Green Ice

by Gerald A. Browne

  Hurtado and Kellerman dropped flat to the concrete deck.

  Wiley made for the deep end of the pool. He was supposed to have gotten out by way of the steps at the shallow end, but his knees had been a problem, rigid, the fluid in them viscous from the cold. He couldn’t run, hobbled down the incline of the bottom, which was steeper than it had appeared. The sound of his steps reverberated loudly, and he got an objective mental flash of himself—trapped in a depressed rectangular box.

  The deep end of the pool was in shadow. By the time Wiley reached it, Hurtado and Kellerman were firing at him. They were kneeling, one knee down on the deck near the shallow end.

  Wiley expected any second to feel the splat of a bullet into his back. He kept low, tucked over, dodged. The slugs that just missed him chipped sharply off the hard interior of the pool and ricocheted around until spent.

  Wiley got to the right-hand corner of the far end, where there was a permanent pool ladder. A tubular-metal ladder with fat chrome rails and wide substantial steps. He put his pistol away and jumped for it. The five feet of sand in that end of the pool helped. Otherwise the ladder would have been way out of reach. He grasped the bottom of one of the rails where it was fixed to the side of the pool. Pulled himself up. The metal was so cold his bare hands almost stuck to it.

  He didn’t try to climb out of the pool. He couldn’t, without offering them too easy a target.

  He used only the bottom step, brought his right foot up on it and pivoted around. He clung to the side of the ladder, used it for cover. Put it between himself and them. Better than nothing.

  All the while Hurtado and Kellerman had been firing at him. Only the quickness and unpredictability of his movements and the deep shadows had kept him from getting hit. Twice, three times, he thought he felt bullets brush the fabric of his wind-breaker, and perhaps one had creased his neck just below his right ear but he wasn’t sure. There wasn’t any pain. Too cold for such pain.

  They didn’t waste bullets on him now. They had him, hung up on the side of that ladder. All they had to do was improve their angle.

  His hands were too cold to reach in for his pistol to fight back.

  Kellerman darted in between the third and fourth shacks on the left side.

  Hurtado advanced along the concrete deck on the left side of the pool. After he’d gone about a third of the pool’s length, Hurtado had a clear chance at Wiley. But didn’t take it. Each step brought him closer, gave him an easier, surer shot. When he was directly opposite where Wiley clung, only the width of the pool away, Hurtado stopped, raised his pistol and took aim.

  Lillian shot Hurtado in the back.

  From the position she had taken up between the ninth and tenth shacks on that side.

  Hurtado didn’t go down. The impact of the bullet only caused the huge man’s body to jerk slightly. He turned around to face the shacks, as though irritated at the interruption.

  Lillian shot him in the chest.

  Hurtado took three steps in her direction. It was as though she were firing blanks.

  She shot him again.

  He absorbed that bullet also.

  But it stopped him.

  Her next shot started him going the other way, against his will, bent like a man fighting a strong wind.

  She had four rounds left in that clip. She squeezed them off quickly but accurately.

  As though they were individual shoves, they drove Hurtado back. Over the edge. He dropped dead into the pool.

  Wiley took advantage of the diversion to climb the ladder to the concrete deck and roll swiftly across it to the space between shacks twelve and thirteen.

  He joined Lillian behind the shacks. They hurried across the parking area.

  Kellerman tried a shot from the rear corner of shack four.

  They sprinted up the drive.

  Kellerman after them.

  They impulsively bypassed the clubhouse, followed the drive around to the inland side. There was the golf course. That part of it an entirely open gentle slope.

  Kellerman was only about a hundred feet behind them.

  Lillian ejected her empty clip. On the run she tried to fit in a fresh one and, giving her attention partly to that, stumbled and fell. It took her a moment to recover.

  Kellerman went down at practically the same time. He reached beneath his coat for his other gun. It had a longer barrel. He extended both his arms. In a prone position, he used the ground to support his aim. Did not hurry this shot, knew he was well within range and had a good enough view of his target.

