“Where?” I asked.
“I’ll give you a course when we’re outside. Now, step on it.”
“I’ll have to light the running lights first. Is that all right with you?”
“Certainly.”
“I just wanted to be sure I had your permission.”
He sighed in the darkness. “This is no game, Manning. You and Mrs Macaulay are in a bad spot. What happens to her depends on the way the two of you cooperate. Now, get this sloop away before the watchman hears us and comes snooping.”
Getting the watchman killed would accomplish nothing. “All right,” I said. We moved slowly away from the pier, out toward the channel, going seaward. There was no other traffic.
Barclay sat down across from me in the cockpit, smoking. “Very neat,” he congratulated himself above the noise of the engine.
“I suppose so,” I said. “If killing people is your idea of neatness.”
“Macaulay? We couldn’t help it.”
“Of course,” I said coldly. “It was an accident.”
“No. Not an accident. Call it calculated risk.” He paused for a moment, the cigarette glowing, and then he went on. “And speaking of that, here’s where you fit in. You’re also a calculated risk. I can handle small boats well enough to take this sloop across the Gulf, but I couldn’t find the place we’re looking for. We need you. We won’t kill you unless we have to. Score yourself a point.
“But before you start anything, imagine a bullet-shattered knee, with gangrene, and only aspirin tablets or iodine to treat it. And figure what we could do to Mrs Macaulay if you don’t play ball.
“One of us will be watching you every minute. Do as you’re told, and there’ll be no trouble. Is it all clear, Manning?”
“Yes,” I said. “Except you keep telling me this is no game, so there must be some point to it. Would you mind telling me where you think you’re going, and what you’re after?”
“Certainly. We’re looking for an airplane.”
“You mean the one Macaulay crashed in? You’re going to try to find it after you’ve killed the one person on earth who knew where it is?”
“She knows,” he said calmly. “Why do you think we brought her?”
“Look,” I said. “He was alone in it when it crashed. How could she possibly know?”
“He told her.”
“You’ll never find it in a million years.”
“We will. He knew where it was, and was certain he could go back to it, or he wouldn’t have hired you. So it has to be near some definite location, a reef or something. And if he knew, he could tell her. She’s already given me the general location. It’s to the westward of Scorpion Reef. You know the spot?”
“It’s on the chart,” I said curtly. “Listen, Barclay. You’re stupid as hell. Even if you found the plane, that money’s not recoverable. I didn’t tell her, because the main thing they wanted was to get away from your bunch, but that currency’s pulp by now. It’s been submerged for weeks—”
“Money?” he asked. There was faint surprise in his voice.
“Don’t be cute. You’re not looking for that plane just to recover the ham sandwich he probably had with him.”
“She told you there was money on the plane? Is that it?”
“Of course that’s it. What else? They were trying to get to some place in Central America so they could quit running from you and your gorillas—”
“I wondered what she told you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re nuts, Manning. We’re not looking for any money. We’re after something he stole from us.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s not important what you believe. But what makes you so sure, when you’d never met him and knew nothing about him at all?”
“I know her. She wouldn’t lie about it.”
He chuckled. “Wouldn’t she?”
The Ballerina began lifting slowly on the long groundswell running in through the mouth of the jetties. I searched the darkness ahead and could see the seabuoy winking on and off. I wondered why Barclay had tried to get off a cock-and-bull story like that. He was in control; why bother to lie?
“I found their bag, the one she sent aboard.”
I looked around. It was the voice of George Barfield, down below.
“Any chart in it?” Barclay asked.
“No.” Barfield came out carrying something in one hand and sat down beside Barclay. “The satchel was in it, all right. About eighty thousand, roughly. But no chart, none at all.”
“What?” It exploded from me.
“What’s the matter with Don Quixote?” Barfield asked. “Somebody goose him?”
“Could be he just got the point,” Barclay murmured. “She told him that money was in the plane.”
“Oh,” Barfield said. “Well, I wanted to see everything before I died, and now I have. A man over thirty who still believes women.”
I felt sick. “Shut up, you punk.” I said. “Put that bag down and throw a flashlight on it. There’s one on the starboard bunk.”
“I’ve got it here.” Barfield put the bag down, flipped on the light and I looked at bundle after bundle of twenties, fifties, and hundreds.
I sold my jewelry and borrowed what I could on the car. It’s the last chance we’ll ever have. I don’t know why they’re trying to kill him; it was something that happened at a party—
“All right,” I said. “Turn it off, Barfield.”
“You’re supposed to say, ‘turn it off, you punk.’ ”
“Shut up,” I said.
“How long would it take you to learn enough navigation, Joey?”
“Too long,” Barclay answered. “Leave him alone.”
“I was pretty good at math.” Barfield said. “Want me to try it? I could get sick of this guy.”
“Stop it,” Barclay ordered curtly. “Even if we could find the place alone, we still need a diver.”
“Anybody with an aqualung.”
“George,” Barclay said softly.
“All right. All right.”
“What’s in the plane?” I asked.
“Diamonds,” Barclay answered.
“Lots of diamonds.”
“Whose?”
“Ours.”
“And she knows about it?”
“Yes.”
I wanted to hear it all. “And they weren’t trying to get to Central America?”
“Yes, they were, at first. But Macaulay couldn’t take her in the plane because he had to take a diver.”
I was a chump. A sucker. I’d believed her. Even when I’d had intelligence enough to realize the story sounded fishy I’d still believed it. She wouldn’t lie. Oh, no, of course not. Hell, how stupid could you get? She couldn’t go in the plane because he’d had to add a fuel tank to stretch out its cruising radius. I was their last chance to escape; she had trusted me with all the money they had left – she must have been laughing herself sick all the time. I even imagined her telling her husband about it. Dear, this poor sap will believe anything.
And because I’d believed it I had killed that poor vicious little gunman and now the police would be looking for me as long as I lived. Only I wasn’t going to be living very long. I was scheduled for extinction when I found Macaulay’s plane and brought up what they wanted.
So was she. And wasn’t that too bad? I wondered if she realized just what her chances were of selling Barclay and that big thug a sob-story of some kind. As soon as she told them where to look for that plane she was through. There should have been some satisfaction in knowing her double-crossing had got her killed as well as me, but when I looked for it it wasn’t there.
So I was going back to feeling sorry for her? I was like hell. The dirty, lying, double-crossing – I stopped, puzzled. If she knew what was in the plane and where it was, why hadn’t they grabbed her off long ago? Why had they kept trying to sweat Macaulay out of hiding so they could take him alive and make him tell, when they could have picked her up any time they pleased?