Max Collins - Scratch Fever

Toni looked at Nolan, who was still on the couch, the poodle beside him.

Nolan said, “Can you tell us where this Ron lives?”

Darlene turned her head, which, tied in the chair as she was, was all she could turn, and looked at Nolan and said, “Sure. Why not.”

Toni let loose of Darlene’s hair but stood by, clippers in hand, as Darlene gave Nolan directions.

Then Nolan went to the kitchen, poodle following along after him, and found an unused dishrag in a drawer. He gagged Darlene with it. He made sure the dog had bowls full of food and water, and he and Toni left.

“That was smart,” Nolan said, getting in the car, behind the wheel.

“What?”

“The poodle clippers. How d’you know that’d do the trick?”

“She’s vain as hell. Didn’t you notice? Sunday afternoon and she’s got her makeup on, to the hilt. What for, just to give her pooch a trim? That’s vain.”

“Would you have done it?”

“Skin her? With pleasure.”

They drove out of Gulf Port and down that same tree-lined road they’d been down earlier, to dump Infante. As they drove, Toni filled Nolan in on what little she knew about Ron. Nolan was doing barely forty; the mist was turning to rain, and visibility was poor. As they were coming around a curve, Nolan saw a figure, caught in the glare of his headlights, scurry off toward the side of the road, toward the trees.

“That’s Jon!” he said.

He hit his brakes, threw it in park and jumped out.

“Hey, kid! It’s me.”

The figure stopped, turned. Across the darkness and through the rain a voice came back uncertainly: “Nolan?”

“Yeah.”

Jon ran to him, grabbed him by the forearms.

“Nolan! Nolan!”

The kid was in T-shirt and jeans and socks; his face looked bruised, and his clothes were wet and dirty.

“You look like shit,” Nolan said.

“You look great!”

The girl was out of the car now, and had run to Jon. She hugged him, and he hugged her back.

“Get in the car,” Nolan said, “both of you.”

They got in the car, Toni in back.

Quickly, Jon told Nolan what had been happening.

“You figure Julie passed you on the road here, then?” Nolan said.

“I didn’t see the car, but it had to be her.”

“She’s probably headed for the Paddlewheel. To grab some money and run.”

“I want you to drive down to that farmhouse, Nolan.”

“Why?”

“I think I heard a shot. I want to check it out.”

Nolan glanced at Jon.

Then he said, “Okay. There’s a gun in the glove box.”

Jon opened the glove compartment and took out the long-barreled .38. There was a box of shells, too, but the gun was loaded already, and Jon didn’t bother with them.

Leaning forward from the back seat, her hands on the seat between Nolan and Jon, Toni said, “Let’s leave. Let’s get out of here. Let’s go home.”

Jon turned and said, “We can’t. If we don’t catch up with Julie now, she’ll just turn up again sometime, and we don’t need that shit.”

“He’s right,” Nolan said. “We’ll keep you out of it as much as possible.”

“Gee, thanks,” the girl said.

There was a gravel driveway leading into a larger gravel area next to the farmhouse; a barn and silo were off to the right. Nolan pulled in. There was only one car around: a vintage fifties Ford. The farmhouse was peeling paint — looked a bit run-down — but it was no hovel. There was a porch. Nolan, gun in hand, walked up the steps, and Jon followed. Toni stayed in the car, behind the wheel, windows up, doors locked.

The front door was ajar.

They went in; prowled the bottom floor, found it empty, not touching anything (though Nolan did pocket a ring of keys from a table). There was a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, a barely stocked pantry. Everything was neat, though the furniture was rather old, worn. There were a number of family portraits displayed. Unlike Darlene, Ron wasn’t a slob, at least.

Upstairs, in the room Jon had been kept in, they found Ron. She was on the floor, in her peasant blouse and jeans, between the bed and the dresser. She was dead.

There was a gun in her hand, and she had a head wound. In the right temple, out the left.

“Julie never stops maneuvering, does she?” Nolan said, bending over the body.

“What?” Jon said. He looked shaken.

“Faking this as a suicide. I don’t think that’s a close-range wound. I think Julie shot her from the doorway. That’s judging from the angle of it, the powder burns, the entry and exit wounds. But the local people may not figure it out immediately. Hard to say.”

Nolan rose.

Jon knelt over the body. He touched the dead woman’s cheek. He closed her eyes.

“Kid. Let’s go.”

“Yeah. Okay, Nolan.” He rose, slowly.

“You might as well put on your shoes.”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah.”

His shoes were between the body and the dresser. He got them, then sat on the edge of the bed and put them on. The kid had been through a lot, Nolan thought. Maybe the girl was right; maybe they should just get the hell out. Go home.

Next to Jon on the bed was a stack of comic books.

“It never fails,” Nolan laughed. “You always manage to turn up some funny-books, don’t you?”

Jon looked at them. He picked them up and took them with him as they left the house. He held the comics under his shirt to protect them from the rain, as they went to the car.

Toni climbed in back and Jon got in front on the rider’s side. Nolan took the wheel again. Jon handed the comics back to Toni. “Put those on the floor or something, will you?” he said.

“Okay,” she said, smiling.

Both she and Nolan were amused by Jon’s managing to come away from this situation with a stack of old comics.

“Any of these valuable ones?” the girl asked, kidding him.

Jon didn’t seem to pick up on the kidding. “Very,” he said.

“What are you going to do with ’em?” Nolan asked. “Sell ’em?”

“I wouldn’t sell them. I wouldn’t ever sell them.” Jon opened the glove compartment and took out the box of .38 shells; he stuffed a handful of the shells in his pocket, put the box back.

“Let’s go find Julie,” he said.

SHE would have to run.

There was no other choice. Nolan was here; his breath was on her neck; and this time he wouldn’t go soft and spare her, like that time at the cottage. This time he would kill her.

She knew that, and she could accept it, and she would eventually deal with it — deal with him — but now she had to run. She didn’t even know where she would go. Mexico, she guessed. Money still went a long way in Mexico. And when some time had passed, she could hire somebody to do Nolan, and Jon, as well. Some other expatriate American, maybe, who could sneak back in the country and get it done.

Or something. There’d be some way out of it. There always was. Plenty of options.

But right now, running was the only option she could come up with.

The Porsche slid going around a curve, and she slowed down; the blacktop was slick with rain. Don’t panic now , she told herself. But the rain and the darkness, crowding her on the narrow blacktop that led to the Paddlewheel, seemed to be on Nolan’s side.

She had been so sure she was on top of this Nolan situation, it made her smug; so sure she was in control of things, it made her complacent. When she thought about how she’d spent the morning and afternoon, she could kick herself: sleeping till noon, sitting in Harold’s study with a gin and tonic, explaining to him her plans for Nolan, playing down the role of that slug Infante. (In the version she told Harold, Infante would be on hand only as protection, in case Nolan didn’t uphold his end of the swap she would propose.)