Understrike (9 page)

“
Cut it, will ya, Oakes ...” said Henniger sharply.

“
Now wait a minute ...” Boysie started, then he felt the power of the steely eyes and thought again. He much preferred the quiet efficiency of Lofrese and the cheery bombast of the late lamented Joe Siedler to this kind of treatment.

“
Not here then. Not yet,” said the grey-haired man: the first words he had spoken, except for a short oath when the driver of a jumbo-sized convertible had cut in on them just outside Santa Rosa.

“
Didn’t expect them ta be.” Henniger was looking around him. “Flight’s not due till eleven.” Boysie glanced at his watch. It was only eight-thirty and already, standing out in the open, the sun was beginning to fry the back of his neck.

“
Where the hell’s that old fool.” Henniger raised his voice to a bellow. “Hey, Pop, where are ya! Pop!”

“
OK. No need ta shout. I kin hear ya.” The old man came hobbling round the corner of the hacienda—a walking image of the old gag about ‘that’s waar the horse goes’: a beanpole in tight Levis, with a face held together by deep wrinkles and thick white stubble. He regarded the group with unflattering suspicion.

“
These are the people I told ya ‘bout,” said Henniger with a gesture towards Boysie and Chicory.

“
Thought th’was gonna be three more men.”

“
Other two’ll be over later.”

The
old man spat at a crop of weeds. Boysie could have sworn they wilted. “OK, you’re payin’,” said the proprietor.

“
The luggage is in the trunk.” Henniger walked slowly back to the car, keys in hand. The oldster continued to look at Boysie and Chicory. Boysie began to penetrate the mental processes which lay behind the look. The only people likely to stay at this place were couples bent on adultery. The old horror was obviously adept at spotting naughty weekenders. Bet he bleeds them white, thought Boysie.

“
Ya together? Or are ya separates?” asked the nasty old man. Before Boysie could make an indignant reply, Chicory startled him:

“
Together,” she said, meaning every word of it.

“
Hey now ...” Henniger stood up quickly from behind the car.

“
Together!” repeated Chicory, looking the security man full in the eyes.

“
Are you sure that’s ...?” Henniger was smiling at her: putting on a little style.

“
Together!”

Henniger
’s smile curdled. He continued to look at her. The grey-haired man shuffled his feet. Henniger capitulated, nodded, and bent down again to unlock the boot. Pleased, Boysie turned to smile at Chicory, intending it to be a look of mingled warmth and desire. Ludicrously, he mistimed the turn and cannoned, undignified and hard, into the grey-haired man, who had been moving behind him towards Henniger.

“
I’m so sorry.” Boysie noticed that the grey-haired man had a slight accent which suited the smooth manner. European, possibly Italian, he thought.

The
proprietor made a production number out of carrying the luggage: the limp and heavy breathing coming much into play as he led them across the patio to a ground floor room under the cloister in the central part of the jaded building. The motel room was strangely familiar to Boysie: the large bed, with curved lamps like horns sprouting from either side of the head, armchair, built-in wardrobe, towering television, the pitcher of water with the wax drum for ice cubes, and the compact bathroom with shower, wash basin and lavatory. It was exactly as he had imagined it from Mr Fleming’s novels—right down to the strip of hygienic paper sealing the lavatory seat, and the impregnated tissue for polishing shoes.

“
Big man should be here ‘bout noon,” said Henniger from the doorway. “If ya want anythin’ just ring. We’ll be along when he needs ya. OK?”

“
Fine. Thank you,” said Boysie. The door closed on them.

“
Well?” Boysie smiled.

“
Well my arse,” said Chicory, not unpleasantly.

‘
What?”

“
You weren’t going to do a thing about it, were you?”

“
About what?”

“
About anything. I had to put my foot down. What the heck? What gives with those guys? They own you or something, Boysie? Gee, did you make me mad. Letting them tell me what to do? Couldn’t you have said something?”

“
Look, Chicory darling. Honestly, I’m sorry.” Boysie was floundering. “I’m in a very tricky position. I’m supposed to do what these people tell me. Under orders.”

“
Orders! I suppose you’ll get chewed up for sharing this room with me then?” She was piqued.

Boysie
grinned. “Oh definitely,” he said, putting on his county drawl. “Be booted out of the hunt; blackballed from every decent club; put on the undesirable list by the debs’ mums; won’t even be allowed to exhibit at Cruft’s…”

“
What the hell are you talking about, you crazy Englishman? Is that Limey humour or something?”

“
Indubitably.” He laughed, then stopped, his face grave. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking up at him with those great almond eyes glittering a kind of violence. They stayed there, staring at each other: taking in long draughts of the emotion which leaped between them. Boysie moved over to the bed as she put up her arms, stretching forward in invitation, with head back and the tight orbs of her breasts standing out inside her sweater as though straining to break through and encompass him. He felt her close, her lips on his, and the same spiral intertwining they had experienced in New York. She was running her hands over him as they rocked back on to the bed. They rolled over once: then, together, they were clawing at each other’s clothes, stripping one another, hurling garments from them in a frenzy of need.

This
was wholly animal—as he knew it would be with Chicory. All hunger and the desire for a complete uninhibited satisfying of the sensual appetite. They thrust at each other, and bit, and scratched, hanging on as though this was a wild struggle for possession, not the free mutual granting of their bodies. Sweat poured from them, between them, adding fuel to the physical momentum of the act. When it was finished, and they had both stopped shivering from the long ecstatic shudder that was their peak, Chicory continued to run her hands expertly and smoothly over his body. A long time later, she spoke:

“
Aren’t bodies wonderful, Boysie? Aren’t they just wonderful things?”

