The Scarlet Ruse (23 page)

There was a shorter wait, and this time the six shots came smacking at The Busted Flush. I heard the ship's bell ring and the dying scree of ricochet off brass. Crash and tinkle and zing. Thud and whine and whizz of splinters.

Just about enough time for a reload and it began again. One got into the galley and clanked around among the pots. Then a lengthening silence. My cue to disappear. Tall white rabbit hops back into top hat.

I had bet Meyer that I could go aboard the Flush and hide and he could not find me in a two-hour search. He knew the old houseboat well. We bet one hundred dollars, plus welching privileges, which means that if you lose, you can buy the winner a very good dinner and try to renegotiate your loss.

He did not know that while he was up in Montreal for a week, listening to people read papers on international currency and exchange, I had found an exiled master carpenter from Cuba. When you open the door to the head, you are in a short corridor with the master stateroom at your right, the guest stateroom at your left. Affixed to the bulkhead straight ahead is a full-length mirror, already installed when I had won the houseboat in a poker game. I had done some measuring. The little Cuban was amused. He said it was possible. He moved the interior bulkhead out a few inches. He went around into the galley and made a tall provision locker a few inches shallower. He removed the mirror, cut a hole just a hair smaller than the mirror, put a brass piano-hinge down one side of the tall mirror and reinstalled it. I tried it for size in there. If a man does not have a swollen gut, even a large man takes up surprisingly little space if you measure him back to front. Less than twelve inches. But it was too dark in there. I located a good piece of two-way glass at an exorbitant price, and he installed it in the mirror frame. It was much better that way.

The Cuban removed every trace of his highly skilled labor. He devised a simple but solid catch which would hold the mirror-door closed and could be released by inserting a long wire brad into an almost invisible hole on the right side of the mirror, in the bulkhead next to the frame. For the occupant there was a simple turn block on the inside. He did a lot of winking, because he thought it was where I planned to tuck the errant lady when the husband came storming aboard. I did not advise him that I had never gone in for the middle-America hobby of scragging the random wife at any opportunity. But there had been a lot of times when people had come aboard looking for other people, when it had been unfortunate all the way around to have no good stowage area for people who would rather not be found. And as long as I had it, I thought I would make Meyer pay for it. He lost the bet. He marveled at the ingenuity, the craftsmanship. He bought me a legendary steak, a great wine, and wheedled me down to ten percent of the original bet.

They would come aboard. They would search the Flush. And sooner or later, they would both be in the short corridor between the staterooms at the same time. At which time I would pop out, the Browning automatic in my right hand, the woven leather sap in my left, all ready and eager to thump their skulls with ten ounces of padded lead at the end of a spring.

I moved toward the lounge, staying back out of sight, listening. I had the shirts memorized. White shirt on Meyer. In case of bad trouble, fire at yellow shirt or black shirt. Soon, a little sooner than I expected, I heard the unmistakable sound of more than one man walking through thigh-deep water. I couldn't tell if it was two or three, only that it was more than one.

So I nipped back to my safe and secret place. I'd left the mirror-door standing open. It was still open. The mirror lay on the corridor floor, and the biggest piece was smaller than a dinner plate. One of those twelve shots had come angling down the corridor or had spun off something or…

What now, big white rabbit?

Terror is absolutely nonproductive. It is not worth a thing. So if it is new to you, you don't know how to handle it, and it can freeze you. But if you have felt it before, many times in many places, you know that if you can start moving, it will go away. You can't spend time thinking, or you will freeze up again. You have to move without thought. It can be like shifting into some rare and special gear, some kind of overdrive seldom needed and seldom available. I dipped down and picked the pistol and sap off the floor of the useless refuge. They were going to come into the lounge from the aft deck. It was the logical approach for them. And it was the only below-decks space that was large enough to improve my chances. I got there as fast as I could and as silently as I could. There was only one place in the room where I could not be seen from the doorway or from the ports. I crawled to it, to the shelter of the long curved yellow couch, and flattened out. I could look under it and see the sill of the open door. I could hunch forward a foot and a half and be able to see the whole doorway.

All right now, McGee. Forget the childhood dreams of glory. Have no scruples about firing from ambush and firing to kill. No Queensbury rules, fellow.

I heard the diving platform creak. Water dripped. There was a grunt of effort, slap of wet palm against railing, thud of rubber soles on the decking. Then the sequence was repeated.

"Goddamn the bugs!"

"Shut up!"

"There's nobody on-"

"Shut up!"

There was ten seconds of silence. And suddenly something came bounding into the lounge. I had the impression of some animal, some vast, vital, rubbery strength that covered fifteen feet and landed lightly, poised, every sense alert. Next, a pair of big wet tennis shoes stopped by the sill, just inside the room.

The voice by the door said, "There's nobody on this-"

I was going to have to get rid of that voice by the door to give all my attention to the animal presence over beyond the couch. I wormed forward and saw all of him, Davis, soaked to the waist, revolver in the left hand, the hand nearest me, the hand now sagging down to his side. I told the gun to go where I pointed it, as it always had, forgetting the first one was double action, missing the hand, putting the second one into the hand. He screamed and pounced for the dropped weapon, trying to grab it up with the other hand, and I hit that hand, and he went diving, tumbling out the doorway onto the deck as I spun, hitched back, looked up, and waited for the round target of the head to appear over the back of the couch. The three shots had been very close together, a huge wham-bamming sound far different than the whippy lick of the rifle, and leaving a sharp stink of propellant in the hot air.

