by Nick Carter
There were lights on behind the wall. I could hear voices calling out to one another. As I moved closer to the wall, I could hear the splash of water. I recognized one of the girls’ voices as that of the blonde I’d seen earlier that afternoon at El Cortijo.
I crept along the base of the wall until I came to the driveway that angled in from the road. The gatefront was illuminated by two spotlights hung high on the main supports. There was no way for me to cross the driveway that close to the house without being seen, so I crawled back to the road and crossed it where I’d left Bickford and the car. It took me twenty minutes to make a complete reconnoiter of the other side of the house from the cliff edge to the drive, and then I retraced my steps and came back to the edge of the road again.
I was about to cross the road, the muscles of my leg already tensed to make the step, when some deeply rooted sense of danger halted me in my tracks.
There had been no change in the night sounds. Below the cliff, I heard the waves break in their same, slow, irregular rhythm against the boulders and onto the narrow, sandy beach. The westerly sea breezes rustled palm fronds together like a rubbing of dry hands. The night insects whined and chirped, twittering in the darkness all around me, yet it was as if some primordial alarm had been triggered inside my mind.
Long ago, I’d learned to trust my instincts completely. Even before the first, faint whisper of sound reached my ears, I flung myself sideways, twisting away from my unseen assailant.
I almost made it unscathed. The blow aimed at my spine caught me on the forearm as I turned, the blade of the knife ripping into my right arm just below the elbow, slashing it down to the wrist, making me drop the gun that I held in my hand. At the same moment, a hard, muscular body drove into me, knocking me off balance.
I fell flat on my face, barely in time to avoid the return slash as the blade cut the air where I had been only a second before. Without thinking, acting by pure reflex, I rolled quickly to the far edge of the road.
I lifted my head to see the blocky form of my attacker crouched in the spread-legged stance of a knife fighter. Moonlight glinted off the honed, razor-steel blade that he held in one outstretched hand, weaving his arm back and forth in front of him. I heard the rasping inhalations of breath as the man moved toward me, one shuffling step at a time.
I gathered my legs beneath me. My left hand scraped at the road. I found and clutched a fist-sized rock. I could feel the damp warmth of blood streaming down my right forearm and wrist. I tried to move my right hand. It was almost uselessly numb from the blow.
The man moved up beside the car to the open window of the driver’s seat. I saw him move his hand in through the window, and suddenly the car’s headlights came on, illuminating the road and the edge of the field, pinning me down in its harsh, white glare.
Slowly, I rose to my feet, my eyes squinting against the brightness of the lights. I began to move, trying to get out of the beam of the headlights.
My attacker moved out in front of the car, a stark, dangerous silhouette against the dazzling brilliance of the beams.
I moved another step.
“It ain’t going to do you no good to run.”
The long blade of the knife in his hand began its slow, snakelike weaving once more.
“Stand still, hombre! I’m gonna make it quick for you.”
I recognized the voice. It belonged to the stocky young man who had approached me at the malecon two days before—Luis Aparicio. The recollection brought back a flood of others. For some reason, the image of the turtle being disemboweled flashed into my mind. In my head, I could see again the turtle lying helplessly on its back, the quick slashes of the fisherman’s knife, the muscular arm bloodied to the elbow, and the long gray and pink coils of wet gut spilled onto the steps of the jetty.
Pushing the images away, I kept my voice calm with an effort. “Hello, Luis.”
“I told you we would meet again,” Luis said. He moved forward another shuffling step. “Tonight, I fix your friend at the hotel. Now, I take care of you.”
“You’ve been following me?”
Luis shook his head. “No, I don’t follow you. I come out here to see Carlos Ortega to tell him what I do at the hotel. I come up the road and I see a car. What you think I find inside, all tied up, huh? So I wait. Pretty soon, who you think comes up?” He smiled without mirth and took another step toward me. “Hombre, I’m going to cut you slow, and there ain’t nothing you can do.”
