The Man Who Tried to Get Away

  “Maybe Lara wanted Cat and me dead because we both had sex with her husband.”

  That was it, of course—the only possible connection between Catherine Reverie and Ginny Fistoulari, the only thing they had in common.

  Suddenly everyone in the room stared at Hardhouse.

  He unfolded his arms, shoved his hands deep into his pockets. Apparently making an effort of self-control. His gaze flicked around at us as if we’d all accused him of something and he didn’t know who to defend himself against first.

  “Is that possible, Mr. Hardhouse?” Connie sounded like she’d already made up her mind. “Is your wife that possessive?

  “Why does she kill your lovers instead of you?”

  He opened his mouth, closed it again. His hands started up out of his pockets, then went down again. Whatever he saw when he looked at us steadied him.

  “It’s the damn coke,” he said harshly. “She wasn’t like that when I married her. But the coke changed her. It made her paranoid. After that I couldn’t stand her. Our marriage was effectively over. But she didn’t want a divorce. And I couldn’t divorce her. She owned most of the business—it was her money in the first place. I couldn’t afford to divorce her.”

  Sam followed this with a hollow expression, as if he didn’t understand a word of it.

  “She had the idea,” Hardhouse growled, “that if she got rid of every woman I went to bed with, I’d come back to her. I’d have to. That was her delusion.

  “But she never killed anybody. Not until now.” His voice was a snarl of sincerity or violence. “I would’ve turned her over to the police if she did. But until now she just drove my women away. As soon as I found someone I liked, she made her leave.

  “It’s a tragedy, really. She was a wonderful wife before she started on coke.”

  He watched all of us for our reaction.

  Ginny answered him. She sounded tired to the bone, worn down to her marrow. But she didn’t back away.

  “I don’t think so.”

  He gauged her with his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Your wife had no reason to kill Mac. He was her lover, not yours. And anyway she couldn’t have done it. She was with Brew. Trying to seduce him. Which doesn’t make her sound like a possessive lunatic.”

  “I agree,” Connie put in, as stiff as a teacher’s paddle.

  Buffy continued rocking as if she wanted to achieve escape velocity. Rock had shrunk so far into the corner that he nearly disappeared. Mile and Maryanne held onto each other. Neither of them moved a muscle.

  Ginny shifted her weight in the chair. Her purse lay on the floor beside her, close to her right hand. “On top of that,” she sighed, “you said she didn’t have a knife. But she must’ve had one. How else could she stab me? Either she had it when she was with you. Or else you weren’t together. In either case, you’re lying. You must’ve known what she was doing.”

  Hardhouse’s gaze burned. “You’d better say what you mean.” His hands fisted in his pockets, holding onto his self-control. His voice was as hard as a hammer, but he used it carefully. “I can’t answer you until I know what you’re accusing me of.”

  “I’m accusing you,” Ginny replied with a hint of her old ferocity, “of murdering Mac.”

  Maryanne choked. No one else made a sound.

  “I’m accusing you and Lara of plotting together to murder Mac and Cat and me.” Ginny’s voice held more than just weariness and anger. I heard something else as well—something that sounded like loss. “That’s what you do, both of you. You have affairs with as many different people as you can manage. Then you kill each other’s lovers. That’s what holds your marriage together. That’s how you get your kicks. It isn’t cocaine. It’s blood.”

  You’re going to end up dead.

  Hoping that Hardhouse couldn’t see me, I reached between my legs and closed my hand around the butt of the .45.

  “That’s crazy,” he murmured as if he were honestly astonished. “You think I’m crazy.”

  Ginny didn’t hesitate. She was prepared to pay the price of her mistakes. “I’ve been in bed with you. I know what turns you on. At the time I thought something was strange, but I couldn’t identify it. I didn’t realize what it was until you told Brew my claw was sexy. I know you’re crazy.

  “How long have you been doing this? How many”—she snarled the word—“damaged women have you fucked so Lara could kill them?”

  I like having sex with crippled men.

  “How many of her lovers have you killed?”

  In a sane world, Hardhouse would’ve panicked. He would’ve realized that he was caught, trapped, he would’ve broken. But the world wasn’t sane—or he wasn’t. Instead of panicking, he threw back his head and laughed.

