Blood Risk Part 9

"How many gunmen does Baglio keep in the house?" Tucker repeated.

The cook said, "Just two."

"The two in the room next to this one?"

"Yes."

"They mount the night watch?"

"Yes."

Tucker said, "No day s.h.i.+ft?"

The cook rubbed his bald head, looked at his hand as if he expected to find it covered with fresh blood, said, "We don't need a day guard most of the time. Mr. Baglio has those only on Mondays and Tuesdays every other week."

"What do you think?" s.h.i.+rillo asked. He was leaning against the wall by the foot of the bed, and he looked twice as thin and as ineffectual as ever.

Tucker shrugged. "If he's lying, I can't tell."

"I wouldn't lie!" the cook said, raising a hand to touch-his tender scalp.

Tucker said, "Who's upstairs right now?"

The cook stopped rubbing his head and said, "Mr. Baglio, Henry Deffer, Louise and Martin Halverson-and Miss Loraine."

"Deffer is the chauffeur?"

"Yes."

"Who are the Halversons?"

"Maid and handyman."

"How old?"

"Fifties?" the cook asked, questioning himself. He nodded, grabbed his neck as the pain forced him to stop nodding, said, "Yes, in their fifties somewhere."

"He pack a gun?"

"Halverson?" the cook asked, incredulous.

"Yes, Halverson."

"Of course not!" The cook chuckled. "Did you ever see Halverson?"

"No."

"Well, then-"

"Who is this Miss Loraine?" Tucker asked.

The cook actually blushed and, for a moment, forgot about his wounds. The blush carried over from his face and stained the top of his gleaming skull. He said, "She is a very nice young lady, a very pleasant girl. She's Mr. Baglio's-uh, his-well, his lady."

"They sleep together?"

"Yes."

"Is she a big blonde, well built, tall?" Tucker asked, remembering the girl who had climbed out of the demolished Cadillac.

The cook continued to blush and looked at the other two men as if they might tell him he didn't have to answer that. He looked as if he had never heard much about s.e.x and had certainly never tried it himself. Neither Harris nor s.h.i.+rillo, of course, told him he was free not to answer. Reluctantly he said, "That's her."

Tucker smiled. "Now, if you'd tell me the location of each of their rooms, I'd appreciate it immensely."

Keesey said, "What are you going to do with them?"

"That's not your concern."

"It is. I might find myself without a job." He put one hand on his stomach, as if to ill.u.s.trate the deprivations he might have to face if he were out of his job. "Will you kill Mr. Baglio?"

Tucker said, "No. Not unless he forces us into it."

Keesey looked at them again, one at a time, reached some sort of judgment about them, nodded and, briefly, explained the layout of the rooms on the second floor. Deffer and Halverson and Halverson's wife were all directly overhead, while Baglio and his woman were all alone in the largest wing of the house, on the far side of the main staircase.

"Now, what about the man who was hurt in the wreck?" Tucker said, still smiling, not smiling inwardly, the Luger ready for another slash at Keesey's head. This time he would use the side of the barrel with the sight on it and tear a little of the cook's skin.

"I don't know anything about him," Keesey said.

"Sure you do."

"No."

"You cooked for him?"

Keesey shook his head back and forth. "He's only been allowed to take liquids."

"He's upstairs?"

"No."

"You just implied he was when you mentioned his restricted diet."

"They moved him this morning," the cook said.

"Alive?"

Keesey squirmed and looked as if he had been insulted. "Well, of course," he said. "Alive, of course."

"Where did they take him?"

More rubbing of his head. Scratching of his mustache. "I don't know anything about that."

"You didn't ask?"

"I never ask Mr. Baglio anything."

Tucker nodded, watched the pudgy man for a moment, sighed and motioned to s.h.i.+rillo. "Tie and gag him."

s.h.i.+rillo completed the job in less than five minutes and joined Harris and Tucker where they waited in the corridor. He said, "Do we still go upstairs?"

"Why not?"

"If Bachman isn't there-"

"He's there. I'm sure he is," Tucker said. "That little sonofab.i.t.c.h Keesey was lying."

s.h.i.+rillo said, "You sure?"

Tucker's smile was broad, visible even in that dim light. "Don't you think Keesey's capable of trying to mislead us?"

"Truthfully, no."

"Why? Because he's fat and he blushes easily?" Tucker shook his head, looked s.h.i.+rillo up and down. "In that case, I'd say you're too thin and too young to be worth a d.a.m.n on a job like this. But here you are, and you're holding up your end well enough."

"Okay," s.h.i.+rillo said. "Then Bachman's upstairs. That's a good sign, isn't it? It must mean he hasn't talked yet."

"Maybe."

Harris said, "Friends, we're wasting time."

