Where Is Janice Gantry? (23 page)

Rage is an empty weapon. Terror only makes a man more helpless. My terror was for her, not for myself. Her death would be the unforgivable waste. I struggled to keep the raw
flood of emotion out of my mind. I hoped that I might be given some small chance before it all ended, and if I were to be capable of taking the maximum advantage of any small chance, I would have to remain as cold as an assassin, as impersonal as a weapon. Emotion could even blind me to the small chance so that I would never become aware of it. If I was given no chance to function, or missed the chance because I was beyond any exercise of logic, I would spend eternity with my beloved in a coffin of teak, mahogany and bronze on the floor of the shallow Gulf of Mexico.

When you have suddenly begun to return to life, death becomes a more bitter irony, more heartbreaking. (I lost the file and turned my body cautiously and discovered it had slipped back down between my shirt and my ribs.)

In tribute to the size of me, the three of them came back after me. They packed my mouth with a greasy rag and tied it in place. Weber hugged my bound ankles against his side. Marty and Ben each took me by an upper arm. They dropped me in the night grass while Weber turned out the light, closed the utility room door, snapped a padlock in place.

It was the calmest of nights. I could hear faraway trucks on the mainland highway. An airliner went over, running lights blinking steadily. People sat quietly up there, eight thousand feet over the dark tropic land, and perhaps the hostesses were stowing the soiled dishes from the evening meal.

They carried me aboard the
Sea Queen
and dropped me onto the teak deck near the stern. I tried to hold my neck rigid to keep my head from hitting, but it snapped back and hit hard enough to daze me for a few moments. The previous blow on the head and the taste of gasoline on the rag nauseated me. I fought it, suspecting I might strangle if I became actively sick. The peak of nausea slowly subsided.

Ben and Weber walked up the dark lawn toward the house. Marty sat with one haunch on the rail. I heard him spit the bitten end of a new cigar into the bay water, and saw the
pulsing glow of the flame on his fatty weasel face as he lighted the cigar. I lay across the rear cockpit deck, my head to starboard. The waning moon was beginning to rise above the mainland. I rolled my head in a gingerly way to the left, looking toward the stern, and saw the body of Chase sprawled close beside me, on its back, the face like wax in the first touch of moonlight, mouth agape, the one eye I could see half open, but without that wet glitter of life. Dead eyes soon take on a dusty look and reflect no light.

I heard a car start up nearby, and soon head north up the Key, the motor sound fading into the night silence.

Weber came onto the dock. Marty spoke in the low voice of conspiracy. “All set now?”

“He’ll be waiting in the parking lot next to the big city pier they got down there.”

“He’s got my stuff too?”

“You put it in the car yourself, didn’t you? What do you think we did? Throw it the hell out? The house is locked, the electric turned off, the safe is empty. You worry too much, Marty.”

“Goddamn well told, I worry! I told you last week, you do things too fancy, it just means that many more things go wrong. You thought it was so cute, dumping that little car in the water, and we bust our ass getting it onto the boat and it didn’t turn out so cute after all, pal.”

I watched Weber stand and look at the man for long moments.

“What were your orders, Marty?”

“My orders? I guess my orders were to take orders from you, Maurie, but I know more about the rough stuff than you do. Right?”

“Sure, Marty. They can give you a name and description and send you to some city where you’ve never been, and you can blow a man in half in his own driveway and get away clean. That’s nice. So give me the benefit of your expert
advice, Marty. Shall we leave these people in the driveway, maybe? How else do we hide four bodies where they’ll never be found, and have them figure me for missing, presumed dead? Give me a better plan, Marty.”

There was another silence. Marty finally said, “So let’s go for a boat ride.”

10

B
y the time we had moved out into the channel in the bay, I knew Weber had watched Chase often enough so that he had learned to do it by the book. The running lights were on. The dingy was riding on the tow line the proper distance astern. The two diesels were running in sync at, I guessed, about a thousand r.p.m. Weber, with Marty beside him, was operating the
Sea Queen
from the flying bridge, hand operating the big spotlight to pick up the reflectors on the channel markers.

I knew when we made the turn to starboard and went out through Horseshoe Pass. I knew the tide was a little past the high, and I was praying for Weber to run aground on one of the shifting bars, but he moved with care and deliberation. There was enough swell outside the pass, beyond the bars, to give the
Sea Queen
a different motion. When he put on more throttle I knew we were clear.

They came down the narrow curving ladderway from the flying bridge and Weber went to the duplicate controls in the semi-enclosed bridge a dozen feet from me. He turned on the chart light.

They spoke over the deep purring of the diesels, raising their voices just enough so I could hear them.

“Now what are you doing?” Marty demanded.

“We’ll run straight out a couple of miles, then take a compass heading that will take us down to Naples.”

“How do you know it will?”

“Because, goddamn it, Chase put all the compensated compass headings on this here chart and I’m reading the right one, goddamn it!”

“So don’t get sore. I’m just asking.”

Weber gave the craft a little more throttle, then came astern with a flashlight, stepping over me and over the body as though we didn’t exist, to check how the dingy was riding.

When he went back to the controls Marty said, “We got gas enough?”

“Yes, we’ve got gas enough.”

“I just don’t want anything should go wrong, Maurie.”

“For God’s sake!”

“I get uneasy about all this water.”

Weber didn’t answer.

“After you open up the bottom like you said, Maurie, how long will it take it to sink?”

“Twenty minutes to a half hour.”

“It will really sink?”

“Like a stone.”

“How far out will it sink?”

“I don’t know! We’ll get you into the dingy and all set. I’ll get it headed straight out on automatic pilot and give it full throttle and go over the side. You’ll have my clothes in the dingy. She may go five miles before the water shorts out the power. And I’ve told you this three times already.”

