Get Off the Unicorn (26 page)

“You made seven bucks today finding golf balls. What about that?”

Peter forced himself to grin. “All you have to do is watch where Mr. Roche slices his balls and then go bring 'em in when he isn't looking. Half the ones I brought in today were in the pond anyway.”

Doubt flickered across Ken Fargo's face.

“Honest, Mr. Fargo, you're wrong about me.”

A big Olds came piling down the road toward town. Cursing under his breath, Fargo pushed himself out of the Mustang and flagged the big car down.

“Yeah? What's the trouble, fella? No gas?” asked the driver, sticking his head out the window. Peter saw, with sinking heart, that it was Mr. Roche. He tried to squinch down in the seat. “Hi there, Peter. Find any more of my balls for me?” He flicked his cigarette to the roadside and gave Fargo his attention. “Kid's a genius finding m'balls in the grass. Like he could home in on them or something. Caddy for me, Saturday, Peter? Ten sharp?”

Limp with defeat, Peter nodded and sank down in the bucket seat, swallowing fiercely against the lump in his throat.

“Seen anything of a kid, too young to be off on his own?” Fargo asked.

“Kid? No. Nothing on the road from here to Hibernia.

Roche drove off in the Olds, leaving Peter at Fargo's mercy.

“ ‘Kid homes in on them or something,' huh? ‘No, Mr. Fargo, you're wrong about me.' “ Fargo's voice was savage as he slid into the driver's seat. “All right, Peter me lad. Now, unless you want some trouble, real trouble, with the cops in Colorado Springs, because they're looking for you, you'd better tell me where those furs are!”

“Furs?”

Fargo grabbed Peter by the wrist. He was as strong as he'd boasted, and the bones in Peter's arm rubbed together painfully in his grip. Blunt fingers gouged into the tendons until Peter had all he could do not to cry out.

“You
know
, don't you?”

The pain had caught Peter off guard and his face must have given away his secret knowledge, for Fargo swore.

“How long have you known?” Each word was punctuated by a flexing of those implacable fingers on his wrist. “D'you realize you done me out of fifteen thousand dollars?” Just as Peter was certain Fargo would break his arm, the man's attitude altered. “Okay, kid. I understand. You and your mother got scared after that Cadillac caper. Well, you don't have to be scared anymore. I said we'd be a team and we will. No one will think it funny if I find things. I'm a first-rate investigator to begin with. But with you . . . okay, where're the furs?”

“In the old lead mine.” Peter pointed toward the hills. And Victor.

“We searched there already.” Fargo's expression was suspicious and menacing. “You lead me on, kid . . .” and he raised his hand warningly.

“The furs are hidden under the rubble in the old ore carts.”

“How do you know? You seen 'em?”

“No, but that's where they are.”

“You mean, we walked up and down past that loot?”

If they were mice, they would've bit you,
Peter recited one of his mother's off-quoted phrases to himself. Thinking of his mother gave him a second hold on his courage. Fargo knew, but if his knowledge went no further than an old mine shaft . . .

“The road to that mine's around here, isn't it?”

Peter told Fargo the way.

“Now you're using the old noggin, Petey boy.” Cooperation made Fargo good-natured. “Say, kid, how do you do it?”

“What?”

“No more of the innocent act.” Fargo's voice took on its dangerous edge. “How do you find things you've never seen?”

“I can't always,” Peter replied, trying to sound dubious. “It's just when things are on people's minds a lot, like that Cadillac or the furs, I sort of get a picture where they are. Sometimes the picture is clearer than other times, and I know the location.”

“What's with the golf balls? You must've found hundreds of stupid golf balls these past coupla months. Penny-ante stuff—when I think of the lists of lost, or strayed, items on the company's records . . . I can make a fortune!”

Peter swallowed. “I”, not the more diplomatic “we.” The Mustang swerved up the last bend to the mine. “It's getting dark, Mr. Fargo,” Peter said. “We should get Victor. He's up there. We can come back tomorrow for the . . .”

“Forget that stupid brat! I want those furs . . . now!” Fargo pulled a huge handlight from under his seat and gestured with it for Peter to lead the way.

“The mine's dangerous, Mr. Fargo. And the ore carts are pretty far down . . .”

