Forever and a Death

by Donald E. Westlake

  Manville shook his head. “Mr. Curtis, why tell me this? I’m sorry for the fix you’re in, I had no idea—”

  “No one has any idea,” Curtis said, his face grim. “I’m risking a lot, telling you this.”

  “You could deny it, if I tried to say anything,” Manville said. “But you know I won’t. I can sympathize with you. I know the Chinese broke a lot of promises when they took over Hong Kong—”

  “As everybody in the world except for a few brainless British politicians knew they would.”

  “But what does that have to do with that girl, down in cabin seven?”

  Curtis thought about his answer, then said, “All right. The fact is, I have a way out of this mess. I am going to be rich again, very rich, a lot richer than I ever was before. But I have to be extremely careful, George. What I’m going to do is dangerous, and it’s illegal, and I have to admit it’s going to be destructive.”

  “With the soliton,” Manville said.

  “I was going to do it without you,” Curtis told him, “and I still can. I’m not asking you to be at risk, not for a second. But you could share in the profit.”

  “Because of the work I did over on Kanowit? Or because of the girl?”

  Curtis shook his head. “To do what I’m going to do I have to be able to move without being observed, without being tracked and trailed every goddam place I go. You saw how Jerry Diedrich showed up out there yesterday, as I knew he would, even though this was far from being a publicly known event. It didn’t have to be, it wasn’t illegal, and despite Diedrich and his simple-minded friends, it wasn’t harmful to the reef. But the point is, he was here. He has friends in my own company, clerks, who knows who they are, they keep him informed, let him know what I’m doing, where I am.”

  Manville asked, “What does Diedrich have against you?”

  “I have no idea!” Curtis was so obviously exasperated that Manville had to believe him. Curtis said, “He’s been after me since just around the time I left Hong Kong, and it’s me he wants, not polluters or environmental criminals or any of that, it’s me. Most of that Planetwatch crowd is off doing something about the ozone layer or some fucking thing, but he’s got this one bunch to fixate on me, he’s got them convinced it’s a crusade and I’m the evil tycoon that has to be brought down.”

  “And you need to get away from him,” Manville said, “to do what you want to do next.”

  “It’s ridiculous,” Curtis said. “I should be able to bury him under lawyers, clog him with money, but every move I make to protect myself just inflames them all the worse and brings another dozen volunteers out of the colleges and onto my tail. I need him off my tail, George.”

  “Then why not have Diedrich killed?”

  “Because I don’t know how.” Curtis grinned, with not much humor. “I’ve thought of it,” he said, “of course I have, but that’s not the business I’m in, George. I wouldn’t know how to go about it. I don’t have people killed.”

  “What about here? What about now?”

  “Death through neglect, death through…ignorance.”

  “It’ll take more than that,” Manville said.

  “I hope not,” Curtis said. “But in any case, it will give me the leverage I need to get Diedrich and his little friends off my back just until I get this done. A few months, maybe less.” Curtis leaned forward again. “George,” he said, “you’re a good man. You’re also a brilliant engineer. You could have your own business, accomplish… I’m not going to tell you what I have planned, but I will include you in the profit.” Then he leaned back and considered Manville, and didn’t quite smile. “I’ve mentioned your profit twice now,” he said, “and you still haven’t asked me how much.”

  “It didn’t occur to me.”

  “Ten million dollars,” Curtis told him. “That’s your share. You can have it right away, in gold, if you like, right after it’s done. Or you can wait a week or two and it will become nothing but a number in a bank account.”

  “Gold?” Manville said.

  “I’ve told you enough,” Curtis decided, but smiled to show they were partners now. “George,” he said, “I have to go up and talk to Captain Zhang. What do you think I should say to him?”

  Manville thought. He knew that Curtis was telling the truth about it all; his current financial mess, the existence of a risky and illegal scheme to get himself out of the mess, and the ten million dollars that would be his own if he merely went away and didn’t say anything and didn’t make trouble.

  The money didn’t tempt him, which surprised him a bit. His hesitation was caused instead by his fellow feeling for Curtis. The man had truly been mistreated and was truly in a bind. But a poor dumb well-meaning girl shouldn’t be murdered to help Curtis get out of his troubles, and that’s what they were talking about, after all. It was an escalation too far.

  Manville sighed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Curtis,” he said, “but I think you have to tell the captain to take very good care of that girl, because if she doesn’t survive the trip to Brisbane there will be too many questions.”

  Curtis said, “You’re sure about this.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Curtis looked out the window toward the sea. “Well,” he said, “if she has to be kept alive, it might be better to get her to the mainland right away. We could strap her to a mattress, carry her along in the helicopter this afternoon.”

  “Then I’d come along, too.”

  Curtis frowned at him, showing some of his anger, and stayed silent for a long moment. Then he said, “You’re making an enemy, George. Not a good enemy to have.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Manville spread his hands. “It just isn’t something I can do.”

  Another long thoughtful pause. He’s trying to figure out, Manville thought, how to kill me, too. Then Curtis nodded, briskly, in agreement or farewell, and got to his feet, and went off without another word for his talk with Zhang.

