There Is Something About a Dame Page 13
“It’s been a privilege to make your acquaintance, Edward.” Sir Stewart had to talk. It was his main driving spring in life. “Pity I couldn’t have known you long ago. We might have been comrades-in-arms. But it was never meant to be, I suppose. It is rather like Shakespeare—”
Damn funny the way things work out, isn’t it? I say that because Devlin made his move, I made mine, and Sir Stewart St. James, the greatest actor of them all, died with the name of his God on his lips.
Sir Stewart stopped talking, his eyes jumped, and the Webley bucked in his hands. Lead blasted into the kitchen, hit metal, spanked off porcelain and volleyed around the walls. Hard on its heels came the blast and thunder of my own .45 as Devlin made his play. I couldn’t wait. I rolled to the floor, snatched up the hair-trigger destroyer and rolled to a sitting position, facing the kitchen.
As Sir Stewart’s dead body bowed down before me and came to a crooked rest, twisted in the entrance where there was no door. I propped myself above his body, not knowing what Devlin would do. He didn’t look like he was going to forget the kidnap rap. He was on the floor of the kitchen, no more than five feet away, .45 aimed into my face. It was funny, really. Two grown men trying to out-talk, out-think and out-do each other with twin .45’s. If only somebody had said something. If only Devlin had thrown his gun down and said, “Noon, why kill each other?” If only I’d dropped my own gun and said, “Devlin, this is silly.” But we couldn’t and we didn’t. There was no time. It was all reflex. And I knew in the split second before we triggered off at each other, that neither one of us was going to miss.
I just had time to see his wicked, triumphant leer as he saw Sir Stewart fall. Then he saw me with his hair-trigger special. Our eyes met and held for that split second that says hello and goodbye.
The world exploded with noise, sound and insanity. Lightning and sudden death filled the foul air of the kitchen with burned gunpowder and the smell of dying.
I saw Devlin’s face disappear in a red blur of horror as my .45 thudded home, dead center. He rolled over like he’d been poleaxed and didn’t move again. I slammed back against the wall, my chest on fire, a thousand needles of agony searing my body. I sagged against the no-door entrance, my legs bent behind Sir Stewart’s dead body. Behind me, Savannah Gage and Linda Gates started screaming in chorus. My ears ached with the sound of their screaming.
In the dim kitchen, I could see flame begin a slow, eerie trickle under the sink, then began to fan out in a wider, deadlier arc. My pounding head thought of only one thing. Sir Stewart’s Webley had bought him the fire he wanted so badly.
Blood filled my eyes. I tried to rise. Hands pulled at me. The hot stove in my chest wouldn’t cool off.
“Morgan—” I remember saying. “Can’t walk—get him out of here—fire—”
They got me out in a hurry because I couldn’t have made it myself.
“… the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune …”
TWENTY-THREE
Outside, on the grass somewhere was nothing but night and the stars. A ring of faces stared down at me. I saw Linda Gates, Savannah Gage, funny firemen hats and a police shield or two. Then the monkey face I love so much. Mike Monks. His eyes looked wet.
Sirens were screaming. Red flames tickled the evening sky far over their heads. I couldn’t move. My chest was a block of cement encased in boiling hot water. Nobody was saying anything. Just staring down at me.
I couldn’t think of a thing except sleep. But it wouldn’t come. My eyelids felt like sacks of nuggets. All lumpy and overweight.
Memory of my office came back to me. The one with the holes in it. Then the Claudette Colbert poster came out of nowhere so I could see it again.
I wanted my Colbert button back—
A siren wailed somewhere. It was a peaceful sound, somehow. I wanted to hear more of it. I fell asleep before I could.
THE END