Neither of us moved.
And then I jumped, as Carpenter said, beside me, “That one’s a baby.”
Maybe the animal heard him, and took offense. The snout and the eyes dipped beneath the surface, and then the water behind them seemed to bulge slightly upward and thicken for a moment, as though it were about to solidify, and then it smoothed out again and there was nothing.
“You ready for breakfast?” Carpenter asked me.
Breakfast was instant coffee and gorp. Carpenter broke down the tent, folded it, rolled it, tied it to his pack. He emptied the shotgun again, slipped the shells into his pockets. I slapped on my insect repellent. He slapped on his. We climbed back into the canoe.
He had said we were going back, but, once again, I had to take his word for it. For hours we drifted through a landscape identical to the landscape we’d drifted through yesterday. Water and grass, grass and water, islands, channels, more islands, more channels.
At around ten o’clock we were approaching still another island, the ghostly cypress looming over us. Carpenter slowed the canoe, swung it around, brought it up against the bank. He stepped from the boat, then helped me out. “Wait here,” he told me.
He moved off slowly through the trees, stalking roughly parallel to the bank, his head bent forward as he studied the ground.
I sat down against another cypress, felt the moisture seep almost immediately into the seat of my pants.
Fifteen minutes later, he was back. For the first time since I’d met him, he smiled a full smile. “Esteban is good,” he said. “But one of the others screwed up.” He nodded toward the canoe. “Let’s go.”
We sailed for maybe a hundred yards along the bank of the island, then Carpenter brought the canoe back to the shore. We left the boat and he bent forward, snared my pack, turned, and handed it to me. “We’ll carry all the gear first. Then the canoe.”
He grabbed his pack, swung it on. I wrestled my arms into the straps of mine. He squatted, raised the shotgun. Carrying the gun at port arms, he set off. I followed. We trudged over the spongy ground, around the gnarled trunks, under the faraway canopy of branches, for maybe a hundred yards, until we came to another patch of still black water. More grass out there, more channels. Carpenter unsnapped the straps of his pack, shrugged himself free, set the pack up against a tree. “Now the boat.”
Half an hour later, we had the canoe back in the water and the gear back aboard. Standing beside it, Carpenter began to load the shotgun, once again alternating shot with slugs. “We’re about half an hour away,” he said.
I loosened the Beretta in its holster.
Carpenter moved into a squat, supporting himself with the barrel of the shotgun, the butt against the ground, and signaled for me to come down to his level. I did. “Okay,” he said. He took a ballpoint pen from his pocket, used the rear end of it to draw in the damp ground. “We’re here. If I’m right, they’re over here, on this island. It’s another shack. Set back from the front of the island, in the trees. What we do is circle around the island and come in from the rear. There’s a steep bank back there, five or six feet, good cover for the canoe. We’ve only got about twenty yards of open ground to worry about. But there’re no windows at the back of the shack. We’ll get to them before they know we’re there.”
I nodded.
He looked over to me. “You ready for this?”
“Not really.”
He smiled that quick smile. “Then let’s do it before we change our minds.”
It took longer than half an hour, but within forty-five minutes we were slipping across a fifteen-foot swath of open water, toward the bank Carpenter had mentioned. Its top was above the level of our heads, and I couldn’t see much of the island, only that it stretched off, left and right, for a hundred yards or so.
Carpenter brought the boat against the shore and we stepped out into the mud, both our boots sinking up to the ankles. We kept low.
Holding the shotgun, Carpenter nodded his head toward my Beretta. “Up over the bank, and then across the clearing, to the right. Got it?”
I nodded. I pulled out the Beretta, released the safety.
“Go,” he said.
We scrabbled up the bank, out in the open. The shack was maybe thirty yards away.
The first bullet took Carpenter. He went backward, into the water. The second and the third bullets took me, a punch in the arm that lost me the Beretta, then a punch in the chest, and then I was down.
28
JOSH-YOU-AH,” said Ernie Martinez. “It’s good to see you again, bro.” Standing over me on my right, holding my Beretta loosely in his right hand, he grinned down at me. “Long time, hey?”
