Built for Trouble

by Al Fray

  Nola patted his cheek and he returned the compliment with a playful slap on her behind. She smiled indulgently and turned back to me, the smile fading. I tried to swallow but my mouth was dry.

  “Now wait a minute, Nola,” I said quickly. “We can work out a better answer than—”

  “I’m afraid not, Eddie. Sending Joe Lamb to Ojai to—to see you was a mistake. I can’t afford to underestimate you a second time.”

  Her eyes half closed now and she seemed to be looking into the darkness ahead. I glanced to starboard and saw the red and white stack of the Hyperion Sludge Plant abeam. We were getting damn close to the beach at Playa Del Rey.

  “It will work out nicely,” Nola was saying, almost as if she were going over the details one more time to be sure everything was just right. “We’ll let the anchor down and—and later we’ll bring it up. We cut the rope at your ankle. Tomorrow or the next day, or perhaps even later, the surf will wash you in. But your clothes will already have been found; Con is going ashore with them later tonight. He’ll taxi from Santa Monica down to Playa Del Rey and drop your things on the beach. A towel, your pants.” She nodded toward a bundle lying on the after deck. “We’ve taken all but two dollars out of your wallet; that’s about all anyone would likely leave on the beach while he went for a swim. Then Con will swim out a way, I’ll pick him up, and we’ll be tied up at the Catalina Isthmus in the morning. It will be that simple.”

  “Except that when the can and those pictures turn up—”

  “Ah, yes, the package again. But one has to take a measure of risk in a thing like this. And there are some factors in our favor, even so. Actually, our chances are very good.”

  “Like hell they are!”

  “I’ve given it a lot of thought,” Nola said softly. “The thing may never be found at all. It may be found by kids, kicked around for a while, and discarded. Or let us say that Joe’s guess was right and you’ve wired it up under the frame of your car or hidden it somewhere in the cushions. We’ll have it back before you wash up on the beach at Playa Del Rey, because one of the musts on our list is a careful check of your Ford.”

  She had it all worked out. And while she wouldn’t find the can or pictures where she hoped, there was the locker key I’d hidden on my hack, and they’d make a long stride once they had that. But either way, I wouldn’t be around to care. There wasn’t much time to lose. Any minute now one of them would go into the cabin and press the button and the anchor would start down. Maybe, if I kept Nola running on…

  “The odds are a hell of a lot slimmer than you think,” I said, and tried to sound a note of confidence.

  “I don’t think so. You overplayed the part, Eddie, a bad thing to do on any stage.”

  “Overplayed?” I asked. Masters looked at me idly and picked his teeth.

  “That’s right. You were real cool in Echo Park; you managed to get away with the money and bank it. Or probably it’s in a safe-deposit box. At any rate, we knew you’d have to come back for the car—your own car—and we had learned that following you was a job for an expert. So we hired a private detective and put Carol there in Joe’s car. It was too pat. You knew his car; you’d seen it that day in front of my apartment house. So we were sure you’d give her a fast slip and then we hoped the detective would get your address for us. As it was, you all but hung a red light on your car so Carol couldn’t get lost. Why? So we’d be sure to locate you. And why again? So we would look around for the package and find nothing and then we were supposed to be very sure that you were giving us the straight stuff on how you mailed it out. But you were rather too obvious. If you really were sure of yourself, why sell us a bill of goods? Why lay out a drawer full of wrapping materials so carefully unless you were trying desperately to prove your point?”

  Salty was right about one thing—Nola had a million-dollar head on those shoulders. She was smiling thinly now, and lit another smoke.

  “You could, of course, claim the evidence was in your safe-deposit box, but that too is impossible.”

  “You hope! And that’s all you’ve got—just a hope.”

  “No, I’m sure. The key is on your ring; the number of the box is 4227, and I checked it out by renting a box myself the morning after you brought me home from Oceanside. It gave me the chance for a look around the vault, and your number turned out to be one of those long thin drawers which couldn’t possibly hold a beer tin. Or the photos either, unless you folded them.”

