Black grunted. 'Stop fighting.'
Sam had to act immediately or not at all. After stuffing the envelope under his belt, he went to the third-floor window, opened it, and contemplated the drop. His bad leg could be completely ruined by this drop-ruined beyond even the surgical repair that he planned. His spine could be reinjured. At the very least the pain would be excruciating.
He heard footsteps on the inside stairwell, slid through the window, hung, and dropped.
It was about a twelve-foot fall from the third-story window to the porch roof below and a little over four feet from Sam's soles when he let go.
Using the roof to break his fall, he didn't try to land and remain. Instead, he hit feet first, came down, tried not to overbend the knee, and rolled. With his shoulders and arms burning from abrasions, from the shingles, he rolled off the edge and dropped another twelve feet or so during which he managed to get his feet mostly beneath him so that they could break his fall before another roll, this time in the soft grass. His body hit the ground with a tooth-jarring thud and a terrible pain raged from knee to thigh on the bad leg. Almost as critical, the blow knocked the wind out of him. For a second he could not rise. It felt like asphyxiating. Finally he could suck in some air.
Although stunned, he struggled up and had the presence of mind to dive into some bushes and crawl to the concrete footing of the house. He caught himself groaning from the agony in his knee. The back door opened and Frick came out.
'He hit the roof,' Rafe Black called out from inside.
'Sure he did, but he didn't stop there,' Frick said.
Frick looked around and, in the dark, evidently couldn't see the impressions in the grass.
Sam could hear him moving across the yard, through the shrubbery, probably pulling himself up to peer over the six-foot fence.
Frick cursed. 'I need a flashlight.'
'I'll get one from the house,' called Black.
Sam lay on the ground, his face pressed into the earth, his body still on fire with pain.
He was pretty sure nothing was broken. Sam knew how to fall and had dropped from much greater distances when he wasn't busted up.
He caught the sound of Frick pulling aside the bushes.
'Oh hell…' Frick cursed a stream of expletives that would have done the Devil proud.
The door slammed again.
Sam heard Rafe yelling about a flashlight. Forcing himself, he crawled out of the bushes, went around the corner of the house, and saw what looked to be a stump that he could use to climb over the fence. Using his hands, he felt the vague shadow in the darkness confirming what his eyes could barely detect. Before he stepped on the stump, he drove the heel of his shoe deep into the ground and then ripped up the grass so that even a city boy wouldn't miss it. Over the fence he landed in a neighbor's backyard, heavy with brush. He retreated from the fence several paces, then hobbled down toward the street. Once he got to the street, he went as fast as he could and climbed the stairs to the front door of Gibbons's house. Inside, Frick stood on the stairs with a large flashlight. He had apparently already been upstairs, surveying the roof. He was trying to determine his next move.
Rafe Black, the heavily muscled somewhat fat black man with a wide face and a large flat nose, had his arm around Haley's neck and was fondling her, obviously enjoying his job while Frick did the work. By concentrating on her, Rafe was taking his brain away from his job. He'd be relatively easy to dispatch, given the opportunity. Sam had a slow burn going for the man, ever since he'd accosted the coffee lady earlier in the day, but he knew that at this point keeping Haley alive outweighed the rest of it.
'Quit playing with her and get your worthless ass out in the yard and help me find this guy,' Frick said, holding out handcuffs. 'He already had bad legs; with a fall off that roof he won't go far. Cuff her to the stair railing.'
Sam could hear the loud talking and realized one of the living-room windows must have been open. Staying low, he went across the porch and was not surprised to find the first window open a crack. He put his ear to it.
'I wouldn't leave her by herself or him either.' 'Do as I say, damn it.' Sam peered through the window. Frick had Gibbons by the neck. 'You stay glued to this spot or I will come back and cut your nuts off before I kill you. You understand?'
Still muttering his disagreement about leaving them, Rafe handcuffed Haley to the handrail. It was stout; Frick had judged correctly that she wouldn't be able to pull free.
They both walked out the back door, leaving it open. Sam waited a minute for them to get around to the side yard and find his shoe print by the stump in the light of the flashlight. Sam opened the front door a crack. In the moment that he hesitated, Frick reappeared, his flashlight casting about as he walked in through the back door.
'Oh God,' Gibbons breathed at the return of what must have seemed to him like the Devil incarnate.
'Take him outside, Rafe,' Frick ordered.
'I wanna watch this,' Rafe said.
'You're trying my patience.' Frick turned to Rafe and sucker punched him in the solar plexus. Then he grabbed his little finger and bent it back as if to break it.
'Ah, shit, don't.' Rafe could barely talk.
'I'll break all five of 'em. You understand?'
Rafe was grunting.
'Do you understand?'
'Yes.' It came out in a gasp.
Frick let go and addressed Haley. 'You've got ten seconds; then I'm really gonna hurt you. I want to know where those papers are that you took from the whale. And I want to know why you came here. What were you looking for and what did you and your friend find?'
Rafe struggled to his feet, held his gut with one hand, and grabbed Gibbons's elbow with the other. When he had taken the older man out in back, Frick put his lips close to Haley's ear as he seemed to like to do but spoke at normal volume.
'I know your kind. You give yourself to every guy that comes through. You're a worthless whore. Do you understand what I could do to you?'
Haley was silent. Sam couldn't tell whether Frick was playing a deliberate mind game or truly deranged. Or both.
With his gun to her abdomen, Frick grabbed her hair, jerking her head back.
'Do you know what we do with pigs like you?' She didn't answer.
'Do you?' He pulled her head back again. Sam got ready to break through the window, all the time staring at the gun pressed into her belly. Frick's finger was on the trigger. It was too great a risk.
'No.'
'We hang them up and we bleed them slow into a barrel. Do you want that?'
'No.'
'Your boyfriend is keeping me from my work. Can you call him on a cell phone?'
Haley didn't answer.
'Then you deserve what I'm gonna give you. Right here. Right now.'
Haley's eyes were wide, but she kept her wits. 'And if I tell you, then you'll kill me, anyway. 'Cause after what I've seen you do, you'd rot in jail.'
'Rafe,' Frick yelled. The man returned with Gibbons. 'You can have her now for a while. I'll be back in a half hour to an hour, as fast as I can, for the real work. See if you can get her talking. What you do to loosen her tongue is your business, but I don't want any mute psychos.'
'Wait,' Haley said.
'What? You wanna talk now?'
'What do you want?'
'Where are the papers from the whale?'
'Sam has them.'
'Call your boyfriend. I wanna talk to him about your health.'
'Take off the cuffs.' 'Tell me the number first.'
