by Wade Miller
"Like getting sobered up. Out of my way."
"Like what?" Hardesty said again.
Biggo stared at him for a few minutes. He was drenched with sweat and his breath sawed in and out. But he was beginning to lose the numbness. He was beginning to have a few ideas.
He said, "You been wanting in, haven't you, Lew?"
Hardesty grinned. "Well, well. I knew you had something."
"You're going to have to do a little work for a cut."
"Anything beats China. I'd like to get in a position where I could bargain with that blinking Egyptian. And that takes more than my present stake."
Biggo thought a minute, scowling out at the yacht. "You're going to have to trust me for what it's worth. It'll be worth something. I got a matter to settle with some people. Maybe I can do it alone and maybe I can't. But it might happen easier if I had some help. You still interested?"
It sounded like money to Hardesty; he had that gleam in his eye. "Keep talking."
"One of us got killed last night, Lew. A fellow you didn't even know. An old fellow named Dan'l Toevs and he was a good friend of mine since-well, from way back. They shot him from behind and left him for the dogs to get." Biggo sucked in his breath. "It isn't right, Lew, not right at all. We're tough fellows, that's what we're paid for. But they haven't any right to shoot Dan'l in the back and leave him. Somebody's got to care."
Their eyes met. Hardesty said softly, "Yeah. You wonder about that once in a while."
"Something's going to be done this time."
"Who shot him, Biggo?"
"I don't know his name. The man who hired it done was named Magolnick but he isn't here. He's far away, like the Egyptian. But the people who worked it out and set it up are on that ship." Biggo drank in the sight of the yacht again. He was feeling better, more like it. "Those are the wallahs I want. And am going to get. How about it, Lew?"
"With you," said Hardesty as if accepting a drink. "I never passed up a fight yet."
"I'll handle the execution end. That's my matter.
Toevs was my friend. I want you to back me up, that's all."
"What about a boat to get out there?"
"What about it?"
"Tonight?"
"After dark. Say, after eight. Along here somewhere."
Except for the handshake, that was all there was to it. They had worked together before. They parted and Biggo went into the hotel and had some black coffee in the bougainvillea patio.
When he felt the stuff coming out his ears he returned to the room. He walked steadily now. He was tired but his mind and body belonged to him again.
Jinny was curled up on the bed, passed out. She hadn't changed into the prettier slip. Biggo pulled the coverlet over her and went into the bathroom and took a long shower, hot and cold alternately. He felt more ready by the moment-not feeling good but keyed up and purposeful.
"Tonight, Dan'l," he said. "Breach for breach."
Jinny was still asleep when he came out of the bathroom. He hunted out the Mauser automatic from under the bed and sat down by the window to clean it.
After a while, Jinny said drowsily, "What you doing, Biggo?"
He held up the gun to show her.
"I guess I dozed off," she said and smiled dreamily. Then she sat up quickly. "What are you doing with the gun, Biggo?"
"I found out who killed Dan'l and where they're holed up." He went on with his work.
It sank in. She said faintly, "You're going after them."
He nodded.
"When?" she whispered. He told her. "Biggo, I don't want you to go. You'll get hurt, I know you will, or something terrible-"
"One of those things, honey." Biggo made a helpless gesture, reaching for the right way to explain. "Dan'l was my kind. If I don't go-well, then nobody would ever go." He said, "Somebody's got to care."
She sank back and stared at the ceiling. Then she rolled her head to look at him and her eyes were scared and wet. "I guess you're right, Biggo. Somebody's got to care."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sunday, September 17, 8:00 p.m.
A little before eight, Biggo got ready for bed and had Jinny do the same. Then he called room service for a boy to bring up a nightcap for them. He made sure the boy got inside the room and saw they were about to retire. Which covered the trail as best he could.
After that Biggo put on his dark suit and a dark blue sport shirt. He slid the Mauser between his belt and the flat of his belly and told Jinny, "In a half hour, call the switchboard and tell them to wake us up at eight in the morning. Then wait a couple minutes longer and turn out the light. Leave it out. Get dressed now but put on your bathrobe if you have to answer the door." He tried to think out possibilities, squinting at the Bible in his hand. "Plan on anything happening."
