SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set (27 page)

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Moments later Nick bent over the water fountain downing two Librium capsules. As he drove through the Houston noon traffic toward home, he felt the relief flood through him. He cursed himself for not taking Stevie Hagstrom up on his offer of a little dope. If he had, he would not be reduced to crawling back to a two-bit shrink at the V.A. hospital. But God, he hated that little twerp, Stevie. What kind of name was that for a grown man-- Stevie? He could at least call himself Steve, the little asshole.

Nick thought about Daley’s name and laughed aloud. So maybe he was wrong. Daley sure did not look like a Dale. Then people might have called him "Chip" and they would be tagged like a couple of beavers from comic books.

Nick tried to think, but found his mind totally out of control. He could not remember if Chip and Dale were beavers or chipmunks. God bless the comics. He and his brother’s only entertainment all through childhood. That and TV. And the secret things they did on Ma’s ten acres. But not to think of that, not today, not now when he was on the way to face more of Daley’s music. Christ, but he was crazy since that old cop and his buddy showed up at the house!

Thinking I fucked up because I told ’em to get lost. Thinking I’m up to something all the time, following me around
…

Nick quickly looked in the rear view mirror to check the cars behind him.

Following me around to see what I'm doing, giving me hell because I didn’t go to work this week.

Nick saw a black car go into a slow-motion skid in front of him and pulled into the right lane to avoid crashing into the rear-end.

How can I go into work anymore? That’s what I fucking want to know. I’m too tired to work, always too tired, and I don’t care, can’t he see that? What am I gonna be, district manager or what? Fuck no. I’ll never be anybody, but a gofer. And where’s he have room to talk? Missing exams, skipping classes, hanging round the house grieving over Madra moving out and how the cops think maybe he’s not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but...

The streetlight changed to yellow and was red before Nick sped through it, narrowly missing a collision with a truck turning left.

"Asshole," he shouted, looking in the rearview mirror for a patrol car.

And the cops coming to the house, damn. What were they up to anyway? What fucking trap were they trying to set? It was all a trick, asking about Monday, March the first. They wanted to pin something on me, always me, it never matters what happens, Ma and Daley and the V.A. and the cops--everyone’s always convinced it’s me!

He pulled the car to the curb and parked. He could feel the drugs taking effect, but his anxiety was not lessening. Unlocking the front door, he yelled, "Daley, you home?"

"In here," came a muted reply.

Nick closed the door and stumbled on the hall rug as he went toward the darkened living room. "Shit!"

"More pills?" Daley asked sarcastically from the gloom. He looked like a lumpish old man with rounded shoulders hiding in the shadows.

"Fucking A." Nick plopped into a chair across from Daley and with one hand rolled the vial of pills in his coat pocket.

"You make me sick," Daley said.

"Go fuck yourself."

"You’re a goddamned junkie."

"And you’re Mama’s little bright boy and never do anything wrong," Spittle came from Nick’s lips, he was so vehement.

"They’re going to come back," Daley said solemnly. "And you’re not going to be ready for it."

"But you’ll be ready, won’t you, Daley? You’ve got it all worked out, right?"

"You don’t know what’s happening...” Daley began to plead.

Nick stood up unsteadily. "Why do you have the damn shades pulled down in here? It’s too dark."

"It’s going to stay dark."

Nick turned before he reached the window. "Where’s the garrote, Daley, will you tell me that?"

Daley smiled without humor.

"Wipe that fucking smile off your face and answer me."

“You know where it is, Nick. You’ve been using it," Daley said softly.

"Me! Me! You want me to believe that, don’t you?" Nick’s face turned red.

"It’s impossible to save you anymore, Nick.”

Nick’s complexion suddenly paled, and his jaw tightened. He crossed the room, and stared Daley in the face. "You never fucking saved me." Nick was so intense there seemed to be a vibration thrumming through the room. "In Nam I saved
you
. I
saved
you."

Time stood still in the silent darkened room. Suddenly the antique clock on the wall struck the noon hour and both men flinched, but their eyes never flickered from one another’s faces.

"I have always been the one who saved you," Daley said, his hand moving to his brother’s shoulder.

