The Revengers (42 page)

An ugly expression of rage replaced the incredulity on Serena’s face. She took a limping step toward her small opponent, who was just regaining her feet.

“Elly, catch!” I called, and threw the winch handle.

There was more light now, enough so Eleanor could see the steel crank coming. She grabbed it out of the air. I had no more time for her problems. Over the sound of the loudly flapping sails, I could hear that Henry had gotten the outboard going. I couldn’t see the Zodiac anywhere; that meant it was somewhere off to leeward of all that loose canvas—well, dacron—and I knew that Henry would be using that blind spot to come to the rescue of his screwball lady skipper, whom he’d heard yelling with pain. Prepare to repel boarders. I rolled Giulio’s body aside, hauled the shotgun out from under the retaining shock cords and wasted one shell pumping the action to make certain that it was working and that there was a round up the spout. There was. Apparently they’d been optimistic enough to store the weapon like that. Well, there are people who put their trust in gun safeties, and people who don’t. The latter generally live longer.

I started forward to meet the attack, and checked myself. A sawed-off shotgun is strictly a close-up weapon. If Henry and Adam saw me waiting at the rail with the Winchester, they could sheer off and be out of range in a moment. Maybe I could put enough holes into the Zodiac to sink it, and maybe I couldn’t. And maybe they couldn’t swim a stroke, but maybe they were the original fishmen of Florida. It was all too damned uncertain and I still had
Ser-Jan
to cope with. I had to get rid of these two permanently before the big powerboat came up. I couldn’t have them maneuvering around at a safe distance, in or out of the water, waiting to attack me from behind or simply joining forces with Arturo and Robert. The four of them, all together on the bigger, faster, and more maneuverable sportfisherman, probably with plenty of weapons on board, would be more than I could hope to deal with.

I ducked back down into the cockpit, therefore, waiting. Serena cried out again; for a tough lesbian lady she certainly made a lot of female-type noises. Glancing that way, I saw that she was staggering back with blood streaming down her face. The determined, disheveled figure of my little old combat buddy was moving in with the winch handle raised for another blow; then Serena, half-stunned and retreating blindly, fell back into the main companion-way, caught herself for a moment, lost her hold and tumbled down out of sight. Eleanor dove down after her.

I was relieved to have her off the deck, because the outboard motor had stopped. I crouched down and waited. Adam was pretty good and pretty silent, but not silent enough. I could hear him coming, even with all the boat noises. When I rose up with the shotgun, he was just passing the aft end of the cabin, but it was not Adam I wanted —well, not first. When you’re trying for a double on ducks, you take the distant bird first; that’s the one that can get away. The close bird, to hell with that; you’ve got all the time in the world to take care of that. Of course, ducks don’t generally come at you with custom knives.

I looked past Adam, now starting his rush, and there was Henry as I’d hoped, just advancing, crouched, under the great dancing spar of the main boom. I centered him and fired, pumped the action, swung on Adam and caught him in the middle of his headlong dive at me; but he was dead when he hit me, with a hole in his chest you wouldn’t believe. I picked myself up and drew a long breath that wasn’t, I’ll admit, quite as steady as it might have been. I set the push-button safety of the shotgun. I found the loaded shell I’d ejected into the bottom of the cockpit. Working very systematically and not thinking at all, I wiped the blood off of it, using Adam’s shirt, and fed it into the magazine, giving me three or four remaining, depending on how they’d had it loaded in the first place. I didn’t take time to look. Unloading a magazine-type shotgun to count the rounds isn’t a simple process; one reason why some people still like the old-fashioned double-barreled jobs where you can see exactly what you’ve got simply by opening the gun.

The firearms drill had steadied me. I looked up at last and saw Eleanor in the main hatchway, very pale, clinging there helplessly with her sweater tom off one shoulder, her hair wildly tangled and the bloody winch handle in one hand.

“I . . . couldn’t.” Her throat worked. “S-she’s unconscious and I just c-couldn’t. Oh, God, Matt, I never before. ... I just went k-kind of c-crazy, I gu-gu-guess.” Then the tears started rolling down her face.

I drew a long breath. I stepped over there, past Adam and Giulio or what was left of them, and slapped her hard.

“For Christ’s sake!” I said contemptuously. “I thought you were the little girl who cut big guys’ balls off just for fun.” When she made no response, staring up at me with wide, wet eyes, I asked, “Can you shoot a shotgun?”