  I wiped my arm across my wet face and grabbed at the only straw in sight.

  “All right, all right! We’re a stalemate. You’re dead and you don’t know it, but I won’t be here to laugh when they haul you into the gas chamber, so I lose too.” I wiped my face again and tried to control my voice. “We’ll make a deal. I settle for the dough I’ve already got and—”

  “It’s no use, Eddie.”

  “Hear me out, damn it! I have got the package and that can and those photographs will show up. All five of them, and in less than a year. When they do, you’ve had it. But I’ll turn it over to you. The whole bundle. We’ll go ashore tonight and in the morning I’ll get it.”

  “How do we know we can trust you? Or you us?”

  “Easy. We go where the plant is hidden. It’s in a crowded place; I can’t get rough and you have to play ball too. I get the evidence and hand it over. Then you go your way and I go mine. It’s a stand-off.”

  For a minute I thought she was sold. She lit a smoke and looked at me over the match, her face thoughtful, but the words brought a quick shift in scenery.

  “Don’t tell me that you sold this bill of goods to Joe Lamb. Is that what went wrong? He bought it?”

  “Damn it, I’m leveling with you,” I yelled. “I’m willing to go with you and get the key to—to where the stuff is cached away. You’ll have all of the evidence; you’ll be in the driver’s seat.”

  “You forget, Eddie, that most of the evidence is a matter of legal record. In San Diego. The only thing I can do is prevent anyone from making the right connections, and to do that, I’ve got to—” She stopped momentarily and flicked ashes over the side of the boat. “We’ve come to the final scene. We’re shooting it tonight and I don’t think we’ll need a retake. It’s the end. Finish.”

  “There’s never an end,” I said. “You can’t stop; the next guy to go will be Salty Sam here, and then who?” My eyes darted to the rope around my ankle and to the anchor and heavy chain. They were really going through with this. In a year all hell would break loose and the house of cards would collapse around Nola’s head. But how dead would I be in a year?

  How dead would I be in an hour!

  I turned to Conrad. “Don’t swallow that line about this being the end, lard ass,” I taunted him. “Sure as hell you don’t believe she can let you wander around free.” I backed toward the bow.

  “I told you, beach boy. This little girl needs me.” He grinned and slipped his hand under the tight sweater and gave me a wink. “Sure, you got her too, but that was business. With me it’s all amour, so don’t try to get me upset over one little scramble between the sheets. I’ll be doing the work years after you’re gone.”

  “Sure, honey,” Nola said, and leaned against him. She tilted her head back and nipped at his ear, then broke away. “Let’s get the business at hand over with, Con. There’ll be plenty of time for games later.”

  He made a grab for her, but she moved back along the narrow deck by the cabin. “Please, darling,” she said. “We have to take care of Eddie first.”

  She had him on the wire edge. It was the moment of decision; he either had to fire or fall back, and there wasn’t any doubt which he would do. He swung along the other side, dropped down the companionway, and put the wheel over. The engines throttled down to an idle, the boat lost way. Somewhere below me an electric motor hummed—and the anchor chain began to move.

  A steel link of chain skidded into the hawsepipe and disappeared, then another. The anchor, loose now and swinging
a little, scraped against the boat. Panic took hold of me. I threw myself on the deck, braced my feet against the lip of the hawsepipe, grabbed the chain, and strained to hold it back. But no matter how hard I pulled, the links moved ahead.

  I got to my knees and caught hold of the chain once more, then let go just in time to keep my hands from being pulled into the pipe along with the chain.

  And in that instant, I got an idea.

  I caught up a loop of slack in the rope leading away from my ankle and wound it tightly around the chain. When I had half a dozen turns around the steel links, the first bit of rope began to nose into the pipe, and when rope and chain went into the narrow pipe, they jammed tight, suspending the anchor. The motor continued to hum; the taut chain fell slack and began to slide back and forth as the boat, with little way on her now, wallowed in the swells.

  “Something’s wrong out here,” Nola called.

