"Hey, boy, you want her bad? Don't forget she's spoken for."
"Does she really get around much, Mama?"
Mama Juliette shook her head. "She's a good girl. I shouldn't talk that way about her. It's just the wav she looks, and the way the men look at the way she looks, right? I used to be like that, once. Hard to believe, hey?"
"Was she with Joe Tibault?"
"Sure. They said for you to go to Moon's Fishing Camp and walk light. They'll meet you on the road. What's it all about, Sam?"
"It's an easy way to pull teeth," Durell said.
"What?"
"I was thinking of something else. Thanks, Mama."
"There was a cop around here, couple days ago. He didn't say he was a cop, but he was from the city, and he was asking about Pete and Angelina. It was kind of funny. I mean, funny-strange. I didn't tell him anything. Why should I tell a city man anything about our people?"
"That's right. Mama," he said.
It explained why MacCreedy's men had made no progress.
* * *
Moon's camp was a short drive to the west, along a secondary road that bordered a bayou canal. Durell drove slowly along the graveled road. He wondered why Angelina wanted to see him so urgently, and why she hadn't waited for him either at the steamboat or at Mama Juliette's. And why she was with Joe Tibault.
He didn't see her car when he drove past the camp, and he didn't stop there. He went around a narrow bend in the road and then he saw her yellow convertible parked in the brush, partly screened by Spanish moss hanging from the gnarled limbs that spanned across the sky overhead. He stopped alongside and got out. Nobody was in sight. Through the foliage he saw the canal, and a man rowing by in a skiff, a fishing rod hanging over the transom. He didn't know the man, who looked like a tourist, and Durell walked back toward the camp.
The main cabin, containing the bar, was built of rude cypress logs, with red neon signs advertising beer below another sign that simply read: Moons. About half the cabins were occupied, to judge by the number of parked cars, and he noted the Cadillac with the California plates at once, but he didn't look that way again. At this hour, in the full smother of the afternoon heat, no one was around.
There were two men in the bar, talking in Northern accents, and Jake Moon himself. Durell knew Moon, but Moon did not remember him. The last time Durell had seen the camp proprietor, he had been no more than twelve or thirteen. He did not see Angelina or Joe Tibault.
He sat down and ordered beer. The normal sounds of the fishing camp came to him. Nothing more. The beer was not as cold as it could have been. Through the fly-speckled window, seen through the tubing of the neon signs, he watched the cabin where the California Cad was parked. The shades were down, and there were no signs of life. He watched it, anyway.
There was no doubt in his mind that the robbery of the bank was the work of Corbin and Fleming. Durell wasn't worried about the stolen money. It was the method of stealing it that interested him. And the further plans that Corbin might have. He tried to project his mind along the lines that Erich Corbin might be thinking, but he could see nothing except a further series of robberies based on this method, a quick wave of assaults that might temporarily disrupt small-town banks with certain types of air-conditioning systems. But it would only be temporary. And Corbin was no fool. From his past record, his moves indicated more to come. Something far more important. He tried to think what it could be, but he couldn't come up with anything.
He felt concerned about Angelina. Where was she? Why had she come here with Joe Tibault?
"Sam?"
He heard her call. Her voice sounded thin and unnatural. He turned his head and saw her beyond the screen door of the bar, standing in the harsh sunlight of the parking area. He got up and went outside to her. She touched his arm briefly and started walking toward the floats along the Peche Rouge canal, where skiffs and pirogues and a few outboards were moored. The sun made glowing highlights on her sleek black hair. Her face was very pale. She wore a full skirt this time, and a man's white shirt, open at the throat.
"What's up?" he asked. "What are you doing here?"
"Joe saw those men," she said tensely. Her breathing was ragged, as if she had been running. He saw by her eyes that she was afraid of something. "The two who met Pete down along the shore and took him away."
"Take it slowly," he told her.
