Kill Me Tomorrow (22 page)

What
was
that alarm bell trying to tell me?

First things first. The
very
first thing was that I mustn't move. I didn't
dare
move. Because if Bludgett heard me turn on—or off—the machine again, the way his suspicion was already growing, well, I'd lose him. And right then I began slowly to realize something else of possible importance. Not only didn't I dare move, it was possible I couldn't move. At least not with real speed.

I had been squatting on my haunches for so long—naturally intent on Bludgett's every word—that I now had the feeling, or rather lack of feeling, that circulation in my lower extremities bad been cut off entirely for some time. There was only a kind of faintly tingling numbness in my calves and knees and thighs and even to a large extent my hind end. And that wasn't good; I knew you've got to have circulation in your lower extremities if you hope to use them with real speed. Should, say, an emergency arise. Like …

I had it. The alarm had begun with the thought “lying flat on his side,” because unconsciously I realized Bludgett had not been able to utilize all the power in those massive thighs and calves to thrust his legs
away
from him and
down
, and strain at those bonds around the wooden legs of his chair—not while sitting erect with his feet on the
floor
. But, lying on his side, with nothing beneath his feet but air to hinder the thrust of those Gargantuan limbs, if he decided to make the supreme effort there would be nothing to hold him back.

Yeah. I was in trouble. I was in
real
trouble.

If ever, I thought, I had heard of the horns of such a depressing dilemma. I didn't dare move because that might be enough to launch Bludgett into a state of frenzied activity, which could produce a serious emergency, but I
had
to move so I could get some circulation in my lower extremities, which are so important in emergencies. That numbness was becoming worse, because I was holding very, very still, so I could keep that little metal dummy cramped between my thigh and approximately the lowest edge of my rib cage. And I was trying to think clearly at the same time.

I was confronted by a problem, requiring a decision, but my terribly strained position was not helping my mental processes at all, though of course for a while there I didn't realize that. I merely thought of what
could
happen, feeling trapped, backed up against the wall, no way out, like a captured spy about to be—

Enough. It took an effort of will, but I got a grip on myself. What had I to worry about? Nothing.
I
was in control here, it was merely my mind that was becoming overexercised. I had simply been letting my imagination run away with me, become too vivid, too real, too free. That sometimes happens to me. It's a good thing to have a vivid imagination. It is simply necessary at times to keep a tight rein upon it. Fortunately I know how to do that.

It had only been for a brief moment there, anyway, when thinking of the appalling strength of Bludgett, Bludgett flexing, the elephant straining at the gnat of his bonds, his great mass filling with more and more suspicion, that I had felt a severe unease, a sense almost of imminent doom, what a spy must feel when caught and with his back to the wall and the Mafia firing squad with its heaters leveled and Bludgett about to say
“Fire
!” and—

Cket!

Dammit.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Man, there was all kinds of noise, all of a sudden. Some was near and some was far, but I was still trying to get a tight rein on my imagination and I looked at the wrong noise.

What attracted my attention was a kind of crash and a lot of voices at the front of the room. Half a dozen men were coming inside, and one of them had pushed the door so hard it swung around and banged against the wall. Even as I realized the first conventioneers were arriving a bit early I became aware of a bunch of noise near me. Very near. And horrible noise it was.

It was a cracking and snapping of wood breaking and splintering, a grunting and snarling, a sound savage and awesome and blood-curdling. It was the sound of Bludgett.

By the time I got my head around and was looking at him with something approaching anguish his ankles were no longer bound to a chair but merely attached to splinters of cracked wood. And Bludgett was kicking speedily, reaching with his manacled hands, very close to getting the bonds off his feet. Even as I watched he got them off entirely. He was standing up, looming in the air, looking awful.

Immediately, just as soon as it was an instant too late, I realized the emergency, the serious emergency, had arisen; and now that Bludgett was unbound there was nothing to stop him—except me—and you have no idea with what emotions that filled me.

First thing, I shut off my imagination entirely.