My mind was racing, calculating the few options I had. To run would only delay the end by a few desperate minutes. To stand and fight with only a rock as a weapon and with one arm rendered helpless was equally useless. To move in, unarmed, on a trained knife fighter would be sheer suicide.
In that second, I evaluated and discarded every choice but one, and even then, I knew the odds would be heavily against me. One small fact had come into my mind. I remembered how quickly Luis had lost his temper when I’d refused his offer to serve as my guide. Now, I gambled on that.
“A little punk like you?” I laughed at him, the derision in my voice reaching out and stinging him like a slap in the face. “Only from behind and in the dark— and even then you missed!”
Luis stopped moving forward. We were no more than eight feet apart
“You think I can’t do it?”
“Come and try!” I held out my left hand so that Luis could see the rock I held in it. Deliberately, I turned my hand over and let it fall to the ground.
“For a man, I might need a weapon,” I said, putting as much scorn into my voice as I could. “For you—” I spat into the road.
Luis turned slightly toward me. The headlights touched and lit up his face in sharp triangles of black and white. His mouth twisted into an angry grimace.
Slowly, I reached back into my hip pocket with my left hand and took out my handkerchief. I wound it around my slashed, right forearm.
“What’re you gonna use when I cut your stomach open?” Luis jeered.
I didn’t look at him, although every nerve in my body screamed at me to keep my eyes on the knife in Luis’s fist. Again, I reached behind with my left hand, my fingers going into my pocket and curling around the heavy brass plaque attached to my hotel room key. I kept my body turned away from Luis as I slid the key and plaque out of my pocket.
“You don’t have the cojones to come at me face to lace,” I taunted him. “I might take that knife away from you and make you get down on your hands and knees and lick it with your tongue like a dog! You’d like that, wouldn’t you, you little maladonada.”
“Don’t talk like that!” Luis snarled, trembling with rage.
I prodded him again. “Malcreado, chico! I spit on little pimps like you!”
Deliberately, I turned my back on him and took a step down the road away from him. Luis uttered a cry of rage and sprang after me.
With the first scraping noise, I flung myself to one side and spun around. Luis’s knife came whipping up at me, slashing through the air where I had stood only a fraction of a second before.
The furious sweep of his lunge had left him wide open. With every ounce of strength I could muster, I brought my left hand swinging around from my side in a vicious snap, hurling the brass plaque and key full into Luis’s face from only inches away. The heavy edge of the brass plate caught him across his eyelids.
He screamed out in pain. One hand involuntarily flew up to his blinded eyes, the other desperately thrust out the knife as he stumbled away, his sandals skidding on the loose gravel of the road. He slipped to one knee, his left hand going out to break his fall, the other still clutching the switchblade.
I took a long, savage step forward, lashing out with the full power of my right leg in a hard, driving kick— thigh muscles, calf muscles, back muscles all explosively concentrated with the whole force of my body, my ankle locked, my toe pointed rigidly.
And Luis, desperately pushing himself to his feet, came rising sightlessly into the blow, catching the
point of my shoe squarely in the middle of his throat.
His mouth flew open. His knife dropped. Both hands went to his neck. He thrust himself stumblingly to his feet, staggering erect, standing finally in a bent-kneed, swaying crouch, the raw, animal sound of his scream blocked in his throat by a smashed larynx.
Luis turned toward me, the brutal glare of the headlights shining full on his bulging eyes and tortured face. Blood ran from his eyelids where the key and plaque had torn them open. His mouth gaped and closed as he tried to drag air into his lungs. His chest convulsed with the enormous and futile effort. Then, his legs buckled and with a great shuddering gasp, he fell forward, his face smashing into the gravel of the road. He thrashed crablike in the dirt, trying to breathe, trying to get up. His muscular body arched in one, giant final spasm and then he was still.
For a long moment, while I caught my own breath I watched him carefully. Then I went over to him and picked up the knife from beside his body. I wiped my own blood off the blade onto Luis’s shirt, folding the blade into the handle and putting it into my pocket I found my hotel key and, after a few minutes’ search, I found the .38 Airweight revolver that he had knocked from my hand in his first, murderous rush.
