Good Lord, Deliver Us (29 page)

Pretty bizarre, but hardly the most freakish
of coincidences in an increasingly crazy world.

Assuming -- just assuming
-- that it
was
the Smith woman at the overpass, Z wondered what she'd
thought when she recognized that Z, the man she'd hired to murder
her husband, was standing there beside the road as she drove by? As
paranoid as the lady was, she could even have thought Z was
shadowing
her
.

Another idea. Could having seen Z under the
overpass be the reason she'd accused him of working for her
husband?

Following that line of conjecture a little
farther, might the lady's house now be dark because the woman had
panicked as the time neared for Z's arrival, that the lady had
"peeled out" again because, in her mind, Z was coming to murder
her?

All speculation.
All
wild
speculation.

Z shook his head. Regretted that quick move
when his brain began to throb.

He was spending far too
much time ruminating -- not enough
acting
.

Breaking the chains of conjecture, Z
shuffled forward, located, then crept up the low concrete steps to
the back door, as he did so, fishing out his disposable plastic
lighter and snapping it on.

Was shocked by what he saw!

More accurately, Z was
surprised by what he
didn't
see. Though a deadbolt protected the lady's front
door, the back door was barred with nothing but the original spring
lock the house's builder had installed, the cheapest, most easily
picked lock there was.

Numbly, Z released the lighter-tab to push
the butane match back in his pocket.

How
could
the lady, fearful as she was,
have failed to put a
real
lock on the back door?

It simply made no sense -- long and painful
experience with the nonsensical, teaching Z it was time to back
off.

To listen.

To sniff the air like a wild dog on the
scent of an intriguing, but mysterious, prey.

On the other hand, the
only
manly
thing
to do was crack the lock; get in there and face down whatever
challenge lay within.

Was she in there?

Sitting in the dark?

Waiting for him with
yet
another
gun?

Z had already
confiscated
one
Smith revolver. ... But this was America. The land of the
free and the home of the NRA. For all Z knew, the lady could, at
this very moment, be loading a bazooka.

Fresh out of new ideas -- these "insights"
little more than an excuse for delaying entry -- Z dragged out his
billfold, by feel, thumbed out the plastic card he used for
defeating spring locks.

Silently, taking elaborate care, Z inserted
the card in the door crack, after a moment, slipped back the
lock-tongue and pushed the door in, just a little. ...........

Laundry room.

That's what that wet, soapy smell seeping
through the door crack meant.

Good.

If the house was set up on a conventional
pattern, the kitchen would be to the right.

Z replaced the card in his wallet, then the
billfold in his back pocket. Quickly, before additional speculation
paralyzed him, he was through the door and inside in the even
greater blackness of the house.

After easing the outside door shut behind
him so there was no chance of it banging if a breeze came up, Z
paused.

Laundry room. No mistake.

Z invited into the living room, now standing
in the laundry room, he could imagine that the rest of the home was
rather like a larger version of the ghost house, the two structures
roughly in the same neighborhood, similar in style (though perhaps
reversed on the lot,) because they'd been built at approximately
the same time.

His eyes refusing to adjust to the almost
total blackness of the laundry, his ears ringing with the clanging
stillness of the room, Z slid his hand along the right wall ...
until he located the inside door.

Slowly twisting the door knob, opening the
door with the same fluid motion, he was through into the next, even
darker, pool of space.

Reaching behind him to ease shut the utility
room door, Z knew he was in the kitchen ......

Where something stopped him cold!

It was ... the air. Still that furniture
polish odor, but something more .......

The only word Z could think of to describe
the complex mix of odors that had been added to the polish's
"lemony" smell was ... man.

So, how do men smell? Z wasn't sure. Only
that there was a Y chromosome of difference between a man's smell
and a woman's.

Mr. Smith? Could the Smith
woman have lied to Z in
reverse
, her husband a contract
killer after all? Could Mr. Smith have shouldered his way in
earlier that evening to learn that Mr. Z was due at midnight, Smith
the killer, skulking about in the dark to pay Z back for that
little fright Z had caused him?

Too many questions.

All Z knew was that the minute Z made a
sound or switched on a light, Z would become a perfect target for
anyone still in the dark.

Z was sweating up a summer
storm! If he had any sense, he'd back out now while he could;
return when
least
expected; show up by the light of day.

Damn! Z had tried to quit this case. But by
agreeing to see Mrs. Smith tonight, hadn't yet resigned, and so
owed the woman his best efforts.

Results Guaranteed.

Settling himself so he
could think, Z was comforted by the knowledge that whoever was in
hiding would figure Z -- since he'd been invited -- would come to
the front door. With the ambush -- if that's what this was -- set
for the front, Z should be able to ease himself across the kitchen
floor in back, remaining undetected until he was opposite the
inside entrance to the kitchen. There, he'd be in position to hurl
one of the cherry bombs down the hallway, making an explosion
somewhere Z
wasn't
.

The reason for
deliberately making such a noise, of course, was to cause whoever
was in the house to reveal
his
location, perhaps by firing at the
sound.

The plan had a possibly fatal flaw, however.
If the other person didn't take the bait, Z would have lost
whatever surprise he'd achieved by gaining entrance to the
house.

What Z really needed was a
way of lighting up the
other
person's position -- something the single flash
of a cherry bomb wouldn't do.

A compromise might be to
produce a light -- but one that didn't come on until Z had vamoosed
-- a light designed to draw the woman/man to
it
; one right there in the kitchen,
perhaps.

Considering how to time a light to come on
after Z had left the kitchen, Z had an idea: a thought that bubbled
up from childhood memories.

