A lamp on the desk in Sonnenberg's study had switched on.
“That will be your call, Duncan,” Sonnenberg's voice told
him. “Just pick up the receiver. I don't like phones that ring.
They have a certain rudeness to them.”
Peck considered denying Sonnenberg whatever prank
he'd planned by ignoring the call. But that petty satisfaction
might deny him knowledge he could use. He reached for the
phone and gave his name.
A man, a frightened man, identified himself with a name
Peck did not recognize. Peck could hear another voice
speaking softly, instructing the man Peebles who placed the
call “Just tell him what happened here, Tom. Tell him
everything you saw.”
Duncan Peck flushed as he listened. He covered one ear
against the din made by Michael Biaggi, who was in the
study, kicking out some paneling that sounded hollow.
“Michael!” he snapped. Biaggi stopped and Peck waved him
from the room.
“The man, Boley. Is he dead?”
“No sir. Um, I'm to tell you that he's been slowed down
considerably. Sir, you understand I have nothing to do with
this?”
“Perfectly, yes,” Peck answered. “Who is the man telling
you what to say, Mr. Peebles? Did he give a name?”
“Ben Coffey, sir. He wants me to be sure you know that.
He says you can't plan on Boley to run any more errands for
you and that he'll be slowing down one or two
steps
more just to
make sure you get the message.”
“What message specifically, Mr. Peebles?”
“He says Dr. . . . Sonnenberg?
...
He says Dr. Sonnen
berg will explain everything. He says I have to hang up now,
sir. I really have to. He has this gun—” The connection was
broken.
Peck, his jaw tight, pulled out his notebook and again began scribbling furiously. With a wave, he summoned Ed Burleson and handed him the result. Burleson's eyebrows
rose, but Peck shut off further conversation with a light
shove toward the door.
”I bet I know what it says, Duncan.” Sonnenberg's voice
was pleasant. “Get thee our men to Greeley. Seal off this.
Cordon off that. FBI men to the airports and bus stations. It
all sounds very exciting. I think, however, that Benjamin
will anticipate a certain amount of hostile activity.”
‘There is a point to this, I suppose, Marcus?”
”I should think it would be obvious. You're being offered a lesson in humility, Duncan. I hope you'll profit by it. Once
I've painfully demonstrated that you can't hide anyone I can't find, my hope is that you will curtail certain of the
tawdry activities of your people in the field. Another will be
punished today and occasionally in the future just to let you
know I'm paying attention. Benjamin needs the exercise.
I'm afraid his situation in Dayton was beginning to pall. In truth, he has you to thank for providing a timely outlet for his energies.”
“I'll have your head, Marcus,” Duncan Peck hissed
through his teeth. ”I will have your head or you will have mine. There will be no other way.”
“One never knows, does one, Duncan.” Peck heard the
clicking of switches. “Oops! Here comes one of your wor
thies dashing breathlessly from the basement. He seems to have found something exciting.”
Ben Coffey took a dishtowel and used a carving knife to
slice it into several long strips.
“Tourniquets, Tom,” he said. “Let's go back inside there
and you can tie up old Ray-Ray's legs. We don't want him
bleeding to death.”
The salesman blinked. “Why . . . why did you do this
then?”
Ben steered him toward the ladies' room, indicating with
a nod that he'd explain while Tom ministered.
Boley was unconscious. The man called Ira sat gripping
his own leg high on the thigh, his eyes staring hatred toward
Ben as he entered. Peebles began with Boley.
“You see, Tom,” Ben said, glancing at Ira to make sure he had his attention as well. “Ray-Ray here got caught for what
he did down in Tupelo. The FBI caught him and they had
him cold. They decided, though, that Ray-Ray would be
more useful as an informant than as a celebrity prisoner in
some redneck jail. It ended up that a bunch of his friends got
s
ent to the federal prison in Atlanta for violating the civil
rights of the two old folks I mentioned. The specific viola
tion was blowing their faces off with shotguns. Now, there's
a few black people, me included, who'd like to have found
Ray-Ray after that, but there are a hell of a lot more good ol'
boys who also want him dead. They'll have an easier time
catching up with him now that I've slowed him down some.
Do you follow all this, Tom?”
“Yes.”
”I don't believe a goddamned word of it,” Ira croaked.
“Yes you do, Ira. Or you will when you read the papers.
You just don't want to believe that a straight-thinking Amer
ican like Ray-Ray here would turn on his straight-thinking,
like-minded friends. You especially don't want to believe
you got shot for a turd like that, but there it is, Ira.”
“You go to hell.”
Coffey shook his head in resignation. He thought of sug
gesting that Ira take one of those strips and tie up his own squirting wound before it pumped his life away, but what
does a nigger know about anything? He turned his attention
back to the salesman.
“Tom, the FBI will be having a long talk with you,” he
said, his voice low and confidential. “Would you remember
to give them a message for me?”
The salesman nodded.
