There was silence for about a minute, then he said, "All right. It's impossible, but I suppose I can manage it."
"Incidentally, Joe, about that fifty thousand. I'd probably work better if you deposited it to my account."
He sputtered. "What do you mean? The arrangement was that you would be paid that amount if successful."
"Yeah, yeah. But I'd like my heirs to get it. If I figure the dough's there, I'll laugh at danger, Joe. People are going to be shooting at me pretty quick, I've got a hunch. With live ammunition. I honestly think if fifty Gs were in my bank I'd be much more efficient down here. And I'm sure the stuff's around here somewhere."
I had him over a barrel, the knife in his gizzard, and I was twisting it. And enjoying it. I was even wishing it were a real knife.
He sputtered a little more, but finally he said helplessly, "All right. All right. I'll do it."
"First thing in the morning." Poor Joe. Everybody had him over a barrel. And all he wanted over a barrel was the United States. I tried to think of something else I could gnaw at him with, but that seemed to do it.
"OK," I said. "I'll keep in touch. I'll be staying at the Del Mar Hotel on Caleana under the name of John B. Smith. Send the stuff down by messenger as soon as possible tomorrow. Buy a jet plane if you have to. Don't let anybody know what it's about except you, and me, and the messenger. When he sees me he's to ask if I'm John B. Smith. I'll ask him who won the election. He'll say Costello. That way we'll both know we've got the right parties."
"All right, Mr. Scott."
I hung up. I sat in the lobby for a while. It was dark outside now. I had work to do, but I was damned if I knew where to start. And then I thought about Gloria. I'd intended to see her earlier, but this was as good a time as any. I needed somebody on the inside now more than ever, somebody who might be able to give me little bits of information I could put together. And she was nearly perfect if she hadn't been pulling my leg when we'd talked at the pool. That was a chance I'd have to take. If there was any trouble about a big "shipment" to Torelli, or news about the now dead Gunner, Gloria would be a likely gal to hear something about it.
Gloria it was. I headed for Cottage 27 at the Hotel El Encantado.
7
I PARKED THE CAR in a dark spot on the winding road past the main part of the Hotel El Encantado and walked, checking the cottage numbers till I found 27. Then I stopped. I was in something of a quandary. I couldn't just barge up to the front door and knock. I could imagine the conversation: "Hello, Georgie. Like to chat with your wife. Don't shoot."
I could go back down to the lobby and call, but there was always the chance that the wrong party might be listening in on her phone. Maybe even the phone in my room was bugged by now. The hoods down here were experts, and careful, and it was likely everything was bugged. Possibly even the bugs were bugged. Worst of all, maybe hubby was home. Well, I could peek through a window. I thought for a moment of the delightful time I'd had when I last peeked through a window, a bedroom window in Las Vegas, and I immediately started looking for a window. There were lights on inside the cottage, so I knew somebody was home, but shades were drawn on the front windows. I started to go around to the rear of the cottage. There was only one trouble.
The Hotel El Encantado, like the Hotel de las Américas, is spread all over the top of a hill on the Cerro de los Cañones, which ends in a precipitous cliff at the edge of the sea. Most of the cottages have, on the ocean side, small terraces from which there is a lovely view of the ocean—and a drop of two hundred feet from the terraces to the sea and rock below. Most of the terraces can be reached only from inside the cottages themselves, and I didn't care for a quick glimpse through a window while I was falling two hundred feet.
I walked along the side of the little house till I reached the rear, right at the edge of the cliff. The terrace stuck out over a lot of nothing, but at least I was able to climb quietly over the railing running all the way around its three sides. I stood inside the rail on the wooden flooring for a moment. The terrace didn't extend from one side of the cottage to the other, worse luck, but only about halfway. Only one window was open here at the back of the cottage, light spilling outside, and it would have been dandy to look through except that it was three or four feet beyond the far rail of the terrace, and there was nothing to stand on directly in front of it except air, which you can't stand on.
