Dirty Harry 04 - The Mexico Kill (11 page)

Harry turned back to the others. A small crowd had collected to watch this unexpected drama.

“Get the hell out of here!” he urged Max’s three standing antagonists.

Grabbing their prostrate friend, they did exactly that.

Max offered Harry a petulent look. He didn’t like being rescued.

“I could’ve handled them,” he muttered.

“Sure you could’ve, Max, sure you could’ve.”

“You don’t believe me?”

Anxious to be rid of him, Harry saw no point in arguing. “Oh, I believe you all right. Now why don’t you go do something about those stab wounds. We don’t want you bleeding to death.”

Max regarded the blood oozing down his shirt and pants legs with indifference; he was determined to show Harry how macho he was. Nothing can touch me was his attitude. Thinking like that, Harry concluded, would get him dead one day.

Wendy approached Max now. She did not, as Harry would have suspected, blanch at the sight of his partially perforated body.

“You’re going to have to get a cab because we’re not about to take you to the hospital, Max.”

Max glowered at her. He’d expected better. Maybe he’d had vision of walking off into the sunset with Wendy, leaving a spoor of blood behind him. Could be he’d provoked this fight just to attract her attention. Whatever his motive it wasn’t working.

He grunted and walked away from them. Harry wondered when he was going to start registering the pain.

“He’ll be all right,” Wendy said as though this was the sort of assurance Harry was seeking. “He’s always doing shit like this.”

“It seems I’m already getting into practice saving his life. The way it looks to me it could become a full-time occupation.”

“I do appreciate this, Harry.”

He stopped her. “Wendy, I haven’t said yes yet. You’re not paying attention.”

She shrugged, no longer interested in discussing the subject. “You hungry?”

Harry wasn’t. In fact, he’d just about run clear out of energy. Intervening on Max’s behalf had done him in. He felt shaky, his legs might just as well have turned into jelly for all the support they gave him.

“You’re looking very pale,” Wendy remarked. “Maybe you should’ve stayed in the hospital.”

“I’m not going back there. The food they serve you is shit. Doesn’t just taste bad, it’s positively unhealthy. Griddlecakes and bacon for breakfast? Make you sick all over again. Though I suppose it’s good for repeat business. No, all I need is just a good night’s sleep.”

“Where do you live?”

“I brought my car, no problem.”

“You’re in no condition to drive. I’ll take you home.” She held up her hand, unwilling to listen to any protests. “My car’s right here.” She gestured to the cocoa-colored BMW, which sparkled brilliantly in the dying sunlight.

Since she seemed so determined, and since he felt so drained, he did not offer any further resistence. He got in the BMW, settled back against the welcoming upholstery, and promptly fell asleep.

Day or night? No telling, not with the shades down and the curtains drawn. And hardly a noise from the street to indicate the hour: a car passing, a dog’s plaintive bark, that was it. Any other sounds were blotted out by the monotonous whirring of the fan that was planted in one of the far windows.

Though Harry had no recollection of getting out of Wendy’s BMW and mounting the stairs to his apartment and crawling into bed, it was obvious that he had done all these things. Because he was in bed, caught between oblivion and half-wakefulness. A weird pain was moving up his leg and settling into his thigh. The more awake he became the more of it there’d be.

Gradually, through the haze, he became aware that he was not alone in the room, and as soon as that thought impressed itself upon him, he reacted instinctively and groped for his gun. It was where he usually placed it—no matter how enfeebled he got he always knew enough to keep a weapon within reach of his bed.

His action only produced a fit of giggles. Standing at the door to the bathroom was Wendy, a disarming smile on her face and nothing on her body. In the partial darkness she was more shadow than flesh, a triumph of the human body. “Are you going to shoot me?”

Harry didn’t answer. Feeling foolish, he put the gun down.

Approaching the bed, she moved quietly, almost stealthily, as though she expected her husband or one of her husband’s spies to ambush her. Suddenly recalling Harold’s vendetta against Max, and all those who would steal Wendy away from him, Harry wondered if he hadn’t been right to grab hold of the gun before determining who there was available to use it on.

