I waited for another blast from the hidden shotgunner, but the man chose to lay quiet, biding his time now. If he was so ready to kill one of the men attacking us, I wondered fiercely, why not finish the rest while he had the chance?
An engine started up, something fairly hefty that throbbed through the building as it stopped outside. It sat there ticking over for a minute or so, while doors were opened and thumped shut again. Then it set off fast, the engine note rising and falling as the auto box ran up through the gears. I listened to the sound of it disappearing towards the end of the street until it receded into the background altogether.
“Have they gone?” Trey whispered.
“That depends,” I said, “on who you mean.”
“Charlie?” called a new voice, close enough to the front door to make both of us jump. I hadn’t heard any footsteps on the porch. “You can come out now. Show’s over.”
I recognised the man who’d spoken as soon as the drawling words were out of his mouth. So did Trey. I felt him flinch beside me. He was hunched down with his knees bent up in front of him and his arms wrapped round his shins. He was holding on so tight his knuckles had gone white with the force of it.
“Tell me, Whitmarsh,” I called back, “why the fuck I should trust you.”
Jim Whitmarsh gave a kind of a snort that might have signified amusement. But then again, it might not.
“Well, I can think of a coupla good reasons,” he said. There was a pause, then the sound of that shotgun again, the oiled mechanism being snatched back and ramming another cartridge home. There was no need for it. It was just a gesture. Just for show. “How’s that for a start?”
For a second I sat huddled in the bath and tried to work out what was wrong here. Besides, the obvious, that is. Oakley man had wanted us dead and only the arrival of Whitmarsh and his men had prevented that.
But I doubted that Oakley man knew who’d killed the Hispanic man. He could even have thought it was me. Going up against someone you believe to be armed with a half-empty handgun is one thing. Suddenly finding there are people lying in wait with shotguns is something else altogether. Either Oakley man had run, or he’d gone for reinforcements.
So that just left us facing Jim Whitmarsh. The man I’d seen burst into that motel bedroom with one of his men and coldly murder two unlucky innocents because he thought they were us.
He was right, though, about his argument being a persuasive one. Choosing to stay and face a shotgun in a confined space – especially one as flimsily constructed as Henry’s house – was suicide.
If they started clearing the place room by room they wouldn’t even have to aim. The bathroom was so small that all they’d have to do was put one shot round the open door, or even straight through one of the dividing walls. Not even a cast iron bathtub would save us then. Open ground was our best chance by far.
I glanced at Trey. He looked so terrified I wasn’t even sure I’d get him on his feet unaided.
“We’ve got to go out there,” I told him, almost gently. He shook his head, lip starting to tremble. I moved to brush his cheek, then noticed the blood on my hands again and ended up just touching his shoulder instead. I smiled, tentative. “Trust me,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. “I’ll get you out of this.”
His bruised eyes called me a liar, but at least he didn’t say the words out loud.
I raised my voice. “OK, Whitmarsh, we’re coming out.”
We got out of the bath and moved through to the front door again.
“Here,” I said quietly, and stuck the SIG into the back of the waistband of Trey’s baggy shorts. His face paled even further. “For God’s sake don’t touch it,” I warned him. “They’re less likely to search you, that’s all.”
I unlocked the door and pushed the screen open, then moved out onto the porch, keeping Trey slightly behind me and my empty hands where everyone could see them.
Jim Whitmarsh was standing on the scrubby drive, not far from where the Hispanic man had fallen. My gaze swept across the space behind the Corvette but the body seemed to have gone. There was no sign of the man I’d shot on the other side of the road, either. So that’s what Oakley man had stopped for.
Whitmarsh was wearing an Oxford shirt and chinos and loafers with no socks. He was carrying a Beretta out of the neat leather holster attached to his belt and he was sweating in the heat. When he saw me his eyebrows went up as he took in the cheesy teenage outfit and the beaded pink locks, not to mention Trey’s shock of white hair.
Lonnie was the one with the shotgun, a Remington twelve-bore. He stood a little further forward but well to the side of Whitmarsh, giving him a decent line on us. The fronts of his combat trousers were coated with dirt and dust where he’d lain under the house and shot the Hispanic man through the trellis, unseen and unsuspected. Now, his eyes were constantly ranging across the surrounding houses and along the street, checking for trouble. He barely gave Trey and me a second glance.
I didn’t see Chris right away, not until the car arrived. A maroon Ford Taurus braked to a fast halt right outside the house and the big coloured guy jumped out of the driver’s seat, leaving the doors open and the engine running. He moved round the back of the car and opened the boot.
“C’mon,” he said to Whitmarsh, “we don’t have much time.”
“OK.” Whitmarsh nodded. “Check her over, first.” To me he said, “You exceeded my expectations, Charlie. Takes a lot to impress me, but I’m impressed.”
“Excuse me if I don’t take that as a compliment,” I said with a touch of acid.
He smiled. “Yep,” he went on as though I hadn’t spoken, holding my gaze as he added with a certain cruel deliberation, “you put up more of a fight than Meyer, that’s for sure.”
I felt my face harden but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of rising to that one. We continued our stare-out competition as Chris approached and gave me a quick pat-down search. He kept out of Lonnie’s field of fire and stepped back when he was done, shaking his head to Whitmarsh. As I’d hoped, he didn’t bother with the boy.
“OK,” Whitmarsh said, “get them both into the trunk.”
“Oh come on,” I snapped, edging closer to Trey and stamping on my fear. “If you’re going to kill us, just get on with it. You don’t have to go through the classic ‘taking you for a ride’ crap.”
Chris flicked his eyes to his boss and in that instant I read just a hint of nervousness there. The sudden realisation it triggered was like someone had flicked a switch inside my head and turned on all the floodlights at a Premier League football game.
They didn’t want us dead.
In fact, having Trey dead was the very last thing they wanted. To the point where they’d actually stepped in to prevent us being shot by Oakley man and his crew.
It all made a twisted kind of sense now. I’d thought Whitmarsh and Oakley man were all in this together but, when I thought about it, I’d never seen them working as a team. Even though they’d always appeared to have a common aim.
“Maybe we aren’t of a mind to kill you,” Whitmarsh said, narrow eyed. “You thought of that?”
Lonnie paused just long enough in his constant surveillance to flick his boss a brief, pained glance, as though he considered Whitmarsh was wasting time they didn’t have on idle chitchat. Chris was tense, too. For a few moments the only sound was that of the Taurus’s quietly running engine.
“Well it certainly looked that way when we watched you slaughter that pair at the motel,” I threw back.
Surprise rocked him, then he smiled. “Maybe we’ve had a change of heart since then,” he said and jerked his head to Chris to get on with it.