The Poisoners

XXII

I was taking a chance, of course. He might have yelled and alerted half of Baja California-including Sapio, nearby, with the submachine gun-but I was counting on Jake and his tough professionalism and he didn't disappoint me. His mental computer was programmed for silence, and the sudden pain got only a sort of choked, moaning grunt out of him, as he came down on top of me.

Something hard struck me in the small of the back: the butt of the falling rifle. It hurt, but I didn't mind. If the weapon had hit the ground first, it would have made more noise; it might even have been discharged by the shock. But everything worked out well; and I threw the big man off me and came to my feet as he struggled to hands and knees and tried to rise. I had plenty of time to reach down and give him a judicious tap behind the ear with the short iron bar I held.

Then, standing above him, I had a fight with my conscience, but it wasn't much of a fight. I mean, the question was which injection to use to keep him quiet- the temporary or one of the permanents-but the answer came quite easily. To be sure, I'd promised myself the pleasure of watching this man die in agony, back when he was beating on me in Bobbie's hotel room, but that had been merely a psychological crutch, to help me face the ordeal with fortitude. Actually, I didn't have a great deal against Jake. He'd knocked me around a bit, but I'd walked into the situation with my eyes open, and it had all been strictly in the line of business.

And in a sense, while he was undoubtedly a bad citizen, tonight he seemed to be on the side of the angels. Apparently he, and Tillery and Sapio, were trying to prevent a man from smuggling dope, a worthy cause-although the degree of virtue did depend somewhat on their true motives.

The syndicate, Mafia, Cosa Nostra, corporation, or whatever you want to call it, is not my bag, and I don't know a hell of a lot about it. However, just because some unpleasant people insist they're dropping an illegal activity because it's become too hot to be profitable, or for any other reason, doesn't mean I have to believe them. For all I knew, Jake could have been assigned this job of marksmanship, not because Wand was disgracing his innocent Mafia associates by dealing in dirty heroin, but simply because he was stepping on the toes of some other mafioso-if that's the correct term-somebody with better syndicate connections than Frankie's, who'd been promised this lucrative branch of the drug trade for himself.

Still, ostensibly, the project upon which Jake was embarked, homicide apart, seemed kind of praiseworthy even if it was interfering with Charlie Devlin's elaborate plans-and if somebody just had to be shot, I couldn't think of a more suitable candidate than Frankie-boy Warfel. Furthermore, Big Jake hadn't got any rougher than necessary, putting on his interrogation act for me back at the hotel-he'd added no personal frills to the beating-and I don't go around killing people merely because they hit me a little with their fists in the line of duty.

Finally, it kind of intrigued me to think of some ruthless syndicate rub-out men, bent on murder, napping peacefully on a Mexican hillside while their quarry sailed away unharmed. Killing one of them would have spoiled the joke.

As I slipped him the needle, Jake was trying to wake up, but the drug soon rendered him passive once more.

I picked up the fallen rifle and studied it, frowning. Although it seemed to be a standard bolt-action sporting model-a fully loaded, short-barreled.308 Remington in their cheapest grade, if you must have the details- it had a Buck Rogers appearance due to the bulky, homemade-looking gadget that was solidly mounted on top.

What I'd taken to be a telescopic sight of sorts seemed to be a kind of fancy flashlight with a long black hood, or snoot, shielding the big front lens, presumably so that light wouldn't spill to the sides. Well that wasn't unheard of. Spotlights are frequently clamped on guns for nocturnal hunting use in some parts of the world, but generally the idea is merely to put some light on a leopard, or other beast, at close range-enough illumination to let you see the sights to aim and shoot. Apparently that was not the principle involved here. Jake had been planning a shot of better than a hundred yards, too far for ordinary spotlighting techniques, and his rifle had no sights other than this odd contraption.

