I watched the indecision in her face. She struggled with the problem for a moment, then said sharply, ‘Johnny, go out there and get the guy’s wallet.’
John stood up and began to move, and then she saw the flaw in it. Once he was out there he was out of her control. ‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘Sit down.’
He sat down again and Bette thought it over. Her thumb was in her mouth and I heard the faint sound as she clicked the nail against her teeth. All she had to do was to wait until Steve or Terry came across the lagoon, but I had given it to her too fast and she was confused – too confused, I hoped, to think straight.
She jerked the pistol at me. ‘Kemp, if this is a con then you’re dead for sure. Hear me?’
‘I’ve told you the simple truth.’
‘Okay.’ Bette looked at Leotta. ‘Tomkins, Tomsson, whatever the hell your name is, if you make one move out of place then Kemp gets it. Because I’ll be right behind him. That goes for Salton, too. Tell them, Kemp: you’d better tell them good.’
‘She means it,’ I said. ‘And I’d hate to get my head blown off. I still have a need for it. Don’t do a bloody thing. That goes for you too, John.’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said.
‘Leotta?’
She nodded. ‘I won’t move.’
‘Jill?’ She was silent. ‘Jill, I want to hear it.’
‘All right,’ she said.
‘She won’t do anything,’ Leotta said. ‘I’ll see to it.’
I looked at Bette and she nodded in satisfaction. ‘Okay. Stand up and walk to the door. Don’t break into a run.’
It was good to stand up again after sitting for so long. I creaked a little as I walked to the door and Bette moved behind me. ‘Slow,’ she said. ‘Make it slow. No sudden movements. I get nervous about those.’
We walked outside into the fading light; nightfall was not far away. At a funereal pace, like the bandsmen of the Grenadier Guards doing a slow march, we proceeded until we stopped outside the big picture window under which the body of Negrini lay. I looked in through the window and saw a movement at the settee, which ceased even as I watched.
‘Okay,’ said Bette. ‘Now make it slow and easy. Bend your knees.’
Negrini’s body was at my feet. I bent my knees until I was squatting. ‘Take out his wallet and hold it up over your head. Remember there’s a gun not far from your skull.’
Carefully I felt inside Negrini’s jacket until I found his inner breast pocket and the wallet that was in it. I took out the wallet and transferred it to my left hand and held it up. It was twitched from my fingers. ‘Keep your hand there.’
My right hand, screened by my body, was busy. I found Negrini’s automatic pistol, slid it from its holster and brought it close to my waist. From behind I heard Bette’s breath come from her lips in a sudden hiss. ‘All right, so you called that one.’
‘Why would I lie?’ I asked. I sucked in my belly and pushed the gun down the waistband of my trousers.
‘Get up,’ she ordered. ‘As slowly as you went down.’
We went back into the house at the same pace and I sat down again, being careful not to let my jacket swing open. Leotta, who had been sitting back, came forward again, and Jill lifted her left arm and began to rub it. It almost looked as though Leotta had been holding Jill’s arm twisted behind her back, though I could have been wrong.
Bette was flipping through the wallet. ‘It’s Negrini, all right. Driving licence, club cards, credit cards.’ She tossed the wallet on to the floor. ‘So the guy’s dead,’ she said. ‘It could happen to anybody.’
I could have built up her fright again but I didn’t. It had served its purpose and I didn’t want her frightened again: she was dangerous in that condition. I said, ‘Two years’ planning? Must have been a lot of work. I suppose your husband and Philips did most of it.’
Vanity again. Bette stared at me. ‘Are you kidding? That pair of slobs are a waste of space. All they can do is fly airplanes. But that’s all they need to do. That and provide the muscle.’ She tapped herself on the chest. ‘This one is all mine.’
I nodded judiciously. ‘It’s possible, I suppose.’
‘Goddammit! What do you mean, possible?’
‘Oh, don’t misunderstand me,’ I said. ‘I’m no male chauvinist pig.’ I shook my head. ‘I just don’t see how you’re going to do it.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘You haven’t done the homework I’ve done.’
‘So?’