Jinny was nervous. "I'll be praying every minute, Biggo."
"Good." He smiled tightly. "I never learned, myself." He tossed the Bible to her. "This might help you. It won't do me any good where I'm going."
She said, "Honey…" as he started out. He paused, looking the question. "Nothing. Just take care of yourself."
He nodded and winked at her, though he didn't feel like it. He took his time getting out of the hotel, making sure no one saw him. The moon was thin again tonight and the night was dark on the beach. He didn't expect trouble yet but he unbuttoned his coat so the automatic was quick to either hand.
* * *
Lew Hardesty was waiting at the stone jetty. A rowboat wallowed beside him.
Biggo said, "Is that your best?"
"Didn't know you were expecting the Queen Mary. This'll be quiet." The stink of oil rose from the rags tied around the shafts of the oars. Hardesty hadn't changed clothes since the afternoon. He wore a tie as if he were going to a party.
"Let's go," said Biggo. He could just make out the pale shape of the yacht, about a half mile out. The waves on the bay weren't big enough to give them any trouble. Off to the north the lights of Ensenada twinkled merrily, a promise of life. In the rowboat there was only death.
They pulled straightaway, since no deception but silence could be used in approaching the ship over a naked waste of water. They had to depend on luck and dark not to be sighted. Biggo took the first spell at the oars, so he could rest before the actual boarding.
When they changed positions, halfway, Biggo sketched tactics. "The gangway, whatever they use, is on the other side of the ship. I'll board from this side. You hold against her and wait for me. I won't take long."
"What've you got, by way of arms?"
"Nice little Mauser. Yours."
Hardesty chuckled after a minute. "Well, I fell for that. Neat."
"I'll give it back to you. Afterwards."
"My pal," Hardesty said and chuckled again. "I wouldn't take it on a silver platter-after tonight. The police in this town may have heard of ballistics. Besides I got its mate." He sighed. "They were a pretty set. Hate to break them up after all of these years."
"Yeah, nice guns," Biggo said.
Then they shut up because they were pulling within earshot of the vessel. Carefully, Hardesty eased the rowboat alongside the hull of the yacht. She was a lovely craft, designed for long and comfortable hauls. The water was bright here from the reflection of her sloping sides. Racing lines, probably diesel power. The ports and windows of the superstructure were shrouded and no light escaped.
With their hands, they fended the rowboat from stern to bow of the yacht. All was shipshape; no ropes dangled and the deck edge was above leaping distance. Finally they slipped between the anchor chain and the hull.
Biggo held onto the chain. Hardesty steadied the boat and held up a clenched fist for luck. Biggo dragged himself up, hand over hand. It was a short climb and a moment later he was peering over the gunwales. The deck was deserted. He vaulted lightly over the rail and in the same motion snatched the Mauser free from his belt. There was no sound but his own labored breathing. He was tense with excitement. This was battle and
the automatic was another part of his own right hand.
He prowled aft, reached the stern and crossed it. There he stopped. Here, on the starboard side, lounged a man-shadow. He was about where Biggo imagined the gangway was. He was smoking a cigarette. It gave off a rank smell and the glowing butt limned the merest indication of the man's profile. He had something slung over his shoulder. A rifle.
Biggo crept toward the unsuspecting sentry. He advanced like a stalking cat, bent almost to the deck, his head as low as his knees. The sentry continued to puff the cigarette and gaze out at the open sea. Biggo paused. The yacht had broken her silence. From somewhere in the superstructure came the trill of a piano as hands commenced playing. It served to cover any noise his shoes might make on the decking and he advanced faster.
He was ten yards away, five, three. The sentry dreamed his dreams. Biggo sprang, his arm lashing out with the barrel of the Mauser while his other arm was already catching the man's suddenly limp body.
"One down," Biggo breathed. There had been scarcely a sound for anyone to hear, only the clip of steel on bone. Biggo crouched over the sprawled sentry a second, getting an idea. He slipped the rifle from around the man's shoulder and stuffed the automatic back in his waistband. "Make Lew happier," he said. Then he went in search of the piano he could hear.
