John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 14 - The Scarlet Ruse

by The Scarlet Ruse(Lit)

  "Stay right here no matter what you hear, what you imagine, what you think. Don't try to think. Just stay until I come after you. Get cute and we're both dead."

  "Where will you be? What are you going to do?"

  "Take care of you. Shut up and wait. Not a sound. I've got a good place.

  I'll get the jump."

  I left her there and went and opened up my good place, stocked it with what I thought I'd need, left it open and ready. I went to the galley and knelt and looked cautiously out of the lower right corner of the fixed glass opening by the booth that adjoins the galley.

  I had thought it would give me a view of everything.

  The angle was slightly wrong. I could see the yellow raft and the wreck of the Munequita and most of the nearby island, but I couldn't see the sandbar end of it. I could see to within ten feet of where I guessed he would take up his position. Now be as patient as he.

  I could not have told Mary Alice the truth about what I wanted to do. I wanted the ruse of the raft, the red hat, the" silence, the disabled boats, to lure them aboard, Sprenger and friend. I had the idea they would save Meyer for some conversations once they saw my stage setting.

  Tie him to the mangroves while they came aboard the Flush. And then, when I had my opportunity, I would merely pop out of my secret place, sap the nearest one behind the ear with a delicate twist of the wrist, hold the other one under the gun and yell boo. Turn him around and darken his world too, then truss them both with utmost care and diligence.

  Go get the lady with the unusual haircut and add her to the stack. Go get Meyer and the boat and bring the boat around. Use the big anchor and the power takeoff winch to pull the Flush out of the mangroves.

  Cork up the Munequita and rig a pump and float her. Take both small boats in short tow and retrace the winding channel back to the main channel, and put Meyer, with a cold brew in hand, at the wheel, while I make a call through the Miami Marine Operator to one Sergeant Goodbread.

  Sergeant?

  This is Mcgee. I've got something for you.

  No problems. Virtue prevails. A brisk encounter, made successful by the element of surprise.

  Every ten minutes I looked at my watch and found that one more minute had gone by. I could hear a distant hysterical laughter of terns scooping up bait fish. I heard a jet go over, very high. I heard a drop of my sweat splat onto the vinyl floor.

  My pants were dry, salt crusty, and now beginning to darken with sweat around the waist. The boat shoes were still damp. The wind was slacking off. I could see the water turning glassier. The bugs should come up out of the mangrove and grass marsh and shorten Sprenger's iron patience.

  He would not be emotional now. Now it was a chore.

  He had been brought in from Phoenix six years ago on more of a basis than his pretty face. If punishment for trying cute tricks is quick, merciless, and permanent, fewer attempts are made, and the whole interweave of cooperation and concession runs more smoothly. If unaffiliated strangers come to the city to undercut the going street prices, and they are found long dead in an elegant apartment beside their long dead girls, fewer strangers come to town to go into business.

  If a man testifies before the grand jury and they find his head in a hat box in a coin locker at the airport, all grand juries accomplish less.

  I changed position. My legs were cramped. Come on, Frank! I happened to be looking at the raft when I saw the scarlet hat leap into the air all by itself, along with the flat echoless smack of high velocity across water. The hat jumped up about a foot, leaping toward the middle of the raft. The impact knocked the fender forward, so that it slipped down below the round yellow bulge of rubberized fabric. It pulled the hair with it, so that only a small fringe still hung over the round of the life raft, visible from the island. I could not have hoped for a more realistic effect.

  The raft began to sink at the foot end. There were three more shots, spaced one second apart. The raft settled more quickly and almost level.

  It disappeared. Air bubbles belched up. Then there was just the red hat, floating high on the water, but beginning slowly to settle as the salt water soaked into the fabric.

  There was a silence of perhaps five minutes, and then the spaced shots began again. Six of them. I saw where they were going when the second one sent red dust into the air from the lens of the port bow running light of the Munequita. He shot her lights off and the little chrome knob off the top of the ensign staff and the little elbow off the top of the windshield wiper.

  He certainly wasn't using any target rifle, not at that rate of aimed fire. The sound had a vicious, stinging quality about it. Six shots gave me a vague clue. It was probably a bolt action, small-caliber, high-velocity load job, like that.243 Winchester Special, which dropped atoout a half inch in the first hundred yards, firing a seventy- to eightygrain slug at a muzzle velocity of around thirty-six hundred feet per second.

  Boats have a personality, a presence, a responsiveness.

  Little Doll had done her damned well best at all times for me, and I had sunk her onto a sand bar so somebody could shoot her bangles off.

  It had to be confusing her.

  There was a shorter wait, and this time the six shots came smacking at The Busted Flush. I heard the ship's bell ring and the dying scree of ricochet off brass. Crash and tinkle and zing. Thud and whine and whizz of splinters.

  Just about enough time for a reload and it began again.

