“Oh . . . I’m sorry,” she said, her voice strangely edged with fear. Saxan did not have to say the name of the woman for me to know who it must be, but she went on: “I was just saying goodbye to an old friend, Ms. Abhner. . . .”
At midnight, the Irishman and I went over our plans once more, then set out in the Whaler for Panther Key.
I wore my lucky Limey commando knickers, black Navy watch cap, and the only dark long-sleeved shirt I could find. I had my Randall attack-survival knife holstered on my belt, surgical tape in pocket, and thirty feet of good braided line cut into sections.
A late moon cast a yellow haze across the islands, and O’Davis dabbed professionally at his cheeks with the face black in the olive-drab tube. Like me, he wore the darkest clothes he could find—but no cap.
“Yank, no offense,” he had said, “but there’s a reason why very few great soldiers have been blond. Ye see, once you lose that cap o’ yers, yer head glows like a torch. Now, us redheads— always the best among fightin’ men—just naturally blend in with the night.”
Having memorized the points and shapes of islands aboard Sniper while we cooked dinner and did our planning, I ran the back country toward Panther Key. It was not a difficult route, and the moon was light enough. Besides, I had run it before in other years. I kept glancing off to the south as we skimmed through the twisting channelways and the dark musk of the islands. And then I saw it: the silver expanse of open Gulf edged on either side by islands with beaches that glowed white in the moonlight. One was Hog Key. The other was the island we were seeking: Panther Key.
A hundred yards uptide, I broke the Whaler into idle, then switched her off. It was so calm you could see star-paths in the black water.
“Suppose this means we have to paddle, eh, Yank?”
“Yeah. And keep your voice down.”
O’Davis picked up the paddles and fitted them into the oarlocks. He began to push us on toward Panther Key with surprising expertise.
“You smell the smoke?”
“Aye. Campfire. An’ I can jest catch bits o’ laughter—hear? Yer tattooed friend must be hostin’ a party.”
“And we’re going to provide the entertainment.”
We beached the Whaler in the cove on the northwestern edge of the island. The sand was hard, braced with shells, and it echoed with an odd resonance as we walked. Their camp was on the other end of the island, about a mile away. Birds screeched in the trees. Mosquitoes whined, vectoring in, finding us in a gauzy haze.
“When we get to the narrowest part of the island, we cut across, right?”
“Aye. Would there be any rattlers on this island, Yank?”
“Not hardly. Coral snakes kill them all.”
“Reassurin’. Most reassurin’.”
Tattoo and his friends weren’t in any great danger—from us, anyway. I just wanted to get close enough to their camp so that I could listen in for a while. Guys like Tattoo like to drink and brag. And, in his mind, blowing up boats would be something to brag about.
If they were the ones doing it.
And once we had listened for a while, I was going to scare them.
Scare the living hell out of them.
They’d think twice before setting Sniper afire again.
The tide was up, and it was tough walking. The beach sloped down sharply with the strong tides of the Ten Thousand Islands, and the higher ground was thick with bayonet plants and sandspurs. We stuck to the beach, keeping a sharp eye on the distant glow of sand.
It was no time to be seen.
When the island narrowed and the voices of the fishermen were loud enough to cover the sound of us moving through the bushes, we cut across the island. Mangrove roots and strangler figs pulled at our shoes, mosquitoes did their best to make life miserable, and I was soaking with sweat by the time we reached their camp.
With a simple hand signal, I told O’Davis which way he should circle. He went off without a sound: big broad-shouldered hulk moving from shadow to shadow with the grace of a cat.
I was sure glad he was on my side.
Picking my footing, I moved in upon the camp. It was surprisingly orderly. There were six two-man tents spread away from a large campfire in a semicircle. Across from the fire was a big screened-in dining tent. A Coleman lantern hung from a hook on the main pole brace. It threw its sterile white light over a makeshift table and chairs, and on the men within. In one corner was a box of canned goods. In the other, a stack of Dacor scuba tanks.
