Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

then jumped back, cursing. Blood spurted from under the hand he’d clamped to his neck.

“You bloody bitch,” he screamed raising his gun, “I’ll fucking—” The scream ended abruptly as Joseph brought the concrete block used as a doorstop down on his head. Joseph turned and moved quietly back up the stairs.

“Ernest? Hello?” The back door of the garage opened slowly and a hand clasping a gun extended out. “Ernie?”

Sinbad took two silent paces and leaped, clamping his teeth onto the man’s wrist. The man screamed and fell back into the garage, his howl rising in pitch as Sinbad bore him to the ground. The gun dropped to the concrete and Joseph leaned over and picked it up. Annie appeared beside him, her face masked in blood.

“I’m okay,” she said. “I think it’s mostly from that guy you knifed.” She seized the gun from Joseph and levelled it at the man on the ground. Joseph spoke to her.

“I’m not going to hit the dog,” she said in exasperation, “just this fat asshole.”

“Please. No. I’ll tell you everything I know,” the man said.

“Okay. So who do you work for?” Annie asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Right.” Annie raised the gun. There was a loud explosion and a bullet ricocheted off the concrete.

“Damn. I missed. Gun’s a piece of shit. Give me your knife.”

Joseph nodded and reached under his shirt.

“Wait, wait. I don’t know their names. There were two of them. Tall, skinny guys. They met with Louie and gave him your address; we waited outside the house and followed you to the parking lot. They told Louie to bring you here, gave us the codes for the gate and garage, said they’d be in touch. Never seen them before. They knew Louie, and he set it all up. We never went inside the house. We never ever saw anyone else, just those two guys.”

“Okay. I think I believe you. What’s your name?”

“Albert.”

Joseph said, “Bert and Ernie.” He took the gun back from Annie and cold-cocked the fat man. He reached into Albert’s pants pocket and produced a set of keys and a wallet. He opened the wallet and took out the cash, counted it, handed half to Annie, and returned the wallet to the man’s pocket.

“Now what?” Annie said. “I don’t want to phone in a tip and get recorded on a tape and they might not come anyway.”

Joseph bent down and dragged Albert over to the van. He opened the driver’s door and the two of them slid him into the seat and fastened him upright with the safety belt. The body of the dead man was still in the back of the van. They returned to the basement and carried Ernest up the stairs and into the passenger seat.

“Thank God he’s not the fat one,” Annie gasped.

When they were loaded up, Joseph opened the garage doors and then reached inside the van and started the motor. It was all downhill to the gates. He collected his knapsack and nodded to Annie.

“My pleasure,” Annie said.

She reached in and popped the van into gear. It rolled down the hill, gathering speed as it went, and crashed through the gate before skewing crossways and stopping astride the curb. A light began flashing on the side of the house and an alarm sounded in staccato three-second bursts. The engine noise increased to a scream, then stopped abruptly. Steam rose from the fractured radiator and dark red fluid ebbed out from beneath the chassis.

Joseph, Annie, and Sinbad moved quickly down the slope, keeping away from the cameras. They slipped out the side gate and disappeared into the night. Off in the distance a siren sounded and then a second one.

Chapter 27

The trail had gone stone cold. Clarke had been to the hospital and grilled the two men who’d been in the van, but learned nothing that he didn’t already know. Albert and Ernest were smashed up, surly and uncooperative, and stuck steadfastly to their story that the dead guy, Louie, had contacted them and was the one who had made all the arrangements. They were given Annie’s address and told to pick her up and lock her in the basement of the house in the Properties with the key they had been given, and then await further instructions. They had been sitting in the van outside her house for two hours when she finally drove out in the old Subaru and headed to the shopping mall. Surprised to discover that she wasn’t alone, they’d made a snap decision to grab the old guy with her so he couldn’t give their descriptions to the cops. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. As for what had transpired at the estate, they had no idea. Somebody had ambushed them from behind and knocked them out cold. Hadn’t seen who. The unknown person or persons must have loaded the two of them into the van, crashed into the gate on their way out, and then made a run for it. It was probably meth-heads who knew the house was vacant and were looking to rob it. It happened a lot these days.

“That’s not a bad try. Except how then do you explain ending up in the driver’s seat of the van?” Clarke asked.

Albert’s brow wrinkled in thought. “That’s a tough one,” he said. “No idea. I was unconscious at the time.”

“And the dog bite?”

“That’s not a dog bite. I injured my arm in the crash. Piece of shit old van doesn’t have airbags.”

“Okay, fine. So you won’t need a rabies shot then. What’s a little foaming at the mouth, convulsion, and dementia to a tough guy like you? Not very far to go on that last one anyway, I should think. Good luck.” Clarke rose to leave.

Albert came clean.

Clarke was remarkably restrained about the situation. He understood that Joseph followed more medieval rules of engagement where his family was concerned, and was relieved and maybe even a little surprised that only the one man had been