“Okay, I’ll come.” I put down the rifle. Then to Timoteo, I said, “I won’t be a moment. Stay here now your eyes are getting used to this light. Don’t put those sun glasses on.”
He mumbled something, but I was already moving to the door. Lucy fell back, giving me room to pass.
“Did you put your foot hard down on the gas pedal?” I asked as she trotted alongside me to keep up with my strides.
“Yes.”
“A hell of a time for it to play up. Well, I’ll get it going.”
I was sure she had done something stupid and it infuriated me that she had come to me just when I was getting this goddam beanpole in a more relaxed state of mind.
The Volkswagen was parked under a palm thatched lean-to. I jerked open the door, slid into the driving seat, sure that under my hand, the car would start.
Lucy stood by watching.
I jiggled the gear lever to check it was in neutral, then I shoved the gas pedal to the floor and switched on. I got a noise, but no start. I did this three times. Finally, the noise convinced me that the engine wasn’t going to fire. I cursed under my breath, my hands resting on the steering wheel as I glared through the dusty windscreen. I weighed up the importance of making the car start against the importance of getting Timoteo to shoot.
I had this twenty-five thousand dollar bond. This was like having twenty-five thousand dollars in cash. This bond had to be lodged in the safe keeping of a bank. Suppose someone stole it? Suppose our bungalow caught fire and the bond got destroyed? I was now responsible for it. I could imagine Savanto’s reaction if I had to tell him I had lost it.
I got out of the car, went around to the back and opened the lid. I looked at the engine. When a car makes the noise this one is making, the first thing to do, if you know anything about cars, is to check the distributor head and he prepared to clean the points. So I looked. The distributor head was missing.
That cooled me. My temper and my irritation with Lucy went away. Again I felt that itchy Prickle run up my spine.
“No wonder you couldn’t start it… the distributor head has been taken away. Have you the bond with you?”
With wide eves, Lucy stared at me, then opened her bag and gave me the bond.
“I never expected it would be easy. honey,” I said. “No one can earn money this big without sweating for it. Now listen : there was something Savanto said to me which I haven’t told you. He said you would be best off away from here while I’m teaching Timoteo to shoot. I can call a taxi and you can go to a hotel. We have the money, and it will be only for nine days. What do you say?”
“I’m not going!”
Although she looked scared, she also looked determined.
“Fine.” I put the bond in my hip pocket, then went to her, and put my arms around her. “I don’t want you to go. Go and keep Timoteo company while I talk to Raimundo. It’s my bet he’s taken the distributor head.”
“Be careful, Jay. That man frightens me.”
“He doesn’t frighten me.”
I kissed her, then set off across the sand towards the distant palms.
It was a longish walk in the sun and I was sweating by the time I was within sight of the truck.
Raimundo and Nick were pitching a tent. They had picked a good spot. There was shade, plenty of beach and the sea. As I approached, I saw Nick, his Hawaiian shirt black with sweat, doing most of the work. Raimundo was singing. He had a good voice. It sounded good enough to come out of a transistor.
He stopped singing when he saw me, turned and said something to Nick who looked up, stared at me and then went on driving in a tent peg.
Raimundo came towards me. He moved well, and he was very sure of himself.
I stopped when I was within six feet of him. He stopped too.
“You have the distributor head of my car,” I said. There was a bite in my voice, but I wasn’t bawling. “I want it.”
“That’s right, Mr. Benson. I have it… orders.”
“I want it,” I repeated.
“Yeah.” His grin widened. “Mr. Savanto gives orders too : he said no one comes in; no one goes out. That’s his idea of security. You call Mr. Savanto if you don’t believe me.” He cocked his head on one side. “You’re doing your job. I’m doing mine. The truck doesn’t work either.”
I thought fast. Savanto could have given this order. We had no reason to leave the range now except to put the bond in the bank. If Savanto considered security so important, he wouldn’t want either Lucy or myself to leave the place, and yet this could be Raimundo’s way of getting even with me for the way I had bawled him out.
“I’ll talk to your boss,” I said. “If you’re being smart, I’ll be back and you’ll be sorry.”
“You do that.” He was very sure of himself. “You talk to your boss. He’ll tell you.”
He threw a lot of weight on the word your. It wasn’t lost on me.
I walked back to the bungalow. It was a long walk. I didn’t hurry. It was now getting too hot to hurry and I had some thinking to do. If what Raimundo had said was true, then I had a problem on my hands. I had in my hair twenty-five thousand dollars that didn’t belong to me.
I reached the bungalow and walked into the sitting-room. I went over to the telephone and lifted the receiver. There was no dialling tone. The telephone was as dead as an amputated leg.
I sat down in my favourite armchair and lit a cigarette. I sat there for some minutes thinking. No car… no telephone… fifteen miles from the highway. To say we were cut off was an understatement.
I wasn’t fazed. This kind of situation was something I thrive on. I got to my feet, went into the kitchen and inspected the food that had been delivered. It was quite a selection : at least we wouldn’t starve. I went over the dozens of cans of food: all of the best and enough to keep three adults eating well for a couple of months. There was an impressive selection of drink including six bottles of champagne, lots of canned beer, whisky, gin and tomato juice.
So being cut off from Paradise City wasn’t a problem. But what was I going to do with this bond which didn’t belong to me?
I thought about the problem, knowing I was wasting time, but this was important; more than important.
Finally, I went to our store cupboard and found a small empty biscuit box. I put the envelope containing the bond into the box. Then I found a roll of adhesive tape and taped the lid to the box.
I left the bungalow by the rear door and crossed over to a row of palm trees that gave the bungalow its only shade. I paused to look around the way I had so often looked around before setting up an ambush in Vietnam. When I was satisfied I was on my own and no one was watching me, I scooped a deep hole in the soft sand under the third palm tree in a row of five and buried the biscuit box against the tree root. I smoothed down the sand. It took me some minutes to get rid of my footprints around the tree. I was finally satisfied.
I dusted the sand off my hands and looked at my watch. The time was 09.26. Timoteo had been on the range for close on three and a half hours and he hadn’t fired a shot.
I hurried across the sand towards the shooting gallery. I felt under sudden pressure. If I was going to teach this beanpole, I just could not have any further trouble. And even before I made a start to teach him, I had to get him relaxed !
I reached the gallery. The sand deadened my footfalls. I heard Lucy’s voice. She sounded animated. I slowed, then stopped in the shadow of the lean-to and I listened.
“I was like you before I met Jay,” she was saying. “You may not believe it but I was. I’m pretty bad now, but I am better. Before I met Jay I was so mixed up, just looking in a mirror made me jump. I guess it was my father…” A long pause, then she went on, “They say most kids when they are in a mess blame their parents. What do you think?”