I walked ahead to the terrace's far edge. There was a small extension of the wooden flooring sticking out about four inches beyond the rail, and if I climbed over the rail and then hung onto it, I could stand outside the railing on the little floor extension and lean forward enough to look into the room—if I stretched, and didn't mind hanging out there over nothing. It hardly seemed worth it, even if Hedy Lamarr was doing something awful in there, because I could look over the rail and way, way down to blackness. It was too far down for me to see the whitecaps curling, but I could hear the faint, dull boom of breakers and the whispering hiss of the surf.
I couldn't stand there gawking at the blackness, so I looped a leg over the rail, climbed over, and stood on the four inches of wood, which seemed to have shrunk to one inch and held tightly to the rail while I leaned forward. I could just get my head and neck past the windowsill, but I had a clear, unobstructed view of the interior of a small room, apparently a kind of sitting room. And sitting in it was Gloria. Gloria of the lovely limbs and green eyes and tawny, arched eyebrows, and the nasty friends. I couldn't see George, so I said softly, "Hey, Gloria."
She was reading a book. She stopped, marked her place with a fingernail, and looked up and around the room. She shivered slightly, then started reading again. My arm was getting tired.
"Hey, Gloria," I hissed.
She froze. She glanced around her, dropped the book without marking her place, got up, and walked out of the room toward the front of the cottage. My arm was getting awfully tired.
Gloria was gone for about half a minute; then she came back in, still looking puzzled. I hadn't heard her call to George to ask him if he were hissing, so I took a chance. In a normal tone I said, "Over here, Gloria. It's me."
She got absolutely rigid for a moment, then slowly inched her head around. She looked smack dab at me, at my neck and head slanting up at an angle from the side of the window, and she just kept looking at me without saying a word. Her face didn't even change expression, except that she raised an eyebrow. Obviously she didn't believe this.
I said, "Hello, Gloria," and she fainted.
There wasn't a hell of a lot I could do about it, considering my lack of mobility, so I let her faint. The window was just far enough away from the terrace so that, though I could touch it, I might not make it if I tried to jump in, so I just hung there and waited till she started coming around. While she was still dazed I started talking to her, explaining that this wasn't just part of me out here, or a ghost, and that everything was dandy, and was George home? She tried to babble at me, but finally I convinced her I wasn't on a lark.
She swiveled around to face me, still sitting on the floor, and she said, "What in God's name are you doing out there?"
"Is George home?" Quite obviously he wasn't, because I was still hanging onto my railing.
"No," she said. She started to babble at me some more, but I cut her off.
"I thought he might be here with a gun or something, so I didn't knock. Next time I'll knock. What a silly way to build a house! Well, let me in. And turn off the light."
She got up and doused the light, then walked over to the window, and I remembered her lovely walk at the pool this morning. She peered out at me, barely visible in the faint illumination reaching here from the hotel, then she said, "Have you been drinking?"
"Not a drop. Let me in."
"You'd better not come in, Shell. George isn't here, but I expect him any minute. What do you want? My word!"
"Talk to you. Afraid your phone might be tapped. You pick up any dope from George? Or his chums?"
"Uh-huh. But you better get out of here. George wouldn't like this." She grinned at me. "Wish I had him in your position."
I looked down below me at the blackness and got her point. She wouldn't even have to get a divorce. "Well," I said, "meet me someplace. Someplace more comfortable."
"Fine. One of the things I got from George is that, since you seemed interested in me this morning, I'm supposed to keep you interested. And pump you."
"Pump me? How you mean, pump me?"
"Find out what you're doing in Acapulco. I think Torelli's leery of you. Something happened this afternoon at some sort of meeting."
"I know all about it."
We talked a little more, making it as short as possible because my arm was sure getting tired, and it summed up that Torelli, not being sure what I was up to, if anything, had passed down the word through George that Gloria was to string me along and give me enough rope to hang myself. Gloria was to be my Mata Hari. At least, that was the situation if Gloria wasn't pulling my leg. And, obviously, if it was OK for her to pump me, it was OK for us to be seen together. Not like this, though, of course. We wound it up by agreeing to meet down at El Peñasco, the nightclub here in the Hotel El Encantado, where we could chat more comfortably.
