George Chesbro - In The House Of Secret Enemies

"Who hired you?" Hayes voice was clipped, brittle.

"You might say I'm here on a mission of mercy."

Hayes laughed, but there was no humor in the sound.

"C'mon, smart guy, tell me how you'd go about figuring who let that cat loose."

This surprised me. Hayes was calling my bluff, and I could feel the damp, cold sweat starting under my arms.

"Well, first I'd start looking around the county for a truck that would do that kind of job. Chances are it might have some wood in the interior. If it did, I'd take some chips."

"Why?" The deputy's voice was high-pitched and nervous.

"To check for signs of tiger blood or hair," I said, raising my eyebrows modestly. "Tigers are notorious pacers, as I'm sure you're aware. Sam probably left traces all over the inside of that truck."

"What if the truck had been washed?"

"Gee, I hadn't thought of that," I said with a straight face. "Like I said, I'm new in the business and the tough ones sometimes get away from me." I shot a glance in the direction of Hayes. His eyes were riveted to my face, wide and unblinking, like a cobra's. "Of course, there are blood tests. Blood can't be cleaned completely from wood. It soaks in. And you could always take some paint scrapings off the outside of the truck."

"What good would that do?" Hayes said quietly.

"Whoever backed that truck up left some paint on the cages." I didn't have the slightest idea whether or not that was true, but it would certainly be worth looking into. And I hoped it was enough to keep Hayes at bay.

"That's pretty good thinking, Frederickson," Hayes said evenly. "Of course, it's only guesswork. Things don't always work out that simple in real police work."

"Of course not."

"Uh, have you told anybody else about these ideas of yours?"

I smiled. "I'm sure I haven't come up with anything you haven't already thought of, Sheriff. I'm never one to interfere with another man doing his job." I paused to give my next words emphasis. "All I want is a shot at that tiger, then I'm on my way."

"That a fact?"

"That's a fact." I found it surprisingly easy to lie to Hayes. I'd repeat my scenario to the state police later; but Sam came first.

"That cat's dangerous, Frederickson."

"I'll take my chances. All I want is my chance. Without interference."

"I need that cat, Frederickson," Hayes hissed, leaning far forward in his chair. "You don't understand."

I tried to think of something to say, and couldn't. An iron gate had slammed shut over Hayes' eyes and I could no longer read them. There was a long, tense silence during which the deputy watched Hayes watching me. Finally Hayes rose and walked quickly out the door. The deputy followed. I went after them and closed the door.

I didn't sleep well, a fact that might have had something to do with the fact that I was supposed to get up in the morning and go after a Bengal tiger that outweighed me by nearly a quarter of a ton. And the fact that I hadn't won the love and admiration of the local law didn't help matters any.

I got up around four and fixed some coffee on a hotplate in the room. Then I sat down by the window and waited for the sun to come up.

Phil Statler was supposed to be waiting for me at the edge of town with a horse and the rest of my supplies. At dawn I dressed warmly, picked up the kit with the tranquilizer gun and went down into the morning.

They'd probably been waiting for me all night.

I had a rented car parked out in the back of the rooming house, and the first man went for me as I emerged from the mouth of the alley into the parking lot. He had an unlit cigarette in his hand and was going through the pretense of asking for a match, but I had already sensed the presence of a second man behind me, pressed flat against the weathered side of one of the alley garages.

Somewhere I had miscalculated; either Hayes was very stupid, or I had overplayed my hand and worried him too much.

On dry ground, unencumbered by a heavy woolen jacket, I wouldn't have been too concerned. My black belt in karate, combined with the tumbling skills honed and perfected over the long years of traveling with the circus, combined to make me a rather formidable opponent when aroused, an asp in a world that catered to boa constrictors.

But snow wasn't my proper milieu. That, along with the coat wrapped around my body, spelled trouble.

The second man lunged for me from behind. I sidestepped him and ducked under the first man's outstretched arms. At the same time I clipped him with the side of my hand on the jaw, just below the lower lip. He grunted, spat teeth and stared stupidly at me as I stripped off my coat.

By this time the second man had me around the head and was beginning the process of trying to separate it from the rest of me. I gave him a stiff thumb in the groin, then jumped up on his back and onto a drain pipe leading up to the top of a tool shack.

There I stripped to my tee shirt and kicked off my boots while the two men stood in the deep snow below me. I thrust my hands in my pockets and waited patiently while they recovered slowly from their initial shock.

" Get him ," the second man said to the first, indicating the pipe.

He got me, promptly and feet first. I caught him in the mouth with the heel of my shoe, hit the snow in a shoulder roll and came up on my feet on the plowed gravel of the driveway. The man I had hit was sitting in the snow, his eyes glazed, his hand to his ruined mouth. After a moment he keeled over and lay still.

The other man was now indecisive, standing spread-eagled in the snow, glancing back and forth between me and his fallen partner.

"If you're going to do something, I'd appreciate it if you'd hurry," I said, bouncing up and down and flapping my arms against my body. "I'm getting cold."

The man frowned, reached into his coat pocket and drew out a knife. The steel glinted in the morning sun. I suddenly felt very unfunny. I stopped dancing, spread my legs in a defensive crouch and spread out my hands.

The man approached slowly, and looked almost comical slogging toward me through the deep snow. I backed up in the driveway until the gravel under my feet was relatively dry and hard-packed. The man, waving the knife in the air before him, stepped out into the driveway and stopped.

His muddy eyes were filled with fear, and it suddenly occurred to me that this man was no professional; he was probably a crony of Hayes who had been recruited for the seemingly simple task of working over a dwarf. He'd gotten much more than he bargained for. For all I knew, he might be considering using the knife in self-defense. I straightened up and moved back against the building, leaving him plenty of room to get by me and out through the alley.

"You can go if you want to," I said evenly. "But if you come at me with that knife, I'll kill you. I assure you I can do it."

He hesitated. I circled around him carefully, stopped and let out what, for me, was a relatively blood-curdling yell. The man dropped the knife into the snow and sprinted out through the alley.

I put my clothes back on and went to my car. The first man was just beginning to stir as I backed out of the alley and into the street.

It still bothered me that Hayes would have made such an overt move after the conversation we had had earlier in the evening. Using that approach with some people would have spelled a death warrant, but Hayes wasn't big city crime; he was small fry, a corrupt, local sheriff.

It appeared that I had underestimated just how far he would go to insure his reelection. I wouldn't make the same mistake again.

I drove slowly down the main street on my way out of town, past the police station. The paddy wagon was in its usual place, covered with a shining new coat of fresh, green paint.