The Fifth Quarter(4)

Keenan got up, holding his arm and blubbering. He took the print off its hooks with his good hand, revealing an office-gray wall safe. He threw a terrified glance at me and began to twiddle the dial. He made two false starts and had to go back. The third time he got it open. There were some documents and two wads of bills inside. He reached in, fumbled around, and came up with two squares of paper, about three inches on a side.

I swear I didn't mean to kill him. I planned to tie him up and leave him. He was harmless enough; the maid would find him when she got back from her lingerie party or wherever it was she'd gone in her little Dodge Colt, and Keenan wouldn't dare poke his nose out of his house for a week. But it was like Sarge had said. He did have two. And one of them had blood on it.

I shot him again, this time not in the arm. He went down like an empty laundry bag.

Sarge didn't flinch. "I wasn't crapping you. Keenan jobbed your friend. They were both amateurs. Amateurs are stupid."

I didn't answer. I looked down at the squares and shoved them into my pocket. Neither one had an X-marks-the-spot on it.

"What now?" Sarge asked.

"We go to your place."

"What makes you think my piece of the map is there?"

"I don't know. Telepathy, maybe. Besides, if it isn't, we'll go where it is. I'm in no hurry."

"You've got all the answers, huh?"

"Let's go."

We went back out to the carport. I sat in the back of the VW, on the side away from him. His bulk and the size of the car made a surprise play on his part a joke; it would take him five minutes just to get turned around. Two minutes later we were on the road.

It was starting to snow, big, sloppy flakes that clung to the windshield and turned to instant slush when they struck the pavement. It was slippery going, but there wasn't much traffic.

After a half hour on Route 10, he turned off onto a secondary road. Fifteen minutes later we were on a rutted dirt track with snow-freighted pines staring at us on either side. Two miles along we turned into a short, trash-littered driveway.

In the limited sweep of the VW's headlights 1 could make out a rickety backwoods shack with a patched roof and a twisted TV aerial. There was a snow-covered old Ford in a gully to the left. Out in back was an outhouse and a pile of old tires. Hernando's Hideaway.

"Welcome to Bally's East," Sarge said, and killed the engine.

"If this is a con, I'll kill you."

He seemed to fill three-quarters of the tiny vehicle's front seat. "I know that," he said.

"Get out."

Sarge led the way up to the front door. "Open it," I said. "Then stand still."

He opened the door and stood still. I stood still. We stood still for about three minutes, and nothing happened. The only moving thing was a fat gray squirrel that had ventured into the middle of the yard to curse us in lingua rodenta.

"Okay," I said. "Let's go in."

Surprise, it was a dump. The one sixty-watt bulb cast a grungy glow over the whole room, leaving shadows like starved bats in the corners. Newspapers were scattered helter-skelter. Drying clothes were hung on a sagging rope. In one corner there was an ancient Zenith TV. In the opposite corner was a rickety sink and a stark, rust-stained bathtub on claw feet. A hunting rifle stood beside it. The predominant odors were feet, farts, and chili.

"It beats living raw," Sarge said.

I could have argued the point, but didn't. "Where's your piece of the map?"

"In the bedroom."

"Let's go get it."

"Not yet." He turned around slowly, his dipped-in-concrete face hard. "I want your word you ain't going to kill me when you get it."

"How you going to make me keep it?"

"Fuck, I don't know. I guess I'm just gonna hope it was more than the money that got you cranked up. If it was Barney, too -- wanting to clean Barney's slate -- you did it, it's clean. Keenan capped him and now Keenan's dead. If you want the bundle, too, okay. Maybe three-quarters will be enough, and you were right -- my piece has got a great big X on it. But you don't get it unless you promise I get something, too: my life."

"How do I know you won't come after me?"

"But I will, sonny," the Sarge said softly.

I laughed. "All right. Throw in Jagger's address and you've got your promise. I'll keep it, too."

The Sarge shook his head slowly. "You don't want to play with Jagger, fella, Jagger will eat you up."

I had dropped the.45 a little. Now I lifted it again.

"All right. He's in Coleman, Massachusetts. A ski lodge. Is that good enough?''

"Yes. Let's get your piece, Sarge."

The Sarge looked me over once more, closely. Then he nodded. We went into the bedroom.

More Colonial charm. The stained mattress on the floor was littered with stroke-books and the walls were papered with photographs of women who appeared to be wearing nothing but a thin coating of Wesson Oil. One look at this place and Dr. Ruth's head would have exploded.

The Sarge didn't hesitate. He picked up the lamp on the night-table and pried the base off it. His quarter of the map was neatly rolled up inside; he held it out wordlessly.

"Throw it," I invited.