Kill Me Tomorrow

by Richard S. Prather

  Lying there on the floor with that faraway look in his eyes, he had been saying, or kind of moaning, “Noooo,” for some time. I went on, “Since you so stubbornly refuse to cooperate, Bludgett, there is obviously darkness within your skull. I merely propose to bring light into the darkness—”

  “NOOOOO—”

  Finally I relented, and instead of experimenting upon his head, allowed him to spill his guts. And he spilled, unhesitatingly, lying prone on the floor, unmoving except for his haunted eyes which from time to time during the next fifteen minutes rolled toward what he had once—but no longer—thought of as “a piece of junk.”

  “First thing, Bludgett, when you and Frankenstein—Frankie—spotted me on Willow Lane this morning, was anybody else with you?”

  “Not right at first. Two of the boys showed.”

  “Who?”

  “Ace and Fleepo.”

  “Gil Reyes was knocked off a few nights ago. Who did the job on him?”

  “Same ones. Ace and Fleepo.”

  Those had been questions to which I already knew the answers. So, convinced Bludgett was telling the truth, I asked him, “Who told Ace and Fleepo to hit Reyes?”

  “You got me there. I dunno that one.”

  “There was a meeting of seven men—at least—early this morning at Henry Yarrow’s home on Palma Drive. Who were they?”

  “I don’t know nothin’ about no meeting. I don’t even know who’s Henry Yarrow.”

  “Fleepo and Ace were two of the seven. And so, I’m pretty sure, was your late buddy.” Bludgett frowned but didn’t say anything, so I went on, “That meeting was bugged. I think Frankie’s the one who spotted the transmitter and a little later all three of them caught up with a guy named Fred Jenkins and took a tape recording from him.”

  “Yeah, that. Frankie tole me about that. Didn’t say nothin’ about no meetin’, just he was with some of the boys, none of who he named to me, except them two who helped him catch the old gaffer.”

  “Frankie and Ace and Fleepo grabbed Jenkins?”

  “Yeah. There was one other guy along, but he stayed in his heap, didn’t get out.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Nobody said that. There was only the three of them and him, though.”

  “What happened after they grabbed Jenkins?”

  “Well, then’s when Frankie come and got me and we went to his place to wait. Like, on standby, you’d call it, since there was some excitement in the air, them being bugged and all.”

  “OK, Frankie picked you up. What about Ace and Fleepo?”

  “Well, they …” A small crease appeared between Bludgett’s sad eyes. “They put the john they’d caught in the heap, which the other guy, that fourth one I mentioned, was still in. Then they all went off somewheres, and Frankie didn’t see Ace and Fleepo again for about a hour and a half. By then I was with Frankie myself, having been with him since he come and got me.”

  “What happened to Jenkins?”

  “Well, I guess he kind of got himself kilt.”

  “Who kind of helped him get killed?”

  “That—I …”

  “The hell with it. I’ll turn the goddamn laser on.”

  “NOOO—it’s just the way it was is confusing.” The crease appeared between his eyes again. “See, some of this I’m tellin’ you I got from Frankie, but after around four A.M. there, he is croaked, and don’t tell me nothin’ any more, which is natural. And some I hear later from Fleepo, and a very little I get from Ace, and it’s confusing.”

  “OK. What about Jenkins?”

  “Well, maybe a hour and a half after they grab him, Ace and Fleepo take the john, who was kilt by then, beat up pretty good and kilt, and dump him in their heap. Then just them two took him off and dug a hole and sort of left him in it, all covered up with dirt.”

  “Dug a hole where?”

  “Place where they’re fixin’ to put in a new golf course. Or half of one. Nine holes. They put him where the ninth tee’s gonna be, barely got him covered over before the sun come up, Fleepo said to me. He said it was a larf, thinkin’ of them old goats teein’ off standing on top of two stiffs.”

  “Two?”

  “Well …” His eyes rolled. “That’s where Ace and Fleepo put the other one.”

  “Reyes?”

  “Yeah, him.”

  “Both in the same spot?”