"They were in town this morning, just before the bank robbery. The good-looking one and the hoodlum. He saw them drive away after the robbery, too. He knows they were in the bank when it happened. But Joe didn't know what was happening, you see? I mean, he didn't know they were robbing the bank. He was watching them, and everything was quiet, and he didn't dare go call the sheriff or anybody; he wanted to keep them in sight. And then they came out and he came over to my store and I got my car and we followed them. First to Mama Juliette's. I took a chance and came to your grandfather's, but you weren't there. I got back in time, though. Then they came here. Don't look at that car now, Sam. Did you see it?"
"Yes," Durell said. "Where is Joe?"
"They've got him," Angelina said.
* * *
Durell halted on one of the docks. A boat shed screened them from the cabins. "Are you listening?" Angelina asked. "Joe is sure those are the men who picked up Pete. Sam, please. What are we going to do?"
"Where did they take Joe?"
"Into one of the cabins. The ugly one saw us on the road, just after we parked. He had a gun. I ran away, but Joe stayed to give me a chance to escape."
"Have you heard anything from inside the cabin?"
"No, not a sound. What are they doing to him?"
"Have you called anyone? The police?"
"Not yet."
Durell thought of MacCreedy, in New Orleans. There was a telephone in Jake Moon's bar. It would take too long, he thought. He thought of the man with the knife, wondering if it was Slago. He knew there was no time to get help. Then he turned to Angelina again. She was biting her lip. He gave her MacCreedy's number.
"Go into the bar the back way," he told her. "Don't take a chance showing on that parking lot again. Call this number, ask for a Mr. MacCreedy. Tell him where we are. Tell him to put a cork in it."
"Put a cork..."
"Hell understand. Go ahead, now."
She looked dubious. "What are you going to do?"
"I'll be around."
She seemed afraid to leave him. He pushed her gently up the slope toward Moon's bar. When she started walking, Durell turned and circled the boat shed and walked up through the tall weeds toward the far end of the row of cabins. The right thing to do, he told himself, was to wait for MacCreedy. Never mind about Joe Tibault. But he didn't like the silence in that cabin. Joe could be dead by now. But maybe he wasn't. If he waited, every minute that went by increased the chances that Joe would join the other victims. Durell had known the shrimp fisherman all his life. He didn't like to think of what might be happening to him right now. And what might happen if he sat tight and waited for MacCreedy to gather his men and post roadblocks around the area. He couldn't wait for that. It would take twenty minutes, maybe half an hour, for the net to start closing. Too long. He couldn't let Joe stay in that cabin for that length of time.
He walked faster. His hand was on the gun in his pocket.
There was a new air conditioner in the back window of the cabin where the Cadillac was parked, and this interested him, because none of the other cabins were so equipped; he was sure Moon hadn't provided it. He began to feel a familiar excitement that came to him when his quarry was near. Durell had every instinct of the professional hunter. All his senses were honed razor-sharp. He paused in the angular shadow behind the cabin next to the one where the Cadillac was parked. A bird he didn't recognize sang in a treetop nearby. Somebody revved up an outboard motor downstream. A faint wind made a rustling sound in the brush, and when it touched him, it felt like the dank breath of a fevered animal.
There were foots
teps in the cabin where he paused. A man's voice rumbled something, and something else thudded heavily to the floor inside. The shades were drawn in the window, and he could not look in. He wondered if Angelina had reached the bar.
All at once a heavy, dead silence settled over the place. Then he heard her scream, and everything came apart.
* * *
He saw her an instant later, bursting through the front entrance of Moon's bar. She was running, her skirt billowing, hampering her. A man came after her at a dead run. Short and squat, with cropped salt-and-pepper hair, with the musculature of a bull. He moved extraordinarily fast, grabbed at her shoulder, and twisted hard. Angelina fell in the dust of the parking area. She was still screaming. A knife flashed in the man's hand, and Durell's gun cracked almost of its own volition. He had aimed for the man's wrist, and he hit the knife instead. It shattered, spinning away in broken pieces into the dust. The man looked up, his mouth open in surprise. Angelina tried to scramble away, but the man grabbed her and hauled her roughly to her feet, one thick arm around her waist, holding her as a shield.
Durell stepped out between the cabins.
"Let her loose, Slago!"
