“Are you awake, soldier?”
I opened my eyes. The hot sunlight coming through the half- open shutters made me blink. I lifted my head from the sweat- soaked pillow. Raimundo was standing by the bed, looking down at me.
“I’m awake.”
I made the effort and swung my feet to the floor. I felt dopey. The pills he had given me certainly had carried authority.
“What’s the time?”
“Just on twelve.” He put a cup of steaming black coffee on the bedside table. “How are you feeling?”
Although my chest was still sore, the raging pain had gone.
“I’m all right.”
“Diaz arrived late last night. He should be tired of screwing her by now. With luck, he’ll come out on the bay.”
I had nothing to say. After regarding me, he left the room. I sipped the coffee and smoked. When I had finished the coffee, I stuck my head under the cold shower. I was careful not to let the water get near the burn.
By the time I had shaved, I was feeling pretty good. The sleep had relaxed me. I put on cotton slacks and a shirt. The brand looked ugly, but it wasn’t inflamed. When I began to button the shirt, the touch of the cotton made me wince so I left the shirt open. I went out on to the verandah.
Raimundo was sitting there, cigarette dangling between his lips. I
joined him, sitting in a chair close to his.
“Where’s Carlo?” I asked.
“I’ve given him something to do. Forget him. How do you feel?” He looked at the brand, then at me.
“Okay.”
“Sure?”
“I’m all right,” I said impatiently.
“So is your wife, soldier.”
It was now my turn to stare at him.
“That’s easy to say.”
“We ran out of whisky. I went over to the other place this morning for a refill. I saw her. She’s okay.”
It was hard to believe he was lying.
“She’s okay,” he repeated. “Timoteo is Savanto’s heir. He draws a lot of water.”
“What has that to do with my wife?”
He ran his fingers through his heavy black hair.
“Timoteo is looking after her. You don’t have to worry.”
I remembered a conversation I had had with Lucy. It seemed a long time ago but the echoes of our voices came clearly to me:
You mean he’s fallen for you. Is that it?
I suppose so. You don’t mind, do you?
So long as you haven’t fallen for him.
A surge of uneasiness ran through me.
“This is the day,” Raimundo went on. “It’s up to you now. By tonight, you could be a rich man, soldier. You…” He broke off as we saw Carlo coming across the sand.
Raimundo got to his feet.
“Sure you’re feeling okay?”
“Yes.”
“It won’t be long now… we’d better eat.”
He joined Carlo and they went into the house.
I sat still, feeling the heat of the sun as it was reflected off the white sand while I stared across the dunes to the sea.
I thought of Timoteo.
Lucy had said : We think alike.
She had also said : Since this happened, you’ve become someone I don’t know.
Raimundo came out on to the verandah. He put a plate of sandwiches on the table.
“Something on your mind, soldier?” he asked as he sat down.
“Do you have to ask stupid questions?”
After a long pause, he said uneasily, “You’d better eat. It could be a long afternoon. Like some beer?”
“Why not?”
He got up and went back into the house. By the time he had returned with two glasses of beer, I had forced Timoteo out of my mind.
We drank and ate in silence. When we had finished, I got to my feet.
“I’ll fix the rifle.”
“Anything I can do?”
“No.”
I cleaned and loaded the rifle, then clipped on the telescopic sight and screwed on the silencer. As I completed the operation, Raimundo came to the doorway.
“All okay, soldier?”
I suddenly realised he was much more jittery than I was. I was jittery enough but I could see he was really steamed up.
“Sure.” I moved round him, carrying the rifle and went up the stairs and up the ladder to the roof. I put the rifle by the concrete parapet in the shade. I looked across the empty bay. Would Diaz show? The chances were that he would, but he might not. If he didn’t, Savanto would imagine I had warned him. He had said : I will avenge myself on your wife.
Raimundo came up on the roof.
“Any problems?” he asked.
I had had about all I was going to take from him.
“For God’s sake, can’t you leave me alone?” I snarled at him. “You’re driving me crazy !”
“I’m driving myself crazy, soldier. I’m as responsible as you.”
“Have you only just found that out?”
I walked across the roof and looked up at the big tree with its leafy, overhanging branches. I got up on the parapet, caught hold of one of the branches and swung myself up. It was an easy climb. I had only to step from one branch to the next until I was high enough to be out of sight. But I had to be sure.
