“You sure?”
“I saw ’em up close and personal when I was loading those boxes on it. It had two square misaligned patches, just like you see there.”
Shaw pulled his Buick keys out. “Okay, we got to find Malcolm Draper, fast.”
They drove off, the Buick eating up the miles back to town.
Shaw said, “See, that’s the other motivation to kill somebody: Shut ’em up. Duckett might or might not have been involved in all this. But when you told him about Pittleman’s money problems, he might’ve thought he wasn’t going to get paid. Or Duckett planned to use that knowledge to make a lot more money from folks who didn’t want certain information to get out.”
Archer had a sudden thought. “Coroner said his head was bashed in.”
Shaw glanced sharply at him. “Right. So?”
“Dickie Dill is an expert head basher.”
Shaw eyed him. “You think somebody hired him to kill Duckett?”
“Might be. I mean, Dill would do anything for money. And I’ve never met a meaner man in my life. And he didn’t come to work today.”
“Well, Duckett ain’t talking to anybody ever again. Loose lips sink ships.”
Archer’s thoughts went back to a discussion he’d had the previous night and he suddenly felt dizzy in the head and sick in his stomach.
He cried out, “We need to get to 27 Eldorado Street, fast as this damn Buick will go, Mr. Shaw.”
Chapter 32
The buick had not yet reached Jackie’s house when Archer told Shaw to pull to the curb.
“Don’t want to warn anybody we’re coming.”
They leapt out and Archer led the way, approaching the house from the back.
It was nearly midnight now, and the silence was complete except for the movements of the two men.
His shoes skimming across the dry grass, Archer quickly reached the back door with Shaw behind him.
“Didn’t see Duckett’s truck out front,” said Shaw.
“Wouldn’t expect to.”
“You sure you’re barking up the right tree here?”
The scream inside the house made Archer put his shoulder to the door and burst the lock from its frame. They both rushed inside, their guns drawn. Another scream was heard, and Archer shot down the hallway and kicked open Jackie’s bedroom door. It was pitch-dark inside.
In a flash of illumination from Shaw’s flashlight, Archer saw Dickie Dill next to the bed, a raised knife in hand as Jackie cowered below.
“Dickie!” shouted Archer, pointing his gun at the man and firing.
At the same instant, something hit Archer and sent him tumbling against the wall face-first. He felt warm blood gush from his nose and a shiner swell under his eye.
Shaw got off a shot, too, and this time Dill let out a sharp cry. The pilot had hit his target after the infantryman had missed.
“Archer, look out!” screamed Jackie from her bed.
Another shot was fired. This time from the second assailant, who had slammed into Archer when he’d fired at Dickie. After Jackie’s warning cry, Archer had ducked. He felt the bullet fly past and then slam into the wall. He kicked out, catching the shooter’s arm, and the pistol went flying. Archer lost his balance and fell back against the wall, then turned and pushed off from it.
But this gave the man an opening. He flew forward, his arm encircling Archer’s neck. He commenced trying to pull his head backward to a point necks weren’t supposed to bend. Archer felt the ligaments in his spine begin to howl and buckle in protest. However, a sharp elbow to the gut, a gasp of air forced from a pair of lungs, and Archer quickly gained the upper hand. A stiff palm strike to the nose drove cartilage back into the man’s face, then Archer spun the man around and the thrust of his shoulder slammed the man with force up against the wall. Archer finished him off the way he’d been taught in the military, with a knee to the base of the spine and a hard punch to the kidney. Then he grabbed the man’s hair, jerked it back, and then, using all the leverage he could muster, slammed the man face-first into the plaster wall. The fellow fell with a groan, then didn’t move.
Archer had no time to dwell on this victory.
Dill had flung his knife across the room and had caught Shaw, betrayed by the beam of his light, in the upper arm. He dropped his gun, groaned, and fell back against the wall.
Dill used the bed as a trampoline and bounced to the other side of the room, something in his hand.
Jackie screamed and tried to reach for Dill to stop him, but missed, falling out of the bed with the effort.
Dill landed on the floor and lifted the thing high over his head.
It was a sledgehammer.
With a murderous yell he began to drive it downward, but it never reached Shaw’s head. Archer tackled him hard and the men tumbled to the floor, slid across it, and hit the wall, leaving them both momentarily stunned. Dill recovered first and tried to wedge the wooden handle of the sledgehammer against Archer’s throat, but two rapid punches to the smaller man’s face and Archer was able to seize the hammer and throw it clear. Then Archer felt the very thing he’d been afraid of — Dill’s steel-like fingers around his throat, trying to suffocate the life out of him. Although Dill had been shot in the arm and was bleeding badly, he still had the upper hand.
“Shoulda killed me when you had the chance, boy,” roared Dill gleefully.
Something hit Dill on the head. Archer saw Jackie standing there with a lamp. However, Dill let one hand go from Archer, flung his fist around, and knocked Jackie off her feet. She fell with a thud.
But Dill’s actions allowed Archer an opportunity, of which he took full advantage.
Archer reached what he needed in his pocket and then stabbed Dill in the side with the clasp knife, driving it up to the hilt in the man’s belly. Then a second time and then a third just for good measure.
Dill coughed up blood in Archer’s face, his grip lessened, and he finally let go and fell on his back onto the floor.
Archer stood on unstable legs and looked down at the man, just as Dill gazed up at him and snarled something incomprehensible. He tried to rise up as Archer took a step back, his knife held at the ready. Archer put his foot on the man’s chest and pushed him down, holding him there.
Archer had killed even more men in the war than he had let on to Jackie. And he had no compunction about ending the lives of any of them. He only thought about it later, actually, and then there had been no real remorse, only anger at the situation in which he’d been placed to have to kill another. He had no remorse this time, either. Not even close. Just relief.
“Dammit, just die, Dickie,” he said quietly.
And a few moments later, after a throat curdle and a body shiver, the man’s eyes grew rigid and his chest grew still as his life ended.
Archer turned to Jackie and helped her up. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said shakily. “I’m fine. Just sore from where he hit me.”
“Turn a light on,” he said. He dropped his bloodied knife and raced over to Shaw, who was on the floor, his back against the wall.
Jackie turned on the nightstand lamp. Shaw was holding his arm where blood was leaching out. He had pulled the knife free, which might not have been a good thing.
Archer helped him off with his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeve.
“Jackie, get me a towel. Do you have any bandages? And I’ll need some hot water and soap. And some liquor. And some hydrogen peroxide if you got it.”
Jackie rushed out of the room and returned with all of the items, including a bottle of brandy. Archer used his belt as a tourniquet above the wound, stanching the flow of blood.
“Give him the liquor,” said Archer.
Jackie helped Shaw to drink it straight from the bottle.