Deadman's Bluff - James Swain [94]
“I called the police on my cell phone,” she called down. “They’re coming.”
“Run!” Valentine yelled back at her.
“I can’t leave you here,” she said.
“Do as I say.”
Little Hands got to his feet. Valentine went into a crouch, putting himself between the woman and Little Hands.
“They ever figure out what’s wrong with you?” Valentine asked him.
Little Hands flexed his arms. “I’m going to mutilate you.”
“It was something to do with your mother, wasn’t it?”
“Shut up!” Little Hands said.
“Now, I remember. When you were a little kid, you saw her screwing a guy wearing a fireman’s hat, and never got over it.”
Little Hands charged him. Valentine adroitly stepped to one side and kicked him in the knee. Little Hands went down again. Valentine kept his distance, still crouching.
“I always have sex wearing a fireman’s hat,” Valentine said.
Little Hands tried to shake the image from his head. His mother on all fours on the bed, the fireman doing her from behind with the red hat perched on his head. Like his mother wasn’t worth hanging around for. In the distance, he heard a siren.
He slowly stood up. It occurred to him that he might kill Valentine, but wouldn’t get away with it. The police were already too close. He thought of the ninety-seven hundred in the bag, and the new life that awaited him south of the border. Pointing his finger at Valentine, he said, “I swear to God I’ll get you one day. And your girl friend. I’ll get both of you. That’s a promise you can take to the bank.”
Little Hands turned around, and scampered out of the sand trap.
Gloria ran to Valentine’s side, and threw her arms around him. “Oh my God, Tony, that’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Valentine held her while watching Little Hands run. The siren that had driven him away was starting to fade, and wasn’t coming their way. He thought about Little Hands’s threat and looked at Gloria. “If I ask you to do something, will you do it?”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Stay here until I call you.”
“Of course.”
He went to the toppled golf cart. There was a driver lying across the backseat, which Rufus had loaned him. He clutched the driver between his hands.
As Valentine came out of the sand trap, he saw Little Hands climbing into his golf cart. The guy had more muscle than anyone he’d ever seen. So much so, that he probably thought nothing could harm him. He imagined Little Hands showing up on his doorstep someday, or worse, on Gloria’s doorstep. Showing up and ruining their lives. That wasn’t going to happen if he could have a say in the matter.
He ran up to Little Hands’s cart just as it started to pull away. Swung the driver like it was a baseball bat and he was trying to knock one clean out of the park. Little Hands glanced sideways at him with a look of disbelief on his face. Like he hadn’t expected an old guy to move so fast.
The driver hit Little Hands a few inches above his nose. It snapped his head straight back, and Little Hands jerked the wheel to his right, going off the trail and directly into a palm tree. Little Hands flew out of the cart and hit the tree as well.
Valentine approached him, the driver still clutched in his hands. Little Hands lay on his back, blood pouring out of his ears and nose and mouth. Beside him was a paper bag filled with money. The wind had picked it up, and hundred-dollar bills blew across the golf course. Little Hands’s eyelids fluttered; he looked up at Valentine and weakly shook his head.
“I should have quit when I was ahead,” he whispered.
Then he shut his eyes and died.
43
Karl Jasper was standing on the balcony of George Scalzo’s suite, sweating through his five-thousand-dollar Armani suit.
He’d woken up that morning and flipped on the TV to CNN like he always did, then found