The Cunning Read online

  The old freaks were staring at him like they were in shock. They still hadn’t figured out the score, but they would soon. The thing to do was move fast, before they had a chance to get it all together.

  Mick’s palm was sweaty; he shifted his grip on the gun butt and held the muzzle steady.

  “The old lady,” he said. “Who is she?”

  Irene Marks frowned. “Emily Nesbitt. She lives down the street—”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes. I think she—”

  Mick’s nod silenced her. Like that was all he needed to know now; at least nobody would be coming after her.

  He turned and glanced over at Emily Nesbitt. She was still standing next to the body, clutching the cloth bag and looking down at Stan’s mask with a creepy smile on her face. Whispering something to herself, over and over. “Basilisk—the black basilisk—”

  Mick didn’t know what the hell it meant, except that she was psyched out. He signaled to Gibby.

  “Take her over to the wall,” he said. “And no rough stuff.”

  Gibby gave him a dirty look but he did like he was told. He took her arm and led her to where the other women stood. She went without resistance, still whispering to herself. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord—”

  Irene Marks put her hand on Emily’s shoulder. “There, there, it’s all right now.”

  “Shut up!” Mick cut her off, then got Gibby’s eye again. “Get going,” he said.

  Gibby gave him a puzzled look. “What you want me to do?”

  “What Stan was supposed to.” Mick gestured toward Joe Marks. “Take the old man back to the den. The wall-safe is behind the picture. Get it open fast and bring the cash back here.”

  Gibby hesitated. “What about the gun?”

  “Jesus Christ, you don’t need a gun for that! Joe’s gonna cooperate, right?” Mick nodded at Marks. “Because if you don’t, old Gibby here is liable to beat on you. Now get moving.”

  Gibby took the little guy by the elbow and marched him off down the hall.

  And everyone else just stood there, waiting.

  Mick looked at the ring of faces. Old sad-eyes Tom, and that dried-up little skinhead, Ed Brice. Roy Crile’s mouth was tight, set. The other guy, Warren Clark, just stared at him with no expression at all. Every one of them scared and trying not to show it.

  He glanced over at the women. Emily Nesbitt was still talking to herself and smiling, but she didn’t know where her head was at. The others knew, and they kept staring back and forth from the gun in Mick’s hand to the knife in Stan’s chest. Irene Marks, trying to keep Emily quiet; Sylvia Clark looking like she was ready to bawl. Jerry’s face, flushed, red-eyed. Dolly’s face, with sweat pouring down her forehead into the layers of make-up.

  And the face of his watch, telling him it was ten-forty-two. Christ, was that all? Had everything happened in just twelve lousy minutes?

  Well, he was still on schedule. The way he’d set it up, Stan was supposed to leave with the van by eleven. The plan was changed now, but he and Gibby could split by then. Only they wouldn’t head for Venice. They’d have to go right for his car and cut out for the border. No percentage trying for Tiajuana; they’d be on the lookout by the time he made it there. How far was Mexicali—hundred and fifty, maybe? Probably more than that, driving county trunks instead of freeways. But safer. Once they got across he could ditch the heap, take a bus down to Ensenada or someplace where they could get onto a boat, maybe a freighter if they lucked out. Hell, they could even charter a plane with the kind of loot Marks had in his safe.

  The safe—what the hell was taking Gibby so long with it? Mick looked at his watch again. Ten-forty-three, only a minute had passed. Mustn’t get uptight.

  He switched the gun to his left hand and ran his right hand across the front of the white jacket. When the hand was dry he shifted the gun back quickly, before anybody had a chance to move. The back of his neck was wet, but his throat was cottony. Too damn hot in here.

  Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the drink standing on the bar. He edged back, slow and easy, then picked up the glass in his left hand.

  That’s when he heard the noise.

  They all heard it at the same time—a kind of a thump, sounding like it came from the den.

  “Freeze!” he said, and they froze. But they were still listening, just the way he was, for more sounds.

  Nothing.

