“OK, Steve, you've been in the building. But not necessarily in your office every minute, right?"
“True. Doesn't make any difference. The leak wasn't from here, believe me. But the question is, what are you going to do now? You need anything? Want me to come pick you up? Name it, Shell, I'll do it."
I believed him. I really did. Still, I said, “Let me call you back, Steve,” and hung up.
I needed time to think, sort out the jangle of thoughts and questions whirling around in my head. It had even occurred to me, briefly, that if a cop or two happened to be standing around in Whistler's office while I was talking to him there might have been a trace on the line. The long arm of the law could be reaching out right now, trying to locate the phone I'd been using, the address from which I'd called. If they hadn't pinned down the location already.
But I didn't really believe that. Maybe there wasn't much reason to trust Steve Whistler more than anybody else I'd met lately; but, for some reason, I did trust him. Most of the time I go along with those gut feelings; and I was going to go along with them this time.
Romanelle had tried to interrupt me while I was on the phone, calling out, “What's the matter?” and “What the hell's going on, Scott?” But I'd ignored him. By this time he'd gotten up out of his chair and was now standing only about a foot away, saying, “What the hell? It sounds like trouble—tell me what's going on, dammit, I'm your client."
“I will, I will. Just a minute."
I got to my feet, waved a hand at Romanelle to try keeping him quiet for a few seconds, started pacing again.
Something was on the edge of my brain, one thought trying to squeeze its way out from among all the others, something about that tape recording I had so recently made, me speaking simultaneously into the phone and onto those slowly turning reels on the machine in Whistler's office.
Assume Steve was on the level; also that neither Finnegan nor Kay Dark had a chance to open his safe and remove the tape, make a quick copy, and replace the original. Assume that much. If that was true, then how..."
It didn't make sense at first. Then it started to. I felt a dullness crinkle my spine, as if the skin was puckering and cracking like a sheet of ice. Felt hairs lifting on the back of my neck. Still pacing, I turned near the door, took a step toward Claude Romanelle. He was staring intently at me, mouth moving as he asked a question I didn't hear.
Behind me there was a shocking, splintering crash, what seemed like an enormous amount of noise, the splintering followed by a thudding sound and a shout. As I spun around, I started to grab for the .38 under my coat, but hesitated, kept my hand off the butt of the gun. Because I was still thinking of the law, police, cops kicking the door down and bursting in to arrest the guy who'd confessed on tape to half a dozen felonies.
If the police saw me yanking out a handgun, it was possible that would be the last sudden movement I'd ever make. So I left the gun clamped in the clamshell holster but kept on spinning around until I could see the crowd of men bursting into the room.
Only it wasn't the police.
I had time for one quick, crazy thought, a single warped, very negative, and I hoped uncharacteristic thought, and it was:
If these guys aren't cops, I'm dead.
Chapter Nineteen
It was not a crowd of cops; it wasn't even a crowd. Three men, that was all, one well inside the room and two others close behind, all of them coming at me. It just looked like a lot more because the first man in, the one who had undoubtedly taken the splintered door off its hinges and slammed it into the room, was so big he looked like a crowd all by himself. Sure. Alda Cimarron.
I barely had time to recognize him and Cowboy behind him, plus a third man I hadn't seen before, when my palm slapped the .38's butt and Cowboy shoved his right hand toward me like the short jab of a fist, a fist with a gun in it, and from a foot away, moving on around behind me, Alda Cimarron saying softly in that rumbling bottom-of-the-barrel voice of his, “Don't be a chump, Scott. You're on the hind tit this time."
There was a good deal of truth in what the slob said. Both men before me held guns in their hands, and presumably so did Cimarron, because he slammed me on the back of the skull with something very hard and heavy, even harder and heavier than I guessed his fist must be.
Then I stopped guessing about anything for a while. I wasn't out, but I was down on one knee. I kept getting up but somehow not moving any higher, and I could see everything slightly out of focus, hear the words those three men spoke, hear them clearly but with an odd reverberation like a fractionally delayed echo.
Something moved me, and a hand jerked the S&W .38 from its holster. Then, “I'll be goddamned, goddamned to hell."
