Good Lord, Deliver Us (18 page)

Once in the third-floor
hall, first listening at the corresponding apartment door to assure
himself there'd be little likelihood a member of that family would
be coming into the hall anytime soon, he'd pull on his black hood
and knock on the husband's door. Mr. Smith opening up, Z would rush
him, blackjacking him into oblivion before the hit man knew what
hit
him
. Time
enough when the hired gun woke, for them to have their "talk." On
Z's terms.

The main event of the evening
outlined, Z forced himself to stop what he'd been doing: pacing
from the front of his living room where he had one of his air
conditioners rumbling on low, past the pot-bellied fireplace at
rear-center, through the narrow kitchenette, then back around the
other side of the fireplace, and into the living room. A Z
habit.

He also had his lighter out, flicking
it: on, off; on, off -- another "agitated" addition.

Chagrined, he slipped the lighter back
in his pants pocket.

Unable to
keep
from thinking about
tonight's job, there'd been times -- and this was one of them --
when Z regretted not having a gun. (Realizing, in the same instant
that, if he got one, he wouldn't be able to afford the firing range
time to learn how to use it. Shoot the wrong person, like as
not.)

No.

Guns were a crutch; and a dangerous
one. Made you cock-sure. Gave you a false sense of security that
could get in the way of detailed planning, firearms particularly
bad for a man of Z's sudden temper, for a man subject to
anger-blackouts.

Not often.

Hardly ever, anymore.

No. Z would use the old standard.
Knock on the door then bust in like the Marines, sap at the
ready.

And if the man already had his gun
pointed at Z's chest? ......

Nothing was certain in this life ...
except the illusion of certainty. Even giving it his best, what he
was attempting ... was risky.

The idea was to rush the hitter. Not
the best plan, maybe, but an uncomplicated one, it being Z's
experience -- augmented by the "advanced education" of Jamie
Stewart -- that simple plans, like simple love, worked
best.

Now, to that peanut butter
sandwich.

* * * * *

Wraithlike in black, case in hand, Z
floated up the stairs, the dark tan stair runner muffling footsteps
and squeaks, Z soon on the 3rd floor landing.

Where, he stopped.

Looked -- nothing to be seen by the
light of a 40-watt bulb in an old-fashioned, single-bulb, ceiling
fixture.

And listened. ........ No sounds in
the musty-smelling hall.

To Z's left was 301, the
neighbors.

To his right, 302, the
objective.

Z squinted at his watch. A couple of
minutes until 9:00. Time to snoop around a little.

Easing down the valise, Z side-stepped
to 301 to press his ear to the brown, cracked varnish door, just
below the gold metal numbers. ......

Heard nothing.

Full dusk coming fast, Z squatted to
look for any gleam of light shining under the door.

No light.

By lucky circumstance, the neighbors
weren't home.

Crossing to the other apartment,
squatting down again, Z did see a light line beneath that apartment
door.

Good. The quarry was home.

Retreating to the back of the hall, Z
checked to make sure the padded lead sap was in the right hand
pocket of his black, tight-fitting jacket, and ... it was
time!

Dragging the black knit hood from his
left pocket, Z slipped it over his head, adjusting it so he had no
trouble seeing out the eye holes. Taking the sap from his other
pocket, grasping it by its woven leather handle, he pulled it back
into "cocked" position.

Was ready.

Creeping to the hitter's door, Z was
about to knock ... when he noticed that the lock on the door was of
the old-fashioned variety: the burglar's delight.

Seeing the lock, changed his
plans.

Instead of knocking on the
door, wouldn't it be better to pick the lock? (Assuming he could do
it silently.) That way, it would be even
more
of a surprise to Mr. Smith when
Z came charging in.

Z put the sap back in his
pocket.

Bending down to open his carryall,
fishing out his billfold, Z slipped out the plastic card he kept
there for simple, lock-picking purposes. Fleetingly, he wondered
what Jamie had made of a plain white plastic card in Z's wallet?
Not much, apparently.

Leaving the case, moving to the door,
he squatting before the lock where, using extreme caution to keep
from making a sound, Z slipped the card in the door crack and eased
back the lock-tongue until he was able to slide the card between
the tongue and its keeper.

Leaving the card in the door, the door
now unlocked, Z stood. Got out his blackjack again.

This time. just checking to be
checking, Z assured himself the door opened in -- though all
apartment doors did. Presumably, if a fire started in your own
apartment, you would remember to pull open the door. (By contrast,
street doors in large buildings opened out. Smelling smoke, crowds
of panicky people had been known to fling themselves against an
inward opening door, pushing and shoving to no purpose until the
foremost of them died from crushed lungs.)

In addition to the spring lock, the
door might have a chain lock. ........ No problem. Every chain lock
Z had ever seen would rip off the doorframe at the first hint of
his bulk.

Ready at last, right hand on the
blackjack, the sap drawn back, left hand on the doorknob, Z was
about to shoulder the door open and rush inside when ... he noticed
something else about the light shining out from under the edge of
the door.

Something ... unusual
......

Then, Z knew. It was that
the
width
of
light was not ... continuous ... two, black bands in the center of
it. Six inch wide shadows, as far apart as a man's legs ... as if a
men was standing just back of the door ... with a drawn
gun!

In spite of Z's precautions, in spite
of no one knowing Mrs. Smith had hired him, Mr. Smith -- the
fastest gun in the west -- was waiting for him.

Z felt sweat pop out under the itchy
hood.

What had gone wrong? Had the man been
looking out the window when Z arrived; seen Z enter the building,
valise in hand?

