Something’s Down There

Chapter Seventeen

Two hours before sunup, Hooker and Billy paddled the inflatable up to the stern of the Lotusland. Nobody heard them. Nobody saw them. Hooker tied off the bowline to the landing platform, then they slipped into the water soundlessly, and without making a single splash they breaststroked their way to the shore. When Hooker was sure the area was totally deserted he stood up, motioning for Billy to follow him. They angled southward, heading for the Clamdip, stopping often so that Billy could rest.

The left side of Billy’s face was grotesquely swollen and even the salt water couldn’t dissolve the clotted blood that tangled his hair. A cut behind one ear was still bleeding and every few minutes Billy would hold up his hand to stop and spit out a crimson mess from his split gums.

“You want to stop here?” Mako asked him.

Billy’s head shook adamantly. “No. I be better soon, sar.”

“You need a doctor, pal.”

“Doctor not on Peolle.” He paused and eased himself into a squat. “For a little while we rest, okay?”

“Sure, okay, Billy. Just tell me when you’re ready to walk.” He dropped to his knees in the sand. He never was able to go into that almost double-jointed squat the natives felt so comfortable in. “Think you want to talk about it now?”

“Yes. I can talk.”

“What happened?”

“I was sleeping on the big deck chair. He was very quiet but I heard him and tried to get up.” Billy took a deep breath and his face contorted with a fresh pain. “He hit me with something. I was... on the deck... there was that tape on my mouth and around my feet and hands.”

“Where was he, Billy?”

“Below, sar. I heard him... tearing things apart. I must have made some sounds because... he came up and wanted to know where it was. I made like... my head was all dizzy and didn’t know what he meant.” Once more he paused, wiped the blood from his lips and went on. “Film, sar. He wanted the tape.”

“He was going to make a big hit with his boss,” Mako muttered.

“I didn’t tell, sar,” Billy said simply.

“He could have killed you, pal.”

Billy nodded gravely. “I think, sar, he tried. He took the fire extinguisher and hit me with it. Twice, I remember. I woke up on the inflatable and he hit me again, with the gun this time.”

“He probably thought you were dead then, but he had to get rid of you. And me,” Hooker added.

Billy was ready to get up, but before he did he asked Mako, “Sar, were you... scared?”

“No, that little pissant didn’t scare me. But I was afraid, buddy. I didn’t know what had happened to you, and Judy was by herself in my hooch, and I had to play it right down to the wire.”

Billy didn’t fully understand, but he got the sense of it. “What do we do now, sar?”

“We let the pot boil.”

“What means that?”

“We do nothing for a while and let them sweat. When the time comes, our friend Pell will make his move. He’ll have to. He’s going to see that tied-up inflatable, wonder what the hell happened to Gary Foster and what Marcus Grey and Judy will do, but most of all he’ll be terrified of what his real bosses in the grand offices where the money mob do their business now will say. He’ll go right on their hit list for sure.”

“Sar... but in between...”

“He has to dump me, Billy. I don’t want anything from him except his hide. Anything else he can wiggle out of. His bosses will let him off the hook if he comes up with a great money deal, figuring that everybody can hit a foul ball sometimes. He has paperwork and cash to insure his position with the movie company, and if he gets one big show out of this deal he’s in the big time.”

“Except for you,” Billy said.

Mako’s teeth showed a brief flash of white in his grin. “Right. Except for me.”

With a serious tone Billy said, “Miss Durant... she doesn’t like these terrible things.”

“Billy... if I don’t reach Pell first, she’ll be the next one he’ll kill. He can’t let her stay alive. She knows too much now and she has enough clout to go after him. Trouble is, what law can she use here in these islands? Even the Tellig will be out of here. So will the Sentilla.”

“Sar... you are here.”

“Sure. And let’s say I take Pell out.” Mako nodded thoughtfully. “Let’s go see Judy. We’ll take one of the old boats off the beach. Nobody’s going to be leaving here until those fishing rigs get back.”

Mako let Billy rest while he recovered the film from the Clamdip. He stowed the canisters in large self-sealing sandwich bags, dropped them into a larger white garbage bag and headed back down the beach.