That was Cimarron. In a moment I realized he had to be looking at and then talking to Romanelle, because he went on, “No more droolin', hey, Claude, old pal? I thought it might be a week, maybe forever, before you'd get your head screwed on straight. What pulled you out of it, Claude?"
There wasn't any answer.
But then Cimarron said gently, “Do what I tell you to, Claude, or we'll paddle your head some more, me and Doc—"
“No! Please, Alda—I'll tell you whatever you want. I will. All I know is, when I came to there was a doctor here, working on me. And ... then I was better. OK. Almost ... almost OK. I still can't remember much—it's true, Alda. It's all ... fuzzy, except since I came to, woke up here. But I'm pretty much ... normal ... except for not remembering anything lately."
I could tell from the sound of his thin shaking voice that Romanelle was very afraid, even terrified, at the thought of further “treatment” by Doc Bliss and Cimarron. But I had to hand it to the guy. He was claiming something I knew to be untrue, that much and maybe most of his recent memory was gone.
“Sure, Claude. Sure. So where is she? Your daughter, this Michelle Wallace, where's this Spree of yours?"
“I don't know. Wait—I swear to God, I don't know. He—nobody told me yet."
I got balanced on both feet finally, tried to straighten up. I saw Cimarron's thick legs move, then one of them and the big shoe at its end dug into my gut. The air shot out of my lungs and I went down flat on my face. I could feel the dirty carpet against my mouth; it smelled like moldy rags. I lay still, breathing slowly, breathing as deeply as I could and trying to ignore the pain in my middle and along my side. He'd broken a rib, I guessed.
I heard one of the men hit Romanelle. It had to be Romanelle, because following the sound of somebody banging into a chair and thumping onto the carpet, I was able to move my head and see Romanelle scrabbling on the floor, slowly getting to his knees, then standing.
I heard him saying, his voice not belligerent but also without that earlier frightened and almost panicky note in it, “I've told you the truth, Alda. I don't remember shit since ... whenever it was ... Tuesday night, I guess. Until a little while ago, with that doctor here. I don't even know who he was. And I sure don't know where Michelle is. If I did, I'd tell you."
“You'll tell me if you know, Claude, that's for sure. So will this sonofabitch, Scott."
He turned to look down at me. But not all the way down, because I was starting to get up again. For some reason, he didn't stop me this time. I was recovering a little from the blow on the back of my head. At least I wasn't hearing echoes and seeing double. I straightened up, and Cimarron took a step toward me.
Standing a foot away, both hamlike fists bunched on his hips, right hand enfolding what looked like a long-barreled .357 Magnum revolver, he said, “Maybe Claude doesn't know where his kid is—we'll find out easy enough. But it's a damn sure thing you know, Scott. And if you're not a complete idiot you'll tell me where Michelle Wallace is, and you'll tell me now. Believe me, you'll be glad you did."
“Cimarron.” I looked at that broad face, the bunched muscle at the corners of his mouth, found his mottled blue eyes a couple of inches above my own, tried to hold them as I said, “If we're talking about now, you'd better kill me now. Ri
ght here, while you've got a chance."
He grinned, a real normally wide grin, showing the big square teeth, tangled hairs wiggling in his nostrils. “Isn't that cute, boys?” he said without taking his eyes from mine. “Just like he heard it in a movie."
I kept looking at him and said softly, “You hear this, Cimarron. Just suck it in your ears and keep it in that fat head of yours from now on. You try to think of something else and this is going to come right back into your head. Every time. Over and over again. So hear it loud and clear, pal: Either you kill me now—right now in this room, no games, no hesitation, just do it—or you're all caught up. I'll take you out."
He started to chuckle, the rumbling rising from the big belly and broad deep chest. I truly did hope I'd grabbed his attention and gotten him to concentrate on what I was saying—in accord with the principle that, usually, if somebody tells you not to think of a blue-striped giraffe, you are for sure going to think of a blue-striped giraffe. So I kept pushing it a little longer. “But I wouldn't want you to keep worrying about it, Cimarron. Just put it out of your mind. Forget I mentioned it."
