Dead on the Island (20 page)

One of them searched the room below me,
which had the only window in the place. The door creaked when he
opened it. I suppose the window gave him enough light to inspect
the place. It was too small to require a lengthy investigation.

The other man moved to the opposite end of
the warehouse, then returned along the other side. They met in the
middle.

"So now what?" one of them said. His voice
was so loud in the silence that I almost jumped. "We wait for a
couple of hours?"

"That's right," the other said. "We screw up
this time, Lenny's gonna have our asses."

I assumed that Lenny was the absent third
man. I still wasn't sure which one he was, but something about
these two--at least as well as I could see them--indicated that
neither of them was the man I'd fought with. Something about the
way they moved, the way they bulked in the darkness. I wasn't sure.
But I thought that Lenny was probably that one. And he was
missing.

"Anything to sit on in this dump?" the first
man said.

"You can go in there and sit on the
john."

"Funny." The first man went over to the
scale and sat on the platform. I could hear it clank. It wasn't
much better than sitting on the floor.

"You bring your gun?" the second man said.
He sounded like he was from deep East Texas.

"Damn right." The first man shifted on the
scale to bring out a pistol. As he moved he rocked the balance arm,
and the weights that were sitting on it clattered to the floor. In
the confined space they sounded like an accident in an industrial
foundry.

"Goddamn, goddamn!" the second man yelled.
"What the fuck was that?"

"Just something on this goddamn scale," the
first man said. His voice was a little shaky. "Calm down."

"Goddamn, I almost shot you! You gotta keep
quiet!"

"Fuck it, Kirk, get hold of yourself. You're
worse'n an old woman."

"I can't help it. I don't mind beatin' a guy
up, but this killin' business gets me nervous."

The first man stood up. "Me too. But we
can't fuck up again. I'd rather be a little nervous than get Lenny
pissed off."

"I guess so." Kirk didn't sound too sure,
even about that.

I was wondering how to resolve the
situation. Obviously they were there to try killing Dino again, not
to give him Sharon. The Mauser was lying beside me. A TV private
eye would just yell something like "Freeze, you scumbags!" and then
blow the guys away. I'd never done anything like that. Besides, as
tense as Kirk and his buddy were, they might blow
me
away
before I could get the second word out of my mouth.

On the other hand, they were so nervous that
they might just shoot each other. I reached as quietly as I could
into one of the boxes and put my hand around a roll of adding
machine tape, intending to throw it to the other end of the
warehouse. Then when their backs were turned, I could yell
"Freeze!"

It was a good idea, and it might even have
worked. I just didn't get a chance to try it. When I shifted
position to throw the tape, I brushed my hip against the sack I'd
brought with me. The two Big Red bottles clinked together.

It wasn't much of a sound, really, but it
seemed as loud as a six-car pile-up to me. It must have sounded
like considerably more to Kirk and his pal.

Almost instantly a light was turned on.
They'd had one, after all, probably the better to spotlight Dino
with when it came time to shoot him.

I flattened out behind the boxes. They
didn't know where, exactly, the noise had come from. They swept the
light around the entire warehouse, and I thought they might miss
me. Then the light came to rest on the boxes in front of me. Two
thin beams seeped between narrow spaces between the cardboard
sides.

The light moved on, then returned. No one
was saying a word. If they fired at the boxes, I was fairly well
protected by the rolls of paper and the ledgers, but it wasn't a
place I'd like to stay for an extended length of time.

The light held steady. I didn't move. I
hardly breathed. I began to sweat, not so much with fear as with
uncertainty.

Still no one spoke, but I heard footsteps. I
picked up the Mauser. If they fired through the boards beneath me,
I was a dead man. I hadn't been as smart as I'd thought when I
chose my hiding place.

But one of them wasn't so smart, either.
After all, he was the one holding the light.

I rolled to one side, brought up the Mauser,
and snapped off a shot at the light. There wasn't any time to do
any aiming.

There was a dull splat, a groan, and the
light was flying through the air. It hit the floor and rolled,
pointing away from the restroom. It was almost as dark as it had
been before.