He was wearing blue jeans and a denim shirt, the tails hanging loose. He was in better shape than he’d been when I’d seen him last, in civil court, six years ago. His heavy stomach was gone, his chest was full. Prison had apparently agreed with him.
He was also in better shape than I was. I was lying on the ground and the upper part of my right arm was on fire. I reached over with my left. The sleeve was wet and sticky. Hole in the front, hole in the back. The bullet had gone through.
I felt at my chest. Leroy’s telephone was smashed. A hole through the shirt pocket, a long ragged tear, but no bullets in there.
“Hey,” said Martinez. He kicked me. In the right arm, where the bullet had hit. “What you got there?” He came down to me and rammed the barrel of the pistol against my temple. “Don’t move, asshole.”
Using his left hand, he opened the pocket of the shirt, jerked out the telephone. I felt bits of it fall to my chest. “What’s this, bro?”
“What’s it look like?” I said.
He stood up and kicked me again. I hissed.
He turned to his left. “Hey, he’s got a telephone,” he said. “Maybe he called someone.”
“Let me see it,” said another voice. I lifted my head.
Two men were approaching across the clearing, one of them Luiz Lucero. The other had to be Esteban. He had returned here sometime this morning, before Carpenter and I arrived.
He was a short man, very dark, wearing camouflage field pants and an open field jacket, also camouflaged, unbuttoned. Beneath the jacket he wore a blue undershirt. He was carrying an Uzi.
It was Lucero who had demanded the telephone. Tall and slender, he held a Colt Python revolver in his left hand, probably the same Python that Sylvia Miller had bought in Las Vegas, weeks ago. He wore a tan guayabera shirt, dark twill slacks, and a pair of ornate leather sandals over a pair of white silk socks. It wasn’t an outfit I would’ve worn in the swamp. But it wasn’t an outfit I would’ve worn anywhere else, either.
His right hand was bandaged, cotton gauze wrapped around the palm. His pinkie was missing. Even so, he used this hand to take the phone from Martinez. He examined it for a moment. “A cell phone,” he said. “Not worth shit out here.” He put the shattered phone to his ear and made his face go goofy. “Hello, Mom? This is E.T.”
Martinez laughed. Esteban smiled.
Lucero turned to me and shook his head. He tossed away the phone. “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. How many times I got to tell ju to stay away from de clob when de band is rehearsin’?” He kicked at my feet. “Get up.”
I rolled over onto my left side, pushed myself up, slowly, awkwardly. I stood, wavering a bit, forward and back. I felt blood trickling warmly down my right forearm, down along the palm of my hand. I looked toward my feet. Bright red droplets were pattering against the brown earth.
Trickling was okay. Pattering was okay. The bullet hadn’t hit an artery. Not that it mattered, in the long run.
With my left hand I reached again for the wound.
Martinez slapped the barrel of the Beretta against my left knuckles. “Bleed,” he said. “It’s good for you, bro.”
“You know this one?” Lucero asked him.
“Sure,” said Martinez, and grinned. “This is my old friend Josh-you-ah. Josh-you-ah Croft. This is the one I tol
d you about.” Still grinning, he slammed the gun barrel against the wound.
Lucero stepped up to me and smiled sweetly. He was a handsome man, a strong chin, feline cheekbones. But his dark eyes were bright, the pupils contracted, and I wondered whether he had been sampling the goods he once marketed. He shook his head again, with elaborate regret. “Holy moley, Lucy,” he said. “Ju and Ethel have been makin’ a terrible mess again.” He raised his pistol, put it almost gently against my forehead. “So now ju tell me, Lucy, who was Ethel, eh?”
Spooky, Jimmy McBride had called him, back in Santa Fe. Spooky was right.
“A guy named Carpenter,” I told him.
Without removing the gun from my forehead, Lucero nodded, turned to Esteban. “You called it,” he said. He looked back at me and smiled sweetly again. “And now,” he said, “you’ve got two seconds to tell me how you found us.”
“A friend of Carpenter’s saw you come into the swamp. An Indian. Carpenter knows the area. He’s the one who found you.”