There was no reprieve in Fargo's eyes. Peter turned toward the shaft and started walking.

The walls were dripping with the recent spring thaws, and the tunnel had a clammy chill as they penetrated slowly down, turning the gentle bend that led into the bowels of the mine.

“That's a new fall,” Peter said nervously as they scrambled over a soggy pile of mud.

Fargo shined the spotlight at the sagging supports. “Yeah, so let's get this business over with. Fifteen thousand will do a lot for us, Petey boy. For you, your mother, and me.”

“Why don't you just take the furs and leave us alone, Mr. Fargo? It's not right for me to find things for money.”

“Who says?” Fargo snorted at his altruism. “Like the old saying, Petey, ‘Finders keepers, losers weepers.' And, Petey boy, I'm the finder's keeper from now on.”

The smile on Fargo's face chilled Peter worse than the tunnel's cold. But the smile disappeared when they both heard the groaning of wood and the dribbling sound of dirt falling from a height.

“How much further?” Fargo asked. “This place isn't safe.”

The ore carts were right up against the old fall which had closed the mine. Fargo hoisted Peter into the first cart. The boy dug into the loose earth layering the cart, and Fargo swore as Peter unearthed the first of the plastic sacks. “They all that big? Christ, we can't pack those up that tunnel. Take all night.” He heaved the plastic bags to the ground and the air puffed them up. He glanced up the tunnel, measuring its width. “I bet I can just get the Mustang down here.” And he started off.

“Mr. Fargo, would you leave me the light?”

With the torch pointed forward, Fargo's smile was malevolent in the dim tunnel. “What? A big kid like you afraid of the dark? What could
find
you here?” He laughed. “Just think of all the things fifteen thousand will buy!”

Peter watched with a rapidly increasing anxiety as the gleam of the spot disappeared around the bend, leaving him in a total blackout.

“Afraid of the dark?” The taunt frightened him not half as much as the life looming with grim certainty before him. Not all the warmth of the pelts on which he crouched could have thawed the fear in Peter's heart.

An ominous creak, almost overhead, startled him further. “The finder's keeper,” Fargo had said. There were darker death traps than an old mine shaft, and bleaker lightless vistas.

Nonetheless Peter cried aloud when he saw the return of light and heard the sound of the Mustang bumping along the cart tracks.

“Okay, move your butt and haul these furs into the car, Petey. On the double.”

Another warning rumbled overhead and a gout of water spewed from the support directly above the ore carts. Peter grabbed the plastic bags, tripping over the trailing length of them.

“Keep 'em off the wet ground, you stupid jerk. They're worth a fortune.”

Peter mumbled an apology as he crammed the bags into the car trunk. The plastic refused to give up its supply of air, and Fargo was cursing as he helped. Then he stormed down the tunnel for more furs, dragging Peter with him. The light from the Mustang's headlights helped relieve the gloom, although its exhaust was a blue plume in the cul-de-sac of the rockfall. Two loads and the trunk was full. Peter stood with an armful of plastic sacks wondering how they could possibly get them all in the sports car.

“Don't stand there, stupid, Dump 'em on the back seat.”

That, too, was full shortly, so Peter heaved his next load onto the passenger seat, falling over it as he lost his balance. Accidentally he bit the wheel, and the horn. The noise startled Fargo into dropping his load, but his curses were covered by a long low rumble. Mud and ooze rained down.

Peter screamed, gesturing frantically to the bulging overhead beam. Then, suddenly he found himself stumbling over plastic bags, desperately pulling at Fargo's arm to get the man to move. Peter remembered scrambling and clawing through wet heavy mud. Then something struck him across the head.

His skull was on fire, his body rigid. Certain he was buried in the tunnel, he tried to move but his arms were held to his side. His fingers clawed but met fluffy soft warm blanketing. There was noise and confusion around him. He was aware of breathing fresh air, and yet . . . there was thudding and rumbling underneath him which echoed through his pain-filled head.

The mine had collapsed! But he was wrapped in a blanket. He was safe.

“Yeah, you wouldn't believe how fast that Mustang went into reverse. The surprising thing is I made it out in one piece at all. ‘Course the company will see to the body work. All in the line of duty, Scortius! And I got what I went after. I found the furs.”

