don"t know."
He sighed. "Then we may have a problem."
No problem for him, he just stepped back to give Fred enough room to swing. I tried to fight back and fight dirty, but he was too big, too experienced, and too fast.
We broke some things up bashing around the cabin, but no one minded since I was the one falling over the stuff. I moved for the door, but he antic.i.p.ated it, grabbed me from behind, whirled me around, and laid into my stomach. He stood back to catch his breath and I slid to the floor, unable to move. After a minute he hauled me up and dumped me into the chair.
Morelli bent down to my field of view. "You feel like talking yet?"
I couldn"t answer right away, in fact there was only one thing I felt like doing at the moment. He saw it coming, said "Oh, s.h.i.t!" and backed hastily out of the way. I had just enough strength to lean over the chair arm before giving up the steak dinner and the double whiskey onto his deck.
None of them thought it was particularly funny. I did, but wasn"t laughing. I just hung over the chair arm and tried not to look at the stuff. The acid smell filled the room and drove out Morelli and Paco. They made Fred clean it up, having decided he was to blame. He wasn"t a happy man and cursed the whole time, most of his more colorful abuse aimed at me.
When Fred finished he dragged me out on the deck. There were lights way in the distance, too far for me to swim in my condition, not that he gave me the chance to go overboard. He shoved me against a rail and bent me double so I was well over the water. With a heavy arm around my neck he pried open my mouth and stuck a finger inside and nearly down my throat. I bucked against this, choking until he pulled it out, and then I retched into the black water. He did this twice more until he was certain I was cleaned out, then let me drop on the deck.
Utterly exhausted and panting like a dog, I hated Fred more than I ever thought possible. If I had a weapon or the strength, I would have cheerfully killed him.
I never had the chance, he took me down below.
Morelli and Paco were there, Morelli with one hip resting on the table much as I"d first seen him. Paco was sipping a beer next to the bar. Fred practically carried me to the chair and dumped me in it. Except for a faint tang in the air, there was no sign of what had happened.
"You don"t look so good, Fleming," said Morelli. He still had the knife out. He used it to slice the tip from a cigar and spent a minute lighting it properly. He blew the smoke in my direction. "Now, do you want to talk, or do you want to let Fred hit you some more?"
I didn"t want either, so I kept quiet. Fred hit me some more.
He stopped occasionally to catch his breath and Morelli would ask me his question, get no answer, and then Fred started all over again. I harbored some hope that he"d get tired and go away, but when he did Paco took over-and he had bra.s.s knuckles.
They came as a bad surprise. Just when I thought it was impossible to hurt more he jabbed them hard into my ribs. The first time it happened I cried out and that encouraged him. He was still fresh, slightly boozed, and enjoying himself. I fell out of the chair and he kicked me until Fred put me back again. They were careful with me.
They left my face alone, it"d be hard to talk through a swollen, battered mouth, and they wanted me to talk. I knew if I did and they got the list I"d die. It was a very simple conclusion, even in my present state I could grasp that. I kept quiet and let them hit me. I wanted to live that much. After a while I stopped reacting to the punches and Morelli told him to lay off. Good old Morelli, my friend, I thought before I stopped being awake.
They took a break, had a meal, and started again. The cabin got like an oven and the air was an unbreathable mixture of sweat, cigar smoke, and booze, though the windows were open. With surprise I saw clear blue sky and sunlight lancing through white clouds. It had to be an unreal vision. Men just didn"t beat up other men on days like this; then I"d get a whiff of my own stink and know otherwise.
Morelli gave me some water at one point, my tongue felt like it was someone else"s property. "You can save yourself a lot of grief, Fleming. Just tell me where you put it."
I must have been feverish. I heard someone laugh a little and say: "Where the sun don"t shine."
He threw the rest of the water in my face. It felt good until I pa.s.sed out again, which felt better.I woke up. Something sharp in the air was burning my nostrils. 1 shook my head away but it followed. They"d turned up smelling salts from somewhere and were using them to keep me awake. It was necessary at this point, I kept conking out on them.
"Never mind that," Morelli said when my eyes finally opened. He had more water and gave it to me. It tasted odd, but I drank without thinking.
