“There are other places, other times–I can get to you, Miralles, even in that fancy palacio of yours in Torremolinos. Or I can arrange for somebody else to get to you. I mean what I say. Believe it.”
Miralles was shaking; it was like watching a pot about to boil over. “Qué te la mame tu madrel!” he shouted. “I will not stand for your extortion! I will not stand for it!”
“Thirty thousand,” Carmody said flatly. “Deposited in my Swiss bank within three days.”
“In three days you will be dead! A hundred men will fight one another for the privilege of killing you to please Miralles!”
“The people I deal with are professionals, not a bunch of half..assed punks working for a little tin god. I can disappear in a few hours, Miralles, so completely that you couldn’t find me with ten thousand men Be smart, pay the money. And don’t even think of trying any bullshit double-cross afterward. You’re in over your head this time and I’m letting you off easy. Think about it.”
“I think about nothing’ Esto me ió del!”
Miralles took two steps forward, hands fisted; his face was the color of raw liver. Carmody set himself with the gun drawn back, ready to use it as a club if Miralles jumped him. But the old man stopped suddenly, stiffening. His eyes bulged, his mouth twisted into a rictus of pain. A hoarse, strangled sound rattled in his throat. One hand came up and clawed at his chest, as if he were scratching himself— and then he went to his knees, hard and gracelessly, like a fighting bull spine-pricked by a descabello after an unsuccessful matador kill. He knelt there, staring up at Carmody open-mouthed for several seconds, gasping; then he pitched sideways and rolled onto his back.
Heart attack, Carmody thought. For Christ’s sake!
TUESDAY NIGHT SILVERA
There was a map of the island in the rented Seat’s glove compartment, and Silvera drove with it spread open on the seat beside him. From Calvia he took the switchbacked road over the mountains to the junction with the Palma. Esporlas road, then maneuvered over unpaved country lanes until he came to Santa Maria. There he joined one of the main two-lane roads, skirted Majorca’s second largest city, Inca, and approached the village of Santa Margarita.
Thinking about what would happen when he reached Farm Xorrigo, he felt excitement build hotly in his loins. The gods were being good to him tonight. Jennifer Evans...and Gillian Waltham, too. He glanced into the rear seat; Gillian was still motionless under the blanket. He had hit her again, after leaving Calvia, to make certain she stayed unconscious until it was time for her to wake up for him.
Gillian. He had been truly amazed when she cried his name, when he recognized her. Why she had been at Carmody’s villa was a puzzle to him—but he did not really care to know the reason. Her fate was sealed in any case, the poor stupid American coño. She had seen him, she knew him, she would have to die too tonight. He remembered her body, the feel of her tight and wet around him; the fires burned hotter, his palms were damp; he knew just what he would do to her. First Jennifer Evans and then Gillian, two in one night, two in one night.
Silvera realized how rapidly he was breathing, felt the hard ache of his arousal, and understood that he must control himself. The pleasure would come later; first he must make sure, this time, that he recovered the diamonds. The patrón would not settle for less, and like it or not, he must make the patrón happy to preserve his own happiness.
The old man was still in a rage. Silvera had stopped briefly in Calvia, a few kilometers from Carmody’s villa, and charmed the woman owner of an especierla into letting him use her telephone. He had decided it would be best to call the patrón, let him know that he had been right and the notebook had been found; it would smooth the old vulture’s ruffled feathers, he had reasoned. But no, the response to his news had been angry grunts and the receiver slammed down in his ear. Hostile, obsessed carajo! He would be satisfied only when his precious diamonds were safely in his hands.
It was dark, the rising moon pale in the sky, when Silvera reached Santa Margarita. He passed through the semi-deserted village, found the correct secondary road, began to follow its twisting path through forestland and farmland. The map was one of the comprehensive types, put out by the provincial government, that gave the location of each farm; the one labeled Xorrigo was the eighth out from the village, but none of the entry lanes or rural mailboxes was marked. He slowed his speed radically, to make certain he didn’t miscount by overlooking a track or a farmhouse hidden behind trees or one of the crumbling stone walls.
