One Monday We Killed Them All (25 page)

“Poor George. Poor ugly George.” She turned away from him, spread toothpaste on her brush and began brushing her teeth vigorously. I felt a hard knotted something in my chest unwind slightly. Meg was alive. She was in that house, alive.

Kostinak moved closer to her. They spoke to each other in low tones. I could not hear what they were saying. Kostinak looked warily toward the house and took her by the arm and led her away from the house, directly toward me. I wished I could melt into the ground. They stopped not more than a dozen feet away from me.

“Morg is running it, isn’t he?” Angela Frankel said. “You got complaints, you talk to Morg.”

“All I’m saying, honey, and I’m saying it to you, not to Morg, everything was fine until Saturday night. Everything was fine until you and McAran brought that girl up here.”

“You worry too much, George. You had the big argument about Kermer. That worked out, didn’t it?”

“Okay. Yes, it worked out. And it was a promise Morg made to Dwight. But that was sort of part of it. But now we’re getting too far away from how we had it all worked out. Frank Kelly is dead. And you were going to be the only woman here. Nobody figured on three. And we’re moving faster than we figured. You and Herm and Morg, my God, you act as if everything is just fine, but I got the feeling everything is going to hell.”

“Maybe you’re too nervous for this kind of work.”

“Doesn’t it bother you at all, a cop’s wife showing up?”

“Nothing bothers me, George.”

“If she found us so easy—”

“We’ll be gone before anybody else does. Long gone.”

“Sure, Angie, but gone where? There’s going to be too
much heat. I don’t see why you and Morg don’t understand that. Too many people know too damn much about it. They can tie you into it after they talk to the women.”

To my relief they had turned so they were facing the house.

“Do you think Morg is losing his touch?” she asked with a strange note of insistence in her voice. “Do you think he’s going to leave a lot of loose ends?”

“What do you mean?”

“I could tell you some things you don’t know, Georgie. They might make you feel better.”

“What things?”

“McAran was wrong about the Perkins girl.”

“He sure as hell was!”

“Morg has changed his mind about McAran, George.”

“But—we need him. The way it’s laid out, we need him.”

“But how long do we need him?”

“Oh.”

“You were going to find out later on, after we split the take at the motel. That’s where they’ll find McAran, like he died in his sleep, with the station wagon parked outside the door. So there’ll be no nonsense about sending any postcard to the husband of that Meg, about where to find his tied-up wife.”

“Do it to McAran like you done it to Kermer?”

Her voice deepened. “With the little meat skewer, Georgie. That Kermer gave one little yip when it slid into him, and turned on me with the color going out of his face, and I said, ‘McAran says hello,’ and he turned like he was tired out, and went walking out into the bar. It was very nice, George.”

“You give me the creeps, Angie.”

“He was number three for me. One was quicker and one was slower, but whether it’s quick or slow, it gives you the feeling you’re taking somebody else’s turn away from them, and it will take that much longer before anybody can take your turn away. Like if you could do it enough times, you’d live forever.”

“Just thinking about a knife makes me feel funny.”

“Not a knife, lover. Just a little skewer.”

“I seen it. To me it’s a knife.”

“Morg promised me another thing, Georgie. When we’re in the cars, all ready to go, I’m going to be missing my
purse and run back in, alone. And it’s going to be so quick, Dwight won’t suspect a thing. Zip, zip, and I won’t even stay to watch their faces change, and Morg will be gunning the motor in case either of them squeal a little. So see how nice and neat it’s going to be? See why you’re worrying too much? It could be a year before anybody finds the broads. Maybe it’ll be noon tomorrow before anybody finds McAran, and by then we’ll all be on our own, except Morg and me, back in Youngstown like nothing happened.”

“Herm know all this?”

“Not yet, lover.”

“I’ve never got messed up in
anything
like this.”

“What have you got to lose?”

“That’s what Morg keeps saying.”

“When he tells you how we’re doing it, be surprised.”

“Sure.”

“Feel better?”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe I’m not going to feel better until I get far enough away from you, you can’t try that damn thing on me too.”

She laughed. “Don’t give me any ideas, Georgie. Don’t tempt me.”

