The Revengers (38 page)

Eleanor nodded. “Possibility three,” she went on. “Everything goes like clockwork and the sailboat and the ship meet at X. BOOM!
Ser-Jan
comes roaring up, gathers up the crew, and maybe even retrieves the Zodiac for future use. It then picks up Miss Lorca paddling around in her wet suit like in the description she gave Peterson, and she heads back to the U.S. to buy another secondhand sailboat.”

I said, “Well, one thing is clear. She wasn’t kidding when she said she preferred to work at night; she was probably just bluffing earlier, trying to give us a little scare, when she let us think she might go into action in the middle of the day. Obviously, even if there’s a ship around so negligent that it’ll run down a sailboat in broad daylight, she can only pull off her routine safely in the dark. Otherwise, sooner or later, a survivor is bound to report seeing a big, private powerboat that ran away and left people to drown; and there’ll be a big stink and a careful investigation. But at night a boat, even a sizeable boat, is pretty invisible without lights.”

“Another thing,” Eleanor said, “there isn’t going to be another secondhand sailboat this time. Giulio made it pretty clear, talking to me, that this is her last run. Daddy’s turning off the money hose.”

I nodded grimly. “She knows that. She’s just hoping Giulio will let her complete this final attack, demonstration, however you want to refer to it, before he makes his move. The only question in my mind is, why he hasn’t moved already? There can be only one answer to that. He doesn’t trust Henry and Adam all the way.”

Eleanor frowned. “I don’t understand. If it’s a question of getting rid of us, against her wishes—and I suppose he’s working for the father and not the daughter—you can’t hope that those two men will help us, regardless of what she says. After all, they are Lorca’s men.”

I said, “I wasn’t thinking of us.”

Her eyes were wide and dark. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, that’s pretty horrible.”

“Horrible or not, she’s expecting it,” I said. “Giulio’s here to clean up. Everything. No loose ends. She knows it and she’s got some kind of an answer, some kind of a defense—she just hinted at it. I can’t see how it can be anything but the two men with whom she’s been sailing, even if they were originally planted on her by her pop.” After a moment, Eleanor not speaking, I said, “Boat people can be funny. I’ve dealt with them before. Those three, Serena and her crew, have covered a lot of sea miles together, and shared a lot of dangers. And a gutsy girl like that, obviously a hell of a sailor in spite of her quirks, is going to command loyalty in some strange and unexpected places.”

Eleanor licked her lips. “Maybe I’m being naive, but I can’t really believe that her own father would—”

I said, “Hell, I can believe anything of Lorca, and you should, too. The girl has already had one bad boating accident; why shouldn’t she have another that she doesn’t survive? Cold-bloodedly speaking, now that she’s served his purpose, Lorca’s much better off without her. He’ll look a lot better to the voters as the grieving parent of a lost girl sailor—it’ll get him sympathy that’s money in the bank —than as the papa of a practicing pervert, as some people like to call it, or of a notorious lady pirate, or terrorist or whatever’s the right name for what she’s doing out here. Dead, she’s a help. Alive, she’s nothing but a menace to Lorca’s ambitions, particularly now that she’s frustrated enough to want real publicity for her weirdo seagoing crusade. Do you think Lorca’s got the slightest intention of letting her get it? If he thought she was that screwy, he’d never have dealt with her in the first place. Publicity for her seagoing activities, involving him, would not only ruin him politically, it would get his syndicate sponsors very, very angry with him. And they’re not nice people to have mad at you, even if you’re as powerful as Mister Lorca.” I shook my head. “He took a big risk to get his revenge with her help. Now that that’s all taken care of, or will be as soon as Giulio eliminates me, he’s making sure there’ll be no awkward kickbacks. Afterward, he can put his poor drowned daughter’s picture on his desk for a nice sentimental touch that’ll impress his visitors, and lean back and enjoy being the respectable and popular and powerful Senator George Winfield Lorca, all accounts closed.”

Eleanor said, “I’m being silly.” Her voice was suddenly hard. “Why should I be shocked at anything people do to each other after all the time I’ve spent in this writing racket? But what does this mean to us, Matt?”

