The Devil's Only Friend (28 page)

But Lloyd wouldn't know anything about it. He'd have to expect that the cops were now looking for him. Wouldn't he? And he had chosen to run.

“We'd better see if we can get to Old Man Lloyd,” I said. “We're not but two miles from the plant here.”

Walker said, “Can we believe he was telling us the truth about where Mr. Lloyd is?”

Federle looked sick, like he had just been slammed by influenza.

“He could run to the plant from here,” said Walker, “or take the streetcar. But I don't see how he could mingle in without somebody knowing him.”

“Brother, they got the army guarding that place,” Federle muttered. “It ain't the marines, but—”

“He'll find a way in,” I said. “Sure he will.”

“So you think he'll head for the plant,” said Walker.

“He'll have to,” I said. “Where else could he go?”

“He could go anywhere,” Federle said bitterly. “If you got the dough, you can go anywhere.”

“I'm wondering if Johnson will even call this in,” said Walker. “We never spoke to him about my sister or any of the other things. If he's been on the motorcycle all day, it may be that he's ignorant of the trouble.”

“There needs to be ten of us, Pete,” said Federle. “We can't cover any ground with just the three.”

There was a swelling mess of traffic and men coming off the streetcars on the Lloyd spur because change of shift was coming. If Whit Lloyd was going anywhere, he'd skirt the mess.

Gathering up all around was a storm of shit. What if I had been wrong about Whit Lloyd? If it was a frame-up, and a good one, maybe he had only cracked up because of it. Maybe he had realized that someone was using the truck; maybe it was a part of the whole scheme, and he was trying in desperation to ditch it somewhere.

Whitcomb Lloyd had no one to trust. Money had deranged him. Though I never had real money, I could feel what he was feeling. I had a father who had been a good man, done some good things. I knew the shame that came from failing to meet the measure. For Whitcomb Lloyd, everything had been magnified ten thousand times. Jasper Lloyd had built himself an empire in his own lifetime. As we came around to the churning plant, I could see how far beyond me it was. This was the throbbing, smoking heart of it. Because of his father's fondness, because he could not possibly rise to the task of managing all of it, there was now the possibility that Whitcomb Lloyd might piss away everything his father had made.

“I know where he'll go,” I said. “He'll kill the Old Man, if he hasn't already.”

*   *   *

I pulled the Chrysler to the drive that led to the security building. Two Willys trucks were parked like a funnel at the end of the drive, and three men in dull green fidgeted nearby. They carried rifles slung over their shoulders—with some discomfort, if I could judge by the way they all messed with the straps.

“National Guard,” said Federle. “Not even regular army.”

One of the guards put up a hand to stop us. I put the car in first gear when I stopped and opened the window only a crack.

“What gives?” I said.

“You have some identification?”

I pressed the badge against the glass, and he peered at it intently for a moment, pursing his lips over his buckteeth.

“What's wrong with him?” he said, jerking a thumb toward Federle.

“He was up all night hugging the toilet,” I said.

The guardsman looked Walker over, too, but could not in his feeble imagination rake up anything more to say. He took a step back from the car and motioned us with two fingers to pass. The other pair of sad sacks moved to the side, and I drove on along the curving drive. As the whole space was open except for a few polite trees, I could see that the other end of the drive was entirely unguarded. It was only custom that would lead anyone to choose one end of the drive over the other.

“If those ducks would let
us
through, who would they stop?” Federle said. “Himmler? I'm glad they're over here and not over there.”

“We'll try to keep a lid on all the ruckus. These security guys won't be hot to give us a leg up.” I was not worried about Walker, but Federle was fairly writhing in the backseat. “You put that gun up, didn't you?”

“Sure,” he said.

“We'll try to keep together, Walker,” I said. “If the Old Man is close by, that's where we want to be.”

The old-time security man—Pickett was his name—waddled around the corner of the building and came near the car.

“Fellas, you come at a bad time,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Think they'd tell me? These days I'm only parking cars.”

“We need to see the Old Man, if he's holed up in there somewhere. We heard there's a place by the river.”

Pickett's face went stiff, his eyes narrowed, and the corners of his mouth pressed down. He leaned on down to talk low to me. “You can't drive in there,” he said.

“We can't,” I said, “but I'll bet you can.”

“What gives?”

“You haven't seen Whit Lloyd come through here, have you?”

“He don't ever come through here,” Pickett said. “Not as I've ever seen.”

“We'd like to see that he doesn't get to see the Old Man.”

He stood up as straight as he could and worked his gnarled hands over his lower back. With his eyes in deep shadow under his rampant eyebrows, he scanned something far in the distance.

“All right,” he said. “I'll take you.”

Walker got in back with Federle, and I moved over so the security man could drive. He took us away from the big plant, and then drove north for the better part of a mile so he could come back at the river from another angle. It was a kind of service road, and though the pines and cottonwoods were close alongside, you could catch glimpses of the stacks and the broad buildings not far off. You could feel the heft of the plant.

I expected that there would be a couple of Jeeps and guards to stop us, but there was nothing. As the road curved southward toward the plant, Pickett stopped the car and unhooked a ring of keys from his belt.

“Hop out and get that chain,” he told me. “And hook it back up after I pass through.”

The lock was new, though the little branch road didn't look much used. All the way down to the big river, spring-grown branches clicked and brushed on the windows and panels of the Chrysler. Before too long the brush opened up, and we saw the stone castle Lloyd had put up for himself.

It wasn't a quarter the size of Whit Lloyd's place, and it was only the one structure—but still it was clear that money could cut a hole in things. The house looked like a miniature stone castle that had been plucked from the English countryside. Pickett pulled right up to the steps and killed the motor. He grunted and huffed, struggling to goad his bulk off the seat and out the door. I came out, and Walker followed.

