Whistler's Angel (54 page)

“Mrs. Geller…either one would be abysmally stupid. Whatever else Felix

Aubrey may be, there is nothing stupid about him.”

“You’re sure? I’m not. And what if you’re wrong?”

“If he’s here for either reason, he will die here.”

THIRTY-TWO

K
aplan, so angry that his eyes were wet with tears, could barely keep his mind on his driving. First Lockwood and the wacko go down to that boat which Lockwood had no business going near. The next thing you know, the barmaid shows up and walks into a fistfight with the wacko.

Not just a tussle. An actual fistfight. Crow sees her coming, says she caught him by surprise. She sees the look on his face and backs away. He thinks, “
She must know me
,” and he goes to grab her, calling her a slut and all other kinds of shit, including a spawn of the devil. He grabs her by her blouse and he rips off her sleeve. Next he grabs her by the hair and starts smacking her face. She responds with a hard right cross of her own that knocks him square on his ass. He gets up with blood pouring out of his mouth from a punch that made him bite through his tongue. He tries to square off, swinging both arms like windmills, but he’s wearing these golf shoes with spikes on the bottom. The guy might as well be on skates.

The barmaid sees this and goes for his knees. She takes him down with a leg sweep. She pounces on his back and has Crow in a chokehold before Lockwood can get to the top of the ramp. She doesn’t see it’s Lockwood, but she must have heard him coming. She must have thought maybe it was Whistler.
Whatever she thought, she never looked up and Lockwood cold-cocked her with his gun butt.

Kaplan, by this time, didn’t have any choice. He had to zoom down, pick up Lockwood and Crow, and get them out of there fast. There were people who saw it, but they ducked behind buildings when they saw that Lockwood had a gun in his hand. Kaplan got there, yelled “Get in,” but Lockwood said, “We can’t leave her.” He picked her up, threw her in the back seat and shoved the wacko in there on top of her. Lockwood jumped into the front and they burned rubber backing out.

Kaplan raced out to Palmetto Bay Road where they almost hit a kid who was crossing on a bike. This happened because Kaplan was turning left while Crow was yelling, “No, we’re going right.” Kaplan tried to ignore him, but Crow swatted at his shoulder. Crow screamed into his ear, “Why are we going this way? This isn’t the way to the hospital.”

Kaplan wasn’t sure that he heard Crow correctly because the guy’s bleeding tongue was all over his mouth and he sprayed half the car when he yelled. Kaplan said, “You think what? We’re still going to the hospital? Is that what you seriously think?”

“Those were your instructions
. You’ll obey them.”

What he actually said was, “
Doze weh yo izuctions
.” “You’ll obey them” came out as ‘
Yobayem
.”

“Joshua…shit-brain…look down on the floor there. Have you noticed that anything’s different?”

His answer, in real words, was, “I’ll see that she’s quiet. I’ll keep her in the car while you scout.”

“You’ll see that she’s quiet? Like you did back at the dock? If she wakes up, she’ll kick your ass again, pal. We’re going back to the house.”

Crow started to rant. Kaplan couldn’t understand him. But at least he was mostly spraying Lockwood this time. Lockwood was just sitting there, stone-faced.

Kaplan nudged Lockwood. “Will you shut this guy up?”

All Lockwood could say was, “This is bad.”

“Yeah, well,” said Kaplan, “I doped that out myself. Would you care to enlarge on your assessment?”

“Just drive.”

Kaplan heard a squeal from the well behind his seat. The girl had come to, but the squeal was more than that. It sounded like something else was hurting her. He looked into the mirror. Crow was sitting high up. He was sitting on his golf bag and he seemed to be bracing. He was putting his weight on her back
with those spikes.

Kaplan hit the brakes and pulled over to the side. He threw the car into Park, spun in his seat, and reached with both hands to grab Crow by the shirt.

Lockwood said, “Arnold, not here. Let’s just go.”

Kaplan had already pulled Crow forward between them, dragging him over the seatback. He stiffened his thumb and jammed it under Crow’s jaw. Near its hinge he pressed upward as hard as he could, his thumb nail crushing a cluster of nerves that ran from the jaw to the brain. Crow could only gag. His eyes almost popped. Kaplan would have kept pressing until Crow blacked out if Crow hadn’t bled all over his sleeve.

Kaplan eased off a little. “That enough? You want more?”

Crow said something that sounded like “Yak.”

“Can you reach your shoes? Slip out of your shoes. Let me know when you’re down to your socks.”

Crow reached and groped. He slid them off. He said, “G-agh.”

