Part 58 (2/2)

'I don't know. Telepathy, maybe. Besides, if it isn't, we'll go where it is. I'm in no hurry.'

'You've got all the answers, huh?'

'Let's go.'

We went back out to the carport. I sat in the back of the VW, on the side away from him. His bulk and the size of the car made a surprise play on his part a joke; it would take him five minutes just to get turned around. Two minutes later we were on the road.

It was starting to snow, big, sloppy flakes that clung to the winds.h.i.+eld and turned to instant slush when they struck the pavement. It was slippery going, but there wasn't much traffic.

After a half hour on Route 10, he turned off onto a secondary road. Fifteen minutes later we were on a rutted dirt track with snow-freighted pines staring at us on either side. Two miles along we turned into a short, trash-littered driveway.

In the limited sweep of the VW's headlights 1 could make out a rickety backwoods shack with a patched roof and a twisted TV aerial. There was a snow-covered old Ford in a gully to the left. Out in back was an outhouse and a pile of old tires. Hernando's Hideaway.

'Welcome to Bally's East,' Sarge said, and killed the engine.

'If this is a con, I'll kill you.'

He seemed to fill three-quarters of the tiny vehicle's front seat. 'I know that,' he said.

'Get out.'

Sarge led the way up to the front door. 'Open it,' I said. 'Then stand still.'

He opened the door and stood still. I stood still. We stood still for about three minutes, and nothing happened. The only moving thing was a fat gray squirrel that had ventured into the middle of the yard to curse us in lingua rodenta.

'Okay,' I said. 'Let's go in.'

Surprise, it was a dump. The one sixty-watt bulb cast a grungy glow over the whole room, leaving shadows like starved bats in the corners. Newspapers were scattered helter-skelter. Drying clothes were hung on a sagging rope. In one corner there was an ancient Zenith TV. In the opposite corner was a rickety sink and a stark, rust-stained bathtub on claw feet. A hunting rifle stood beside it. The predominant odors were feet, farts, and chili.

'It beats living raw,' Sarge said.

I could have argued the point, but didn't. 'Where's your piece of the map?'

'In the bedroom.'

'Let's go get it.'

'Not yet.' He turned around slowly, his dipped-in-concrete face hard. 'I want your word you ain't going to kill me when you get it.'

'How you going to make me keep it?'

'f.u.c.k, I don't know. I guess I'm just gonna hope it was more than the money that got you cranked up. If it was Barney, too - wanting to clean Barney's slate - you did it, it's clean. Keenan capped him and now Keenan's dead. If you want the bundle, too, okay. Maybe three-quarters will be enough, and you were right - my piece has got a great big X on it. But you don't get it unless you promise I get something, too: my life.'

'How do I know you won't come after me?'

'But I will, sonny,' the Sarge said softly.

I laughed. 'All right. Throw in Jagger's address and you've got your promise. I'll keep it, too.'

The Sarge shook his head slowly. 'You don't want to play with Jagger, fella, Jagger will eat you up.'

I had dropped the .45 a little. Now I lifted it again.

'All right. He's in Coleman, Ma.s.sachusetts. A ski lodge. Is that good enough?''

'Yes. Let's get your piece, Sarge.'

The Sarge looked me over once more, closely. Then he nodded. We went into the bedroom.

More Colonial charm. The stained mattress on the floor was littered with stroke-books and the walls were papered with photographs of women who appeared to be wearing nothing but a thin coating of Wesson Oil. One look at this place and Dr. Ruth's head would have exploded.

The Sarge didn't hesitate. He picked up the lamp on the night-table and pried the base off it. His quarter of the map was neatly rolled up inside; he held it out wordlessly.

'Throw it,' I invited.

The Sarge smiled thinly. 'Cautious little pencil-neck, aren't you?'

'I find it pays. Give it up, Sarge.'

He tossed it over to me. 'Easy come, easy go,' he said.

'I'm going to keep my promise,' I said. 'Consider yourself lucky. Out in the other room.'

Cold light flickered in his eyes. 'What are you going to do?'

'See that you stay in one place for awhile. Move.'

We went out into the main room, a nifty little parade of two. The Sarge stood underneath the naked lightbulb, back to me, his shoulders hunched, antic.i.p.ating the gunbarrel that was going to groove his head very shortly. I was just lifting the gun to clout him when the light blinked out.

The shack was suddenly pitch black.

I threw myself to the right; Sarge was already gone like a cool breeze. I could hear the thump and tumble of newspapers as he hit the floor in a flat dive. Then silence. Utter and complete.

I waited for my night vision, but when it came it was no help. The place was a mausoleum in which a thousand dim tombstones loomed. And the Sarge knew every one of them.

I knew about Sarge; material on him hadn't been hard to spade up. He'd been a Green Beret in Vietnam, and no one even bothered with his real name anymore; he was just the Sarge, big and murderous and tough.

Somewhere in the dark he was moving in on me. He must have known the place like the back of his hand, because there wasn't a sound, not a squeaking board, not a foot sc.r.a.pe. But I could feel him getting closer and closer, flanking from the left or the right or maybe pulling a tricky one and coming in straight ahead.

The stock of the gun was very sweaty in my hand, and I had to control the urge to fire it wildly, randomly. I was very aware that I had three-quarters of the pie in my pocket. I didn't bother wondering why the lights had gone out. Not until the powerful flashlight stabbed in through the window, sweeping the floor in a wild, random pattern that just happened to catch the Sarge, frozen in a half-crouch seven feet to my left. His eyes glowed greenly in the bright cone of light, like cat's eyes.

He had a glinting razor blade in his right hand, and I suddenly remembered the way his hand had been spidering up his coat lapel in Keenan's carport.

The Sarge said one word into the flash beam. 'Jagger?'

I don't know who got him first. A large-caliber pistol fired once behind the flashlight beam, and I pulled the trigger of Barney's .45 twice - pure reflex. The Sarge was thrown back against the wall with force enough to knock him out of one of his boots.

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