‘So, the dough goes out four times a year, by plane to Europe. This flight’ll be the heaviest because it’s just after the season. Cute, hey?’
‘Very thoughtful.’ My breath was bated enough to strangle me. I might get it this time: that’s why I’d taken the chance and needled her again.
‘Flight LH713, Benning to Frankfurt non-stop.’ She checked her watch. ‘Takes off in less than an hour. But it’ll never make it to Frankfurt.’
‘You’re going to hijack it?’
‘Sure. Why not? Philips and my old man will be aboard. They’ll take over the controls and then dive real fast down to sea level to get under the radar. In less than two hours, they’ll be landing old LH713 right here at El Cerco.’
‘They’ll never get away with that,’ I said disgustedly. ‘There have been too many hijackings. How the hell are they going to get their guns aboard? They’ll need guns, you know.’
‘They won’t have guns when they go aboard. They’ll just walk past that tricksy magnetometer and it won’t give a cheep because they’ll be clean. I told you this was planned, Kemp. The guns are on board already – have been since two this afternoon. And hidden real well. You’d be surprised what a couple of flyers who have made friends at an airport can get done.’
My heart sank. It might just work. Stash the guns well before take-off, and those two wouldn’t have any trouble getting aboard. And they were both pilots, which the average hijacker is not. I couldn’t recall a case where a plane had been hijacked by someone who could fly it. This one could work.
‘Of course, there aren’t just two of them,’ she said. ‘Someone has to keep the passengers quiet.’
I felt my skin crawl. ‘This is a routine passenger flight?’ Even though we had been talking about Haslam and Philips going aboard, it hadn’t sunk in that there would be other passengers.
‘Sure. I think they figured no one would suspect all that dough being aboard a standard flight. It cost me plenty to get that information.’
‘So the plane lands here. What happens to the passengers?’
‘Nothing. What the hell do I care about the passengers? It’s the dough I want.’
That was what was troubling me: what did she care about the passengers? Anyone trigger-happy enough to shoot Negrini the way she had was not too sane, and ever since she had done little to convince me she was stable. The palms of my hands began to sweat.
‘Hold on. You’ve got a plane full of people and cash parked on a remote airstrip in the middle of the Caribbean. What can you possibly do with that?’
‘Ah, now that’s the smart bit. The money is switched to the Lear – we can use the passengers to help with that – and then we have a really cute trick. When the boys take over LH713, they’ll send out a Mayday call just before they take her down below the radar. That way, everyone thinks she’s crashed. But after we’ve taken the money off her, Philips flies her off again in a big circle back to San Martin. Did you know he’s a real good parachutist?’
‘No,’ I said tonelessly.
‘Made over four hundred jumps. It’s the way he gets his kicks. Anyway, he reckons he can crash that plane right in San Martin harbour. He’ll get out, of course, and we’ll have a boat waiting for him.’ She waved her finger at me. ‘So that, friend, is going to cause one hell of a lot of confusion. Here’s a plane that’s supposed to have crashed at sea, which suddenly comes back and crashes at San Martin. Everybody and his uncle are going to get their goddamn wires crossed and nobody is g
oing to know what to think.’
She made a swooping motion with her hand. ‘In the confusion, we take off from here in Salton’s plane. That will crash too, but only when the money’s safe. Good, huh?’
I licked dry lips. ‘Very.’ I didn’t ask her where the passengers would be when LH713 crashed in San Martin harbour. I was afraid to hear the answer.
I heard a popping noise and Bette cocked her head on one side. The light was quite dim but I could see a boat coming across the lagoon. ‘Not long now,’ she said.
I glanced sideways at Leotta. I didn’t know if she’d seen me take the gun from Negrini’s body. She could have seen and I hoped she had. If I had to shoot, then everyone would have to move fast. I looked at Bette and contemplated taking a chance before the reinforcement arrived but one glance at the steady muzzle pointing unwaveringly at my sternum changed my mind. There was no way I would beat Annie Oakley the Second.
‘Don’t we need a babysitter any more?’ I asked.
She shrugged. ‘You’re no danger to us now. There’s nothing you could do to stop us. Not this late in the game.’