  The sheer unexpectedness of his reaction paralyzed all of us.

  Connie hesitated a fraction of a second too long. His laugh disrupted her concentration. And she asked too much of herself. After scalding Lara she didn’t know how to make herself go farther.

  For that fraction of a second, she faltered. Then she drove her hand under Queenie’s pillow and came out with the .22.

  Too late.

  Maryanne screamed as Hardhouse snatched a gun out of his pocket.

  A flat automatic of some kind, I didn’t have time to recognize it. He aimed it right into Ginny’s face and yelled at Connie, “Drop it!”

  Pandemonium.

  Connie’s desperation to get rid of the .22 before he fired flung it from her. It bounced away across the carpet and skidded against the wall.

  Instinctively she crouched behind the bed.

  At the same time, I hauled up the .45. I’d already started squeezing the trigger.

  Before I could get a bead on Hardhouse, Mile and Maryanne jumped in front of me. He bounded out of his chair, scrambled for escape. Still screaming, she clung to him as if even now she thought he might protect her. They collided and grappled with each other frantically, blocked my shot.

  Simultaneously, Rock burst out of the corner. In a wild rush he grabbed Buffy, heaved her and her rocker to the floor. Then he dove on top of her, covering her body, muffling her wails.

  “You, too, Axbrewder!” Hardhouse roared. “Drop it!”

  Ginny hadn’t moved a muscle. He’d never miss her at that range. No matter what else happened, she’d be shot. And her .357 was in her purse, out of reach.

  Somehow I managed to catch myself before I made a mistake.

  “Don’t shoot!” I shouted back urgently. “I’ll drop it!”

  Trying to be obvious about it, I tossed the .45 away.

  Damn near brained Rock with it, but Hardhouse didn’t seem to notice.

  “All of you, stop!” His aim at Ginny never wavered. I recognized the gun now—a lightweight Star BKM 9mm. Not part of the lodge collection, as far as I knew. Hardhouse must’ve brought it with him. It held nine rounds. He had nine of us to kill. “Hold still!”

  Even Mile and Maryanne froze. Rock held Buffy down. Connie shrank into her crouch behind the bed.

  “Well, well.” Hardhouse breathed heavily, mostly from adrenaline, but he still managed to sound conversational. “It looks like we’ll get away with it after all. Lara always says anticipation is the best part. Knowing what’s about to happen. Personally, I like this part best. Getting away with it.”

  “No, don’t, Joseph,” Maryanne pleaded in a whimper, “don’t kill me, oh, my God, don’t kill me.”

  “Rock,” Buffy panted, a thin whisper, as if he were suffocating her. “Rock, please.”

  I distinctly heard him say, “All right.”

  A heavy shudder ran through him, and he sighed. As if he were surrendering her to be murdered, he rolled off her. Then he came up onto his knees with his back toward Hardhouse.

  In both fists he clutched my .45.

  He probably knew that he didn’t stand a chance in hell of turning fast enough to fire at Hardhouse before Hardhouse shot Ginny. He didn’t try—he was no hunter.
Instead he did what he could to make himself the target.

  Concealing the .45 with his pudgy frame, he jerked one heavy slug into the wall. For the second time in less than two hours, my gun went off like gelignite.

  Hardhouse flinched.

  In that instant, Sam moved. With a shout of recognition, as if he’d finally identified an outlet for his anguish, he hurled himself at Hardhouse.

  I couldn’t see clearly, Mile and Maryanne were in my way. A shot went off as Sam dove into Hardhouse. Ginny recoiled like she’d been hit. Galvanized by panic, I pitched to the side, got my legs under me, came to my feet almost on top of Buffy. Practically in the same movement, I ripped the .45 out of Rock’s fists and fumbled the butt into my palm.

  Sam landed on Hardhouse, fighting like a schoolyard brawl—all fury and fists, no skill. They collapsed to the floor and thrashed from side to side, blundered against the wall. Hardhouse couldn’t force Sam away. But he still had the 9mm.

  He brought it around to shoot Sam.

