Act Four, Part One
Night was falling as the group reached the back garden without incident. As Jim stepped forward to stride into the scene — thank Heavens this place was empty! — he heard the ka-click of a gun being cocked behind him. "Hold it right there, West!" Parrish ordered.
Jim spun to face him. "You want the Apple, don't you?" he said coolly, folding his arms.
"Yeah, and you're gonna get it for us!"
A small smile quirked the corner of Jim's mouth. "That's what I was doing. If we can get on with this?" He whirled again and set off once more, heading for the far corner of the garden.
There came the click of a gun being uncocked, followed by the sound of hurrying feet. "Where you going?" Parrish demanded.
"The shed there," Jim replied, nodding towards it.
"But we searched that!"
"Not carefully enough." Jim reached the small building and grasped the handle, hoping it was not locked.
It was.
Swiftly Jim drew out the lock pick from under his lapel and defeated the padlock. He wrenched the hasp aside and threw open the door, ready to step into the darkness within the shed — ready, that was, until a pervasive effluvium, both familiar and obnoxious, smacked him right in the nose and spilled out into the night all around him.
Obviously tools weren't the only thing the gardener stored in this shed! Without setting foot inside, Jim reached in and to the right, hoping to find a lantern hanging from a hook there.
This time, at least, he was not disappointed. He pulled a match from his vest pocket, prudently moved a few feet away from the shed first, then flicked the match alight with his thumbnail and lit the lantern.
Parrish was following right at Jim's elbow. "All right, quit stalling. Where's the Apple?" he demanded, his gun aimed at Jim again.
"Where do you think it is?" Jim countered as he drew close once more to the shed door, holding the lantern aloft to illuminate every bit of the interior of the small building.
"Don't play games with me, West! We searched every corner of this miserable hut!"
"You're sure about that? Every corner?" asked Jim. He glanced about, his eyes landing on a stack of fat burlap bags leaning against the far wall. Whether he'd found the Apple or not, Jim had no doubt he'd located the source of the all-penetrating stench.
Parrish was staring at the bags too, holding a big red bandanna over his nose as he rapidly put two and two together. Then…
"Cass!" he barked. "Whose job was it to search this shed?"
The scar-faced man jerked a thumb at a couple of the milling henchmen. "Roy and Roger there. Told me they didn't find anything."
"Yeah? They search them bags?" Both Parrish and Cass turned to glare at the pair.
Jim could tell from the way neither Roy nor Roger met those glares that he'd guessed right: why would they have bothered to touch those smelly bags if they could just say they had instead with no one the wiser? The federal agent took a step back from the door as Parrish shook his revolver at someone who wasn't him for once. "I ain't standing for this!" the gunman snapped. "Now you get in there and you go through every single one of them dad-blamed sacks — every one of you! Now!" And as the minions filed unhappily into the odoriferous shed, Parrish swung the gun back to train it on West again. "And you with the rest of them! Move it!" he growled.
A look of surprise on his face, Jim touched his own chest with one hand. "Me? You're already sending five men in there; there's not going to be room for anyone more."
"Good point," said Parrish. "Ralph, Bennie, you come back out. Make plenty of room in there for our good friend Mr West. And the rest of you," he continued, a sudden grin on his face, "just hang back and let West pick the first bag to search. And if the Apple ain't in it…" Here he cocked his gun anew. "I'll plug you where you stand."
Jim eyed his captor for a moment. Parrish either had forgotten their earlier conversation about why he shouldn't kill West, or had simply gotten past caring by now. All right… As the remaining three minions stepped back — well back! — to give him room, Jim sauntered inside, hung the lantern back up on its hook, planted his fists on his hips for a second as he surveyed the heap of bagged manure, then said, "We'll have to shift the top few to get at the right bag. Here!" Jim grasped the topmost bag and heaved it at the closest minion.
WOOMP! The bag caught the fellow full in the chest and knocked him on his keister. As yelling filled the air and Parrish tried to get a bead on West, the agent snatched the small knife from its pocket at the nape of his neck and fired the blade towards the door.
The next moment the shed was plunged into darkness as the knife found its mark, shattering the glass of the lantern. A moment later came an "Oof!"as Jim plowed into one of the other two henchmen in the shed with him. Loud scuffling ensued, while Parrish barked at Cass for a match, a candle, any sort of light by which he could see what was happening.
It took less than half a minute — which felt like ages — before Cass found a candle stub from his pocket and got it lit. He flattened himself against one side of the doorjamb and held up the light so Parrish could look inside.
Where was West? There was Roy on the floor, out cold — Roger too — while the final guy, Sid, lay sprawled and still under that bag of manure. But where was West? Cautiously Parrish entered, gun at the ready, waving Ralph and Bennie in behind him.
