“We’re taking you to talk to somebody, mister,” he said.
He was maybe twenty-three. The skinny one, no older, was going over to the couch where several loops of rope were waiting, also some duct tape. Becky was standing at the open doorway to her bedroom, looking like she might cry, hugging herself like it was cold in here.
“Taking me where?” I asked, sitting up. “For what?”
He lifted the blackjack and waggled it like a finger. “Just stay put. We’re gonna tie you up. You might could live through this.”
He had that same faint Southern twang as Becky.
I said, “That’s might encouraging.”
He frowned, smart enough to know I was mocking him. But I had a hunch that was the extent of his smarts.
“Just you cooperate,” he said. “Somebody wants to talk to you.”
“You said that before. Becky! Honey. This your way of paying me back for sticking up for you last night?”
She said nothing, looked away.
“Becky is with us,” the linebacker said, like I didn’t know that. “She told us how you roughed up them creeps last night, and she’s grateful. But we got to be careful. If you’re who you might be, you’ll understand.”
Only I didn’t understand.
The skinny one had collected the rope and was coming over to me.
That was enough. I whipped out the nine millimeter, now that they were close enough together to get them both without half-trying.
They froze, goggling at me. The linebacker dropped the blackjack and I hadn’t even asked him to. The skinny one, his jaw dangling, let go of the coils of rope and they hit the carpet like dead snakes.
Becky turned to bolt through the bedroom and to her back I said, “You can give that a try, honey. I might not shoot you.”
And in truth I might not — a gunshot would put an end to this job before it began, and I was still somewhat enamored with the idea of making twenty-five grand.
In any case, she froze, and turned toward me, putting her hands up like a cashier in a convenience store robbery.
My reluctance to shoot at all in these circumstances was the reason these two clean-cut assholes were still breathing. It would really piss me off to come all the way to St. Louis and take out two or three people and not get anything out of it but a minimal kill fee from the Broker.
I was on my feet now. Like Becky, these two had their hands up, unbidden. The skinny one was shaking like Jerry Lewis in Scared Stiff.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said. “Becky, sweetie — over here... That’s right. Don’t be nervous. Just come over. That’s fine, right there. Now, take those coils of rope, one at a time, and tie your friends’ hands behind their backs.”
She squinted at me like I was speaking Latvian.
“You heard me,” I said, not nasty. “I need really good strong knots, tight enough that your boyfriends can’t slip out of them. I’ll be checking now.”
She swallowed, nodding.
I waited while she followed orders.
“Good,” I said. “Now, give them each a duct-tape gag. Just a decent strip to cover the mouth.”
She did that, too.
“Fellas,” I said, “sit on the couch. Leave some space between you.”
They went over and did that. Those ropes had been intended to tie both my hands and feet, but I’d had to settle just for their hands.
Becky was standing four or five feet from me, by now looking more embarrassed than afraid. I directed her to an easy chair near the couch. Then I stomped on the floor three times, hard. My seated company reacted with popping eyes, and the ungagged Becky made a kind of yelp. Nothing that would attract attention.
I went over to the door and opened it. I could hear footsteps pounding up the carpeted stairs. My curly-headed, mustached partner and his long-barreled S & W .38 rolled in. He was in a paisley sportshirt and brown trousers and nicely shined shoes — he’d known he might have to come visiting, and he wasn’t about to do that in his underwear or jammies, despite the hour.
“You rang?” he said, shutting the door behind him. Three foot stomps had been the signal.
“She sold me out,” I said, nodding to Becky, whose expression turned hurt, and then gestured with my nine mil to the duct-tape twins and said, “Those two grabbed me and were going to take me somewhere.”
“Where?”
“We haven’t got to that.”
“Then why gag the fuckers?”
“Because my sweetie here will be more talkative. And she’s coming with me.”
Her eyebrows went up.
Then, at my direction, all us went out to go down the stairs to the apartment below, the two denim-clad dopes in front with me (and the nine mil); next, Boyd squeezing down side by side with Becky, holding her by an arm while he shoved the .38 in her tummy.
The guy in the lead, the road company Kirk Douglas, tried to make a break for it, thinking his buddy would take any bullet. Might have worked if he’d have waited till we got to the landing of our apartment below, but he panicked and tried it halfway there, and as soon as he made his move, I kicked his pal in the ass and sent him tumbling to knock into the linebacker and they got tangled up in each other rolling down, winding up in a comical pile on the landing.
Boyd handed the girl off to me — she had a deer-in-headlights expression — and stepped around the two interwoven idiots who were moaning through their duct-tape, and pushed open the door he’d left ajar. He dragged them inside by the ankles, one at a time, and we followed, Becky first.
I shut us in.
The two boys weren’t unconscious from the fall — it was only a half a floor’s worth of carpeted stairs — but both were moaning and whimpering, in their muffled way, on their backs now like upturned bugs. Boyd patted each man down, came up with nothing much — no I.D. or gun or knife, and of course the blackjack had been left behind — though some car keys turned up in the skinny one’s pants.
I took those, and said to Becky, whose arm I was still holding onto, “They wanted to take me to see somebody. Do you know who?”
She nodded.
“Do you know where?”
She nodded.
“Can you drive me there?”
That she had to think about.
“Becky. Can you drive me there?”
She swallowed. Tears were welling. But she nodded.
Our living room was set up the same as theirs — I’d instructed Boyd to disassemble his lookout perch, anticipating this company — so soon the blond linebacker and his skinny friend were both seated on the couch, tied hands behind them, with Becky in the nearby easy chair.
I stood before them like we were playing charades and it was my turn. Boyd and his .38 were behind me, a little to my right, where he had a straight-on shot at the duct-tape duo.
I said to all three, “Like somebody said earlier, cooperate and you ‘might could live through this.’ My friend here is going to keep you company. Assuming you don’t get stupid — that is more stupid, or in dipshit-ese, ‘stupider’ — he won’t do anything but keep an eye on you until I get back... What happens then, you’re wondering?”
Both of the duct-taped clowns nodded. It was so much in tandem that I had to laugh.
“Assuming I come back in good shape — and judging by your boss sending you fools to get me, that should be no problem — I’ll let you fellas go back to whatever hayloft or outhouse you crawled out of. After that, I won’t kill you unless I see you. Fair enough?”
They actually nodded. Not quite in tandem, though, so it fell short of chuckle-worthy.
Boyd went over and turned on his radio to that easy listening station, where Buddy Greco was singing “The Lady is a Tramp,” and turned it up fairly loud. Not loud enough to cover a gunshot, maybe, but helpful if that came up; besides, the bar below was empty and so, obviously, was the apartment above. He pulled a chair around and sat facing them, crossing his legs, wiggling his right foot to the rhythm.