Bickford was still completely out. So was his wife. Doris would probably sleep through until late morning. While I waited for Bickford to come to his senses, I went over to the telephone and got the number I wanted from information. I put in the call to police headquarters and hung up quickly because I didn’t want to answer any questions. I went back to the armchair to wait patiently.
In about fifteen minutes, Bickford came awake. I saw the surprise on his face at finding himself sprawled on the floor, staring at my shoes. He grunted heavily and rolled over onto his back. I leaned down and ripped the adhesive tape from his mouth. He spat out the gag.
“You son-of-a-bitch,” he said thickly, “what’d you have to slug me for?”
I ignored the question. “I want you to telephone Garrett.”
Bickford glared at me. “What the hell am I supposed to tell him?” he asked sourly. “That I screwed up? That you’re sitting here in my house with a gun in your hand and want to talk to him?”
“Exactly. Right down to the last detail.”
I knelt down beside him, taking Luis’s knife from my pocket and pressing the button on the side of the handle. The blade flicked out Bickford’s eyes widened in sudden fear. Roughly, I turned him on his side, slitting through the adhesive tape that bound his wrists behind him, and then I cut the tape at his ankles and knees.
He sat up slowly, flexing his fingers. He rose unsteadily to his feet, moving across the room on ponderous feet. His eyes went to the couch where Doris lay.
“She’s still asleep. I’ve already checked on her.”
“She’d better be all right,” Bickford growled.
I ignored the comment “Get on the telephone and tell Garrett that I’m waiting here for him — and that he’s to bring along his friend, Carlos.”
Bickford glared at me, but he reached out for the phone and made the call Then there was nothing for us to do but wait until Brian Garrett and Carlos Ortega arrived.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Doris was still asleep on the couch. Bickford sat beside her, a shambling brute of a man, ashen with fatigue and worry. Carlos sat in one of the armchairs, his legs crossed carefully in front of him so as not to spoil the crease in his slacks. He stared silently at the bandage that covered my right arm from my elbow to my wrist My Madras jacket lay on the floor beside me, its right sleeve ripped open. The gun in my right hand was steady, without showing the least sign of a quiver in spite of the pain I felt. I couldn’t let him think Td been hurt much. Brian Garrett sat in the other arm chair, leaning forward, his beefy face flushed with anger, glaring at me.
“Just so that you’ll know that what Bickford told you is true,” I said. I leaned forward over the coffee table cluttered with magazines and newspapers. The Sunday edition of the Mexico City News was on top. I lifted up part of the newspaper. Underneath was a one-kilo, plastic bag packed full of a white powder.
Carlos and Garrett both looked down at the bag, their eyes drawn irresistibly to it. With my left hand, I took out Luis’s knife and flicked open the blade.
Carlos’ expression didn’t change. If he recognized the knife, he gave no sign, but then there were hundreds more like it in town — one of which was embedded deeply in Jean-Paul’s spine.
I jabbed the point of the blade into the bag, tearing it open slightly. Some of the powder drifted out onto the glass of the table top.
“Want to test it?”
Carlos reached out with his fingertip to touch the powder. He put his fingertip to his tongue. He nodded his head.
I reached out with the knife again and enlarged the cut I put the knife back into my pocket, still holding the gun on them. Then, I picked up the torn bag in my left hand and moved to the French doors. I pushed one of the doors ajar with my foot. Standing in the doorway, still facing them, the Smith & Wesson .38 aimed directly at Carlos, I turned the torn bag over so that the white powder blew out into the night.
Garrett jumped to his feet “You fool!” he burst out “You know how much that’s worth?”
“Sit down, Brian,” Carlos said, equably. “This is a game for big stakes. The man is showing us he can afford to sit in on it.”
Brian dropped back into his chair. He ran a meaty hand through his greying hair. “Goddamn you,” he said to me, savagely. “What do you want from us?”
“Just what I wanted before. Lay off Stocelli. Stay away from me.”
“Or?” Carlos asked, calmly.
“I’ll bust you wide open. I told you that before.”
“You talk big, Mr. Carter. I don’t believe you can do it.”
“I’d been looking out the open French doors. Now, I said, “Come outside for a minute. I want you to see something.”
They exchanged looks. Carlos lifted his shoulders in a shrug as if to say he didn’t know what I had in mind. The three of them got to their feet and went outside onto the terrace.
“Over there. Take a look at the naval base.”
We could make out a flurry of activity as lights suddenly came on. The deep, urgent hooting of a ship’s horn blowing insistent, hoarse blasts for action stations came faintly across the bay to us. In only minutes, we could make out the dim shape of a corvette backing away from the dock and then, as it turned, churning water at its stern. It began to pick up forward motion. By the time the corvette had reached the narrow inlet to the ocean, it was moving at almost flank speed, curls of white spray making twin rooster tails at its bow.
“What’s all that about?” Garrett asked.
“You tell him what you think,” I said to Bickford. Even in the moonlight, I could see fear on his face.
“They’re going after the tuna boat,” he guessed.
“Exactly right.”
“But how? How could they know about it?”
“I told them,” I said, tersely. “Now, shall we go back inside?”
“Let me get this straight,” Carlos said. “You gave five kilos of heroin to the captain and sent him off?”
Bickford nodded miserably. “He’d have killed me, Carlos. I had no choice.”
Carlos turned to me. “And then you notified the naval base?”
“Indirectly. I called the police. I think they’ll pick up your ship in the next half hour or so.”
Carlos smiled confidently. “You think my captain will be so stupid as to let a naval vessel board his ship without first dropping the package over the side?”
“Of course not,” I agreed. “But he doesn’t know about the other four kilos I planted when Bickford and I were leaving the ship. They’ll find that second package because I told them just where to look for it. The first was only a decoy.”
Carlos’ face was an olive mask with two, narrowing eyes aimed at me.
“Why?”
“Do you still think I can’t break up your organization?”
“I see.” He leaned back in the armchair. “You’ve just cost us a great deal, Mr. Carter. Our captain will think we’ve double-crossed him. It’s going to be hard to keep him from talking as long as he thinks that way.”
“That’s step one,” I said.
“I think we’ll have to do away with him permanently,” Carlos reflected out loud. “We can’t take a chance on him talking.”
“He’s no great loss. Add up the rest of the damage.”
“We’ve also lost a vessel. Is that what you mean? True. Worse than that — word will spread. We shall have a difficult time finding a replacement for him.”
“Now you’re catching on.”
“And for this, you gave up — let me see — four and five more, nine kilos, plus the one you threw away so dramatically to impress us—ten kilos of heroin?”