He had not heard them come in, they must move like cats after a nest, it was ridiculous, they didn’t look dangerous, they looked like a corny act on TV, the little one in the neat suit, the bruiser in the leather jacket and sneakers, the blonde in slacks and pea jacket with a scarf of psychedelic colors hanging down her front, as freaky as some farout hippie combo and as unconvincing. Ridiculous.
But my revolver in Furia’s mitt, that’s not ridiculous, and the Walther automatic in Hinch’s (so Gunslinger didn’t throw it in the Tonekeneke after all, he couldn’t bear to part with it), and the look behind the eyeslits in the girl’s mask that’s somehow worse than the guns-not ridiculous, no.
They were back in their masks again (why? was it for making horrible faces like the kids make when they’re feeling nasty, to get the upper hand through looking horrible, half in play, half serious?), but there was nothing playful about these three, Tom Howland found that out, so did Ed Taylor, and what game is little doublecrossing Furia going to play now?
I wish I could see his face.
Furia marched in and asserted himself from just outside Malone’s reach. The Colt Trooper was doing a dance. Malone watched it, fascinated. The bobcat’s tail had done that just before he shot it. I wish I had it now. Put a slug right between Papa Bear’s eyes. And a lightning second shot at Mama Bear. He fought with his fantasy.
“There’s one thing puts me uptight it’s a wise-guy cop,” Furia was saying. There was a thickness, a curdle, in his tight voice; Malone could almost taste the sludge. “You made a first-class monkey out of me, fuzz. Didn’t you?”
“She’s my kid,” Malone said. “What would you do if it was your kid and she’s in a spot like that?”
But Furia wasn’t listening. “Look at my hands!”
The trim little hands were stippled with soot. The spidery black hairs on their narrow backs had been singed off by the brush fire.
“I’m sorry about that,” Malone said. In that TV drama he had seen recently, where the escaped convicts took over a suburban household led by a kill-crazy nut, the father had defied the criminals and talked tough to them through the whole thing. He had thought the father nuttier than the convicts. You don’t get tough with a desperate criminal holding a gun on you, not if you want you and yours to keep on living. “My wife has some ointment if you got a burn.”
“Shove it! Where’s the kid?”
Malone half rose. Ellen was standing there like a deer.
He saw her throat move as she swallowed. “What are you going to do to her?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out, missus! Give me the bag.”
Malone got all the way up, taking it slow, as he had done approaching the bobcat. He had no idea what he was about. I’ll have to do something, I can’t just let him shoot us down without lifting a finger. My bare hands against two guns… Ellen… Bibby… Maybe if I talk. The way I say it.
“Look, Mr. Furia,” Malone said.
“The bag!”
“I’m trying to tell you. I got home with my daughter tonight to find my wife practically in hysterics. This afternoon, while she had to go to the bathroom, somebody got into the house and ran off with the money. No, I swear to God! We knew how sore you’d be, and we’ve been sitting here trying to figure out-”
An ammunition dump exploded. When the peace fell Malone found himself sitting on the floor with his back against the sofa seat holding his shattered head, Ellen moaning and batting his hand away and dabbing at the wound with a bloody handkerchief, Furia an arm’s length away, the Colt in his fist shaking. Malone had not even seen the barrel coming.
He shook his head cautiously, trying to clear it.
“He’s lying,” the blonde woman said. “Don’t you believe him, Fure.”
“Heisting us,” Hinch snarled. “Let me at the sonofabitch, Fure. I’ll open him up.”
“I’m handling this!” Furia shouted. He poised the pistol over Malone’s head. “You want another clout, smart cop? Or I should put a bullet in your old lady’s ear? Now you tell me and you tell it like it is. Where’s that bag?”
Malone raised his arm defensively. There was a rising howl in his head that overrode argument and any sort of rational plan. All he could think of was I’m going to get my brains splashed over my own rug by my own gun in front of my own wife without a lousy prayer to help her or Bibby or myself and then they’ll get it, too.
“He’s telling you the truth, Mr. Furia,” Ellen screeched. “It was stolen from me by some man with a stocking over his head. I came out of the bathroom and he hit me over the head with my St. Francis, the pieces are in the garbage pail if you don’t believe me. Look at the lump on my head if you don’t believe me.”
Furia seized her by the hair and yanked her backward. Malone to his own surprise made a feeble attempt to get at him. Furia kicked him in the jaw. Everything stopped.
When it started again Furia was saying in a worried way, “I don’t get it.”
“So she’s got a lump,” the woman Goldie said. “How do we know she got it like she says?”
“Yeah,” Hinch said. “She could of fell down or something.”
“But you saw the pieces of that statue in the pail,” Furia said.
“So what?” Goldie said. “She broke it herself to make it look good, Fure. That’s the way I see it.”
“The gall,” Hinch said. “To heist us out of our own heist!”
“They’re lying all right, Fure.”
“You’re lying!” Furia yelped.
“You know we’re not,” Malone heard Ellen cry. He wanted to stop whatever she was going to say, push Ellen to the wall and thinking is out. But he had no strength to do anything. I wonder if he broke my jaw. “You’re putting on a great big act for your two friends!” Ellen cried. “You came here today and stole that bag so you could keep all the money for yourself.”
“Me?” Furia screamed.
Malone thought Furia was going to throw a fit on the carpet. The prospect turned him on. The howling cut off, the dark began to turn gray. He pulled himself back to a sitting position. He could feel the restorative adrenaline shooting. He’ll turn on Ellen now. Malone bunched himself.
But it was a funny thing how Furia calmed down. He did not throw a fit. He did not turn on Ellen. He made no further move toward Malone. Instead he backed off with the Colt half raised, and when he spoke it was to Hinch and the blonde, in a wary tone. Malone saw his trigger finger tighten the least bit.
“You fall for that, Hinch?”
Hinch was staring at him. “You could of, Fure,” he said. “While me and Goldie was in town.”
“I never left the shack!”
“Fure wouldn’t do a thing like that,” Goldie said to Hinch. “Not Fure. Aren’t you the clever one?” she said to Ellen. “Trying to split us up.”
“She’s trying to split us up,” Furia said. “Yeah. She figures she can get us in a three-way fight they might find a chance to cut out. You see that, Hinch?”
Hinch hesitated. “I guess,” he said.
“You better believe it.” He turned to the Malones, gesturing with the revolver. “Sit down!”
Malone pulled himself up to the sofa. Ellen fell down beside him.
“Now,” Furia said. “Payup time, folks. Where’s that twenty-four grand?”
“Do you think I’d pull a stunt like this and put my family in danger of getting shot?” Malone said. He sensed a hairline advantage, a sliver of crack in the doom. He tried to keep the thump and throb of his head and jaw out of his voice, you don’t show weakness to an animal. “Just to get somebody’s payroll back because I’m a cop? Or even to keep it for myself? You can beat up on us, torture us, kill us, we can’t tell you what we don’t know. We’re telling the truth. Somebody sneaked in here today and half brained my wife and took the bag. She didn’t even get a good look at him.”
Furia pounced. “Then why’d she say it was me? Huh? Huh?”