Finders Keepers (31 page)

Raybould chuckled. “You want to
fight
me?”

“Let me out of this chair, I’ll fight you.”

Raybould stopped the chair, turning it to face him. “Shit, I’m game.”

He lowered Steve to the floor and brought out a pocket knife, going to work on the tape, freeing his legs first, then his arms and chest, finally his neck. Steve sat there a few moments, flexing his hands and feet, trying to coax the feeling back into them. Raybould backed away from him and removed his coat. He slid his Glock out of its holster and set it on top of a rusty oil drum.

“This’ll be the championship belt,” he said, touching the gun. “Right here. Winner takes all.”

Steve stood up and Raybould smiled. “You sure you want to do this, kid?” he said. “You look like Bambi over there.”

“I’m not a kid,” Steve said. He hobbled to his clothes, left in a heap on the floor, and pulled on his pants.

Raybould grinned, saying, “See? A man just won’t fight with his balls showing.” He chose a patch of open floor and stood at ease, waiting for Steve. “Come on, kid,” he said. “This shouldn’t take long.”

Steve did up his belt, moved in closer and got his fists up.

* * *

His legs were killing him, the burns across his shins stinging in the cold. He was lightheaded, dizzy from spinning up there with nothing to look at but the floor, and he could barely feel his fists, clenched now into bludgeons the way his mother had taught him. But this was it, the only chance he was going to get.

He picked his spot, three feet from Raybould, and dug in, bare feet rooted to the floor, fists up and ready. Raybould smirked at him, hands still hanging by his sides, and Steve hit him in the chest with everything he had, getting his hip into it, catching the look of surprise on Raybould’s face as he reacted, too late, his block glancing off Steve’s forearm. Raybould flew back a good four feet, the smirk gone from his face now, but he didn’t fall down.
Shit.

Steve lunged without hesitation, aiming a kick at the man’s groin, and Raybould came alive, deflecting Steve’s kick with ease. Anticipating the block, Steve countered with a knife hand to the throat and saw Raybould shrink back with amazing speed, felt iron fingers clamp his wrist followed by pain of paralyzing enormity, his wrist bent back just shy of the breaking point, forcing him to his knees.

Raybould sank to one knee behind him, cranking Steve’s wrist even harder, his lips, his hot breath, close to Steve’s ear.

“You didn’t tell me you wanted to play rough,” he said, grabbing Steve’s voice box between the fingers of his other hand, wrenching Steve’s head back, squeezing. “My round, wouldn’t you say?”

Steve shook his head
yes
, his larynx on the verge of collapse.

Raybould released him, backing away. Steve slumped forward onto his elbows, coughing, the pain in his wrist flaring all the way up to his neck. He looked at Raybould and saw him rubbing his chest, smiling, like they were pals sparring in the gym.

“Man,” he said, “you hit
hard
. Your mother taught you that?”

Steve got up, rubbing his wrist. The crazy fucker was having a good time.

“You want to get back in the chair now or you want to play some more?”

Steve put his fists up. “Let’s play.”

Raybould shrugged and came at him saying, “You’ve got heart, kid, I’ll give you that.” He threw a jab, Steve blocking it easily, then kicked him in the shin with the toe of his boot. Steve stumble back, almost falling. “Smarts, don’t it,” Raybould said and kicked him again, this time in the thigh. Steve sat down hard on the grimy cement floor, rolled once and stood, unsteady, tears filming his eyes. He put his fists up.

Raybould moved, gliding with a boxer’s graceful menace. Steve waited for him, pushing back the pain, blocking hard, up and under when Raybould threw a punch at his face, striking simultaneously with an elbow to the detective’s ribs. Raybould’s air barked out and Steve took the advantage, driving a vicious kick into his knee. The bastard went down on that knee and Steve kicked out with his heel, connecting with Raybould’s forehead, dropping him flat to the floor. Steve turned and ran for the oil drum, not sure what the explosion behind him was until white fire ignited in the back of his leg and his nervous system short-circuited, sending him to the floor in a shivering heap.

He looked back and saw Raybould up on one elbow, dazed, a small revolver in his hand drawn from an ankle holster, still aimed at him.

“You little fucker,” he said, no trace of amusement in his voice now. “Get your ass back in that chair.”

* * *

“Dad, it’s me.”

“Katie, thank God. A detective was here—”

“I know. He found me.”

“Where are you? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Dad. I’m downtown, in a phone booth.”

“The detective—”

“Raybould.”

