Fear is the Key (25 page)

Larry was close behind. He gestured with his
torch and I got his meaning. I moved to one side,
past the little cabin at the corner where a lamp on
a recessed shelf threw a faint light that was cut off
abruptly at waist level, and waited.

Slowly, carefully, his eyes never leaving my face,
Larry came over the top and straightened to his
feet. I moved farther along the monkey-board,
slowly, backwards, with my face to Larry. On my
right I could dimly make out the big pipe storage
racks, on my left the edge of the monkey board,
no handrail, just a sheer drop of a hundred feet.
Then I stopped. The gallery of the monkey-board
seemed to run all the way round the outside of the
derrick and it would have suited Larry just fine to
have me out on the northern edge where, wind or
no wind, a good shove – or a .45 slug – might have
sent me tumbling direct into the sea a hundred and
fifty feet below.

Larry came close to me. He'd switched off his
torch now. The fixed light on the cabin side might
leave the lowermost three feet in darkness, but it
was enough for him and he wouldn't want to
take even the remote chance of anyone spotting
a flickering torchlight and wondering what any
crazy person should be doing up on the monkey-
board in that hurricane wind and with all the work
stopped.

He halted three feet away. He was panting
heavily and he had his wolf grin on again.

‘Keep going, Talbot,' he shouted.

I shook my head. ‘This is as far as I'm going.' I
hadn't really heard him, the response was purely
automatic, I had just seen something that made
me feel ice-cold, colder by far than the biting lash
of that rain. I had thought, down in the radio
shack, that Mary Ruthven had been playing possum,
and now I knew I had been right. She had
been conscious, she must have taken off after us
immediately we had left. There was no mistaking
at all that gleaming dark-blonde head, those
heavily plaited braids that appeared over the top
of the ladder and moved into the night.

You fool, I thought savagely, you crazy, crazy
little fool. I had no thought for the courage it must
have taken to make that climb, for the exhausting
nightmare it must have been, even for the hope it
held out for myself. I could feel nothing but bitterness
and resentment and despair and behind all of
those the dim and steadily growing conviction that
I'd count the world well lost for Mary Ruthven.

‘Get going,' Larry shouted again.

‘So you can shove me into the sea? No.'

‘Turn round.'

‘So you can sap me with that gun and they find
me lying on the deck beneath, no suspicion of foul
play.' She was only two yards away now. ‘Won't
do, Larry boy. Shine your torch on my shoulder.
My left shoulder.'

The flash clicked on and I heard again that
maniac giggle.

‘So I did get you, hey, Talbot?'

‘You got me.' She was right behind him now,
that great wind had swept away any incautious
sound she might have made. I had been watching
her out of the corner of my eye, but now I suddenly
looked straight at her over Larry's shoulder, my
eyes widening in hope.

‘Try again, copper,' Larry giggled. ‘Can't catch
me twice that way.'

Throw your arms round his neck or his legs, I
prayed. Or throw your coat over his head. But
don't, don't, don't go for his gun-hand.

She went for his gun-hand. She reached round
his right side and I plainly heard the smack as her
right hand closed over his right wrist.

For a moment Larry stood stock-still. Had he
jumped or twisted or moved, I would have been
on to him like an express train, but he didn't,
the very unexpectedness of the shock temporarily
petrified his gun hand too – it was still pointing
straight at me.

And it was still levelled at my heart when he
made a violent grab for Mary's right wrist with his
left hand. A jerk up with his left hand, a jerk down
with his right and his gun-hand was free. Then he
moved a little to his left, jerked her forward a foot,
pinned her against the storage racks to the right
and started to twist her wrist away from him. He
knew who he had now and the wolf grin was back
on his face and those coal-black eyes and the gun
were levelled on me all the time.