  In one long hard movement like the punch of a piston, Ginny stood up from her chair, swept forward, and stamped the heel of her boot down on Hardhouse’s wrist.

  I didn’t know whether she broke his wrist or not. I couldn’t hear any bones snap, Maryanne made too much noise. But the 9mm skidded away from his fingers.

  Before he could do anything else, Ginny dropped her other knee into the center of his chest and jabbed her claw at the base of his throat.

  “Stop,” she hissed. “Stop, or I’ll tear out your larynx.”

  He stopped. Gagging slightly, he lay still.

  Sam retreated to his feet, panting hugely. His skin burned with exertion, but his eyes were full of fight instead of ruin. If Hardhouse had so much as twitched, Sam would’ve jumped back into the fray without hesitation.

  Panting like Sam, but for a completely different reason, I stumbled forward. Almost falling, I landed on my knees beside Ginny. Just to be on the safe side, I poked the .45 at Hardhouse’s nose.

  “You all right?” I gasped out. “Did he hit you?”

  She didn’t turn her head or answer. She didn’t need to. I could see a scorch mark spreading from the corner of her mouth in a fan along her cheek. Sam had deflected Hardhouse enough. The shot had only given her a powder burn.

  By some miracle, the slug hadn’t hit anyone at all.

  When Maryanne quit screaming, I heard Connie murmur, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it. I panicked.”

  Ginny ignored her. Also Mile and Maryanne and Buffy and Rock. Leaning over Hardhouse, pushing her claw at the base of his throat, she demanded softly, “Why? What do you get out of it?” She didn’t sound angry. She sounded close to tears. “Why did you make love to me?”

  As far as I could tell, Hardhouse still wasn’t scared. He didn’t look caught or beaten. As much as possible with that dark, aggressive face, he seemed happy, almost beatified, as if he’d finally achieved a climax that released him from himself.

  Swallowing against the pressure, he said, “Because it works.”

  Ginny and I stared at him and waited. She made no effort to wipe the black pain off her cheek.

  “Life is sex. You don’t understand that. You think sex is just fucking. But it’s more than that, much more. It’s passion and dominion and life.” The words came out half choked, but he didn’t ask her to ease back. “When you understand that, nothing ordinary works. Fucking doesn’t work. It isn’t enough. Women are just women. They don’t mean anything. But a woman who needs me—a broken, maimed woman who needs me to make her whole—That’s sex.

  “When I learned that, I started living for the first time. I started looking for damaged women, women with physical and emotional injuries. Because they needed me.

  “But it didn’t help me with Lara. She didn’t need me, not like that. And when you give people what they need, they stop needing you. I wanted more. More. I wanted sex that would make my whole body and mind flame with life.

  “Part of what makes sex so potent is that you can give it or take it away. At first, I thought I wanted women who were going to die anyway. Women in the first stages of some terminal illness. Women who would lose what I gave them. That helped, but it wasn’t enough. It didn’t let me choose. And it still didn’t help me with Lara.

  “But she understood. She understood. She was the one who thought of killing my lovers.”

  Maryanne took one horrified breath. Buffy moaned softly.

  Hardhouse’s grin made him look like a malign saint. “Do you have any idea how sexy it is to know that the woman you’re fucking is about to die? That she’s going to die because you fucked her? That you can make her whole and doom her at the same time? When we started doing that, I had everything I could ever want. Damaged women, emotional and physical cripples—sex with them was vindication. And sex with Lara afterward was absolution.

  “It’s heaven.”

  “For her, the only problem was that we had to be so careful. Getting caught would ruin everything. That’s what kills you. But for me, getting away with it is the crowning touch, the ultimate victory—the best part of being alive. And the more we lived, the more we wanted to live.

  “When we heard about this mystery camp, we decided to risk it. The chance was too good to miss—the chance to do what we wanted in a camp full of ‘detectives’ and get away with it.

  “You think you’re so tough,” he said straight to Ginny, “and you don’t even know how maimed you are. Sex with you was the best I’ve ever had.”

  Her claw began trembling against his throat. Her shoulders shook, taken by sobs. His words hurt her worse than any bullet.

  “You sonofabitch,” she whispered back in the kind of husky voice lovers use. “I trusted you.”

