The Dead Yard (39 page)

No, forget the car.

It was either make a break for the woods right now, or the full-frontal attack while at least
two of them were still sleeping.

"What’s it going to be, Michael?" I whispered to myself. But I already knew the answer and I
didn’t need any more convincing to go after Touched.

Once before, long ago, I’d assaulted a big house filled with enemies and killed the occupants.
Snowing then, too, come to think of it. Me, murder, and snow—fucking made for one another.

I held the gun tight and limped to the front door of the cabin.

A cigarette smell was coming from inside, limp and sweet from fresh-rolled tobacco. I listened
for the sounds of conversation. But Touched was giving no one instructions. His coffee remark had
been rhetorical.

Still, he was bound to be bloody suspicious.

I turned the handle and inched open the door. Touched was sitting at the kitchen table with
his feet up on another chair. He was in his usual brown slacks and a mustard working jumper. His
graying hair was crushed under a woolen hat and he had a tattered dressing gown draped over his
shoulders.

I opened the door a little farther and pointed the gun through the gap.

He didn’t stir when I came in and he felt the outdoor breeze.

I sighted the .22.

He turned the page of a magazine called
Wooden Boat
and took a long draw on his
cigarette.

"Pair of ya will catch your death out there," he said without looking up.

I checked to look for the .38 but it wasn’t next to him. On the kitchen table: a newspaper,
magazines, a coffeepot, but no gun. It might be in his pocket, but it might not. If I had to
guess I’d say he was being careless, had left it in his room, and was in fact unarmed. Just the
way I liked them.

I stepped completely into the cabin and closed the door behind me.

He turned another page of
Wooden Boat
. I looked for Kit or Gerry or anyone else
waiting on the stairs with artillery, but there was no one, this was no trap.

I limped closer, trailing blood and snow.

"I really need some coffee…" he began and then he looked up.

In a single breath his face changed from amazement to fright to a gruesome composedness in the
face of death.

He put down his magazine.

Took another puff of the cigarette.

"How the fuck did you get out?" he asked.

"Magic."

"What?"

"Magic. Now, Touched, me old china plate. Put your hands on your head and bloody keep them
there," I said.

Touched left his fag in the ashtray and did as he was bid, resting his hands on his wool
beanie hat.

I surveyed the kitchen and the stairs.

"Where’s Gerry and Kit?" I asked.

"Sleeping," he said with a little disgusted shake of the head. Here they were letting him down
again. Everybody always letting him down. Typical. And of course it was always someone else’s
fault. Never his.

His eyes narrowed.

He exhaled the cigarette smoke, a bubble of nervous spittle forming on his dry lips.

"So, Michael Forsythe, killer of Darkey White, informant, spy for the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, what are you gonna do now? Arrest me?"

"I don’t think so."

He looked puzzled and then smiled with recognition. That big friendly grin, that mix of hatred
and bravado.

"Ah, I understand," he said. "It’s personal. The woman in Newburyport. Right?"

"That’s right," I said.

"Well, you certainly had me fooled. I’ll admit that I was suspicious about you and her, but
when you helped us put her in the ground and you didn’t make a big song and dance about it, fuck,
I didn’t think she meant anything to you," he muttered a little louder.

"Keep your voice down, Touched," I said. "And keep those hands on your head."

Touched smiled again, a labored wrinkling of the face that made him lose his youthful
arrogance.

And as he meekly put his hands back up I saw him afresh. The mystique had gone. The aperture
of time worked its way with his features and suddenly he was just a middle-aged white guy, getter
older, getting stupider, getting fatter, perplexed by the vagaries of life and the representative
of the younger generation who had bested him and was, unexpectedly, about to murder him.

"And another thing. Neither of you bloody talked. I don’t know what they teach you nowadays,
but that was impressive. Or it could be that I’m getting soft," he said.

He reached to get his cigarette.

"Keep your hands where they are, Touched."

"Sorry, Michael, I forgot," he said and put his hands back on his hat, drumming them,
pretending to be relaxed.

I limped closer until I was close enough.

It wasn’t my style to gloat over him; to exult, to lecture him with famous last words. There
wasn’t time for that anyway. I just needed information and then I’d bloody get rid of him.

