No Flowers for the General (A Mike Faraday Mystery Book 3)

by Basil Copper

  '‘Stand to one side of him, you bloody fool,’ said Hernando without heat.

  Myers obliged. As he went he caught me a blow across my right cheek with his flattened hand. I put my knuckles in his belly with enough force to make him wince with pain.

  ‘Right, Cheney,’ I said. ‘That squares us off.’

  ‘Quit the fooling,’ said Damascus, ‘or I’ll let you have a slug together with these creeps.’

  Myers went over me again; he searched as far as the knees but found nothing. The barrel of the Smith-Wesson was making a comfortable pain against my left foot. While he went through the motions with Clark and Macklehenny the three men came down the staircase and joined us on the floor; the storm was dying away now but the rain still battered at the windows and an occasional flicker of lightning showed beyond the tree-tops. The Cubans came down the stairs one at a time, covered by the others.

  After Myers had finished, the one called Salivar put down the machine gun and searched us again; he didn’t do any better at it than Myers. I was glad Damascus stayed put. He would have made a more efficient job of it than either of them.

  ‘Sit down over there,’ said Hernando. He pushed the General’s wheel-chair to the other end of the room, near the desk. The others dragged over three of the big padded chairs. We all sat in line abreast watched by the trio. They didn’t relax for a second.

  Myers was still grumbling to himself.

  ‘You’d better make this worth my while,’ he said to Hernando.

  ‘I’m finished in this town.’

  ‘You’ll be finished altogether if you don’t button up,’ Damascus told him, with a slight wave of the Schmeisser. ‘You’ll be taken care of, like we said.’

  Myers went and sat down on a long divan and folded his hands over his stomach; his face looked patched and blotchy, like he’d been drinking all evening.

  Clark spoke for the first time. ‘This here’s a private dick from L.A.,’ he said, jerking his thumb at me. ‘This ain’t his case. We’re the professionals.’

  He smiled across at me, indicating Macklehenny’s badge and his own in the same gesture of his thumb.

  ‘It’s his case now,’ said Hernando. ‘We need hostages for safe conduct. Just make sure your usefulness doesn’t run out, that’s all.’

  He looked away to include Myers in his remark.

  ‘Why Holgren?’ I asked Hernando.

  He turned to look at me properly. It was the only real direct look he gave me from first to last.

  ‘What’s this man’s name?’ he asked Myers. Myers told him.

  ‘It can’t make any difference now, Faraday,’ Hernando said. ‘He spotted us in L.A. We all met up on the street one afternoon. He recognised us. We checked up his business address and staked the place out. Myers had kept us in the picture and we’d known Holgren in Cuba. I knew he wouldn’t be able to say a lot over the phone. I wanted our arrival to be a surprise for the General.’ He smiled across at Diaz sitting upright in his chair.

  The General said nothing, just looked at him with those emotionless eyes.

  ‘We got on to Myers and I followed Holgren in my own car. Myers had instructions to stop him at the garage on any pretext. As it happened, he stopped of his own accord. Myers asked him into the office and I got in the back seat of the Bugatti.’

  ‘Then you’re the ice-pick expert?’ I said.

  Hernando smiled again.

  ‘You guessed the rest,’ he said. ‘When we’d done the job you came along and stopped. You were lucky, Faraday. We had a gun on you from behind the hedge.’

  ‘I didn’t see any other car around,’ I said.

  Hernando made a clicking noise with his tongue. The scar on his cheek twitched as though with inward laughter.

  ‘You’re not dealing with amateurs. We left it at the garage. Myers went back on foot to get it while I drove Holgren out to the Agano. Then we came away together. It was a pity about the Bugatti. It was a nice heap.’

  ‘Where were you hanging out the last few weeks?’ said Clark.

  ‘We have a big organisation,’ said Hernando. ‘And the answer to your question is restricted information. We stayed holed up in L.A. until we needed to come out here.’

  ‘Who did the first-rate job on the Benson girl?’ I said. ‘Just to tie up the loose ends. She was my assignment.’

  Hernando flicked the muzzle of his automatic towards Damascus.