“I. . . I’ve shot a little s-s-s . . ." She licked her Ups and tried again. “Skeet.”

“Well, these aren’t light skeet loads in this cannon,” I said. “These are heavy buckshot loads and kick a lot harder. You’ve got to hold the gun tight to your shoulder and put your face tight against the stock. If you’re all locked together tightly in one piece, gun and you, it won’t hurt you; it’ll just shove you back a little way. But if you hold it loosely and give it a running start at you, you can get badly bumped. Got that?”

When she nodded, I took the winch handle from her and put it back where it belonged. I took her by the arm, helped her out of the companionway, and led her forward, past Henry who didn’t look very good, having taken most of a load of buckshot in the face. A clump of pellets that had missed him had done some damage to the big, flapping sail beyond, the genoa jib, shooting the lower rear corner— clew, if you must be nautical—right off it. It occurred to me to look for the Zodiac, but it was nowhere to be seen; apparently they hadn’t taken time to secure it and it had drifted away into the night. Forward of the mast, I lay the shotgun down on the side deck, against the cabin trunk.

“You’ll be lying sprawled on top of that,” I said. “You’ll be dead, understand? They’ll bring
Ser-Jan
alongside to starboard, the other side; they have to approach from windward because of the boom and sails blowing out the other way. Now remember this—whichever one of them is at your end of the boat, their boat, the sportfisherman, he’s yours. I’ll take the other one from aft. Say they lay her alongside bow to bow, Robert is on the foredeck to handle the lines, and Arturo is up on the flying bridge. You take Robert and I’ll take Arturo. On the other hand, if Robert works out of the cockpit, aft, he’s mine. You get Arturo up on the bridge. We can’t afford to waste time and ammo shooting at the same target, at least not until one of them is down. We’ve got to get them both and we’ve got to get them fast. You lie perfectly still until you hear somebody shoot; until then, you’re dead. When the firing starts, you get up, clear to your feet. It takes a lot of practice to mount a heavy shotgun properly from any other position, so don’t try. Get on your feet, brace a knee against the cabin if you like, get the gun shouldered right, get the muzzle on the target nearest to you, and pull the trigger. I’m shoving the safety to off so you won’t have to worry about that—forget the safety. Just get to your feet, shoulder the gun well, aim carefully, and shoot. Then pump the action—this sliding handle here—and keep shooting until there’s nothing left to shoot at.”

There was a little silence. She licked her lips once more, watching me steadily. “I don’t. . .like men who go around slapping girls, Matt.”

“I know,” I said. “But right now, you’re not supposed to like me. You’re just supposed to snap out of whatever wingding you were throwing and do what I tell you, for both our sakes. Okay? Now lie down and play dead.”

She hesitated, small and stubborn. “All right, but I do think you . . . ought to apologize, really.”

I said, “Yes, you’re perfectly right. I’m very sorry I slapped you, Elly. Will you please forgive me?”

She looked at me gravely for a long moment. Then she nodded and lay down on the deck at the side of the low cabin, on top of the shotgun.

“Like this?”

I moved one of her legs a little. “That’s very good . . . Elly.”

“Yes?”

“I really am sorry. I’m glad you forgive me. Good luck.”

“Good luck, Matt.”

Returning to the cockpit, I looked around, but by now it was that funny dawn half-light in which you seem to have some visibility, but you can’t really see anything. But there was an uneasy murmur of sound out there that didn’t belong to
Jamboree's
splashing hull, or creaking gear or ever-flapping sails.

I took a quick look around the cockpit, but Giulio’s Browning was nowhere to be seen and I had a growing feeling of urgency. I ducked down into the cabin instead of spending more time searching for it. Serena was lying sprawled on her back down there with considerable blood around both ends of her—the whole boat was lousy with blood—but she seemed to be breathing. I hoped she wouldn’t come to and cause trouble at the wrong moment, but I sensed that I didn’t have time to tie her. I yanked open the second drawer of the galley dresser and the .38 revolver was there as she’d promised; the gun that had once belonged to Peterson, defunct. There was, I reflected, getting to be quite an accumulation of defuncts in this operation.

I grabbed the weapon, checked the loads, and returned to the deck. The sound of powerful engines was now quite distinct. I didn’t take time to locate the source; I merely draped myself untidily across the bridge deck just aft of the main hatch, face down, with my gun hand under me. Just another body, I hoped, added to the two already in the cockpit, and the two sprawled along the side deck to port. Just a ship of death with blood running from the drains or, if you must be nautical, scuppers.