  Lillian continued on for a dozen more strides or so before her legs gave out. She collapsed on the frozen grass at the edge of a sand bunker, fell forward into it in a contorted position, a leg and an arm pinned under her, the weight of her limp head stretching her neck. Her eyes were fixed in a stare and her mouth was open as though in amazement.

  Wiley glanced back, stopped when he saw Lillian down in the bunker. He rushed to her, kneeled, straightened her body, hating the lifelessness of her arms and legs, the way her neck didn’t have the life to support her head, allowed it to loll to one side so her cheek was pressing the cold damp sand.

  Somehow he had always thought he’d be the first to get it, not her. Oh, God, not her.

  He heard a voice, low but loud enough for him to recognize it as Kellerman’s. Talking to someone.

  Wiley looked over the shoulder of the bunker, not cautiously, saw a single figure about a hundred feet away. That could only mean Kellerman had a radio. What was he saying? The cold air carried his words, but Wiley couldn’t make them out. No doubt, however, who Kellerman was in contact with.

  Wiley took out the Colt forty-five. His hands were so cold he had to force his fingers to bend. He snapped the bolt back, and the pistol inserted a bullet into the firing chamber.

  One of those hydraulic bullets she’d made.

  She owed Kellerman one.

  Wiley would see that Kellerman got it.

  If it was the last thing he did.

  Kellerman had put the radio away now. He checked his pistol and headed straight for the bunker. He didn’t know the bunker or Wiley was there. It had appeared to him that Lillian had fallen over a small rise and that Wiley had gone on.

  Wiley waited, watched through the fringes of dead grass, waited until Kellerman was only a few paces away.

  Wiley loomed up, fired at the middle of the man with the death-mask face.

  Wiley had jerked the shot but it still hit. Below Kellerman’s right collarbone. The bullet with the water in its nose exploded as it was supposed to when it met the resistance of Kellerman’s flesh. It blew away Kellerman’s entire shoulder. His right arm landed thirty feet behind him off to the right. The rest of his body pumped the life out of him in seconds.

  Wiley removed the radio from Kellerman’s coat pocket.

  He pressed the receiver switch.

  “Kellerman! What’s happening, Kellerman?”

  “Fuck you, Argenti.”

  “Wiley? Wiley?”

  “I’m the only one left.”

  “The emeralds, Wiley, where are the emeralds?”

  “Up your ass.”

  “I’ll make a deal with you …”

  Wiley threw the radio as far away as he could.

  He returned to the bunker, to Lillian. Hope made him feel for her pulse. Nothing registered through his numb fingers. He placed his ear to her breast, couldn’t hear a heartbeat. Her open mouth. It seemed he should be able to pour life into her. If only he could. If he could, he would give her all his breath.

  He held her to him for a moment, rocked back and forth, unconsciously trying to animate her.

  He picked her up, took her dead weight on his shoulders and carried her up the slope and down through the club area to the beach. The tide was at its highest now. There was no dry place to walk, but when the icy water ran up, soaked, and should have shocked his feet and legs, he wasn’t fazed. He was feeling so much he couldn’t feel anything.

/>   He carried her up and across the bridge to the house.

  He placed her gently on the sofa in the relaxing room, arranged her arms and legs, put a pillow under her head. No reason she should look uncomfortable.

  He sat on the edge of the couch.

  Just sat there.

  After a few minutes he noticed her cheek twitch, just once.

  A left-over impulse, he thought.

  In less than another minute her mouth closed.

  Wiley tried for her pulse.

  Now his fingers were warm.

  He found it, felt it, the vital surge in her, extremely weak and slow. Nevertheless there!

  She was wounded, not dead yet, wounded. How badly? Where?

  Her eyelids fluttered slightly.

  He removed her windbreaker and the rest of her clothes. There were numerous scratches on the front of her, red raw, the deeper ones accentuated by dried blood.

  From the brambles.

