The Lonely Silver Rain Part 15

Roaring, he came back at me, swinging good punches. I could lift the numbed arm. I took the blows on my forearms and upper arms, protecting my head. It was like being hit with round rocks. When he saw what was happening, he came right down through the middle with an overhand right that hit the shelf of my jaw and knocked my mouth wide. My knees went loose and white rockets sailed behind my eyes. I bicycled backward and only the wall kept me from going down. I hit it hard enough to shake the house. Just as my head was beginning to clear I saw him coming at me again, and this time he launched himself into the air in some kind of strange scissor kick, coming at me feet first. I slid sideways along the wall, and with my good left arm operating well, I s.n.a.t.c.hed at the heel of the lower of the two feet and whipped it as high as I could. The first thing that hit the floor was the back of his head. He rolled slowly up onto his hands and knees, shaking his head. Once again the dropkick. He came down on his back, rolled up, and as he came halfway up, I chopped him hard with the edge of my left hand, a diagonal blow just under the ear. He melted down onto the floor, eyes unfocused. And then he began to climb back to his feet, in slow motion. He was like some mythical monster that can't be killed, blinking slowly, like a lizard.

As I was reaching to chop at him again, Cappy pushed by me, and with a wide swing laid the flat side of the automatic against the side of Ruffi's curly head. It made a crisp, sickening sound. Ruffi lay down so hard his head bounced. There was a nearby scream and a plump young girl came running in to drop to her knees beside him. She had a fatty face, long straight brown hair, lipstick, mascara, little wide-apart b.r.e.a.s.t.s the size of baking-powder biscuits under a tight pink T-s.h.i.+rt. She wore short white shorts. "You kilt him!" she sobbed. "You s.h.i.+ts kilt him!"

"Shut up, Angie," said her mother in a tired voice.

"Don't get too close to him," I told Cappy. "He'll play possum."

"Not for a while, he won't."

"Something to tie him up with, Mrs. Casak?" She took me into the kitchen and opened a large low drawer. It was full of odds and ends of string, tape, rope, chain, screwdrivers. As I was selecting some rope, I noticed two little tubes of Miracle Glue, still in the store pack that can only be opened by gorillas. It would be easier and quicker.

I took the Miracle Glue into the living room. I nipped the tip off one tube and divided it evenly between the palms of his slack hands. Then I pulled his s.h.i.+rt high, crossed his arms and pressed the hands against the sides of his torso, against the hairless skin just above belt level. I rubbed them around a little bit, then pressed them hard against his body. In a few moments when I released his hands, they stayed right there. I used the second tube on the inside of one thigh, after pulling his shorts high, spreading it from just above the knee to halfway to the groin. I pressed the thighs together and in a few moments they clung.

He coughed and rolled his head from side to side and then opened his eyes.

When he couldn't move his hands or his upper legs he frowned and muttered, "What's going on?

"Miracle Glue has a hundred household uses," I told him.

"Hey, Roof," Cappy said. He turned his head to see Cappy. "Getting a nice bonus, you freak?"

"Get away from him! Get away!" a child-voice said from the other doorway, which I a.s.sumed led to back bedrooms: The voice trembled. She held a Ruger longbarrel.22 target pistol in two fat tan hands.

"Atta girl!" Ruffi said. "At's my lover girl. Shoot them, sweetie. Shoot 'em all and we'll go away together and I'll show you the whole world. Shoot the big b.a.s.t.a.r.d first."

Cappy dropped to his knees and socketed the blued muzzle of his pistol in Ruffs left ear. He grinned at the child. "It better be me first, pumpkin. My finger will probably twitch, though, and it'll come right out that other ear."

Irina walked slowly toward her daughter, saying in a sing-song voice, "Shoot your mommy, dear. Go ahead, Angie. Shoot your mommy."

The girl began crying. "But I love him and he loves me."

Irina reached and took the target pistol out of the girl's sagging hands. "He doesn't love you, honey. He can't love no eleven-year-old fat dumb kid. The only thing he loves is that thing that sticks out of the front of him. He stuck it into me a dozen times by promising if I let him he'd leave you alone. Then he got tired of me. So he started sticking it into you. He'd stick it into a gator if she'd lie quiet. And I know what I'm going to do to him so n.o.body else has to put up with him."

She handed me the target pistol and as she did so her back was to Ruffi. She gave me a wink that screwed up the entire left side of her face. Some people can't move the eyelid alone. It has to be half the face. I knew it meant she wanted to have her way. She went out into the kitchen and came back with poultry shears. They were slightly rusty but they looked able to cut through tough skin and chicken bone.

She knelt beside him and unzipped his shorts and reached in and pulled him out.

"Mom!" the child yelled. "Oh, Mom, no!"

