The Laughing Falcon (48 page)

“Betelgeuse, that’s at the shoulder of Orion, you can see it easy, only four hundred light-years away and it’s ready to pop. It’s what we call a gamma ray burster, in just seconds you got more energy than the entire galaxy produces the whole year. Means finito, man, for the whole solar system. Hoovered right into the old black hole. Seems a waste, don’t it, after all the work we put into this fucking joint.”

It would be risky to make any hasty moves, he was tripping, he could fire that gun at someone. “The way I look at it, we’re like insects in the eternal scheme of things. Less than insects, microbes, specks of dust.”

Elmer shambled behind the retaining post, and Slack got a good look at him, sweating, his pupils dilated from the LSD. Slack saw that he was not into some ordinary bad trip, there was something terrible in his eyes. The handgun was a .45, U.S. army issue.

Elmer prodded Halcón hard with his knee. “We used to round up the village heads, teach them respect, we called it pacification. Hey, listen, they used to send me out to do different towns, and if I get nothing or I don’t like what I see, I call in the napalm, man. Don’t think it didn’t bother me, I’m human. But a single other life don’t matter in comparison. In the grand scheme, all our fucking lives don’t fucking matter.”

Slack started as Elmer put his gun to the nape of Halcón’s neck. “We’re less than insects,” he repeated sadly. “Germs, man. Cancer cells.”

Slack moved some tinned meat and took a bead on the centre of Elmer’s chest. He kept his voice steady. “We’re a long way from Vietnam, Elmer. Put the gun down.”

Elmer looked around with a wide startled expression. “Who’s that? Anyone hear that?”

“I thought we agreed to be partners, Elmer. That was the deal we made.”

Elmer cocked his head to the left, then to the right, trying to locate him in the darkness behind the shelves. His barrel was still at Halcón’s head. “Hey, man, where’d you come from? Is that you, Slack?”

“I thought we were together in this thing, we weren’t going to hurt anybody, we were going to grab the filthy and scram. So put the gun away, we have a plane to catch.”

“Let’s talk about it, man. Come out where I can see you.”

“I’m in the kitchen, Elmer. I’m pointing a .38 snub special at your nose. That’s just in case you don’t think we’re partners any more. I suggest you put your pistol in your pants while we ponder this situation.”

A few moments passed while Elmer worked through these new complications. His three prisoners were immobile. Slack saw the distress in Maggie’s eyes, rawness. Cool and easy, he told himself.

“Hey, man, we’re more than partners. We’re like brothers.” Elmer kept peering at the shelves, trying to make Slack out. Drugged or not, the man was no fool, a good actor, better at playing dumb than being dumb, he’d pulled one off on Slack, fleeced him like a yokel at a carnival. “Hey, buddy, you alone?”

“I’m in the kitchen with four million friends. I have the money, you have the plane. We’ve scored, it’s fifty-fifty, so let’s go. But you have to put the gun down, Elmer. If anyone gets hurt the deal is off.”

He was trying to keep this simple, but Elmer again took some time to absorb the information, still threatening Halcón with the .45, though it had drifted from his skull.

“Johnny looks a little roughed up, Elmer, why’s that?”

“Aw, he pissed me off. Resistance is futile, I said, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Okay, let’s leave it at that and let’s split. We’re partners. We shook on it, remember?”

“I hear you. I’m almost ready to pull out. But I got some business here first. I gotta do what I gotta do.”

Slack spoke harshly. “Then I guess the deal’s off, and I’m going to have to blow you away.”

“That don’t sound too awful friendly, Slack. Remember when I told you we should do some jobs together? I meant it. We got chemistry, our minds think alike.”

“We could be a dynamic team, Elmer.”

“Yeah, we’re Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the gruesome twosome. I really dig you, man, do you know that?
But the thing is … listen, Slack, what about leaving these here witnesses?”

The .45 was moving, sliding toward Glo’s head. Slack thought of taking his chances and plugging him, but it would be chancy, the automatic’s safety was off, Elmer was knuckle-tight on the trigger.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, amigo. How much dope have you been doing?”

“I’m over the rush. I’ve levelled, I’m skating, it’s cool.”

That seemed likely, he seemed capable of reasoning. “Okay, try to think straight. There’s no need for anyone to get hurt here.”

“Yeah, but they can ID us.”

“The cops are going to know anyway, Elmer.”

“Not me. Nobody knows nothing about me.”