As far as I could see from the outside, the place was cold and dead. There were no other autos, nothing stirring.

I was going to walk right in. The handle was locked though, and I had to rap with some pepper to get any sound out of the massive carved doors. I had a surge of anger, thinking that Whit Lloyd had already blown through the place.

We'll be walking into something nasty,
I thought, and I turned to retrieve the pistol from the car.

The bolt clicked behind me, and the door opened inward. It was so big that I could feel the fresh air sucking past me.

I wheeled around to see an ox of a man filling the entry.

“Yah?” he said.

Walker by this time was close to me. The big man let go of the door and stood looking at me quizzically. His hands were as wide as they were long.

I was certain I had never seen the big man's face, and nothing in the way he held himself put me off. But I leapt onto him. I got my bad hand onto his neck, and I drove the heel of my other palm into his face.

We went into the house. The big man stumbled back over the edge of a rug and put out his hands as he fell. His heavy forearm brought down the antique table next to the door and the hammered copper tray that had been resting on it. I heard Walker growling or groaning behind me and Pickett cursing.

To no effect I did manage to bring down an elbow or two and a few good shots to the big man's jaw. I was on top of him, and it was easy for a time. But he had already begun to close himself off with his forearms, and he would have come up soon to tear me to pieces—if half a dozen strong hands hadn't pulled me away.

As I spun, I saw Walker with his hands raised and the old security man with his arms and legs spread like he was caught dead to rights.

I came down facing up—and before I could blink there was a gun to my temple and one to my throat. The big man scrambled like a beetle to get over, and I heard the seams of his suit rip as his tree-trunk legs flexed. A fourth man stood back with a silver pistol at his side.

“Gee-O, Caudill,” he said. “You're not right in the head.”

CHAPTER 27

My only worry, despite the bore of one gun at my temple and another pressed to my neck, was that Federle would burst in, shooting. He had been a raider with the marines, and it wasn't any trifle.

“Bugger me,” said the big man, standing now clear of the rest, and drawing out his own weapon. “That's the last time you get to pull any of that.”

The man with the gun at my temple peeled my fingers from his forearm and stood up, keeping his aim on me. He stepped over to be close to the other standing man, and I had a good picture: all four of the thugs were there, the two big men and the two smaller men—though the smaller ones were no slighter than me. Sure, it had been a dream in the first place, only a bad turn, but I was trembling. It was raw fear and panic, now turning back to rage. I'd risk a bullet—take the bullet, just so I didn't go to my end lying on my back. How quick was I? Could I take the gun at least from the fat one who now pressed his open palm on my chest?

“We're unarmed,” said Walker.

“That's good for you,” said the first small man.

“Not great, but good,” the other said.

“It's better than being dead, anyway,” said the first.

“We have another fellow out the door,” Walker said. “He might be armed.”

“That Federle's a raw one,” the first man said.

The man I had grappled with sidled over and pushed the door closed with his foot. There was a narrow panel of stained glass to either side of the doors, too small for even slim Federle to squeeze through. The doors, I knew, were too thick and hard for the pistol to penetrate.

“Jesus Christ,” said Pickett. “What's the beef? Who are you guys?”

“We're nobody,” the second man said. “Strangers.”

“Who did you want us to be?” asked the first.

“Well—” Pickett blinked and worked it over for himself. “What have you done with Old Man Lloyd?”

“That's a little familiar, wouldn't you say?”

“He's sleeping, as far as we know.”

“Don't worry! It's not that kind of sleep. Not the bad kind.”

“Not yet, anyway.”

“You fuck,” I said. “Get your mitt off me.”

“No,” said the second big man. “I like you better laying down.”

“I think your friend ran off.” The first big man had stooped to peer out the spy hole in the door. He pressed his fingers to his lips to assess the damage I had done, and then grabbed his nose to see if the cartilage would wiggle.

“Where would he be off to?” asked the first small man.

“Your pal Federle's been scrounging around the plant every night.”

“A regular Sherlock Holmes.”

“He's found something, maybe.”

“What brings you here, Caudill? Why would you still keep poking into things after what you've been through?”

“Don't you think we can handle things?”

“You're in no condition.”

“Why don't you sit down, Walker? You, too, old-timer.” The second man waved toward the dressing bench along the wall.

“You got the drop on us,” Pickett said.

“Don't be too hard on yourself.”

It would make a terrific mess to kill us just then. We all had plenty of blood in us. The four of them were implacable, and seemed to act with no second thought, even without first thought. But by this time I was certain that the four of them wouldn't be likely to travel about the country chopping up women, whatever the reason.

I said, “We figure Whit Lloyd for all of this.”

“That's pretty strong language, Caudill.”

“But don't you work for Whit Lloyd, friend? Isn't he throwing some money your way?”

“To save your own hide, you'll turn on the hand that feeds you?”

“I don't work for him.”

“Well, who do you work for?”

“They all work for me.” Jasper Lloyd's warbling voice sounded from the edge of the room. “Can you men produce a court order that would excuse such a trespass in my home?”

The humor drained from the first man. “If we felt we needed a court order, we'd have one. You'd be better off to stay abed. You'll catch your death.”

The weight of the big man's paw eased from my chest, and I sat upright. The ghastly figure of Lloyd stood unsteadily at the edge of a corridor that loomed like an open mouth behind him. His white fingers were like tendrils bracing him against the ornate corner post.

“Your boy's been up to no good, Mr. Lloyd,” the first man said.

“I don't believe you,” Lloyd said. “I don't have to believe any of it.”

“You must have known all along,” said the second man. “A father knows those things.”

The beefy man who had been pressing me down put away his gun and lumbered over to help Lloyd. He picked up the old man gently like you'd pick up a sleeping toddler.