Dirty Harry 04 - The Mexico Kill

by Dane Hartman

  Thinking that the problem Harry presented to them would be easily enough solved by running him over, the driver gunned the jeep forward. Virgilio, mindless of the threat of the .44, leapt out of the way but Harry held his position and fired a round. The driver’s forehead turned bright scarlet and he lurched back over the seat. The Land Rover swerved off to the side, coming to a rest against the side of a palm that buckled but finally did not give way. Seeing their driver killed like this inspired the four others to choose another means of escape. They had no stomach for fighting while the fire raced across the brush that sprouted immediately outside the villa. Flames spewed from the windows. The air, torrid enough to begin with, grew hotter still as the blaze whipped up and through the tiled roof. Harry was astonished that the structure could go up so fast. It was in its own way a rather impressive sight.

  By pushing the dead driver out of the way Harry was able to get himself behind the wheel. The jeep had not been critically damaged in its collision with the palm. The tires spun as the jeep regained a more accommodating surface.

  Virgilio was screaming to two armed men to stop Harry. But the two men were much too interested in escaping the fire to listen to Virgilio. This so infuriated him that he attempted to stop one of them forcibly, upbraiding him for his cowardice.

  The man might or might not have recognized that this was his employer. But it was plain to see that he did not wish to have anyone distract him at a time such as this. He attempted to push on. Virgilio wouldn’t let him. He began to tug on the man’s revolver; if no one else was going to do so, he would kill Harry himself.

  But Virgilio had evidently chosen the wrong individual to harass. The man balked at surrendering his gun and instead uncocked it. Virgilio didn’t appear to notice. The man then squeezed the trigger. Virgilio was so close to him that the shot was muffled. A large ring-like gunpowder stain formed on his shirtfront. Virgilio released his grip and tottered backward. For good measure, the man shot him again. This time he did notice. He did a steady march backward, clutching his stomach. He kept taking his hands away to stare at the blood that was accumulating in them. Then he would shake his head as if in disbelief and continue his uncertain progress to the rear. At last he came to a halt, and a very thoughtful, if somewhat dazed, expression crossed his face. This was not how he had expected it to end. He decided that all things considered he would sit down. He remained sitting for several minutes, wondering why he was not dead yet. Blood flowed so plentifully from the two wounds that it created a large puddle between his legs, so large that every so often he’d shift position so he wouldn’t become too wet.

  He stayed where he was, his dying a protracted affair, until the fire caught up with him, tracing its path across the thick verdancy of the terrain. And when the fire did reach him, he made only the slightest effort to move. Then he realized it wasn’t worth it. He thought it most unfortunate that Harry had survived and he had not. It would not have even been too bad if they had both been killed. Possibly, he reflected, someone else would do his work for him.

  C H A P T E R

  S i x t e e n

  “They’re not coming,” Vincent said, staring over the gunwales. Carangas was fading gradually into the thickening dusk, receding into the darkness of the shoreline. Bursts of feeble light were all that separated the town from the surrounding forests.

  “What makes you think so?” Max asked casually, running a cloth over the carbine he held in his hands. He hadn’t let go of the gun since Booth and Vincent had returned to the boat. Booth and Vincent had agreed that they would kill Max, throw him overboard, and set off on their way. After all, hadn’t Garcia assured them that there would be no problem with Harry and Slater, that they would be disposed of?

  But Max’s intrusive presence and his determination to keep hold of his weapon at all times made killing him a more formidable proposition than they had imagined.

  “Sooner or later the fucker has to go to sleep,” Vincent said, and Booth, despite his impatience, had agreed. Why risk a fight, whose outcome could not be guaranteed, when a knife across the jugular while Max lay dreaming was so much more efficient?

  But though this plan had its merits neither of the two men could have foreseen that Max would be so determined to remain here, moored in the harbor of Carangas, until Harry and the skipper came back. Nor could they afford to divulge to Max the information they had acquired from Garcia, not without arousing his suspicion.