For five, maybe ten seconds, they stood there
straining. Fear and desperation gave the girl strength
she would never normally have had, but Larry too
was desperate and he could bring far more leverage
to bear. There was a half-stifled sob of pain and
despair and she was on her knees before him, then
on her side, Larry still holding her wrist. I couldn't
see her now, only the faint sheen of her hair, she
was below the level of the faint light cast by the
lamp. All I could see was the madness in the face
of the man opposite me, and the light shining from
the shelf of the little cabin a few feet behind him. I
lifted the heel of my right shoe off the ground and
started to work my foot out of it with the help of
my left foot. It wasn't even a chance.

‘Come here, cop,' Larry said stonily. ‘Come here
or I'll give the girl friend's wrist just another little
turn and then you can wave her goodbye.' He
meant it, it would make no difference now, he
knew he would have to kill her anyway. She knew
too much. I moved two steps closer. My heel was
out of the right shoe. He thrust the barrel of the
Colt hard against my mouth, I felt a tooth break
and the salt taste of blood from a gashed upper lip,
on the inside. I twisted my face away, spat blood
and he thrust the revolver deep into my throat.

‘Scared, cop?' he said softly. His voice was no
more than a whisper, but I heard it above the voice
of that great wind, maybe it was true enough, this
business of the abnormally heightened sensitivity
of those about to die. And I was about to die. I was
scared all right, I was scared right to the depths as
I had never been scared before. My shoulder was
beginning to hurt, and hurt badly, and I wanted
to be sick, that damned revolver grinding into
my throat was sending waves of nausea flooding
through me. I drew my right foot back as far as I
could without upsetting my balance. My right toe
was hooked over the tongue of the shoe.

‘You can't do it, Larry,' I croaked. The pressure
on my larynx was agonizing, the gun-sight jabbing
cruelly into the underside of my chin. ‘Kill me and
they'll never get the treasure.'

‘I'm laughing.' He was, too, a horrible maniacal
cackle. ‘See me, cop, I'm laughing. I'd never see
any of it anyway. Larry the junky never does. The
white stuff, that's all my old man ever gives his
ever-loving son.'

‘Vyland?' I'd known for hours.

‘My father. God damn his soul.' The gun shifted,
pointed at my lower stomach. ‘So long, cop.'

My right foot was already swinging forward,
smoothly, accelerating, but unseen to Larry in the
darkness.

‘I'll tell him goodbye from you,' I said. The shoe
clattered against the corrugated iron of the little
hut even as I spoke.

Larry jerked his head to look over his right
shoulder to locate the source of this fresh menace.
For a split second of time, before he started to
swing round again, the back of his left jawbone
was exposed to me just as that of the radio operator
had been only a few minutes before.

I hit him. I hit him as if he were a satellite and I
was going to send him into orbit round the moon. I
hit him as if the lives of every last man, woman and
child in the world depended on it. I hit him as I had
never hit anyone in my life before, as I knew even
as I did it that I could never hit anyone again.

There came a dull muffled snapping noise and
the Colt fell from his hands and struck the grille
at my feet. For two or three seconds Larry seemed
to stand there poised, then, with the unbelievably
slow, irrevocable finality of a toppling factory
chimney, he fell out into space.

There was no terror-stricken screaming, no wild
flailing of arms and legs as he fell to the steel deck a
hundred feet below: Larry had been dead, his neck
broken, even before he had started to fall.

Eight minutes after Larry had died and exactly
twenty minutes after I had left Kennedy and
Royale in the cabin I was back there, giving
the hurriedly prearranged knock. The door was
unlocked, and I passed quickly inside. Kennedy
immediately turned the key again while I looked
down at Royale, spread-eagled and unconscious
on the deck.

‘How's the patient been?' I inquired. My breath
was coming in heaving gasps, the exertions of the
past twenty minutes and the fact that I'd run all the
way back there hadn't helped my respiration any.

‘Restive.' Kennedy grinned. ‘I had to give him
another sedative.' Then his eyes took me in and
the smile slowly faded as he looked first at the
blood trickling from my mouth then at the hole
in the shoulder of the oilskin.

‘You look bad. You're hurt. Trouble?'

