The Black Marble (45 page)

Valnikov jumped up and said, “Clarence, I'm going to that kennel and talk to Mr. Skinner. I just can't sit around. If Mrs. Whitfield calls, get me on the radio or call me at the kennel. I wrote the number down on my note pad.” Then without looking at her he said softly, “Natalie, maybe you wouldn't mind staying and doing our paper work this morning? I won't be … needing you.”

“I wouldn't mind,” she said, not looking at him either. And all the non-looks and averted eyes were not lost on Clarence Cromwell, who just shook his head and said, “Gud-damn! Don't
nothin
ever work out right for
nobody
in this gud-damn world!”

“What?” Woodenlips Mockett said.

“Nothin,” Clarence Cromwell grumbled. “Nothin, gud-damnit!”

Philo Skinner had not been able to sleep for a day and a half. Nor had he shaved. He was wearing a pair of brushed denims and a striped turtleneck sweater. He hung his new imitation gold chain outside the sweater. He had bought the clothes this morning the moment the stores opened. He had a battered suitcase, which usually stored dog powders and lotions, packed with new clothing. He wasn't even going home. He also packed a hair dryer which had dried a thousand dogs but never a human head. He couldn't find another thing he cared to take. He was sure he could outfit himself in a fancy Puerto Vallarta hotel cheaper than here. That peso devaluation was going to make his twenty thousand look pretty good. Pretty damn good! He glanced in the mirror and his spirits fell for a moment. He looked terrible: eyes baggy and sunken, cheeks hollow and gray and bristling. Hands gray and scaly. The tension had taken a great toll on the Terrier King.

He had thought about driving the El Dorado across the border and trying to sell it in Tijuana to some Mexican crook. He quickly dismissed that idea, having heard about gringos being robbed and murdered down there these days. Just his luck to have them discover he was carrying twenty K and cut his throat.

He couldn't stop trembling, more from exhaustion than excitement. Mavis said yesterday she would be in this afternoon. Well, let her come. He wanted to leave her a note but couldn't think of anything sarcastic enough. He parked the El Dorado in the rear of the kennel, out of sight. He didn't want any new customers today.

Only one thing left: the schnauzer. Philo had to take the bitch and drop her someplace and phone the Whitfield broad. Then he was going to the airport. They'd find the car in a few days. They'd probably find out he took a Puerto Vallarta flight. So what? A guy with lots of debts bugs out. Happens all the time. There was absolutely no connection with the dog snatching so there'd never be a cop looking for him. And Mavis could find some other sap to work the kennel, to slave like a goddamn sled dog. Of course Arnold might find out Philo had booked a flight to Puerto Vallarta. So what? That was a long way from here. Arnold was a two-bit bookmaker. The kike and the nigger with the knife wouldn't dare try anything on the Mexican Gold Coast. They don't put up with crooks down there. Let Arnold try. Philo'd have the
Federates
on him. Dig a grave, smoke a cigarette, and adios, Arnold, you fucking vampire.

Then he heard a car door slam. The door of the detective car slammed shut on the dream of Philo Skinner. He looked out and didn't see a detective. He saw a burly man with wild cinnamon hair and a slouchy walk, coming right for the front door.

He knew who it was at once, this brawny stranger! He was the nigger and the kike! It was Arnold's gunsel. Arnold crossed him up, that slimy bloodsucker. He said a man would come that
afternoon
, not morning! Philo peeked through the shade and the man got closer.

This gorilla wouldn't listen to reason! They
never
do in the movies. He'd just start tearing the place apart looking for money. He'd find the flight bag with the twenty K.
After
he cut Philo's throat! Then Philo tried to calm himself. No, it's just a customer, that's all it is. Just someone who wants Philo to take care of his fucking Irish setter for a couple weeks. That's all it is. The man was at the door now. He was knocking. Philo peeked through the blind and looked for a telltale bulge under his arm. The suit hugged his husky torso pretty well. There was no bulge. Philo was imagining things. Jesus! He had to keep his mind together. He'd be on that plane in a few hours. Then the man knocked again. Still Philo peeked. Go away, asshole. Take your fucking Irish setter and … Then the man pulled open his jacket to get a notebook. Philo saw it. It was on his belt. A gun! It
is
one of Arnold's gunsels! He
won't
cut Philo's throat! He'll shoot his balls off!