Ruffi raised his head and looked down. "No, Irina, please." He raised his knees and tried to scooch backward. She followed right along, moving sideways on her knees until his head reached the wall and he could move no further. He was circ.u.mcised and the glans was so bloodless with his fright it was a pallid lavender. She opened the shears and laid the p.e.n.i.s between the blades.

He groaned, his face contorted, ashen.

"Want you to remember this, Ruff or Roof or whatever they call you. Anytime the rest of your life you get a chance to stick this thing into anybody or anything, you're going to remember how steel feels and it won't get hard."

She gave it a little pinch with the shears for emphasis, then tucked it back into his shorts and zipped him up. She grunted to her feet. Ruffi was trembling, his eyes leaking.

Cappy had put the gun away, probably back into his shoulder bag. He went over and put his arm around Irina. She turned toward him, rested her forehead on his shoulder. "Thanks," she said in a low voice. "Thanks for helping me one more time."

He patted her. "We gone sell this cat to the Peruvians. Won't bother you again."

In a husky voice, Ruffi said, "Cappy, I can make you a good deal. More than you can peddle me for. I know where you can get to one hundred thousand dollars. I can't get to it, but you can. ItIl be a better deal foryou."

Cappy said to me, "You think of any reason we have to keep listening to all that s.h.i.+t?"

"None whatsoever."

Cappy picked up the two tubes of glue, discarded one, squatted next to Ruffi and put one hand on Ruffi's forehead to hold him still and dribbled the final bit of glue along his lips. He tossed the tube aside and then pinched the lips together, smiling up at me. He did too good a job. He left Ruffi all pooched out, looking as if he were about to kiss or whistle. Ruffi's eyebrows went high and his cheeks hollowed as he tried to pull his mouth open.

"It's gone nice and quiet around here," Cappy said.

"Mmmm gh mmm. mm," Ruffi said.

"I want to look around," Cappy said. He went into the back of the house. The television was still on, the sound off. A woman who looked like an expensive hooker was apparently yelling bad things into the face of a man who looked like a hairdresser. They were both overdressed and standing in what could have been the bedroom of the departed Shah of Iran. So it was an afternoon soap, and I felt the hollowness of no lunch yet. My jaw creaked. I had sore bruises on both arms. My head ached.

"What about the TV?" Irina asked.

"Enjoy."

She turned the sound up. Mother and daughter moved closer, watching and listening. Cappy came out of the back of the house carrying a tan leather duffel bag and a jar with a screw-top lid.

"These clothes will fit, and what I got here is maybe eleven or twelve ounces of prime white lady"

'Leave me some!" Angie yelled. "You leave me some."

Her mother stood up and Angie never saw the hard palm coming. It smacked her on the side of the face, spun her halfway around and dropped her onto her hands and knees. Angie scrambled to her feet and went bellering into her bedroom and slammed the door.

"Will she testify?" I asked Irina.

"Would that be a good idea?"

"I think so. He killed a couple of girls on a boat last year. Raped them and cut one's throat and cracked the other one's skull. I don't think they'll ever nail him for it. The only witness is dead. They can get him for this."

"What charges?"

"Statutory rape. Corrupting the morals of a minor child."

The woman nodded. "She'll testify. By G.o.d, she'll testify! He's been here a week yesterday. I had to phone her in sick at school. He walked in on us like he owned the place."

Cappy came in from outside. "McGee, I don't think I'll go back in with you for that other ten. On the same ratio when I pay off, you get fifteen. Wait a minute. You took five hundred back, so you'll get... fourteen thousand two hundred fifty."

"What are you going to do?"

"The big genius there with his mouth stuck together, he had the t.i.tle and registration in the side pocket of that Mercedes out there. It shows no paper out on it. It's got a little over four thousand miles on it, and give me a half hour I can sign his name better than he can. And I got a contact on Route 19 a little north of Clearwater. I can get thirty minimum for it in cash in ten minutes. I go back in with you, I'm taking an extra chance. I head west from here. How about you come out with me, Irina, and move that little junker of yours out of the way."

He picked up the duffel bag, nodded to me and said, "See you around."

"Hold it. You're forgetting something."

He snapped his fingers. The three of us went out. He led me away from Irina and said, "What you do, you go to the magazine stand in the lobby of the Contessa over on the Beach and you find a girl works there name of Alice. She's got little half gla.s.ses. You tell her you want to see Lopez. She'll say she doesn't know any Lopez. You tell her the Capataz told you to ask her. Wait until there's no tourists around. Okay? Try for fifty. What the h.e.l.l. See you around. You got good moves, McGee."

He put the top up on the Mercedes. I moved the Buick back out of the way. He gunned the white car a few times, then put it in gear and went rumbling over the hump bridge, turned west, waved, and was soon a high-pitched whine in the invisible distance.

