Scratch Fever

by Collins, Max Allan

  He slipped out of his shoes and moved soundlessly across the carpeted floor to the boxes. Very carefully he sorted through the first box; the wooden case with silverware in it was under some Tupperware. He removed one stainless steel steak knife with a four-inch blade. He held it tight in a fist wet with the animal’s blood.

  There was only one way up, and that was the stairs, coming right up into the living room, at the back. Half a flight, a landing, then, to the left, another half a flight, and bam. If they were waiting for him, watching for him, he was dead. If they weren’t, he had a chance. The stairs were carpeted, and he was quiet. He went up the first half-flight and waited, just one step below the landing. Listened.

  Music.

  “I think she’s coming around, Sally,” a voice said. An immature voice.

  “Doesn’t matter,” another, older voice said. “She doesn’t know anything else we want to know.”

  “Maybe we should ask her how he comes in. There’s more than one way in.”

  “You may have a point.”

  “You want me to hold her feet again?”

  “I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

  Music—they were playing music on the goddamn stereo. Barry Manilow, wasn’t it? Crazy.

  “She’s awake, Sally.”

  That name Sally, again. A man named Sally. Sal. Sal and Infante. The two bodyguards working for Hines, the local Family man.

  “Which way does he come in?” he heard Sal asking.

  “Front door,” Sherry’s voice said. Hurting.

  “Maybe you better hold her feet again, Infante.”

  “No!” Sherry said. “It’s the garage way. Doorway’s in the hall.”

  “You telling the truth? Hold her feet, Infante.”

  “It’s the truth!” Sherry all but screamed.

  Actually, Nolan would have preferred Sherry really tell the truth. That would send at least one of them down here. Well, maybe there was a way. . . .

  He stepped onto the landing. Looked up the stairs. No one at the top. There appeared to be only the two men here with Sherry, and they were in another part of the living room above.

  He went up a few steps. Peeked over the edge of what was the living room floor, at left, through the black latticework railing.

  Sherry was on the couch.

  Infante’s back was to Nolan, and the guy was apparently holding Sherry by the ankles. The other one, Sally, was pinning down her arms, questioning her, his back partially to Nolan.

  “Better flick your Bic, Infante,” Sally was saying. “Don’t burn the same spot.”

  Nolan’s hand tightened on the steak knife as the pain made Shery jerk up, into a sitting position, while Sally covered her mouth with a hand to stifle her scream.

  But when Sherry jerked up, her pain-widened eyes met Nolan’s. He was visible from the shoulders up. He gestured: raised a finger and pointed downward, thinking Send them to me, doll. Send them to me.

  Then he ducked down out of sight. Sat on the steps.

  “All right!” Sherry said. “All right. It isn’t the front door. It isn’t the garage way, either.”

  “What way is it dear?” Sally said.

  Nolan slipped back down the stairs.

  “He comes in the way you did,” she said.

  “The basement!” Infante said.

  Brilliant Nolan thought. He was standing with his back to the wall, just at the bottom of the stairs, to the right.

  “I better move that dog,” Sally said. “Shit! And he’ll see the bullet hole, too. Damn!”

  “What’ll we do, Sally?”

  “Shut off the fuckin’ music, for one thing. He could be here in fifteen, twenty minutes. Christ! I’ll go down and get rid of the dog.”

  The music stopped.

  Infante said, “He won’t notice the bullet hole, or that we broke in through there, till he gets up close.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. So if I’m watching for him down there, I can nail him right through the glass door while he’s standing out in the yard. Yeah. Okay. You stick with the bitch here, in case he varies from pattern and comes in up here.”

  “Okay, Sally.”

  “Just shoot him. Don’t talk to him.”

  “Yes, Sally. Sally.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You be careful I wouldn’t want nothing to happen to you.”

  There was a pause.

  Then Sally said, “Yeah. You, too.”

  Nolan heard Sally on the stairs. He stepped off the last step, and Nolan put a hand over his mouth and the steak knife in his back, lower right.

