Billingsgate Shoal (35 page)

"No. They're going to our people in the south,
to give the Irish bastards a taste of their own medicine. The arms we
send from here will be used to kill the IRA murderers and terrorists.
If things get rough—as they will, I'm sure—then they'll be used
against the populace of the south. If they can do it to us, we can do
it to them."

She smiled serenely. It looked totally incongruous
that this middle-aged, stylish woman should be holding a military
rifle. But hold it she did, and with evident familiarity too.

"I remember now, you're English—"

"My, my, you certainly have dug around; haven't
you, Doctor? Yes, I'm British. But my home was Ulster, not England;
My family owned a factory in Belfast, until it was bombed out by the
thugs from the south. When my father wouldn't give in to them, they
killed him and burnt the factory to the ground. We were ruined. We
came here to start all over again. I was so desperate for money I
married a man I couldn't stand,—a tinkerer-genius who founded his
own company. Living with him was pure hell. For years I looked for a
way out."

She looked in Schilling's direction, then back at me.
I looked at both of them quickly, then back at Laura. Then I shot a
quick glance at John, who slumped scowling in the far doorway as if
unsure what to do.

"Does he know about how you killed Walter?"
I asked.

They were both silent for a few seconds. Then
Schilling came back. I thought he was going to hit me again, but he
didn't. Bless his cowardly heart.

"You may not know this," he said to me,
"but changing the
Windhover
into
Penelope
was
entirely Walter's idea. He made arrangements with Murdock's Boatyard
and had the bogus papers drawn up in the name of Wallace Kinchloe—"

"Yeah, I know. And so do the police. I assume
you two got wind of the scheme just at its completion and stepped in
to take delivery of the boat from Danny Murdock, right? The fact that
the boat owner's wife was one of the parties claiming the vessel no
doubt convinced Murdock that Kincaid hadn't been betrayed."

"You've got it, almost exactly. Laura overheard
a snatch of phone conversation between Walter and Murdock one
afternoon as she went to his study to ask him about some bills.
Before she knocked on his study door she heard his voice on the
phone. The four words that stuck in her memory were: Why don't you
tell Adams what they were, Laura?"

"Keep your mouth shut," she replied.

"So you intercepted your husband's plan to
disappear just at the right time. His own game plan insured your
success."

"That's true," said the big man, "but
you must keep in mind what a thorough son of a bitch Walter Kincaid
really was . . .and what ungodly hell he put us, and all his
employees,.through."

I sensed I had one hole card left. I had to play it
exactly right or I'd cash in my chips—involuntarily—and wind up
as crab bait at the bottom of that big, dark hole.

"Laura, I'm going on a long shot here, but I'm
assuming that Walter didn't exactly leave you sitting pretty. Did he
leave you the house? Is that all?"

She looked at me for almost ten seconds, the hate in
her eyes growing all the time.

"Not even that. Just the furniture. The company
got the house. Can you believe it?"

"I can believe it, Laura. I can also believe
your late husband was a pretty smart operator. Perhaps he sensed your
hatred, your infidelity?"

"Infidelity!"

She brought the butt of the rifle around sharply into
my jaw. Had it been solid wood it would have done real damage. As it
was the nylon stock threw my head back and made the right side of my.
jaw ache. It wasn't that bad. I knew I was in for much worse.

"Listen to me now," I said. "I happen
to know that your crackpot husband struck it rich, big. He finally
found that treasure trove he'd devoted his life to. I intercepted
mail to an elite commodities trader that proves it. I know where the
treasure is. You don't. I don't know how much you're expecting to
make off these hauls, Schilling, but I can promise you it won't even
touch what the late Walter Kincaid has laid up in his secret
hidey-hole."

"Oh bullshit," said Schilling.

"No. He was headed for the Bahamas. You knew
that of course, didn't you?"

"No. How did you find that out?" he asked.

"Kincaid had a post office box in Boston under
the name Wallace Kinchloe—the same name he used for the
Penelope's
papers. I got access to the box through the
police. He had bought a condominium on St. Thomas for three hundred
thousand, and had also arranged for the deposit of a large quantity
of gold bullion—tax-free—on the island of Grand Cayman. Kincaid
was not only going to lose himself, he was going in style."

"And where's the gold now?"

I stayed quiet. Schilling looked over at John.

"Now Adams, see that fellow who escorted you in
here? He's a former member of the Provisional Wing of the IRA. He
betrayed them, and now has their death sentence on his head. He knows
a good deal about interrogation, don't you, John?"

The stocky man with the blue watery eyes nodded
quickly. His expression didn't change.

"He knows things like how to scrape your
shinbone with a knife blade, and how to smash your knees and
shoulders with a mechanic's hammer. . .don't you, John?"

I didn't like the sound of any of this. And I knew
that once they had the information they needed I was done for. I
looked at my watch again. It was ten to four. Pray to God DeGroot
would awaken.

Laura Kincaid approached me. Her face and eyes showed
absolutely no emotion.

"Where is it?" she asked. Her tone was
polite, clipped.

"No," I said, and that was all.

Then I felt my entire lower half go red with searing
pain. Laura Kincaid drew her canvas-clad foot back again to deliver
another full kick to my crotch, but I had crossed my legs. I bit
through my tongue in the pain, and half rolled over. I watched the
spit and blood run out of my mouth through clenched teeth. I think I
was whining or screaming with my mouth shut. The yellow concrete
floor rolled back and forth. I felt another kick in the small of my
back, and my head sank down onto my arms.

"Where is it, you shit! Where is it!"

I felt another kick, and another. . .and another. . .
and another.

Things went dark and swirly for a while, then I heard
Schilling's voice right above my ear.

"I really think she'll kick you to death, you
know, if you don't tell us."