  “Well, the ground was soft to begin with since they was fixin’ to put in part of the golf course there. Ace and Fleepo knew where the other one was at, from them putting him there in the first place, which made it more easier to dig the hole again. Seemed pretty smart to me.”

  I jumped to another subject of personal interest. “Why was Lucky Ryan brought here to the Villas?”

  “Beats me. Nobody never tole me, and I didn’t pay it no mind. Frankie and me only been in this damn godforsook town ourselves less than a week, and look at me. Nobody tells me much of anything—except Frankie. He did. He was a good friend, Frankie was.”

  “Well … I’m a little sorry about Frankie, Bludgett. Mainly I’m sorry he took a shot at me. Barely before you did, by the way.”

  “Hell, we was supposed to shoot you. That was the whole idea—”

  “Who put out the word to hit me?”

  “Well, Frankie passes it on to me. This was just a couple or three minutes before we popped at you, he gets a call at his place. We’re to get a tape from a oleander bush, but if you was around, to shoot you and take you away somewheres.”

  Bludgett was scattering my clues all over the place. Still, it seemed apparent that the word to hit me—and to look for a tape in “a oleander bush”—had reached Frankie, and probably others, a good hour and a half after the boys snatched Jenkins and the tape around two-twenty A.M. Which probably meant they hadn’t really started working him over until they’d played that first hour-long recording and realized there must be another one.

  On that point Bludgett was unable to enlarge, so I said, “Frankie told you I was to be hit. Who told Frankie?”

  “Letch. He says it was Letch tole him to do it.”

  The idea of Pete Lecci’s ordering my murder was not a vast surprise, but hearing the name—that ancient name—fall so casually from Bludgett’s mouth did kind of grab me and shake me gently.

  “What the hell is Letch up to here at Sunrise Villas?”

  “I don’t know what the hell. Like I tole you, I only been in the godforsook—”

  “Yeah, you, Frankie, Lucky, maybe others here at the Villas all of a sudden. How come?”

  “Look, I just come and go when they tell me to, I don’t know what for. How many times do I got to tell you—”

  “OK, OK. Let’s—get back to that little party when you and Frankie let some fly at me.” I had the feeling Bludgett was sort of stirring inside, coming out of the original shock induced in him by the incomprehensible crumbling of that granite. And while the words were flowing smoothly I wanted to keep them flowing. “How come you took a powder instead of coming after me?”

  He hesitated only momentarily. “I got to kind of put it together, like I mentioned. Part from what Ace says, when we hear the sireens and he tells us we got to get our asses out of there, and some from what Frankie says to me before. There was some big shots right then in what they call the King place. Nobody says who to me, but one of them was some kind of big apple, and it would screw everything up if the fuzz got onto him there, which they’d do if they busted into the joint. Which they might of done—though it would of took them some time even was they in tanks—if we hung around. Particular on account of the stiffs. When I speak of my friend, Frankie, to who I refer as a stiff, it don’t mean no dislike for him. It’s just you’d made a stiff out of him by then.”

  I threw the next one in kind of quick, because I didn’t want him dwelling overlong on that. “I got the impression Lieutenant Weeton was a friend of Lecci’s—and most of Lecci’s pals. So why worry about fuzz if it was maybe Weeton coming?”


  “They knowed it wasn’t Weeton, he was one of them in the King place there, so it couldn’t of been him. Besides, there was two cars anyhow, we could hear two sireens.”

  “What was Weeton doing in the King place?”

  “How would I know? All I know, there was some guys in there, and this big shot. So we had to blow—taking the stiffs with us—making it look like everything there was peaceful. That way the fuzz wouldn’t do nothin’, but run around blowing their sireens for a while, without finding out nothing.”

