Good Lord, Deliver Us (30 page)

An earlier part of the puzzle was finding
the bodies of the missing men; tonight's piece, the recognition
that it was the maniac who'd been lying in wait for him.

Ruble. The guy Detective
Addison suspected of snuffing the missing vagrants, the loony who'd
been bumming cross country, with access to desperate men because
he
was
one.

Somehow linked to the Smith house -- had
Addison said the mad man was the Smith woman's cousin?? -- it was a
good bet the crazy had been burying his K.C. victims in the
basement of the "ghost house." The mutilations said so. Also that
the Smith and the "ghost" house were roughly in the same
neighborhood.

Exactly
how
these pieces fit, Z
didn't know, only that, with thought, he felt he could nudge them
closer together.

More settled, Z's strength returning, he dug
out his penlight, by its shine, did a little house cleaning; first
putting the burned-out (but still hot) sparkler wires in the
stainless steel sink. You had to watch out for hot sparkler wires;
couldn't just throw them in the yard; not if you were running
around in the dark with bare feet ..........

Z wrenched his mind from the past -- made
himself concentrate on the job at hand: corralling the hot wires
and reassembling the stove.

The kitchen returned to good order, Z
snapped off the little light to save its batteries while he tried,
once more, to get a grip on what had happened here.

First -- Z more and more
certain it
was
Mrs. Smith at the overpass -- it looked like the woman was in
the habit of picking up "Work For Food" labor to tend her garden.
Why a garden at all, was the problem. Was the lady so
poverty-stricken she had to grow her own vegetables to stretch the
family budget?

What about alimony? Child support?

Judging by the lifestyle of her ex, she
wouldn't be receiving much.

What she couldn't be doing was supplementing
her income by acting. Not in an off, off, off-Broadway place like
Kansas City.

But ... gardening!? It was simply impossible
to imagine the less-than-domesticated Smith woman canning peas. (On
the other hand, fewer sayings were as true as, "Desperate people do
desperate things.")

A second point. The woman an admitted liar,
it was easy to believe she'd "stretched the truth" when saying she
didn't know Ruble, the lady not only acquainted with her cousin,
but apparently welcoming him to her home.

It was at that moment, Z standing by the
stove, starting to shake again in the dark, that Z had a horrible
thought!

While it was Mrs. Smith who'd made the
appointment to see Z tonight, it was Ruble who was here as the
"greeter," raising the possibility that the distraught lady was
.......

Dreading what he might find, Z snapped on
his penlight to guide him out of the kitchen and down the hall.

Reaching the closed master bedroom, he
forced himself to lift his hand; to place it on the glass-crystal
handle; to turn the knob.

Slowly, pushing in the creaking door,
reluctantly raising the feeble light ........ he was relieved to
see that the room was empty, the bed made, everything in place.

With renewed hope, Z stepped inside, stooped
to look under the woman's bed.

After that, fearful the family skeleton
would rattle out, Z eased open the closet door ... finding clothing
on hangers, shoes on the floor.

The explosion of Z's long-held breath made
the loudest sound in the silent house since the loony's exit.

One down. .... More to go.

Walking back down the hall past the
bathroom, past the kitchen, Z flashed his small light around the
other bedroom; was thankful to find it had the same, settled
look.

This was the boy's room, a football on the
child's bare desk, also a radio the boy had built from a kit.
Mostly though, Z knew it was the boy's room because of the small
size of the bed and dresser.

Going back down the hall, turning right
through the arch into the living room, Z gave that sanitized space
the same, low-light, once-over.

Chair, divan, end tables, drapes, pictures,
weights. Nothing disturbed.

Nor -- retracing his steps to the hall,
locating the door to the basement -- did horrors await him in the
house's half-cellar, a flash of his light showing him a basement
with a solid cement floor, thank God!

Down, then back up the basement stairs,
backtracking through the kitchen, no terror lurked in the far end
of the utility room.

