by Ralph Dennis
“Not me,” I said.
I walked over to him.
“You be down at six, Hardman?”
“On the dot,” I said.
I didn’t sleep well. Hump and Art were splitting the watch at the front window. It was Art’s watch from midnight to six. I had the cot while Hump and Edward shared the double bed. Both of them had a rough night of snoring. Against that, I got about two hours of sleep and two hours of rolling around. A bit after four I gave it up and dressed and went into the kitchen. Art had a pot of coffee going. It was fresh and I had a cup and waited to see if the hung-over feeling would go away.
“Quiet below?”
“So far,” Art said.
“Coffee’s good.” I pushed back my chair and got the carbine from the corner of the room. “I’ll spell Runt so he can get a cup.”
“You’re all heart,” Art said.
“It’s cold out there.”
Art nodded and I went out. It was lighter now. Some of the cloud cover had blown past. It was bright enough so I could see my way down the path. With the trees on both sides, now on the road, it was a bit darker. Runt stepped out of the trees near the fire pit when I was still a few yards away.
“It six already?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Art’s made a fresh pot. I’ll take it while you go up and have a cup.”
“Thanks anyway. I’m fine without it.”
“You sure?”
“Coffee gives me the shits.”
I heard it this time. I was turning away when I heard the car engine heading toward us. No lights were showing and that might be why the car was coming so slowly.
“Company?”
“Huh?”
“A car.”
Runt turned and ducked into the underbrush near the fire pit. I started that way and stopped. Too crowded. Instead. I made a leap for the brush across the road. Settled there, on one knee, stilling my breath, I charged the carbine and waited.
A couple of minutes passed before the car drew level with us and eased to a stop. A compact. A dark Volvo. Outside of a jeep, for this kind of road, it might have been the best choice. Right after the man cut the engine, he opened the door and stepped out. The brief flash of the inside light revealed that the man was alone. Then the door closed and it was dark again.
He stood there next to the Volvo, not moving, and I heard a noise I didn’t place at first. Finally I got it. The man was pissing and the time it was taking him he must have had a full bladder.
Bent over, shielded by the car, I stepped into the road and eased my way down the length of the body, heading for the hood. When I reached the hood, I swung the carbine around. I could see his outline. He was short and blocky. His face tipped up toward the light from the cabin. The piss thinned. Down to a thin stream.
I got ready. Ready to straighten out and turn the carbine on him. At the back of my throat was the command to freeze. Just as I tensed myself, I heard the dry and hard sound. The bolt of the Walther MPK. The man next to the Volvo heard it too. He swung around toward the fire pit. The stream of piss thundered against the side of the hood.
Runt shot him with a short burst. The force of the 9-mm rounds threw him against the hood and down into the road.
I ducked around the front of the Volvo. “Godammit, Runt, we don’t even know …”
Runt stepped out of the pit. “Check the car, Hardman.”
I opened the door on the driver’s side and looked in. Nothing. No weapons showing.
“Runt, how do we know this is one of …?”
“He was scouting,” Runt said. He pointed a flashlight down at the body. The man was face down. Runt shoved a foot under him and flipped him over. He leaned over the body and unbuttoned the hip-length car coat. When he threw the coat open, I saw the shoulder rig and the butt of the piece under the left arm. Runt straightened up. “That’s their first mistake. The odds are getting better.”
In the light, before he switched it off, I could see the half-moon pool of urine just beyond the man’s head.
The light went out. I could hear Art calling down from the cabin doorway.
CHAPTER TWELVE
As Runt drove the Volvo into the clearing at the foot of the cabin and backed it around, Art stood halfway up the path with his arms folded across his chest. He watched Runt drive up the road before he walked down the path and stopped next to me.
“I guess you fell off the fence, Jim.”
“Looks that way.” The truth was I hadn’t. I was pulled in both directions. Runt had killed the man and that ought to make me believe in him. Still, it hadn’t been necessary. I’d had him cold.
“Just because he did the killing?”
“For him it’s that way. Kill first and then take the census.”
“Think about it,” Art said. “The man he killed could have been a drinking friend of his, if they’re part of the same death squad.”
“Why would he do that?”
“You walked into it. You messed it up. That dude was crossed out anyway, no use anymore.”
“Why him? Why not take me out?”
“It wouldn’t get him a home-free shot at Edward.” He hawked and spat on the ground in front of us.
“And if this doesn’t?”
“Sooner or later, he’ll make his try anyway,” Art said.
“Tell me this, Art. You rather have him here where you can watch him, or out there, walking quiet, coming at you from any direction or any time?”
“Your way, Jim.”
It wasn’t my way at all. Not really. But it was a fairly good recovery.
From the cabin doorway, Hump called Art up to breakfast.
The MPK was propped up against the side of the fire pit wall. Next to that were the web belt and the empty flap holster where Runt had tossed it when he’d stuffed the .45 army issue in his jacket pocket. It seemed right but something was missing. It took me a few minutes of running it back through my head before I remembered. The flat pack that Runt had slung over his shoulder the day before, after he’d made his scout, when we’d walked over the ground. I’d hadn’t seen it since.
