Terror's Cradle

CHAPTER TWO

When Spinetti telephoned I was still asleep. I came to reluctantly and stretched out a dopey arm to pick up the receiver. He said, 'Be out front in ten minutes.

`Where is she?' The dopeyness slid away.

We talk outside.'

`Hold on a sec.' I picked up my watch and scowled at it. Half-past six. Then I said, 'Food. Breakfast. Don't I get any?'

`Thought you were on a story.'

Some people have that idea. Reporters need neither food nor drink. All news editors believe it, in the same way they

believe there's a telephone under every blade of grass. I said, "Twenty minutes,' hung up and crawled out of bed and under the shower.

I dressed quickly, grabbed my cassette recorder and notebook and hurried through to the snack counter in the fruit machine hall, drank a glass of orange juice, took two bites of a ham sandwich and a mouthful of coffee and hurried outside. Spinetti had changed his clothes but the expression was limited as before. He was sitting inside a big white Oldsmobile and I watched myself hurry towards him in the twin mirrors of his sunglasses.

`Seventeen minutes,' I said. Not bad.'

`C'mon, huh?'

I climbed in beside him. 'What's the hurry?'

`Long ways to go,' he said. The engine was running and he was already easing the Olds into the traffic on the Strip as I was closing the car door. Àrizona or California?' I was chewing the remaining mouthful of sandwich.

`You handle a boat?'

I frowned. 'What kind of boat?'

`Power boat.'

`Suppose so.' I'd mucked about the Solent and the Black-water occasionally with waterstruck friends.

`Like driving a car.'

Ìn that case I can handle a boat. But why?'

He didn't answer, concentrating on swinging the car through the early traffic. The road we took had three numbers, so presumably others branched off it. A sign pointed to Henderson, Boulder City and Kingman.

`The boat,' I reminded him gently. 'Why the boat?' 'Susannah's on the water. Hiding out on a cruiser. You rendezvous for the interview.'

I nodded, sat back, lit a cigarette, and watched the desert roll by. It's not a sand desert, just greyish stone and shale and mountains in the distance; the oases have petrol pumps, not palm trees,

After a while, I said, 'Some damn fool phoned me last night. Told me to get out of town pronto. It made me feel like John Wayne.'

I'd turned a little in my seat to watch his reaction and it wasn't quite what I'd expected. His jaw actually dropped, which meant he was either a very good actor or wasn't involved. He said, 'Who was it?'

`Didn't say. They just told me to get out of town.* After a moment he said rustily, 'Why didn't you?' `Serious, is it?'

`Have you . . . crossed some guy?'

`Frequently. But not in this country. Certainly not in Las Vegas. I only got here last night.'

Spinetti's jaw was tight. He reached into the dash and produced a Coke can, flipped the top open and drank. 'You thought it was some newspaperman playing tricksy, right?'

`Right.'

`Well, maybe.' He sounded far from convinced and I watched his eyes flicker to the rearview mirror.

`But you think not? Who usually tells people to get out of town?'

`How do I know? Listen—' he interrupted himself to take another swig from the can. '

Who you think runs this town?'

`Tell

:Sure I'll tell you.' Spinetti's eyes darted again to the rearview mirror. 'The Mob runs it. For the Mob's benefit. Understand?'

I said, 'I wouldn't know a mobster from a Joshua tree. And they wouldn't know me. Why should they?'

He shrugged. 'Who knows?'

We drove on in silence, but his knuckles were whitish on the steering wheel and though it was morning cool, there was a shine of sweat on his tanned brow. After a while I began to feel it too, and turned to look back, but the road behind was empty. We swung off to the left at a junction for Boulder City and the Oldsmobile slid along the wide highway at an easy

seventy that would have been pleasantly relaxing if there hadn't been all that tension in the driving seat. Spinetti was brown and broody, but at last he broke the silence. 'In your shoes, Sellers,' he said, 'I'd do like the man said. Right after the interview, I'd go. Maybe I'd go before.'

I nodded. A grey goose stamped on my grave somewhere and a little shudder ran across my shoulders. I said, 'When I've seen Susannah, there's nothing to keep me.'

`Not if you're wise.'

I was getting brown and broody myself. I was almost certain by now that Spinetti had had no part in the call and could think of nobody else, newsmen apart, who might have reason to want me out. Unless ...

I said, 'Susannah. Who's she been involved with?' `Just some guys. Like always.'

`People who wouldn't want her to talk to reporters?'

He thought about it. 'Maybe. I doubt that. But maybe. She chooses rough company some days.'

We came over a ridge, driving downhill towards a great sheet of smooth water. In the sunshine it looked cool and shiny-blue and beautiful, like a scene from a travel brochure, but better. We were dropping down towards the shore, where a lot of boats rode quietly at a marina. Spinetti said, `Lake Mead.'

