I said impatiently, "Oh, I'm all right. But James, do you have to go after them? Let them get away. What do they matter? You might get hurt."
He said firmly, "No, darling. They almost killed both of us. Any minute now they may come back and find the Vespa gone. Then we'll have lost the surprise factor. And I can't let them get away with it. These are killers. They'll be off killing someone else tomorrow." He smiled cheerfully. "Besides, they ruined my shirt!"
"Well, then you must let me help." I put my hand out to him. "And you will take care, won't you? I can't do without you. I don't want to be alone again."
He ignored my hand. He said, almost coldly, "Now don't hang on my gun arm, there's a good girl. This is something I've got to do. It's just a job. Now"—he handed me the Smith and Wesson—"you move quietly up in the trees to the carport of Number 3. That's in the dark, and the wind's blowing the fire the other way. You can watch from there without being seen. If I need help, I'll know where to find you, so don't budge. If I call, come running fast. If anything happens to me, get moving along the shore of the lake and work your way as far as you can. After this fire, there'll be plenty of police along tomorrow, and you can smuggle yourself back and contact one of them. They'll believe you. If they argue, tell them to ring up C.I.A. in Washington, the Central Intelligence Agency, and you'll see plenty of action. Just say who I was. I've got a number in my outfit—sort of recognition number. It's 007. Try not to forget it."
Thirteen: The Crash of Guns
"I was." "Say who I was...."
Why did he have to say such a thing, put the idea into the mind of God, of Fate, of whoever was controlling tonight? One should never send out black thoughts. They live on, like sound-waves, and get into the stream of consciousness in which we all swim. If God, Fate, happened to be listening in, at that moment, on that particular wavelength, it might be made to happen. The hint of a death-thought might be misunderstood. It might be read as a request!
So I mustn't think these thoughts either, or I would be adding my weight to the dark waves of destiny! What nonsense! I had learned this sort of stuff from Kurt. He had always been full of "cosmic chain reactions," "cryptograms of the life-force," and other Germanic magical double-talk that I had avidly lapped up as if, as he had sometimes hinted, he himself had been the "Central Dynamic," or at least part of it, who controlled all these things.
Of course James Bond had said that flippantly, in a cross-my-fingers way, like the skiers I had known in Europe who said "Hals und Beinbruch!" to their friends before they took off on the slalom or the downhill race. To wish them "Break your neck and your leg" before the off was to avert accidents, to invoke the opposite of the evil eye. James Bond was just being "British"—using a throwaway phrase to buck me up. Well, I wished he hadn't. The crash of guns, gangsters, attempted murders, were part of his job, his life. They weren't part of mine, and I blamed him for not being more sensitive, more human.
Where was he now? Working his way through the shadows, using the light of the flames as cover, pricking up his senses for danger? And what were the enemy doing? Were they waiting for him in ambush? Would there suddenly be a roar of gunfire? Then screams?
I got to the carport of Number 3 cabin and, brushing along the rough-cast stone wall, felt my way through the darkness. I cautiously inched the last few feet and looked round the corner toward the dancing flames and shadows of the other cabins and of the lobby block.
There was no one to be seen, no movement except the flames at which the wind tugged intermittently to keep the blaze alive. Now some of the bordering trees behind the cabins were almost catching and sparks were blowing from their drying branches away into the darkness. If it hadn't been for the storm, surely a forest fire would have been started and then the coshed girl with her broken lamp would indeed have left her mark on the United States of America! How far would it have gone with the wind to help it? Ten miles? Twenty? How many trees and birds and animals would the little dead girl from Quebec have destroyed?
Another cabin roof fell in, and there was the same great shower of orange sparks. And now the gimcrack timbered roof of the lobby block was going. It caved slowly inward and then collapsed like a badly cooked soufflé, and more showers of sparks went up gaily and burned themselves out as they briefly drifted away on the wind. The extra burst of flame showed up the two cars beside the road, the gray Thunderbird and the shining black sedan. But there was still no sign of the gangsters and none of James Bond.
I suddenly realized that I had forgotten all about time. I looked at my watch. It was two o'clock. So it was only five hours since all this had begun! It could have been weeks. My former life seemed almost years away. Even last evening, when I had sat and thought about that life, was difficult to remember. Everything had suddenly been erased. Fear and pain and danger had taken over. It was like being in a shipwreck, an airplane or a train crash, an earthquake or a hurricane. When these things happen to you, it must be just the same. The black wings of emergency blot out the sky, and there is no past and no future. You live through each minute, survive each second, as though it is your last. There is no other time, no other place but now and here.
And then I saw the men! They were coming up toward me on the grass, and each was carrying a big box in his hands. They were television sets. They must have salvaged them to sell and make themselves a little extra cash. They walked side by side, the thin man and the squat, and the light from the flaming cabins shone on their sweating faces. When they came to the charred arches of the covered way to the lobby block, they trotted quickly through, after glancing up at the still-burning roof to make sure it wouldn't fall on them. Where was James Bond? This was the perfect time to get them, with their hands full!
Now they were only twenty yards away from me, veering right toward their car. I cringed back into the dark cave of the carport. But where was James? Should I run out after them and take them on alone? Don't be idiotic! If I missed, and I certainly would, that would be the end of me. Now, if they turned round, would they see me? Would my white overalls show up in the darkness? I got farther back. Now they were framed in the square opening of my carport as they walked across the grass a few yards from the still-standing north wall of the lobby building from which the wind had so far kept most of the flames. They would soon vanish round the corner, and a wonderful chance would have gone!
And then they stopped, stock still, and there was James facing them, his gun arming dead steady between the two bodies! His voice cracked like a whip across the lawn. "All right! This is it! Turn round! The first man drops his television gets shot."
They turned slowly round so that they faced toward my hideout. And now James called to me, "Come over, Viv! I need extra hands."
I took the heavy revolver out of the waistband of my overalls and ran quickly across the grass. When I was about ten yards away from the men, James said, "Just stop there, Viv, and I'll tell you what to do." I stopped. The two evil faces stared at me. The thin man's teeth were bared in a sort of fixed grin of surprise and tension. Sluggsy let off a string of curses. I pointed my gun at the television set that covered his stomach, "Shut your mouth or I'll shoot you dead."
Sluggsy sneered. "You and who else? You'd be too frightened of the bang."
James said, "Shut up, you, or you get a crack on that ugly head of yours. Now listen, Viv, we've got to get the guns off these men. Come round behind the one called Horror. Put your gun up against his spine and with your free hand feel under his armpits. Not a nice job, but it can't be helped. Tell me if you feel a gun there and I'll tell you what to do next. We'll go at this slowly. I'll cover the other, and if this Horror moves let him have it."