At least Z now had a plan.

Carefully, Z began moving about the small
kitchen, feeling his way until he found the stove.

Patting in the dark, he touched the burners
on the top.

Good.

A gas stove.

Brushing his hands over the stove top again,
Z found what he'd hoped for, a spot of warmth in the metal near the
center, making this an old stove, old stoves equipped with
ever-burning pilot lights!

If Z could just lift off one of the grates
over the burners, he could reach the flame buried deep inside.

Yes.

At least what he had in mind was now a
possibility.

Z's plan formulated, cautiously, he floated
off an iron burner grate, setting it carefully on the cabinet top
running along the right side of the stove.

And there, glowing feebly in the recessed
center of the stove, was the small, blue flame of the gas
pilot.

Squatting slowly, scuffing up his pant leg,
Z pulled one of the sparklers out of the band of his sock.

What he'd remembered from his youth was how
hard it was to light the Fourth's first sparkler, needing to hold
its blunt, gray head in the strong flame of a wooden kitchen match
for what seemed like forever. (Sometimes, it took two matches to
get the job done.) Once a sparkler was lit, however, the best way
to light another was to touch the second sparkler's head to the
dying sparkler's welder-hot blaze of crackling light -- lighting
the next sparkler before the first one sizzled out to an
incandescent glow of red-hot, almost-molten wire.

A slow-to-light sparkler giving him his
time-delay, Z bent the soft wire handle of the sparkler into a
loop, circling it around one of the other front burners in such a
way that the business end of the sparkler could reach the pilot
light. Adjusting the handle further, Z angled the malleable iron
wire until the tip of the sparkler touched the small flame of the
pilot light.

With the tiny pilot slowly heating the end
of the sparkler, Z estimated he had from ten to fifteen seconds to
get out of the kitchen, down the short hall, and into either the
bathroom or one of the bedrooms -- before the sparkler caught.

And Z was quietly, but quickly, out of the
kitchen into the hall, touching his way along the wall of that
narrow corridor as best he could, hoping to find a door in the
dark. (Z's preference was the bathroom; less chance of an assassin
lying in wait for him there, he thought.)

And ... there was a door, Z fumbling for the
handle, getting it turned, pushing the door open, slipping quickly
inside, pushing shut the door.

Gently caressing the space inside, Z felt
... a sink. He was in the bathroom; his luck was holding!

All was quiet in the rest of the house, all
dark, but not for long! When the sparkler caught like a psychedelic
blowtorch . ............

Again, Z longed to have Smith's gun.
...........

If not a gun ... why not a sword?

Bending over quickly to extract the second
sparkler from his sock, Z dug out his lighter one more time,
snapped it on and applied the flame to the sparkler's tip, willing
the sparkler to catch in all its glowing splendor!

It was then that Z heard thuds out there,
someone with large feet charging, blundering down the corridor into
the kitchen.

The kitchen sparkler had begun to flare!

At the same instant, Z's own sparkler caught
in a blaze of white-hot glory!

No gunshots.

Instead, a kind of crashing about in the
kitchen.

Now or never!

Lighter replaced, sap out and in his right
hand, sparkler in his left, Z was out of the bathroom and loping
down the hall to swing into the kitchen, the cook room eerily
transformed by the glittery, larger than life outline of a man, his
back to Z, the man having Z's coiled-up, still guttering,
stove-sparkler in one hand, a knife in the other.

Hearing Z enter, the big man whirled,
extending his arm to slash at Z with the knife.

Not the best move the man could have
made.

With the cool advantage of surprise, Z
easily avoided the knife, in turn, branded the man across the back
of his knife hand with Z's own, blazing sparkler, the man screaming
as he dropped the blade, the knife clattering to the tile
floor.

Since this was to be a "long-range" fight, Z
quickly switched the sparkler to his right hand, the sap to his
left.

Rallying, the man stabbed at Z with the
coiled-handled shorter sparkler -- missing as Z floated back like a
butterfly in preparation to sting like a bee.

Countering, Z lunged forward to sear the man
between the eyes, the man screaming again, throwing up one hand,
not only burned but also blinded by the sudden intensity of the
blistering light.

Trying to rally, all the man could do was
make a clumsy throw of his sparkler, Z ducking successfully.

Unarmed, the big man took the only option
available to him: to blunder out the kitchen's back door, stumble
through the laundry room, and slam out the back to pound off over
the soft grass yard, moving at a pace Z couldn't match.

End of the fight.

A decision in 30 seconds of the first
round.

As for the post-fight color coverage, Z
would have to mention the new, almost Hindu, caste mark blazed
between his opponent's eyes -- not forgetting the facial feature
that had previously identified his adversary -- the metal plate
installed above his brows!

* * * * *

The fight was over so quickly Z hardly had
time to be afraid -- but he was scared now!

Both sparklers sputtered out by this time,
the kitchen was devil-dark again. Slipping his blackjack into his
pants pocket, Z put his "dead" sparkler on the stove so he could
use both hands to wipe sweat from his face and forehead. He was
damp all over, shirt sweated through ....

What did Detective Addison say was the
madman's name? .........

Z
must
be sicker than he thought;
he'd
never
had
trouble recalling names, or numbers. ..............

Ruble.

Dale Ruble.

It was not that Z could no longer think, it
was just that there seemed to be a delay inside his brain.

Dale Ruble, the crazy with a steel-topped
head.

Z continued to stand in the middle of the
blackly silent room.

Weak.

Trembling.

Almost paralyzed.

But able to think again, the middle pieces
of the jigsaw beginning to arrange themselves into a pattern.