We’re allowed to choose whatever gun we want, and my current companion is a Beretta 93 R — one of the most up-to-date weapons on the market. It holds magazines of 15 or 20 rounds of 9 mm parabellum bullets, and can be made to fire them either as a semi-automatic, one round at a time, or as a machine pistol, firing bursts of three at a time. If one happens to have sufficient ammunition about one’s person, it is capable of firing off 110 rounds per minute — which is more than adequate for the average tight corner. An additional little gadget it has is a handle in front of the trigger which can be folded down for two-handed shooting — much the most accurate way to use a hand-gun. It’s about as accurate and powerful a hand-gun as it is possible to have, and it fits into a clever holster under my left arm-pit: The holster can easily be taken apart and reassembled around the gun to make the whole thing look like a pistol-grip cine camera — very simple, blindingly obvious, and it never fails to fool airline security inspectors.
I passed a succession of old and modern timber houses and bungalows, mostly shuttered up against the winter, all looking bleak and uninviting in the fast fading twilight. Knowing the logical route to the house, I worked out a different route of my own, which I hoped would bring me out around the far side of the house. Being a complete stranger to the island was no help, but since all paths went either lengthways or width ways, navigation wasn’t too difficult; I cut across the width of the island, keeping as close to the hedges as I could. At one intersection I was nearly run down by an old man on a bicycle, fishing rod trailing out over his shoulder behind him; it was good just to see human life.
I hit Duneway Avenue at what, provided the woman’s directions were correct, was the furthest point away from Coconut Grove. It was a concrete path, like all the others, with houses fairly evenly spaced down it; I calculated that Coconut Grove was about 300 yards from where I stood. The sky was still a little light for comfort, and I ducked into the porch of a boarded-up house to wait for dark.
The night was falling rapidly, and in little over half an hour, I emerged, crossed over Duneway Avenue and walked down to the next intersection; there I paced 300 yards, which brought me to the back of a tall house of almost futuristic design, topped with an attic studio. A bizarre fire escape, made from statues of naked men standing on each other’s shoulders, went right up to this attic. I climbed it, and at the top, using the window ledge as a foothold, hauled myself up onto the roof. It was pitch dark now, and I crawled carefully over to the far side. Less than 50 feet in front was a bungalow with a light shining behind its drawn curtains. I pulled out of my pocket the night-vision binoculars I had bought in New York that morning, and studied the bungalow closely. It was the only building around that had any lights on, and I figured that it must be Coconut Grove. The curtains this side were all fully drawn. I scanned the area around the bungalow; everything appeared in ghostly clarity, and whilst it was dim the detail was so good I could have seen a rabbit move. It didn’t take me long to find my mark: a great hulk in a mackintosh, spreadeagled over a rooftop, about two houses closer to the harbour than the bungalow. I could see a rifle, with telescopic sights, by the man’s right hand. Poor sod, whoever he was, must have been half-frozen to death. He was taking a gulp from a thermos flask, his head transfixed in the direction down which he would have expected me to come.
I decided to tackle Harrison first and let the night watchman carry on freezing a while. I climbed back down to the ground, cut straight through to the bungalow, and went up to the curtained window where the light came from. Close up, there was a slight chink and I peered through it. The sight was not a particularly pretty one: a tall fair-haired man that I immediately recognised as Charlie Harrison was sprawled, stark naked, on what looked like a doctor’s couch. A shorter, dark-haired man, who I put in his early thirties, also naked, was gently squeezing the contents of a tube of lubricating jelly down the small of Harrison’s back, and rubbing it in with slow caresses. He squeezed more over Harrison’s buttocks, rubbing that in too, then sweeping his hand down inside Harrison’s crutch and along the inside of his thighs; Harrison squirmed in apparent ecstasy at every movement.
There was a door a few feet from where I stood, and I carefully tried it. It was the typical wood-framed wire-mesh door for keeping insects out of North American houses. It swung open, revealing a second, Yale-locked door. I carry about my person a small flat device with a choice of bevelled edges; it is particularly suited to Yale locks and this one was no exception. The door opened, and with my gun out I stepped through into a kitchen, securing the door behind me. There was a closed door on my right, which presumably led through to where the party was. Provided nothing had changed, both occupants should have their backs to this door; I pulled it open, very slowly, and heard their voices.
‘Oh, Howie, ooohhh, oh, fantastic, shit, wow! Oh wow! Come inside me, man!’
I could see them clearly now; the sight was even less attractive from here.
‘I’ll get more jelly.’
‘Yeah, wow!’
Howie turned and walked straight towards the kitchen. I ducked behind the door, and as he came through I gently pushed it to behind him, clamped my left hand around his mouth, and slammed my right arm into the base of his neck; he folded up without a murmur, and I lowered him gently onto the floor. I’d never seen him before. I opened the door again; Harrison was still lying face down, clenching and opening his hands in anticipation. I marched straight up to him, and thrust my gun the full length of its barrel up his welcoming anus.
He screamed out a strange, deep howl, a mixture of pain and sublime ecstasy. ‘‘Ooohhh! Wow! Howie!’
‘I’m not Howie, and this isn’t his cock,’ I said.
He froze for a moment, then spun his head round towards me. I pushed harder on the gun, and with a groan his head fell forward into the pillow; goose-pimples of fear sprang across his body. ‘You’re hurting — ohhh — you’re hurting.’
‘It wasn’t hurting a moment ago, and Howie’s got three inches on this.’
‘Ohhh — for God’s sake take it out — ohhh — who are you — ohhh — what do you want?’
‘I’ll do the questions, you do the answers.’ I pressed my point home a little further. He let out another fairly genuine-sounding moan. ‘Firstly, who’s your friend — the fiddler on the roof?’
‘You what?’
‘You heard — your buddy in the mac, with the pop gun — he’s not looking for grouse, and if he is, he’s about three and a half thousand miles too far West right now.’
‘Take — please take out — oww — take out — oww — take that out —’ He was whimpering and starting to shake.
‘Talk.’
‘I don’t know out there. I don’t know who’s out there. I don’t. I really don’t.’
‘There’s a man on a rooftop with a rifle, other side of the lane. He’s not up there for his damn health — who the hell is he?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. Ohhhh — please — take it out. I don’t know who he is and I never saw him.’
‘All right, my friend, let’s change the subject. Tell me what the number 14B means to you?’
‘14B?’
‘You heard right. Tell me all about it?’ This time I pushed the gun very hard, and he screamed very hard. ‘You’d better understand I’ve come a long way to have a chat with you, and I’m not going back home till either you’re dead or I have the answers to a lot of questions, and it’s going to be a whole lot more pleasant for you if you give the right answers, because each time you don’t, you’re going to get another one of these.’ I jabbed the gun again, and he screamed piercingly. It didn’t sound to me that it was all pain. ‘Got it?’