This standoff was exasperating, Slack decided to lay some cards face up, let Elmer know that murdering the innocent would subject him to a worldwide manhunt. Thailand wouldn’t be safe, Antarctica wouldn’t be safe.

“Sure they do, they know you’re Chuck Walker’s right arm, they know what the scam is. It’s been all over the news tonight, they’re looking for you on a murder conspiracy.”

Elmer slapped at a mosquito.

“Ease up on that shooter, pal.”

“Murder conspiracy, what are you talking?”

“They’re putting out a bunch of stuff about how you were hired to chill Walker’s wife. Where is the plane, Elmer — Tortuguero, Barra?”

“Hold on – murder, that’s horseshit. Where did that come from?”

“The horse’s mouth. Walker confessed.”

Glo’s eye widened, she made muffled angry sounds as she looked up at Elmer, who suddenly didn’t seem to know what to do with his gun, staring at it, turning it in his hand. Above him, a big scorpion scuttled along the rafters, a luckless fluttering moth clutched in its pincers.

“Man, he wouldn’t do that. Confess? The colonel? No way.”

“They broke him, Elmer. I’m in shit, too, I double-crossed the U.S. government.” Maybe he was falling for it, Slack would try a little candour. “I used to work for those guys. Did you know that?”

“I heard that somewhere, some kind of secret agent shit. Yeah, I knew the counterfeit beef was a con, they made it up.”

“What else did the colonel tell you? That I was just short of retarded, that I was supposed to be the patsy? They figured I’d bugger it up, isn’t that right? They thought they could use me, just like they thought they could use you. Hey, Elmer, we’re going to get the last laugh on those pricks, you and me, Butch and Sundance.”

“You’re being straight with me, Slack, I appreciate that. Real tight pals like us, we should’ve been more open with each other. I wasn’t being square with you, either, it’s not Thailand, I got a place closer –”

Slack cut him off. “Elmer, we don’t want to say where we’re going.”

“Yeah, right, the witnesses. See, man, that’s the trouble.”

Slack was starting to worry that Frank Sierra would soon be putting into the dock, the noise of an engine could unhinge these negotiations, the scales were precariously balanced. Elmer was starting to wave his gun around, he was sweating like a racehorse. Slack had to resolve this Mexican standoff.

“Tell you what, I’m going to come out from behind the curtain and we’re going to get face to face. We’re both going to put our guns away, we’re going to watch each other do it, and we’re both going to grab a duffle bag and we’re going to get the sweet fuck out of here.”

Elmer was slow to respond. For some reason he was now staring at the candle, which was melting into a pool of wax. He was still gripping the gun tightly, but pointing it down now, at an angle to the floor.

Maggie was shaking her head, a message: don’t show yourself. In a way, doing so was foolish, but Elmer had lost his alertness, had travelled off somewhere. Confident voices whispered to Slack he was winning this game of mental hide-and-seek, wearing Elmer out.

Slack picked up one of the heavy bags of money, hefting it over a shoulder. Then he slid through the part in the curtains.

“Vámonos
, Elmer, grab the other bag.”

Elmer couldn’t tear his eyes off the candle, his eyes seemed filled with visions of ancient ghosts. “Man, that’s the whole world there, ain’t it, in a single dying flame. When it’s gone, that’s it, darkness.”

He appeared to have lapsed into a state of funereal melancholy. Slack had seen other men who’d been damaged in Vietnam, emotionally disabled.

“Let’s go.”

Elmer sighed, looked at his .45 again, then began to tuck it into his belt.

“The catch.”

“Yeah, right.”

Elmer slid the safety on, jammed the gun in his belt, watching Slack, who was pocketing his own piece. Elmer found the belt too tight, loosened it a notch, then extended his right hand to Slack. “Partners to the end, man.”

Elmer’s hand was slippery with perspiration. Slack thought of taking him here and now, using that wrist twist Joe Borbón had taught him, but the better idea was to get him outside first.

He stood aside as Elmer went past into the kitchen and picked up the other sack. Slack gave the captives a reassuring nod. Glo nodded back, Halcón winked. Slack couldn’t read anything in Maggie’s eyes, she was looking up at the ceiling.

He dashed outside, joining Elmer by the staircase, he was casually fishing through a shirt pocket, calmer, maybe coming down now. He’d brought the empty suitcases, too, but had
set them down. The moon was struggling to emerge from the squall’s fleeting clouds, the crackles of lightning more distant now.

