“Can you hear me?”
A small nod indicated that he could.
“I know you’re hurting, but you’ll be all right. Now even no matter what it takes, don’t pass out. I have to talk to you.”
Boster nodded again and said weakly, “Yes... but... hurry. I can’t... stand it.”
“What happened?”
For a second he closed his eyes and I thought he had drifted off, then he opened them and looked at me, pain showing through the slits. “There... was a knock... on the door. I thought it... was a policeman. He... came in... hit me.”
“Who, Boster?”
“Thin. He was... tall. Face was...”
“What? Come on, snap out of it!”
Boster spat out blood from his crushed mouth, eyes pleading with me to stop, but I couldn’t. He said, “Right side... scarred. Glass eye. He had a... funny gun.”
“What was he after?”
The pain receded then, horror taking its place as he remembered. His jaw came open, trembled, and he moaned and tried to turn his head.
“What was it, Boster!”
He rolled his head back slowly. “I... told him,” he said, his voice accusing nobody but himself. I waited, knowing there would be more. Finally he moved his mouth again. “I had remembered... a place Louis... mentioned. Leesville. He beat me... did things to me... and I told him.” His eyes squinted shut and a tremor went through his body. One hand twitched with the terrible agony in it. “I... couldn’t help myself.”
I tried to keep my voice quiet. “When, Boster? How long ago?”
“Right... after daylight.”
That gave Niger Hoppes a few hours’ start!
“Leesville... where is it?”
He tried to talk but wasn’t going to make it. One hand reached out feebly as if it were pointing. A glassy stare was coming into his eyes again. He made one final attempt and got out, “Map... pinhole,” then relapsed into total unconsciousness.
Like that the pain was gone into the darkness the body reserves for such moments and there was nothing I could do for him that couldn’t wait. I straightened up, shoved the gun back and scoured the room for a map. I tore the place apart, throwing drawers on the floor, slamming papers and blueprints from the shelves, looking for the thing and finding nothing. Boster had tried to point, but where?
I went back to the inert form wanting to yell at him, make him tell me, then I saw the bulge in the lower pocket of his bench apron. It was just a standard East Coast roadmap issued by a big gasoline company, but it covered the area from Florida to Maine, and in the southlands there could be hundreds of Leesvilles that were no more than intersections of county roads. I spread the map out, checked the important cities listed in the corner without finding any reference to a Leesville.
But Claude had said a pinhole.
I stretched the map face down on a bench and ran my hand over the surface, feeling for any raised edge from a perforation. When my fingers came away empty I held it up to the light, let my eyes roam over the area inch by inch, concentrating in the lower quarter.
It took five minutes, but I found it, buried in the crease of a fold, just the tiniest pinprick as if someone had looked at the map once and absently touched the spot with a pin. That’s what Louis Agrounsky had done, and Boster had seen him do it.
Alongside the minute hole in fine blue letters identifying a blue dot near the coastline was the legend, Leesville.
I shoved the map in my pocket and picked up the phone, waiting impatiently for Charlie Corbinet to answer. I heard the phone connection open and the hum of voices in the background before he said, “Yes?”
“Tiger, Charlie. Can I talk?”
He recognized the urgency in my voice and kept his friendly and disarming in case anyone else was listening. “Certainly,” he said cheerfully.
“I have the spot located.”
Then his tone was forced and his breathing was hard. “Yes, yes, go on. I’ll be glad to help.”
“No thanks. We haven’t got time. I don’t want anybody moving in or we’ll scare our boy off. You get the information firsthand the way I did. Niger Hoppes reached Claude Boster somehow. It wouldn’t have been much trouble to do... the grounds were patrolled and he came when the cop was on the other side of the building. Boster needs help and fast.”
“Fine... I understand.” He knew it was useless to argue at that point and didn’t try. But he could try a different approach just to keep me there and said, “Your... friend has been trying to call you.”
“Dave?”
“That’s the one. You’re to call your... fiancée. Apparently it’s important.”
“You trying to keep me here, buddy?”
“It’s for your own good.” he said, but he didn’t mean it at all. They wanted me out of the way.
I grinned at the phone mirthlessly and said, “I’ll leave the name of the place on the workbench. Let’s see you find it ahead of me. You’ll have the same chance as Hoppes, only he’s got a bigger start.”
I hung up, scribbled Leesville on the desk pad for him to find and went over to the door. The chain hung there, but the other two automatic locks were still in place, pulled shut from the outside. Niger Hoppes had had it too damn easy.
Not now though. Right then he was activating every source at his command to locate the possible sites of Leesville along the route Louis Agrounsky took and the faceless underground was going to find it for him.
I ran to the car, got in, and backed out of the drive. By the time I reached the corner, went down a block and reversed my path I heard the moaning wail of the police car’s siren in front of Boster’s house as they got the call to intercept me.
There wasn’t time for explanations. Camille could see it on my face and stared straight ahead. I took the back roads, picking my direction carefully, heading continuously toward the airport on the other side of town. They’d be out in full force now, knowing I knew the actual location of the place, ready to tear it from me any way they could. I couldn’t blame them. Their concern was as great as my own, but I had been there at the beginning and I was going to be there at the end. I was closer than they were and at this point better prepared.
Beside me Camille sneezed into her handkerchief, sniffling hard as she fought the cold the rain drenched her with. Her eyes were watery when she looked at me through a forced smile and said, “Can I help somehow?”
“Keep watching those side roads. I can’t see too well.”
“Where are we going?”
“The airport.”
She spotted an intersection and cleared me with a nod. “You found... your friend?”
“Yeah, I found him. He was supposed to be dead.” I described the scene briefly to her and her shoulders shook with some inward revulsion. “I’m... sorry. I’m not very... good about these things.”
“Forget it. We’re almost on target.”
She took the handkerchief away from her mouth and wiped at her eyes. “Tiger... I’m frightened.”
“Don’t be.”
“I can’t help it. Maybe it’s silly... but I haven’t... before I haven’t been part of anything...”
“You did fine, kid.”
“I wasn’t any help... You’ll leave me here?” she asked.
“I have to.”
“But...”
“Nobody’ll bother you. The action’s left this place. It’ll be in Leesville now.”
“Where?”
“A spot on the map in North Carolina near the ocean. The killer I want has a few hours’ start, but it won’t do any good.”