Corkscrew

by Ted Wood

  The back door was locked, but I beat the glass out with the butt of the gun and opened it, certain they hadn't heard me above the noise they were all making. Sam was with me, and I told him, "Seek," and pushed forward down a corridor that led into the kitchen. There was nobody there, but Sam bounded past me and across the front hall into the big sitting room on the other side of the staircase. I followed him, gun at the ready.

  He was barking at a man who lay there on the floor. A fair-haired man with nothing on his feet. I saw that much in a snap glance before I recognized him. Only it wasn't the man I was expecting to see. It was Russ, the leader of the gang, and his feet, when I looked again, were swollen to almost twice their size.

  He raised his head and struggled to focus on me. When he saw me, he gave a weak grin. "Good t' see a friendly face."

  I pointed Sam to the door and told him, "Keep," then bent over Russ. "Can you walk?"

  He struggled to sit up, screwing up his face in pain as he moved. "The bones are broken. They wen' over me good. Sonsabitches seen that movie 'bout jail in Egypt." He touched his feet very gently and winced and shook his head. "Can't walk." I noticed that his voice had lost its former huskiness. He was talking normally except for the strain. His gang had beaten the affectations out of him.

  My mind was racing. Was this the undercover man? I'd expected to find Andy, the guy who had given me his bike. Was he already dead or missing? Had I stumbled in on the night of the long knives, biker fashion? It was too late to do anything about it now. I had a gang of savage bikers mad at me and no way to get out even if I'd found the right man and he could have run with me.

  A door clattered at the front of the house, and then Sam started barking. I shushed him and smashed the light out with the barrel of the shotgun. A man appeared in the doorway, framed against the light from the kitchen. Sam snarled, and the man backed up and swore, turning to run out again, shouting, "That cop's here, with the dog."

  Russ chuckled. "Ever think you'd be baby-sittin' a guy like me?"

  The shouting outside grew closer. Then the window shattered, and a rock slammed against the wall behind me. "Get behind that couch," I hissed at Russ. I craned up an inch from where I was crouching and looked out, over the windowsill and the rail of the veranda. In the flames from the burning bike I could see half a dozen men, arms cocked to throw rocks. It was all they had at the moment, but they wouldn't take long to find better weapons, plucking up the courage to come back in and grab them from inside if they had to. I did what had to be done. Aiming high, over their heads, I let fly with the shotgun. The charge went up into the trees, chopping down a mess of tiny branches that I could hear fluttering down, over the redoubled shouting of the gang members.

  Russ said, "They'll torch the house 'less we can stop them. You got any backup?"

  "Fifteen minutes away at least," I said. I was debating whether to turn Sam loose outside to keep the perimeter clear, but he wouldn't know what to do unless I walked him around it, and if I went out there, they might hit me with a rock, and that would be the end of all of us, me, Sam, Russ, and Andy, if he was still alive.

  I ran out to the door I had broken into and fired again. I didn't think they would believe there was more than one person here, but it might help. Sam came with me, and I told him, "Keep," and took him quickly through the ground floor, opening the other doors, one to the dining room, one to a storeroom with an outside window. Now we were as secure as we could be without outside help.

  Back in the dark living room I ran to the side of the window and crouched low as more rocks came in. I fired again and, in the instant of the crash of shot among the trees, looked out. I could see one man standing against a tree trunk, twenty yards from the house. He had a lighted match in one hand and something I couldn't see clearly in the other. It figured to be a bottle of gasoline, so I didn't hesitate. I lowered the aim on my shotgun and put a round into the tree directly over his head, hoping that the spread of the shot wouldn't include him. I wanted him scared, not dead. I had enough problems already.

  It worked. He dropped the bottle and bolted, the light in his hand blowing out as he dived away. But I didn't gloat. They were on to us. Probably they would be more careful with the next Molotov cocktail, pitching it on the roof of the veranda or against the house, keeping clear of my line of fire. And it would work just as well. The house was clapboard, old pine planks that would go up like tinder.