“It means that Giulio’s going to have to play his hand very carefully here,” I said. “He knows he’s outnumbered on this boat. Oh, as far as we’re concerned, he can do anything he likes, and probably nobody’ll interfere. Serena may want to, but she knows that Henry and Adam aren’t going to stick their necks out for us, even if she asks them. But the minute Giulio reveals his hostile intentions toward her, he’ll have her crew to deal with. Therefore, I suspect that as long as we’re docile and don’t cause Giulio any trouble, he’ll just save us alive until he can make one big clean sweep of everything; and for that he’ll need reinforcements. But he can’t call up his pals on
Ser-Jan
without a good excuse or Serena’ll guess what he’s up to and maybe do something drastic before the sportfisherman arrives. Maybe Giulio can handle Henry and Adam alone, not to mention Serena and you and me, but why do it the hard way?” I grimaced. “So I think we’ll all continue to be good friends, smiling and happy, until Serena makes her first run tonight and the other boat is summoned in the normal course of business. Arturo’s probably been told that’s the signal and he’s to come right in, ignoring any cancellations or aborts. So that’s got to be our signal, too, and we’d better think about what we’re going to do.” I studied her for a little, remembering something. I said, “You don’t happen to have that little two-bladed stockman’s knife on you, by any chance?”

There was a lengthy silence. At last Eleanor murmured, “Ooooh, that’s scary! Clairvoyance, Mr. Helm?” When I didn’t speak, she went on, “By some chance I do. How did you guess?”

I said, “You’re a smart girl. Even though you were mad at me, you must have known you were doing a stupid thing when you left our protection to run off to the Bahamas like that. I couldn’t see you entrusting your safety entirely to that helpless dope, Peterson. You must have given some thought to how you might defend yourself if you had to. And you told me last night you were sticking to those ridiculous spike-heeled sandals through thick and thin just on the off-chance you’d get a chance to use them in a manner for which they were not intended. Well, if your mind was running along those channels, I couldn’t see you leaving that knife in your purse, the first thing that would be taken away from you if somebody grabbed you.” I looked her over critically. There was something in her pocket, I saw, but it didn’t have the right shape for a knife. “Where?” I asked.

She grinned abruptly; her nice, wide monkey grin. “I’m glad it doesn’t show. It’s down inside my panty hose. Very intimate and, I might add, a bit uncomfortable. But Serena didn’t spot it when she patted me up and down after we were caught.”

“Accessible?”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” She laughed. “You either go in from the top of my pants and grope way down the front of me in a most embarrassing way, or you unzip me and perform a quick Caesarean section on my best tights. Well, hell, they’ve got a couple of runs in them already.” She shook her head. “No, it’s not readily accessible, but it was the best I could do.”

I regarded her for a moment, wanting to tell her that the best she could do was a hell of a lot better than most girls could have, or would have, done under the circumstances. However, it would have sounded patronizing; and she wasn’t anybody it was safe to patronize, so confident in some respects, so insecure in others.

Instead I said absently, “I didn’t know panty hose were standard equipment with pants. It seems redundant.” I grinned. “But it explains something that’s been bugging me.”

“What’s been bugging you, Mr. Helm?” she asked warily.

I said, “I promised to report as the data came in, remember? We’ve already checked out the shoulders, and it’s agreed that the legs and ankles are okay. Well, when you were walking out to the plane ahead of me the other day, I took the opportunity to do a little further research, and I’m pleased to state that, in my opinion, you have a very passable little ass, Miss Brand. A nice, smooth, seamless little ass.”

She drew in her breath sharply and started to say something angry and stopped. I saw her grin faintly instead. “Thank you, Mr. Helm,” she said, “but at the moment I feel my ass is fairly irrelevant, don’t you? And this discussion, fascinating though it is, doesn’t help get us back home with Serena Lorca’s story, which you’re not going to let me publish anyway. Here, you might as well keep this, since it’s no good to me.”

She dug the plastic envelope she’d been given, folded, out of the snug pocket of her slacks. Suddenly the atmosphere of our little stateroom-prison had lost its warm friendliness. I took the envelope and tucked it away.

“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate it, Elly.”

“Just don’t ask me why I’m doing it, because I’d hate to have to figure out an answer.” Her voice was cold. “And I hope your friend, Bennett, appreciates it too, but it isn’t very likely, is it? Can a man like that appreciate anything? And you aren’t a bit welcome, either of you.” She drew a ragged breath. “Do you want the knife, too?”