I sat astride one of the branches, my back resting against the trunk and looked down. The dense foliage hid the roof, but not the bay.
“Can you see me?” I shouted down.
I heard Raimundo walk across the roof. There was a long pause, then he said, “I don’t see a damn thing except leaves. Move a little.”
I swung my legs.
“I can hear you, but I can’t see you.”
I came down slowly and cautiously : no branches swayed, no leaves rustled. When I joined Timoteo on the roof, Savanto’s witness must have no suspicion that Timoteo wasn’t alone.
I dropped lightly to the roof by Raimundo’s side.
“You’re certain you couldn’t see me?”
“I didn’t even hear you as you came down.”
I looked at my strap watch. In another ten minutes Timoteo would be here. I moved to the parapet to stare across the bay. Raimundo joined me.
“You said you saw my wife. What was she doing?” I asked, not looking at him.
He hesitated.
“Doing?” I could see my question had fazed him. “She was talking to Timoteo.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “He’s a great talker. When anyone will listen to him, he talks all the time.”
We think alike.
“She didn’t look… unhappy?”
“You don’t have to worry about her, soldier. She’s all right.”
“What’s this about Timoteo being Savanto’s heir?”
“When the old man dies, Timoteo takes over the Little Brothers.”
“Will he want to?”
Raimundo shrugged.
“That’s the way the old man has fixed it. Timoteo could make a good leader. He’s no fool. He’s educated. It’s just his bad luck to get caught in this set-up. This is something he can’t handle.”
We both heard the sound of an approaching car. We moved together to the other side of the roof.
The black Cadillac with the chimp-faced driver at the wheel was coming up the road. Timoteo, wearing his big black hat and his sun goggles was sitting at the back of the car. By his side was one of the men I had seen from Nancy’s boat : a powerfully built, swarthy man, wearing white ducks.
“Here he is,” Raimundo said and started towards the trap, leading down to the house.
“Send him up,” I said. “I’ll wait here.”
He nodded and slid down the ladder.
I sat on the parapet and waited. After a delay, Timoteo, hiding behind his sun goggles, came up the ladder on to the roof. Following him came the man in the white ducks. I gave him a quick look. I had run into men like him in the Army : dangerous, rebellious, shifty and very sure of himself. He stood away from me, his hands on his hips, a watchful expression on his swarthy face.
At the sight of me, Timoteo came to an abrupt halt. The black goggles were directed towards me. At least, he was looking at me.
Although it hurt, I had buttoned my shirt. I. wasn’t ready to show him what his father had done to me.
The sight of him set my blood moving hot through my veins. I wanted to slam my fist into his face. Into my mind came the picture of him and Lucy paddling, side by side, talking. Since this happened you’ve become someone I don’t know.
“Do you want me to explain what is going to happen?” I said.
He just stood there, sweat glistening on his face.
“The idea is,” I said, speaking slowly as if talking to an idiot, “your cousin will come on skis out there. He…”
“Yes, I know.” His voice was unsteady and husky.
“You know? That’s fine.” I felt a spurt of vicious rage run through me. Because this thin creep was incapable of shouldering his own responsibilities, I had been blackmailed into cleaning up his mess for him. I walked slowly up to him. “So you know?” I repeated. “So you know I am being forced to kill a man because you haven’t the guts to do it yourself. You know I am being blackmailed by your ape of a father to kill this man : a murder I will have on my conscience for the rest of my days. You know all that, do you, you goddam, gutless talker?”
The man in the white ducks suddenly came between Timoteo and myself.
“Shut your flapping mouth !” he snarled viciously.
I was now burning with rage. I swung a punch at him that carried all my hate with it. If it had caught him, it would have flattened him, but it
didn’t. He was very professional.
Then Raimundo arrived. He slid between me and the man in the white ducks and caught hold of my arms.
“Cool it, soldier !”
I threw off his hands and moved back.
“Set him up,” I said. “Get him ready to look like a killer.” I moved across so I could see Timoteo who was still standing motionless. “How do you feel, killer?” I shouted at him. “Are you proud of yourself? It’s easy to talk to my wife, isn’t it, killer? I’d like her to be here to watch me kill a man who raped and branded your girl because you haven’t the guts to do it yourself ! I’d like her to be here!” I was now yelling at him.
