Killer, Come Back to Me

“Okay, Willie,” I said. “Let’s tie ’em up.”

* * *

Hamphill lay like a long gray stick on the couch in the west room, nursing his wound. I closed the door.

“We got a setup, if we want to use it,” I said.

He swabbed the wound with a white handkerchief.

I looked at him steadily. “This is the way it’ll look to the cops: Finlay and his boys fight over money and shoot each other four ways from Christmas. The police find them here, anytime we want to call and tell them.”

Hamphill’s eyes fluttered weakly, his voice was small. “Later,” he gasped. “Later, Hank. Not now.”

“We’ve got to talk about it now,” I said. “It’s important.”

“I don’t want to leave Sherry.”

“Look, boss, you’re hit bad. You don’t feel well.”

“Later, Hank,” he sighed.

“Yeah,” I said feeling cold, but understanding. “Later. Okay.”

Downstairs, Mark looked white as new snow. His hands shook as he sucked deeply on a cigarette he’d found on Finlay’s body.

“Where were you when the shooting started?” I asked.

“Down at the boathouse on the beach, walking around. I ran up as quick as I could.”

“You must be getting old,” I said. “What sort of deal did you make on the phone with Finlay?”

Mark jerked, blew out smoke, drew his shaking hand across his unshaven cheek, and looked at his cigarette, then straight at me.

“The fog got me. The waiting got me. My guts got like that.” He showed a tightened fist to me. “The boss upstairs, talking to her—like water dripping and dripping on my head. So I figured it out neat. You listening?”

“Talk.”

“I called Finlay, told him I was double-crossing you guys, that I wanted a cut, that they could have Sherry. I knew Finlay’d come down and we’d get him and his gang and let them take the rap.”

“You knew that, did you?”

“You calling me a liar!”

“You were sure quiet about it. We mighta got shot. It mighta worked both ways. We won, you stick with us. If Finlay’d won, you’d be with him, huh? Maybe.”

“Hell, no! It was a chance, that’s all. Either the cops found us here with Sherry and we got the gas chamber, or we had it out with Finlay. I couldn’t tell you or the boss because if he knew he’d have shot me. I got nervous waiting. I wanted a fall guy. Finlay was it. I just didn’t think he’d get here when he did; that’s why I was down on the beach when things popped. I hoped that Finlay would swipe Sherry, even, and then we’d have to get out!”

“Okay,” I said, nodding. “But there’s still one thing gimmixed up. The boss won’t move. After all your trouble fixing a frame, he won’t move. So what’ll you do now, junior?”

Mark swore. “How long’ll we stay here? God, next week, next month?”

I pushed him away. “It smells in here. Go open the window.”

I was dead tired. I checked the ropes on the three men to be sure they were tied tight, then I stretched out on the couch. Mark went upstairs. I could hear the boss up there, too, talking to somebody now, grunting with pain.

I slept deep, dreaming I walked under green water into that little church off the point, where fish swam with me in a congregation, and the underwater bronze bell rang, and a large squid draped itself like a soiled altar cloth across the pulpit…

I woke about four in the morning to the ticking of my watch. I had a feeling something was wrong. It was so wrong that I didn’t have time to do anything about it. Someone hit me over the head. I fell, face forward, on the floor. That was all for a while.