Maybe, though there should be nothing
about a man coming into an apartment building that would alert
Smith that Z was on his way to the top floor with deadly intent.
(No way the man could have seen Z's car going by this afternoon.
Certainly no way of knowing that the same car was parked around the
block.)

The lady said she didn't know how
Smith found out secret information; Z also mystified by the guy's
... intuition?

Since Z had been alerted to the trap,
however, he had the chance to surprise the surpriser. But
how?

For now, get the hell out of
there!

Leaving his card in the door for the
moment so the door stayed unlocked, picking up his case, Z backed
off, being elaborately careful where he put his soft-soled
shoes.

Safely away from the door, Z eased
shut his carrying case and picked up the satchel to pad down the
stairs, at the same time pulling off his hood, stuffing it in his
pocket. Not a bad idea to get at least a floor between you and an
alerted hit man.

Off the stairs on second and hooked to
one side, Z lowered the traveling bag to the carpeted floor. Bent
to snap the rubber-band-quieted catches.

Inside, he'd put an assortment of
fireworks. Plus a jar of kerosene he'd poured from the larger jar
he kept at home by the fireplace, coal-oil useful for firing
too-green logs.

Lock-picks -- unnecessary on this
job.

He'd left out assorted
calling cards. (What would Jamie have thought if
they'd
been in his
wallet when she'd rifled it?)

He had a hank of nylon cord, always
handy for something.

Fireworks.

Straight razor. Good for cutting ...
anything.

Cloth, for making gags.

Skin-tight leather gloves. (He hated
wearing them in the summer time; he'd have to remember to wipe his
prints off anything he touched.)

Jimmy -- useless; as was the
siphon.

Athletic tape.

Duct tape.

Lighter fluid .....

Ah!

An inspiration; one causing Z to smile
as he pictured what had to happen.

Taking out the thin plastic "tin" of
lighter fluid, Z closed the case. Picked up the satchel.

This would be a little tricky. Three
hands better for the job ahead, but .....

And Z was easing up the stairs again,
bag in one hand, lighter fluid in the other, his bad knee never
painful during adrenaline rushes.

On the top landing at last, Z crept
quietly forward until he was again before the target
door.

And sure enough, double shadows still
interrupted the light at the door's bottom edge.

"The game," Sherlock Holmes would have
said, "was afoot!"

First, stooping to put down the
satchel and the yellow can of lighter fluid, Z rose to pull out his
ski mask, dragging it on. Digging his disposable lighter out of his
pants' pocket, Z bent to pick up the lighter fluid; flipped up the
yellow plastic nipple on top the bottle, the nipple used both to
open and close the can and to squirt fuel into old-fashioned,
pre-butane, cotton-wick lighters.

These preparations made, Z squatted
down before the apartment door.

Putting the cigarette lighter on the
floor, getting out his sap, holding the blackjack in his right
hand, Z picked up the lighter fluid container with his left
hand.

Opening the can's nipple, he lowered
the can so that the nipple was below the door crack.

In position, Z squirted a
puddle of fluid in front of the door, then squeezed a generous
amount of the volatile liquid
under
the door, directing it at the
"shadows."

Setting down the container and picking
up the lighter, Z sparked the flame, touching the tiny "torch" to
the lighter fluid at the door's edge.

Whoosh!

A pause. .... Then a yell from inside,
Z's cue to shoulder in the door, Z crashing in to find a small man
there, gun in hand, the man bent over, batting at the flames that
were engulfing his shoes.

Crack! The man going down like a
pole-axed ox.

Lighter fluid: so volatile its vapors
danced well above its liquid, the heat of its flames imparted to
the air -- but making an impressive show when burning on your shoes
and up your pants.

No trouble, really, to pick up a throw
rug and pat out the flames on the hit man's legs.

Tonight's business concluded, Smith
would hardly have a burn to claim as Z's "calling card."

The fire quickly out, stepping into
the hall, Z picked up his plastic card where it had fallen on the
hall carpet and retrieved the lighter fluid can.

Card slipped in his billfold, billfold
in a pocket, closing the nipple on the can and putting the lighter
fluid back in the case, he brought the satchel inside and gently
shut the apartment door.

So much for the dangerous aspect of
tonight's work.

As for the evening's entertainment, it
was just about to start!

* * * * *

Z could relax. At least until Smith
woke up.

The apartment was much smaller than Z
would have thought from what he'd seen of the building from the
outside. (Perhaps there was a back entrance to the apartment house,
stairs back there leading to units facing the other direction.) The
faded wallpaper was ... brown. The Good Will furniture was brown.
The wood floor was brown. Drawn draperies covered the narrow front
windows, brown. The shade of a dilapidated, brass-colored,
pot-metal floor lamp would have blended right in as a hat for Teddy
Newbold.

No reason to expect elegance, though.
Particularly since the wife had said this place was a "safe" house,
a hiding place where a mob-type could go to avoid "heat." Mafiosi
used to call hiding out, "going to the mattresses." What they
called it today, Z had no idea.

The first thing Z had done was pick up
the man's gun. (This wasn't the movies where some sucker leaves a
gun near a thug who's "supposed" to be knocked out.)

Not much of a gun. A thirty-two, Z
thought. Six-shooter, old, short-barrel, chrome, badly made, and
cheap to buy, what any law enforcement agency would call a Saturday
Night Special. (Though Z didn't know any more about firearms that
what he'd learned that one time when he'd been tempted to buy one,
this was the kind of "heater" the dealer said he always tried to
sell to "niggers and Mexicans." To save lives, he'd said, "'Cause,
it don't shoot straight.")