on fire!’
Baron threw the phone across the room. ‘The third one,’ he said. He spun around and grabbed Heenan by the shirt-front and dragged him to his feet. ‘The third one!’ he shouted. ‘Parker! Where is this bastard Parker?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know, how should I know?’
Baron threw him away as he’d thrown the phone and ran across the room to where Salsa still hung limp in the arms of the two staff men, with Steuber waiting patiently to one side.
Baron grabbed Salsa by the hair, held his head up. ‘Where’s Parker?’ he shouted. ‘Where’s your other man?’
Salsa didn’t open his eyes, but he smiled.
Baron raged around the room, furious with doubt and fear. There was an onyx desk set on his desk and he yanked it up, spilling out the pens. He rushed back to Salsa and slashed at his head with the desk set, hitting him till blood streamed down over Salsa’s face and the staff men finally dropped him and stepped back, looking whitefaced and confused.
‘Guns!’ shouted Baron. ‘Guns, guns, where are the guns?’
It was ten minutes after ten. Steuber moved stolidly across the room, pulling his keys from his pocket, on his way to unlock the guns.
5
FOR the first time in his life, there was no background music.
Grofield sat against a treetrunk in pitch darkness, examining himself as best he could with half-numb fingers. So far as he could tell, he had been shot four times, but none of them serious; he didn’t seem to be carrying any of the bullets with him. One had sliced through the fleshy inner part of his upper arm, a few inches above the elbow, leaving a strong ache like a Charley horse in its wake. Another had drawn a line across the top of his left shoulder, barely breaking the skin and leaving behind it a faint stinging feeling. The third had gone in his right side at the waist, through the spare tyre he kept meaning to exercise off, and out again, with a burning sensation where it had gone in and a dull ache where it had come out. And the fourth had gone through the fatty part of his left leg, a couple of inches below the groin, causing more bleeding than all the other three wounds combined, but with practically no pain at all.
These were the first four times in his life he’d been shot. The experience took some getting used to.
But slowly he was getting his equilibrium back. He touched himself all over, stretched his arms and legs and found that everything was working all right, and then grinned in the darkness. ‘If that’s the best they can do,’ he whispered, ‘then, what the hell.’
The background music started again as he climbed up the tree to a standing position. Sombre music, portentous. Would he get through? Would he get to the cavalry in time to save the settlers from the Indians?
His left arm was stiff and his left leg was slightly numb, but he could still navigate. He moved through the tangled growth back the way he had come, and for the first time he noticed the new flickering quality of the light ahead of himself.
The place was on fire! Salsa had done his part, the fires were started.
What the hell time was it? If Parker and Ross tried to land, and Baron’s men were in control at the boathouses
Grofield hurried the rest of the way back to where he’d left the two guys who’d shot him they’d come out worse than him, they were still lying there on their faces and went past them towards the boathouses; up ahead of him he could hear the sounds of gunshots.
No good. He didn’t have a weapon on him.
He went back to the two guys he’d killed, and found their guns, both Colt automatics. There were three rounds left in the clip of one of them, and five in the other. Carrying them both, Grofield headed towards the boathouses again.
A cabin boat was in towards shore, bobbing in the waves as though there were neither a man at the controls nor an anchor out. Three guys on shore, protected behind the walls of the boathouses, were firing at it, and occasionally there was a flash of a gunshot from the boat.
Grofield picked his spot, steadied his right hand with his left, and picked them off one two three, doing it so fast the third one didn’t even have time to turn all the way around. Then he hurried on down to the water’s edge and called, ‘Parker! Come on in!’
The boat limped in to shore, bumping against the dock beside the boathouses. Grofield came out on the dock and Parker tossed him a line and Grofield made the line fast.
Parker climbed out of the boat, tossing two light plastic suitcases ahead of him, and said, ‘What’s gone wrong?’
Grofield waved his hands, with the guns in them. ‘They know about it, don’t ask me how. I got rid of the Feds on my back, and then two of Baron’s men put the arm on me. They knew my name, they acted as though they knew everything. I shot my way out of it, but I got hit a few times.’ He was proud of the offhand way he had said that, and at the same time knew that with Parker there was no other way he could have said it. In fact, it would have been better to say nothing at all, but that cool he couldn’t be.
Parker looked away towards the casino. ‘The place is burning. Salsa’s working.’
‘What time is it?’
Parker checked his watch. ‘Twenty after.’
‘He should be down here by now with the first load.’
That was the way it was supposed to work. Salsa would fire the main buildings, then in the confusion break into the cashier’s cage in the casino, grab as much cash as he could carry, and come down to meet the rest at the boat. Then all of them but Ross would go back to finish cleaning the place out. By twenty after Salsa should already be here.
Parker said, ‘We better go look for him.’
Grofield was looking towards the boat. ‘Where’s Ross?’
‘Dead.’ Parker nodded towards the three Grofield had taken care of. ‘They opened up too early, before we docked. They got Ross right away, because he was up at the wheel.’
‘It’s a lemon, Parker, a big fat lemon.’
‘Let’s go look.’
They each picked up one of the plastic suitcases, empty now and ready to carry money. Grofield replaced his guns with two more fully loaded ones from the beach defenders, and then he and Parker walked up the path towards the main building.
Now it did look like the last days of Pompeii. The main building and the dormitory and the cockpit were all ablaze. Men and women were running around in circles, shouting and screaming; there was a crush of them down on the piers, trying to get off the island. Just beyond the piers, two yachts, turning to get away, had rammed into one another and stuck together, and now wallowed in a death-grip, both of them burning. Firelight bloodied the dark water around the island and the boats, picking out the bobbing heads of people swimming. An overturned dinghy floated like a comic afterthought, with several people in the water clinging to it.
Because it had so few windows, the casino was burning less furiously than the other two buildings. The cockpit was one yellow-red flame, and the dormitory looked unreaclass="underline" a hollow black hulk with flames shooting from every window.
No one paid any attention to Grofield and Parker. A musician ran by, wild-eyed, his violin tucked up under his arm like a precious message. A guy Grofield recognized as the stickman from the roulette table rushed past in the opposite direction, still toting his rake.
Behind the main building the flames had leaped from the cockpit to the jungle itself. Crackling louder, the fire swept up the hill towards the two storage sheds, engulfing them, and then on towards the power plant.
Parker went into the casino first, and Grofield followed him. The main hallway was not yet burning, but flames were gobbling up the innards of the dining room, tables and chairs and draperies and carpeting and all; the dining-room doorway glared like the gateway to Hell. To the right, fire flickered uncertainly in the casino. With no windows, brick and plaster walls, widely spaced furniture, the flames had trouble in here making headway.