Over the Edge (50 page)

the back of the court, near the alley. I'm gonna let the air out, then come back and stay outside their door.'

Cash went and stood next to Milo. Whitehead padded over to the connecting door and gave each leg a limbering shake. Both men drew their weapons.

'All right, fuckbrain,' Skinny was saying, inching forward menacingly. 'What's all this about having something to sell?'

'I've already discussed that with Heather Cadmus,' said Mainwaring.

Both the bikers laughed. The movement caused the fat one to shimmy gelatinously. Soft, Old Man Skaggs had said. Like a soft sack of shit.

'Same cue?' asked Cash.

Milo nodded.

'Let's still try for incriminating conversation followed by safe body language. We want their weapons down to avoid a hostage grab or a reflex slash. But if they even get close to cutting him, go for the diversion: Pound the walls and run out screaming. Cal and I will break down both doors simultaneously.' He craned to get a look at the screen. 'Where's the blade, Lenny?'

'Still down at his side,' said Ginzburg. 'I wish they'd turn so I could get a snap of their faces.'

'I'm gone,' said Milo, opening the door and slipping out silently. Cash shut it after him and took his place.

Mainwaring propped himself on his elbows. The fat biker took a waddling step and shoved him down.

'They just pushed him,' said Ginzburg evenly. Cash and Whitehead tensed. 'He looks all right. The one with the knife is running his fingernail over the edge of the blade, could be a precursor - no, he's keeping it down, looks like he's just playing with it. Fatso's still swinging the chain.'

'I asked you a question, fuckbrain,' said Skinny. The speaker on the video recorder had distorted his voice, but it sounded vaguely familiar. I longed for a look at his face. As he talked, his head bobbed, revealing an earlobe and the ends of a moustache behind the mop of hair. But that was all.

'C'mon, putz, turn around and say cheese,' urged Ginzburg, one index finger resting upon a circular red button.

'It will do you no good to harm me,' said Mainwaring with sudden forcefulness. 'My information is locked safely away and accompanied by instructions to deliver it to the police if I don't return home by a designated hour. Mrs. Cadmus knows that.'

'Har,' said Skinny. He looked at Fat, who giggled appreciatively. 'Mrs. Cadmus knows a lot of stuff.'

'Bingo,' said Cash. 'Keep talking, fucker.'

'Then I assume we can proceed with business,' said Mainwaring calmly, and he sat up.

'I take back everything,' whispered Ginzburg. 'Guy's got balls.'

' Then I assume we can proceed with business,' exclaimed Fat, mimicking Mainwaring's English accent in a high, shrill voice. He feinted toward the psychiatrist, as if to shove him down again, then retreated and giggled, turning in the process, and revealing his face. Ginzburg began pushing the red button rapidly, snapping still photos off the videotape and displaying them on a split screen. He depressed a lever and Fat's face loomed large: bullet head shaved naked; bushy black eyebrows; lumpy, swinish features under a massive black beard.

'I'm glad we have an understanding,' said Mainwaring.

Fat passed his chain from hand to pudgy hand and laughed again.

'D'you believe this shit?' he asked his partner. His voice was still high - incongruously so coming from that massive body - and I began to wonder if it was his natural way of talking.

Skinny bent his right arm.

'Whoa,' said Ginzburg, 'he's got the blade in his palm. Holding it out.'

'Palm is bullshit,' said Cash. 'Movie stuff. You want to cut someone you grab the hilt and chop down. I just got through telling them that at MGM.'

Whitehead looked at the connecting door, then at his right foot.

'Now what?' he asked.

'No change.'

'See this?' said Skinny. 'Its name is Pigsticker. Don't fuck with us. We'll turn you into fucking summer sausage."

'It's wintertime.' Fat laughed. 'How about hot pastrami?'

'Nah,' said his partner, 'fuckhead doesn't have enough fat on him. Cut him up find and nothin' but dry bones and shit.'

'Closer to the bone, sweeter the meat,' said Fat. 'Yum.'

'You got a point there.'

'Wonder how his toes slice. Like butter, you think?'

'Nah. Too scrawny. Maybe with wire cutters, though.'

'D'ja bring the cutters?' asked Fat excitedly.

'Nah. Just Ol' Pigsticker.'

Mainwaring sucked in his breath.

'Got something to say, fuckhead?' asked Skinny.

'Mrs. Cadmus- '

'Far as Mrs. Cadmus is concerned, you're dead meat. She gave us carto bianco to do with you whatever the fuck we feel like.'