  I rolled away from the window and checked from the other windows. I could see them moving, out in the edge of the light from the burning bike, but nobody was close enough to throw. As I checked the storeroom, I heard Russ shout from the front room. "Fire, Bennett, fire. Quick."

  I came back through the kitchen, grabbing the little fire extinguisher off the wall, thanking heaven that the Bardells were sensible enough to keep one there. The bottle of gasoline was on the floor, not broken but flat, gushing out flames that reached almost to the ceiling. I upended the extinguisher and bumped the head of it against the wall, then played the foam on the flames, aiming at the neck of the bottle, grateful for the wool rug that had absorbed the impact and prevented the bottle from shattering. Outside I could hear the excited whoops of the gang as they watched the blaze, then curses and yowls as I beat the flames down and the room was in darkness again. A shower of rocks came in, one of them slamming my thigh hard enough to knock me down. It hurt, but I bit my lip and fired off a quick round, out through the window over their heads again.

  "They won't stop," Russ said hoarsely. "Next one's gonna get us going. What'll we do?"

  "Is there a root cellar?"

  "Dunno. This is all's I've seen o' the place." His voice was high now, shrill with panic.

  "Take it easy. I'll check."

  I went into the kitchen, hobbling on my injured leg, and flicked the rug aside on the floor. There was no trapdoor. I swore and checked the storeroom. No again. Dammit, we were trapped. I skipped back into the front room, trying to avoid putting any weight on my right leg. More stones hailed through the window. I fired again but knew it was useless. If they didn't stop soon, I would have to take aim and start putting them down. And if that happened, I could end up in jail, surrounded by their friends with life sentences and nothing more to lose.

  Russ called to me, his voice anguished. "Waddya gonna do?"

  "I'll have to start taking them out," I said. "Either that or leave you here and make a run for it."

  "You wouldn't do that?" His voice sounded almost tearful in the flickering darkness, lit still from the flames outside.

  "I don't plan to. But I want your word on it that you'll stand by me in court. There's no other way to do this."

  "You got it, bro."

  "Okay. Here goes." I set the shotgun aside and drew my pistol. I'm pretty good with it, better than most policemen. I've fired it for real enough times, and I've practiced enough that I can generally hit what I want to. I would aim for their legs. If I could hit one or two of them, it would take the fight out of the rest.

  I rolled to the window and peeked out, staying low in one corner. I could see a man with a light in his hand and another man standing next to him, holding something. The second guy would be the bomber, I figured. I aimed carefully, ignoring a rock that sailed through the space above my head, and fired. He screamed and fell, rolling back and forth, holding his hands to his thigh. Good. I'd scored.

  The man with the match dropped it and bolted, and out of the corner of my eye I saw other shapes moving away, scrambling to get out of the line of fire.

  "Got one," I told Russ. "You take the shotgun and blast another shot through the front in thirty seconds. Aim high. I'm checking the other windows."

  He squirmed forward and took the gun. I glanced at him. "If you take a shot at me, I leave you here and run," I promised.

  "Don't even think it," he said fervently. "Shit, I love you for this."

  Great, I thought. That plus a quarter would buy me the daily paper, if I lived long enough to read another one.


  There were men in the trees, on the other side of the blazing bike. I could see that they had moved the others away. That much was good. There wouldn't be any more explosions. I couldn't make out what the men were doing, so I went through to the dining room, the dark side of the house. That's the place they would try from next. I couldn't see any movement, but I waited until Russ fired the shotgun in the front room.

  The waiting paid off. I saw the flicker of a match, low, where another man was crouching, lighting the wick on another bottle. Damn. He was so low I couldn't get a clear leg shot. I waited, and he got the bottle lit and held it up, leaning back to throw. That's when I fired, catching him in the raised arm, sending the bottle backward away from him, spilling its fire into the sand and thin grass that led down to the beach behind the house while he pitched forward, holding his wrist, screaming. Two for two. Good going, Bennett!