A hundred yards down the curved dunes, four dories were upside down. They lifted the first two up and found only paddles, but under the third was another antique Johnson outboard. Billy assured him that it was very reliable, old Mogo kept it in good shape and even had a two-and-a-half-gallon can of gasoline stashed there too.

The craft was light and they dragged it down to the water. Mako carried the engine down, filled up the small tank and stowed the can in the bow. They pushed off, paddled out a quarter of a mile, then Mako pulled the engine over. It started on the first yank and he headed for his own island a mile away.

Judy had been sleeping with a nervous intensity. Mako had lit a kerosene lamp, and the second the soft light touched her eyes she sat up abruptly, her eyes wide, alert, the cords in her neck stretching tautly.

“It’s me,” Mako said.

The relief she felt on hearing his voice was evident. She jumped up, the old sweatshirt barely covering her, and threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, I’m glad you’re here right now. I don’t like to be away from you at all.” She threw her head back, looking up at him, then she frowned. “What’s happened, Mako?”

“Billy’s been hurt,” he told her. “He’s pretty well banged up, but nothing serious.”

“Who did it?”

“One of your crew. Gary Foster.”

“Why... he’s a nobody. He’s...”

“He’s an explosives expert. He tried to plant a bomb on the Clamdip after your party and he came damn near killing Billy and me.”

“Where is he now?” There was alarm in her voice now.

“He was going to treat us to a burial at sea. That idiot city boy gave himself one instead.”

“Does... anyone else know about this?” she asked anxiously.

“No. And who will find out? He died accidentally during the commission of a major crime, if it makes anybody’s conscience feel better; he invited a shark attack and one of those predators snatched him right over the side. I think he pulled this last stunt on his own. Somehow he had the idea Tony Pell was going to make him a full partner in the movie that’s being planned.”

“But Tony wouldn’t do that!”

“Gary didn’t know that. He wanted the film we shot and us out of the way.”

“All this trouble for a movie... that isn’t even written yet?”

“Judy, these key sequences can’t be faked. Those faces in the background when they see the teeth marks...”

“But you said it all depends on the eater... being destroyed. How will that happen?”

Mako’s hands were tight on her arms. He said, “I don’t know, Judy. Whatever the eater is, it started slow, then made itself known more frequently. It traverses this quadrant of the ocean more than any other and we know it’s still out there. Sooner or later it’s going to be spotted when we’re in a position to hit on it.”

“Mako... we have no big guns here. No depth charges... nothing capable of killing off that creature.”

“We’ll think of something, kiddo,” he said, then tightened his arms around her again. “Now look, I’m going to leave Billy here with you. Get him cleaned up and don’t gag at the mess his face is in.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to find Pell. I’ll take the dory back and you call your place and have somebody run your small boat over here so you’ll have transportation. Billy knows where my equipment is.”

“The film...”

“I’ve already stashed it where it’ll be safe.”

“Mako... be careful.” Her hands invited his mouth down to meet hers. It was a long kiss, sensuous, not one of goodbye but of anticipation.

Hooker said, “Take good care of Billy,” and when she nodded he went back into the night, which was about to lose itself to the faint glow of sunup.

Mako spent the early morning hours cleaning up the Clamdip. Foster had pulled open drawers, turned over furniture and had even opened the panel behind the instruments where he had planted the bomb earlier. The security box was too cleverly constructed to be found in a hurried search and Foster had missed that completely. Even the rocket launcher, stored up on the racks that held a half dozen deep-sea trolling poles, had escaped his attention. So did the mini camera that had been shoved aside in the frenzied search for the tape pack.

Tony Pallatzo studied his face in the mirror of the well-appointed bathroom in his quarters aboard the Lotusland. He was always pleasantly surprised at how well he had transformed into a reputable businessman in one of the most competitive, lucrative industries in the world. He saw this next film the way Bugsy Siegel saw the Flamingo Hotel opening up Las Vegas, a plum that would drop right into the hands of the Big Men in New York.

Now he was going to do the same thing, but his would be a successful venture, done surreptitiously but legally. The elder Durant was out of the picture now, his daughter only a minor irritant that he could remove the same way he had removed her father if necessary. Luckily she didn’t have a great desire to own and run a motion picture company.