'Yeah.' Fat smiled, stroking his beard. 'We could dice you, slice you, or cut you into julienne strips. Just like a Veg-o-matic'
                                       

'And forfeit my information?' asked Mainwaring, voice beginning to quaver.

Skinny moved around to the right side of the bed, inches from the psychiatrist, the knife still resting in his hand. It was then that I got a good look at him.

'That's Antrim,' I said. 'Souza's chauffeur.'

'You sure?' asked Cash.

'A hundred percent.'

'Quiet,' said Ginzburg. 'This may be it.'

Antrim had lowered the knife so that it was levelled at Mainwaring's groin.

'Get ready,' said Ginzburg.

'How 'bout,' said Antrim, 'you forfeit your nuts?'

Mainwaring looked at him blankly, then lashed out violently with a rabbit punch, connecting with Antrim's wrist. The knife went flying. Antrim howled with pain and threw himself on the psychiatrist. Fat let out a high-pitched scream and dived into the melee.

What followed next was a cop show scripted by a speed freak.

'Now!' shouted Ginzburg, rising to his feet. With one hand he manipulated the camera controls; with the other he pounded the wall. His mouth was wide-open, and he was howling, 'Freeze! Police!' like a banshee.

Simultaneously Cash flung the door open, two-handed his revolver, and bolted through, while Whitehead splintered the connecting door with a single kick and charged into the Scheherezade Suite.

I sat there, immobile, watching it all on the monitor:

Fat and Antrim pummeling the unseen Mainwaring; faces raised suddenly in panic; a dive for the knife. Doors breaking; Milo lumbering into the room, gun drawn, stomping a groping hand, yelling, 'Freeze, fuckers! Drop the knife! Drop it! Drop the knife! Drop the knife! Drop it! On the ground! On the ground!'

Antrim backed off. Cash retrieved the buck knife, wrapped it in a handkerchief, then dropped it in his pocket. Whitehead made a flying tackle at Fat. Milo yanked Antrim to his feet, cuffed him to the bedpost, and used plastic ties to bind his feet.

Whitehead was still trying to roll Fat off Mainwaring, groaning at the effort. Cash joined him. The two of them pulled hard on Fat's arms, fought to hoist him upright. Unable to cuff him because the arms couldn't reach around the obese body, they called for more plastic ties.

Mainwaring sat up, bloody and bruised. Smiling with satisfaction.

'Stand the fuck up,' gasped Cash, still struggling with Fat. 'Fucking . . . rodeo . . . event.'

Fat squirmed in their grasp, jiggling, squealing, gnashing his teeth, spitting in Whitehead's face. The sheriffs investigator struck out impulsively, slapping the fat face hard. Knocking the beard askew. A high-pitched wail.

'Huh?' said Whitehead as he ripped away the false hair. 'What the - '

'Get the eyelashes, too,' said Cash.

Off came the thick black fringes.

'Aahh!' cried the naked face, doughy and porcine and androgynous. A booted foot stamped the carpet, and tears coursed down the blubbery cheeks.

'Who - what the fuck are you?' asked Cash.

'Aahh!' Fat snuffled and snapped like a wild boar in a trap, bared its teeth, and tried to bite off one of Whitehead's jug ears. He recoiled and slapped it again.

'Hurt her again, and I'll kill you,' howled Antrim, thrashing in confinement. 'Hurt her again, and I'll - '

'Shut the fuck up!' screamed Whitehead. 'What the fuck is going on here?' * 'Aahh!' cried the hairless face.

'Hurt her agai - ' Milo jammed a handkerchief in Antrim's mouth.

'Aahh!'

'This is weird,' said Ginzburg, mopping his forehead.

I got up and made my way through the splintered doorway.

Mainwaring was in the bathroom, dabbing at his wounds with a damp washcloth. Whitehead stood guard over Antrim. Milo was on the phone, and Cash was still staring at the hairless woman, looking nauseated as he half demanded, half pleaded, 'What are you? What the fuck are you?'

'Her name is Marthe Surtees,' I said. 'She was Jamey's nurse.'

The room grew silent.

Marthe Surtees managed somehow to curtsy.

'Hello, Dr. Delaware,' she said sweetly. Batting her lashes, the suety face blotched with patches of adhesive and strands of false hair. 'How nice to see you again.'

MILO SPEARED a new potato, rolled it in butter, and ate it. He'd finished one loin lamb chop, and three others crowded his plate. I swallowed a cube of filet mignon and washed it down with a swallow of Grolsch.

It was 10.30 P.M.. and we were the chophouse's last customers. But the bar at the front was packed three deep and resonant with mating sounds.

