Max slouched in the chair. “Just how am I supposed to kill the girl?”
Ledecker frowned. “Please, Mr. Raffidy. Discuss it in business terms.”
“Well, how?”
“There’s a choice of methods. We can have her taken over into the woods and you can shoot her. Or you can strangle her. Or you can hit her with a heavy object.”
“Business terms, eh? Why such rough ways?”
“For their effect on you, Mr. Raffidy. I would prefer that it be a rough way, as you express it.”
“Where is she?”
“Roughly sixty feet from you.”
“When is all this supposed to take place?”
“Right after dusk, I believe. That should be the best time.”
“Where does the body go?”
“We will take several pictures of the body and then it will be disposed of. There’s no need for you to know where or how.”
“And then?”
“And then, with my blessing, you go on about your business.”
“Why not just pick the two of us off? Why tie yourself in knots?”
Ledecker sighed. “There is too big a chance, my boy, that you might have tried to protect yourself with some silly report to the police.”
“Suppose I did. Then all I have to do is sit tight.”
“Hurt him a little, Joseph,” Ledecker said in a strained voice.
Max spun out of the chair and got his back near the wall as Joseph came in. With the expressionless boredom of a professional, Joseph ducked into Max’s swing, taking the knuckles against his forehead. He moved in close, grunting with the exertion of each blow.
When Joseph backed away, Max dropped to his hands and knees, then fell over on his side. He pulled his knees up toward his chest and rolled his head from side to side, pushing against the pain, trying to think and plan.
Ledecker stood above him, seeming to sway, to shift back and forth through the mists that the pain brought. His voice was very far away. “There’ll be no more lip and no nonsense, Raffidy, damn you!”
Joseph, torpidly satisfied with his work, had gone back to the couch. Max was spinning toward the edge of consciousness, but, as the idea formed, he fought his way back. He wheezed, “Where’d you lose your British accent?”
He saw Ledecker’s neat black shoe coming at him. He snapped his head back at the last moment and the foot went by, throwing the man off balance. Max grabbed him by the ankle and spilled him. He grabbed one wrist, twisted the arm up into a punishing hammerlock, got his thick right hand on Ledecker’s throat. Joseph came charging across the room.
Max yelled, “Hold it!” He had Ledecker in a sitting position. He said quickly, “Come any closer and I shut my hand on this throat. With one squeeze, I can crush the windpipe.”
When Ledecker reached up to claw at the hand, Max tightened the hammerlock. Ledecker painfully groaned, “Move back, Joseph.”
Joseph, no longer expressionless, moved slowly back on the balls of his feet.
“I want Joseph to give me the gun he took off me,” Max said softly.
“Don’t be absurd,” Ledecker said. His voice had more confidence.
Max gave a quick hard pressure with his fingers, released it. Ledecker’s body shook with the convulsive coughing.
Max said, “Did you feel that, friend? Just a little more than that. Here, I’ll try to give you a little more without killing you.”
“Wait,” Ledecker gasped. “Joseph, give him the gun.”
“Boss, I’m not going to get—”
“Do as you’re told!”
Max said, “Hold it by the barrel and slide it along the floor. Slide it right over here.”
Joseph hesitated for long seconds. The automatic slid along the rug. He released Ledecker’s throat, snatched up the gun, scrambled to his feet. It took an effort to straighten his bruised body.
Ledecker stood up slowly. His face was calm. “What now, Raffidy?”
“You and Joseph line up against that wall, face to the wall, feet about a yard from the baseboard. Then lean against the wall, your palms flat against it.”
Joseph looked at him with contempt. Max leveled the gun, saying, “So I have to smash your knee, Joe.”
Joseph lumbered over to the wall. Max went up behind them. Swinging the automatic in a horizontal arc, he chopped the barrel and trigger guard heavily against Joseph’s head, just above the right ear. Joseph’s face hit the hardwood floor with a damp, meaty smack. Then keeping the muzzle a few inches from the small of Ledecker’s back, he patted the man in all places where a small gun could be concealed.
Ledecker said, “Whatever you’re planning, Raffidy, it won’t work. I have fifteen employees in this place. Half of them are armed.”
Max said mildly, “If you were me, friend, wouldn’t you at least give it a whirl? Come on now. Turn around slow. The gun is in my pocket. I’m going to be a half step behind you. Anything I don’t care for — and one goes right through you.”
He could see the sheen of sweat on the man’s face. “Where to?” Ledecker asked.
“Right out the door and down the hall to the stairs. Slowly down the stairs and across the club room and out to the drive. Then into the car. And then to town.”
“Anything you suggest, Raffidy.”
“And all the time you’re walking, you’ll be talking to me. Not too loud and not too soft. You’ll be explaining some of your equipment. Understand?”
“Perfectly.”
“Start talking now.”
“One of... ah... the items we’ve had the most luck with this year has been a specialty item used in chuckaluck where the operator by merely putting his hand in a certain position to spin the cage, can make the dice...”
His voice droned on. The hallway was empty. They met a man on the stairs carrying a tray of drinks. The man backed into the corner of the landing to let them by. The door at the foot of the stairway opened near the bar. Two couples sat at the far end of the club room. Ledecker walked with his back rigid. Max kept what he hoped was an amiable smile on his face. Then out the side door to the parking lot.
Ledecker stopped and said, “The car will be brought over.”
The attendant brought the car over, jumped out, left the motor running. A small cement mixer chattered busily at the far end of the parking lot. Several workmen were moving about in a leisurely fashion.
The impact of the slug seemed to come before the brittle sound of the shot. To Max it was as though someone standing behind him had whammed him on the shoulder with a hand sledge. It spun him around so that he faced the door, and he went down the two steps to the gravel, stumbling and falling, rolling onto his back.
His left arm was dead. He couldn’t haul the gun out of his right pocket from that position. Ledecker came down the two steps toward him, frantic in his haste to get hold of the gun arm. At the second shot, Ledecker sprawled loosely across Max’s thighs. Max looked up, saw Joseph at the upstairs window, revolver aimed, a look of intense dismay on his wide face.
Max immediately realized that Ledecker had, in his eagerness, moved directly into the line of fire. He wiggled out from under Ledecker, scrambled around the car, driving his shoulder into the openmouthed attendant, staggering him off balance. He jumped in behind the wheel, dropped the big car into gear and spun the wheels on the gravel as he heard the faint sound of another shot, heard the thunk of lead against the metal side.
The attendant was racing beside the window, reaching in for the keys. Max swerved the heavy car toward the man, knocking him off his feet. Then he skidded out onto the driveway, turning toward town.
He was dizzy and faint with the shock of the wound. Pain was just beginning. He was grateful for the automatic shift on the car. He steered with his right hand at the top of the wheel, his left hand in his lap.
Captain Lowery said, “Lucky the bones in your shoulder are as thick as the ones in your head. What the hell are you doing? Leaving?”