Think Fast, Mr. Peters
Page 20
“I mean to kill, kill, kill you, Peters,” he said from the darkness. “I’ve got nothing, no son, no business, no life, nothing because of you.”
“Because of me?” I shouted. “You better go over the story again. You wrote it, not me.”
Murchison held his knee and rolled groaning in the aisle.
Steinholtz took another shot, his a glass counter that shattered about ten feet behind me, and stood up to get a better shot. I had Mr. Plaut’s six-shooter resting on a tie display rack and a reasonably good bead on his big frame against an exit light but I didn’t get to shoot. Something growled behind me. Two somethings growled behind me and Murchison moaned, “Heidi, Trudi, no.”
But Heidi and Trudi had minds of their own and came scuttering toward me. I got up and Steinholtz took another shot that thudded into a post near my head as I dropped the hog leg and ran toward the front of the store with the Nazi dogs at my heels.
I got to the Victory Window, jumped in, and closed the door behind me—which is where I started this tale.
Two minutes later, with the door coming down, I was ready to call it a lifetime when I heard a shot. The dogs threw themselves once more onto what was left of the door and another shot cracked through the door and shattered the Victory Window, sending a spray of glass across the sidewalk and onto Wilshire, hitting a passing Olds that lost control and skidded over the cub.
I let go of the door and jumped out of the window onto the sidewalk. The dogs came bursting through the door, looked at me on the street with longing, and stopped.
I stood, staring back at them, waiting for them to come at me, waiting to be ripped to pieces in front of I. Magnin’s where I’d be swept up with the glass in the morning. A man got out of the car that had skidded over the curb. He gave me a dirty look. He was about to give me more, but he saw the dogs in the broken window and jumped back in his Olds.
My legs were about to give out but I stood staring at the dogs till Murchison stumbled into the Victory Window, a trail of blood trickling down the leg of his uniform, a whistle in his mouth.
He blew the whistle but no sound came out. The dogs turned and ran back into the store.
“He’s dead,” Murchison called. “I shot the son of a bitch. Will you get your ass back in here, call me an ambulance, and tell me what the hell is going on.”
The hospital wasn’t glad to see me again. Steve Seidman wasn’t glad to see me either, but he didn’t call my brother. We agreed to give Murchison full credit for catching Stein-holtz and leave my name out of it. This was fine with Murchison on condition that he never see me again.
By midnight I was back at Mrs. Plaut’s. The lights were out. I knocked at her door and waited till she came in her night dress, opened the door, looked at me, and accepted the six-shooter.
“Did he appreciate the weapon?” she said.
“Enormously,” I said and she closed the door. I started up the stairs more slowly than I had ever taken them before and Mrs. Plaut’s door opened behind me.
“I almost forgot,” she said. “There was a telephone message for you. I left it on your door.”
With that, she closed her door again and I finished making my way up the stairs and across the hall.
I tore the piece of paper off the tack on my door, went into my room, turned on the light, and tried to focus on Mrs. Plaut’s printed message. There was a number and the words, “Call Major Castle on General MacArthur’s staff at this number.”
I switched off the light, took off my shoes, and fell onto my mattress without undressing. Major Castle and General MacArthur would have to wait till morning.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1987 by Stuart M. Kaminksy
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
This edition published in 2011 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
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