Raimundo moved between us.
Will you cool it, soldier?” he implored.
I got hold of myself.
“Okay.” I drew in a deep breath. “Take him away. The sight of him makes me want to throw up.”
The man in the white ducks touched Timoteo’s arm. Timoteo turned and moving like a zombie, went down the trap and out of sight.
I sat on the parapet in the shade while I got control of myself. Raimundo sat away from me, every now and then, looking anxiously at me.
After a while, I said, “That creep gets me. I’m okay. Don’t flip your lid. When they arrive, bring him and Lopez up here. When Lopez has had a look around, take him down to the verandah. Tell Timoteo to alert me when Lopez has gone. I can’t see the roof from where I’ll be. Try to make him look like a killer. The way he looks now, Lopez won’t believe he could kill a fly.”
“Yeah. Are you sure you’re all right?”
I stared at him.
“I’ll kill him if that’s what’s on your mind.”
We looked at each other for a long moment, then he nodded.
“I’m sorry you walked into this, soldier,” he said. “It doesn’t do a damn hit of good, but I want you to know.”
“That’s right. It doesn’t do a damn bit of good.”
We sat there in silence for around twenty minutes, looking towards the road. Then Raimundo said sharply, “They’re coming.”
I had already heard the approaching car.
“Just get him to look like a killer,” I said, and climbing on to the parapet. I swung myself up into the tree. I climbed to the branch where I had sat before and sat astride it.
“Okay?” I called down.
“Yes.” There was a pause, then he said, “Good luck, soldier.”
I sat there. I couldn’t see what was going on below : the foliage was too dense. I heard voices and car doors slam. I recognised Savanto’s voice, but I didn’t understand what he was saying. He was speaking in Spanish. A harsh voice I hadn’t heard before answered him. I guessed this would be Lopez, the witness.
After some minutes, I heard movements on the roof. The conversation was all in Spanish. I listened for Timoteo’s voice, but didn’t hear it. He was still doing his zombie act. Then after more talk, I. heard the scrape of feet on the wooden ladder. I guessed they were going down, leaving Timoteo alone. I looked at my strap watch. The time was now 14.45. In another quarter of an hour Diaz would come out on to the bay… providing he was coming. Sweat was running down my face. I thought of the shot. I thought of lining this man’s head up in the cross wires of the sight. I thought of the flattened sound from the silencer as I squeezed the trigger. I thought of seeing him drop into the sea with a hole in his head.
I sat motionless, listening. I heard nothing. Was someone still up on the roof with Timoteo? I didn’t dare move until I was sure he was alone.
Then I heard his voice, pitched low. It just reached me. “Mr. Benson…”
A child bleating for its mother, I thought savagely, then just as I was about to start my climb down, I froze.
Coiled up on the branch immediately below me was a diamondback rattler snake, its forked tongue flickering at my foot that was within twelve inches of it.
A diamondback rattler, one of the few deadly snakes in Florida, and it looked ready to strike!
“Mr. Benson…?”
Timoteo’s whisper floated up to me.
I couldn’t he sure if the sound of my voice would make the snake strike. I held my leg rigid, feeling the sweat of fear start out on me. I have always had a horror of snakes: even harmless snakes make my flesh creep. I looked down at this coiled horror. The shot, Diaz, Timoteo and even Lucy were washed out of my mind. I just sat astride the branch, motionless and cringing. My guts had gone away like a fist becoming a hand.
“Mr. Benson…”
A little louder… more urgent.
“There’s a snake up here.”
There was no power in my voice : it was a croaking whisper. He couldn’t possibly have heard me, but the snake lifted its spade-shaped head. Its warning rattle, like dried beans shaken in a bag, made me flinch.
I sat there. I could hear voices talking in excited Spanish. I could hear the wind rustling in the palm trees. I stared down at the snake. Cramp was setting in in my legs.
“Mr. Benson…”
I knew the speed of a rattler strike. I hadn’t a chance if I tried to get my legs up on to the branch. Besides, if I made such a wild movement, I could easily overbalance and crash down on the roof of the house.
“Snake,” I said, lifting my voice.
Again came the warning rattle.
Had Timoteo heard? If he had what would he do?
Minutes like hours dragged by. Then another sound came to me : the sound of a motorboat starting up. Even in my panic, half my mind switched to Lucy. My target was coming out on to the bay and here I was, treed by a snake!