“Yes, he said you were in danger, said something about protective custody.”

“I’ve been with him since early this morning, then another detective. I just dropped him off.”

“So you’re alone now?”

“Just for a while. I’m going to meet Raybould again very soon. How are you doing?”

“Worried sick. Better now that I hear your voice.”

“I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too, sweetheart. This damned ticket…”

“I know. Maybe something good will come from it yet.”

“When will I see you?”

“Soon, I think. Dad, I gotta go.”

“Where are you going now?”

“Shopping.”

––––––––

They had their backs to her when she came in, Raybould sitting with his legs crossed, smoking, Steve dangling in the air in front of him, the chair rotating slowly on its axis of chains. Steve had his jeans on now and when Kate saw him—limp and motionless, blood staining the denim a wet maroon—something staggered inside her. She froze in the doorway with a zippered tote bag in her hand, leaning against the jamb to keep from falling, certain Steve was dead.

“That was fast,” Raybould said without turning.

“People bend over backwards for you when you’re rich,” Kate said, trying to maintain her focus. “You bastard.”

At the sound of her voice Steve raised his head, his face coming into view as the chair continued its lazy spin. Relieved, Kate walked into the salvage bay, trying not to look at him, the dazed warning in his eyes.

Raybould said, “Did you get it done?”

Kate tossed the bag on the floor at his feet, the Wal-Mart tags still on it. Raybould picked it up and stood, resting the bag on the arm of the chair to unzip it. He looked inside and chuckled. “Cute,” he said, reaching inside, pulling out a loose roll of toilet paper. He held it up for Steve to see. The bag was full of them.

Reaching behind her, Kate drew Hicks’ gun from the waistband of her jeans and aimed it at Raybould, her grip clumsy because of the cast. With a steady voice she delivered the line she’d been rehearsing all the way back from the city.

“You’ll be needing that, you prick, because all you’re gonna get from me is shit.”

Raybould held his arms out to his sides like a benevolent Christ. “Okay,” he said, “you got me, Kate. You got me.” Using his thumb and forefinger he unholstered his gun and set it on the chair, then returned his hands to his sides.

Kate said, “Now cut him loose.”

“All in due course,” Raybould said, grinning. He took a casual step toward her, in no hurry, saying, “My, aren’t you the fireball. But you know, Kate, if you’d’ve come through that door shooting, that would’ve been a lot more convincing.”

He kept moving, backing her into a corner.

“I’ll shoot you,” Kate said, “I swear it.”

“And so you should. God knows, I would. But I’ve got to tell you, Kate, to kill a man in cold blood, most people would have to reach way down inside for the heart to do something like that.” Still moving. “Personally, I’ve never understood that. For me it’s purely mechanical. “Just aim—” he pointed his index finger at her, sighting down his arm “—and fire.”

Kate cocked the hammer. “Stop now. I mean it.”

“You might want to flip the safety off there, Kate,” he said, showing her his open hands. “Right by your thumb.”

“Bullshit.”

“Suit yourself.” He took another step, leaning forward slightly, studying the gun. “That’s a forty-five you’ve got there, isn’t it? That is a nasty weapon. Do you have any idea the kind of damage that sucker can do?” His hand shot out and snatched the gun, quicker than Kate’s eyes could track it. “Well here, let me give you a little demonstration.”

He put the gun to her forehead and pulled the trigger. Kate screamed, drowning out the dry snap of the hammer. She looked at him with tears in her eyes. Raybould thumbed the safety off, gave her a “Duh,” expression, then turned his back on her and aimed the gun at Steve. Finished with her.

“Now a gut shot from a forty-five,” he said, approaching Steve, aiming at his exposed belly, “that’s a terrible thing. Tears you all up inside.” He shifted his aim to Steve’s knee. “Kneecap? I don’t even want to think about that.” Raising the barrel to Steve’s head now. “A head shot from a forty-five, that’s almost humane. Forget about the furniture, though.”

He ticked his aim randomly over Steve’s body, Steve flinching with each move, waiting for the bullet to come.

“Let’s start with your balls,” Raybould said now. “That should demonstrate my point well enough.” He drew a bead on Steve’s crotch, saying, “You see, Kate, one way or another you’re going to get me that money. If I have to kill every friend you’ve got, every member of your fucked-up family, your bitch aunt Lee—”

Raybould glanced black in time to see Kate come whirling toward him in the classic, spinning wind-up of the discus thrower, her extended right arm lashing around in a blur of white plaster. Before he could get his hands up the cast struck him on the bridge of the nose. Kate heard a wet crunch and saw Raybould drop like an express elevator, blood gouting from his nose. She stood over him, ready to fight him if she had to, the fierce determination in her eyes dimming only gradually to disbelief at Raybould’s utter stillness.