  Manville sat on, looking out the window, seeing nothing. What a rotten position to be in. Well; what a rotten position they were all in.

  He never did eat breakfast that morning.

  18

  A mistake had been made. Curtis understood that, now; he’d made a second mistake, while trying to adjust for the first. And both mistakes came down to the same error of judgment. He had gauged George Manville too poorly, dismissing him as just an engineer, which was certainly true, but without stopping to think what that meant.

  Yes, Manville was just an engineer, and what that meant was, he had too much integrity and too little imagination. Dangle ten million in front of him—in gold, George, in gold!—and he hasn’t the wit to be seduced by it. First he has to take responsibility for the accident to the diver, a responsibility that was never for a second his, but which he assumed for himself simply because he was the project’s engineer. That unbidden, unasked-for scrupulousness leads him to learn the truth about the diver, which makes him a threat to Richard Curtis, to which Curtis responds by making mistake number two. Not taking time to judge his man, he tries to enlist Manville on his side, and tells him too much.

  Before this, Curtis had once or twice wondered, if there were unexpected complications down the line, whether or not he’d be able to recruit Manville, and had guessed that a combination of cupidity and the engineering challenge would turn the trick, but now he knew he’d been wrong. Manville was too blunt-minded to be affected by cupidity, and his engineer’s honor would keep him from being caught up by the engineer’s challenge. If he could balk at finishing off one half-dead idiotic girl, how would he react to what was going to happen to all those people in the buildings?

  No, Manville could never have been an ally, and now he’s become a danger, a bigger danger than the girl, who was merely a club to beat Jerry Diedrich with. And Manville was now an even bigger danger than Diedrich, because Curtis had told him far too much.

  The both of them, Curtis thought, and considered the personnel available to him in Australia, and
saw how it could be done. The both of them, when they landed at Brisbane.

  Curtis spent the late morning in his cabin, on the telephone to Brisbane and Townsville, looking for the people he needed, assuring himself they would be in the right places at the right time. He couldn’t say very much over the phone—there was no security on these things, particularly the ones that bounced off satellites—but he could at least get them in position, so he could tell them in person, and very quietly, what was needed.

  Content with the moves he’d made, pleased that at last the mistakes had come to an end, Curtis went aft to the dining room for the farewell lunch with his three money people. Manville was there, looking worried and uncertain, and Curtis went out of his way to be friendly, to reassure the man. Patting Manville on the arm, being his heartiest, he said, “Forgotten, George. Don’t worry about it. I don’t know what I was thinking before. Desperation, I suppose. I’ll find some other way to deal with my problems, and you’re still my man. All right?”

  Manville was obviously surprised, then grateful. Of course, the man without imagination wanted to believe that everything could be all right, that simply, that easily. “Thank you, Mr. Curtis,” he said, answering Curtis’s smile with his own tentative grin. “I am sorry, the situation you’re in, and you can count on me to keep my mouth shut.”

  “I know I can, George. I don’t have the slightest doubt.” And, with another pat on the dead man’s arm, Curtis turned to the other three, saying, “Good news. It turns out, I was told wrong. The diver isn’t dead, she’s still alive.”

  Beaming at everyone as they expressed their own surprise and pleasure, Curtis said, “We only hope we can keep her that way. Don’t we, George?”

  19

  Captain Zhang stayed on the bridge to watch the helicopter take off, not wanting one last encounter with Richard Curtis. He was still frightened, still depressed, and still very confused.

  Would he have killed the girl? Even when he checked his medical kit to be sure he had a fresh syringe, even when he carried the kit with him down from the bridge, he hadn’t known for absolute certain what he would do when he reached cabin 7. He knew what he felt and believed he should do, which was protect his family, save his job, not permit some stupidly intrusive unknown stranger to destroy his life. But could he have done it?

  He didn’t know. All he was certain of was, when Mr. Curtis called to him, in the lounge, and told him not to go down to the patient yet, not until Curtis and the engineer had finished their conversation, Zhang had not immediately felt relief, or pleasure, or anything like that. He’d felt confusion, of course, but also he’d surprised himself with a strange welling up of frustration, as though he’d just been thwarted in the accomplishment of something that had been his goal all along.

  But what accomplishment? Killing her? Not killing her, and nobly suffering the consequences? Now he would never know what his decision would have been, and in some terrible way that was even worse than having the decision still out in front of him.

  When Mr. Curtis had come up to the bridge, after he and the engineer had finished, he was very angry, red-faced, banging his fist against tabletops, and Zhang knew it was Manville who had made him so angry. “We are going to take care of that girl, Zhang,” he announced, showing his teeth in a snarl. “We are going to keep her alive. Do you understand me?”

  “No, sir.” Zhang watched his employer warily, not wanting all that rage to turn in his direction.

  “We’re not going to do what we were going to do,” Curtis snapped, and grimaced with his fury. “Mr. Manville won’t let us, you see? Zhang, that girl stays alive until you dock at Brisbane, no matter what. From then on, we’ll see, won’t we?”

  “If you say so, sir.”

  “I say so,” Curtis repeated, mocking him, then showed him a hard false aggressive smile and said, “Well, at least it’s a happy ending for you, isn’t it? I know you didn’t like the idea.”

