Big Kiss-Off (14 page)

A second burst of scattered shots evoked an echoing chorus of frightened foreign voices from the plane. No one else seemed excited. It was business with them and this was their business. Cade watched, fascinated, as a searchlight moved across the field and pinpointed the landed plane. The bronze-faced youth he’d seen in a booth at Sal’s with Tocko and the Squid was at the controls. He brushed at the light on his face, more annoyed than worried, as he urged the frantic passengers in the cabin to descend the ladder. Then someone on the far side of the landing strip shot out the light with a rifle.

Cade rounded the corner of the lodge and was forcibly stopped by a muscular arm. “You!” Moran said. “As the saying goes, you should have stood in bed.”

Cade caught a glint of blued steel in Moran’s hand and raised his own gun. “For God’s sake, someone make sense before I put in for Section Eight. What’s this all about?”

Moran was amused. “Now he’s going to shoot me. Some of you boys keep that pain-queer pinhead off me while I take care of the colonel. The little bastard couldn’t be a good sport and die in Pyongyang. He would have to come back.”

“Make sense,” Cade repeated. “What’s this all about?”

“Money,” Moran laughed. “A hell of a lot of money.” His bulk huge in the dark, the big man moved toward Cade slowly until the buckle of his belt was almost flush with the muzzle of Cade’s gun. “Go ahead. Shoot.”

Cade lowered his gun in sudden tardy suspicion and triggered a shot at the ground. There was only a sharp click of metal on metal. Cade wondered how he could have been such a fool! He wouldn’t have been if it hadn’t been for the dream. In the back of his mind, knowing better, he’d still hoped to make it come true.

He knew now why Janice had been so eager to resume her marital obligations. It hadn’t been love. It hadn’t even been passion. It had been cold calculation. She and Moran could see he was armed and had good reason to kill them both and neither she nor Moran had any intention of being sporting about it. They’d wanted him set up like a sitting duck on a pond. So sometime during the frenzied interlude in her bedroom, while his attention had been elsewhere, Janice had extracted the bullets from his gun.

Cade attempted to reverse the weapon and use it as a club but the barrel of Moran’s gun sliced viciously through the dark and knocked him to his knees.

Moran continued to be amused. “Try that for size, little man. I’ve always wanted to slug a colonel.”

Through his blur of pain Cade could hear Mimi screaming. Farther away there were shots and blows and the Squid’s excited squealing.

Moran singled out two men. “You, Fred and Roy. You know what to do with him. Don’t mark him any more than he is. And remember, I want him to have some water in his lungs if he should wash ashore.”

“You’re running the show,” a man said.

It sounded like the voice of the youth Cade had seen behind the desk. Mimi was still screaming. The confusion around him continued. At a distance, the Squid bleated, “Goddamn. You let me by. You heard what Tocko said.”

Cade attempted to get to his feet and Moran drew back his foot and kicked him in the face. His voice was almost gentle. “Lie down, little man. You’ve had it You’re out of all this now.”

A second sharper wedge of pain seemed to split Cade’s head in two. He mentally damned the armor and head rest on an F-86. He’d always known it would happen and it had, on his first mission. A flight of Migs had jumped him at six o’clock and he hadn’t even seen them come in. He pulled back to stop the falling sensation and the whole gadget-loaded cockpit exploded and propelled him into space.

It was a pleasant sensation. Cade, still fogged with pain, thought briefly that he was riding the moss-filled sack swinging at the end of the long rope tied to one of the upper branches of the huge sweet bay tree behind the old house. If he swung high enough he would be able to see the oyster camps on the far bank of the river.

His mild glow faded and he was cold again. He wasn’t on the swing. He couldn’t be. The swing had been gone for years. Besides, someone was holding his hands and feet. Somewhere a man was counting.

“One. Two. Three.”

The impact of his falling body on the water knocked the air from Cade’s lungs and shocked him back to partial consciousness. Then, at a small distance and going away, the man who had counted said:

“Well, that takes care of that.”

“Better circle to make sure,” a second voice said. “Some of these small wiry guys are tough.”

