"Wait. Wait a minute. She didn't tell you anything?"
"I knew where she'd been. I knew who she was with. I knew about Toby, what Toby was, what Toby likes to do to women. I'd seen her"-he jerked the gun toward Nana- "when Toby was finished with her. She gave me some bullshit story, but I knew Toby. I told him then if he ever touched another one of my girls in the wrong way, I'd hurt him. But for Amber, for hurting Amber, I'd kill him."
"You brutalized her. And you didn't even know for sure what had happened."
"She was dead. I stood over her, crying like a big baby, and broke whatever I could break. I did it one bone at a time, thinking about Toby. You see, he's not just going to die. The whole world is going to know what he is before the law kills him. They're going to know what filth he is. They're going to hate him as much as I hate him. That means he'll die twice. I wish I could figure a way to make him die three times."
"Why didn't you just turn him in?" I was hoping he'd let the gun droop again.
"And let Saffron go? She had to die, too."
"Saffron told you what happened that night," I said.
"Saffron told me a lot of things. Saffron told me everything I could possibly want to know. She was dying to tell me." He made a choking sort of sound that eventually turned into a laugh. "That's a joke," he said. "She was dying to tell me. It only took one arm and a couple of cuts, little cuts, and she was dying to tell me."
"What about the clothesline? How'd you know about the clothesline?"
"That one," he said, gesturing toward Nana. "That tramp on the floor there. She told Amber all about poor little Toby. You're the big detective, you should have figured that out. There was clothesline strung in the girls' dressing room. They use it to dry their costumes between sets. I just put up a new rope the next morning."
"Congratulations, Tiny," I said. "You figured it all out. It's a shame it's not going to work."
He gave me a loose-lipped smile. "It's gonna work," he said. "There's no reason, not a reason on the world, I'd kill these girls. But everybody who matters knows about Toby, even the cops. And they're going to find her here, and there's gonna be three Polaroids in Toby's little album over there."
"That's the problem," I improvised. "The Polaroids."
The little gun came up and pointed directly at my chin. "Explain," he said.
"The cops have the picture of Amber. Someone was with Toby when he got it in the mail. She made him take it to the cops. I was the one who found Saffron, and I gave them both of the pictures you left there. Toby's got an alibi for Saffron." I licked my lips. They felt like sandpaper. "Toby's with the cops now," I said.
"You asshole," Tiny said in a tight little voice. "That's why I killed Nana, because she was working with you." He blinked, the heaviest blinks since Charles Laughton, two or three times. "Okay," he said. "First we kill you, and then we wait for Toby. I'll worry about me after I kill Toby."
He extended his arm and cocked the gun.
I'd run out of things to say.
Toby's front door slammed shut.
The hand with the gun in it wavered. "Sit down," he whispered, "or I'll blow your brains out right now."
I remained standing, watching the little pig eyes shift toward the hallway as boots sounded on the wooden floor. The hall light came on. Tiny kept the gun on me but swiveled his eyes to the archway between the hall and the living room.
Big John, AKA Jack Sprunk, stood in the doorway. Tiny looked bewildered and shifted the gun to a point halfway between us. "Stay where you are," he said to John.
John looked at me and smiled. "Hello," he said. Then he started to walk toward Tiny. Even compared with Tiny, he looked big. The smile stayed on his face. He looked from one of us to the other, as calm as a postulant taking communion. I gathered myself for a leap.
A door somewhere on the other side of the kitchen opened and closed.
Tiny looked at me and then toward the kitchen. John kept walking. Tiny swallowed and pivoted toward the kitchen door.
But he shot John first.
The gun made a bright, hard spang sound: small caliber. Tiny was already facing the kitchen when he realized that John was still coming at him and turned to fire again. The second shot caught John in the collarbone and threw him to the floor. Dolly appeared in the kitchen door, and Tiny aimed the gun at her.
At the same moment, Toby flew through the door leading to the beach and jumped onto Tiny's back, grabbing Tiny's gun hand. Dolly let out a yell I didn't know she had in her and leapt toward Tiny and Toby, now tangled together into a furious, whirling knot. A shot reverberated through the room. Three. Tiny looked like a boar attacked by dogs, trying to toss them off through sheer force of weight.
Acting on automatic pilot, I bent down and picked up Nana. I carried her through the kitchen door and put her on the floor, protected by the wall from stray bullets.
As I put her down she moaned.
I touched her throat. The echoes of another shot slammed back and forth between floor and walls. Four. A pulse was beating there, slow and erratic, but a pulse, goddammit, a pulse.
It was no time for sentiment. I headed for the living room.
And got there just in time to see Dolly land on the floor near the door to the beach, next to Toby. Tiny stood a few feet away, heaving with the effort, pointing the gun at them.
"Stay where you are, on the floor," he said. He turned his head toward me. "You. Get over there. Move wrong and I'll kill you. I'll kill all of you."
"You can't," I said, getting as close to them as I could. "You're a bullet short, fatso."
The word registered. "Then you're first," he said, pointing the gun at me.
Behind him Big John pulled himself slowly to a sitting position.
"Well, that's a problem, isn't it?" I said. "Who's first? It really ought to be old Toby here. He's the one you're after. He's the one who killed Amber."
Tiny's eyes zigzagged sluggishly between me and Toby. He was dripping perspiration, and his face was green. Then the gun started to move. Toby crawled backward frantically.
John was on all fours now. He shook his head to clear it.
"On the other hand," I said, "maybe you ought to kill the one who's most likely to go for you after you shoot Toby. That's got to be me, you disgusting, porno-eating, obese piece of shit, you fat, ridiculous dope. Why'd you think that Amber or anybody could love you? She laughed at you, lard-ass. Who wouldn't? You tub, you perverted gob of spit masquerading as a human being, you. ."
The gun was aimed directly between my eyes.
My voice failed.
"She loved me," Tiny said in a hoarse whisper. Then John's arm encircled his neck, just as it had encircled mine, and all hell broke loose.
Tiny's head snapped back, and the gun went off. The bullet sang past my right ear and thunked into the wall behind me. Toby and Dolly were trying to scramble to their feet, and Tiny was hunching his back, heaving his body to throw John off.
John was just too big. Tiny's face turned red and then purple. His gun hand sagged. Toby was already up. He reached out and took the gun from Tiny's dangling hand.
He pointed it at Tiny. "Simeon," he said, every inch the television hero, "is Nana okay?"
"She's alive," I said. "Give me the gun, Toby."
He pointed it at me. Tiny was emitting small wet gasps as John's arm tightened. His eyes had disappeared completely.