“Aha!” cried Paul, “ ’tis an ill windtorte that blows no one good!”
The media people, first under the tables, were emerging to join the rest of the cowering, standing, screaming, laughing, cursing, craning guests as Eddie Graff burst through the swinging doors into the kitchen, caromed off Antoine, and yelled “Terrorists!” to create more confusion.
He ran unimpeded for the outside door and the millions of dollars soon to be his. With both Paul and the old lady gone, that left only Inga... Stupid, malleable little Inga.
Dan Kearny, grease on his hands and a smudge on his nose from changing the tire, was crossing the sidewalk in front of the Officers Club when the grenade went off. Two waiters in black tuxes and red bow ties and red cummerbunds, outside the kitchen grabbing a smoke, were momentarily frozen in place like headlight-startled deer by the explosion.
Gray-haired, gray-mustachioed Eddie Graff came skittering out of the kitchen door beyond them like a car trying to take a sharp corner at high speed. He saw Kearny. His mouth flew open.
Kearny closed it: he grabbed a heavy round silver tray from under the arm of one of the waiters and slammed it full force into Eddie’s face. Graff’s nose flattened, his lips mashed, blood spurted, teeth flew.
Down. And out.
Chapter Thirty-eight
“What you’re telling me is that you two have fucked up this deal for me,” snarled Griffin Paris at Ballard. “And it was sweet.” His suave veneer crumbling, he snatched the shotgun out of Sebastian’s hands. “I’m gonna do you fuckers myself!”
It happened with such stunning speed that neither Larry nor Bart, determined to sell their lives dearly, even had a chance to move. A shotgun’s roar filled the air with sound and the stench of cordite. Again, as Morris Brett threw his Luger across the room as if it were red-hot.
Griffin Paris was driven back by the charge of double-O backshot that blew his chest apart. Then the deer slug smashed him through the window into the front yard, exactly as the waves below the cliffs had slammed Danny against the rocks.
Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern came through the door from the bedroom, pumping fresh rounds into their shotguns, grinning like feral Dobermans.
Larry Ballard foot-swept Sebastian, who went down hard on his side. Ballard, still on the floor, delivered a side kick that shattered his jaw, then broke bones with a series of exuberant karate chops.
Morris Brett screamed and shot his hands in the air. Perfect position for Bart Heslip to break his nose, dislocate his neck, and crack two of his ribs with a honey of a combination that would have put Sugar Ray on his back even in his heyday.
Rosenkrantz stared owlishly at the shattered window through which the dead man had disappeared. “A lot of that going around these days.” He turned to his partner. “How long we been trying to get this guy, Guildie?”
“Years and years. Slaving over hot stakeouts—”
“On our own time, protecting and serving.”
“Planting bugs under his back bumper — just like he did to you, Heslip. Following him around, like tonight...”
Bart and Larry were helping Danny up on the couch.
“We gotta get him to a hospital,” said Larry.
“I’ll drive him,” said Bart, “I’ve got a date.” He looked at the cops. “Did you ever suspect me of killing anybody?”
“Not once we made you as Bart Heslip, Esq., of DKA. No.”
The two baddies still alive had started to groan. Nobody paid them any attention at all.
Ballard said, “You followed Paris—”
“Followed him, snuck in the bedroom window—” He looked over at his partner. “Snuck is right, ain’t it?”
“Snuck,” agreed Guildenstern.
“Why’d you wait so long?” asked Heslip. “He almost—”
Rosenkrantz was holding up a cassette recorder. “We wanted to get it all on tape.”
“And we liked hearing you guys get the shit beat out of you, we really did. It did our hearts good, all the lyin’ that’s been goin’ around.” He smiled beatifically. “Hey, Rosie, how did the private eye find out his dick was too small?”
“When his girlfriend went down on him, she didn’t suck, she flossed,” said Rosenkrantz.
“Okay, we’ve got one for you guys,” said Ballard. “What animal has an asshole halfway up its back?”
To their silence, Heslip said, “A police horse.”
Dan Kearny said, “A piece of cake, Bernardine.”
But Bernardine Rochemont, still trying to clean pink whipped cream and meringue off herself, was not amused. Her party was a shambles about her ears. She blamed Ken Warren.
“You deliberately threw that awful thing into the torte!”
“Bernardine,” Dan Kearny said mildly, “he saved your life.”
Ken was ignoring her because torte-covered Paul was embracing him, demanding, “How did you know the physics of the windtorte versus the explosive force of the grenade?”
Ken shrugged modestly. Thank God for speech impediments. He would never have to explain that the Viennese windtorte had been the only place there was to throw it.
“I should have known better than to cross class lines,” said Bernardine. “A gentleman would have fallen on the grenade and taken the blast himself. Well, you have had your little amusement — now you shall get no money from me.”
“You will from me,” said Paul.
“Paul!”
Matching her tone, he said, “Mother!”
Mexican standoff, thought Kearny, then suddenly demanded, “Hey, where’s Giselle?”
“She never showed,” said Paul. “And Inga’s gone, too.”
“Gone where?”
“Maybe the Basic Pascal. It’s close by.” He told Kearny what it was, and where it was, and added, “I named it after a couple of basic computer languages.”
“This thing isn’t over yet.” Kearny thrust the sheaf of xeroxed papers from Karen Marshall’s office into Paul’s hands. “See if these make some basic sense to you.”
Inga was busily smearing salve from the yacht’s first-aid kit onto Giselle’s and Frank Nugent’s singed hands. Inga was feeling very good about herself. Giselle was feeling good about her, too. The strange little blonde had come through for them.
“So Inga, you still haven’t told us why you came here rather than stay at the banquet.”
“That was Eddie.” She paused, a faraway look in her eyes. “I still don’t get it. He told me I had to leave or... Paul would die. Same as when...” She paused, starting to blush. “When I put the sleeping pills into your coffee—”
“Yeah,” said Giselle impatiently, “that’s okay, Inga.”
Frank Nugent said sadly, “Who do you think tied us up here? Eddie. He’s going to come back and murder us after he takes care of Paul, and then marry’ you, and—”
“But... but Eddie wouldn’t... Why, he’s saving Paul’s life right now! They’re going to meet me in the parking lot” — she checked her lady’s diminutive golden wafer by Piaget — “just about now.”
Giselle exclaimed, “We’ve got to—”
“Stay and face the music.”
Her sentence was finished by Karen Marshall, coming carefully down the companionway ladder, a gun in her hand that to Giselle’s inexperienced eyes looked like a deadly twin to Eddie Graff’s. She really was going to have to learn about guns.
“Who are you?” asked Frank Nugent almost peevishly. Things were moving just too fast on a human level for his cyberspace intellect to keep up.
“Karen Marshall,” said Inga. “She wanted to sell a life insurance policy to Paul, and—”
“And I did, a year ago,” said Karen. “He just didn’t know about it. Ten million insurance, double indemnity for accidental death. But Eddie double-crossed me. Instead of just the insurance, he wanted it all.” She shot a venemous look at Inga. “He wanted to marry’ the widow.”