The blood surged in my veins. I jumped up and down on the platform and pulled Voodoo back toward me. She collapsed against me and I held her close and poked the .357 out into the crowd, looking for Count Calypso. Looking for the human spider. I had only a couple of bullets left in the gun, but I wanted one crack at the Count before we died.
But the dozens of bodies in the arena below us blocked him off. The lights, the colors and the confusion all ran together.
“Fools!” I could hear him shout again. “Rush them! No more bullets in the gun! Rush them!”
He was right, and they suddenly realized it. A great roar ran up. Everybody turned and looked at the platform, seeing the two naked girls, the flashy redhead, and the lone naked man with one miserable gun in his fingers. And the voice of the Count mocked them. Goaded them on. Just a bullet or two. One or two might die. But Count Calypso would win.
I leaped off the platform with surprise in my favor. One of the on-coming maniacs had a head start on his cronies. I met him before he could even imagine such a thing. I buried a fistful of knuckles in his face and pulled the burning torch out of his hand before my punch sent him away. I raced back to the platform and sprang atop it again. Then I fired it. Running around the rim, I spread the licking flames of the torch all along the wooden poles of the framework. We had one big advantage—and I was taking it. The crowd in front of us. They couldn’t get around to our rear without knocking down a line of trees to do it. And that would take time and diminish their numbers. I was thinking, and I was way ahead of them.
“Ed—” Peg Temple blurted behind me. “You gone crazy?”
“Shut up!” I roared. “Work on your legs. Rub them and get ready for a lot of running. Only way we’re going to get out of this!”
I concentrated on the crowd. They had halted thirty yards away, fascinated by the fire I had started. It had caught hold; the crisp, crackle of burning wood had begun. The rim of the platform was ablaze.
A tall boy in the crowd snarled defiantly at the rest of the cowering pack and started waving his hands and exciting everybody. His guttural voice screeched with name-calling and insults to the rest of them. I tried to see the naked ugliness of Count Calypso. No dice. The crowd hid him. And the tall boy was getting home to the crowd. He had seized a machete and run forward, dragging men and women with him. And I needed at least three more minutes. And it was him or us.
Death is a shock that’s needed sometimes. I took careful aim and triggered the Magnum. The roar of the gun was a cannonade. And the tall boy’s head jerked on his broad shoulders, the slug hurling him back like a newspaper in a high wind. His face disappeared in a spout of blood. And everybody stopped again. Milling, confused, awed by the blood. Impressed with the talking magic of my “empty gun.” The gun that Count Calypso had insisted was empty. It gave me some necessary time. Time for the platform to really get going.
I heard the Count’s voice again, buried somewhere in the crowd. Urging them on to kill. To rush and tear us apart. And the platform was toasting like marshmallows beneath my bare feet.
Evelyn Hart tugged at my arm.
“The plane,” she said. “We’ve got to make the plane. It’s our only way out.”
I jerked a nod at her. “You fly?”
“Yes—it’s mine—hurry, Noon.”
Peg Temple had Voodoo clasped in her arms. It was now or never. I backed off the platform, still concentrating on the crowd, still hoping for one clear crack at the Count Calypso.
“Okay. Down we go. Off the back of the platform. I’ll lead. The trees behind us will camouflage us for a while. Then we’ll double back for the plane. And don’t stop to pick daisies. Or we’ll never get off this island alive.”
Peg Temple looked at me, fear still in her face. “Ed, Voodoo can’t make it. She’s still dopey. That dance—”
“I’ll carry her. Come on. Let’s move.”
I took Voodoo and slung her over my shoulder. Peg Temple and Evelyn Hart edged to the rear of the platform. I backed off with Voodoo on my shoulders, my eyes on the crowd. They had regrouped again and were advancing as if they meant business this time. I had the gun and I still had my torch. And I had one big idea.
The gay costumes and the angry voices drew nearer. And the front of the platform was a roaring flame now. I reached the edge and looked down. Only three feet to the ground, and the redhead and the blond were crouched below me now, waiting for my signals and commands. “Move,” I hissed.
“That way. And don’t look back.”
