Don't Lie to Me (20 page)

He was parallel with me, still staring out deeper into the yard. I looked up at him, perhaps six feet away from me, and waited for him to see me; when he did, I would move.

And he kept going. His head turned in my direction twice, and both times he failed to see me. He took another cautious step, and another, and was completely past me; I was looking now at his back.

Despite myself I relaxed a little, my forearms lowering till my knuckles touched the ground, my head sagging forward. Vigevano took another step away from me.

Could I escape while his back was turned? I thought of it, even turned my head to look toward the house, but I knew I'd never make it. Even if Carver weren't still in the house, it would be impossible. I wouldn't be able to get there from here without making some noise that would attract Vigevano, and I was in no condition now to outrun him.

I turned my head again, to look once more at Vigevano. There was only one thing to do.

I straightened, very slowly, having to lean on the pile of bricks for support. My knees didn't want to unbend. I was really in hopeless shape for what I had to do, but there just wasn't any choice.

I headed toward Vigevano. I was trying to move quickly and silently, but I did neither.

Vigevano heard me while I was still too far away. He spun around, the knifeblade sparkling in the light from the kitchen, and now I could see the strain and hatred in his face.

We lunged at one another simultaneously, his movements smoother and faster than mine. But I also threw the brick in my left hand, awkwardly, throwing it underhanded, not to wound but merely to distract and confuse. He was now facing the light, so I must have been no more than a bulky silhouette to him, and he probably didn't know at first what the black thing was that came flying up at him. He ducked away from it, losing the momentum of his charge, and I swung the edge of the trowel with all my might at the wrist of his knife-hand.

He yelled. The knife dropped to the ground, but the impact with his wrist had pulled the trowel out of my own uncertain grip. Now, for the moment, neither of us had a weapon.

When he had called me at the museum last night, I had thought of Vigevano as trying to pull me back into the fight situations of childhood; now we were there with a vengeance. What I did next was an automatic schoolyard reaction; I closed with him and wrapped my arms around his waist.

We used to call this the bear hug. My right arm was around his waist and clutching the inner crook of my left elbow. My left forearm was lifted like the lever of a slot machine, and all I had to do was bend the forearm back toward my shoulder to increase the pressure. My face was tucked in against his neck for protection, and I was applying as much pressure as I possibly could.

Vigevano had been in schoolyards, too. He knew that a bear hug will finally drive all the breath out of your body and leave you limp and defenseless and barely half-conscious, and he knew all the schoolyard defenses. He kicked my shins, he tried to knee me, he punched me in the ribs and the kidneys, he tried to get a grip in my hair to bend my head back so he could get at my face, he rabbit-punched me in the back of the neck, he even bit my shoulder. But I knew this was my last chance for survival out here, and nothing was going to make me give up the grip.

It seemed to take forever for him to weaken. For a while I was afraid my own strength would give out before his, and I tried to squeeze even harder, though already my left arm was bent back on itself so far that no blood was getting into the fingers of my right hand. And still he clawed and fought and pummeled me, twisting his body from side to side, trying to get away.

And abruptly he stopped. His breath gasped in my ear, and his hands were resting on my shoulders. We were like a parody of lovers. In a voice so hoarse and breathless it seemed to be coming from a machine rather than a man, he said, “You're killing me.” And his left hand beat feebly against my right shoulder.

Now I knew I had him. Until this instant, I had been defeatist, I had fully expected to die out here, I had been struggling only because one struggles, one does not go quietly. But now I knew I would win, and the knowledge made me stronger, and I bent him backward, squeezing, and he made hoarse cries like some starving buzzard, and we both toppled over, me getting my arms out just in time so that he landed heavily on his back and I landed on top of him.

He was still conscious, but he couldn't fight me any more. I crawled up to a kneeling position astride his chest—the schoolyard again—and hit him with my fists until I was sure he was out. And then I just sat there for a minute, worn out, my body collapsing after the struggle.

But I couldn't do that; Carver might still be around, Livingston might have regained consciousness, Vigevano himself would be coming back to life pretty soon. There was still a lot I had to do.

Beginning with Vigevano. I wanted to immobilize him, and I thought at first of tying his wrists and ankles, but I doubted my hands were capable right now of tying knots. I felt the pulse in the side of his neck, and it was beating rapidly; it wouldn't be very long before he was conscious again.

I couldn't very well stand over him with a brick and knock him out every time he came to. I grimaced down at him with a deep sense of irritation, and finally gave it all up for the moment and decided to concentrate elsewhere.

The house. Carver, Livingston, Knox.

I climbed off Vigevano and struggled to my feet. I was tottering like a drunk. I looked around vaguely for the knife Vigevano had dropped, failed to find it, and gave it up. Instead, I moved toward the house, stumbling along, my arms hanging at my sides.

Carver was gone. The front door was ajar, and Knox and Livingston were both lying in the front hallway. I shut the door and looked at them both and Knox was as dead as I'd known he was. Livingston was still unconscious, and his breathing had an unhealthy bubbling sound to it; I had given him a bad concussion.

What a mess. I went back to the kitchen, opened the junk drawer, and got out the length of picture wire I'd remembered as being in there. I carried this back out to the yard, found Vigevano still out, and rolled him heavily over onto his face. I wound picture wire around his wrists and ankles until I was satisfied he wouldn't be able to get away from it, and then went back into the house again.

God, I wanted to stop moving! I reached for the phone.

T
HE SIRENS STARTED WHILE
I was still walking, just over a block away from the house. I hunched my shoulders a bit and trudged on. The siren went past a block to my right, and I heard it descend and die as they came to a stop in front of my house.