“How about the people?”

“You’re the expert. You get to knock them out. Then we’ll unwire Brice and little sister. We’ll stow everybody below. If they’re ever found, it’ll show they drowned.”

“Except the guy Ben shot.”

“That will be one of the mysteries of the sea.”

“What are you doing now, Maurie?”

“We’re far enough out. I got to put it on course.”

I felt the change of direction.

“What’s that thing?”

“I’m throwing it over onto automatic pilot.”

“Hey, that’s pretty spooky, that wheel moving back and forth all by itself.”

“I missed it by a couple of degrees. Got to try again.”

I heard the thud again as the automatic pilot was engaged.

After a few moments Weber said, “There! That’ll do.”

“When do we get where we’re going?”

“What did I tell Ben?”

“You said about two o’clock.”

“Well?”

“Jesus Christ, Maurie, can’t I even talk? How will we know when we’re there?”

“From the lights of the city, stupid.”

“I will be one happy son of a bitch when this is over,” Marty said dolefully.

“Now we can go below and get a drink.”

“Doesn’t somebody have to look out in front there in case we’re going to run into something?”

“The only thing we can run into is another boat, Marty. All boats have running lights. It’s a clear night. Now look out there. Way out. See that light?”

“Sure, what is …”

“Another boat, running way out, maybe eight miles off shore. The only thing we could hit would be another boat running on automatic so there’d be nobody at the wheel, and this is a hell of a lot of empty space to be on a collision course by accident. If it will make you feel better, we’ll take a look every twenty minutes or so.”

“I don’t like this running along blind in the dark, Maurie, honest to God.”

“So let’s get a drink and take your mind off it, and let’s play some games with the little sister.”

“But not like with that big broad—we didn’t know her name was Sis until after.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“How could I like it? By the time it’s my turn, I thought she was dead.”

“She wasn’t.”

“Okay, so she wasn’t. But by then who could tell? There’s got to be
some
type reaction.”

“You want reaction, we’ll give you some, Marty. Maybe you’ll get more than you want. Maybe, like Ben, you ought to settle for Charity.”

As they went below I heard Marty make a sound of righteous disgust. “Me, I could never stand a drunk woman. Honest to God. It goes against me somehow.”

More lights went on in the main lounge. The light shone out across the deck, dwindling the weak moonlight. I could hear the constant roar of the water as the displacement hull thrust it aside. It closed in behind us, in foam and turmoil. I began to work once again to get at the file. I had the idea that I might be able to wedge it upright between the boards of the teak deck. But when I rolled, I felt it slip around to the small of my back.

I fumbled weakly at my shirt and managed to pull it out in front, but I could not get the back of it free.

Suddenly, over all the sound of the marine engines and the rushing of the sea, I heard a thin climbing wail, a prolonged ululation from the captive throat of my girl. Without words, it expressed outrage and a dreadful panic with such clarity that my own breathing stopped and the sweat on my body was suddenly icy. They had either taken the gag from her mouth, or it had been displaced in struggle. I heard a male
roar of anger, and I heard Weber’s heavy phlegmy laughter, and then I heard her making a curious yelping sound.

I was suddenly far beyond careful thoughts, cool planning. Desperation can create a kind of madness, an insane energy. I was on my right side. The wire kept the heels of my hands firmly pressed together, and the wire went far enough up my wrists so as to keep my elbows tucked against my sides. I shut my eyes and forced my elbows out. I could feel the muscles of arms and shoulders bulge like marble against my skin. Vermilion dots swarmed in the blackness behind my eyes. I canted my head onto my shoulder in strain, lips pulled back away from my teeth, my lungs full to bursting, my throat closed. Something would give. It could be bone that would crack, or muscle fiber that would rip away, or the wire that would break. I know the pain must have been great, but I had no awareness of pain. It was an autohypnosis created by an extremity of effort.

Suddenly there was a small popping sound, absurdly tiny to be the product of the most concentrated strain I have ever experienced. I sensed rather than felt a sliding and loosening at my wrists. I opened my eyes and moved them into the path of light from the main cabin. The wire had parted, probably where she had begun to cut into the copper core with the small file. I quickly worked the encircling strands loose. (She screamed in torment and anger.)

My hands were free. I reached down to my ankles. I could feel the senseless fingers fumbling weakly and ineffectually at my ankles. I forced myself into a sitting position and slammed my hands against the teak deck to force some life into them. As life began to seep back into the numbness of swollen tissue the pain was electric and violent. I knew it would be a long time before they regained enough deftness to deal with knotted wire. I groped for the file and I was able to close my hand around it, the way an infant holds a spoon.

(“Bastards!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Bastards, bastards, bastards!”)

I swung my ankles into the light and sawed feebly at the exposed wire. It parted after an anguished eternity, and after I had unwrapped the wire I yanked the length of clothesline loose and pulled the sickening cloth out of my mouth. I tried to stand and went sprawling. Both feet were numb. I pulled myself up and stood, holding onto the rail, stamping my feet, trying to bring the feeling back into them.

(“Stop!” she screamed. “Oh God! Stop!”)

I tested my weight on feet that felt like wooden paddles. My hands hung like sacks of putty. I tried to move fast, hoping for surprise, knowing I had no time left.

I went stumbling, lurching down into the brightness of the big lounge. The three of them were at a low divan at my left. Weber was at the far end of the couch, kneeling, laughing, holding her shoulders down. He was facing me. Peggy’s wrists were still bound. She was naked. She was writhing, thrashing spasming her torso and her lean strong legs. Marty, naked except for his shirt, was cursing, struggling, trying to pin and separate her legs so as to consummate this tethered rape. His back was to me.