Fat Tuesday(112)

"Yeah," the heavier one chuckled."Maybe he needs prodding."

With the toe of his boot, he nudged the old, deaf fisherman in the spine just below his ponytail. It wasn't a hard kick, but to his consternation, the fisherman toppled into the water.

His fishing hat fell off. And so did the gray wig. The Spanishmoss beard floated away. A Halloween mask stared up at him, except that the slits for the eyes were empty.

Leaning down for a closer look, he exclaimed, "What the " Dredd reached from beneath the pier where he'd been hiding and grabbed the guy by the ankle. Unbalanced, he grabbed at air, but fell into the water.

Dredd's knife cut a clean arc beneath his chin. He was dead before he got completely wet.

Dredd's outlook was that some people just weren't fit to live among decent folk. He'd had his fill of the chronic wife beater that night he answered the domestic violence call. He saw on the guy's wife and kids the bloody evidence of his violent temper. The bastard hadn't kept his repeated promises to reform. He was an expensive drain on the system that routinely jailed him and then released him to abuse his family again. He was an emotional and physical blight on society and everyone around him.

Do everybody a favor and pop this son of a bitch now had been Dredd's thought when he pulled his weapon. For all the grief the incident had caused him, he didn't regret snuffing the guy. Given the same set of circumstances, he would do it again.

This guy, now lying limp in his arms, had killed before, and he would have killed him and Gregory after they had served their purpose.

Dredd had no compunction against striking first. It wouldn't cost him a second's sleep tonight.

If he lived until tonight.

Taking a deep breath, he dragged the body beneath the surface of the water with him and secured it to one of the pilings with a grappling hook. He resurfaced only far enough to breathe through his "Charlie?

Charlie?"

That's right, dimwit, give away your position with your voice.

Dredd stealthily moved through the water beneath the pier toward the voice.

"Charlie?" Then, "Oh, Jesus."

Dredd didn't have to guess what had caused the assassin's switch in tone from mystification to horror. Dredd had been around them long enough to sense their movements even when they were submerged and unseen. He'd studied their patterns, observed them in their natural habitat. Hell, he shared their natural habitat.

Gators.

His pets had spent the winter in semicatatonia, out of sight, not eating, not doing much of anything except waiting around for the first day that was sunny enough and warm enough to get their systems jump-started after months of lethargy. Today was the day. He sensed them moving with predatory intent through the water toward Charlie's fresh blood.

Dredd didn't panic. He waited. Waited. Waited.

"Charlie?"

Sheer panic was in the man's voice now. Dredd could read his mind. He wanted to bolt, to get the f*ck out of this spooky place and to hell with Duvall and finding his wife. But he and Charlie had worked together for a long time. Next to himself, Charlie was the meanest sumbitch he knew. And ol' Charlie had practically disappeared before his very eyes.

It was human nature to want to know what had happened to his buddy.

Human nature.

When the guy leaned over to inspect the underside of the pier, Dredd put all his strength behind a scissors kick that launched him out of the water with the impetus of a sea monster. The guy outweighed him by seventy pounds, but surprise gave Dredd a huge advantage He hooked his hand around the back of the guy's neck and pulled him into the water.

As he fell forward, Dredd's knife pierced his Adam's apple.

When Gregory regained consciousness, he was lying eyeball to eyeball with a twelve-foot alligator.

Screaming, he scrambled to his feet, banging his head on the iron bed frame. Pulse pounding, gasping for breath, in a near state of cardiac arrest, he crawled across the bed on which Dredd had nursed Remy Duvall only a few days ago.

Once he was on the far side of the room, he peeped beneath the bed to make certain that the gator he'd seen was a stuffed model and not a living specimen. He wouldn't put anything past Dredd, even to keeping a live alligator beneath his bed.

But the menacing eyes were glass. Moderately calmed, Gregory hastily made his way through the macabre chambers of Dredd's Mercantile.

The table on which Dredd ate his meals was littered with alligator heads sealed in shiny shellac, and they brought back a disturbing memory, although it didn't crystallize. Outside, the old man was washing down the pier with a garden hose.

When he heard Gregory's footfalls on the planks, he turned. His beard was wet, as were his denim cutoffs."Get your nap out?" he asked pleasantly.

"What happened? Why was I on the floor behind the bed? I can't remember

... No, wait. I do remember."

The fog inside Gregory's head gradually began to lift."You gave me a Dr. Pepper. Did you drug me?" Then his memory slammed into him full force. He spun around and saw the second car parked beside his.

"They're here?" he squealed in panic."Where are they? What did you tell them?

Why'd you knock me out?"

"Relax, sonny. You didn't miss much. They're gone."

"How'd you get rid of them? What did you tell them?"