Discovering the door to the garage on the
other side of the laundry room, Z went through it -- to find no
evidence of what any respectable TV cop would call "foul play."

No car, either, the missing woman off
somewhere.

A disappointment -- though considering the
luck Z had been having lately, a minor one.

In addition to the woman's cultivating tools
along the wall, she'd parked her garden tractor at the back; near
the tractor, its attachments: mower, tiller, utility hauler.

His search over, Z let the penlight's
bouncing ball lead him back to the kitchen, the room of his recent
triumph having, somehow, chosen itself as his base of
operations.

Remembered Ruble's knife,
seeing it on the floor by the sink where Ruble dropped it, Z
squatted for a closer look ... to find nothing special about the
blade ...
if
you
discounted all the people it had slashed.

Deciding to leave the cutlery where it was
in the forlorn hope that usable fingerprints might be found on it,
Z stood; snapped off the penlight.

Funny, about the knife. If Z's picture of
Ruble-the-Vagrant-Killer was accurate, Ruble ought to have had a
small caliber weapon on him, the gun Addison said the sicko used to
shoot the missing men. (If he'd been carrying the gun, he'd have
used it on Z.)

Taken all together, it had been a good
night's work, capped off by Z being wrong about what might have
happened to the Mrs. and her son.

Thank God
all
evil thoughts didn't
materialize!

Hitting a logical dead-end, all Z could do
was back up and start again.

Z was to meet the Smith woman here at
midnight -- midnight (Z consulted his watch) 20 minutes ago.

She and her son were not here, however.

Why?

Adding the lady's disappearing act to the
knowledge that her car had also "fled," meant she'd driven off with
the boy .... taken a powder, scrammed, bugged out, moseyed off.
.... Skipped, skedaddled. (Once Z's fevered brain got to echoing
like that, it was hard to get it stopped.)

Instead of the woman waiting for him, the
wacko had been here, clearly alerted to the prospect of Z's
visit.

Conclusion: the woman had told Ruble Z was
coming ... before deliberately leaving the house herself
.........

Sick as Z was, the truth
forced itself on his misfiring brain! The lovely lady had arranged
for Ruble to murder
Z
, much in the same manner she'd hired Z to kill her
husband.

But ... why? What good
would
Z's
death
do her?

Only one benefit. The
elimination of the man who knew of her plans to dispose of
Mr
. Smith.

Simple.

Nor could there be a doubt that, after Z was
dead, her husband would be next.

Instead of 'kissin'
cousin's, the Rubles were
crazy
cousins, causing Z to wonder if Ruble and Mrs.
Smith were of the same blood, insanity sometimes running in
....

Z had another thought. Was
it possible the woman had planned
both
murders for the same night,
that the psycho had killed Mr. Smith earlier in the
evening?

Or ... might it be the
other way around, the lunatic planning to murder Z first,
then
the
husband?

Didn't it make sense that,
if the husband was not already dead, he was on the
way
to being
dead?

Z had to get out of there!

* * * * *

It had been top speed all the way from the
Smith home in Liberty to Mr. Smith's apartment on Vivion.

Gasping for air as he started to ascend the
last flight of stairs to third, Z was so exhausted he thought about
dropping to all fours to crawl up the last few, carpeted steps.
Would have done it if he hadn't had to use one hand to drag along
his satchel.

Then, too, a nagging pain had begun in his
chest ... none of those things mattering. If Smith was still alive,
the least Z could do was warn him, maybe get him out of there.

Off the top step at last, pausing on the
dimly lighted landing to pant back some strength, Z wondered how he
was going to warn Smith. (Smith could hardly be expected to open
his door to a post-midnight knock.)

No choice. Z would have to break in again, a
relatively easy task since the cracked-varnish door had the same
old lock Z had finessed before.

The plastic card trick working again, Z and
his traveling bag were quickly inside, Z pushing the door shut
behind him.

