The Cut of the Whip Read online

  “Oh, my God—”

  “He’s alive, Jane. Come here. Don’t stare…”

  “Oh, my God,” she said again and Port had to turn her around forcibly.

  He turned her towards him and put his arms around her back.

  “How much longer,” she said. “How much more of this, Dan?”

  “It’s almost over.”

  “And all this,” she said, “and all this because thirty years ago—”

  “No. Nothing’s that simple. Listen to me, Jane. About now.”

  “Yes,” she said and moved out of his arms. “What happened to him?”

  “I hit him back of the ear with the Luger. He needs a hospital.”

  She could look at the man now and just see what was really there. A man passed out, with a welt on his head. And she had caught the rush behind Port’s words, the pressure to finish.

  “Open the car door and I’ll bring him out.”

  They committed the man to the Heering Memorial Hospital, private room, and gave instructions not to let him out. Miss Heering herself would come back in the morning, with further instructions. The whole thing, she explained, was a delicate matter.

  Then they drove to the airport.

  “Tomorrow,” said Port, “if he listens to reason, just let him be. He’s got to stay there at least two days. If he tries to get out, if he acts too healthy or you’re worried in any way about what he might do, call the police. Have him charged with breaking and entering, on 912 South Brandywine. I don’t care if it sticks, but he mustn’t show up in Galveston between now and day after next.”

  “It’ll be over then?” said Jane.

  “I don’t know. But by then Robert will be back home.”

  Port got out of the car, nodded at the girl, but did not try to smile. He just nodded at her and walked to the terminal. It was worse than being strangers…

  Port took a room in Galveston and slept eight hours. He got up at ten in the morning, ate breakfast, and thought about the rest of the day. Flynn and his investment wouldn’t come to the canal house till after five, because before then the maintenance shed would still be busy. And Flynn would go to the house because he had told Tully the same thing, would expect Tully there with Emmy Powell.

  It would help, Port thought, to look at the place.

  He still had the old leather jacket from the time he had cased the Powell house and he put that on. He left his tie in the room but took the visored cap with him. Then he went out to rent a pickup truck.

  The rental agencies wouldn’t do him any good because their trucks were marked with the agency’s name. He found what he wanted in a garage. The pickup was olive drab, dusty and dented. There was an old battery in the back and a five gallon drum with a grease pump attachment. Port left all that on the truck and drove out of Galveston.

  He didn’t get to the canal road which Flynn had described until two, and at first he missed it. The road left the highway where one big tree and some bushes kept it from view, and then it followed the side of the canal. The canal itself was straight but the maintenance road wound back and forth. Port drove into the yard of the maintenance shed without having seen the buildings come up.

  There were dump trucks, three grades of gravel in separate bins, and one big dragline, with the long arm lying flat on the ground. Three men were working on a pinched cable.

  “Hey!” said one of them when he saw the pickup bounce into the yard.

  Port needn’t have gone into the yard. The road itself curved around and continued ahead. But the three men were looking now and Port’s pickup was not official.

  “This is state property, you know,” said one of the men, coming towards the pickup.

  Port had slowed, and when the man was close enough he thumbed at his load in the back and said, “Garage service. The guy called from the house further in—”

  “How come he didn’t call here? We got—”

  “Beats me,” said Port. “You know how it is, though,” and he drove off again.

  To the left of the yellow dirt road was scrub country and to the right was the canal. Port couldn’t see the canal itself because the bank here was as high as his head. The high ground made a straight skyline without anything growing there. Further ahead, squatting on top of that line, sat the first way house.

  Port stopped and climbed up on the bank. The house was a brick square with no windows. There was a steel door facing the road, and another one facing the canal. They were both painted green and both were locked.

  If the other house looked the same it wouldn’t make much of a hide-out. There was no cover of any sort and boats coming down the canal would be about on the same level as the small house.

  Port got back into the truck and drove three miles to the next house. It looked exactly like the first, except here the door facing the canal was open.

  The inside of the brick square was packed with a dull heat. There was little light, just what came in through the door, and the vague light which filtered through the vents up under the roof. The roof was raftered, with angled timbers and horizontal timbers from wall to wall. Some of the beams were boarded over, forming a platform under the roof, and wooden steps led up to it.

  For the rest, there was nothing, just an empty square. The heat pressed into Port like a physical threat and the windowless walls made it worse. Robert Heering—or anyone else for that matter—could go mad in there.

  Port stayed in the way house, squatting by the crack of the back door. He smoked, blowing the smoke out into the open because inside the house the air didn’t move. They would come later and smell the smoke. From where he sat he could see four of his butts floating in the canal. At first they had all stayed together, circling a little and turning brown, but at one point they had suddenly moved. Perhaps a lock was sluicing things around, or the tide had changed or they had launched a ship… Port stayed with it as long as he could, because the time was dragging.

  At five o’clock Port moved. First he drove the pickup deep into the brush, where it would be well hidden, Then he closed the door to the canal, opened the one which faced the road. They would come after five. He hoped soon after five.

  They didn’t come until ten.