  “We’ll wait until tomorrow. Then if they don’t come we’ll go into Carangas and see what happened to them,” announced Max. He was clearly not putting his suggestion up for a vote.

  Booth and Vincent observed him with disgust, and yet they did not complain. Sometime, they believed, between now and then he would fall asleep, and then they could get on with the journey.

  The darkness was nearly total when Max suddenly ascended to the top of the pilothouse and looked out to the sea. The two mates had long since given up scrutinizing the waters or even paying heed to Max’s movements. Sooner or later he would give up his vigil; that was the only moment they were waiting for.

  Max wisely said nothing about the object he discerned approaching the Confrontation. Instead he watched it as it came nearer. Little by little it revealed itself as a small skiff, hardly seaworthy. Who was in it he could not see. Then he realized there was just one man, straining against the current to maneuver the craft in toward the yacht.

  It was only when Harry was climbing up the rope ladder to the deck that Booth realized that everything had changed. He went down below to alert Vincent. “This wasn’t supposed to fucking happen,” he said.

  Being of a slightly more philosophic bent, Vincent couldn’t see that there was any point worrying about it. At least there was no sign of Slater; that meant one less person to contend with. “We’ll just have to be patient,” Vincent counseled.

  “And what if they discover the shit?”

  Vincent dismissed Booth’s concern with a flick of his hand.

  “We hid it away too perfectly. They’re not going to find it. The problem is with you Booth, you worry too fucking much. You get ulcers that way.”

  “Fuck you! Ulcers, my ass.”

  In spite of his outburst, he made no serious objection to what Vincent had said. He was just sorely disappointed to have encountered such ill-fortune so early in the game.

  Up on deck Harry and Max took the helm, alternating on an hourly basis. Given the way events had transpired in Carangas and at the nearby Villa Corona it would not have been wise to linger about the harbor.

  Because of this unlikely turn of events, and deprived of Slater’s companionship, Harry found that he had no one to talk to except Max. This discovery, which he had given no thought to until he’d safely reached the boat, was a confounding one for Harry. Never having regarded Max as someone to even say good morning to, let alone befriend, he found that it was either Max or nothing. To his great surprise, he realized that it could have been worse—it could have been just Booth and Vincent.

  “They wanted to leave you two behind,” Max said, very suddenly, apropos of nothing. Two and a half hours had passed since they had left Carangas behind.

  “What did you say?”

  Max repeated his words, then proceeded to clarify them. “They were sure you and Slater would not be coming back. They seemed convinced like someone had told them so.”

  “They didn’t elaborate?”

  “To me? Are you kidding? The only reason they didn’t go anywhere is because they knew I might have blown them both away.” He gestured to the carbine that rested on the seat below the VHF receiver.

  “I see,” Harry said though the fact was he didn’t quite see. Was it conceivable that the two had somehow been in on the scheme to entrap and kill them?

  “I liked Slater. Poor dumb guy. But I really liked him.” Max looked to Harry for some form of corroboration.

  “I liked him too, Max,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder.

  “W
here are you going, Harry?”

  “Below deck. You stay at the wheel, make sure you keep north by northwest.”

  “Will do. And Harry, you be careful of those bastards.”

  Harry didn’t give him an answer, but he smiled. That was all the answer Max needed anyhow.

  Below deck everything appeared to be normal. The only sound was the monotonous stirring of the water against the hull, nothing else. From the aft staterooms, where Booth and Vincent slept, there was nothing to be heard. No light was visible beneath their doors. Harry presumed that they were either asleep or, for some reason, pretending to be.

  Having no idea why he was down here, what clue he could possibly find that would enlighten him to the mates’ motives, he returned to the pilothouse. Something, he felt, was very wrong, but he could not determine what it was. While he held utter contempt for the two men he could not allow his personal feelings to intrude. But on the other hand, the last thing he wanted to do was doze off while they were awake. They did not inspire confidence in seeing the sun again.