  He felt his stomach muscles relax, then tighten again. Jesus, now what—had Gibby decked the old man in there? If he did, just hope to hell he got the safe opened first.

  Mick lifted the glass and drank fast, keeping the muzzle of the gun steady. Nobody moved. He put the glass down on the bar again, feeling the coldness hit his gut. All that ice in the drink, too much, gulping it down that way. His stomach churned.

  For a second he thought he was going to be sick, but then he caught the footsteps coming down the hall. He moved away from the bar, closer to the group, keeping them covered while he waited until Gibby came into the room.

  Only it wasn’t Gibby.

  It was the old man, Joe Marks. And he had an automatic in his hand.

  Mick’s stomach churned again; the muzzle of Marks’ pistol was pointed right at it.

  “The gun,” said Joe Marks. “Let’s see you drop it—nice and slow.”

  Mick wasn’t hot now; he was cold, like numb all over.

  “Gibby—” he said.

  “Save your breath, punk.” The old man’s voice was harsh, deeper than he’d ever heard it before. “Your buddy didn’t know I keep a heater in the safe. He thought I was taking out the dough, until I turned around and clipped him with the butt.”

  “You clobbered Gibby—”

  “I broke his neck.”

  The old man’s eyes were like ice, everything was ice, Mick was freezing, the cold wind roaring in his ears.

  And over the roaring, Joe Marks’ voice. “Okay—put it down!”

  Mick looked around; things were blurring and wavering, but he saw them edging toward him, Ed Brice in the lead. Still time to get off a shot at Marks, but if he missed—Jesus, they weren’t scared any more, they were going to take him—

  And then, out of nowhere, he remembered what he told Stan to do. In case of a hassle, grab his old lady—

  So Mick lowered the gun.

  Lowered, turned, and grabbed for a broad’s arm. It wasn’t Irene, it was another one, Sylvia Clark, but he clamped his hand on her wrist, yanked her in front of him, and shoved the muzzle of the gun against her forehead.

  She screamed then, her voice coming from far away, over the roaring and the numbness and the cramps rising out of his gut.

  Mick shifted his grip to her neck, pushed her forward. “Move,” he said.

  He didn’t have to say anything more. They knew what would happen if they tried to stop him now. Joe Marks couldn’t shoot, the others couldn’t jump him. Over to the door and out—yes, that was the way.

  Sylvia screamed again. “Warren—!”

  And Warren was coming, running forward, the old bastard, he’d get it now, they’d all get it.

  Mick swung the muzzle around, aiming into the blur, knowing it didn’t matter because he couldn’t miss, not this close. His finger was numb on the trigger, but he could still squeeze, he was squeezing now, his guts were squeezing. Oh, Jesus, going to be sick, going to fall—

  He fell then; but he wasn’t sick.

  He was dead.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Long after they were in bed, Warren lay awake, staring at the ceiling.

  The room was dark, but little patches of light filtered through chinks in the blinds, shining dimly amidst the shadows overhead, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle scattered at random by unseen hands.

  He couldn’t sleep until these pieces were arranged, put in their proper place.

  Joe Marks had been a part of that puzzle, until Ed Brice said what he did. Warren recalled the exchange.

  “Thought I knew you fr
om somewhere—got a make on the voice but not the face. Then when you came out with the rod, I remembered. Kedzie Avenue, in Chicago, the night we raided the alky setup at the warehouse. Only the name wasn’t Marks then. It was Marco. Guiseppe Marco, right?”

  So that fitted together. Marks had been mixed up in the rackets back in Prohibition days and Brice was a former revenue agent. Old men now, retired and respectable; hard to even think of them on opposite sides in gangland warfare, quick and tough like young Mick was.

  Or had been, before it happened.

  Warren wondered if he would have backed off if he’d realized the risk. Probably not; youth is confident, scornful, impatient of the aged.

  But there’d been no hint of senility in the way Joe Marks had taken over. Halted the hysteria, calmed the confusion, laid the facts on the line.

