The Long Wait (22 page)

Things weren't all white this time. There was a funny smell in the air, but it wasn't antiseptic. No mummy, either. Everything was painted an ugly efficient green and the light that streaked in the windows seemed to be slatted. After five minutes of looking at it I realized why. There were horizontal steel bars built right into the frames.

The cop said, “Awake, eh?”

I grunted and touched my head. It would have been better if I hadn't. The top of my skull was soft and squashy, held together by strips of tape that went down to my ears. My body seemed to throb all over, trying to explode.

“Want something to eat?”

My stomach started to heave at the word. I said no, but he brought in a tray anyhow so I managed to get some of the coffee down. It helped things enough so I could swallow some limp toast.

Then a doctor came in and probed around, checking what he found against a pair of X-ray pictures. I said, “Look good?”

“Looks lucky.”

“That's what the last doctor said.”

“If either one of those blows had landed a half-inch on either side you'd be dead.”

“That's nice. I saw brass buttons behind the gun that nailed me.”

The cop in the corner lowered his paper. “You was disturbing the peace. You committed assault with intent to kill.”

“You should live to be a hundred, but right away,” I said. “I want a lawyer.”

“The court'll assign one.”

“The hell it will. I'll pick my own. Who's in charge of this rattrap?”

The doctor shook out some pills on the table-top beside the bed. “I don't think you're in condition to be excited at this moment. You're going to have to stay quiet a few days.”

“Nuts. I'll pick my own doctor too if I want to and you know damn well I can. I want out of this trap.”

I saw the doctor look at the cop and shrug. “It's up to him,” he said. The cop put down the paper and walked to the door. Five minutes later he came back and he wasn't alone. Lindsey was with him. The guy looked happy again. Real happy. I called him a son of a bitch and tried to kick him in the stomach. He leered at me and stayed out of range. All I did was make my head hurt worse.

“You know why you're here, don't you?” Lindsey grinned.

The cop muttered. “He knows. I told him. He thinks he's pretty wise.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lindsey agreed. He pulled a pad out of his pocket, leaned back against a chair and waited for me to say something.

He'd still be waiting if the press didn't walk in as nice as you please. The cop at the door looked at Lindsey kind of puzzled-like waiting to see if Logan would get tossed out or not.

My boy handed an envelope to Lindsey and said tonelessly, “It's a writ. Very legal and all that. McBride's free on bail so you can put your pad away, copper.”

Remember how I told you Lindsey looked the first day I saw him at the hotel desk? How his eyes went all the way up and the red came into his face? He looked like that again. Maybe a little worse.

But you'd never know how mad he was by the way he spoke. His voice was calm as still-frozen water and just as cold. He said, “I heard you were mixed up with him, Logan. I didn't want to think so because you used to be a nice guy.”

“So did you, Lindsey.” Logan had ice of his own.

The chief's head made a slow turn until his face was pointed at me. “Now you got friends, Johnny. Now you got friends who can pull writs out of a hat early in the morning because a judge is afraid of getting in wrong with the press. Somebody even went to the trouble of putting up ten-grand bail, so you have some very powerful friends all of a sudden.” His eyes shifted to Logan a moment before coming back to me. “You're going to need them, feller, but they'll never be able to help you enough.”

The doctor and the other cop edged out the room and closed the door. I went to sit up, managed it after the second try and perched on the edge of the bed. Lindsey took a step closer to Logan, the hate oozing out of every pore. “Don't ever come near me, Logan. Never again, understand?” Then he swung on his heel and reached for the doorknob.

Logan said, “Lindsey ...”

The cop barely looked back.

“We used to be friends,” Logan said.

“No more.”

“You used to be a good cop, too.”

“No more,” I put in, and Lindsey looked all the way back, his hand still on the door.

“When you finally realize that it's possible for even a brain like you to be wrong, maybe we can be friends again. You're not much smarter than me in police business and I say McBride never killed Minnow. Think about it sometime.”

He thought about it. For at least three seconds. Then he opened the door and slammed it behind him so hard it almost came off the hinges.

Logan shrugged sadly and turned back to my remains. “Feeling well enough to clear this place?”

“I certainly don't feel bad enough to stay. Give me a lift, will you?”

He came over and hooked his hand under my arm, half dragging me upright. When he was sure I wasn't going to topple over he got my clothes out of the closet and helped me into them. The whole operation took awhile, but I was fairly presentable except for the patch over my skull. The boys at the desk downstairs handed me a Manila envelope with my personal effects and that was the end of that. Logan had his Chevvy outside and got me into the seat next to him, then lit up a brace of smokes and handed me one.

He had to say it sometime. I was waiting for it and he said it. “Of all the lame-brain stupes you take the cake. How much trouble can a guy get into anyway?”

“A lot more than this.”

“Feel like talking?”

“Not especially, but if you're curious, what would you like to know?”

“A few things the cops don't seem to know. First about a dead man outside of town. He was a very special kind of dead man. He and two friends were part of an out-of-town team who specialize in rough stuff. The other two were found very nicely killed.”

“So?”

“He made the third. It might have been accidental but the chances are it wasn't.”

“It was. At least he wasn't murdered. I was chasing him and he ran off the road. He died without talking. Next question.”

Logan took another drag on the butt and nodded. “Same guy was seen in Eddie Packman's place only a short time before. Then you beat up on Packman while the cops are looking and get tossed in the can. Why?”