“I” found the furs? Peter cringed at Fargo's arrogance.

“Considering you were out looking for the Anderson kid, you got double luck,” the officer was saying enviously.

Fargo chuckled. “Two finds in one day. Not bad, huh? Say, Doc, how long does it take that ambulance to get here? I want Petey boy given the best of care. I'll foot the bill myself. And, of course, we should get the little feller back to Mrs. Anderson, too.”

“The ambulance's coming,” Dr. Wingard said, and there was something in his voice that made Peter think that the doctor didn't much like Ken Fargo. “I'm just as anxious as you are about Peter's condition. I want an x ray of that skull . . .”

“I thought you said he had just a flesh wound?”

“There's a possibility of concussion—”

“Concussion?” Fargo was startled.

“Yes, it was a wound caused by a falling object. Sufficient force to crack the skull. And I want to run an EKG on Peter. I don't like the sound of that heart . . .”

“Heart?”

A fierce pounding in Peter's chest echoed the panic in Fargo's voice.

“Yes. Molly Kiernan's got enough on her mind, but I spotted an irregularity in Peter's heartbeat when I gave him a physical in school. Might be nothing at all. No mention of rheumatic fever on his school record.”

“Rheumatic fever?”

“I'm the cautious type. I'd just like to check.”

“Oh.”

Peter was somewhat encouraged by the dubious sound of Fargo's rejoinder. Then he remembered Jorie Grant. She'd had a rheumatic heart and couldn't take gym; stayed out of school in hard weather, in general was a real twerp. Be like her? Peter groaned.

“Hey, he's coming to,” Fargo cried.

The air about Peter seemed to press in on him and he had a sense of suffocation. A hand grabbed his chin and shook him.

“Hey, Petey. Speak to me!”

There was a scuffle and an exclamation of surprise from Fargo.

“If you don't mind, Mr. Fargo,” Dr. Wingate said in a hard icy voice. “I'm the doctor here.” A firm hand turned back the blanket and found Peter's wrist. “And for your information, you don't shake concussion cases.” Boy, was Dr. Wingard angry! “Peter? Peter? Can you hear me?” His voice was gentle again.

“Concussion.” That word again. It triggered a series of associations in Peter's mind and eventually made him think of TV shows he'd seen. Maybe . . . as his mother used to say, there were more ways to kill a cat than choking him with butter.

“Where am I?” He fluttered his eyelids like patients did on “Dr. Kildare.” The act became real for the searchlights of the police cars were trained in his direction, bright enough to stun his eyes.

“Peter, it's Dr. Wingard. How're you feeling?”

“My head hurts.”

“I know, boy. Well soon fix that. Can you open your eyes again? And tell me how many fingers I'm holding up?”

Peter blinked. He could see that the doctor was holding up three fingers. He blinked again, made his eyes stay wide with fear.

“Who are you?” he asked, looking directly at the doctor as if he'd never seen him. Then be looked unseeingly at Fargo. “Where am I?”

“How many fingers, Peter?”

“Fingers? Fingers?” Peter couldn't think how many he ought to see if he didn't see the right number. But he could see the dawning of disappointed frustration and the fury of loss in Ken Fargo's face.

Losers weepers.
Peter essayed a sob. After all, his head hurt—and he wasn't supposed to be as brave as Peter Kiernan.

“Who are you? Where am I? My head hurts.” But the first sob was abruptly followed by deep hurtful ones which Peter hadn't ordered.

“There, there, boy. Take it easy. You'll be all right,” the doctor said. He stood up, pulling Fargo aside. Peter strained his ears. “That head injury seems to be causing a little amnesia.”

“Amnesia?”

“Oh, I don't think it's anything to worry about. A few weeks' rest in the hospital, a careful regime for a few months, and he'll be right as rain.”

“Amnesia? And a bum heart?” Fargo glanced sourly at Peter, who gave a weak groaning sob. “Look, Doc, I've got to report to my company about finding those furs. You just send the bills for the kid to Midwestern. Least we can do for him!”

“You'll be looking in on Peter?”

Peter kept his eyes tightly shut, but he was thinking with all his strength: Go away, Ken Fargo!

Fargo cleared his throat and began to move away.