Philo Skinner knocked the metal grooming table clear across the room when he ran for the office. The table clashed to the tile floor and knocked bottles smashing against the wall. Philo grabbed the suitcase and the flight bag with the money. He slipped on the shampoo, which was all over the floor, and fell hard, cutting his hands before he got to the kennel door.

Valnikov heard the commotion and tried the door. It was locked. He heard the dogs barking and howling and heard someone running in the kennel. He thought that he had stumbled into a burglary in progress! Someone was ransacking Skinner Kennels! Then he heard another crashing sound as Philo Skinner slammed into the steel-reinforced back door, double keyed on
both
sides. Security, Philo. There's lots of thieves in this world. And you just caught one, Mavis. Thanks for
everything!
You cunt!

“YOU CUNT!” Philo screamed, and twenty-five animals went mad. A Welsh terrier began barking. A Great Dane started bellowing. A malamute howled like a wolf. Then other voices joined the chorus. Mavis couldn't have heard Philo's hysterical obscenity if she were in the grooming room.

Neither could Valnikov. All he heard was a burglar trapped inside, trying to get out. Perhaps more than one burglar. He drew his revolver and kicked the door beside the lock. The jamb splintered but it didn't open. He backed up, took a step and kicked again and the door fell off the hinges and crashed on the overturned grooming table. The clashing crashing splintering sound made Philo and the dogs howl all the louder.

Philo dropped his suitcase but clung to the flight bag. He ran desperately back, back toward the grooming room. There was only one potential weapon in the kennel, and it was 100 feet back down the narrow aisle between the pens full of bellowing beasts.

Philo Skinner was holding his chest, fighting back a coughing spasm. He felt a ball of phlegm as big as a fist ripping free from his lungs and rising in his throat. Yet he couldn't make a sound. Arnold's enforcer was creeping through the grooming room. Philo could hear his quiet steps on the broken glass. Philo held his breath as much as possible. The wheezing sounded deafening to him even in the din from the frightened animals. Philo removed a small fire extinguisher from the wall and backed into the shadows, into an alcove near the side door leading to the fenced exterior aisle on the periphery of the dog runs. Philo almost kicked over a mop and pail of water. The chunk of black phlegm was rising, rising, choking him. Please! Just a few seconds more!

Then Valnikov cautiously opened the door to the kennel. The dogs in the near cages saw this stranger with a gun. A Doberman started going berserk, slashing at the chain link with his teeth. Philo Skinner backed against a concrete wall, saw the gun of Arnold's enforcer, and thought he would strangle before the bullets tore through his tortured lungs.

Valnikov saw a T-shaped aisle at the far end of the kennel where Philo had dropped his suitcase. Valnikov started to move toward the suitcase when Philo's survival instincts took over. Valnikov saw a blur from the corner of his right eye. He turned but not fast enough. The fire extinguisher caught him on his broad forehead, over his right eye. Philo had swung with all his strength. It was enough. Valnikov fell back heavily against the first dog pen and went down on the concrete floor. He dropped his gun, but instinctively fell on top of it.

Philo Skinner was stopped by the chunk of poison in his throat. He started to gag and cough and gag some more. He leaned against the wall and gagged it out. A hunk of phelgm like a black golf ball splattered on the concrete floor. Valnikov was groaning and flopping on the floor like a beached baby whale.

Both men were acutely aware of their danger and both tried to recover first. It was Philo who at last caught some life-saving oxygen in those creaking lungs. He took as many sweet breaths as he dared and leaped forward. He picked up the fire extinguisher. He raised it over his head and Valnikov was just able to raise his left arm in time. It cracked down on his forearm and Valnikov cried out.

