Билл Пронзини - The Bags of Tricks Affair

Now and then a vehicle rattled by on the street, and somewhere in the neighborhood a dog set up a desultory barking, and once he heard the sound of voices as an unseen man and a woman strolled past. Otherwise, the distant, steady pound of ore-crushing stamps at the Empire Mine was the only break in the afternoon stillness.

More than an hour passed. He had just looked at and put away his stem-winder for the third time when he heard footfalls on the walkway. He sat forward, tensing. It was Gaunt — alone, dressed as always in black despite the temperature.

Quincannon waited until he mounted the last of the steps before gaining his feet and saying, “It’s about time, Gaunt.”

Gaunt was too self-controlled, too coldly emotionless, to do anything but stop and turn his head. His expression betrayed neither surprise nor alarm, nor even wariness. It was almost as if he’d expected Quincannon. As he surely had, though not this soon.

“Well, the renowned detective,” he said in his slow drawl. “How long have you been here?”

Quincannon had himself under tight rein as well — for the moment. “Long enough.”

“Why? You must know that the trial isn’t until next week.”

“The trial isn’t what brought me.”

“No? Then what did?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“I’m afraid not. Suppose you enlighten me.”

“Sabina Carpenter.”

“Your erstwhile partner. What about her?”

“Her sudden disappearance.”

“Oh? Disappeared, you say?”

“Last Friday night in San Francisco.”

“That’s too bad. How did it happen?”

“She was kidnapped,” Quincannon said. Rage was close to the surface now; his voice was thick with it.

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t think it, I know it.” He took two steps forward, so that only a few paces separated them. “Kidnapped, locked in an abandoned building without food or water, and left there to die.”

Nothing changed in Gaunt’s demeanor. One arm hung at his side, the other was drawn up at his middle so that the fingers just touched the flap of his coat. Armed? A hideout weapon within easy reach? Quincannon hoped so, hoped for a sudden draw. He was not sure yet what he would do. Draw himself and fire first, mayhap. Or swing the Navy like a club. Or take the hideout away from him and make him eat it.

“How do you know this?” Gaunt’s voice was still cold, without inflection.

“She didn’t die, Gaunt. She escaped and I found her. Yesterday afternoon.”

“How did she escape? How did you find her?”

“Ingenuity on her part, detective work on mine.”

“Are you accusing me of abducting the woman? Is that why you’re here?”

“Yes, to both questions.”

Gaunt’s upper lip curled. “The accusation is false and slanderous besides. I was in Sacramento on Friday, consulting with an attorney named Barstow. He’ll swear to that if need be.”

“A shyster paid to lie.”

“Another slanderous statement.”

“I can prove you kidnapped her.”

“How? Did she see her abductor?”

“He spoke to her and she recognized his voice. Yours.”

“But she didn’t see the man, did she? And voice recognition is unreliable, the more so at night.”

“How would you know she was abducted at night unless you abducted her?”

“I assumed it.”

Enough of this cat and mouse. Quincannon said in a flat, hard voice, “The building where you took her and left her to die is an abandoned boat repair shop on the South Basin marsh — property owned by your former land-swindle partner, D. S. Nickerson. He’ll testify in court that you coerced him into acting as your accomplice.”

Gaunt’s mouth thinned to a straight white line, like a knife slash before it begins to bleed. “Damn you, Quincannon. And damn Mrs. Carpenter, too.”

“No, damn you, you sadistic son of a bitch.”

Long, tense seconds passed before Gaunt said, “What do you intend to do? Kill me?”

“If you give me cause.”

“And if I don’t? Put me under arrest?”

“My license from the state of California gives me that authority. You’ll occupy a cell next to your sister’s until the San Francisco police can arrange for extradition.”

Some of the ice in Gaunt’s eyes thawed. There was an edgy, poised look to him now. His right hand still rested on the front of his waistcoat, the tips of his fingers just touching the lapel of his black frock coat. Quincannon immediately swept the tail of his coat aside with his left hand to expose the holstered Navy, gripped its handle with his right — movements so swift that Gaunt had no time to react.

“Go ahead and draw your hideout weapon,” he said. “I’d like nothing better than to shoot you dead where you stand.”

The clash of wills continued a few seconds longer, neither man moving, their gazes locked. Then Quincannon said, “Well, Gaunt? Will you come along peaceably or—”

Gaunt’s nerve broke. The compulsive protector, the black-hearted avenger, the man supposedly fashioned of ice and iron spun on his heel, leaped down off the porch, and ran.

Quincannon drew the Navy and gave chase, shouting, “Stop, blast you, I’ll shoot if you don’t!”

The fugitive paid no heed to the warning. He staggered out through the open gate, onto empty, heat-blistered Pleasant Street. There was a gun in his hand now, too, a small pistol, and he skidded to a halt long enough to turn and fire. Quincannon dodged, but the shot was wild, the bullet clipping off an elm branch twenty feet away.

Gaunt commenced running again, plunging headlong downhill toward town. Panic made him fleet of foot, fleet enough to outrace his pursuer to a more populated area and thus endanger innocent citizens. Quincannon couldn’t let that happen. He slowed, drew a long bead between the fleeing scoundrel’s shoulder blades. But he had never in his life shot a man in the back, and he couldn’t bring himself to do so now. He lowered his aim, steadied the Navy again, and fired.

His marksmanship was accurate as always. The bullet took Gaunt just behind the right knee, sent him yelling and tumbling onto the cobblestones. He rolled over twice before sliding to a stop in a supine sprawl. The pistol was still clutched in his hand, but he was no longer trying to use it; pain had him in too tight a grip. Quincannon ran up and kicked the weapon out of his grasp, stepped over to retrieve it, then stepped back and stood over him with the Navy pointed downward at the deep cleft in his chin.

Gaunt stared up at him, grimacing, clutching at his wounded leg. It had been a clean shot, the slug likely shattering bone but not piercing an artery; there was little enough blood. His panic had ebbed swiftly under the lash of agony, and the man of ice and iron briefly reemerged.

“Go ahead, put a bullet between my eyes and have done with it. You want to, I can see it in your face.”

Quincannon did want to — a measure of his hate for this soulless excuse for a human being. But he had never killed a man in cold blood and he was not about to start now, in broad daylight, with a handful of citizens aroused by the gunfire beginning to congregate. Nor, for that matter, would he have if the two of them had been alone together on a mountaintop or the desolate marshland at Candlestick Point. Nothing, he knew now, not even what had been done to Sabina, could ever make a murderer out of John Frederick Quincannon.

“No,” he said, and holstered the Navy, and then caught hold of Gaunt’s coat collar and dragged his unpleasant carcass off Pleasant Street.

When John came to see her late Wednesday afternoon, Sabina was feeling much better. Dr. Jorgensen and his wife had kept her swaddled in blankets and pumped full of medicine that resulted in long hours of healing sleep, and when she was awake, fed her large portions of hot soup, hot tea with honey, and sugared oatmeal (which she had never liked but dutifully ate). The doctor, after his most recent examination, announced that the threat of pneumonia seemed to have passed. If her breathing and her temperature were both normal tomorrow, he said, she would be able to go home.