Nick jerked away and the scream that came from his throat was one of agony and betrayal. He kicked the coffee table across the floor into the brick fireplace, its glass top shattering.

"I want the garrote," Nick screamed, tearing around the room, upsetting lamps, knocking ashtrays and books and dirty glasses to the floor.

“Stop it, Nick!" Daley commanded sternly.

Nick climbed the stairs, banging the wall with his fist in outrage.

"I’m going to find it!" he howled.

"Nick..."

In Daley’s bedroom Nick tore the covers and sheets from the bed, upset the mattress, lifted the box spring and let it fall with a crash. Daley tried to grab his arms but was flung back against the wall.

"I’m going to get rid of it!" Nick shouted.

"Nick, I want you to calm down .... "

All the drawers in the chest and dresser were yanked out and turned upside down on the floor, clothes and socks spilling around the two brothers.

"Where is it? I want to know where it is!"

"Nick, you’re deluding yourself. You have the garrote." Daley stood apart from his brother.

The dresser was pulled away from the wall and tumbled forward, the mirror cracking on the foot-board of the bed. Nick threw open the closet door and furiously jerked clothes off hangers.

Nick rushed down the hallway to the workroom.

"Where are you going?" Daley asked, trying to stop his brother.

"You’ve got it hidden in here," Nick said, pounding on the locked door.

Nick looked at Daley, then without hesitation stepped back and ran into the door with his shoulder. The door burst open and smacked the wall behind it.

“Don’t break up this room, Nick. You’ve lost your mind.”

"It’s here somewhere. I know it."

Daley stepped back into the doorway, and watched sorrowfully as Nick methodically demolished the antique pieces that would have been worth thousands when refinished. Before Nick was through, Daley turned away and went down the stairs, his shoulders drooping. There were no solutions, no help.

In Nick’s bedroom Daley got the wooden box from beneath the bed and opened the lid. The garrote lay coiled on the velvet inside.

The destruction upstairs finally ceased. The house filled with silence. Daley sat waiting, holding the box.

Nick appeared at the bedroom door. His face glazed over when he saw what his brother held in his lap. It was as if a film of clear, tough plastic suddenly coated Nick from head to foot. He was frozen in the doorway for long moments while the two brothers stared at each other in silence.

Finally Nick spoke. "You put it there," he whispered in total disbelief.

Daley shook his head slowly. Nick was totally mad. His mind was shattered.

"You did," Nick insisted. "You put it in my room."

Again, Daley shook his head. Still without expression, Nick crossed the space between them, reached out both hands, and took Daley’s throat in his hands.

Daley looked up into his brother’s eyes with a silent plea.

The box fell to the floor and the garrote dropped from Nick’s hands into a spiraled loop, one of the handles resting on Nick’s shoe.

Outside thunderheads covered the sun and a shivering cold rain deluged the city.

SAM BARTHOLOMEW sat in an unmarked car across the street from the Ringer residence. Next to him in the driver’s seat was Officer Trumbine, who after three days had confessed his nickname on the force was "Patty" and it was all right if Bartholomew called him that. Patty barely made the five-ten height requirement for the department, and weighed, soaking wet and with his clothes on, a slight hundred and thirty pounds.

In the backseat, against Garbo’s direct orders, Jack DeShane reclined smoking a cigarette. He slept in the car during the eleven-to-seven shift and after a brief run home to shave, shower, and eat, he climbed back into a police car to take up vigil. The officers assigned to watching the Ringer residence understood Jack’s involvement and were charitable about his constant presence, though it would have been easier if he were not around. He made them all feel as fidgety as hot grease popping in a skillet.

Sam always took the evening shift. Out of the four murders, two were committed at night, two during the day, so he wasn’t working percentages. He was responding to gut-level instinct. He felt convinced the next attempted murder would occur during the evening.

All three men were weary and disgruntled. Since the evening Sam talked Garbo into a seven-day, twenty-four-hour surveillance on the Ringers, there had not been a single movement from the house. There were plenty of boring hours used up on suppositions, none of them very logical. The fact was no one understood why neither Ringer brother had come out of the house.