  Then I heard Sam's bark and a shriek of alarm from the front room. I ran in and saw the flames from a new bottle running up the drapes inside. Russ was sitting up, aiming out of the window. I ducked under his line of fire and picked up the gas bottle, tossing it back out, clear of the veranda, then ripping down the drapes and balling them up, scorching my hands but getting it done, the fire flicking over the ball like brandy flames on a Christmas pudding. I ran back to the kitchen and stuffed the ball into the sink, knocking the tap on and holding my hands under the cold water, letting it wash away the heat before it could damage the skin any worse. We were finished now, I knew it. If the OPP didn't get here within two minutes, Russ and I were dead men. I was debating how to carry him out. Maybe if I could get him over my shoulder I could run to the trees, and with Sam to keep the bikers away we could buy ourselves a few more minutes. Maybe.

  And then, outside, I heard the worst sound in the world for this time. It was the roar of arriving motorcycles, a lot of them, pouring down the road from the highway and pulling up in front of the house. Now I knew we were lost. They had reinforcements, and within a second, when the first shots sounded, I knew they were armed.

  I kept the water running on my hands for a second longer, then crouched and crossed the corridor and entered the living room. I could see Russ behind his couch, the gun poking over the top. He was listening to the noises, and suddenly he turned to me and laughed, loud and harsh, almost hysterical. And when he spoke to me, his voice had regained its old command harshness.

  "We're in luck, bro. Sounds like the Black Diamond Riders are here, and they're out to kick ass."

  Chapter Twenty

  He raised himself on one knee and tried to set his foot on the ground but collapsed and swore. Then he got back to his knees and made his way to the window, like a medieval pilgrim in some shrine. His relief hadn't infected me. The Black Diamonds didn't love either one of us. Once they had routed his troops, they would come through the house looking for loot, and they would find a rival biker and a copper who once killed two of their men.

  "We've got to get out," I told him. "If they catch us, they'll be rougher on us than your own guys."

  He spun to face me. "My guys'll fight. We've got time."

  "Not enough, believe me. These guys're armed. Your crowd's not. They'll run."

  "Maybe." His shoulders sagged, and he sank down from the window, defeated again. "Maybe you're right."

  "I know it. But first, what about Andy? Is he here?"

  "Gone." He shook his head. "He went in the car with our customer."

  Customer? My mind flickered over that one, but I had priorities, like survival. Questions would have to wait.

  "Come on." I took the shotgun off him. He was using it as a prop, and he folded when I grabbed it and had to support himself on one hand on the floor. "I'm gonna check upstairs. One minute, then we're out of here. Brace yourself."

  I took Sam and ran upstairs. There were three bedrooms and a bathroom. They were all empty, all untouched. It didn't look as if the bikers had even been up here. I just glanced into each room and ran back down, listening to the shouts and the hooting that was going on outside, receding from the house. It sounded to me as if the Devil's Brigade members had run into the trees and that the other gang had abandoned its bikes to follow them, hunting them down like rabbits by the sound of the shooting. That was bad. It meant we'd have to hide out carefully, and I wasn't sure how far I could run with Russ over one shoulder.

  He was waiting for me, sitting on the edge of the upturned couch. He didn't speak, and when I approached, he held his arms above his head like a little boy expecting his mother to take his shirt off for him. I ducked down and dug my shoulder into his gut, then staggered to the back door and opened it as quietly as I could. The blaze from the burning bike had died down, and the only light came from a couple of motorcycle headlights, stationary, parked, probably, on the driveway where the other bikes had been standing.

  I hissed to Sam, and he came behind me. "Easy," I told him, his cue to follow silently. Then I opened the door and stepped out. Russ was holding his breath. I could feel the tension in his stomach on my shoulder. He didn't breathe again until I had crossed the open patch behind the house and entered the cover of the trees. I kept going until we were forty or so paces in, then slipped him down with his back to a pine tree and crouched and looked around, panting with exertion. A few late mosquitoes found us and settled on my face, singing with happiness. I squashed those I could with one hand, keeping the shotgun in my right, listening to the sounds of fighting that were still going on around me, far off, like an attack on the company next to your own in the line.

