“Nothing.”
“You must be tired of living,” Pug said.
“Why?”
“You heard me last night, didn't you?”
“I didn't think you meant it.”
“Get a load of that!” Pug laughed. “Pal says he didn't think I meant it.” He put his face near mine, trying to sec me. “Didn't you think I meant those punches?”
“Were those punches?”
There was a moment when I could hear the sound of the engine and the rush of air. Then Pug hit me, knocking the cigarette against my face. The ashes burned my lips.
“You're doing better,” I said.
“By God!” Pug's voice was amazed. “I don't get you, pal. Don't you know I'm going to knock you off?”
“That's what you think, pal.”
“Listen to the guy.”
“He thinks he's wise,” the man on my left said.
We went along in silence for a while. We were all thinking. I wondered if there was a way I could get out of the jam. I wondered if it would do any good to tell Pug I was a G-man. He wouldn't believe it, and he probably wouldn't care, anyway. I'd have to get a better story than that.
Pug said: “I'm trying to think of the best way of knocking you off.”
“The Chinese do it with rats,” I said. “They let 'em eat the victim.”
“Where am I going to get the rats?”
“Well,” I said, “there're three in the car now.”
I don't know which one hit me; Pug or the guy with the garlic breath. It was the barrel of a pistol and it cooled me for a couple of minutes. When I came to we had stopped by a small shack. I was alone with the guy on my left.
“On tap again?” he asked, poking his pistol in my side.
“Sure.”
“You take it funny for a guy whose got no more'n ten minutes,” he said.
My head hurt.
“Listen,” he said. “If you're nice you'll go without being hurt much. But if you get Pug much sorer, there's no telling what he'll do first.”
“When I need your advice I'll ask for it,” I said.
I think he wanted to slug me, but my attitude had him worried. I felt him sitting there in the dark, wanting to slug me, but not quite daring to. The driver and Pug came back. They had a roll of bailing wire and some rocks. They threw the stuff in back with me and got in the car. We began to move across a field. I shook my head to clear it. The movement hurt like hell.
“That stuff's no good,” I said, kicking the bailing wire.
“You don't know what it's for,” Pug said.
“Oh, don't I? You're going to bind me and the rocks up in it, and then dump us in the lake.”
“The guy's bright,” the driver said.
“Only when my flesh rots,” I said, “it'll tear loose and I'll float to the surface.”
“Not the way we do it,” Pug said. “It's not as good as cement.”
“I ain't got cement.”
“That shows you're a punk,” I said. I got ready for the blow. It didn't come. “Listen,” Pug said, “you're laying up a lot of trouble for yourself. You can go easy, or you can go hard. I kind of think it's going to be hard.”
“Don't kid yourself. I'm not going at all.”
“Jeese,” said the guy with the garlic breath, “I think he's crazy.”
The car came to a stop. Pug said: “Now we take a nice little walk.”
“First I want to talk to you,” I said. “Alone.”
“Come on,” Pug said, opening the door. “Not until I talk to you.”
“Go ahead,” Pug said. “I got no secrets.”
“You scared to talk to me alone?”
“Go ahead,” Pug said. “Talk.”
His voice was different. He hadn't had anybody act this way on a ride. Mostly, I guess, they begged for their lives. I had him thinking, at least.
“Before you bump me,” I said, “you'd better ask the Princess.”
