Dead-Bang (27 page)

He nodded encouragingly. “That them over there on the ground, sir?”

I glanced around. There they were, crumpled near the Cad's right rear tire, where I had flung them when moving with great speed and thinking only of blood leaking out of me. “Yeah,” I said. “Look, officer, I can explain. Believe me, this is the first time I've ever been caught in a ridiculous situation like—”

“First time you've been caught, is it?”

“First time I've been
in
such a—damnit, will you knock off the nice-dummy dialogue? I'm not some kind of nut—”

“Of course not, sir. Now, why don't we get your pants and—”

“Will you shut up a minute?” That didn't set very well with him, but I went on, “I yanked the things off because I was afraid I might be bleeding to death. I got cut and blood was leaking out of me, practically squirting. I must have lost a pint already. Maybe a quart.”

One of his eyebrows lifted. “Not a gallon?”

“I didn't put it in a bottle, dammit. You can check the blood on my pants—and the coat in my car—if you want to. I had to bandage the cut, and in a hurry.” I jabbed a thumb at my thigh. “There wasn't time to fool around.”

He glanced at my Cad again. “Doesn't look like you were in a wreck. This just happen?”

“No, about half an hour ago.”

“You were bleeding to death for half an hour?”

“Well, it was only a little bit of a … look, I got squirted with—” I chopped it. I couldn't stand here for another twenty minutes trying to explain in detail everything that had happened in the last several hours. And now that I'd plugged my holes I was increasingly anxious to check the church in Weilton. Maybe there'd be nothing to check, maybe Festus was in his sanctum and all was right with the world. But I had a very funny feeling. I was uneasy. I had a hunch something horrible might be happening.

So I continued earnestly, “Officer, I have recently discovered I'm a hemophiliac. You know what that is?”

He scraped teeth over his upper lip. “One of those guys that bleed?”

“That's right. Bleed and don't stop bleeding. Once it starts, it just keeps pouring out. That's what I am—a bleeder.”

“Well.…” His expression softened.

He seemed, if not overcome with concern, at least less wary, so, eager to be on my way, I laid it on a bit. “You don't know how rough, officer,” I said soberly. “If this had happened while I was unconsc—asleep, I'd have bled to death. Wouldn't even have known I was dying. Why, if a girl bit me, it could kill me.”

“Girl?”

“Ah … dog, cat, an animal. A mosquito. Anything that bites. Or scratches. The hell—if this condition of mine gets any worse, I could die getting a transfusion. Why, a couple glands rubbing together could spring leaks inside me, and I wouldn't even know I was bleeding to dea—” I stopped, uncomfortably aware that I could be telling him the literal truth.

The officer shook his head. “If that's the straight story, I guess I won't have to hold you. I'll even lead the way to a hospital.” He relaxed a little more. “It jarred me pretty good when I spotted you, though.”

“I can understand that, officer. I'm sure it isn't every day—”

“Figured you must be one of the bunch doing a strip. Or supposed to be. Well, if they were doing it, they must've got it done by now.”

“Strip … bunch? What bunch?”

“Supposed to be some women peeling down to where it's at, in front of a church of all places. I guess some of the congregation showed up and turned blue. I was on my way to check it out—figured it was another crackpot calling in, you know? Women stripping naked at a church?
Had
to be a crackpot. But then I got a load of you, and I started to wonder. Got suspicious right off, could be you were one of those Citizens FOR nuts—”

“My God. You mean they did it? They took their
clothes
off? Really took 'em
off?”

Something changed in the atmosphere, as though the sun had gone beyond a cloud or a total eclipse was beginning. The officer said slowly, “I don't know what they did, if anything. Why are you so interested?”

“Well … I heard about it—the rumor—on television. News broadcast. Crazy. Who'd believe it? But it was very … interesting. And … that's why I'm so interested.”

He nodded a time or two, then said briskly, “All right. If you're really a—what was it? Homopheliac?”

“Not homo, for crying out—
hemo
. Hemophiliac. A bleeder.”

“And if you had to get that bandage on in a hurry, O.K. We won't have to call it indecent exposure. Funny damn coincidence, though. Well, you can be on your way. Just let me see your driver's license, sir—and then get those pants back
on.”