  “Call the police? Of course, but the question is, what do we tell them when they get here? The truth? We all saw what happened, and nobody’s going to blame poor Miss Nesbitt for what she did.”

  Poor Miss Nesbitt was out of it, mumbling and muttering to herself; she still didn’t know what was going on. But the rest were not so fortunate.

  “What about Gibby?” Marks said. “I could have held the gun on him, but I lost my temper and swung without thinking. It was an accident, but the cops won’t buy that. Sure, I can cop a manslaughter plea, maybe get off with a year, maybe even end up with a verdict of not guilty. But there’ll be a trail and I’ll blow my cover. After all these years of going legit, everything comes out. I don’t have to tell you what that means.”

  And he didn’t, because Irene Marks started to sob.

  “Too bad,” Jerry said. “But that’s your problem.”

  “Is it?” Marks shook his head. “Don’t forget—you’ve got Mick, too.”

  “He just keeled over.” It was Tom who spoke. “We didn’t kill him. Nobody knows why it happened.”

  “That won’t satisfy the law. There’ll be a full investigation. You’ll all be dragged into it, held for questioning.”

  The full implication hit Warren then, and he’d fought the sudden nausea as Marks continued.

  “I been thinking. There’s another way. I’m pretty sure it’ll work, but we have to decide right now. And if we do, we’ve all got to stick to our story.”

  “What story?” Dolly Gluck said.

  “Suppose that when Stan died the other two got scared and ran off? We wouldn’t have any problem then.”

  “But their van is still here—” Roy Crile began.

  Marks nodded. “The cops will find the keys, in Stan’s pocket. Anybody asks, we just remember the same thing; Mick picked up the gun, dropped it like a hot potato, and ran out with Gibby. They were so shook they must have forgotten to take the keys. We figure they didn’t come back for them because we had the gun now. Can you all remember that?”

  “Sure,” Crile said. “I also remember the truth. Gibby and Mick are still here. And what do you do to keep the police from finding their bodies?”

  “We put them out in the trunk of your car, now.”

  “My car?”

  “Nobody’s going to be casing cars—what for? And after the cops leave, we get rid of them.”

  “How?”

  “Suppose you leave that part to me. What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” Marks paused, eying the group. “Well, that’s it. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. But at least there’s a damned good chance.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Tom said. “Asking us to live with a thing like that on our conscience—covering up murder—”

  “It wasn’t murder!” Irene burst out. “It was accidental. We’re not responsible for what happened.”

  “But we’re responsible for what happens now.” Tom shook his head. “Can’t you see that?”

  For a moment there was silence. Then Ed Brice spoke. “I’m for law and order,” he said. “I guess we all believe in justice, we’ve been brought up that way. But what’s the justice here? We didn’t ask these hoodlums to come and rob us, threaten our lives. We’re entitled to defend ourselves, and that’s all any of us tried to do.

  “So we’ve got a choice. Tell the whole truth and what good will it do? It won’t bring back the dead. But it will put us all on the spot—police, publicity, a court trial—do you really think there’s anything to gain by having decent, respectable citizens treated like common criminals?” He nodded at Marks. “I say Joe here has the right idea. And I think we ought to go along with it, all the way.”

  There had been no question after that.

  The questioning came later, when the police arrived—but not before the bodies had been carried to Crile’s car, and not before the phone call to Emily Nesbitt’s house had brought her brother and sister-in-law. That was a bad moment, watching their reaction when they found her and heard what happened, but thank God she hadn’t given anything away. Emily told about the basilisk, the black basilisk who tried to rape her until God spoke and sent her forth with the knife. And that’s what she told the police when they came.

  Warren didn’t want to think about the police now. That was a bad moment, too; not a moment, but several hours of questioning. Fortunately, they’d all had an opportunity to go over their stories together, and apparently no one noted any discrepancies which couldn’t be ascribed to the excitement and confusion of the actual event. Thank God there was no reason for them to examine any of the glasses on the bar—and with luck, there never would be.