There were about twelve of them in all. It figured. There were six mullet skiffs tethered off the beach. All of them were equipped with big Johnson 200s mounted forward in an engine box—a design unique to that particular kind of net fishing boat.
Only, you don’t need two-hundred-horsepower engines to run down mullet. With the boats they had, they could do forty miles an hour in ten inches of water. As Chief Spears had said, if the commercial boys didn’t want to be caught, they couldn’t be caught. Not by anything short of a chopper, anyway.
They were drinking canned beer from a big red cooler. From the way they were shouting and laughing you knew right away they were really drunk. And a beer-drinking enemy becomes an easy target. You can be sure of that. The more they drink, the more they’re going to have to get rid of. And when they move away into the shadows to relieve themselves, that’s when you take them. You knock them off one by one.
The dining tent had two zippered doors. When the first of them came outside, I followed him through the shadows to see where it was they went to urinate. The goons sitting on the other side of the table would go the other way—Westy’s way.
I didn’t take him then. I didn’t want to. Not yet, anyway. I just got close enough to check out the spot for an easy attack, then made myself as comfortable as I could and concentrated on listening to the talk inside.
For the most part, it was disappointing. They talked about women, mostly. They told their stories as graphically as possible, each of them waiting anxiously to top the other’s story. Tattoo sat at the head of the table. He wore a black T-shirt. He drank beer with his left hand and chain-smoked, his raffish face contorting oddly when he inhaled. They made only minor reference to setting Sniper on fire. Tattoo bragged at some length about knocking me on my ass. And just when I was about to give it up and signal O’Davis to start taking them, there was this:
“So, what are you boys gonna do with all this here money we got coming?”
“Shit, man—get drunk.”
“Hell, we’re already drunk! I’m gonna buy me a boat. A big goddamn boat. Maybe run some shit o’ my own.”
“What, an’ get blown up?”
They all laughed at that.
Tattoo silenced them quickly. “You boys quit talkin’ that shit, hear?” He peered out of the lighted boundaries of the tent suspiciously. “Never know who might be out there listenin’, man. You stupid bastards gonna end up blowin’ the whole scam, bein’ blabber-mouthed like that.”
“Hell, man—who’s gonna hear us out here?”
“Coast Guard, for one thing, fool. Been around here thick as flies lately. An’ that one officer stoppin’’round here askin’ questions was just a little too close for comfort, man—what with the shit we got stashed. Didn’t like that chief guy, man. Looked a little too savvy.”
“Shit, man, you can see that big cutter comin’ a mile away.”
“He might not be on the cutter, asshole! Now that’s enough. No more talk, goddamn it. Not about that, anyway.”
So they went back to their jokes and stories. And I knew it was time.
I folded my hands together, blew against my thumbs with the signal we had devised.
The way the Irishman hooted back made me cringe. He sounded like an Irish tenor trying to imitate a television Indian.
But no one in the tent even noticed.
I had no trouble with any of them: neither the first nor the second, third, and fourth. One by one, over a period of a half hour, they all ca
me out to urinate. And I stepped out of the shadows behind them, put the fine Randall knife to their chins, and convinced them that it was in their best interest to cooperate while I tied them and taped their mouths. The dialogue was pretty much the same: “One word, one call, even one loud cough, and I’ll stick this knife right through your face. Nod if you understand.”
And one by one they understood.
I hoped the Irishman was having equal luck on the other side.
When there were only four of them left, they began to get suspicious. Tattoo was still among them.
“Hey, where’n the hell you think them guys got off to?”
“Checkin’ the boats, most likely.”
“I dunno. They been gone for a while, man.”
For the first time, Tattoo looked concerned. He got drunkenly to his feet, set his beer down, and yelled, “What you bastards doin’ out there?”
His face darkened in the silence.
“They probably just playin’ a joke on us, man. You know, tryin’ to get us scared or somethin’.”
Tattoo cupped his hands around his mouth. “Okay, assholes! You come in here right now and quit screwing around! I’m gonna come out there an’ kick your asses!”
