I went to the windows, parted the blinds enough to study the terrain outside and see what spot I would pick for an ambush if it were me out there. The area in front of the crescent shaped line of double rooms was too well lit with nothing to afford concealment, while the brush cover on the other side of the end room I occupied didn’t give a view of the front door. That left just one spot, a clump of palms diagonally off the corner where a killer could cover all exits of my room.
And damn it, I could feel him there. He was outside!
Now I had to make him show himself. I went to the bathroom, turned on the light and closed the door so none of it would seep in toward me, but out there he would know I was up, that I wouldn’t sleep because time couldn’t be lost to that factor. If they had kept a check on me they’d know I had spent time with Camille and might go back. They’d have seen Hardecker come and go, but not knowing what was said, would wait for my reaction to whatever had passed between us. Once I stepped out that door I’d have had it. They had to kill me alone and on their own terms so there wouldn’t be any sudden repercussions, giving them back the time advantage. Even hours counted.
But I had to go out that door.
If I didn’t they would come in and if there were more than one they could clean the job up even at the risk of losing some of their own. But one man could handle it. I’d done it myself. One gas bomb or a grenade could ax me fine.
The night laughed at me with a staccato drum roll of thunder and threw the rain at the windows like hands full of pebbles.
It didn’t take long to fold the bedding inside my other clothes and drape the almost-human figure on the lamp. I forced the window open an inch, just enough to admit the snout of the .45. Then I unlocked the door, swung it open and pushed the dummy into the darkened aperture and waited for the next flash of lightning that would reveal it.
Perverse nature wanted to savor the moment. It sat there and enjoyed the tension, tasting the nervous excitement of the approaching climax like a lover bringing a virginal partner to slow and complete sexual fulfillment that would erupt in a searing highlight of ecstasy for them both. It nursed the breasts of the scene, stroked its belly and kindled an agonizing flame of desire in its loins, stimulating passion by its very reluctance to light the stage until the orgasm of violence could no longer be contained.
And then nature gasped, succumbed to its own uncontrollable release and split the sky with a blinding forked tongue that kissed the earth in an orgy of pleasure that gave an aurora of midday to the landscape and in the middle of it I saw the shaft of flame come from the group of palms and the thing I had built slammed backwards into the room while wood splintered and brick crumbled behind it.
I fired seven rounds into the trees as fast as I could pull the trigger and was out the door slapping a fresh clip in the rod before I knew I had been suckered. The shot that had come through the door had come from a rifle, not a .22, and I was alone in the middle of the arena if nature laughed again.
She did. She clapped her hands for an encore like a single neon tube and I was in the gravel and rolling when the second shot came. But this time it wasn’t from the palm grove. It tore through the collar of my coat, splattering fragments of stone in my face that stung as they gouged into the skin and ricocheted off in front of me. In the brief light still left, I turned, saw him on the roof of the middle building and snapped a booming shot off that threw up pieces of tile at his feet even as he was aiming across one arm for another burst. He didn’t wait for it. He spun and clambered over the ridgepole as the sky roared its thunderous applause and doused its lights.
Some late tourist still fighting the weather gave me my life back. His headlamps made a yellow background that outlined the single massive figure plunging out of the trees still clutching a rifle, running erratically, trying to pick me out against the rain-dimmed floods of the courtyard beyond. He was on me before I could get turned, his yell one of startled satisfaction, the rifle barrel swinging toward my head. I ducked under it, lunged into his legs, and took him down on top of me.
He liked it that way. His laugh was raw as he groped for my neck, one balled fist smashing into my ribs. One huge paw wrapped around my hand holding the .45, forced it back until the gun dropped from it, then his knee ripped upward aiming for my groin, and when he missed, started rolling over on top of me, utilizing every ounce of power in his great body. He laughed again, enjoying what he was doing. He liked it.
He forgot one thing.
I liked it that way too.
I let him get right in position before I did what I had to do. I broke his voicebox with one stab of my fingers and while he groped at his throat with surprised urgency, screaming in absolute silence, my fingers wrapped over his and broke every one of the bones from the palm to the tip. My knee didn’t miss. It rammed the socket between his thighs, turning his whole belly into a mass of terrifying pain that bulged his eyes out into great white orbs. He had been too used to winning. He had been too confident that he was the best. He had been too used to watching the terror in others, and now it was on him. It wasn’t a little thing now. There would be no stopping point and he knew it. He started to shake his head, unable to speak at all, consumed by physical agony he had never known before, yet even then, given any release, he would have done anything to avenge the terrible thing done to him.
Before he could I reached up, had his head wrapped in my arm and with one furious twist I broke his neck and threw him off me like a lump of dirt.
There was another one in the palms. He was a little guy with a birthmark on the side of his face and a hole in his chest from one of the shots I threw at them. A loaded but unfired .303 rifle lay under him and a .38 snubnosed revolver was in his belt.
I dragged the remains of the big guy back and piled him on top of the other one, then threw the rifle down on the wet earth. Nature appreciated the gesture, let me see the tableau in her fiery brilliance a few seconds, gave another booming sound of gratefulness for the entertainment and watched me walk away.
Nobody was watching. The noise and fury of the storm had covered it all.
I found the ladder that had put Niger Hoppes on the roof and went up it, reached the slippery wet tiles, and made my way to the other side where he had stood, the place marked by the chunk my .45 had taken out of the ceramic. Clever. He had played it cleverly, covering me from front and rear, thinking ahead the way I would have myself. He would have a feeling for these things too, knowing the possibilities, realizing others could be sensitive to any unseen presence and prepare for an eventuality.
How long had he stood there waiting for the right moment? And was it really Niger Hoppes who had chosen to accomplish the mission? He answered it for me himself. It was lying there in the rain gutter caught in the overlap of the tile, a slender white tube, finger-long, stamped with the name BEZEX.
I tossed it back, satisfied, then climbed down and found his tracks faintly etched in the wet soil, leading to a path and angled out toward the road. I didn’t bother following them. He had had the time and the facilities to make his escape. Now he’d have to choose another time and another place.
Niger Hoppes wasn’t around any longer. I could feel it. The thing was gone.
With very little work from a standard pick I got Camille’s door open. She hadn’t changed positions at all. Her breathing was heavy, forced through accumulation of mucus in her throat. She sniffled once and coughed as I closed the door.
Dave Elroy picked up the package Ernie Bentley had sent me through General Delivery and dropped it off a little after eight. The cloud cover still obscured the sky, the rain falling monotonously, and even at that hour there was a dawnlike quality to the day. He handed me a container of coffee he had brought along, then sat down and listened to what I had to tell him about the night before.