  Again, I was trying to put some scattered comments together. The time of about “an hour and a half,” if I could assume Bludgett was being reasonably accurate, seemed to apply to several separate but interrelated areas under discussion. Adding that period to two-twenty A.M., it meant that in the very short time between approximately three-fifty and four much of interest had occurred:

  Frankie, by then with Bludgett, had received his call about hitting me, and looking for a tape; I had found the tape; Frankie and Bludgett had let go some shots at me, and had also seen Ace and Fleepo again for the first time since Frankie left Jenkins with them; and if I had heard it correctly, it was also about the same time that Ace and Fleepo had dumped Fred Jenkins, by then “beat up pretty good and kilt,” into their car. What really triggered that line of thought was Bludgett’s reference to stiffs every time he spoke of Frankie, and Frankie added up to only one stiff.

  “Bludgett,” I said, “these stiffs you’ve mentioned. One of them, of course, was Frankie. And the other …?”

  “Yah.” The little crease between his eyes again. “Yah, I noticed when I done it. Stiffs, I said. Well, maybe you already figgered it. Me and Frankie and some others was to go find the tape everybody was having the fits over, while Ace and Fleepo was to plant the other stiff, this Jenkins gaffer. He was in the trunk of Ace’s heap at the very instance when Ace is yelling we should get our asses outa there. Which makes it even more sensible why he done it, wouldn’t you say, pal?”

  There was an odd ring in that “wouldn’t you say, pal?” Helpless Bludgett was getting quite free and easy with his conqueror. I examined his pumpkin-sized face with growing interest. His eyes had ceased to roll. There was a different look—not a faraway look—in them now. It was more like a verynear look. I didn’t like it much. But I was far from through with Bludgett.

  “All right,” I said briskly. “Tell me more about this King place.”

  “That’s where they took the guy, Jenkins, before he was in Ace’s trunk and then in the golf course. How I figure it, that’s where they asked him questions, in a way they have of doing. Part of it’s like a big dungeon. Down in the basement part you could pull a guy’s leg off and nobody outside would hear nothing. And it’s a place where nobody can get in nor out without them knowing it.”

  “Where is this joint, Bludgett?”

  “Hell, you was there. Right there where you was at. Great big wall around the whole joint.”

  “Uh-huh. Yeah, I saw it. Looked like a retired mansion.”

  “Guess that’s what. Some old millionaire gapper name of King built it, way the hell back. Or maybe it was some king built it for a castle back in the old ages. All I know is they call it the King place, and that’s where they was at when we was popping at you. Until Ace come along, I mean. He tells us we gonna run you down, we gonna get you, only it would have to wait on some other time, disappointing as that was to us all. Me in particular.”

  I got him off that “gonna get you” bit and kept him talking about the old two-story house with the wall around it for a while. From his description it was apparent the joint was virtually impregnable, no way in except a solid steel gate, with a light-beam and photo-electric-cell system atop that high wall to make it impossible for anybody to climb over it without silently triggering an alarm, and between the wall and house a fifty-foot open space or “courtyard” which could be flooded by spotlights from inside the house, lights which automatically went on if anybody interrupted the electric-eye alarm system above the wall—though those weren’t Bludgett’s exact words. He merely summed it up by saying, “Anybody tried to get in, no matter how, and they didn’t want him in, well, pretty quick somebody’d be teein’ off on top of him.”

  He even smiled at his little joke. In my opinion, that was not a good sign.

  He hadn’t yet actually larfed out loud, but Bludgett’s new and comparatively devil-may-care attitude was giving me some concern. Indeed, it was filling me with severe unease. For he also seemed to be flexing his muscles, and though the monster was bound and handcuffed with his ankles tied to the chair legs, and was lying flat on his side, when Bludgett flexed his muscles it was an awesome flexing.

  More, the thought, “lying flat on his side,” started a little alarm bell ringing in my head. I couldn’t figure out what had started it, what was bothering me. Nervously, I shifted my position, and there was a sharp crick!

  “What … was … that?” Bludgett said. He spoke very slowly, as one to whom a great revelation was about to come.

  I didn’t tell him. I knew what it was, but I sure didn’t tell him. You can bet I didn’t. That damn little cricket, which I’d used as part of my psychological-warfare arsenal, to simulate the turning on of my infrared death ray, was in my pants pocket. In shifting my position while squatted on my haunches, I had cramped it between my thigh and approximately the lowest edge of my rib cage.

