Ragged Man (36 page)

He had the killer on the run, but why didn’t the killer blow him away when he drove up the drive, or when he entered the house, or when he stood in the living room and emptied the shotgun into windows and walls? And why challenge him with a dead pigeon when a bullet would have been much more effective?

At first Rick thought the killer was toying with him, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse, but then the truth flashed before him. The killer didn’t have a gun.

All of the murders had been committed with a knife. Maybe the killer had an aversion to guns or maybe he just plain enjoyed using the Bowie knife. In either case, the end result was the same. He was facing a clever killer who had managed to sucker him into firing at air and now his big guns, the riot gun and forty-five were useless.

Staring at Judy’s back door, he was reminded of the kiss and the unanswered questions that it posed. How had she known to run her tongue along his scar and why had she called him Flash? Ann, and only Ann, would have done those things. Ann, and only Ann, he thought.

He needed to see Judy again. He needed to ask her about the kiss. He needed to ask her about Ann. But first he needed to deal with the Ragged Man. And now he had no doubt, the killer was the Ragged Man.

He took the steps from his landing to the ground below, one hand on the rail, the other holding the thirty-eight, but he kept his finger off the trigger. He had been suckered into using up his starting offense and he didn’t plan on throwing away his last quarterback.

On the ground, he made his way to the loft, then he knew what had bothered him earlier. He had become used to the billing and cooing of J.P.’s pigeons. It took him awhile to miss the sound of the birds, but he missed it now.

When he got closer to the cage, he saw why. The bastard had killed them all.

He tightened his hand on the butt of the gun as he passed the cage, making sure he took in the horrible sight. He didn’t want to forget it. When he caught the son-of-a-bitch, he wanted to make him pay. Pay for the birds. Pay for J.P. Pay for Ann. Pay for his friends. He wanted the bastard to pay and pay and pay, and then he wanted him to pay some more.

He went up Judy’s landing, the way he’d gone down his, one hand on the rail the other holding the gun out in front of himself, finger next to the trigger, but not on it. He would be hard to fool this time.

He cautiously peered into the laundry room and recoiled. The washing machine and dryer were covered in blood and feathers. The walls had been smeared in the stuff and the remains of several mangled, headless bird bodies covered the floor.

Clenching his teeth, he waded into the laundry room, avoiding the rent and torn bodies. He moved as quickly as he could, without slipping on the blood-greased tile. In the kitchen, he saw red footprints going into the dining room and he followed, inserting his finger inside the trigger guard. He didn’t want to be fooled again, but he didn’t want to be caught off guard either.

In the dining room, he saw that the carpet had soaked the blood from the Ragged Man’s shoes as it was soaking the blood off his. The footprints vanished by the time he reached the living room. He checked the front door and saw that it was locked with the latch thrown from the inside. The Ragged Man was still in the house.

He checked the downstairs den and the room Judy used as an office. Both empty with no signs of having been disturbed. The man had to be upstairs.

Again he grabbed onto a rail with the gun out in front. He was nervous, tense and excited. Every fiber of his being was awake and taut. He was ready to kill and he was ready to die. Either way, it made no difference.

At the top of the stairs, he checked J.P.’s bedroom, the bathroom, the guest bedroom, and last on his list, Judy’s bedroom. He took in the room as he made his way to the closet. He opened the door and eyed her clothes. This was a woman’s private place, with a woman’s private things, and he had no business spending any time longer than necessary.

He started toward Judy’s private bath, then stopped. An uneasy feeling crept up his spine and niggled at his mind. He hadn’t checked the downstairs bath. He turned and hurried through the bedroom and down the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he knew that the Ragged Man had been hiding in the bathroom, for scrawled in blood on the living room wall were two words:

OUTSIDE MOTHERFUCKER

* * *

Sam Storm looked between the kitchen blinds and couldn’t believe his eyes. Gordon had another gun. Where did the son of a bitch keep getting them? He tried to study the man’s face. He wished he was close enough so that he could see his eyes. He wasn’t sure, but the man didn’t seem afraid.

He watched as Gordon made his way to the loft and inspected the scene inside. It seemed like he spent too much time studying the slaughter and it seemed like it didn’t frighten him as it was designed to. When Gordon turned away from the loft and continued toward the house, Storm saw the determined set of his jaw, and when he closed the distance, he was able to see the cold-green hate radiating from his eyes, and Sam Storm was afraid.

He didn’t mind killing, but he didn’t want to die. Not now, not ever, and he didn’t want Gordon to win this battle. Caution was called for, so when he heard Gordon’s steps on the back landing, he jumped into the half-bath that adjoined the kitchen and hid in the small shower, drawing the curtains.

He hated the fact that he was cowering like a girl, but there was something about Gordon that he hadn’t counted on. A fierce determination. Somehow the man had gotten past the police roadblocks and into town. Somehow he’d managed to acquire an awesome amount of firepower. And somehow he’d had managed to turn Sam Storm’s spine into jelly.

He had become convinced there was nothing left, alive or dead, that could frighten him, and the thought that he was frightened of Gordon threatened to loosen his bowels.

He felt more than heard Gordon enter the house and pass by his hiding place. He shivered, unable to move. He leaned back against the tile wall and wished the man would go away, but he knew he wouldn’t.

After what seemed forever, he heard footsteps overhead and he knew Gordon was upstairs. He left the shower covered in sweat and a foul odor and, not wanting to seem the complete coward, he went to the service porch and wiped his hand in the blood. Then he went to the living room and wrote his message on the wall. A challenge he didn’t intend to keep.

Let Gordon search outside to his heart’s content. He wouldn’t find him, because Sam Storm was going to be long gone.

He hastily left the house out the back way, starting toward the woods, when something caught his eye.

Movement by the loft.

