Rainy City (28 page)

“A while?” His voice was growing hoarse from screaming. “What do you mean, a while?” He had found the gun, was trying to dig it out of the dirt, using his one good hand.

“I’ll come back and see how you’re doing later.”

“When? When will you come back? I’m freezing. I might be dead by the time you get back.”

“Think you can hang on till the Fourth of July?”

“Black!” His scream reverberated down the tunnels.

“Sweet dreams.”

The explosion stung my ears and almost sent me into shock. It felt like somebody had sneaked up behind me and clapped their hands hard against both ears. The bullet whirred through my hair. An inch lower and it would have killed me. I flattened myself on the tunnel floor, feeling a twinge where Bledsoe had bit me, and another in my knees where they had slammed into the tunnel wall.

He cut loose another salvo.

A bullet struck the rock ceiling and ricocheted down the dogleg, whirring and Whining. Bits of lead pinballed down the tunnels looking for a way out. He fired again. A bullet splattered over my head and showered me with particles of rock and lead. He must have fired four times, though the sounds ran so close together it was impossible to count.

“You better leave one in the gun,” I said.

I picked up the lamp and forged my way down the dogleg to the main tunnel. Crowell had been right. I never would have fumbled my way out of the mine in utter darkness. As it was, I had to stop and think long and. hard about which way to go at the end of the dogleg. Even with the lantern, I got lost and had to backtrack twice.

When I reached the entrance, I took a deep breath, mildly surprised that it was still daylight The cold, fresh air felt wonderful as it seared my lungs. Now, outside in the breeze, I could no longer hear his screams, could hear nothing except some raucous crows chasing a hawk down below. According to my wrist watch, we had been inside the mountain only twenty minutes. How time flew when you were having fun. ?

IN BRIGHT, FLASHY WHITEFACE, KATHY WAS DOING HER clown schtick. She mimed, mugged, juggled balls and squirted guests with water from a plastic lily in her lapel. The party was being held at my house. She wasn’t having much luck in her attempts to jazz up the gathering.

The guests included Melissa and Burton, still separated after several weeks, but on talking terms.

Burton had brought the birthday girl. They swapped Angel every other week, and it was his week. Pilar was flopped onto the sofa, giggling to beat the band. Somebody had erroneously informed her the grape punch was alcoholic and she was reacting accordingly, the perfect psychological study. Helen Gunther might have been taking notes, only she had been in the ground for weeks.

Helga Iddins stood in the other corner, sans husband, her strong arms folded across her breasts, bestowing odd looks on me that might have been sultry or just plain mean, while she explicated to a Waxy-faced Clarice Crowell her philosophy of the dance. Clarice was under the impression Helga was a ballerina. Clarice and Edward were both attending, having stayed over to help Pilar with the multitude of arrangements.

Kathy sneaked up, hugged me from behind, and whispered into my ear. “Hey, Cisco.”

“Hey, Pancho.”

“Things have turned out so nicely, Thomas. Burton’s working at Boeing. Melissa’s back in therapy and doing well. Doesn’t she look happy? Well…better? You’re some sort of genius.” Kathy bussed my left ear warmly, wetly.

“Just luck,” I said, recalling how close I’d come to getting sealed inside a mountain.

“Luck, schmuck, you stooge. Who do you think is going to believe that?” Arms still twined around my neck, Kathy crabbed around until she was in front of me, her arms making an arbor for us. With her bulb nose, painted eyebrows and whiteface, the only parts of her I recognized were her violet eyes, eyes the vivid shade of Elizabeth Taylor’s. “And Angus? I almost wish you had left him down in that hole.”

“I thought about it.”

“You must have. You didn’t tell anyone until you got to Monroe.”

“He’ll get what’s coming to him, one way or another.”

“I don’t know, Thomas. I worry. After all, he’s out on bail. Can you believe that? A man is accused of one murder and two other attempted murders and they let him off on a bond. It makes you wonder.”

“Crowell wasn’t fooling when he said he had a lot of pull.”

“And he really did kill your dog?”

