The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

THREE

Vin Miller awoke with a smile on his face. He had enjoyed one hell of a night with one hell of a woman. Vera Marlowe hadn’t been at all what he’d expected, but she was something, all the same.

Full of surprises, that was Vera. For one thing, she was a take-charge kind of gal, and Vin was surprised to find that her sexual boldness suited him just fine. For another, he hadn’t had to listen to Dion or Fabian or Bobby Rydell or even Elvis while they’d been at it. The only sounds he’d heard were the standard bedspring symphony and the music of Vera’s moans.

All that moaning didn’t come from Vera, though. She kept a parrot in the kitchen, and when Vera started up, so did the damn bird. Not that Vin had the notion that he was Vera’s first or anything, but he figured that bird must have been witness to a whole lotta moanin’ goin’ on to pick up on it like that.

Now, in the light of morning, it was quiet in the house. Vera was still asleep, her lips all pouty, and she looked more like Carroll Baker than ever. Vin rolled over on his side, all ready to give her a wake-up kiss, and his stomach growled.

That was when he remembered the steaks. Big, thick T-bones. Vera had taken them out of the freezer before they’d adjourned to the bedroom, promising that she’d help him work up an appetite for a big steak and eggs breakfast.

Man oh man, was he ready for that. He rolled out of bed, pulled on his jockeys and tight slacks. Something about last night made him chuckle. Vera Marlowe, the take-charge kind of gal. At least her silk scarves hadn’t left any telltale marks on his wrists or ankles. Vin didn’t know if the whole thing felt particularly right… he only knew that it sure as hell felt a long way from wrong.

What the hell. Maybe he’d go with it, just this once.

Maybe he’d cook Vera’s breakfast.

Barefooted, Vin padded into the kitchen.

He almost slipped in the blood.

Beef blood puddled on yellow linoleum. That’s all it was. Vin breathed a sigh of relief. The blood must have overflowed the little plate as the steaks thawed, then dribbled off the counter and puddled on the floor. But then Vin saw that it wasn’t a puddle of blood; it was a scrawl.

Three words: LET HIM GO.

Vin shivered. He glanced at the sideboard. The steaks were gone, but the T-bones were still there. Picked clean. Gnawed.

“Jesus Christ.” Vin turned toward the phone, and that was when he saw the open bird cage, the dusting of green and yellow feathers on the kitchen table.

Vera Marlowe’s parrot had moaned its last.

Beyond the table, the back door stood open. Vin moved toward it, afraid of what he might find outside.

He expected that he might see any number of frightening things… but Sheriff Dwight Cole wasn’t one of them.

They were on the kitchen floor, rolling around in the beef blood, when Vera fired Vin Miller’s revolver over their heads.

“You can stop it, right now!” she said.

Vera’s bedside manner still fresh in his mind, Vin did exactly as ordered. Dwight couldn’t help himself. He sucker-punched Vin Miller behind the ear, and the deputy went down like something big and dead.

Vera tossed Vin’s gun onto the kitchen table. “You okay, Dwight?” she asked.

He nodded. “How about you?”

“Well… I’ve been better.” She looked down at Vin Miller and almost laughed, because the musclebound deputy had split his tight pants in the wrestling match. “It’s a shame,” she said wistfully. “Sometimes the best lookin’ broncos are the easiest to break.”

Dwight left that one alone, and Vera went for a robe. The sheriff took the opportunity to phone the jail. There was, of course, good news and bad news.

Deputy Hastings had won three of four checker games, and the prisoner was quiet as could be. That was the good news. The bad news could be shoehorned into two words… more trouble.

Dwight instructed Hastings to collect Vin Miller and lock him up. He cradled the receiver before the elderly deputy could give him an argument, and started for the door just as Vera returned to the kitchen.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked, cinching a black silk robe around her middle.

“To the cemetery,” Dwight said. “A call just came in.”

Vera’s full lips twisted into a formidable frown.

“I’m not kidding, Vera. There’s trouble.”

The big blonde toed the concussed deputy. She pointed at the smeared beef blood on the linoleum floor, and the gnawed steak bones on the counter, and the parrot feathers, which had blown every which way in all the excitement.

“Trouble? What the hell do you call this?”