He was still down on all fours, crawling a little, trying to stand up and not making it, and then crawling again. He did not have the gun anymore, but in the darkness I couldn’t tell where it was or if it was what Rosten was heading after. I swung around the front fender of my car, trying not to stumble on the rocks. Alex shouted something else, and in response I yelled over my shoulder, “Find the gun, get the gun!”
Rosten heard that and heard me coming; his head jerked around and he made another effort to gain his feet, clawing uselessly at the branches of a huckleberry bush for leverage. His left leg would not support his weight: he must have broken a bone or sprained something. He fell back onto his right knee against the bush, with his left leg bent out to the side and one arm coming up to defend himself — but it was too late then, I was on him.
I kicked his left leg just above the ankle, and he made a bleating agonized sound and lunged at me, and I sidestepped that and threw myself down on top of him shoulder first, like a football defender spearing a ball carrier. The breath went out of him; his body jerked wildly beneath my pinning weight. I got him wedged against the base of the huckleberry bush, levered up and managed to set myself for a looping right-hand swing at his head. The blow went past one of his upthrust arms and landed flush on his left temple, snapped his head back and to the right. He made a sighing sound and his body stopped thrashing around under me; I felt him go limp.
And just that quickly, it was over.
I got up in slow, painful movements — stood over him trying to drag air back into my constricted lungs. My chest felt numb, hot; the thin dry cough started up. I ran a hand over my face, took the hand down and peered at it. Steady.
When I looked for Alex I saw him in a flat-footed stance alongside my car, staring over at me; he was holding the gun laxly in one hand. I started toward him, after another couple of seconds, and he moved at the same time — jerkily, as somebody will after a full release of tension. His face was stark and frightened, and his eyes seemed glazed. He looked as sick as a man can look and still be on his feet. I took the gun out of his hand, saw that it was a big plow-handled .357 Magnum, and put it away in my jacket pocket.
“He was going to kill me,” Alex said. The sickness was in his voice too. “He was going to shoot me with that gun.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“He’s the one — it must’ve been Rosten all along. My God. My God, I’ve known him all my life.”
I did not answer him because right then, suddenly, reaction set in — just as I knew it would, just as it always does. The detachment with which I had functioned for the past few minutes vanished, and my hands started to tremble and there was a liquidy feeling in both legs that made me think I was going to fall down. I leaned back against the car and sweated and kept on sweating.
“Why?” Alex was saying. “Why would he want to kill me? Why?”
He was talking to himself as much as to me, and I had no answers for him anyway. I looked at Rosten; he had not moved. Then I looked at my hands and waited for them to quit shaking.
18
It was a good two minutes before the reaction faded and I was all right again. When the sweating stopped and my hands were still I went around to the front of the car to look at the damage. Both fenders and the grill were pretty mangled; the bumper had been torn loose on one side and was hanging at a wobbly angle. The tires were okay. The left fender was buckled down to within an inch of that tire, but the clearance was enough so that it would not scrape against the tread when the car was rolling.
Pain lanced through my chest as I straightened up, made me wince until it went away. I felt my ribs and my breastbone, but there seemed to be no damage beyond a couple of bruises; I could breathe almost normally now, without coughing. I walked to the driver’s door and slid in under the wheel. Alex started to get in on the passenger side, but I waved him away. We were not going anywhere yet — and maybe not for a while if the engine failed to start.
The first three times I turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened except a grinding stutter. The fourth time, though, it caught and held and seemed to sound healthy enough. I put the transmission into reverse and eased backward away from the pool. The car was drivable, all right, if only for the distance between here and the winery.
I shut off the engine, got out and went around to where Alex was. He seemed to be coming out of it a little now; there was animation in his face and his eyes had lost their glazed look. He said, “Where did you come from? How did you know we were here?”
“I saw Rosten take you out of the cellar and I followed you.”
“God, I thought I was dead. You saved my life again.”
“That’s what you’re paying me for,” I said bitterly. “Listen, did Rosten tell you anything, give you any explanations?”
“No. He didn’t say a word the whole time — not a word.”
“What happened at the cellar?”
“He just came in and pointed that gun at me and shoved me outside. I’ve known him all my life, but he was like a stranger, a crazy man. I was… Jesus, I was petrified.”
I said nothing. I was thinking that we could wait here for the sheriff’s people to show up, but it might take an hour or better for them to come and find us and I did not care much for the idea of sitting here with Rosten and Alex for that length of time. Which meant transporting Rosten back to the winery. Alex was in no condition to drive or to hold a man at bay with a gun; the only safe way to do it, I decided, was to put Rosten in the trunk.
I got the key out of the ignition, took it around to the rear, and unlocked the trunk and raised the lid. Just as I did that Alex shouted, “He’s moving over there!”
Quickly I stepped out to where I could see Rosten. But he was not moving much — just twitches and spasms of his limbs. “Take it easy,” I said to Alex, “he’s not going to give us any more trouble.”
I took the Magnum out of my pocket, held it down along my right leg, and walked over to Rosten. The twitches and spasms were giving way to more normal movements, a sign of returning consciousness. I stopped a couple of feet from him, heard him make a groaning sound. Then his body stiffened and was still again — and that told me he was awake and functioning mentally, remembering where he was and what had happened.
“Get up on your feet, Rosten,” I said.
He stayed where he was, motionless.
“Get up or I’ll put a bullet in you.”
That was bluff, but he did not know me nearly well enough to realize it. Another three seconds passed, and then he rolled over slowly and with evident pain and stared up at me out of cold, blank eyes. No hatred, no frustration — no emotion of any kind.
He said thickly, “I can’t walk. My ankle’s sprained.”
“You can hobble. Get up.”
He got up, putting all his weight on his right let. I heard Alex approach behind me and to my right, heard him say to Rosten, “For Christ’s sake, why? Why do you want me dead?”
Rosten did not even look at him; he was watching the gun.
I told him where to go and what to do, and he went there and did it. No argument or hestitation; he just climbed into the trunk, grimacing at the pain in his leg, and curled himself into a half-fetal position around my spare tire. His eyes never left the gun; you could see him wanting it the way an alcoholic wants a drink.
I reached out and up with my left hand, caught the trunk lid — and said quickly and sharply, “Who gave you your orders on the phone tonight, Rosten? Was it Twospot?”