The rifle cracked like a huge whip and laid its lash across the edge of my thigh. I suddenly had the wit to flatten out again and look under the couch. He wore white boat shoes. I had to turn the automatic onto its side to aim. I couldn't point it naturally. I had to aim it. The shoes moved closer. I had to aim again. The side of the shoe burst into wet red, and he made not a sound. I took my chance on bounding up rather than trying for the other white shoe and bringing him down. But as I swung the pistol, he fired without aiming, a snap shot, doubtless hoping to hit me, but it worked like one of those impossible trick shots out of a bad Western. It slammed the gun out of my hand and spun it into the far corner, leaving my hand and arm numb to the elbow.

Sprenger worked the bolt quickly and aimed at the middle of my forehead and then slowly lowered it.

"You're a damned idiot, McGee. And a damned nuisance."

"You haven't got a lot of options."

He tested the foot, taking a short step on it. He did not wince, limp, change expression. But pain drained the blood out of his face and made his tan look saffron. He had shed his sunglasses.

"Meaning I need you?" He waved me back and took another step and propped a hip on the corner of the back of the couch.

"Is Meyer all right?"

It took several moments for the implications of my question, to get through to him. "You are some kind of people, you two. He's a bright man. He knows a lot about the tax future of municipals. We had a nice talk. I'm losing my touch. I can't read people anymore. That damned McDermit woman is insane. Was insane. Once she got leverage, it was like all she wanted was to get us both killed. I read you wrong. I read Meyer wrong."

"Is he all right?"

"So far. He probably isn't comfortable, but he's all right. Thanks for letting me know he's trading material."

"If you could get back there to the boat."

He looked at his bleeding foot. "Blow it off at the knee and I could get back there." I believed him. He shook his big head. There was a glint of rue in the little blueberry eyes. "I had nearly five hundred round ones stashed, in case I ever had to run and had a chance to run. Postage stamps! Dear Jesus Lord!"

"A sterling investment, Mr. Fedderman says."

"What could I do? She would have screamed to the McDermit brothers I was laying her."

"There wasn't any dear friend primed to make a report."

He thought that over. "I couldn't take a chance. You can see that. That woman would rather lie than tell it straight." He leaned back and looked out the doorway. He lifted the rifle slightly and said, "Something you should know. At this range, anyplace I hit you-"

"I'm dead from hydrostatic shock. It hits fluid, transmits the shock wave up veins and arteries, and explodes the heart valves. You came close. You put a skin burn on my thigh."

"You know a lot of things. Walk way around me slowly and take a look at Davis, from the doorway."

I followed directions. Davis was out. He was on his face, legs spraddled, one smashed hand under his belly, the other over his head. I could see little arterial spurtings from the torn wrist, a small pulsing fountain that was as big around as a soda straw and jetted about three inches.

Blood ran into the scuppers and drained into the sea. His head was turned so I could see his face. His closed lids looked blue. His moustache was glued to white papery flesh. He had dwindled inside his clothes, but his big straw planter hat was still firmly in place. The small jet dwindled quickly. Two inches, one inch, nothing.

I turned around slowly and took a slow step back into the lounge. "He just bled to death."

He looked puzzled. "I thought you hit him in the hand."

"Both hands. He couldn't stop the bleeding, using the one that wasn't so bad."

"You were trying to hit him in the hands?"

"Yes."

"You're good with that thing. But you are an idiot. If you're that good, you could have popped up and hit me in the head and then him."

"Call it a natural revulsion, Frank."

"You've got first aid stuff aboard?"

"Always."

"You're going to get it and fix this foot."

"We're supposed to be in negotiation, aren't we?"

He looked at me and through me, at the narrow vista of his possibilities, his meager chances. He said in a tired voice, "I build that municipal bond business from almost nothing. It was supposed to be a front. But I like it. I'm good at it. It's what I really want to do."

"Frank?"

"I know. I know."

"So the pattern was kill me and the woman and Davis and Meyer, burn this boat with all four bodies aboard, after retrieving the rarities Mary Alice ran off with, and go back and run a very good bluff and hope for the best, hope they don't find out Mary Alice killed Jane Lawson, and then tie you to Mary Alice in the Fedderman swindle. If you can get the goodies back, your best move would be cancel out with Fedderman and retrieve that junk out of the box."

He frowned at me. "How would you know about burning? Just how in hell would you know that?"

"You must have asked Meyer some questions about this houseboat that gave him the idea you were trying to figure out if it would burn well and if it was in a place where there was no chance of anybody putting the fire out."

He thought, nodded, and said, "Then he radioed you."

"So you're still on course, aren't you? Two down and two to go. Get me to fix the foot. Get me to tell you where she hid the stuff. And you should probably have me retrieve that body out there so it won't be floating around with holes in it, making people ask questions. Then we go over and bring the rental around, and you add two more bodies to the pyre and get out of here."

"You're very helpful. Why are you so helpful?"

I had to make it very good. He had to believe me. I had to be casual, but not too casual, earnest but not too earnest. "Haven't you had the feeling, Frank, I've been a half-step ahead of you."

"Maybe. Until right now."

"Once I heard from Meyer that I could count on you making a try, why would I just sit here and wait for it? Would I be such an idiot that I'd figure I would be able to take you with no fuss? I have respect for you, Frank. As a fellow professional. I did what you'd do in my shoes. I took out insurance. I talked to Meyer late yesterday afternoon. I wouldn't exactly say we're going to hear bugles and look up and see the US Cavalry come riding across the water, firing their Sharps rifles. But I wouldn't say that anything you do is going to go unnoticed."

"Then I've got no chance at all. End of the line?"

"Insurance can always be canceled. Maybe I wouldn't make a claim."

He swung his leg out, looked at his shoe. "Stopped bleeding, at least. If it can be canceled, McGee, I can make you tell me how to go about canceling it. I found one man once I couldn't make talk. He had such a low thresh-hold, he'd faint at the first touch. That's the only time I've ever missed. And I've had more than a hundred people find out they had more to say than they wanted to."