Cade’s sinking sensation resumed, but now he was unable to breathe. An irresistible force was exerting increasing pressure on his body. He sank listlessly, revolving slowly, until his instinctive will to live forced his hands and feet into motion. He broke water, gasped air and sank again, with the churn of the screw of a fast-moving cruiser threatening to puncture his eardrums. As instinctive as the will to live, he dove as deep as he could. When he surfaced the second time, he was riding the frothy white wake of the boat whose running lights were now fifty yards away.

The man who had counted asked, “What’s Jim going to do with his cruiser?”

“That’s up to Jim.”

“And the girl?”

The man who had counted laughed. “That’s up to Jim, too. But first he’s got to catch her.”

The laughter and voices and lights disappeared in the deep morning fog. Fully conscious, Cade lay on his back, looking up at the dimming stars, barely moving his hands and legs enough to stay afloat. He’d never been so tired. The cold water felt soft and good on his fevered body. Rest, the medic had told him. Well, why not? What had he left to live for? Deep in his subconscious mind Cade was tempted to lie still and let the water take him.

But there was something he had to do.

Cade tried to remember what it was. First it eluded him. Then he remembered. Of course.
He had to kill Moran
.

He continued to float, conserving his strength, reorienting his mind. Strangely, he felt no resentment toward the men who had dropped him from the boat. All they had done was to follow orders. He was nothing to them. They were nothing to him. It was Moran who’d kicked him in the face and laughed:

“Lie down, little man. You’ve had it. You’re out of all this now.”

Moran was his oyster. Moran was the man he wanted.

The planes of Cade’s face changed. His cheekbones grew more pronounced, as his lean cheeks firmed. His black eyes became even blacker. The wisp of a mustache became an affectation.

He named Moran in Portuguese, Serbian and French, then turned on his belly and swam with an easy overhand stroke he could keep up for hours, if need be. His top-siders weighted his feet. He trod water and unlaced them and twelve years fell away with the sneakers. The silver maple leaves were gone from his shoulders. He was no longer former Lieutenant Colonel Cain. He was all river Cajun, as much at home in the water as he was on land. He was old man Cade Cain’s boy, a direct descendant of a cold-eyed Kaintucky flatboat man who had mated with an olive-skinned Baratarian flame who was kin to Jean LaFitte.

Cade shook his head to clear it. He wouldn’t die. He couldn’t die. It was inconceivable for him to die until he’d stuck a knife in Moran and twisted it sufficiently to do what he’d come to do.

The scene at the lodge, the mysterious plane, the babble of foreign voices and the gun fight between Tocko’s and Moran’s men didn’t matter. They were of no consequence. He could figure them out later. Right now he had to stay alive. Moran was the oyster he wanted.

Cade swam blindly for a long time. Then reason asserted itself. Moran had wanted water in his lungs in case his body should wash ashore. It was logical to assume that Moran wouldn’t want him to wash ashore in the Bay. Embarrassing questions might be asked. Both Mamma Salvatore and Sal had known that he and Mimi had been headed for the lodge. That probably meant that he’d been dropped in the Gulf, possibly near big south mud lump where he’d seen the six dead men. It seemed to be a favorite drop, undoubtedly because a body left on the lump would eventually wash out into the Gulf.

Still, big south mud lump was a long run from the lodge. It had been early morning when he’d left Janice. He had no way of knowing how much time had lapsed. Cade stopped swimming and trod water while he searched for the north star. It was so faint he could barely see it. Full morning wasn’t far away. One by one, the stars were fading from the sky. The fog rising wraithlike from the water was veined with the deep red of false dawn. One of the old-world superstitions he’d learned in his youth from an aged Dalmatian fisherman occurred to Cade. The fog was veined with red, which didn’t happen very often. When it did it meant that the Lamb of the Lord was crying tears of blood for his lost sheep.

Orientated, Cade swam on. He had no way of knowing how far away it was but by swimming east, he had to reach land.

Fifteen minutes, a half-hour passed. Twice, large, slowly moving bodies passed him in the water. The sky was almost bright now but the gathering fog had deepened. Swimming through it was like flying blind through an endless bank of clouds, except that he had to furnish the motive power.

Cade’s arms grew heavier with every stroke. It was an effort to kick. The overhand crawl that had been so easy when he had left Bay Parish was rapidly becoming torture. Two years of fish heads and rice and garbage soup had drained him of his strength. He still had a long way to go before he would be the man the youth had been who impulsively had left Bay Parish to enlist in the Air Force.

