Johnny dug once with his thumbs, hard. The man in his hands went “Ur-r-kk!” and sagged. It would be the last sound he would make except with the greatest difficulty for two or three days. Then he would be able to whisper. Johnny picked him up and lugged him across the sidewalk onto the grass beyond, feeling the shoulder holster under his hands. He'd made no mistake. He dumped his burden and with silent ruthlessness stripped the wildly threshing man, tearing off handfuls of clothes. The belt snapped. The holster snapped. Johnny tore off the shoes and socks.
The naked man came up on his knees making gobbling noises. He was barely audible as he scuttled sideways to escape the unseen demon attacking him. He bounded to his feet and started to run. Johnny was able to fetch him one solid swat of the holster harness from behind before he sprinted across the lawns and disappeared between the houses.
Johnny made a little pile of the shredded clothing, making sure he had it all. He added belt, harness, shoes, and socks to it, bundled it all up and carried it across the street. He let himself in with his key. He was surprised to see Valerie Peterson, swathed shapelessly in a man's bathrobe, standing in the hall in the dim night-light.
“There's someone watching the house from across the street,” she said in a low tone. “I've been waiting up to tell-”
“You mean there was,” Johnny said. “Put on a light so I can get a look at this stuff.” She looked at the bundle under his arm. “Not out here. Somebody else might be watchin'.”
“Come out into the kitchen. The shades are drawn.” Johnny followed on her heels and pushed aside a plate of crackers and cheese to dump his booty on the oilcloth-covered table. He didn't have far to look. In the wallet in the ragged trousers he found a badge clipped to a photograph. He showed it to Mrs. Peterson.
“Will Tolliver,” she said grimly. “One of Jack Riley's hot young sparks. You're up to your ears now, man. What happened? I didn't hear a sound.”
“I got to his throat first.”
Her eyes gradually absorbed the totality of the strips of clothing on the table. She picked up a shoe. “My God, didn't you leave him anything?”
“Buck naked,” Johnny said. “He won't be back for a while. There's somethin' psychological about it, no clothes an' unable to communicate. It does somethin' to a man. The carabinieri in Italy are specialists at it. 'Course they add a couple of refinements. Before they turn their man loose after thumbin' his vocal chords they set up an obstacle course.
You'd be surprised how a man can tear himself up runnin' a quarter mile in the dark. An' the ever-lovin' carabinieri 'd rather do it to a woman.”
Despite the bulky bathrobe Valerie Peterson shivered. “I won't ask you how you know,” she said dryly. She looked at him eyeing the crackers and cheese. “Would you like a beer?”
“I would, thanks,” he said promptly. She opened the refrigerator door as he swept the bundled clothing off onto the floor. The thump with which the holster hit the floor reminded him of something. He removed the police special and placed it on the table beside the wallet. “I'll drop these in the nearest mailbox before I go upstairs,” he remarked to Mrs. Peterson. He wiped each carefully with his handkerchief and wrapped them in it. “I'll burn the rest in your incinerator.”
Her eyes rested on him speculatively. “You think they don't know where they sent him?”
“No sweat,” Johnny said. “Let them try to prove something.” Valerie Peterson sat down across the table from him. He looked up from his painstaking construction of a four-decker cracker-and-cheese monument to find her staring across at him, her chin in her hands. “I get it,” he said resignedly. “You're thinkin' of askin' me to leave.”
“I'm thinking of it.” Her tone was level. “You didn't tell me Carl Thompson was dead. And you're getting an awful lot of attention for a stranger in town.” Her steady gaze took in his hands and shoulders and returned to his face. “You bother me. Without that silly looking jacket you're different, but you come into town looking like something out of a comic strip-”
He waited until he was sure she wasn't going to continue. “You figure Jim Daddario's the wheel in this neck of the woods?” he asked her casually.
“Of course not.” She seemed surprised. “Dick Lowell runs this town.”
“You sure you're up to date?”
“You think that because Thompson is out and Riley is in it makes Daddario top dog? I don't think so. And anyway, they've never had any trouble getting along.”
“Sometimes a bug bites a man. Daddario might be plannin' on movin' up. How would Lowell like that?”
Valerie Peterson's mouth pursed thoughtfully. “Knowing him, he wouldn't like it.” Her steady gaze rested on Johnny's face. “Are you hiring out to one side or the other?”
“I'm here on a little business of my own.”
“I don't intend to have your business bringing trouble to my place,” she warned him. She pushed back from the table. “If it does-”
“See me then,” Johnny told her. He picked up his handkerchief-wrapped little package and walked to the door. “Be right back.”
Five minutes after he had dropped the revolver and wallet in the mailbox at the corner he was in bed, and thirty seconds after he was in bed he was asleep.
He came instantly awake in bright sunshine at a knock at the door. “Telephone, Johnny,” Jingle Peterson's voice called.
He rolled out of bed and slid into his pants. He padded barefoot to the door, opened it, and thrust his head out. “Man or woman, Jingle?” he inquired.
“Woman. Like definitely, see?” She eyed his bare arms and shoulders. “"What big muscles you have, grandma,' Little Red Ridinghood said to the wolf.”
“You should see the ones in my head.” Johnny returned to the chair beside his bed for an undershirt, pulled it on and, not bothering with shoes, brushed past Jingle and ran downstairs. He expected to hear Jessamyn Burger's voice when he picked up the dangling receiver of the wall pay phone in the front hall. Micheline Thompson's surprised him.
“Is this Johnny Killain?”
“Yeah. Hey!” he exclaimed. “Where are you? I been tryin' to reach you.”
“I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to see you. I don't know what you're doing here. I think you'd better leave town.”
“Just answer 'yes' or 'no',” Johnny said rapidly. “Is someone standin' right beside you while you're reelin' that off?”
He counted to five before she replied. “No,” she said.
“Someone's listenin' in on an extension?”
Again the hesitation. “You're going to get yourself in a lot of trouble,” her voice said finally. It sounded flat, without emphasis. “You'd better listen to-”
“Micheline,” he broke in, “qu'est-ce que c'est que vous voulez dire? Quand — ” The loud click of the broken connection in his ear cut him off. “Damn it all,” he said softly, and hung up the receiver. He stood looking blankly at the phone for an instant before turning to go back upstairs. Before he had taken three steps a sharp ring spun him around again. He had started for the telephone before he realized it was the front-door bell.
Tingle answered the door. There appeared to be no conversation as she was shunted aside by two uniformed police who barged right in. “Here!” Jingle said indignantly. “What do you think you're doing?”
They paid no attention. The leader stopped at sight of Johnny. “That him?” he asked his companion.
“Yeah.”
The front man addressed Johnny directly. “Let's take a little walk, pal.”
“Yeah? Whose invitation?” Through the small-paned window beside the front door Johnny could see the Black Maria at the curb and a third cop standing on the sidewalk.
“Our invitation. Let's go.”
“You got a warrant?” Johnny wished he had his shoes on. He wasn't going willingly in the police van, and a rough-house barefoot was like driving a racing car with a couple of cylinders missing.