Terror's Cradle

`Where is she?' The dopeyness slid away.

We talk outside.'

`Hold on a sec.' I picked up my watch and scowled at it. Half-past six. Then I said, 'Food. Breakfast. Don't I get any?'

`Thought you were on a story.'

Some people have that idea. Reporters need neither food nor drink. All news editors believe it, in the same way they

believe there's a telephone under every blade of grass. I said, "Twenty minutes,' hung up and crawled out of bed and under the shower.

I dressed quickly, grabbed my cassette recorder and notebook and hurried through to the snack counter in the fruit machine hall, drank a glass of orange juice, took two bites of a ham sandwich and a mouthful of coffee and hurried outside. Spinetti had changed his clothes but the expression was limited as before. He was sitting inside a big white Oldsmobile and I watched myself hurry towards him in the twin mirrors of his sunglasses.

`Seventeen minutes,' I said. Not bad.'

`C'mon, huh?'

I climbed in beside him. 'What's the hurry?'

`Long ways to go,' he said. The engine was running and he was already easing the Olds into the traffic on the Strip as I was closing the car door. Àrizona or California?' I was chewing the remaining mouthful of sandwich.

`You handle a boat?'

I frowned. 'What kind of boat?'

`Power boat.'

`Suppose so.' I'd mucked about the Solent and the Black-water occasionally with waterstruck friends.

`Like driving a car.'

Ìn that case I can handle a boat. But why?'

He didn't answer, concentrating on swinging the car through the early traffic. The road we took had three numbers, so presumably others branched off it. A sign pointed to Henderson, Boulder City and Kingman.

`The boat,' I reminded him gently. 'Why the boat?' 'Susannah's on the water. Hiding out on a cruiser. You rendezvous for the interview.'

I nodded, sat back, lit a cigarette, and watched the desert roll by. It's not a sand desert, just greyish stone and shale and mountains in the distance; the oases have petrol pumps, not palm trees,

After a while, I said, 'Some damn fool phoned me last night. Told me to get out of town pronto. It made me feel like John Wayne.'

I'd turned a little in my seat to watch his reaction and it wasn't quite what I'd expected. His jaw actually dropped, which meant he was either a very good actor or wasn't involved. He said, 'Who was it?'

`Didn't say. They just told me to get out of town.* After a moment he said rustily, 'Why didn't you?' `Serious, is it?'

`Have you . . . crossed some guy?'

`Frequently. But not in this country. Certainly not in Las Vegas. I only got here last night.'

Spinetti's jaw was tight. He reached into the dash and produced a Coke can, flipped the top open and drank. 'You thought it was some newspaperman playing tricksy, right?'

`Right.'

`Well, maybe.' He sounded far from convinced and I watched his eyes flicker to the rearview mirror.

`But you think not? Who usually tells people to get out of town?'

`How do I know? Listen—' he interrupted himself to take another swig from the can. '

Who you think runs this town?'

`Tell

:Sure I'll tell you.' Spinetti's eyes darted again to the rearview mirror. 'The Mob runs it. For the Mob's benefit. Understand?'

I said, 'I wouldn't know a mobster from a Joshua tree. And they wouldn't know me. Why should they?'

He shrugged. 'Who knows?'

We drove on in silence, but his knuckles were whitish on the steering wheel and though it was morning cool, there was a shine of sweat on his tanned brow. After a while I began to feel it too, and turned to look back, but the road behind was empty. We swung off to the left at a junction for Boulder City and the Oldsmobile slid along the wide highway at an easy

seventy that would have been pleasantly relaxing if there hadn't been all that tension in the driving seat. Spinetti was brown and broody, but at last he broke the silence. 'In your shoes, Sellers,' he said, 'I'd do like the man said. Right after the interview, I'd go. Maybe I'd go before.'

I nodded. A grey goose stamped on my grave somewhere and a little shudder ran across my shoulders. I said, 'When I've seen Susannah, there's nothing to keep me.'

`Not if you're wise.'

I was getting brown and broody myself. I was almost certain by now that Spinetti had had no part in the call and could think of nobody else, newsmen apart, who might have reason to want me out. Unless ...

I said, 'Susannah. Who's she been involved with?' `Just some guys. Like always.'

`People who wouldn't want her to talk to reporters?'

He thought about it. 'Maybe. I doubt that. But maybe. She chooses rough company some days.'

We came over a ridge, driving downhill towards a great sheet of smooth water. In the sunshine it looked cool and shiny-blue and beautiful, like a scene from a travel brochure, but better. We were dropping down towards the shore, where a lot of boats rode quietly at a marina. Spinetti said, `Lake Mead.'

I looked at it with interest. Big things impress me, even if I try to resist, and this was, almost unbelievably, a manmade lake; water stretching away into the distance and desert and canyon walls all around.

I said, 'Where do we meet her?'

Not us, Sellers. You.'

I had hoped I'd misunderstood him earlier. Clearly I hadn't. Suddenly the cool flat water looked a lot less inviting. 'All right. Where do I meet her?'

`Show you the map.' He pulled the car into an almost empty car park, climbed out and set off towards one of the marina's board walks where a man was crouched at the bow of some boat. As we approached, the man rose.

Spinetti said, 'You got a reservation for a boat hire.'

`Name, sir?'

`Sellers.'

The man pointed. 'This boat here, sir. All set.' `Gas?'

`She's full.'

`Got a map?'

`Right aboard, sir. You got a credit card or somethin'?' Spinetti turned to me. 'You have?'

I fished my trusty Diner's Card out of my wallet and followed the man into the office, signed the slip and returned to the boat with the information that it had a range of -about a hundred and twenty miles.

Spinetti was already aboard. As I climbed after him, he spread the chart. 'Due north-east,'

he said. 'See here. The entrance to Boulder Canyon.'

`How far?'

He shrugged. 'Twenty miles. Can't miss it. Just keep going. She's aboard a big cruiser called Dragonfly. Okay?'

Òkay,' I said. 'And when I come back, how do I get to Las Vegas?'

`Plenty of buses.'

`Well, thanks!'

`Look, bud, I got other things—'

I, nodded and watched him step on to the boards and set off towards the car. As he moved away, my sense of loneliness increased; the wide water looked hostile rather than welcoming. It all seemed so crazy. Just another show business interview: two-thousand words of bromides. And a joker who thought it was funny to warn me off. That made me think of telephones and reminded me of Alsa. I climbed out of the boat and went back to the office.

`Telephone?'

`Right over there.'

I searched my pockets but the little piece of paper wasn't there. Damn! I must have left it at the Dime Palace. I'd have to call Alsa later in the day, I remember wondering why in hell Alsa was calling me from Sweden, anyway. I don't know about presentiments.

But I sensed something was wrong and as I walked back to the boat in the rapidly warming air and watched the bright sun bouncing off the lake, the world seemed to me to be quiet and peaceful and very beautiful — and yet haloed with inexplicable menace. I stood for a moment on the boards, watching a few big lake trout nosing around just under the surface, and thinking about Scown, trying to imagine his reaction if I ducked out and tried to explain why. He'd sit and stare at me in silence, but the words would come across telepathically, and the message would be