He was a short stocky guy in a gray suit and gray summer hat who walked with a crab and his left arm cocked at the elbow to keep the rod under his arm in place. The cops in this town certainly needed a few lessons in shadowing.
I turned off the main street, crossing over into a residential district until I found a comer nicely shrouded in shadows. From the way I was walking he must have thought I was going somewhere and figured I wouldn’t be thinking of having a tail.
When I made the corner I stepped back into the hedges and waited for him to come around the bend. He walked right into my hands and I had his elbows pinned behind his back before he even started cursing. I shoved my knee into his spine and jerked him back like a bow. “Just make one funny move and you’re gonna break in two, mister.”
So he didn’t move a bit. Not an inch. He let me pull his rod out and drop it on the turf then fish for his wallet. I dropped that and all he had in his pockets and what I was looking for he didn’t have. A badge.
I gave another little twitch and the scream that started up his throat got cut off in the middle. “Who sent you, pal?”
His head came back and his hat fell off. In the dull light his eyes were a couple of big glass marbles. The spit ran down the corner of his mouth, dripping off his chin. I eased up and asked him again and that was as far as I got. Someplace far off there was a sharp crack and the night got darker and darker until it was just an empty void and I was floating in the middle of it.
After a while the floating merged into a series of hard jolts that was a hammer beating against my skull. There were voices and sounds again, coming back slowly. Moving hurt, so I sat where I was until the blasting inside my brain subsided.
One of the voices said, “Goddamn it, he nearly cracked me in half!”
“Ah shaddup, you asked for it. You was climbing up his back all the way.”
The first voice let out a series of curses that took in everybody. “You wasn’t supposed to be more’n a block away, goddamn it! You took your time about getting there.”
“So what. We got there, didn’t we? There was a red light before we made the turn. You want we should get a ticket?”
“Ticket hell. For a ticket I should get a broke back? Some son of a bitch is gonna pay for this. Damn ‘em, this guy was supposed to be a drip. Easy, the son of a bitch said. He’d shake in his shoes if you yelled at ’im.”
“Quit crying. You found out who he was. He got medals in the army fer being a rough apple.”
“So what? The lousy bastard said he was one of them fatigue cases. He was yellow. He was scared of fighting any more. Maybe I shoulda asked him first, huh? Maybe I shoulda found out for myself before I got my back damn near broke!”
“He’s here, ain’t he?”
“So’m I, but I don’t feel so good. For a guy what’s supposed to be yellow he damn near done all right. Maybe these big guys get yellow after a while, but they don’t stay that way. That war was a long way off.”
The words formed inside my head without being spoken. I felt like thanking the guy. There were a lot of people who thought Johnny was yellow. First Nick. Then Logan. Somebody else figured that way and their boys fell for it. So a guy is yellow because he gets his belly full of killing. He gets so that he doesn’t want any part of killing or the things that cause it and they call him yellow. A typical civilian attitude. Here’s a gun, go get them, feller. Attaboy, Johnny, good job. Here’s some more bullets. What? You’ve had enough of it? Why, you yellow-bellied bastard, get away from me!
Somebody next to me started laughing at the argument and I turned my head. The guy caught the movement and the snout of a gun rammed into my ribs. “Sonny’s awake back here,” he said.
The little guy who had tailed me turned around in his seat. His arm was a blur of motion and his fist cracked across my mouth. “You bastard, I’ll show you something.”
He would have done it again if the guy beside me hadn’t shoved him back. “Lay off, jerk. You pile us up and you’ll be the one getting a ride, not him. Now sit down and keep your trap closed.”
It was nice knowing what was going on. I wiped the blood off my lips with the back of my hand. I said, “So this is it?”
The gun in my ribs pressed a little deeper. “That’s right, sonny, this is it. Let me tell you something. You’re a big boy and you like to play rough, but this gun is loaded and cocked and the first move you make you get it sideways, right across your belly. It’ll take a long time to die that way. Be nice and it’ll all be over with quick.”
“Thanks.”
I sat back and enjoyed the ride. Hell, what else was there to do? We were out on the highway and the city was only a faint reflection in the rear-view mirror. There were cars going by every once in a while, but going too fast to yell and attract attention before I caught a bullet in the ribs. The car was a two-door job beside, so there wasn’t any chance of taking a dive even if I wanted to.
We must have been about a half hour out of Lyncastle before the guy at the wheel pulled off the highway onto a dirt road. Until then it hadn’t been so bad. Now my heart started pounding against my chest like a wild thing trying to beat its way out. The guy beside me felt me stiffen up and nudged me with the gun as a reminder that he was still there.
It was pitch black, darker than the void I had swum in, with the driver feeling his way along on his dimmers. The road curved and started to rise, then flattened out and disappeared altogether. Just before the lights went off entirely I had a chance to see the reflection of the stars in the water and knew that the road was a dead end up to a quarry of some sort.
The guy said, “Out.”
One of the others held the seat down so I could crawl out the door. He had a gun facing me for insurance.
I started to think a lot of things right then. Most of all I was thinking what a damn fool I was for not playing it safer. Those guys had been on my tail all day waiting to get me off someplace where they could pick me up and I go and make it just perfect for them.
The gun rammed me in the spine again. “Start walking over there to where the hole is.”
“Listen, I...”
“Keep quiet and walk. Don’t make it rough on yourself.”
They formed a fan around me, flanking me in as nice as you please. Like Nazis, that’s what. I did everything but dig my own grave. They had it just right, too... back far enough so I couldn’t make a stab at one of the rods and close enough to see my outline even in the dark.
God, I couldn’t just go easy like that! I had to do something!
Before anyone could tell me to shut up I said, “I want a cigarette.”
A voice said, “Give him one.”
“What the hell for!”
“I said give him one.”
Paper rustled and a cigarette came to me out of the dark, held lightly in the ends of the fingers. I stuck it in my mouth and groped for a match. The guy who complained about giving me the butt started to complain again and the other voice cut in with “He’s clean. You don’t think I’d let him be packing a rod around, do you?”
I almost felt like answering him myself. I swung around so I’d be facing them and flicked the wooden match with my thumbnail. They were just stupid enough not to see what I did. My eyes were shut tight, I felt for the butt, lit it and shook the match out. Then I opened my eyes.
I was the only one who could still see in the dark and while they were still seeing a great big bright spot where the match had been I leaped off to the left, hit the dirt and rolled.
The shots came blasting out with the shouts and curses, stabbing the air where I had been, trying to search me out with orange tongues of flame. The slugs were smacking the ground, wining off into the brush splatting the walls of the quarry and tearing into the foliage with a harsh, ripping sound.