Count Calypso’s drummers came in on cue again, The good old Count. He always told it on the drums. The rhythm and the beat seemed to do more than his words and threats. The mob roared and rushed.
I got off the platform the hard way. I jumped down. With Voodoo slung like a sack of grain over one shoulder, a Magnum .357 in my left hand and the blazing torch in my right.
My feet thudded to soft ground and a paralyzing stab of pain shot up my thigh. I ignored it. I shifted Voodoo’s weight and lurched forward. I could see Evelyn Hart ahead of me, working through the trees. Just ahead of her, Peg Temple was stumbling along the ground like a wood nymph, the white of her body marking her in the darkness.
But I put my big idea to work. Oil. The island was loaded with oil and dry trees. Well, I was going to give them something to roast chestnuts about.
I staggered along with Voodoo, my bare feet stabbing into the brown ground and the leafy grass. But I left a trail of fire behind me. I touched the torch in my hand to everything that grew before me. The natural dryness of the wood and the oil deposits buried all over the island would do the rest.
I was going to have my own pre-Lenten festival.
Count Calypso wasn’t the only one who could stage a blowout. And nothing beats a fire for turning a town upside down.
I caught up with the redhead and the blonde and veered them further to the north where I had remembered seeing the plane sitting between the trees in a small clearing.
Behind us the drums and the shouts filled the night.
TWENTY-ONE
We stopped and caught our breaths. The woods were dense and thicker than molasses at this point. Nearby a tiny stream gurgled. I would have liked nothing better than to go for a swim. But this wasn’t a beach outing.
The woods hid us, but the thrashing and the threshing behind us meant only one thing. We hadn’t exactly discouraged anybody. I looked back. The million tiny fires I had started were beginning to take hold. I had turned into a pyromaniac in my old age. But more necessary fires had never been set. We were four people standing between a maniac and his dream, and the maniac had a mob of cohorts to back up his play. It hardly seemed enough. And I was beginning to fill in all the blank places in the mad scheme of things.
I watched the girls. Voodoo was still limp on my shoulder. But Peg Temple had taken time out to breathe deep and I could see her uncompromising green eyes level directly at Evelyn Hart. The redhead was braced against the trunk of a tree, her breasts straining at the golf balls hiding them. She suddenly became aware of Peg’s gaze. She reddened and averted her face.
“Don’t look at me like that. Please. I’m sorry for all of this, truly I am.”
Peg Temple patted her elbow. “Just wanted to thank you for the clothes and the rope. That’s all. That sun would have boiled me like a lobster.”
Evelyn Hart’s face came back in surprise. Her eyes were questioning, as if she were afraid of being kidded.
“You really mean that, don’t you? You don’t hate me—for what I’ve done? There was wonder in her voice. Even with the drums not far behind us. Even with the sound of the bloodhounds dinning close by. I kept an eye on our rear, my pulses happy with the sight of my small fires joining each other and making a fine blaze.
Peg shrugged. “Forget it. Voodoo and I are buddies. And look what he did to her with his hypnotism and his dope. You’re okay, Red.”
Evelyn Hart shuddered.
“But my reason was the worst
one. I did it for money. And excitement. And a new idea in dolls—” She shuddered again. “It seems ghastly now.”
“Time’s up,” I said. “We better move again.”
They both got businesslike and whipped into line. I shouldered Voodoo. Thanking somebody that she was light. For all of her filled-out splendor of body, she was deceptively light.
We moved. The undergrowth got thicker. I parted it with fire. As soon as the flames licked away openings we would step through and keep on going. The confusion mounted behind us, and the blaze grew. I flung a look backwards. We had gone a thousand yards past the arena where Voodoo had danced so unforgettably. The ground had started to rise gradually before us, although all of the island was low geographically. Looking back, I could see the fantastic scene in the clearing, all of it deserted. But the blazing platform ignited the clearing like a candle in the wilderness. Through the trees I could see the crowd running from the fires, trying to stamp them out, trying to find us. All that activity was the best thing in the world for us. And now it was time to double around through the trees. And head back for the plane.