It had already failed me, utterly. So I would use my other weapon: logic. And even elementary dumbness said there was no point in trying to strike this guy down with tremendous blows unless there was
no
other way. Fortunately, logic indicated another way. I had long ago stuck the Colt back into its clamshell holster, and as Bludgett got his legs free enough to move and took a giant step toward me, I slapped my hand to the Colt's butt and started springing to my feet.

In my mind was the knowledge: I am springing to my feet.

But somehow that knowledge was not in my feet. Nor in my calves and knees or even, to a large extent, my hind end. It isn't that I failed to move at all. I moved. I moved very much like that guy I'd seen upon first arriving at Sunrise Villas, the one bowling on the green.

I sort of rose a little bit, and stuck, and got up a little bit more, unfelt muscles turning me involuntarily toward my left, a move which if speeded up a hundred times or so might have been quite graceful. As it was, I probably resembled a man in a strange half-squat slowly peeking around to see if anybody was watching. But not for long.

I had turned a bit left, but I could see the looming bulk of Bludgett on my right, and something swinging, and then a force not of this earth smacked me partly on my right shoulder and partly on my back, and at last I was moving with real speed. Such speed in fact that to this day I cannot recall if my feet touched the floor as I flew off the edge of the stage. The only clear memory is of my head crashing into the front row of seats after my body hit the auditorium floor and skidded for …

Well, I don't know how far I skidded, either.

People were around me. Men were talking.

After a little while I got my head out from under the seats. Then I groped around until I was sitting up. The people looked pretty blurry.

“What the hell was that?” one of them asked me. “We'd just walked in and I noticed something or other on the stage, then this big guy swung both his hands around together and smacked you right across the back. Why, I never saw
anybody
take such a terrible tumble as you did. You just went
sailing
—”

“Will you quit telling me what I already know?” I snarled. “What happened then? Where is he? Uh, let me at him.”

“He ran out of here like a wild moose two, three minutes ago.”

“That long?”

While I struggled to my feet, other men volunteered additional information. It was all a bunch of beans, as far as I was concerned. The vital fact was that Bludgett by now would be long gone. I could probably trace him partway, simply by looking for holes in various walls, like you see in animated cartoons when the villain runs through houses. But—outside the hotel, in the darkness? Hell, he was gone.

I'd learned a number of things, however. One thing I'd learned was that I was damned lucky Bludgett had not got me with all his force, and had hit me across the back and shoulder—lucky even though it would be tough to manage a quick draw immediately. I still couldn't quite get my right hand up any higher than my pants pocket. Probably I wouldn't be able even to work a cricket for a while. Not that I gave a goddamn if I
ever
worked another cricket.

Still, I thought, what if he'd cracked me a good one,
boom
, smack on the kisser? Wow, that would—No, mustn't even think about it. Some things shouldn't be thought about at all. Better I should think of what he'd told me. For while events had been going my way he'd told me quite a lot.

Perhaps two dozen men were in the big room now. I looked at my watch. Seven-forty-five
P
.
M
. Only fifteen minutes until the lectures and demonstrations would start. Lectures and demonstrations … That reminded me.

I had not informed Dr. Fretsindler, who so kindly explained the operation of his immensely valuable, unique, one-of-a-kind YAG laser, that I was going to operate it. The two suitcase-sized segments of the unit fit snugly into a small specially built trailer normally hauled behind Fretsindler's car. I had noticed this when I removed the apparatus from the trailer. And it struck me that it was about time I put it back.

The first guy who'd spoken to me said, “What were you doing up on the stage? You giving one of the lectures?”

“No, I …” My glance fell on the laser. “I just clean up around here.” It hurt a little that he believed me so readily.

But at least nobody interfered while I “cleaned up” by lugging the laser and water-container off stage. Outside, what was probably going to be one of Arizona's thunderingly dramatic storms—which sometimes strike with a fury unexpected of July—seemed to be building from adolescence toward full maturity. It was much colder and a light rain had begun to fall. Thunder rumbled in the air. Lightning flashed not far away. I replaced the good doctor's equipment where it belonged, trotted to the door of my suite, poked my key at the lock.