Then I saw Timoteo. He was climbing awkwardly and very cautiously. He still had on his sun goggles and still wore the big black hat.
“Watch it !” I whispered. “It’s by my foot.”
Again the warning rattle: a sound that made my heart skip a beat.
About six feet below me, Timoteo paused. He peered up. I could see myself reflected in his sun goggles : a frightened, sweating man, cut down to size by a coiled reptile.
I could see by the way Timoteo stiffened that he had spotted the snake and that the snake had spotted him. It turned its head away from my foot and its forked tongue flickered in Timoteo’s direction.
“Don’t move,” Timoteo said quietly.
I had been about to snatch my leg out of range, but his quiet, confident tone stopped me.
Very slowly, he hoisted himself up to another branch. He was now within four feet of the snake.
I watched him, sweat rolling off me, my heart slamming against my ribs.
Very slowly, his hand began to move towards his hat. The warning rattle sounded again.
His long fingers closed on the brim of his hat and slowly removed it from his head.
Simultaneously two things happened. The snake struck as Timoteo flicked the hat in its direction.
Scarcely breathing, I watched.
The snake’s fangs sank into the felt brim of the hat. Timoteo, with a speed that almost defeated my eyes, had the snake off the branch. His right hand caught the snake at the back of its head. The length of the snake immediately wrapped itself around his arm. He sat astride the branch, just below me, gripping the back of the snake’s head so it couldn’t strike him, then his left hand came down on the spade-shaped head, his long fingers shutting the jaws. He paused. I could see the snake’s body tight around his arm. Then firmly and deliberately, he turned his hands in the opposite direction, breaking the snake’s back.
As he let the thin rope of snake flesh drop out of his hands, he looked up at me.
“It’s dead.”
I sat with my back pressed against the trunk of the tree, looking down at him. I saw myself in the sun goggles and what I saw I didn’t like.
Then the roar of the motor-boat snapped me back to life.
“Get down!” I said. “Fast !”
Even before he began to climb down, I slid around him, dropping from one branch to another until I reached the roof. I grabbed up the rifle, spread myself flat tinder the shade of the shelter I had built and dug the rifle butt into my shoulder.
The motorboat was now in the bay. I could see the negress at the wheel. Nancy and a man were skiing side by side, but he was on her offside and through the telescopic sight, she was shielding him.
When they turned, I thought, he would be on my side and I would have him.
I adjusted the focus. Every so often I caught a glimpse of him in the sight. He was a typical South American male sex symbol : well-built, muscular, handsome with long black hair held in place by a white bandeau.
The boat made a sharp turn and began the return run. She and he were proving to each other how good they were. As the boat turned, he jumped her tow rope, skidding along on one ski and he was again on her off-side.
I waited, following them through the sight. I had the girl’s head between the cross wires more often than Diaz’s. It was an impossible shot. I could more easily kill her than him. They were now holding on to their tow bars with one hand and holding each other’s hand with the other. They were now so close together I couldn’t even see him on her off-side.
I lay there, sweating, but patient. I had been trained to wait. I had once waited three hours before I got a head shot and I remembered that while I waited.
The boat was coming round again. This time he kept to the on-side. They were doing a straight run. I now had his head on the cross wires. I could just see Nancy’s nose and chin on the edge of the sight.
To anyone but an expert this would have been too dangerous. To anyone but an expert this could mean hitting the girl and not the man, but I was an expert.
This is it, I thought, this finishes the nightmare even if it starts another.
I drew in a long, slow breath, moving the sight to keep his head in the centre of the cross wires, then I slowly took up the slack of the trigger.
Suddenly, Nancy dropped back a little and she disappeared out of the sight. I knew then I had him. He wasn’t even jinking. It was such a straightforward shot that Timoteo could have made it.
I squeezed the trigger.
Faintly, above the roar of the motorboat engine, I heard the metallic snap of the hammer in the gun. There was no recoil and that told me there was no cartridge in the breech. For a long stupefied moment I lay there, then I slammed down the loading lever which should jack up another cartridge under the firing- pin. The feel of the lever as it operated told me it wasn’t lifting a cartridge.
I realised then the gun wasn’t loaded. I had loaded it. I had had a cartridge in the breech, now it was unloaded.