“Or you'll take me out—me,” he said, still chuckling, looking probably as amused as it was possible for him to get. “How do you expect to manage that, Scott?"
“Beats the hell out of me, pal. I haven't the faintest idea at the moment. I won't know for sure till I do it, will I?"
“Have I got a surprise for you—pal.” He smiled, showing me the square white teeth again. “And this time I'm really going to enjoy it."
* * * *
My head felt as if it had been split open. I knew it wasn't actually cracked, because while my hands were still free I'd felt the sizable lump on the back of my skull—or maybe two lumps, one next to the other. Cimarron had slugged me only once more, but hard enough the second time to put me completely out long enough for somebody to bind my arms. Then there was movement in a car, parking, being half carried into a building. I saw cars, walls; no signs, but I knew the building was one I'd been to before: the Arizona Medigenic Hospital on McDowell Road.
And now, except for the constant throbbing pain in my head, my thoughts were clear enough. I knew where I was—and what was undoubtedly going to happen.
We were all—Alda Cimarron, Cowboy Jay Groder, the other man who looked like the picture I'd seen of a younger Sylvan Derabian, Dr. Phillip Bliss, and Claude Romanelle still in his green robe—in Dr. Bliss's three-room suite on the Medigenic's fourth floor. Not only in the suite but crammed into the same small room where I'd found Romanelle earlier today. How much earlier I had no idea; time was taffy, a bunch of rubber bands ticking. I didn't know if it was still afternoon or late at night.
I was flat on my back on a high table. Leather straps, secured to the underside of the table, stretched across my body and were buckled tightly around my ankles and wrists. From the waist up, my body was bare. On my right, only two or three feet away, was that foot-and-a-half-square gray metal box I'd earlier seen here at the foot of Romanelle's bed. It was still atop that same bright red four-wheeled cart—the crash cart. The white face of the box—the defibrillator—was turned toward me. I could see a rectangular glass-covered dial placed right of center with black numbers across its top. At the dial's far left, 0 ... then 10 ... on up to 400 at the far right. Below it the words, or letters, “Watt Sec.” At the upper left was the word “Energy,” and below it a little black dial with numbers around it, also ending in 400.
Pain like hot redness pulsed inside my skull, seeming to swell and then shrink, swell and shrink. I tried to force my mind away from the pain, looked at the defibrillator's face again. At its lower left was the word “Power,” below it a small switch with “Off” at its left and “On” at its right near the words “Armed” and “Charge” one above the other. Beneath the switch was a small tubular bit of green glass, a tiny bulb. But it was dark, not glowing. Not yet.
Behind the crash cart, on the floor, a single electrical cord wiggled over the carpet like a thin black snake, probably to a wall socket, though I couldn't see its end. Resting on top of the gray box were the two “paddles” that didn't look like paddles or anything else I'd ever seen except maybe science-fiction ray guns or unworkable can openers. Each had two thin metal disks at one end, the disks about an inch apart and not more than a couple of inches in diameter. From each paddle extended a pair of round black handles, one of them with a buttonlike projection at its end and another snakelike black electrical cord dangling from it. The things were curious, almost comical in appearance, and actually looked quite harmless. But I knew they weren't harmless. They scared me. They scared me more than a gun or knife would have.
Alda Cimarron had been standing close to Dr. Bliss and the man I'd decided was Sylvan Derabian. He, Derabian, nodded, looked at Romanelle, nodded some more while glancing at me—as if I was a specimen pinned to a board for scientific examination—then gazed at Romanelle again. He raised both hands before his chest, arms bent sharply at the elbows, and shrugged. Sort of a “Why not?” or noncommittal “Aach” movement.
Maybe I was imagining it, but I got the impression that Cimarron and Bliss were explaining to Derabian the treatment they'd given Claude Romanelle, and how splendidly efficient that treatment had proved to be—and perhaps would soon again prove to be—in unclamming the clammed mouth, freeing the recalcitrant tongue, facilitating the spill of guts. I didn't like the pictures those vagrant, almost unchosen words painted before my mental eye.
I'd had time to decide upon my way to go. There were only two alternatives anyhow. Either tell them everything they wanted to know except for the one or two most important exceptions, and maybe only the one—Spree, where she was, where they could find her—or else clam, freeze the chops, say nothing at all.
