So What Happens To Me?

Eight

I swam out of a deep, black pit, feeling that I was drowning, aware of water pouring on my face. The water was warm and as I returned to consciousness, I realised it was rain.

‘Come on! Come on!’ That voice I would know anywhere was shouting at me. ‘You’re not hurt!’

I opened my eyes and saw the light of dawn coming through the treetops, then I dragged my body to a sitting position. I became aware that my head hurt and there was a nagging pain in my shoulder.

‘Jack!!’

‘Okay, okay! For God’s sake, give me a minute!’

I wiped my face with my hand and blinked, then I saw her, standing over me. She looked like a drowned cat, her shirt and slacks plastered to her body, her hair like rat’s tails: no longer the glamorous, fabulous Mrs. Victoria Essex.

I looked around. I was sitting in squelchy mud: broken trees lay around me. Rain beat down and the humid, stifling heat was as if I were packed in steaming cotton wool.

‘Get up!’

I looked up at her.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes: and so are you! Where are we? What happened?’

Shakily I got to my feet and leaned against a tree for support.

‘Olson had a heart attack.’ I turned and looked at the smash. I saw how lucky we had been. There were no big, solid trees. The plane had sheered through the jungle like a scythe. The wings with their jets had come of, but the fuselage looked intact. The tail unit was gone.

‘Some smash,’ I said. ‘How did I get out?’

‘I pulled you out.’

I stared at her.

‘You’re some woman, aren’t you?’

‘I thought it might catch fire.’

Then I remembered Harry.

‘How about Erskine?’

‘I don’t know.’ Her voice told me she didn’t care. ‘What are we going to do?’

I tried to think, but my mind was still groggy.

‘I must find Harry.’

‘To hell with him! We’ve got to find shelter!’

Leaving her, I walked unsteadily over to the wreck. I peered into the flight cabin that had torn away from the fuselage. I could see Bernie still sitting at the controls, his head on his chest. I hoisted myself into the cabin, opened a locker and took out a powerful electric torch. I played the beam on his dead face, then with a grimace I climbed down and into the fuselage.

Harry lay where I had left him. A pool of blood made a gruesome halo around his head. His jaw had dropped and his eyes were sightless.

I felt a chill of horror crawl up my spine. Had I killed him or had the crash killed him? He had been breathing when I had left him! I stood staring down at him.

‘You killed him, didn’t you?’

She had climbed up to join me.

‘I don’t know. If I did, it was because of you.’

We stared at each other, then she pushed by me and tried to get into the Essex suite, but the door was jammed.

‘Open it! I want to change out of these wet clothes!’

‘Don’t waste time. We’ve got to get out of here pronto. You’ll be wet anyway.’

She glared at me.

‘I intend to stay here until I’m found!’

‘We sold this kite to a Mexican revolutionary for three million dollars. If he gets his hands on you, he’ll be happy with the exchange. He will ransom you for twice that sum.’

Her violet eyes opened wide.

‘So what are we going to do?’

‘We can’t be more than fifteen miles from the coast. Once there, we’ll telephone your husband and he’ll have us picked up. It’s going to be a long, tough haul, but that’s the way it’s got to be. Wait here.’ I struggled up the inclining fuselage to the guest cabin where I had left my suitcase. I emptied the contents on the bed retaining only three packs of cigarettes, then I went into the kitchen. I packed some canned foods in the suitcase and included three bottles of tonic water and three cokes, a bottle opener and a can opener.

‘Come on,’ I said to her and helped her down into the mud and the rain. I handed down the suitcase, then clambered into the flight cabin. I undipped the Thompson machine gun then searched in one of the lockers and found a pocket compass.

Flies were already settling around Bernie. I felt bad leaving him but we had to go.

As I joined her, she said. ‘I’m hating this rain.’

‘That makes two of us.’ I swung the gun by its strap over my shoulder, picked up the suitcase and started off into the jungle.

The next two hours were sheer hell: a lot worse for her than for me. At least I had had plenty of experience in the Viet jungles of this kind of thing and knew what to expect. Although I had been a service mechanic I had had to go through a jungle course.

The rain was ceaseless, pounding down through the trees, giving us no respite. I kept checking the compass. I knew the coast was somewhere northeast, but there were times when the jungle was so thick we had to make a detour. Without the compass, we would have been hopelessly lost.

