Ross didn’t say anything and Kendig nodded. “Then you’re Agency. A Bureau man would be proclaiming it to the sky, full of indignation. You’re working with Cutter on this?” Kendig spared him a quick glance. “Sure. You’re Ross, aren’t you.”
“Yeah.” His voice was hoarse from the gag and he cleared his throat several times.
“You’ve come up in the world from the third floor.”
“What are you trying to prove, Kendig?”
But Kendig didn’t take the time to answer that. He had his eyes on the mirror and Ross twisted his head to look. The FBI car was still there, maybe a little closer. It was a long straightaway and farther back he could see the glow of headlights above a skyline.
Kendig said, “They’ve got three cars, haven’t they. We’ll have to lose those.”
“You’re bottled up on every road in this county, Kendig.”
“You haven’t got that kind of manpower. Don’t try to bluff me, Ross, you haven’t had enough practice.”
They soared over a hilltop and then the road plunged into a series of tight bends on the down-slope; they had to slow to twenty and even then the tires squealed and whimpered.
At the bottom there was a drain-off ditch beyond the outside of the curve, no guardrail. They went into the bend at about twenty-five and Ross saw Kendig yank something with his left hand, down beside the seat. Then Kendig gunned the engine and they gathered speed down the flats.
Kendig wasn’t using a map but he knew what he was doing; either he’d explored the roads or memorized a map. He took a left turn at an intersection and they bumped along a dirt road that looked to Ross as if it ought to be a dead end but it let them onto another paved byway and Kendig only followed that a mile and a half before he cut to the left again into the pines and went up a narrow chuckholed track past a cluster of farms. Chickens cackled in the night from the disturbance. They came into yet another blacktop road, made a gravel detour and emerged onto a wider concrete highway. Kendig had fled southeast from his farm but now if Ross’s sense of direction hadn’t packed up they were rolling almost due west.
Then Kendig pulled over onto the verge. He stopped the car and patted Ross’s jacket and lifted his wallet and ID folder.
“Now you add that to your sins,” Ross said.
Kendig ignored it and pocketed Ross’s wallets. “I want you to give Joe Cutter a message. Tell him I’ve finished writing the book. I’ll be carrying it with me. Every now and then I’ll stop somewhere and mail off another chapter. I’ll keep a crucial page here and there, just as I did with the first ones. I’m playing fair-I haven’t hidden the manuscript with a lawyer to be opened in the event I don’t check in or anything like that. If you and Joe can catch me you’ll catch the manuscript with me. But the longer you take, the more pages they’ll be receiving at the publishers. And I’m likely to start mailing out those evidential pages any time. Tell him that for me-he ought to enjoy the news.”
“You’re a madman, you know that?”
“I’m having fun and so are you.”
Ross couldn’t help it: he said acidly, “You have any suggestions where we might start looking for you next time?”
“I wouldn’t want to spoil your fun.” Kendig reached across Ross’s lap and pushed the door open. “Go on.”
“What about my hands?”
“Use your ingenuity.”
“Thanks.”
“Somebody will pick you up sooner or later. Go on, Ross.”
He clambered from the car, obscurely torn by anger and gratitude. The car bolted away, its momentum slamming the door he’d left open. His own revolver bounced on the shoulder and dropped to rest. Ross tried to read the plate but its light had been extinguished. It probably didn’t matter-Kendig would have to ditch that car soon.
He retrieved his revolver awkwardly and stood along the roadside quite a while, waiting. It amazed him how gently Kendig had treated him. But then nothing made much sense on this assignment. All of them seemed to be reveling in an exercise in nostalgia. Even Cutter in his cool way seemed to be facing the job as if Kendig were a rival white-scarfed aviator in an open biplane-the sort of man you saluted after you’d shot him down. The anachronism made it hard to come to terms with the assignment: Ross saw what kind of game he was supposed to be playing but he’d never played it before and wasn’t sure he had the capacities for it. Yet comprehension tantalized him; he almost had it-in spite of the absurd embarrassment of his position he felt something that wasn’t exactly admiration or respect for Kendig; it was more like pride.
It was a long time before he realized the FBI cars weren’t coming. He had a feeling that was oil Kendig had dumped back on the bend. They’d have been traveling very slowly there, not fast enough to do the passengers much damage but the cars must have tangled up in that drain-off ditch and it would be a foul-mouthed crowd there.
He began to work out ways to get the wire off his wrists.
— 16 -
At one time the Cubans had used the field for training; now it was wild with weeds. The ocean threw a redolent breeze across the flats, roughing up the trees. The shadows seemed to be inhabited by the ghosts of short brown guerrillas with obsolete weapons and quixotic ambitions.
Kendig had paid one hundred dollars cash for the gas-burning 1955 Buick; he left it parked on its bald tires in the trees with the key in the ignition-somebody would boost it within a week and joyride it until it died or ran out of gas and that would destroy the evidence for him. He carried his big suitcase to the verge of the overgrown strip and sat down with his back against the bole of a palm. The sun was two hours up, very bright in a pale ocean sky. He listened to the cry of the gulls.
The plane approached on the wind, preceded by its sound; he watched it descend, wingtips teetering in the uncertain air currents above the mild surf. It made a half-circle inland and made its final approach into the wind, nosing down over the trees and settling gingerly on its tricycle gear at a very low stalling speed-evidently out of respect for the tangled weeds on the surface. She kept the tail down after touchdown and rolled forward on two wheels, nose in the air; twice the tailskid bounced. She used up a good deal of runway before the speed was down sufficiently to make the U-turn and taxi back toward him. Kendig picked up his suitcase.
She cut the port engine and opened the door. He climbed onto the step and passed the suitcase inside, stepped onto the root of the wing and ducked to enter the cabin.
The sun was behind him; he saw her Modigliani face twinned in the mirror of the opposite window. She wore Levi’s and a denim jacket over a blouse that looked like yellow satin. He pushed the suitcase across one of the rear seats and moved forward to settle into the right-hand seat beside her-the copilot’s position.
“Where’s my other passenger?”
“Been a change in plan. I’m flying out alone.”
“The price is the same.”
“Naturally.”
She said, “You picked a hell of a field. I hope we don’t snag something.”
He only smiled and she fixed the door shut behind her; then she pushed the starter switch to mesh the port engine. The props ran up and there was too much noise for talk; she pointed toward his lap and he fastened the safety belt.
It was a bumpy ride but nothing grabbed the wheels; she had them airborne a quarter mile short of the beach. The sun hit them square in the eyes. Kendig said, “Turn around now. Make your course two-sixty-five magnetic.”
“What?”
“We’re going to Mexico.”
“I think you’re a little crazy, you know?” The plane came out of its bank; the sun was behind them now. They were still in a steady climb but they had airspeed now and the wind took the engine noise with it; she could talk without shouting. “I filed for Saint Thomas. If I don’t show up they’ll organize a search.”
“Call Miami control. Tell them your charter passenger changed his mind. Request clearance for Corpus Christi. And remember you’re still on the flight plan to Saint Thomas right now-give them a position report a couple of hours east of here. That’ll add a couple of hours to your ETA. You’ll have time to drop me in Mexico and get into Corpus Christi on schedule.”