She looked at Steve with wide eyes. He was trying to tell her something through the gag, pointing with his gaze. Then Kate understood.

The guns.

She picked up both weapons, threw Raybould’s as far as she could into a heap of junk and tucked Hicks’ into the back of her jeans. She went to Steve on wobbly legs, looking from the smear of blood on her cast to Steve, pointing now with his chin to the control box for the chainfall, a remote with two buttons on it, a red one and a green one, hanging nearby from its cable. Kate pressed the green button and the chair came down at full speed, chains slithering through pulleys. “Oh,” she said and punched the red button, the thing stopping an instant before the chair hit the floor.

Kate left him there and found an Exacto knife on Archie’s workbench. She ran the blade out, a new one, glanced at Raybould’s still shape as she passed him, then started in on the tape, hacking Steve free.

He fell the short distance to the floor, wrists still bound behind him, grunting behind the tape Kate now coaxed off his face. Using his tongue, he pushed out the rag Raybould had stuffed into his mouth, dry heaving a couple of times before taking a breath. His body, curled into a fetal position, shivered on the cement floor.

Kate leaned over him to cut his hands loose. Breathless, Steve said, “Check the inside of his left ankle, under his pants. He’s got another gun.”

Kate drew Hicks’ .45, aiming it at Raybould as she approached him. He lay on his side with his arms flung up, the way he’d fallen, his head resting on his shoulder as if in repose. Kate squatted at his feet, pointing the gun at him while she got his pant leg up and worked the .38 snubby out of its holster. She backed away from him quickly, returning to Steve with a gun in each hand.

Steve was sitting up now, clutching his wounded leg. His head was bent forward and he appeared to be crying. Kate set the guns down, draped her coat over his shoulders and sat beside him on the floor, both of them facing Raybould now, ten feet away.

“It’s okay,” she said, hugging him, kissing his face. “It’s over…”

Not crying, Kate realized—laughing. Hysterically.

“What’s so funny?”

Steve looked at her with red eyes. “‘Because…all you’re gonna get from me is shit?’”

Kate started laughing too, releasing the pent-up tension. She said, “I thought it was pretty good.” Then: “Okay, you’re right. I watch too many movies.”

They laughed a while longer, crazed, edgy laughter, holding tight to one another. When it tapered off Kate looked over at Raybould and said, “Shouldn’t I tie him up or something?”

Steve said, “Kate, I think he’s dead.”

“Dead?”

She picked up the .45 and walked over to Raybould, poking him in the ribs with her toe, half expecting his hand to snake out and grab her by the ankle. But he didn’t move. Blood leaked from his nose without vigor, a dark plum color. Kate bent over him to feel for a pulse. There was none. She tried again—to be sure—but felt only cool skin.

She turned to Steve and felt the blood drain from her face, delayed shock settling over her like a wet blanket. Steve got to his feet, limping, and met her half way, Kate clinging to him in a near faint, glad to feel his arms around her.

“He was going to kill us, Kate. You realize that, don’t you?”

Kate nodded. She knew it, yes, had never doubted it. But she had just killed a man…

“He even told me so after you left,” Steve was saying, his voice soothing. “God, you never should have come back here. Not without the police. That was the craziest, bravest thing I’ve ever seen.” He touched her chin, raising it, finding her eyes. “Thanks, Kate. Thanks a lot.”

Kate smiled, then started to sob, pressing herself into Steve’s arms.

––––––––

The reporter from the Toronto Sun, a petite blond with a husky smoker’s voice, said, “Any word on Detective Hicks? We haven’t been able to get within a mile of him.”

“Last we heard,” Keith said from his wheelchair, parked by the windows in his private room, “he’s still over at Saint James Hospital, eating his meals through a straw.” He smiled at Kate, using the same stock answers he’d used with the dozens of other reporters he’d talked to in the five-and-a-half weeks since Raybould’s death. Not to mention the charities—legitimate or otherwise—lawyers, investment types, real estate brokers and just plain whackos that had shown up at his bedside, all with some scheme designed to separate him from his fortune. He said, “Babe Ruth over here whacked him so hard they had to wire his jaw shut.”