  They came into the house in the dark and Port, squatting on the wooden platform, could only tell by the sounds what was happening. The front door made a metallic snap, then one pair of footsteps went to the other door and there was a rattle. Both doors were closed now, and for a moment Port just heard breathing.

  “Get one of the lights.”

  If he sees me, I’ll shoot him now. I don’t care who—

  “Got it,” said the man almost into Port’s face.

  Down below, they used several matches before they had the lamp lit and then the three foreshortened men stood around the lamp on the floor, with their shadows huge. They stood like that for a moment as if they didn’t know what to do. Powell, Flynn, Robert Heering. They stood like that looking from one to the other, because there was a lot of unfinished business between them.

  Then Robert Heering couldn’t stand it any longer. He ran one hand over his mouth and cleared his throat. “I want—I think I should have an explanation! Herbert,” he said to Powell, “ever since this awful man—”

  He never finished the sentence. Flynn hauled out one fat arm and with his open hand smacked the young Heering across one check. The force made Heering stumble, and, still off balance, he got an ugly kick from Flynn which threw him against the back door.

  The steel made a hollow sound. Robert Heering sunk down there, and stayed, drawn together. It wasn’t the pain that cowed him, but the fat man’s dislike.

  Now they started haggling like animals, Powell with a screech in his voice and Flynn bellowing.

  “You push him around, Flynn, and you’re pushing around what’s mine! I don’t go for your interference and I don’t go—”

  “You’ll go to hell, Herbie-boy, mark my word! You don’t double-cross me and get to heaven, not on your
sweet life!”

  “Double-cross? You’re the one tied in with that Port! You’re the one what’s not needed and don’t forget that!”

  “Needed? I got this rich-boy right here, and I got his mother sewed up in the bargain! You keep forgetting that, Powell. You keep forgetting that Tully’s got your old lady—”

  This got Powell so mad he made a wild swing at Flynn, who just stepped back. Powell swung once again, maybe just to be swinging, because in the middle of it he started yelling again.

  “You think I’m waiting around for that Tully to show up here? You can have the old lady! Take her! Keep her!” and he kept following Flynn, who was edging along the wall.

  This was the chance Port had been waiting for. He picked up a hurricane lamp which he’d found on the platform and threw it towards Heering.

  It made a frightening crash against the brick wall.

  Powell spun around and Flynn moved very fast. He had his gun out of his pocket, ready for Heering, and for the moment both men didn’t worry about each other, but just went at the young man by the back door.

  It meant that the stairs were behind them.

  The double fright of the crash and then the two men coming at him was almost too much for the Robert Heering. He froze with such an intensity that his jaw trembled. Flynn raised his gun high, maybe to rake the young man over the head.

  “Hold still!”

  The leap had brought Port in back of them, but only Powell stopped dead in his tracks. Flynn was too crazy mad.

  He swung around with the gun, so Port shot him.

  In the dead quiet they all watched the fat man weave. When he fell, if there was any emotion about it, it was relief. Powell exhaled, Robert Heering sprawled out on the floor, and Flynn let out a thick sigh.

  “Stay where you are,” said Port, and Powell stopped moving. The gun on the floor wasn’t far from his feet. Flynn rolled a little and groaned.

  “He’s alive?” said Powell.

  With the light and the range it had been an easy shot. There would be a big stain under Flynn’s fat shoulder now, and if he kept moving like that it would come through his jacket.

  “Robert,” said Port. “Get up and get that gun. Robert!” The young man got up then and went toward the gun. Then he hesitated, looking at Powell.

  “Step back, Powell,” said Port.

  There was no problem now about picking the gun up, but Robert Heering didn’t do it well. He moved slowly and when he straightened Port saw what it was. The man was afraid. He had the gun in his hand now, and he made a gesture with it, towards Port, and said, “Here. Maybe I should look at—at this man’s wound?”

  “Keep the gun,” said Port. “And hold it this way.”

  “Why? Aren’t we leaving?”

  “Go up those steps,” said Port, “and see if there’s some rope up there.”

  It must have been the noise Robert Heering made as he went up the steps, but Port didn’t know a thing until he felt the cold draft. And then when he swung around he stopped midway in the motion, not because Tully was there in the doorway with his gun held out, but because Jane was with him.

  Chapter XIV

  TULLY HAD a bandage around his head and a smile on his face. His arm was around the girl’s waist, pinning her tightly to his side.

  Port let his Luger drop to the floor, and said, “I give up.”

  This made Tully happy. He even let go of Jane and gave her a push into the room.

  “Shoot, damn you! Shoot!” Port yelled.

  Tully spun back and forth, but no one else moved, and there was no shot. And before Powell could shout a warning, Joe Flynn’s gun fell to the bottom of the stairs, fell down with a smack and lay there on its side.

  Tully watched Robert Heering come down the steps and the sight made him laugh. He reached back to close the door and he was still laughing when he looked back at Port.

  Again Port said, “I give up,” and now he leaned against the wall looking tired.

  “Our bread-and-butter family stand right over there,” said Tully, pointing to Robert and Jane, “and the Danny Port invasion stay right there leaning against that wall.” Then Tully craned his neck and said, “You all right, Joe? Something wrong, Joe?”

