8
It was out Purfoy Road again, but not to 6127. This house was a quarter of a mile farther out, but it was much the same kind of a house. And the dunes crowded around in the same way, the same ocean boomed out there to drown any kind of a call for help a man might make.
“Where is the money?” He’d searched the Ford, and now he turned to me.
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
“Go to hell.”
His fist smashed me in the mouth, and I stumbled and fell, my ears full of a louder roar than the surf.
“Get into the house. We’ll see whether you talk or not.”
I stumbled into the house. He wouldn’t kill me before I told him what he wanted to know. Meanwhile I’d find out what I wanted to know.
Lights were on inside the house, the front door was unlocked, the front room was empty but a door to another room was just closing; and I knew who was behind that door just as surely as I knew the sun would rise tomorrow.
“Come out of there, Dobleen!” My yell sounded crazy even to me. “Come on out and join the party.”
And he came out, a slender, frail little man with silver hair and a sharp, half-handsome face that was twisted in tight smile. Vince Dobleen, the cause of everything that had happened to me.
And now was as good a time to make my break as any — Vednick had his back half toward me, closing the door, Dobleen was all the way across the room. I spun and ran for the open hallway, then about ten feet down it to a door — a swinging door, thank God — and I hit it and it slammed back against the wall, and I was in a kitchen. The back door was closed; and, with my hands handcuffed behind my back I just hit it full tilt, my heel slamming in just beside the knob. If it’d been like the door in the other house, my kick would have torn the lock right out of it, but this wood was better stuff.
My foot felt like it was broken, and the door hadn’t budged. I was back to it, fumbling for the knob, when Vednick’s fist drove my head back against the doorjamb; then he grabbed me and swung me around and back into the stove so hard I hung there, the room spinning around me.
I hadn’t had anything planned, except maybe some crazy idea of running around the house, grabbing the keys out of the Ford, and disappearing in the fog among the dunes, and running for a phone at the next house.
And now, sprawled against the stove, what I did next was just as aimless. It was a big, old-fashioned stove, with an open grill top and no pilot lights; my hands were against the handles, and I just turned on as many of them as I could reach, then I lurched back through the swinging door before he’d have time to notice. Maybe later, if one of them went to investigate the smell of gas, I’d get a chance for another break.
9
After that things were pretty bad for a while. I don’t know how long it took; but when Vednick finally stopped to breathe, my left eye was swollen shut and I could barely see through the right. I don’t know how many teeth were loose in my mouth, or whether my nose was broken or just too swollen and clogged with blood to breathe through. “Where,” Vednick demanded, “is that money?”
“Go to hell.” I’d lost track of how many times I’d said that.
Vednick stared at me sprawled against the sofa, as he peeled off his blood-soaked gloves and lit a cigarette.
I couldn’t smell any gas, but it must be getting thick in that small kitchen. When it got thick enough, anything might set it off — the motor in the electric refrigerator starting up, if it was an old enough model; or the doorbell ringing, if the bell was in the kitchen; the spark of the light switch, if one of them went in there to investigate. A lot of things could set it off, but an “if” went with every one of them.
But I couldn’t take much more of this beating. If I could talk, maybe I could stall him a while. I opened my one eye, and Dobleen was still showing that tight little smile, like he was enjoying this part of it. Later on, when and if I broke and told where the money was, he’d probably enjoy emptying his gun into my face too. Now talk. Stall...
“It was those hands tucked so neatly under the guy’s body that cooked you,” I told him.
“Smart,” Dobleen said in his gentle, acid voice. “So smart I got you two years in prison. And framed you for murder.”
“And you’re smart — facing a prison term for income tax evasion, and probably a longer term for swindling an old lady out of a hundred thousand dollars. No wonder you figured it was time you died. You and your charities, your work at the Rescue Mission — that’s where you picked out the guy who was going to do your dying for you, wasn’t it?”
“Get on with it, Vednick,” Dobleen said, bored.
“In a minute.” Vednick drew on his cigarette.
“And you,” I told Vednick. “If I’d known what department you worked in, I’d have tumbled a lot sooner. Fingerprints, isn’t it?”
Vednick laughed like that was funny, blowing smoke out.
“The drunk driving thing was faked for the sole purpose of getting Dobleen’s prints on record — only it wasn’t his prints that went into the record; it was the prints of some poor bum that was unlucky enough to look like Dobleen. After that, it wasn’t hard. The house in the name of Rogers was because he wanted to buy a getaway car under a phony name, and there had to be an address to send the registration certificate and pink slip to.”
“Smart.” Dobleen’s eyes were bright with hate. “Now tell us where the money is. You will sooner or later, you know.”
I knew. There comes a time when death becomes a release, and that time would come for me, as he said, sooner or later. Unless I could stall.
I could smell the gas now, but that was because I was expecting it. Vednick, smoking, probably wouldn’t smell it for a few minutes yet; and Dobleen was on the other side of the room.
“The fire,” I went on in a queer voice that didn’t even sound like mine, “was to burn off the hair, char the skin, but it was important to preserve the fingerprints, so the guy’s hands were put under his belly where the fire wouldn’t destroy them. But what really cooked you, Dobleen, was me grabbing your getaway car with all the dough. Even so, you didn’t lose your head. You lit the fire before you set out to follow me in your Cadillac; and you called the fire department a few minutes later from that mobile phone in the Cadillac. But you didn’t dare trying to bluff me with an empty gun after I ran you to the curb later.”
My laugh sounded crazy. “The bullets were in the Ford. If you tried to reload the gun, I’d jump you. If you’d tried to knock me out to get time to reload, you wouldn’t have had a chance — a dried-up runt like you.”
The smile had twisted to a snarl. “Get on the job, Vednick.”
“Let me finish,” I said. “Let me show you how clever I am. After you got away from me, you phoned Vednick and he hustled down to the Rogers’ house on the off chance that I might check there after reading the certificate in the Ford — if I’d gone to the cops with it, he’d have slipped out the back door when they showed up.”
The smell of gas was bad now. It’s a wonder Vednick didn’t smell it. And I knew something for sure now — it wasn’t going to go off by any accident. Maybe it was thick enough to explode in the kitchen, but Vednick would smell it and put out that cigarette long before the gas would be set off from in here.
“Hey,” Dobleen said suddenly, “I smell gas.”
“Yeah, me too.” Vednick walked over to the hall door, looked down the hall. “Do you suppose—”
I swear, I hadn’t planned a thing until that second. I just saw him standing there, the cigarette still in his mouth, and something clicked in my mind and I was already in motion.