The man cursed in a gravelly voice. Jake Moon came to the door of his bar and hastily retreated again. Slago began pushing Angelina ahead of him across the open area, advancing toward the Cadillac. Durell took a step and then there was movement behind him and he glimpsed a man behind him, arm upraised, a gun reversed in his hand. He took the blow on his shoulder as he turned, and felt the pain jolt down into his gun hand. He couldn't hold the gun. It fell into the dust and he went down to one knee, still turning, and grabbed for a hold on the man who had surprised him.
It was Mark Fleming. Durell got his arm up to partially block a second blow. The thought flickered through his mind that he had been too intent on Slago and Angelina, and he knew the penalty of carelessness. He tried to get up, but Fleming kicked him expertly, his heel cracking on Durell's chest. Durell went over backward, got to his hands and knees, and drove for the gun he had dropped. Fleming kicked it away.
"Copper?" Fleming breathed.
His gun was coming up, not reversed now. Then a screen door slammed, and from the corner of his eye Durell saw Erich Corbin and a blonde girl come out quickly, moving toward the Cadillac. Slago had Angelina's arm twisted up behind her back, running her toward the car, too. They were going to get away.
There was no sign of Joe Tibault.
"Get up, mister," Fleming said. His voice, in his boyish face, seemed harsh. His gun was a Colt .38. "Get up, quick."
Durell stood. His mind raced, assessing the situation. Corbin shouted to Slago; the blonde girl was already in the car. They were pulling out. He suddenly knew they would take Angelina witn them as a hostage, if they could. Corbin was throwing a suitcase into the car. Angelina's safety took precedence over other factors at the moment. In other circumstances he might have sacrificed her, as he had been trained and conditioned to do. But not now; the issue was not that desperate.
He went for Fleming's gun. Fleming was careful, but not careful enough, and Durell almost made it.
He chopped the gun from Fleming's fingers. His foot caught Fleming's knee and the man screamed and spun about and went down. At the same moment, Angelina broke loose and ran, twisting out of Slago's reach. She was heading back to the bar, where the other customers stood frozen in fear. Corbin yelled to Slago to forget the girl and the chunky man hesitated, then ran toward the Cadillac. Fleming got to his feet. Durell hit him across the bridge of his nose, hit him again in the stomach, and Fleming reeled back, arms flailing, and smashed into the car. Durell was almost there when the blonde jumped out. He didn't see what she had in her hand. There was no time. For an instant, he allowed his glance to be diverted toward Angelina, running for the oar. She was almost there.
Something struck the side of his head. At the same time, the Cadillac started with a lurch, backing out between the cabins. The rear tires spun savagely and spit gravel over him in a stinging spray. He jumped aside, his head still ringing from whatever the girl had hit him with. She had slipped between the cabins and as Durell jumped, he felt the sleek fender of the car rip at his leg. It felt as if something had grabbed him and flung him bodily against the cabin wall. The scene reeled away into a misty darkness. He was on his hands and knees in the dust, shaking his head, dimly aware that the Cadillac had stopped, that the girl and Slago were helping Fleming into the back seat.
Durell tried to get up. His gun, and Fleming's, still glittered in the gravel, twenty feet away. He heard the roar of the car's motor and felt gritty dust between his teeth, and then the roaring car swung toward the road.
Chapter Nine
Durell got slowly to his feet. He felt bruised and shaken, but this did not trouble him as much as the fact that he had allowed his quarry to escape. A shouted question came from the bar. Jake Moon had stepped cautiously out into the dust left by the Cadillac's wild flight, Angelina behind him. She came running to him. "Are you all right, Sam?"
"Not exactly. He picked up his gun and then the Colt he had knocked out of Mark Fleming's hand. He pocketed them both. He smiled thinly. "My pride is bruised. Did you call MacCreedy before Slago got to you?"
She shook her head. "I didn't have a chance. He knew that Joe and I had followed him from town. He sneaked up on me in the bar. He... he touched me... like an animal... Her dark eyes were very wide, remembering. "What about Joe? Have you seen him?"
