The Man Who Tried to Get Away

  After he pulled the needle out, he withdrew. Maybe he’d gotten tired of working on me naked. When he returned, he was wearing a sweater and slacks.

  “I’ll start on your bandages in a couple of minutes,” he said. “Maybe by then you’ll be strong enough to stand.

  “In the meantime, why don’t you tell us what in hell you think you’re doing?”

  Tough ol’ Axbrewder, as hard as plate steel and twice as remorseless. As soon as I heard the question, I started crying again.

  “Brew,” Queenie breathed, “oh, Brew, what’s happened? What’s going on?”

  I would’ve cried a lot harder, but I couldn’t make my stomach muscles cooperate.

  “All right.” Sam studied me without flinching. “Don’t try to talk right now. Take it easy. That’s what you should be doing anyway. You’re safe here. You can rest as long as you want. Believe it or not, even this will pass.” Apparently he knew how much comfort that thought would be. Frowning, he added, “Eventually.”

  No. Positively not. I refused. Despite the fact that I whimpered like a baby, I absolutely declined to lie here and rest while Cat’s murderer wandered around loose. Not when she’d been killed for me.

  “I can’t.”

  “The hell you can’t,” Sam retorted harshly. “I’m your doctor. If I tell you to lie there and rest, by God, you’re going to lie there and rest.”

  “No.” I shook my head, rolled it weakly from side to side. “No.” I needed to articulate one of the first principles of my life, but all I managed was a small sound like a beaten child. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” Queenie put in. “Why not? Talk to us, Brew. Tell us what’s going on.”

  I couldn’t argue with her. I needed help. Without the Draytons, I might not even be able to stand.

  “Ginny and Hardhouse are having an affair.” I went on crying. “I caught them.”

  Sam and Queenie looked at each other. Maybe they were dismayed. Or maybe they just felt sorry for me. Probably everyone here already knew about Ginny and Hardhouse.

  “You can’t do anything about that.” Sam’s roughness had shifted to another pitch. “You’ve spent too much time lying to each other. You can’t undo the past.”

  “You don’t understand.” I had to do better, had to get through to him somehow. “I need her. Simon didn’t shoot Cat. The killer was aiming at me.”

  Queenie pulled a sharp hiss of surprise through her teeth.

  “Oh, shit,” Sam said fervently.

  They both stared at me, frozen with shock.

  “He just tried again,” I said because I had nothing left.

  They believed me. I could see it on their faces. Maybe my damaged condition convinced them.

  “How—?” she began in a small voice. “Why—?”

  “Later.” Sam swallowed hard to make his throat work. “I don’t think Brew has time to explain right now.”

  No question about it, he was good at emergencies. With a shudder, he threw off his shock. Before I could do anything more than nod, he dug back into his bag and came out with another needle and syringe.

  “All right,” he said for the second time. “This will help you manage the pain, and it won’t put you to sleep. Once we get you on your feet, you’ll be able to stay there for a while. That’s as much as I can do.” He swabbed at my arm again. “But you’ll have to pay for it.”

  Before I could ask him what he meant, he stuck the needle in and said, “You can start by taking some advice.”

  I blinked at him. Advice?

  “I’ m not your doctor now,” he continued. “This is too important. I’m your friend. You can believe that. Queenie and I are your friends. Too many people here have something to gain from your weakness. The killer certainly does. Joseph and Lara do. Perhaps even Ginny does. And everyone else has something to lose. So listen to me. Listen.”

  Lara had something to gain? Ginny did?

  I didn’t ask. I listened.

  “You need Ginny. The two of you need to trust each other. Our lives may depend on that. The time has come for you to start telling the truth. I’m sure you think you’re honest. You’re certainly honest about your opinion of yourself. If I put you on the evening news, you would tell the whole country what a shit you are. But that isn’t good enough. You have to tell the truth about what you feel. What you want. Nobody will ever trust you until you trust yourself. And truth is the only trust that counts.