It took me ten minutes to find it. I walked a series of half-circles, away from the fire pit, away from the road, each time broadening the hunt until I found it in a pocket dug out under a rotting tree. Leaves and trash covered the opening.
I pulled it out and stood up. Inside there were about ten hard chocolate bars held together by a rubber band, two spare clips for the .45, four grenades, and a walkie-talkie. It was an expensive model, the type a police department might use, not a child’s toy, not Radio Shack.
I put it all back into the pack and strapped it up again. After I shoved it back into the hole, I covered it once more with leaves and trash.
Back at the side of the road, I kept trying it out. I ran it through the needle’s eye a number of times. I didn’t like any way it came out
It was forty minutes or so before I heard Runt trotting up the road. When he saw me step into the road he slowed to a walk. Reaching me, he’d slowed his breathing down until it was almost regular. “I found an old house off a side road. Nobody there. Looks like it’s been empty for a month or so. I left the Volvo there, back in a stand of trees.”
“No sign?”
He shook his head. “Road looks clean all the way back into town.”
“You go that far?”
“Half the way. I didn’t find a place to dump the car, so I turned and came back.”
“And found the side road?”
He nodded. He stepped off the road and leaned over and lifted the Walther submachine gun out of the fire pit. “I need four hours sleep. The watch is yours until then.”
“Four on and four off?”
“Until dark,” he said. “After that nobody sleeps.”
“Tonight?”
“If I was running it,” he said.
I watched him walk up the path to the cabin: young, not showing the effects of the night watch and the two or three miles of
trot. I’d been that way once. It had been a long time ago.
Maybe you are running it, Runt. Just maybe.
Just in case he was, I didn’t use the fire pit. I took a position across the road from it and sat with my back to a tree. The sun warmed me and it wasn’t a bad watch. A bit before ten, I stood up and stretched and walked over to the fire pit. I was waiting there for Runt when he came down from the cabin.
I didn’t sleep. Hump had the watch at the window. Art was in the bedroom stretched out on the cot, eyes open, staring up at the ceiling. Edward owned the kitchen. After he washed the breakfast dishes, he cleared off the table and got out the deck of cards. I sat across from him and kept him company with a few hands of five card stud.
“Who was the dead man?”
I said I didn’t know.
“I guess I didn’t know until now.”
I asked what he was talking about.
“Why we came up here.”
I knew he’d figure it out sooner or later.
“I’m fifty-one now.”
I said I’d guessed his age somewhere around there, give or take a year or two.
“That’s old enough to know what I want.”
I nodded.
“You lied to me, Hardman.”
I shrugged.
“You said there wouldn’t be any more killing.”
Hump turned from the window. “It’s out of his hands. That old man cut his dogs loose before he died.”
“I could walk out of here,” Edward said.
“If you can get past me,” Hump said.
“I’m sick of this.”
“I’m not laughing either,” I said.
Edward dropped the deck of cards on the table and walked into the bedroom. A few seconds later I heard the shoes dropping and the creak of the bedsprings.
“He’s getting his rest,” Hump said.
“Aren’t we all?”
“Art’s not. You missed it.”
“Missed what?” I walked over to the window and stood next to him, staring out at the sky. A light rain was falling.
“Art and Runt almost got it on a while ago.”
“Before he came down?”
“About then,” Hump said.
“What about?”
“Art had a wild hair going. Runt sat there at the table cleaning that submachine gun of his. When he had it back together he stood up and walked behind Art, about the same time he was putting the magazine back in. Art didn’t like it. He told Runt to stay in front of him. He wanted it from the front.”
“And Runt?”
“Runt laughed at him and told Art the chicken was pecking at his guts.”
“That’s as far as it got?”
Hump nodded. “I stomped on it.”
“Risky,” I said.
“Not really,” Hump said. “For some reason, neither one of them was quite ready to let it slip all the way.”
Sure. Art holding back because he knew I’d rather have Runt around where I could watch him, Runt because he wasn’t about to risk it all with Art, not when the real job hadn’t been done.
I let it drop with Hump. I got out a big pot and opened a couple of big cans of beef stew. I poured in a small bottle of A-1 and broke up a dried red pepper from a string on the wall next to the fireplace. I placed that on the back of the stove to simmer. That was lunch.
Art stumbled in about one-thirty, red-eyed, still without any sleep. I dipped him out a bowl of the stew and placed it in front of him with a cup of coffee and the platter of light bread.
After one bite Art said, “Jesus, this is awful.”
“Suffer it,” I said. “Runt thinks it’ll be over tonight.”
“That little crap head.”
“I hear you’ve been pushing him.”
“Some. I wanted to see what he’d do.”
“And?”
“He’s playing for the right time.”
“You sure?”
“Sure as I know my name.”
I leaned across the table and dropped my voice so Hump couldn’t hear us. “One more item for that love letter you’re writing him. He’s got a walkie-talkie hidden away out there.”
“That’s it.” Art took one more bite from the bowl of stew and pushed it away. “You know that’s it.”
“Some things bother me.”
