C H A P T E R Eighteen
Oakley thought with bitter anguish, He set it up beautifully and we walked right into it.
The tumbledown shack stood in the full glare of the sun fifty yards downhill from them in a nest of splintered boulders; the Oldsmobile stood alongside the shack and cooking smoke rose from the chimney. Standing bolt still, Oakley slowly turned his head to look back past Orozco’s frozen bulk toward the rocks high to their left from which the gunshot had come. The bullet had screamed off the dirt not three feet in front of Oakley’s boot toe; it had brought them both up short and now a voice issued from the rocks—a cool deep voice Oakley recognized at once from telephone calls:
“Just stand still where you are and turn around so I can see you—slowly if you please; haste might make me nervous.”
Orozco’s bootsoles crunched the earth as he made a slow ponderous wheel, keeping his arms well away from his body. Oakley stood fast, head cocked over his shoulder. He saw Floyd Rymer come out of the rocks moving like a big cat, all liquid grace and feline power, balancing a large automatic pistol on them. There was no mistaking Rymer’s identity—the glossy photographs had captured his likeness perfectly. All except the eyes: hard, penetrating, yet utterly devoid of emotion.
“All right,” said Floyd Rymer. “The car belongs to Conniston but who are you?”
Oakley made no answer; his narrowed glance steadied on Rymer’s gun and he felt sweat pour down his face. He heard Orozco say, “Let’s say we work for Mr. Conniston.”
“Fine. Thumb and forefinger, now, both of you lift those pistols out of your belts and toss them on the ground. Don’t try any cowboy tricks because we all know I’ve got nothing to lose by killing you. They’d probably never find your bodies.”
Oakley glanced at Orozco but Orozco made no signal; he only obeyed instructions by slowly lifting the revolver from his waistband and letting it drop on the ground a yard away from his boots. Oakley began to tremble; he did not stir until Orozco growled, “Do what he wants, Carl.”
When he picked the gun out of his belt he lost his grip on it and it fell down the front of his trousers, banged off his knee and skittered away in the dirt. A twitch lifted one corner of Floyd Rymer’s mouth.
Floyd said, “How’d you trace me here?”
Orozco said promptly, “They picked up your license number when you crossed the border at Lochiel.”
Floyd rested his shoulder against a tall rock. “No good—try again. I’ve switched plates twice since I crossed over.”
Oakley’s nostrils dilated; he felt faint in the burning sun. Orozco said, “All right. There’s a radio bug in the ransom suitcase.”
Floyd Rymer’s eyebrows lifted half an inch. “I salute you,” he said. “Thanks for warning me—I’ll have to attend to that. Who else is around here? How many others behind you—and how far?”
Oakley said, “Don’t tell him, Diego.”
“I wasn’t plannin’ to,” Orozco drawled. “Look, Rymer, we know your names, we found the two dead ones you left in Soledad. You can’t get away even if you do shoot both of us. The whole world knows who you are. Now you turn over the money to us and tell us where we can find Terry Conniston and maybe we’ll think about letting you cop a plea.”
Floyd Rymer smiled very slowly. It was the most terrifying expression Oakley had ever witnessed on a human face. Oakley’s breathing was tight and shallow; his sphincter contracted, his palms dripped. Floyd lifted the automatic and Oakley clearly saw the knuckles begin to whiten; he knew that Rymer was going to shoot them both in their tracks.
A voice rammed down from the splintered boulders above:
“Stop it, Floyd!”
Oakley saw the rest in a blur, as if it were a dream: forever afterward he tried to bring it back but it never came clear to him, there was only a wheeling kaleidoscope of impressions. Floyd’s head whipped around; Orozco began to move; there was a woman’s scream, thin in the high air; a youth standing above Floyd Rymer with a police revolver cocked; the frenzied glitter of Floyd Rymer’s eyes as the impassive expression suddenly broke and the handsome leonine face became a twisted ugly mask of fury. There was shooting: Floyd Rymer and the youth exchanging shots, both of them ducking and wheeling. The brass sun spinning overhead. Orozco ducking to the ground, scooping up his gun, coming up on one knee with amazing agility. One image stood out clear: the sudden jump and puff of a bullet striking the youth in the hip by his trouser pocket, the youth knocked down asprawl in the boulders by the impact of the big slug. The youth had fired a fussillade of shots but none of them had hit Floyd Rymer; Floyd came around and Oakley was staring down the muzzle of the automatic and he heard the great ear-splitting roar of two or three or four gunshots, a deafening rattle like artillery in his ear. Afterward he realized it had been Orozco, coolly and methodically pumping bullets into Floyd Rymer like a sharpshooter on a rifle range. Oakley had no recollection of Floyd falling, no recollection of the next few seconds; somewhere in the ensuing run of time he realized he had picked up his gun and walked forward, for he found himself standing above Floyd Rymer’s dead body with the unfired pistol clutched in his fist. Orozco was kneeling down by the corpse and two people were coming down out of the rocks together, the youth hobbling on one leg and leaning his weight on Terry Conniston.
Oakley turned a comatose stare on them. “Terry.” His voice was a disembodied croak, not his own. Weakness flowed along his fibers: his body went flaccid and he sat down clumsily, abruptly. A red haze filmed his eyes and he almost lost consciousness; he drifted in a mist.
Rymer’s body must have cleared all its functions at the moment of death. The air stank of excrement. It was that ol-factory foulness that brought him out of it, as if it were spirits of ammonia. When he stood up the muscles of his legs hardly supported him.
He met Orozco’s glance. Orozco’s sunken eyes had gone charcoal black: his round face was bitter. Oakley turned clumsily to face Terry Conniston—his eyes observed without believing. There was a disturbing tremor behind his knees.
Terry said to him, “What the devil are you doing here?”
The four of them congregated on the front step of the shack; Oakley thought vaguely that Floyd Rymer must have had a predilection for abandoned habitations—first Soledad ghost town, now this deserted ’dobe. Mitch Baird sat against the wall with his legs stretched out, Terry ministering his wound—not much of a wound; Floyd’s bullet had dug a shallow trench along the side of his hip. Oakley found the strength to say, “That’s a funny way to treat a man that kidnaped you.”
Terry said without looking up, “He saved your life, didn’t he? Doesn’t that count for anything with you?”
“I don’t get any of this,” Oakley said helplessly.
“Nobody asked you to.”
Orozco was opening the trunk compartment of the Olds-mobile. Oakley watched him lean over and heard the snap of suitcase locks and saw Orozco lift the lid of the suitcase into view. Orozco said, “I think it’s all here.”
Terry said, “You can give it back to my father. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”
Oakley’s eyes widened. “Your father is—” He couldn’t finish it.
“A first-class son of a bitch,” Terry said. “We heard about what he said on the phone. As if he cared more about getting revenge than saving my life.”
“That wasn’t your father on the phone,” Oakley said. “Where the hell have you been?”
Mitch Baird said, “She’s been with me.”
“You. That’s fine. That’s just dandy. Kid, do you happen to know what kind of trouble you’re in?”
Terry looked up, drawn and furious. “You’re just like him, aren’t you, Carl? You never let simple things like gratitude stand in your way, do you? Mitch saved your life!”