Carla exhibited an entirely unexpected concern over Billy as she ran to his side and turned him over tenderly. She explained, “Billy was carrying the gun and he stumbled and fell and it went off, dear.”
Billy’s left cheek had been gouged deeply by the concrete. He opened virulent blue eyes, focused them on Cooper and said, “You—” He got no further as Carla’s strong brown hand was clamped over his lips.
“You were clumsy, Billy,” Carla said.
Billy sat up. He glanced up at the girl on the roof edge. He looked over at Cooper. “I sure was. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“Run along and fix your face, Billy,” Carla said.
He got up and shuffled moodily toward the house. “Allan, this is my sister, Barbara. Barbara, Mr. Farat, a new houseguest.”
“Hello,” Barbara said absently. She had a troubled expression. She turned and walked out of sight.
Carla fastened strong fingers on the lapel of Cooper’s jacket. Her voice was low and hoarse. “There’s one house rule, Farat. Leave Barbara alone. I know your habits. Don’t talk to her unless you have to. I’ve put that kid through the fanciest schools there are. She doesn’t know from nothing, Farat. She thinks my friends are peculiar. I tell her you have to have that sort of friends when you run hotels. I’m trying to get her out of here before Rocko arrives. If you spill one little thing to her, so help me, the body we show Rocko won’t even look like you.”
He pushed her hand away. “Draw me a picture, mama.”
“I mean it, Farat. All the way down the line.” She grinned suddenly. “Anyway, you won’t have any time for Barbara. Not with your old friend here.”
“Who?”
“Alice. Who else? She came the way I thought you were going to come. With a gun in your back.”
“How is she taking it?” he asked. It seemed like a safe question.
“You know Alice, Farat. She’s taking it with rye.”
“How about that room? How about somebody to carry my stuff?”
Within fifteen minutes he was in a ground floor bedroom on the south wing. A dark blue wall-to-wall rug. Squat blonde furniture. A tiny bath with glass shower stall. Huge windows overlooking the Gulf. A heavy air-conditioner set into the side window. Once he had closed the door the weakness struck him. He walked over to the bed and sat down heavily. His hands shook as he lit a cigarette.
One thing was now certain. The job they had done on him had been good. So good that there had not even been any comment about any small change in his appearance. He trembled for a long time and when the trembling ceased, he felt enormously weary. He ticked off in his mind the people he had seen. The old man in khakis. Carla, Barbara and Billy. Two young men in white coats, with Mexican or Cuban faces — a tall angular woman glimpsed through the swinging door into the kitchen.
He glanced at his watch. Nearly one o’clock. He unpacked, shook the wrinkles out of Farat’s clothes, hung them carefully in the big closet. From the attitude of Carla Hutcheon, he suspected that he would not be permitted to keep Farat’s guns for very long. They were nice weapons. Smith and Wesson 38’s with stubby barrels. The underarm strap of Farat’s holster was stained with the dead man’s perspiration.
On a hunch he looked carefully around the room. He found a six inch square grill set into the ceiling of the closet and guessed that it was a hedge against humidity and mold. The two screws came out easily. He set one gun, with full chambers, out of sight over the edge of the closet ceiling and replaced the grill. It would take some time to recover the gun, but it gave him the feeling of having done one small constructive thing. Carla had said he could have lunch any time he wished. How would Farat have dressed? He decided on faun slacks, a grey-green sports shirt. Then, as the day got cooler toward evening, he could add the bright jacket of yellow Irish linen.
He put his hand on the knob of the door and it took all his will to turn it, walk casually out. He stopped in the hallway and lit a cigarette with Farat’s lighter, a heavy French butane job. The house was quiet.
The monotonous thud of waves on the beach seemed to be the only sound. The main portion of the house was a huge room with a glass wall that faced the beach. The center portion of the glass slid to one side to form a ten foot opening. It was open and sea breeze blew into the room. The look of the room reassured him. It was not a room for violence. It was a room out of an architectural magazine. It had the sterility of any room where the decorator is given too free a hand.
One of the white jacketed boys was dusting, with a lazy economy of movement. Another picture from the Farat file sat in a deep chair, and the name jumped immediately into Cooper’s mind. Garry Susler. One of the old crew from Nick Floria’s day. Absurdly like a cartoon of a hood, or of the god of war. A cropped bullet head and prognathous jaw and inch-high brow and pulped nose, mounted on a round fibrous body.
The masked grey eyes flickered toward Cooper. The heavy face didn’t change expression. “Some guys can’t learn,” Susler said in a husky-hoarse voice.
“What’s she got you doing these days, Garry? Walking the dog?”
“Talk big. Goon. Talk big.”
Susler pulled himself out of the chair and came over. “Patties high, boy. This won’t take long.”
Susler patted him quickly in all the likely places. “So you’re clean. Now go out and play. Have a happy time while you’re still breathing, Farat.”
“It’s in my suitcase, the grey one with the green stripes at each end. Holster and all. Put it where the salt air won’t get at it.”
“Only one? Not like you, Farat. Is the other one stashed in the car?”
“Only one this time. I had to get rid of one.”
Susler gave him a sardonic bow. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’ll look for two, sir.”
“Who else is around, Garry? I’ve only seen Carla, Billy and you. And Carla’s sister.”
“Just one more. One you don’t know. Bud Schanz. Or maybe you do know him.”
“Should I?”
Susler shrugged. “He brought Alice in. Found her in Cleveland and got her taken drunk so she sobered up here. The two of us were going after you, but you saved us the trouble.”
Cooper walked through the wide opening in the glass wall. Susler lumbered off down the hallway to the south wing. Cooper paused on the terrace. He snapped the cigarette down onto the sand. Gulls dipped along the surf line, calling in their gamin’s voices, like rowdy children at play. Far out a pelican folded his wings and dived with a splash like a small frag bomb.
He had done the last thing that Farat would have done. Appear here of his own volition. It compounded the problem by making it necessary for him to think of some reasoning that would fit Farat’s possible plans. To appear here had the nasty ring of suicide. The same glint had appeared in the eyes of Billy, Carla and Susler. They had looked at him the way they would have looked at a man already dead.
One of the swarthy boys came out the opening behind him, carrying a tray of drinks. The boy turned to the right across the terrace and went down the two shallow steps at the side, walking cautiously on the sand. Cooper followed him at a slower pace. As they passed the corner of the building, Cooper saw the group in gay colors.
Carla sat on a striped towel, her arms resting on her heavy flexed knees. Billy, the bandage white against his face, lay nearby on his beach coat, his body oiled. A taffy blonde lay spread-eagled on her face on a maroon blanket. She wore a Bikini suit of bandanas, casually knotted, and, as with all Bikini suits, the rear view was more ludicrous than entrancing. A strange young man sat beside the taffy blonde, using a trick backrest of aluminum and blue canvas. He wore skin-tight trunks in violent cerise. Barbara was a figure in the distance, walking along the surf line. Billy, Carla and the young man stared expressionlessly at Cooper. The taffy blonde didn’t move. Cooper paused, lit another cigarette, moved toward the group.