I led the way, discarding my torch first. There was no longer any need for me to imitate a firebug. The Texas Fire Department would have had their hands full with the arson job I started. And I did one other very necessary thing.
The island seemed to be dotted with small rivers. The very next one we stumbled past, I heaved Voodoo off my shoulders and dropped her right in. She came up, threshing, spluttering and splashing. But there’s nothing like the cold water treatment to bring somebody around. She came awake and back to the present in jig time. Peg Temple comforted her and explained everything, and the look of fear came back to Voodoo’s expressive face. Her eyes popped at me and her mouth trembled. The sexy, sinful goddess of love who had minced tantalizingly toward me only minutes ago was gone forever. She took Peg Temple’s hand and we poked and stumbled through the trees and the undergrowth.
I was whipped. My muscles were starting to complain about the poor body they were housed in. And the soles of my feet were getting pretty sensitive about the whole mess too. And the girls were beginning to pant like steam engines.
A shout cut the warm air behind us in half. It was close. Too close.
“The water,” I whispered. “Into the water.” The bright moon overhead had disappeared behind a filmy white cloud; the thickness of the trees helped, too.
Peg Temple settled into the small, narrow river and breathed with pleasure. Evelyn Hart subsided too, and Voodoo. I plunged my head below the surface and let the cold needles of the water heal my body with tingling refreshment. When I surfaced, I listened. The shouts had gone in another direction.
The water made me feel like a new man. I retrieved the Magnum .357 from the clump of ground I had set it on. “Come on,” I urged. “We gotta make that plane. We haven’t got reservations.”
“Is it much further, Ed?” Peg Temple looked great with tricklets of water trailing off her body.
I shook my head. “No more than a few minutes by my calculations. Ready, girls?”
They were. More than comfort, more than food and water, they wanted out. They wanted out from that island more than they wanted a lifetime supply of free cosmetics.
We headed north again. I had placed the plane right under the Big Dipper, and was guided by the big guy who sits in a straight line from the top of the pot. It couldn’t be much further. And if we had been going around in circles, I was going to blow my brains out with the one slug remaining in Count Calypso’s Magnum. There was only one. I’d checked when the girls weren’t looking.
The forest was ablaze now. As far as the eye could see behind us, tongues of flame licked up at the night sky—orange, bright red and smoke blue. The Bacchanal going on all over the island would have to take a back seat to this. We pushed on. Breathing hard, feet dragging, bodies aching.
Finally I saw the runway dead ahead. The trees broke apart like a door fashioned by nature. Once through the trees, you could see the asphalt runway, long strip of concrete, maybe six to eight hundred yards long. Then a wall of trees, surrounding the field, hiding it. But six to eight hundred yards was enough ground for a small, light plane to take off from.
The plane sitting like a beautiful silver bird on the runway was light, not much bigger than a Piper Cub, but bullet-nosed, beautiful and shining like a newly minted coin. I didn’t recognize the plane. The style and design borrowed freely from Lockheed-type ships, but something about its shape smacked of custom-made, special and very, very private. Maybe like a plane that a rich doll like Evelyn Hart would have built for herself.
We slowed down to approach with caution. There had to be a guard; there’s always a guard. We closed in warily, feeling our way up to the big door in the woods, going from one tree to the next. I halted the girls a stone’s throw from the big door that led onto the runway.
I shook my head. “In the middle of nowhere, a private airport. The Count doesn’t do things cheap.” I took a breath.
Evelyn Hart looked puzzled. “It’s easy, Mr. Noon. Easiest thing for him to do. The island’s biggest export is asphalt. You must have heard of the famous Pitch Lake? It’s right here on the island—over a hundred acres of natural asphalt. And the Count knows how to get cheap labor; You’ve seen how many followers he has.”
“So that’s it.” I eyed her with apology. “I was going to hang this one on you and your millions. I’m kinda glad you had nothing to do with that.”
Her eyes lowered. “The plane is mine, but he had the landing strip built long ago.”
Peg Temple’s eyes glittered in the darkness. “Now what do we do? Stand around here and go over the ball scores? Let’s get on that plane.”