  “Do you hear me?”

  Unlike the first injection, this one got my attention. It hurt with a glow that spread out from my arm into the rest of my body, lighting my sore nerves with warmth, comforting my torn and abused tissues. It resembled the amber peace drunks live for, the state of grace which sometimes comes in the still space between not enough alcohol and too much. There was a difference, however. This glow didn’t protect me. I felt several distinct pains at once, and none of them faded. The shot simply warmed away their ability to paralyze me.

  “I said, do you hear me?”

  Oh, I heard him. I may’ve been damn near crazy, but I knew when I was being cared for. I looked at him straight and took hold of his arm.

  “Help me up.”

  He and Queenie shared a searching glance. Then she braced me on one side, and he supported me on the other, and they eased me to my feet.

  The effort made my head swirl. My guts throbbed in the distance, like drums announcing disaster. When Sam pulled away, I could hardly stand without him. But Queenie kept me upright until he came back with rolls of bandages and more Betadine swabs.

  “This will hurt,” he said calmly, “but you may not notice any difference.”

  Tearing open the swabs, he began to scrub at my belly.

  It hurt, all right. So what? When he strapped me into a new dressing, it put so much pressure on my guts that I had trouble breathing. I didn’t care. He was making it possible for me to do what I had to do.

  After he finished, he studied me for a while—felt my pulse again, stroked the muck sweat off my forehead, peered into my pupils. Then he told Queenie to let go of me.

  She obeyed.

  I stayed on my feet.

  “Good.” He nodded brusquely. “We’ll be here if you need us.”

  “Just a minute,” she said. From a bureau, she produced a bulky sweater, one of his. It was a bit too small, not enough to cause any problems. They helped me get my head and arms into it. She tugged it down over my bandages.

  I had no time to thank them. As soon as she stepped back, I started putting one foot in front of the other toward the door.

  Sam held it open. I went out into the hall.

  Headed for Joseph Hardhouse’s room.

  This time I made no effort to be quiet. Assuming that I could’ve done it, I had no reason to try. For a moment, I held the doorknob as if it were the last support I would ever get. Then I turned it and pushed the door open and lurched into the room.

  They were done, at least for the time being. They sat in bed against the headboard, propped by pillows. Her neck rested on his arm. The tips of his fingers stroked the tip of her breast.

  She went stiff when she saw me, blank and rigid—expressionless with surprise or anger. He jerked his head up, glowered furiously. Neither of them said anything.

  I faced him because I couldn’t bear to see her naked in his embrace. But I spoke to her.

  “Tell him to get out.”

  “It’s my room,” he retorted. After the initial jolt, his glare looked happy, practically victorious. He liked to flaunt his conquests. “You get out.”

  I concentrated on Ginny. “Tell him. I need to talk to you.”

  His laugh sounded like bricks grinding together. But she pushed him away, swung herself out of bed, and began putting her clothes on. Jeans, a cotton chamois shirt. Her eyes never left me. They were gray and hard and blank, unreadable.

  After a moment, Hardhouse shrugged and followed her example.

  When he was dressed, he came over to me.
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  He could’ve knocked me down with one hand. But I had a grip on the .45 in my pocket. If he touched me, I was going to do my damnedest to shoot him before he got away. However, he intended a different kind of violence.

  With a grin that bared his teeth, he nodded toward Ginny and said, “That claw’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Then he left. The door clicked shut behind him.

  Just for a second after he was gone, she gaped at the door as if he’d stunned her. But then she regained her focus. Grimly she strode toward me.

  In her claw, she held her purse by the strap, ready for anything. Her crooked nose had gone white. The lines between her brows seemed deep enough to be part of her skull, and her gray eyes glinted at me. Her face betrayed nothing. Sounding almost neutral, almost willing to forgive me, she said, “This had better be good.”

  You have to tell the truth.

  How? That smoke had nearly killed me. An infection raged in my guts. Lies were my only defense.

