Though he forced himself to react emotionally, Tucker's next move was guided solely by intellect. It was clear that neither Baglio nor the woman expected any harm to come to them and that neither of them would make a good subject for interrogation so long as he was comforted by this assumption. Grunting, then, Tucker leaned in and raked the barrel of the Luger across Baglio's face, using the sight point, gouging him from temple to chin. Blood popped up in a bright line.
'It's time to stop playing games to impress the lady,' Tucker said. 'It's time to come to grips with your decidedly disadvantageous position.' He wondered if Baglio understood, by his choice of words and tone, that Tucker was mimicking him.
Baglio touched his bleeding face, stared at his carmined fingers in disbelief. A long minute later he looked at Tucker, the humor in his face metamorphosed into hatred. 'You've just bought yourself one of those pine-marked graves,' he said. His voice had not deteriorated. Schoolmaster meting out punishment to the bad boy.
Distasteful as he found this, Tucker swung the Luger again and scored a red ribbon on Baglio's undamaged cheek.
The strongman started out of his chair, head lowered like a bull ready to ram, yelped and crumpled backward as Shirillo delivered another brutal blow from behind with his own pistol on Baglio's right shoulder. He clutched at the bruised and spasming muscles, hunched forward as if he might be sick. Gradually he'd begun to look his age.
The girl looked older too.
She licked her lips and shifted her gaze around the room as if she thought she'd see something that would unexpectedly turn the tables. That fantasy lasted a brief moment, because she realized, as she must have done often before, that her best weapon was herself-her body and her wits. She looked up, aware of Tucker's eyes on her, and without being obvious about it she shifted inside her tentish yellow gown to mold it at strategic points to her. An offering. But poisoned.
He smiled at her, for he had the vague idea that he might need her cooperation later, then turned back to Baglio. 'We were talking about a friend of mine.'
'Go to hell,' Baglio said.
Shirillo, unbidden, stepped forward and, judging the position of Baglio's kidneys through the slatted back of the chair, jammed the barrel of his Luger hard into the man's left side. Ordinarily this sort of tactic was beyond him. Now, he kept thinking of his father. And his brother. The shoe shop. His brother's limp.
Baglio grunted, sucked breath, reared up, then crumpled under Shirillo's second, swift chop to his shoulder. He fell off the chair, to the floor.
'My friend?' Tucker asked.
Baglio got his hands under himself and, feigning more weakness than he felt, started up, shifted toward Tucker's feet. That was a stupid move for a man in his situation, the first indication that he'd been frightened and that he was acting on a gut level. Tucker back-stepped and kicked him alongside the head. When he went down this time he stayed down, unconscious.
'Get a glass of water,' Tucker told Shirillo.
The kid went after it.
Miss Loraine smiled at Tucker.
He smiled back.
Neither spoke.
Shirillo returned with the water, but before he could throw it in Baglio's face Tucker said, 'No vendetta, kid. We can't afford it.' He had remembered Shirillo's monologue when they'd first met several weeks ago, remembered the worn-out father and the brother who'd been badly beaten.
'I'm finished,' Shirillo said. 'I thought at first I wanted to kill him. But I've decided I don't want to pay him back in his own coin; I don't want to be like he is.'
'Good,' Tucker said. 'Think he'll recognize you?'
'No. He saw me once for five minutes, a year and a half ago.'
'Wake him, then.'
Shirillo tossed the water into the bruised and bloody face, went around behind the two chairs again.
Baglio blinked, looked up.
'We were talking about my friend,' Tucker said.
Baglio's lips were swollen, but that could not account for the change in his voice. Behind the slurred words there was a different tone, no more haughtiness, the tone of a man suddenly brought down from a high place and made to see his own mortality. 'I told you, he's dead.'
'Why does your cook tell a different story?'
'I wouldn't know.'
'And Deffer?'
Baglio looked up. The hate was still in his eyes, though it had been veiled now, as if he knew it would be dangerous to show any sort of resolve. 'What did they say?'
'An ambulance came and took him away.'
'It did. To a grave in the woods.'
'Bullshit.'
'Again on the shoulder?' Shirillo asked from behind Baglio. 'Or another kidney punch?'
'Wait,' Tucker said, smiling. He apologized pleasantly to Baglio for his partner's overeager attitude. He said, 'I'm sure our friend's in this house. Otherwise everyone's story would match. Otherwise-a lot of things. Now, where is he?'
'No,' Baglio said.
Tucker nodded, looked at Shirillo. 'Tie him to the chair, then go keep our friend company at the stairwell. You could cover the back stairs while he watches the main ones.'
'Expecting trouble?' Shirillo asked.
'It's going to take longer than I thought,' Tucker said. 'And Mr. Baglio may be screaming loud enough to attract his boys outside before I'm done with him.'
Shirillo nodded, used a letter opener to cut down the cords of the draw drapes and expertly lashed Baglio to the straight-backed chair. The older man offered no resistance.
'What about her?' Shirillo asked.
'I can handle her.'
'Sure?'
'Positive.'
Shirillo left to join Harris at the stairs.
Tucker looked at his watch: 5:10 in the morning. Shortly the dawn would come. Would the two men stationed outside the house leave their posts when the sun had fully risen?
Tucker shook off the thought and directed the woman to move her chair away from Baglio, which she did, putting it down so that it faced him from the side. When she was seated again, like a spectator at a sporting event, Tucker stood behind her, watching Baglio, tracing his fingertips along her warm neck.
Baglio laughed out loud, even though that must have hurt his face.
'Something funny?' Tucker asked. He let his hand become more sure, lying full against her throat, feeling her pulse. He hated himself for trying to get to Baglio through whatever relationship he enjoyed with the woman. He kept thinking how it would be if things were reversed, if he were in the chair and Baglio were caressing Elise.
'That won't work,' Baglio said.
Tucker moved his hand, traced the edge of her jaw-line, tenderly tilted her head up. She responded to his touch, or he imagined that she did.
Baglio said, 'I've always got a different woman around. Women are nothing to me, nothing at all. I've got nothing special with her. I wasn't the first with her, and I know I'm hot going to be the last, so go ahead, be my guest.' All that talking made a tiny stream of thick blood run from the corner of his mouth, down his blackening chin. He made no attempt to lick it away, perhaps because his tongue was cut and swollen-or perhaps because he didn't notice it, his entire attention riveted on Tucker's proprietary hand.
'I think you're lying,' Tucker said.
'Think what you want.'
