And in a sense, while he was undoubtedly a bad citizen, tonight he seemed to be on the side of the angels. Apparently he, and Tillery and Sapio, were trying to prevent a man from smuggling dope, a worthy cause—although the degree of virtue did depend somewhat on their true motives.
The syndicate, Mafia, Cosa Nostra, corporation, or whatever you want to call it, is not my bag, and I don’t know a hell of a lot about it. However, just because some unpleasant people insist they’re dropping an illegal activity because it’s become too hot to be profitable, or for any other reason, doesn’t mean I have to believe them. For all I knew, Jake could have been assigned this job of marksmanship, not because Warfel was disgracing his innocent Mafia associates by dealing in dirty heroin, but simply because he was stepping on the toes of some other mafioso—if that’s the correct term—somebody with better syndicate connections than Frankie’s, who’d been promised this lucrative branch of the drug trade for himself.
Still, ostensibly, the project upon which Jake was embarked, homicide apart, seemed kind of praiseworthy even if it was interfering with Charlie Devlin’s elaborate plans—and if somebody just had to be shot, I couldn’t think of a more suitable candidate than Frankie-boy Warfel. Furthermore, Big Jake hadn’t got any rougher than necessary, putting on his interrogation act for me back at the hotel—he’d added no personal frills to the beating—and I don’t go around killing people merely because they hit me a little with their fists in the line of duty.
Finally, it kind of intrigued me to think of some ruthless syndicate rub-out men, bent on murder, napping peacefully on a Mexican hillside while their quarry sailed away unharmed. Killing one of them would have spoiled the joke.
As I slipped him the needle, Jake was trying to wake up, but the drug soon rendered him passive once more. I picked up the fallen rifle and studied it, frowning. Although it seemed to be a standard bolt-action sporting model—a fully loaded, short-barreled .308 Remington in their cheapest grade, if you must have the details—it had a Buck Rogers appearance due to the bulky, home-made-looking gadget that was solidly mounted on top.
What I’d taken to be a telescopic sight of sorts seemed to be a kind of fancy flashlight with a long black hood, or snoot, shielding the big front lens, presumably so that light wouldn’t spill to the sides. Well that wasn’t unheard of. Spotlights are frequently clamped on guns for nocturnal hunting use in some parts of the world, but generally the idea is merely to put some light on a leopard, or other beast, at close range—enough illumination to let you see the sights to aim and shoot. Apparently that was not the principle involved here. Jake had been planning a shot of better than a hundred yards, too far for ordinary spotlighting techniques, and his rifle had no sights other than this odd contraption…
My research was interrupted by the sound of the outboard motor, that had been silent for a while, starting up once more. I sneaked up to the rim and saw that the Fleetwind’s dinghy had taken the completed pontoon raft in tow and was heading out towards the ketch, which now had a decided list to port due to the great metal cylinder suspended from the boom swung out over the side. The two men I’d tentatively identified as Willy and Mr. Soo still stood together by the jeep at the far side of the beach. There was no sign of Frank Warfel, although one of the dim, small, distant figures on the deck of the motorsailer could have been him, and probably was.
I eased away from the edge, and squirmed back to Jake, checked that he was sleeping soundly, and made my way into a gully well below where, I hoped, I could experiment a bit with the trick rifle without attracting attention. I aimed it at a rock some twenty yards away—as close as I could line it up in the dark without sights—and pressed the switch on the side of the Flash Gordon gizmo, bracing myself for all kinds of spectacular fireworks, although it didn’t seem likely that a gadget intended for night operations would be too bright or too noisy.
Actually, nothing much happened. A small, sharp, intense cross of light just appeared silently on the rock at just about the point where, I estimated, the gun was aimed. Very neat. All you had to do, apparently, was put the X on a guy, and he was dead when you pulled the trigger.
Well, it still wasn’t a totally new idea. Back when I was making my living with a press camera, in another and more peaceful incarnation, they’d rigged a light to shine through the range finder optical system, projecting two bright spots as far as you’d be likely to take an ordinary flash picture. Working at night, in light too dim for ordinary focusing, you merely brought the two spots together on the celebrity you wished to photograph, and fired your flashgun.