  Nolan eased him to the floor. Sally gurgled and died, getting blood on Nolan’s hand. Nolan wiped his hand on Sally’s shirt. Then he took the man’s silenced 9 mm from a limp hand and left him there, the knife handle sticking out of his back like something to pick him up by.

  Nolan went slowly back up the stairs, gun in hand.

  Infante was sitting on the arm of the couch, his back to Nolan, blocking Nolan’s view of Sherry, who was still lying there. He couldn’t risk a shot, for fear of hitting her. He should probably try to lure Infante downstairs . . . but Infante would likely drag Sherry along, not wanting to leave her unattended, so that was out.

  Nothing to do but try to come up behind him slow.

  Nolan was halfway between the top of the stairs and the couch when Infante turned and with a startled expression that was only vaguely human, shot at Nolan three times with the silenced 9 mm’s twin. Nolan dove for the floor and rolled into the entryway area by the front door while a plaster wall took the bullets, spitting dust.

  The kitchen was off the entryway, and Nolan ducked in there, as it connected to the living room and would allow him to enter on the opposite side, which should confuse Infante and give Nolan a better look at where Sherry was, to take a shot at Infante and still keep Sherry out of harm’s way.

  And Sherry was on the couch, all right, but Infante was heading down the stairs, into the basement, shouting, “Sally! Sally!”

  Nolan went to Sherry, who reached for him, hugged him.

  “Are you okay, doll?”

  She was smiling, crying. “My feet are killing me.”

  “I better go after him.”

  “No! Stay with me.”

  There was an anguished cry from downstairs—a wail.

  “I’ll kill you!” Infante’s voice, muffled but distinct, came from below.

  “Maybe he’ll come up after me,” Nolan said.

  But the next sound from below was the glass doors sliding/slamming shut.

  Nolan ran to the picture windows. He saw Infante scurrying across the yard, off to the right, into the woods.

  “Stay put,” Nolan told Sherry.

  “Nolan . . .”

  “Stay put!”

  “Where would I go?” she yelled at him, angry for a moment.

  Nolan went out the front door, fanning the gun around in front of him. The full moon was keeping everything well lit; there was a pale, eerie wash on the world. But no sign of Infante.

  Then he heard an engine start, a car squeal away.

  He stood there a moment and let the cool air cool him down.

  Then he went back in. To Sherry.

  He examined her feet.

  “Sons of bitches,” he said.

  “They hurt. They really hurt.”

  “Second-degree burns. You’re lucky.”

  “Oh, yeah. Lucky.”

  “They’ve started to blister. Third degree would’ve been trouble. I’m going to get you some cold water to soak them in.”

  “Please.”

  He got a pan with ice and water in it and eased her to a sitting position, and she slid her feet in, making a few intake-of-breath sounds, but seeming to like it, once done.

  “I should get you to a hospital,” he said. “I should get you to an emergency room.”

  “How can you do that?” she said. “They’ll want to know how it happened. I don’t know what this is about,
but I know you. And I know this isn’t something you’ll want the police or anybody in on.”

  He scratched his head and said, “Right. Burns on the feet are dangerous, though. You need a doctor.”

  “Sara’s boyfriend is a doctor.”

  “Sara? At the club?”

  “Right.”

  “Will he keep his mouth shut? Will he make a post-midnight house call?”

  “He’s a married doctor. He’ll do anything Sara asks him.”

  “Good. What’s Sara’s number?”

  “It’s in the back of the phonebook.”

  “I want you to stay with her for a few days.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “I don’t know yet. I don’t know what this is about, either.”

  He got up to go to the kitchen to call Sara.

  “Did you know those two men?” Sherry asked.

  He turned and looked at her. For all she’d been through, she looked terrific, sitting there in a short black nightie, soaking her feet.

  “Yeah,” he said. “A couple of guys who work for Hines.”

  “Hines. Isn’t he connected?”

  “Yeah, Hines is Family. That bothers me. I haven’t had any Family trouble for a long time.”