“I’ll tick them off for you. Here’s this dude’s supposed to be a pro, comes tooling down the road like he knows where he’s going. Knows exactly. So relaxed he gets out of the car and starts taking a three-minute piss. Not a worry in the world, just waiting for Runt to step out and show himself. The only thing is that you’ve picked that time to be a nice guy and go down and offer to spell Runt while he has a cup of coffee.” He looked up at me. “He try to run you off?”
I nodded. “Said coffee gives him the runs.”
“Hump?” Art looked past me.
I turned and found Hump right behind me. “He drinks it by the gallon at all meals,” Hump said.
“So Runt’s got a problem. You. Hell, it wouldn’t bother him if you got the drop on that guy and captured him. It would put one more man up in the cabin. What bothered him was that that dude was going to holler his name out loud.”
It had the right sound to it. I’d been thinking some of the same things while I waited for him to come back from dumping the car and the body. “No walkie-talkie in the car that I could see.”
“That means the rest of the squad is parked a couple of miles away, within range. Runt calls in and tells them he thinks five a.m. might be a good time for a move. He might have planned to take you out when you relieved him at six.”
“How do you see it?”
“That one comes up first. He and Runt off you. He leaves the fire pit and comes up to the house. He says he’s tired and he’s going to sack out. He tells one of us, me or Hump, to go down and spell you for breakfast in an hour or so. By then the rest of the squad is in place. Either Hump or I walk into the buzz-saw. Then it’s Runt up here. Against either me or Hump. Short odds. A couple of bursts later from that submachine gun and they’re home free.”
“Sounds likely,” Hump said.
I looked at my watch. Quarter to two. About time for me to take the watch in the fire pit.
“I think it’s time we have a talk with Runt.”
I nodded. It was past time if Art had it figured right.
I stopped about twenty yards from the fire pit. It was still raining and ruts were getting a bit deep in rain water. “Runt?”
He didn’t answer. Behind me and to my right Art lifted the police-issue riot gun and pumped a shell into it.
“Runt?”
Still no answer. Art moved up on my hip. “I think he’s been spooked.”
Art took a couple of steps forward. I caught him just in time and grabbed him by the arm and jerked him back.
“What the hell, Jim?”
“There.” I pointed down at the place where the rain had washed away the dirt on the top ridge of one of the ruts. A thin black wire showed against the red clay mud. “I forgot to tell you there were four grenades in the pack with the walkie-talkie.”
“You feel like disarming them?”
“Out of my league,” I said.
Art touched my arm and waved me back toward the cabin. He followed me and when we were about fifty yards from the point where I’d seen the black wire, Art put the shotgun to his shoulder and took a kneeling position. The first round broke the wire. Grenades went off on both sides of the road.
As soon as the echo died down, I walked past Art and looked at the damage. Underbrush had been ripped away on both sides of the road, for about ten yards each way.
Art was right. Runt had spooked. The fire pit was empty and the pack was gone from its hiding place. There wasn’t any way of knowing how long he’d been gone.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In the late afternoon, I rode with Art as far as the end of the private road. I pushed the door open when he stopped
the Mustang but I didn’t get out right away. With one arm on the seat back, I could see the top of Edward’s head. He was down in the floorboards.
“Keep down,” I said. “All the way to the police station.”
“He will.” Art clawed my shirt pocket and got out my pack. “He will, if he wants his head in one piece.”
Before we left the cabin, Hump and Edward had smoked a joint or two. Now he was loose and easy. “You’re fired, Hardman. All of you.”
“I wasn’t even hired,” Art said.
Edward laughed. “I think I’m getting crazy as the rest of you.”
“Hold that thought.” I got back my pack of smokes and tossed Art a twenty. “A reason for the trip. Bring back three steaks and the makings.”
“Big ones?”
“We might as well do the hardy meal thing.”
I backed into the tree cover and watched Art’s Mustang follow the highway toward Harper Falls. I gave it ten minutes. At the end of that time, when no car passed heading for town, I walked back up the road to the cabin.
Our thinking ran this way: Runt was my mistake and we had to live with it. Still, he knew too much. All the scouting he’d done around the approach to the cabin, the measuring and the pacing, the figuring of the angles of fire, had been for the death squad. It was for the backup plan in case the first attempt failed. And it had. I’d stumbled into the middle and spoiled it. It had cost the squad a man, the man Runt had to kill to protect himself.
In ordinary circumstances, Runt would have remained with us, taking his time, waiting for an opening. Since he didn’t, I believed that he’d seen that the odds had gone the wrong way. The arrival of Art had meant he couldn’t do the job alone. He couldn’t off Edward and hope to get away untouched. Before, when there had been just Hump and me, it was possible. He could take me out down at the fire pit, using some quiet method, and then walk up to the cabin. He’d catch Hump off guard and off him. After that Edward would be easy. But with Art and Hump at the cabin at all times, the inside way wouldn’t go.
Added to that, Art hadn’t bought Runt’s cover. He’d shown how suspicious he was. So Runt had talked to the others on the walkie-talkie and they’d pulled him out. To regroup, I guess. The grenade ambush had been Runt’s good-bye and thank-you note.
