Suddenly a powerful flashlight went on in my face. I smelled a gunny sack just before it was thrown over my head and jerked down over my arms. “Now, you son of a bitch,” a voice whispered. “Now we’ll see how frisky your ass is.”
I took a killer kidney punch. Someone wrapped me in another sack, my arms were pinned by some kind of rope or belt, my feet were kicked out from under me, and I tasted the floor, a burlap sandwich garnished with blood. I felt a searing pain and saw red streaks behind my eyes. One of them had stomped on the back of my head. I knew I was hurt; for the first time in years I feared for my life, and I fought like a wild man to get up and get out of that straitjacket.
I never made it. He went to work with his feet, not caring much what he hit or how hard. I took half a dozen in the gut, a bad one to the groin, and again he found my head. At some point I went under.
The next thing I heard was Koko’s voice. I felt her hands as she pulled off the gunnysack and rolled me over. It was still dark. I looked up and saw her shape behind the tiny flashlight.
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” I tried to sit up. “I may have some broken bones.”
“I’ll go call a doctor.”
“Let’s see if I’m still alive first.”
“Lie still for a while. Your lip’s split open and you’ve got a broken tooth.”
I touched the tooth with my tongue and felt the ragged break. My lip was busted down to the cleft in my chin.
I tried again and did sit up. But I ached in joints I never knew I had.
“I suppose they took your stuff,” I said.
“You shouldn’t worry about that now.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“Nothing I won’t get over. You got far worse.”
“What’d they do to you?”
“One of them slapped me around, just to get my attention, he said. He put a gun to my head and said there’d only be one warning.”
I took the flashlight and played it on her face. She’d have a shiner in the morning.
“What was the warning?”
“Not to go to the police. If I do, they’ll be back and I’ll be dead.”
I got up from the floor and moved around.
She said, “Does anything feel permanently ruined?”
“Just my pride, Koko.” But as I reached out for the wall it seemed to slip away. When I looked at her by flashlight there were two of her. “Never been kayoed before. Had plenty of chances but never had the pleasure till now.”
“At least your morbid sense of humor’s in one piece. Sit down here, I’m going to call a doctor.”
“Not yet.”
“I don’t want to argue with you. You really do need some attention.”
“I’m a fast healer when I need to be. And I don’t have time for a doctor.”
I figured I had a concussion but I could live with that. I reached out and squeezed her arm. “If you really want to do something for me, go inside and make half a pot of the blackest coffee you can brew. When the spoon stands up in it, call me.”
“There isn’t any coffee. I’m sorry, I don’t use it.” Her voice was distressed, as if she had failed me in my darkest hour. In a smaller voice: “Would you like some tea?”
“Oh God, no.” I covered my face and laughed, and my laughter was the blood brother of tears. “Your tea is lovely, Koko, but please, God, no tea. Thank you for the thought.”
She squatted in the light from the open door and looked up at me like a mother hen. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
“It’s not the first time. Based on past experience, I think I’ll live.”
We sat with each other, just breathing and happy we could.
“What’d you do with that gun?” I asked after a while.
“It’s still in there on the table.”
“They didn’t see it. That’s good, I’m gonna need it.”
“Why? What are you going to do?”
“Go get your stuff back, I hope.”
She didn’t believe me. I smiled and moved away from the wall. She put an arm around my back and I hobbled across the yard to the house.
CHAPTER 17
From across the street I could see the faint light far back in Tread-well’s. Just as I had figured: they were in there trying to dope out what they’d got. I hadn’t needed the brains of a Rhodes scholar to solve this one. One and one are two; two rats plus one rat equals three rats. There they were: Carl and Dante and some other rat.
“What if you’re wrong?” Koko said. “What if it wasn’t them?”
“Then I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”
It was still well before the dawn: the deadest part of the early morning, when anyone on the street would be noticed a block away. I had parked out on Broadway and we had walked boldly up Eastern Avenue, finding a crack between the buildings across from Treadwell’s. We huddled there now, sharing our body heat just out of a cold predawn wind. I had draped the bloody gunnysack over my shoulder and it was an effective poncho in the wind. But I had a powerful do-unto-others streak in me, and I thought it might have another use before the dawn.
I had to hand it to Koko: not once had she tried to hide her horror at what I was about to do, nor had she mounted any kind of argument against it. She had only insisted on coming along, and that was her call. They had taken her stuff and slapped her around and that made it her call, as long as she understood the risks.
In the hour since Dante and his boys had left me battered and bleeding on the floor, I had made a good comeback. The double vision had not cleared up, but most of my dizziness had. My bones ached and so did my muscles, but nothing was broken. The old bones would perform well enough when the moment came. That pain would melt away and the stiffness would be gone, but I’d pay a helluva price later.
“Time to go.”
“What do we do if you’re wrong?” she asked again.
“I’ll tell you why I’m not wrong, Koko. They’re back there now, so full of arrogance they’re not even trying to hide from us. They’re so sure they put the fear of God in you, and their boy Dante knows he put it in me the first time we met. That boy plays hardball and if I don’t impress him or kill him, he’s going to be a danger to both of us forever. He holds grudges and he doesn’t forget.”
I gave her a hug and we split up. She went back for the car; I crossed the street to the front of the bookstore. I scrunched down inside the gunnysack and came into the foyer and peered in through the window. The light was coming from the same back room Carl had gone into when I’d first seen them yesterday. The door was closed but it had an old-fashioned transom, well lit and cracked open. I could see their shadows moving on the ceiling. Three distinct rat-shadows.
I walked down the block and around the corner to the back alley; groped through the dark till I could see that guiding light from Carl’s office. Two cars were parked there, a late-model Chevy and a new Ford. These boys bought American: true patriots, born on the Fourth of July, the sons of bitches.
I turned the doorknob. Talk about arrogance, they hadn’t even locked the door.
I had to take them by surprise. Lose that edge and I might as well just walk in, hand them my gun, and let Dante kill me. I had to strike first, fast and hard.
I stepped inside and heard their voices. I recognized Dante’s, then Carl’s, over the transom. The third guy was probably one of Dante’s sidekicks, some extra hired muscle. If I could get him out of the way fast, my attitude would improve. You can’t plan those things, but at that moment, almost eerily, I heard footsteps. I got back between two shelves just as the door opened and the third man came out. He walked past me, opened the back door, and went outside. No chance to get him from there, and a few seconds later I heard one of the cars start. He pulled into the alley and drove away. My common sense said never mind him, he’s just some dummy who does what he’s told. I wanted Edgar Bergen, not Charlie McCarthy. But I was angry that even one of them had escaped, and it took a minute for that craziness to go away.