What of Terry Conniston? (16 page)

Theodore sat down with his legs dangling over, gripped the edge of the porch with both hands and rocked back and forth. The milky half-closed eye caught a glint of sunlight; he said, “You got the gun, Mitch. You want to do it or do I?”

“Do what?”

Theodore shrugged and kept rocking. “Her,” he said.

“Nobody's touching her,” Mitch said. Rage swelled his eyes, fueled and banked by the long repressed night.

Billie Jean said, “She knows what we look like.”

Mitch didn't reply. Theodore fixed his one-eyed stare on the gun and stopped rocking; his legs became still. Billie Jean said, “When Floyd gets back we ain't going to want to waste a lot of time. Better get done with it now.”

“You just said you thought he wasn't coming back. Make up your mind.”

“Either way,” Billie Jean said, “we got to stop her clock, don't we? I mean, we can't take her with us and we can't leave her here to talk.”

“We'll wait for Floyd,” Mitch said.

Theodore said, “Georgie's dead. What's he got to come back here for?”

The edge of that thought, fast-traveling, struck them all a sharp blow. Mitch's eyes widened; he said, “We wait,” with more confidence than he felt.

Billie Jean said crossly, “He owes us money.”

“You're talking as if he'd already run out on us.”

“Well, he has. You know he has. Who's going to stop him pick up the money and just keep going across the line? Was you him, would
you
come back?”

I would
, Mitch thought.
But I'm not him. He wouldn't be afraid of the rest of us coming after him
.

As if reading his thoughts Billie Jean said, “Suppose'n he picks up the money and then he stops at a phone and tells the cops where to look for us.”

Theodore scowled. “Floyd wouldn't do that to us.”

“You wanna
bet?
”

Terry Conniston appeared in the door, pale and unsteady; clearly she had been listening. She fastened her gaze on Mitch. Theodore's head twisted around on his short neck; he said in his casual abrasive voice, “We oughta use that gun on her now and get out of here, go on down the road and watch for Floyd. If Floyd comes, okay. If the cops come we fade back in the rocks and let them go by and then get the hell out of there. There's a good spot up the road ten-twelve miles from here.”

Billie Jean said with waspish petulance, “We ain't got any more time to wait.”

Mitch shook his head obstinately. “Anyway the car's only a two-seater. And Floyd's got the keys to it.”

“You wanna get us all put away?”

“We wait,” Mitch said, and set his teeth.

Theodore growled. He turned around again to fix his cyclopean stare on Terry, who shrank back in the doorway and gripped the jamb, the tendons of her fingers standing out. Billie Jean lowered her brows and walked to the edge of the porch, sat down beside Theodore and bent to whisper in his ear. Mitch frowned and took a step forward. Theodore's eye whipped around toward him and Theodore nodded in response to something Billie Jean said. Billie Jean formed her hand into a fist and pounded her knee, talking with sibilant earnestness; Mitch, unable to make out the words, kept walking forward.

He came within six feet of them: Billie Jean stopped whispering, gave him an arch look and stood up. Mitch pointed the gun at them. “You two gentle down.”

Billie Jean started to walk back along the porch toward the door. “You figure just wait here till the cops come, Mitch? What do you hear from your head lately?”

She stopped at the door. Her plump face was turned toward Mitch—but her hand darted out, clamped around Terry's wrist and yanked Terry out onto the porch. Terry's little cry brought Mitch up on the porch; he extended the gun before him and said, “Let her go!”

Billie Jean's sensuous mouth formed a pouting leer. Terry grabbed her hand and tried to pry it loose. Mitch took another step toward them—and Theodore landed on him like a cement bag.

