The Favor (32 page)

That had been a hard choice, but Janine’s
little automatic now smelled rather conspicuously of gun powder
and, unless they were just total buffoons, they would probably give
it a sniff when they took it off him—he didn’t want them forming
any awkward conclusions. And he could hardly have commandeered the
schoolteacher’s Luger, since his pal might have wondered where the
celebrated killer of men could have gotten it. So he would just
have to grit his teeth and walk in there unarmed to take his
whipping like a man. There wasn’t any other practical way to manage
it.

He had put his nose to the muzzle of that
Luger himself and discovered that it hadn’t been fired recently. So
that meant that the other one, the short one with the reddish
beard, the one who had eaten Janine up with his eyes, was the one
who had pulled the trigger. That would be something to remember
when the time came, but not now. Now was the time to be innocent
and harmless.

The keys were already in his hand as he
approached the outside door, but it was never left locked in the
daytime. As he went up the stairs he tried to make his footsteps
sound weary and unsuspecting—which, of course, amounted to nothing
more than slow and noisy; it was hard work to keep from overplaying
it—and as he approached the landing he kept his hand on the
stairway banister.

They had picked the lock, naturally, to let
themselves in—and had left a nice big scratch on the brass while
they were at it. Well, it didn’t figure that the consummate
professionals would be out doing this kind of routine legwork for
anybody, not even for Flycatcher. He inserted his key and pushed
the door open—he didn’t find anybody at attention in the
entranceway to point a gun at him, so he stepped inside, hoping
that the clown who was lurking on the other side wouldn’t collapse
of heart failure.

Yes, the bedroom would be the right
direction. They always wanted to sneak up behind you, and Guinness
had no inclination to make it difficult for anybody. So he started
back for the bedroom, swinging the door closed behind him. He had
gotten about a step and a half when, out of the corner of his eye,
he saw the shadow on the wall beside him—nothing dramatic, just a
little darkening on the yellow paintwork. He saw the raised hand,
and he waited for the blow, and he hoped the guy would know what he
was doing and wouldn’t kill him with his sheer incompetence. That
was the problem with dealing with goons; the quality of their
tradecraft could be so uneven.

He didn’t really feel anything, but you never
did. There was just a kind of jolt, that might as easily have been
coming up through the floor as from anywhere else, and then he
could feel himself beginning to get very, very heavy.

He let himself drift, and by the time he had
made it down on his knees the world was already beginning to turn a
dull, smoky red. There wasn’t any need to hit him again; he would
be out quick enough, but the stupid bastard did anyway, and
Guinness made himself a little promise that all overeager thugs
would have their day of reckoning.

He was supporting himself on one arm now—the
smoky red was darkening into black and his arm was getting weaker
and weaker and finally buckled under him. He could see the floor
coming up to smack him, and then it simply disappeared, just
vanished, and he found himself drifting, drifting, drifting in the
cold, comfortless, slate gray waters of some soundless sea.

. . . . .

“I think you killed him—he’s been out long
enough. The boss isn’t gonna like it if you’ve killed him.”

Well, score one for the home team. Rumors to
the contrary, Guinness had the distinct impression that he was not,
in fact, dead. So—his reading had been right at least that far. And
if he wasn’t dead, then everything was still on track. He was
unarmed and sprawled out on the carpet with the mother and father
of all headaches, and doubtless these people planned for him to
plug a hole in the ground before evening, but otherwise everything
was just terrific.

Guinness hadn’t yet decided whether or not to
risk opening his eyes, but he knew that the speaker was kneeling
down beside him on the bedroom floor, whither he had a dim
recollection of having been dragged at some point in the
festivities. He hadn’t any clear idea of how long he had been
out—or whether, in fact, he had ever really been all the way out at
all—but he didn’t see anything to be gained by appearing any
livelier than he felt, which wasn’t very. So he wasn’t in any hurry
to set anyone’s mind at rest. Let them worry—these two could wait a
little longer without permanent injury.