The 1970 navy Chrysler Imperial registered in Daley’s name had a tracking device clamped beneath the back bumper. But they had not been tracking the car anywhere. The door of the house stayed closed, the shades drawn, and there was nothing to do on the eight-hour rotating shifts but sit and watch the street.

Garbo did not like it. Earlier in the morning he complained to Sam, "I’m using thirty men, and I’m shifting everyone in the precinct for this. If they don’t move soon, I’m afraid I’ll have to call it off. We can’t afford it. Around here they’re referring to these three days of do-nothing as the ‘Dead Ringer Runaround.’ I can’t justify the cost and time if something doesn’t happen soon."

"Something’s brewing, Garbo. Trust my instincts. They can’t stay locked up in there forever," Sam pleaded.

"Screw forever. If they don’t come out within the next twenty-four hours, I’ll have to call my men off, and let you bring this Nick to the station for questioning.”

"If you do that, Garbo, you’ll be making a mistake. We only have circumstantial. You’re not going to close down this case on what we have."

"I also have some tired men who’d rather be at home with their wives to say nothing of a commissioner who’s going ape-shit every three seconds."

"He’ll come out," Sam promised. "And when he does he’ll go after number five."

"Sam, if it was anyone else but you telling me this I’d have him hauled off to a fantasy island. I hope to Christ you know what you’re doing. I know it all sounds right, but thirty men!" Garbo shook his head.

Sam peered through the closed window at the dark house and refused to believe he was wrong. They had Nick Ringer’s record from the reconnaissance division he was in during his time in Vietnam. They had the information from the Tacoma, Washington, V.A. It all fit. Not perfectly, not so close the edges dovetailed, but it fit. Nick was a mental case. He had used a garrote in the war. Not only used it, but beheaded his enemies with it. He had a job where he was free to do as he pleased while in the company van. He had the background, the time available, the expertise, the intelligence, and the training to be a killer.

Whether other people knew it or not, Sam realized the veterans of Vietnam were different from the veterans like himself who had lived through World War II and Korea. He expected in the decades to come these differences would make themselves known more and more, and some of these men would need a lot of therapy.

"Maybe they’re playing Parcheesi in there," Patty remarked, slurping coffee from a Styrofoam cup.

"We’ve already gone over the possibilities of what they might be doing" Weariness had taken Jack's voice hostage.

A light pattering of rain fell onto the car. Sam stared into the dismal night. He could no longer referee for his two companions. Let them argue, he thought. It passed the time.

"You want to play another hand of solitaire with me?" Patty asked of Sam.

Sam turned swollen eyes on him and blinked slowly. Had he ever been as young as Patty and Jack? He sincerely doubted it. "No, thanks, Patty. I’ll pass this time."

"What about you, Jack? Try your luck?" Patty asked.

"What the hell. Climb back here and let me beat you."

Patty crawled over the front seat, head first.

"Why don’t you get out and go around sometimes?" Sam asked testily. “Why you always crawling over the damn seat?”

"Aw, fuck, Sam, lay off, will ya? It’s raining out there."

Sam slid across the seat to sit behind the steering wheel just in case Nick came out of the house.

"I’ll deal ’em," Jack said, more amicable than he had been for the previous four hours. "After this hand, let’s play blackjack.”

Sam settled into the warm vinyl depression where Patty had been sitting. The windows kept steaming over from their breathing and had to be wiped with a towel. It had been raining for three days, and Sam wondered if it would ever end. Drizzles, showers, drip, drip, drip. Wet nights that made his bones ache.

Maybe it was the rain that kept the Wireman from fulfilling his mission. As Sam thought about it, he could not recall any of the murders happening during wet weather. Just his luck. Thirty sodden men playing blackjack and a waiting game with the Houston weather.

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Sunday, March seventh, dawned clear and fresh. When Sam rolled from bed, Maggie was already up brewing coffee in the kitchen. Sam brushed his teeth, scratched the hair growing over his belly, and wandered through the house in his shorts. Maggie embraced him and poured coffee for him into the awful pink-breasted mug.

"I’m growing to like this cup," he said, giving Maggie a lopsided grin. He meant it too.