  Joe Flynn answered with a stream of filth and invective, and very carefully raised himself to a sitting position.

  “Jeez!” said Tully when he saw the stain.

  “You gonna leave those both guns lie there and rot?” Flynn bellowed.

  Powell went to get Flynn’s gun and Port’s when Flynn said, “Not you, Jackass!”

  “Herbie’s out, too?” said Tully.

  “Him, too.”

  “Ah…” said Tully and waved Herbert Powell to stand by the wall with the Heerings.

  Then he picked up Flynn’s gun and thumbed at the cylinder. The cylinder wouldn’t spin.

  “No wonder,” he said and then looked at Robert Heering. “You shouldn’t have dropped it,” he said. “You should have brung it.”

  Robert Heering said nothing. He looked down at his hand where his sister was holding it, and Port could see she was holding it very hard. She had one arm through Robert’s and was holding his hand in both of hers.

  Tully picked up the Luger and Flynn said he’d take it. He held it in his bad hand, on the side where he had been shot, and with the good hand he jackknifed the slide open, to check like Tully had done. A shell sprung out of the chamber and rolled on the floor. It showed Flynn that the gun was good and he put it into his pocket.

  “And now?” asked Tully.

  “Wait ’til I get up.”

  They all kept still and waited while Flynn worked himself up off the floor. Another minute passed while he guided his bad arm so the hand would rest in his jacket pocket, and then he came over to Port. While Tully covered, Flynn kicked Port in the shin.

  Port did nothing. The gun was too close. He arched with the pain but did nothing else.

  “And now!” Flynn turned on Tully and yelled at him. “How’d the dame get in this, and where’s Powell’s old lady?”

  “This is Heering’s daughter. She was with him, see,” said Tully, “and he got there before I did, just like you figured—”

  “I didn’t figure he’d get there before you did,” said Flynn. “What happened, he break your head?”

  “No,” said Tully. “He just slugged me out.”

  “And this dame here? How did she get in?”

  Tully explained how Jane got in, how she took Emmy Powell some place and how she came back and drove him to the hospital; that he couldn’t get out of there because of instructions, but how the girl came in the morning and then he, Tully, snowed her but good.

  “I lie there and I figure the only way I can get out is by her say-so and the only way I can make her budge is by telling her something went wrong with her brother, see? After all—”

  “Come on.”

  “So I tell her the only reason I’m after this Emmy Powell is because we slipped up with Robert and he’s no good to us any more.”

  “Like what?”

  “He got shot, see? Escaping. She believes this!” and Tully laughed. “And he’s dying fast,” he finished off.

  Flynn just nodded.

  “Clever, huh?” Tully prompted.

  Flynn said nothing. His arm and his shoulder hurt badly and he was listening to something else.

  Then they all heard it, a low thumping noise outside, coming closer.

  “Take your gun,” Flynn said to Tully. “That must be the boat.”

  Tully took his gun and Flynn got out the Luger. Then they had Powell open the door, and Port saw the canal water, heaving a little and sparkling.

  The boat was an old tug which would attract no attention. It slid into view very slowly, with just the one forward motion, so that it looked for a moment as if the frame of the door was moving and not the boat.

  Tully herded them over the plank and then below. Something clanked topside, something scraped, and then t
he big Diesel started puttering. They sat in the engine room, which was almost entirely taken up by the Diesel, and when it really started roaring the sudden noise of it almost split their heads.

  It settled down in awhile and just rumbled. This sound didn’t hurt the ears any more, but there was an annoying vibration. Then the Diesel fumes got bad and Tully started looking green.

  But he kept sitting there. They all sat, and the thicker the air became with the fumes, the more tension started to show. Powell, who sat on the floor, had a twitch in his face. Robert Heering, his eyes nervous and small, started biting his lip, and Jane took deep gasping breaths.

  Port sat very still, holding back an urge to spring up. He had only one thought: how to time it. There was more than one way—a thousand of them kept chasing around in his mind—but only one was the best.

  It had to do with the Luger.

  “Hey,” he said, “How’s your stomach feel, Tully? Squirmy?”

  “Shut up, you bastard—”

  “Rolling over in there, isn’t it? Feels like it’s gonna crawl right up to the roof of your mouth.”

  “Shut up, shut… up…”

  “What was that, Tully? A cramp? Sometimes it’s like a tight gag traveling up and down your gullet, huh? Squeezing—”

  “Joe!” Tully yelled up through the skylight. “Joe, for God’s sake!”

  Then Flynn came down the stairs fast. He saw how it was with Tully, stepped aside to let him pass up the stairs.

  This wasn’t the time yet. Flynn was holding the Luger and Tully wasn’t quite gone. But once he was up there, once he was hanging over the railing, retching himself weak—

  Port suddenly laughed. The sound wasn’t very loud next to the Diesel but they all saw how Port laughed, and how he got up off the floor, stretching a little.

  “Stop moving around!” Flynn yelled.

  “Louder,” said Port. “The Diesel, you know.”

  “I said, get back to—”

  “I can hear you,” said Port, and then he started to walk. He walked towards Flynn, with no rush in his movements, just walked towards Flynn and enjoying the sight of the fat man.