“Found them two naked on the bed when I got here, middle of the afternoon, man, she’s giving him head. I paddled into shore so they wouldn’t hear me, if an armada had landed they wouldn’t’ve noticed.”

It was coming together for Slack, Elmer had pistol-whipped Halcón, made death threats, sent him on the mission to Limón to pick up the cash. Getting Maggie as an unwanted bonus might have confused him, put a crimp in his plans, maybe the colonel had told him not to attrit too many innocent civilians.

Elmer found what he was looking for in his pocket, another tab of lysergic acid.

“Stow that, for Christ’s sake.”

But Elmer popped it into his mouth. “Aw, this is tame shit. Keep-awakes. I had maybe two minutes of sack all last night.”

The guy was on a chemical binge, Slack would have to truss him up after he pulled on him, immobilize him with the duct tape. He took one of the suitcases, he wanted him well away from the house. “Let’s get our butts in gear, Elmer. Where’s the plane?”

“Tortuguero town. Panama City, that’s where we’re going.” Elmer shouldered his bag and led Slack down the stairs. “After that, Colombia, I got good protection there, friends in Medellín.”

“Who arranged for this plane?”

“One of the friends, also a friend of the colonel.” Elmer chuckled. “Johnny, he thought the plane was for him, he bought that all the way. No way, man, it was for me to split out of here in case I got heat. He ain’t that smart, Johnny. He ain’t got the team spirit you and I got, he’s soft, he ain’t got the balls to be a musketeer.”

“You sure the feds aren’t watching the plane?”

“The old man wouldn’t rat. You don’t know him.”

There was a bond between these soldiers, Elmer must have been Chuck’s aide-de-camp, his dogsbody. Walker had got his Medal of Honor by rescuing soldiers from behind the lines, it would be no surprise if one of them had been Elmer, someone should have done a trace on those names.

Elmer stepped into the Zodiac and held out his arms for Slack to pass him one of the bags.

Here was a clear opportunity, Slack would toss him the sack, then pull his gun and brace him. This was the moment of truth.

But it was the wrong truth. As Slack started to heave the duffle bag, Elmer wrenched his service pistol from his belt.

“And he wouldn’t cop out, not the colonel.”

Slack was moving, diving for the water, as the first shot nicked him, causing him to spin, to splash with flailing limbs into the canal. But the second bullet went wayward, beyond his head, when a wooden oar appeared from nowhere, slashing at Elmer’s arm.

Though underwater, Slack had a murky moonlit view of Frank Sierra standing in Halcón’s yellow launch, wielding the oar again, sending Elmer toppling into the canal as another aimless shot rang out.

Surfacing, he flung his revolver toward Frank. Slack was only ten feet from shore, Elmer five feet farther away, not swimming, just splashing and yelling and making no sense. “King Kong, this is Zebra. Send in the F-I IS, asshole!”

Slack was bleeding and his ass hurt like blazes. He swam quickly to shore, then hauled his way up the bank. Frank was now kneeling in the Zodiac, holding the .38.

Slack paused to do damage assessment, he had to contort his body to get an oblique look at his behind. A creaser, ragged horizontal gashes across his buttocks, his pants ripped. It was as if someone had taken a steel-barbed whip to him, an injury painful, unrefined, but not mortal. He removed his shirt and wrapped the wound as best he could, a triangular bandage around his waist and under his crotch.

As he made his way to the dock, he saw a furrow far out in the canal, a wide circle, it had to be the same crocodile he’d stepped on, or its bigger brother. The animal had scented something, maybe Slack’s trail of blood, and it was on its way to check.

Elmer was now swimming toward one of the floating logs that composed the dock. Something else was going on, and in his confusion Slack couldn’t identify the sound, then realized he was hearing the deep-throated growl of beating props, a helicopter approaching.

Elmer had dropped his automatic during his ungainly swim to the end of the log, and he rested there. “They sent a beater, they’re bringing us in.” He shouted, “We’re over here, man!”

Slack felt disoriented by the confused mélange of pain and noise and images — Elmer’s rantings, the growing racket in the sky, the copter’s search beam patrolling the shore margins … and the crocodile making swift passage toward Elmer.

Slack sprinted for the dock. “Get the hell out of the water!”

Frank Sierra had been watching the copter, but now looked at Slack, the blood running down his thighs, staining his pants.