We'd decided that Gloria would tell George that I'd phoned while he was out—and then we remembered the "bug" angle again. So I told her I'd phone her in a few minutes, pretending to be merely an ardent Romeo on vacation in Acapulco, and making a date.
She had been getting closer and nicer and more interesting all the time, but handicapped as I was, I couldn't take advantage of it, or of her.
"Shell, to think that you went through all this just to talk to me."
"Well, I also—"
"I think that's awfully sweet, Shell. George would never have done it."
I started to tell her that, stupid as George was, he had good sense, but her face was only a couple of inches from mine and she had only to lean forward two more inches to stop my conversation. She did lean forward, and kissed me softly on the lips, and almost stopped my conversation forever. I didn't mind, but I was glad she kissed me softly. A good hard kiss would have sent me flying two hundred feet.
She took her lips away. "Shell," she said, "you're sweet." And she kissed me again.
Even on solid ground that kiss would have sent me quite a distance. She could do more with just her lips than most women can do with all their equipment, and I would have been enjoying myself immensely if I hadn't been dangling over a cliff. As it was, I was beginning to enjoy myself quite a bit. I reached out and put my right hand over on the windowsill, and I was having so much fun that I grabbed on good and then let go the railing and slammed my left hand onto the windowsill too. I was sort of spread out a ways, but, by God, I was getting closer. What I was actually trying to do was climb in the window, but Gloria took her lips away again and said, "Shell, don't be silly. I told you George was coming."
George was coming. Hah. Let him come. The hell with George. I was going right through that window, George or no George.
"He should be here now," she said. "I'll meet you at El Peñasco, Shell."
Well, at least I had my hands up there on the windowsill. I had to hang on with one hand, but that gave me one extra.
"Oh, Shell," she said. "Stop that, Shell." And then she gave me a kiss that made the last one seem like sister kissing brother. I was floating up there two hundred feet off the ground, and I felt sure that if I let go I'd keep on floating, but I still kept one hand on the windowsill, just in case. Things went along nicely, but I finally became convinced that what I had in mind was impossible. I forgot all about Sudden Death Madison until I heard the front door slam. I hadn't even heard him drive up. But I sure as hell heard his heavy footsteps pounding through the little cottage and getting closer.
"Gloria!" he yelled. "Where are you? You here? What happened to the lights? Huh, Gloria?"
At the window, everything was a perfect frenzy of activity. I had a devil of a time getting untangled, and I barely managed to get both hands on the windowsill and duck my head down out of sight when the lights went on in the room. I wanted over on the terrace very badly right then, but I couldn't make it without showing my head at the window. The way I felt, I wasn't sure I could make it under any circumstances. My feet were way back behind me somewhere on the terrace ledge, my hands were stretched way out and clutching the sill, my heart was in my mouth, and my body was hanging over nothing and starting to bend in the middle. The wrong way. I was, to be quite frank about it, in one hell of a position.
8
I WAS LOOKING DOWN between my arms, listening to the boom of the surf and George's feet getting closer to the window, when he said, "Well, hi, Gloria. What you doing down there on the floor, Gloria?"
She said quickly, "Hello, George, darling. Come in the kitchen and I'll fix you something." I heard her getting to her feet and a shadow fell on my left eye, the eye nearest the window. I could have sworn that shadow pushed me down another inch.
George said, "What you doing on the floor, Gloria?"
"I was . . . just looking out the window, George. Enjoying the view."
"Ain't it dark?"
"Well, yes, but—but there's a dark view."
"Yeah?" said George. "Lemme take a look."
She sort of squeaked, "No!" and I thought: Well, Scott, you've had it; they'll put on your headstone, "He died trying."
Then Gloria added quickly, "No, darling, you wouldn't want to. Don't look now. It . . . uh, they must be burning something around here. There's, uh, an awful smell out there."
So I smelled.
I missed some of the conversation inside, which was probably no great shakes, anyway, as conversations go, but now I heard footsteps. If that was George coming over to poke his head out the window, he'd soon know he'd been in a battle; I was going to spit in his eye. But then I noticed the footsteps were getting fainter. The light clicked off and the Madisons left the room.
