Dredd stealthily moved through the water beneath the pier toward the voice.
"Charlie?" Then, "Oh, Jesus."
Dredd didn't have to guess what had caused the assassin's switch in tone from mystification to horror. Dredd had been around them long enough to sense their movements even when they were submerged and unseen. He'd studied their patterns, observed them in their natural habitat. Hell, he shared their natural habitat.
Gators.
His pets had spent the winter in semicatatonia, out of sight, not eating, not doing much of anything except waiting around for the first day that was sunny enough and warm enough to get their systems jump-started after months of lethargy. Today was the day. He sensed them moving with predatory intent through the water toward Charlie's fresh blood.
Dredd didn't panic. He waited. Waited. Waited.
"Charlie?"
Sheer panic was in the man's voice now. Dredd could read his mind. He wanted to bolt, to get the fuck out of this spooky place and to hell with Duvall and finding his wife. But he and Charlie had worked together for a long time. Next to himself, Charlie was the meanest sumbitch he knew. And ol' Charlie had practically disappeared before his very eyes.
It was human nature to want to know what had happened to his buddy.
Human nature.
When the guy leaned over to inspect the underside of the pier, Dredd put all his strength behind a scissors kick that launched him out of the water with the impetus of a sea monster. The guy outweighed him by seventy pounds, but surprise gave Dredd a huge advantage He hooked his hand around the back of the guy's neck and pulled him into the water.
As he fell forward, Dredd's knife pierced his Adam's apple.
When Gregory regained consciousness, he was lying eyeball to eyeball with a twelve-foot alligator.
Screaming, he scrambled to his feet, banging his head on the iron bed frame. Pulse pounding, gasping for breath, in a near state of cardiac arrest, he crawled across the bed on which Dredd had nursed Remy Duvall only a few days ago.
Once he was on the far side of the room, he peeped beneath the bed to make certain that the gator he'd seen was a stuffed model and not a living specimen. He wouldn't put anything past Dredd, even to keeping a live alligator beneath his bed.
But the menacing eyes were glass. Moderately calmed, Gregory hastily made his way through the macabre chambers of Dredd's Mercantile.
The table on which Dredd ate his meals was littered with alligator heads sealed in shiny shellac, and they brought back a disturbing memory, although it didn't crystallize. Outside, the old man was washing down the pier with a garden hose.
When he heard Gregory's footfalls on the planks, he turned. His beard was wet, as were his denim cutoffs."Get your nap out?" he asked pleasantly.
"What happened? Why was I on the floor behind the bed? I can't remember
... No, wait. I do remember."
The fog inside Gregory's head gradually began to lift."You gave me a Dr. Pepper. Did you drug me?" Then his memory slammed into him full force. He spun around and saw the second car parked beside his.
"They're here?" he squealed in panic."Where are they? What did you tell them?
Why'd you knock me out?"
"Relax, sonny. You didn't miss much. They're gone."
"How'd you get rid of them? What did you tell them?"
"Actually, I didn't have the pleasure of a meeting. Any dialogue they had, they had with my friend there."
Gregory turned in the direction Dredd indicated, and was startled to see an effigy of Dredd sitting in a dilapidated rocking chair on the galerie, wet fishing hat and wig slightly askew atop a Halloween mask from which hung a Spanish-moss beard.
"I made him a couple years ago to bait a thief," Dredd explained.
"This asshole kept coming in and raiding my store every time I went out to fish or hunt.
"So I rigged up the dummy and set him adrift in one of my boats.
Caught the guy red-handed and beat him within an inch of his life.
Never came back." He chuckled."I got sorta attached to my friend and decided to keep him around. He listens when I want some company.
Damned ugly son of a bitch, but no uglier than me, I reckon. He sure came in handy this morning."
Gregory came around slowly. He looked at the recently scrubbed pier, looked into the water below it with repugnance, looked at the two monstrous gators sunning themselves on the far bank, looked at Dredd who stared back at him with satisfaction and calm defiance.
It was easy to guess the fate of the two men who had accompanied him here. Gregory swallowed his revulsion, but he supposed he owed Dredd his life. However, remembering Pinkie Duvall's determination, he knew the reprieve would be temporary."Duvall will send somebody else."
"Most likely," Dredd replied with a philosophical shrug."That's why you'd best be on your way."
