deep into Mortvedt’s skin as he could, relishing the groan it elicited. Then he tore up the little man’s ski mask.
From somewhere in the distance-it must have been at the stallion barn-Doyle heard shouts, the sounds of feet scrambling through gravel, and somebody hitting the ground hard.
“
Doyle hooked his left arm around Mortvedt’s feet and began dragging the little man, face down, through the wet grass. As they proceeded toward the patio behind his building, Mortvedt began to mumble. What Doyle heard as he stopped and let Mortvedt’s feet thump to the concrete floor of the patio was “You
Doyle went to one knee, his left, and jackhammered two punches with his right hand into Mortvedt’s left kidney. Mortvedt screamed after the first punch landed, a quick gulping sound that he tried to call back, but couldn’t. He only gasped when Doyle’s second blow struck him.
“If you were going to live any longer you’d be pissing blood, you piece of shit,” Doyle said, getting to his feet. Then he pivoted and dropped down and again buried his fist into Mortvedt’s side, same place as before.
“I don’t know which way to do you,” Doyle said. He was breathing hard now, not so much from the exertion as from the hate-fueled energy that raced through him.
Looking down at Mortvedt, he said, “Should I fry you? Fry you like you fried those poor horses you killed for the money?
“Should I do that?…I could do that.”
Doyle was breathing like he’d just spent ten minutes pummeling the heavy bag in the gym.
Mortvedt had recovered his breath. Trussed up tightly, on his back, he looked up defiantly. “Don’t know what horses you talkin’ about, Cuz,” he sneered.
Doyle began to unbolt an arm of one of the redwood chairs that bordered the metal patio table. He had trouble at first, but then the club-like apparatus came off in his hands. It was damp with the night dew. Doyle’s hands were dry. He took a good, strong grip on the piece of wood.
“Or,” Doyle said to Mortvedt, his voice hurried, “I could just beat your fucking face in. Beat you like you beat Bolger.” Doyle was on his feet now, chest heaving as he stood over Mortvedt.
Doyle raised the piece of wood to his shoulder. It weighed at least as much as a baseball bat, or a rake handle, he knew that. It would do.
Mortvedt’s mask of hate briefly disappeared as he looked up at Doyle. For an instant all of Mortvedt’s defiance was wiped away, replaced by a surprised expression of acknowledgment that he knew exactly what Doyle was talking about.
Mortvedt recovered quickly. But both men realized what had just been confirmed in that moment.
“His name was Aldous Bolger,” Doyle said slowly. “He was a friend of mine. If Bolger were here, he’d never do to you what you did to him. He wasn’t that kind.” The words were coming out more rapidly now. “But I am. Oh yeah, I am.”
Doyle bent down, leaning closer to Mortvedt. “Bolger was one of those men that guys like you laugh at. He was this straight shooter, he’d go to the wall for his friends. You know what I’m saying?
“No, you don’t know, you miserable little shit.”
Doyle turned away from Mortvedt. Quickly, still breathing rapidly, he started to uncoil the electrical extension cord.
“Aldous Bolger respected horses,” Doyle said. “It cut him to the heart, the way you killed those animals. Way you made them
Doyle pivoted, then hurled the piece of armchair redwood into the darkness.
He reached into the canvas bag and took out the extension cord. Moving more slowly, so Mortvedt could see what he was doing, Doyle placed the extension cord’s plug on the floor right below the electrical outlet near the patio grill. Then Doyle picked up one of the sets of alligator clips. He attached it to the cord. In the light from the patio fixture Doyle could see Mortvedt watching him, silent again, his face contorted by hate.
With a quick movement Doyle clamped the alligator clip onto Mortvedt’s scrotum. The little man twisted frantically on the patio concrete, trying to free himself.
Doyle brought the prongs of the plug up to the electrical outlet.
Chapter 33
Doyle grimaced as he looked at his face in the bathroom mirror of his Willowdale apartment. Under the streak of dirt that charred his forehead, part of his nose glistened where the skin had scraped off when he had hit the patio concrete face first. He was busy attending to the latter matter, dousing the raw surface with Bactine.
Damon Tirabassi, along with fellow agent Ed Kamin, sat in the living room. Mortvedt, still trussed up, was laid out on the floor between them. The other agent, Ralph Ebner, who’d been stationed in the stallion barn with Kamin and had joined in the capture of the fleeing Repke, had handcuffed Jud to the refrigerator door in the kitchen. Ebner sat on a kitchen chair near Repke, arms crossed, face expressionless as he regarded his silent and docile captive.
“Thanks a lot, Damon,” Doyle said from the bathroom doorway as he pasted a Band-Aid over the bridge of his nose. “This thing has only been broken about five times before you took your crack at it.”
Twenty minutes earlier Tirabassi had come hurtling out of the darkness, throwing himself forward as Doyle held the extension cord whose clips were attached to Ronald Mortvedt’s balls. Tirabassi’s charge hit Doyle in the back, driving him face forward to the floor. Tirabassi had then pinned down the stunned Doyle.
Right behind Tirabassi onto the patio had come Kamin, who landed directly on the prostrate Mortvedt.
Tirabassi was breathing heavily as he heard Doyle say from beneath him, “Damon, get the hell off me. I already nailed the little bastard. It’s Mortvedt. That’s him lying there under your man. Why in the hell are you kneeling on my shoulder blades?”
When he’d arrived at the patio edge and seen Doyle moving the extension cord outlet toward the socket, Tirabassi explained, he’d accelerated his advance.
“I thought you were about to kill the little bastard, Jack. I didn’t want to lose our star witness.”
As Doyle walked out of the bathroom, one hand still applying pressure to the Band-Aid, Tirabassi gave him an appraising look. He said, “Jack, would you have”-he nodded toward Mortvedt-“if I hadn’t jumped you?”
“Would I have what?”
“Hit him with the juice.”
Doyle shifted his gaze from the waiting Tirabassi to Mortvedt, who also seemed interested in his answer.
“I was tempted, I’ll tell you that. But with the FBI right on top of me? Are you kidding? Fry Mortvedt, and risk spending time for it? Not a chance, Damon. There’ll be somebody dumber than me will come along and rid the world of this little bottom feeder, then wind up paying for it instead of getting the medal they deserve.”
Doyle feinted as if he were going to plant a kick on Mortvedt’s side. Damon jumped to his feet, but Mortvedt didn’t flinch. Doyle smiled at the two of them as he sat down on the couch.
Damon took a call on his portable phone. When he snapped the phone shut, he said, “That was Karen. She’s informed the sheriff of the capture of these two, but told them to stay away from Willowdale, that we’ll bring Mortvedt and Repke in to them.”
Earlier Tirabassi had walked up to the mansion himself to inform Harvey Rexroth of the capture of the two horse killers, eager to observe the reaction on the publisher’s face. But, Tirabassi had been informed by Byron Stoner, “Mr. Rexroth is out of the state on business. I’ll certainly let him know as soon as possible. He’ll be immensely relieved these criminals have finally been apprehended.”
“I’d hate to play liar’s poker with Byron Stoner,” Tirabassi said after returning to Doyle’s apartment.
Jud Repke saw the light early the next afternoon. Facing charges of horse theft, thanks to the confession of
