crumple in my hand as I squashed it in my fingers and never heard the door open behind me.
He stood in the doorway of my inner office and said, 'I trust you can make something out of it. We couldn't.'
I knew he had a gun without looking. I knew there were more of them without seeing them and I didn't give a damn in the world because I knew the voice. I knew the voice and it was the one I said I'd never forget! The last time it spoke I was supposed to die and before it could speak again I let out a crazy sound of hate that filled the room and was at them in a crouch with the bullets spitting over my head. I had the guy in my hands feeling my fingers tear his eyes loose while he screamed his lungs out and even the gun butt pounding on the back of my skull didn't stop me. I had enough left to lash out with my foot and hear it bite into flesh and bone and enough left to do something to one of them that turned' his stomach inside out in my face. The horrible, choked scream of anguish one was letting out on the floor diminished to a whimper before disappearing altogether in the blackness that was closing in around me. Far in the distance I thought I heard sharp, flat sounds and a voice swearing hoarsely. Then I heard nothing at all.
It was a room. It had one window high off the floor and you could see the pinpoints that were stars through the film of dirt on the glass. I was spread-eagled on the bed with my hands and legs pulled tight to the frame and when I tried to twist, the ropes bit into my skin and burned like acid. The muscles in my side had knotted in pain over ribs that were torturous hands gripping my chest.
There was a taste of blood in my mouth and as I came awake my stomach turned over and dragged long, agonized retches up my throat. I tried to breathe as deeply as I could, draw the air down to stop the retching. It seemed to take a long time before it stopped. I lifted my head and felt my hair stick to the bed. The back of it throbbed and felt like it was coming off so I let it ease back until the giddiness passed.
The room took shape, a square empty thing with a musty odor of disuse filling it. I could see the single chair in one corner, the door in the wall and the foot of the bed. I tried to move, but there wasn't an inch of play in the ropes and the knots that tied them only seemed to get tighter.
I wondered how long I had been there. I listened for sounds I could place but all I got was the steady drip of water outside the window. It was still raining. I listened even more intently, straining my ears into the silence and then I knew about how long I had been there.
My watch had stopped. I could see the luminous hands and number so it hadn't broken... it just stopped. This wasn't the same night it had happened. Everything I felt seemed to pour out of my mouth and I fought those damned ropes with every ounce of strength in me. They bit in, cut deeper and held like they were meant to and when I knew it wasn't any use fighting them I slumped back cursing myself for being so jackassed stupid as to walk into the deal without a rod and let them take me. I cursed myself for letting Velda do what she wanted to and cursed myself for not playing it right with Pat. No, I had to be a damned hero. I had to make it by myself. I had to take on the whole organization at once knowing what they were like and how they operated. I passed out advice all around then forgot to give some of it to myself.
There were footsteps in the other room that padded up to the door. It opened into an oblong of yellow light framing the man and the one behind him who stood there. They were opaque forms without faces but it didn't matter any more. One said, 'He awake?'
'Yeah, he's out of it.'
They came in and stood over me. Two of them and I could see the billies in their hands.
'Tough guy. You were hard to take, mister. You know what you did? You pulled the eyes right out of Foreman. He screamed so loud my friend here had to tap him one and he tapped too hard and now Foreman's lying in a Jersey swamp dead. They don't come like Foreman any more. You know something else? You ruptured Duke, you bastard. You fixed him good, you did.'
'Go to hell,' I said.
'Still tough. Sure, you got to keep up the act. You know it won't do any good even if you got down on your knees and begged.' He grunted out a laugh. 'Pretty soon the boss is coming in here. He's going to ask you some questions and to make sure you answer we're going to soften you up a little bit. Not much... just a little bit.'
The billy went up slowly. I couldn't keep my eyes off it. The thing reached his shoulder then snapped down with a blur of motion and smashed into my ribs. They both did it then, a pair of sadistic bastards trying to kill me by inches, then one made the mistake of cutting for my neck and got the side of my head instead and that wonderful, sweet darkness came back again where there was no more pain or sound and I tumbled headlong into the pool.
But the same incredible pain that had brought the sleep brought the awakening. It was a pain that turned my whole body into a mass of broken nerve ends that shrieked their messages to my brain. I lay there with my mouth open sucking in air, wishing I could die, but knowing at the same time I couldn't yet.
The body doesn't stand for that kind of torture very long. It shocks itself into forgetting it and soon the pain goes away. It isn't gone for good, but the temporary relief is a kiss of love. It lies there in that state of extreme emergency, caring for its own, and when the realization of another emergency penetrates it readies itself to act again.
I had to think. There had to be gimmick somewhere and I had to find it. I could see the outlines of the bed and feel the ropes that tied me to the steel frame. It was one of those fold-away things with a heavy innerspring mattress and I was laced down so tightly my hands dented the rolled edges of it. I looked down at my toes, over my head at my hands and took the only way out.
There was noise to it, time involved, and pressures that started the blood flowing down my wrists again. I rocked the bed sideways until it teetered on edge, then held my breath as it tipped. I hit the floor and the thing came halfway over on top of me before it slithered back on its side. The mattress had pulled out from under my feet and when I kicked around I got the lower half entirely free of the springs. I had to stop and get my breath, then when I tried the second time it came away from under my hands too and I had the play in the ropes that I needed. They were wet and slippery with my own blood. My fingernails broke tugging at them, but it was the blood that did it. I felt one come free, the next one and my hand was loose. It only took a few minutes longer to get the other one off and my feet off the end of the bed and I was standing up with my heart trying to pound the shock away and the pain back in place.
I didn't let it get that far. I was half drugged with exertion but I knew what I had to do. I put the bed back on its legs, spread the mattress out and got back the way I had been. I was able to dummy the ropes around both feet and one hand and hoped they wouldn't see the one I couldn't get to.
Time. Now I could use a little time. Every second of it put strength back in my body. I lay there completely relaxed, my eyes closed. I tried to bring the picture back in focus and got part of it. I got Berga and Nicholas Raymond and a guy pushing him into the path of a truck. I was thinking that if they had pulled an autopsy on the body they would have found a jugful of stuff in his veins that made him a walking automaton.
The picture got just a little bit clearer and I could see the work they did on Berga. Oh, it had to be easy. With two million bucks in the bag you don't barge around until you're sure what you're doing. First they tried to scare her, then came the big con job. Carl Evello, the man-about-town putting on the heavy rush act, trying to get close enough to the babe to see what she knew.
I thought about it while I lay there, trying to figure the mind of one little guy who thought he could beat the Mafia out of a fortune and pretty soon I was reading his thoughts as if they were my own. Raymond had planned pretty well. In some way he had planted the secret of his cache with Berga so that she'd have to do some tall thinking to get to it. It had taken her a long time, but she had finally caught on and the Mafia knew when she did. She had hired a bodyguard that didn't work but she still wouldn't let go of what she knew because as soon as she did she'd take the long road too. Maybe she saw her way out of it when Uncle Sam put the squeeze on Evello. Maybe she thought with him away she'd have a chance. If she did she thought wrong. They still got to her.
My eyes opened and squinted at the ceiling. A couple more details were looking for a place to crawl into and I was just about to shove them there when I heard the voices outside.
They didn't try to be quiet. Two of them were bragging that I'd be ready to spill my guts and the other one said I had better be. It was a quiet voice that wasn't a bit new to me. It said, 'Wait here and I'll see.'
'You want us to come in, boss? He might need more softening.'
'I'll call you if he does.'
'Okay, boss.'
Chairs rasped against the floor as the door opened. I could see the two of them there starting to open a
