“Shoulda killed me when you had the chance, boy,” roared Dill gleefully.
Something hit Dill on the head. Archer saw Jackie standing there with a lamp. However, Dill let one hand go from Archer, flung his fist around, and knocked Jackie off her feet. She fell with a thud.
But Dill’s actions allowed Archer an opportunity, of which he took full advantage.
Archer reached what he needed in his pocket and then stabbed Dill in the side with the clasp knife, driving it up to the hilt in the man’s belly. Then a second time and then a third just for good measure.
Dill coughed up blood in Archer’s face, his grip lessened, and he finally let go and fell on his back onto the floor.
Archer stood on unstable legs and looked down at the man, just as Dill gazed up at him and snarled something incomprehensible. He tried to rise up as Archer took a step back, his knife held at the ready. Archer put his foot on the man’s chest and pushed him down, holding him there.
Archer had killed even more men in the war than he had let on to Jackie. And he had no compunction about ending the lives of any of them. He only thought about it later, actually, and then there had been no real remorse, only anger at the situation in which he’d been placed to have to kill another. He had no remorse this time, either. Not even close. Just relief.
“Dammit, just die, Dickie,” he said quietly.
And a few moments later, after a throat curdle and a body shiver, the man’s eyes grew rigid and his chest grew still as his life ended.
Archer turned to Jackie and helped her up. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said shakily. “I’m fine. Just sore from where he hit me.”
“Turn a light on,” he said. He dropped his bloodied knife and raced over to Shaw, who was on the floor, his back against the wall.
Jackie turned on the nightstand lamp. Shaw was holding his arm where blood was leaching out. He had pulled the knife free, which might not have been a good thing.
Archer helped him off with his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeve.
“Jackie, get me a towel. Do you have any bandages? And I’ll need some hot water and soap. And some liquor. And some hydrogen peroxide if you got it.”
Jackie rushed out of the room and returned with all of the items, including a bottle of brandy. Archer used his belt as a tourniquet above the wound, stanching the flow of blood.
“Give him the liquor,” said Archer.
Jackie helped Shaw to drink it straight from the bottle.
Archer cleaned and bandaged the wound.
“We got to get you to the hospital,” said Archer, helping the other man up. Shaw, gray faced, merely nodded.
“Jackie, get dressed and grab a few things. I’m taking you some place safe.”
She looked over at the dead man and the unconscious man and didn’t argue.
Shaw said slowly, “Got cuffs in my jacket pocket. You cuff that SOB over there so he can’t get away.”
Archer did as he was told, and when he turned the man over, he saw that it was Malcolm Draper. The man had finally turned up. He cuffed his hands behind his back and said to Jackie, who was getting dressed in her closet, “Throw me a belt.”
She did so, and he hog-tied the man’s legs with the belt, intersecting it through the handcuffs.
Archer drove the Buick straight to the hospital, which was a block over from the Derby. While the doctor attended Shaw, the detective had Archer call the police station and tell them what had happened at Jackie’s. Deputies were sent over to secure the area and arrest Draper.
As Shaw lay on the gurney he stared up at Archer. “You saved my damn life, Archer.”
“Just glad I was there. And you saved Jackie’s life. Dickie woulda killed her for sure if you hadn’t winged him. And you saved me, too, when you think about it. Not sure I could’ve got the upper hand with him if he hadn’t been wounded. You rest easy now. I’ll be back.”
He left with Jackie and drove her over to Ernestine’s, where he rapped hard on the door.
When a sleepy Ernestine opened the door, she looked confused when she saw Archer. But when she spied Jackie standing there, her features froze.
“Ernestine Crabtree, Jackie Tuttle,” said Archer by way of introduction.
The women, Archer thought, looked like two prizefighters about to do business in the ring.