Tea with the Black Dragon - Страница 22

“You can’t do anything if you bleed to death,” insisted Frisch, letting the rest of the statement slide by him. He dropped his hands to his knees and stood up. He headed for the bathroom.

“The bleeding has stopped, I think,” replied Mr. Long. “And I cannot use the machine at all, which is why I came to you.”

Frisch came back with a pair of shears. He knelt again beside Long. The heavy blades sliced through the fabric of the sweatshirt.

“I was a boy scout. Got a first aid merit badge.” He cut from the waistband to the neck while the older man watched. Silver blades gnashed together, but slowly their bright surfaces grew dull, as though with rust. When Frisch began snipping through the left sleeve, Long gasped and swayed. Frisch apologized, but kept cutting.

The cloth at the top of the shoulder was stuck to the wound. Frisch cut around it, and the remains of the gray ,‘Sweatshirt fell to the cushions of the chair. ,’ Fred Frisch whistled. “Oooh, man. You ought to see your side.”

“I can do without.”

Frisch dropped his scissors on the worn carpet. “Who shot you?”

Long leaned back. “Floyd Rasmussen. With some sort of hunting rifle.” His eyes glittered. He rubbed at them. “I didn’t know a gun could make so little noise.”

Mr. Long was not really white, but he was decidedly gray against Frisch’s decrepit green recliner chair. His eyes fell shut. He heard Frisch in the distance, along with the sound of running water.

“It is hot in here,” he observed. “I imagined the rain would cool the air.”

Agony struck him in the shoulder, worse than the pain of the bullet. Long grabbed at the source of it.

Frisch gasped and cried out. A steaming cloth dropped onto Long’s lap.

“Leggo!” cried Frisch. “Let go. Please! You’re breaking my arm!”

Astonished, Long released him. “I’m so very sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know what you were doing.”

The young blond flexed his fingers doubtfully. “Good God, Mr. Long. Where did you develop a grip like that?”

“I didn’t develop it. Holding on comes naturally to me.” He tried to smile. “But I won’t do it again, I promise.”

Frisch soaked the cloth again. “It’s going to hurt just as bad,” he warned his patient. He lowered the washcloth onto the filthy wound.

As he had promised. Long did not attack Frisch. He passed out.

Chapter 12

Fred continued soaking the wound in warm water laced with Betadine. At length the mangled scrap of fabric came off. The exit hole of the bullet was black and ragged, though it had not adhered to the shirt. He put his hand behind Long’s back and eased the man forward, propping him with a sofa cushion.

With every unconscious twitch of his patient Fred flinched. The tendons along his forearm still hurt when he clenched his hand. Jeezus what kind of grip this guy had… Must have been adrenaline, like with the little kids who pull cars off their mothers…

He ought to call the police. This guy was in no shape to tackle anything more tonight. Kidnapping. Attempted murder.

Maybe this Mr. Long was simply a lunatic. Maybe the story he told Fred at the shop was sheer gas—after all, the woman who came with him, with her ballerina hair, the one he said was Liz Macnamara’s mother, hadn’t followed the conversation. And she had seemed a bit happy herself.

But who shoots a lunatic in the shoulder? And from above. Top down. Was Rasmussen sitting in a tree when he shot Mr. Long?

He did not really doubt his visitors story. He only wished that he could. And he thought he really ought to call the police.

What he did instead was to dribble hydrogen peroxide into both bullet wounds. He winced as he watched the stuff foam. Long’s lips pulled back from his teeth but his eyes did not open. He noticed the teeth—white, perfect and heavily rooted. He always noticed teeth; he had spent four years in orthodontia.

He went rummaging through the medicine cabinet. Not finding all he wanted, he proceeded through the kitchen drawers. Finally he raided his tool box.

The red wounds he covered with gauze pads, which he attached by adhesive tape. The damaged arm he bent at the elbow and lay flat against his patients stomach, securing it with duct tape wrapped around the body.

He stepped back and examined his handiwork.

Serviceable. No design award, but the guy looked better than he had before. Except for his color, which was bad.

With a great deal of trepidation, he bent down and raised Mr. Long, one hand under the knees and the other at the shoulders. The task was far easier than he’d feared. Mr. Long was very light.