THWACK!The handle of a garden rake, the business end to which it was attached casually covered by an empty burlap bag, whizzed up off the floor and nailed Ralph right between the eyes. As Parrish and Bennie whirled to see Ralph collapsing, a large clay pot came spinning out of nowhere to clonk Bennie on the head. And as that minion fell as well, Parrish wheeled once more, looking to aim at wherever the pot had come from.
Only to find what he was actually looking at was the rapidly-approaching flat of a shovel. CLONG!
And now Jim, the last man standing inside the shed, scooped up Parrish's fallen gun and bounded for the door.
"Not so fast, Mr West!" Just outside, with the candle in one hand and a cocked revolver in the other, was the scar-faced man. "You may have taken out the others, but there's still me left."
"That's what it looks like," Jim agreed. "Cass, was it?" He eyed this final opponent, his own gun also cocked, also aimed, also ready, as he took the measure of Parrish's right-hand man. Would Cass shoot? Jim wasn't convinced he would. This, after all, was the man who had managed to calm Parrish down, making solid objections against his boss simply killing their prisoner and getting it over with. If Cass had been coolheaded then, why not now as well? "How about we put away the guns and talk this over like a couple of reasonable men, hmm?" said Jim.
"Yeah? And how about you get back in there and fetch me that golden Apple, hmm?" Cass countered, making a slight gesture toward the shed with his gun.
"And have you lock me up inside it as soon as I'm in there, with a whole bunch of men who aren't going to be members of my fan club when they wake up? I don't think so."
Cass' eyes narrowed. "Then you were bluffing! That Apple ain't in there! So where is it? I want it and I want it right now, so you better not play anymore of your gam…"
BLAM!
Both men flinched at the sound of the gunshot; both whirled toward the source of the sound. They stared up at a balcony high overhead, its open French doors leading into one of the hotel rooms on the third floor.
"That's the Bracewell suite," said Jim almost instantly.
"Brace… Miss Lana!" cried Cass, turning pale.
And both men took off running back into the hotel, pelting along the hallway, then through the lobby and on up the stairs, both uncertain as to what they might find when they arrived at their destination.
…
Voices. Arguing voices. Both female. One was Atalanta's, and the other… Well, it sure sounded like Atalanta's as well! From the floor where he'd landed after his thickly padded bulletproof vest had done its job — though at the expense of a bruise he'd be nursing for weeks to come, he had no doubt — Artie cracked open an eye to see what he could see.
"You killed her! I cannot believe you did that!" came the one voice, somewhat huskier, somewhat older, than Atalanta's.
"Oh, please!" Lana replied. "You can hardly fault me over that, considering that you killed Father."
"I killed him, you silly little girl, because he recognized me! I couldn't have him ruining everything by blabbering to those Federal agents about whom he'd seen, could I? Which he certainly would have done, and you know it! But at any rate, the fact that he hadn't taken the Apple made him of no further importance — unlike your sister! With the old fool eliminated as the thief, obviously she was the one who'd hidden it. And with her now dead, thanks to you — we shall never find it!"
"Oh, no worries about that!" said Lana smugly. "Once Polly knew she was dying, she had to tell someone where it was; she couldn't abide for her great act of brilliance to go unappreciated. So she told him." And Artie saw the young woman's fine fair hand pointed straight at himself.
"Yes, yes, and you so brilliantly overheard her; brava, my dear! But I still say you ran an awful risk. What if she hadn't told him? Or what if she lied?"
"Lied? To him? She was showing off to him! No, I heard her. 'It's in my bust,' she said." Lana came and bent over Hippolyta now, patting at her, tugging at her.
The other, arms folded and tapping an angry foot, watched until it was plainly evident that Lana's search was in vain. "Ah, you see?" she said coldly. "It's not there, Lana. You've lost it to us forever! What good are two of the Golden Apples without the third, you little fool!"
"It's here; it has to be! I know she wasn't lying! She…" Suddenly she gave a laugh. "No, not lying — slurring! That potion of his had taken effect, and she didn't quite say the last word right. Here, help me turn her over…"
Together they rolled Hippolyta off the sofa entirely. "Yes, that will do," said Lana. "It ought to be… Ah, right there! See?" Suddenly Lana was dangling a soft cloth pouch high in the air. "Not bust but bustle!I had wondered why dear sister Polly had suddenly adopted such a fashionable clothing accessory. She's been hiding this Apple in her bustle all this time."
"Never mind flaunting how clever you are, Lana," said the other brusquely. "Open that. Open it now! I want to see the final Apple!"
"Well of course," said Lana meekly as she handed over the pouch. "Here you go, Mama."