The match burned down and I lit another one.
I cursed under my breath.
At one time the answer had been here. It hadn’t been too long ago. There was photographic evidence that would have pointed the finger straight at the one who counted and now it was gone.
I said, “damn it to hell!”
The voice standing in the doorway said, “That’s the way we felt too. Keep your hands where they are and turn around. Do it slow. Do everything slow. That is, if you wanta keep on living.”
And there was that little bastard of an Eddie Packman with a snub-nosed rod in his fist and the pimply-faced boy from the Ship ’n Shore behind him backing the play with his automatic.
The pencil beam of the flash in the kid’s hand ran up and down my body looking for bulges under my clothes. It passed close enough to Eddie’s arm to be reflected off the cast he wore.
The kid said, “He looks clean, Eddie.”
“Go see, you jerk,” Eddie snarled. “You oughta know by now. Give me the light.” He took it out of the kid’s hand and stuck it in the fingers that dangled out of the cast.
Trying to be casual didn’t come easy to the kid. He sidled crabwise over to me, ran his hands over my pockets, patted my chest and stepped back. “I told you he was clean,” he said sneeringly. The rod in his hand gouged into the small of my back. “Go ahead, tough guy, start walking.”
So I walked. Eddie drew back in the doorway and let me go by. “You can try and run for it if you like. Don’t think I won’t give it to you here or anyplace else.”
His beady eyes glowed at me. They were narrow and mean and almost praying I’d do something that was excuse enough to start shooting. He looked like a rat, his face drawn out in a thin-lipped snarl that showed the uneven edges of his teeth.
Like rats, all right. That’s why they were so damned quiet. They must have frozen the minute I came in and stayed that way until I had walked into their hands.
The kid poked me again and said, “We knew you’d be here. You’re a sucker.”
“Shaddup, you,” Eddie spit out.
Pimples was new at being tough. He didn’t like to get yelled at. “Shut your own mouth. Who the hell you think you are?”
Eddie taught him a quick lesson with the end of his rod. I heard it hit bone and the kid let out a sob that choked off in his throat. He didn’t need a second lesson. He sobbed all the way down and out to Eddie’s sedan where he got in under the wheel holding a bloody handkerchief to his face.
I got the place of honor. In the back seat with Eddie’s gun a cold spot under my ribs. He sat facing me with his leg under him, a laugh pulling the sneer off his face. He looked at me until the car got started then before I saw what he was going to do the cast came around and smashed against the side of my head with a sickening crack that almost churned my guts up in my mouth before I lost all feeling and dropped into a black well of unconsciousness.
My head pounded with every beat of my heart. It hung forward, limply ready to fall if my hands let go of what they were holding. But the hands weren’t holding anything. They were balls of meat tied together behind the back of the chair, senseless things that dangled at the end of my arms. I opened my eyes and watched the fuzzy, distorted angles under my head take shape until they were my legs. My foot twitched spasmodically and moved an inch. I was glad they weren’t tied too.
Whatever lit the room had a yellow glow to it. I made my eyes travel across the rough woodwork of the floor until they met the opposite wall, then down the side to a chair, and another chair, across again to the middle and the four legs of a table.
On the table was an old-fashioned kerosene lamp. The wick was turned too high and the smoke was making a black doughnut on the dirty cracked plaster ceiling. There was a door in the wall on the other side of the room. It was a substantial-looking door that was closed tightly against the jam.
It was still raining outside. It made a drumming noise someplace overhead, occasionally slashing in waves against the side of the building. I sat there letting my head clear, listening to the outside trying to get in and above it all heard a faint slap-slap of water licking at something that held it back. I could smell it too. The river.
Me and the river. We were both alone.
I tried my legs, starting to stand up. The chair rose with me an inch or so but no further. The rope that tied my hands tied the chair to something too. For no reason at all I wondered what time it was. Suddenly not being able to see my watch was more important than anything else. I sat down again and strained against the ropes, and when that didn’t work wiggled them enough to get the circulation started again.
That made it worse than before. They weren’t senseless chunks of meat any longer. They were raw, screaming nerve ends that pulsated with pure agony. I cursed and clamped down on my lip until the taste of blood was in my mouth. I could feel the sweat rolling down my face until it dripped off my chin. The drops made patterns between my feet.
After ten minutes or maybe thirty it passed and became a dull, throbbing ache, but at least there was some feeling in the ends of my fingers. They were wet with blood from where the ropes bit into the skin.
Every position hurt. The best I could do was lean forward like I was when I came awake and stare at the floor. I got tired of watching the floor and looked at my legs. The underside of my right thigh was pretty damn sore. I moved and it stopped hurting some.
But I moved it back where it was in case somebody came in and decided to search me again. The last time they hadn’t noticed the gun in that out-of-place pocket.
Me and the rod. We would have made a good combination if my hands weren’t useless lumps behind me. Great. Useless. Me, I was useless to. I walked head-on into it. I should have known as soon as I saw that room. I should have flattened myself on the floor with the rod cocked and waited for them to come in. I should have done a lot of things.
Now look.
So I sat and thought how nice they had me trapped. Now nobody would ever know. I’d know, but I’d be dead. A few other people would know, but they were the ones who wanted me dead.
Five years, a thousand miles. I had come a long way to wind up in a chair with my hands strapped together and the river close enough to smell. Soon they’d be coming in and they’d look at me and I’d look at them, but they’d be the ones to laugh. I’d just sit here until I was dead.
Maybe somebody would find my body and figure out how it happened. Unlikely. Very unlikely. I wished I could know the whole story before I died. I’d like that. I’d sure like to know how close I was.
I could see the angles now.
Before Lyncastle there was Lenny Servo and a girl named Gracie Harlan. She was a show girl until the breaks got rough, then she tied in with Lenny. They played tricks with the money boys and picked up an income with the con game. Con with sex thrown in. No matter how smart they are it always works. That is, always until somebody has sense enough to squawk.
For that she served time, but it didn’t keep her from wanting to go back in business. Lenny found the heat on in the East and looked around for a spot to operate in. He was a clever character, he was. He found Lyncastle. But he was broke when he found it and didn’t have the connections that could put up big money fast.
Hell, that wasn’t any trouble for Lenny. He put the squeeze on a kid named Johnny McBride. He must have been pretty cute about it. Harlan sexed Johnny into a spot that would have ruined him, then Lenny came across with the suggestion that he lift some funds from the bank for the purpose of financing his operations.
The son of a bitch even had some insurance. He must have been big-time-Charlying Vera West in the meantime until she was on his side and when the bust came Johnny ran to save her neck, not his own!