“You got yourself hooked on it. Maybe it won’t work so good with McAran. Maybe he’ll last long enough to get his hands on you, Angie.”

“That’s why you and Herm and Morg are going to be there—to grab his hands, dearie.”

They moved slowly back toward the house. There was a sudden sound of tinny music from inside the house.

Kostinak said, “Morg’s trying to catch the seven o’clock news.”

Morgan Miller came out onto the shallow stoop carrying the transistor radio. He turned the volume down. He wore khakis and a hunting jacket. A brown felt hat covered his baldness.

“One of you could have started the coffee,” he said accusingly.

“I was just going to,” the Frankel woman said, “soon as I go see a man.”

“So go unfasten Sister and take her with you,” Miller ordered.

“I’ll make another trip. How’s the debutante?”

“Didn’t you look at her when you got up?” Miller asked.

“I took a look at her,” Angela admitted rather sullenly.

“So what did you think?”

“I don’t think she looks so good. I think she looks like hell. I think it was a waste of time wiring her ankles to that pipe. She breathes funny. Maybe you figured clubbing her across the back of the head would improve her health?”

“Don’t get smart with me, Angie. If she got through the door and we lost her in the dark, you would have got the clubbing for giving her the chance.”

“She moved awful fast,” Angela said. “She was quiet all the way from town. But if you hit her too hard, it doesn’t make too much difference does it?”

“Except I was going to have her ride in the front of the wagon with you if she worked out.”

“But she didn’t work out like McAran thought.”

“Is that my fault?” Miller demanded angrily.

The Frankel woman shrugged. “I’ll make a second trip with Sis.”

Kostinak stepped up onto the stoop. The woman turned and came toward me. None of them could guess how many people had overheard them, nor could they know the enormous tension of this moment. If the Frankel woman spotted one of us while the two men were watching, it was all going to turn sour in a single moment. I reached back stealthily, hooked a finger into the thong of a spring-handled sap and eased it out of my hip pocket. She changed direction slightly, angling away from me. The two men went back into the house, the faint music fading as Miller carried the radio inside.

After she had passed by me, I turned and watched her. I saw the flexing of the heavy green-clad hips as she walked along the narrow path they had made through the grass. She had gone between me and the man on my right. We were playing it by ear, waiting and hoping for the chance to take Meg away from them before they discovered the elaborate trap.

As the Frankel woman walked further out into the field, she passed beyond my range of vision. I was so flat against the ground the nearby grass obscured her. The last I had seen of her was the blonde hair. I suspected she would return by the same path. If our luck was good, she would
return and then come back in a little while to take Meg out into the field. Then the whole thing would be easy.

I guessed that close to three minutes elapsed before I saw the blonde hair again. She would pass within eight feet of me. I told myself it was most unlikely she would see me, because if she turned toward me at just the right place, she would be looking into the sun.

She walked slowly, frowning. She stopped when she was closest to me, and I thought my heart would stop with her. She put a cigarette in her mouth. A slight breeze had sprung up. I wonder how many times the unthinking winds change the life of every man. The breeze was from the east, and so she turned her back towards me, lit the cigarette with a match and tossed the match aside. But as she did so, she suddenly became so motionless that the hand which had released the match remained out at that odd angle. She thrust her head forward, staring into the tall grass on the other side of the recent path. I saw her body stiffen, and knew we could not risk a cry of alarm or sudden flight.

I plunged up toward her, careless of the sound I made. She heard me, and started to spin around, and began to make a hoarse sound of alarm, but I snapped the six-ounce lead ball, wrapped in black leather, against the solid mastoid bone behind her right ear, striking through the cushion of her harsh hair, so that the impact had a squashing-pumpkin sound. Still turning, she fell heavily, face down, and the beginning harshness of her cry turned into an audible sigh as the mechanism of her throat went limp. I crouched, grasped her wrists and yanked her back behind the shelter of the farm wagon, sprawled full length, then crawled quickly to retrieve the gun I had laid aside, crawled over her inert legs.

When Rice put his hand on my shoulder, I nearly leapt out of my skin.