The boat came up to the quay and the engine stopped. Presently a young man walked past the window, glanced down at Negrini’s body, and then moved on. He came into the room. ‘Okay, Bette,’ he said. ‘Time to go.’
He was wearing a shirt, shorts and sandals, very tanned and with the callouses on his knees that only come from hundreds of hours on a surfboard. A typical beach bum.
‘Am I glad you’re here,’ said Bette. ‘Take care of this lot, will you? I’m tired of holding this gun.’
I had to make a fast decision and I’ll never know if it was the right one or the wrong one. But she was lowering her gun and he was pulling one out, and I judged him to be the greater danger, in spite of Bette’s demonstrable marksmanship. I could only hope that taking them by surprise would buy me vital moments.
In the instant that their guard was down I shot him, making sure by pumping three rounds into him.
Leotta, who had been poised like a hunting panther, was halfway across the room before the report of my first shot died away. Bette saw her coming and jerked up her pistol fast and it exploded with a stab of flame and a slam of sound. I got off the third shot at my boy and saw he was falling, and whirled around to see Leotta jerk like a marionette with a string suddenly cut. But she carried on and before Bette could pull the trigger again, her wrist was pushed aside and the next bullet went wide.
The athlete’s body I had first admired in Leotta was now revealing that it wasn’t just for show. She literally picked up Bette bodily, plucking her from the chair and holding her by her head, despite her kicks. Leotta threw Bette through the big picture window with a smash and a jangle of glass. And then she collapsed.
I ran outside. I wanted to make certain of the hellcat, but I needn’t have troubled. She had gone through the window frontally and a shard of glass had chopped through the side of her neck so that her carotid spouted blood. There was still comprehension in her eyes as I bent over her and she tried to say something, but all that came out of her was an empty, breathy sound. Then her eyes glazed as the blood supply to her brain failed and she looked up at me sightlessly.
ELEVEN
I
I went back into the house and found Leotta slumped in the low armchair. She was clutching her left arm with her right hand, and blood was seeping between the fingers. There was a pained look on her face.
‘She got you,’ I said stupidly.
‘Forget about me.’ She nodded across the room towards the settee. ‘It’s her you need to worry about.’
I turned and looked at Jill, who was lying on her side, curled into a foetal position. The second bullet from Bette Haslam’s gun must have found a lucky target. Or unlucky. John was bending over her and making sympathetic noises but not doing much else. He stepped aside as he saw me. ‘She’s hurt,’ he said. ‘Hurt bad.’
I dropped on my knees beside her. Her forehead was creased with lines of pain and her eyes were closed. Both her hands were clutched to her belly. I said, ‘Jill, where were you hit? In the stomach?’
Her lips moved. ‘Yes.’
I didn’t know what to do. To move her might be the wrong thing, but to leave her might prove equally fatal. It seemed that the best thing to do was to find out the extent of the damage. Over my shoulder I said to John, ‘Get me a knife, a sharp knife.’
He went away at a hobbling run and I stood up and looked at Leotta. Her training was likely to be much more extensive than mine, but I didn’t know if I could put her in the position of chief medical officer in her current condition. She returned my anxious stare with a limp smile.
‘You need attention too,’ I said.
‘It’s nothing. A flesh wound. A sticking plaster and some bandages and I’ll be good to go.’
Something about the trail of blood making its way down her bare arm made me doubt whether she was going to be good for anything for a while.
John came back. ‘I found a kitchen knife, sir, and a first aid box.’
I burst out laughing and, even as I laughed, I detected the hysteria at the back of my mind. What struck me as funny was that John was still calling me ‘sir’ in that body-strewn environment.
He looked at me uncomprehendingly and with a shade of apprehension, no doubt afraid I’d stripped my cogs. With an effort of will, I chopped off the laughter with a gasp. ‘Sorry, John. I’m a bit worked up.’
‘That’s not surprising, sir.’
‘It might be an idea to make some hot, sweet tea.’ I held out my hands for the knife and the first aid kit and discovered I was still holding the gun. I laid it on the table and looked around. The quick tropic nightfall was coming fast and it would soon be dark. ‘Don’t turn on any lights,’ I said. ‘Nothing that can be seen from the mainland.’