  ‘The expert,’ he said. ‘One of those coincidences we meet sometimes. Eh, hombre?’

  Damascus twitched up his face in what I took to be a smile. His knuckles tightened on the grip of the machine pistol.

  Hernando turned back to the General. ‘But one’s misfortune is another’s gift, as we say back home, General.’

  Another faint reverberation of thunder echoed through the room as the storm spent itself on the blunted spikes of the distant hills.

  ‘What have you done with my servants?’ the General asked him levelly. His voice was steady but his eyes burned with a kind of pale fire.

  ‘No need for alarm, senor,’ Hernando told him. ‘They are safely locked in their quarters. I told them all here would be shot if they make a disturbance. They knew we mean it. So …’

  He shrugged. He turned to Clark and Macklehenny.

  ‘You wonder how we get in, eh? Well, the information do you no good so I tell you. It is quite simple. Julio there was the most like Rodriguez, with whom we have an old score to settle. We choose a night when he come into town with the big station wagon. For three nights nothing happen. Then he comes in alone and stops for gas. Tonight.’

  He paused as a brief flash of lightning spent itself against the dark window panes.

  ‘We treat him the same as Holgren. Then Julio dress in his clothes and the dark glasses. The rest of us lie on the floor of the wagon while Myers comes behind with our surprise. The guards have no suspicion when we get to the gate. We get inside and overpower them. We let Myers in and cut the telephone wires. After we get inside the house Julio drugs the dogs while we round up the servants. Simple. Yet a perfect operation of its kind.’

  He scratched the scar on his cheek with the muzzle of the automatic with ill-concealed pleasure. ‘So you kill Julio. An eye for an eye …’

  ‘You made a good job of it,’ Clark told him. ‘But you won’t get away with it.’ Hernando showed his teeth once more. ‘We shall see, senor. As I said we are a big organisation. We have made more than adequate plans. And this has been a meeting I shall treasure for years.’

  ‘The Sheriff’s right,’ said the General. ‘But as it is me you want and nobody else, why involve others? Shoot me and let them go.’

  Hernando went over and looked down at him. The scar stood out in an angry red line on his cheek.

  ‘General, you do not understand the situation,’ he said. ‘A few weeks ago that was exactly our intention. Now there has been a change of plan. Perhaps you have not seen the papers. No matter. There has been a coup. The Government has been overthrown and our own party is once again in power. I received a radio message three nights ago. You are wanted at home. To stand trial for treasonable activities, you understand. The verdict is inevitable, of course. Ironic is it not? Remembering that this is the exact reversal of the situation when you condemned my brother. We do not forget those years we rotted in gaol.’

  The old man didn’t make any reply but just sat looking steadily at him. Hernando was the first to glance away.

  ‘You’ve got courage, senor, that I will say,’ he said with reluctant admiration. ‘But bullets deal with courage just as efficiently as with the cowardly.’

  Once again he glanced over at Myers who had found one of the General’s Scotch bottles and was shakily pouring himself a slug. Damascus’ machine pistol hadn’t deviated one inch from the four of us while Hernando had been talking. Salivar sat on a chair and balanced the tommy gun on his knee. He looked like he knew how to use it.

  ‘So you see why we need these men. General,’ said He
rnando. ‘As sureties for your good conduct.’

  He glanced round the room.

  ‘So you might as well make yourselves comfortable. Drinks all round.’

  Myers got up and went to the General’s big cocktail cabinet and started setting up Scotch glasses; he didn’t ask anyone what they wanted.

  Hernando waved his automatic expansively. ‘Providing no-one gets any stupid ideas it shouldn’t be too intolerable a wait.’

  He passed round the glasses Myers handed him. We all drank. The Scotch tasted good. I felt the gun barrel secure against my leg and the packet of cartridges in my other sock. There was only one thing to do and that was to hang on. I settled back in the chair and loosened my tie.

  ‘Get what rest you can,’ said Hernando. ‘We leave at dawn.’