She kept up with me, walking just behind me. I paced myself, knowing we had a long way to go. Finally, we came on a clearing in the jungle. Trees had been felled. There were signs of fires, long dead that had burned unwanted wood. I stopped short at the edge of the clearing.

I looked to right and left and listened. All I could hear was the pattering rain. I turned and looked at her. Her face was drawn and blotched with mosquito bites. I could see the nipples of her breasts through the soaked shirt. I looked at her feet. She had on casuals of white calf and they showed bloodstains. She had walked until her feet were beginning to bleed and yet she hadn’t uttered a word of complaint.

‘Your feet!’ I exclaimed.

‘Don’t pity me.’ She forced a grin. ‘If you have to pity anyone, pity yourself.’

‘How about some food and a drink?’

‘Not yet. If I sit down. I won’t be able to get up again.’

We looked at each other and I saw she meant it.

‘Okay. We’ll go on.’ I slapped at a mosquito that had settled on my neck and we went on, crossing the clearing and into the jungle again.

I moved cautiously, worrying about the clearing. It told me there was a village nearby, and I knew we were too close to Orzoco’s neck of the woods to take any risk.

It was lucky I hadn’t forgotten my jungle training. Suddenly, as we walked along the sodden muddy path. I heard a sound that immediately alerted me. I caught hold of Vicky’s arm — I was now thinking of her as Vicky and not as the glamorous Mrs. Victoria Essex — and swung her of the path and into the undergrowth. She went with me without resisting although we dropped into a pool of muddy water and I gave her full marks for that. We crouched down and waited.

Three Yucatan Indians came down the path, all carrying broad bladed axes. They moved swiftly and I only caught a glimpse of them before they were gone.

‘We’re near a village,’ I whispered. ‘It’s too close. We must move east and then head north again.’

We left the path and struggled across swampy ground, through the thick undergrowth and the going was bad, but she kept up. Then suddenly the rain ceased and the humid mist lifted. Like a glittering sword, drawn from its scabbard, the sun came out. The heat turned into a throat drying, sweat soaking hell.

Mosquitoes tormented us. My arms and face were swollen with bites. I stopped to look at her. What a mess she was in! The only thing I could recognise in her swollen, insect bitten face were those dauntless violet eyes.

‘What are you stopping for?’ Her voice was a croak.

‘Cut out the iron woman act,’ I said. ‘We’re going to rest.’

She stared at me, then her face crumpled and she dropped on her knees in the mud and putting her filthy hands to her face she began to sob.

I put the suitcase and the gun in a bush, then kneeling, I took her in my arms. She clung to me and I held her the way I would have held a child.

We remained like that for several minutes while the mosquitoes attacked us ceaselessly, then she stopped sobbing and pushed me away.

‘I’m all right now.’ Her voice was steady. ‘Sorry for the dramatics. Let’s eat.’

‘You’ve certainly got guts.’ I said as I opened the suitcase.

‘Think so?’ She looked down at the red bumps on her hands. ‘If I look anything like you, I must look like hell.’

I grinned at her.

‘At least you’re human.’

I opened a can of beans and a can of goulash. We ate the mixture with plastic spoons that were taped to the cans.

‘Are you going to get me out of this mess Jack?’ she asked abruptly.

‘I’m going to try.’

‘Aren’t you scared of going back?’

‘I haven’t thought of that. Right now I want to get us out.’

She eyed me.

‘You’re throwing away three million dollars.’

‘A million: we agreed to split it three ways.’

‘Doesn’t that bother you?’

I shrugged.

‘It’s an odd thing. At first I was thirsting for all that money, then I got thinking and realised I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I remember you saying with all your money you got bored. That’s something I wouldn’t want.’

‘Would you still work for my husband if you got the chance?’

‘I won’t get the chance.’

‘Yes, you will. I’ve been thinking about you. I could tell Lane we crashed into the sea. You and I were the only survivors. We clung to some wreckage and you got me ashore. He would believe that, coming from me and he’d do a lot for you.’

I stared at her.

‘Would you lie like that for me?’

She nodded

‘Yes. You’re the first man who has ever treated me as a woman should be treated. You mean something to me.’