"Get away, you oaf. Let me handle it—"

"Laura, please—"

The last thing I remembered before passing out again
was that Big Jim Schilling didn't call the shots. Tiny, pert, trim
Laura Kincaid had him by the short hairs. I didn't blame Walter
Kincaid for trying to lose himself one little bit. When I woke up
they had propped me up against the crates. They commenced to get very
nasty. What they did to me almost mined what little faith I have in
the human race. I can't talk much about it, even now, because it
makes me want to get a job in a munitions factory. John shot a grim
and determined glance at me now and then, but did nothing more. It
was only after I finally admitted that the gold—a fortune in
bullion—lay sealed in the
Rose's
hull that they dragged me over to the edge of the pit. I was kneeling
down in front of it. I couldn't see into. the empty blackness, but I
heard the sloshing of water, the gurgle of slime and cold wet.

"Poor Doctor Adams, and such a handsome devil
too. Your wife's going to miss you—"

And it was at that point that the horror and
indignity of the situation hit me with full force. Until then I was
immersed in fear or pain, or both. But now, I heard the words with an
indescribable mixture of hatred and outrage. Outrage at what would
happen to Mary and the boys.

"Hold on. It's not wise, I think, to do this
now."

It was John. He was standing next to me.

Then he began to move casually toward Laura. He moved
in an awkward shuffle, but moved nonetheless. He had replaced the
Walther in his coat. He approached Laura Kincaid, who had again
picked up the Colt Armalite Commando. She cradled the short-version
assault rifle in her arms rather clumsily now, tired from her
exertion. Still there would be no arguing with the clip of
high-velocity rounds she could send forth at the twitch of her
finger.

"Nobody can hear it. I want him out."

John was moving toward her. He shambled, but moved
with a certain ominous stealth and deliberation that she picked up.

"Hey, did you search him?" asked Schilling.

John hesitated half a second, then shook his head. It
was the half-second wait that did him in. I think he remembered that
I'd had a gun before, and if he answered no and they found one on me,
it was all over for him.

"Forgot. I thought Hartzos searched him."

Schilling patted me down quickly and recovered the
Buck folding hunter knife. It was long but trim; it was no wonder
Hartzos hadn't seen a bulge in my hip pocket.

Laura Kincaid backed up two steps warily, eyeing
John.

"Get back from him, Jim. Get back from both of
them."

"But I've got the knife—"

"Get back! John's not the kind to forget to
search somebody they've found upstairs. What about it? Better speak
up."

"I have naw idea what you mean, mum—"

"Look. Jim and I have wondered about you for
some time now. You disappear nights—"

"Just to go down the boozer, mum. Get a drop."

"Now look. This is the last haul; by noon we'll
be out of the country. Either you'll be with the rest of us aboard
the
Coquette
, or else
you'll be joining the nosy doctor here, swinging around the bottom
with a bad case of the crabs."

"Mrs. Kincaid, I dawn't—"

"Jim, get his gun. Now. You move an inch, John,
and you're dead. Why didn't you search the doctor. Why?"

Schilling slid his huge arm into John's coat and
retrieve the Walther with amazing quickness. There went our last ?
hope.

"I told you. I thought Hartzos would have gone
over him."

I saw her raise the rifle up and aim it at my head. I
shut my eyes tight and winced, but looked out through the slits,
blurry and dim. Surrealistic. I was in a bad, bad dream.

Laura Kincaid was smart all right. She suspected John
the instant she realized he hadn't given me a third-degree search,
and now she made John show his hand, because he jumped for her gun,
caught it by the barrel as if it were a striking rattler, and flung
it out of her hands. But the big man grabbed him, spun him around,
and mashed him hard under the jaw with a very big hard hand. With
methodical coolness she retrieved the weapon. Schilling raised his
arm above John and clipped him on the neck. The double whammy dropped
him hard, and he joined me at the brink of the pit.

"Laura, I repeat: the place is being watched.
They know I'm here. Whatever you do, they'll find out. Use your
head."

I hoped like nothing else in the world she believed
me. She stood silent for perhaps ten seconds. It seemed like an hour.
Then she kept the gun on us while she called Schilling back with her.
They whispered together, keeping us well covered. I heard the phrase
"then go back to the boat" more than once. Then I heard
three words of dread. I knew that John heard them too because I saw
the brief, fleeting look of terror cross his face, then a look
of—disappointment. Not further terror, or extreme sadness, just
disappointment. Chagrin, as if having lost a good poker hand.

The three words were: Do it now.

I stared down at the black hole in the floor where
the water sloshed. I saw two brief streaks of silver light reflection
in a faint ripple, then they vanished. That was my life in there:
that will-o'-the-wisp flicker of light for maybe a fiftieth of a
second, then black again. I heard Laura Kincaid walking back to us.
Slow measured steps. I turned and looked at her. At her eyes. They
were the eyes of a pit bulldog. She stopped right behind John,
perhaps a yard away. Without a word, she raised up the rifle until
the muzzle pointed right at the back of his head. John didn't even
turn around. He knelt on the floor, looking ahead of himself and
down. His lips were moving, and he had that same disappointed look on
his face. But it was gradually replaced by a look of intense
concentration, and then of profound love. I heard him say, in a
whisper so delicate it was barely audible, "Now take care of
yerself, Billy. Take care of your mother—and may you be happy too,
for all the days of your life—May Gad bless—"

I turned to look at the water again before I heard
the shot. I didn't want to see John die.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE SHOT WAS like a pneumatic spring compressor. It
was not the sound I was expecting. It went
ptou!
An obscene, single-syllable French word. I had my eyes closed by
then, and heard a heavy slumping to the ground. I murmured a thought
in my mind: And May God bless. Oh Christ. . .May
God
bless.