He looked at his image and frowned. The only problem was Mako Hooker, and when he thought of him there was a tug at his memory that he couldn’t put in its place. The streets of Brooklyn were years away, years he didn’t like to remember, and for some reason, when he thought of Hooker he thought of those streets again and the Gallo bunch he had run with.

There was a knock on the door and a cameraman stuck his head in and said, “You seen Gary Foster, Mr. Pell?”

“No. Why should I?”

“Benny said he took the inflatable out last night.”

“I didn’t authorize that!”

“Well, it didn’t get lost. It’s tied up alongside, but Gary isn’t anyplace around.”

“You look in his room?”

“Sure. It’s empty.”

“Very well,” Pell told him, “I’ll check it out.”

He finished brushing his hair in place, annoyed because that stupid Gary Foster had gotten out of hand again. If he was chasing down one of the island girls he was going to get his behind kicked. Ever since he had recruited him to take Hooker’s boat out of action, Foster had been taking too many liberties.

On deck, he went down the ladder to the ramp and looked at the inflatable. Ordinarily, it would have been tethered and cleaned out before anyone left it. Nothing would be in disarray. This time the boat was a lousy mess, nothing in place at all, and what was worse, the floorboard was stained with a brown substance that was drawing flies to its edges. Nobody had to draw him a picture to tell him what it was. Somebody had bled all over the place. Damn that Foster, Pell thought.

There was something else there that shouldn’t have been there. It sat on the lip of the small instrument panel. Its placement wasn’t accidental. Somebody had put it there to be seen. This time Pell stepped into the boat, looked up to see if anyone was at the rail and when it was all clear, he picked up the small black box and knew immediately what it was. The ignite button was still down and he realized that the detonator had been triggered. Something had been blown to hell. Pretty soon Gary Foster was going to join whatever it was.

He got one of the hands to come down with a hose and soap to clean up the inflatable. He told him somebody went fishing and let the catch bleed all over the floor. It was logical. The guy got busy with the hose and brush.

Then Pell went looking for Gary Foster.

On the deck he stopped and wiped the beads of perspiration from his upper lip. It wasn’t hot enough to sweat yet and this bothered him. He was getting that anxious feeling again and he wished he had a gun in his hand, because he sensed some noiseless thing was stalking him and he felt an odd rumbling in his bowels. He went back to his room and took out his .38 revolver, made sure the chambers were full and screwed the silencer on the barrel so that all he had to do was thumb the hammer back. He tucked it in his belt and buttoned his jacket over it.

This time he made a thorough search of the ship, starting from the hold, working his way upward. A couple of crew members gave him a curious glance, but he was the boss and had a right to go wherever he wanted to on board. When he reached the upper level the radio operator came out of his cramped quarters, saw Pell and stopped short.

“This just came in, Mr. Pell. Message from the cruise ship.” He handed Pell a typewritten form. It was from Marcus Grey. All it said was that they were leaving within the hour at the suggestion of the passengers.

Pell nodded, said there was no answer and crumpled the message into a ball and tossed it over the side. Suggestion of the passengers, he thought. Weren’t cruise ships regulated better than that? They weren’t on a deep-sea fishing trip. Idly, he speculated on whether the government could use this peculiarity to put a dent in their intended operations. Let the lawyers figure it out, he reasoned, and went on with his attempt to locate Gary Foster.

Behind the Lotusland Chana Sterling leaned against the side of the pilothouse and steadied her binoculars on the ship tied up ahead of them. Something was not right up there. She had seen Pell come on the deck and stare at the inflatable tied up below, and she watched the consternation on his face as he scrutinized the area hidden from her by the inflatable’s bilious sides, then saw the deckhand go down to scrub it out. Twice Pell had peered over the deck rail to make sure the job was being done thoroughly, then continued his stalking routine, lifting the canvas covers off the two lifeboats to inspect what was there.

When he turned, not realizing he was being seen through high-powered glasses, Chana got a full view of his face. Anthony Pell was in a violent but subdued rage. Tiny muscles in his neck stood out, his jaw was clenched and his eyes mirrored some powerful emotion churning behind them. He unbuttoned his jacket and reached into his back pocket for a handkerchief to wipe off his face, and she saw the butt of the pistol stuck in his belt. He spun around, opened a door and disappeared inside.

