“You think I would be just standing there maybe?”
“Don’t get sore. A man who can do the unthinkable without a half-second hesitation has a lead over you and me. And more over you than over me. Don’t think of it as a criticism. Nine out of ten adult males would find it impossible, thank God, to shove a knife into the belly of a fellow human, even if their own life seemed in danger.”
“You’re setting him up to kill him?”
“If I have to. If I can’t take him, I want somebody there who will, because I do not want him loose in the world.”
My assistants arrived just after dusk, an hour after Meyer had gone back to his cruiser. I checked them out before I opened up.
“Preach sent us,” the small one said. “I’m Gavin. This here is Donnie.”
“How did you come?”
“Car. Parked way down and walked in.”
After I had closed the lounge draperies, I turned on more lights and took a better look at them. Gavin was pallid, sandy, compact as a jockey or a good flyweight. There was a flavor of Australia in his diction. He was in his thirties. His blond sideburns came down to the corners of his mouth. He wore a white guayabera, dark red slacks, Mexican sandals. Donnie was younger, tall, lazy-looking, with dark hair modeled in a wave across his forehead, with a heavy drooping mustache. He wore a work shirt, khaki shorts, and running shoes. His legs, though very tanned, looked thick and soft.
“You know what this is about?”
“Somebody wants to blow you away, Preach said. You want us to make sure it doesn’t happen,” Gavin said.
“Are you people armed?”
“Donnie’s got nothing. I got a knife.” He wore it between his shoulder blades, with the blade up for grasping, for quick grasp and quicker throw, with a full snap of the arm. It’s a French fashion, deadly when the man has years of practice.
I watched them handle the handguns I gave them. I gave Gavin the Airweight Bodyguard from the bedside holster, and gave Donnie the Colt Diamondback from the medicine cabinet hidey hole. They checked the weapons with reassuring aplomb, spinning the cylinders, dry firing, then loading. I took the nine-millimeter automatic pistol for myself, the staggered box magazine holding the full fourteen rounds.
Then I showed them what I had in mind. I made them practice the routine over and over until they could get into their hiding places quickly enough to suit me.
There is a full-length mirror affixed to the bulkhead at the end of the short corridor between the two staterooms. Quite a while ago I had a master carpenter move the bulkhead out a few inches and make a stowage locker on the other side shallower. The two-way glass mirror is hinged on one side, held in place by a catch which can be released by shoving a wire brad into an almost invisible hole in the right side of the mirror frame. A man can step in, pull the mirror door shut, fasten it with a simple turn block. As it is only twelve inches deep, he cannot turn around. He has to step in backward, and he can watch the corridor from there. Donnie fit the space with little to spare. Gavin fit reasonably well in the stowage locker in the lounge, the one with the upholstered top used for extra seating. I had emptied it out before their arrival. There was a small hole near the floor which gave him limited vision and better hearing.
“I want to make sure I understand,” Gavin said. “We’re backup. We’re insurance. If there’s big action, we bust out and take him if we have to. Or if things start to go sour for you, the code word is Preach?”
“If I have to use it, I’ll yell it, and I’ll be moving fast by then.”
“What does this dude look like? Is there just one?”
“You’ve probably seen him in movies. He played the part of Dirty Bob.”
Donnie spoke up in his slow deep voice. “He’s nothing but a movie actor, isn’t he?”
“Outlaw biker first.”
“And he’s been killing women,” Gavin said. “I read about it. He’s a bloody big sod, that one. Is he really mean?”
“Yes.”
“What does he want with you, McGee?”
“He blames me for the death of a friend, the man who put him in the movies. I don’t think he needs much reason. I think he is probably certifiably insane.”
“When do you think he’ll show up?”
“Yesterday he was in Los Angeles. He was there looking for my address. He’s had thirty or more hours to get here.”
“People know his face, don’t they?” Donnie said.
“One time that I know about, he and his friend came across the country on motorcycles in fifty hours.”
“Good time,” Gavin said, “but it beats you to death.”
“If it turns out that there is any way to take him alive, I’d like that.”
“To give to the law?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, if you keep us out of it,” Donnie said. “We’ll keep it in mind. But it looks safer if we kill him. How long do we go before you decide he isn’t coming?”
“Until Sunday night?”
“Preach didn’t tie any strings on it,” Gavin said. “So it’s whatever you say, mister.”
“You’ve been… uh… involved in this sort of thing before?” I asked.
“Better you shouldn’t ask,” Gavin said with a sandy little smile. “We eat here, I suppose?”
“I put provisions aboard. And liquor.”
“Donnie and me, we don’t drink except after a job is over. Look, I didn’t mean to turn you off about what you asked. I’ll tell you this much. For what you’ve got in mind, you won’t find any better south of Atlanta. Okay?”
“Glad to know it.”
“You live aboard here all the time?” Gavin asked. “What do you do for a living? You retired?”
I smiled at him. “Better you shouldn’t ask.”
“Anyway Preach must owe you a big one. I’m not asking. Okay? I was just making a remark.”
Twenty-one
THE SLIGHTEST pressure on the mat where people come aboard the Flush from the dock at the stern, where the hinged rail is flipped over and latched, rings the small warning bell-a solemn bong, like a discreet telephone in an advertising office.
It sounded in the early afternoon on Friday, on a day that seemed hotter than all the rest, hot enough to bring the water in the yacht basin to a slow boil, bubble the varnish on the play toys, make the metalwork too hot to touch. The sky hung low in a thick white glare. The air conditioning groaned away, eating my purse. Through the narrow gaps in the draperies I could see the tourists on the docks, milling around in slow motion, straining for a good time.
At the bong, I was in the galley, looking at the labels on the canned goods. Gavin and Donnie were in the lounge. They slipped quickly, quietly, neatly away to their assigned places.
The pistol was tucked into my belt, under the oversized yellow shirt, slanted on the left side, grip toward the right, handy for grasping. There are many schools, going back to the flintlock dueling pistol days when it was thought advisable to present one’s body in profile to the opponent, the right side-the side without the heart in it-nearer the opponent. The gunslinger school had its own mythology. I had long since worked it out to my own satisfaction. It was the shortest travel distance for my right hand, and as I pulled it free, I could pivot into a full-faced squat, weapon held in two hands, aiming it for full instinctive spray, like a man putting out a fire at gut height.
I touched it through the shirt to be certain it was properly positioned, went to the rear entrance to the lounge, thumbed the curtains aside, and saw Meyer’s solid and reliable face a few inches beyond the door.
I unlocked the door, and just as I swung it open, the delayed warning hit me. There had been something wrong about Meyer. I backed away and he came in, moving in such a slow and uncertain way, it was as if he had forgotten how to walk. He wore a dull apologetic smile, and all the bright hot light had gone out of his little blue eyes.