"Do you have a gun on ya?" I asked.

"No. No, I don’t. If you believe me," he said.

"Stand up, shake out your pockets on the dressing gown."

He turned out the pockets.

"It’s in the bog," he offered.

"Sit down again."

He sat and put his hands on his head unbidden.

"Ok. Where’s the big shotguns?" I asked. "Where do you keep that big shotgun Gerry had
yesterday?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"Tell me or I’ll fucking kill you, Touched."

"It’s in my room upstairs. I cleaned it," he said.

"Loaded?"

"Aye, think so."

"You know so. Is it loaded or not?"

"It’s not loaded," he said.

"Where’s the shells?"

"They’re on the dresser in my room."

"Which one’s your room?"

"First left at the top of the stairs. Two down from yours. What the fuck you want the shotgun
for?"

I was going to kill Touched but I wanted the other two alive. The .22 wasn’t going to impress
Gerry. And I wanted them unarmed and intimidated by overwhelming force. If I killed Touched down
here, the noise would bring out Gerry, he’d get that shotgun from Touched’s room, and he’d blow
my brains out. But if I took a little more effort, marched Touched upstairs, got the shotgun,
killed him, and waited outside Gerry’s room with those big double barrels pointed at him, he’d
have no choice whatsoever. He’d have to surrender. It would be suicide to come at me then.
Pointless suicide. He gives up. March him and Kit downstairs, find the phone….

Nice and neat.

"Take that cord off your robe."

He unthreaded the dressing-gown tie and held it out to me.

"Turn around, put your hands behind your back," I ordered.

"I thought you were going to kill me," he said smugly.

"Plenty of time for that later, now spin around."

He smiled, spat.

"Hurry up."

He turned and put his hands behind him.

"Ok, Touched, one fidget, one move, and I blow your bloody brains out," I said.

I made a slipknot with one end of the bathrobe cord and placed it over his wrist and pulled it
tight. Waited for him to try something since this was the best chance he was going to get. But he
stood there and didn’t move. I made another slipknot and put his other wrist into it. I tightened
both loops and turned him to face me.

"This is how it’s going to be. We’re going to go upstairs and get the shotgun; if you behave
yourself you just might live through this," I lied.

"Changed your mind, huh? That’s what you get from hanging about with feds, it fucking weakens
ya," he said with contempt.

"Whatever. If you try to shout a warning, I’ll kill you. Understand?"

"Aye," he said and then a look went across his face that I couldn’t interpret but it seemed to
be concern.

"Tell me one thing, Michael, is the lad tied up out there too?" he asked. Of course, it
wouldn’t be fear for himself, he was worried about his protégé.

"What lad?"

"Jackie. Did you tie him up too?" Touched asked.

"I killed him."

He swallowed. Paled.

"And Sonia?" Touched asked, a trace of the composure disappearing from his dark eyes.

"Aye. Had to do it. Hated to do it. No choice."

"Ye wee fucker, peeler agent bastard," Touched said, anger making him slur his words.

"Keep your voice down. I won’t tell you again."

Touched shook his head. His face tightened, his temple throbbed and then relaxed. He was no
poker player. He was putting together a little plan.

It might have concerned me once. But I was transformed. I could see through him. He was
obvious now. Old and obvious and tied. Let him plan.

I had the gun, I was ready.

"Ok, we’ll go up the stairs and we’ll get your gun and maybe you’ll live to do jail time," I
said.

I motioned for him to lead me up the stairs.

Yeah. Coming together. Up to his room, get that shotgun, kill that son of a bitch, arrest
those other two, take them to the smokehouse, chain them up, then back to the cabin, untie
Touched’s wrists so I could claim it was self-defense and not an execution.

Touched began walking up the stairs. His dressing gown wafting backwards, his legs unsteady.
He turned his head to look at me.

"I’m not sure I want to go to prison, Michael," he said.

"Don’t see that you have much say in the matter."

He took another step.

"You know a comedy always ends in a marriage, a tragedy in a death," he said, sly and
sleekit.

"Which one’s this?" I asked cautiously.

