Shooting Script

by Gavin Lyall

  ‘That’s right.’ He nodded calmly. ‘That does sound pretty pompous. I do it myself sometimes. When I get to talking about people expecting cops to want to be cops without expecting them to enjoy their work. Without expecting them to get mad when they see somebody getting away with a racket just because there maybe isn’t a law against it right there or then.’ He smiled briefly. Or maybe it was just a flicker from thelamp on the low table between us. ‘It drives my wife crazy sometimes, when I talk like that. Now let’s get back to the big question.’

  I stared at him through the dimness. I was beginning to think there might be more than just the Academy syllabus behind the FBI Mark I expression on his face. The thought wasn’t altogether cheering.

  ‘Just once,’ he said. ‘Just to justify my expense account.’ He waved a hand over the empty glasses.

  ‘I haven’t flown arms to the República. I haven’t flown for Jiminez, nor anybody connected with him – as far as I know.’

  He paused, watching me. ‘We’d heard-‘ then he shook his head. ‘We haven’t got a Jamaica office. Okay – so that’s the record.’ He stood up, and tossed a couple of notes on the table. Then we walked towards the lifts.

  ‘Just as a matter of interest,’ he said, ‘why d’you want to meet these Repúblicapilots?’

  ‘As I said, just a friendly talk. About why they bounced me this afternoon in their Vampires. Incidentally, where didthey come from?’

  ‘South America.’

  ‘I thought there was some sort of Latin American agreement limiting the trade of major arms. Like jets.’

  ‘There is. It works, too. Until somebody wants to sell and somebody else wants to buy. But apart from that, it works. ‘ He stabbed a lift button and stood back to wait. ‘You’ve just been explaining how much you don’t care about what happens in the República. If you got into a public fuss witha Repúblicapilot, some people might misinterpret you.’

  ‘In other words, don’t hit anybody in the Sheraton.’ I smiled at him. ‘You know, when nobody’s looking, you’re quite a good FBI man.’

  ‘Not my business. Starting a fight in the casino of the Sheraton isn’t a Federal offence.’

  The lift purred open beside us. In the flare of neon light, I could see the grid of tiny grained lines across his face, the grey in bis crew-cut. He was in his late forties. He’d lived in Puerto Rico, as an adult, through the bad years.

  But perhaps I’d guessed that already.

  I said softly: ‘The casino? Thanks.’

  ‘I took a look around before coming up here. Good luck – if you’re fool enough to need it.’

  THREE

  The casino in the Sheraton is a tall, sober, well-lit room on the ground floor where government-licenced croupiers sometimes allow you to give them your money in exchange for about as much excitement as you’d get buying a tin of supermarket beans. And without you ending up with the beans, of course.

  It doesn’t get any more dramatic anywhere in San Juan. There was a time when it looked like heating up a little, when some of the hard boys Castro had tossed out of the Havana casinos came in to show the ignorant natives how many aces there could be in a pack. But they’d forgotten the joker: the FBI office. Some got their feet on the ground long enough to get their faces behind bars; the rest had rebooked for Las Vegas before they were off the airliner steps.

  They’d have been superfluous anyway. The San Juan hotel casinos stand a living and prospering monument to the tourists’ determination to lose enough money to feel wicked, and you don’t need crooked gambling for that. You don’t even need a house percentage when most of your customers come in prepared to lose ten, twenty, or fifty dollars – and stay there until they do, because to quit when they’re ahead would be unsporting and show they weren’t real ramblin’ gamblin’ men at all – just tourists.

  One day I’ll patent the idea of firing all the croupiers and scrapping all the tables and just hang up a waste-basket labelled: ‘It is strictly forbidden to throw your money in here.‘FU dierich.

  At nine-thirty in the off-season summer the room was a lot less than crowded. There were a few people at the two roulettetables, a handful at the blackjack, and the usual noisy group at the craps. You don’t pay any entrance fee, and the tables themselves change your cash for chips, so I just walked hi acting like any tourist acting like Edward G. Robinson acting like Al Capone.

  That made me normal.