They had set it up between them—Billie Jean's distraction, Theodore's leap: he had fallen for it like an idiot. He had time for that disgusted thought in the instant when he felt the rush of wind from Theodore's charging attack. Then he was pitching forward, agony exploding in his back where Theodore's knee had rammed him; spinning, his wrist caught in Theodore's fist. He went down with Theodore on top of him and the gun fell somewhere. The tumble, and Theodore's weight, knocked the wind out of his lungs; a curse, savage but weak, escaped his mouth. Theodore grunted and twisted something and Mitch's face was pushed down against the splintered porch boards. He felt something rip along the side of his jaw; only then did he begin to react. He was not a fighter but there was enough screaming panic in him to inject strength: he flailed his body, striking back with both heels, and hit some part of Theodore, enough to make Theodore shift his weight and cry out. Mitch got one elbow under him and heaved, rolling them both over. Theodore switched his grip from Mitch's wrist to his torso and pinned one arm against his side in a cruel hug. Nothing was in focus or balance; Mitch couldn't see through the red wash of outrage and terrified frustration that filled his eyes. Agony pulled at his mouth. Kicking blindly, he got purchase against a post and heaved again. It threw him off the porch. There was a sickening instant in mid-air, rolling over, like a dream of falling. They spun together and hit the dusty earth with a whacking thud. Somehow Mitch was on top of Theodore. The fall broke Theodore's grip and Mitch felt himself rolling free. Stunned and spastic, he whipped around on hands and knees, scrabbling to get his feet under him.

He brought things into focus and saw several things at once. On the porch both girls were diving toward the fallen gun. On the ground before him Theodore was rolling toward the kitchen knife which must have fallen out of Mitch's belt.

Mitch felt needles in his legs. With a cry he launched himself forward: he brought his hand up with deathly panic behind it, whacking the heel of his hand up under Theodore's nose. It lifted Theodore off the ground: he heard the crush of cartilage, felt the spurt of blood on his palm; Theodore windmilled, off balance, and slammed his back against the edge of the porch. Behind Theodore the girls were a blur of swirling flesh, a cacophony of shrieks.

Theodore roared and bounced forward, his eye glittering. Light raced along the blade of the knife in his sweeping fist. Horror froze a knot in Mitch's throat. He tried to dodge and his heel slipped on the loose pebbles of the street and as he fell his right leg whipped out for balance. Theodore tripped over it and sprawled, still roaring. Mitch reached for the edge of the porch to lift himself to his feet; as he got to his knees he saw, at eye-level, the revolver come skittering across the boards—kicked by one of the girls' thrashing feet.

Unwilled, automatically, his fist closed around the gun and he wheeled in time to see Theodore rushing toward him with the knife outstretched at groin level, ready to rip him up the belly. In unthinking reaction Mitch yanked the gun around and jerked the trigger, and kept jerking the trigger with deliberate, methodical, mechanical pulls.

The gunshots were earsplitting roars; the bullets sprayed out, making the gun pitch and buck in his fist; more than one of them, fired point-blank, struck Theodore. Red spots started to show up on his shirt even before he stopped moving. A dark disk appeared on his face just above his bad eye, rimmed at the bottom by droplets of crimson froth. In slack-mouthed disbelief Mitch watched him turn aside like a puppet and take a dozen jerky disjointed steps and topple—dead, clearly, by the way he fell.

The firecracker scent of cordite was a vicious bite in Mitch's nostrils. Blood dripped from the scraped side of his jaw. He had a stitch in his ribs; he stood soaked in his own juices, staring down at the trail of blood spots that marked Theodore's last few steps.

Dull amazement washed through him; he was not ready to credit the reality of it. It was only after some time that he thought to turn around—he almost lost his balance—toward the porch where the girls had been struggling.

They stood a little distance apart, staring. The gunshots must have broken up their fight. Terry slowly sat down and buried her face in her hands; her body lurched but she made no sounds. Billie Jean waited a long time before she climbed down off the porch and walked past Mitch as if he weren't there and stood over Theodore's crumpled body. She prodded Theodore with her toe. There was a reflexive muscle-jerk that made Theodore's leg clatter; Billie Jean jumped back in terror. Mitch bent down by her and felt for a pulse but he wasn't sure where to look: he tried the wrist and the throat. He peeled back the lid of Theodore's good eye but blood filled it immediately; he wiped his hand on the sandy ground and backed away, and ran to the corner of the barn, where he bent over and threw up.

He was a long time sick. Finally he wiped his mouth furiously on a handkerchief and came back across the street, taking a long detour to avoid going near Theodore. Billie Jean was crouching below the porch, watching Theodore anxiously as if she was waiting for him to get up.