Something is going to happen, Chana thought. Things were building up. There was nervousness dancing around everything now and she couldn’t quite fathom it all.

“Hell,” she said aloud, but to herself, “that’s an emotional reaction and this is a military exercise. Knock it off, girl.” She put the glasses back in their case and little by little that combatant expression she always wore came back on her face.

Lee Colbert pushed the door open and came in. “We just got a CB radio call from those fishing boats. Those mulako schools have just been located. Looks like they’re going to corner the market on this run.”

“Great if you like fish.”

“You can get used to it, I guess.”

“They’re staying out longer than they expected to,” he mentioned soberly.

“So they’re scared,” Chana said. “That eater business has them wetting their pants.”

Lee grinned at her remark, made a clucking sound with his tongue and said, “What do you think it is, Chana?”

She turned slowly and gave him a piercing look. “You know what it is, Lee. You know you’ve seen the physical proof of it.”

“Proof of what, lady?”

“Those mines, that’s what it is! Old, still partially and fully active mines from another generation. Some wound up on Scara Island and others are still almost floating around right under the surface to knock off whatever they touch.”

“Then why do we see teeth marks?”

“Baloney, that’s what you can do with your teeth marks.”

Lee grinned and shook his head. It was rare to see confusion get the better of Chana and he was enjoying the moment. He said, “They’re staying until their holds are full. They expect to start back at dusk.”

“I hope they don’t want an escort.”

“These people are pretty damn independent.”

“They’re pretty shook up too.”

“I can’t blame them. They’ve had enough trouble so far. Right now a year’s supply of chow is riding on this fishing trip.”

“Come on, Lee, this place is loaded with seafood. They go fishing every day here. They’re always having beach parties with shellfish and crabs and everything we consider delicacies.”

“You’d like ice cream for every meal?”

“Don’t be silly. You know what I mean.”

Lee waited a moment before he said, “Chana, these fish are staples. It’s a main course item. They’re items they need, not want. Quit knocking their lifestyle because they’re not devoted to steak and eggs.”

Chana stifled her annoyance by saying, “That cruise ship has pulled out.”

“Smart,” Lee answered, “they’re getting out of the eater’s waters.”

Chana said something very unmilitary under her breath and was glad when Lee went back outside. She picked up her glasses again. Pell wasn’t in sight, but she saw the natives begin to drift back to the dock area. They had hours to wait before the fishing boats returned, but they had to be here, patiently waiting and hoping that nothing would happen, that the eater would be moving in faraway currents, maybe champing at sargassum or manta rays or those things that made the monstrous splashes in the night.

The three fishing boats out of Peolle were well within sight of each other. The mulako schools were like balls of flashing lights, packed closely together in one twenty-foot rolling mass in constant motion, a single living entity big enough to deceive predators into thinking it was too dangerous to attack. The fishermen knew this prey was actually made up of much smaller fish constantly swimming to get to the center of the ball, only to be spun out to the outside of the ball again. Nature had this strange way of protecting its own, but the mulako were defenseless against man’s determination.

While every man of the crew worked at the netting and the loading, everyone constantly searched the ocean for the real enemy, the one that could eat boats. None of them knew what to look for or what to expect, but they knew it could be silent and wouldn’t smell until it was right on them, and by then it would be too late. But it was still daylight and the eater liked to eat at night, and by nightfall they would be under way back to Peolle, where they would be safe.

Willie Pender had volunteered to captain the biggest of the three boats. He had already survived an encounter with the eater and the men wanted to stay with someone smart enough to outwit and almost snag this thing that had been terrorizing them. Manning the net hoist, Willie wasn’t as certain that he had luck riding with him at all. He knew the eater for the killer that it was, but was glad the others felt more at ease with him leading the way. Nevertheless, even he kept his eyes peeled. His head was constantly in motion, searching for any disturbance at all, any sign of the enemy’s presence. The sea was getting flatter with every hour and any motion at all would be very noticeable.