The only really impressive thing here was the remarkable sharpness and intensity of the illuminated cross, good enough to make feasible shots of over a hundred yards—at least Jake had obviously thought so. I wondered if laser technology might not be involved in some way. I also wondered if Jake had cooked up the thing himself, swiped it from some top secret Army project, or whether perhaps the syndicate also had inventors and armorers hard at work dreaming up interesting new toys for the boys.
I switched off the beam and crouched there, considering the next step; but a rustling sound brought my thinking to an abrupt halt. I flattened out and lay absolutely still, waiting. Presently a shadowy figure appeared by the rock I’d used for a target: a thin little man with a sawed-off shotgun like the one that had been used on Lionel McConnell. He stood by the rock for several seconds, first studying it, and then looking warily around. Obviously, wherever he’d been hiding, he’d caught a glimpse of something bright and had come over to investigate—another of Warfel’s sentries, who probably, judging by his uneasy attitude, was wishing he were back in good old smoggy L.A.
That made three, all stationed well down from the rim. I could no longer kid myself that this was simple gangster stupidity. On the contrary, somebody was obviously being very clever, and it was high time, I told myself, that I got the hell out of there. It was bug-out time at Bahia San Agustin.
After all, I told myself, the job for which I’d come here was done, more or less. I’d pretty much kept my promise to Charlie Devlin: Warfel was fairly safe. The syndicate’s expert rifleman was out of action and I had his dressed-up rifle. That left the rub-out squad with a tommy gun as its principal weapon—great for cleaning up streets and alleys, for putting the fear of God into hostile characters at close range, but hardly the preferred choice for selective long-range homicide. Without Jake and his specialized weapon, Tillery’s project had turned from a near certainty to a risky gamble, even if Warfel came ashore, which he showed no signs of doing.
If I took off in high gear now, or as soon as the man with the carbine decided to move away, I could probably get clear undetected. If not, well, I had the Buck Rogers gun and my knife and revolver to fight with, and all of Baja California to hide in. That’s what I told myself, but I didn’t move.
The trouble was, there were too many things I wanted to know that I couldn’t learn by running. I didn’t know what was being brought ashore or why; I still didn’t even know for sure who was bringing it ashore. And while I was leading Warfel’s boys a merry chase through the mesquite and cactus, the big truck and its mysterious load would be disappearing into the wilds of Baja along with Mr. Soo, if it was Mr. Soo.
Strictly speaking, it was none of my business, but I couldn’t help wanting to know what this was all about—and even if I made it out of here safely and reached a phone, there was no guarantee that we’d be able to locate the vehicle again, and if we did find it, it would probably be empty. The big metal tank or cylinder that was being landed with such care and secrecy—obviously somebody considered it very important—would be missing and so would Mr. Soo, if it was Mr. Soo. And eventually, I had a hunch that was a little more than just a hunch, they would both turn up north of the border for some purpose, undoubtedly nefarious, that I still couldn’t even guess at…
The man below me was retreating cautiously the way he had come, with his shotgun in his hands. He kept turning, and swinging
the muzzle around in a jittery fashion, as if his ears were playing him scary tricks. I gave him plenty of time; then I started moving along the hillside, slowly and silently, towards a point that, I figured, would put me directly below Tillery and Sapio. I mean, we don’t get paid to be stupid heroes, but we do get paid; and occasionally we’ve got to do something to earn our bread, like sticking our necks out just a little.
Down in the bay, beyond the ridge, the outboard dinghy was still wrestling noisily with its unwieldy tow, but the hillside was very quiet except for the murmur of the sea breeze in the low brush and the scattered, lonely, small trees. I froze as something dark moved by one of those trees ahead: another man, shifting position uncomfortably, as if tired of waiting.
Something gleamed in the hand that was raised to push irritably at the wide-brimmed hat… I realized that the figure was not really dark, nor was it a man. It was my ubiquitous female companion in her light jeans and shirt. Well, I hadn’t really expected her to stay where she was told.
