The Staked Goat - Jeremiah Healy (23 page)

"You talk with Colonel Kivens, too?"

"Oh, yes," I said.

"Tell me."

I told her.

"How you make the list?"

"The list?"

"The names. On the list in your pocket. How you
choose the names?"

"Oh," I said, "from the records that
J.T. gave me. Excuse me, that he let me look at. The records from
Vietnam, when Al was there. The list are people he knew, or arrested,
or whatever. He . . ." I stopped for a minute. Thinking.

"Go on."

I was silent.

"Why you stop?"

A photograph materialized in my mind's eye. "I
just remembered. That's where I saw your husband. That's why he
looked so familiar. He was in one of the photographs. Smiling."

She seemed to turn away for a moment, then came back
to me. "Oh," she said, nuzzling her face against my cheek.
"That very good. Very good. You make me very happy now."
She kissed my eyelid, licked my ear lobe with the tip of her tongue.

I was happy that she was happy. I was gloriously
happy—

"Where is the list?" I asked.

"Don't worry about list," she said. "List
gone."

I stopped worrying about the list. About everything.

"Did you call anyone about list?" she said.

"Call? No, no, I didn't."

Ricker said something. She hushed him.

She asked, "Did you tell anyone about list?"

"No one. No one but you."

"Ahh," she moaned into my ear. "That
is perfec'. Just right."

Her nails pinched my right nipple, hard but
exquisitely pleasurably. Her fingers trembled a little. She withdrew
her hand and left my side.

I heard some noise but nobody talked with me anymore.
I fell asleep.
 
 

EIGHTEEN
-•-

MY EYES OPENED. I WAS SHIVERING, MY TEETH CHATTERING
inside the tape over my mouth. I clamped down on my jaws, but that
just made my whole head shake, and it hurt enough as it was. My mouth
was desert dry, like from a wine hangover. It was dark in the
basement. Whether still dark or again dark, I didn't know.

I tried to shift around and remembered too late the
motion sensor Jacquie had mentioned in her first visit. I heard her
heels above me and then the cellar door. My mouth grew drier, but not
from anticipation. The lights came on, and she came down the stairs.
She walked up behind me.

I looked up at her. Her face was upside down and a
bit haggard. Her right hand held the knife. No leather sap or other
non-lethal weapon this time. A bad sign.

"You alla time so . . . active?" she said
softly.

I shook my head.

"My husband go to call man in Boston. Not Curly,
different noncom. Ricker no want phone bill to fuck up old Curl."
She stroked my brow with her empty hand. "We all alone now."

The only noise I could hear was the faint scratching
her nails made on my eyebrows.

"If I take off tape, you promise no yell, no
scream?"

I nodded.

She peeled off the tape, gently. She ran her index
fingernail around the outline of my lips. I kissed it. She moved it
down to my chin.

"Ugh, you need shave."

"The price one pays for virility."

She giggled, but while she got it, I'm not sure she
could have explained it.

"You have nice voice," she said. "I
like talking with you."

"You made me feel very good with the drug,"
I said. "And with your fingers, and lips, and tongue."

She licked her lips, giving me just a peek at the
tongue.

"Too bad I meet Ricker an' not you in Saigon,"
she said.

She positioned the knife, cutting edge up, just under
my chin. Then she leaned over and kissed me, upside down, tongue
thrust hard and often into my mouth. I'd never kissed a woman upside
down before, but I did my best to respond.

"Mmmm," she said as she broke off the kiss.
"Very nice." She pulled back the knife. Break off kiss,
then withdraw knife.

She put the knife down next to my head and reaffixed
the tape, testing it thoroughly. Careful woman.

"Yes, very nice. But I must wait for Ricker to
get back. He want to watch."

She clacked away and started up the stairs. "You
MP, like Ricker. He say he let me be 'double vet'ran' tonight. You
know what that mean." She laughed, like glass breaking this
time.

A double veteran was
in-country slang for a GI who, after having sex with a woman, killed
her. She turned off the lights. I could still hear her laughing
through the closed door.

* * *

Jacquie was watching something on television. Not
enough music (and too much noise with the muffled voices) for radio.
I was still shivering, wishing I'd hit her up for a blanket on her
last trip. Fat chance. I pushed the cold out of my mind and
concentrated on Ricker. He, old Curl, and God knows how many other
noncoms were members of a "club." Given the "fraternal
customs" I'd seen, the club probably centered around contraband.
Black market in Vietnam and elsewhere overseas, maybe drugs on-post
here in the States. Far-flung, but tightly knit, with a high gross
revenue since noncoms functionally ran almost every operation of any
outfit I ever knew. Disciplined, savvy, competent. An impressive
international organization, in whose Washington offices I was
presently cooling my heels.

I was just about out of options. My bonds were no
looser than when I had arrived. Even if I could get loose, my hands
and feet were so numb it would be a while before I could move around
or act effectively. My body ached, but probably more from the mugging
and my present accommodations than from Ricker's spray can and
needle. I couldn't see any way out. I couldn't see even a way to
leave J.T. a message. Mindful of the sensor, I arched my back as
slowly as I could and rolled up onto my wrestler's neck bridge. I
didn't hear Jacquie getting up to check on me. I scanned as much of
the room as I could see in the shadow light. Nothing new. No cutting
edge, no communications device.

My gaze refocused on my hands. My right hand. My
pinkie.

I remembered Jimmy Cagney and A1's little finger. I
fought back a cold rush with reason. J .T. knew nothing of the
special meaning of 13 Rue Madeleine. Also, since Ricker used Curl to
make it appear that I had left D.C., I couldn't imagine my body
turning up in the foreseeable future.

I took a few deep breaths. I spoke inside with Beth,
getting some advice. I said some prayers. I waited awhile, then said
some more.