The holds were nearly full and the sun was going down in the west; Willie Pender squinted up at the sky and sniffed several times. He had checked the barometer twice, but it was stuck, and he remembered that this was not his boat and the instrument before him was an old one reclaimed from another age-demolished vessel. He tapped it vigorously. The brass needle under the glass jumped to a new position. This one wasn’t favorable at all. On the deck he ran up the “quit fishing” flag and pulled in his nets. They were done. He hoped the eater was too.

But the eater wasn’t done yet. His somnolence had been disturbed. Something had changed, something unseen yet felt, and it had awakened the eater from inanimate motionless to gentle, mean alertness. It coursed through its mass, striving for the motion this disturbance had instilled. Very gently the sea began to flow around it, giving the eater fresh life, and very gently it began its noiseless trek toward the surface, not hurrying at all.

Judy had taken Billy back to Peolle in her runabout. She got him on the Clamdip and set out to find Miss Helen, an elderly native who had some nurse’s training long ago during World War II, and who she asked to attend to Billy’s face. When she was satisfied that there was nothing broken and no infection had set in, she left Miss Helen with him and walked to the Lotusland, gradually quieting herself down as though nothing had happened at all.

Chana had given the crew another night out on the island, preferring to sit in her deck chair and watch the action through her night glasses. Nobody interfered with her, knowing she had odd behavior patterns, and the crew was glad to get time off to mingle with the lusty ladies around a beachside campfire or hit Alley’s bar. Beside her was a portable CB radio set to the fishing boats’ channel and she had caught the message that the mulako boats were homeward-bound. Lee went ashore to spread the news in case the report wasn’t received by the few active sets onshore. They were still hours away, but the fact that the three ships were filled with their catch and en route to Peolle was an excuse to light the fires on the beach and sing happy songs in a strange language.

There was no sign of Pell on the Lotusland. One of the crew thought he had seen him walking the dockway but it had been too dark to be sure. He told Judy something had been bothering Pell all day. He was furious at everybody and exploded when something annoyed him. He ordered a deckhand to clean out the inflatable to please him and he made the guy do it again before he was satisfied.

Judy thanked the crewman and when he walked off she went to Pell’s room. On her key ring was one key that was a master to every compartment on the ship. She opened Pell’s door and stepped inside. She had been there often enough and in five minutes was certain there was no place he tried to hide anything. He’d be too smart to secrete something on his own premises anyway, but it was a starting point. One thing she did notice. The drawer in his desk where he kept that gun, the drawer that was always locked, was slightly open and there was no gun in there at all. The slightly oily fleece rag he had had it wrapped in was there, but no gun.

She ignored the private quarters of the other crewmen. Pell would have wanted an area he could have gone to quietly that had total privacy and a good place to hide a few film packs. Everything he shot would have been on tape anyway, so the packs wouldn’t be hard to hide at all. For an hour she picked through out-of-the-way places in the ship. She found nothing at all. At the end of the corridor was one last door she had almost ignored. It was a small lavatory for the crew who worked below-decks. The EMPTY sign was in the slot over the knob and she opened the door. The toilet was a tiny place, but well equipped like that on a passenger plane. She locked herself in and looked over the area. This would be a valuable hiding place. It was in plain sight, simple to service, and there was a slot for a box of facial tissues very few of the crew would use when there was a container for large paper towels next to it. She pulled out the tissue box. It was a quarter empty, but much heavier than it should have been. Down at the bottom was the four-by seven-and-a-half-inch tape pack that Pell had used to capture the scene of the damaged boat of the Malli brothers, and with the camera equipment he had at his disposal, he probably had great close-ups too.

On the way to the private quarters that were always reserved for her, she went by a half-open door of a small office and smiled at the sound of an old-fashioned manual typewriter going at full speed. She pushed the door open with her forefinger and said, “Hello there. Working late?”

The young guy at the old Smith-Corona glanced up with a lopsided grin, then stood up quickly when he saw who it was. “Miss Durant. I didn’t expect, expect...”

He was one of the writers who had scripted the last two pictures, and here he was hard at work on another. “No apologies, young man. Why aren’t you enjoying yourself on the beach?”

“Gee, Miss Durant, I’m having more fun here. You know what I have?”

“No. What?”