They left me alone and I started to drift away from the pain, but never quite made it, whatever was in the water wouldn"t let me. My heart started pounding hard and fresh sweat broke out all over, I felt breathless. The hurts numbed by a few hours" rest began anew. To my humiliation, tears began flooding down my face. Fred and Paco found it very funny. Morelli just sat and smoked another cigar, letting them do all the work.
By mid-afternoon they took a break.
"I don"t think he knows," said Paco, drinking another beer.
"Don"t be a sap. He knows, but he won"t talk. If he didn"t know he"d be making up another story about it or telling us he doesn"t know. But this guy don"t talk at all. He knows."
Fred yawned. "I gotta sleep," he said to no one in particular. He went out.
"Maybe we should go back and get Gordy," said Paco. "He"s good at this stuff."
"Nah, Lucky"s got him busy looking for Galligar."
Paco laughed. "He"ll need a set of gills to do that. My boys took care of him good."
"They screwed up, you mean. If they thought to shoot both of them we wouldn"t be stuck here now."
"I know, but we"ll get him to talk. You wouldn"t think he"d be" this stubborn, would you? Stupid, but he"s got some guts."
Their voices faded away. I dreamed about Benny, an uneasy Jewish-Catholic now buried forever without services from either faith, just another guy out of h.e.l.l"s Kitchen scrambling for a buck.
I dreamed about escaping. If I could get overboard with a life preserver I might be able to make it to sh.o.r.e. Even the prospect of drowning looked preferable to another session with Fred and Paco. All I had to do was get up off the floor. Fat chance that, they"d done their work too well.
I dreamed about Maureen, dark hair and rare laughter, a nervous girl, looking over her shoulder, but needing love and giving it fully in return. Was she safe yet?
I dreamed, but could not rest.Hours later I opened my eyes. The lids seemed to be the only part of my body that could still move. I felt like a shattered piece of gla.s.s held together with weak glue.
The wrong touch and everything would fall to pieces. It hurt to breathe and the air was hot in my lungs. The windows were still open, but there was no ventilation.
I wasn"t thinking too straight, because even that hurt, but I wanted to get to one of the windows. Once there I"d think of what to do next.
It was only ten feet away. Three steps for a healthy upright man, a few miles for me. Under it was a padded, built-in window seat. If I could get to it I would... but I couldn"t quite remember.
I squirmed forward six inches and rested. I"d have to go easy and keep the glue intact. Six more inches and rest. Repeat. My shoulders ached from the effort, but then so did everything else, tell them to shut up and cooperate so we can-what?
Window seat. It was a little closer. Six inches and rest. Window seats have windows, windows have air, we need air. We need to rest. Oh, G.o.d it hurts... Shut up. Six inches and rest. Tears again, waste of energy, but they wouldn"t stop. Eyes blurring, from tears or pain? Where was the window? Rest. Don"t move, just lay down and die, serve them right. Anger. How dare they reduce me to this? How dare they make me crawl? Twelve inches that time. Anger was good, stay mad and escape. Keep crawling and hate their guts for it. Crawl so you can come back and do this to them. Crawl...
But the glue came apart before I was halfway there and for a long time there was nothing.
"Jeeze, you wouldn"t think he"d a made it that far." My admirer was Paco. I was looking at his shoes. I wished he"d give me a good solid kick in the head and end it all, but he was no pal to do me favors.
"Put him in the chair," said Morelli.
No, please don"t bother.
They put me in the chair.
I fell out of it.
They tied me to the chair. Wrists and ankles. Rough hemp rope. I looked at it, not knowing what it was.
"Fleming."
Oh, go away.
"Fleming." He tilted my head back. I choked on some whiskey. Something had happened the last time I drank, but I couldn"t remember.
"Wake up, Fleming."
I was awake, unfortunately."Look at me."
No, go jump in the lake. There was a lake all around us, which struck me as insanely funny. It hurt to laugh. Save it for later and laugh then, if there was a later.
What was in the whiskey?
"Fleming, look at me or I"ll cut your eyelids away."
That got my attention, but I didn"t look at him, only the slender knife in his hand.
Yes, it was possible they could hurt me more. The look in his eyes, his dark feminine eyes, promised that much. Lightly he drew the blade across the back of my hand, sure as a surgeon. Blood welled up from the cut. Yes, he could hurt me.