Part 11 (1/2)

”Yes. The driver's dead.”

Tucker smiled. ”Of old age?”

Baglio said, ”He was banged up pretty badly.” His voice had a note, almost, of indifference. ”He died yesterday.”

”The body?”

”Buried.”

”Where?”

”I've a whole graveyard here,” Baglio said. His diction was excellent. Either he had gone to the best schools as a boy or he had hired private tutors in his middle age. The last was far more likely than the first. He seemed to take pride in his word choices, his conscious wit, his clear p.r.o.nunciation, much in the same way a college boy might. ”The pine trees are the markers, suitably engraved.” He looked at the woman and grinned winningly, elicited a chuckle from her.

Though he forced himself to react emotionally, Tucker's next move was guided solely by intellect. It was clear that neither Baglio nor the woman expected any harm to come to them and that neither of them would make a good subject for interrogation so long as he was comforted by this a.s.sumption. Grunting, then, Tucker leaned in and raked the barrel of the Luger across Baglio's face, using the sight point, gouging him from temple to chin. Blood popped up in a bright line.

”It's time to stop playing games to impress the lady,” Tucker said. ”It's time to come to grips with your decidedly disadvantageous position.” He wondered if Baglio understood, by his choice of words and tone, that Tucker was mimicking him.

Baglio touched his bleeding face, stared at his carmined fingers in disbelief. A long minute later he looked at Tucker, the humor in his face metamorphosed into hatred. ”You've just bought yourself one of those pine-marked graves,” he said. His voice had not deteriorated. Schoolmaster meting out punishment to the bad boy.

Distasteful as he found this, Tucker swung the Luger again and scored a red ribbon on Baglio's undamaged cheek.

The strongman started out of his chair, head lowered like a bull ready to ram, yelped and crumpled backward as s.h.i.+rillo delivered another brutal blow from behind with his own pistol on Baglio's right shoulder. He clutched at the bruised and spasming muscles, hunched forward as if he might be sick. Gradually he'd begun to look his age.

The girl looked older too.

She licked her lips and s.h.i.+fted her gaze around the room as if she thought she'd see something that would unexpectedly turn the tables. That fantasy lasted a brief moment, because she realized, as she must have done often before, that her best weapon was herself-her body and her wits. She looked up, aware of Tucker's eyes on her, and without being obvious about it she s.h.i.+fted inside her tentish yellow gown to mold it at strategic points to her. An offering. But poisoned.

He smiled at her, for he had the vague idea that he might need her cooperation later, then turned back to Baglio. ”We were talking about a friend of mine.”

”Go to h.e.l.l,” Baglio said.

s.h.i.+rillo, unbidden, stepped forward and, judging the position of Baglio's kidneys through the slatted back of the chair, jammed the barrel of his Luger hard into the man's left side. Ordinarily this sort of tactic was beyond him. Now, he kept thinking of his father. And his brother. The shoe shop. His brother's limp.

Baglio grunted, sucked breath, reared up, then crumpled under s.h.i.+rillo's second, swift chop to his shoulder. He fell off the chair, to the floor.

”My friend?” Tucker asked.

Baglio got his hands under himself and, feigning more weakness than he felt, started up, s.h.i.+fted toward Tucker's feet. That was a stupid move for a man in his situation, the first indication that he'd been frightened and that he was acting on a gut level. Tucker back-stepped and kicked him alongside the head. When he went down this time he stayed down, unconscious.

”Get a gla.s.s of water,” Tucker told s.h.i.+rillo.

The kid went after it.

Miss Loraine smiled at Tucker.

He smiled back.

Neither spoke.

s.h.i.+rillo returned with the water, but before he could throw it in Baglio's face Tucker said, ”No vendetta, kid. We can't afford it.” He had remembered s.h.i.+rillo's monologue when they'd first met several weeks ago, remembered the worn-out father and the brother who'd been badly beaten.

”I'm finished,” s.h.i.+rillo said. ”I thought at first I wanted to kill him. But I've decided I don't want to pay him back in his own coin; I don't want to be like he is.”

”Good,” Tucker said. ”Think he'll recognize you?”

”No. He saw me once for five minutes, a year and a half ago.”

”Wake him, then.”

s.h.i.+rillo tossed the water into the bruised and b.l.o.o.d.y face, went around behind the two chairs again.

Baglio blinked, looked up.

”We were talking about my friend,” Tucker said.

Baglio's lips were swollen, but that could not account for the change in his voice. Behind the slurred words there was a different tone, no more haughtiness, the tone of a man suddenly brought down from a high place and made to see his own mortality. ”I told you, he's dead.”

”Why does your cook tell a different story?”

”I wouldn't know.”

”And Deffer?”

Baglio looked up. The hate was still in his eyes, though it had been veiled now, as if he knew it would be dangerous to show any sort of resolve. ”What did they say?”

”An ambulance came and took him away.”

”It did. To a grave in the woods.”

”Bulls.h.i.+t.”

”Again on the shoulder?” s.h.i.+rillo asked from behind Baglio. ”Or another kidney punch?”

”Wait,” Tucker said, smiling. He apologized pleasantly to Baglio for his partner's overeager att.i.tude. He said, ”I'm sure our friend's in this house. Otherwise everyone's story would match. Otherwise-a lot of things. Now, where is he?”

”No,” Baglio said.

Tucker nodded, looked at s.h.i.+rillo. ”Tie him to the chair, then go keep our friend company at the stairwell. You could cover the back stairs while he watches the main ones.”

”Expecting trouble?” s.h.i.+rillo asked.

”It's going to take longer than I thought,” Tucker said. ”And Mr. Baglio may be screaming loud enough to attract his boys outside before I'm done with him.”

s.h.i.+rillo nodded, used a letter opener to cut down the cords of the draw drapes and expertly lashed Baglio to the straight-backed chair. The older man offered no resistance.

”What about her?” s.h.i.+rillo asked.

”I can handle her.”

”Sure?”