Strip for Murder (21 page)

Two guys were walking this way from the parking lot and under the bright lights I could see their faces well enough, but I just didn't believe it. It simply couldn't be Garlic and Young Egg Foo, not after what I'd been through.

But it was true; even though my vision was hampered by the visor, I could see the two hoods. They were just strolling casually this way, though, and obviously they knew nothing about what was going on inside the castle.

I grabbed the lance leaning in the archway as I passed, struggled up onto the horse, and said softly, “Come on, horse. Move. Giddap.”

I was hoping a lot of things: that Husky would stay unconscious and that nobody else would figure out what had happened until I'd reached the Cad; that Foo and Garlic would think I was Sardine; that this horse would move and that I would wake up from this bloody nightmare. The horse stayed motionless.

And then everything fell apart. There was noise, yelling, and I saw Foo racing toward the bush where I'd left Sardine. The bum must have come to and worked the gag out of his mouth.

Everything happened like a movie run at double speed.
Zip,
and Foo was at the bush; almost instantaneously he was racing away from the bush and at me, roaring like a bull elephant. Garlic trumpeted and raced at me too. I had got myself into a pickle.

There was a gleam of light in Garlic's hand. It was a gun. Garlic was going to shoot me. Well, by God, I'd give
these
guys a battle, too. I reached for my gun—
clang.
“Oh, Lord,” I moaned. It's a hell of a note when a guy has to take off his pants to get at his banger. A quick draw in this outfit would take approximately fifteen minutes.

Well, maybe I couldn't get at my gun, but I had a lance and a horse. I'd lance them, I'd run them through, I'd string them up like beads. I lowered my lance and charged.

Yeah, charged. I don't know beans about horses. I leaned forward shouting, “Cck, cck, go, Bossie!” but nothing happened except that the hoods got much closer. Then I raised my legs and banged them down again, and that stupid horse finally went into action. He leaped forward with a whinny, and hoofs drummed over the drawbridge.

I aimed my lance. Garlic was faster than Foo, and consequently a few yards ahead of him, on my left. He seemed sort of startled to see me bearing down on him, lance pointing at his nose. But he flipped his gun and fired, the bullet swishing past my helmet; then my lance caught him on the forehead and spun him back and around like a top. The lance flew from my hand as I jerked my head the other way, to my right toward Foo.

I was practically on top of Foo, just a couple of yards away, so automatically I leaped for him, lunging forward from my horse. Only again I forgot about all this armor.

Anyway I was aimed right, and both my gauntleted hands caught him hard in the middle of his horrified expression, but only then did I start thinking about what would happen to me. And then it was too late.

I went sailing past him, and through the slits in my visor I could see the ground leaping up at me. My hands were outstretched, rigid, but I was just too heavy when I landed. First I felt my arms buckling. Then I felt my head buckling.

And then there was a sound like the pearly gates swinging together, and a squishing, and a rainbow-streaked blackness. Something new had been addled.

Chapter Twenty

Consciousness returned, but I was only half out of the blackness while trying to get to my feet. I got my legs under me, but they wobbled. I staggered a few steps forward and tottered around. It was all very strange, eerie, unnerving. I seemed to be in a jail of some kind. I could see the bars right in front of my eyes. Off in the haziness ahead of me was a castle. I had been thrown back through time to the days of chivalry, to King Arthur's court. The chivalrous bastards had put me in a dungeon and had been beating me about the head with battleaxes. I had to escape. If only I could clear my head, I thought. I took another step—and fell down.

Cold wetness crawled all over me. In a few seconds my head was clear. The cold water had shocked me back to consciousness and suddenly I knew what had happened. Those bastards had flooded the dungeon!

They were drowning me. Chivalry—hah! Then suddenly I realized I had fallen into the moat. I felt as if I were sinking down, down through ooze, and it hardly seemed worthwhile to try to get up. Even if I did, somebody would ventilate my head some more. But I did get up, slopped hip-deep to the moat's edge, and climbed out like the Beast from One Fathom.

I was still dazed, and my head hurt enormously, but I guessed that it couldn't have been much more than a minute or so since I'd fled the castle, because nobody was rushing out after me yet. Garlic was moving a little, about ten yards away. Near my feet, Foo was sprawled, motionless. Close to him was a .45 automatic.

