by Gavin Lyall
I nodded. ‘They’re government employees. Above a certain rank in the civil service, you get the right to carry a gun. And as it’s a status-symbol and a sex-symboland they think it makes them look like Walt Whitmore, they carry it. It’s the same idea as the old British Army one of selling its commissions.’
He shook his head slowly. ‘How’s that again?’
‘A hundred years ago and more, when you were getting army revolutions all over Europe. They reckoned if you sold commissions, you’d have the Army run by rich men – and rich men don’t want to change a system that keeps them rich. Same here: with everything run by bribery, the civil service is one of the best-paid jobs. They don’t want a change. So you arm them and you’ve got a standing counter-revolutionary force.’
‘I get it.’ He nodded thoughtfully, probably working out where the idea would fit into Bolivar Smith. Apparently it wouldn’t, because then he swung round and made a sweeping git-along-little-dogies gesture. ‘Come on, kids, let’s roll.’
We rolled into two taxis: Whitmore, Luiz, and J.B. in one, me and the two directors behind. They were still suspicious of me and still shaken by the flight, so it was a quiet ride.
We went too fast down a narrow concrete highway between overgrown plantations and tin-shack farmhouses for fifteen minutes. After that we were weaving through the shanty-town on the edge of the city itself.
Santo Bartolomeo is an old city. It’s supposed to be named after Columbus’ brother, who certainly wasn’t a saint except by Repúblicastandards. It’s also supposed to be the gayest, wickedest city in the Caribbean. Maybe it was, in the sailing-ship days when you could get a bottle of rum, two women, and three knife-fights for a silver dollar. Not any more.
Now it’s just old, tired, shabby, worn out by too much politicking. The steam-ships are bigger and fewer and turn round quicker than the clippers, and banks and warehouseshave replaced the brothels and inns of the waterfront. The rest of the town is a mess: 400-year-old Spanish cathedrals flanking Victorianorneeblocks flanking stucco split-level houses that look as new as tomorrow for three months and as old as Columbus after six. But maybe after centuries of fast-changing governments, even the buildings don’t want to look as if they might be talking to their neighbours.
You can count the revolutions in theavenidas. A new man takes over, carves out a newavenidalined with Royal Palms, names it after himself, and the new civil servants pocket their bribes and rush in to build the latest-style residences along it. But in five years there’s a new man, a newavenida, new men building in a new style. Nobody rebuilds the oozing, crumbling houses on the narrow streets joining theavenidas. The people who live there never reach the pistol-packing ranks, so didn’t take part in the last revolution and won’t take part in the next. Nobody owes them anything.
The taxi stuck to theavenidas. We came in on Lincoln, turned down George Washington and up Independencia. Most of theavenidasend up with such names: heroes too long ago or far away to have any political significance, or abstract ideas likeindependenciaandlibertadthat are what every revolution’s about anyway. It doesn’t make much difference. A newlibertadcomes every five or ten years, but there’ll still be two grey soldiers with carbines and eighteen-inch truncheons on every corner to remind you that you are now reallylibre.
With the lastlibertadthey’d decided the town was the new Miami Beach and had built three modern resort hotels. We drove clear through the town to the biggest and best of all, the Americana, on the western edge.
It sat at the end of a long avenue of Royal Palms: a crescent-shaped five-storey copy of the Fontainebleuat Miami Beach itself. Every room guaranteed its own balcony and air-conditioning, every bell-boy, lift-boy, and floor waiter guaranteed a pimp. Maybe that made it Whitmore country. For me, it made it the weekend I caught up on my drinking.
I dumped my bag in my room and went straight down to the patio bar on the terrace and bought a beer. By then it was about half-past noon. Ten minutes later, the director came in; he saw me, wondered if he could pretend he hadn’t, decided not, and came over.
‘If I’d got any pesos I’d buy you a drink,’ he announced.
‘I’vegot some.’
He let me buy him a Scotch, then asked: ‘How do you change money here?’
Try the bell-boy. The official exchange rate’s one peso to a dollar. It should be about a peso and a half. Don’t settle for less than one-thirty-five. And remember to change any pesos back before you go out: officially you can’t export currency, so no bank outside’ll touch your pesos.’