'William Tull Bonney,' he said, wiping his face. 'As in Billy the Kid. Claims he's a lineal descendant. Used Antrim as an alias, 'cause that was the name of Billy's stepfather. '

He looked at the remains of his gin and tonic, considered a reorder and turned, instead, to his water glass, which he drained. Pulling a piece of paper from his breast pocket he unfolded it. He leaned forward, squinting, and read in the dim light of the glassed candle.

'Once we ID'd him and fed him into the computer, it just kept printing and printing. This is just an abstract, your basic American success story. Born in Mesilla, New

Mexico, mom a boozehound, dad unknown. Truant from day one. Drunk and disorderly at the age of eleven - how's that for precocious? Vandalism, fire setting, string of juvenile assaults and robberies. Bunch of suspected rapes and at least one murder - mutilation cutting of an Indian girl - that no one could prove but everyone knew he did. This was at sixteen. County-raised till he was eighteen. Out for year, came to California, busted within a month for attempted murder - bar knifing up in Kern County - took a year in the county jail, got extra time for attacking a guard and sundry other bad behaviours, placed in some rehab programme, where he learned auto mechanics, got a job as a grease monkey when he got out, lost it for beating up the boss. Busted for a string of armed robberies and assaults. Graduate school at Soledad, where he hooked up with the Aryan Brotherhood, absorbed a bit of two-wheeler philosophy. Upon release, rode with an outlaw gang called the Ghouls, up near Fresno, busted for second-degree murder - gang war cutting - case dismissed on a technicality raised by his attorney, Horace Souza, Esquire.'

He turned the paper over.

'Now for the illustrious Marthe Surtees aka Wilhelmina Surtees aka Billy Mae Sorrell aka Marthe Sorrel aka Sabrina Skull.'

'Sabrina Skull?'

'As in cranium. Gang name - she was a Ghoul mama. Social history similar to Antrim's - drugs, booze, and pulling the legs off tiny animals - except that she got a shitload of psychiatric treatment and avoided imprisonment as an adult. One disorderly conduct bust, case dismissed. Only reason I could get anything on her was that the Fresno DA has a file on the Ghouls in which she figured prominently: she liked to hurt people.'

'Is she a real nurse?'

'Oh, yeah. When she got out of youth camp, some federal grant paid her tuition at a fly-by-night operation, and she got an LVN. When the Ghouls weren't partying, she free-lanced at old-age homes. Left the last one under

suspicion of stealing drugs, but no charges were filed. Then she disappeared. Turns out she and Antrim were living in a cabin out in Tujunga. Stuck in the middle of a hundred acres of forest owned by Souza. Birds, bees, outdoor plumbing, a portable TV, and plenty of crank. Place was a sty. I saw it this morning. In one corner was a fibreboard closet - starched white dresses on one side, smelly black leather on the other. Two drawers at the bottom, crammed with theatrical make-up, beards, moustaches, hairpieces, some very smarmy S and M mags.' 'Charming' I said.

'Yeah. And romantic, too.' He gave a cold laugh, reached for the mint jelly, and prepared another lamb chop for surgery. 'Antrim caved in the moment we got him alone. Said he'd cooperate if we went easy on her; he'd done all the knife work anyway. We told him there were limits to the kind of flexibility you could muster in this kind of case, and besides, she'd been the one to poison the kid. Asshole started crying - do you believe that?'

He shook his head and chewed a piece of meat into oblivion.

'Anyway, inside of an hour we had the whole story, pictures included. He'd buried them under the floorboards of the cabin along with his notes. All part of his insurance policy.'

He'd shown me the snapshots before dinner. The story they told was a familiar one. But the players had been surprising.

'Planning on using them?' I asked. 'Can't see why we'd need to at this point. But they do help clarify matters, don't they? Give the case a little context. Now all we need are some numbers. Which our guest should be able to provide.' He shot his Timex out from under his cuffs. 'Twenty more minutes if he's punctual. Let's finish up.'

Eighteen minutes later the door to the bar opened, and clamorous waves of conversation spilled through. When it closed, a narrow young man stood in the doorway, suspended in the silence, eyes blinking furiously behind

gold-rimmed glasses as they adjusted to the dimness of the dining room. He wore a dark suit and tie that blended with the sombre panelling and carried a large attaché case that seemed a prosthetic extension of his right arm.

'Looks like our boy,' said Milo, and he got up and escorted the newcomer to our table. As he walked, the man placed both hands on the case and carried it gingerly, as if it housed something alive and excitable.