My license? This guy hadn't tagged me by my appearance—maybe the legs threw him off—but I had no doubt he would instantly recognize my name.

“Straight goods, I'm a bleeder, all right,” I said rapidly.

“The license?”

I hesitated. A bit too long, perhaps. The officer's briefly softened expression hardened again, and his hand rested beneath the holster flap, palm on the gun's butt.

“Sure,” I said. “Of course. Coat's in the car.”

I walked around to the Cad's right, reached in with one hand, slowly pulled my coat out and walked back near the patrolman. He'd moved a couple of steps in order to keep an eye on me. I took my wallet from the inside pocket, removed my license, put the wallet back, stalling. Stalling and trying to decide what I'd do if this guy lamped my name and recognized it. Or, rather when.

Because he plucked the driver's license from my fingers, took one glance at it, and said, “Shell Scott? Sonofabitch—how'd I miss the white-haired boy? The busted nose, the beatup look?” And his gun was no longer in the holster. It was in his hand, aimed at my middle.

“Of course I'm Shell Scott,” I said easily. “I never claimed to be anybody else. What in hell's the artillery for? Everything I've told you is true—”

“The gun's because it
is
you, Scott. There's a local out on you, maybe an APB by now. Way I get it, you're wanted for a homicide last night, maybe another attempted homicide, a shoot-out today, flight to avoid prosecution, and probably more—ah, yeah, you maybe kidnapped a girl from the Canterbury Community, too, that right? And now—” he grinned—“
this
.”

I started to argue with him, but he giggled or cackled, oddly. His features twisted. Funny noises came out of his throat. He looked from my license in his hand to the license number of my Cadillac, glared sternly at me. “Illegal plates? So now we got
another
count—”

He couldn't make it. His lips peeled open in a grin and he cackled again. I thought he was unraveling at the mental seams until I heard him croaking, “… bleeder! Him? Hoo-
aah
, wait'll I tell the boys! Shot! Knifed! Stabbed!” He strangled a whoop. “Gun-whipped, sapped, beaten to pulps—and
hoo
-aahh, he's a
bleeder?
Him, Shell Sco—”

That was as far as he got, because though my decision was difficult it was not impossible, and as howling amusement overtook him and shook him and moved the bore of his revolver away from my middle, I hauled off and plugged him solidly on the chin. He sailed away from me, landed on his back, relaxed, and moved no more.

“Look!
Look at
that!”

The first word was loud and shrill, the last sentence equally shrill but diminishing in volume. I snapped my head around. A car had zoomed past and was still moving on down the road, but from its right window stuck a female head and neck, open-mouthed face twisted around and staring back at me.

I swore, trotted to the patrolman, put the revolver back into his holster, and hauled him to a spot well off the road near his motorcycle, then sprinted to my Cad and jammed the key into the ignition.

I was skidding right at the gaudy sign announcing “FESTUS LEMMING—FESTUS LEMMING—FESTUS LEMMING” when I realized I'd left my blood-stained trousers back there. Among other things—including my driver's license.

Well, it didn't matter much now. Add another peccadillo to the growing list: I was racing, well over the speed limit, into Weilton—without a license to drive.

No, it didn't matter much. Because if the patrolman's information was true, and there was even small reason for the large apprehensions that filled me, in a minute or two I would be gazing once again not only upon the Church of the Second Coming where I'd had so much fun last night, but also upon its recently acquired and unusually decorative landscaping. And probably its Pastor, in a frenzy. In which case, I would very likely feel impelled to take some sort of action. What sort, I had not the faintest idea. But whatever it might be, if there really was any action, I'd have bet a hundred dollars I didn't have a license for it, either.

22

I stood at the edge of a clump of eucalyptus trees and looked out and down. Out about two hundred yards and maybe a hundred feet down. At what appeared to be half a thousand pallbearers trying to find the funerals.