They came in cautiously. I heard the diesels stop some distance off. The voice I’d heard over the radio, Arturo’s voice, called out,

“Hey, Miss Lorca! Giulio.
Jamboree
ahoy!” A pause. “Hand me those seven-by-fifties. . . . My God! Jesus Ever-loving Christ! Take a look at that, will you? That must have been the shooting we heard. It’s a fucking slaughterhouse!”

“Tout mort?”

“We’ll have to see if they’re all toot mort.”

“I will go forward for the ropes—”

“You’ll go aft for the ropes, Frenchy. I’m not bringing the bow in there. I want it clear, so I can blast off in a hurry, in case . . . I’ll swing the stern in. You be ready in the cockpit to take a line out; I’ll lay you right in close. You have your gun handy?”

“
Oui
, I have the pistol. And the knife.”

“Don’t make the jump until we’re sure; somebody could be playing cute over there.”

“I will be prepared.”

“Hang out some fenders first, port side. No sense beating up the damned boats.”

Lying there, I reflected that it was a gamble; but then it usually is. But there was no possible way I could avoid exposing myself to enemy fire here; I’d simply have to hope it missed. In my favor was the fact that shooting from one heaving boat at a target on another heaving boat is quite an exercise in marksmanship, since the pistol—and I hoped they had nothing else—is a fairly inaccurate weapon at the best of times. There was more on my side. The modem theory has it that the one-hand gun is really a two-hand gun. They all learn it that way now, and they’re never really happy unless they can clap that second paw around a gunbutt that was originally designed only for single occupancy. Well, it’s been proven that somewhat better shooting can be done that way—when the shooter has his feet firmly planted on solid ground. When the whole world is heaving and pitching and rolling, however, the gent who learned how to master a pistol waving uncertainly at the end of an unsupported arm has a certain edge, since he never expects to deal with a steady target or a steady gun, anyway. At least I hoped so, since that was the way I’d learned. And an edged-weapons specialist like Robert very often scorns the use of noisier implements and is not very good with them. Anyway, it was a reassuring theory. . . .

The soft, rubber-fendered bump of boat against boat came before I expected it. I wasn’t ready. You’re never really ready to be shot at. I reared up and a pistol blasted in my face and missed. I put two bullets into Robert’s chest at five yards’ range—hey, Fred, here’s your boy—and he collapsed into the sportfisherman’s cockpit. I swung the revolver left and up, toward
Ser-Jan's
high flying bridge. I saw Arturo up there, saw his gun jerk and heard the report; and something hit me hard in the left thigh, throwing my shot off. Then the shotgun thundered up forward. Arturo staggered. I fired and thought I had a solid hit. The heavy Winchester blasted again. The man up on the flying bridge stumbled toward the engine controls; he had his hands on them when he was struck simultaneously by my next bullet and the third blast of buckshot. He fell, still clinging to the black-knobbed levers up there. . . .

There was a sharp, snarling sound from the big twin diesels.
Ser-Jan
seemed to hesitate; then she lunged astern, giving the sailboat a glancing blow, and slid away backward at steadily increasing speed—Arturo must have hauled the controls to full reverse as he fell. I watched the big yacht recede in that strange, backward fashion for longer than there was any sense in; so a boat was sailing backwards, so what? I looked down dully and found my left pantleg bloody, and a small hole to port and one to starboard—since we were being so goddamn nautical. A foot higher and he’d have got me in the ass. Well, at least it had gone clear through instead of sticking around inside to make trouble. And while it seemed too bad to be wounded at the very end of all the action, I didn’t dream of complaining. After all, it hadn’t perforated a lot of meat, it had hit no bones, and it seemed to have cut no major arteries. Hell, I was alive, wasn’t I? Maybe there’s nobody supervising, helping, maybe it’s all dumb luck, but if The Watchers should exist out there, somewhere, I’d be a fool to antagonize Them by displaying ingratitude.

I took out a soggy handkerchief and tied it around my thigh to check the bleeding a little. I limped forward to find the little girl sitting on the cabin with the shotgun on her knees. I took it from her and shucked the remaining shell out of it—apparently they’d had it loaded with six—and dropped it into my pocket, noting that it was 00 Buck, as I’d guessed. When she looked up, I was shocked to see that her face was smeared with blood; although I didn’t know why a little more gore should shock me.