‘My God.’ He sucked at his drink. ‘We’ll never be able to shoot here. They’ll cheat us blind the moment we’ve got the full crew in and they know we’re depending on them.’ Tell Whitmore.’
‘I’vebeen telling him.’ He gave me a sideways look.‘You try telling him. You seem to be in with the Boss Man.’
I let that remark go its lonely way and started to fill my pipe.
After a decent interval, he said: ‘Well, you’ve got a fresh viewpoint: what d’you think of the Boss Man?’
‘He’s tall.’
When I didn’t go on, he said: “That’s all you’ve noticed?’
‘He’s broad, too.’
‘All right, Carr. I see. But just let me tell you something; Don’t ever think that man can’t act. ‘ Whitmore, Luiz, and J.B. came into the bar. The director put the last of his Scotch down the hatch and said quickly and quietly: ‘Check your contract. Mine’s quite clear: I just direct.’
He slid off the stool and walked away, nodding to Whitmore.
The big man put both hands on the bar and looked up and down. ‘Beer – right? Right. Cuatrobeer!’
He tossed a handful of pesos on the bar.
‘You managed to change some dollars,’ I remarked.
‘Fella – one thing I don’t need to do is change any money. Igot nearly a quarter of a million dollars tied up in this island: frozen assets from every goddamned picture of mine they’veshown here in twelve years. It’s nice to be able to cash acheque and spend some of it.’
I nodded and put the third match to my pipe. Experience had shown that this was the one voted most likely to succeed.
Whitmore said: ‘Do you reallylike that thing?’
The match died, disillusioned. I took the pipe out of my mouth and looked at it. ‘I’m told it grows on you.’
‘Not only on you, fella. Would you like a butt instead?’
‘If you insist.’ I put the pipe down and lit one of his Chesterfields.
J.B. shook her head wearily. ‘There’s a boy who’s got the price of cigarettes licked.’
Ned said: ‘All right, Keith. You’re under arrest.’
He was standing, feet spread, pointing a bluntfingerlike a pistol and giving me a look as friendly as a blowtorch. He obviously hadn’t wasted any time: he was still in a stained lightweight flying suit, covered in zips and pockets, with a fat stubby revolver in a shoulder harness buckled over the lot. In the carefully-staged half-light of the patio bar, he looked like the scene from a Whitmore film where the hero staggers shirtless into the Southern ballroom.
The two tall air policemen in white helmets and heavy webbing holsters didn’t look as if they belonged, either. It didn’t stop them moving towards me.
Then J.B. slid off her stool and said crisply: ‘I’m Mr Carr’s lawyer. Will you tell me the charge, please?’
Ned jerked his head round and gave her a suspicious frown. Then he said heavily: ‘Yeh – I suppose I should’ve expected something like you. Well, we can start with murder and an act of war and see what builds up from there.’
She took off her sunglasses and looked at him as if he’d crept out of the wall. ‘You are quite certainyou have the power of arrest?’
‘Yeh. You sure you got the right to practise law here?’ She flicked him a brief condescending smile. ‘I didn’t want you to make a fool of yourself – whoever you are.’
It seemed time to make some introductions. I said:�
�Coronel Ned Rafter, commanding the Repúblicafighter squadron. Meet Miss J.B. Penrose.’ I waved a hand down thebar. ‘And you’ll have recognised Walt Whitmore and Luiz Monterrey, of course.’
Of course he hadn’t; he’d only been looking at me. He lifted a hand slowly to his stubbly hair, scratched, and said: ‘Yeh, I suppose I should’ve expected somebody like you, too.’ He turned back to me. ‘You sure pick your witnesses before you throw your punch.’
Whitmore stuck out a hand. ‘Glad to meet you, Coronel. Have a beer.’
Ned looked at the hand, then shook his head. ‘I’ve come forhim. I’ll make do with that.’
Whitmore said: ‘Anything he’s supposed to have done, I was there at the time.’
‘Yeh. I’m beginning to get the idea.’
J.B. asked smoothly: ‘What were the charges again, Coronel?’
‘I want a statement from Keith in front of the General for a court of enquiry,’ he growled. ‘He don’t move out of my sight until we’ve got that.’