“Because said dead man had a grand in new bills on him, that's why. Eddie paid him off for the job he didn't do. There must have been trouble about it because the guy came away mad.”

“So that's why you went after Packman this morning.” He made a nice neat statement out of it.

I shook my head carefully. “That was only half why, friend. About a half hour before that somebody fired a hatful of bullets at me and they weren't kidding. Whoever it was waited for me to come out of the Ship'n Shore, barreled up and let loose. Nobody got hurt, but I got pretty mad. I checked Eddie's car and that could've been the one.”

“It wasn't,” Logan said.

“What?”

“Eddie had been at the road stand for a good two hours before you came along. I checked.”

I remembered every curse word I had ever learned and strung them out in a row. When they were out of my system I dragged the butt down to my fingers and tossed it out to the sidewalk. “Logan,” I said, “this whole thing is a screwed-up mess if ever I saw one. Everybody wants me dead but the wrong people. A killer wants me dead. The cops want me dead. Not Servo or Packman, pal. Servo was behind me in the joint when I left and Packman was in the other place. Whoever shot at me this time was the same one who tried it from the roof top the last time, and if it wasn't Servo or Packman this time it wasn't Servo or Packman then. No, they don't want me dead.”

Logan's face tightened up until it was white. “Who says they don't?” He kept staring out the windshield.

“Finish it.”

“Packman's threatening to kill you on sight and Servo's going to be in a blue funk when he finds out you aren't where you can be gotten to easily.”

“Like in the clink?”

“Exactly.”

“Where he has men on his pay roll?”

“You got better eyes than I thought you had.”

“Then to whom do I owe the debt of putting up ten grand for my bail?”

Logan dropped his butt on the floor and stepped on it. “This'll kill you. Your old boss put it up. Havis Gardiner.”

“Fine, but I don't get it.”

“You will. Your direct-approach system seems to have had its effect. The guy thinks you're innocent. Or at least your buddy was. His insurance investigators have uncovered a lead on Vera West.”

“Fine,” I said again. This time my voice shook.

“Not fine, kid. They think she's dead.”

“Oh, hell, when's it going to end!”

He turned around and glanced at me absently. “When somebody finds out why Robert Minnow died, that's when.” His foot went down on the starter and churned the engine into life.

“I've been looking into that angle. I saw his wife.”

“Yeah?”

“It was a pretty good story.”

“Tell me about it.”

I told him. I gave it to him in detail right down to the last minute Robert Minnow had spent on this earth and all the while I was talking his face kept getting tighter and tighter. His eyes seemed to sink deeper into his head and he didn't ask any questions. When I finished I let him mull over it for a while, hoping he'd make a break but nothing happened. After he thought about it ten minutes the scowl turned into a puzzled frown and stayed there. Hell, if that's the way he wanted it, good enough. I wasn't going to pump it out of him.

I said, “Where to?”

“You're going to stay with me until I deliver you to Gardiner.”

“Okay, pal, whatever you say. But how about letting me get my car back. I wouldn't want the friend it belongs to worried about it.”

It didn't take more than an hour to collect the Ford and park it at a garage where they promised to have it ready before noon. All the slugs had gone through the glass and since I had knocked out what was left of it nobody could tell what happened. Logan let me get finished then hauled us back to the new office where he went in to see about some business.

When he came back I asked “Where to?”

“No place special for a while. I'm still on that murder case.”

“The dame?”

“Yeah. The cops are up a tree too. They're trying to run down the truckers she was friendly with.”

“What about her roommate?”

“She took a powder when she heard about it. Got skunky drunk right after she identified the body and was last seen climbing into a truck for a necking party outside a joint on the highway.”

“Didn't show up yet?”

“Naw, probably still on a binge. She's just the type, according to those who knew her. Right now she's probably sleeping if off if she isn't already back at work. I'm going down there now and see what the score is. Look, if you don't feel like running around I'll drop you off at my place.”

“Hell, I'm okay.”

So at nine-thirty we pulled into the ABC Diner and I waited in the car while Logan went inside to ask his questions. He didn't take long. Five minutes later he was back shaking his head. He got back in the car and started to pull out just as a prowl car drove up. Logan grimaced at the driver through the windshield. “You won't get anyplace either, copper.”

“No soap?” I asked.

“Hell, she's still missing. At least it isn't anything new. Her boss said she took off like that a couple times before. Didn't show for a week.” He reached in his pocket and flipped a snapshot out at me. “There's what she looks like.”

I said, “Umm,” because she wasn't bad at all. It was taken at a beach and she was oozing out of a Bikini suit like toothpaste out of a tube. She was some hunk of stuff if you didn't mind a face that was too much lipstick, too arched eyebrows, too wide eyes and too little sense than to try to wear an up-sweep in a stiff wind. I gave him back the snap and settled down against the cushions. It was his working day, not mine. My head was putting up an argument against staying awake and I didn't have anything to say about it. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

I kept dreaming about a blonde, a real honey blonde with a soft curving body and a beautiful face that had a wonderful radiance about it. She came close to me, smiling, her eyes telling me she loved me, then when she was only an arm's length away the hands that had been reaching for my face grew sharp, curved talons and she raked at my eyes viciously. I batted them away and tried to grab her, but she stayed out of reach and laughed at me. I said, “Vera, I'll kill you when I get you, so help me!”