I tried to think clearly but my head ached. It seemed the solution: the way out. Instead of spending years in jail for air piracy. I would have a thirty thousand dollar a year job with Essex Enterprises, plus Vicky.

‘I’ll get you out of here,’ I said. ‘I...’

We both heard the sound of an approaching helicopter.

‘Don’t move!’ I looked up cautiously.

We were well screened by the treetops and I was pretty confident we couldn’t be spotted.

A few moments later I saw, just above the trees, the chopper pass over. It was painted a drab green and had Mexican roundels. It went as quickly as it had come.

‘They’re looking for the wreck,’ I said and got stiffly to my feet. ‘I guess we’re about twelve miles from it by now: too close for safety. Once they find you’re not on board, they’ll start a hunt. Let’s go!’

I reached out my hand, grasped her wrist and hauled her to her feet. She fell against me with a cry of pain.

‘God! My feet!’ she gasped. ‘I don’t think I can walk.’

‘I’ll carry you if I have to, but we’ve got to move.’

She pushed away from me, took four tottering steps forward, her face white.

‘It’s all right: I’ll manage.’

‘Good girl.’

‘Don’t be so damn patronising!’

I snatched up the suitcase, slung the gun over my shoulder and started again. I walked slowly, but steadily, giving her a chance and I kept looking back. She limped along, her head down, the mosquitoes swarming around her, but she kept going.

We walked for over an hour, then the jungle ahead began to thin out.

‘Rest,’ I said. ‘Wait here. We could be nearing a road. Looks like we’re nearly out of the jungle.’

She dropped on her knees. I put the suitcase beside her.

‘I’ll be right back.’

She was past speaking. She just knelt there, her head in her hands.

I moved forward rapidly. In three or four minutes I came out of the jungle. I had guessed right: before me was a wide dirt road. As I stood hesitating, I heard the sound of an approaching truck. I stepped back into the shelter of the undergrowth.

A rusty, battered truck, hauling oil drums, went roaming by, driven by a young, thin Mexican. It took the curve in the road and disappeared.

Maybe with luck, I thought, we could get a ride to the coast. My compass told me the track was heading towards the sea: possibly to Progreso.

I went back fast to where I had left Vicky.

The suitcase marked the spot so I knew I hadn’t made a mistake, but Vicky was gone.

As I stood there in the steamy heat with a cloud of mosquitoes buzzing around my head, my mind went back to Vietnam. I remembered the big, powerfully built Top-sergeant who took us on the jungle course.

‘Every leaf, every tree branch, every bit of ground tells a story if you know what to look for,’ he had said. ‘So look for it. Look for signs that men have passed. If you look carefully enough, you’ll find the signs.’

I saw Vicky’s knee marks in the mud. That was how I had left her: kneeling and half conscious. Then I saw a naked foot print, then another, then two more, big, splayed prints that came to the spot where Vicky had been kneeling, then reversed and went back into the jungle.

I unslung the Thompson and moved fast and silently along the path. In the thick mud the foot prints were easy to follow: two men: one of them carrying Vicky. I could tell that by the deeper impression his feet made in the mud. I moved fast. Ten minutes later, I could hear them ahead of me. They were jog trotting, smashing through the jungle and I increased my speed. I didn’t care if they heard me. With the gun I felt capable of dealing with them. I was running now and ahead of me I saw them: two Yucatan Indians. The one ahead was carrying Vicky, slung over his shoulder like a sack. The other ran behind him.

They heard me. The one behind spun around. He held a glittering are in his hand. His lips came of his teeth in a snarl and he rushed at me.

I gave him a short burst with the Thompson and his naked chest turned into a bloody mess. The other Indian dropped Vicky, turned, his hand groping for a knife as I snapshotted him through the head.

I went to her, turned her, saw she was unconscious. I got her up across my shoulder, picked up the Thompson and began the long, plodding, hellish tramp back to the dirt road.

As I staggered along, I heard the sound of the helicopter overhead. I paused under the shade of a tree until the chopper had gone, then I went on.

I was panting, my heart thumping by the time I reached the road Gently I laid her down. Her eyes opened.

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘We’ll get out of this.’

She stared sightlessly up at me, then her eyes closed.

