The Threateners by Hamilton Donald

Author:Hamilton, Donald [Hamilton, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-05-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

When I began recording environmental data with some accuracy once more, lying on the floor, I became aware that my drunken attacker, instead of kicking me to a pulp as might have been expected, was kneeling beside me to frisk me expertly. He’d got the beat-up prop gun from my waistband, so it had already served its purpose, and he was slipping the cheap decoy wallet from my hip pocket: the spare I’d put into service after being robbed in Rio. I reflected hazily that I seemed to be having a hard time hanging on to K Mart’s bargain plastic. But this was hardly the behavior of an older husband, mad with booze and jealousy, punishing the man he thought to be his young wife’s lover.

I suppose I should have felt good about it, although it’s hard to feel good about anything involving a battered skull. But I’d firmly resisted the temptation to grab either or both of the two Spookies whom El Viejo, or whoever was running this operation for him, had persisted in waving under my nose. By the looks of them, my shadowers were by no means tough professionals hardened to interrogation; it should have been easy enough to open up wealthy Miss Weatherford or her handsome sidekick, or both. I could probably have made them eager to tell me everything they knew, and after the way I’d been haunted by their persistent outfit for weeks, not to mention their involvement in what had happened to Madeleine and Mark and Happy, it would have been a pleasure to work them over. The trouble was that they probably didn’t have any information worth extracting. They wouldn’t have been paraded so openly and vulnerably before me if they knew anything that would lead me to Gregorio Vasquez.

I’d figured that if I was patient, somebody more important in the hierarchy, and better informed, would reveal himself. Now he had. All I had to do was simply turn the tables on him and beat the information out of him. Simply.

Finding nothing of importance in the wallet, Ackerman patted me in an exploratory way and located the concealed shoulder-holster rig in which I carried my documents and serious money. He unfastened my shirt and, rather than go to the trouble of undressing me extensively to remove the underarm purse, just pulled it around to where he could get at it, unzipped the various compartments, found what he wanted, and making a little breathy sound of satisfaction, removed it. Then I heard him close the zippers neatly again. I felt him put the money holster back under my armpit and pull my shirt more or less into place. He even tucked the wallet back into my hip pocket before rising. A tidy man.

“You can open your eyes now, Mr. Helm,” he said, without any alcoholic speech impediments. “Sit up if you wish. I hope your head isn’t giving you too much pain. “

I sat up with a great dramatic effort, groaning pitifully.

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