  The windlass stopped turning and Nola started toward me, then stopped at the forward break in the cabin and held on to the railing. Salty came running up out of the companionway, swung forward, and hurried along the deck, his sneakers pounding as he came. He drew up beside Nola and looked toward me as I crouched over the jammed hawsepipe. We were moving even slower now, and rolling quite a bit.

  I couldn’t afford any time for Nola to work this out; I had to get Masters within range, and fast.

  “That’s right, you fat pig,” I yelled at him. “Stand there and let her figure out that you’re going to have to come out here and clear the damn chain.”

  Con’s hand slipped back to the leather sheath, and his knife came out. He let go the rail and moved toward me on unsteady feet.

  Chapter 15

  “CON!” Nola screamed. She took a step away from the cabin, then had to reach back as the boat rolled to port.

  “That’s right, call the bastard back,” I said, and half turned away. “He won’t know what to do when he gets here.”

  “Con, you fool,” she called again. He faltered in his step, and I shifted my feet for leverage as my right hand caught the top of the windlass.

  “Go on back, you meat head,” I said scornfully.

  My hand slipped off the windlass and closed around the chain leading down through the deck. I tried to look relaxed as I watched him coming on again, the knife cutting short arcs through the air as his arm moved to keep balance.

  “She needs you?” I said, and forced a laugh. “Nola needs you like she needed Hank Sawyer.” He was bending toward me now, sweating as much as I was, the knife held back close to his side. His mouth opened and his teeth were clenched.

  “Move, beach boy!” He tipped his head, indicating the deck space on the other side of the windlass. “Move! I’m going to clear that hawse and if I have to stick you a little, that’s all right with me.”

  “I’m going,” I said, and raised up an inch or two. Then as the boat rolled to port again I lashed out with my free foot, sliding forward as far as the tied ankle would permit. I caught his left leg just above the ankle. It went out from under him. and he pitched toward me. I made a grab for his knife hand as his arms shot out to break the fall. My fingers clamped around his wrist and I forced his right arm back, the knife away from me, and it half turned Masters. He crashed onto the deck beside me, his arm bent back under his body and my arm right with his, holding onto that knife hand. We faced each other, side by side on the deck, and he exhaled a bourbon exhaust all over the place as he gasped for breath. I started to reach over him with my right hand but my fingers touched the blade of the knife.

  Nola was screaming down at us now and pulling at my free leg. I kicked and shook her off just as Masters slammed me in the face, but there was no room to swing and his fist had no force: Nola wheeled and started back across the pitching deck toward the cabin.

  My clothes were there, and the .38, and there was the shark gun too. I didn’t have much time. I couldn’t lift him to force the knife out in the open, and he was slugging me again. I let him punch as I shifted my leg for leverage, got my free hand on the anchor windlass, and heaved. I turned him over on his back and rolled on top. He yelled in my ear and tried to arch his back off the deck, but he couldn’t make it. Then he twisted suddenly, the fight gone, his body going limp. My hand holding the knife hand under him began to feel warm and slippery.

  I rolled Masters back on his belly again and saw blood pour from a three-inch gash a little to one side of his spine and below the ribs.

  Nola! She flashed through my mind as I cut the heavy line around my ankle and ran toward the cabin. I dived up onto the roof and got to my knees, then crawled softly on all fours toward a spot just over the companionway aft. Three shots rang out, and bullets tore through the cabin roof.

  “Eddie. Eddie, let’s talk about it.”

  I had never heard her voice like this. She was in panic now. She was finally over her depth. Her nerves had cracked.

  “Eddie,” she called again, “I didn’t mean to shoot, I—I need you, Eddie.”

  She needed me all right. She needed me dead, and all I’d have to do would be to speak. Just talk enough so she could be sure where I was. I could feel the roll of the boat and I could hear her moving around the cabin, but she was afraid to come out from under the cabin roof. It was a stalemate. She had the gun but to use it she’d have to get out where she could see me; she’d have to come up the companionway knowing I could sink the knife into her before she had a chance to locate me and fire. She must have been thinking the same thing because she began to plead once more. It was going to be all right. She had a great future and I could be a part of it. An agent. She knew all the angles. I wouldn’t have to do anything but hang around and collect my ten per cent.