They were, as I had feared, a sizable chunk of the congregation of the Church of the Second Coming. The chunk, approximating in appearance and beauty a giant paramecium expiring on land, was between the partly filled parking lot and the church, quivering on the green grass. Behind it in the lot a hundred or more metal globs gleamed in the slanting sunlight. At the rate of two or three a minute, other globs rolled up and around to stop among the rest, and from them little figures scurried directly toward the quivering chunk, as if it were a magnet and they iron filings.

A few yards nearer the church, higher on the grassy rise and facing the chunk, was one little golden filing, alone, waving his arms and mouth. Who? Not a buggy Jonah cast out by a giant paramecium; not quite. This was Festus Lemming, doing his ding-a-ling thing. Partly because of what hit the eye, and partly because of what struck the mind and heart, it was an ominous sight. Which explains why I was among the eucalyptus trees.

Minutes earlier I'd gotten a glimpse of the gathering when I—briefly—considered parking in the lot myself. One glimpse, however, and I was backing down Heavenly Lane and zooming up Filbert Street, away from the scene. From Filbert, a winding two-lane road named Crest Drive led right and up along the top of a hill beyond and well above the church, snaked away from it for a mile or two and then returned to Filbert again. I'd zoomed only a short way up Crest and parked behind the small grove of trees, then trotted to here.

The church's wall was directly ahead of me, perhaps a hundred yards away, its curving roof arching upward from my left to right. Farther right and lower were the Lemmings and their leader. I wondered what Festus was thinking, with his electrifying announcement—the climax of his seven-yearlong campaign—only an hour or two away. Nothing much fun, I imagined.

I wasn't able to hear his harangue, but there was no doubt he was haranguing. His arms went up, out, down, up again. Then I saw his small figure turn, he swept an arm around to point at the church—and at last I heard a sound, not words, just sound, a kind of sigh or moan that came from the crowd.

I wondered.

Since arriving here, and during my brief stab at the parking lot as well, I had not seen hide nor hair of a real girl. One of my chill apprehensions had thus been laid to rest, for I had half-expected to view with dismay the sight of ten naked beauties gamboling on the church green. But if the girls were gone, why were the Lemmings not in the church, not in their house of worship, especially on this night of nights?

Scattered on the grass sloping up toward the church steps were bits of whiteness. Squinting, I was able to see what they were. There were ten of them, ten signs, the placards and posters the girls had been carrying, still affixed to their sticks but discarded. One was only a short distance from the edge of the grass, another a few yards up the green slope. Then half a dozen, scattered about. Finally, one near that bed of flowers I'd seen last night, and one more—the last—on the church steps themselves.

Lemming swung that arm again, turning to point, and again I heard the crowd sound. Not a moan or a sigh this time, a bit sharper and louder, more like a bark with some growl in it. I moved back into the trees, walked left a hundred feet, started down the sloping hillside. With the eucalyptus grove behind me, I bent over and scuttled along with pretty good speed—there was no cover here. Farther down, the side of the hill dipped below the crest of that green mound atop which the church sat, and the mound itself would conceal me from the Lemmings' view. But that concealment was two hundred feet from the trees.

I made it. At least there were no blood-clabbering shouts or hoots or shrieks. When I could no longer see the Lemmings and vice-versa, I straightened up and ran to a door near the left-rear corner of the church, the door through which I had last night escaped. This time instead of opening it to get out I broke it to get in, which ordinarily would have made no sense at all. But I had to break it. The door was locked. So I slammed a foot against the wood near the knob and the lock sprang open, the door flew inward and hit something with a crash.

I heard screams.

Even if the assembled Lemmings had noticed the noise I'd made, which was doubtful, it would hardly have disturbed them sufficiently to set them screaming. So I felt sure I knew who had screamed. And was—or, rather, were—still screaming.

I leaped past the sagging door and ran through the cavernous and shadowy room where I had met Festus Lemming, skirted the up-circling stairway near which we'd stood, pounded ahead to the aisle where I'd gotten stuck so many times last night. I couldn't help thinking my speed had improved greatly since then.

But that was the last thinking backward I did for a while. Because as I flew past those thick curtains hanging behind the elevated pulpit and my feet hit that carpeted aisle, the sight smacking my eyes grabbed even more of my attention than the sound smacking my ears—a result I would have thought totally impossible, considering the sound, had I not been seeing the sight.