Gordon Cahill’s eyes blinked and his mouth moved, but his voice was too weak for me to hear what he was trying to say.
I turned off the volume on the flickering TV, then knelt beside him where he lay. “Say it again,” I said.
“Pills,” he mumbled. He pointed a shaky finger at the small table beside his cot. “Need one.”
On the table was a half-filled glass of water and a plastic prescription pill bottle. I picked up the bottle and read the label. Morphine. For pain. Also good for inducing unconsciousness. Powerful, addictive stuff.
I shook my head. “No pills. We’ve got to get you out of here.
“No,” he said. “Can’t do it. My leg. Need a pill.”
I peeled back the thin blanket that covered him, and I nearly puked at the stench of rot and decay that came up at me.
The bottom half of Gordie’s right pant leg was black and oozing with dark blood and greenish pus. His leg had swollen
so that it filled his pant leg like a fat sausage.
“What have they done to you?” I said.
“Busted it,” he said. “Axe. My shinbone.” He gestured vaguely to the corner of the room.
Standing on its head was a long-handled single-bladed axe. I went over and looked at it. The blunt end of the steel head was caked with dried blood.
I tried to imagine it. It made me shiver.
I went back, knelt beside Gordie, and pressed my palm against his forehead. His skin was afire.
My mind swirled with questions. But they could wait.
“Can you stand up?” I said.
He squeezed his eyes shut and gave his head a small shake. “No way. I can’t hardly move. Just gimme a pill, for God’s sake.”
“Let me think,” I said.
I had to get him to a hospital. Judging from the smell of his leg and the heat of his skin, the infection was coursing through his entire body. I was no doctor, but I guessed that he was pretty close to dying.
In his condition, he’d be a dead weight. I couldn’t carry him very far—certainly not all the way to my car—even if he could tolerate the pain.
If the Goff men came back while I was there, I’d lose my chance to get Gordie out.
They’d probably bust my leg with the flat end of an axe, too.
I fished out my cell phone and hit 911. This time I didn’t even get one halfhearted ring. “Call failed,” it said on the screen.
“I’ve gotta go get you some help,” I said to Gordie. “I’ll bring an ambulance.”
He reached out and clamped his hand weakly onto my wrist. “I don’t care what you do,” he mumbled. “Just gimme a damn pill.”
He was probably addicted to the morphine. Given his condition, though, it was hardly the time to worry about that.
I opened the bottle, shook a capsule out onto my palm, picked up the water glass, and held them to him.
“Put it here,” he said. He stuck out his tongue.
I put the pill on his tongue.
His throat worked, swallowing it. “Water,” he said.
I held the water glass to Gordie’s mouth and tilted it up for him. He took a couple swallows, then turned his head away.
I put the glass back on the table. “I’m leaving now,” I said to him. “I’ll be back.”
He rolled away from me so that he was facing the wall.
I touched his shoulder. “Did you hear me?”
“Whatever,” he mumbled.
I stood up and took one step to the door—and that’s when I heard a door slam. Then there were men’s voices and heavy footsteps on the floor overhead.
The Goff brothers had come home.
My first thought was to dart out through the bulkhead, skulk through the yard, and run back to my car.
But before I could move, I heard the cellar door open overhead. Then footsteps started down the stairs.
I pulled the door to Cahill’s little cell closed and wedged myself into the corner behind the door. Maybe Goff, whichever brother it was, wouldn’t even open the door. Or maybe he’d just peek inside, see that Gordie was passed out on the cot, and leave. Then I could slip away through the bulkhead.
The footsteps on the stairs descended. Then they stopped. He’d reached the cellar.
“Must be gettin’ careless,” he said from outside the door, as if he were talking to Gordie. “Left the lights on and your door unlocked. Don’t suppose you walked out, did you?” He laughed. “Naw. Don’t suppose you did that. You still alive in there, Mr. Detective, I hope?”
The knob on the door turned. I picked up the axe, held it at my shoulder, and pressed myself against the wall.
I was standing behind the door when it opened. The first thing that came into the room were the twin barrels of a shotgun, held about waist high.
When the hand and arm that held the fore end of the shotgun followed, I smashed down on them with the business end of the axe.
