Richie said, “We’re coming up, Arnette.”
Arnette didn’t say anything.
Good psychology. Rattle Richie a little more. Why is Arnette so silent suddenly? Richie would be thinking.
“You hear me? I said we’re coming up!”
Arnette didn’t answer this time, either.
Jimmy started wailing again, screaming about how much it hurt.
“You cocksucker!” Richie shouted up. But there wasn’t much passion in his words.
He was shouting just to relieve himself of anger and frustration.
“You’ll have to help me, Jimmy,” Richie said. “I’m going to carry you over to the ladder and then you’ll have to climb the steps. I’ll be right behind you.”
“I don’t think I can, Richie.”
“Goddamn it,” Richie exploded. “It’s the only way you’re gonna get out of here!”
Jimmy started crying again, great gasping tears of fear and self-pity.
“Oh, shit, Jimmy. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. It’s just—” He paused. “C’mon, Jimmy, I’ll carry you over to the ladder. You ready?”
Then there were the sounds of grunting in the darkness below. Arnette could make out the indistinct shapes of two people moving toward the ladder.
Several times, Jimmy whimpered like a damaged animal. Several times, he started crying.
Bodies slammed hard against the ladder. Arnette saw the top of the ladder jostle.
“We’re coming up,” Richie said.
The anger was still there but now there was a hint of fear, too. He obviously didn’t like handing himself over to Arnette this way. And wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Jimmy.
Arnette stood up, his long flanks painful once again from all the crouching.
He held his rifle at the ready, pointed directly at the trapdoor.
He wasn’t sure what was going to happen. He thought of just shooting the two as soon as they emerged from the cellar. He could then take the bodies back down and lay them on the floor. His story would be simple. Richie’d engaged him in a shoot-out and he’d been forced to kill him. Jimmy had been killed by getting in the way.
Jimmy moaned and whimpered all the way up.
Twice he screamed that he was falling over backward.
But somehow he made it.
Arnette waited...
The hand-streaked blood was like a mask over Jimmy’s face. He’d pawed the red stain from his wound all over his cheeks and forehead. He looked like some kind of crazed Indian warrior. Only his blue eyes shone brightly, and they shone with fever and delirium.
“You shouldn’t’ve shot me, Steve,” he sniffled when he saw Arnette standing there. “I wasn’t hurtin’ you or nothing.”
He had never liked being called “Steve” by Jimmy. It implied an intimacy they didn’t have. He called everybody by his first name. Most people thought it was cute.
“Just get up here, Jimmy.”
Arnette couldn’t see the wound until Jimmy stood on the floor.
He’d taken at least one bullet in the right side. His shirt and part of his jeans were soaked with blood. He smelled of sour piss.
“You go stand over there by the wall.”
“You ain’t gonna shoot us, are you?”
“You just go over there and stand and shut up. You understand?”
“You said you’d get me to Doc Klever, Steve.”
Jimmy held his side. The wound was still leaking blood badly.
He went over and eased himself back against the wall. Under his blood mask, he was looking paler by the moment. He was crying again.
Darkness down the hole of the trapdoor.
Richie still had a handgun.
The son of a bitch wasn’t going to make it easy.
“Get your ass up here, Richie.”
Silence was the response.
“You hear me, Richie?”
Silence again.
He should have known it wouldn’t be smooth, getting both of them up here. Nothing in his life had ever been easy, why should this be?
But he wasn’t going to fuck around with cat and mouse.
Richie might think he could wait him out, but he was wrong.
“Richie, this is your last chance. You get your ass up here now or I’m going to change the fucking rules. You understand?”
Still, there was no response.
What he really wanted to do was kneel down at the trapdoor opening and fire blindly until he hit Richie. Like a shooting gallery. With the biggest prize ever won by anybody.
But that might not work.
Firing blind that way, Richie might be able to elude him for a long time. And Arnette didn’t have all that many rounds left.
One thing was for sure. Richie was making this easy. Arnette was going to be so frustrated and so pissed off that he wouldn’t have any trouble at all killing either one of them.
“Richie. You listening, Richie?”
No response.
No sense wasting any more time.
Arnette turned around and walked over to where Jimmy had slid down the wall to the floor.
Arnette pointed the tip of his rifle directly at Jimmy’s head.
Jimmy looked up. He tried to scream but he didn’t have the proper strength.
All he could do was blubber.
“I’m going to kill Jimmy in fifteen seconds, Richie. That’s how much time you’ve got to get up here, you understand?”
Jimmy just blubbered some more.
As he stood there pointing the rifle, thinking of the reward money and how he was going to start a new life for himself, Arnette learned something about himself, learned he really could pull the trigger if he needed to.
“You’ve got twelve seconds, Richie,” he said. “Twelve seconds.”
This time, Jimmy was able to scream good and loud.
5
Amy saw right away that the Senator was going to be easier to deal with than his sister. The Senator looked anxious, even vaguely frightened after Sam took Helen inside the farmhouse and started asking her questions. Susan had gone back to the house with them. Chief Hadley, looking extremely uncomfortable, had left quickly. Amy had been surprised by the older man’s sudden burst of integrity. She suspected that Hadley himself had been somewhat surprised by his own action. All these years as a lawman had taken their toll. Presented with a choice between right and wrong — even with powerful forces urging him to lean to the wrong — she sensed he would now do the honest thing. Knowing how difficult this had been for Hadley, Amy felt a new respect and affection for the man.
“This is crazy, Amy.”
“Maybe it is, Senator.”
“I don’t have to tell you won’t be getting my support anymore.”
She looked at him. “No, you don’t have to tell me that, Senator. I figured it out on my own.”
“We didn’t have a damned thing to do with that girl’s death.”
“Then how did your sister’s button get by the body?”
Senator Cummings shook his handsome, impressive head. “My God, Amy, listen to yourself. You’re basing this whole thing on a story that Jimmy told you.”
“He wouldn’t have any reason to make it up.”
“Oh? He wouldn’t? How about saving the life of his hero? That seems like a pretty good reason to me.”
Actually, Amy had thought of that herself.
Jimmy wasn’t the most reliable witness. And there was no doubt that Richie was his hero.
She worried about how this slim piece of evidence would hold up in a murder trial.
But if the evidence was all that slim why was Cummings so nervous?
“I’ve done a lot for you, Amy.”
“Believe me, Senator Cummings, I’m well aware of that.”
“I’ve also helped your brother over the years.”