I turned on my side and looked back at Timoteo who was standing away from me. I remembered the time lag before he had called to me : a time lag when he had been on the roof alone.
“Did you unload this gun, you sonofabitch?”
He nodded.
I looked out at the bay.
The two skiers were now well out of range, the boat taking them out to sea. I knew the opportunity had gone and the nightmare was still with me.
I got to my feet and walked over to him. I wanted to smash him flat, but there was no point. I told myself there was still tomorrow.
“Are you so goddam gutless you can’t even let me kill this man for you?” I said, my voice low and savage.
Hidden behind the sun goggles, he faced me.
“You could say that, Mr. Benson,” he said huskily.
“Give me the clip.”
He took the clip of cartridges from his hip pocket and dropped it into my outstretched hand.
I looked at the bay. The skiers were out of sight, but I could still hear the drone of the motor-boat.
“Go down and talk yourself out of it,” I said. “You’re supposed to be a good talker. You’d better be convincing if Lucy means anything to you.”
He turned away and went down the ladder into the house.
In a few moments there came an explosion of talk in Spanish. I could hear Savanto’s voice, quivering with rage. I had never heard him talk this way and although I didn’t understand what he was saying the sound of the rage in his voice chilled me.
Every now and then I heard Timoteo say something. His voice was low-pitched and controlled among the other shouting voices. This went on for some time, then I heard car doors slam and cars start up.
There was a further long wait, then Raimundo came up the ladder. He paused when he saw me sitting on the parapet and he beckoned.
“Mr. Savanto wants you.”
I followed him down the ladder and out on to the verandah.
Savanto was sitting in a chair. Carlo was standing at the end of the verandah. He grinned idiotically at me. I went straight to Savanto. I took the clip of cartridges from my pocket and dropped it on the table in front of him.
“Your gutless son unloaded the gun while I was in the tree,” I said. “It was a certain shot. He would be dead by now if your gutless son hadn’t deliberately fouled up the operation.”
Savanto stared stonily at me.
“You should have checked the gun.”
“You think so? I had checked the gun. It was ready to shoot. Do you think I should have thought your son would have unloaded the gun? Would you have imagined he would unload the gun? Are you all that smart? The gun was ready to shoot. If you want to kick someone, kick your goddam son, not me!”
Savanto nodded.
“I have spoken to him. At least, he was convincing. Lopez believes the shot was impossible. From where we were watching, it looked that way. So we do it tomorrow.”
“This is tough enough without having to cope with your son.”
“You will have no further problems with him,” Savanto said. “Just be certain, Mr. Benson, I have no problems with you.”
He turned to Carlo and held out his fat hand. Grinning, Carlo took from his hip pocket a flat packet carefully done up in tissue paper.
Savanto took it and laid it on the table.
“Here is something, Mr. Benson, to help you to be successful tomorrow. It could be something not so easily replaced next time. Please remember that.”
He got to his feet and followed by Carlo, he went down to the Cadillac.
I hesitated for a long moment before I went to the table. The Cadillac drove away as Raimondo came up to me.
“Leave it, soldier,” he said quietly. “It’s her hair. He had it cut off, but she’s all right, soldier. He just wants you to know he means business.”
I stared at him.
“Her hair?”
He turned away.
“It’ll grow again.”
With shaking hands I opened the packet. The sight of Lucy’s golden tresses, tied neatly into a switch with black ribbon, made my heart lurch.
“When did this happen?” I said, scarcely recognising my voice.
“This morning.”
I sat down. I had to. Suddenly there was no strength in my legs. I touched the hair, feeling its softness.
“This morning? When you went for the whisky?”
“No… after. I told you she was all right. It was after.”
“Does Timoteo know about this?”
“Not then. Now he’s back, he’ll know.”
I folded the tissue paper around the switch. I couldn’t bear to look at it any more.
“I’m sorry, soldier,” Raimondo said quietly.
I turned in the chair. He was standing with his back against one of the verandah’s uprights. His dark, sweating face looked troubled. His eyes shifted as they met mine.
“Do you go along with this?” I asked. “Do you okay this…?” I put my hands on the tissue paper. “And this?” I let my shirt fall open so that he could see the Red Dragon brand. “Do you think a man who can do things like this could be the saviour of peasants?”