“Quiet!” I whispered, coming up behind her. “Don’t move. Lay that pistol down, sweetheart.”
“Matt! Oh, you scared…!”
“The pistol, doll-baby,” I breathed. “No, don’t drop it, stupid. It’s only in the movies you toss firearms around like beanbags. In real life they have a nasty habit of going off… That’s right. On the ground with the safety on. Now straighten up and step away from it.”
“Matt, what in the world…?”
“You don’t follow orders very good,” I said harshly. “I told you to stay in the car.”
“I got scared. I saw some men moving this way, and I was afraid you’d be trapped up here…”
I picked up the automatic she’d deposited on the ground, and glanced at it. “A Walther, eh? Not a bad little gun. Where’d you get it?”
“It was in the glove compartment of the car. I stuck it in my pocket when I was looking for that tire gauge you wanted.” She hesitated. “May I have it back, please?”
“No,” I said. “If there’s anything that scares me worse than plague, smallpox, rabies, and Montezuma’s Revenge, it’s an amateur with a gun. Particularly an amateur who won’t obey orders.”
“I told you,” she said angrily, “I came to find you and warn you…”
“How many men did you see?”
“Just two, but…”
“We’ll worry about them later,” I said. “I’ve taken care of Jake, but his two Cosa Nostra friends are somewhere up above us if they haven’t moved. They’ve got a Thompson with a hundred-round drum if my firearms identification is correct. If I can get hold of that, a couple of goons more or less won’t matter a bit. There’s also a pair of night glasses I’d like to have the use of for about thirty seconds… I don’t suppose there’s the slightest chance of your following instructions a third time, after ignoring them twice.”
“Damn you, I was trying to help…”
“Shh, keep your voice down. Do you think you can make a tremendous, gigantic, supreme effort and stay right here, just for a few minutes? Please? Ten minutes by the watch? Have you got a watch?”
“Yes.”
“Well, look at it. If you don’t know what the time is now, how are you going to tell when it’s ten minutes from now?”
“Darling,” she said stiffly, “darling, you’re being very objectionable…”
“Here’s the drug kit,” I said, ignoring her protest. “In ten minutes, I hope, you can come up and do your stuff just like before.”
The final stalk was no great problem. Big-town characters, accustomed to tuning out the roar of traffic and the bleat of canned music, have generally forgotten how to listen, and the two men on the crest were no exception. I got within twenty-five yards of them without eliciting the smallest sign of uneasiness. Then I aimed the Flash Gordon contraption at Sapio, since he was the man with the chopper, and switched on the beam.
23
The fierce little ray of concentrated light caught Sapio’s attention, all right, even from behind. I saw him start to turn his head and stop, and reach for the submachine-gun instead. I stopped that by pressing the safety of the Remington forward more sharply than necessary, making a tiny but unmistakable click.
The hooded, sharply focused light had not disturbed Tillery, off to one side, but the sound brought his head around quickly.
“Jake, what the hell…?”
“Jake’s taking a nap,” I said. “So are your other two boys, Tillery.”
“Helm? What are you doing here? What do you want?”
“I want your hand to stop moving, amigo. I think Mr. Sapio does, too. I don’t think he really yearns for a thirty-caliber slug through his liver.”
“Cut it out, Tillery.”
“Yes, Mr. Sapio.”
There was a faint clatter of dislodged pebbles nearby.
I stepped back into the gloom of a low evergreen, keeping the beam steady, but it was only the girl in her light clothes and big dark hat, rather breathless.
“Matt?”
“Right here,” I said. “No, don’t look at this light, it’s pretty bright. Don’t get between us. Walk around, real careful, and take care of them… Oh, just a minute. Sapio, you seem to be the man with the final authority here. What’s your full name?”
“Manuel Sapio. Why?”
The Spanish first name didn’t really belong in the company he kept—the Mafia originated in a different part of southern Europe—but his national heritage was his problem, not mine.
“I want you to listen hard, Manuel Sapio,” I said. “I know you’re a big, dangerous man, and I know you’re already thinking what you’re going to do to us by way of retaliation. I also know that when you get over your mad, you’ll be too smart to try for me—”
“You hope!”