I knelt by Jill and asked, ‘How is it?’
‘Hurts like crazy,’ she whispered, and opened her eyes. ‘That woman – what happened to her?’
‘She won’t be troubling us again. Leotta did a good job.’
Jill closed her eyes. ‘She killed her?’
‘Survival of the fittest, that’s all. The woman was a psychopath. There’s no knowing how many lives Leotta might have saved.’ I put my hand to Jill’s brow and found her clammy with a cold sweat. ‘I’d like to have a look at the wound. Can you straighten out?’
‘Oh, please, no. It’s bad enough like this.’
‘All right, then I’ll do the best I can as you are.’ I took the kitchen knife, which was a modern streamlined implement designed on the lines of a surgical scalpel. That seemed appropriate. ‘If you can just move your hands?’
Slowly she relaxed her grip of her stomach and I saw the entry point, to the left and just under the rib cage. There seemed to be very little bleeding but I didn’t know if that was a good or a bad sign. Maybe she was bleeding internally.
I turned to Leotta, who was watching my movements closely from the armchair. ‘Any advice?’ I asked.
‘You need to get a better look at it, find where the bullet went.’
I cut a hole carefully in the light cotton dress and saw the wound, a gaping red mouth against the pallor of Jill’s skin. It was quite small and only a trickle of blood came from it. I opened the first aid box and made up a pad from the medicated gauze. Holding it against the wound, I closed her hands over it. ‘Keep that there.’
Leotta said, ‘Where’s the exit wound?’
I took the knife again and cut away the dress from around Jill’s waist. I was dreading what I might find, but the skin of her back was unbroken, although there was a heavy and spreading bruise around a central lump. Tentatively I pressed the lump and Jill yelped, so I left it alone.
Jill said, ‘Bill!’
I moved to where she could see me. ‘Yes?’
‘I think I’m going. Everything is getting dark.’
‘You’re not passing out,’ I said. ‘It’s nightfall. I don’t wa
nt to turn on any lights.’
She sighed with relief.
Leotta said, ‘What did you find?’ When I didn’t answer, she said, ‘Tell me. I’ve treated gunshot wounds in New York. You won’t scare me.’
No, but I might frighten the hell out of Jill, I thought. I told Leotta what I’d found. ‘I think the lump is the bullet. There’s no exit wound so it must be.’
‘It should have gone right through at that range,’ she said.
I looked up as John came in with a tea tray. The old man worked fast. I said, ‘You’re the doctor, Leotta. There’s some hot tea here but I don’t …’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing to eat or drink after an abdominal wound.’
‘How about a flesh wound to the arm? We should see to that next.’
‘Just give me one of those gauze pads and a bandage. I’ll be fine.’
I did as she instructed and she deftly administered her own first aid one-handed. I provided some minor assistance with menial tasks such as cutting the bandage to size, but the handiwork was all hers.
When she was done she said, ‘We need to get Jill to a doctor. She needs proper treatment.’
‘That’s the next thing on the agenda,’ I said, and looked over at the settee. Although Jill seemed all right on the outside, I was pessimistic about internal damage. A bullet carries a lot of energy, which must be dissipated before it stops. That bullet had stopped inside Jill, which didn’t augur well. And where was I supposed to find a doctor? The only medic I knew on Campanilla was McKittrick, and he was in San Martin playing politics.
I went over to where John was hovering over Leotta. Even in the gathering darkness I could see that she looked better, and every sip of the hot, sweet liquid helped to put the pieces back together again. John said, ‘I thought you might find this useful, sir.’ He took a flashlamp from the tea tray and handed it to me.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I can use it.’
I went outside to the quay and looked out to the mainland. There were a couple of lights and everything appeared ordinary. One thing was certain: no one on the mainland could see me, so it was safe to move around. I climbed aboard Negrini’s boat. Although the radio was smashed, I thought I might be able to put Jill aboard and take her somewhere safe, running the engines slow to keep the motion easy.
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