My research was interrupted by the sound of the outboard motor, that had been silent for a while, starting up once more. I sneaked up to the rim and saw that the Fleetwind's dinghy had taken the completed pontoon raft in tow and was heading out towards the ketch, which now had a decided list to port due to the great metal cylinder suspended from the boom swung out over the side. The two men I'd tentatively identified as Willy and Mr. Soo still stood together by the jeep at the far side of the beach. There was no sign of Frank Warfel, although one of the dim, small, distant figures on the deck of the motorsailer could have been him, and probably was.

I eased away from the edge, and squirmed back to Jake, checked that he was sleeping soundly, and made my way into a gully well below where, I hoped, I could experiment a bit with the trick rifle without attracting attention. I aimed it at a rock some twenty yards away- as close as I could line it up in the dark without sights- and pressed the switch on the side of the Flash Gordon gizmo, bracing myself for all kinds of spectacular fireworks, although it didn't seem likely that a gadget in-tended for night operations would be too bright or too noisy.

Actually, nothing much happened. A small, sharp, intense cross of light just appeared silently on the rock at just about the point where, I estimated, the gun was aimed. Very neat. All you had to do, apparently, was put the X on a guy, and he was dead when you pulled the trigger.

Well, it still wasn't a totally new idea. Back when I was making my living with a press camera, in another and more peaceful incarnation, they'd rigged a light to shine through the range finder optical system, projecting two bright spots as far as you'd be likely to take an ordinary flash picture. Working at night, in light too dim for ordinary focusing, you merely brought the two spots together on the celebrity you wished to photograph, and fired your flashgun.

The only really impressive thing here was the remarkable sharpness and intensity of the illuminated cross, good enough to make feasible shots of over a hundred yards- at least Jake had obviously thought so. I wondered if laser technology might not be involved in some way. I also wondered if Jake had cooked up the thing himself, swiped it from some top secret Army project, or whether perhaps the syndicate also had inventors and armorers hard at work dreaming up interesting new toys for the boys.

I switched off the beam and crouched there, considering the next step; but a rustling sound brought my thinking to an abrupt halt. I flattened out and lay absolutely still, waiting. Presently a shadowy figure appeared by the rock I'd used for a target: a thin little man with a sawed-off shotgun like the one that had been used on Lionel McConnell He stood by the rock for several seconds, first studying it, and then looking warily around. Obviously, wherever he'd been hiding, he'd caught a glimpse of something bright and had come over to investigate-another of Warfel's sentries, who probably, judging by his uneasy attitude, was wishing he were back in good old smoggy L.A.

That made three, all stationed well down from the rim. I could no longer kid myself that this was simple gangster stupidity. On the contrary, somebody was obviously being very clever, and it was high time, I told myself, that I got the hell out of there. It was bug-out time at Bahia San Agustin.

After all, I told myself, the job for which I'd come here was done, more or less. I'd pretty much kept my promise to Charlie Devlin: Warfel was fairly safe. The syndicate's expert rifleman was out of action and I had his dressed-up rifle. That left the rub-out squad with a tommy gun as its principal weapon-great for cleaning up streets and alleys, for putting the fear of God into hostile characters at close range, but hardly the preferred choice for selective long-range homicide. Without Jake and his specialized weapon, Tillery's project had turned from a near certainty to a risky gamble, even if Warfel came ashore, which he showed no signs of doing.

If I took off in high gear now, or as soon as the man with the carbine decided to move away, I could probably get clear undetected. If not, well, I had the Buck Rogers gun and my knife and revolver to fight with, and all of Baja California to hide in. That's what I told myself, but I didn't move.

The trouble was, there were too many things I wanted to know that I couldn't learn by running. I didn't know what was being brought ashore or why; I still didn't even know for sure who was bringing it ashore. And while I was leading Warfel's boys a merry chase through the mesquite and cactus, the big truck and its mysterious load would be disappearing into the wilds of Baja along with Mr. Soo, if it was Mr. Soo.