  “You going to talk to Hines?”

  “He’s out of town. And anyway, those two were Family, out of Chicago, before they got assigned to Hines. They could’ve got their orders from somebody other than Hines. With Hines out of town, that almost seems likely.”

  “You’ve got Family friends.”

  “There’s Felix, that lawyer I always dealt with. But if I call him, he’ll lie to me, if I’m on the shit list again. I don’t know. I think I’m going to have to go out and knock heads together and see what’s going on.”

  He went to the kitchen.

  “Nolan!” she called out

  He came back out and said. “What?”

  “I almost forgot. There’s a message for you on the answer machine. A long one.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s from that friend of yours.”

  “Jon?”

  “Yes. It sounded like he was in trouble. Maybe this has something to do with that.”

  But before she had finished her sentence, Nolan was in the kitchen playing the message. He listened to it twice.

  He came back talking to himself, saying, “Julie, alive? If so, how is she connected to anybody Family? I don’t get it.” Then, to Sherry: “Did those guys hear that message? Did they get that out of you?”

  “No,” she said. “I kept thinking they’d want to know, if they’d known to ask. But they didn’t ask, and I was happy to keep it from them.”

  “Good girl.”

  “You missed your deadline, you know. You were supposed to go after your friend if you got home by twelve-thirty.”

  “Well, I didn’t. And he isn’t here yet, so I’m going after him anyway. It’s my only lead.”

  “Did you call Sara?”

  “Not yet. Listen. Tell her nothing. Nothing about how you got the burns. Nothing about the shooting. I’ll let her know I’ll make it right by her, for helping, no questions asked. Then I’ll have to bandage your feet up, best I can, till her doctor friend can apply proper dressings at her place.”

  “Okay.”

  “Then I got to bury something in the woods, and I’m off.”

  “You mean that guy downstairs? Sally? You killed him?”

  “Yeah, I killed him. But I don’t mean him. I’ll dump him someplace. He doesn’t rate a burial. I’m talking about my dog.”

  3

  9

  JON CAME TO.

  He knew three things immediately: he was in the back seat of a car, on his side; it was dark, so it wasn’t morning yet, or anyway the sun wasn’t up; and his head ached so bad, his eyes hurt.

  He sat up; it took some doing, but he sat up. His hands were behind him, and he could feel the cold steel of handcuffs; his legs were bound at the ankles with thick, heavily knotted rope, like the handiwork of a very ambitious, sadistic Boy Scout.

  Or Girl Scout.

  He looked out the window to the left. The dyke, Ron, black leather jacket, ducktail, and all, was standing in an arrogant slouch, listening to Julie talk.

  Julie.

  She was still wearing the white outfit, but the tinted glasses were gone, an affectation she presumably dropped during more private moments. She was gesturing as she spoke, and occasionally she would reach out and touch Ron’s face, casually.

  The two of them were standing in the midst of a big open graveled area, a parking lot. This car Jon was in the back of was one of only two cars parked in it The other one was a low-slung sportscar, a Porsche, Jon thought, the color of which he couldn’t make out—something light pastel—and the owner had to be Julie.

  Behind them was a building that appeared to be an old brick warehouse, but there was a neon sign, which wasn’t on, over a covered entryway, indicating it had been converted into something else. A restaurant or a club, maybe. He couldn’t tell, exactly; he couldn’t really see that well.

  He tried to make out what they were saying, but it was muffled; they were a good twenty feet away. He pressed his ear to the glass of the car window and listened. He began to pick up some of the conversation.

  “Just hold onto him for me,” Julie was saying.

  “You want him to disappear forever, he can,” the dyke said.

  “Not yet. In a day or two, maybe.”

  “It don’t matter to me. I’d soon cut his throat as look at him.”

  A sick feeling swept over Jon—not nausea: hopelessness. A physical sense of hopelessness.

  Then he didn’t hear anything. He took his ear away from the glass and looked out the window, and Julie and the dyke were kissing. There was a full moon tonight, but it didn’t lend much romance to the scene, the way Jon saw it.

