Dead-Bang (25 page)

Dave was going on, “I've got to get another syringe, fill it, pump the juice into you. Even then we'll have to take you away from here before.… Hell, you'll have all kinds of chances.”

“You're all heart, Dave. Incidentally, what the hell is this juice, as you call it?”

I was a little surprised when he told me. Maybe I shouldn't have been. Even though Dave couldn't be sure I knew the stuff was already in me,
he
knew it was. “It's one of the company's experimental drugs,” he said easily. “This one's made from a few common chemicals and, primarily, an extract from seaweed. Seaweed, isn't that interesting? It's a blood thinner, like coumadin, meant to dissolve blood clots or prevent them, help stroke victims, that sort of thing. Only it doesn't work. That is, it works too well.”

“Too much of a good thing, huh?” I said, feeling sick. At the moment I didn't notice any dizziness or prickly goose bumps, but I felt sick anyway.

“We checked it out in the lab,” Dave said casually. “Injected it into mice, guinea pigs, dogs, and even a couple of horses. Killed them all. If they were cut or had open sores they bled externally, bled to death. If not, they bled internally, hemorrhaged, their body cavities filled up with blood. They went into shock, keeled over, and kicked the bucket.”

I was feeling
very
sick, but I managed to say, “Mice and guinea pigs, even dogs and horses. Killed them all, huh? You dedicated scientists, you'll do anything to save a life, won't you?”

Dave didn't answer me. He said to big Ed, “I'll be back in a couple of minutes. You know what to do if Scott tries anything.”

Dave walked out of the room, but Ed didn't watch him go. He didn't take his eyes off me. Or his gun. He was much too far away for me to have even a slight chance of getting close to him—at least while he was staring at me, waiting for any movement, for that first step. Maybe even hoping for it.

I knew I couldn't just stand here waiting for Dave to come back with more of his miserable juice, that I had to try something, and fast. But I also knew if I gave Ed any reason for taking some shots at me he wouldn't have to hit me dead center or blow my head open. If he merely nicked me in a couple of places I could wind up like Dave's guinea pigs and horses. Even if I didn't get shot, the blood inside me was changing, thinning, walls of arteries and veins might be weakening.…

I pushed all that away, tried not to think about it, but it was difficult to concentrate on anything else. Beyond Ed in the corner on my right, movement flickered upon the television tube, the head and shoulders of a television newscaster filled the screen.

Except for sound from the set it was completely quiet in the room, and though the man's voice was low I could clearly hear him saying, “… on Filbert Street, and moments from now will turn to march up Heavenly Lane, the short private drive leading onto the grounds of the Church of the Second Coming. There has—as yet—been no evidence to confirm the report, but it has been reported or rumored that the ladies plan to make part of their march in, ah, the nude—as an, ah, emphasis of their protest against the … what they allege is … the fanatical antiwoman, antiflesh, and antisex attitude of Pastor Lemming. It, mm, is only a rumor at this point—”

Only a rumor. Still it gave me an idea—at least, the beginning of an idea—and, along with it, hope.

“Hey!” I said. “You hear
that
, Ed, baby?”

20

Ed's brows twitched. “Huh?”

I pointed a thumb toward the set. “Television announcer, the latest news. When I was here around noon, Cassiday told me ten of the best-looking gals in Citizens FOR—
gorgeous
gals, actually, and built!—were going to march to Pastor Lemming's church. When I left, they were talking about parading at least part of the way in the nude. Without any clothes on. But I don't suppose they really would.…”

Ed's lips slowly took on a round, pooching shape, as if he were saying “Whoo.” But there wasn't any sound, and he didn't take his eyes off me.

From the television set: “Pastor Lemming has just announced, and I quote, ‘Members of the subversive antiGod, antiChrist, antidecency heathens who call themselves Citizens FOR will not be permitted to profane the Almighty's earthly Edens. God will strike them, will smite them. Yes. I am rallying members of the Church of the Second Coming to my side and we will work the will of God in opposing the filth and obscenity of Citizens FOR, for though the foul forces for filth fill the, er, ah, fill the land, we are not weak but united by God in the defense of God.…'”

There was a little more but it sure sounded different when the voice and delivery were not Lemming's own. And I feared Ed's not overlong attention span was weakening and wandering. I was losing him.