Waiting for one of his "shivers" to pass, Z
snapped on his penlight; saw that the Murphy bed had been pulled
down at the back of the living room, a sheet covering a body that
sagged down in the bed's center.

Edging around the divan, approaching
hesitantly, Z saw a figure beneath the sheet. Saw it ...
breathe.

Smith.

Sound asleep.

Z's strength somewhat returned, the pain in
his chest easing, Z returned to the door to snap on the predictable
wall switch beside the jamb, the switch lighting the floor lamp to
one side of the shabby sofa.

Smith stirred but didn't wake.

Circling the moldy, brown couch, stopping at
the side of the bed, Z shook the man by the shoulder, gently.

Slowly, Smith opened his eyes; looked as
confused as he was rumpled.

"Shuuuu," Z said, putting his forefinger
before his lips in the time-honored gesture for silence.

"What ...?"

"I've come to warn you."

"Warn me ...?"

Z thought the best wake-up
call might be to tell Smith the building was on fire, the ploy you
were supposed to use when attacked by a mugger. You didn't yell,
"Police!" You yelled, "Fire!" Yell for the police and
public-spirited citizens fled in all directions; yell
fire
, and people came
running, nothing Americans like better than gathering in large
numbers to impede the fire department!

"Remember the Roman
candle?" Z could see that revelation sink in, the man waking up at
last, eyebrows rising, eyes going wide. The fellow didn't like the
look of Z
without
the black hood any better than
with
it. "Your wife sold me a bill
of goods." Even Z's apology didn't seem to help ... much. "She's
trying to kill you."

At last, Z had said something the man could
agree with, Smith nodding soberly.

Smith sat up.

Braced himself with his arms.

"So ...," the Mister started, Z cutting him
off.

"No time."

"What?"

"She's sending somebody."

"To kill me?" Z nodded.
"And I should believe ...
you
?"

The fellow had a point. The last time they'd
met hadn't been a triumph for the spirit of brotherhood, making it
difficult for Z to convince the man that, this time, Z was one of
the good guys.

Ah! Two birds with one .....

Z squatted down to put his case beside the
bed; snapped it open; got out Smith's gun.

Again, Smith's brown eyes dilated in
fear.

"Here," Z said, handing the gun to Smith,
butt first. "Check it."

Clumsily, the small man took the gun, then
fumbled to release the catch that allowed the revolver to "break";
finally managed it; saw that bullets were in the cylinder; then had
to struggle to get the gun clicked back together.

This
man was a hitter? Smith knew less about guns that
Z.

Still, holding his gun ought to make Smith
feel better about Z being in the room. "Get dressed. Maybe it's
tonight."

The man seeming to understand that Z wasn't
the killer, Smith swept his legs out from under the sheet and
slipped out of bed.

The fact that the guy slept in his underwear
would make it easier for him to get dressed in a hurry.

First putting the gun on the end table,
Smith began struggling into the shirt, pants, and shoes he'd laid
out for the morning.

Was moving quickly, at last, but not fast
enough!

For while the man was throwing on his
clothes, Z had gone to the window to edge back the thick curtain.
Seeing what he'd feared most: a big four-door American car pulling
up under a giraffe-like mercury-vapor street lamp, the car stopping
in a bus zone, just back of the fireplug that had reserved a
similar space for Z's Cavalier. If the Smith woman -- stashed
somewhere -- had loaned Ruble her car ...?

Z had to get Smith out. Now!

But by some other means than the front
stairs, if possible. For the odds were, by the time Smith was going
down, the maniac would be climbing up.

Not very hopefully, Z asked, "You got a back
way out?" Turning, Z saw that Smith was ready -- not presentable,
but ready.

"Sure."

"Yeah?" Z was surprised. He hadn't seen a
second door when he'd been here the last time. Today's building
codes said you had to have at least two exits to an apartment, but
this was an old building .....