“No, it’s better with you,” I said. There was nothing to be accomplished by offering condolences for her lost story, or apologies for asking her to give it up, so I went on briskly, “I have a hunch we may wind up having to cut ourselves free of some rope or tape eventually. Giulio’s probably going to drop the easygoing act when it’s served his purpose, and tie us up for easy management. I’ve got a trick cutting gadget hid out, too; but it’s nice to know you’re holding something in reserve.” I hesitated. “Elly.”

“Yes?” Her voice was stiff.

“I really do appreciate the favor.”

She said coldly, “It was that patriotic guff that really got me, I guess. How can a girl refuse anything to a man who can shovel crap like that?”

“Sure,” I said. It was time to change the subject, past time, and I asked, “Elly, do you remember the last time you used that knife?”

There was a little silence before she spoke, “It’s hard to forget, but why should I remember it?”

I said carefully, “Because the girl who did that is the girl I want beside me when the break comes tonight, if it is tonight.” She didn’t speak. After a moment, I went on, “I don’t want you to have the wrong idea about what comes next. Forget everything you ever saw on TV or in the movies. It doesn’t really work like that.”

“What do you mean, Matt?”

I said, “Well, in a movie or TV show we’d be carefully plotting our escape, wouldn’t we? We’d be thinking of ways of breaking out of this cabin, of overpowering the opposition and tying the boys and girls all up in neat little packages, of summoning help by radio to get us off this floating bomb. Wouldn’t we? We’d be thinking very hard about saving our precious lives, but preferably with a minimum of bloodshed, being the nice TV hero and heroine we are. Right?”

Her tongue touched her lips. Her hostility had faded. She was watching me closely. “Go on, Matt.”

“That’s dream stuff,” I said. “Nice TV heroes and heroines don’t just finish last, they finish dead. I am going to let you into a secret that I don’t often share with anyone, particularly a delicate young woman. The basic principle of escaping, Miss Brand, is that there is no problem in escaping, none whatever, if everyone who’s in a position to prevent you from escaping has been killed. Do you follow me, Miss Brand?”

She licked her lips. “Go on.”

I said, “To turn a corny phrase, baby, we go for the throats, not the boats. Never mind that Giulio’s been reasonably polite to us, to date. Never mind that Serena’s a poor unbalanced girl from an unfortunate family situation. Never mind that Henry may be a hell of a sailor and even a reasonable guy in his salty way, and that Adam’s attitude is understandable, considering his racial background, and that Robert on the other boat is a hell of a cook, even if he’s a bit too rapid with a knife, and Arturo may have something to he said in his favor also, although I don’t happen to know what it is. We just forget all that. You just forget all that. Can you?”

She drew a long breath. “I don’t know. It seems . . . a little drastic.”

I nodded. “It’s a normal reaction. I’ve met it before. On a recent assignment I had to stop in the middle of the great breakout scene to argue with a tender young lady who thought I was being too hard on the poor guards who got in our way.” I shrugged. “Okay, it makes it tougher, but if that’s the way you feel, I’ll do it all myself, or try. I just thought that, since you were willing to get blood on your knuckles once for reasons you considered adequate, this time with your life at stake you might be willing to get your pinkies a little gory again. But—”

“Matt, shut up!” When I looked at her, her face was pale. “Don’t talk so much. I just said it was drastic, that’s all. I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. But you’d better be specific.”

“Specific,” I said sourly. “Okay, if that’s what you want. Stop me if I get too rough for you. Here’s specific: if you get a chance to use that knife, it must go in all the way, low, edge up, and rip upward until it hits bone. Then you step back fast and let the guts spill out. If you get a chance to swing one of those winch handles you described, there should be brains on it when you stop swinging. Forget all about trying to escape. Escape will take care of itself, later. As long as there’s one of them standing, moving, even twitching slightly, you keep after him and to hell with escape. Too damned many people, thinking about getting away instead of concentrating on the job at hand, have been killed at the last moment by somebody they chivalrously refrained from finishing off when they had the chance, TV fashion. I don’t want to die because you were too sensitive to give somebody who was still wiggling another bash on the head, and he managed to reach a gun before he died.” I looked at her bleakly. “Are you still with me, girl reporter?”