off rooftops was thick, but curiously enough not scattered underfoot. It was as though a path had been kicked through the stuff.
That's how I knew when I reached the end of the path. A knee-high pile of garbage stopped me and when I felt the walls, in the one on my left I touched a door.
I had the .45 in my fist when I shoved it open. Unexpectedly it swung soundlessly and I stepped inside, my guts half ready to stop a bullet. My eyes were well-adjusted to the darkness and I could see as well as sense the incredible pile of junk that filled the room. It was an old storeroom of some kind, long unused. Very faintly a yellow tinge showed me the way, a path between stacked crates. I walked quietly, carefully, followed the bend in the aisle to the other door through whose time-grimed window came the pale glow of a lamp.
Inside there was the rhythmic clap of flesh on flesh and the steady cursing of a deep-chested voice saying vile things over and over again.
The door was locked. Momentarily. I kicked the damn thing open and went in with a roar and in that small fraction of time saw Terry, bloody and bruised in the chair, her eyes open without seeing and the face of Rhino Massley coming at me with a hoarse yell of maniacal fury.
I should have shot him then. I shouldn't have waited. I shouldn't have let all the pent-up things boil out of my mind into my fists because he slammed into me and the gun flew out of my hand to the floor and Rhino was on top of me clawing for my throat.
There was nothing left in me, nothing at all. I was a complete fool, dead weak from the terrible things that happened to me at the apartment and I couldn't tear him off.
If Terry hadn't moaned softly then, he would have killed me. Instead he cursed her with a hiss, climbed off me, and took a step toward the table. When he turned around, he had a gun in his hand, his eyes lit up so that the white showed all around the iris and I realized that Massley was mad, completely mad.
I looked up at him, my breath coming in great sucking gasps.
"You're part of this, aren't you?" he said.
Instead of answering him I lifted my hand and pointed to Terry. "She's . . . your daughter. You did that to . . . your daughter?"
His teeth shone in the yellow light, lips bared so that his face was a lined mask of hate. "I have no daughter. Somewhere I have a son. A son. A son."
I shook my head. "Terry is . . . ."
"Terry is my son!" he shouted. "Somewhere I have a son. Damn them all. Damn all women for what they are. I have only a son, do you understand! She left me a son and named him Terry. It was he who should have carried that suitcase. Damn you both! Damn you and that woman there. What have you done with him?"
He was quieter this time, a little more rational for the moment. "You know what it is I want, otherwise you wouldn't be here."
I let my head drop with a nod of assent.
"Do you tell me or do I simply kill you and look for myself. It won't be too hard to do."
"Let her go," I whispered.
He shrugged. "Why not? She really doesn't matter."
"My apartment. Down the street. Third house from the corner. Downstairs left apartment."
"I see." He looked toward Terry, smiling peculiarly. She was breathing heavily, a trickle of blood running from her nose, but now her eyes were closed. Without looking at me, knowing I was too far away to be able to do a thing, he said, "You like this . . . woman?"
Once again, I nodded dumbly, sensing full well what he was going to do. He still watched Terry, still smiled that terrible way. And while he watched I moved my eyes and saw the .45 where it had fallen and sobbed deeply and let myself collapse again.
When I got up this time Rhino Massley was smiling, the gun in his hand pointed at Terry's head and to me he said, "Then watch her die."
I let him smile for the last time and squeezed the trigger of the .45 and watched it cave in his chest. The gun he held went off into the ceiling then flew out of his hand, but I didn't let that stop me. I disintegrated Rhino's face into a crazy welter of bits and pieces and when the last slug was gone threw the empty rod at his body and stood there yelling my head off with a panic that lasted only a minute.
The soft cry of Terry's voice spun me around. She was sitting up, the shock of the gunshots jerking her into consciousness, eyes wide with terror and one hand over her mouth covering a soundless scream.
I took her in my arms, cradled her, and let her bury her face against me. Outside I could hear the whistles and the yells and voices shouting directions.
I said, "It's all right, baby, it's all over now."
"Phil?" It was a child's question, asking for a touch of security.
"It's me, kitten. He won't hurt you ever again. It's all right." I kissed her gently, softly, knowing that now she was hurt. Later I would tell her what happened. Not all of it, nor would anyone else. There was no reason for any to know. As far as the world was concerned, Rhino was buried back there in Phoenix. Cal Porter would see to that. What he had to work with now gave him a lever big enough to pull it off or even jack himself into the big chair in Albany. It would be an easy story to tell. Simple. Rhino Massley's
She opened her eyes, drew back, and looked at me. She smiled through the pain she felt and touched my face. Across the room she could see the huddled lump of Massley.
"That man, Phil. He wasn't my father." Her voice had a note of surety.
"You're right, Terry. He was just another hood. He had a gimmick he thought could get you to lead him to something. He's dead."
"But my father . . . ?"
"He died a long time ago, sugar. You never knew him."
I kissed her again. "Let's go home," I said.
And we did.
THE BASTARD BANNERMAN
CHAPTER ONE
I let the old Ford drift over the hill so I could see the sweep of the Bannerman estate nestling in the cove of the bay with the light of the full moon throwing shadows from the tall pines and making the columns of the mansion stand clear like a skeletal hand.
The hedgerow inside the fieldstone wall that surrounded the place had outgrown it by six feet since I had seen it last and as I eased past the huge brick posts that had once supported a handmade wrought-iron gate I could see what time and negligence had done to it. The gates were still there, but propped open, the posts ripped loose from the brick.
At no time did I have any intention of stopping by. Cutting off the main east-west highway onto 242 was an act of curiosity more than nostalgia, but when a guy lives the first twelve years of his life in a place before he gets the boot into the wild world outside, it's a natural thing to want to see if his old home had as many scars as he did.
Through the break in the tree line I could see the lights on downstairs. I grinned to myself, braked the Ford, backed up and turned in the drive and followed the curve of it up to the house.
But what the hell, that was all twenty-three years ago, two wars ago, a lifetime ago and when curiosity gets the better of you, go to it. Like the old man used to say before he died though, just remember what it did to the cat. Then he'd laugh because that was my name. C. C., for Cat Cay Bannerman.
Now I knew the joke. Cat Cay was where I was conceived and born, only out of wedlock. The girl died an hour after I showed up and the old man brought me home with his name and a stigma the rest of the family couldn't live with.