I had only made the one phone call before leaving, contacting the local precinct. Knox was going to stay dead forever and didn't matter, but Livingston needed to be hospitalized as quickly as possible and I didn't want Vigevano given time to get away, so I'd phoned the precinct and given them the address of my house and said there was some trouble there. I hadn't given my name, and immediately after the call I'd left the house. It was a continuing effort to move, but I had to finish this thing now, tonight. Tomorrow I could sleep. Tomorrow I would sleep for days.

Our neighborhood tavern was ahead, its dim red neon sign extending out over the sidewalk. It was the nearest place I knew of with both a pay phone and a place to sit down. I headed for it, trudging along, placing one foot doggedly in front of the other, and finally reached the door and pushed it open and went in.

I have never been one to spend my evenings in the local bar, so I wasn't known by the bartender and his four customers; I was simply one of those occasional strangers who drop in, have a drink or two, and are never seen again. They all glanced at me curiously as I walked in, but when they saw I wasn't a friend they all turned their attention back to the television set at the far end of the room. What looked like the eleven o'clock news was on, which was the first I had any indication what time it was.

The bartender strolled down the bar toward the spot where I was heading, and we came to rest at the same instant, he saying, “What can I do for you?”

I asked for Jack Daniel's on the rocks, feeling I needed something that would be both a pick-me-up and an anesthetic. When he brought it, I shoved him a five-dollar bill and asked for change for the pay phone. I then took two or three quick sips of my drink, slipped a dime from the change he put on the bar in front of me, and walked across the floor to the booth at the rear. I was grateful for the dim lighting in the bar; it not only obscured my beat-up appearance, it also hid the stiff awkwardness of my movements. The dimness, and the general lack of interest in me; the bartender had kept one eye on the television set while serving me, and was now back to watching full time.

I sat in the phone booth, inserted my dime, and laboriously dialed the number of Hargerson's precinct. He wasn't there, of course, but I said it was important I get in touch with him, and left my name and the number of this phone. The detective I was talking to promised to pass the message on, and I went back outside to attract the bartender's attention again and say, “If that phone rings, it'll be for me.”

“Sure,” he said, and looked at the screen again.

There were a couple of tables near the phone booth. I got my drink from the bar and went over to sit at one of the tables, letting my body sag into relaxation until I realized I was on the verge of passing out again; after which I forced myself to sit up straighten

A siren went by, an ambulance this time. The customers glanced toward the street, but were more interested in television. I sipped at my drink and waited.

Sirens continued to go by intermittently in the half-hour before Hargerson called me back. A second ambulance went through, and several more police cars, and then each ambulance separately returned again. There would be chaos and confusion at my house, with no one there capable of answering questions; except Vigevano, who would be unlikely to want to answer any.

The thought of the explanations that would have to be made was staggering. The time was coming—tomorrow, the day after—when I would have to talk and talk and talk. But not yet, not until this was all finished and I'd had my chance to rest.

Except, of course, for talking to Hargerson. He called at last, half an hour after I'd left the message, and I said, “If you'll trust me and do what I say, I'll give you the whole thing tonight, everything you want.”

“What do you mean, the whole thing? All I want is who threw the acid.”

“And who killed the John Doe,” I said. “And who did the forgeries at the museum, and why.”

He was silent for a second, and then said, “You have all of that? All of a sudden you've got it?”

“All of a sudden,” I said.

“You didn't have it before, but now you do.”

“I'll explain the whole thing,” I promised. “But there isn't enough to arrest the killer yet. I need you for that.”

“Tobin, what the hell are you up to?”

“Getting this mess over and done with,” I said. “So I can have a peaceful life again. I promise I'll give you everything you want. Will you let me run it my own way?”

A longer pause this time; then he said, “All right, Tobin. Everybody thinks you're hot shit. So far I don't see it, but I'll go along. Up to a point.”

“That's all I could ask for. Now, there was some trouble at my house tonight, so I'm not there. A pickup may be out on me, but I don't want to talk to anybody officially until we clean up the museum mess. I'd like you to come meet with me, but
just
you. All right?”

“I'll come alone,” he said. “What we do after that depends on you.”

“Of course.”

“If you're full of crap, I turn you over to whoever wants you.”

“Naturally,” I said. “I take that for granted.”

“Good.”

I told him the name and address of the tavern, and he said he would be there in less than an hour. I left the booth, went to the bar, and got myself another Jack Daniel's. Then I sat down at the table again to wait.

A
HAND WAS GRIPPING
my shoulder, shaking me without gentleness. A voice said, “Okay, come on, come on.”

I sat upright, terrified without knowing why. As I stared around at the dark barroom, I slowly came to remember where I was and what was happening and why I was here.

The bartender was the one holding my shoulder. He was giving me a look of disapproval tinged with disgust; I wasn't the kind of customer he wanted. “You don't sleep it off in here, fella,” he said. “You go home, or you go wherever you want.”

I'd fallen asleep, without even realizing it. I stared past his arm at the television set; a talk show had been starting when Hargerson had called, and it was still going on. I said, “What time—?” But my mouth was too dry. I cleared my throat, licked my lips, tried again: “What time is it?”

He looked at his watch. “Ten to one.”

The customers were dividing their attention between the talk show and me. I said, “I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep.”

“You go on home,” he said, and tugged a bit at my shoulder.

I realized he had taken a closer look at me now and seen the condition of my face and clothing and had decided I was a bum. There was no choice any more; he didn't want my kind in his bar. So I struggled to my feet, with some not very gentle assistance from him, and made my way stiffly to the door and the street.

There were no more sirens. The mess at my house had been cleaned up by now, but there would probably still be a man on duty there, waiting for Kate or me to come home.

I looked around, and a car was parked in darkness to my left, under a tree and some distance from the nearest lightpost. I went over to the car and sat on the fender and waited, shivering a bit, feeling very cold after my unexpected nap.