  Nobody seemed to be in República Ah-Force uniform, but you can squeeze a small overnight bag into the cockpit of a Vampire 5, so they needn’t have stayed militaristic. On a ‘good-will’ visit, it would have been unlikely anyway. And looking at faces wasn’t much help either. Anybody flying jets for a Caribbean air force was as likely to have been born in Warsaw or Chicago as in Santo Bartolomeo.

  I was wondering how many people I could ask, ‘Excuse me, but did you happen to bounce me in a jet this afternoon?’ before they sent for the house doctor, when a hand suddenly shoved a couple of dice under my nose and a voice said, ‘You always had more luck than you deserved, Keith matey. Breathe a bit of it into these.’

  Hand and voice had come out of the small, tight group around one of the craps tables, and for a moment I couldn’t see who was behind them. But I knew that Australian accent, and I knew that hand: a big, steady paw, deeply tanned, covered with fine blond hairs and the small white scars of a lifetime spent grabbing for levers and switches in unfamiliar cockpits.

  I waved a hand over the dice and intoned: ‘A mother’s dying curse on these playthings of the devil.’

  An American tourist glared at me, shocked. “That, suh, is an insult to both motherhood and craps.’

  There was an Australian chuckle and the dice rumbled on the table.

  The stick-man chanted: ‘Thu-ree. The shooter craps out.’

  The crowd stirred, the shooter backed out and turned round.

  ‘Still keeping your luck to yourself, Keith?’ And we looked each other over for the first time in ten years.

  He hadn’t changed much. Broad, stocky, steady, like the hand. A snub square face with a tanned and oddly coarse skin, pale blue eyes, short curly fairhak. And a cheerful, watchfulexpression of enjoying this moment and making damn sure the next one didn’t creep up on him unseen.

  Ned Rafter, Australian gambling man and fighter-pilot-for-hire. You find the game or the war and Ned’ll find you.1 He said: ‘How’re you doing, matey, all right?’

  ‘All right.’ We didn’t shake hands; pilots don’t, much -maybe it’s too serious, too final.

  I didn’t ask how he was doing – I didn’t need to. He was wearing a pearl grey silk suit of a cut you couldn’t find within a thousand miles or several hundred dollars of the Caribbean. And I didn’t need to askwhat he was doing, either.

  ‘I think we met a little earlier today,’ I said. ‘Next time hoot your horn before overtaking.’

  He smiled slowly. ‘You’re getting to be a Sunday driver, Keith.’ We walked round to the end of the table and he tossed a $20 bill to the croupier. ‘Some chips for me mate.’

  ‘Not me,’ I said quickly. ‘I came here to kick your head off; I may yet. I don’t need to lose your money as well.’

  ‘You’re talking like a tourist. Nobody loses.’ But he picked. up the chips for himself and dumped two little piles quickly on the betting layout of the table. The croupier twitched a small smile, so perhaps Ned had made a rather subtle bet.

  I’m no gambler – not on principle, but just because I never get a kick out of taking risks. Anyway, the betting at craps is too complicated for me. The rules are simple enough: on your first throw you win with a 7 or 11, lose on a 2, 3, or 12. If you throw anything else, the rules change: you then go on throwing until you’ve either won by throwing the same number again, or lost by throwing a 7. No other numbers count after the first roll.

  But on a casino table the layout lets you bet not just on winning or losing, but every number, different ways of making that number, and everyth
ing else except the chances of a nuclear war and your grandmother getting gallstones. All at different odds, of course.

  The dice rolled. Ned lost one pile, but collected a fraction more than his losses on his second pile, so probably ithad been a rather subtle bet.

  ‘The last I heard,’ I said conversationally, ‘you were out in the Congo. What happened?’

  ‘Stuffed full of crook politics. Anyway, it was only flying T-28s and a few old B-26s. Got dull.’ He settled one pile of chips on the layout.

  ‘So why not the Far East? I hear there’s quite a good war out there.’

  ‘Yeh – I thought of it. Trouble is, the Americans are keeping it democratic. No outsiders.’

  He lost the pile, immediately put another in another place.

  ‘Did you try the other side? Maybe they’re not so democratic.’

  He gave me a sharp look. ‘You think that’s funny, matey?’