Finally, I went back to the car and turned off the headlights. I didn’t know how much longer I had before someone might come along. In the sudden darkness, I felt drained and tired and my arm began to ache badly, but there were still a few things I had to do before the night was over. For one thing, I couldn’t leave Luis’s body where it was. I didn’t want it discovered just yet.
I opened the trunk of the car, and, tired as I was, I hauled his body to the car and heaved him into the compartment, then slammed the lid shut
Wearily, I climbed into the front seat and started the car. I turned it around in the darkness before I switched on the headlights and drove back to Bickford’s casa.
Half an hour later, I sat patiently in Bickford’s living room waiting for the big man to regain consciousness. My arm had given me hell, especially when I had to move Bickford’s inert body from the car into the house, but I managed it in spite of the pain. I’d cleaned the cut with peroxide and had wrapped it tightly with bandages, both of which I’d found in the medicine cabinet in Bickford’s bathroom. The wound wasn’t deep, no tendons had been cut, but now the numbness had worn off and it hurt. I tried to ignore the pain, exercising my fingers to keep them from stiffening up. Every once in awhile, I’d pick up the gun in my wounded hand and grip the butt tightly. After awhile, I was satisfied that I could use it with my right hand if I had to.
Bickford was still completely out. So was his wife. Doris would probably sleep through until late morning. While I waited for Bickford to come to his senses, I went over to the telephone and got the number I wanted from information. I put in the call to police headquarters and hung up quickly because I didn’t want to answer any questions. I went back to the armchair to wait patiently.
In about fifteen minutes, Bickford came awake. I saw the surprise on his face at finding himself sprawled on the floor, staring at my shoes. He grunted heavily and rolled over onto his back. I leaned down and ripped the adhesive tape from his mouth. He spat out the gag.
“You son-of-a-bitch,” he said thickly, “what’d you have to slug me for?”
I ignored the question. “I want you to telephone Garrett.”
Bickford glared at me. “What the hell am I supposed to tell him?” he asked sourly. “That I screwed up? That you’re sitting here in my house with a gun in your hand and want to talk to him?”
“Exactly. Right down to the last detail.”
I knelt down beside him, taking Luis’s knife from my pocket and pressing the button on the side of the handle. The blade flicked out Bickford’s eyes widened in sudden fear. Roughly, I turned him on his side, slitting through the adhesive tape that bound his wrists behind him, and then I cut the tape at his ankles and knees.
He sat up slowly, flexing his fingers. He rose unsteadily to his feet, moving across the room on ponderous feet. His eyes went to the couch where Doris lay.
“She’s still asleep. I’ve already checked on her.”
“She’d better be all right,” Bickford growled.
I ignored the comment “Get on the telephone and tell Garrett that I’m waiting here for him—and that he’s to bring along his friend, Carlos.”
Bickford glared at me, but he reached out for the phone and made the call Then there was nothing for us to do but wait until Brian Garrett and Carlos Ortega arrived.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Doris was still asleep on the couch. Bickford sat beside her, a shambling brute of a man, ashen with fatigue and worry. Carlos sat in one of the armchairs, his legs crossed carefully in front of him so as not to spoil the crease in his slacks. He stared silently at the bandage that covered my right arm from my elbow to my wrist My Madras jacket lay on the floor beside me, its right sleeve ripped open. The gun in my right hand was steady, without showing the least sign of a quiver in spite of the pain I felt. I couldn’t let him think Td been hurt much. Brian Garrett sat in the other arm chair, leaning forward, his beefy face flushed with anger, glaring at me.
“Just so that you’ll know that what Bickford told you is true,” I said. I leaned forward over the coffee table cluttered with magazines and newspapers. The Sunday edition of the Mexico City News was on top. I lifted up part of the newspaper. Underneath was a one-kilo, plastic bag packed full of a white powder.