“
Be lost without ‘em.” He couldn’t resist it. She chuckled, grateful that he had broken the tension, and kissed him on the nose.

“
May I tell you,” she said, “that you are now on my highly recommended list.”

“
You get the full four-star treatment and a whole chapter to yourself in my autobiography.”

“
That won’t be an autobiography, honey; that’ll be a standard work of reference.” She looked at him, her eyes doing a complicated tango. “You’ve been around, haven’t you, Boysie baby?”

“
I have, as they say, had my moments.” He bent over her again, but she gently pushed him away.

“
Not now, darling. We’ll have tonight. I need a shower.”

They
took the shower together. like children playing at water carnivals; rubbed each other down, and rummaged in their cases for clean clothes.

“
I feel great.” Chicory was standing in the middle of the room, legs apart, hands on her hips, dressed only in tight white briefs and bra. “How about some coffee?”

“
All right, but get some of those clothes on first. If the old man brings it, you could give him a heart attack. I can vouch for it, you look gorgeous.”

“
Nuts. Ring down and get some coffee.”

Boysie
was juggling with the telephone. “Damn thing seems dead. Can’t get a peep.”

“
Let Mama have a go.” Chicory came over and fiddled with the instrument “No. Looks as if it’s out of order. Can’t say I’m surprised, the joint’s falling to bits. See that plaster?”

“
I’ll give the old-timer a shout.” Boysie fastened the waist-ban of his second best slacks and went over to the door. At first he thought it was just jammed; then his heart started to take on the trip-hammer pound. The door was locked. From the outside. Somewhere in the back of his consciousness, Boysie tried to remember something: something that had half come through to him as they had been making love.

“
What’s wrong, Boysie? What’s the matter?”

“
The door. They’ve locked the bloody door. My God…”

He
made a dive across the room towards the television where his charcoal slacks had landed when Chicory wrenched them from his legs, kicking to be unfettered, as they fought for nakedness on the bed. His hands scrabbled at the material, but he knew already. It had gone. He felt the muscles twitching on the left side of his mouth, the tremors, the blood draining from his face, and the twisting in his guts.

“
Boysie, what the hell is it? Why?” Chicory was close to him now, a hand on his arm.

“
My gun. The bastards have taken my gun.” He could have been a small boy running to Mum because the game of Cowboys and Indians had gone all wrong. He remembered the grey-haired man bumping into him—that’s when they lifted the weapon.

“
They’ve locked us in here and pinched my bleedin’ gun.” His right fist was balled, punching into his thigh.

“
Your? Boysie, what is all this? For ...”

“
Oh, great balls of fire,” he moaned, his knees beginning to give way. “Great fuming, fornicating balls of rancid fire.” Boysie buckled on to the bed. “What d’you think it means? Those characters are the boys who sent the two gorillas to lug me out of the New Weston: the twits who parcelled up that fancy snake. They’re no more security men than my ...”

“
Oh gawd! You mean they’re baddies, not goodies?”

“
Just that.” He nodded.

“
For real, Boysie?”

“
For all time real.”

Boysie
looked up to meet the fear in Chicory’s face.

“
What’ll they ...?”

For
her sake, he made an effort: “Oh you’ll be all right. They won’t do anything to you.”

“
Please.” She was biting her lip and shaking her head from side to side. “What’s going on? For pete’s sake what’s going on?” The voice ascending the scale. “Myself, I can look after. Anything, I can cope with, and anyone, if I know what’s going on. But no one has told me a thing. Just wait till I get back to that bastard Max.” From outside came the sound of a car: the slamming of doors; voices, cheery, normal, floating in with the sheets of sunlight through the slits in the venetian blinds. Boysie hauled himself off the bed and went over to the window, prising fingers between two slats of the plastic blind, pushing his face close and looking out. A blue Packard was parked next to the red Mustang. The voices had faded now, and the patio was deserted, wrapped in a warm siesta silence broken occasionally by the wrumm of a car passing on the road a few yards away.

“
They’re not going to be fool enough to leave the keys hanging around just for us, you dope.” Chicory’s fear was turning into angry spirit. Boysie looked round the room, his eyes settling on the bathroom window. All the windows had an outer protective covering of fine mesh—a barricade against insects and the night creatures of the desert—but these would be easily removable. If they could get to the road, perhaps a passing car? As though reading his thoughts, Chicory shattered the idea at conception.

“
Don’t think of running. There’s an awful lot of desert out there.”

Boysie
knew she was right. Anyway they would be watching the door, that was certain. The chances of reaching the road were about as slim as extra-thin rice paper. He returned to the bed, sat down and put his head in his hands.

“
That bloody Mostyn,” he breathed. “That super bastard Mostyn.”

With
a little effort he might even bring himself to believe that Mostyn had, by some foul plan, pushed him, on purpose, into this predicament.

“
Wait.” Chicory motioned silence. Someone was coming down the cloister outside. The shadows of Henniger and the grey-haired man passed the window.

“
How about jumping them?” Chicory whispered: her eyes wide and questioning .

It
was too late. A key turned in the lock and the two men stood in the doorway.

“
He wants to see ya now,” said Henniger.

“
Bloody Commie bastard,” was all Boysie could think up at short notice.

“
It finally penetrated, Huh? Get that Cirio? A real smart guy, this Limey agent. He finally caught on.”