  Nevertheless she fought to keep her grief to herself. Biting down on the unsteadiness of her voice, she asked, “Sam, have you got any tape?”

  Sam’s bag sat on the end table beside Queenie. He went to it promptly and came back with a wide roll of bandage tape. As he handed it to Ginny, he said harshly, “Tape his mouth shut. I don’t want to listen to him anymore.”

  She nodded once, stiffly. That was all the acknowledgment she gave any of us.

  Behind me, Rock and Buffy got to their feet. She looked like she wanted to sob, but that wasn’t what she did. Facing him with tears in her eyes, she murmured, “Thank you.”

  He made a gentle shushing noise as if she’d asked him to comfort her.

  “Is it over?” Maryanne asked like a frightened doll.

  Connie stood up from behind the bed. “Yes,” she answered. “It’s over.”

  “Shee-it,” Mile muttered thinly. “Shee-it.” Then he growled at Maryanne, “Fool woman, you damn near got me killed.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Connie retorted. Apparently, she’d had all she could stand of Houston Mile. “She pulled you out of the line of fire. She saved your life.”

  That may or may not have been true. In either case, it shut Mile up.

  Ginny gave me the roll of tape and took my gun to cover Hardhouse. It wobbled in her grasp, but she didn’t need to worry about missing him. Against her pale skin, the powder burn looked dark and permanent, like a stain on her spirit.

  With more strength than I knew I had, I flopped Hardhouse over onto his face so I wouldn’t have to suffer his belligerent happy smile. Apparently his wrist wasn’t broken after all—he didn’t show any special pain when I strapped his forearms together. Then I did his ankles. I didn’t stop until I’d immobilized him for good.

  Because I agreed with Sam, I put a big strip of tape over Hardhouse’s mouth. Maliciously I hoped that he was one of those people who had trouble breathing through his nose.

  You think you’re so tough, and you don’t even know how maimed you are.

  I like having sex with crippled men.

  As I pried myself upright, I felt more than a bit stained myself.

  As soon as I regained my feet, Ginny handed me the .45. Without a word
to anyone, she left the room.

  I wanted to follow her. In fact, I had to follow her. But when I looked around, I forgot that for a moment. The eight of us who remained were a shambles, no question about it. Too much fear had turned Maryanne’s face raw and homely. Mile resembled a porker on the way to the slaughterhouse. Buffy and Rock lay on the floor again, cradling each other like lost kids.

  As if she weren’t aware of what she did, Connie righted up Buffy’s rocker and sat in it. Her failure with Hardhouse had brought her anger to an end, or degraded it somehow. She didn’t want it anymore. Mumbling to herself like an old woman, she closed her eyes.

  Only Sam looked like he’d come through the experience with his soul intact. He’d saved Ginny and stopped Hardhouse. And struck a blow for his wife.

  I envied him.

  Through everything that had happened, Queenie slept on like the dead. If I hadn’t seen the blanket move over her chest, I wouldn’t have known that she was still alive.

  I went to her side. I didn’t ask Sam’s permission. I didn’t think I needed it. As if I were alone with her, I spent a moment studying her sweet unseeing face, waiting for her smile even though I knew that I might never see it again. Then I bent over her and kissed her on the mouth.

  She’d told me once I owed her the story of my life. This was as close as I could get.

  After that I went to find Ginny.

  25

  During the night Queenie regained consciousness.

  Sam couldn’t assess how badly she’d been damaged, of course. Only time would reveal how much of her brain still worked right. When she woke up, however, she smiled at him—just a ghost of her former vitality, but a smile anyway, a recognition. And like a good girl she drank the glass of water he put to her lips. Those were encouraging signs.

  At about the same time, Truchi returned with a handful of distributor rotors. He’d found them in a chest in Reeson’s attic, along with the missing guns and enough other munitions to equip a platoon.

  Shortly after sunrise he left Deerskin Lodge on the snowmobile—and came back a couple of hours later with a heavy diesel plow chugging along behind him. He wasn’t exactly elaborate in his explanation, but he let us know that he’d met the county road crew on its regular run up the mountain. The run hadn’t been made sooner because this road wasn’t used enough to be a high priority.