Sucker bet - James Swain [47]
Valentine weighed his options. Making a run at them was out of the question. The distance was too great, and he’d given up wind sprints years ago. The other option was sneaking up on them and disarming the driver, which wouldn’t be terribly hard once they started going at it. He stepped off the trail into a thicket of mangroves.
As he approached, he listened to the redhead talking to the driver. Her voice was soothing, like she knew she was about to get raped and didn’t want to do anything to make it worse. The driver told her to get on her knees.
Valentine parted a bush and had another look. The redhead was on all fours. The driver was behind her, poised to make his statement. She was still talking, the fear absent from her voice. Leaning forward, he felt his shoe catch an exposed root and fell into a disgustingly soft belly of muck.
His head came out of the water just in time to hear the redhead scream. Rising, he stared into the clearing. The redhead had tried to run, and the driver was holding her underwater. Her legs were thrashing as air bubbles burst the water’s surface. The kicking grew faint, then stopped altogether. Valentine broke through the mangroves.
“Let her go.”
The driver’s eyes went wide. He had the gun in his left hand, the girl’s head in his right. He looked scared. Like he’d seen a ghost. And Valentine supposed he probably did look like a ghost, his wet hair in his face, the blood from his nose flowing down his chin. Or a dead man risen from a swampy grave.
“Who are you?” the driver said.
“Jack Lightfoot,” he growled.
Valentine saw the redhead sink beneath the water’s surface. “I deal blackjack,” he said. “Remember?”
The driver was out of the pond and picking up his clothes, the gun still pointed in Valentine’s direction. He was going to run, and Valentine stepped back into the mangroves and ducked out of sight. Barefoot, the driver raced past moments later, swearing in Spanish.
Valentine pulled the redhead out of the pond and gave her CPR. Her face had turned blue, and he didn’t think there was much hope. In between breaths, he wiped at the blood on his face, hoping not to get any on her. Stupid, but he did it anyway.
She was a natural redhead, and it was hard not to look at her privates. That had always been the hard part of police work. Every day, he’d be confronted by things that he knew were wrong but wanted to do anyway. Like staring at naked corpses.
He heard something like a frog trying to climb out of her stomach. An eruption in the making. He leaned backwards, but not in time. She puked on him.
“Oh, my God,” she gasped. “Oh, my God.”
She lay on her back, fighting for breath. Valentine lay down next to her. The world was spinning, and his head was starting to throb. She reached out and found his arm.
“Who are you?”
“Tony Valentine.”
“I’m Candy. Where’s—”
“The guy trying to kill you? I scared him off. Look, try not to talk.”
She found his hand and squeezed it. “I owe you, Tony.”
Gladys Soft Wings entered the clearing. She was visibly frightened and stared at them lying in the grass, holding hands.
“I hope I’m not interrupting something,” she said.
20
Splinters pulled off 595 at the first exit. Parking behind a Shell station, he threw his driver’s uniform back on while muttering to himself. He hadn’t gotten laid, the hooker had nearly escaped, and he’d seen a fucking ghost. Someone had put a curse on him, and he hadn’t even known it.
Back in the limo, doing eighty, he started to feel really bad. Rico had told him to do one thing, and he’d gone and done another. Rico wouldn’t like that if he found out. He would kill Splinters for something like that. The exit sign for Davie loomed in his windshield.
He slowed down. Off to his left, striped carnival tents filled a cow field. He’d been fuming for days over the outrageous bribe Rico had paid the carny owner. Four thousand two hundred dollars. And for what?
He put his indicator on. An idea was percolating in his head. He would get the money back