He lifted his shoulders.
“He gets things done, soldier. This is what counts. To get things done, he acts mean from time to time.” He wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his hand. “He has done a lot of good. Ten years ago, his people had to haul water in cans two miles to their homes. He said he would fix that. They didn’t believe him. He found out a politician was having it off with his own daughter. Don’t ask me how he found out… that’s his gift… to find out the weakness of men. He talked to this politician. You can call it blackmail if you want to, but water pipes were laid on. Not so long ago all the stuff our people grew had to be taken into town by mules. I used to drive some of the mules. Savanto decided we should have trucks. There was another politician.” He shrugged. “Savanto found out something about him. They talked and ten trucks appeared. This is the way he works.” He spread his hands helplessly. “If he wants something for his people, he gets it and he doesn’t give a goddam how he gets it.”
“Do these peasants know the kind of man he is?”
“Some of them guess; some of them could know; most of them are too grateful to ask questions.”
“And you?” I stared at him.
Raimundo pushed himself away from the verandah support. “I’m taking a swim. Do you want to come with me?”
I shook my head.
“It’ll work out, soldier. Up to now, he has always kept his word.”
“Up to now.”
He went down the steps, across the sand dunes and towards the sea.
I put my hand on the packet of tissue paper, then I unwrapped it and released the soft tresses.
Stroking the long, blonde hair brought me very close to Lucy.
The idea of how to solve this nightmare came to me. It suddenly dropped into my mind and I wondered why I had been so dumb not to have thought of it before.
I looked down at the blonde tresses on the table, then at the Red Dragon brand on my chest.
Savanto had said to me: How many men have you killed in coldblood? Eighty-two? What is one more life to you?
I would probably have to kill Diaz.
Life eighty-three.
I knew for certain now that I would kill Augusto Savanto. Life eightyfour.
But that would be a pleasure.
I was still sitting on the verandah when Raimundo came back from his swim.
During the half hour I had been alone, my mind had been active.
Raimundo looked uneasily at me as he came up the steps. His eyes strayed to the switch of hair lying on the table.
“Why don’t you take a swim?” he said, pausing at the head of the steps. “It’s good in there.”
I shook my head, keeping my expression deadpan. I didn’t want him to suspect what was going on in my mind.
“It’s too hot right now. Maybe later,” I said.
He nodded and went into the house to change out of his trunks.
I again touched Lucy’s hair, then wrapped the switch in the tissue paper and put it in my hip pocket.
Then somewhere in the house I heard the telephone bell start up. I heard Raimundo thumping down the stairs to answer it.
I switched my mind back to Augusto Savanto. I wondered how long he would stay at the Imperial Hotel. He would probably leave after Diaz was dead. I pictured him sitting on the balcony on the fourteenth floor of the hotel which faced the sea. At the end of the boulevard was a twentystorey block of apartments still under construction. The syndicate building it had run out of money, and for the time being construction had stopped although it was nearly finished. Lucy and I, spending a day in Paradise City, had visited the building. We had nothing better to do and a sign over the entrance invited inspection. We had been pop-eyed at the rentals they were asking. The penthouse apartment on the 20th floor had been luxuriously furnished and just for the hell of it, we had taken the elevator up on the long ride to look at it. The agent, showing us round, had spotted we had no money, but as he had nothing better to do he had gone along with us. Standing on the terrace of the penthouse, I remembered, I had had a clear view of the Imperial Hotel.
If I could get up there with the Weston & Lees, I would have no problem in putting a bullet in the middle of Savanto’s evil head. This is what I wanted to do and was now determined to do.
My thoughts were interrupted as Raimundo came flying out on to the verandah.
I have become used to seeing frightened faces. When you go into battle the times I have you are often surrounded by faces that telegraph fear. I immediately recognised the signs.
“Timoteo and your wife have bolted!” His voice was unnaturally loud. “We’ve got to find them !”
For a brief moment I couldn’t believe what he was saying, then I jumped to my feet, kicking away my chair.
“Bolted? Where? What the hell are you saying?”
He gulped, then steadied himself.
“Nick just phoned. Timoteo and your wife took off for the Cypress swamp! You’ve got to help me find them !”
He charged down the steps, bawling for Carlo as he pounded across the sand to the Volkswagen.
Carlo appeared around the back of the house, running flat footed, his brutish face bewildered.