I knelt in the shadows, listening, waiting. At my feet, five of his eight missing cronies lay noiselessly, bellies down. Tattoo looked genuinely scared. He turned to his friends. “Hey, you guys, go out an’ have a look around. You packin’ anything?”
“Goddamn guns are in the boat, man. Told you we shoulda brought ’em in.”
“Told me, hell! Just get off your asses an’ go find them guys. I swear, I’m gonna slap ’em silly for goin’ off like that. Now git! I gotta stay here and guard this place.”
The three seedy fishermen went separately into the darkness, working their way around the perimeter of the camp. The first one that came my way had his knife out. I decided not to take any chances. I stood against a big buttonwood tree, and when he came by I hit him with an overhand right, flush on the jaw. He exhaled loudly and went down in a heap. I heard a loud rustle in the bushes on the other side of the camp, and then two similar thwacks: the sound of the Irishman’s knuckles against jawbone.
Tattoo heard it, too. He lit another cigarette and his hands shook. “Hey, who the hell’s out there?”
I let him stew for a moment, and then I stepped out into the clearing of the camp. I saw Westy come through the bushes on the other side.
“Just paying a friendly visit, big man.”
He peered through the netting of the tent, and when he recognized me, I saw his face blanch. I started walking toward him.
“Hey, what the hell . . . look, man, I’m sorry we fired your boat, but goddammit it, you gotta learn how to mind your own business.”
“I haven’t even begun to mind my own business, big man. You’re about to get a lesson in how I mind my business.”
He fumbled for his case knife and opened it. He had backed into the tent as far as he could go. I slit the screen open with my Randall and stepped through. Westy came through the screening on the other side. Tattoo tried to shrink into his own shadow.
“Look, what the hell you guys want, anyway? Jesus . . . don’t looka me like that! What’d you do with my friends?”
“Dead, lad,” O’Davis said evenly. Tattoo didn’t notice his lips start to crinkle into a smile. The Irishman made a slicing motion, finger against throat. “Cut ’em open, we did.”
Tattoo’s eyes were wild now, crazy with fear. He still held the little knife, but he knew that it was useless. “You guys . . . you guys are crazy, man!”
“Shouldn’t set other folks’ boats on fire, kid.” I looked at Westy. “What should we do with this vermin?”
He shrugged. “ ’Fraid we have ta kill ’im, Yank. Knows a bit too much, wouldn’t ye say?”
“No!” Tattoo threw his knife down and, absurdly, put his hands up like a bad guy in a television western. “Look . . . please, don’t kill me . . . honest to God, I won’t say a word. And I can pay you! I’ve got money. A bunch o’ money!”
That’s what I wanted to hear. I was about to ask him where it was; where he had gotten it.
But I never got the chance. That’s when I heard the distinctive click-click of the double-action revolver, and someone stepped unexpectedly into the tent with us.
It was the woman. She held one of the fine weapons: the Model 60 Smith & Wesson .38 Special. Its two-inch stainless-steel barrel gleamed beneath the Coleman lantern.
“I think it’s unnecessary to tell these men anything more, Billy. They know quite enough. As they were telling you—too much. And now we must arrange their deaths.”
The heavy cake makeup was still in place, and on the broad-brimmed hat there was now a dark veil pulled down.
It was SELF’s benefactor.
It was Ms. Abhner. . . .
13
The amazon woman was no longer a figure of amusement; no longer the symbol of angry feminism to be scoffed at.
She was suddenly stalking me the way a cat stalks a wounded bird.
And there was no mistaking what her eyes held. Her whole face was contorted with hatred.
And death.
She had vowed to kill me; to break me with her own hands.
And now her tongue flickered out, moistening her lips, and her sturdy legs were bent in readiness as she moved toward me through the darkness.
“Try to fight back,” she told me. “Please try. . . .”
The Abhner woman was no athlete. She had lumbered behind us, revolver held at ready, forcing us to climb aboard the same Shamrock we had used earlier.
