Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues - Andrew Cartmel [87]
Butcher had recovered from his surprise and was wondering what would be the quickest and most effective way of shutting the woman up and keeping her from interfering. Then she lifted her fat arms up high, holding something up above her head. The thing had a long handle that led up to a wedge shape that blocked a patch of the stars in the sky. Butcher remembered the axe by the lumber pile, and rolled away just in time. The big woman snorted with effort as she brought the axe down, driving it into the earth where Butcher had been lying an instant earlier. He leapt to his feet as the woman snarled and wrenched the blade out of the earth, turning and swinging it at him.
Butcher dodged again.
He was being attacked by a fat woman with an axe. A lot of grotesque things had befallen him in his long career as a private eye, but this certainly ranked with the worst of them. It might have been funny if it wasn’t so dangerous.
The woman panted and swung again, slicing air. He could keep dodging until she ran out of strength. For someone her size it wouldn’t take long. But then she might get it into her brain to start shouting, which would be much worse.
If those Japs with the Tommy guns got into the game he’d be finished.
Butcher was in civilian clothes with a snubnosed .38 tucked under his armpit in a shoulder holster. He could shoot his attacker if he had to – and he might have to. But after the incident at the pond the other day he was in no hurry to kill another woman. And then there was the problem of the sound of the gunshot. Surprise was the only advantage he had, and that would be gone the moment the zoot-suiters in the basement realised he was here.
The woman kept swinging at him and Butcher kept backing away from her.
She showed no signs of tiring yet, but at least she hadn’t yelled for help. She was grunting and panting, brutally determined to cleave him apart with the axe. Butcher backed across the lawn, keeping his eyes on her, until he heard his feet grinding on gravel. He had reached the driveway. She kept stalking him, swinging whenever she got close enough. But by now Butcher had begun to formulate a plan of action.
The two of them edged across the driveway, the big murderous woman and the man backing away from her. They passed the front of the house and the black marble steps. They reached the corner of the house, where Butcher hazarded a glance over his shoulder. It almost cost him his head. The moment he looked away, the woman lurched forward and swung the axe again. He felt the breeze of it graze his earlobe and all the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
But he’d seen what he needed to see. He dodged away from the woman, 153
reached down and scooped up the large ceramic pot he’d noticed earlier. And then he moved towards the woman. For a split second she was too surprised to react; she’d become accustomed to the notion that Butcher would only move in perpetual retreat. But then she recovered, grunted, and brought the axe chopping down.
Butcher raised the ceramic pot above his head. The axe head smashed into it, shattering it like a giant piñata. For a moment the axe was caught in the wreckage of the broken pot but, with a frantic wriggling of her big shoulders, the woman managed to wrestle it free and lift it up again for another strike.
As the last fragments of broken ceramic rattled to the ground, Butcher was left holding the contents of the pot. The coiled garden hose.
He began to unwind the hose as he avoided the woman’s next blow. Butcher soon had about three feet of hose swaying loose in his grip, with the brass nozzle at the end of it. He swung the length of hose in the air, like a lassoo, spinning it in wide circles above his head. The woman didn’t seem to understand what was about to happen. She was raising the axe for yet another strike when Butcher stepped forward, snapped his hand and sent the heavy brass nozzle of the hose thudding into her face. It hit her squarely in the mouth and he heard the ugly sound of something breaking. Butcher