There was noise from the front of the castle and I heard somebody shouting. I scooped up the automatic and worked its slide, cocking the hammer. Two men ran onto the drawbridge and stopped when they saw me. One of them yanked up a gun and fired. I slammed two shots at them and they turned and ran like hell out of sight.

I started toward the parking lot. I'd taken about three steps when there was another gunshot; the slug zipped by me, actually pinging against the top edge of my shoulder armor. I swung around and dropped to my knees as the gun—in Garlic's hand—blasted again. He was prone, arm extended toward me, and I pulled the .45 toward him, squeezed the trigger three times, and saw his body jerk violently, then roll completely over.

I ran for the Cad, crawled under the wheel, and started the engine. Then I hoisted the .45 over the windshield and emptied it at the archway, just in case somebody got an idea about trying to follow me. I threw the gun away, slammed the Cad into gear, and took off. More gay partygoers had arrived while I was emptying the gun. As I drove away, they stared at me. They really stared.

Nobody followed me, or, if anyone did, he didn't get close. In half an hour I was at Jay's surplus yard, “Anything for a Price.” The stained, and now wet, nap from Norman's carpet was in an envelope in the glove compartment of my car, along with the Yates report and photographs. And I was out of my armor.

Jay had the stuff I'd ordered ready for me. I saw it right away. Couldn't miss it, for that matter.

Three heavy ropes went straight up into the air like a triple Indian rope trick, their lower ends anchored by big hunks of lead, the top ends held up in the air by large gas-inflated balloons. I already had the top down on the convertible, so by lifting the hundred-pound lead chunks and carrying them to the car, then dropping them behind the seat, I was ready to go in little more than two minutes. The hundred-pound lead pieces, with the balloons tugging them upward, seemed to weigh only about twenty pounds apiece.

Jay put the Coleman lantern, shovel, rope ladder, coil of piano wire, and a hunting knife into the car and I wrote out a check for him, using one of his dry blanks. It was for a disgusting amount of money, but I'd expected that. I'd get most of it back, anyway, when I returned the stuff.

When I was in the car and ready to go, Jay looked at me warily. “What you gonna do with all this junk? This a new way to move hunks of heavy stuff?”

“No. But that's an idea I'll add to my list, Jay. This thing has endless possibilities. Why, you could attach a couple of bundles of these balloons to guys working on skyscrapers or bridges, and if they fell off they'd just float down. This thing may do away with elevators.”

He stuck out his chin at me. “Come on. I knocked myself out getting the stuff and filling the damned balloons for you, so give. Incidentally, they're filled with natural gas, so don't light any cigarettes around them. Blow yourself up, maybe. Come on, boy, level with me.”

I told him the truth, but I think he still felt I was holding out on him. “I am,” I said, “going to hang a ladder in the sky. And I'm going to climb up the ladder and dig a bullet out of a cliff.”

He was still laughing, sort of wildly, when I drove off. I drove very slowly and carefully, making sure I passed under no electric wires or overhanging tree limbs. And also because my head hurt like the devil. At Fairview I parked in the lot and went to Laurel's cabin. She wasn't there, but I found her in my cabin again. After a touching reunion she drew back from me and I stopped touching her.

She said, “Ugh. Shell, you're all wet. How did it happen?”

“I fought a sick dragon. He kept belching at me. I'm a knight, come to sweep you—”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

I didn't tell her. I wasn't ever going to tell anybody. Instead I said, “Honey, want to help me in a little operation I've got planned?”

She smiled wickedly. “Uh-huh.”

“I refer to the operation I mentioned this afternoon. Getting that bullet. This afternoon it seemed important—in fact, it
is
important—but now everything is dreamlike.”

It was, in a way. My mangled head kept throbbing and, occasionally, pink and blue lights flashed in my eyes. Wouldn't it be a scream, I thought, if I were off my rocker?

Laurel said, “All right. What is it that you want me to do?”

I told her. She told me I was mad. I told her I wasn't. After a bit of that she said, “Can you really do it?”