I sat beside her by the edge of the road, the gun by my hand and I listened and waited.

After more than half an hour, I heard a truck coming. I got up and stood by the roadside. The truck came into sight, driven by a fat Mexican. The truck came roaring along the dirt road, raising a cloud of red dust.

I stepped out onto the road and waved to the driver. He took one look at me and accelerated. If I hadn’t jumped aside, he would have run me down.

The truck disappeared in dust and I cursed after it but I didn’t blame the driver. Looking the way I did, he had every reason not to stop.

I went back into the jungle and found a long, broken tree branch. This I dragged across the road: blocking three quarters of it. The next truck that went by would have to stop.

I returned to where I had left Vicky. She was sitting up, looking dazed.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked, bending over her.

‘What happened? I must have passed out.’

I saw she didn’t know she had been in the hands of two Indians. This was no time to tell her.

‘I’ve blocked the road. The next truck will have to stop. We’ll get a ride.’

‘His face will be something to see when he sees us.’ Vicky forced a giggle. ‘Help me up.’

‘You sit there and take it easy.’

She looked up at me.

‘You’re quite a man,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have survived without you.’

I lifted my hand.

‘There’s a truck coming now.’ I pulled her to her feet.

‘Can you stand?’

‘Yes.’ She pushed me away and hobbled onto the grass verge.

The truck came into sight, travelling fast. The driver spotted the branch across the road and stood on his brakes. The truck came to a tyre-burning halt.

The driver, lean, middle aged with a tattered sombrero on the back of his head, dressed in dirty whites, climbed down from the cab.

As he began to drag the branch out of the way, I made a move forward, but Vicky stopped me.

‘I’ll handle him. Don’t let him see the gun.’

Before I could stop her, she limped onto the road. The Mexican gaped at her then she began to talk in fluent Spanish and I realised why she had elected to go instead of me.

He stood, listening, then nodded and finally grinned. She turned and beckoned to me. I hesitated for only a moment, then leaving the Thompson. I came out onto the road. The Mexican gaped at me nodded and looked at Vicky as if for assurance, then started to drag the tree branch out of the way.

‘I told him we got lost in the jungle,’ Vicky said quickly. ‘He’s going to Sisal. He’s willing to give us a ride.’

I helped the Mexican to get rid of the branch, then we all climbed into the cab. She sat next to him and as he drove they talked in Spanish.

Around twenty minutes later, I heard the helicopter overhead and I regretted leaving the Thompson, but I knew I would have scared the wits out of the Mexican if he had seen the gun. The chopper flew away.

Vicky turned to me.

‘He owns a coffee plantation,’ she said. ‘He’s taking us there. He has a telephone.’

I sat back and watched the dust road unwind before me. The Mexican who told me by leaning forward and stabbing himself in his chest his name was Pedro, continued to talk to Vicky.

I marvelled at her guts to keep up a conversation with this man, knowing she was practically dead on her feet, but she seemed to draw on a hidden reserve and she kept Pedro enchanted.

Twenty more minutes later, the truck turned of the dirt road and bumped down a narrow lane to a plantation of coffee trees. Pedro pulled up outside a long, narrow building with a tin roof. I could see a number of Indians working on the plantation. A flat piece of ground before the building was covered with raw coffee beans. Two Indians were moving the beans around with rakes.

A fat, beaming Mexican woman came out of the building and into the sun.

‘Maria,’ Pedro said and going to her exploded into Spanish.

I half carried, half helped Vicky from the cab of the truck. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she gave a sharp cry and I picked her up.

The Mexican woman came rushing up, waving her hands and yelling in Spanish. Pedro waved me to the house and I earned Vicky in. Following the Mexican, I carried her into a small, clean room and laid her on the bed.

Maria pushed me out and shut the door.

Pedro, beaming, led me to another room.

I made signs of washing myself.

He nodded, beckoned and I followed him into a primitive bathroom.

It was only after I had changed the bath water twice and was now lying in clean tepid water that I began to think of my immediate future.

If Vicky could make the story stick that we had come down in the sea, that I had rescued her, that Bernie and Harry and the plane had gone forever, then I would be in the clear. But could she make it stick?