When he finally located Xorrigo, there was nothing to see except a narrow rocky lane winding through a copse of pine; the farm buildings were invisible from the road. Silvera shut off his headlamps, turned onto the lane between two stone cairns and inched along to minimize engine noise. He was three-quarters of the way through the pines before he could see the farmhouse and grounds ahead. He stopped at that point, switched off the ignition.
On the back seat, Gillian was starting to stir, her breathing becoming irregular. Silvera leaned over the seat, pulled the blanket away and smiled tenderly at her bruised face. “No, querida, not yet;’ he said, and hit her with bunched fingers along the jaw—hard but not as hard as he would later, and not yet with the quartz ring. She stopped stirring, lay motionless again.
He got out of the car, latching the door quietly, and walked along the track until he reached the edge of the red-earth farmyard. There was a light in the crumbling old house, shining through the strands of beads that served in place of a front door. His smile reappeared. Jennifer Evans was still here, of a certainty. And that meant the diamonds were still here too.
It was unlikely that she would be watching outside, but she would be wary after her long wait and she might have a weapon. He must be wary too. His gaze swept over the yard, the stone outbuildings, the livestock corrals, the fenced section of prickly pear that grew like an elongated extension of the house on one side. It reminded him of the poor village of Esteban de Bao where he had spent his boyhood, and the memory was unpleasant; he shunted it out of his mind.
He moved laterally through the trees until he was opposite the first of the outbuildings. Then he came out and circled behind the building, past a well, to the patch of cactus. When he paused to listen there he could hear the faint rattle of dishes inside the house. Eating her supper, perhaps. He laughed silently. Her last supper.
As he passed under the grape arbor, he drew his friend the Browning automatic. Dishes still rattled within, and now he could hear the hollow click of footsteps on floor tiles. He went to the beaded doorway, stepped out with his left hand braced against the wall, and looked around and through the beads, inside.
At first he saw nothing -a sparsely furnished room, disarranged as if it had been ransacked. Then, through an archway, the woman moved into view in an ancient, lanternlit kitchen. Tall, blonde, attractive, wearing only a brassiere... a fact that made her lean nakedness all the more exciting. Better and better, Silvera thought, smiling. It was always so much more enjoyable when the woman was pretty, soft and warm and pretty.
He waited until she stopped moving, stood framed beyond the archway. Then he stepped through the glass beads to introduce himself: Diego Silvera, the man who was going to take her life.
TUESDAY NIGHT–JENNIFER
She heard the beads clicking, swung around and gaped at the man coming through the doorway...a stranger, a smiling stranger with a gun in his hand. The plate of cheese she had been carrying slipped out of her fingers, shattered on the floor. There was a cry in her throat, but it was caught there, like a bone that she couldn’t dislodge. She couldn’t seem to move, either; shock had turned her legs into blocks of stone.
The man stopped a few paces from her, holding the gun up in front of her face, smiling broadly, and as soon as Jennifer saw his eyes she knew she was going to die. The knowledge was utterly alien. Her stomach convulsed, her groin felt as if a hand were brutally clutching her there. Her throat unlocked and she heard herself say in a shrill, crack
ing voice, “Who are you, what do you want?”
“I am Diego Silvera” he said. “It is you I want, querida. You—and the diamonds.”
Her terror was raw and wild, but she felt a savage bitterness, too. The diamonds, her diamonds...so close to having everything and now she would have nothing, nothing...
“No!” she screamed at him, taking a step backward, her hands lifting protectively to her breast. “No, they’re mine, I won’t let you have them!”
He moved as swiftly as a striking snake. Hit her with the palm of his free hand, then backhanded her and cut her cheek with his ring. She cried out, put a hand up to her bleeding cheek—and his fingers caught the front of her brassiere and ripped powerfully downward. The bra snaps broke, baring her breasts; the chamois pouch full of diamonds dropped to the floor at her feet.