  But nothing serious.

  He turned her over, expecting to see the hole Kellerman’s bullet had made.

  There were only more scratches.

  And on the left side of the small of her back a tiny puncture from which considerable blood had flowed. It looked as though she’d been jabbed there with a needle.

  He made her comfortable again, covered her with a blanket.

  Watched with amazement and gratitude as she blinked, tried to focus her eyes. On him. Was coming out of it, whatever it was. She couldn’t speak yet, tried to wet her lips and take deeper breaths. He went to get water.

  It was then he noticed the dart on the floor near where he’d dropped her windbreaker. He must have pulled it out when he’d undressed her. He picked it up, examined it, saw that its business end was actually a hypodermic needle about a half inch long, connected to a miniature capsule that, no doubt, injected its contents on impact.

  He imagined it had contained a tranquilizer, a concentrated dose, instantly immobilizing.

  The emeralds, he thought. Kellerman needed to know where the emeralds were.

  What other possible reason could Kellerman have had for not wanting Lillian dead?

  35

  Out in Three Mile Harbor.

  Aboard the yacht Oscuro.

  Argenti would wear the shin-length genuine-camel-hair topcoat that had been made for him by one of his regular tailors in Milan. Over a black cashmere turtleneck sweater with a white silk scarf tied loosely. For that much of an underworld air. Capo di tutti capi (boss of bosses), he thought to the mirror. However, a wide-brim cream-colored Capone-ish felt hat, he decided, was a bit much.

  From one of the drawers of his wardrobe he chose one from a half-dozen pairs of black gloves. Kid that was butter-soft, stretchable so they’d be skin tight. He worked his fingers and hands into them, smacked fists against palms left and right and approved of the extreme shine of his black wing-tipped shoes.

  No gun. There was a nickel-plated thirty-eight automatic on the wardrobe top. But he wouldn’t need it.

  He left his cabin, went up to the lounge, where he poured an ample, last-minute brandy. Took a mouthful and let its fumes burn up into the passages to his nose. He tossed down the rest. A larger gulp than usual. For the cold, not nerve, he told himself.

  He’d thought out how he’d handle Wiley. He couldn’t leave it to anyone else. Even Kellerman had proved incompetent. The situation required his, Argenti’s, finesse and insight. He was sure he’d read Wiley correctly, right from the start. Such obvious, futile ambitions. He’d play on them now. Go face to face with Wiley. Take him to the top of power mountain and show him the view. Wiley was a fool, but smart enough to realize he couldn’t possibly safely market all those emeralds. Better, he’d reason with Wiley, make a deal for them. A choice: Come in as, say, a quarter partner in The Concession or settle now for fifty million. He’d feed Wiley the numbered-Swiss-account bullshit, even name the bank in Geneva.

  No matter which Wiley chose, he’d end up in Barbosa.

  Argenti went out on deck.

  He paused, surveyed the shore.

  It was, he realized, the United States, one of the many forbidden lands. But the time was three-thirty, reassuring, and this place was so remote, and the lights that were on were scattered all-night lights, unthreatening public lights, none moving.

  Such as those that illuminated the landing about a hundred yards away, allowing him to see the three men there, waiting, shuffling their feet in place, trying to keep warm. The three Conduct Section men he had summoned to go along as his escort. How much alike they looked, Argenti thought. All Conduct Section men looked alike. Where had Kellerman recruited them?

  The power launch was ready, gurgling the water as it idled alongside. Argenti went down the boarding steps and climbed aboard. At once it pulled away.

  The harbor was practically waveless.

  The launch headed for shore.

  Argenti kept his eyes on the three men.

  He gestured to them, a leader’s sort of acknowledgment, as the launch pulled in.

  It would be a steady, easy transfer from the launch to the landing.

  Argenti placed one foot up on the slip-proof rubber-matted area of the gunwale. Brought his weight up onto that foot. His next step would be on the landing.

  In that moment, during that motion, he glanced at the three men. Their faces, stances.