But then the announcer—even his usually calm voice showing some slight excitement—mentioned a report just received and continued, “… because of conflicting reports that reached us earlier, apparently due to a lack of agreement among the ten representatives of Citizens FOR, we were unable to film the beginning of the march now in progress on Filbert Street, on the outskirts of Weilton. However, two of our camera trucks are now racing to the scene—”

“How
about
that?” I said. “They're actually going to do it.”

“Do it?” Ed echoed questioningly.

“I don't know
what
they're going to do, but whatever they
do
do, the station's going to take pictures of them doing it. That's what the announcer just said, anyway. You heard him, Ed. Wouldn't it be crazy if those gorgeous babes stripped naked, and the television guys actually took
pictures
of them?
Moving
pictures?”

He was silently going “Whoo” again.

“Probably they wouldn't really fling their clothes off. Not all ten of those beauties. Not
all
their clothes. But … I did hear them say they
were
going to. Even if they stripped, you don't suppose anybody would show it on television, do you?”

“I … don't s'pose.”

“I can believe the guys will take plenty of pictures, all right. But I know those bastards. They'd probably keep the whole damn thing for themselves. Run the movie at home, you know. Maybe run it over and over.”

“You think they'd do that?”

“Hell, yes, they would. I
know
they would. Just run it over and over, especially the good parts—and I'll tell you something else, Ed, those gals have
got
some good parts. It's a shame. Those bastards will make a movie of those gorgeous naked tomatoes—if anything marvelous
does
happen, I mean—and keep it for themselves, keep it a
secret
, Guys like you and me, we'll never even be sure it happened, much less see it. I don't know about you, Ed, but it gripes the hell out of me. Why, those dirty—”

“Bastards!” Ed said.

“You said it.” While talking to him I'd been trying to keep an ear tuned to the newscaster's remarks, and he had just informed his expectant audience that the studio's camera trucks were ready at the scene.

I held up a hand—and took a small sliding step forward—and cried loudly, “Listen, Ed!”

From the television set: “And now, live from Weilton—”

From Ed: “Whoo!” Audibly this time. His big square head jerked an inch left, but stopped. He wasn't going to take his eyes off me, no, sir. He knew his duty.

I gazed intently beyond him to the set in the corner—and took one more little step forward.

“Hey!” Ed said.

“Hey is right, pal,” I replied excitedly. “Hey, boy. I can't quite see what …”

There they were. Ten of them carrying little signs on sticks. It was a long shot and I couldn't read the signs, but it was the lovelies of Citizens FOR, ten gorgeous and curvaceous gals—with every stitch of their clothes on. Well, I hadn't really expected anything else. But I was a
little
disappointed. They were marching in single file up Heavenly Lane toward the church, nearly past the parking lot and about to step onto the grass.

The camera zoomed in and panned over the ten lovely faces, as a deep male voice said, “And here they are, already approaching the church, just as in an earlier statement to the press they said they would—”

“Just as they said they would!” I cried. “My God, my God. Oh, Lord in Heaven.”

“What're they doin'?” Ed asked. “What're they doin'? Is they—”

“Oh, Ed,” I cried, “don't look! Don't look, Ed!”

And I took another step forward, bugging my eyes at the television screen. I was getting a little nearer Ed, true, but that wasn't entirely my intention. I had been trying to move closer to the long polished table on which I'd earlier been lying, and I had succeeded. It was now little more than a foot away. Just one more sliding step and I'd have my hands against it.

“What is it?” Ed asked hoarsely. His eyes were fixed on me like hot rivets and the tendons were bulging in his thick neck. His head was tilting slightly toward the television set as though pulled by a bone magnet. “Are they doin' it? Did they?”