There would be an enquiry: the news hounds would be after us: the pressure would be terrific. All the same, as I thought about it, I decided Vicky could swing it with Lane Essex taking of the pressure.

How about Orzoco? He couldn’t squeal without showing his revolutionary hand. As I had registered the Blue Ribbon Air Taxi Service, I could assign the million and a half dollars back to him! Doing that must surely get me of his hook.

Who else did I have to worry about? Kendrick? If he ratted on me, I could rat on him. Wes Jackson? With Vicky behind me, Jackson should be an also ran.

The one weakness I could see was that Vicky and I were going to swear the plane crashed into the sea. We had to do that to make Harry’s last broadcast stand up, but suppose the wreck was found in the jungle? I thought about this. I was fairly sure the Condor had come down within twenty miles of Orzoco’s neck of the woods. If he had any sense, he would have the plane stripped out and destroy what was left. This was something I had to gamble on.

As I got out of the bath and began to dry myself I persuaded myself that my future didn’t look too bad. Thirty thousand dollars a year, a steady job, plus Vicky... no, not bad.

But everything depended on her.

I should have known she could handle it. As soon as she got to the telephone, the power of Lane Essex clicked into action.

Within three hours a helicopter whisked us to the Merida airport. With only another half hour to wait Essex’s plane landed and took us back to Paradise City. The plane was piloted by a beefy, smiling man who told me his name was Hennessey and he was Essex’s new pilot. I remembered poor Olson saying pilots came a dime a dozen.

The news hounds and the T.V. cameras were kept at bay when we landed. Wes Jackson was at the airport, plus an ambulance, plus a doctor to whisk Mrs. Victoria Essex away.

That left me and Jackson.

‘You must feel in need of a rest,’ he said, showing his tiny teeth in what he imagined was a smile, ‘but before you rest, there are a few questions.’

I shoved back my dirty sleeves and showed him the lumps made by insect bites.

‘I need medical attention,’ I said. ‘Questions must wait.’

An intern took charge of me. He wanted to put me on a stretcher, but I refused. I went with him to his car while Wes Jackson stood in the hot sunshine, staring after me like a shark who has snapped at a juicy leg and missed.

I was taken to the Essex Foundation Clinic. A pretty nurse administered to me. She spoke to me in a hushed voice. I could feel the power of Mrs. Essex hovering over her. If I had been the President of the U.S. of A. I couldn’t have been treated with more deference.

But of course it couldn’t last. Once my bites were treated — some of them had turned septic — once I had been fed and rested, Wes Jackson arrived. He didn’t bring hot house grapes nor flowers, instead, he brought a lean hatchet-faced man who he introduced as Henry Lucas, the Aero expert for the insurance company covering the Condor.

I had had time to prepare my story and I was ready for them.

I was sitting in a lounging chair by the open window that overlooked Paradise City’s yacht basin. Jackson and Lucas pulled up chairs and Jackson asked me how I was.

I said I was mending.

‘Mr. Crane, we need as much information about the crash as you can give us,’ Jackson went on. ‘What happened? Take your time: just tell us from the beginning.’

‘I wish I knew.’ I said, my face dead pan ‘It all happened so suddenly...’

Lucas said in a voice like a fall of gravel. ‘You’re the flight engineer. Is that correct?’

I nodded.

‘And you don’t know what happened!’

‘Sounds goofy, doesn’t it? But that’s a fact I was in the kitchen preparing a meal when we went into a nose dive. Up to then everything was working fine. I was thrown across the kitchen and my head slammed against the open door of the refrigerator and I blacked out.’

There was a long pause while both of them stared at me and I stared right back at them.

‘You were preparing a meal?’ Jackson leaned his bulk forward. ‘But, Mr. Crane, I understand you three had steak dinners before the flight.’

Be tricky, you sonofabitch, I thought, then said, ‘That’s correct, but Olson seemed keyed up. He didn’t eat his steak.’ That could be proved. ‘Then he got hungry and asked me to fix him a sandwich. It was while I was in the kitchen, doing just that, that the crash came.’

‘You mean until the plane went into a dive, you had no idea there was trouble?’ Lucas said. ‘Erskine radioed the port engines were on fire. Didn’t you know?’

I gave him my stupid, puzzled expression.