Inside, the phone was ringing.

I reached it before the ringing stopped—but realized as I picked it up that in my haste I'd left the door standing open behind me. Probably it didn't make any difference, but the sight of a virtual hole in the wall made me uneasy. Especially with one such as Bludgett running around loose—like a wild moose as one chap had expressed it—somewhere out there in the darkness. Another flash of lightning turned everything white for a split second and outside the darkness following it seemed even more intense, more black—until it was ripped suddenly by two nearly simultaneous flashes. The thunder hit almost immediately, not only the speed of its arrival but the almost solid and shocking crack evidence of how close those bolts had been.

“Hello,” a voice in my ear was saying. “Mr. Scott?”

“Yes, who's this?” I noticed the message-light indicator near the phone was glowing.

“It's Elliott, Mr. Scott. Professor Irwin. I called you twenty minutes ago, but—”

It was five past eight. “I was … elsewhere,” I said. “Have you got the information for me?”

“Yes, yes.” He sounded excited. “Three of them match. Beautiful, simply beautiful!” He was excited.

Well, now, so was I. “Which three—wait just a second, Professor.” That open door was bugging me. I walked to the door and shut it, made sure it was locked, then went back and grabbed the phone again.

It was doubtful that anybody would be listening in either on the professor's end of the line or mine, but we'd arranged for him to convey his information to me in simple and clear fashion which nonetheless would be mere gibberish or code to anyone else. I'd given the professor a copy of the transcript on which the speakers had been assigned letters from A to G, and my list of numbered names. In my notebook I had listed Henry Yarrow as No. 1, then all eleven members of the council, not including Tony Brizante, and finally Lieutenant Weeton. So there were seven letters, thirteen numbers. Match a letter with a number and, hey presto, you've got one of the bastards pinned.

“Fire away, Professor. What've you got?”

“Number Two is A, Six is D, and Thirteen is E.”

It started sort of humming in my head, as the significance—the full significance—of what the professor had said began to hit me.

He was going on, saying it was “beautiful,” and he was certain of those three and that they were the
only
three, and after a few seconds I said, “Professor, I'm very much in your debt for this. It's more important than you know, sir. I hate to hang up, but there's a great deal for me to do.”

“We must discuss this another time, then, Mr. Scott.”

“We will, Professor. That's a promise.” I hung up.

Two is A, Six is D, Thirteen is E.

The second man to speak on the tape I'd recorded at Sunrise Villas this morning had been the first man, A, on the tape recorded by Fred Jenkins. Which was to say: Pete Lecci. No great surprise there. Only a little surprise, certainly no shock, that No. 13, Lieutenant Dan Weeton, was the “E” so willing and even anxious to “do the job,” that is the job of killing Shell Scott,
his
way if the Lucky-hits-him-and-gets-hit plan came a cropper. The surprise might have been greater if Bludgett hadn't told me about Weeton's being inside the old King mansion at the time I'd been outside it getting shot at. It seemed apparent that Weeton, and perhaps other “big apples,” had gone there soon after Jenkins' transmitter was spotted.

But the rest of it was enough to keep my brain spinning, almost reeling, as in the space of a few seconds at least half a dozen ideas tried to crowd together in my mind. The first thought beyond the obvious teetered on the edge of my mind, then fell, exploding and spreading, like a small soft bomb. Friday night, last night, when I'd had my pleasant chat with Henry Yarrow, I had not been talking with Henry Yarrow. More accurately, not with “Henry Yarrow.” And like a second bomb gently exploding I realized what Gil Reyes had meant by saying—swearing—to quote Tony Brizante, “Jesus Christ. Mary, Mother of God.” And then, “Stop, stop the car.” I knew I'd made one
hell
of a mistake when listening to the Jenkins tape.