“He said he hadn’t planned it. He came here to scout around and the mutt attacked him. You had talked to him and given him my name. You have to remember, he was a desperatd man. He’d been trying to keep a murder covered up for over twenty years and it was about to be exposed. Or so he thought, until he cooked up the idea of dynamiting the mine. After he thought of that, he calmed down significantly.”

“And he broke in here?”

“Before he thought of the dynamite. Yes. And when you interrupted him, he decided that since you were implicated in getting me into the case, you should be taught a lesson also.”

“What was he going to do?”

“Whatever he had to to upset our lives. Anything to shake us up so we wouldn’t go through with our plans.”

Spotting Kathy in a compromising position, Angel hounded across the room, dashing to grab a wrapped present jutting from the pocket of Kathy’s black clown pants. Kathy had been taunting her with it since she’d arrived. Halfheartedly, Kathy tried to escape, but I hugged her and pinned her while Angel picked her pocket, then ran away tittering. Feigning anger, Kathy crouched down and pretended she was going to give chase. Angel squealed delightedly, hid behind the sofa and began feverishly unwrapping the gift.

The phone rang. Before I could answer it, Kathy said, “You want a Christmas goose?” The phone rang again.

“What’s wrong with turkey?”

“I’ve had enough turkeys.”

“Christmas is a long time away.”

“I like to plan ahead.”

“Sure. A goose sounds good.”

“How about right now?”

The phone rang again. I could see it coming. Before I could cover myself, Kathy goosed my behind, using a noisemaker of some sort. It made a gross noise like a whoopee cushion. Everyone laughed at the look on my face.

I picked up the phone. It was Holder. Julius Caesar Holder. I was so stunned, I almost did not speak. “Black? You dere?”

“This is Black,” I said, finally, glancing around the room at the modest little party. Nobody in the room was quite as contented as they might have been, nobody except the clown and the child. It was one of those weird birthday parties for a child with only one child in attendance.

“You know, about dat Crowell thing. Well, I done it.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“What Crowell done …I thought about dat.”

“Yes?”

“I been tailin’ him. Tailed him all week. I tailed him to the airport dis afternoon. He had a ticket to Jamaica. When he was waitin’ for his plane, I tipped off the cops. He won’t get out on bail dis time.”

Edward Crowell was close enough to hear what I said, so I had to think twice before speaking. I had to think twice about the audaciousness of his brother, too, about the moxie it must have taken to try to skip the country so openly, so unselfconsciously. Or was it merely insolence? A grand disrespect for the police? For the law? And of course, he had almost beenright when he bragged he was going to get away scot-free. Had it not been for the work of a pair of interested freelancers, he would be jetting to a Caribbean isle this moment.

“I’m glad to hear it,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I jus’ diet think it was right for him to get away wid dat sort of scam. You know? ‘Sides, he gave me five grand to take you out.”

“Sounds like a cheap date.”

“You listening, man? Take you out? He give me five grand to kill you.”

“I heard.”

“Yeah. I already spent the money.”

“I thought you didn’t go in for that sort of work.”

“Are you going to earn it?”

Holder laughed deeply. “I told you, I don’t do that sort of gig.”

“Sure, that’s what you said. But you might have been fibbing.”

“I guess Crowell have to report me to the Better Business Bureau.” His laugh boomed out.

When I hung up, some clown with a plastic boutonniere squirted me in the eye. The roomful of guests laughed. The clown winked at me. Pilar giggled some more and hiked up her skirt. Edward Crowell, peering over his wire-rimmed spectacles, seemed to be more than mildly interested in what was under the maid’s skirt.

Over in the corner, Helga Iddins demonstrated dance steps for Clarice, and Clarice practiced them without realizing she was doing a stripper’s routine. Melissa and Burton were off in a corner, heads touching over their punch cups, murmuring and giving each other looks like spontaneous combustion. It was beginning to look as if the hot breath of time and separation was puffing some life into their marriage.

The birthday girl marched over, pulled on my thumbs and was whirled around into the air, gleefully chirping encouragement to her benefactor. The clown in the center of the room winked at me again. It isn’t often a clown with violet Elizabeth Taylor eyes winks at you that way. A guy could get used to it. A guy could grow to like it.