  Nola babbled on and I glanced toward the shore. We were still a good three miles out; there was no worry about the shots being heard. I knew I couldn’t use the knife on her if she came up the half dozen steps. Not that she didn’t rate that kind of treatment. She’d clawed her way to a movie career over the bodies of at least two men. Three, counting Conrad Masters, and there wasn’t much doubt about him now. He lay on the bow of the Sirocco, his body shifting gently with the roll and pitch of the boat; he wasn’t bracing against the motion. Nola was itching to add Eddie Baker to the list, but somehow I knew I couldn’t use the knife. When she stopped talking, I saw her shadow as she stood framed in the small doorway below.

  “Are you up there?” she called in a high, thin voice.

  I didn’t answer for a few seconds. The light spilled out onto the companionway once more as she moved back into the cabin. She had fired three shots. The .38 carried a full cylinder of six. When those were gone I could race in there and take command; I could get to her before she got the heavy rifle down and into action, but first I had to bleed out those remaining three slugs in the .38.

  We were still idling, almost no headway, and I could move without changing the roll of the boat. I inched over to port as far as I could, then stood up to make the target a minimum from down below.

  “No dice,” I yelled. “I’m staying up here!”

  The gun barked twice, the lead slamming through the cabin roof in two places just over the doorway. One to go! I moved forward a few feet. I reached up with the knife, cut a signal halyard running up to the tiny mast overhead, then caught the line as it slipped through the pulley and fell. I coiled the rope and eased along the roof toward the companionway.

  The engines went to half speed, and the boat came around and began to head toward sea.

  “I’ll wait you out,” Nola called. “I’m staying up forward. You’ll never get through that cabin door.”

  Maybe, I thought grimly, but you’re on the thin edge, baby.

  I looked down toward the cabin deck below. It was going to have to be a well co-ordinated effort—toss the clump of line down in the hope that she’d fire at whatever hit the deck, then swing down, pile in there before she knew what was happening, get her tied up some place, and work things out from there.r />
  Because all I wanted now was out. That was it. Just get the hell away from Nola Norton, maybe even out of the state. I’d had it. But first I needed to get command of the boat. I raised the coil of line.

  “Look out!” I yelled, and threw the tangle of line down against the paneling in the aft part of the companionway. A shot rang out, but it was different somehow, and the bullet splintered through the paneling where the rope had hit. I didn’t jump down; she had fired the rifle. Nola Norton was still a step ahead of me all the way.

  I wiped my forehead and tried to steady my nerves. If I had jumped—I looked toward Masters on the bow and wiped my arm across my face once more.

  Now what? Go over the side? I could handle the swim from here, and off a big ship it might work. They aren’t maneuverable; by the time one swung around and headed back it would be impossible to find a person. But with the Sirocco it would be different. She could simply bring the boat about, nose it toward me, then get out on the bow with that rifle. And if I thought of it, so would Nola Norton.

  Standing by the tiny mast, I tried to work out some escape. I guessed the time at two o’clock. In four hours it would be daylight; by eight o’clock the sun would be high enough to cast a nice shadow. The game would be up then. The .38 had only one shell but there was probably an unlimited supply of ammunition for the shark gun. It might take her a little time but the end was certain; all she had to do was swing the boat until my shadow fell somewhere, then estimate and fire. She could miss once. She could miss twenty times, but eventually she’d have to luck one in. I couldn’t wait for that to happen—the waiting game was Nola’s. So I had to get her out of there soon.

  I was still working on it when I caught the thin smell of gasoline.

  Moving aft, I looked over the edge of the roof and down toward the splintered wood. There was a bright brass fitting, an intake pipe for fuel, on the afterdeck just beyond the smashed panel. The port gas tank would be in that compartment; Nola’s rifle bullet must have slammed through the tank and now raw gasoline was running into the bilge. Sloshing back and forth with the roll of the boat, the gasoline was filling the bilge with highly explosive vapors.