Like A Hole In The Head (23 page)

     He remained sitting on the parapet for a long moment, then he got to his feet.

     "What have I to lose? I still think you're crazy, but anything is better than sitting here, waiting for a bullet."

     "Have you any money?"

     He cocked his head on one side.

     "I've a couple of hundred in my room."

     "That'll do."

     As he started towards the trap door, I caught hold of his arm.

     "You take the rifle. I'll go first. You wait here . . . I'll call you."

     I saw his eyes widen in the moonight.

     "You think they could be here already?" His voice sank to an uneasy whisper.

     "They could be. From now on, I'm taking no chances. Give me your gun."

     He hesitated, then he picked up the automatic and handed it to me as I handed him the rifle.

     I moved to the trap door and listened, then holding the gun in my hand, I swung myself down into the darkness. I heard nothing and nothing happened. It wasn't until I had been through the whole house, moving like a shadow, that I was satisfied that Raimundo and I were still on our own. I returned to the foot of the ladder and called to him.

     He came down and I took the rifle from him.

     "Get the money and a suitcase," I said. "We might have to go to a hotel."

     Ten minutes later we were heading for Paradise City.

*

     The night porter of the Palm Court Hotel was an elderly negro who was sleeping peacefully behind the reception desk. The flyblown clock behind his nodding head showed 02.22

     We had had some luck. On our way to Paradise City we had come on a car with a hag of golf clubs in the rear seat. I had stood on the brake pedal and had nearly sent Raimundo's head through the windscreen.

     This car had been parked outside an 'Eat-'n-Dance' joint, the kind that litter Highway 1 until you reach Paradise City.

     "Get it!" I said.

     Raimundo read my thoughts. He slid out of the Volkswagen, grabbed the golf bag, emptied the clubs on to the back seat and was back in the car within ten seconds.

     So we arrived at the Palm Court Hotel with the Weston & Lees rifle hidden in the golf bag and a suitcase full of nothing : like two respectable guys on vacation.

     The old negro came awake and blinked at us. After a lot of fumbling with the register, he found us a double room with twin beds on the second floor. We signed in as Toni Franchini and Harry Brewster. I told him we didn't know how long we'd stay and he didn't seem to care. He took us up in a creaking elevator, unlocked a door and showed us into a big, shabbily-furnished room. He had tried to take the suitcase and the golf bag, but when I told him I was giving my muscles some exercise, he gave me a dismal smile as if he were sure I was going to gyp him out of his tip. I gave him a dollar after he had proved the plumbing worked and he went away, happy.

     I sat on the bed while Raimundo took the only armchair.

     Before arriving at the hotel we had driven past the Imperial Hotel and past the apartment block, under construction. We had luck as the night traffic was heavy and we could crawl without attracting attention. We even got into a solid jam of cars right outside the apartment block. I was able to take a good look at the building. Part of my Army training was to sum up a situation. I probably saw a lot more than Raimundo did. He was driving as I wanted to examine the set-up I was going to walk into.

     Along the sidewalk in front of the entrance to the apartments was a line of parked cars. As we crawled by them I spotted a Buick in which two men were sitting. There was no one hanging around the entrance to the block which was in darkness. To the left of the block was a builder's crane, its long steel arm stretching up to the top floor positioned immediately over the roof. The feet of the crane were in a vacant lot, high with weeds, and there was a big hoarding announcing another apartment block was to be built there.

     "How do you see it, soldier?" Raimundo asked.

     "I'll climb the crane."

     He gaped at me.

     "You'll never do it. That goddam crane is twenty storeys high."

     "That's the way I'm going. It's the only way."

     "You think Savanto's men haven't thought of that?"

     "Sure. So what do they do? They put a man or a couple of men in the

vacant lot to see no one gets near the crane." I looked intently at him. You and I will fix them . . . then up I go."

     "It's a pipe dream, soldier. You'll never get up there."

     "I'm going to bed. We do the job tomorrow night. By that time the guards will have got slack. It's tricky, but it can be done."

     When we got back to the hotel, I stripped off and took a shower. By the time Raimundo had taken his shower I was asleep.

     I have this knack of relaxing before a dangerous operation. During my years in the Army I had schooled myself to sleep. I had all day tomorrow to think about what I had to face the following night : now was the time to sleep.

     I came awake with a start to find Raimundo shaking me. The morning sunlight was coming through the faded blind, making me screw up my eyes.

     "Wake up! Listen to this !" Raimundo was saying and the note in his voice brought me fully awake.

     A voice was talking on the radio on the bedside table.

     "Mr. Bill Hartley claims he saw the killing," the voice said. "When the police arrived with Mr. Hartley after he had raised the alarm the bodies he claimed to have seen had disappeared. There was no evidence that the shooting had occurred. The police are continuing their enquiries but Chief of Police Terrell has hinted that this could be a hoax. We have Mr. Bill Hartley with us in the studio.

     "Mr. Hartley, you tell me you are a bird watcher and you often go to the Cypress swamp early in the morning to observe wild life. That is correct?"

     A voice like gravel going down a chute said : "Yeah. I don't give a damn what the police say. I saw this killing. I was up a tree with my glasses and I saw these two . . ."

     "Just a moment, Mr Hartley. Could you give us a description of these two people you saw?"

     "Why, sure. I told the police. There was a man and a woman. The man was a giant. He looked around seven foot to me: thin, swarthy and wearing a pair of black cotton trousers. The woman was blonde and pretty and she was wearing a white bra and white slacks. The thing I particularly noticed about her was her hair was cropped short like a boy's. Well, these two were running along the sand. He was hanging on to her hand, dragging her along . . ."

     "Mr. Hartley, how far do you reckon you were from these two?"

