The Long Wait (7 page)

“Where's she now, Logan?”

“That's what I'd like to know. She disappeared three years ago.” Logan's mouth twisted in a snarl. “That's what you did to her, you stinking yellow bastard. That's what our hero, Johnny McBride, did to her.”

He started to reach for me across the table. Slow. His left out further than the other so I couldn't get away before he grabbed me.

I said, “Johnny McBride's dead.”

Those hands came to a dead stop as though they ran into an invisible wall. He looked at me like I was crazy or something, trying hard not to believe me but having to because I sat there smoking without getting excited about an ex-pug who wanted to murder me with his hands. He barely whispered, “What?”

“McBride's dead. He fell off a bridge scaffolding into the river and all that was ever found of him were a few pieces and some torn clothes. He was battered to bits in the rapids and what was left I saw buried not two weeks ago.”

You don't tell a guy that somebody's dead when he's looking at the corpse breathing and talking right in front of him. You don't tell him that in one breath and make him believe it. No, first it has to sink in and swirl around then it has to come out in little pieces that don't make any sense at all and show on your face like a blank mask a little too white and a little too strained.

Logan let his legs relax and he teetered on the edge of the bench. “You're lying!”

“There's a death certificate filed if you want to look at it.”

Nobody could have said it the way I did and not be telling the truth. He knew it and I knew it yet his face went cynical as he said, “Then who the hell are you?”

“That,” I told him, “is something I'd like to know myself.”

“You're nuts. You're batty as hell!”

“Nope, I'm not a bit nuts, Logan. It may
seem
nuts, but it's the truth, and like I said, it won't take you more than one phone call to find out for yourself. There's an outfit called the Davitson Construction Company out in Colorado right now. They build bridges and rig oil wells. Ask anybody in charge about it.”

His hands covered his face until all I could see were his eyes. “Keep talking.”

“Believe in coincidence?”

“Sometimes.”

“That's what I ran into. A coincidence that won't happen again for another thousand years. I'll tell you about me and Johnny as far back as I can go, and that's only two years. When I said I don't know who I am that was only partly true. I know
who,
but that's all. I know my name is George Wilson because I had that identification on me at the time of the accident, but there was no address and no history and no way of finding out who I was or where I came from. I didn't know if I had a criminal record or ever served in the army because I don't have any fingerprints. See?”

I turned my hands over and he nodded through a frown. “I heard about that.”

“That's only part of the story, Logan. I can fill in about twelve hours before the accident, but that's all.”

“Let's hear it.”

I pulled out another butt and lit it. “Two years ago the Davitson Company sent out a bus to pick up some construction workers. Fifteen men signed on for the job, threw their luggage on the bus and had a last fling in town. At eleven that night the bus loaded up with fifteen drunks and started on to camp.

“Coming down a steep grade the bus ran off the road, went nose first over a cliff and wound up a burning wreck at the bottom of a gorge. I remember something smashing into my head and being thrown through the air.

“As far as I can figure out, I was knocked cold, lay there on the ground a few minutes, then came around. The bus was a mass of flames and you could smell the men cooking inside. It wasn't very nice. Somebody was screaming his head off and I could see a guy trapped under one of the fenders with the fire starting his way. I managed to crawl over him and lift the wreckage that was pinning him down so he could get out. That's how I lost my fingerprints. The damn metal was red hot.

“Just as we had gotten back about fifteen feet or so the gas in the tanks exploded, knocked us flat and scattered what was left of the bus all over the place. I went out like a light again, only this time it was dark when I woke up.

“The other fellow had found a stream and washed me down. My hands looked like raw meat and the first thing that hit me was that I had lost my memory. I got so excited I went off my rocker a little bit and passed out. Two days later I came around in a company hospital. The other guy had managed to flag a passing car and called for help.

“Here's the funny part. When I came to in that hospital I thought I really was nuts. I was lying on the bed looking up at myself. Screwy, wasn't it? You should've seen how I felt about it. It took a doctor, a couple of nurses and Charlie Davitson himself to convince me I was sane. The guy I was looking at was me in every detail and if we had been born twins we couldn't have been more nearly identical.

“Oh, the doctors went into a big spiel about it. I made a good case history for them; first because I was a true amnesia case and second because of that freakish resemblance to the other guy. His name was John McBride. I had my name written inside my shirt, but that was all I had. My luggage was one of the ones completely destroyed. All the company records and personal papers they carried on us were destroyed too. Some of the bags had been thrown clear and Johnny's was one of them. He was luckier than me all around.

“Anyway, after that the two of us were inseparable. Whatever we did we did together. For two guys we got into enough trouble for ten and they started calling us the ‘Devil's Twins.' ”

I took a drag on the cigarette and let it hang there in my throat. I had gone over it a dozen times in my own mind, but when it came to speaking about it I couldn't get the words out.

“A few weeks ago we were working on a bridge. I slipped and was dangling by a safety rope. I was hanging over a fifty-foot drop and the wind was whipsawing the rope against a girder overhead and fraying it fast. There wasn't much time and it looked hopeless, but Johnny came down his own rope to tie onto me and just as he secured, his own rope broke and he went down into the river. I got hauled up.

“It took a couple of days to locate his remains and bury him. As far as was known, he didn't have any family. I sort of took over his personal effects and went through them. You see, Johnny never talked about himself. I found out why. I came across a letter he had started to write. It was tucked in some old junk where he had forgotten about it, but it gave me an idea of what his life had been like.

“I remember every word of that letter. Want to hear it?”

Logan's nod was scarcely perceptible.