He cocked his head, grinning idiotically. “And who else did ju tell, Lucy?Ju tell Fred?”
“No one.”
He swiveled the barrel slightly and fired. I had time to close my eyes, but the sound was deafening. I felt the muzzle blast sear along the side of my skull. My ear rang and I could smell the stink of scorched hair.
“Babalu!” he said, and laughed. Then he narrowed his eyes. “Don’ lie to me, Lucy. Ju know how dat makes me crazy.”
“It’s the truth,” I told him.
Lucero glanced at Martinez and shifted abruptly from his Ricky Ricardo mode. “Would he do that? Come in here on his own? No backup?”
“Josh-you-ah? Sure he would. Josh-you-ah’s a Boy Scout. Aren’t you, Josh-you-ah?” He tapped at my wound.
Lucero turned to Esteban. “Go find the other one. Make sure he’s dead.”
Esteban nodded. Carrying the Uzi, he stalked off toward the bank.
Martinez said, “You made a big mistake, Josh-you-ah, coming here.” He tapped the gun barrel at the wound again.
I turned to him. “Why don’t you try that without the gun?”
Martinez grinned. He tapped the wound. “You a little pissed off, Josh-you-ah? You think you can take me?”
“I always have.”
“I been practicing.”
“You’re still a loser.”
This time he whipped the barrel at me. My knees nearly gave way.
“Who’s the loser now?” he said.
I turned to Lucero. “Can I ask you a question?”
He grinned at me. “Absolutely, Lucy.”
“Why did you kill Sylvia Miller?”
He laughed. He put his left hand on his hip, the Python pointing to the rear, and he spoke in a lilting, high-pitch lisp. “This is the scene where I tell you everything. Right? Like on Rockford Files.” He lowered his voice, made it smooth and silky, like a television announcer: “Isn’t that right, Jim?”
“I’m just curious.”
He dropped his hands and now he spoke with a German accent: “Ah, vell, Jim, dot curiosity, dot’s vot killed de cat, you know.”
“I figure you just got tired of having her around.”
He winced with impatience. “She was a freak. A plain freak. Talk about a loser.” He grinned suddenly. “Well, you got it outta me, Marshall. But, please, don’t let the boys know I squealed.”
“I’ve got another question.”
“What’s that, Jeopardy Man?”
“You’re supposed to be a pretty smart guy. How’d you get involved with a moron like Ernie?”
Martinez pounded at me with the gun barrel again.
I turned to him. “Come on, Ernie. For old time’s sake. Try it without the gun.”
Lucero said, “You want to fight him, Ernesto?”
“Sure he does,” I said. “That’s what this is all about. That’s why he shot my partner. That’s why he called me a few days ago.”
Lucero looked at Martinez and waggled a finger at him. “Ernesto. You’ve been a very naughty boy. You weren’t supposed to call anyone.”
“Just him,” Martinez said. “He’s the only one. And it was before New Orleans.” He turned to me. “Hey, you hear about your girlfriend, Josh-you-ah? Your girlfriend, the tomato, Rita what’s-her-name, she kicked off.”
I looked at him. “You’re lying.”
He shook his head earnestly, eyebrows raised. “No, bro, that’s the straight shit. Ask Esteban when he comes back. He found out this morning. Really a shame, huh?”
“I don’t believe you.”
He shrugged. “Don’t matter to me, bro. She’s still dead.”
I took a breath. Ignore that. Focus on the important thing. Causing Martinez some pain.
“C’mon, Ernie,” I said. “Without the gun. You afraid your boyfriend will see you get your ass kicked?”
“Fight him or shoot him,” Lucero told him. To me, in an English drawl, he said, “This all grows so terribly tiresome, don’t you think?”
Martinez grinned. “I fight him.” He handed the Beretta to Lucero. He clapped his hands.
Lucero said, “Fine.” Sticking the Beretta into his waistband, he turned to me. “Now, Jeopardy players, listen carefully to the rules—”
Martinez leaped at me, wrapped his thick arms around mine, and squeezed. A flame of pain flared through my arm. He spun me around and flung me loose, toward the ground.
