Cat and Mouse (19 page)

“And maybe you, too?” He nodded toward the front window nearest to him. “I’ll put the grenade on the sill there. You put the gun on the sill of that window near you. Man to man, gutless?”

I could have shot him twice before he pulled the pin. But would it kill him? And
could
I kill him? Those were my rational thoughts.

I wasn’t completely rational at the moment. I put my gun on the sill nearest me. He put the grenade on the sill nearest him. He made his move first, his arms dangling, his idiot’s smile still on his scarred face as he came toward me.

Jesus—a wrestler! A groan-and-grapple yoyo. This shouldn’t take long. Even underweight quarterbacks usually gave me more trouble than wrestlers.

When he was within reach his long right arm stretched out for my neck. I knocked it away with my left hand and put my right fist smack into the middle of his face. Blood spurted from his nose and seeped down from his lips.

The bastard didn’t back up. He crouched and kept coming and slammed the top of his bald head into my belly. Weight was one thing he had going for him; I bounced back into the wall. He kept coming, still low.

He was still looking at the floor when I jammed my knee into his face. He went down and grabbed my left leg. I tried to kick him with my right leg; but my balance deserted me. I fell over him, rolled clear, and got back on my feet at the other end of the room.

He kept coming, head down, like a bull at a matador. I waited for his final charge—and made my matador move, stepping clear of his charge. He slammed headfirst into the wall, went down and rolled over.

He wasn’t unconscious, not yet. He had strength enough to mumble, “You win, footballer.”

“Get up when you’re able to,” I said, and walked slowly and painfully, my belly aching, to pick up my gun, my back to him.

I was almost in the archway when I heard the rattle on the floor behind me. That tricky son of a bitch…It was the grenade.

I was through the archway and out the front door before I heard the explosion.

Smoke drifted out from the door but the living room windows had not shattered. Was he still in there and alive? If he was, did he have a weapon? There was none in there I had seen. But how could I be sure?

I waited too long. The smoke was cleared out and the living room empty when I came back into the house.

I ran the length of the hall to the back door in the kitchen and opened it. Far down the slope a man was running, a big man, heading for Solono Road. The yellow sedan was still parked on the side of the road and a man heavy enough to be Adonis Rey was standing next to it.

I had been outwitted by a nitwit. Why hadn’t I phoned McClune after Taylor’s girl friend had given me the message? I sure as hell couldn’t alert him now. What could I tell him? That Turbo’s new transportation was a yellow sedan? The town was loaded with yellow sedans. Could I explain to him how I knew it? Never!

At home, Jan asked, “Did Corey’s friend tell you anything I should know?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Your dinner is in the oven,” she informed me. “Mrs. Casey and I didn’t want to miss ‘Fawlty Towers’ on the tube.”

She went back to the den. I poured a half tumbler of Mrs. Casey’s Irish whiskey and had it with my warmed-over dinner. I have forgotten now what it was.

The man was still out there somewhere, waiting for another chance. Three of the chances had been mine and I’d lost all three. The next move he made could be the fatal one—for me.

Mrs. Casey and Jan were in the living room, playing gin rummy, when the phone rang at nine o’clock. I answered it. It was young Glen Turbo.

His uncle, he told me, had just phoned him and asked him to pick him up in San Valdesto early tomorrow morning. He had promised to pay him fifty dollars for the trip. Glen had assured him he would be there.

“What’s the address?” I asked him.

“He told me to meet him at a Mobil station on the corner of Avon Road and Locust Street. He told me how to get there.”

“I hope you don’t plan to meet him there, Glen.”

“Only if I had a gun, and I don’t.
You
can meet him there.”

I thanked him and went out to the living room. Mrs. Casey and Jan looked at me expectantly. “Good news?” Jan asked.

“I’m not sure. A lead.”

“You said something about somebody meeting him there. What was that all about?”

“A possible informant,” I told her. “I don’t want to talk about it. I have some thinking to do first.”

I went into the den, remembering the events of the day. I did have some thinking to do. It was decision time.

The station Glen had told me about was a
former
service station, now deserted. It was less than four blocks down the hill from our house. Charles Turbo could walk from there to here and back. He must have finally decided to make his move, now that the house no longer seemed to be guarded. He’d had other chances to get me, but not here, not at home.

It was possible he had planned all along to get me at home. And maybe Jan, too? He had left town only because the heat was on here. He knew where I was staying in Santa Monica, but not in which room. The rest of the time Harley and I were there we had been constantly on the move, doubtful targets.

And here? I would be the victim—but Jan and Mrs. Casey could be witnesses. Would he let them live to identify him? No.

Decision time…

I could phone McClune and his boys could take over. If Turbo was armed and made the mistake of resisting arrest, if he decided to play shoot-it-out with the deputies, the threat to me would be diminished. They would finally have a case they could take into court and he would wind up where he belonged—in jail. Or dead.

If his irrational brain turned rational enough to accept the arrest, what would the prosecutor have? Car theft? That should get him a light sentence. They had no previous record on the man.

I could phone Ricardo Cortez and let the Brotherhood wreak their vengeance or take my trusty Colt down to the service station and play cowboy. That last could put me in jail or in my grave. The first would be a final solution to my problem. The soldiers of Cortez don’t take prisoners.