If I had ever doubted a connection between the exploding boats and this strange organization called SELF, I no longer did. And it filled me with a curious queasiness; a queasiness produced not by distaste or fear, but by a disappointment in my gut. It meant Saxan Benton, that intriguing woman, was involved all the way up to her beautiful, strange eyes.
“These two fellows know far too much, Billy,” the woman repeated. “And it presents us with a rather sticky problem. They are lawmen—did you know that? No, of course you didn’t, you stupid child.”
She had a strange, froglike voice. She enunciated her words, biting them off one by one. Tattoo had recovered quickly, converting his earlier fear into a deadly anger. He came over, jerked the Randall knife out of my hand, then cold-cocked me forehead-high.
I forced myself to stay on my feet; to act as if his punch were no more than an insect bite. It infuriated him.
“Goddamn you . . .” He turned to the old woman. “Look, Ms. Abhner, you just give me an hour with these guys. Let me haul ’em offshore in my boat, an’ I swear to God they’ll never be seen again. I’ll cut ’em up into little pieces.”
“Stupid, Billy. Very stupid. You see, they have a boat here with them. But of course you would know that, since you set it on fire. By the way, Billy, I was tempted to have you killed for that. Such a stupid thing to do, boy. Their boat is anchored in the cove by Dismal Key, where that pesky hermit lives. The hermit is a light sleeper, you know—misses absolutely nothing. And I’m afraid he would contact the Coast Guard if we tried to just slip away with it. And that Coast Guard officer that’s been around here is so very eager to make an arrest. No, we must take them back to the island and lock them up for a time. I think I’ll end the term a day early, send the girls home tomorrow. And then we will find a way to get their boat and set up a nasty accident for our friends.” She chuckled cryptically. “You see, they must die reasonable deaths, Billy.”
It was an odd duo, the seedy young fisherman and this huge old woman. He was afraid of her, no doubt about that. He took her verbal abuse like slaps to the face.
So, she knew that we were associated with a law-enforcement agency. Who had told her? Barbara? Saxan? That was easy enough, but how had she known that Sniper was at Dismal Key?
Obviously she had had someone follow us. And whoever it was was damn good.
I looked at the big Irishman. He stood at ease beside me. Tattoo had taken his knife, too. He lifted his eyebrows wryly: a “Well, MacMorgan, here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into” look.
“So you and your feminists are getting rich running drugs,” I said. “But why bring these goons in on the kill?”
The woman had backed out of the tent into the shadows again. Only her thick hands and the silver revolver caught the light. I heard her click her tongue with disapproval. “You disappoint me, Mr. MacMorgan. I had such glowing reports about your intellect. And now you ask such a stupid question—and at such an inappropriate time. I see no reason to go into it—but I will say that you are totally mistaken in your assumptions.”
“If you expect me to believe that—”
“Enough!” She motioned to Tattoo. “Billy, you’ll be pleased to learn that your idiot friends are not dead after all. It was just one of Mr. MacMorgan’s little jokes. I suggest you go outside now and untie them. I suspect you’ll have some work to do tomorrow night. Have you refilled your air tanks?”
“Yes, ma’am. Everything’s all set.”
“Fine. Now, if you’ll be good enough to tie their hands behind them—that’s right, just as tight as you can get them—I’ll take them back to Mahogany Key. One more thing—they had a little Whaler anchored down at the other end of the island. Please find it and hide it. Hide it well, Billy. Or I will make you very, very sorry.”
“Right away, Ms. Abhner.”
She forced us out of the tent and down the beach. She had run the Shamrock up on the beach, anchoring it off the stern. I kept expecting her to make a mistake; some little slipup that would let me get a good kick in to her chin or neck.
But she never did. She was good. Surprisingly good.
It was nearly three a.m. by the time we got back to Mahogany Key.
The full moon blazed down on the island, throwing silver light and shadows across the buildings and the clearing.
The Deadlier Sex Page 13