There were two of them. Precisely how he knew
that he couldn’t have said, but he knew. There was Red Beard, who
was an acquaintance of long standing—and who apparently was the one
who had hit him—and there was the other one, who seemed so
solicitous of his well being. Nobody else, just those two. Well, at
any rate, two men weren’t anything beyond the range of the
possible.

“Come on, Soldier. No more playin’
possum.”

It was Red Beard’s voice, familiar from the
final few hours aboard the Munich-Amsterdam train and, of course,
from this morning in the Rijksmuseum. The accent had broadened; the
slight down home twang was even more pronounced than it had been
when he was playing the country cousin in front of Janine, but it
was still he. Guinness opened one eye, and then the other, and saw
him standing preternaturally tall directly next to his head.

“Come on, tough guy. George here’s all
worried about you, but I told him you was supposed to be a real
hard ass. Come on, rise an’ shine.”

Painter—that was his name. Guinness could
remember it now. Jeff. Pleased to meet you, ma’am. Yes, it was all
coming back to him now. And the other one, the one who was lying on
Janine’s living room floor with a pair of bullet holes in his
chest, had been a Hal something. And now we had ourselves a
George.

He made a little gasping sound and allowed
one arm to stir weakly, as if he were groping his way out of the
most profound unconsciousness. God, his head hurt him so bad he
felt sick to his stomach, and he would have liked to throw up, if
only for the dramatic effect, but he found that he wasn’t quite
that badly off—close, but still this side of emptying his guts all
over the carpet.

He got another nudge in the ribs, this one
probably hard enough to leave a mark, before he managed to pull
himself over on his side and have a glance around. The light hurt
his eyes, although he didn’t suppose anyone had brought in any arc
lamps just for his benefit; when he could bear to look he found
George sitting over on the corner of the bed while Painter was
still directly over him, smiling unpleasantly through his tangled
beard.

“You look familiar,” he was able to whisper.
Painter nodded, and Guinness was now able to see that the smile was
one of great personal satisfaction—our boy had nailed the Soldier,
and he seemed to be under the impression that made him really hot
stuff. George almost wasn’t in the room with them.

“Yeah. I kinda thought you’d remember me. I
was hopin’ you would.”

“Well, I do.”Guinness made a stab at looking
like he wanted to get up, but he still felt heavy in the limbs so
he allowed himself to slip back down to the carpet. The beginnings
of an idea were forming in the back rooms of his mind—just a
whisper so far, and he didn’t want to rush it; these things came
when they were ready. And, in the meanwhile, it wouldn’t do any
harm to play the pathetic casualty.

It was a good thing Painter was too busy
savoring his triumph to be in much of a hurry. A smarter man, of
course, would have hustled the body off while it was still weak and
pliable, but Painter was having much too much fun playing Superman
and wanted to take his time. Well, that was fine. That was the sort
of illusion it was well to foster. And besides, Guinness was even
as yet feeling a trifle pasty around the edges and could use the
time to convalesce.

Finally, however, he managed to struggle up
into a sitting position, with his back against Aimé’s chest of
drawers. It wouldn’t do to appear to be malingering. There was a
taste of blood at the back of his throat, and he made a face and
coughed up an ugly looking clot of reddish black phlegm. Painter
seemed to think that was very funny.

“Could I have something to drink—some water?
I feel like my tongue’s crawled home to die.”

“Sure thing, buddy.” Painter glanced over at
his partner, who still occupied the corner of the bed, and made an
impatient little gesture, the way someone might summon a waiter.
“George, get the man a great big glass of water—he’s feelin’
poorly.”

What George made of all this was hard to say.
He was smallish and spare and rather washed out looking, as if the
march between forty and fifty was proving to be over boringly
familiar terrain, and he looked at both Guinness and his partner
through the weary eyes of a man who had been taught the folly of
taking any side but his own.

Nevertheless, he got up from the bed and
dutifully padded into the kitchen, coming back in a few seconds
with a tall cocktail glass full of water—there were even a couple
of ice cubes in it, which Guinness fished out and held against the
back of his head until they were too small to have any effect. He
decided he would have to remember George in his will.