I looked at it with interest. Big things impress me, even if I try to resist, and this was, almost unbelievably, a manmade lake; water stretching away into the distance and desert and canyon walls all around.

I said, 'Where do we meet her?'

Not us, Sellers. You.'

I had hoped I'd misunderstood him earlier. Clearly I hadn't. Suddenly the cool flat water looked a lot less inviting. 'All right. Where do I meet her?'

`Show you the map.' He pulled the car into an almost empty car park, climbed out and set off towards one of the marina's board walks where a man was crouched at the bow of some boat. As we approached, the man rose.

Spinetti said, 'You got a reservation for a boat hire.'

`Name, sir?'

`Sellers.'

The man pointed. 'This boat here, sir. All set.' `Gas?'

`She's full.'

`Got a map?'

`Right aboard, sir. You got a credit card or somethin'?' Spinetti turned to me. 'You have?'

I fished my trusty Diner's Card out of my wallet and followed the man into the office, signed the slip and returned to the boat with the information that it had a range of -about a hundred and twenty miles.

Spinetti was already aboard. As I climbed after him, he spread the chart. 'Due north-east,'

he said. 'See here. The entrance to Boulder Canyon.'

`How far?'

He shrugged. 'Twenty miles. Can't miss it. Just keep going. She's aboard a big cruiser called Dragonfly. Okay?'

Òkay,' I said. 'And when I come back, how do I get to Las Vegas?'

`Plenty of buses.'

`Well, thanks!'

`Look, bud, I got other things—'

I, nodded and watched him step on to the boards and set off towards the car. As he moved away, my sense of loneliness increased; the wide water looked hostile rather than welcoming. It all seemed so crazy. Just another show business interview: two-thousand words of bromides. And a joker who thought it was funny to warn me off. That made me think of telephones and reminded me of Alsa. I climbed out of the boat and went back to the office.

`Telephone?'

`Right over there.'

I searched my pockets but the little piece of paper wasn't there. Damn! I must have left it at the Dime Palace. I'd have to call Alsa later in the day, I remember wondering why in hell Alsa was calling me from Sweden, anyway. I don't know about presentiments.

But I sensed something was wrong and as I walked back to the boat in the rapidly warming air and watched the bright sun bouncing off the lake, the world seemed to me to be quiet and peaceful and very beautiful — and yet haloed with inexplicable menace. I stood for a moment on the boards, watching a few big lake trout nosing around just under the surface, and thinking about Scown, trying to imagine his reaction if I ducked out and tried to explain why. He'd sit and stare at me in silence, but the words would come across telepathically, and the message would be

Over the hill. Then there'd be a ritual burst of anger and the rest of my life tied by one leg to a desk. Scown himself could, would and had walked through walls chasing stories. There'd been wounds as a war correspondent, arraignment at the bar of the House of Commons for well justified contempt, and all the time the steady upward climb. Finally the thought of telling Scown I'd been scared off by a bright lonely morning and a trick phone call actually made me grin to myself and I walked across to the boat and got in while the mood held.

For a few minutes the unfamiliar mechanics of handling the boat in a confined space kept my mind off everything else. There were some large and expensive toys parked in the marina and I have a phobia about damaged paint and insurance companies and negligence, but finally I was nosing out on to Lake Mead with the engine burbling happily and the water swishing beneath. There wasn't a cloud or a breath of wind. All that was missing from the whole adman's set-up was the blonde and the long cool drink, and both were waiting twenty miles up the lake. If I knew that particular blonde the long, cool drink would already be in her hand, and it wouldn't be the first of the day. Susannah Rhodes breakfasted off Bloody Marys.

A bit more throttle and the boat tucked her tail down determinedly. I glanced round. I was still alone on the water. More throttle still;, the engine snarled happily, the bow lifted and quite suddenly I was enjoying myself. It's funny how the mind changes gear; the thoughts of a few minutes

before had been blasted away by nothing more concrete than the roar of a healthy engine and the hiss of flying water. No wonder supermarkets use sweet sounds to sell groceries. I sat back, consciously straightening my arms against the steering wheel like a grand prix driver. If Alsa'd been there she'd have said, 'Your great baby!' and laughed at me. I'd have purred like a kitten and asked her to marry me and she'd have refused again and said, like someone reciting Tennyson, that her heart belonged to another. She'd said it so many times I was beginning to believe it, in spite of the mock nineteenth century earnestness.

