A Moment to Prey (16 page)

    Sweat popped out across my face, trickled down my ribs. Only one thing was going to save my life. Claude didn't know where that money was. It was a ninety-to-one chance that he would kill Marve without making an effort to find out where that money was.

    I stared at Claude coming, cat-footing up those steps, that gun pushed out before him like a candle lighting his way.

    I tried to watch him for the first sign that he was going to fire. He moved slowly forward. I tilted the rifle, putting my sweated finger hard against its trigger.

    He stepped all the way into the room, for an instant bat-blind in the darkness of the closed room.

    Marve shoved the door. And Claude gasped. He did not get to turn around. As he heeled about, Marve raised his arm high, I saw something glitter and the knife struck Claude between the shoulder blades.

    Involuntarily my left hand brushed my back pocket. My hunting knife was gone. Marve was out of my league. He had suckered me good. Wrestling with me, he had grabbed that knife from my pocket as slickly as any pickpocket, and in the excitement that followed, he'd slipped it in his own pocket.

    Claude cried out, bent forward as if trying to escape the cut and the agony of that knife in his back. He managed to turn all the way around.

    He lifted his gun and Marve brought the side of his hand down across the thin man's wrist. The gun clattered to the floor.

    I came up off the chair ready to lunge for it, but Marve had that figured. He moved toward that gun, ignoring Claude Piper as if he were not even there.

    Marve's hand closed over the gun.

    Claude was gasping and growling in agony. He turned all the way around, stared for a moment at Marve scooping up his gun.

    He spun around then and ran through the door. He ran awkwardly, sluggishly, as though knee deep in water. He stumbled and almost fell down the steps.

    He caught his balance and ran across the yard toward the scrub oaks.

    Marve ran toward the door.

    "Marve." My voice stopped him, but only for an instant.

    "Shoot me in the back, Jake. I got no time for you. I got to finish this boy. But I'll get back to you."

    He ran through the door and leaped to the ground.

    "Hey, Claude. Wait for me." He yelled it at the top of his voice, and his laughter flooded back into the shack, filling it.

    I looked at Lily. "You better get out of here," I said. "If he comes back he'll try to kill me. He may kill you."

    She sat up on the bed. Her hair was tousled. She stared at me for what seemed a very long time. She chewed for a moment at her lip.

    She stood up. "He'll kill you now," she said. Her voice was matter-of-fact.

    "Yes. Looks like you'll have to stand in line, Lily, to get to me."

    She walked toward the door. She paused. "Jake."

    "Yes?" I stood up.

    "Good-by."

    She went out of the door, ran to the end of the porch. I heard her strike the ground and then I heard her running in the opposite direction from Claude and Marve.

    I ran out on the porch, leaving the rifle inside the room.

    There was nothing but silence in the swamp. I got off the porch, looking for Lily. There was no sign of her. It was as if she had never existed. At that she was a hell of a lot safer in that scrub out there than I was. I had to think about Marve, what he would do next, when he would come back.

    I went back in the shack, got the rifle. I went out the door, walked in the same direction Lily had disappeared. Once inside the concealment of the scrub, I waited, listening. If Lily were there watching, she was as silent as death itself. I moved around the shack then and stepped into the battered ruins of the barn. I went close to the remaining wall, watching the shack through slits between the boards.

    I don't know how long I was there. I did not think about time. All I could think was that I was safe only as long as it was daylight. Marve would move in on me at night. Marve would move like the darkness. I wasn't even going to hear him until it was too late.

    Suddenly I saw that I had underestimated Marve again.

    I shivered. I had to stop trying to out-think him. He didn't react in any sane way.

    I stared through the slits, saw him walk out of the scrub, dragging Claude Piper's body behind him like a sack of potatoes.

    I felt the horror welling up in my throat when I saw what he was going to do.

    He did not even glance toward the shack. He dragged Piper's body across the sand, the man's heels making two ruts in the hot gray sand.

    At the improvised pen, Marve hefted Claude's body, shoving his hat hard down on his head, and dropped him inside the rail enclosure.