  It was around five when I woke up again. The storm had died away and my mouth tasted like a rat’s nest. Salivar slept quietly in a chair with his mouth hanging slack. The General was still sitting bolt upright, deep in thought. His untasted whisky glass sat on the tray clipped to the side of his chair; his unseeing yellow eyes faced Hernando. The latter sat with the automatic in one hand and his glass in the other and as much at ease as I’d ever seen him.

  Damascus was standing up, with his back supported against a table; the Schmeisser raked the room from time to time. He looked tireless and indestructible. I figured he was the most deadly of the three, despite Hernando’s virtuosity with ice-picks. If we could eliminate him we had a chance. Macklehenny was sleeping. Clark sat and smoked. His face told me nothing. Myers was lying on a divan snoring heavily. His empty whisky glass had rolled under a table. From time to time Damascus looked at him in disgust.

  ‘Time to be moving soon,’ said Hernando to no-one in particular: I blinked and sat up. The Schmeisser stopped its traverse and steadied on my gut.

  ‘I suppose it’s no good telling you guys to give up this crazy idea?’ said Clark. Hernando shook his head.

  Clark sighed. ‘I guessed not,’ he said. ‘But you’ll never make it out of here. You figure to get the General back to Cuba? You must have a few marbles missing.’

  Hernando didn’t even blink. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you,’ he said, ‘but I am. We got three hostages, apart from the General, right? No-one knows we’re here.’

  ‘What about the cut telephone?’ said Clark. ‘There could be a posse outside right now.’

  Damascus smiled. Hernando shook his head again. ‘We repaired the phone last night. If anyone had rung the General couldn’t be disturbed. Don’t delude yourselves, gentlemen.’

  ‘And the guards at the gate?’ Clark said. ‘They’ve had all night to break loose.’

  ‘We know our business,’ Hernando said. ‘Shackled with their own handcuffs to a solid iron stove down in the cellar. Gagged. And with their feet bound as well. Let’s be realistic.’

  ‘But you really think you can take a conspicuous character like the General out of this district without being spotted?’ I said. ‘Last night, yes, but it’ll soon be daylight. So you get him out of the county. But out of the country’s another thing altogether.’

  Hernando smiled like he was dealing with children.

  ‘You’re talking about a government,’ he said. ‘Dealing with an enemy of the state. So we got a government’s resources. The little surprise downstairs will take care of the General and his wheelchair. About ten miles down the road a ways there’ll be a helicopter. It’s big enough for all of us. Any questions?’

  He might have been lecturing on political economy. He looked round the room. There were no questions. Macklehenny had woken up. Everyone’s faces looked grey in this early morning atmosphere. There was no sign of dawn; wouldn’t be for hours yet but it had that unmistakeable feel of early morning. That and the taste in my mouth. Unless we could come up with something we were finished. I knew one thing. Hernando and his chums weren’t taking any of us on any helicopter except the General. We had perhaps an hour at the house and possibly half an hour on the journey to the rendezvous with the chopper.

  I decided to wait until the journey; that would provide what chances there might be. It was either that or die here. And none of the three men guarding us so closely were likely to care which way we went out. My one worry was that the General might be rash enough to make an unguarded move.

  ‘Waken that sot,’ said Hernando, pointing to Myers. Damascus got up and prodded the big man with the muzzle of the machine pistol. He woke up snuffling and cursing.

  ‘Cut it out,’ he said thickly to Damascus.

  ‘On your feet and make yourself useful,’ said Hernando. Myers got up quickly. He rubbed his hands across his blurry eyes once or twice.

  ‘What time is it?’ he said.

  ‘Time you started pulling your weight in this outfit,’ said Damascus prodding him again with the pistol.

  ‘Lay off,’ snarled Myers. ‘I haven’t had my cut yet.’

  ‘You’ll get yours,’ Damascus promised him. Anyone less dumb and stupid than the big garage owner might have read more significance into the remark but he only grunted, ferreted for the whisky glass and poured himself another shot.

  ‘And cut out that stuff,’ Hernando told him. ‘We might need you later.’

  Damascus stepped forward and knocked the glass out of Myers’ hand with a swift movement of the pistol barrel; the glass broke as it hit the floor and the whisky soaked into the carpet. Myers’ eyes glinted redly and his fists balled at his side.

