EASY RECOGNIZED THE VOICE. It was Montez’s other sidekick, the one who’d been sniping at Ingraham from the woods. “You’re the one who isn’t Neil,” said Easy. “We seem to have picked the same time to make a try for Ingraham.”
“Name is Tommy,” said the big man, speaking softly. The side glow from his lantern illuminated the .45 automatic in his right hand. “I haven’t got time for further talk. You’re an unexpected annoyance, Mr. Easy.”
“I can help you take Ingraham.”
Part of Tommy’s smile showed behind and above the bright lantern. “Afraid not, Mr. Easy. Now then, raise your hands up and keep them there while I come over and take that gun you’ve got decorating your belly.”
Easy lifted his hands, holding them wide apart. “Neil isn’t going to get here, Tommy. Montez is trussed up in my car. You can’t handle the doctor by yourself.”
“Of course I can,” replied Tommy. “After I handle you. That little …”
Easy grasped a head-level wine bottle by its neck. He jerked it from its nest in the wine rack behind him and sent it flying straight at Tommy, dropping to the dark floor as he did.
The bottle cracked against the knuckles of Tommy’s gun hand. “Hey!” He dropped the automatic.
Easy rolled, came up beside Tommy. He threw two jabs, connecting with the man’s prominent jaw.
Tommy tottered backward, bumped into a standing barrel. His lantern dropped into the empty barrel and its light was nearly smothered.
Easy found him in the dark. He hit him twice more.
The big man grunted and sighed. Then he gave Easy a sharp blow in the ribs.
Easy fell back. A half-dozen bottles of wine were rocked out of their cubbyholes and fell on the two men.
Glass cracked and wine slushed across the stone floor as Tommy charged for Easy.
Side-stepping, Easy kicked a foot between Tommy’s legs. The panting man fell, slamming down onto the floor.
Tommy was soon up.
Easy could see him faintly, weaving toward him.
Then Tommy stopped, brought his hands up to his face. “Oh, dear God,” he said. “Dear God, I’m all cut to pieces. What have you done to my face, you rotten bastard.”
Easy circled Tommy. He swung out with his flat hand and knocked him out with three chops to the neck.
When Tommy was stretched out on the floor Easy fetched the light out of the barrel to shine on the man’s face. There was one long bleeding gash across his forehead.
After finding the .45 and putting it in his hip pocket, Easy quickly tied up Montez’s man with his belt and necktie.
There was no sound of movement upstairs. Ingraham must certainly have heard the rumpus down here. Easy left Tommy and swept the man’s lantern around the cellar. Beyond the three parallel rows of man-high wine racks was a wooden stairway which should lead up into the lodge. The open wood steps came down at a 45-degree angle and to their right and partially beneath them hulked a black oil furnace. At the other end of the room a fuse box was mounted on the wall.
Easy ran to that, opened the metal lid. “Might as well,” he said. He threw the master switch. None of the lights in the lodge could be turned on now.
The door leading down to the stairway started to open.
Easy spun, clicked off the lantern, and ran through the darkness straight at the stairs. Two strides short he dodged to the right.
The door opened fully. “I’ll give you one minute, one minute, to come up and then I’m going to come down shooting,” warned Dr. Ingraham in the blackness.
Perched on top of the furnace, Easy was about ten feet below the doorway. He could hear Ingraham breathing, but it was too dark to see the little doctor.
After thirty seconds something quietly shuffled across the top step. Dr. Ingraham was going to risk climbing down into the cellar.
From where he was on the furnace Easy could reach up through the open wood steps. He waited, hunkered uncomfortably, listening. When his ears told him Ingraham had descended to a point within his reach, Easy made a sudden grab. He clutched black air the first time, but the second time he got hold of the little doctor’s ankle. Easy pulled hard.
“What, what,” muttered Ingraham. The doctor tripped, went rolling and tumbling down the thirty more feet of rough wood steps.
Easy jumped, flashing on the lantern. He was in time to see Ingraham’s head smack against the stone floor. The doctor didn’t get up.
Beside him, Easy felt at Ingraham’s wrist. He was alive, but out cold. Easy took the doctor’s rifle and the snub-nose .32 revolver he found in his jacket.
Sticking the revolver in his other hip pocket, Easy said, “One more gun nut and I’ll run out of pockets.”
He left the unconscious doctor where he’d fallen and climbed up toward the living room, with the lantern off again.
No sound was coming from up there. Easy stopped in the dark doorway. Finally he turned the lantern back on and let its light circle the big pinewood room.
There was no one there.