  Carefully, so that I wouldn’t make a mistake, I unknotted my fingers from the .45 and took my hand out of my pocket.

  Then, with all the strength I could summon through the fever in my head and the glowing stimulant in my veins, I hit her.

  The blow rocked her back on her heels. Her cheek went pale, then flamed red.

  That was the best I could do.

  So fast that I didn’t see it happen, her .357 came out of her purse. The barrel lined up on my face. She’d shot a man in the face once, after he’d broken her nose. She’d already thumbed back the hammer. Her knuckles were white on the grip.

  “Do that again,” she rasped, a low snarl from the core of her bones. “Do it.”

  Tell the truth.

  I could still feel the impact of hitting her like a tremor in my belly. The muzzle of her gun looked big enough to blast me out of existence. But I was full of hurt and loss and old rage, and we were finished with each other anyway. There was nothing worse that she could do to me.

  I tried to hit her again.

  My second blow was weaker than the first, and she saw it coming from miles away. She slipped it aside by twitching her head. With nightmare slowness, the .357 came back into line.

  But she didn’t shoot me. Instead she used her claw to jab at my stomach.

  Red blossoms of pain burst behind my eyes. Gasping, I crumpled to my knees.

  I couldn’t move or think. Involuntarily I clamped my arms over my belly. They didn’t do me any good. If Sam’s new bandages hadn’t protected me, I would’ve been torn open.

  On the other hand, I didn’t start to cry again. I was spared that indignity. I was too mad for tears.

  Past flowers and explosions, I saw the .357 drop to the rug, saw Ginny fall to her knees. She took hold of my sweater, closed her fingers and her claw in the soft material. “Brew,” she breathed, panting softly, “Brew, what’re you doing? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Telling the truth. “Giving you an excuse to ditch me.” Pain and rage had left me half dead. I had no idea why I could still speak. “I won’t put up with the way you treat me anymore.”

  “Brew.” Red bloomed on her face, in her eyes. “What in hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m your partner.” That was the truth as well. I could say it because I had nothing left to lose. “Your partner. I won’t let you ignore me.

  “Cat was killed by accident. It should’ve been me.”

  I thought she would shout at me, but she didn’t. “What do you mean? Brew, make sense.”

  “I love you. I’ve always gone about it wrong, but I love you.”

  She shook her head. “Not that. What about Cat? Why should it have been you?”

  I didn’t insist. I still needed her for this.

  “He just tried again. In the den. He must’ve been trying to kill me when he shot Cat. He hit her by accident.”

  Her hand and her claw pulled at my sweater. “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Not Simon. He’s locked up.”

  “Why?”

  The truth.

  I said it. “He works for el Señor.”

  “What?” Her demand for understanding was profound and passionate. “What?”

  “Ginny.” I said her name and looked into her eyes to anchor myself against a rising flood of anger. Oh, Ginny, please. “You never found out how we got this job.”

  Abruptly she shut up. Despite the white heat of her attention, she knew that she didn’t need to question me. She knew that I would tell her the whole story.

  “You never asked Rock or even Buffy how we got this job.”

  I remembered a voice. A voice that said, Get out of there. He wants you. You’re a sitting duck.

  “You never asked who had it before. You never asked where Rock heard about us.

  “It wasn’t a coincidence. It didn’t just happen.”

  A voice that sounded muffled and familiar.

  “It was Smithsonian. Lawrence Smithsonian.”

  Ginny opened her mouth, closed it again. Her eyes and her hand and her claw clung to me.

  “He always did security for Murder on Cue. This time he pulled out at the last minute. Some kind of emergency, he said. But he gave Rock your name. He recommended you. And he was the one who called me. In the hospital. Threatening me. I knew the voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. He was giving you a reason to take the job when Rock offered it.

  “He set us up. Someone at this camp works for el Señor. He’s a professional killer.”

  Ginny absorbed what I said as if she took it in through her pores. She didn’t protest against it or argue with it or try to reinterpret it. She simply accepted it.