‘First I’ve heard of that. All I know was being flung across the kitchen and blacking out.’ Then as neither of them said anything, I went on, ‘The next thing I knew was the sea coming in. Somehow I found Mrs. Essex and got her out through the port emergency. The kite had broken up. There were bits and pieces floating around. I clung to something and kept Mrs. Essex afloat. I saw the kite sink.’ I tried not to look brave. ‘It was tricky, but we got ashore.’

There was a deadly pause. Neither of them even pretended they believed me.

Jackson said as if his mouth was full of lemon juice, ‘That is what Mrs. Essex said happened.’

I smiled at him!

‘If Mrs. Essex said that’s what happened and I say that’s what happened, then that’s what happened.’

Again a long pause, then Lucas said. ‘I have a map here, Mr. Crane. Would you pinpoint where the crash occurred?’

‘I’m sorry. You don’t seem to have been listening to what I’ve been saying,’ I said ‘I told you when the crash occurred I was fixing a sandwich. Didn’t Olson give Air Control a fix?’

‘So you can’t help locate the wreck?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You can’t suggest what went wrong? Erskine said the port engines were on fire and the extinguishers weren’t working. Can you say why this should happen?’

I was sure they would ask this question and I was ready for it. I went into the technical mumbo-jumbo while Lucas, with a stone face, listened. I didn’t convince him nor did I convince myself but Jackson listened and he was all I cared about.

‘If I had been in the flight cabin when the engines caught fire, if I had been able to read the instruments, I could be a lot more helpful,’ I concluded, ‘but I was in the kitchen, fixing a sandwich.’

Lucas gave me a map of the Gulf of Mexico.

‘Couldn’t you indicate about where the crash happened?’

I looked at the map, then shrugged.

‘Maybe fifty miles of Progreso. I wouldn’t know. Mrs. Essex and I were in the sea for about twelve hours and the current took us in. Could be sixty miles... your guess is as good as mine. I just don’t know.’

He folded the map and put it in his pocket.

‘We have helicopters looking for signs of the wreck. So far there is a negative report.’

‘If they search long enough, they’ll find it then if you get to the Black Box, you’ll know how it happened.’

They got to their feet, stared at me then Jackson said. ‘Mr. Crane. Mr. Essex wants to meet you. I will pick you up here tomorrow morning at ten.’

‘Fine.’

Neither of them offered to shake hands. Lucas gave me a long, slow stare which I returned, but Jackson screwed his face into a smile. If Lane Essex wanted to meet me I was still, to him the boy with the golden halo.

Wes Jackson opened a polished mahogany door, motioned me forward, then said, ‘Mr. Crane, sir.’

I walked into a vast room with a picture window overlooking Paradise City. Before me was a vast desk, equipped with a battery of telephones and the usual gimmicks that go to make the top executive.

Behind the desk sat Lane Essex.

I had never seen a photo of him and I had been trying to imagine what he looked like. The small, balding man of around fifty-six years of age, with heavy horn glasses, a sparrow beak of a nose and thin, hard lips told me as nothing else could why Mrs. Victoria Essex shopped around for a bed companion.

‘Come in Crane.’ There was a snap in his voice. ‘Sit down.’

I took the chair opposite his desk. Then looking directly at him, I realised why he had made his billions. His steel grey eyes behind the glasses went through me like a welder’s torch.

‘Mrs. Essex has told me about you. Apparently, you saved her life. Now it’s my turn to do a quid pro quo. I have had your qualifications investigated. You have a good record with Lockheed. Will you take charge of my airfield?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘I want another Condor built. Will you handle that?’

‘Glad to sir.’

A telephone buzzed and he waved to Jackson who picked up the receiver, listened and began to talk softly.

‘You could be making an important career for yourself here Crane,’ Essex went on. ‘I want you to remember that here the word impossible doesn’t exist. You will have all the financial backing you may need, but never come to me and tell me what I want you to do can’t be done. If you do you’re out.’

‘I understand, sir.’

Jackson hung up.

Essex looked at him.

‘Crane takes charge of the airfield and the new Condor,’ he said ‘Pay him fifty.’ He looked at me. ‘Are you married?’

‘No, sir.’ He turned back to Jackson.

