"Your parents, senhor?" I nodded. "They look nice people. You will not go to the police?"
I shook my head and put the.45 back in my pocket. "That's one hell of a knee you have there."
"It's a hard world, senhor."
"You can say that again."
I let myself out and went down the stairs. It was very quiet on the waterfront and I walked along the pier and sat on a rail at the end smoking a cigarette, feeling absurdly calm in the circumstances.
It was as if I had always known and had not wanted to face it and perhaps that was so. But now it was out in the open. Now came the reckoning.
I got up and walked back along the pier, footsteps booming hollowly on the wooden flooring, echoing into the night
ELEVEN
Showdown
I had a contract run to make at nine o'clock, a mail pick-up which meant it could not be avoided. It was a tedious run. Sixty miles down-river, another fifty to a trading post at the head-waters of a small tributary to the west.
I cut it down to sixty-five miles by taking the shortest route between two points and flying across country over virgin jungle. A crazy thing to do and asking for trouble, but it meant I could do the round trip in a couple of hours. A brief pause to re-fuel in Manaus and I could be on my way to Landro by noon. Per-haps because of that, the elements decided to take a hand and I flew into Manaus, thunder echoing on the horizon like distant drums.
The rain started as I landed, an instant downpour that closed my world down to a very small compass indeed. I taxied to the hangar and the mechanics ran out in rubber ponchos and helped me get her inside.
The mail was waiting for me, they re-fuelled her quickly enough, but afterwards I could do nothing except stand at the edge of the hangar smoking cigarette after cigarette, staring out at the worst downpour since the rainy season.
After my meeting with Maria of the Angels I had felt sur-prisingly calm in spite of her story. For most of the morning I'd had things well under control, but now, out of very frustra-tion, I wanted to get to Landro so badly that I could taste it. Wanted to see Hannah's face when I produced my wallet and passport, confronted him with the evidence of his treachery. From the start of things I had never really cared for him. Now it was a question of hate more than anything else and it was nothing to do with Joanna Martin.
Looking back on it all I think that what stuck in my throat most was the feeling that he had used me quite deliberately to further his own ends all along the line. There was a kind of con-tempt in that which did not sit easy.
According to the radio the situation at Landro was no better, so more for something to do than anything else, I borrowed the Crossley tender, drove into town and had a meal at a fish res-taurant on the waterfront.
At the bar afterwards and halfway through my second large brandy, I became aware of a stranger staring out at me from the mirror opposite.
Small forIds size as my grandmother used to say, long arms, large hands, but a hard, tough, competent-looking young man or was that only what I wanted to believe? The leather flying jacket gaped satisfactorily revealing the.45 automatic in the chest holster, the mark of the true adventurer, but the weary young face had to be seen to be believed.
Was this all I had to show for two long years? Was this what I'd left home for? I looked down through the rain at a sternwheeler making ready to leave for the coast. It came to me then that I could leave now. Leave it all. Book passage using Han-nah's famous credit system. Once in Belem I would be all right I had a passport again. I could always work my passage to Europe from there. Something would turn up.
I rejected the thought as instantly as I had considered it. There was something here that had to be worked through to the end and I was a part of it. To go now would be to leave the story unfinished like a novel with the end pages missing and the memory of him would haunt me for the rest of my life. I had to lay Hannah's ghost personally, there could be no other way.
The rain still fell in a heavy grey curtain as I drove back to the airstrip and so continued for the rest of the afternoon. Most serious of all, by four o'clock the surface had turned into a thick, glutinous mud that would get worse before it got better. Much more of ibis and it would be like trying to take off in a ploughed field.
Another half-hour and it was obvious that if I did not go then I would not get away at all, had probably left it too late already. I told the mechanics it was now or never and got ready to leave.
I started the engine while still inside the hangar and gave it plenty of time to warm up, an essential factor under the cir-cumstances. When I taxied out into the open, the force of the rain had to be felt to be believed. At the very best it was going to be an uncomfortable run.
The strip was five hundred yards long. Usually two hundred was ample for the Bristol's take-off but not today. My tail skidded from side to side, the thick mud sucked at the wheels, showering up in great fountains.
At two hundred yards, I hadn't even managed to raise the tail, at two-fifty I was convinced I was wasting my time, had better quit while still ahead and take her back to the hangar. And then, at three hundred and for no logical reason that I could see, the tail came up. I brought the stick back gently and we lifted into the grey curtain.
It took me two hours but I made it. Two hours of hell, for the rain and the dense mist it produced from the warm earth covered the jungle and river alike in a grey blanket, producing some of the worst flying conditions I have ever known.
To stay with the river with anything like certainty, I had to fly at fifty feet for most of the way, a memorable experience for at that altitude, if that is what it can be termed, there was no room for even the slightest error in judgement and the radio had packed in, the rain, as it turned out, which didn't help in the final stages, for conditions at Landro were no better than they had been at Manaus.
But by then I'd had it. I was soaked to the skin, bitterly cold and suffering badly from cramp in both legs. As I came abreast of the airstrip, Mamie ran out from the hangar. Everything looked as clear as it was ever going to be so I simply banked in over the trees and dropped her down.
It was a messy business, all hands and feet. The Bristol bounced once, then the tail slewed round and we skidded for-ward on what seemed like the crest of a muddy brown wave.
When I switched off, the silence was beautiful. I sat there plastered with mud from head to toe, the engine still sounding inside my head.