  She trusted me that much, at least.

  Slowly she said, “We used to think Smithsonian did business with that reptile. Now we know.”

  Then she was ready.

  “What happened in the den? How did he try to kill you?”

  I told her.

  “How did you get out?”

  I told her.

  “Then what did you do?”

  That was hard, but I told her.

  The information should’ve pissed her off, but she didn’t let it deflect her. “Does anybody else know about this?”

  “They should by now. I told Ama to get help.”

  Without warning, she let go of me and surged to her feet. I nearly fell on my face, but she didn’t notice. “We’ll check on Simon,” she announced. “Maybe whoever was on the roof left a trail. This damn snow has to be good for something. Then we’ll get everybody together and warn them.”

  “Tell them”—I couldn’t raise my head to look at her—“it’s because of me. Cat’s dead because of me. They’re all in danger because of me. I brought it with me.”

  That hit a nerve. “God damn it, Brew!” Sometimes she was so strong it astonished me. Fiercely she reached down, grabbed hold of me, heaved me to my feet. As livid as a shout, she snapped, “Did you know that was Smithsonian’s voice when we took this job?”

  I shook my head weakly.

  “Did you put it together when you found out how we got this job?”

  No.

  “How long ago did you recognize his voice?”

  Rage and panic threatened to choke me. “A few minutes.”

  “Then,” she said like the cut of a bucksaw, “stop blaming yourself. I’m sick of it. You aren’t accountable for things you didn’t know. You didn’t kill Cat. And you sure as hell aren’t the reason we’re snowbound. We haven’t got time for one of your culpability jags.”

  “Ginny.” I could swallow my fear. Sam’s injection helped with that, the same way it helped with the pain. But I couldn’t force down my anger. She was right, we didn’t have time, the situation was urgent. Nevertheless I needed an answer. If I had to, I’d hit her until she gave me one. “Why are you fucking Joseph Hardhouse?”

  She may’ve been on the verge of saying, We haven’t got time for that either. But something sto
pped her. Maybe it was the memory of his parting shot—of the surprise she’d felt when he said her claw was sexy. Or maybe it was just the extremity on my face. Maybe she could see that I’d come to the end of myself. Whatever the explanation, she didn’t refuse me.

  “You want to talk about whose fault this is?” The intensity of her outrage made her gulp for air. “Of course you do. You love it. It gives you an excuse to drink. Well, I’m responsible for getting you shot. That bullet in your stomach is my fault.

  “You remember how it happened? You tried to warn me. You tried to tell me the truth. But I couldn’t face it. I didn’t listen. Instead I forced you to walk straight into Estobal’s line of fire.”

  Well, in a manner of speaking. If you just assume that I hadn’t moved my own feet—hadn’t ignored my own judgment in order to do what she told me. But that was bullshit. On some level, I’d known that Estobal might come after us. I’d recognized the danger. I simply hadn’t trusted myself enough to deny her.

  Her anger didn’t let her see the situation in those terms, however. “How do you expect me to feel now?” she went on. Except for the place where I’d hit her, her whole face was white and savage. “Do you think I enjoy seeing you limp around with all that pain on your face? I took this job to try to save your life, but the way you behave, you never let me forget I gave you this problem in the first place. And now you tell me I’ve helped set you up by not paying attention to my job.

  “Christ, Brew, what am I supposed to do for self-respect? How am I supposed to start liking myself again? I’m a cripple. And I don’t mean this.” She jerked her claw past my face. “I’m so twisted inside I can’t even pay attention to my job.

  “I hate that.

  “I need some reason to believe I’m worth having around. All I ever get from you is misery. Joseph is the only man I’ve met who acts like being crippled doesn’t get in the way. He likes me the way I am. He wants me the way I am. Who he is doesn’t even matter. I don’t care if he’s a shit, or cheats on his wife, or buggers his busboys. He makes me think my whole life doesn’t have to be as twisted as my relationship with you.