Jennifer went to her knees after it, clutching at the pouch, and Silvera kicked her, kicked her again, breathing hard but not with exertion. She sprawled backward into the kitchen table, upsetting it, bringing dishes and battered silverware down around her. She was on her knees, whimpering, her mind a cauldron of pain and fear. One of her hands touched something...cold, hard...and when she looked at it she saw that it was a knife, the one she had been about to use to slice the cheese.
Her fingers closed over it, he wouldn’t get her diamonds, she would kill him! He was on his haunches now, still smiling, filthy shit, picking up the chamois pouch, his eyes on it and not her; she stumbled up and ran at him with the knife upraised. But he heard her, saw her before she reached him. The smile vanished and he threw himself to one side as she slashed down at his head, missing it, carving nothing but air.
In the same instant the gun in his hand made a thunderous noise and there was sudden agony in her chest, a great burning. She dropped the knife, stared down at the raw wound where her right breast had been.
Look what he did to me, she thought in awe.
And then she died.
TUESDAY NIGHT SILVERA
The dead Jennifer Evans made him even angrier than the live one had. He kicked her petulantly, like a child deprived of a special treat. Puta, he thought, puta, why did you make me do that? I didn’t want to kill you that way!
But she had surprised him, coming at him with a knife that way, and his finger tightening on the Browning’s trigger had been reflexive. If he had kept his eyes on her, it would not have happened; he would have seen her pick up the knife, he would have had time to take it away from her. Now it was too late. Now she was dead, too fast, too fast, and with hardly any blood.
He stood cursing her, loudly, until his anger spent itself. Then he remembered Gillian, waiting for him in the car. And all at once he was smiling again.
The Evans woman was dead, yes, but nothing else had changed. He had the diamonds, he had Gillian, he had as much time as he cared to take with her, and later tonight he would have the patrón’s money. He felt the power rising in him again, the pleasure fires rekindling. Gillian. Yes, yes, Gillian.
Silvera picked up the pouch, opened it to make certain it contained all the stolen diamonds, then pocketed it. Still holding the Browning, he went out through the glass beads. The moon was higher now, brighter, and the dusty air was warm and caressing, woman-soft, against his face. He began to hurry, smiling, thinking of Gillian.
He was halfway across the farmyard when Carmody came out from under the grape arbor and shot him twice in the upper body.
TUESDAY NIGHT CARMODY
Carlos Miralles wasn’t dead—not yet, anyway. He lay on his back on the Hotel Mallorca Grande’s expensive carpet, his stomach convulsing, making labored gasping sounds as he fought for breath. His face was a livid purple.
Carmody said, “I ought to let you die, you son of a bitch.” Instead he went to one knee beside the stricken Spaniard, searched through his clothing without finding any pharmaceuticals. Swearing softly, he hurried into the bedroom. In a toilet kit he found a vial of nitroglycerin tablets, with instructions in Spanish on the label. He took them back to where Miralles lay making the strangling sounds, the whites of his eyes showing now. Carmody fished out a tablet, wedged it under Miralles’ tongue. He didn’t wait to see if it would do any good; he straightened and went to the telephone to call the hotel doctor.
It rang just as he put his hand on it.
Carmody hesitated. Then, when the bell rang again, he picked up the phone and carried it on its long cord into the bedroom and shut the door, so the caller couldn’t hear the sounds Miralles was making. He lifted the receiver, made a deep, guttural acknowledgment as Miralles might have done it.
A man’s soft voice said, “Patrón?” Carmody grunted again, and the man seemed to take him for Miralles, all right, because he launched into a short monologue in Spanish. Carmody understood most of it: an apology for some disagreement he and Miralles had had earlier tonight; something about Miralles being right about the notebook, he’d found it at Carmody’s villa after all; and then: “Fanning’s woman is at Farm Xorrigo near the village of Santa Margarita. I am on my way there now, patron. If she is still at the farm, you will have your diamonds before midnight—this I promise you.”
Carmody’s hand was so tight around the receiver there was pain the length of his arm. He wanted to say something, tell this man, this hired gun, to come to the hotel instead; but his Spanish wasn’t nearly good enough. All he could do was make another grunting sound, slam the receiver down hard—and hope the hired gun took it to mean Miralles was still pissed at him.