It was, however, enormously difficult keeping Harold or his vendetta in mind as he looked at Wendy. Truth was he didn’t just look at her, he studied her. Her skin, he saw now that she was closer to him, was dusky, tanned everywhere from her long afternoons of sunbathing. A trickle of perspiration was visible between her breasts which swayed slightly in response to the motion of her long legs as she drew them onto the bed. Drops of moisture, like tiny jewels, glimmered on the dark triangle of hair between her legs.

“Hello, Harry,” she whispered, nestling down under the covers.

“I don’t think this is such a terrific idea,” was what he started to say, again thinking of Harold, but it wasn’t a sentence he was able to complete.

She pressed herself against him and in doing so inadvertently prodded some tender patches of flesh. But the pain was nothing compared to the pleasure she brought him. It was better than being fished out of the deep.

When he awoke again the sun was high enough in the sky to make its presence known inside Harry’s apartment. Shafts of hot July light streamed in through the drawn shades and the pulled curtains.

Opening his eyes, Harry blinked. Something needed doing today, he was sure, but couldn’t quite remember what it was. The other side of his bed was bare. He thought that maybe Wendy had slipped away during the night. Before he could ascertain this for certain the phone began ringing.

“Callahan,” he answered in a groggy voice.

“Did I awake you, Harry?”

It was Harold. Christ, it was Harold.

“It’s all right. What time is it?”

“Eight-thirty. I’ve been up for two hours now.”

Harry had every reason to believe Harold was going to ask him what had happened to Wendy. Wendy had gone shopping and left the door open for herself or else had found the key and used it to get herself back in because she was right now stepping into the apartment, a big brown bag hugged to her chest, calling, “Harry? Are you up?” in a voice loud enough (Harry was sure) for it to be heard on the other end of the wire.

“I got us breakfast,” she said before she realized he was on the phone, his hand over the mouthpiece to prevent Harold from hearing anything more incriminating. “Sorry.” She clearly had no idea whom he was talking to.

“Harry, are you still there?” Either Harold had not heard his wife or else he chose to ignore her.

“I’m still here.”

“I know you said you’d call me but frankly, I’m an impatient man, and I’m anxious to learn of what you decided.”

“What I decided,” Harry repeated dully, then remembered: the boat, the trip down to Mexico, Max. “Shit.” The imprecation came automatically.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, I have to know. Are you with me, Harry?”

Harry looked over toward Wendy who was obliviously unpacking the goods she’d purchased, putting some of them into the depleted refrigerator and leaving others on the table. Even though she was wearing the clothes she’d had on the night before she still looked incredible, especially early in the morning. Whenever she leaned forward the slit in her white skirt would part to reveal a mesmerizing stretch of trim golden leg; he was getting fixated almost to the point of forgetting about Harold.

“Harry? Is something wrong with your connection?”

“No. Everything’s fine with this connection. What the hell, sure.”

“What the hell sure what?”

“What the hell, sure, I’ll go to Mexico for you.”

“That’s great, Harry, that’s marvelous. Come by later this afternoon.”

Wendy, for the first time realizing who it was, turned to face Harry, then threw her hand over her mouth to keep the laughter from getting out.

C H A P T E R
N i n e

“S
later Bodkin, what kind of a name is Slater Bodkin?”

Harry turned to the lean, practically emaciated figure who sat beside him on the pier, waiting to see how the man would react.

“I don’t rightly know. Doesn’t sound Italian, does it? It’s the name my mama gave me. Not my papa. We come from what you’d call a very indeterminate heritage.”

With his cap tugged down to shadow his gnarled brow and with his unlit pipe dangling between his lips, he looked the picture of the classic sea captain. He could have shipped out with the
Pequod
and gone looking for Moby Dick.

Slater loved to talk. From Harry’s first introduction to the man, he’d picked up on his loquacious tendencies. “I been sailing Harold’s boats for going on forty years now. I remember the first boat he had, a ketch you could barely shit in. That was before he was making any money fall. Me and him, we’d go out fishing together. Salt water must be in our blood, I always told him. Shame about what happened to the
Hyacinth.
I’d have been on it but for the business with my back.”

Here he twisted around so that Harry could better see his back. There was nothing to interest him there.

