Such Men Are Dangerous (19 page)

The key slipped in silently. He must have picked up an extra key when he signed us in, and he must have soaped it to muffle the sound. I listened to the lock turn.

Then, slowly, the door opened at me.

No shoes. He was fully clothed otherwise, but no shoes. The gun was in his right hand. It looked like a .22, and there was a silencer on the end of the barrel.

He walked all the way to the bed with the gun trained on my pillows, and I kept the Magnum on him every step of the way.

For a while I thought he was actually going to fire the gun. I was hoping he would, and it did look that way, but at the last moment something must have cued him. He kept the gun muzzle trained on the pillows and groped for the bedside lamp with his free hand.

It was really beautiful when the light went on.

All I saw was his back, but it was like watching a face change expression. He froze, and I looked at his back and saw thoughts going through his head. He knew exactly where I was. He knew I had a gun on him. He knew that his only hope was to spin around and shoot, and he also knew that there wasn’t one chance in a thousand that he would make it. He thought of a lot of things to say, but none seemed better than silence, and he waited, and I let him wait.

I let him wait until it was too good, until I couldn’t take any more of it.

Then I said, “Sometimes, George, you’re a real moron.”

SIXTEEN

“P
UT
T
HE
G
UN
on the bed. Now turn around. You should see your face, George. Sit down on the floor. No, cross your legs, put your hands on your knees. Fine.”

I closed the door, switched on the overhead light. I said, “I’ll talk and you’ll listen. Fair enough?”

He nodded.

“George, George. Once upon a time you told me that I was incompetent and untrustworthy, and now it looks as though you were describing yourself. You’re both of those, all right,” I sighed. “The best planner I’ve ever met in my life. Shrewd and cool and farsighted, and yet whenever I come into the picture something happens to your brain. You go out of your way to screw yourself up. I guess I’m your personal blind spot, George.”

“Uh-uh.” I waggled the Magnum at him. “I talk and you listen, that’s our arrangement. Or you get a new hole in your head. Agreed?”

He nodded.

“That’s better. Oh, George, what the hell am I going to do with you? I knew all along you would try to kill me. Surprised? I started waiting for it from the minute the last of the soldiers was dead. I thought you might do it then and let Agent Lynch die with his faithful comrades, but you needed someone to drive the truck and help you tidy up.

“I was ready for you at the barn, too. It was such a natural spot, and you were all set, weren’t you? Don’t look as though you don’t follow me. Come to think of it, try to keep your face as expressionless as possible. Don’t talk, and don’t make faces.”

A nod.

“You were going to poison me. There were two bottles on the food table when we walked in, and the next time I looked there was only one, the scotch. What was in the other one, water? You don’t have to answer. Whatever it was, it was full of something fatal, but you decided to grant me a stay of execution. I wasn’t bothering you, after all, and there was a lot of driving still to go, and suppose more snow fell and you had trouble getting out? I might come in handy.” I shook my head. “Oh, George. Then you went and made a game out of it, the toast and all that. That’s a bad habit of yours, you tend to overcompensate.”

I paused, and he wanted to say something. He didn’t dare. I stared at him and he kept his mouth shut.

“And I don’t even have to tell you about tonight, do I? You telegraphed it all over the place. Even if I’d been as tired as I acted, I couldn’t have missed it. ‘Maybe we should stay out of Tampa. Where are we, anyway? Say, how about Savannah?’ You’re not supposed to let the bones show.

“The only part I couldn’t figure was why. Why kill me? Because I might lead them to you? That might be a reason to kill me afterward, after the delivery was made. Or maybe a million isn’t enough for you, maybe you want it all. Still, why rush things?” I shook my head. “No, there was only one thing I could think of, and then the stop in Savannah cinched it. The dirty stuff in the truck isn’t going to our good-guy buddies. But I knew that all along, George. I knew that on the island.”

His jaw dropped. Then his lips moved, but no sound came out.

“Oh, hell, you gave it away. You’re easy to read, that’s your trouble. Whenever you sell something too hard I know you’re lying in your teeth. All that shit about how the stuff was getting to the right people after all. And the cutesypie chatter in Spanish, and dropping Tampa into every third sentence whether it fit or not. ‘Look at the snow, Paulie, and I wonder how hot it is in Tampa.’ Where are the goods going, George? What set of bad guys? Africa? The Middle East?” He hesitated. “You can answer the question. A special dispensation.”