He went out into the sitting room. Miralles was still alive, still strangling, but his color was better; maybe he would die and maybe he wouldn’t. Carmody didn’t give a damn either way, except that with the old bugger dead there wouldn’t be any payoff for him. Unless he got to the diamonds first.
He lifted the receiver again, jiggled the cradle bar. When the hotel operator came on, Carmody said, “Carlos Miralles has had a heart attack. Send a doctor up right away.” He didn’t wait for a response. He put the phone down and let himself out of the room. There was a stairwell at the near end of the corridor; he went down that way, through the bar and out a side entrance.
In his Porsche he checked his comprehensive island map, located Santa Margarita and Farm Xorrigo. As he drove swiftly away from the hotel, through El Terreno, he focused his anger on the faceless, soft-voiced man who murdered people for Carlos Miralles. Whoever he was, he’d killed Allen Fanning at Carmody’s villa and he’d gone back there tonight... and found Gillian, killed her too? Or had she left by the time the hired gun got there? He told himself it didn’t really matter, Gillian was nothing to him, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her, wondering if she was all right. He didn’t like the idea, but for the first time in his life a woman other than Chana had got down inside him.
When he reached the outskirts of Palma he pushed the Porsche as much as he dared on the two-lane blacktop leading to Inca and the northeast coast, alert for Guardia Civil motorcycle patrols. It took him forty-five minutes to get to Santa Margarita, another fifteen minutes to find the entrance to Farm Xorrigo. He parked in the trees across from the entry lane, went with the Beretta in hand up the lane between the stone cairns. At the start of the pines, he stepped off into the trees and made his way through them, keeping the road in sight.
When he saw the dark shape of the Seat he stopped and swore under his breath. The hired gun had apparently gotten here first. He listened, heard no sounds from the car, and approached it through the trees. Went in a crouch to the driver’s side, then raised up to peer through the windows.
The front seat was empty, but there was a mound of something under a blanket in the rear. Carmody’s lips pulled away from his teeth. The back door was unlocked; he opened it slowly, watching for a dome light. None came on. He leaned in and dragged the blanket away.
Gillian. At first he thought she was dead, but when he put a hand between her breasts he could feel the irregular thump of her heart. Relief moved through him—a deeper relief than he wan
ted to acknowledge. When he touched her face he could feel cuts, dried blood. The son of a bitch had abused her... but why he’d brought her with him, left her alive this long, Carmody couldn’t figure. He tugged her toward him, lifted her inert weight out of the car. The road ahead, the farmyard in the distance, appeared deserted. Even so, he didn’t like the idea of restricting the freedom of his hands; but he didn’t want to hang around the car and he didn’t want to leave her inside it.
He carried her into the pines, out of sight of the road, then put her down. Her hands and feet were tied; he cut the cords with his knife, then knelt and chafed her wrists, slapped her face gently. Her eyelids fluttered and she began to moan softly. Carmody covered her mouth with his hand. Her eyes opened wide; he could feel the sudden straining tenseness of her body. He whispered, “It’s all right, its Carmody, you’re safe now.”
Her body went limp. He took his hand away from her mouth—and she struggled into a sitting position and threw her arms around him, saying breathlessly, “Oh God, he came into the villa, he hit me, he –”
Carmody said, “Save it.” and pulled her arms down. “There’s no time for that now.”
She looked around, confused, disoriented. “Where are we? Where’s Fernando? How did you-?”
“Never mind, I said. Can you walk?”
“I... I think so.” Then, “He hurt me... my face hurts.”
“Come on, on your feet. And don’t ask questions; just do what I tell you.”
He lifted her up, led her back toward the Seat. At the edge of the road he stopped to reconnoiter. Still nobody around. He pressed the keys to the Porsche into her hand.
“Follow this track until you come out on the road,” he said. “My Porsche is parked in the trees on the other side. Get in and lock the doors and put the keys in the ignition. You know how to drive a standard transmission?”
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