Randall #02 - Ghost Writers in the Sky (35 page)

The guns made an awful clatter as they dropped on the slate floor. 

“
Pick them up, Duncan, for God’s sake,” Walker said. “Do something useful for once in your life.”

Duncan
picked them up slowly, keeping clear of Marva’s big feet. He hung onto the bigger gun and handed the other to Walker.

Walker
let go of Marva, weighing the little silver and black gun in his good hand as he pointed it at Marva.

“
A Kimber Eclipse. Nice little weapon, Marvin.” He turned to Duncan with a condescending smile. “Now this is the kind of handgun you should have bought, Duncan. Not a big cannon like that King Cobra.”

“
I liked that gun!” Duncan said. “I don’t know why you had to throw it inside Plant Smith’s car. Nobody was going to believe he’d own a gun like that.”

“
You threw a gun into Plant’s car?” I said. Just when things started to make sense, they fell apart again. “Why would anybody do that?”

Walker
turned on Duncan in fury. “You see what you’ve done, you moron? You just told them. You told them what you did. Now we’ll have to kill them.”

Marva stood by the door, rubbing her throat, her expression unreadable. Donna glared at the door, as if expecting to guilt-trip it into producing a
deus ex machina
.

Donna turned to Duncan with a bratty whine. “Come on guys, I don’t have a clue what anybody did to anybody, and I don’t know shit about guns. Let me call a cab. That rental car of Marva’s isn’t going anywhere with your damned bullet holes in the tires.”

Duncan
gave a sort of whimper. “See. They don’t know anything.”

Walker
looked at me and then at Marva. “These two—they’ll figure it out. Why would you try to incriminate Plant Smith if you didn’t do anything, huh?”

 
Donna was still trying. “So why don’t you take us down to the Saloon?” she said. “We’ve got a car down there, if you’ll give me back those keys you stole. We’ll forget all about this. What happens in gay-cowboy-land stays in gay-cowboy-land, okay? I’m cool with that.”

Walker
just growled. It looked as if his arm was giving him a lot of pain.

“
About that keychain, Donna,” I couldn’t let this pass. “How could you walk away with it? You knew my cash and cards were in there.” I clutched the manuscripts to my chest, trying to sound calm.

“
I didn’t steal your keys on purpose, for God’s sake,” Donna said. “You think I wanted to come up here? Like I’d choose to hook up with a useless geezer when I had a chance to make it with Jonathan Kahn? Do you have any idea what one spot on
The Real Story
could do for my career? Walker said he had a gun and he’d shoot me if I didn’t go with him.”

“
Don’t count on Kahn,” said Marva. “You’d think in all those years, the Doctor would have taught him some manners, but from what I can see, he doesn’t have any.” She gave me a thin smile. “Some men just need discipline.”

“
That’s it!” Walker shouted. “Everybody into the kitchen.” He stuck the gun in Marva’s ribs. “Now! Come on, Dr. Manners.” He grabbed my shoulder with his bloody hand.

Duncan
whimpered. “Don’t! Walker, please. You know I hate violence.”

“
You should have thought about that before you shot that Mexican boy’s head off, Duncan. Nobody would have to die if you’d just keep your road rage under control.” Walker herded us down a hallway hung with gorgeous Navaho weavings.

The room went dead quiet. Marva turned on Duncan.

 “
You?” she said. “You killed Ernesto, Duncan? It wasn’t Walker?”

Duncan
looked exasperated.

“
I did not mean to kill that boy. I thought he was the guy driving a Ferrari forty miles an hour while he gabbed on the damned cell phone. A goddam kid. Owning a car like that, and not even appreciating it. When I saw him get out of that Ferrari, I just saw red. It’s illegal you know, driving with one of those infernal telephones.”

“
Yeah, but I don’t think it’s a death penalty offense.” Marva said.

“
Especially when the wrong guy got executed.” Walker gave a surreal chuckle as he ushered us down the hall. “Duncan killed the wrong guy. He just told me Plantagenet Smith was the one driving and dialing. Ernie only brought the car down the hill for him.”

“
Shut up! Shut up all of you.” Duncan said. “Nobody has to know. The police say a gang killed the Mexican kid and that’s that.” He stopped as he noticed the blood on Walker’s hand. “Walker, your blood is dripping everywhere. Maybe we should get you to a doctor…”

Walker
gave him a sneer and shoved Marva with his good arm.

“
Get going, you three. Into the kitchen.”

I marched ahead, my head pounding. After the dimly lit den, the kitchen light nearly blinded me. Light gleamed from polished granite and stainless steel.

“
Walker, please?” Duncan dabbed at the blood on Walker’s hand with a kitchen rag. “At least let the girls go? They haven’t done anything. Donna’s a little selfish, and Dr. Manners isn’t the sharpest fork in the place setting, but they don’t deserve to die…”

“
Everybody deserves to die. It’s the price of being alive,” Walker said. “It’s either their time or ours, Duncan.”

“
But it would be such a waste.” Duncan gave a let’s-be-reasonable smile. “If you shoot them, we’d have to throw away another gun. Do you want to lose this fabulous Smith and Wesson 500? They’re back-ordered at least two years…”

Walker
gripped the smaller pistol with his good hand.

“
I’ll use Marvin’s gun. Nobody can trace it to us.”

“
Unless somebody notices we left a few dead bodies lying around the kitchen. Walker, we’ve got to make it to LAX by 8 AM. The helicopter’s fuelled and ready. Do you want to miss our flight because we’re cleaning up a bunch of bodies?”

Walker
looked at his watch and sighed.