“One hell of a picture, that’s what. This thing has everything. Man, the action... and what damn suspense. All we need now is that eater thing. It’s as exciting trying to write this yarn as it will be to see it on the screen, Miss Durant, that... that eater out there had better be something really out of this world. Nothing else will do. It’s got to be the monster of monsters but how the hell anybody can capture it I can’t figure. Damn, I have just about everything sketched out... except that ending.” The guy paused and sucked in his breath. “It had better be good.”

Where the confidence came from she didn’t know, but Judy said, “It will be.”

He didn’t really believe her, but he smiled anyway. “Maybe I shouldn’t mention this, but there’s a leading lady in here I modeled after you.”

“Hey,” she laughed, “you barely know me.”

“I don’t have to. Hell, I’m a writer, not a biographer.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve even worked in a guy like Mako Hooker.”

She felt a blush color her face, but the young guy didn’t notice.

“He was some kind of a cop, you know,” he told her.

She said “Oh” again, asking an unspoken question.

“Being just a plain old writer makes you pretty observant. That guy has all the earmarks of a pro.”

“Who can tell?” Judy shrugged.

“If you get any ideas about the eater, tell me, will you?”

“Can’t you dream something up?”

“Not this big, I can’t. This one has got to be absolutely wild and totally believable. No outer-space junk. Just something we all might face.”

“How about Carcharodon megalodon?” Judy suggested.

His eyes went wide open. “The great great white shark!” Judy simply nodded, her face bland.

“Damn!” he softly exploded.

“You swear too much,” she said, and closed the door.

In her compartment she tucked the tape in the stack of others she had collected, put a sticker on it dated two years ago and left it in plain sight.

Outside she stood on the deck and looked up at the sky. There was no moon out now and the blackness was deep with thousands of star eyes peering out of it. These tiny luminaries would be guiding those fishing boats home and she hoped it would be a fast and safe journey. By now they should be a third of the way to port... but that still left a long way to go. Quickly, she turned and went to the radio room and walked in. The operator knew what she wanted before she said it and told her, “Willie Pender called in fifteen minutes ago. Everything’s going okay.”

But not everything was going okay with Willie Pender. The ocean was flat, calmer than he had ever seen it. The wind was a gentle breeze, not enough to stir up a ripple on the water, yet a slow rolling wave had just lifted his boat up on a rise and slid it down the other side. A lesser one followed, then it was quiet again. On the other two boats he could see the sudden activity. Beams of spotlights reached out over the surface, mingled with Willie’s light, but nothing was there at all. None of the boats slowed down, their old engines throbbing along normally. If one were to quit, the other two would race to assist, but their minds would be filled with dread.

What did the big sailors call the thing the ocean just did, Willie thought. Rogue waves. Yes, that was it. He thought again and knew he was wrong. Rogue waves were huge devastating things that suddenly came up out of nowhere and went back to nowhere after tearing up everything in front of them. No, that was just a very strange wave. It didn’t belong here at all. It had no explanation.

This time he knew he was wrong. Everything had to have an explanation, and he didn’t even want to think about this one.

Anthony Pell suddenly remembered where he had seen Mako Hooker a long time ago. He had seen him slap the crap out of Bull Shultz and handcuff him around a streetlight. He nailed Louie Factor at a distance of a hundred feet with a .45 caliber automatic, then turned the small truck that was carrying six million dollars’ worth of cocaine into a blazing inferno when his slugs penetrated the tank and the lethal gasoline poured onto a hot exhaust pipe.

He had dragged Tony Pallatzo out from behind that garbage can where he had been hiding, beat the hell out of him because he was not worth killing, then kicked him in the butt so hard there was still a painful crack in his tailbone.

Mako Hooker hadn’t changed any. He was just here, that was all. He was what the writers called a nemesis, a something that’s out to destroy you. They were back on the streets of Brooklyn again, only this time Tony Pallatzo was Anthony Pell, bigger, stronger, filled with the expertise of killing, and the nemesis was well past his prime. Tony could taste his revenge. It was his time now.

The gun in his belt was new and unused. It had been stolen in shipment from a factory and only had one purpose. It could kill, then be discarded. The piece could rot out at the bottom of the lagoon with all the rest of the junk down there.

All he had to do was find Mako Hooker. That wouldn’t be too much trouble. There weren’t many places to hide on Peolle Island.