I saw the headlights' reflection and heard the gravel
crunch and car door sounds again. Ricker's truck was the only vehicle
sound I could remember hearing. He had said it was a deserted
neighborhood this time of year, yet both of them seemed real careful
about making noise. Knife over gun, taped mouth, promises and all. I
had pretty well figured that Jacquie would remove the tape during her
first efforts. I decided my last act (I couldn't quite characterize
it as a hope) would be the best hollers for help I had left. I heard
their combined footsteps above. The door opened, and they descended
the stairs, Ricker in the lead.

"Well, now," he said as he pulled up the
chair, "I understand my bride here has sort of given away the
rest of tonight's program." He smiled and raised his eyebrows.

I just stared at him.

He frowned. "Oh, come on, now, Lootenant, be a
sport, huh? You realize how many guys go out a lot less happy than
that? You forget how many grunts got killed on perimeter guard,
floggin' their dogs when they should have been lookin' front?"
Ricker spat on the floor. "Not to mention the insult you imply
toward my wife's attraction level."

I looked up at Jacquie. She was a little unsteady.
Drinks or drugs. A little slip by the careful lady? "Anyway,
there's nothin' you can do about it. I just talked to old Curl. He
got into Boston and took a cab to your place. He used the keys you
had to open your apartment—he said you don't have near enough
security devices on your premises, by the by. He dropped off your
suitcase and unpacked your stuff. He said he didn't have to mess up
your covers none. Says you live like a slob. He opened your mail and
put it on your desk." Ricker chuckled. "He even ripped up
your junkmail and tossed it in the wastebasket. That Curl, he's a
caution. I told ya, he don't miss a trick."

Ricker pulled a .38-caliber revolver from behind his
back. He dug into his jacket pocket and took out a silencer. He
screwed the three-inch muffler into place, then leveled the weapon at
me.

"Take off the tape, honey."

She moved behind me, her hips rippling under the
jeans. She peeled back the tape a little less gently and steadily
than before. I puckered and bit on my lips to work the sting away.

"Well," prompted Ricker.

I just stared at him.

He arched an eyebrow. "Y'all gonna talk or
what?"

I eyed Jacquie. "Maybe I'm just saving my tongue
for your bride."

Jacquie stiffened a bit, as though only her husband
could talk about her that way. Ricker just laughed, a low, throaty
laugh.

"Lootenant, you're a better sport than I
thought. You're tryin' to make me mad, so's I'll do something
stupid." He shook his head, still smiling. "Good tactics,
but what with you all trussed up like that, kinda bad strategy."

I smiled back. "Did old Curl happen to mention
whether he played back my tape?"

"Tape?" said Ricker and immediately cursed,
then laughed again. "You'da made a good boxer there, Lootenant.
You had me alookin' at your right hand, and then caught me with your
left." He made a tsk-tsk sound, then said, "Nope, old Curl
never did mention any tape, and I shouldn't have let you know that,
should I? Well," he paused for effect as he cocked the revolver
and aimed it more specifically at my face, "maybe you'd best
tell me about that tape."

I looked at the gun, then back up at him. "I
think I'd prefer the truth serum."

"Five seconds," said Ricker, not smiling.

I waited three. "I have a tape machine attached
to my telephone. It records all my messages. I've been gone since
Thursday, the twenty-fifth. If your boy went through my mail but not
my messages, it's going to be obvious to the police that I never got
home." Ricker closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them.
"It was late when you got in, too late to call anybody back."

I shook my head, slowly. "First, some of the
people trying to reach me are clients who would want to be called
back at any time. Second, some of the other people trying to reach me
are, ah, romantic interests who I would want to call back at any
time. Lastly, the machine shows a little red light when a call has
been received. It goes out only when the tape is played back. When
the cops eventually get to my place, they'll see that red light, play
back those old messages, and realize somebody tried to fake my
return."

Ricker closed his eyes a little longer this time.
"Darn." He snorted and slowly stood up. "Well, I guess
old Curl will have to do a little more visitin' in Boston. Damned
gadgetry."

Ricker looked down into my face. "If there's no
machine attached to that telephone of yours, you'll wish old
Alexander G. Bell had never been born."

He turned to Jacquie. "Honey, I'm gonna have to
catch Curl in his hotel before he gets too drunk to walk. I'm gonna .
. ."

Ricker noticed Jacquie was staring down at me, her
breathing shallow and rapid. I didn't think she was paying attention
to him, and he didn't either. He slapped her. A snappy, short whack
like a carpenter driving a nail.

She nearly tumbled off her heels. Her hand went up to
her face. She rubbed her cheek with her knuckles. He now had her
attention.

"Like I said, honey, I have to risk callin' Curl
from here to catch him." He stuffed the revolver in her other
hand. "You keep a close eye on this trophy, now, you hear?"

She nodded, her eyes downcast, and said, "Yessir."

Ricker leaned over, pecked her on the cheek. He then
scampered, no easy effort for a man his size, up the stairs.

She turned to me and licked her lips. There was a
rosy blush where he'd hit her. She began to rub the barrel of the
silencer slowly up and down one thigh, then the other. She licked her
lips again and stared at me. Her eyes were glassy.

"How about a kiss," I said.

She assumed her behind-my-head position. She leaned
over and put the business end of the gun in my right ear. Then she
smothered me with a wet, tongue driven kiss, moaning throatily. Her
breath tasted sweet, like marijuana, but given hours of
semiconsciousness, my palate wasn't exactly good litmus paper.

She came up for air. "You know," I said
softly, "you could kill him and we could go away together."

She favored me with another kiss, still sloppy but
shorter. She broke it. "No, my father promise me to Ricker.
Beside," she said, straightening up as we both heard Ricker's
footfalls upstairs, "I don't think you let me be double vet'ran
like Ricker."