Man on the run - By Charles Williams Page 0,63

him in the narrow quarters without touching him somewhere. But he wanted to hear me cry out, or beg. My fingers touched the Luger. I pulled it toward me, transferred the marlinespike to my left hand, and picked it up in my right. I stepped softly back. There was still no sound from Boyle.

I touched the railing of the upper bunk on my left with my fingertips to be sure I was in the center of the fo’c’sle. He should be straight ahead of me, a little over twelve feet away. But maybe he was kneeling. I clamped the Luger under my left arm for a moment, reached into my pocket with my right hand and drew out two dimes. I tossed them, aft and a little to the right. They tinkled against the bulkhead to one side of him.

There was no sound of movement, but he laughed. “Mate, you didn’t think I’d fall for that stupid trick, did you?”

I grabbed the Luger in my right, leaned back, and slammed it forward as hard as I could throw, straight at the sound of his voice. There was a sickening sound of impact and something brittle and sharp like breaking bone, and he cried out in pain and rage. The knife clattered on the deck, and I heard him collapse against the ladder.

I rushed forward, swinging the marlinespike. It rang against the handrail of the ladder. I drew it back and swung it again, straight down, and felt it hit him. An arm encircled my legs, and he laughed. It was a terrible sound, bubbling and full of gravel, as if he had blood and broken teeth in his mouth. He heaved upward. I left the deck and crashed over backward, feeling the weight of him as he surged after me. I slashed at him with the marlinespike. It hit him. I put out a hand to find his head so I could hit him where it counted and I felt the hand slide as it came up against the bloody mess of his face, and I swung the steel again and again. A big hand caught my wrist and twisted, and the spike slipped out of my grasp. It rolled away in its crazy circle in the darkness.

Now neither of us had a weapon. I wondered what I could do to him with my bare hands when I couldn’t even hurt him with a solid steel bar. A big fist crashed against the side of my face, and lights exploded in back of my eyes. I rolled, trying to get away from him, and kicked at him with my feet. And then, miraculously, I wasn’t in contact with him anywhere. We were separated and lost from each other in impenetrable darkness like two eyeless and primitive forms of life circling in combat in the ooze at the bottom of the sea. I didn’t know where he was nor where I was myself. All sense of direction was lost.

I knelt, absolutely motionless, and tried to quiet the tortured sound of my breathing. My ribs were pressed against the rail of a bunk, but there was no way to tell whether it was a starboard bunk and I was facing forward, or a port bunk and I was facing aft. I held my breath and listened for him but could hear nothing for the pounding of blood in my ears. He would try to stay between me and the ladder, but he didn’t know where he was either. For some reason, I thought of Suzy Patton. He had probably killed her. I was filled with rage and wanted to get my hands on him. That was insane, and I knew it; the only way I’d ever get out of here alive was to stay away from him until I could find the ladder. I couldn’t fight him. He was like a gorilla; he could kill me with his hands as easily as he’d killed Frances Celaya.

Then I heard something. It was a hollow, tinny sound, and I knew he’d brushed against one of the lockers or bumped it with a shoe. He was completely away from the ladder, at the forward end of the foc’sle. The sound had come from my left, so I stood up and started to move softly in the opposite direction. I put out a hand and touched one of the railings of the ladder. Then he hit me. I fell against the steel steps with his weight