  Then the big sandy-haired guy with glasses, the Incredible Hulk guy, came out of the warehouse, and Julie and Ron broke it up; Julie walked to meet the guy, and the dyke just stood there, hands on her butt, looking sullen. Julie and the guy talked for what seemed forever and was maybe five minutes.

  How the fuck could she be alive, anyway?

  He and Nolan had driven to Ft. Madison and seen the twisted, burnt wreckage of the car she’d been in. Or was supposed to have been in. Didn’t make sense.

  But what did make sense, where Julie was concerned? The only thing you could count on was she’d use her looks to manipulate those around her. Like she had with that poor dead bastard Rigley, the Port City bank president.

  She’d put him up to it They didn’t know it at first but it became obvious as soon as she came into it. Rigley could never have done it on his own.

  Rigley had come into the Pier, about a year ago, and announced to Nolan that he recognized him as one of the men who had held his bank up two years before. Rigley then blackmailed Nolan, and Jon, into helping him rob his own bank, to cover up an embezzlement The robbery had gone off without a hitch, but when it came to making the split at Rigley’s cottage on the Cedar River, he and his beautician girlfriend, Julie, put a double-cross in motion.

  But at the last minute, the banker panicked, and when Julie fired a shotgun meant for Nolan, Rigley got in front of the blast. Nolan dove for the girl, but she swung the now-empty shotgun around and whacked him in the head, and he went down.

  Jon was under the dead banker. He pushed the corpse off and grabbed for the girl’s arm as she fled, but she caught him in the gut with the gunstock, and then again on the back of the neck, when he doubled over.

  Moments later he came to, grabbed his .38 from off the floor, and went out after her.

  Julie was in her yellow Mustang, the laundry bag of money sitting in back like a person.

  He had her in his sights, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t shoot. Couldn’t kill her.

  So he shot at her tires; maybe hit one.

  Then she was gone.

  And minute
s later he and Nolan were pursuing her. There were only two ways she could go: back to Port City, which on the heels of the bank robbery was unlikely, or toward West Liberty, a little town near where she’d lived before moving into Rigley’s cottage.

  On the outskirts of West Liberty, they saw it: the Mustang, with a flat tire, pulled over on the shoulder.

  In front of it was a blue Ford that said WEST LIBERTY SHERIFF’S DEPT. on the side. Julie was in the back seat of the Ford. So was the sack of money.

  The sheriff or deputy or whatever, a pudgy-faced guy with a weak chin, close-set eyes, five o’clock shadow, and a western-style hat, sat in front, getting ready to pull out on the highway, into town. He apparently had stopped Julie for driving recklessly in a car with a flat tire, and stumbled onto something a bit bigger.

  Julie saw Nolan and Jon as they drove by, but didn’t alert the sheriff. Nolan and Jon drove back to Iowa City to sit it out.

  That night, back at the antique shop, in the upstairs living quarters, they kept the radio on and the TV too, waiting for news of the West Liberty arrest. It never came.

  “I think we been snookered,” Nolan said. “I think that West Liberty hick was in on it with her.”

  “Nolan, that’s nuts,” Jon had said. “She couldn’t’ve planned ahead for a flat tire. She couldn’t’ve put something that complex together.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You’re right.”

  “So now what?”

  “We keep waiting.”

  The next morning it was on the news: on a narrow bridge on the highway outside Ft. Madison, a gas tanker truck struck a car, head on. There had been an explosion. The two men in the truck were killed, as was the woman driving the car. Several thousand dollars in burnt bills in Port City bank wrappers linked the young woman driving the car to yesterday’s Port City bank robbery. In the days to come, the woman, though burned beyond recognition, was identified as the dead bank president’s mistress. The cops put a scenario together for the robbery and its aftermath that did not, thankfully, include Nolan and Jon.

  But Nolan had not been satisfied. He went to Ft. Madison and looked at the burnt wreckage of the Mustang.

  “I think we been snookered,” he said again.