Maybe he had hollow bones. Why not? He looked strange enough in other respects. Those hands, for instance.

Maybe he was an extraterrestrial, passing for human. An extraterrestrial detective. From Fomalhaut, maybe. And Rasmussen was the most-wanted criminal in this arm of the galaxy. He liked this idea. He could relate to it more easily than that of someone kidnapping Liz Macnamara. Or was it her mother that was kidnapped?

He lowered Long to the carpet, gently. Next he yanked all the back cushions from the couch and stuffed them under his patient’s knees. He wondered if Long were a marathon racer and that was why he was so light and strong. He himself jogged.

He went into his bedroom and pulled the blanket off the bed. Kneeling beside the sick man he hesitated, blanket in hand. He put his hand on the tight dry skin of the man’s forehead.

Jeez, he was hot… Really burning up. He didn’t need a blanket; he needed icepacks.

He needed a hospital. Fred wavered in indecision while his hand—which was like all of him, rather chilly in the air of night—moved to the back of Longs neck. He felt tension harden the muscles before he saw the brown eyes open.

“How did I get here?” Mr. Long inquired mildly.

“Oh. Well, you looked kinda bad, and I remembered from boy scouts ‘Face red, raise the head. Face pale, raise the tail.’ ”

“A useful maxim, but inelegant,” the dark man whispered. Long looked about him, noticing the shabby furnishings, the worn rug, the piles of incomprehensible electronics equipment gathered in the corners of the room like dust kitties and sharing the surface of the single table with two pears and a loaf of Orowheat Brand bread. None of the machines seemed to be in working order, judging by the bouquets of bell wire and brass popping from the tops or seams, the black holes where knobs should have been, the green boards protruding at odd angles from the frames…

“What time is it?” Long asked. Among all this mechanical litter, there was no clock to be seen.

Fred trotted into the bedroom. “Three-twenty,” he called back. When he returned to the living room Long was standing.

“I have no more time, Fred. I thank you for what you have done. Will you also do what I asked of you?”

Under the intensity of Long’s gaze Fred was aware of his near-nakedness. He shifted from one bare foot to the other. “Can’t we call the police?”

“When we have the letter we can call the police. The letter may become my bargaining power with Rasmussen and his colleague. I found where they were keeping Martha Macnamara, but they had moved her before I arrived.”

“That might mean… that… I mean…”

“That she is dead? It might, but I don’t think so.” Long did not explain farther. Instead he added, “I have no way to find her. I don’t believe the police would be in a better state. Only Rasmussen or Threve can lead me to Martha now, and I may need that letter for bait. If you don’t want to become involved I will return to Elizabeth’s apartment and waylay the hoodlums as they arrive.”

“You will? You can barely stand up!” cried Frisch.

Mr. Long’s lips parted with a trace of a smile. Frisch glimpsed those teeth, and with a chaining of memory he touched his aching right arm.

“Acrobatics may not be necessary,” said Long. “But I can’t blame you for not wanting to… to delve into this affair. It is dangerous and of disputable legality. And you have already ruined a night’s sleep to help a man who has no claim upon you…”

“Wait a minute. I never said I didn’t want to help you with this letter business. All I’m saying is…” Fred looked about him. His blond moustache whuffled with the force of his thoughts. His hands lifted from his sides and slapped down again, helplessly. “… is… Let me get some clothes on. That’s all.”

“Some car!”

May land Long accepted the tribute with a nod. “There are not many of them in California. Never until tonight have I been so glad of the automatic transmission. “ He lowered himself slowly into the drivers seat. He was now wearing a red flannel shirt of Fred’s, soft and blouselike, which fit easily over the taped arm. The empty sleeve was tucked into the waistband of his Levis. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

“I look like a one-armed lumberjack.”

Fred had remained standing by the door, leaning into the open window. “No way,” he stated. He sought for words to explain how very difficult it would be for Mr. Long to look like a lumberjack. “No way,” he repeated.

“Maybe I better drive, huh?”

“No,” said Long. The word came out sounding like the answer to a question rather than the blunt refusal it was. He waited for Frisch to get in.

“So tell me,” urged the young man. “What’s the story? Why is Floyd Rasmussen going around kidnapping people and zapping them with guns?”