Cade swam on doggedly. He wouldn’t die. A Cain always paid his debts. He couldn’t die until he’d killed Moran. His head was as light as his arms were heavy. He was hearing things now. He thought he could hear the twittering of birds and there were no birds on the mud lumps. His light-headedness increased as his strength failed. Now he even thought he could hear Mimi calling him.

“Cade,” she called guardedly, “Cade.”

Cade tried to answer her and gulped water. He’d swum as far as he could. He couldn’t take another stroke. He took one. He took two, then three and his thrashing hand struck sand. His fogged mind tried to analyze the hard granules between his fingers. There was no sand on the mud lumps. He wasn’t in the Gulf. He was still in the Bay. The birds and perhaps Mimi were real.

“Here,” he called weakly. “Here.”

Flat in the shallow water, like a swimming frog, he worried his way across the sand and tried to rest his cheek on one arm but the water was still too deep. He worked his way farther up on the beach and felt dry sand under his hands. Then, a great roaring filling his ears and the black water lapping at his bare feet, he turned on his back with the last of his strength and passed out….

• • •

The sun had risen. He could feel it on his face. His head was cradled on something soft and yielding. He thought he could smell feminine flesh. Cade opened his eyes and saw a fourteen-foot skiff bobbing at anchor with the attached outboard motor tilted at the right angle to allow the salt water to drain out. Beyond the skiff was a solid wall of fog.

He opened his eyes and looked up into Mimi’s face and beyond her face into a tangle of green leaves. On one of the lower branches of the tree, a vivid splash of crimson became a crested cardinal, puffing its small throat in strident song.

Mimi touched his face with her fingertips. “Rest.”

It was an effort for Cade to talk. His throat felt like it was encrusted with salt. “How did you get here?”

Mimi continued to fondle his face. “I followed the lights of the men in the boat.” She nodded at the anchored skiff. “I tol’ you I ’ad boat in Caracas.”

Cade snuggled down in the lap on which his head was resting. “I’m glad you’re not in Caracas.”

Mimi smiled. She closed his eyes with her fingertips.

When Cade opened his eyes again the sun had begun to climb. The bank of fog was gone but his head still reposed in Mimi’s lap and the skiff still bobbed at anchor.

It was easier now for him to talk. “I didn’t dream it, then.”

Mimi shook her head. “No.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Not long. Perhaps an hour.”

“And there have been no boats?”

“No boats.”

“No one looking for me?”

“No. They think you are dead,” Mimi said.

“And you?”

“What about me?”

“Aren’t they looking for you?”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

“You followed the men who dropped me, is that it, Mimi?”

“I tol’ you. As soon as I could get to the
Sea Bird
an’ put on some clothes.”

Cade realized that Mimi was wearing his white shirt and pants again. “What happened to your dress?”

“Mister Moran tore the rest of it from me when I tried to keep heem from keeking you.” Her lips twisted in a wry smile. “I ’ope he enjoys it as much as he does my shoes an’ my knife.” She sighed. “Such a nice dress.”

Still incredulous, Cade asked still another time, “You followed the men who dropped me?”

“Yes.”

“Weren’t you frightened?”

“Ver’ frightened.” Mimi’s big eyes seemed to grow larger. “An’ I am even more frightened when I call an’ call an’ call an’ you do not answer. I am theenk maybe I am come to the wrong place or you do not become conscious again when they are put you een the water.” She pressed one hand to the bulge on the left side of her borrowed shirt. “I am nevair so relieved as when I hear one ver’ faint ‘here’.”

“No one tried to stop you when you started the kicker?”

Mimi shrugged and the yielding substance on which Cade’s head was cradled was more delightful as she moved. “No,” she said, scornfully. “They were all too busy fighting an’ shooting an’ calling each other the bad names.” Mimi reported with satisfaction, “Is something about a lot of money an’ both that Tocko an’ Jeem wanting to be the only one to enjoy the favors of thees yallow-haired old woman to whom you were married. While they were still fighting an’ shooting at each other she screamed at them to stop an’ Tocko called her a hot-panzed leetle beetch an’ said unless she would come back to heem, he would foul up the deal, if it was the last thing he evair deed.” Mimi blushed.