Working mostly by feel, Robby and Frank unrolled the carpet about halfway, then picked up the body and carried it over to the rug. “Heavy,” Robby gasped.
“Dead weight,” Frank explained. “Unconscious people always weigh more.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Robby whispered.
They put the unconscious body onto the rug and rolled the rug around her, then refastened the ropes. “Okay at this end,” Frank whispered.
“Here, too,” Robby whispered.
They picked up the rug again, staggering a little from the double weight, and headed out of the room, Frank opening the door when he reached it, Robby closing it again on the way by. They walked with the nonchalant boldness of honest men.
On the screen, an extreme close-up showed the seamed, lined, weary, agonized face of an old peasant woman wearing a black shawl around her head. She was talking, at length, through her tears, directly at the audience of empty seats. At the bottom of the screen it said:
“My youngest boy is six, going on seven.”
Kelly glanced out the peephole. The room was empty. About time. “Fine,” he said, and studied his clipboard with a critical eye. “Well, I guess that about does it,” he said. “Thank you for your time.”
“It’s okay,” said the projectionist.
Kelly left the booth, walked down the hall, down the stairs, out of the hotel, and over to the parking lot. B. B. Bernard was still mousing around with the dogs, looking at his watch and glumly smoking cigarettes.
As he was getting into the Cortina, Kelly saw the VW go by, and read the inscription on the side: MONTEGO BAY CARPET AND UPHOLSTERY COMPANY LTD. Fort Street, Montego Bay. He was too far away to read the expressions on the faces of the two in the cab, but he was sure they were smiling in triumph.
Kelly got behind the wheel of the Cortina. “Shift left,” he told himself, “and drive left. Shift left, and drive left.”
He started the car, did everything slowly but right, and drove the Cortina out of the parking lot and down the road toward the highway. He saw the VW turn right at the highway, and a minute later he made the same turn himself.
He felt good. Starnap had worked everything out, everything, down to the smallest detail, with the kind of precision and attention to minutiae that only a machine could give to the task. And the precision had paid off. Eight hundred fifty thousand dollars’ worth.
Kelly caught up with the carpet company truck before they reached the city, and drove along behind it, reading the company name on the rear doors, thinking of the value of what actually lay within those doors.
They followed A1 after it became Kent Avenue and swept out along the shore between the sea and the airport, then curved to the left, became Gloucester Avenue, and entered the in-town hotel section.
The yacht club was on the right. They parked the two vehicles near one another, but Kelly gave no sign of knowing the other two when he passed them on the street, Kelly heading for the yacht club and they going around to the rear of the VW.
Kelly went through the yacht club building and out the dock to Nothing Ventured IV. He noticed that Major ffork-Linton’s boat was gone. Maybe the film festival had been too boisterous for the old boy after all. Or more likely for his lady.
Kelly went aboard Nothing Ventured IV and heard somebody tapping S-O-S-S-O etc., somewhere close by. It took him a few seconds to remember the girl, then he just shook his head. If she wanted to expend energy that way, it was all right with him.
There was a clatter up on deck, and Frank’s voice called, “Help us get her down there!”
“Coming.”
Kelly went back on deck, and there was the rug. Frank and Robby were panting and gasping and leaning on things. “We’ll have to get it out of sight fast,” Kelly said.
“Lend a hand,” Frank said.
“Right.” Lifting one end while the other two both lifted the other, Kelly said, “We’ll have to move the truck as soon as we have her locked away with the other one. We’ll leave it downtown. Then return the rented car, and—”
“Move it, Kelly,” said Frank. “Talk later.”
“Oh. Of course.”
It was heavy. And they had to be careful how they banged her around, even though she was protected by two or three layers of rug, but they finally did get her down into the cabin, lying on the floor. Then, as Kelly went around closing the curtains over all the windows, Robby and Frank untied the ropes. They unrolled the rug, and Adelaide Rushby sat up and said, “Well! You boys are certainly going to hear about this.”
(9)
A Major Reversal
“You won’t get away with this!” raged Sassi, tossing her proud blonde mane.
The major twirled his mustache.
(10)
Coming to Terms
Frank said, “This capers getting too crowded.”
“This room’s getting too crowded,” Robby told him.
They were in the main cabin of Nothing Ventured IV. Jigger and Miss Rushby were sitting side by side on the sofa, both looking angry and aloof. Frank was leaning against the ladder, his pistol held negligently in his hand. Robby was walking back and forth, smoking nervously, leaving trails of smoke behind him like a tugboat. They could all hear Starnap in the other room, humming away, talking to Kelly.
“All I say,” Miss Rushby said, “is you had better let us go at once, this young lady and myself, before you get into even worse trouble.”
“You’re damn right,” said Jigger.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Frank, and Kelly came back into the room.
Kelly looked grim, but not depressed. He said, “Starnap worked it out.”
“Good for Starnap,” said Frank, who was depressed but not grim.
Kelly said, “The Major kidnapped Sassi.”
Everybody said, “What?” or “No!” or “Nonsense.”
“Starnap is never wrong,” Kelly said.
Robby said, “What else did Starnap say?”
“We can still work things out,” Kelly told him. “Starnap says all is not lost.”
“You young people,” Miss Rushby said, “are completely out of your minds. The idea!”
“The idea,” said Kelly, “is, the Major and this lady walked into that screening room the second B. B. Bernard took the dogs away. The Major told Sassi some lie and got here out of there. Miss Rushby sat in her place to fool the projectionist into thinking Sassi was still there. Then Miss Rushby would have walked out of the screening room just before the movie ended, and that would have been that.”
“Incredible fantasy,” opined Miss Rushby.
“The Major brought Sassi back here,” Kelly went on, “put her on his boat, and took off.”
“So we’re out,” Frank said.
Kelly shook his head. “No. It’s more complicated now, but we can still work it.”
Miss Rushby said to Jigger, “Do you know these young men, my dear?”
“No,” said Jigger. “They kidnapped me last night. They got kidnapping on the brain.”
“They will come,” Miss Rushby said, “to no good end.”
“The sooner the better,” said Jigger.
Robby said, “How do we work it, Kelly? We don’t have Sassi and we don’t know where she is.”
“We have her,” Kelly said, pointing to Miss Rushby. “She and the Major would have worked out a place to hook up together again sometime today. She won’t be at the meeting place. Sooner or later he’ll start looking for her, and then he’ll have to come out in the open, and then we can make a deal.”