He put his mouth close to my ear. “She saw Ritchie’s legs. Nice going. Keep your eye on the door.”

He pulled her further back. I could hear isolated phrases in the morning newscast. Miller had turned up the volume. When I glanced back at Rice, I saw him lashing her wrists together with a short length of line. When I risked another look, he had levered her onto her back. He was barefoot, and he was solemnly packing his socks into her slack
mouth. He tied the wadding in place with another length of line around the nape of her neck and through her jaws. He tied her ankles, wedged her, face down, as close to the side of the cart as he could get her, and put his shoes back on.

He came close to me again. “This will do it. Stay sharp, fella. Chunk her another time if she fusses. I’m going to go pull the boys on the left in a little closer.” I nodded. He wriggled off into the grass, keeping the wagon between him and the door.

The voice had ended. I heard music. It stopped in the middle of a bar. Morgan Miller came out onto the stoop. He stood tall and looked out across the field. I suddenly realized why he seemed familiar to me. He was being Humphrey Bogart every moment, in every move. Nature imitating art. In that moment of empathy I knew what that man thought of himself. It made him no less dangerous, but it made him seem smaller, more manageable, slightly pathetic. His breed was obsolete. He had been gunned down a generation ago, way back when Federal agents were called G-men. The world had left him no runningboard to ride on. Television had parodied him so many times, he had become a comedy figure. But a clown who doesn’t know he’s a clown can kill you without a smile.

“Angel?” he yelled. “Angel!”

Kostinak appeared in the doorway, spooning something out of a can. He stared out at the field. “There’s fifty bushes she could be behind, Morg.”

“What the hell is keeping her?”

“Maybe she went all the way to the creek to wash up.”

“She have a towel?”

“I didn’t notice. You know how she is. You chew her for something, she just does it again. You give her that chewing about the coffee, so she takes her time.”

“Maybe.” Miller stood, his chin high, looking across the field. He began to seem increasingly wary and apprehensive. “George, go get those guys out of the sack.”

“Hell, they got blind last night, Morg. They’ll need all the sleep—”

“Get them up! Now!”

“What the hell is the matter with you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what the trouble is. But I want them up. I want everybody up, fast.”

“Sure. Okay. Right away.” George went into the house.

Morgan Miller jumped down and took three steps into the dooryard, spun around and went back inside. He reappeared moments later with a military carbine in his hands. He checked the clip and the action.

Deitwaller came through the doorway, buttoning his shirt, and stood beside Miller. “What the hell is up?”

“I don’t know. Angie went out into the field and didn’t come back.”

Deitwaller yawned. “So she’ll be back. Don’t get in a sweat. Damn, I feel terrible.” He was a cadaverous man, tall, with a sunken chest, bad posture, a skeletal face, a crust of dirty black whiskers.

“It’s too goddam quiet around here, Herm.”

“For God’s sake, Morg, it’s
always
quiet around here. Haven’t you noticed? It’s so quiet I can’t sleep unless I get stoned.”

“It’s a different kind of quiet,” he said.
“Angie.”
He cocked his head and listened. “No answer.”

“She didn’t like Sis showing up, so maybe she walked out.”

“Not Angie. Not her.”

I knew exactly what I wanted, and I knew I wouldn’t wait for any kind of approval. I wanted Kostinak to come out onto that narrow sagging porch, and then I was going to take the one closest to the door first, and the other two in the same breath.

“Coffee!” Kostinak yelled. I recognized his voice.

Deitwaller shrugged and went inside. McAran come out. He filled the doorway. He made the others look shrunken. He had on jeans and a plaid wool shirt, unbuttoned to the waist.

“George says you got the jumps, Morg.”

“Angel disappeared.”

“She’s just trying to upset you. Shouldn’t somebody be getting up onto that mountain? It’s George’s day.”

“Shut up. I’m running this.”

“Everybody knows you’re running it, Morg. Especially I know you’re running it. Ever since I tried to tell you it was okay to send Meg right on back out I’ve known you were running it. But whether you’re running it right is something else again. It would have been okay to let her go and—”

“There’s no heat yet. There was nothing about her on the news.”