  “I want to do what I can to help you, Mr. Curtis.”

  Curtis could be seen to force himself under control, and when next he spoke he was calmer, more controlled, more himself. “I appreciate that, Zhang. These have been…difficult times for me. Well, it’ll all work out, and I know you’re a willing man, Zhang, and I won’t forget it.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And I’m glad, for your sake,” Curtis said, with a shrug, “you don’t have to do it after all.”

  “If there’s anything—”

  “No, no, that’s it, that’s all of it,” Curtis said, and shook his head, and left the bridge, and Zhang, alone, dropped heavily into his chair at the chart-table and wiped the perspiration streaming down his face.

  But of course, that wasn’t all of it. Curtis spent much of the morning on the telephone in his cabin, and Zhang suspected he was making other plans, dealing with people far better at this sort of thing than Zhang could ever be, and that was confirmed just after lunch, while the other guests were in their cabins,

  packing for the helicopter trip back to Australia. That was when Curtis came up again to talk with Zhang on the bridge. Zhang saw him coming, and waited, polite on the outside, trembling within.

  As usual, Curtis wasted no time on pleasantries. Coming onto the bridge, he said, “Captain Zhang, you intend to dock tomorrow night around seven, early evening, am I right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’re going to change that,” Curtis told him. “Without being obvious about it, don’t make your best pace. I don’t want you to round Moreton before one in the morning.”

  Moreton was the island that ran along the seaward side of Moreton Bay, with Brisbane at the inner end of the bay. Zhang could make that adjustment, of course, he could travel just a bit more slowly, take a slightly more curved route. A few of the more experienced crewmen might be aware of the difference, but no one else. Certainly not the engineer, Manville, and Zhang was sure the engineer was the reason for this change.

  Which Curtis confirmed by what he said next: “I’ll want you to take the bridge tomorrow night, by yourself. No one else has to be up and around at that hour.”

  “No, sir.”

  “And if it happens,” Curtis said, “that a boat comes alongside, even grapples on, you don’t have to pay attention.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Zhang said.

  Curtis looked keenly at him, and Zhang felt he had to meet the man’s eyes. Curtis’s mouth was smiling, but his eyes were icy cold, very hard. Zhang thought, I don’t know if he’s crazy or just brutal, but it doesn’t matter. Either way, I don’t want him to think I’m one of his enemies.

  It was very difficult to meet that inhuman gaze, not to flinch or turn away, but Zhang held himself in, waited it out, didn’t even show a tremble, and at last Curtis nodded and said, “I know I can count on you.”

  “Yes, sir.” Zhang’s mouth and throat were dry, the words came out crumpled.

  Curtis patted Zhang’s arm—Zhang didn’t flinch—and twenty minutes later, as he watched the helicopter with Curtis and his guests aboard lift off from Mallory and swing over to look at the muddy blank they’d made of Kanowit Island, that spot on Zhang’s arm still burned.

  What am I going to do? Zhang wondered. I am on Kanowit Island, and I’m slowly being sucked under. To do nothing doesn’t save you, you’ll still be sucked under. But what can I do?

  20

  Manville was very aware that he was alone on the ship. Once Curtis and his financial people flew off, there was no one on the Mallory that he had ever even had a conversation with, except Captain Zhang, and he expected little comfort from that quarter. The people who’d worked with him on the island, setting the charges and flooding the tunnels and sealing the areas where the explosives would go off, had all flown in from Australia, construction crews of Curtis’s, in two planes that came down on the old Japanese landing strip on the island and then took the crews back home the day before the test.
/>   Usually, Manville didn’t mind being alone. There were always projects he was working on, problems to be solved. But now, for the first time in his life, he was aware of being in personal physical danger, of being threatened by another human being, and he didn’t know what to do about it. He didn’t even know how to think about it. He wasn’t a soldier of fortune, a man of action, a man of violence. He was an engineer, he had tools, not weapons, and his primary tool was his brain.

  It would help if there were a friendly face on the ship, an ally, someone to discuss the situation with. Because he wasn’t at all sure he was up to this kind of thing. The main point now, he supposed, was to try to protect the girl. Whatever came at him, Zhang or members of the crew, or somebody else entirely when they reached Brisbane, at least he should be with the girl, not leave her exposed and helpless.

  He wished he could move her, possibly to his own cabin, but he was afraid to, not knowing exactly what her condition was. She’d been battered by the sea, and though she was surely going to live—if nobody interfered—she might have broken bones or other injuries. So the best thing to do, if he couldn’t move her, was to move himself.

  After the helicopter lifted away from the Mallory with an excited flutter of rotor blades, and swung over to take a last look at Kanowit, Manville went on back down to cabin 7 and let himself in again with his equivalence card. Then he propped the door open while he went across to cabin 6 and picked up a pillow and blanket there. Returning to 7, he let the door snick shut and locked, then put the blanket on the floor at the opposite end of the room from the entry, under the porthole. He propped the pillow against the wall there, took his paperback book from his hip pocket, and sat down, back against the pillow against the wall, face toward the door.