“Africa.”

“Is that what you thought I wanted to hear? Because that’s what you always tell me. We put nineteen men under the ground and jobbed the U.S. Army to hell and back, and you think I give a flying shit
where
the stuff goes? You really think that’s how my head works? The ship’s in Savannah instead of Tampa, and the buyers are baddies instead of goodies, and you think that would keep me up nights? It’s annoying enough that you underestimate me twice an hour, George, but do you have to act as though I’m crazy, too?”

He studied his hands. I told him the speech was over and the floor was open for group discussion. He could talk if he wanted. He went on looking at his hands for a long time.

Then he said, “I made a mistake.”

“Wonderful. It was my mistake letting you talk. ‘I made a mistake.’ You ought to have that tattooed on your ass. You damn fool, you’ve made ten mistakes a day.”

“No. Just one. I read you wrong. Over and over and over. I had a fix on you before I went down to the Keys and you kept doing things to change my mind and I just wouldn’t let you do it. Am I making sense?”

“Sure.”

“I had this impression of you, I couldn’t let go of it. I’m still having trouble breaking the habit. The weapons aren’t going to Africa. There’s this sheikdom on the Arabian Gulf—”

“I get the point.”

“All right.” He looked up. “I wish I had a cigarette.”

“You quit.”

“I know. Hell with it. I read you wrong, that’s all. I never thought of killing you in South Dakota. In the barn, yes. The bottle was coffee laced with one of our new wonder drugs. I knew you’d want coffee. I was going to burn the barn down with you in it.”

“What about here?”

“I would have put you in the van. They’re loading it as a unit, they could have dropped you in the ocean. The ship’s here in Savannah, of course. They load at noon, they ship out by one. Nice timing, huh?”

“Very nice. You were going to handle the deal yourself? You weren’t afraid of a cross?”

“You mean by the buyers?” I nodded. “I thought of it. Not very seriously, but it did enter my mind. I think they’d rather pay the two million than lose a valuable contact. Oh, I knew you’d be insurance at the moment of exchange, but I had to pick the lesser of two evils.”

“Next time toss a coin.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” His eyes narrowed suddenly. “I’m not telling you all this because confession is good for the soul. I already figured that you’re not going to kill me.” A shaky smile came and went. “If I called this one wrong, too—”

“No.”

“Because if I did, then I deserve to die. No joke.”

I shook my head. “Why kill you? Because you tried to kill me? The hell, I damn near drowned you twice before we even got started. I don’t want to punish you. That’s not my line. With you dead I’m out a million dollars. I want the money. I didn’t do this for the money, not exactly, but now I want it. The only possible reason to kill you would be if you were still a threat to me. I don’t think you are. It took you a while, but you’re beginning to know who I am. I’m worth a lot more to you alive than dead, and so are you to me, so the hell with it.”

He thought it all over. Then, slowly, he nodded.

“Go on back to your cabin. Knock yourself out with sleeping pills. We paid for the cabins, we might as well get some use out of them. We’ll have a busy morning. You may trust your Arab buddies, but I don’t. They may not realize you’re worth more to them alive than dead. Sometimes even bright people make that mistake. Don’t forget your gun. Go ahead, pick it up. We’re big boys now. I’m not going to shoot you and you’re not going to shoot me. And we both know it. Go get some sleep, George.”

He walked out the door, took a few steps, stopped, turned. He said, “Paul? I wish this never happened and I’m glad it did. You follow? I’m glad you’ll be in on it tomorrow. We might—who knows, we might even find things to do later on. When push comes to shove, we’re not a bad team. Right?”

I told him to get the hell to bed.

It was his turn to wake up first. He woke me around eight. “I thought of holding a gun on you as a gag,” he said. “But I figured you’d take it away from me and feed it to me through my ass.”

“Probably.”

“That’s what I decided. Get dressed, we’ll catch some breakfast.”

We walked across the road to a diner. We ate a lot of eggs, drank a lot of coffee. We went back to my cabin. He had bought cigarettes at the diner, and he smoked one after another while he drew me a map of the Savannah docks.

