conscious of the gun under my arm. But with Taggart’s little revolver steady on my stomach, it might as well have been hanging in the closet—unloaded.
“That’s right,” Taggart said. He was getting a curious sort of enjoyment talking to me. It was even loosening up his face muscles some.
“You were the traveling boy,” I said, trying to keep my voice smooth and level, with no sudden pauses to give away my panic. “You had the chance to run the old gang down one by one and cut their throats. Sooner or later you could make all the territory and nobody would get suspicious. Just old Taggart doing his job. You use the same knife that’s sticking out of Owen’s back?”
He didn’t comment. He looked cool and efficient in the crisp blue suit. Some mother’s boy had grown into this. He couldn’t he quite sane.
“What about Harry Small? How did Diane feel when you bladed him? Or was it her idea?” Just keep talking, Mallory. Just keep jamming that thumbnail brain so he can’t get down to work.
“Diane said we had to,” he admitted. “She said you were going to find him and he’d talk about her. She didn’t want to do it.”
“But I was hard to kill, so she didn’t have a choice. You tried twice. I suppose you were with Winkie when he pulled the shotgun ambush. It would be your idea. Did you doctor the Buick over on Monessen, too?”
“Yeah.” He looked faintly puzzled. “How did you get out of that? Nobody saw me.”
“Only a little boy who didn’t look old enough to talk. He should grow up and get J. Edgar’s job. He deserves it.”
Something happened inside Taggart then. I could feel it happening. I could sense the ponderous slow thoughts swinging around to the problem at hand: my death.
“How did Diane talk you into this?” I said. “Those passionate midnight meetings on the beach. Did she tell you she loved you?”
He took a full step toward me, as if I had bitten a nerve. His mouth opened. “She does love me. I love her.” He made a sad calf noise in his throat. “Did you ever see her back? She’s beautiful. But her back — it’s ugly. Macy Barr did that to her.” The gun nosed up a little. “I love her. I’d do anything for her. Anything she asked me. We’re going to go away together. Nobody ever loved me before. I never got anything but kicked around, because I was a bastard. Everybody hated me. They looked at me with hateful eyes and wished I’d run away. Diane doesn’t hate me.”
From outside the house, above the sound of the wind, there were two shots, sharp cracks spaced a second apart. And a child began to scream in terror, as if the shots had unlocked a hidden place inside her and old nightmares tumbled out, writhing in her mind.
Taggart thumbed back the hammer. I was going for the gun anyway. It was no good — my fingers would never touch it — but it was no good just to stand there and die, either. A second before I shoved my hand toward the butt of the .38 there was another shot, different from the first two. Heavier. The faraway roar of a .45. I knew Macy had somehow got to the automatic in his back pocket. Taggart knew it, too. He was thrown off stride by the sound of it. The slow-focusing mental processes were off me for a full second.
I had the gun out and shot him twice in the chest before he could do anything. The blows from the heavy .38 slugs would have knocked an ordinary man flat on his back, but he was not ordinary. Two more shots came together, blending in a hot stunning roar. One of them was his. I felt it hit like a pole thrust sharply, end first, into my stomach. I had tipped the barrel of the .38 up half an inch before the third shot. The first two set him up so that his head was turned slightly to one side. The third slug tore his throat out and went on into his head at an angle, along the jawline. He turned a little more, his eyes glazing, and then his legs failed and he pitched downward, spouting blood.
I backed away from the wreckage, feeling sick. I had to lean against the dresser. The automatic was almost too heavy for my hand but I continued to hold it. I knew the wound was bad without looking. I felt blood trickling down the inside of one leg.
I reached down and found the hole and put the heel of my hand against it. I walked with clown steps out of the room. I put my shoulder against the wall and slid along it, pushing grimly toward the living room. There wasn’t so much pain. It was more the idea that I was hurt that frightened me. I felt a swooping dizziness. It would be better to sit down, but I had to get outside. If she was still alive I had to stop her. I remembered Aimee’s shrill scream. There was no more sound now, except the treacherous howl of the wind.
The front door was open. I put the fingers of my hand around the knob of the screen, but it was hard to turn because I was holding the gun, too. Finally I got it open, but I had leaned forward too much and fell outside with the swing of the door, rolling down the steps, feeling the blunt edges against my back and arms and shoulders. There was a pain in me, as though someone’s hands were tearing at my gut.
I lifted my head, looked down the curved drive to the gatehouse. Thunder grumbled above. Swirling clouds pressed low upon the island.
Aimee was lying motionless on her back near the drive, arms spread, one knee up. Diane walked past the child slowly, not looking at her. She had a gun. She was watching Macy, who lay on his belly a dozen steps from the gatehouse. Macy didn’t move. There was an object near him that might have been the .45.
Diane aimed carefully at Macy. In that same moment, he seemed to stir, an arm moving slightly. He wasn’t dead yet. I raised my own gun, taking time only to see that I had the right direction. I had little hope of hitting her.
I squeezed off the remaining shots in the magazine, the big automatic jerking in my hand, the noise deafening me. Then a sudden spasm left me weak. My face was cold, my eyes full of perspiration. I let go the gun and wiped at them. It was odd that she hadn’t returned the shots. I looked up again, hauling myself to my knees. For a long moment I could see with perfect clarity.
Diane had fallen near the gate. She must have panicked when I began to shoot, and tried to run. The gate seemed to be locked. She hooked her fingers over stiff strands of wire, pulled herself to her feet, leaned for a moment against the gate, as if she were trying to shove it open. There was a car parked on the other side, pointed toward the causeway.
Something was wrong with one of her ankles. She might have twisted it when she fell. She glanced up, then put her arms above her head and began to climb the woven wire gate laboriously. It was eight feet high. It would take her only a few seconds to wriggle over the top and reach the car on the other side.
I tried to get up, sat back groaning from the fury of sudden pain. All I could do was watch her. She seemed to be having some trouble. Then I became aware that someone else was watching her, too. Macy Barr.
His head was lifted no more than half an inch from the ground. He looked at her for a few seconds, then began to crawl forward. I saw where he was going. Not toward Diane but to the door of the gatehouse. Once he stopped, and I thought he was finished. But with an awkward lunge he reached his feet, staggered forward to the doorway, leaned inside.
Diane saw him. She had reached the top bar of the gate, was ready to lift one leg and then the other over the top, drop to the ground. But fear held her fast for the seconds she needed to jump to safety. She stared at Macy and there was terror in her eyes. Above the gathering shriek of the storm I could hear her own scream, lifting to meet the lashing wind that whipped at her hair.
“Don’t, Macy! No—”
She was still screaming when Macy threw the switch inside the gatehouse that electrocuted her mercilessly while her tortured body jerked and wrenched in a useless effort to be free of the clinging current.
I put my head down and waited. I knew there would have to be a time when I would find enough strength to go down there. I waited patiently for that time and finally I got to my feet and shuffled through a dark tunnel of angry rain to the gatehouse, found Macy dead on the floor. I closed the switch. I walked past him and looked at a telephone. I picked up the receiver and with a finger as large and awkward as a banana I dialed a number that would bring help. Then I sat on the edge of the bed trying to hold on to slipping strength. The child would be wandering in the rain, lost and afraid — if she were still alive. I thought she might be. Diane wouldn’t shoot her.
It was all over. But I had to wait with a hole in my stomach and wonder. Sometimes they could fix it, and sometimes they couldn’t. I had bled only a little from the mouth, with all the walking around. That encouraged me. But still you never knew.
I hoped Elaine would be able to get to me fast. I wouldn’t feel so afraid then.