"What about their car?"
"I'll take care of it."
He didn't elaborate on how he planned to take care of it, but Gregory was confident that the vehicle was about to disappear permanently.
"I ... Thanks, Dredd."
Dredd expelled a gust of cigarette smoke."You did good, boy. When I see Basile, I'll be sure and tell him that you made up for your past mistakes."
Gregory was touched by the old man's commendation, to an embarrassing degree. Tears came to his eyes, and Dredd must have noticed them because he too became embarrassed, and that made him cantankerous.
"Well, don't just stand there. After surviving what you've been through already, Basile would be pissed if I let you get dead or hurt or locked behind bars. So go on now. Git."
Reflexively Burke reached for Mac Mccuen as he fell."Mac!"
But Mac wasn't going to answer, he was dead. Even knowing that, Burke continued repeating his name as he lowered him to the floor.
Hearing approaching footsteps, he looked up to see Doug Pat running along the pier toward the shack."Is he dead?"
"Goddamn it, Doug," Burke said angrily."He didn't have a prayer."
"You wouldn't have either if he'd shot you in the chest from pointblank range."
Pat knelt down and felt Mac's carotid artery. After a moment, he stood, moving as though he carried a thousand-pound burden on his back.
He swore softly and dragged his hand down his haggard features.
Then he placed a hand on Burke's shoulder and looked at him with concern.
"Are you okay?"
"Okay? Jesus, Doug. No, I'm not okay. I just had another of my men shot before my eyes."
"Mac was going for his gun. It was him or you."
Indeed, Mac had fumbled his handgun from the holster at the small of his back. It was lying inches from his supine right hand. Despite this evidence to the contrary, it was hard for Burke to believe that Mccuen would have shot him in cold blood.
Pat said, "He was dirty. He'd made a deal with Duvall."
"He admitted that much."
"Did he tell you the terms?"
"The cancellation of a fifty-thousand-dollar debt in exchange for "That's partially right. Actually the deal was the cancellation of his debt plus a larger share of the profit if he killed you."
"Profit?"
Pat nodded down at Mac."That's the guy you've wanted We've got indisputable proof that Mccuen has been working for Duvall."
Burke looked at Pat with disbelief."Mac's a joker, a nuisance, a screw up.
"Part of the act. He was smarter than he let on. He made himself likable, he performed his duties reasonably well, but he didn't excel He persisted until he was assigned to Narcotics and Vice. All part of their plan. He's been Duvall's inside man since he signed on."
"There was always something a little off," Burke mused out loud.
"A cop's salary didn't jibe with Mac's standard of living. I had decided he was either a damn good gambler or the luckiest bastard I ever met."
"His luck ran out today."
"You say you've got proof of his connection to Duvall's operation?"
"For months Internal Affairs has been conducting a covert investigation. I'm the only one in the division who knew about it. I knew you were frustrated by the seeming lack of interest to ferret out the traitor, but I was sworn to secrecy and couldn't tell you.
Although," he added, "I was tempted to so you wouldn't quit on me.
"Anyway, after months of exhaustive investigation, I.A. traced the thwarted busts back to Mccuen." Softly, he added, "Including the one that went south the night Kev was killed."
Burke looked at him sharply.
Pat nodded."That's right. You've wanted the guy who tipped the dealers of the raid that night and got Kev killed. There's your culprit."
Mistrusting what he'd heard, Burke stared hard into Pat's eyes.
When the words finally sank in, his knees went weak and he leaned against the wall, then slowly slid down it until he was crouching.
Pat gave him a moment to reflect. Finally, he asked, "You all right?"
"Yeah. Fine." Burke had to clear his throat before he could continue.
"I thought ... I thought I would feel different when I found out who it was."
"How do you feel?"
"Empty."
They were quiet for a time. Burke noticed that the pool of blood that had formed beneath Mac's body had stagnated. Soon it would congeal.
So much blood. From Mac. From Kevin.
After a time, he looked up at Pat."If the information Mac supplied to Duvall kept his drug trade thriving, wasn't he too valuable to squander by sending after me?"
"Apparently getting you superseded everything else in Duvall's life.
Mac was close to you, someone you might trust to be bringing a message of goodwill. And Mac was dispensable."
"Because Duvall's resources are unlimited. He's probably already got another cop to replace Mac."