The guy seemed to mean it. “We haven’t settled this angle of how I rate half the money, with five others cutting in.”
“Who said anything about five others?”
“Oh.”
“After all,” Russ said, “one of the others shot you. If you only knocked off one of them you might not get the right guy. So after you finish making sure you got the right guy, that leaves me and you.”
“Or if I wasn’t careful it might leave just you.”
“What a nasty mind you got,” Russ said virtuously.
He wasn’t doing very well at making Russ say who shot him. Maybe if he could find out where the lake was, he could make Russ talk by threatening to spill everything to the customs authorities. And if Russ still wouldn’t talk, the same threat might make one of the others come across. He said casually, “Where is this lake, Russ?”
“I’m holding that out for a while. It’s all I have to sell, and you ain’t made no offer.”
“What would you consider a fair offer?”
“You got something on me but I don’t have anything on you. When I hear that Frankie or Domenic or Cappy or Ken has been knocked off, that will give me something on you. Then I’ll tell you where the lake is.”
His hand tightened on the .45. “I’ll make you an offer. Either give me your map of that lake, or I’ll give you thirty seconds to live.”
Russ seemed to shrink inside the coveralls. His left shoulder hunched forward: a ring-wise fighter covering his jaw. “And after I give you the map,” he said thickly, “you’ll give me one second to live.”
“You just wasted eight seconds. Give me the map and you’re okay.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because you don’t have a better choice. Call it a gamble if you want. Maybe you’ll lose. But you’ll lose anyway if you don’t gamble. You’d better not let me talk because it’s running out the clock on you. Now we only have ten seconds to go.”
“I wasn’t the guy shot you.”
“It’s been nice knowing you.”
“You’re kicking away a quarter million bucks.”
“Five . . . four . . . three . . .”
Russ took a deep breath “Two, one, out,” he said.
He aimed at the third button from the top of the coveralls and took up the trigger slack and squeezed slowly and waited for the crash and the upward flip of the muzzle. It seemed to take a long time.
Russ said hoarsely, “I’m betting you won’t shoot.”
He glanced down. It wasn’t the fault of the safety catch. The thing was all ready to shoot. He felt sweat coming out on his body like heat rash. He squeezed again. Nothing happened.
Russ said, “I’m betting you can’t shoot.”
He looked down at his hand. Muscles twitched in it and tendons made white streaks against the skin, but nothing happened. There was a short circuit somewhere in the nerves between his head and hand. When he told his hand to squeeze the trigger it went into a deep freeze, without budging. The frozen feeling crept up his arm and into his body and left a chunk of ice in his stomach.
“All right, Russ,” he muttered. “You’ve got a good bet.”
He felt suddenly very weak and silly. His right hand started to ache, as if it had been in a numbing vise. “You wouldn’t care to make a sudden move and help me out?”
“Listen, pal, after a gamble like that, the only move I want to make is to lie down.”
“What gave you the idea, Russ?”
“Aah, you always did have a lot of chaplain in you. Then you talked too much. Guys who shoot off their mouths don’t shoot off many guns. Why don’t you put that thing away now?”
“I’ll keep it handy. I might find myself at a loss for words.”
“Here’s a hot tip for you, kid. Don’t go walking in on Ken or Cappy or Domenic waving a rod you ain’t gonna use. You’ll end up catching a shovelful of dirt in your face.”
This was great. You come two thousand miles to make a guy talk or to shoot him, and lose your nerve and then let him tell you to be a good boy and to quit playing with dangerous things like loaded guns. What did you do now? Thank him humbly and walk out? Lacking any better ideas, it looked as if you did.
He snapped on the safety catch of the .45 and started turning toward the door.
His move set off a chain reaction. As he began turning, his eyes flashed a series of action photos to his brain: Russ grabbing a tire iron . . . lifting the thing . . . throwing it. The action came fast but his brain was right in there catching it all and telling him exactly how to duck and wheel and flick off the safety and let Russ have a slug. His brain did a real jet-propelled job. Unfortunately his body was heavy with inertia and kept turning away from Russ the whole time this was going on. Trying to change its course was like wrestling with a car skidding on ice.
A dull shock exploded up his right arm. The tire iron caromed off and went clanging over concrete. The .45 dropped to the floor. Now that it was much too late his body came out of the skid. He wheeled, saw Russ charging in. There was no time to throw a punch. He ducked under the blurred streaks of heavy fists, lunged forward. It was like being a kid again and catching the tackling dummy with a solid shoulder block. Russ folded across his shoulder like a sack of sand. He tried to keep his feet moving, to keep charging and slam Russ into a wall or bench or car. It didn’t work. His shoes couldn’t dig into concrete the way cleats would dig into turf. He slipped and lost power and felt Russ starting to claw at his body. That was no good. In another second Russ would have his breath back and begin making a pretzel out of him.
He jerked aside suddenly. Russ tottered forward, off balance. They invented right hooks for times like this. He aimed one at the guy’s jaw. Nothing happened. His right arm didn’t move. It hung at his side, numbed by the blow of the tire iron. Sorry, bud. Our right hooks are out of stock at the moment. He switched and hooked a left. Too late again. Russ was balanced once more, brushed it aside, moved in behind a sawmill whirl of rights and lefts.
He danced back from the blows, jabbing with his left. It was pretty futile. The dam was breaking and he was trying to hold it back with his little finger. The heavy swings began surging over his guard and breaking like surf on his head and body. This wouldn’t last long. The big fists didn’t hurt but he could feel each one packing him away more snugly into soft black wool.
His foot hit something that clattered and he caught a bleary glimpse of the .45 skittering across the floor. He dived at it. The floor smacked him harder than Russ had done but he got the gun in his left hand and clawed at the safety catch and then a skyrocket went soaring up inside his head and burst and faded in darkness.
Five
IT WASN’T easy to open his eyes. His eyelids were heavy and he had to jack them up slowly as if he were raising a car wheel to change a tire. Now and then the jack slipped and the eyelids slammed down and he had to start all over again. Finally he got them up so they stayed. It was queer that he had been thinking in terms of jacks and tires because he seemed to be lying on the floor of an auto repair shop.
He needed repairs all right but they should have taken him to a hospital instead of a garage. Did they think they could get that steady knocking sound out of his head by cleaning spark plugs and adjusting a timer? Was somebody going to fix his crumpled right arm with a hammer the way you would straighten a fender? If they thought so they could take another guess. Just because a guy has an accident on the highway and smashes himself and his car was no reason to tow both