I guess I must have reached him. He told me the whole play, and he knew I could have pushed him right then and finished the deal on my own, and he also knew I wouldn’t. Progress.

I studied the map for a while. I said, “Okay, I’ve got it. Head into town, pick up a rental car. You’d better put on a suit. Bring the car here and we’ll load what we need. Everything else goes on the truck. Then you’ll drive down to the wharves. You’ll park—give me the map-you’ll park here, and—”

We ran through it. He made a few suggestions, some good and some bad, and we played with it until it came out right. He headed off to rent a car. I opened up the back of the van, closed myself inside. I opened a few crates until I found what I wanted. I put a nuclear grenade and a launcher on the floor of the cab.

There was a shopping plaza next door to the diner. I went into a drugstore and bought two candy bars and a wind-up alarm clock. I got back before George. I stuck the alarm clock in the drawer and ate the candy bars. Then I took off the trucker duds, put on my suit, and put the trucking clothes on over it. I looked a little bulky, but no one was going to take my picture.

I was loading the truck when he brought the car around. It was a compact, either a Valiant or a Falcon, I never remember which is which. “All they had,” he said. “It’ll do, won’t it?”

“Not if they pay off in singles.”

“Probably fifties and hundreds.”

“Then it’ll do fine.”

He offered to take the truck, but I said I would. He couldn’t argue without looking as though he was pulling something, which was ridiculous, but he wasn’t going to fight it. I told him to go on ahead, that I wanted the car parked and him in position before I took the truck out He stopped to have a look at the grenade and launcher.

“Jesus,” he said. “Sweet Jesus. Drive carefully, will you?”

“Nothing happens unless the pin is pulled.”

“Maybe their quality control is spotty. Drive carefully anyway, huh?”

He took off. I finished putting our waste material in the van—his overalls, our jackets, a few odds and ends. I was going to keep the Magnum and shoulder rig, but at the last minute I added them, too. Once we made the trade I wouldn’t need a gun, and meanwhile I had an atomic grenade, and it outranked the Magnum.

Then I went back for the alarm clock and climbed into the back of the van for the last time. I climbed back down a few minutes later, swept both of our cabins for prints—this last out of habit, there was no particular point to it. I stopped in at the office, but George had paid our tab in advance when we checked in.

I spent ten more minutes walking around the lot and taking big breaths. I hadn’t really noticed it before, but it was a beautiful day. Blue sky and a sun. And, for the first time in too long, warmth. I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed it up there. Warmth. Heat from the sun.

I got up in the cab. I started the engine, flicked on the radio just in time for the news. Nothing. I killed the radio and made like a truckdriver.

His map was good. I only went wrong once, when a street I’d planned on taking turned out to be one way the other way. I found a street that was going my way and drove straight to the waterfront, then headed directly for our pier. I had wondered what kind of a ship you could drive a full-size van onto, and now I knew. It was all alone out there and it was big. It was flying the Panamanian flag. If all those ships belonged to Panama, she could declare herself Mistress of the Seas. Or share the title with Liberia.

I wondered how fast boats like that went. It seemed to be the sort of thing a person ought to know, and I didn’t have the vaguest idea.

I spotted the car. It was in position, tucked behind a shed and not visible from ship. I drove another couple dozen yards and braked to a stop. I opened the door, and George dashed out from cover. I slid over to let him behind the wheel.

He drove us out onto the pier. While they swung a ramp into position, I got out on my side and took the grenade and the launcher with me. I crouched on the pier with the truck shielding me. By the time George moved the van, I had the launcher sighted in and the grenade in place.

That was the end of my job. I didn’t have anything else to do unless something was wrong. George was now telling them who I was and what I had aimed at them, and that it would blow them all to hell if he didn’t get paid and set loose. If they shot me the grenade would be launched automatically. If they got very cute and shot the launcher out from under me, the grenade would blow on the spot; I was still close enough to take them with me.

Either they never planned a cross or he made it sound good, because he was walking off the ship past me in less than twenty minutes. He had two metal boxes, one in each hand. They looked like the kind that hold fishing tackle or plumber’s tools, only larger. He didn’t say anything; he just winked as he went by.