I checked the map. “Waycross. Brunswick. Hmmm.”
“Something substantial. Are we anywhere near Savannah?”
“Oh, so we are. It’s closer than either of the others, actually. I missed it.”
“Well, that’s good. At least it sounds good to me. What do you think?”
“About what?”
“About spending the night in Savannah and hitting Tampa tomorrow. What did you think we were talking about?”
“Oh,” I said. I took a breath. “I’m sorry, I think my mind is coming apart at the seams. I guess it sounds good. At this point you could tell me to go to Washington and I would do it. Where do you want to stay? I know Savannah, but I mean where in Savannah—”
He put a hand on my arm. “Easy,” he said and started chuckling. “I knew I was in bad shape, but you’re even more of a case. Let me drive. We could both do with ten hours in a real bed. Don’t you worry, I’ll find us something.”
I wasn’t worried.
What he found us was a tourist court that catered to long-haul truckers. There were three rigs already parked there, so we could forget about being conspicuous. He got us two cabins about twenty yards apart. We locked up the truck, and he went to his cabin and I went to mine.
I turned on the light, closed the door, locked it. I took off my trucker’s clothes and hung them on a peg. I unstrapped my shoulder harness, took the gun out, and put the harness itself on the cabin’s only chair.
I took a quick look through the window. George had already turned out his light.
The bed was a double. I took it down and put both pillows under the covers. I stepped back and decided they looked too white, so I wrapped the top one in the bedspread. I left the light on for ten minutes, then turned it off.
I carried the Magnum and stood behind the door in the darkness.
He waited an hour and twenty minutes. I stood there in my underwear while the gun got heavier and heavier. I didn’t move or make a sound. When the waiting got hard I thought how hard it was for him, and then I knew I could wait all night if I had to.
But I didn’t have to.
I didn’t hear him approach. He was damned good. The first sound I heard was a tentative scratching at the door, like a cat wanting to come in. Then my name repeated twice. Loud enough so I would hear it if I was awake, soft enough so that it would never wake me.
The key slipped in silently. He must have picked up an extra key when he signed us in, and he must have soaped it to muffle the sound. I listened to the lock turn.
Then, slowly, the door opened at me.
No shoes. He was fully clothed otherwise, but no shoes. The gun was in his right hand. It looked like a .22, and there was a silencer on the end of the barrel.
He walked all the way to the bed with the gun trained on my pillows, and I kept the Magnum on him every step of the way.
For a while I thought he was actually going to fire the gun. I was hoping he would, and it did look that way, but at the last moment something must have cued him. He kept the gun muzzle trained on the pillows and groped for the bedside lamp with his free hand.
It was really beautiful when the light went on.
All I saw was his back, but it was like watching a face change expression. He froze, and I looked at his back and saw thoughts going through his head. He knew exactly where I was. He knew I had a gun on him. He knew that his only hope was to spin around and shoot, and he also knew that there wasn’t one chance in a thousand that he would make it. He thought of a lot of things to say, but none seemed better than silence, and he waited, and I let him wait.
I let him wait until it was too good, until I couldn’t take any more of it.
Then I said, “Sometimes, George, you’re a real moron.”
Sixteen
“Put the gun on the bed. Now turn around. You should see your face, George. Sit down on the floor. No, cross your legs, put your hands on your knees. Fine.”
I closed the door, switched on the overhead light. I said, “I’ll talk and you’ll listen. Fair enough?”
He nodded.
“George, George. Once upon a time you told me that I was incompetent and untrustworthy, and now it looks as though you were describing yourself. You’re both of those, all right,” I sighed. “The best planner I’ve ever met in my life. Shrewd and cool and farsighted, and yet whenever I come into the picture something happens to your brain. You go out of your way to screw yourself up. I guess I’m your personal blind spot, George.”
“Uh-uh.” I waggled the Magnum at him. “I talk and you listen, that’s our arrangement. Or you get a new hole in your head. Agreed?”
He nodded.
“That’s better. Oh, George, what the hell am I going to do with you? I knew all along you would try to kill me. Surprised? I started waiting for it from the minute the last of the soldiers was dead. I thought you might do it then and let Agent Lynch die with his faithful comrades, but you needed someone to drive the truck and help you tidy up.
“I was ready for you at the barn, too. It was such a natural spot, and you were all set, weren’t you? Don’t look as though you don’t follow me. Come to think of it, try to keep your face as expressionless as possible. Don’t talk, and don’t make faces.”
A nod.
“You were going to poison me. There were two bottles on the food table when we walked in, and the next time I looked there was only one, the scotch. What was in the other one, water? You don’t have to answer. Whatever it was, it was full of something fatal, but you decided to grant me a stay of execution. I wasn’t bothering you, after all, and there was a lot of driving still to go, and suppose more snow fell and you had trouble getting out? I might come in handy.” I shook my head. “Oh, George. Then you went and made a game out of it, the toast and all that. That’s a bad habit of yours, you tend to overcompensate.”
I paused, and he wanted to say something. He didn’t dare. I stared at him and he kept his mouth shut.
“And I don’t even have to tell you about tonight, do I? You telegraphed it all over the place. Even if I’d been as tired as I acted, I couldn’t have missed it. ‘Maybe we should stay out of Tampa. Where are we, anyway? Say, how about Savannah?’ You’re not supposed to let the bones show.
“The only part I couldn’t figure was why. Why kill me? Because I might lead them to you? That might be a reason to kill me afterward, after the delivery was made. Or maybe a million isn’t enough for you, maybe you want it all. Still, why rush things?” I shook my head. “No, there was only one thing I could think of, and then the stop in Savannah cinched it. The dirty stuff in the truck isn’t going to our good-guy buddies. But I knew that all along, George. I knew that on the island.”
His jaw dropped. Then his lips moved, but no sound came out.
“Oh, hell, you gave it away. You’re easy to read, that’s your trouble. Whenever you sell something too hard I know you’re lying in your teeth. All that shit about how the stuff was getting to the right people after all. And the cutesypie chatter in Spanish, and dropping Tampa into every third sentence whether it fit or not. ‘Look at the snow, Paulie, and I wonder how hot it is in Tampa.’ Where are the goods going, George? What set of bad guys? Africa? The Middle East?” He hesitated. “You can answer the question. A special dispensation.”
“Africa.”
“Is that what you thought I wanted to hear? Because that’s what you always tell me. We put nineteen men under the ground and jobbed the U.S. Army to hell and back, and you think I give a flying shit where the stuff goes? You really think that’s how my head works? The ship’s in Savannah instead of Tampa, and the buyers are baddies instead of goodies, and you think that would keep me up nights? It’s annoying enough that you underestimate me twice an hour, George, but do you have to act as though I’m crazy, too?”