  “Max, did you see anything unusual when Vincent and Booth got back?”

  Max tried to think. When he did this a strange glint came into his eyes. “No, not really. They got back this afternoon, oh, I’d say about three. But nothing unusual, no.”

  Harry shrugged. “It’s not important . . .”

  The glint in his eyes grew more luminous. “Wait a minute! I did notice something. Right after they got back they went to work fixing leaks. Well, just maybe two leaks. You know that shit we’ve got on board? Epoxy shit, works OK, Glu-it I think it’s called. I was watching them, they didn’t see me. But I figured it was weird, them fixing leaks all of a sudden. I didn’t know we had any in particular. Slater mentioned nothing to me about any leaks.”

  “Max, you think you could point out those leaks they were closing up?”

  Max thought he could. He led Harry into the galley and hoisting the rug, indicated a glazed patch of teakwood. “This is one. The other is in the utility closet.”

  He was prepared to stand there in the half-light of the galley and watch Harry perform the excavation, but Harry had no desire to have him hanging about. To say that he trusted Max more than Booth and Vincent was not to imply that he trusted him completely. “You mind going back up to the deck? I don’t like the idea of running on automatic for too long.”

  “Why? There’s nothing out there but water.” But Max complied, a bit offended that he could not lend further assistance to Harry.

  As soon as the sound of his footsteps up the stairway faded, Harry set to work, using the instruments he found handy in the galley: steak knife, opener, corkscrew, fork. He continued chopping and scooping, little by little enlarging the hole in the floor. He was so absorbed by this task that he lost track of time. Minutes might have passed or the better part of an hour, he had no idea. But at last he had succeeded in exposing a hollow that just that afternoon had been created. It was not large, but then it didn’t have to be. The glassine bags he brought into view fitted perfectly inside it. Though he already knew what the bags contained, Harry tore open one of them, poked a finger in among the granules, and tasted what he came up with. Heroin. And a very fine grade of it at that.

  “Find what you’re looking for?”

  The voice caught him by surprise. He swiveled about, still kneeling, and saw Booth looming over him. Vincent was nowhere in sight. Harry deduced that he must have gone up for Max.

  In Booth’s hands was the AKS that had once been the possession of Francis before Max’s knife had cut short his life. As much as he might have preferred the intimacy of a knife, Booth was respectful enough of Harry’s facility with a gun to employ one himself.

  Harry looked from Booth to the heroin and back again. “Yes, I think I did,” he said.

  Max was bored. He had never been one to appreciate the beauties of nature and neither the greatness of the ocean nor the profusion of stars overhead held any interest for him. The control panel before him showed that everything was as it should be, that there were no shoals to be concerned with, no other craft that might get in the Confrontation’s way any time soon. The maritime channels and the international weather reports were similarly without fascination for him. He located some AM station on the portable radio, which was broadcasting out of San Diego. Periodically the station would fade, yielding to static, and Max would have to tune it back again. But the rock music emerging from the radio was not so loud that it drowned out the fall of a man’s feet against the deck.

  At first, Max assumed that it was Harry, and he turned eagerly to ask him just what he had found concealed under the teakwood floor. But he saw now that it wasn’t Harry at all, it was Vincent, and that he was armed with one of the Mark 9s.

  Max wasn’t rational enough to judge his chances or contemplate his risks. With the first sign of danger all thought process in his mind was blotted out. Because he never truly considered the possibility he might die—he’d survived every previous engagement he’d been in, against the laws of probability—he simply grabbed hold of his Mark 9 and fired—just as Vincent did.

  Hearing the shots, Booth raised his eyes, sufficiently distracted by the commotion that his attention was no longer solely on Harry.

