“I’ll let you know,” I said, “when I find out.”
After I hung up, I stood at the window, mulling over everything I’d learned so far. I thought of Scanlon’s experience in Central America, and of Lessard’s registry of a boat in Peru. The two had met here, where Ybor City provided a nerve end to Latin America.
I locked the apartment and went down to the narrow, sweltering street. A man came from the direction of the all-night market down on the corner, a bag of groceries in his arm.
I headed for the alley to go around and get my car. The man with the groceries smiled and nodded. He was about fifty, big and powerful, dressed neatly in an inexpensive tropical suit.
He shifted to block my way, showed me the heavy revolver in his free hand, nestled close to the groceries. I saw that the gun was silenced.
I stood on sharp tacks for a second. He had a big, broad, pleasantly dumb face, brush-cut, iron-gray hair. He looked like a hearty fellow all washed up after a day working in the oil fields or driving a bulldozer. He had made a calm, matter-of-fact decision. I saw it in his slate-gray eyes. The decision involved the gun.
“What do you want?” I said, watching for a flicker of uncertainty in the decision.
“You.”
“Which are you?” I stalled.
“Which?”
“Kincaid or Smith?”
He didn’t change expression. “Smith. You want to die this close to the gutter?”
“No,” I said, “not tonight.”
Chapter Eight
Smith revealed his experience in such activities in the way he herded me in the alley. He stayed about three paces behind me. It gave him time and space to use the gun, even if I’d been the fastest fool on earth.
I heard the groceries slide down his body, thunk on the crushed shell paving of the alley.
“Keep moving,” he said.
As I passed down the scabby brick profile of the building, there was a change in the sound of the footsteps behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. I guessed it was Kincaid who’d slithered out of the shadows to join Smith.
“Stop,” Smith said. “Right there.”
I stopped, in the exposed, most open part of the alley where it widened at the car shed.
Kincaid circled cautiously, coming in behind me. He was as tall as Smith, not as heavy. He moved lithely, a man of perfect reflexes and coordination. The after-glow in the alley from the street didn’t give me much of a look at his face. I got an impression of hard bone and sharp angles, with the eyes set under a high forehead.
“Put your hands on your head, Rivers,” Smith said.
I caressed my thinning crown.
Behind me, Kincaid’s hands started at my ankles. He passed up my wallet. Reaching in my side pocket, he appropriated my keys. Then he lifted the .38 from under my lightweight jacket.
The sheath of my knife was a comforting touch between my shoulder blades.
“I’ve been wanting to meet you,” I said.
“We’ve shared the desire,” Kincaid said behind me. He had a low, crisp voice. Each word was well enunciated. I wondered if he’d ever conned his way into reasonably cultured circles. “Our inquiries regarding you, Rivers, have been thorough, if discreet. For one thing,” he laughed softly, “we heard a rumor about a knife, a flat piece of steel honed to razor sharpness.”
His hand jerked the collar of my jacket. My shoulders reacted, snapping the collar tight on his fingers. My right hand dropped from the crown of my head, clamped on his wrist. At the same time, the rest of my body was in motion. I collapsed against Kincaid as the gun in Smith’s hand coughed. The lighting was bad, and he was afraid of hitting his partner. The slug whined off the brick wall behind us.
With Kincaid off balance, I used my legs like steel springs. He gasped as the top of my head slammed up against his chin.
I spun Kincaid as Smith sprang to one side to get in another shot. Without breaking motion, I pile-drivered the reeling Kincaid at Smith. The three of us collided. Kincaid went to his knees. Tripping over him, I grabbed for Smith’s gun. Smith was tearing himself free of the melee, trying to keep his footing.
Smith’s backward moving bulk and my grip on his wrist threw my weight against Kincaid. He went prone, threshing and grabbing at me. Kicking at Kincaid, I kept the direction of motion constant against Smith.
Smith tripped, tottered backwards. His face was a slick, white smear in the night. His gun wrist was slippery as he threw his bulk behind the effort to bring the gun to bear.
Sprawling toward Smith, I tried to get a steady footing. His free hand was a fist, slugging at my face. I turtled my head between my shoulders. His knuckles cracked on my forehead. The alley tilted for a second.
I butted Smith in the belly. I sensed his heels catching in the loose shell paving. He clubbed at me with his fists as we reeled on insecure footing. The blows struck my shoulders and back. I stayed with him like a babe clinging to its mother.
Then Kincaid’s weight hit me from behind. The three of us went down in a tangle of stabbing arms and legs. I heard the breath grunt out of Smith. His grip on the gun weakened.
Kincaid grabbed my hair and tried to jerk me loose from Smith. I took the eye-watering punishment, my knee in Smith’s groin. A sharp hiss of pain came from him.
I was gambling on them being unwilling to risk an un-silenced shot in the alley. I was right about that. I almost had the silenced gun ripped from Smith’s fingers, the authority to command.
Then Kincaid collected his senses, cooled his head. He ceased his ineffectual attack on my back. I felt his weight leave me. My skull split open. He’d taken aim and done a perfect place kick.
The night was an empty sinkhole, draining my strength. I felt Smith writhing from under me, but there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
The two of them stood over me a few moments, getting their wind back, the toe of Kincaid’s shoe touching me now and then in grim speculation.
“Well,” Kincaid said, pulling breath into his lungs, “we heard he was a tough old grizzly.”
“Yeah,” Smith said in a thick voice.
“The way you’re supposed to be tough,” Kincaid said.
“I didn’t expect...”
“I know,” Kincaid said, “but he saw it as his last chance, and what did he have to lose?”
“I’ll fix him for it,” Smith said. “I’ll fix him good. I’ll make him wish he’d never got greedy with Bucks Jordan.”
“You’ll do what I tell you to do,” Kincaid said. “And next time you shoot off a gun with me that close around, I’m going to make you eat it.”
“Now, Kincaid, you know I...”
“I know you get rattled. You should have kept your head, slugged him with the gun. It would have spared us much.”
Dimly, I heard the slapping of his hands as Kincaid brushed himself off. “I should charge you for this suit.”
“We’ll get plenty of suits when we finish dredging Rivers,” Smith said.
“Ha, ha,” Kincaid said sarcastically.
“I thought it was pretty good,” Smith’s tone echoed rebuff.
“At least we’ve got him now,” Kincaid said. “And I’ll be sore in every muscle and joint for a week because of it. Put him in the car and let’s get out of here before some wandering joker puts an end to our run of luck.”
Weak as a half-drowned dog, I lay and took it as Smith put his knee in the small of my back and jerked my hands behind me.
“Lend me your necktie, Kincaid.”
He used the tie to lash my hands. Then he slid his own soiled handkerchief to make a gag. With the dirty linen tearing my jaws, I really began to hate Smith.
He grunted as he clutched my shoulders and dragged me toward my own car. He stuffed me in the back seat, got under the wheel, and Kincaid slid in beside him.