It seemed clear to me that they were my best hope. But why should they risk their lives for me? This was my war, not theirs. To Sheriff McClune it would be another night of mayhem where some of his soldiers could be killed. From the conversation I had overheard between Gertz and Turbo, they were into the heavy ammo now.

I went out the back door and told the guard what I had learned tonight and what I feared. He said, “I’ll watch the back and this side of the house. You can take the front and the other side.”

“I’m not staying,” I told him. “Can you get another man or two up here quickly?”

“I can have ’em here in five minutes. I have a phone in the car.”

“Good. But don’t use your guns unless you have to.”

“I know what you mean,” he said. “I learned that the hard way the first year I was with the agency. I was lucky. I had a good lawyer. I suppose you’re going to take the women with you?”

I shook my head. “This is personal.”

He was silent for seconds, staring at me. “I’ll forget you ever said that. One man or two?”

“Two,” I said.

He went to his car to phone. I went into the house to get my gun. In the living room I told Jan what young Glen had told me—but without telling her Glen was my informant. I also told her I had sent for two more guards.

“I’ll be outside,” I told her. “The more men the better. Somebody has to watch the back of the house.”

“Mrs. Casey has gone to her room,” she said. “I’ll go up and sit with her. Aren’t you going to phone the sheriff?”

“The guard will handle that. I’ll come in when the deputies get here.”

“Brock, you be careful!”

“Of course!”

I waited until the other guards came before I started walking down the hill to the Mobil station. The night was dark; I brought a flashlight.

What would it be this time with that slob, another grenade or a purse-size revolver? Why was I assuming he would be there? He could be watching our house right now or on his way to the station. He could be anywhere. He had told his nephew to pick him up early in the morning.

I knew the layout of the station; I had been a customer here before the owner had retired. There were two doors to the toilet, one opening into the garage, the other one to the outside.

The door that led to the office was on the side of the building facing the street, and there was occasional traffic tonight. I didn’t want to be seen by any passing motorist.

When the road was clear I tried the office door. It was locked. I went back behind the building again before any headlights showed on the street.

The outside toilet door was not locked. That had to mean he was in here somewhere. But where? I opened the door slowly. A brief glow of my flashlight revealed that the toilet was vacant. I went in, gun ready, light out, and groped for the door to the garage. It was not locked.

That tricky bastard! He had probably conned his nephew into trapping me. He hadn’t planned to be here tomorrow morning. He wanted
me
here
tonight.

I took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped into the garage. I turned on the flashlight—and there he was, standing next to the far ramp, a sawed-off shotgun in his hands.

I turned off the flashlight as he lifted the gun and pointed it at me. I crouched low.

Then, from the direction of the office, a voice called out, “Don’t pull that trigger, you
gringo
bastard!”

I saw the blast of the shotgun and heard the pellets ricochet off the wall above the office door.

I turned the flashlight on and put three bullets into Turbo, one in the stomach, two in the chest.

From the office, the voice called, “Good work,
amigo!”

I swung the flashlight toward the office doorway. Too late. I heard the outside door that had been locked open and slam shut.

I could tell from where I stood that Turbo was dead. There was blood splattered all over the cement floor. Nausea stirred in me. I got out of there in a hurry.

Jan and Mrs. Casey were still upstairs. I phoned Sheriff McClune at his home and told him everything except for the assist of my unknown aide and the call from young Glen.

“You could have phoned us first,” he said.

“After all the dead ends we’ve both run into? I was trying to save the taxpayers some money.”

“I’ll send an ambulance down there,” he said, “and a couple of deputies. I’ll be right over.”

I went out and told the guards they could go home. They didn’t ask me why. Maybe they knew.

Jan and Mrs. Casey must have heard them leave. They came down a few minutes later.

“What happened?” Jan asked.

“The threat is over,” I told her. “Sheriff McClune is on his way here now to give me the story.”

“Thank God!” Mrs. Casey said. “I’m going upstairs. I don’t want to hear it.”

Jan stared at me, sighed, and asked; “Should I stay?”

“If you want to.”

She was sitting on the couch when McClune came. He said to me, “We’ll go into your den.” He looked at Jan. “Unless you have a strong stomach, I don’t believe you’ll want to hear what I’m going to tell Brock.”

“I haven’t had a strong stomach since all of this started,” she said. “I’m almost glad the man is dead.”

In the den, McClune asked, “Did Turbo shoot first?”

I nodded. “And missed. Could I call it a citizen’s arrest?”

“You won’t need to. I deputized you this morning. Who was your informer?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t recognize her voice. That’s why I didn’t phone you.”

He smiled. “Gad, I wish you were working with us.”

“Haven’t I always? And for free? That should help your budget.”

“You have. I consider you a good citizen, Brock. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

I went to the door with him and went back to sit with Jan in the living room.

“Peace at last!” she said.

I nodded. And the thought came to me that it isn’t hard to be a good citizen if you have vigilante friends.

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copyright © 1988 by William Campbell Gault

cover design by Jason Gabbert

978-1-4532-7338-8

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