“Ed, don't ask. Why, how can it
be?
How
could
they show this on television?”

“Is they naked? Did they take their clothes off like you said? Pants and all?”

“Pants and all!” I howled, throwing my hands into the air and letting them fall as I tottered forward. Letting them fall to grip the table's side. “I can't believe my eyes! Can I really be seeing on
television
, ten gorgeous, shapely, sexy,
naked
babes?
Naked
as jaybirds?
Naked?”

I had to say “naked” three times in a row before Ed cracked. But he had probably been fighting his baser nature, his carnal desires, longer than ever he had before. If there were ten tomatoes on the tube, with their clothes off, pants and all, he just wouldn't have been a
man
if he hadn't looked.

So he looked.

And once he'd decided he simply couldn't afford to miss this unprecedented high point of television history, he did not merely turn his head a trifle and slide his eyes left and take a little peek. No, he did not. He did what any real man would do, he snapped his head around as if it had been shot from a cannon, with his eyes opening wide as he let his head carry them forward several inches through the air, aiming them toward and closer to the television tube. At the same moment, before he even got a little look—and this is the sad thing, really—he had begun to smile wetly in anticipation.

Well, that ruined him, of course. Not merely the smile, the whole thing. Another big, strong man, like so many sinners before him, had given in gladly to his weakness, and got what for. His fate was sealed the instant he decided to look.

I did what I had to do rapidly, but I suppose I could have taken my time. Because Ed looked, I mean
looked
, with an intentness and total concentration I had rarely observed except in bird dogs, and perhaps for a while he actually thought he was seeing that which he had dreamed of seeing, for he was still smiling when I hit him with the table.

Even as I leaped forward and shoved the table with a horrible smack into Ed's gut, I almost hated myself for doing it. I felt like those callous scientists who catch boy boll weevils in traps reeking with the synthetic scent of girl weevils in heat, or lure male Costa Rican macaws to their doom with the recorded croak of a female Costa Rican macaw laying eggs. Yes, I almost hated myself. But I did it, anyway.

I jumped forward, yanking on the side of the table and lifting it. Three of its legs left the floor, and I shoved with all my strength, trying to sail the furniture at Ed like a huge angular discus. The table's right end swung up in an arc, the left end slowed by that one leg dragging on the carpet, and the fastest-moving part of the table—its sharply pointed corner—caught Ed at just the right spot to remove his appendix and hip bone if it had been moving a little faster.

Ed let out a noise of astonishing volume and complexity. Complexity, because it was a blend of pain, shock, disbelief, and dismay, at least. And, surely, it was not merely physical pain he expressed with that unbelievable howl. For Ed was still staring at the television set, bent over several inches and slightly twisted, and it was possible he had not even detected my movement, had not realized I was preparing to ruin him. If so, it followed that when the excruciating pain got him he did not know I had done it. Thus he must have felt he had suffered a massive and spontaneous embolism, or mysteriously ruptured himself. I would hate to think what he might have believed if that point had caught him smack in the middle.

Or maybe it was that he'd had just enough time by then to get his eyes carefully focused, only instants before they unfocused, but long enough for him to realize those ten gorgeous babes, contrary to what he'd been led to expect, still had their clothes on, pants and all.

The noise he made was accompanied by such a great rush of breath that his lungs should have emptied and collapsed, and he bent forward far enough that when I reached him and swung my right fist in a low-swooping uppercut it had to travel only a foot and a half to reach his chin.

He spun to the side, arm flipping, automatic sailing through the air—but not before his finger had tightened on the trigger and sent one .45-caliber bullet past my leg, his gun so close I could feel its muzzle blast slap the cloth of my trousers.

Ed reeled, staggered away from me, still on his feet but very unsteady on them, making a yard sideways for every yard forward. I jumped toward a window in the front wall. A few feet left of the window was a big overstuffed chair, alongside it a lamp on a small table. I grabbed the lamp, hurled it through the window, and, as the glass shattered and sprayed outward, picked up the table and banged it against shards sticking up from the bottom sill.