“You see, they turned Ray-Ray here over to the fellow
you spoke to on the phone. He's supposed to hide people like Boley. That's his job. He hides them all right, and he keeps them hidden as long as they do as they're told and
keep doing whatever they're good at whenever Duncan
Peck wants. What Ray-Ray here is good at is shooting nig
gers, and he also doesn't mind doing that when Peck thinks
a need arises, so everything works out fine. Peck has all
kinds of experts. He has fellas that rob banks, that do kid
napping, fix elections, do extortions—just about any help
ful little specialty Peck could need. You'll tell the FBI to take a look-see, won't you, Tom? Tell them I'm going to
make a couple of other stops like this just to drive the point
home.”
Coffey rose to his feet. The revolver hung casually at his
side.
“I'll be going now, Tom. I'm going to close this door, and
I have to ask you not to open it for five minutes or so. If I
see it move before I leave, I'm going to have to shoot
through it. I'm also going to tear out the phone. After I'm
gone, you find a filling station, call the police, then come
back and pour yourself a cup of coffee until they come.
Boley won't mind.”
Tom Peebles nodded. He was beginning to sweat. There was something new in his eyes. Confusion, Coffey decided.
Wondering why the Greeley police weren't here already
after he'd told that man on the phone what was going on.
But he knew Peck wouldn't have called the police. He knew
he had time.
Coffey patted Tom Peebles on the shoulder and stepped
through the door of the blood-splashed ladies' room, closing
it behind him. He walked to his briefcase and laid the gun
inside. He paused, thoughtful. Tom Peebles's expression
still lingered in his mind. More than confusion, he thought.
That was a fella trying to make up his mind about some
thing. Coffey shook his head, dismissing the notion. Time to just get away from here. He closed his fingers over the brief
case lid.
“Ben?” came the frightened voice from a three-inch
crack in the ladies' room door. “Please don't move, Ben.”
Tom Peebles pushed through the doorway, a plated auto
matic pistol held tightly in both hands at shoulder level. Its line of sight stuttered nervously across Ben Coffey's chest.
Coffey stared at the small chromed weapon for several sec
onds, making a disgusted face and shaking his head at his
own carelessness.
“Oh, Tom,” he said sadly, “now why would you be carry
ing a gun?”
“It's
...
I have a license.”
”I should have guessed that when I saw you keeping your
sample case close by. Jewelry salesman?”
Peebles hesitated. ”I . . . call on doctors. Ethical drugs. There are addicts who'd . . .”
“That's fine, Tom. Now, instead of waving that gun
around like you meant it, why don't you take your sample
case and go pour a few pil
l
s into Ray and Ira back there.”
“Ben, I can't. I can't let you shoot people and just walk
out.”
“You'd shoot me, Tom?”
“Please. I don't want to.”
“You got your gun on him?” Ira's voice shouted from in
side. “Shoot him, goddamnit.” Ben could hear him strug
gling to stand on his one good leg. He would have to work
fast.
“Look what's happening to your little gun, Tom. It's get
ting hot in your hands, isn't it? Hot and wet.”
“No. No, it's—”
“I'm sorry, Tom. I'm terribly sorry you had to be put in
this position. You don't want to be here. Lord knows you
don't want to be holding that gun. And now that you are, you
can't even shoot it. It's too hot. So hot it's starting to get
soft.”
My God, Peebles thought. My God, it's true. He could
feel it. The gun was hot and soft and his hands were press
ing right into the metal. He tried relaxing his grip, but that
only made the front sight droop downward. It stiffened when he squeezed again, but now the butt was oozing out between
his fingers. It couldn't be true but it was. The gun, he knew,
would never fire. It would just fall apart if he tried to fire it.
Even if the slide and firing pin still worked, the trigger
would just bend back like putty if he put any pressure on it.
He could feel it almost that way now. Hanging there. All
limp and flaccid.
“Drop the gun on the floor, Tom. It won't go off. You'll see. It will bounce on the floor like a dead rubber ball.”
“No . . ” The salesman stared helplessly at the mass in
his hands.
“Just try it, Tom. You may as well. You're beginning to
look pretty silly trying to scare someone with a gun that's dripping through your fingers.”
Peebles parted his hands. The gun stuck fast to one of
them. A look of revulsion contorted his face and he brushed
frantically at the gun, as if it were a repulsive living thing. It
fell away. Peebles watched it as it fell away and bounced
crazily between his legs. Half in shock, he stared at the black
man.
“Thank you, Tom,” Ben Coffey said easily. “Now I think
you were going to wait inside that ladies' room, weren't
you? Why don't you tack on an extra five minutes for good
measure.”
Peebles nodded. He backed through the door, letting it close behind him.
And thank you, Dr. Sonnenberg. Coffey smiled to him
self. You do teach some dandy things. And now, Benjamin, it's time to sneak your way down to old K.C. and visit some with another Pecker—hey, that's not bad—who puts bombs
in cars for Mr. Peck when he's not off campin' and cat
fishin' all by his lonesome along the big muddy, which is
where me and him are going to
...
His hand was on the bolt latch when the warning pulsed
from the back of his brain. It came even before the
click
and
clack
of a slide opening and slamming home a cartridge. It
came as the front door creaked open and its sound seemed
to echo within him, like two doors opening at the same time.
The ladies' room. Tom Peebles's gun. It bounced backward
when he dropped it. It bounced backward intø the ladies'
room.