“You see how nice we treat you?” Painter
asked, retiring to sit on the little velvet covered stool in front
of Aimé’s vanity table. He was grinning like an ape, and the Luger
in his right hand, a perfect match to the one that was still lying
on the breakfast table in Janine’s apartment, was pointing at
nothing but air. He was so relaxed and confident that, had they
been alone, Guinness might have felt tempted to jump him right that
instant.

“The boss says you’re real famous, almost
like a movie star or somethin’. He told us to make sure you didn’t
get unhappy about nothin’ or you might not come along with us to
meet him, and that’d just very nearly break his heart—didn’t he say
that, George?”

He looked around for confirmation, but George
kept his eyes on the floor, refusing to have anything to do with
his partners little joke. Painter, however, was undeterred. This
was his big moment, it seemed, and he wasn’t going to let it go to
waste.

“That’s what he said,” he went on, treating
Guinness to another display of his large, square teeth. “He told us
we was supposed to be just like a couple o’ Girl Scout den mothers
at a weekend cookout and not let you so much as stub your toe, but
you don’t look like you’re fixin’ to be a lot of trouble. I think
you’ll be. . . Hey, man, what’s the trouble?”

He reached over to catch hold of Guinness,
who was beginning to collapse sideways down the chest of drawers,
the half empty glass of water spilling out of his clumsy grasp and
onto the floor.

“I told you, you hit him too hard,” George
murmured from his station on the corner of Aimé’s bed. “He’s
probably got a concussion or something—he’ll probably die before we
get him out to the Farm.”

“Shut up, George,” Painter snapped over his
shoulder as he lifted up Guinness’s eyelid with the tip of his
thumb.

It was one of the crowning performances of
Guinness’s life; the man was staring directly into his pupil and he
managed never to look at him. He merely stared off at some
invisible object in the middle distance, drawing heavy, labored
breaths while he let the whole right side of his body go as limp as
wilted lettuce. With his tongue in between his back molars, he
managed a few words in a thick, unintelligible slur—he really was
doing it awfully well.

Painter bought it completely. Thrusting the
Luger back in under his belt—the stupid bastard was so rattled he
didn’t even think to click on the safety—he reached around
Guinness’s back to pick him up under the arms.

“Come on, George,” he whispered tensely.
“Let’s get him down to the car. Jesus, the fucker weighs a
ton.”

Of course, as soon as he had gotten Guinness
to his feet, he realized his mistake. It was just too late to do
anything about it. The timing was crucial—Guinness had let his arm
come up until it rested across Painter’s shoulders, who seemed to
have settled upon a program of walking him along from behind

They weren’t more than seven or eight feet
from George, but George wasn’t going to be any help. George hadn’t
seen the danger yet—you could tell from the unfocused look in his
eyes and the way his arms were still dangling at his sides—and,
besides, George’s gun was in his shoulder holster. It would take
him all week to get it out.

A step. Guinness allowed himself a single
forward step with his left foot. After that it was easy—a quick
counterclockwise twist with his upper body and he threw Painter
over his hip, sweeping him around so that his legs seemed to go
right straight up and out from under him and he hit the floor flat
on his back with enough impact to take the breath right out of him.
Guinness dropped down, planting his knee just an inch or two to one
side of Painter’s breastbone, and in a quick movement he had the
Luger from his waistband. It was aimed and steady by the time
George’s hand had disappeared behind the lapel of his jacket.

“Not unless you feel lucky, pal.” Still
crouched over the man on the floor, Guinness might have been a
hunting dog frozen on point. Except for his lips, nothing moved.
Nothing, not even his eyes. “Your friend’s a dead man, but you
might have something to deal with—if you’re not stupid.”

Apparently he wasn’t. George brought his hand
out, slowly and empty.

“Okay—what now?”

“Now you take your coat off. Just use the
tips of your fingers, pal, and don’t hurry. That’s a boy. Now
unbuckle yourself from the whole damn rig.”