Raimundo came to a skidding stop by the car and looked back at me.
“Come on !” he yelled. “Come on !”
By the time I reached the car, Carlo was in the back seat and Raimundo had the car on the move. As I slammed the door shut, he took off, skidding over the sand, then he raced the car down the narrow road so we heaved and banged over the bumps while he wrestled with the wheel.
We finally reached the highway. None of us could speak while we had rushed down the sandy lane. It was as much as we could do to hold ourselves in our seats.
As the smooth tarmac of the highway slid under the wheels, I said, “How did they get away?”
“Timoteo went berserk when he saw your wife had lost her hair,” Raimundo said savagely. flattened Nick. He tried to get her to the highway but the other guards headed him off.
They bolted into the Cypress swamp. The guards followed them as far as it was safe, then they turned back, but they have them bottled up. We have to go in there and get them out.”
As a back-drop to the swank villas along the beach, the Cypress swamp was a twenty-thousand acre jungle, waiting to be reclaimed. When I had first come to Paradise City, I had optimistically gone into the swamp after wild duck. I had found it a jungle of cypress trees and red, white and black mangroves, their roots like elephant tusks. Grey Spanish moss, duckweed and bladderwort, festooning the trees, offered hiding places for snakes, giant spiders and scorpions. The swamp was interlaced with narrow canals of stagnant water covered with white lilies and a breeding place for mosquitoes. Step wrong and you could sink to your death in evil-smelling slime. It was a hell of a place to get lost in.
Nick Lewis had a flat-bottomed boat which he had turned over to me. I had used it once to navigate the canals, but after being practically eaten alive by mosquitoes, and seeing a crocodile that, luckily for me, was too lazy and well fed to charge the boat, I had quit. I had laid up the boat and given up the idea of shooting wild duck.
The thought of Lucy being in this hell hole with a numbskull like Timoteo sent a rush of blood to my head.
“We’ve got to find them !” Raimundo was shouting. “If Savanto hears of this, none of us will live !”
“That’s fine… the saviour of peasants,” I said. “Are you putting me on or do you mean it?”
“I mean it !”
His set face and the panic in his eyes told me he did mean it.
It took us less than a quarter of an hour to reach the villa I had seen from Nancy’s boat. We tore down the dirt road and came to a tyre screaming stop at the front entrance.
Nick, in his yellow-and-red Hawaiian shirt, was waiting for us. The side of his jaw was swollen and he looked like a man facing sudden death. He burst into a stream of frantic Spanish as Raimundo tumbled out of the car. I got out and Carlo followed me, his brutish face glistening with sweat. As I couldn’t understand what Nick was bawling about, I moved away and stood waiting in the shade.
Raimundo cut Nick short and came over to me.
“Have you ever been in the swamp, soldier?” he asked.
“No.”
It was a lie I felt sure would pay off.
“They’re in there and they can’t get out. Three of our boys are guarding the exits. We’ll join up with them and flush them out.”
It took us some ten minutes, walking fast in the broiling sun to reach the edge of the swamp. There was a narrow path that led into the swamp, and here we found the man in the white ducks, waiting. After talking to him in Spanish, Raimundo told me it was along this path that Timoteo and Lucy had entered the swamp.
“This is your kind of territory, soldier,” he went on. “You lead the way in.”
I knew what was ahead. The path went into the swamp for something like a quarter of a mile, then it petered out. From then on it was bog, jungle, canals and mosquitoes.
I started down the path with Raimundo close on my heels. Behind him came Nick, Carlo and the man in the white ducks. It was steamy hot in there and the smell of decay, stagnant water and rotting vegetation increased as we penetrated further into the jungle.
I had spent three years in similar jungles. My eyes were trained to see things which the men following me were blind to. A broken branch, a smudge on the mud-packed path, disturbed leaves told me this was the way they had come.
Finally, we reached the end of the path. We stood in a group, looking at the dense jungle ahead of us, divided by a ten-foot-wide canal with its beautiful floating lilies.
“We’ll split up here,” I said. Two men to the left : two to the right. I’ll go straight ahead.”
Raimundo shook his head.
“I’m staying with you, soldier. You’re not going it alone.”
I hadn’t expected it would be that easy.
“Okay. Get these guys going.”