“I don’t just hope,” I said. “I know. Your superiors in the corporation would amputate your manhood with a dull knife if you started a private feud with the U.S. Government. But it may occur to you to take it out on Miss Prince. I’ve got some advice for you: don’t do it. And don’t have Tillery or anybody else do it for you. I’m holding you personally responsible for Miss Prince’s health and safety, Sapio. Anything that happens to her, no matter who a bad accident. If she catches pneumonia and dies, you may as well start coughing, because you’ll go next. Even if she dies in childbirth, I’ll figure out some way to make it happen to you. Do you read me?” I waited briefly. He didn’t speak. I said, “Okay, Bobbie. Fix them up.”
Five minutes later I was lying on the crest with the big, seven-power binoculars at my eyes and the Thompson under my elbow—I’d set aside the rifle as less suited to the immediate situation, and also less impressive, than the chopper. There were other reasons for making the trade, but I didn’t let myself think about them. Not that I believe in telepathy, really; but I’ve found it best, when being tricky, to put entirely out of my mind just how tricky I’m being. Why take a chance of tipping off the opposition, telepathically or otherwise?
There’s no optical viewing instrument that, by itself, will put light where there isn’t any—there are some electronic see-in-the-dark systems, but that’s another story. Where there’s some illumination, however, a good pair of night glasses will brighten things up remarkably; and here I had a bit of moonlight to work with. I could see down there quite well.
I checked first on the men by the jeep, except that now there was only one man standing at the far side of the beach. The other man was gone, and so was the vehicle. I listened for a moment trying to locate it by sound, but I could hear only the murmur of the wind and the angry buzzing of the outboard motor in the bay. I focused on the lone, remaining man and saw that, as I had guessed, he was indubitably Mr. Soo, not much changed from the first time I’d seen him, or the last, except for the unfamiliar mustache. Well, I hadn’t really known him long enough for him to age perceptibly, although I’d done my best to hasten the process.
Having identified him, I swung the glasses to the bulky
cylindrical object that was now being floated ashore on the pontoon raft behind the straining, racketing little outboard dinghy. Here, however, the binoculars were no help to me. The thing just looked like a big metal tank seven times closer, that was all. The way the seams ran hinted that the slightly rounded caps at the ends might be removable, but what would be revealed when they were removed, I still had no idea.
Bobbie Prince stirred beside me. “Matt?” she whispered.
“What?”
“Will you really go after Sapio if… if he has me killed?”
“Hell, no,” I said. “Why waste time, and effort on something that won’t bring you back to life? Anyway, my boss doesn’t like private vendettas, either; we’re supposed to operate strictly and solely in the national interest. If the bluff doesn’t work, I’ll come put some flowers on your grave, that’s all. But I did the best I could for you, didn’t I?”
“You were very menacing and convincing. Even if it doesn’t work, thanks for a good try.” After a moment, she asked, “Can you make out anything down there?”
“A little,” I said. “I recognize the gent standing across the way looking administrative. He’s a fairly high-powered Chinese agent specializing in scientific espionage and sabotage. There was another guy with him earlier I’m fairly sure was Willy Hansen, but he’s gone off somewhere in his jeep. I wish I knew where. I don’t like having him running loose; and I’ve got an idea about Willy I’d like to check out. And I wish I knew what Mr. Soo was doing, tied up with a bunch of dope peddlers.”
“Well, they produce a lot of drugs in China, Matt. It’s practically the home of opium, isn’t it?”
I glanced at her. “That’s a thought,” I said. “Maybe we’ve got this smuggling operation figured out all wrong, or my friend Charlie has. But if Mr. Soo is transporting any drugs from that far away—presumably with the consent and assistance of his government—it would be the concentrated heroin, wouldn’t it? He’d hardly go to the trouble of shipping a lot of inert waste material halfway around the world when he’s undoubtedly got access to refining facilities back home. But in that case, if Warfel’s arranging to obtain the pure stuff from the Chinese, I can’t see why he’d bother to set up a refining laboratory of his own here in Mexico. Unless—”
The Poisoners Page 18