The rifle was a Garand. It felt even better than the pistol as he carried it ready at his hip. Its weight of power lifted him up like a drug; with a rifle he was master of any situation. He scorned caution now. He moved into the passageway and began trying the doors of the superstructure. The second door was the right one. It widened into a view of the yacht's salon, a luxurious low-ceilinged room, white and gold. And there were four people present.
Valentin sat idling the keys of the baby grand against the far wall. Nearby, Mamacita was crocheting close to her eyes. Red, a gauze taped behind his ear, was sunk in a low leather divan against the starboard wall. He was dealing out solitaire on a hassock in front of him. And Pabla sat at an ornate writing desk, reading a lavender-tinted letter. A small pile of mail lay before her. With her rimless glasses across her nose she looked more like a secretary than a queen.
It was Valentin who saw Biggo first and his hands dropped off the keyboard and he began trembling. Then the other three looked up and saw. They all stopped what they were doing, frozen. None of them could decide whether to stare at the rifle or the look on Biggo's face.
Biggo kicked the door shut behind him and leaned his back against it. He grinned like a skull and all their eyes got more frightened. The rifle swung lazily back and forth. "Finish reading, Pabla," he said finally. "That's your last love letter."
"Biggo," she choked. She eased around at the desk to face him and he let her. "Why are… what are you doing here?"
"Paying off a debt."
Red shifted slightly on the divan but his weight was trapped by its softness and the rifle snout suddenly stared in his direction. "Just sit still," Biggo said.
He looked his prizes over again, joy in him. Red was big but a slow thinker and he wore the sick face of a gunman caught unarmed. It was impossible to tell about Mamacka; her beady eyes didn't show anything and her crocheting didn't quiver in her hands. Valentin was about to dissolve into senselessness.
The white and gold room was taut with fear and Biggo relished it.
The next movement was the drifting of the lavender letter from Pabla's hand. She arched her back a little against the desk. The wall behind her was hung with a collection of fans, from one end to the other. She was a blue and gold figure against a background of delicate art and she seemed to coil a little within her bright blue dress. She crossed her legs silkily, without care.
"Biggo," she said, "I'm actually glad that you chose to come, even like this." A smile worked onto the pink mouth. "We have so much to be explained between us."
"Yes."
"I don't quite understand, Biggo." She wasn't fool enough to try to rise and get closer to him. She tried to put it across from the desk chair, with her silk knees and her dress cut low across her impudent breasts. "If it is because of our mishap this morning, you're being a little foolish and wild. Delightfully wild. But we can mend what was torn of ours. Lew means nothing to me, believe that, nothing."
"Who does?"
She kept at it, working with all of herself, an imperceptible squirming. "If you only would realize what it is to be bored and disappointed. I dreamed of… but you wouldn't pay any attention to me. I was weak with-" She stopped.
Biggo was staring straight through her glasses into her eyes. He licked his lip as if he'd just spit on her. He said, "Save your wind, Pabla. That was this morning, long ago. I'm here tonight for an accounting." Hungrily, the rifle kept track of them all. "It didn't touch me when Zurico was killed. It didn't touch me when I was being hunted, myself. But when a fumbling old man-when he got killed by a carrion dog that didn't have the guts to face him out at his own death-then's when I got it too. Got it deep. I'm here to settle, all you scum."
Pabla couldn't quite follow it but Red's slow brain began to catch up. He shoved out his hands in protest. He spoke for the first time that Biggo had heard and his voice was a blustering rasp despite his fear. "Hey, you're talking cockeyed, buddy-"
Biggo grunted and his finger sweated eagerly on the trigger. It was sheer pleasure, watching them break down.
Valentin's voice shrilled up. "Ay de mi! He is going to kill us! He is going to murder us all!" His eyes bulged after he had put it into words.
"Not murder," said Biggo softly. "Execute."
Mamacita racked out a gasp.
Biggo gazed implacably at the natty semi-conscious lump named Valentin, at the tears on his face. "I hate to spend a good man's bullet on you. You ought to be stepped on, you greasy pimp. You sent me down to walk in on this tramp during her romp this morning. You knew what she was doing. I guess she doesn't feed you enough leavings."