"Oh, you know," he said, suddenly throwing himself backwards off the stair and crashing into
me with his full body weight. We tumbled down the stairs, Touched landing on top of me, knocking
the wind out of me and sending the gun awkwardly under a chair.

He head-butted me on the top of my skull.

"Fucking show ya," he muttered.

He struggled desperately to get out of the restraints, but I’d bound that bastard tight and
good. I pushed him off me and he rolled to the side. He hooked the robe cord over his ass and
down his legs, getting it over first his left leg and then the right. Fast for an old geezer. He
tried to undo the knot but it was too tight. His hands still tied, but tied in front of him,
which was more dangerous. He lunged at me, but I’d had a second to anticipate the attack and
finally managed to get the gun round to face him.

Touched hadn’t survived a couple of assassination attempts for nothing.

Before I could pull the trigger he kicked my hand and sent the gun clattering across the
wooden floor.

He tried to kick me again but I caught the foot and violently twisted his leg and ankle.

He squirmed out of his slipper, turned, and spitting like a demon, jumped on top of me.

I punched him, breaking his nose with a right hook that sprayed blood into his eyes. Partially
blinded, he swung wildly with his fist, missed my head completely but, luckily for him, managed
to bring the side of his hand down onto my cracked ribs.

A tidal wave of pain rocked through me, paralyzing me.

"Fuuuuu…"

Touched took the opportunity to kneel on my arms, pinning me.

He pushed the robe cord down onto my throat and began to squeeze with all the controlled rage
and seething elation of a professional killer. His eyes were wide apart, gray, emotionless.

This was what Samantha saw when he killed her.

"Have you now, Forsythe," he whispered, intimately, like a lover. He pushed down with all his
weight, the blackout beginning with a ringing in my head and my eyes rolling back in their
sockets.

If he’d had garroting wire or rope instead of a robe tie, Touched would be telling this story,
not me. But as it was, the cord was too thick and too padded to strangle me. He needed more
leverage, he needed to wrap the cord completely round my neck and pull with two hands.

He kept pushing down on my throat but he saw that I wasn’t dead yet.

"Kill ya," he muttered to himself, his breath a few inches from me.

He lifted my head up, slipped the cord behind my neck, and gave me one chance to suck air into
my lungs.

I breathed deep and, in a desperate effort, I heaved myself forward and bit into his cheek,
tearing out a chunk of flesh as large as a big bite out of an apple.

He screamed and I kicked him off me with my bloody stump.

He landed on his back and I scrambled to my feet.

"Gerry, Gerry, wake up, Kit, Gerry, wake up," he yelled at the top of his voice and crawled
towards me, blood pouring out of his face.

I dived for the gun, got it, cocked it, and shot him square in the belly.

He slumped forward onto his knees.

"Gerry," he said again, desperately.

I could hear movement upstairs.

I’d have to bloody sprint if I wanted that big gun now.

Touched was reeling from the slug in his gut and it was a good hit but with a .22 you can
never be sure, so I limped across the room, smacked him in the face with the pistol, kicked his
legs, muscled him to the ground, shoved his cheek to the kitchen floor, turned his head.

"I’m still going to get you," he said weakly.

"You better move fast," I said and shot him above the ear—bits of skull, blood, and brains
spraying over my weapon hand.

"What’s going on down there?" Gerry yelled.

I turned Touched to face me and gave him one in the forehead, too, the bullet drilling a neat
hole above his right eye. I felt his neck pulse.
Nada.
I stood. I needed that
shotgun.

I put the .22 in my trouser pocket and went up the stairs on all fours.

"Daddy?" Kit screamed from one of the rooms.

I got to the top and shoved open the first door on the left. It was Touched’s room all right,
there was his leather jacket, his sunglasses, a copy of
Hustler
. But he’d been lying
about the shotgun.

Fuck.

"Get behind me, Kit," Gerry said. He was outside in the corridor. I took a look. And, shit,
there he was, naked under a long black kimono, holding that big powerful 12-gauge. Kit behind him
with a revolver. He saw me. I ducked inside as one of the barrels erupted, destroying the
doorjamb.