"Ill look." He turned her back toward the bar. "Go ahead, call MacCreedy. And have Moon call the local sheriff. Well need to close off the roads."
"All right."
He watched her turn back toward the excited men in the bar entrance, and then he swung about and walked into Corbins cabin.
The air conditioner still hummed quietly in the back window. Clothing was scattered on the beds, and two suitcases had been left behind, partially packed, abandoned in their sudden flight. Durell didn't touch anything. He rolled up the front window shades and heard a muffled sound from the bathroom, and went there and found Joe Tibault. The fisherman was bound and gagged, and he had bitten the inside of his mouth in his effort to scream. He had needed to scream, Durell thought bitterly. One arm had been dislocated, and there were knife wounds on his hands. Two fingers had been sliced off. He had been questioned expertly, without mercy. Slago obviously had wanted to know more about Joe Tibault and why Joe and Angelina had followed them back to the fishing camp. The gag had kept the shrimp fisherman from making noise during his moments of horror.
'It's all right, Joe." Durell knelt beside the chunky, gray-haired fisherman and untied the gag. A gush of blood ran over the man's lip and down his chin. He coughed weakly, his hand on Durell's arm. "Can you hear me? You'll be all right now."
"Crazy..." Tibault whispered. "The one with the knife. Laughing, saying he was going to carve me up... butchering me..." He looked at his bloody hand, where the two fingers were missing. Under his olive tan, his face was pale and moistly shining. His mouth worked for a moment and he coughed again, and spit out more blood. "Angelina?"
"She's phoning the cops. Stay here, Joe. I'll get a doctor."
"Never mind the doctor. Get them."
"Well do our best, Joe."
* * *
Three hours later Durell parked in the courthouse square of Bayou Peche Rouge and walked into the little park. He chose a bench under a live oak facing the courthouse, lit a cigarette, and waited for MacCreedy to come out of the bank nearby. The town, the square, the bench itself was as familiar to him as the palm of his hand. He remembered a night many years ago when he had sat on this bench with Angelina. He remembered the warm taste of her young lips, the amazing softness of her mouth as she kissed him. Babes in the wood, he thought. It was all over and done with. They were grown up now. Her father, who had resented him, had loomed in those days as an ogre, a spying, evil-tempered old man who had viewed him with suspicion — justifiably, Durell thought, grinning —
and had cursed his daughter as a loose woman. The old man was dead now. It was all dead.
MacCreedy came out of the bank and walked into the park. It was after five in the afternoon. Durell had decided not to appear publicly here as an arm of the law. It was MacCreedy's business, anyway.
The FBI man had a newspaper under his arm, and he sat down on the bench with Durell and pretended to read it. "No luck, Sam."
"They got through the roadblocks?"
"We found the Cad ditched ten miles up the river. They didn't stay in it long. A couple of lads in a beat-up Ford were hauled out of their car and slugged to a pulp. They're in a hospital. The Ford was used to get to Fremont, thirty miles from here. They got through all the roadblocks, all right You know how?"
"Tell me," Durell said.
They ditched the Ford near a swamper's shack and forced the old Cajun in it to take them by pirogue through the bayous. There are enough fingers of water in there for an army to slip through unseen from the roads."
"I know," Durell said.
"The sheriff did his best. My office is sending out a six-state alarm. The whole district has been alerted. The swamper told us where he was finally released. On the main highway, so they're either in New Orleans this minute, or on their way out of the state altogether."
"They might have split up," Durell suggested.
"That won't make the job any easier.' MacCreedy paused. "The swamper is in the hospital, too. They beat him up as a token of thanks for his help. Tibault is in the hospital, too. Those boys have a taste for violence all their own."
"It's Slago," Durell said. "I had a good look at him. Did you talk to the bank people about the robbery?"
"I've got nothing you don't know already. Everybody inside just keeled over with no warning. No smell, no taste, no trace of the gas. No ill effects afterward, luckily. We've issued bulletins to all banks in the area to discontinue their air conditioning until further notice, and to take immediate steps to protect the inlet air ducts one way or another."
Assignment — Angelina Page 8