  Russ whispered hoarsely, "Sounds 's if they're down by the highway."

  "Keep quiet; there could be somebody out back here," I whispered in return. "We need another five, ten minutes."

  We crouched there, squashing rather than slapping mosquitoes until the shooting stopped. I had counted five shots since we left the house. Did that mean five dead bikers? And who would mourn if it did? Then Russ spoke. "Sounds like they've finished."

  "Now they'll come back for their bikes. Then they'll go through the house. We're not clear yet."

  I was used to the darkness of the woods now, and my hearing had sharpened. I could make out the bellowing laughter of the gang as they came back and clattered up the steps of the veranda and into the house. That was bad news for the Bardells, good for us. They would loot the house before they came looking for stragglers. Unless they'd caught one of the Brigade and he had told them about us. I wasn't sure. Bikers don't have much of a reputation for taking prisoners. They punish and leave the person behind. If we were lucky, that's what they would have done.

  More lights flickered on in the house, upstairs as well as down. And more men went up the steps to the front. I checked my watch. Twenty-eight minutes from speaking to Positano on the phone. A minute or two more and we would be safe. I hoped.

  Sam was standing next to me, and he stiffened and turned his head, not growling but bristling. I patted him on the muzzle, another signal to be silent. He flicked his head my way, then pointed his muzzle out in the woods behind us again. There was someone there. I touched Russ on the arm and pointed. He sank lower, peering painfully over his shoulder. Then a flashlight flicked on, and quickly off again. Whoever it was, was being cautious. I felt Sam's muscles tightening as he prepared to attack on command, but I held him back. One minute. That was all it would take and Positano would be here.

  The light swung our way, but short of us, then off again. I lowered my head so my face wouldn't gleam in the light, tapping Russ on the arm as I did so, and he did the same. We crouched there with our heads bowed, as if we were praying. Maybe he was, for peace and an end to fighting and pain. I kept my peripheral vision working, checking for the light. The man carrying it had to be one of the Diamonds, I figured. The Brigade were outfought and outnumbered. They would have been hiding. This man was confident, which probably meant he was armed. I touched Russ on the shoulder, and he glanced at me, his face still lowered. I put one finger on my lips and stoo
d up. The best chance I had was to get behind the prowler and put him down silently before he stumbled over us.

  I held Sam's muzzle, and he looked up at me. I held one finger raised in front of his nose, the "Stay" signal. Then I moved away, leaving the shotgun against the tree on the far side from Russ. If he was foolish enough to use it, we would have the whole gang on us in a moment.

  Keeping low, one hand searching in front of me for twigs that might snap, I moved on, trying to outflank the man on his left side as he edged forward toward the house. He was moving slowly, cautiously, and I wondered whether I was wrong about him being one of the Diamonds. If he was, he would have been moving as carelessly as the rest of them who had gone into the house. In any case he was a threat.

  He was an amateur. That much was fortunate. He didn't stop to flash back over the ground he'd covered. He came on toward the house, ten yards from me now and a pace in front of where I was standing, hugged behind a tree. I let him get another couple of paces ahead, then fell in behind him, trying to gain on him without making a sound. He kept on, flicking left and right with his light as if the beam were magic and would clear away all obstacles in front of him. Dumb. Thank God.

  He paused, five yards from me, and I didn't wait any longer. I plunged the last few paces and hit him in the small of the back with my shoulder, bringing him down in a heap on the ground. He grunted and squirmed, but I had my hand over his mouth, the other hand forcing my gun into the back of his neck. "Make a sound and you're dead," I told him. And then, around the corner of the road, I heard the roar of two vans arriving and the slamming of doors as the OPP emergency team plunged out of them and ran for the house, guns at the ready, shouting like marines.

  I eased up on the man under me, taking my hand from his face. "One yell out of you and I pull the trigger," I told him again. "Now who are you?"

  His voice was thick with fear. "Andy," he said. "Who's this?"