  And knew who they really were.

  Not his men, or Kellerman’s.

  They were there for The System.

  The System—which had with reluctant lenience reduced his death sentence to exile and warned him precisely what would be the consequence if he ever, even once, violated those terms.

  Argenti tried to recall his step, but his weight had already shifted.

  The moment his foot touched the landing he was shot dead.

  36

  Three days later.

  “I’ve got it,” Lillian said, digging into her pocket.

  They were in an exact-change lane, had it clear, but Wiley steered to the next lane over, where several cars were ahead of them.

  Lillian cocked her head at him quizzically.

  He pretended not to notice.

  She shrugged, put her exact change back into her pocket.

  He took a five dollar bill from his, handed it out to the black woman toll-taker in the booth and thanked her by the name etched on the plastic plate over her breast pocket. The toll-taker didn’t say anything, not even with her eyes, but Wiley didn’t blame her, thought he sure as hell wouldn’t want to be saying thanks ten thousand times a day.

  He drove down the grade and into the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, got into the left, the faster lane.

  “Where are we going?” Lillian asked.

  “I told you, I have some business to take care of.”

  “What sort of business?”

  Wiley shoved in the ashtray to have the cigarette stubs out of sight.

  Lillian noticed that many of the ceramic tiles in the ceiling of the tunnel were missing. She closed her eyes and tried to think of anything other than a whole river above her. She peeked through her lashes a couple of times, but didn’t really open her eyes until they had come out of the tunnel and turned up onto Thirty-seventh Street.

  Wiley headed the car crosstown.

  “My scratches itch,” Lillian said, and used her fingernails on her left thigh.

  Wiley’s mind flashed back to their fall into the brambles. No more of that, he told himself. No more Argenti. With Argenti and Kellerman gone, so was The Concession, its purpose and the way it had been organized. They were in the clear. Wiley still found it difficult to accept.

  Sunday morning last he’d thought surely another five or six Conduct Section men would arrive any minute. He’d bolted all the locks and nailed boards across the door Hurtado had broken through. Sat in the relaxing room with groggy Lillian, resigned to it all starting again, knowing they weren’t in any condition to go another round.

  By dawn Lillian was le
ss woozy. And Wiley felt better, because they probably wouldn’t come in the daytime. Lillian did some breath-control exercises and got on her makeshift slant board for half an hour to get rid of her tranquilizer hangover. Wiley tried to sleep, was too adrenergic.

  They first learned of Argenti’s death on the radio. Between a David Bowie and a Jefferson Starship. They thought they were hearing things.

  They saw it on the television news.

  The three bodies had been found at the Maidstone Club, were as yet unidentified.

  Police were trying to piece it together.

  Especially Kellerman, Wiley had thought to himself.

  There was believed to be a connection between the three dead men at the Maidstone and the killing of Meno Sebastiano Argenti.

  An underworld massacre was the slant of it.

  The television reporter repeatedly used the full name—Meno Sebastiano Argenti—as though he enjoyed the sound of it.

  That night, Sunday night, Wiley had removed the other two bodies from the house, loaded them into the gray Buick and left it parked in East Hampton, alongside the fence of the West End Burying Ground.

  Now, with all that behind them, Wiley and Lillian were pulled up at a light at Forty-second and Seventh Avenue.

  A manhole was spouting steam into the cold air a few feet ahead. Thick, extremely white steam, clean-looking. Off to the right, a place called itself The Dirty Bookstore.

  “We deserve a vacation,” Lillian said.

  A sort of affirmative grunt from Wiley.

  “Why don’t we go someplace different, like Fiji or Ireland? I’d really love to go to Northern Ireland. I understand there are some nice, not-too-grand but large-enough houses for sale there now. And the help are so friendly.”

  And there’s also that rebellion, Wiley thought, remembering her mother’s name had been Mayo.

  “Another area I haven’t seen enough of is the Eastern Mediterranean, especially Cyprus.”