I nodded. ‘But it's all over now, all taken care of.'
I was wriggling out of my oilskins as fast as I could
and I wasn't liking it at all. ‘I got through on the
radio. Everything is going fine. So far, that is.'

‘Fine, that's wonderful.' The words were automatic,
Kennedy was pleased enough to hear my
news but he was far from pleased with the looks
of me. Carefully, gently, he was helping me out
of the oilskins and I heard the quick indrawing of
breath as he saw where I'd torn my shirt-sleeve off
at the shoulder, the red-stained wads of gauze with
which Mary had plugged both sides of the wound –
the bullet had passed straight through, missing the
bone but tearing half the deltoid muscle away – in
the brief minute we'd stopped in the radio shack
after we'd come down that ladder again. ‘My God,
that must hurt.'

‘Not much.' Not much it didn't there were a
couple of little men, working on piece-time rates,
perched on either side of my shoulder and sawing
away with a crosscut as if their lives depended on
it, and my mouth didn't feel very much better:
the broken tooth had left an exposed nerve that
sent violent jolts of pain stabbing up through my
face and head every other second. Normally the
combination would have had me climbing the
walls: but today wasn't a normal day.

‘You can't carry on like this,' Kennedy persisted.
‘You're losing blood and –'

‘Can anyone see that I've been hit in the teeth?'
I asked abruptly.

He crossed to a wash-basin, wet a handkerchief
and wiped my face clear of blood.

‘I don't think so,' he said consideringly. ‘Tomorrow
your upper lip will be double size but it hasn't
started coming up yet.' He smiled with humour.
‘And as long as the wound in your shoulder doesn't
make you laugh out loud no one can see that one
of your teeth is broken.'

‘Fine. That's all I need. You know I've got to
do this.' I was slipping off the oilskin leggings
and had to reposition the gun in my waistband.
Kennedy, beginning to dress up in the oilskins
himself, saw it.

‘Larry's?'

I nodded.

‘He did the damage?'

Another nod.

‘And Larry?'

‘He won't need any more heroin where he's
gone.' I struggled painfully into my coat, more
than ever grateful that I'd left it off before going.
‘I broke his neck.'

Kennedy regarded me long and thoughtfully.
‘You play kind of rough, don't you, Talbot?'

‘Not half as rough as you'd have been,' I said
grimly. ‘He'd Mary on her hands and knees on
the monkey-board of the derrick, a hundred feet
above the deck, and he was proposing that she go
down again without benefit of the ladder.'

He stopped in the middle of tying the last button
on his oilskin, crossed in two quick strides, grabbed
me by the shoulders then released them again at
my quick exclamation of pain.

‘Sorry, Talbot. Damn foolish of me.' His face
wasn't as brown as usual, eyes and mouth were
creased with worry. ‘How – is she all right?'

‘She's all right,' I said wearily. ‘She'll be across
here in ten minutes' time and you'll see for yourself.
You'd better get going, Kennedy. They'll be
back any minute.'

‘That's right,' he murmured. ‘Half an hour, the
general said – it's nearly up. You – you're sure she's
all right?'

‘Sure I'm sure,' I said irritably, then at once
regretted the irritation. This man I could get to
like very much. I grinned at him. ‘Never yet saw
a chauffeur so worried about his employer.'

‘I'm off,' he said. He didn't feel like smiling. He
reached for a leather note-case lying beside my
papers on the desk and thrust it into an inside
pocket. ‘Mustn't forget this. Unlock the door, will
you, and see if the coast is clear?'

I opened the door, saw that it was clear and
gave him the nod. He got his hands under Royale's
armpits, dragged him through the doorway and
dumped him unceremoniously in the passageway
outside, beside the overturned chair. Royale was
stirring and moaning: he would be coming to any
moment now. Kennedy looked at me for a few
moments, as if searching for something to say,
then he reached out and tapped me lightly on the
shoulder.

‘Good luck, Talbot,' he murmured. ‘I wish to
God I was coming with you.'