I said, “‘They ran me out of Lyncastle five years ago. They took my money, my honor and my girl. They took everything I had and she laughed while they did it. She laughed because she was part of it and I was in love with her. She laughed then she went with him while that sadistic bastard who works for him tried to kill me with a knife. I ran. I ran and I ran and I'll never stop running as long ...' and that's how it ended.”

“I didn't hear any names,” Logan said.

“That's right. There weren't any names. I don't need any. I'll find out who they were without any names to go by and you know what's going to happen?”

He waited for me to tell him. I let him guess at it. I grinned like a damned fool while he was guessing and he guessed right. He said, “What are you doing this for?”

“For? Because Johnny was the best friend I ever had. He was such a good friend that he died trying to save my life and by God, I'm going to get back everything they took away from him. Hear me?”

“That's big talk. You're taking a lot for granted, aren't you? Without knowing anything about it you're ready to say he wasn't guilty.”

I got up and stuck my cigarettes in my pocket. He was right behind me. “You get to know a guy pretty well in a couple of years. When you eat, sleep and fight together you get so you know all about a guy. Johnny didn't kill anybody.”

We were right in the middle of the dance floor when Logan tapped me on the shoulder. There was something screwy about his face and the way he stood. He was on his toes with his hands hanging limp looking like the pug he might have been at one time.

“That was a nice story, Johnny. I'm going to find out how much of it was true.”

“I told you how you could find out,” I said.

His lips folded back over his teeth. “I got a better way to find out if you're Johnny McBride or not.”

He swung that right hand so hard I barely had time to get under it before he nearly tore the top of my head off. I caught him with the side of my palm across the neck and dug my fist into his belly the same time I rammed him against the wall. I gave him another in the gut doubling him over my shoulder then I had him in my hands and threw him halfway across the floor.

Logan lay there staring at the floor with glassy eyes, his dinner trying hard to get past his clenched teeth. I gave him a good ten seconds to get up and he couldn't make it. He was nuts if he thought I was going to be a sportsman about it. I walked over to him and he was just about to get his goddam teeth kicked down his throat when he turned his head and grinned at me.

That's right, grinned. Like something was funny. His mouth was all bloody and he managed a good, solid grin. “You're okay, Wilson,” he said.

I gave him a hand up, holding him until he could do it by himself. “That was a crazy stunt. What'd it get you?”

“You,” he grinned again. “The real McBride wouldn't've done that. Johnny was as yellow as they come. He was scared to death of getting hurt. You're okay, Wilson.”

“McBride. Johnny McBride, remember?”

“Okay, Johnny.”

“And never get the idea I'm yellow, Logan.”

“No, I won't. I know some others who might think so.”

“They're going to be awfully surprised.”

Logan said, “Yeah,” looked puzzled a second then grinned again.

I HAD TO HELP Logan out to the Chewy and feed him cigarettes until he was ready to go back to town. He kept shaking his head to clear it and there were raw patches on his elbows from where he skidded along the floor, but he wasn't holding it against me.

When he kicked the engine over he said, “Where'd you pick up that rough stuff?”

“That went with the job, I guess.”

“Ever think that you might have been a pug before?”

I frowned at him, then shook my head. “If I was I don't remember it.”

“You're no amateur at that business, kiddo. Suppose I do a little poking around and see what I can find. Maybe you have a history I can run down.”

“Go to it, pal. I tried and didn't get very far.”

“You might not like what I dig up.”

I tossed the cigarette out the window and watched it sizzle out in the water. “Maybe not, but it's better than not knowing,” I told him finally. “Sometimes I get to thinking things that give me the willies. I can do things I didn't know I could do ... or at least my hands do them without thinking. I can handle a rod like a knife and fork and I know how to kill a guy the easy way. One day I found out I could open a lock with a piece of wire as easy as with a key. Nobody ever taught me how to use nitro or a burning torch either. The boys used to kid me ... said I'd make a good safe cracker.

“It was real funny at first, then it wasn't so funny. I picked up an old safe on a dump heap and tried to open it. You know how long it took? Four minutes working the dial. The boys caught me at it and I showed them how to blow the thing apart with a little soup. That door came off like it was sliced off.”

I looked at Logan and grinned. “See what you can do with that angle. Maybe I'm wanted for burglary someplace.”

“And if you are?”

I held out my hands where the fingerprints used to be.

He shrugged. “Lindsey says they can still bring out impressions.”

“Okay, let 'em try. I'm willing.”

“You seem to be pretty cocky about it.”

“Why not? You think I didn't try to find out who I was? Hell, man, I went to the Army, Navy, Marines and Veteran's Bureau trying to see what they could do. I've had a half-dozen doctors and experts try to bring out even the faintest sign of a print. They didn't get anywhere.”

Logan nodded, the warning plain in his face. “I'll look around then. If I dig anything up I'll let you know.”

“Before or after you give it to Lindsey?”

“That depends on how good it is,” he told me.

He swung the car around and headed back up the highway. Traffic was light in both directions and we just loped along taking it easy. I knew he was feeling around for words, then he came right out with it. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Find this Vera you spoke of.”

His face got tight again. “Why her?”

“Because she's the key, that's why. I told you what was in that letter Johnny wrote. They took everything he had and she laughed while they did it because she was part of it.”

“Goddamn it!” His hand smacked the wheel violently. “Don't push everything on her. You're not sure, you knowl”

“You still in love with her?”

“No.” He glanced at me and his face wrinkled up. “No, I'm not. But I was and maybe that makes the difference.”

“How well did you know her?”

“Well enough and long enough to know she wasn't a tramp.”