‘Get him one of our good bachelor apartments. Get him a good car and someone to look after his place.’ He looked at me.

‘Have you a banking account?’

‘Not here, sir.’

He turned to Jackson.

‘Open an account for him at the National Florida: credit the account right away with twenty thousand dollars: that’s a bonus. Pay him monthly and pick up his tax tab.’ He stared at me. ‘Is that satisfactory?’

‘Thank you very much, sir.’ I was pretty overwhelmed.

‘Take a week’s vacation. Those bites look serious. Report to Jackson Monday next week.’ He waved to me, dismissing me.

Jackson followed me out of the room and he closed the door as if it were made of spun sugar. In silence, he took me down a corridor and into another vast room but without a picture window.

‘I’ll arrange everything for you Crane,’ he said. ‘Just sit down.’

‘Thank you, Jackson,’ I said.

He stiffened and stared at me. I stared right back at him. He hesitated. I could see he wanted to tell me he was Mr. Jackson to me, but my stare quelled him. Picking up the telephone he asked for Miss Byrnes.

‘Miss Byrnes is our Public Relations Officer,’ he explained. ‘She will take care of you.’

Miss Byrnes was a willowy, sophisticated woman of around thirty-six, blonde, with searching brown eyes and a determined chin.

I was a little embarrassed when Jackson gave her instructions about the apartment, the car, the credit at the bank. He detailed these items in a funereal voice and when he finally got through, he said, ‘Then Monday week at nine o’clock Crane.’

‘Right. Well, so long, Jackson. Thanks for your help.’ I saw Miss Byrnes’s eyes pop open wide as I followed her out of the office. When out of Jackson’s hearing, she turned and regarded me.

‘What did you do? Save Essex from bankruptcy?’

‘I saved Mrs. V.E.’s life.’

She grimaced.

‘That’s something no one here is likely to do, so that makes you unique.’ She led me to her office.

Four hours later, I was installed in a three-room luxury apartment overlooking the sea with a red and beige Cadillac convertible in the garage, plus twenty thousand dollars in my banking account and six days on my hands.

I had already bought myself a wardrobe without sparing expenses and apart from the wear and tear on my face I now looked presentable.

I got in the Caddy and drove to Kendrick’s gallery.

Louis de Mamey hurried me into Kendrick’s room. The fat queer was pacing up and down and practically biting his nails.

‘For heaven’s sake! What happened?’ he exploded as I sat down.

I give him the whole story without holding anything back. He listened, sweat on his face and every now and then, he lifted his absurd orange wig to wipe his bald head with his handkerchief.

‘That’s it,’ I concluded. ‘A flop. Did you know Bernie had a weak heart?’

‘Of course not! You don’t imagine, cheri, I would have let him handle an operation like that had I known. What about the money?’

‘I’ll return it to Orzoco. I can fix that. The point is will he keep his mouth shut? If it comes out the kite crashed in the jungle and not in the sea we’ll all be in trouble — and that includes you.’

‘I’ll talk to him. If he gets his money back, he will accept the situation.’ Kendrick eyed me. ‘You owe me two thousand dollars, cheri.’

‘Expenses. Write them off against tax.’ I got to my feet. ‘If you can smother Orzoco then we should all be in the clear. The insurance investigators are searching for the wreck so you’d better tell Orzoco to get rid of it pronto. How do I get the money to him?’

Kendrick stared at me.

‘You really mean you’re going to part with a million and a half dollars, cheri?’

‘That’s it. I don’t want it. I’ve got a job with Essex. I’m a sucker for work. What do I do: write to the bank and tell them to pay the money to Orzoco?’

‘I’ll talk to him. He may not want it done that way. Give me a couple of days.’

We left it like that.

I then drove to a florist and bought thirty-six long-stemmed roses. I wrote on the card: With my sincere wishes for your speedy recovery. Jack Crane. That was impersonal enough as I was sure Essex staff would quiz I told the girl to have the roses sent to Mrs. Victoria Essex right away.

Then feeling I had done a good day’s work. I drove back to my new home and telephoned my old man, breaking the news that his one and only was safe and sound and was now settling down to a job of work.

Listening to my old man babbling with joy, hearing the catch in his voice that told me he was crying, I realised as nothing else could tell me what a heel I was.