‘I wish you were,' I said feelingly. ‘Don't worry,
it's just about over now.' I wasn't even kidding
myself, and Kennedy knew it. I nodded to him,
went inside and closed the door. I heard Kennedy
turn the key in the lock and leave it there. I
listened, but I didn't even hear his footsteps as
he left: for so big a man he was as silent as he
was fast.

Now that I was alone, with nothing to do, the
pain struck with redoubled force. The pain and
the nausea came at me in alternate waves, I could
feel the shore of consciousness advancing and
receding, it would have been so easy just to let
go. But I couldn't let go, not now. It was too
late now. I would have given anything for some
injection to kill the pain, something to see me
through the next hour or so. I was almost glad
when, less than two minutes after Kennedy had
left, I heard the sound of approaching footsteps.
We had cut things pretty fine. I heard an exclamation,
the footsteps broke into a run and I went
and sat behind my desk and picked up a pencil.
The overhead light I had switched off and now I
adjusted the angle extension lamp on the wall so
that it shone directly overhead, throwing my face
in deep shadow. Maybe, as Kennedy had said,
my mouth didn't show that it had been hit but
it certainly felt as if it showed and I didn't want
to take any chances.

The key scraped harshly in the lock, the door
crashed open and bounced off the bulkhead and
a thug I'd never seen before, built along the same
lines as Cibatti, jumped into the room. Hollywood
had taught him all about opening doors in situations
like this. If you damaged the panels or hinges
or plaster on the wall it didn't matter, it was the
unfortunate proprietor who had to pay up. In this
case, as the door was made of steel, all he had
damaged was his toe and it didn't require a very
close student of human nature to see that there
was nothing he would have liked better than to
fire off that automatic he was waving in his hand.
But all he saw was me, with a pencil in my hand
and a mildly inquiring expression on my face. He
scowled at me anyway, then turned and nodded
to someone in the passageway.

Vyland and the general came in half-carrying a
now conscious Royale. It did my heart good just to
look at him as he sat heavily in a chair. Between
myself a couple of nights ago and Kennedy tonight
we had done a splendid job on him; it promised to
be the biggest facial bruise I had ever seen. Already
it was certainly the most colourful. I sat there and
wondered with a kind of detached interest – for
I could no longer afford to think of Royale with
anything except detachment – whether the bruise
would still be there when he went to the electric
chair. I rather thought it would.

‘You been out of this room this evening, Talbot?'
Vyland was rattled and edgy and he was giving his
urban top executive's voice a rest.

‘Sure I dematerialized myself and oozed out
through the keyhole.' I gazed at Royale with interest.
‘What's happened to the boyfriend? Derrick
fall on him?'

‘It wasn't Talbot.' Royale pushed away Vyland's
supporting hand, fumbling under his coat and
brought out his gun. His tiny deadly little gun,
that would always be the first thought in Royale's
mind. He was about to shove it back when a
thought occurred to him and he broke open the
magazine. Intact, all the deadly little cupro-nickel
shells there. He replaced the magazine in the automatic
and the gun in his holster and then, almost
as an afterthought, felt in his inside breast pocket.
There was a couple of flickers of his one good eye
that a highly imaginative character might have
interpreted as emotions of dismay, then relief, as
he said to Vyland: ‘My wallet. It's gone.'

‘Your wallet?' There was no mistaking Vyland's
feeling, it was one of pure relief. ‘A hit-and-run
thief!'

‘Your wallet! On my rig? An outrage, a damnable
outrage!' The old boy's moustache was waffling
to and fro, he had the Method school whacked any
day. ‘God knows I hold no brief for you, Royale,
but on my rig! I'll have a search instituted right
away and the culprit –'

‘You can save yourself the trouble, General,' I
interrupted dryly. ‘The culprit's got the money
safely in his pants pocket and the wallet's at the
bottom of the sea. Besides, anyone who takes
money away from Royale deserves a medal.'