He yowled, and the shotgun clattered to the floor. I launched myself at him. In the bluish flickering light of the muted television I saw that it was Dub, the older one. I tried to hack at him again with the axe, but he rammed his shoulder against my chest before I could bring it down on him.
I staggered backward, smashed into the wall, and went down on the seat of my pants.
Dub Goff started at me … and a sudden explosion filled the little room. It sounded as if a bomb had gone off.
Dub seemed to be lifted up and blown backward, and I saw a patch of red bloom on the front of his thigh.
I glanced at Cahill. He held the shotgun propped along the length of his body on the bed. It was pointed at the open doorway. His finger was curled around the trigger. His eyes were wide and crazy.
“Don’t shoot again,” I yelled at him. “We’ll need that second barrel.”
He turned his head slowly and looked at me as if he’d never seen me before.
“Don’t shoot,” I repeated. “Give me the gun.”
I went over to him and took the shotgun out of his hands. I held it at my hip and turned to face the door, where I expected to see Dub Goff lying in a puddle of blood.
But Dub wasn’t there.
“You son of a bitch,” came a growly voice from somewhere outside the room. “You shot my brother.” It was Harris Goff.
“You better call an ambulance,” I said, “before Dub dies.”
“Fuck you, Boston. I shoulda put a hole in your head first time.”
“Now’s your chance,” I said. “Come on in.”
“No hurry, Boston.” He chuckled. “You go ahead, stay right there with your detective buddy. Watch him die. It’s gonna be slow and smelly. Me, I can wait. I got all the time in the world.”
“You planning to let Dub bleed to death?”
“Dub’s gonna be okay,” he said. “He’s tough. Pretty pissed, though.”
“Nice try,” I said. “But I saw his leg. It nearly got blown off.”
“You got one shot left,” said Harris. “If I was you, Mister Lawyer, I’d eat that barrel and pull the trigger right now, ’cause if I get there first, you’ll wish to hell you did.”
“I’m saving this barrel for you, Harris,” I said. “The way it looks to me, you can wait out there while Dub bleeds to death, and I can wait here while Cahill dies, or else you can call an ambulance and save both of their lives. What do you say?”
“Dub ain’t gonna die,” he said, but I thought I detected a hint of uncertainty in his voice.
“You know what the femoral artery is?” I said.
“If you think—”
At that moment, a bell chimed from somewhere inside the house.
“There’s your doorbell,” I said.
“Fuck,” muttered Harris.
“You better answer the door,” I said.
Some shuffling sounds came from outside the room. Then the door to our little room closed, and I heard the deadbolt slide into place. “Sit tight, Boston,” said Harris. “Don’t go nowhere. I’ll be back in a minute so we can continue this nice conversation.”
Harris’s footsteps clomped up the wooden stairs over my head. Then a door closed.
A moment later I heard faint voices from upstairs. Harris had answered the doorbell. Someone was up there.
“Cover your ears,” I said to Gordie.
I glanced at him. He didn’t move.
I moved to the back wall of the little room, leveled the double-barreled shotgun at where I figured the deadbolt was on the outside of the door, and pulled the back trigger.
The shotgun roared, and a fist-sized hole appeared on the edge of the door.
I dropped the shotgun, went to the door, and turned the knob. It swung open.
Dub Goff was sitting on the dirt floor outside the door, facing me. His back was pressed against a stack of cardboard boxes, and he was holding a big-bore revolver in his lap. It was pointing at me. I guessed it was a .45.
Blood was pooling under him, and his eyes looked droopy.
“Jesus, Dub,” I said. “We’ve got to get you to a hospital, man.”
For his answer, he put both thumbs on the hammer of his revolver and cocked it.
I ducked back into Gordie’s little room just an instant before Dub pulled the trigger. The bullet left a hole you could stick your big toe through about head high on the wooden door.
A moment later heavy footsteps came clomping down the cellar stairs.
I picked up the empty shotgun by the barrels, held it against my shoulder like a baseball bat, and backed against the wall.
I heard movement outside the door.
“Mr. Coyne?” came a voice. “You in there?”
The two shotgun blasts inside that little room had half deafened me. But I thought I recognized that voice.
“Officer Munson?” I said. “That you?”
“Yes. Don’t shoot me. I’m coming in.”