  ‘Yes – life’s one big laugh today. I don’t always get bounced by a couple of jets that might be going to shoot. Sets you up wonderfully for seeing the funny side of things.’

  He won on his pile; took it back, put another down. ‘Ah, you’ve just been away from things too long, Keith.’

  ‘I’vebeen away too long?’ I banged a hand on the rim of the table and got a look from the stick-man. In a quieter voice, I said: ‘If I’d turned into you this afternoon, you’d still be trying to walk home on the water. Your Number Two was on the wrong side for that passand much too close. If you’d tried more than a rate one turn you’d have had him flying up your back passage.’

  He thought about it, staring at the table. ‘Maybe… maybe you’re right. These boys are too proud of flying close formation. I’ll get ‘em out of it. Only been there a month, yet.’

  The dice rumbled across the table, were pushed back, rumbled again. The stick-man chanted the numbers; a shooter lost, another stepped forward. Craps is the fastest gambling game there is – apart from dozing at the controls of a fighter in enemy airspace.

  Ned went on betting his small piles, winning and losing.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘how d’you like flying charter work?’

  ‘Could be worse. There’s good flying weather around here. Trouble is the airlines are getting too good. Few years and they’ll be running jets down the islands.’

  ‘Yeh.’ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘I suppose I thought you’d want something a bit more exciting – after fighters.’

  ‘Try paying off a mortgage on your own plane sometime. It gets exciting enough.’

  ‘Never owned me own plane.’ The dice rolled – and suddenly Ned had won triple his normal stack of chips. He pushed them promptly across to the croupier. ‘She’ll do. Cash me in.’

  ‘Quit while you’re ahead,’ I murmured.

  He looked up. ‘You did it yourself, once.’

  I grinned. Several tourists looked at him sneeringly, as a man who couldn’t take it – although taking it was just what he was doing.

  He got back a surprisingly large stack of dollar bills. I hadn’t expected him to be gambling low – he never had in the past and the silk suit suggested he didn’t need to now – but that wad would still have covered two months’ mortgage and running expenses on the Dove.

  He riffled quickly through it, shoved it into his pocket. ‘It right we can’t get a drink in the casino?’

  I nodded.

  He shrugged disgustedly. ‘Christ – what government control does. If I collapse on the way to the bar, tell mother I died trying.’

  ‘That, suh, is an insult to both motherhoodand alcohol.’

  FOUR

  We walked downstairs tothe outside bar by the swimming pool. I ordered two Bacardis and tonic and we fell naturally into talking of people we’d both known in Korea.

  Some were dead and some were squadron leaders by now. Two of the Americans had reached lieutenant-colonel; another was in training to be shot to the moon and, it was believed in some quarters, back.

  Mostly for something to say, I asked: ‘What rank’ve you got in the República?’

  ‘Colonel. Full colonel. Highest I’ve been yet, matey. In the Congo I was just a crummy little captain.’

  I stared at him. ‘Good God – are you running the whole Air Force?’ I’d been thinking of him as leading a flight, or perhaps as chief instructor.

  ‘Just the Vampires.’

  ‘I’d have thought “major” was high enough for twelve fighters.’

  He grinned. ‘Ah, but those twelve are the whole of Fighter Command. So I’m C-in-C Fighters. I reckon I should be a general.’

  I gave him a fast look. ‘Don’t say that too loud, Ned. In the Caribbean, everybody elsereally wants to be a general.’

  His face went very still; then he nodded. ‘Yeh. I keep forgetting. Trouble is, I never take much notice of rank.’

  ‘You and all Australia.’

  He grinned again. ‘Yeh, it’s the money that counts. What’d you say to 750 dollars a week, no tax, no living expenses?’

  ‘I’d say pretty damn good – while it lasts. Is that what you’re getting?’

  ‘No, I’m getting more. But it’s what I can get you.’

  I counted it; I couldn’t help counting it. Seven hundred and fifty dollars a week was $3,000 a month which was £1,000… even if I only stuck it three months, I’d have the mortgage on the Dove paid off clear and clean. If I lasted six months, I’d have an extra £3,000. That and selling the Dove would give me a pretty big down payment on a new Dove 8, or Aero Commander or…

  Ned was watching me with a gentle, slightly sardonic look. The figures must have been ringing up in my eyes as in the window of a cash register. I said softly: ‘Off we go, into the long green yonder…’

  Tvegot the okay to take on another outside bloke – providing he knows the job. Right now I’m having to be squadron commander, gunnery officer, and chief instructor; I’m doing four or five flights a day. You’ll be my second in command and take over half of it. What you say?’