  When he fixed his eyes on him again he was horrified by what he saw. Harry did not have a weapon in his hand—he’d had no chance to extricate his Magnum or to get to the .22 strapped to his ankle. But he had had the opportunity to draw his lighter out of his pocket and now a high yellow-blue flame danced from it. The heroin glimmered in the light it produced. Looking Booth evenly in the eyes, Harry said matter-of-factly, “No way you’re going to kill me before this goes up in flames.”

  Fire seemed somehow to be an ally of Harry this day.

  Booth recalled Garcia’s warning. To bring in only half the heroin—the half hidden in the floor of the utility closet—was to implicate him and Vincent in the theft of the other half. How many thousands of dollars would be lost was something Booth did not know. What he did know was that his life—he couldn’t care less about Vincent’s—was utterly worthless if Harry made good on his threat.

  Booth did not have any idea now what he should do. He could not bring himself to remove his eyes from the tiny flame burning so very close to the heroin. The frustration he was suffering was so immense that he was tempted to shoot Harry just to make it go way. Still, he had enough sense to realize that this option had just been foreclosed to him, at least temporarily. “Well, then you and me, we’ll just wait and see,” he said. He meant this as a threat, but it didn’t come across that way.

  Harry realized he wanted to consult with Vincent before taking any definitive action. He had heard no more shots after the first two. But whether that meant Vincent had triumphed or Max, or neither, he could not begin to imagine.

  Vincent was still in shock, but he was functioning. Every so often he would glance down at his arm, what was left of it anyhow. Max’s bullet had passed clean through it, right above the elbow, shattering the bone so that a fragment of it now protruded from the bloody flesh.

  The carbine he’d been holding had been forced from his hand and lay at his feet. But each time he attempted to retrieve it the pain got the better of him—the old pain this was, the pain from Francis’ machete.

  Max had not escaped unscathed. Blood was soaking his trousers, erupting from the wound in his groin. But he did not appear to notice. Instead he moved, slowly, but methodically, across the deck, a marine knife clutched in his hand.

  Vincent thought of running but for several moments did nothing, immobilized by the pain and yet still convinced he could, in spite of it, get ahold of the carbine and kill Max before he came any closer.

  Max was daring him to do just that. “I’m giving you a chance, sucker,” he said. But there really wasn’t any great acrimony in his words—he was the matador moving in for the kill. The wound in his groin made no difference. He was happy in his anticipation and absolutely oblivious
of Harry’s plight. He had in fact altogether forgotten about Harry in the excitement of the moment.

  Desperate, recognizing that he had this one chance and only this one, Vincent threw himself on the deck and fastened his one good hand on the Mark 9. But before he could do anything with it, Max leaped on him and with several quick decisive slices of his knife, perforated Vincent all up and down his back. He was so determined, he put so much sheer force into the stabbing that occasionally he would stick the blade all the way through Vincent and into the deck, thereby impaling him. Vincent screamed, but because his mouth was so close to the deck, no sound emerged outside of a muffled gasp. Blood shot up through the several wounds Max had made, spattering him so much that it looked as though he’d been completely dunked in it. At last Vincent ceased squirming in a futile effort to free himself. It took several moments longer before Max realized that he was as dead as he was ever going to be.

  Almost reluctantly, he drew himself off his victim. Now the pain in his groin asserted itself. He was about to do something to staunch the bleeding when he remembered Harry. And by remembering Harry he remembered Booth.

  Though he was clumsy by nature and not inclined to use stealth when he could just blunder into a situation, he had enough wits about him not to simply rush down the stairs. This, he realized, could invite a quick and painful death.

  And it also occurred to him that no one below deck would know who was still alive, Vincent or him. He opened the hatch, extinguished the overhead light, then fired Vincent’s Mark 9 down into the cabin. He knew his shots would not hit anybody—he wasn’t aiming at any target—but they might very well bring someone into the open.

  As soon as the light was doused, Booth’s expression took on a frenzied cast. He did not know what was happening. “Vincent? Vincent? Is that you, Vincent?”