It had slipped out. I was so used to needling people, catching them on the raw, that I’d said it automatically. She wasn’t living in a flat with a Persian carpet and five thousand dollars worth of woofers and tweeters on the money John Singer had given her two years before. But it was no business of mine.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Have you got a pill?’
‘I’ll see,’ she said coldly. She walked out and I heard her banging cupboards and drawers. The knee was stiffening and getting sore; I got the stick and stood up to loosen it. I hobbled over to the television set and picked up the ornament. It was trophy time again. Every man should have at least one trophy. I used to have one at home myself, a little job: ‘Runner-up High Schools 4 x 220 yards’. I ran third leg and lost some ground that the fourth man made up. A long time ago.
The doorbell rang and Sandy ran through the room and down the hall. She didn’t seem to be worried about her boyfriend finding her with a strange man and fifty bucks in a neat pile on a chair arm. I looked again at the plaque mounted on the ornament, unshipped my. 38 and got it ready to shoot. The front door closed and when they got into the living-room, I had it pointed at his chest. I tossed the mounted steering wheel across at him.
‘Hello, Tal,’ I said.
21
Talbot Brown, winner of the Philadelphia Stockcar Grand Prix in 1976, used both hands to catch his trophy. He hugged it to his chest and spoke in his soft accent.
‘Boy, oh boy. Are you in trouble.’
I raised the gun a fraction. Sandy jumped and drew closer to Brown; for a second I thought she was going to slip in behind him. ‘I’d say you were in trouble, Talbot,’ I said. ‘I still owe you a few from last week.’
I limped away from the window to take up the dominating position in the room, which is always in the centre and a little to the back. He watched me critically.
‘We didn’t do that,’ he said.
‘No, I met up with someone tougher than Rex.’
‘I’m real glad to hear it.’
‘He’s dead now, of course.’
Smartarse stuff, but it’s sometimes like that. The guns are almost comic until they go off. I never heard anyone laugh straight after a gun went off. Sandy didn’t know the rules. She moved forward sharply which caused me to jerk the gun at her.
‘What the hell is this?’ She screeched. ‘Tal, do you know this man? What’s the gun…’
Her alarm made me nervous. ‘Shut up!’ I snapped. ‘You’ve really been the rounds with this mob, haven’t you, Sandy? McLeary, Singer and now Freddy Ward’s chauffeur. Coming down in the world, though.’
Brown moved forward a step and transferred the trophy to his right hand.
‘Put it down gently, Tal,’ I said. ‘We don’t want to break it. Do it or I’ll shoot you. I mean it!’
He did it. Rex would have been in pretty bad shape when they found him and minus his big gun as well. That must have earned me a little respect, but I couldn’t afford to lose a fraction of it.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Now sit down and let’s keep it friendly. You tell me what I want to know and nobody gets hurt. If you don’t, I won’t be answerable. This leg makes me very bad-tempered. How’s Rex, by the way?’
He sat down on the edge of a chair, hitching at his pants a bit as he did it. His black beard was carefully trimmed and didn’t look as if it hid a weak chin as my father always opined beards did. He had been wrong about a lot of things. Tal didn’t look quite as wide out of his overalls, but he was wide enough. He was wearing a blue suit with a blue and white wide-striped shirt under it. I picked out the point on the stripe I’d have to hit to stop him.
‘Rex is real anxious to meet you again,’ he said.
‘I’ll bet. Sandy, you mentioned a drink before. And did you find any painkillers?’
She looked at Brown, who nodded impatiently. ‘How did you take Rex? He wouldn’t tell us. And what did you do with his gun? He was crazy about that weapon.’
‘I took him with a bit of string and a hell of a lot of luck. I’d say Rex was an unlucky type. He should be in a different line of work. I gave his gun to the cops.’
He looked surprised at that and not pleased.
‘I never knew a driver who was any good with a gun. Have you got one, Tal?’
‘No.’
‘Good. You know, I saw a pump shotgun the other day. Belonged to the guy who gave me this leg. If I had it here I could demonstrate what it can do. I should have souvenired it. It’d knock that fancy TV set through the wall, for a start.’
Sandy had been clinking things in the kitchen. She came in with a tray and nearly dropped it when she heard me. There was a bottle of Teacher’s scotch on the tray with some glasses and a bowl of ice. She’d filled a milk bottle with water and it rattled against a glass as she put the tray down. A strip of Aspros was beside the scotch.
Tal didn’t look too comfortable; he glanced at my head bandage a couple of times as if he was wondering whether I’d suffered brain damage. That was all right with me.
‘I’ll take four Aspros,’ I said to Sandy. She peeled the paper off. ‘And a bit of the Teacher’s with water. Keep to one side as you do it!’
I sat down in the chair with the money on it and sipped my drink while she poured two more. She sat down; I put my glass down, picked up the money and flicked it at her. The notes fell untidily on the Persian carpet.
‘What’s that for?’ Tal asked, and his accent was a little less soft.
‘Information,’ I said. ‘Like what you’re going to give me, except that I’m not going to pay for it.’
‘Get fucked.’ He was lifting his glass to his mouth. I swung the stick and the metal ferrule hit it just right-the glass shattered and the liquid sprayed all over him. Sandy shrieked and dropped her drink.
‘A waste,’ I said. ‘And bloody bad for the carpet.’ I put the stick down, keeping the gun steady, and had a drink. I crumbled two of the Aspros in my fingers and put the powder into the glass.
‘My leg hurts. And I’m nervous, and I don’t like people who kick me. As I said, you’re in trouble.’
‘He’s mad,’ Sandy whispered.
‘I told you to get fucked.’ He was picking glass out of his clothes. His trousers were wet at the thighs and a little cut on his cheek just above the beard was bleeding. A sliver of glass caught in the dark beard glittered like a gem. Adrenalin was rushing through me and my mind was speeding, but I reckoned I didn’t have long in the cockpit. The phone could ring; someone could call. Tal was genuinely tough and resourceful the way racing drivers have to be. He’d try something.
‘I won’t try to be reasonable with you,’ I said. ‘Racing drivers are fucking lunatics to start with. I want to know why Freddy Ward was so interested in me.’
His mouth started to form those same words again and I tapped him on the knee with the stick, not hard, not soft. ‘I learned a bit about knees in the hospital. How they work, and all. Tricky things, easy to hurt.’ I whacked the side of the same knee. He winced and swore.
‘Knees and eyes,’ I said. ‘That’s what a driver needs. I guess hands aren’t so important.’ His hand was resting on the arm of the chair and I slammed the stick down on it. He yelped and wrung the hand.
I kept my eyes locked on his and moved the gun up a bit. ‘This is a Smith amp; Wesson Combat. 38, two-inch barrel, six shots. But you won’t have to worry about the six shots. I’m going to shoot you in the right knee, then I’m going to poke your left eye out with this.’ I tapped the stick. ‘With a bit of luck you’ll still be able to drive-automatics.’
Sandy started to cry softly. ‘I won’t lay a finger on you,’ I said. It was a crude hard-soft sell and I was using all the props I had. I kept tapping the stick and Sandy kept crying and it all got to Tal eventually.
‘You wouldn’t do it,’ he said shakily.
‘Why not?’
‘You’d lose your licence.’ It was a weak effort and he knew it. I grinned at him and moved the two-inch barrel forward one inch.