  Well, you know how those goddamn crickets are. They’re little metal dummies, and when you push them in they go crick! and then when you release the pressure they go cket! Which, I suppose, is why they call them crickets. Actually, it didn’t matter what they called them. What mattered was that as soon as I moved even slightly the pressure on that taut piece of metal would be released and—

  “I ast you a question,” said Bludgett.

  “What was the question?” I said.

  “There was a funny noise, like when you turn on the thing what done it to the rock.”

  “Oh—oh, come now, Bludgett,” I said.

  He was not to be soothed. “You didn’t do nothing to that piece of junk, but I heard the funny noise anyways. Like, crick, it went. How could it do that?”

  I was in trouble.

  He was suspicious. Worse, he’d even gotten the crick sound exactly right. He might even be wondering what had happened to the cket. But clearly worst of all, my firm psychological grip upon him had suddenly become so loose he could once again refer to my diabolical machine as a “piece of junk.” And if for even a moment he lost the fear that his entire head would collapse about his ears if he blew his nose, and flexed any more vigorously than he was already flexing—

  What was that alarm bell trying to tell me?

  First things first. The very first thing was that I mustn’t move. I didn’t dare move. Because if Bludgett heard me turn on—or off—the machine again, the way his suspicion was already growing, well, I’d lose him. And right then I began slowly to realize something else of possible importance. Not only didn’t I dare move, it was possible I couldn’t move. At least not with real speed.

  I had been squatting on my haunches for so long—naturally intent on Bludgett’s every word—that I now had the feeling, or rather lack of feeling, that circulation in my lower extremities bad been cut off entirely for some time. There was only a kind of faintly tingling numbness in my calves and knees and thighs and even to a large extent my hind end. And that wasn’t good; I knew you’ve got to have circulation in your lower extremities if you hope to use them with real speed. Should, say, an emergency arise. Like …

  I had it. The alarm had begun with the thought “lying flat on his side,” because unconsciously I realized Bludgett had not been able to utilize all the power in those massive thighs and calves to thrust his legs away from him and down, and strain at those bonds around the wooden legs of his chair—not while sitting erect with his feet on the floor. But, lying on his side, with nothing beneath his feet but air to hinder the thrust
of those Gargantuan limbs, if he decided to make the supreme effort there would be nothing to hold him back.

  Yeah. I was in trouble. I was in real trouble.

  If ever, I thought, I had heard of the horns of such a depressing dilemma. I didn’t dare move because that might be enough to launch Bludgett into a state of frenzied activity, which could produce a serious emergency, but I had to move so I could get some circulation in my lower extremities, which are so important in emergencies. That numbness was becoming worse, because I was holding very, very still, so I could keep that little metal dummy cramped between my thigh and approximately the lowest edge of my rib cage. And I was trying to think clearly at the same time.

  I was confronted by a problem, requiring a decision, but my terribly strained position was not helping my mental processes at all, though of course for a while there I didn’t realize that. I merely thought of what could happen, feeling trapped, backed up against the wall, no way out, like a captured spy about to be—

  Enough. It took an effort of will, but I got a grip on myself. What had I to worry about? Nothing. I was in control here, it was merely my mind that was becoming overexercised. I had simply been letting my imagination run away with me, become too vivid, too real, too free. That sometimes happens to me. It’s a good thing to have a vivid imagination. It is simply necessary at times to keep a tight rein upon it. Fortunately I know how to do that.

  It had only been for a brief moment there, anyway, when thinking of the appalling strength of Bludgett, Bludgett flexing, the elephant straining at the gnat of his bonds, his great mass filling with more and more suspicion, that I had felt a severe unease, a sense almost of imminent doom, what a spy must feel when caught and with his back to the wall and the Mafia firing squad with its heaters leveled and Bludgett about to say “Fire!” and—

  Cket!

  Dammit.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Man, there was all kinds of noise, all of a sudden. Some was near and some was far, but I was still trying to get a tight rein on my imagination and I looked at the wrong noise.