‘We’re down to a subpoena for an enquiry now, are we?’ she asked. ‘Let’s work on it a bit more. We could get your “act of war” down to a parking ticket yet.’
But that did it. Ned’s face clamped tight. ‘Bring him in! ‘
The two guards moved for me.
I slid off the stool and stood waiting, feeling the old anger surge up inside. Nobody does this to… But you’re always hitting the wrong men. The man in the Vampire hadn’t bought the Vampire himself, hadn’t been the one who decided I was a danger to the state. The two guards might like their work -they looked as if they did – but they were still under orders. You can never hit the men who give the orders. But maybe the time comes when you’ve got to hitsomebody…
The decision had been made for me. The guard on my right seized my arm. Then a huge hand landed on his shoulder, twisted him as easily as I could turn a switch, and another hand thumped in just under the white helmet. The guard took a short backwards sprint and fell over a bamboo table.
The second guard was tearing at his holster, pulling a long revolver. I grabbed the gun by the cylinder and hit him in thestomach with my right. He grunted and pulled the trigger – but the cylinder couldn’t turn, the gun couldn’t fire. I hit him again and he started to fall, dangling from the gun in my left hand.
J.B. let out a yell. Whitmore took three strides and a swinging place-kick. The first guard’s arm whipped out straight and his revolver sailed out of the bar on to the lawn.
There was a thundering bang.
Ned was still standing there, surrounded by fading wisps of smoke, his arm stretched sideways where he’d fired into the open. Then his gun swung back towards us.
‘All right,’ he said grimly, ‘if you all won your Oscars, let’s get back to where we started.’
Whitmore turned to him. Ned twitched the gun. ‘I justmight want to become famous.’
Whitmore shrugged, smiled slightly, and walked back to me. ‘Turning out a better day than I expected, fella. I like the way you drop your shoulder with the punch.’
‘Thank you. That was a nice piece of place-kicking.’
We grinned at each other. Luiz murmured: ‘One for all and all for one. And that was the one picture hedidn’t play in.’
Whitmore gave him a look, then said easily: ‘Okay, so let’s go see the General.’
J.B. said: ‘Just you wait a minute, Coronel.‘She was looking white and angry.
‘You’re in the Repúblicahere,’ Ned snapped. ‘If you want to try your hand at prosecuting, you can start on me: for blowing size eleven holes in your clientsunless they start moving right now.’
I tossed the guard’s gun over the bar into a sink full of crushed ice, and we all went to see the General.
ELEVEN
I’d expected Aride out to the air base or at least downtown to the Hall of Justice. Instead, we just pushed through a small crowd of tourists and hotel staff who’d come to see – from a distance – what the shot had been about, turned left in the hotel lobby and ended up in the casino room.
This was one thing they did better here than in San Juan. It was a tall, arched, elegant room decorated in the style of Louis the Fifteenth or Onassis the First or somebody. Anyway, long scarlet drapes, white paint, gold mouldings, and chandeliers like crystal clouds, glowing gently – only gently. At tropical high noon, the place had the soft, seductive atmosphere of midnight. You could feel the money in your pocket fighting to be out and into the action.
The room looked pretty full for lunchtime, until I remembered it was Saturday. A white dinner jacket hurried up to us, staring horrified at Ned – perhaps more at his old flying suit than the gun in his hand. Then he recognised him.
‘General Bosco,’ Nedsaid flatly.
The white jacket nodded a smooth dark head towards the craps tables. We filed across.
Either the General didn’t like rolling dice with the mob, or the mob had more sense than to roll dice with a man who’s fifty per cent of a dictator. Despite the crowd, he had a whole craps table to himself, an aide-de-camp in a gold-braided uniform, a croupier, and a couple of characters keeping the crowd at a distance with watchful plain-clothes expressions that were far more obvious than the bulges under their jackets.
The General had his back to us, rolling the dice across the table. But the aide caught my eye and smiled hungrily, and I knew him: Capitán Miranda.
Ned marched up and said: ‘General – about that crash. I’ve got Carr, the pilot of the Dove.’
Boscoturned slowly and looked at him.