"Too right," Tucker said. "Let's go up and say h.e.l.lo to Mr. Baglio."

They climbed to the second floor by way of the back stairs and came out in the wing where Deffer and the Halversons had their quarters. Tucker listened to the stilled corridor, squinted at the deep shadows that lay the length of it, then motioned for Harris and s.h.i.+rillo to take the door on the left, where, according to Keesey, the maid and the handyman would be sleeping, while he went to the first door on the right and leaned against it, listening. He couldn't hear even the slightest sound behind it. If Henry Deffer had been alerted by their m.u.f.fled voices in Keesey's room just below his own, he was playing it very cool indeed. Tucker slowly twisted the k.n.o.b as far around as it would go and eased the bedroom door inward. As if that were a signal, Harris and s.h.i.+rillo went into the Halversons' room across the hall, flicked on the light there and, briefly, backlighted Tucker until he could locate the switch just inside the door of Deffer's room.

In the sudden burst of bright light the old man sat up as if he'd been given a jolt of electricity, slid quickly to the edge of the bed, jammed his white feet into a tattered pair of slippers and started to stand up.

"Sit down," Tucker said.

Deffer looked like a plucked turkey, his scrawny neck bright red, the stubble of his beard like the pinfeathers that the plucker had missed. He scowled at Tucker and smacked his lips as if he were considering pecking out his adversary's eyes.

"Sit down and be quiet," Tucker said again.

Deffer looked longingly at the top dresser drawer only three steps away. He raised his arms like wings, let them drop to his sides when he realized he couldn't fly, caught himself staring, looked away from the dresser and back at Tucker again. "Punk," he said. He evidently liked the sound of it. He wrinkled up his gray face and said it again: "Punk!" Satisfied that he hadn't been completely cowed, he sat down on the bed as directed.

Tucker went to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer, lifted out a Marley.38 that lay on top of two piles of neatly folded underwear. It was a beautiful gun, well cared for, and it was also fully loaded.

"That's mine!" the chauffeur snapped.

Tucker turned to face him and raised the barrel of the Luger to his lips, like a long finger, to signal the need for silence. In a thin whisper he said, "Be quiet, or I'll have to kill you with it."

Deffer tried not to look upset.

Tucker unloaded the Marley, admiring the craftsmans.h.i.+p and design even now when the situation would seem to rule out consideration of anything but the job. He put the empty gun and the bullets in the unused pocket of his windbreaker, zipped the pocket shut.

"You don't got a chance-punk," Deffer said.

Smiling falsely, Tucker stepped up to the chauffeur and put the cold end of the silenced barrel against Deffer's forehead. He said, "I asked you to whisper."

Deffer scowled. His teeth were in a gla.s.s of water on the night stand, smiling at Tucker like a fragment of the Ches.h.i.+re cat. Without his dentures he looked older than before. "What do you want?" he asked in a whisper.

"Why don't you relax, just stretch out there on the bed," Tucker directed.

" 'Cause I don't feel like it," the turkey said, fluffing his wings again, smacking his lips.

"That wasn't a question," Tucker said wearily, motioning with the barrel of the Luger.

Deffer stretched out on his back.

Tucker got a chair and dragged it to the bed, sat down. He felt less nervous sitting down, because he couldn't feel the weakness in his legs that way. He said, "I'm going to ask questions, and you're going to provide answers. If you lie to me, I'll make sure you don't get a chance to collect your pension from the organization."

Deffer said nothing at all. He simply glared at Tucker with malevolent red-rimmed eyes, lying as stiff and straight as if he were on a plank bed.

Tucker said, "Where's Baglio keeping the man who wrecked the Chevrolet Tuesday morning?"

Deffer's eyes brightened. Clearly he had not connected this affair with the events of Tuesday morning. That was all Tucker had to see to understand why Baglio, a much younger man, was in the driver's seat figuratively, while Deffer was there literally.

The chauffeur cleared his throat and smiled broadly. He said, "You can't get away with this. You punks. Nice bunch of punks. There's guards all over this place."

"You're lying," Tucker said.

"See if I am."

"I've already talked to Keesey. Two guards. One gagged and tied downstairs, the other knocked out by a bullet wound."

"Dead?" the turkey asked, his grin fading.

"Not yet." Tucker asked about Bachman again.

"They moved him," Deffer said.

He had lost all expression in his wizened, gray face. He only looked old and tired now. But that wasn't genuine; it was a poker face, and there was no way to tell what all it concealed. Deffer might not be exceptionally bright, but he had a lot of guts for an old man and a canniness that was not going to be easy to break down.

"Killed him?" Tucker asked.

Deffer looked at the silenced Luger with more respect than he had shown to this point, though that might be as much pretense as was his expression of weariness. He said, "No."

"Where'd they take him?"

"Don't know."