  So finally they were allowed to go home, and at least some of pieces were back in place now.

  What would Joe Marks do about the bodies? What kind of a picture would emerge from the assemblage of these jagged fragments?

  Warren didn’t know, and he couldn’t bring himself to guess. He’d been too busy putting together his own portion of the puzzle.

  It had been rough, at first, when he and Sylvia got home. She’d held up until they got through the door, then broken into tears. He managed to get the drink down her, held her close. And only then did it come out, incoherently, in more bits and pieces that finally fit.

  First, Roy Crile. He’d told Warren about the fate of the Siamese nobility, told it almost enviously, and it hadn’t made sense. But he’d told Sylvia the truth.

  Crile was under sentence of death himself. Terminal carcinoma—they’d opened him up a year ago, taken a look and shrugged, then closed the incision. He was still doing his best to shrug along with them, but sometimes now when the pain got bad, he weakened. And it was during one of those times that he’d told Sylvia. Not during or after their Great Books programs, but when they ran into each other by accident—at the doctor’s office.

  The doctor’s office.

  That’s why Sylvia had to tell him about Roy first; she was leading up to it gradually, the only way she knew.

  She’d been seeing a neurologist, taking the tests and X-rays ever since the dizziness had started. Incipient brain tumor was the tentative diagnosis, but they couldn’t see anything in the X-rays, even though the symptoms persisted.

  “Why didn’t you say something—?” Warren had fought to keep the note of accusation from his voice, and the panic that surged behind it.

  “Don’t you understand? I couldn’t tell you until I was sure.”

  “You’re sure now?”

  “Yes. I had to wait until I knew—he’d made an appointment for me with this ophthalmologist—that’s where I was this afternoon before I went to the hairdresser—”

  “Ophthalmologist?”

  Sylvia nodded. “It’s my eyes,” she said. “Astigmatism. That’s where the headaches come from—I’ll need glasses from now on, but there’s nothing else wrong, not like Roy Crile—”

  Her voice broke. “You’ll never know what it was like, being afraid that way—afraid to die—”

  But of course he did know.

  He knew, but he didn’t tell her. He’d known the moment he saw Mick grab her by the arm, put the gun to her head. He knew when he
ran forward. Suddenly he’d felt fear—not just for Sylvia, but for himself.

  He didn’t want to die.

  He didn’t want to die and he didn’t want Sylvia to die; not then, or ever.

  They would, of course, eventually. And until then he’d have to live with fear again; fear of age, illness, accident and pain. But he could accept it now. He was no longer afraid of being afraid.

  And he had Sylvia.

  She pressed against him, murmuring. “I should have told you this afternoon and then I thought no, not before the party. But now everything is changed—”

  “Nothing has changed.”

  He calmed her then, calmed her apprehensions about the police, about Emily Nesbitt babbling the real story, about keeping their own promise to be silent.

  “We’ve got to, don’t you see? Telling the truth isn’t going to help anyone now. And you mustn’t worry. Everything’s going to work out.”

  All the while, of course, he was really talking to himself. One thing was certain; he’d never tell her about today, about what had happened and what had almost happened. Not unless he was forced to by circumstances. Until then he’d keep his secrets, just like the others.

  Sylvia closed her eyes. “If we could only be sure we’re doing the right thing—”

  “This is the right thing.”

  She came into his arms then, there on the bed. And suddenly it was happening, almost without preliminary, happening with a mutual, overwhelming urgency.

  He was troubled, tired, tense—but not impotent.

  And when she cried out, when release came, he felt her relax and sink back into slumber. While he lay awake, drained of tension, to scan the puzzle-pattern of light and shadow overhead.

  Some of the pieces were back together at last, and to him they were the most important ones. As for the others—he’d have to wait and see. But there was nothing to see now.

  Warren’s eyes closed at last, and he slept, while the shadows spread across the ceiling.

  THIRTY-TWO

  At dawn the shadows paled.

  Carrie Humphreys blinked in the early morning light. She was tired, and no wonder—she’d been up all night.