"Jerry, Jerry!" the man who must have been
Kirk said in a hoarse whisper.

Jerry groaned. I had no idea where I'd hit
him, but he obviously wasn't feeling too good about it.

It was quiet for about two seconds. Then
Kirk fired his pistol. I could see a flash of light, almost as if a
faulty flashbulb had gone off. The bullet thudded into one of the
boxes. Dust flew.

Then Kirk was moving, toward the restroom. I
gave him just enough time to get there, and then swung over the
side, holding the edge with one hand. It wasn't much of a drop, a
few inches maybe. I let go and landed without hurting the knee.

Kirk was inside, I was outside. I knew where
he was, but I didn't think I'd made enough noise to let him know
where I was.

I was wrong. Suddenly he stepped round the
side of the bathroom and fired twice.

Fortunately, he didn't know exactly where I
was, and the bullets zipped by me and thwanged into the tin
wall.

I fired back and Kirk gave a strangled cry,
tossing his pistol away. He crashed to the floor. He didn't move
again.

Jerry wasn't moving, either. I walked to the
flashlight and picked it up, then directed the yellow beam toward
first Jerry, then Kirk.

Long shadows extended from the bodies. It
was an eerie sight. Jerry appeared to be breathing. Kirk
didn't.

I walked over to Kirk. I'd shot him right in
the nose. He'd fallen on his side. I didn't look at the back of his
head too closely. A sour sweetness rose in my throat. I swallowed
it.

Jerry wasn't much better off than Kirk, and
there was a lot more blood, most of it on the front of his shirt
where he was holding his hands. He was alive, but only just. I
didn't want to lift his shirt to see what was under it.

He looked at me and tried to say something,
but only blood came out of his mouth.

I walked to the restroom and vomited in the
toilet.

When I came back out, Jerry was dead.

They had come here to kill Dino, and either
one of them would have killed me. Looking at them, I knew they were
two of the three who'd beaten me at The Sidepocket.

But I hadn't wanted to kill them. I hadn't
intended it.

I was still holding the Mauser. I stuck it
in my waistband. Then I turned the light on my hand. I guess I
expected it to be covered in blood. I started shaking and had to go
sit on the scale.

After a while I was all right. I climbed
back up on the ceiling of the restroom and got the sack. Then I got
out of there.

~ * ~

I went back to Evelyn's. There was a light
on, and I knocked on the door.

"My God," Evelyn said when she saw me. I
didn't ask why.

"Where's Dino?" I said.

"In the bedroom." She was looking at me the
way you look at someone who's walked away from a plane crash. I
walked by her and to the bedroom.

"What happened to you?" Dino said. He was
sitting up in the bed. "You look like hell."

I told him what had happened.

"You didn't call the cops?"

"Evelyn can call them," I said.
"Anonymously. She can say she heard gunshots." I looked over my
shoulder at Evelyn, who had followed me to the room. "Can you do
that?"

She nodded and went out.

"They would have got me this time," Dino
said. "I really think they would have got me this time."

"Maybe not," I said.

I was beginning to calm down. My hands had
been shaking on the wheel of the car all the way to the house, but
they were almost steady now. I wished it was all over, but it
wasn't. Not quite.

"I just can't figure it," Dino said. "Who'd
want to kill me?"

"I think I know," I said. "I think we'll be
hearing from him in a little while, probably around three o'clock
or so."

"You know? Tell me, by God." Dino sat up
straighter, wincing slightly from the effort. "What do you mean,
we'll be hearing?"

"If I were sure, I'd tell you. But there's
still a chance that I'm wrong. Let's just wait. It can't take much
longer than that."

I looked at my watch. It wasn't even one
o'clock. The whole scene at the warehouse had taken only a few
minutes, never mind that it had seemed like a lifetime. Or two.

"Look," Dino said. "You gotta tell me."

"Not yet. I'm going in and lie down on the
couch. If we don't get a call in a couple of hours, then I'll tell
you what I think. I hope I'm wrong."

Evelyn walked in. "I called the police. They
started asking me questions. I hung up."

"Good," I said.