Full of fury Mitch kicked her in the thigh and when she looked up he said, “It's your fault! You killed him!” His voice trembled.

Billie Jean looked at him with a slowly changing face; with childish petulance she said, finally, “Bullshit.”

He looked past her, up across the porch. Terry looked bleak and glazed. He climbed up and went over to her and sat down beside her. She didn't say anything; she didn't even look at him. There was a long livid scratch down her cheek and her clothing was torn, her hair a matted tangle. She was sucking on a broken fingernail.

At the edge of the porch Billie Jean got up, rising into sight like a porpoise coming up from the sea. She said in a practical voice, “Let's don't just leave him out there in the middle of the street like that.”

Mitch thought about it sluggishly. “Do what you want to do.”

“I can't move him by myself. He weighs too much.”

Unreasonable and loud, he shouted, “What the hell do you want me to do? Bury him with full military honors? Embalm him and build a thousand-dollar casket? Leave me alone!”

Very businesslike, Billie Jean only waited out his tirade patiently and then said, “Do the same thing he did with Georgie.”

Mitch resisted it for half an hour but in the end he did what Billie Jean wanted because it was the only thing he could do. He didn't know where Theodore had put Georgie and he didn't want to find out. He put Theodore around back of the store near an anthill and left him there bloody and naked. He carried Theodore's clothes inside and stuffed them into a knapsack with Georgie's things. Working mindlessly, doing what Floyd had ordered last night, he policed the place, picked up every last scrap and carried everything across the street into the barn. The trunk of the sports car was not locked; he put everything into it and had to sit on the lid to close it.

He stood in the barn entrance, soaked in sweat and caked with dirt and blood. He felt feverish, drugged. Across the powder-stripe between the buildings Terry Conniston was standing near the place where Theodore had died. She had picked up the knife. Billie Jean slumped resentfully against the edge of the porch, breathing hard, her big breasts rising and falling. Evidently they had both thought of the knife at the same time and Terry had won the race for it.

Mitch still had the gun in his hip pocket. He took it out and after a minute discovered how to break the cylinder open. All the cartridges had been fired. He put it back in his pocket and started to cross the street.

Billie Jean said, “Well?”

“Well what?” he snapped.

“What do we do now?”

“Christ, how the hell should I know?”

“You better think of something,” Billie Jean said. “I don't think Floyd's gonna come back.” By some simple animalistic process she had already put Theodore completely out of her thoughts. She said again, matter-of-fact, “He ain't coming back. You know he ain't.”

C H A P T E R
Twelve

Carl Oakley sat in the Cadillac behind rolled-up tinted windows, wearing a hat and dark glasses and hoping he looked enough like Earle Conniston from a distance to pass the test. He twisted in his seat to sweep the picnic area and the cottonwood-sycamore copse that surrounded it; nothing stirred except a few birds and a few leaves, roughed up by the wind. He looked at his watch, because the dashboard clock like all dashboard clocks did not work—almost three hours since he had arrived. The engine had begun to overheat and he had switched it off, killing the air-conditioner; he had started it up at fifteen-minute intervals to cool down the interior. In these hills the heat wasn't too bad but he was covered with a nervous glaze of oil-sweat.

He chewed a cigar and felt an acid pain in his gut—the sense that it was already too late. They had likely murdered Terry long since: he ought to call in the police. But the police would insist on talking to Earle.

Forty-eight hours ago Oakley had considered himself an honest man, within the acknowledged flexibility of business morals. He was surprised by the ease with which he had shattered that illusion. What he was doing was illegal, dangerous, and inexcusably dishonest, and during the night he had traveled the full length of rationalizations and faced the reality of his crime. All these years he had enjoyed the self-satisfied comfort of the knowledge that he did not covet what was not rightfully his. To the best of his belief he had never envied Earle Conniston, never resented the difference in their stations nor been tempted to cheat Earle—a temptation which, had it existed, would not have been difficult to fulfill. Earle had trusted him with unreserved confidence; Oakley had enjoyed the smug satisfaction of knowing Earle's confidence was deserved. Today, in hindsight, he marveled at his own record of pious self-righteousness.