He sent Carlo and the man in the white ducks to the far side of the canal and Nick on his own to the right.
When we were alone, Raimundo turned to face me.
“Don’t try any tricks, soldier,” he said. We have got to find them and bring them back. Listen to me! Savanto has an organisation of killers ! They can reach you and your wife wherever you try to hide. I’m warning you! No one has ever double- crossed him and survived. If we don’t bring them back, you and I are dead men.”
“So let’s go and find them,” I said.
Not if Savanto has a hole in his head. I thought.
I moved into the jungle. Some five hundred yards ahead of me was Nick Lewis’s old boat, completely hidden by the dense undergrowth. Three months ago I had dragged it out of the canal on to the bank. There was no reason why it shouldn’t be there still. I was sure my only chance of finding Lucy was to use the boat. They couldn’t have got far into the swamp and they were probably hiding somewhere along the canal. But Raimundo was in my way. I knew he was alert. I had to put him out of action before I reached the boat.
Ahead of us I saw a dense obstruction of mangrove roots. I stopped. Mosquitoes hummed around my head as I turned. Faintly, I could hear the other men crashing their way through the jungle. I couldn’t see them and that meant they couldn’t see us.
“They can’t have come this way,” I said. “They wouldn’t get through here. We’d better go back.”
Raimundo slashed at the mosquitoes that were tormenting him.
“Anything you say…”
I braced myself, shifting my feet so that I was on perfect balance.
“Watch it!” The snap in my voice startled him. “Snake!” and I pointed at his feet.
As his eyes shifted away from me, I slammed a punch at his jaw. I should have remembered how fast he was. Even though I had him fooled for a split second, he was fast enough to shift his head a fraction. It was enough. My fist scraped along his face, throwing him off balance, but it wasn’t the killer punch I had intended. I hit him with my left as he struggled to stay upright and he went down. But he was very much alive… too alive. His legs gripped mine and I came down on top of him. My hands went to his throat. It was like holding on to a savage trapped animal. His fist smashed into my mouth. The power behind the punch threw me off him. He was struggling up on to his knees as I kicked out at him: my foot slammed into his chest, throwing him down again. I pounced on him, my hands seeking his throat. Again his fist banged into my face, but this time I held on. I felt the muscles in my shoulders and arms turn into knots as I exerted all my strength into my fingers. His legs began to thrash. He tried to reach my face with hooked fingers, but his strength was leaving him. Savagely, I increased my grip. He stared up at me, his eyes sightless, then his legs stopped moving, his mouth opened and his tongue came out and blood started to run from his nostrils.
As he went limp, I released my grip and got away from him. I could see the imprint of my fingers on his throat. I wasn’t sure if he was dead or alive, and I didn’t care. I had had enough of Savanto and his thugs. They had come into my life and had disrupted it, now I was at last hitting back.
My nose was bleeding slightly and my lips were swelling. Mosquitoes plagued me. I didn’t give a goddam. Somewhere in this stinking jungle I was going to find Lucy. That’s all I had on my mind.
Leaving Raimundo lying on the hard-packed mud, I started off to find the boat. I found it where I had left it, high and dry on the bank. As I heaved it down to the water a spider as big as my fist scuttled out of it: an obscene thing with short legs as thick as my finger, covered with black hair.
After a struggle, I got the boat into the water, then I climbed in, picking up the pole. I began the slow punt up the canal. As I forced the boat through the weeds and the water lilies the mosquitoes struck at me and the steamy heat was like a jacket of cotton wool around me.
I struggled on for something like an hour. I had been trained by the Army to withstand mosquitoes and heat. I was savagely determined to find Lucy and it was a challenge my body was ready to accept.
Then I saw them.
I saw Timoteo first. He was sitting with his back to a tree in a small clearing by the canal. A cloud of mosquitoes swarmed around his head. Lying across his knees was Lucy. He was fanning her with his hat.
She lay limply, her shirt and white slacks plastered to her body, her cropped blonde head lying on his knee, showing the lovely line of her throat.
He saw me as I forced the boat through the overhanging branches of the mangrove trees.
I saw his hands go around her : the action of a child whose favourite toy is threatened.
She lifted her head and saw me.
I saw fear appear on her mud-stained face. She clutched hold of Timoteo, then she frantically waved at me, as if by the wave of her hand she could make me vanish.