Max Collins - Scratch Fever

Still kneeling, he smiled to himself. Patted the dog’s warm body. Got some blood on his hand but didn’t wipe it off.

Some of that stuff in the boxes was Sherry’s. She’d told her father she was getting an apartment when she moved here, so he’d given her some things: pots, pans, and so on. Also silverware.

He slipped out of his shoes and moved soundlessly across the carpeted floor to the boxes. Very carefully he sorted through the first box; the wooden case with silverware in it was under some Tupperware. He removed one stainless steel steak knife with a four-inch blade. He held it tight in a fist wet with the animal’s blood.

There was only one way up, and that was the stairs, coming right up into the living room, at the back. Half a flight, a landing, then, to the left, another half a flight, and bam. If they were waiting for him, watching for him, he was dead. If they weren’t, he had a chance. The stairs were carpeted, and he was quiet. He went up the first half-flight and waited, just one step below the landing. Listened.

Music.

“I think she’s coming around, Sally,” a voice said. An immature voice.

“Doesn’t matter,” another, older voice said. “She doesn’t know anything else we want to know.”

“Maybe we should ask her how he comes in. There’s more than one way in.”

“You may have a point.”

“You want me to hold her feet again?”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

Music — they were playing music on the goddamn stereo. Barry Manilow, wasn’t it? Crazy.

“She’s awake, Sally.”

That name Sally, again. A man named Sally. Sal. Sal and Infante. The two bodyguards working for Hines, the local Family man.

“Which way does he come in?” he heard Sal asking.

“Front door,” Sherry’s voice said. Hurting.

“Maybe you better hold her feet again, Infante.”

“No!” Sherry said. “It’s the garage way. Doorway’s in the hall.”

“You telling the truth? Hold her feet, Infante.”

“It’s the truth!” Sherry all but screamed.

Actually, Nolan would have preferred Sherry really tell the truth. That would send at least one of them down here. Well, maybe there was a way...

He stepped onto the landing. Looked up the stairs. No one at the top. There appeared to be only the two men here with Sherry, and they were in another part of the living room above.

He went up a few steps. Peeked over the edge of what was the living room floor, at left, through the black latticework railing.

Sherry was on the couch.

Infante’s back was to Nolan, and the guy was apparently holding Sherry by the ankles. The other one, Sally, was pinning down her arms, questioning her, his back partially to Nolan.

“Better flick your Bic, Infante,” Sally was saying. “Don’t burn the same spot.”

Nolan’s hand tightened on the steak knife as the pain made Shery jerk up, into a sitting position, while Sally covered her mouth with a hand to stifle her scream.

But when Sherry jerked up, her pain-widened eyes met Nolan’s. He was visible from the shoulders up. He gestured: raised a finger and pointed downward, thinking Send them to me, doll. Send them to me.

Then he ducked down out of sight. Sat on the steps.

“All right!” Sherry said. “All right. It isn’t the front door. It isn’t the garage way, either.”

“What way is it dear?” Sally said.

Nolan slipped back down the stairs.

“He comes in the way you did,” she said.

“The basement!” Infante said.

Brilliant Nolan thought. He was standing with his back to the wall, just at the bottom of the stairs, to the right.

“I better move that dog,” Sally said. “Shit! And he’ll see the bullet hole, too. Damn!”

“What’ll we do, Sally?”

“Shut off the fuckin’ music, for one thing. He could be here in fifteen, twenty minutes. Christ! I’ll go down and get rid of the dog.”

The music stopped.

Infante said, “He won’t notice the bullet hole, or that we broke in through there, till he gets up close.”

“Yeah, you’re right. So if I’m watching for him down there, I can nail him right through the glass door while he’s standing out in the yard. Yeah. Okay. You stick with the bitch here, in case he varies from pattern and comes in up here.”

“Okay, Sally.”

“Just shoot him. Don’t talk to him.”

“Yes, Sally. Sally.”

“Yeah?”

“You be careful I wouldn’t want nothing to happen to you.”

There was a pause.

Then Sally said, “Yeah. You, too.”

Nolan heard Sally on the stairs. He stepped off the last step, and Nolan put a hand over his mouth and the steak knife in his back, lower right.

Nolan eased him to the floor. Sally gurgled and died, getting blood on Nolan’s hand. Nolan wiped his hand on Sally’s shirt. Then he took the man’s silenced 9 mm from a limp hand and left him there, the knife handle sticking out of his back like something to pick him up by.

Nolan went slowly back up the stairs, gun in hand.

Infante was sitting on the arm of the couch, his back to Nolan, blocking Nolan’s view of Sherry, who was still lying there. He couldn’t risk a shot, for fear of hitting her. He should probably try to lure Infante downstairs... but Infante would likely drag Sherry along, not wanting to leave her unattended, so that was out.

Nothing to do but try to come up behind him slow.

Nolan was halfway between the top of the stairs and the couch when Infante turned and with a startled expression that was only vaguely human, shot at Nolan three times with the silenced 9 mm’s twin. Nolan dove for the floor and rolled into the entryway area by the front door while a plaster wall took the bullets, spitting dust.

The kitchen was off the entryway, and Nolan ducked in there, as it connected to the living room and would allow him to enter on the opposite side, which should confuse Infante and give Nolan a better look at where Sherry was, to take a shot at Infante and still keep Sherry out of harm’s way.

And Sherry was on the couch, all right, but Infante was heading down the stairs, into the basement, shouting, “Sally! Sally!”

Nolan went to Sherry, who reached for him, hugged him.

“Are you okay, doll?”

She was smiling, crying. “My feet are killing me.”

“I better go after him.”

“No! Stay with me.”

There was an anguished cry from downstairs — a wail.

“I’ll kill you!” Infante’s voice, muffled but distinct, came from below.

“Maybe he’ll come up after me,” Nolan said.

But the next sound from below was the glass doors sliding/slamming shut.

Nolan ran to the picture windows. He saw Infante scurrying across the yard, off to the right, into the woods.

“Stay put,” Nolan told Sherry.

“Nolan...”

“Stay put!”

“Where would I go?” she yelled at him, angry for a moment.

Nolan went out the front door, fanning the gun around in front of him. The full moon was keeping everything well lit; there was a pale, eerie wash on the world. But no sign of Infante.

Then he heard an engine start, a car squeal away.

He stood there a moment and let the cool air cool him down.

Then he went back in. To Sherry.

He examined her feet.

“Sons of bitches,” he said.

“They hurt. They really hurt.”

“Second-degree burns. You’re lucky.”

“Oh, yeah. Lucky.”

“They’ve started to blister. Third degree would’ve been trouble. I’m going to get you some cold water to soak them in.”

“Please.”

He got a pan with ice and water in it and eased her to a sitting position, and she slid her feet in, making a few intake-of-breath sounds, but seeming to like it, once done.