The call would be recorded, but I doubted
that it could ever be traced. Too short. I left them alone in the
bedroom and went to lie down.

~ * ~

The ring of the telephone woke me up. I was
surprised that I'd been asleep, but I've been told that sleep is a
common reaction to stress. Evelyn answered the phone.

"Hello," she said. Then she did a lot of
listening.

The two men hadn't gone back to wherever
they'd come from. Anyone who'd gone near the warehouse to see what
had happened to them would have encountered the cops, but I didn't
think the caller had been there. The failure of Jerry and Kirk to
return would have spoken for itself.

"Ask to speak to Sharon," I said.

Evelyn looked at me, nodded. "I want to talk
to Sharon." She listened. "I don't believe you. I want to talk to
her." There was another pause. I could tell when Sharon started
talking. Evelyn's face changed. Then she was crying.

I got up and took the phone from her hand.
There was no one on the other end.

"They hung up," Evelyn said, wiping the back
of her hand across her eyes. "You knew, didn't you? Dino said you
knew."

"I thought I did. I didn't want to be right,
but I was afraid I was. I should have known from the first."

Dino was yelling from the bedroom. When we
didn't answer, he walked in. I don't know how I had looked to him
earlier, but I was sure he looked worse than I had. It was hurting
him to walk.

"What happened, goddammit? Talk to me, Tru.
Who was it?"

"It was Ray," Evelyn said.

Dino looked as if someone had hit him in the
gut with a Louisville Slugger. He shuffled over to a chair and sat
down like an old man.

"Ray?" he said.

"Ray," I said. "How many people knew Sharon
was your daughter? Maybe quite a few, according to Sally West, but
how many of them cared? How many of them even remembered that they
knew it? It didn't matter to anyone. Except to Ray."
Yas,
Suh.
Ah jus' brangs the dranks
.

Dino shook his head. "I don't get it."

"Ray was always second class," I said. "Your
uncles took him in, and then you, but what did it ever get him? He
almost made it out, almost made it to the pros, but he didn't. So
he came back here. To what? To watch you watching television. To
get the drinks when you called him. To go fetch somebody you needed
to talk to."

Dino was still not getting it. "But . . . I
gave him money. He had a place to live. Goddammit, he was my
friend!"

"It wasn't enough," I said. "You remember
what this island used to be. You remember the uncles. I guess Ray
did, too. He must have thought you'd be like them. High living. Top
of the line."

"That just . . . wasn't my style."

"I guess he found that out. You're like the
Island, Dino. You're not aging gracefully."

He looked up at me. "You're no fucking prize
yourself, Tru."

"Hell, I know that. I've been hiding as much
as you."

"You're sure about Ray?"

"I am," Evelyn said. "It was him."

"Those guys at The Sidepocket went for my
knee," I said. "Who told them to do that? The clincher is the one I
should have clicked on earlier, though. Who gave them this
telephone number? Only Ray would have known that you were here. I
went by to see him earlier today--yesterday. He wasn't worried
about you at all. No wonder. He knew you'd gotten away from the men
at the airport, and he knew who you were with. Everything came up
Ray, but I just didn't see it. I didn't want to see it, I
guess."

"Hell," Dino said. "How could you? You
weren't looking in the right direction."

"I'm sure he went to Ferguson when he found
out that Sharon and Terry Shelton hung out at The Sidepocket and
that Ferguson rounded up the strongarm boys. I don't know who
killed Shelton and Ferguson, but it had to be Ray or one of the
others. He's eliminating everyone who was in on it."

"But why?" Evelyn said.

"I'm not sure even Ray knows. I just think
he doesn't want any witnesses around."

"Between you and him, there won't be many,"
Dino said.

"Thanks," I told him. "I needed that. But I
don't think he was counting on me to do his job for him
tonight."

"What about Sharon?" Dino said.

"I think he's kept her alive this long just
in case. Just in case something went wrong. He's been good at
covering his bets. He had the guy watching the Shelton house in
case I showed up there. Now he's got something that you want, which
means that you'll be pretty sure to do what he tells you."