But I knew that once a man—any man—started to spill, to let just a little leak out while withholding the rest, it was too easy for that leak to turn into a stream, a gushing, a flood. Once started, it could be difficult and maybe impossible to stop. So I'd decided, made my choice: Once it began, admit nothing, say nothing. If I could manage it. I wasn't entirely sure I could. But that was the way I meant to go.
Cimarron left the other men and walked to the padded table on which I lay, to which I was strapped. He looked down at me, looming enormous against the ceiling above him, the too-bright overhead light for the moment blocked out by his head. The light silvered his feathery brown hair, formed an oddly incongruous halo around his skull and face. I could smell him. He was sweating, and the odor was heavy, rank.
“Scott,” he rumbled, “there's a lot of things I might ask you to talk about, and you'd answer all the questions. In time. Believe it, pal. You can save yourself, and us, a lot of trouble by answering one question. Just one. Then we'll skip the rest, along with all the misery you'll get otherwise. Just spill where the girl is, Michelle. Romanelle's kid. We know you stashed her someplace. Just tell me where."
“When I shot Keats, she ran out of the house screaming and that's the last I saw other,” I lied easily. Easily so far, I thought. “If she's still running, she ought to be passing Tucson about now."
“Scott,” he said, almost wearily, “don't lay that smartass bullshit on me. One more time. Michelle Esprit Romanelle. Claude's kid. Where is she?"
“Why don't you show your good faith, Cimarron? Tell me how in hell you found Romanelle and me in that dumpy motel."
“Shee—” He started to swear, then cut it off. Slowly he nodded the big head. “Why not? Sure, give a little, get a little, hey? Well, it was easy as scratching your ass. I've got twenty guys do a little phone work for me from time to time. Even got all the telephones wired and in place a couple days ago. So I just had the boys start calling every goddamn motel, even hotel, in the Valley. Only thing they had to ask was if anybody checked in between one-fifteen p.m.—you snatched Claude sometime after one—and two o'clock or thereabouts. And it had to be a big guy looked like you, either alone or else with an invalid. Took a lot of calls�
��we covered Scottsdale and Phoenix before getting to Mesa and Tempe—but once there was a hit all we had to do was go there and pick you up."
He waited, lips closed but spread in what might have been a self-satisfied smirk. Finally he said, “How's that for good faith? OK, Scott, where is she?"
Silence. Smirk going, gone.
The big face close to mine, small jungle of hair in his nose wiggling as the nostrils flared, mottled blue eyes looking a little glassy, almost manic. Slowly, “One last time, you shitty sonofabitch. Michelle Esprit Romanelle. Where's she at?"
I ignored him, took a long deep breath, getting ready for whatever ordeal would fill the next minutes. Or hours. Although it wasn't the sort of thing you can really get ready for, not the kind of exercise anyone practices.
Cimarron didn't make it easier. Still leaning close above me, that broad greasy-looking face shining with a thin film of sweat, he said, “Let me tell you how it goes, Scott. We'll play with you a little, try a couple dandies we haven't worked on much yet. But then, pal, if we have to sizzle your brains like we did Claude's, you'll spill, you'll have fits, maybe bust your spine jerking around. You'll talk, you'll run off at the mouth, you'll beg, but it'll be too late. You saw what it did to Claude. I know you saw what it did to him, pal, you grabbed him out of here while he was still a zombie."
Knock it off, I yelled inside my head. I was supposed to be the striped-giraffe psychologist here. I tried to shut out his words by testing the straps on my ankles and wrists—again. I wondered if the strap on my right wrist was really looser than the other, or if that wrist was merely more numb.
“We're still figuring out the niceties, Scott,” Cimarron was saying, “the artistry. Haven't had the power up all the way, not as high as it goes. That's four hundred watt-seconds, Doc tells me. I suppose if we did, it might cook your brains into ... what? Like whatever you'd get if you squashed a fly? Just some jelly and juicy fruit and squashed flyshit, maybe. With a couple fly eyes and half a leg in it."
Shellshock (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 31