Mannie arrived a few seconds later. He climbed up on the lower port wing and peered over the edge of the cockpit, a look of awe on his face. "You must be mad," he said. "Why did you do it?"
"A kind of wild justice, Mannie, isn't that what Bacon called it?" He stared at me, puzzled as I stood and flung a leg over the edge of the cockpit. "Revenge, Mannie. Revenge."
But by then I was no longer in control, which was under-standable enough. I started to laugh weakly, slid to the ground and fell headlong into the mud.
I sat at the table in the hangar wrapped in a couple of blankets, a glass of whisky in my hands and watched him make coffee over the spirit stove.
"Where's Hannah?"
"At the hotel as far as I know. There was a message over the radio from Figueiredo to say he wouldn't be back till the morning because of the weather."
"Where is he?"
"Fifteen miles up-river, that's all. Trouble at one of the vil-lages."
I finished the whisky and he handed me a mug of coffee. "What is it, Neil?" he said gravely. "What's happened?"
I answered him with a question. "Tell me something? Han-nah's bonus at the end of the contract? How much?"
"Five thousand dollars." There was a quick wariness in his eyes as he said it and I wondered why.
I shook my head. "Twenty, Mamie."
There was a short silence. He said, "That isn't possible."
"All things are in this best of all possible worlds, isn't that what they say? Even miracles, it seems."
I took out my wallet and passport and threw them on the table. "I found her, Mannie - the girl who robbed me that night atThe Little Boat - robbed me because Hannah needed me broke and in trouble. There was never any Portuguese pilot. If I hadn't turned up when I did he would have been finished."
The breath went out from him like wind through the branches of a tree on a quiet evening. He slumped into the opposite chair, staring down at the wallet and passport.
After a while he said, "What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. Finish this coffee then go and show him those. Should produce an interesting reaction."
"All right," Mannie said. "So he was wrong. He shouldn't have treated you that way. But, Neil, this was his last chance. He was a desperate man faced with the final end of things. No excuse, perhaps, but it at least makes what he did under-standable."
"Understandable?" I stood up, allowing the blankets to slip to the ground, almost choking on my anger. "Mannie, I've got news for you. I'll see that bastard in hell for what he's done to me."
I picked up the wallet and passport, turned and plunged out into the rain.
I hadn't the slightest idea what I was going to do when I saw him. In a way, I was living from minute to minute. I'd had virtually no sleep for two nights now, remember, and things seemed very much to be happening in slow motion.
As I came abreast of the house I saw the Huna girl, Christina standing on the porch watching me. I thought for a moment that Joanna or the good Sister might appear, not that it would have mattered.
I kept on going, putting one foot doggedly in front of the other. I must have presented an extraordinary sight, my face and clothing streaked with mud, painted for war like a Huna, soaked to the skin. People stopped talking on the verandas of the houses as I passed and several ragged children ran out into the rain and followed behind me, jabbering excitedly.
As I approached the hotel I heard singing and recognised the tune immediately, a song I'd heard often sung by some of the old R.F.G. hands round the mess piano on those R.A.F. Auxi-liary weekend courses.
I was damned if I could remember the title, another proof of how tired I was. My name sounded clear through the rain as I reached the bottom of the hotel steps. I turned and found Mannie hurrying up the street.
"Wait for me, Neil," he called, but I ignored him, went up the steps to the veranda, nodded to Avila and a couple of men who were lounging there and went inside.
Joanna Martin and Sister Maria Teresa sat at a table by the window drinking coffee. Figueiredo's wife stood behind the bar. Hannah sat on a stool at the far end, head back, singing for all he was worth.
So stand by your glasses steady,
This world is a world of lies:
A cup to the dead already
Hurrah for the next man who dies.
He had, as the Irish say, drink taken, but he was far from drunk and his voice was surprisingly good. As the last notes died away the two women applauded, Sister Maria Teresa beaming enthusiastically, although the look on Joanna's face was more one of indulgence than anything else - and then she saw me and the eyes widened.
The door was flung open behind me as Mannie arrived. He was short of breath, his face grey, and clutched a shotgun to his chest.
Hannah said, "Well, damn me, you look like something the cat brought in. What happened?"
Mannie grabbed my arm. "No trouble, Neil."
I pulled free, went along the bar slowly. Hannah's smile didn't exactly fade away, it simply froze into place, fixed like a death mask. When I was close I took out the wallet and pass-port and threw them on the bar.
"I ran into an old friend of yours last night, Sam."
He picked up the wallet, considered it for a moment. "If this is yours I'm certainly glad you've got it back, but I can't say I know what in the hell you're talking about."
"Just tell me one thing," I said. "The bonus. For five thou-sand read twenty, am I right?"
Joanna Martin moved into view. "What is all this?"
I stiff-armed her out of the way and he didn't like that, anger sparking in those blue eyes, the smile slipping. The solution, when it came, was so beautifully simple. I picked up the passport and wallet and stowed them away.
"I'll do the Manaus mail run in the morning as usual," I said. "You can manage without me after that. I'll leave the Bristol there."
I started to turn away. He grabbed me by the arm and jerked me round to face him again. "Oh, no you don't. We've got a contract."
"I know; signed, sealed, delivered. You can wipe your back-side on it as far as I'm concerned."
I think it was only then that he realised just how much trouble he was in. He said hoarsely, "But I've got to keep two planes in the air, kid, you know that. If I don't, those bastards in Belem invoke the penalty clause. I'll lose that bonus. Everything. I'm in hock up to my ears. They could even take the Hayley."