  The Aero Commander was still there, gleaming faintly on a faraway tarmac. But now a little farther, a little fainter.

  ‘Thanks for the thought, Ned. But no.’

  ‘You take it, matey.’

  I just shook my head.

  His hand slammed down on the bar. ‘I’m telling you totake it! That’s good advice! ‘

  I looked up, surprised at the violent reaction. After a while I said: ‘You mean so that I can finally become an “ace” – after all these years? Suppose there aren’t any enemy aircraft, though: can I count the peasants I shoot up? And the goats and donkeys as well?’

  He stared, then his face crumpled up in disgust. ‘Ah, don’t bleed so easy. Poor peasants, hell. We knocked over a three-inch mortar last week that was lobbing stuff on to the runway as we took off. Peasants! These boys mean business.’

  ‘Notmy business. I’m not getting mixed up hi Repúblicapolitics.’

  ‘Who the hell’s talking about politics? You wasn’t in Korea because you didn’t agree with Karl Marx’s theories. You was there because you’re a fighter pilot, and a bloody good one. So don’t get fancy ideas about books you haven’t read.’

  I smiled; I couldn’t help it. But then I shook my head again. ‘Korea was our war, Ned. And I’m still pretty sure we were on the right side. In the Repúblicathere isn’t a right side; there won’t even be a winning side, whatever happens. There shouldn’t even be a war. Whatever’s wrong there, Vampires and three-inch mortars aren’t the cure.’

  ‘You’re still talking politics. You sound like a cow playing the violin.’

  ‘I’mtalking politics? You think you can join in somebody else’s war andyou’re not playing politics?’

  Ned had his mouth open to answer when somebody did an emergency landing on his right shoulder. He spun round with his hands up, and for a moment it looked like being an exciting evening after all. But then he saw who it was, said, ‘Hell, you,’ and turned back to the bar.

&
nbsp; The new recruit was a tall, dark character, very handsome in a Latin-American cigarette advertisement sort of way, andvery conscious of it, in the same way. But it was his suit that you met first. It was a carefully cut item of pale turquoise Madras silk, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, and memorable all the way. You knew you were going to remember that suit, although perhaps not on purpose.

  He went on leaning on Ned’s shoulder, giving a big tooth-packed grin at nothing in particular. ‘A little drink, mi Coronel?‘he suggested.

  Ned said: ‘You smell like you had enough already.’ Then he remembered his social obligations. He jerked his head left and right:‘Capitán Miranda. Keith Carr.’

  The Capitánswung round on me, with an expression of slow, pleasurable surprise.‘Señor Carr? I so much hope we did not frighten you too much this afternoon.’ And I got the big virile grin, straight between the eyes.

  I just shrugged.

  He wagged a finger. ‘So now you know not to come near the República, yes? Next time we shoot you down.’

  Ned jerked around once more, his face and voice hard. ‘Justlisten, sonny. Don’t you ever tangle with Keith Carr unless you’ve got me there to hold your hand. He knows more about this game than you’ll ever learn in five lifetimes.’ He waved a hand. ‘Now go away and chase indoor birds. Though you don’t look like you could knock over a rag doll right now.’

  Miranda instinctively straightened up and said, with slightly alcoholic dignity: ‘We are on a mission of good-will, mi Coronel. I have been drinking with the American officers – not with therebeldes!’ And I got a hot, hard look.

  Ned said: ‘Get lost, you boozy twerp.’

  The captain snapped to attention, said’Si Coronel,‘and strode off, stiff with outraged manhood and militarism.

  There was a long silence, with just Ned clinking the ice in his glass and frowning down at it. I took a pipe out of my inside pocket, filled it from a crumpled one-ounce packet, and started the lighting-up ceremony. Ned watched, still frowning, and asked: ‘What’s the chimney for?’