“
You’re right. We don’t want to leave rotting bodies in the house. We should keep them refrigerated.” He gave us a grin. “Maybe it’s time we showed these three trespassers our newest GE Monogram appliance.”

Before I had time to picture what might be in store for us, I heard the sound of a car engine starting up outside.

“
There’s somebody out there,” Donna screamed, yanking open the back door. “Help!” She waved her arms, then stopped.

“
Oh, my God—the Mustang. It’s moving!”

I ran to the window. The Mustang was accelerating down the dirt road. The trunk wasn’t quite closed, and the person at the wheel—she looked a lot like Lucille Silverberg.

“
That bitch! That bitch!” Walker screamed, pulling himself up to look out the window over the sink. “How the hell did she get out of the trunk?”

“
You left Luci in the trunk of your car?” Duncan said. “How stupid was that?”

Luci had escaped with Walker’s Mustang. That was something. Maybe she’d go to the Sheriff.

Or maybe not.

She’d have to admit her own guilt.

 
Walker pushed us on through the kitchen toward what looked like a big steel box.

“
Ladies, you must admire Duncan’s famous Monogram wine vault.”

 
Duncan opened the big door. Walker motioned the three of us toward it. Now I could see it was a room-sized temperature-controlled, prefab wine cellar. Inside, it was honeycombed with wine racks. The floor was stacked with wine cases.

“
Inside. Now,” Walker said. “All three of you.”

“
I can’t,” Donna said with a smug smile. “It’s all, like, alcohol. I’m underage.”

Walker
grabbed her wrist and swung her against a case of Edna Valley Viognier. Donna whimpered and clutched her hobo bag like a security blanket.

“
You too, Dr. Manners.”

He pushed me into a corner, where I barely avoided falling on a couple of magnums of Laetitia sparkling wine.

Beside me, Donna’s phone began to play its little tune.

“
I have to get this,” she said.

 
With a roar, Walker grabbed the bag and pulled out the phone. He didn’t seem to be able to find the “off” button. The phone kept playing its tinny melody. Finally he threw it onto the slate floor and crunched it under the heel of his boot.

The crunched phone. So that was Walker’s modus operandi. Rick probably hadn’t destroyed Luci’s phone after all. I felt better.

 “
I hate those phones,” Walker said. “Duncan’s right. Using one should be a capital offense.”

“
Will you be quiet about that!” Duncan picked up the remains of the phone with his good hand. “And could you please stop making a mess? You’re leaving evidence everywhere.”

His hands still gripping his gun, Walker started closing the door of the wine vault with his foot.

“
Sorry there’s no corkscrew in there, ladies. ‘Wine, wine everywhere, but not a drop to drink’…Such an unfortunate accident. You shouldn’t have been wandering around looking for booze in the middle of the night. But you were so drunk…”

He gave his terrible smile. Too bad we’re leaving for an extended vacation. They won’t find your bodies for weeks.”

“
Wait a minute, Walker,” Duncan said, his voice rising with hysteria. “Let’s think this through. This is not a freezer. It’s just a cooler. It won’t preserve them for a whole month. Do you have any idea what decomposing bodies will do? I’ll never get the smell out. I am not going to allow this, Walker.”

“
You’re not going to allow it? What are you, now, my mother?” 

Duncan
started shrieking. “I’m calling the police. This has gone far enough. I’m going to turn myself in.” He reached for the phone on the kitchen wall.

With a roar, Walker yanked the phone from its moorings, pulling plaster and hand-painted Italian tile with it.

“
Duncan, so help me, if you do one more stupid thing…” He stomped the phone with his cowboy-booted heel and looked at Duncan with exasperation. “What, you can’t even close the door?”

Duncan
gave us an apologetic look as he pushed on the vault door. It thudded to a close, sealing us into the chilly dark.

Terrible, black dark.

 “
You are not leaving us in here!” Donna threw her weight against the door.

“
Save your strength.” Marva said with a sigh. “That door is steel. A hundred of us couldn’t break out of here.”

“
Why should I listen to you, bitch?” Donna said. “You planned to leave us here with them.”

“
No, I planned to stop Walker from attacking Camilla with that letter opener. I saw him pocket that thing and start sidling over to her.”

I didn’t know whether to believe her or not, but that made sense. It would have been easier to attack me than the military-trained Marva.

I felt around for a sturdy wine carton. “Why don’t we all calm down and think logically about how to get out of here.” I put the folders I’d been clutching on the box and managed to sit.

Marva gave a yelp.

“
What the hell is this? I’ve just been goosed by a giant champagne bottle.”

 “
Probably a magnum of Laetitia sparkling wine,” I said. I saw it before he shut the door.

Donna moaned. “Doesn’t anybody have a phone? What century do you people live in?”

 “
The Manners Doctor does not approve of cell phones,” Marva said. “So I never carry one when I’m being Dr. Manners.”

“
The Manners Doctor has changed her position on that.” I shivered.

“
You are both batshit-crazy.” said Donna.

“
Duncan has people come in to tend his horses,” Marva said. “They’ll be here in the morning. I don’t think we have any chance of being rescued until then, so we’d better keep warm. Alcohol is good for that.”

“
You heard him. There’s no corkscrew. Not that we’d be able to find it in the dark anyway.” This was hardly the time for a party.

“
You don’t need a corkscrew for champagne,” Marva said. “This should calm us right down, don’t you think, ladies?”

I heard the sound of tearing metal foil as I felt around the door, wildly hoping there might be some way to open it from the inside. After a muffled pop, I was showered with bubbly foam.