“Shot to hell. Tuna that did it. You ever try and catch a tuna, a really big tuna?”

Harry owned that he’d never done so.

“Tuna can be a bitch. Trouble is it thinks it’s better than you are.” Slater hesitated, spat out some phlegm that he’d kept rolling around in his mouth like chewing gum. “Generally it is. Well, one time I was foolish enough to think I could outfox one. Can’t outfox no tuna, you can outlast it sometimes, but you can’t outfox one, don’t care what anyone says. Pulled my back something awful. Never quite recovered. Then I go ahead and do some damn thing and strain it all over again and I have to lay up for a month. Can’t even walk to the can it gets so bad. Have to use one of those bedpans. It’s generally humiliating.”

Harry nodded. Almost nodded out. How he wondered was he going to take a stretch of days, maybe weeks, in this man’s company? But he was fortunate in one thing. Slater didn’t seem to need him in order to conduct a conversation; a couple of grunts, an affirmative mumble were quite sufficient for him.

“So I wasn’t with the crew down Mexico way when those pirates came aboard. I’ve seen pirates in my time. Once off the coast of Colombia I remember I was on a ship, a couple of them bastards crept up on deck, knifed one of the watches something terrible, conked the other one over the head. You want to know what they were looking for?”

“What’s that? Oh no, have no idea.”

“They were looking for Colombian cash. Seems we print the damn stuff here in the States, ship it down there. Funny, how it works. All the worthless currency in the world, including our own, and we got to be printing it. Generally adds insult to injury, wouldn’t you say?”

Harry said that sounded right to him.

“You done much sailing in your time?”

“Couple of motorboats now and again.”

“Mmmm. Thought so. You looked to me like you got land in your blood. I can sense when somebody’s done his tour and when he hasn’t. So Harold wants you on as security.”

“He tell you that?”

“No, old Harold he don’t tell me shit. But there’d be no other reason for you, the way I see it. He’s thinking there’ll be more pirates, I suppose. Don’t go getting the wrong impression. You fight off pirates; and that’s what you’re good at, well, fine with me. I’m too old, and my back’s too far gone, to do that sort of shit any longer. But that don’t give you the right to shirk your responsibilities running the ship when nothing exciting’s happening.”

“I have no intention of that.”

Slater grabbed Harry’s hand and shook it vigorously. “Then we’ll get along just fine.”

Harry now directed his eyes toward the clipboard he held in his hands. On it was a paper with the names of prospective crew members. One of them was already confirmed—Max Wilmier. It was written in Slater’s handwriting.

“You been out with this joker before?”

Slater’s eyebrows rose just slightly. “I take it you met Max. People when they meet Max generally don’t take so well to him. Yes, I been out with him. Got nothing much for a mind, I admit you that, but he’s a damn hard worker, believe it or not. Doesn’t have to have anything in his belly, he’ll toil in the tropical sun for you all day and all night too if you want. Never complains, never tires down. Problem is if he gets a little too much to drink, can’t control him then. Always have to pull him out of altercations. T’weren’t for my niece I wouldn’t have signed him on.”

“Wendy’s your niece? You got one hell of a family, I’ll tell you.”

“Some girl,” he said with a mysterious smile. And that, to Harry’s surprise, was all he had to say on the subject of Wendy Keepnews. He might have talked a bluestreak on everything else but about Wendy he was uncharacteristically quiet.

Slater and Harry had rented an unused bait shack at the edge of the pier, just a five-minute jog down from the tourist bazaar on Fisherman’s Wharf, and here they interviewed the men who came seeking work on a boat Harold hadn’t gotten around to purchasing yet. Didn’t matter, Harold had told them, they had only to find three men who seemed both able and minimally trustworthy.

The men came because they’d heard about the job in the local saloons or because they’d gotten wind of it down on the docks where the fish were offloaded early every morning.

Slater didn’t exactly interview any of them. He was convinced that he had the intuitive powers to judge a man from the mere sight of him. Harry, who was not averse to intuition, still had his doubts regarding Slater’s methods. Especially when he’d selected his choice of a crew from among the parade of mostly scurvy-looking individuals who turned up at the pier.