    I pressed hard against the wall for a moment, shocked by his insane brutality. Then I got to my feet, walked out into the sun with the gun leveled.

    "Marve."

    He turned. He glanced at me, then at the shack.

    "Oh, man. You're quaint, Jake-boy. All ready to bushwhack me from the barn, huh?"

    I jerked my head toward that 'gator pen. "I could kill you, Marve and get a medal for it."

    He shrugged. "A medal. But no money. You ain't going to kill me, Jake-boy. We done proved that. You're still hanging on, figuring to trick me out of my money. You ain't real smart. You seen what happened to Brycki. You seen what happened to Claude. If you was smart you'd of run when you had a chance."

    I held the gun on him. "I know you, Marve. That's where I'm better than Brycki or Piper. I still hold the ace."

    "Do you?" He laughed, staring boldly at the gun in my hand. "I don't figure that at all."

    "That's because you never met anybody took time to figure what you are inside, Marve."

    "Inside? Oh, man. This is something new. I met the brainy boys. The smart guys. You're right. I never met nobody that figured to slick me because he knew what I'm like."

    "Just the same, I know. You got that money. If you can get away with it now-get past me-you think you've got it made."

    "Jake, I hate to tell you this. But I don't even think of you as a problem. Hell, I done a lot of thinking. You forced Lily over on that porch. Sometime I got to forgive her. So I do. She and I are taking that money. We'll get out of here."

    I laughed at him.

    I couldn't have done better if I'd slapped his face.

    He went white. He couldn't stand to be laughed at. He had to be the big wheel, the boy with the answers. The thought that I might have an answer he couldn't see choked him up.

    "What's to laugh, Jake?"

    "Just what you said. You said it yourself, Marve. You and Lily. You and Betty. You and some dame. You and any dame."

    "This is bad?"

    I laughed again. "It might be, Marve. You scared Lily. She ran."

    He yelled her name. He got nothing, not even an echo.

    "She was afraid you were going to kill her, Marve. You see, she doesn't trust you any more."

    He looked around the sun-white clearing. He yelled for her again.

    "You might as well stop yelling, Marve. She's gone. It wasn't just that she knew you saw her on that porch with me. She knew something else. She knows that you robbed a hundred grand. She knows you killed Brycki and Piper- maybe even me if you get a chance. That's knowing too much. I think she knew you too well."

    He wiped his mouth. "You're crazy. Nobody knows about Brycki but you, me and Lily. There ain't going to be no sign of them around here. What you think that bull 'gator is for? Them 'gators eat anything, even pine knots. They eat gold watches, false teeth and hats and shoes. I don't leave nothing behind me. Lily's got nothing to be scared of."

    "Nothing but you. She's scared. She's run."

    Still he did not believe it. He yelled her name again.

    "You're going to have to get you another dame, Marve. And that's where I come in, me and what I know about you."

    His eyes were frantic, full of anger. He was being stretched thin in that sun. I watched him, keeping my hand on the trigger.

    "I can fix you, Marve. I can fix you so you're no good to any woman. No woman. Not yourself. That's my ace, Marve. All that money wouldn't do you any good if I fixed you."

    "You're nuts."

    "Sure. But I wasn't. Not until you dragged me into this, Marve. I was just a guy. But now I'm a guy about to be rich. Because it's going to cost you to keep the manhood you're so insane about. It's going to cost you about one hundred grand."

    He swallowed. "I still got a gun here. I'll use it. You won't."

    "That's where you're wrong. I've already told you. I don't have to kill you-just fix you so you wish you were dead."

    His hand darted toward his belt. Automatically, I pressed the trigger. Dirt spurted up between his legs. He leaped back and his hand fell away from that gun.

    "The next one is higher, Marve. Baseball players get plenty of winter shooting, Marve. I can put a rifle bullet where I want to."

    He held his arms out at his sides. He was sweating. He was still sure he wasn't going to die yet, but for the first time in his tom-catting life he began to think about what it would be, walking around half alive.