Pabla's face had gone chalk-white. Her hand crept up to her throat, almost strangling herself. Nervous habit-crisis nearing. The greatest crisis of all. The pink lips had dried up. "Biggo, Biggo, you've gone mad! Why should you… you can't… you can't…"
She was the last to break and she broke harder than the rest. Her eyes rolled wildly around the room. They fastened on Red, begging him to do something. Red's heavy shoulders had sagged. His lips formed a word. "Magolnick."
Biggo smiled and readied the rifle. Red would be first. Biggo said to him, "Magolnick. It's an ugly word but it connects us all together, even the dead. I wish he could be here. Not that he could help you now though-"
"Biggo!" Pabla's eyes flared wide as if they had screamed at him. "In God's name, Biggo, please listen to me-"
The rifle swinging around hushed her. Biggo squinted, listening to the footsteps in the passageway outside. He sidled away from the door, clearing it, moving to where its opening would shield him. He watched the four people and the door.
The footsteps stopped outside. The handle turned, the door swung in, a man entered. He didn't see Biggo, pressed against the wall. He didn't notice the strained faces of the four. He closed the door and, in turning, found himself in the presence of Biggo Venn.
They just stood there silently, eyeing one another. The man had never seen Biggo before. He didn't recognize him. But Biggo recognized the newcomer in front of his rifle. He knew him from a picture torn out of a newspaper, a picture still folded in his wallet. The bald white-fringed head, the hook nose and red-veined face belonged to Tom Jaccalone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Sunday, September 17, 9:00 p.m.
There was a lot of talking to be done. They did it at gunpoint but the rifle was largely ignored, even by Mamacita and Valentin who wept softly with relief. Biggo kept the Garand ready because he still didn't like the group he faced. But there was no more question of shooting.
"I'm beginning to see how we got our wires crossed," Tom Jaccalone summed up a few minutes later. He was canted in an easy chair, one leg
slung over its arm. "I was worried of something like this when that old fool insisted on all those funny arrangements."
"That old fool went and got himself killed trying to deliver you the Noon confession," Biggo snapped. "Let's not run down the dead."
Jaccalone's eyes glittered and the veins in his face darkened. He wasn't the kind to have a very good grip on his temper. But he shrugged. "It doesn't matter, anyway."
"It does to me. I want the man who killed him."
Red-his name was Ussher and he was the yacht's first mate-said, "I am casing that phony address on Calle Estradura last night. I heard the shot, what there was to hear. But by the time I found the old man he was already dead and frisked. I didn't see anybody."
"You're lucky twice. I came back looking for you."
Red flexed his fingers. "You're a strong man with that rifle."
"Or without it," said Biggo.
Jaccalone waved his hands impatiently. "This is no time for fooling around. Venn, I want that paper. I've been waiting out here long enough. I want to get this tub back to Pabla's papa and get back to business up north. Where's the paper?"
"Not with me. I can get it."
"How soon? Tonight?"
"Soon enough."
"Damn it, when?"
"When you help me locate the Magolnick people. When I've settled with them."
Pabla said slowly, "You can't keep it for yourself, Tom. You'll have to tell him."
"Tell me what?" Biggo asked.
Jaccalone shrugged again. It was his reaction to anything meaningful. "We've got a Magolnick man. We've got the fingerman. Red picked him up this morning. He's below in the kitchen-the galley, I guess it's called." Biggo began to smile, even at Pabla. "Well, thanks, honey, and I mean it. You just did something for me." She perked up. She pointed behind her, at the wall of fans. There was the white satin-bow fan from the fiesta. "That is the one you may remember from the parade. This other is the fan I was supposed to carry." The other was a dozen feather eyes, shading from blue through green to bronze-peacock feathers, a widespread wedge of them. "It was supposed that I could display it all through town during the parade. But the Magolnick agent, by means of Zurico, let us know we had better not. Strange, Biggo, that you should have been so close to me the whole crucial time." And Pabla stretched lazily for his benefit.