The Killing Man

planted an alibi.'

The fire was blazing away by now, but Velda shivered and I was getting that feeling again. I was computing hours and minutes and knew that what I had just said was true.

I gave Velda a yank away from the brightness of the fire, and we darted in the shadows where the phone was. I picked it up, listened and tapped the bar twice, then put it down.

'The line's cut, isn't it?' Velda asked.

'It would have to be at the main road. There are no poles around here so the wires must go underground out to Route Twenty-eight.'

'You can tell the guards-'

'No. He'd have a two-way on this frequency with him. If the guard are on their toes, they might pick him up with those night scopes.'

'Might?' There was an odd note of finality in her voice.

Time was going by fast. I had to get in the game and Velda wasn't going to be able to move with me. I said, 'Come here,' and pulled her into the hallway. I got the chair over, stood up and shoved the hatch cover back. 'You're going up there.'

She pulled back, her eyes on the black hole in the ceiling. 'I can't.'

'Nuts. You have to. I had to force her onto the chair, then lift her up into the darkness. When her feet were inside, I handed her the flashlight. At least she had something to hold on to. I told her to stay quiet and don't move, then felt for the hatch and put it back in place.

There was no way I could douse the fire, so I pushed a couple of chairs together in front of the TV, propped enough pillows from the sofa in them to make it look like they were occupied and went to the back bedroom and slid the window open. I crawled out, closed the window and stood there, trying to catch any sound while my eyes adjusted to the night.

When we first got there, I had imprinted the area on my mind and now I was bringing it all back into focus. If Bradley was out there, he could have night-vision glasses on him that could pick up any movement on the terrain.

I went down on my belly, crawling and stopping, trying to bury myself in the grass. Bradley wouldn't have had time for a ground survey like I had, so any small contour I might make could just be a hillock to him. The arc I made took me away from the rock outcropping, circled around it, then I came in from the other end.

Now I could see where the guard was. It was Eddie's station, and I could see him, a vague silhouette against the light. I didn't want him to make any sudden turn and blow me away so I didn't say anything until I was there, right on top of him, and reached out my hand and grabbed his arm.

The damn gun toppled out of his fingers and he fell over on me, the blood wet and sticky from where it was seeping out of his head. I picked up the rifle and sighted it at the other rock hill. What was night became a greenish-tinted dusk where everything was dim, but discernible. I turned the night scope on the other pile of rocks and saw a pair of legs sticking out where they shouldn't be and threw the rifle down.

The bastard was here! Damn it, I should have stayed in the house instead of trying to contact the guard posts. He'd had all the time he needed to nullify their positions and now he'd be inside. He'd take his time. He'd make sure he held the high ground and wanted to take me by surprise. If he found the place empty, he'd have to revise his thinking. But first he'd make sure. He would have found the car in the back, so we weren't far off. He'd realize that I couldn't move fast with Velda and that I sure wouldn't leave her.

So he'd search. First the rooms, then for less obvious places.

I was running like hell, the .45 in my hand. I got to the house and stayed on the grass, edging to the back. The lock would have been easy enough for a pro to open. Or he could have knocked a pane out of the door window, reached in and turned the knob. That didn't matter. What mattered was that he was in there.

My feet felt the gravel and I stepped over it, got to the window and pushed it up. This was the one time I could die in a hurry, but the window went easily, he wasn't in the room and I slid in as silently as my shadow.

In the living room the firelight was dancing, throwing a dull orange glow over the place, the sound of the logs burning obscuring any small sounds I might have heard. I stepped out into the weird patterns the fire was making on the walls, listened again, then got down almost to my knees and started an animal crawl across the room.

The beam of a pencil flash made a quick splash of light around the corner. Then I heard it, the drag of chair legs across the floor. A hand suddenly slammed against the ceiling and he laughed. The bastard laughed!

I went in just as I heard a muffled scream from Velda and there in the dim, weaving light patterns were a pair of male legs sticking down from the attic opening, slowly going up as he raised himself with his arms.

For a second I was going to snatch him down. I changed my mind.

I cocked the .45, took real deliberate aim and touched the trigger. The gun blasted into a roaring yellowish light and for that one second I saw the leg jerk and twitch with a grotesque motion, and even before he could scream, I did it again to the other leg and the whole man came tumbling out of the ceiling opening, his hand still holding onto Velda, pulling her down with him.

My foot kicked him to one side, and I pulled Velda to her feet so we both could look down at Bradley. The impact of the slugs had shocked him almost breathless. Then the pain really hit him. His hands reached out, clawing wildly. He looked up at me with eyes so full of hate they seemed nearly black.

Quietly, I said, 'He was your brother, wasn't he?'

He started to go wild then, thrashing his body in fury and pain, still trying to drag himself away. He was leaving a trail of blood behind and his face was tight with a screaming grimace. 'My twin, you bastard! You killed my twin brother. You killed me, you rotten . . .'

I leaned down and put the muzzle of the .45 directly against Bradley's forehead. 'If I do,' I told him, 'I'll cut off more than your fingers, Penta. I'll do it with your own knife.'

Velda was standing there, not interfering, coldly observing.

I said, 'There's a CB radio in the car, doll. The state troopers guard Channel Nine. Call them.'

She nodded once and went to the door.

I was grinning down at Bradley. I wondered what the State Department was going to say. In a way it was too bad he was going back alive. The publicity was going to be terrible. It was going to louse up the big story that would put the NYPD on top and give Ray Wilson a glory sendoff and make Candace president some day.

The grin got to him. I was grinning at him the way I had at his brother back in the courtroom. Suddenly his body wrenched into spasms. He started ripping his clothes and screamed, 'You killed me!' He glanced down and was ripping at his clothes again and screamed, 'You killed me!'

'Not yet,' I told him. He tried to twitch his head away from the gun, but I held it on him. He had thrashed around so he was pointing away from me, blood spatters streaking the wall. I felt some of it on my face and grinned again.

His hands were trying to reach his shattered legs, the agony foaming at his mouth. He saw my grin again and choked out another scream, making it into words. 'You killed my brother and you killed me!'

Then he found the small-caliber pistol his hands had really been groping for and brought it up in a sweeping, deadly arc, one finger tightening around the trigger.

There was one smashing roar of the .45. His blood went all over the place. Fresh specks of crimson were on the back of my hand. I stood up slowly and gave him a hard grin he couldn't see any more.

I said, 'Now I killed you, you shit.'