Perhaps he looked like half a dictator, but I really wouldn’tknow; my personal experience of dictators is slight, although not as slight as I’d like. To me he was a tallish, well-built character in his fifties, putting on a bit of a stomach, with a full but not too fleshy face, a hooked beak of a nose, neat greying hair and moustache, heavy eyebrows over slow dark eyes. He was wearing a snappy dark-blue uniform with five gold stars on the cuffs, gold wings, and three rows of medal ribbons – which was restrained of him since he’d probably awarded most of them to himself.
He said in careful, almost perfect, English: ‘I must congratulate you, Coronel. But – perhaps this would be better dealt with at the Hall of Justice?’
Ned jerked his head. ‘It’s his passengers. They’re witnesses.’
Boscoswung his eyes slowly across us. He sized and priced me in a glance. The second glance got him Whitmore – and he knew him. Luiz took a moment longer, but he got the general idea. J.B. he ignored.
After a moment, he nodded and said thoughtfully: ‘Ah-h-h. Yes. Perhaps you did the best thing, Coronel. ‘He took a long thin cigar from a breast pocket, and Miranda did a Billy-the-Kid draw with a silver lighter. Boscobreathed smoke, leaned his backside against the table, and said: ‘Perhaps you would remind me of the full incident, Coronel.’
Ned said: ‘It started with a radio call from Ramirez saying he’d spotted Carr’s Dove and was going up closer to get a look at it. After that, nothing – until we got the word a few minutes later that a Vampire had crashed a couple of miles north of the field. I checked with Bartolomeo and found Carr had landed safely. I found him here. Him and Whitmore started a bit of a punch-up with the guards.’
Boscolooked at the gun in Ned’s hand, then at Whitmore. Whitmore smiled his thin, confident smile. ‘Two of your air cops tried to shove me around, General. I’m not complaining. They may be – when they get off the floor.’
The General smiled a little sadly. ‘Nobody likes military policemen, Señor, not anywhere. But unfortunately they are necessary.’ He looked back at Ned. ‘And what were Ramirez’ orders this morning?’
‘Just a training flight. But we knew Carr’s Dove was on its way, so he’d been asked to report it if he saw it.’
I asked: ‘Any orders to bounce me?’
Ned took a deep breath. ‘No. I’d told him to stay away from you.’
For all his eagerness to haul me into the scales of justice, Ned wasn�
��t putting any gilding on the frame. In fact, it was hardly a frame at all.
So far.
The General turned to me. ‘And you, Señor…?’
I shrugged. ‘Your boy made a pass at me. When he came in again I went into a spiral – to keep from under his guns. He stalled out of his turn and went in.’
I could feel Ned’s eyes on me. The General asked Whitmore: ‘And do you confirm this, Señor?’
‘It all happened pretty quick,’ Whitmore drawled, ‘but that’s how I recall it. I was up front with Carr.’
General Boscosucked thoughtfully on his cigar, breamed smoke over our heads, and came to a decision. ‘I think, Señores, we had all better have a drink.’
Still staring at me, Ned said slowly and clearly: ‘You killed that boy, Carr. Deliberate.’
There were a few confused moments of a waiter asking What Drinks and J.B. asking What The Hell. When the smoke cleared the waiter had vanished and J.B. was smouldering silently with Luiz’ hand clampedfirmly onher shoulder. The General was keeping Ned quiet with a steady dark stare.
Then he waved his cigar at the table. ‘Perhaps, while we wait, Señor Whitmore would care to…?’
Whitmore frowned, then shrugged, stepped up, and took the dice from the croupier. ‘We playing the house or just between ourselves?’
The cigar weaved a delicatechandelle.‘The house so kindly permits me to play just as among friends, so…’ And he smiled sadly.
The house would so kindly permit him to rip off the roof, shoot down the chandeliers, and borrow the manager’s wife, too. The house couldn’t stop him. He was General Bosco.
Whitmore tossed some money on the table. ‘So fade me.’
The General nodded to Miranda, who said: ‘General Boscocovers the bet.’
Boscoturned back to Ned. ‘Now, Coronel, you were saying…?’
Ned said flatly: ‘Carr killed Ramirez. He started out to kill him, and he did.’
I said: ‘I didn’t start it, Ned.’