I grinned in spite of everything. “You’re right. Let’s go. But real slow. And keep your eyes peeled.”
“Like grapes,” she promised.
We edged to the clearing in the woods and went through the big door.
The landing strip gleamed like a white ribbon in the light of the big moon hanging in the heavens. The wall of trees rose all around us. Way off I could see the bright fire thickening, could hear the faraway shouts of Count Calypso’s crew.
But the landing strip was deserted. An exotically plumed bird of some kind shot away from the wing of the plane as we approached. It startled me. I almost snapped off my one remaining shot at it as it rose off the tipped wing. Rose like an elevator and then wheeled off out of sight. Peg Temple laughed nervously and Voodoo whimpered. Evelyn Hart gasped.
I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the stillness around the plane. Didn’t like the sense of quiet orderliness about things. And I couldn’t have outguessed the Count. If he was as smart as I thought he was, he would have figured out this move for himself. Would have guessed that with Evelyn Hart with me, I would head for the plane. It wasn’t natural that an army of his boys hadn’t been ready and waiting for us.
Sure, somebody might be in the plane. But four or five people at the most. And that wouldn’t be foolproof odds. He knew I had a gun.
It was too quiet.
“Stay here until I see what gives,” I told the girls. They stopped behind me. Naked and indescribably lovely in the moonlight on the asphalt landing strip. And I was naked too. Adam with a Magnum .357 and no fig leaf. A fig leaf wouldn’t have done me much good anyway.
I walked toward the plane.
It was a sleek, classy job, fashioned with loving hands, streamlined and shaped like a silver bullet. As I drew closer I could see the serial numbers painted in bright black letters on the stabilizer. Along the rounded silver hull, an artist with a lettering brush had brilliantly scripted THE EVELYN.
It was a cabin job with plexiglass windows, real deluxe and modern. I reached the hull and put my hand on the door and drew it back.
There was nobody inside. The instrument panel winked out at me. My eyes traveled. Nothing but rich gray leather upholstery and air conditioning. I did some rapid calculating. It was a sma
ll ship, but it might do it with four people. I looked back at the wall of trees at the head of the runway. They weren’t high enough to make any trouble. We should be able to clear it. Even if I could turn the plane around which we couldn’t because of the narrowness of the strip, the high peak directly at its back ruled that way out. The Evelyn was pointed in the right direction. Home was any place off the island right now.
I waved to the girls and they rushed up. Excitement shone in all their faces, over-riding the fear. This was one plane ride everybody wanted to take.
I looked at Evelyn Hart. “Better cheek everything first. Your fuel, the panels, the works. This is too good to be true. There must be a joker somewhere.”
She nodded and clambered inside. I’d never flown a plane in my life but I’ve seen enough movies. I watched her go over her buttons and knobs and check her instruments like I’ve seen John Wayne do so many times.
Peg and Voodoo waited with bated breath. And I had to try not to hear my own heart hammering. Off in the night, the damn drums had risen again. Thucka-thucka thud. Thucka-thucka thud. I’d never stop hearing that damned noise anymore. It was here to stay. Sometimes I heard them when they weren’t even playing.
I didn’t wait for Evelyn Hart’s report. I walked around the ship and checked it myself. Planes are enough like cars. A leak is a leak and a cut wire is a cut wire. I examined the wheels and their braces, the nose of the ship and the tail. Everything looked ship-shape to me.
But the last word was Evelyn Hart’s. She poked her redhead outside the cabin, her eyes shining with something. Something I couldn’t recognize at first.
My heart leap-frogged.
“Well?” I grated. “What time do we leave?”
“Right now,” she exulted. “Everything’s in perfect order. Hop in.”
It was too good to be true. Peg Temple clapped her hands like a little girl and Voodoo crossed herself again like I’d seen her do before.
Without any more words, we hopped in. I piled the girls in and piled in after them. There were only two seats up front. Pilot and passenger or co-pilot. But there was enough room in the fuselage for two people to be comfortable on the floor. Peg and Voodoo seemed happy with the arrangement.
The Voodoo Murders Page 12