    I moved toward him. "Turn around, Marve."

    He turned around slowly. I moved up behind him, trying to keep a couple of feet between us. I reached out for Piper's gun in his belt.

    He came around, twisting and bending low to spring against me, like a cat on his feet.

    I laughed at him. He tried to stop because he knew I'd suckered him. I brought the rifle stock upward between those outspread arms. Panic drove me and the impact of wood against jaw shook all the way up my arms.

    He kept moving forward instinctively, taking two long slow steps before his brain quit sending any messages. He toppled then, heavily, and I stepped back out of the way. He struck hard in the hot sand. He bled but he did not move.

    When he came out of it, I had him wired up and on the floor again.

    This time there was a difference. I had him spread-eagled, ankles wired as far apart as I could stretch them.

    He opened his eyes and for a long time he said nothing, the sickness clearing up in his brain.

    "Smart guy," was the first thing he said.

    I sat there with the knife I'd retrieved from him.

    His mouth twisted. He struggled, trying to get free. "You love this wire, don't you? This is where I came in."

    I stared at the knife. "Not quite."

    "Lily." He called it.

    "She must be far down the river by now. Anyway, she couldn't stop me." I scraped the knife back and forth on his boot.

    "You're insane," he said. "That's it. You're nuts."

    "You tell yourself that. And don't forget the rest of it. I was okay. Then loud-mouthed Marve Pooser came along. Needed a patsy."

    "I ain't telling you where the money is. It don't matter what you do."

    "Okay. Sorry I waited for you to come out of it. This is going to be rugged, Marve. And I got no anesthetic. But then, that's the way you gave it to me that day in McAteer's, wasn't it?"

    I moved forward. He gasped, believing what was going to happen to him.

    "I won't have any money, Marve. But you won't have anything."

    "Wait a minute."

    "One minute."

    "A deal, Jake?"

    "What kind of deal?"

    "I give you part of the money. You clear out of here."

    "Sure. And let you shoot me on the way back down the river." I moved forward.

    "Jake. For God's sake, Jake."

    "Where's the money?" I pressed the point of the knife in the soft flesh.

    He screamed. "Jake."

    I pressed again.

    "Jake. I hid it. Over in the old place. Figured nobody would look there. Not if I was here."

    "Where?"

    "I'll take you to it, Jake."

    "No. You've had it Marve. You tell me where the money is. If it's there, fine. I'll take it and you won't see me any more. Shouldn't take you more than a couple of days to get out of that wire. That's the start I want."

    "Lily," he yelled.

    I pressed with that knife. He cried out. "Under some boards, Jake. They're loose. In the old front room. Right in front of the fireplace. Before God. I swear it. Let me up."

    "No. You stay here. I'll walk over, see if it's there."

    He sagged back against the floor, breathing through his mouth.

    I stood up, looked down at him. "God help you, Marve, if it ain't there."

    Sweat stood on his face. "You got me, Jake. It's there, waiting for you to take it."

    I loaded up with my gear, the accumulation of guns. He lay on the floor, watching me. He did not speak again. I closed the door behind me, stood for a moment listening. There was no sound from within that shack.

    The sun was low to the west of me. I went down die steps, hurrying. I wanted to get that money, get to the river before dark. Marve Pooser was going to be behind me now and I wanted a long head start. There was a country boy I was going to lose. I had everything in my favor, a hundred thousand dollars to travel with, everybody looking for Marve, and he unable to travel fast because as long as I had that hundred grand, he was going to be broke.

    I hurried through those jack oaks and I felt the sun on me, and the wind against my sweated shirt and I thought everything as I ran. Well, I thought almost everything.

    The one thing I didn't think was that Marve Pooser had surrendered easily. I hadn't even cut him. He gave up without even bleeding. That didn't sound like Marve. But just then I was too full of that money and what it was going to buy me to give any thoughts to the way Marve had capitulated. After all, I told myself, he was a woman's man, wasn't he? What he was fighting against was a fate worse than death.