  One got into the galley and clanked around among the pots. Then a lengthening silence. My cue to disappear.

  Tall white rabbit hops back into top hat.

  I had bet Meyer that I could go aboard the Flush and hide and he could not find me in a two-hour search. He knew the old houseboat well. We bet one hundred dollars, plus welching privileges, which means that if you lose, you can buy the winner a very good dinner and try to renegotiate your loss.

  He did not know that while he was up in Montreal for a week, listening to people read papers on international currency and exchange, I had found an exiled master carpenter from Cuba. When you open the door to the head, you are in a short corridor with the master stateroom at your right, the guest stateroom at your left. Affixed to the bulkhead straight ahead is a full-length mirror, already installed when I had won the houseboat in a poker game. I had done some measuring. The little Cuban was amused.

  He said it was possible. He moved the ulterior bulkhead out a few inches. He went around into the galley and made a tall provision locker a few Laches shallower. He removed the mirror, cut a hole just a hair smaller than the mirror, put a brass piano-hinge down one side of the tall mirror and reinstalled it. I tried it for size in there.

  If a man does not have a swollen gut, even a large man takes up surprisingly little space if you measure him back to front. Less than twelve inches. But it was too dark in there. I located a good piece of two-way glass at an exorbitant price, and he installed it in the mirror frame. It was much better that way.

  The Cuban removed every trace of his highly skilled labor. He devised a simple but solid catch which would hold the mirror-door closed and could be released by inserting a long wire brad into an almost invisible hole on the right side of the mirror, in the bulkhead next to the frame.

  For the occupant there was a simple turn block on the Inside. He did a lot of winking, because he thought it was where I planned to tuck the errant lady when the husband came storming aboard.

  I did not advise him that I had never gone in for the middle-America hobby of sc ragging the random wife at any opportunity. But there had been a lot of times when people had come aboard looking for other people, when it had been unfortunate all the way around to have no good stowage area for people who would rather not be found. And as long as I had it, I thought I would make Meyer pay for it. He lost the bet.

  He marveled at the ingenuity, the craftsmanship. He bought me a legendary steak, a great wine, and wheedled me down to ten percent of the original bet.

  They would come a
board. They would search the Flush. And sooner or later, they would both be in the short corridor between the staterooms at the same time.

  At which time I would pop out, the Browning automatic in my right hand, the woven leather sap in my left, all ready and eager to thump their skulls with ten ounces of padded lead at the end of a spring.

  I moved toward the lounge, staying back out of sight, listening. I had the shirts memorized. White shirt on Meyer. In case of bad trouble, fire at yellow shirt or black shirt. Soon, a little sooner than I expected, I heard the unmistakable sound of more than one man walking through thigh-deep water. I couldn't tell if it was two or three, only that it was more than one.

  So I nipped back to my safe and secret place. I'd left the mirror-door standing open. It was still open. The mirror lay on the corridor floor, and the biggest piece was smaller than a dinner plate. One of those twelve shots had come angling down the corridor or had spun off something or... What now, big white rabbit?

  Terror is absolutely nonproductive. It is not worth a thing. So if it is new to you, you don't know how to handle it, and it can freeze you.

  But if you have felt it before, many times in many places, you know that if you can start moving, it will go away. You can't spend time thinking, or you will freeze up again. You have to move without thought. It can be like shifting into some rare and special gear, some kind of overdrive seldom needed and seldom available. I dipped down and picked the pistol and sap off the floor of the useless refuge. They were going to come into the lounge from the aft deck. It was the logical approach for them.

  And it was the only below-decks space that was large enough to improve my chances. I got there as fast as I could and as silently as I could.

  There was only one place in the room where I could not be seen from the doorway or from the ports. I crawled to it, to the shelter of the long curved yellow couch, and flattened out.

  I could look under it and see the sill of the open door. I could hunch forward a foot and a half and be able to see the whole doorway.

  All right now, Mcgee. Forget the childhood dreams of glory. Have no scruples about firing from ambush and firing to kill. No Queensbury rules, fellow.

  I heard the diving platform creak. Water dripped. There was a grunt of effort, slap of wet palm against railing, thud of rubber soles on the decking. Then the sequence was repeated.

  "Goddamn the bugs!"

  "Shut up!"

  "There's nobody on "

  "Shut up!"

  There was ten seconds of silence. And suddenly something came bounding into the lounge. I had the impression of some animal, some vast, vital, rubbery strength that covered fifteen feet and landed lightly, poised, every sense alert. Next, a pair of big wet tennis shoes stopped by the sill, just inside the room.

  The voice by the door said, "There's nobody on this " I was going to have to get rid of that voice by the door to give all my attention to the animal presence over beyond the couch. I wormed forward and saw all of him, Davis, soaked to the waist, revolver in the left hand, the hand nearest me, the hand now sagging down to his side. I told the gun to go where I pointed it, as it always had, forgetting the first one was double action, missing the hand, putting the second one into the hand.