I went back into the house with Irina. Ruffino had managed to work himself up into a sitting position, back against the wall, dark eyes glaring at us over the pursed mouth. She went to the ruins of the toppled cabinet and picked a small white bowl, unbroken, out of the shards of other treasured things. She put it on top of the new television set.

I asked her permission to use the phone, and looked up the number for the county sheriff. It had been a few years. I wondered if Wes was still there. A lot of them leave. The top slot is political, and the pressure seeps down through the ranks. When the communications clerk answered, I asked if Deputy Wesley Davenport still worked for the department.

"Yes, sir, Captain Davenport is here today. Is this a personal call?"

"Yes," I lied. She gave me a different number to call.

"Cap'n Davenport," he said.

"Wes, this is McGee. Travis McGee."

"You kilt somebody again, pardner?"

"I've managed to hold back."

"Builds character. What have you got?"

"Last time I talked to you those twin daughters of yours were pretty small. How are they doing and how old are they?"

"They are just fine little old gals. Going on eleven."

"You know where the Casak house is?"

"Rings a little bell. Hang on. Sure. Hugo Casak, armed robbery. Put him away and he's been out well over a year now. But he never reported in, so right now he's on the list for violation of parole. He lived out there on that d.a.m.n little lonesome swamp road that goes nowhere. Okay. I can find the house. So?"

"I'm calling from the house. I want to ask you to do things a certain way."

"For old times' sake, I suppose."

"Congratulations on making captain."

"Well, thanks heaps. What have you got?"

"I've got a guy here hiding from the Miami fireworks."

"Looks to me like they all went nuts over there."

"They did indeed. This one has a big c.o.ke habit. And he's right here looking at me. Before you come out here, you stop off and buy a big bottle of nail-polish remover."

"Of what!"

"I've got him glued together with Miracle Glue. Mouth, hands and legs. Second thought. Let's try it another way. He can move his legs from the knees down, so maybe we better walk him to your car and you get him into a cell before you unglue him. He's strong and quick. I outweigh by maybe fifty pounds but he nearly took me. He kicks."

"Okay, champ. What am I arresting him for?"

"The only people here when he came in on them were Mrs. Casak and Angie, her eleven year-old daughter. He's been here over a week and he got the kid on c.o.ke and taught her to enjoy s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g."

The silence was so long I finally said, "Wes?"

"Okay. I was just thinking it through." His voice had grown heavy and tired. "Can I get statements?"

"Guaran-d.a.m.n-teed, Wes."

"But there's more, isn't there? Knowing you."

"Remember the rape killings aboard the Lazidays down off Big Torch last October?"

"Surely do."

"There were two of them did it. This is one of them. The other is in the foundation of a new condo. n.o.body will ever make this one I got here for it. Never."

"So?"

"Wes, I want him held as John Doe. Maybe his prints are on file. Send the wrong cla.s.sification. Anything. Also, this little s.h.i.+t is very big on publicity. He loves his picture in the paper."

"Will the mother and the girl talk it up? If they do, there's nothing I can do on this end."

"They won't say a word. She'll keep the kid out of school for a while longer."

I looked over at Irina and she nodded agreement.

"Then okay, McGee. You got my provisional promise to bury the son of a b.i.t.c.h. But first I have to come check it out. You stay there?"

"Right here."

By the time Wes arrived I felt better for having had two of Mrs. Casak's oversized fried-egg sandwiches and a quart of milk.

Wes and I shook hands, surveying each other. He was heavier and he had less hair. He told me I was leaner and had less hair.

He had a bottle of nail-polish remover. He squatted heavily beside Ruffino and scrubbed the man's mouth roughly with a rag he got from Mrs. Casak.

After Ruffi had run out of breath, Wes turned to me, face a mask of imitation surprise, and said, "You hear that? You ever hear a dirtier mouth? My, my! Right now I got me a tank full of weight lifters. They're motorcycle queens down from Houston, tattooed all over b.u.t.terflies and spring flowers. Guess I'll put this John Doe in with them. They'll take to those eyelashes."

He went in and had a closed-door session with Angie. He came out looking sour and angry. After we got Ruffino Marino into the back seat of the county sedan, he took me over to the side and said, "I know an a.s.sistant state's attorney that can take this on without making waves. Maybe he can work out a plea. He goes into state prison as a child molester, he won't last through the first year. Too many doing time up there got kids of their own. There's still something I don't know. Right?"

"Wes, the people looking for him, I'm going to tell them where he is."

"Look, I don't want any wild men trying to bust him out of our store."

"That's not their style."

"That name he was yelling, that's his real name?"

"Except in the movies. In his one dud movie. Then it was Mark Hardin, Florida's answer to Rocky one, two, three, four, five and so forth."