A baby black cat was in the loft, feasting on the carnage. Storm studied the scene and drew comfort from it. For a moment he forgot about Gordon upstairs as he approached the loft to watch. The small animal stopped its gorging as Storm approached and locked its baby black eyes onto Storm, and for a darting instant, they flashed red and Storm knew he wasn’t alone anymore, and he knew he wasn’t going to run away from Rick Gordon.

* * *

Rick looked away from the gruesome message and started toward the kitchen. He took in the new set of footprints and saw where the Ragged Man had smeared his hand in the pigeon blood. Without a thought, he crossed through the bloody mess, this time ignoring it, and stepped out onto the back landing.

This time there was no hesitation on his part and he didn’t grab the rail as he jumped down the steps. He moved in a crouch to the center of the clearing, studying both houses and the loft. Seeing no sign of life, he made his way to the clearing’s edge and started to walk the perimeter, looking for a sign.

He didn’t have to look hard. The Ragged Man had marked the spot with one of the remaining birds. The dead pigeon was laying on the ground with its wings spread and a severed head six inches from the body, acting as a pointer, pointing to the path Judy took every morning to the beach.

Rick noticed that the red-check head didn’t match the blue-bar body and he felt a second’s sorrow for the two dead animals as he passed their remains and stepped onto the path.

He moved quickly down it, figuring that the Ragged Man was making his way to the beach. He felt eyes upon him. He turned, a turn that saved his life. Something slammed into him, knocking him down and sending the gun flying. He felt cold steel slice into his shoulder, where an instant ago his neck had been.

He rolled away from his assailant, tried to get up, but the Ragged Man grabbed him by the foot with his left hand and sliced into his leg with his right. Rick kicked at the hand holding his bleeding leg with his free leg. The Ragged Man jumped back, screaming, and both men scrambled to their feet. Rick darted his eyes around the clearing searching for the gun and found it, but the big man blocked his path. Both men were panting hard and Rick was losing blood.

The Ragged Man lunged for him, swinging the knife. Rick dodged back and, standing on his good leg, kicked the big man in the balls. The Ragged Man grunted, stepping back, temporarily disabled, staggering. Rick was too weak to deliver much force behind the kick.

The man fell, moaning, and Rick started to move in to finish him, but stopped his attack when he saw why the man had gone down. He was feigning injury to distract Rick. He had fallen toward the gun, was reaching for it as Rick turned and left the path, thrashing into the woods seconds before a bullet whizzed over his head.

The man didn’t fire a second time, because in his frenzy to put distance between him and the armed man, Rick had vanished into the thick woods.

“
I’ve got the gun now!” the man boomed into the forest.

Rick didn’t answer.

“
It’s only a matter of time before I get you.”

Rick still didn’t answer.

“
I spent two years in Vietnam tracking VC. You’re no match for me!” the Ragged Man shouted.

Rick took off his shirt and checked his shoulder. He had been lucky, the cut wasn’t deep and the blood was light, not dark. His leg was a different matter. He was pumping too much blood out of the injury for it to be a mere flesh wound. He tore the shirt into two strips and knotted them together. Then he tied it around his leg as tightly as he dared.

With the makeshift tourniquet in place, he started through the woods, not sure of his direction, but hoping he was circling back toward the clearing and away from the Ragged Man. He was going to have to live to fight another day.

“
I see you!”

A bullet slammed into a tree six inches from his head. Rick turned into the woods with renewed energy.

After two minutes of desperate flight with brush and branch whipping against his bare skin, he stopped to listen. The man didn’t appear to be following, and if what the man had said about Vietnam was true, it didn’t make any sense, because he was leaving a trail a blind man could follow.

“
I still see you.”

Rick was moving before the two quick shots were fired. He didn’t know where they landed and he didn’t turn to look. He just moved, tearing through the growth.

Another minute of full-bore flight and he stopped to rest again, grabbing a few deep breaths, then he started breaking trail. The son-of-a-bitch was going to have to be in excellent shape to keep up with him.

And as he ran, he thought, three shots fired, three shots left. Maybe two could play the game. Maybe he could get the man to use all his ammunition. New hope coursed through him as he pushed on through the woods. He was lost, but not down, and not out. He heard a car pass by and he knew the road was up ahead. He continued on, struggling through the pines, until he was on the pavement, about a quarter mile below his house.

Without stopping to rest, he started up the road. In a few minutes he would be home. He could take the Montero and drive to town, where he figured he could buy a shotgun at the sporting goods store and enough shells to finish the job. Three minutes to the car, five minutes to town, five minutes to buy the gun, five minutes back. Eighteen minutes and he would be ready to do battle again.

He was halfway home when he heard the big man’s booming laughter and a bullet slammed into his already sliced shoulder, knocking him down. He rolled and pushed himself up, fighting the pain, and made like a jack rabbit, sprinting toward home.

As he came into the driveway, he heard another shot and a distant part of his mind said, One bullet left, only one bullet left.

He reached the Montero, grabbed onto the door latch, pulled the driver’s door open. He fumbled in his pockets for the keys, found them, bent over the steering wheel, and with a hand steadier than it had a right to be, inserted the key into the ignition, but before he could crank it over a bullet flew through the front passenger’s window, slicing into his right shoulder, lancing along his back to his left, leaving a foot and a half graze along his back before it smashed out the driver’s window and lodge into the front porch.

And a lightning thought flashed through the haze. He had another gun. He reached into the bag Judy had given him and withdrew her thirty-eight. Then he opened the driver’s door and fell like a dead man onto the driveway, clutching the gun to his chest.

He lay, playing possum, for a half-minute that seemed like half a lifetime, before he heard the sound of the Ragged Man’s hard shoes scraping against the pavement. He waited until he felt the big man’s shadow cover his body.