  He screamed and pounced for the dropped weapon, trying to grab it up with the other hand, and I hit that hand, and he went diving, tumbling out the doorway onto the deck as I spun, hitched back, looked up, and waited for the round target of the head to appear over the back of the couch. The three shots had been very close together, a huge wham-barn ming sound far different than the whippy lick of the rifle, and leaving a sharp stink of propellant in the hot air.

  The rifle cracked like a huge whip and laid its lash across the edge of my thigh. I suddenly had the wit to flatten out again and look under the couch. He wore white boat shoes. I had to turn the automatic onto its side to aim. I couldn't point it naturally. I had to aim it. The shoes moved closer. I had to aim again. The side of the shoe burst into wet red, and he made not a sound. I took my chance on bounding up rather than trying for the other white shoe and bringing him down. But as I swung the pistol, he fired without aiming, a snap shot, doubtless hoping to hit me, but it worked like one of those impossible trick shots out of a bad Western. It slammed the gun out of my hand and spun it into the far corner, leaving my hand and arm numb to the elbow.

  Sprenger worked the bolt quickly and aimed at the middle of my forehead and then slowly lowered it.

  "You're a damned idiot, Mcgee. And a damned nuisance."

  "You haven't got a lot of options."

  He tested the foot, taking a short step on it. He did not wince, limp, change expression. But pain drained the blood out of his face and made his tan look saffron. He had shed his sunglasses.

  "Meaning I need you?" He waved me back and took another step and propped a hip on the corner of the back of the couch.

  "Is Meyer all right?"

  It took several moments for the implications of my question to get through to him.

  "You are some kind of people, you two. He's a bright man. He knows a lot about the tax future of municipals. We had a nice talk. I'm losing my touch. I can't read people anymore. That damned Mcdermit woman is insane. Was insane. Once she got leverage, it was like all she wanted was to get us both killed. I read you wrong. I read Meyer wrong."

  "Is he all right?"

  "So far. He probably isn't comfortable, but he's all right. Thanks for letting me know he's trading material."

  "If you could get back there to the boat."

  He looked at his bleeding foot.

  "Blow it off at the knee and I could get back there." I believed him.

  He shook his big head. There was a glint of rue in the little blueberry eyes.

  "I had nearly five hundred round ones stashed, in case I ever had to run and had a chance to run. Postage stamps! Dear Jesus Lord!"

  "A sterling investment, Mr. Feddennan says."

  "What could I do? She would have screamed to the Mcdermit brothers I was laying her."

  "There wasn't any dear friend primed to make a report." He thought that over.

  "I couldn't take a chance. You can see that. That woman would rather lie than tell it straight." He leaned back and looked out the doorway.

  He lifted the rifle slightly and said, "Something you should know. At this range, anyplace I hit you "

  "I'm dead from hydrostatic shock. It hits fluid, transmits the shock wave up veins and arteries, and explodes the heart valves. You came close. You put a skin burn on my thigh."

  "You know a lot of things. Walk way around me slowly and take a look at Davis, from the doorway."

  I followed directions. Davis was out. He was on his face, legs spraddled, one smashed hand under his belly, the other over his head. I could see little arterial spurtings from the torn wrist, a small pulsing fountain that was as big around as a soda straw and jetted about three inches.

  Blood ran into the scuppers and drained into the sea. His head was turned so I could see his face. His closed lids looked blue. His moustache was glued to white papery flesh. He had dwindled inside his clothes, but his big straw planter hat was still firmly in place. The small jet dwindled quickly. Two inches, one inch, nothing.

  I turned around slowly and took a slow step back into the lounge.

  "He just bled to death."

  He looked puzzled.

  "I thought you hit him in the hand."

  "Both hands. He couldn't stop the bleeding, using the one that wasn't so bad."

  "You were trying to hit him in the hands?"

  "Yes."

  "You're good with that thing. But you are an idiot. If you're that good, you could have popped up and hit me in the head and then him."

  "Call it a natural revulsion, Frank."

  "You've got first aid stuff aboard?"

  "Always."

  "You're going to get it and fix this foot."

  "We're supposed to be in negotiation, aren't we?"

/>   He looked at me and through me, at the narrow vista of his possibilities, his meager chances. He said in a tired voice, "I build that municipal bond business from almost nothing. It was supposed to be a front. But I like it. I'm good at it. It's what I really want to do."

  "Frank?"

  "I know. I know."

  "So the pattern was kill me and the woman and Davis and Meyer, burn this boat with all four bodies aboard, after retrieving the rarities Mary Alice ran off with, and go back and run a very good bluff and hope for the best, hope they don't find out Mary Alice killed Jane Lawson, and then tie you to Mary Alice in the Fedderman swindle. If you can get the goodies back, your best move would be cancel out with Fedderman and retrieve that junk out of the box."