“Johnny, for God’s sake, don’t make me sit here and watch!”
“Shh. I forgot to tell you. I’m not going to kill you. Don’t turn!”
Her voice trembled. “I don’t understand. You told Albert...”
“I’ll just pretend to kill you.” As he talked, he kept enlarging the trench. “You’ll have a face mask and the snorkel tube when I bury you. You’ll be able to breathe. After we leave you can crawl out and...”
She began to make noises halfway between laughing and crying. Her shoulders jerked and a stream of tears ran down each cheek. He kept working, the sun hot on his back. After a couple of minutes her sobs tapered off.
“Here’s the rest of it,” he said. “I’ve put food and water and seven hundred dollars in your bag. You’ve got two days to wait for the fishermen.”
“What if they don’t come?”
Smart girl, he thought; already recovered enough to ask practical questions. He darted a glance at the launch; saw Albert on deck with binoculars trained on the island.
“They shouldn’t skip more than one week.” he told her. “You can stretch your food supply by living off the sea. At low tide you get whelks off the rocks just below the waterline. They look sorta like snails, only bigger and rounder. You can pick up white sea eggs too. Don’t mess with the black ones or they’ll stick a poison spine in you.”
“Water?”
“Go without until you’re damn sure you’ll die if you don’t get a drink in the next minute. Then wait another hour. If it looks squally, spread all your clothes out on the ground. When it rains, wring them out in the cans. If it doesn’t—”
“I die of thirst.”
“No.” He paused to swat at the sandflies which were making a meal of his leg. “Dig a hole in the beach back of the waterline. It’ll fill slowly with water. Then filter it through silk. It’ll taste like the runoff from a sewer but it’s wet. Any more questions?”
“Yes. The fishermen come and I go off with them. What happens then?”
Before-answering, he set aside the conch shell and lay the suitcase into one end of the trench. There was still room for her.
“Go to South America, Europe, anyplace. Let your hair grow long, bob your nose, get fat or skinny, whichever is easiest. But don’t come back to the States.”
“Oh Lord... Won’t I see you again?”
“Not unless you want us both dead. If this is to work, I have to stay with Albert and follow it through until he reports you dead. Then I’ve got to go back to work as though nothing had happened.”
“More killing...”
“It can’t be helped.” He turned, gripped her shoulders and pushed her gently back onto the sand. He leaned over her, speaking through stiff lips. “I’ll strangle you now. Kick and scratch and fight like hell. You won’t have to pretend, because I really have to hurt you.”
“Wait...” Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glistened. “Johnny, I wish...” She raised her hand slightly as though to touch his face, then let it fall to her side. “All right. I’m ready.”
She put up a convincing defense. Johnny was breathing hoarsely when he finally rolled her limp body in the blanket. The backs of his hands were raw and a long scratch burned on his shoulder.
He lay her in the trench, picked up the conch shell, and began to cover her with salt-white sand. He hid the trench with his body as he worked. Pelicans screeched at the tip of the sandspit and the surf thundered its age-old attempt to destroy the island.
When only her head remained uncovered, he opened the suitcase and took out the face mask and breathing tube. Then he paused, looking down at her.
Hair clung to her damp forehead. Sand encrusted her neck like sugar on a butter sandwich. Her mouth looked swollen and red as blood. He pressed the back of his hand against her lips and felt them move slightly.
“Remember to breathe through your mouth,” he said. His throat hurt when he spoke. “Give me... an hour to get Albert away.”
“All right.” Her eyes half-opened. “Goodbye, Johnny.”
He nodded once, unable to speak. With numb fingers, he put the mask on her face and inserted the breathing tube in her mouth. Covering her head was the hardest job he’d ever done. Sweat poured from his body as he leveled off the sand. He set the conch shell over the end of the breathing tube, hiding it from the launch.
For a minute he listened to the hollow, even sound of her breathing. She’d make it, he decided. She wasn’t the panicky type of woman.
He turned to walk to the water — and froze. Albert was pulling the dinghy onto the beach.
Johnny felt a vise clamp his chest. “What are you doing here?”
Albert grinned and shouted up to him, “Thought you’d want a ride, chief, after the fight she put up!”
Johnny walked toward him, his face stiff as sun-dried cowhide. “I could’ve swam.”
“Yeah. Well, I thought I oughta check the grave too.” He lifted a speargun from the dinghy.
Johnny felt something cold crawl up his hack. He stopped. “You saw me kill her. Isn’t that enough?”
“You don’t know Cantino, man.” Albert walked forward with the speargun cradled in his arm.
Johnny bent his knees, waiting tensely for Albert to get near enough. He’d have to kill him now; there was no other way to save the woman.
Ten feet away, Albert raised the speargun and pointed it at Johnny’s stomach. “Wait right there, chief. Just in case you pulled something I didn’t see.”
Johnny stared at the barbed shaft as Albert edged around him. The gun was set; the rubber tubes which could drive the shaft through a thirty-pound barracuda quivered gently in the wind. His stomach drew into a knot. He’d have to wait until the kid started digging; he’d rush him then regardless of the risk.
Albert stepped onto the grave and kicked away the conch shell. The breathing tube protruded from the sand like a miniature periscope. Albert’s jaw dropped. “Well I’ll be damned!”
He started laughing, sucking the air through his teeth. “Man, you oughta win a prize. You had me fooled.”
Still laughing, Albert aimed the gun at a point just below the breathing tube. Johnny’s breath stopped. He was afraid to rush the kid now; it might startle him into pulling the trigger. Three inches of sand wouldn’t keep the shaft from going through her neck.
“Albert! You only get one shot!”
Albert squinted at him. “So?”
Johnny took a step toward him. “After that I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”
Albert swung the gun back to him. “You want if for yourself, big man?”
Johnny took another step, feeling the sweat break out on his neck. “You still only get one shot.”
Albert’s lips pulled back from his teeth. “And you get it right in the belly, man!”
Johnny dropped to his knees on the last word. He didn’t hear the gun. He felt a knifing pain in his shoulder and saw a bright red stream flowing down his chest. The world went dark for an instant and he fell forward, catching himself with his hands. He squinted up at Albert, struggling to focus his eyes.
“That... was your last shot,” he croaked. “Now you’re a dead man.” He started crawling forward on his hands and knees.
Albert raised the speargun over his head. Suddenly the sand moved beneath his feet. He staggered backward, staring at a pair of small white hands emerging from the sand. He dropped the speargun and ran.
Johnny tried to push himself to his feet. The earth spun and he fell forward on the protruding end of the shaft. He saw a red splash of pain, then only blackness...
He awoke to feel warm sand against his back. He raised a hand to his shoulder and felt a hole just above his collarbone. The shaft was gone and the bleeding had stopped.