  ‘Try something,’ Damascus invited him softly.

  Myers stood irresolute and then relaxed his hands and turned away. The whirring of the motor on the General’s wheel-chair was like an electric shock in the quiet room. The muzzles of the three Cubans’ weapons converged on the General like the well-oiled movements of a battle ship’s turret guns and a dozen times as quickly. The General turned his chair and came slowly towards us.

  ‘It seems to me, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘that it is likely to be a strenuous day. Have you any objection to breakfast?’

  ‘We haven’t got time for all that,’ said Damascus sullenly.

  ‘It won’t take long,’ said the General blandly. ‘If one of you will tell my housekeeper Inez to prepare something she will know what to do. Tell her my usual breakfast and not to forget the ketchup.’

  ‘This sounds like a trick …’ burst in the man called Salivar.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said the General evenly. ‘Myers can go and give the instructions. That is, if all my domestic staff haven’t been murdered by your gang of gaol-birds.’

  ‘Bring the woman up here, Myers,’ said Hernando. It was the first time I had heard irritation in his voice. ‘And go with him, Salivar. Make sure nothing goes wrong.’

  He tossed a bunch of keys at the Cuban. The two men went out up the stairs. Macklehenny and Clark and I stretched and looked at one another. I sneaked a glance at my watch. It was already half-past five. I still couldn’t think of anything that gave us half a chance. Only the General seemed unperturbed. I thought there was even satisfaction in his heavy eye-cavities as he looked proudly in front of him. Myers and Salivar came back with a thin-faced, pale woman with short black hair tending to grey; she looked like she hadn’t slept all night.

  ‘Don’t be worried, Inez,’ the General told her kindly. ‘Everything is in order. I should like my usual breakfast. You can bring me a tray. Sandwiches for the rest.

  And two flasks of coffee.’

  ‘We haven’t got time for all this,’ Damascus broke in impatiently ‘We leave at six.’

  ‘We can eat as we go,’ said the General softly. The housekeeper hovered anxiously; her dark eyes fixed on those of the General. He gave her a gentle smile. The housekeeper looked at Hernando inquiringly. He nodded slowly.

  ‘And hurry,’ he barked. He motioned to Salivar to go with her. When they had gone out the two Cubans sat down again and carefully lined up their guns on the four of us spread out in front of them. I measured the distance
but it just wasn’t worth it. The odds were too great. And the General would get it first, which would defeat the object of the exercise.

  Presently Salivar came up to the big room to say that the food was ready. The housekeeper had left everything in the hall. He had locked the staff in their quarters again. By now it was nearer half-past six. I wondered why Hernando had allowed the schedule to be fouled up.

  Then I did a little simple arithmetic. It got light around eight. If we left right away we would be at the landing area soon after seven, if it was about ten miles like Hernando had said. That left an hour between our arrival and dawn. The Cubans would light flares or give some signal so that the helicopter could take them and the General off before first light.

  ‘What about the dogs?’ Damascus was asking Salivar.

  ‘Still out,’ he said. ‘This twenty-four hour dope is really strong.’

  Hernando got up. ‘Let’s move,’ he said. Salivar guarded the General. He and Myers got Diaz on to the lift and started it up the left-hand staircase. The General looked around him like he didn’t expect to see The Palisades again. I didn’t feel much like betting on it either.

  Hernando and Damascus kept the guns turned on Clark and Macklehenny and me. Then we went first up the right-hand staircase to meet the other party at the top. We all went down the big stairs to the main hall. Behind me I could hear Myers still whining something about his cut. Salivar and Damascus first carried the General’s chair down the stairs between them, grunting at the weight. Salivar stayed in the hall to guard the General. Myers had the machine pistol now and he and Hernando stood behind us at the top of the stairs. Damascus came back up again and took the Schmeisser off Myers. We started the slow procession down the stairs. I was looking around for some way out when I heard Myers start up again.

  ‘I’ve done more’n my share,’ he was complaining to Hernando, ‘so why shouldn’t I get my cut now? How do I know you’ll keep your word when we get to Cuba?’