“Of course. I've got it all figured out. Cost me a fortune, but it'll be simple. If I don't fall and break my neck. But nothing can happen to me tonight. This is my charmed night. This night is magic.” Those pink and blue lights flashed again.

We left. I drove the Cad as close as possible to the pool where I'd been shot at, then we lugged all the equipment up to the edge of the cliff. With a sledgehammer I drove a long, curved bar, like an overgrown staple, deep into the ground. Then I fastened one end of a thick rope to it. In fifteen minutes the setup was ready.

Laurel looked at me in the light of the burning Coleman lantern. Then she looked up at the spot where the balloons were, invisible in the blackness above us. Using the piano wire and rope, I'd tied all three bunches of balloons together so that their combined lifting power was about 250 pounds, more than enough, with the lead weights now removed, to support me and several extra pounds besides. The rope holding them was fastened to the curved bar in the ground, and tied to it and hanging down to the ground was the rope ladder. Now I could climb up into the sky.

Laurel said, “There's only one thing wrong. Seriously, it makes some sense now that I see it, only your ladder goes straight up. It's high enough and close to the cliff, but you said you've got to dig way out there on the right, over the water.”

“That's where you come in, honey. I'll climb part way up and tie this line"—I showed her the small rope in my hand—"to the thick line the balloons are tied to. You take the other end and walk around to the far side of the pool. While I'm on the ladder, you pull until I tell you to stop. You pull me out over the water, and I climb up or down the ladder till I'm where I want to be. Simple?”

“I guess. Or else you're simple.”

“Young woman, this is sheer genius. The balloons will pull straight up; you pull toward you. I'm right there at one point of the triangle, happy as can be. It has something to do with geometry. Or is it algebra?”

“OK, Einstein. Let's see you operate.”

I went up the ladder, carrying the Coleman lantern and a shovel. By that time Laurel was at the opposite side of the pool. Soon, with her pulling gently, I was exactly where I wanted to be. I wired the lantern to one rung of the rope ladder over my head, then started scraping at the earth side of the cliff with my little shovel.

Getting the slug itself was nothing after all the preparation; in fact, it was anticlimactic. When I'd first got into position I could see the day-old bullet hole in the cliff, and it was just a matter of scraping at it till I got in deep enough. I'd sway out from the cliff occasionally, or get out of position because those balloons weren't rigid up there, but there wasn't much to this part of the operation.

“Tell you what, Laurel,” I said while I dug. “We might use this idea in the Long Beach Pike. Fix up a spot in the amusement zone like the surface of the moon, strap balloons on people so they're light, and they can jump around like crickets.”

“Swell,” she said. “We'll give them membership cards, enlisting them as moon people. You get the first membership. You know why nuts are called lunatics, don't you, Shell?”

“Yeah. But—woops. Wait a shake, baby.” I'd dug deep enough. I could see the dull gleam of the slug and in another minute I had it in my hand. The point had expanded and folded back on the jacket like a beat-up metal mushroom, but the ballistics boys downtown wouldn't have any trouble identifying it and comparing the marks on its barrel with another bullet. And I had little doubt that they'd identify this one as a Silvertip .30-.30 slug. I went down to earth again.

Laurel trotted around the pool, her body a pale glow in the darkness, getting more substantial—and prettier—as she got closer. She ran up and stopped before me, smiling slightly. Then she sobered and, in mock surprise, said, “Where in the world did you come from?”

“From there,” I said solemnly, pointing up. “My God!”

“Not at all. I am Eekle from there.” I pointed up. “I claim this joint in the name of Arcturus. I have traveled many light years. I have very light vehicle. I claim you in the name of Eekle. Argle zoop slangslop.”

“What's this argle something?”

“Language Arcturus. My language. I bright as hell, speak all kinds slop.”

“Oh, argle yourself. Let's go back to the cabin.”

“I've got to get this slug downtown.” I grinned. “But after that I'll be back, and I mean to framblot you.”

“What's that?”

“Old Arcturian custom. Come on, let's go.”

We went. I just left the stuff there, balloons and all. Tomorrow the nudists were going to be surprised when they saw it. At least, that's what I thought then. If I had known the truth, I'd have slashed my wrists.