I sighed. I had it made now. All I had to do was get back on the terrace. I didn't want to make any little mistake, because any little mistake would be a big mistake, and I actually didn't know what I should move first. I had never realized before that two arms and two legs added up to so many limbs. Finally I lifted my leg up from the ledge of the terrace, teetered a bit, but kept raising it higher like an awkward acrobat trying to touch his head, and finally I got my toe hooked over the top of the rail. I twisted it around till my heel was hooked firmly. At least, I hoped it was hooked firmly. And then I bent my knee, straining, let go of the windowsill, and pulled myself toward the rail, hands clutching. I must have been quite a sight.
There was a rather bad moment when I thought something was going to break but I made it, grabbed the rail, and climbed over it onto the terrace. I could hear George and Gloria moving around inside the cottage. I went back the way I'd originally come. I sat in the Buick, letting my breathing get back to normal, then drove to the parking lot behind the main building. Nobody came screaming at me, so I parked in the lot, got out of the car, and walked up to the hotel's entrance. I stood there a moment. It was going to be very bright in there. But there couldn't be anything worse than a bunch of armed killers inside. What were bullets? And Gloria and I had decided it was OK if I were seen in public. I went inside.
All I knew for sure about my status was that Torelli must have put the Joker on my trail and undoubtedly knew by now that I'd given him the slip. But what other word was out on me I didn't know. Actually, guys like Torelli shy away from violence and murder as much as possible. The syndicate is too big, and largely too legitimate, to put up now with St. Valentine's Day massacres and wholesale killings. But it is also true that sometimes a nice clean murder becomes necessary—and just Shell Scott wouldn't be wholesale killing.
I found a phone and called the number Gloria had given me. She answered.
"Hi," I said. "This is the Bat Man. George there?"
"Yes," she said. "This is she."
>
So George was listening. I said, "I'm dying to see you. It's such a nice night I thought we might go skin diving."
"Sounds like fun," she said. "Glass masks and little web feet and spears."
"That's not what I meant. I meant diving in just our skin."
"Why, I'd love to, darling."
"Hey," I said, "you sure George is there?"
"Yes."
"I was just talking, but that sounds like a lovely idea. How—"
"No. El Peñasco sounds fine, though. You understand."
I understood. George would probably go along with the idea of our nightclubbing. But not skin diving. I could hardly blame him.
"OK," I said. I realized that some of this might sound peculiar if the phone was tapped, so I went on, "Seriously, Gloria, how about meeting me at El Peñasco? Can you get away from your husband?"
"I think so. He's back in the little room that looks out past the terrace—but that wouldn't mean anything to you, would it? I'll manage, though, and meet you in, say, half an hour. Maybe less. Bye."
I hung up. Yes, sir, George was sure stupid. I had some time to kill, and if I were going into the nightclub I'd soon find out what the word was on me, so there was no point in hiding. I had to find out sooner or later. I went into the bar, perched on a stool, and had a bourbon and Tehuacán. It tasted so good I had a second. Then I wandered around a little noting a few hard faces and one face I'd glimpsed up in the Villa al Mar this afternoon. Nothing happened, so I amused myself by studying a poster publicizing the floor show.
El Peñasco means "The Crag," or "The Cliff," and is an appropriate name for the nightclub because the combined restaurant and dance floor are suspended from the side of the cliff, jutting out over the sea and braced with heavy girders so that the whole thing won't fall into the deep waters beneath it. If the floor were glass the customers could look straight down into the ocean a hundred feet below.
The highlight of the show had been copied by the management from the show at La Perla in the Mirador Hotel—probably one of the most beautiful and unique nightclubs in the world—and consisted of a dive in flickering torchlight by a daredevil diver who plunges, from the cliffs beyond the club, 120 feet into the sea. Tonight, in addition to and before the diver, El Peñasco was presenting María Carmen, acrobatic dancer, with Hernández and Rodríguez, so the poster said. There was a picture of María Carmen, a lovely little Mexican girl who appeared to be in her early twenties. There were pictures of Hernández and Rodríguez, too, but I paid little attention to them.
Darling, It's Death Page 6