I landed on my left side, hard, and I knew I had to keep moving, because Martinez would be coming in with his feet. I used the momentum of the fall to roll away from him, and pain flared again as I flattened my right arm, and then I felt another pain, in my gut, as his foot ripped up and crashed into me, slamming the air from my lungs.
I kept rolling—I had no choice—and he came rushing in again. But this time his kick missed and I grabbed at his foot as it came whistling past and I shoved it skyward as I lumbered up off the ground. Off balance, Martinez toppled over. Now he was on the ground and I was standing, and I moved in for a kick of my own. Lucero’s pistol boomed and a slug went zipping past my face.
“Now now now,” he said, and he cocked his head and waggled that finger. “Ju got to play fair, Lucy.”
I stepped away.
I had rolled toward the house, away from the water. Martinez was between me and the shore. If I could somehow maneuver this thing closer to the bank …
Martinez pushed himself off the ground. He dusted himself off and then he grinned at me again. He raised his fists. “You’re going to die, Josh-you-ah.”
I raised my left hand. I had no right. That arm was useless.
Martinez had been telling the truth. He had been practicing. He came in like a boxer, heavy on his feet but with his shoulders hunched, his fists moving in small tight circles. He feinted a right at my face and then he pounded a quick left at my wounded arm.
I managed to stumble back, away from him. And away from the water.
He came in again, grinning, and he hit me with a solid right to the chest, and then he punched again at the wound. I backpedaled some more. He shuffled in, feinted a left, feinted a right, then smashed a left at the wound. I gasped, and he drove a right into my face. I felt my lip split. I staggered back.
Boxing wasn’t going to work, not for me.
I squeezed the fingers of my right hand. No power in the arm at all.
When he came in the next time, I threw the right at him. It was slow and it was puny, and he knocked it aside as though he were swatting a fly. But that left him open, and I jabbed a hard straight left at his nose. It was a good hit, and it caused him some pain. He forgot about the boxing and he roared and grabbed at me again, wrapping those powerful arms around me. His finger found the hole in my arm and dug into it, prying at the flesh.
My vision was blurring as I raised my foot and then drove it, all my weight behind it, down onto his instep. He gasped and let me go and I walloped my knee into his crotch and then, as he doubled over, I knifed the k
nee up into his face.
He exploded upright, arms flapping, and then he went back and down. I stepped forward and out of the corner of my eye I saw Lucero raise the Colt, and I think he was going to kill me this time. It was just at that moment that Carpenter came sprinting around the side of the shack, the shotgun held low. Lucero tried to bring his pistol to bear, but Carpenter was already firing and the big double ought slugs pocked sudden dark holes in his handsome face and then a deer slug slapped into his chest and he took a step backward as another round of heavy shot peppered him, and then he dropped.
I looked at Carpenter. He was upright now and walking toward me, watching Lucero, the gun still ready. He was soaking wet and the front of his shirt was smeared with blood and mud. Somewhere he had lost the sunglasses and the hat.
“Esteban?” I said. I was panting.
So was he. “Finished,” he said. He looked down at Martinez, who had rolled into a ball and who clutched with both hands at his groin. “So,” said Carpenter. “We end this now, or we bring him back?”
It was tempting. I considered it. After a moment I said, “We bring him back.”
His mouth moved in a twitch. “That’s the hard way,” he said.
“Yeah.”
EPILOGUE
MARTINEZ HAD BEEN lying about one thing. Rita was alive. I learned that by using the first telephone we came to, when Eugene Samson drove us to Coral Springs.
The fever had passed, Leroy told me. There was no infection. The doctors had discovered that both the fever and the increased white blood cell count had been caused by a small mucus block trapped in her lung. It had been removed. Her temperature had returned to normal. She was still unconscious, but she was stable.
Carpenter used another telephone, this one at the hospital in Coral Gables, to call in the Feds.
Carpenter had been shot in the right shoulder, and his wound was more serious than mine. A couple of times, as we’d come out of the swamp, he’d blacked out. We had all been in the inflatable—him, me, and Martinez. If I hadn’t been able to revive Carpenter, all of us would still be back in there somewhere.
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