The dogs were by now frothing and screaming and running in circles, sensing a death struggle in their midst. The Doberman was past madness. His foam white lips and gums were bleeding from gnawing on the chain-link dog pen. Without knowing why, the Doberman lusted to be part of the kill. He was not an attack dog, but smelling blood and seeing the frenzied thrashing of two men at his feet, he wanted to kill without reason.

Philo wheezed and gulped and raised the fire extinguisher again. Valnikov held up the wounded arm but the fire extinguisher crashed into the arm
and
his head, near the temple. The cowlicks immediately became matted with blood as the vessels burst. Blood was running down Valnikov's face and neck. He bellowed like the Great Dane and rolled over on his stomach, on top of the gun. He groped under his stomach for the gun when Philo attacked again. Philo missed Valnikov's head this time but the fire extinguisher smashed into Valnikov's right shoulder and his fingers became paralyzed for a moment. He couldn't pick up the gun.

Philo had now fallen on top of Arnold's assassin. He couldn't move the heavy man, but he punched at the broad head weakly with his bony fists. He thrashed and whimpered and pulled on the assassin's bloody hair but there was no moving a man who weighed more than a St. Bernard. Philo then reached under Valnikov, under his belly. Valnikov's half-paralyzed fingers and Philo's tobacco-stained fingers fought over the revolver.

Philo was whining and whimpering louder than any dog in the kennel. Then he started growling like the Doberman. He buried his stained teeth in Valnikov's shoulder, but the bulky flesh was too hard. Philo bit Valnikov on the bloody neck. Still he couldn't get the gun.

Then Philo fell on his stomach and put both hands beneath the detective and with all his strength moved the body. Philo reached under and jerked backward and rolled over against the door to the grooming room. The gun was in his hand.

Valnikov and Philo lay prone for a moment staring at each other across four feet of bloody concrete floor. The dogs were running in drooling circles. A Sealyham terrier was lying on her back kicking her feet. She was crazier than the Doberman by now.

Valnikov was shaking his head like a wounded bull, moaning in pain as the initial shock decreased. He thought he was going to die. He watched the burglar's eyes.

Philo knew he had hurt the assassin. Still, he was infinitely stronger than Philo even in this condition. Philo Skinner had never considered that he might have to kill a man. He kept the gun pointed at the assassin's bloody face. He wasn't absolutely certain whether you had to cock this revolver but he guessed you didn't. He was trying to get up the strength and courage to do what he had to do. But he had never in his life hurt an animal. How could he kill a man?

“You … you … turn around.” Philo stopped to cough and spit on the floor but he never took his eyes off Arnold's assassin. “Crawl on your stomach. Crawl … back. Back! Crawl back or I'll kill you.”

Valnikov hesitated for a second. Then, on his stomach, his suitcoat torn in three places, he began wriggling back along the floor.

“Back!” Philo commanded. “Crawl back! Further! Further!”

Valnikov inched back, wiping blood from his face, never taking his eyes off the burglar.

When Valnikov was lying beside an empty animal pen on the west side of the kennel, Philo said, “Stop.” Only then did Philo Skinner struggle to his feet and walk carefully along the pens to his right, just avoiding the Doberman who was desperately trying to get his nose through the mesh and grab Philo's skinny thigh.

Philo stood over Valnikov and said, “Put your face down on the concrete.” Valnikov did, and waited for the bullet to crack through the back of his skull. He wanted to roll quickly to the right, to die fighting for his life, but the pain had weakened him. Pain, more than anything, made him obey when he was sure it was the end. He thought of something to take with him to eternity. He thought of nightingales singing in a raspberry bush.

But Philo said, “Don't move or I'll kill you.” And he heard Philo fumbling with a set of keys. Then Philo turned the lock on the door of the empty dog pen. He pulled the door open. “Now crawl in there on your stomach,” Philo wheezed. “Stay on your stomach. Don't try to get up or you're dead.”