Carlos and Garrett both looked down at the bag, their eyes drawn irresistibly to it. With my left hand, I took out Luis’s knife and flicked open the blade.
Carlos’ expression didn’t change. If he recognized the knife, he gave no sign, but then there were hundreds more like it in town—one of which was embedded deeply in Jean-Paul’s spine.
I jabbed the point of the blade into the bag, tearing it open slightly. Some of the powder drifted out onto the glass of the table top.
“Want to test it?”
Carlos reached out with his fingertip to touch the powder. He put his fingertip to his tongue. He nodded his head.
I reached out with the knife again and enlarged the cut I put the knife back into my pocket, still holding the gun on them. Then, I picked up the torn bag in my left hand and moved to the French doors. I pushed one of the doors ajar with my foot. Standing in the doorway, still facing them, the Smith & Wesson .38 aimed directly at Carlos, I turned the torn bag over so that the white powder blew out into the night.
Garrett jumped to his feet “You fool!” he burst out “You know how much that’s worth?”
“Sit down, Brian,” Carlos said, equably. “This is a game for big stakes. The man is showing us he can afford to sit in on it.”
Brian dropped back into his chair. He ran a meaty hand through his greying hair. “Goddamn you,” he said to me, savagely. “What do you want from us?”
“Just what I wanted before. Lay off Stocelli. Stay away from me.”
“Or?” Carlos asked, calmly.
“I’ll bust you wide open. I told you that before.”
“You talk big, Mr. Carter. I don’t believe you can do it.”
“I’d been looking out the open French doors. Now, I said, “Come outside for a minute. I want you to see something.”
They exchanged looks. Carlos lifted his shoulders in a shrug as if to say he didn’t know what I had in mind. The three of them got to their feet and went outside onto the terrace.
“Over there. Take a look at the naval base.”
We could make out a flurry of activity as lights suddenly came on. The deep, urgent hooting of a ship’s horn blowing insistent, hoarse blasts for action stations came faintly across the bay to us. In only minutes, we could make out the dim shape of a corvette backing away from the dock and then, as it turned, churning water at its stern. It began to pick up forward motion. By the time the corvette had reached the narrow inlet to the ocean, it was moving at almost flank speed, curls of white spray mak
ing twin rooster tails at its bow.
“What’s all that about?” Garrett asked.
“You tell him what you think,” I said to Bickford. Even in the moonlight, I could see fear on his face.
“They’re going after the tuna boat,” he guessed.
“Exactly right.”
“But how? How could they know about it?”
“I told them,” I said, tersely. “Now, shall we go back inside?”
“Let me get this straight,” Carlos said. “You gave five kilos of heroin to the captain and sent him off?”
Bickford nodded miserably. “He’d have killed me, Carlos. I had no choice.”
Carlos turned to me. “And then you notified the naval base?”
“Indirectly. I called the police. I think they’ll pick up your ship in the next half hour or so.”
Carlos smiled confidently. “You think my captain will be so stupid as to let a naval vessel board his ship without first dropping the package over the side?”
“Of course not,” I agreed. “But he doesn’t know about the other four kilos I planted when Bickford and I were leaving the ship. They’ll find that second package because I told them just where to look for it. The first was only a decoy.”
Carlos’ face was an olive mask with two, narrowing eyes aimed at me.
“Why?”
“Do you still think I can’t break up your organization?”
“I see.” He leaned back in the armchair. “You’ve just cost us a great deal, Mr. Carter. Our captain will think we’ve double-crossed him. It’s going to be hard to keep him from talking as long as he thinks that way.”
“That’s step one,” I said.
“I think we’ll have to do away with him permanently,” Carlos reflected out loud. “We can’t take a chance on him talking.”
“He’s no great loss. Add up the rest of the damage.”
“We’ve also lost a vessel. Is that what you mean? True. Worse than that—word will spread. We shall have a difficult time finding a replacement for him.”