A Killer is Loose (1954) by Gil Brewer

Author:Gil Brewer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781440542107
Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
Published: 2012-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

THE ROAD followed the bayou for perhaps a mile and a half, I knew. It was all residential out here, and on the left there were large homes, fronting the water. Piers jutted occasionally from the sea wall and boats were moored to some of them. I figured I’d get as far away from Lillian as I could before I did anything. I couldn’t let him get that gun loaded. The tires slid and grabbed on the glassy brick pavement.

“Stop the car, Steve!” Angers said. He reached out and grabbed my shoulder. “Lillian’s back there. Stop the car!”

All right. I decided to stop the car. I slammed the brakes with everything I had and the Dodge was out of my hands.

We whipped to the left, slammed over a curb, and careened wildly across somebody’s big beautiful lawn. We narrowly missed two coconut palms and I wrenched the wheel.

“Steve!” I heard Angers say. Something hit the back of my head.

I let her go then. I turned in the seat and went at him. He slammed at me with the gun, yelling something. The car came down into the street again, not going very fast now, and headed for the sea wall. It barked up against the short edge of wall, climbed it, followed it, then screeched to a rusty stop, teetering. The right-hand door was open again, and the car was tipped that way.

Angers was up on the back of the front seat and we started falling toward the water. Not the car, just us. I tried to hang on, but we went right on through the door into the bayou.

We landed in about two feet of water. I knew that just a step or two farther away from the wall the water was deep, real deep.

“Steve, what’s the matter with you?”

I dove at him. He was standing against the wall. I didn’t reckon with the gun. I tried to dodge, but he brought it down against my forehead. Once, twice, he whipped that gun against my head. I reeled backward and fell. It hurt plenty. I could hear him talking to me but I couldn’t make out the words.

I kept trying to get up but the bottom was mud and silt and slippery. I fell back toward deeper water. I dragged myself toward the sea wall and he was standing there, loading the clip on that damned gun, talking to me. Through all the pain in my head, I heard him say, “Steve, you shouldn’t do that. Don’t act that way. I know you get excited, but there’s no reason for you to take it out on your pal, Steve.”

Somebody called up on the street.

“Hey, there! Anybody down there?”

Neither of us said anything. I went toward him and he was finishing loading the clip. I couldn’t move fast on the muck bottom, my feet kept sliding, and I heard myself sobbing with the effort and the failure. Sobbing with him standing there, now, putting the box of shells into his pocket and standing there and slapping the clip back into the gun.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.