•

The sheer exhilaration of driving that speedboat was inducing its own kind of weird optimism and it occurred to me suddenly that she might have phoned from Gothenburg to say yes. But it wasn't true and I knew it. If Alsa'd intended to say yes, she'd have spent the money the phone call cost on a table cloth for her bottom drawer and written a quiet, letter.

So why had she phoned? To, let me know she'd actually reached Gothenburg, perhaps. A feminine cry of triumph —I've done it, and you didn't! Well, if she was in Gothenburg, it. must be true; she'd worked Scown's little deal for him without being slung out of Russia the way they'd heaved me out. Two hours to pack and an escort to the plane, because I'd got a little tight and made a few mildly uncomplimentary remarks. Scown's Russian scheme was typical of him. He wasn't content that the Daily News sold four million in Britain; he had his eye on larger horizons: Common Market editions, electronic print-out news eventually and a curious little quirk of ambition that made him want his to be the first Western newspaper on open sale in Russia. You could tell him the Russians wouldn't allow it in a million years, and he'd say, like a stockbroker, that it was a matter of confidence. As a start, he'd cornered some visiting Soviet Minister and offered to publish a magazine about Russia in Britain, using Russian material. Naturally enough they liked the idea and made very faintly encouraging hum-and-ha noises about the Daily News going on sale in Russia. One of these days. Eventually. So I'

d gone out to rifle the files at the Moscow Number One State Magazine Publishing House for suitable stories and pictures. The scheme looked like lapsing when they threw me out, but Scown had breathed fire and life back into it and sent Alsa to pick up. where I'd left off, in the certain knowledge that the Russians, like everybody else, would lay down their coats in icy puddles so Alsa could keep her feet dry. Well, good for her! And if I were the woman's editor of the Daily News, I'd start watching my back. Alsa wouldn't stick a knife in anybody, but Scown would see Alsa as deserving of reward and he was as quick with a blade as D'Artagnan, without the same fine line in scruple.

I also felt a sharp stab of envy for whichever slick young Swede at the Gothenburg printers was assigned to look after her while the magazine was produced. No, on second thoughts, I felt no envy at all, because in a few days he'd find himself waving goodbye at the airport and wondering why the world was so empty and forlorn all of a sudden. I returned my attention to my own empty world, feeling the need for a cigarette, and crouched behind the windscreen to light it. Then I straightened and looked around. A couple of big concrete towers had come into view behind me, presumably part of the works at the Hoover Dam, which banks up the water to form Lake Mead. Over on my right, what looked like a sheer rock wall rose away from the lake shore, but I didn't look that way too long because the sunlight flashed more dazzingly by the minute off the shiny water. And still there was nobody on the lake. The only sign of man was a high white contrail rigid as a ruler in the substratosphere.

After about another twenty minutes, the lake began to marrow and the high walls marched towards me. I seemed to be heading directly for the end of the lake, but the chart told me the water swung to the right into the neck of Boulder Canyon a few miles ahead. I began to keep my eyes skinned, feeling a reluctant admiration for Spinetti for choosing to hide Susannah Rhodes here on the lake, where comfort, privacy and a first-class means of escape could exist in the single convenient shape of a big, fast boat. Soon there was a giant rearing rock bluff to my right and I swung the boat around it, waiting for Susannah's floating hide-out to come into view. My course seemed to make the bluff move aside like a curtain, unveiling ever more of the shadowed water behind, and it kept coming until there was no new water to see. There was no sign of a cruiser either, or any other boat for that matter; just the vast, precipitous gorge of Boulder Canyon reaching emptily to the northeast, with sunlight high on one rock wall and the other darkly shaded.

I throttled well back until my boat was barely nudging ahead and looked around, but there was nothing ahead, nothing behind. I hadn't passed the cruiser on the way, so maybe she was coming from the other direction, down the canyon from the upper part of the lake. If so, perhaps I should go ahead and rendezvous in the canyon. I set the boat moving fast ahead and slid rapidly in between the towering walls, leaving the vee of my wake to wash against them.

Ten minutes later I was still going fast, the canyon was funnelling wider and the great sweep of the upper lake was spreading before me. But no cruiser. I shrugged. This wasn't where we were supposed to rendezvous. She was late, that's all, and I'd better go back to the right place.

I spun the steering wheel to bring the bow round, and five yards ahead of me something plucked at the water. A fish, probably, rising for a fly. But a second later the same thing happened again and it was no fish. Above the engine's burble I heard sharp cracks echoing between the rock walls. Christ, was it an avalanche? I looked upward scanning the cliffs anxiously, and saw a man's coloured shirt way up high. Then there was another crack. Something smacked my bow and there was a sudden tiny hole in the white paint. Bewildered, I looked upward again and saw the figure on the cliff extend an arm to point up the lake. His other hand held the rifle.