“I’ll you what you’re not going to do anymore. You’re not going to open your fucking mouth unless somebody asks you a question. You’re not going to touch that girl again except to hold her down with your feet.” He said, “Vernon? Tell this schmuck that you made all that up, all that devil-worshiping shit.”

“I said let’s go. Let’s get out of here, Arnold.”

“Say it. Don’t you fuck with me either.”

“Arnold, she’s still a friend of Whistler’s, remember? I couldn’t just leave here there, could I?”

“You could have…never mind. You’re right. Let’s just go.”

Kaplan shoved Crow back and put the car in gear. He eased the Pontiac into the traffic. Crow sat back there gurgling, trying to swallow, holding his throat in both hands. Kaplan tried to calm himself by taking several deep breaths. He said to Lockwood, “Vern, check the scanner. See if anyone called 911 on this yet.”

If someone had, and had given a description of this car, they’d be lucky to make it back to the house. He thought about finding another car fast, but the problem was transferring the passenger load. It would not go like clockwork with this bunch.

A new sound from behind him interrupted his reasoning. It seemed the kind of sound that somebody would make when they’re trying to be very quiet. No breathing, no nothing, just a dull scraping sound. He said, “Hey, Josh. Is your hand in that golf bag?”

The sound stopped abruptly. All was still.

He said, “Josh, I’m going to guess that your hand is on your shotgun. You’re trying to slip it out of your golf bag, but you can’t without rattling your
clubs, am I right?”

Not a sound.

“Say you pull it loose, Josh. What’s your plan after that? Were you going to blow my head off while I’m driving?”

“Um…num.”

“Was that yes or no? It did not sound decisive.”

Now a faint rattling sound. The schmuck was still going to try.

“Or else you figure with the shotgun, I’ll go where you want. Like you’ll make me turn around and go for Ragland again. But the reason, Josh, why that’s not a good plan…if I hear one more rattle, I’ll pull over again. What’s different this time is I’ll kill you.”

Crow eased his arm out of the bag and sat back. He resumed his breathing and gagging and glowering. Lockwood had the scanner up to his ear.
He said, “Nothing yet on this car.”

“Keep listening. You’ll hear it. We got maybe five minutes.” Kaplan looked
up at Crow in the rear view mirror. He said, “Now, Josh, if you’ll try to behave, me and Vern here will get you off this island. That’s all we want and that’s what we’re going to do. Vern, tell him that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“He can finish off Ragland some other time. Vern, tell him that this Ragland shit is over for now.”

Lockwood nodded his agreement. “No hospital now.”

“No nothing, right. We do what Aubrey said.”

“First we wait.”

“Wait for what?”

Lockwood said, “I still want Whistler. We stay until that boat of his blows.”

“Which is when?”

“Four hours,” he said. “Little over four hours.”

“Fine by me. We sit tight until then.”

Which is horseshit, thought Kaplan. You don’t have four hours. You have until Mr. Aubrey shows up. The minute he shows, you’re both organ donors. As if anyone would want what’s left over.

“Something’s happened down there,” said Claudia, craning, as Whistler drove over the Cross Island
Bridge
. For a moment, from the highest part of the bridge, nearly all of the marina was in view.

Whistler tried to look. The moment had passed. He asked, “What was it? Could you see?”

“People running around. A man waving his arms.”

“Near the boat? Our boat?”

“No, up near the shops.”

“An accident, maybe. We’ll know soon enough.”

By the time they drove into Palmetto Bay and reached the side road that led to the docks, Whistler saw that a small knot of people had gathered. They seemed to be watching the approach of his car. No, not his car, he realized. They were looking beyond him. Perhaps waiting for an ambulance, he thought.

He had to park in a space that was up near the shops. The much nearer space that he’d left had been taken. He and Claudia got out and proceeded toward the ramp. Another yacht owner whom he knew by sight was approaching from that direction. Whistler asked him if he knew what all the fuss was about.

The man answered, “I didn’t see it myself. Man and a woman got into a fight. From what I hear, the woman was cleaning his clock. Some guy in a suit dragged her off him.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“I don’t know. They took off. I guess someone thought they should call the cops anyway. Like the cops aren’t busy enough since last night.”

Whistler smiled an acknowledgment. “Yeah, you’d think so. Thanks.”

He and Claudia reached the ramp that led to the fuel dock. But Claudia, by then, had been walking more slowly. She had fallen a few steps behind him. He saw that her eyes had narrowed a bit. Her head was cocked to one side. It was a look that Whistler had come to know well.

He said, “Go ahead. Say it.”

“A man in a suit?”