Strictly speaking, it was none of my business, but I couldn't help wanting to know what this was all about- and even if I made it out of here safely and reached a phone, there was no guarantee that we'd be able to locate the vehicle again, and if we did find it, it would probably be empty. The big metal tank or cylinder that was being landed with such care and secrecy-obviously somebody considered it very important-would be missing, and so would Mr. Soo, if it was Mr. Soo. And eventually, I had a hunch that was a little more than just a hunch, they would both turn up north of the border for some purpose, undoubtedly nefarious, that I still couldn't even guess at.

The man below me was retreating cautiously the way he had come, with his shotgun in his hands. He kept turning, and swinging the muzzle around in a jittery fashion, as if his ears were playing him scary tricks. I gave him plenty of time; then I started moving along the hillside, slowly and silently, towards a point that, I figured, would put me directly below Tillery and Sapio. I mean, we don't get paid to be stupid heroes, but we do get paid; and occasionally we've got to do something to earn our bread, like sticking our necks out just a little.

Down in the bay, beyond the ridge, the outboard dinghy was still wrestling noisily with its unwieldy tow, but the hillside was very quiet except for the murmur of the sea breeze in the low brush and the scattered, lonely, small trees. I froze as something dark moved by one of those trees ahead: another man, shifting position uncomfortably, as if tired of waiting.

Something gleamed in the hand that was raised to push irritably at the wide-brimmed hat… I realized that the figure was not really dark, nor was it a man. It was my ubiquitous female companion in her light jeans and shirt. Well, I hadn't really expected her to stay where she was told.

"Quiet!" I whispered, coming up behind her. "Don't move. Lay that pistol down, sweetheart."

"Mart! Oh, you scared

"The pistol, doll-baby," I breathed. "No, don't drop it, stupid. It's only in the movies you toss firearms around like beanbags. In real life they have a nasty habit of going off… That's right. On the ground with the safety on. Now straighten up and step away from it."

"Matt, what in the world.."

"You don't follow orders very good," I said harshly. "I told you to stay in the car."

"I got scared. I saw some men moving this way, and I was afraid you'd be trapped up here…

I picked up the automatic she'd deposited on the ground, and glanced at it. "A Walther, eh? Not a bad little gun. Where'd you get it?"

"It was in the glove compartment of the car. I stuck it in my pocket when I was looking for that tire gauge you wanted." She hesitated. "May I have it back, please?"

"No," I said. "If there's anything that scares me worse than plague, smallpox, rabies, and Montezuma's Revenge, it's an amateur with a gun. Particularly an amateur who won't obey orders."

"I told you," she said angrily, "I came to find you and warn you…"

"How many men did you see?"

"Just two, but…"

"We'll worry about them later," I said. "I've taken care of Jake, but his two Cosa Nostra friends are somewhere up above us if they haven't moved. They've got a Thompson with a hundred-round drum if my firearms identification is correct. If I can get hold of that, a couple of goons more or less won't matter a bit. There's also a pair of night glasses I'd like to have the use of for about thirty seconds… I don't suppose there's the slightest chance of your following instructions a third time, after ignoring them twice."

"Damn you, I was trying to help…"

"Shh, keep your voice down. Do you think you can make a tremendous, gigantic, supreme effort and stay right here, just for a few minutes? Please? Ten minutes by the watch? Have you got a watch?"

"Yes."

"Well, look at it. If you don't know what the time is now, how are you going to tell when it's ten minutes from now?"

"Darling," she said stiffly, "darling, you're being very objectionable…

"Here's the drug kit," I said, ignoring her protest. "In ten minutes, I hope, you can come up and do your stuff just like before."

The final stalk was no great problem. Big town characters, accustomed to tuning out the roar of traffic and the bleat of canned music, have generally forgotten how to listen, and the two men on the crest were no exception. I got within twenty-five yards of them without eliciting the smallest sign of uneasiness. Then I aimed the Flash Gordon contraption at Sapio, since he was the man with the chopper, and switched on the beam.