Mike Hammer 09 - The Twisted Thing Page 11

  The sun was fighting back the night when I woke up. Outside the steamed-up windows a gray fog was drifting up from the waters, coiling and uncoiling until the tendrils blended into a low-hanging blanket of haze that hung four feet over the ground.

  It looked cold. It was cold. I was going to be kicking myself a long time if nothing came of this. I stripped off my clothes throwing them into the car until I was standing shivering in my underwear. Well, it was one way to get a bath, anyway. I could think of better ways. A quick plunge. It had to be quick or I would change my mind. I swam out to the spot I had fixed in my mind; the spot where Grange's car had landed. Then I stopped swimming. I let myself go as limp as possible, treading water just enough to keep my head above the surface. You got it. I was supposed to be playing dead, or almost dead. Half knocked out maybe. The tide was the same, I had checked on that. If this had been just another river it wouldn't have mattered, but this part was more an inlet than anything else. It emptied and filled with the tides, having its own peculiarities and eddies. It swirled and washed around objects long sunk in the cove of the bottom. I could feel it tug at my feet, trying to drag me down with little monkey hands, gentle, tugging hands that would mean nothing to a swimmer, but could have a noticeable effect on someone half dazed. Just a few minutes had passed and I was already out of sight of the car around the bend. Here the shores drew away as the riverbed widened until it reached the mouth of the inlet opening into the bay. I thought that I was going to keep right on drifting by, and had about made up my mind to quit all this damn foolishness when I felt the first effect of the eddy. It was pulling me toward the north shore. A little thrill of excitement shot through me, and although I was numb I felt an emotional warmth dart into my bones. The shore was closer now. I began to spin in a slow, tight circle as something underneath me kicked up a fuss with the water. In an other moment I saw what was causing the drag. A tiny U-bend in the shoreline jutted out far enough to cause a suction in the main flow and create enough disturbance to pull in anything not too far out. Closer...closer...I reached out and got hold of some finger-thick reeds and held on, then steadied myself with one hand in the mud and clambered up on the shore. There were no tracks save mine, but then again there wouldn't be. Behind me the muck was already filling in the holes my feet had made. I parted the reeds, picking my way through the remains of shellfish and stubble. They were tough reeds, all right. When I let them go they snapped back in place like a whip. If anyone had come out of the river it would have been here. It _had_ to be here! The reeds changed into scrub trees and thorny brush that clawed at my skin, raking me with their needlepoints. I used a stick as a club and beat at them, trying to hold my temper down. When they continued to eat their way into my flesh I cursed them up and down. But the next second I took it all back. They were nice briars. Beautiful briars. The loveliest briars I had ever seen, because one of them was sporting part of a woman's dress. I could have kissed that torn piece of fabric. It was stained, but fresh. And nobody was going to go through those reeds and briars except the little sweetheart I was after. This time I was gentler with the bushes and crawled through them as best I could without getting myself torn apart. Then the brush gave way to grass. That green stuff felt better than a Persian rug under my sore feet. I sat down on the edge of the clearing and picked the thorns out of my skin. Then I stood up and shoved the tail end of my T-shirt down into my shorts. Straight ahead of me was a shack. If ever there was an ideal hiding place, this was it, and as long as I was going to visit its occupant I might as well look my charming best. I knocked, then kicked the door open. A rat scurried along the edge of the wall and shot past my feet into the light. The place was as empty as a tomb. But it _had_ been occupied. Someone had turned the one room into a shambles. A box seat was freshly splintered into sharp fragments on the floor, and the makeshift stove in the middle of the room lay on its side. Over in the corner a bottle lay smashed in a million pieces, throwing jagged glints of light to the walls. She had been here. There was no doubt of it. Two more pieces of the same fabric I held in my hand were caught on the frayed end of the wooden table. She had put up a hell of a fight, all right, but it didn't do her any good. When the voice behind me said, "Hey, you!" I pivoted on my heel and my hand clawed for the gun I didn't have. A little old guy in baggy pants was peering at me through the one lens of his glasses, wiping his nose on a dirty hunk of rag at the same time. "That's not healthy, Pop." "You one of them there college kids?" he asked. I eased him out the door and came out beside him. "No, why?" "Always you college kids what go around in yer shorts. Seed some uptown once." He raised his glasses and, took a good look at my face. "Say...you ain't no college kid." "Didn't say I was." "Well, what you guys joining? I seed ya swimming in the crick, just like the other one." I went after that _other one_ like a bird after a bug. "What other one?" My hands were shaking like mad. It was all I could do to keep my hands off his shirt and shake the facts out of him. "The one what come up t'other day. Maybe it was yesterday. I disremember days. What ya joining?" "Er...a club. We have to swim the river then reach the house without being seen. Guess they won't let me join now that somebody saw me. Did you see the other guy too?" "Sure. I seed him, but I don't say nothing. I seed lotta funny things go on and I don't ask no questions. It's just that this was kinda funny, that's all." "What did he look like?" "Well, I couldn't see him too good. He was big and fat. I heered him puffing plenty after he come out of the weeds. Yeah, he was a big feller. I didn't know who he was so I went back through the woods to my boat." "Just the other guy, that's all you saw?" "Yep." "Nobody else?" "Nope." "Anybody live in that shack?" "Not now. Comes next month and Pee Wee'll move in. He's a tramp. Don't do nothing but fish and live like a pig. He's been living there three summers now." "This other one you saw, did he have a mean-looking face, sort of scowling?" "Ummmm. Now that you mention it, he looked kinda mad. Guess that was one reason why I left." Dilwick. It was Dilwick. The fat slob had gotten the jump on me again. I knew he was smart...he had to be to get along the way he did, but I didn't think he was that smart. Dilwick had put the puzzle together and come out on top. Dilwick had found Grange in the shack and carted her off. Then why the hell didn't he produce her? Maybe the rest of the case stunk, but this part raised a putrid odor to high heaven. Everybody under the sun wanted in on the act, now it was Dilwick. Crime upon crime upon crime upon crime. Wasn't it ever going to end? Okay, fat boy, start playing games with me. You think you pulled a quickie, don't you? You think nobody knows about this...T. S., junior, I know about it now, and brother, I think I'm beginning to see where I'm going. "How can I get back to the bridge without swimming, Pop?" He pointed a gnarled finger toward the tree line. "A path runs through there. Keeps right along the bank, but stick to it and nobody'll see ya in ya jeans. Hope they let ya join that club." "I think I can fix it." I batted away the bugs that were beginning to swarm around me and took off for the path. Damn Dilwick anyway.

  Chapter Ten

  Going back was rough. My feet were bleeding at the end of the first hundred yards and the blue-tailed flies were making my back a bas-relief of red lumps. Some good samaritan had left a dirty burlap bag that reeked of fish and glinted with dried scales in the path and I ripped it in half and wrapped the pieces over my instep and around my ankles. It wasn't so bad after that.