     "How far? Five hundred yards, perhaps a little more. I use very powerful glasses."

     "They were running along the beach. Did you get the impression that they were running away from someone?"

     "I certainly did. They looked like frightened people and they were running like hell."

     "Then what happened, Mr. Hartley?"

     "They got shot. There were only two shots. The first shot hit the woman. It was a head shot. She fell down and rolled into the surf. The man went down on his knees beside her and there was a second shot. He was hit in the head. I saw the spray of blood and he dropped face down on the woman. It was a hell of a thing to see."

     "What did you do, Mr. Hartley? You didn't see the killer?"

     "No, I didn't see him, but from the sound of the gun he wasn't far from me. I was scared and shocked as you can imagine. The tide was coming in fast. After five or six minutes, I got down from the tree. It took me half an hour to reach a phone. I called the police. They came out pretty fast. I took them to the place where these two were shot, but by that time the tide had come in. There were no bodies, no footprints, no nothing. The police think I'm a nut, but . . ."

I turned off the radio.

Raimundo said quietly, "I warned you, soldier . . . I'm sorry."

     I felt a trickle of cold sweat run down my face and I flicked it away with my finger.

     "I had lost her anyway," I said.

     I thought of Lucy, her laugh when she was happy, the way her bottom twitched, her freckles and her eyes that scared easily. Yes, I had lost her in every sense now. She had found this long slob and she had said they thought alike. Thinking about them, I realised they would have made a better pair than she and I had done.

     I lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

     "Ask them to send up coffee," I said and closed my eyes.

     A bright-eyed, coloured boy came up with a tray of coffee. As he set it down, I said, "Do you want to earn five dollars?"

     His eyes grew round.

     "I sure do."

     "Is there a sports' store around here?"

     "A sports' store? Yeah . . . at the end of the block."

     "I want a Levison hunting knife : I want two of them. They cost around thirty dollars each. There's five bucks in it for you if you go along and get them for me."

     He gaped at me, a little uneasily.

     "A Levison hunting knife?"

     "That's it. They'll stock it. Okay?"

     He nodded, looking from me to Raimundo and from Raimundo back to me.

     "Give him the money," I said.

     Raimundo took out his two one hundred dollar bills and gave one of them to the boy.

     "Well, it's your money," the boy said. "I'll get them if that's what you want," and he left the room.

     "What's the idea?" Raimundo asked.

     I poured the coffee.

     "Knives are silent," I said.

* * *

     We had been lying on our beds for the past two hours. Raimundo seemed to sense the mood I was in. He lay flat on his back, his eyes closed. He was probably dozing. I mourned for Lucy and I buried her. It was a mental thing, but realistic. I gave her the funeral I thought she would like with lots of flowers and organ music and a tall, dignifiedlooking padre. I even said a prayer for her : the first prayer I've said since I was a kid. I then thought over the six months we had spent together, picking out the highlights, then I closed the memory book. It had a lock on it and I turned the key and threw the key away. There were now other things to think about. I didn't imagine I would think of her again. I had lost a lot of buddies during the war. I had gone to their funerals, but never to a memorial service. When I say goodbye, there is nothing else to say.

     "When Savanto gets a hole in his head," I said suddenly, "what will you do?"

     Raimundo lifted his head from the pillow and looked at me. "It's a pipe dream, soldier. I wish I could make you believe it."

     "Don't answer the question if you don't want to. Why should I care?"

There was a long pause as Raimundo studied me.

     "If he did get a hole in his head," he said finally, "I'd go back to my wife and kids in Caracas."

     "So you have a wife and kids?"

     "Yeah . . . four kids . . . three boys and a girl."

     "With Timoteo dead and the old animal dead . . . what happens?"

     "I guess Lopez will become Boss. There's no one else What sort of man is he?"

     "Short of brains but peaceful."

     "Would he take care of you?"

     "I wouldn't want his care. He would leave me alone. That's all I would want. I have a farm. My wife looks after it. With me working with her, it would become something important."

     "So you have something to plan for . . . a future?"

     He got the message.

     "I guess I have."

     There came a tap on the door.

     I whipped Raimundo's automatic from under my pillow and covered it in my hand with the bed sheet.

     "Open up," I said softly. "Get your back to the wall and swing the door open slowly."

     Raimundo was off the bed and by the door in a smooth, silent flash. Watching him, I knew he was going to be a useful man to have with me when the crunch came. He turned the key and eased open the door.

     I was ready to shoot, but when I saw the coloured boy standing in the doorway, his eyes rolling, I left the gun under the sheet and brought my hand into sight.

     "I've got those knives," he said.

     "Come on in," I said and got off the bed.

     A Levison hunting knife is special. It has a six-inch blade of the finest steel and is so sharp that if you draw the blade along your arm, you're shaved. It is beautifully balanced and with a finger grip handle covered with a sponge jacket. If your hand is soaking with sweat you can be sure the knife won't turn or slip. I never went into the jungle during my Army days without a Levison knife. It had saved my life a number of times. When the pressure is on, it's a man's best friend.

     I checked both knives, then gave the boy a five dollar bill after he had given me the change out of the hundred dollar bill.

     "I want two steak sandwiches and beer up in an hour," I said to him. "Steak . . . not hash."

     When he had gone, I tossed one of the knives in its leather sheath on to Raimundo's bed.

     "Do you know how to use a knife?"

     He gave a crooked smile.

     "A lot better than you, soldier. I was born with a knife in my hand."

     I asked him the question that had been nagging at my mind ever since I knew Lucy was dead.

     "What will they do with the bodies?"

     "She'll go into the swamp. He will be flown back to Caracas. The old man will stage a funeral. He likes funerals."

"Then it's just too bad he can't stage his own funeral," I said.