‘You talk too much, friend,' Vyland said coldly.
He looked at me in a thoughtful way I didn't like at
all and went on softly: ‘It could have been a cover-
up, a red herring, maybe Royale was knocked out
for some other reason altogether. A reason
you
might know something about, Talbot.'

I felt cold. Vyland was nobody's fool and I hadn't
looked for this. If they got suspicious and started
searching me and found either Larry's gun or
the wound – and they would be bound to find
both – then this was definitely Talbot's farewell
appearance. Next moment I felt colder still. Royale
said: ‘Maybe it
was
a plant,' rose groggily to his feet,
crossed over to my desk and stared down at the
papers in front of me.

This was it. I remembered now the far too carefully
casual glance Royale had given the papers as
he had left the room. I'd covered maybe half a
sheet with letters and figures before he had gone
and hadn't added a single letter or figure since.
It would be all the proof that Royale would ever
want. I kept looking at his face, not daring to glance
down at the papers, wondering how many bullets
Royale could pump into me before I could even
start dragging Larry's cannon from my waistband.
And then, incredulously, I heard Royale speak.

‘We're barking up the wrong tree. Talbot's in the
clear, he's been working, Mr Vyland. Pretty well
nonstop, I should say.'

I glanced at the papers in front of me. Where
I'd left half a page of scribbled figures and letters
there were now two and a half pages. They had
been written with the same pen and it would
have taken a pretty close look to see that they
hadn't been written by the same hand – and it
was upside down to Royale. The scribbled nonsense
was as meaningless as my own had been,
but it was enough, it was more than enough, it
was my passport to life, given me by Kennedy,
whose acute foresight in this case had far outstripped
my own. I wished I had met Kennedy
months ago.

‘OK. So it's somebody short of cash.' Vyland was
satisfied, the matter dismissed from his mind. ‘How
did you make out, Talbot? We're getting pushed
for time.'

‘No worry,' I assured him. ‘All worked out.
Guaranteed. Five minutes buttoning-up down in
the scaphe and we're set to go.'

‘Excellent.' Vyland looked pleased but that was
only because he didn't know what I knew. He
turned to the thug who had kicked the door open.
‘The general's daughter and his chauffeur – you'll
find them in the general's stateroom. They're to
come here at once. Ready, Talbot?'

‘Ready.' I got to my feet, a bit shakily, but
compared to Royale I looked positively healthy
and nobody noticed. ‘I've had a long hard day,
Vyland. I could do with something to fortify me
before we go below.'

‘I'll be surprised if Cibatti and his friends haven't
enough supplies to stock a bar.' Vyland was seeing
the end of the road, he was all good humour now.
‘Come along.'

We trooped out into the corridor and along to
the door of the room that gave access to the
caisson. Vyland gave his secret knock – I was
glad to note that it was still the same – and we
went inside.

Vyland had been right, Cibatti and his friend did
indeed do themselves well in the liquor line and by
the time I had three stiff fingers of Scotch inside
me the two little men sawing with the crosscut
on my shoulder had given up the piece-work
and were back on time rates and I no longer
felt like banging my head against the wall. It
seemed logical to expect that the improvement
might be maintained if I poured myself another
shot of anaesthetic and I'd just done this when
the door opened and the thug Vyland had sent
to the other side of the rig appeared, ushering in
Mary and Kennedy. My heart had been through
a lot that night, heavy overtime stuff to which it
wasn't accustomed, but it only required one look at
Mary and it started doing its handsprings again. My
mind wasn't doing handsprings, though, I looked
at her face and my mind was filled with all sorts
of pleasant thoughts about what I'd like to do to
Vyland and Royale. There were big bluish-dark
patches under her eyes, and she looked white and
strained and more than a little sick. I'd have taken
any odds that that last half-hour with me had
scared and shaken her as she'd never been scared
and shaken before. It had certainly scared and
shaken me enough. But neither Vyland nor Royale
seemed to notice anything amiss, people forced to
associate with them and not scared and shaken
would be the exception rather than the rule.