Don Pendleton - Caribbean Kill

"So why ain't he here?" Lavagni sneered.

"He is here. He watches you at this very moment. But he will not fight while Rosalita is in the way of harm. You must release her first. Then he will fight."

Lavagni's eyes became busier. He shouted, "You gotta be kidding! I'm not falling for a routine like that!"

"My senor has said to tell you this. It is a Mexican stand-off. You will understand this meaning, he thinks. He says that you will not release Rosalita even if he gives himself up. He says that you will kill us all, that it is your way. Therefore, he feels that he will not be aiding Rosalita in this manner. But he desires to fight with Quick Tony. He desires this very much. Release the girl, he says, and he will bring to you the thunder and lightning you so richly deserve."

Fini croaked, "That's a crock of shit if I ever heard it!"

The big dumb rube cop was just standing there like a bump on a log, gazing about him like a tourist on a sightseeing trip. The kid was standing there in a fighting stance, legs spread defiantly, jaw thrust forward — mad as hell and telling it like it was, Lavagni had to figure.

"You will notice that the officer has cleared the area," the kid yelled. "It is at my senor's bidding. He is ready for the fight. He says to tell you this. When you have come from behind the woman's skirts, you will also be ready for the fight. Do you receive this meaning?"

"Don't fall for that shit, Tony!" Fini urged.

But Lavagni's mind was clicking through the situation. He called over, "What if I tell your senor to go to hell? What if I tell 'im we're going to have a gang bang on the poop deck with this little knocked-up girlie, and then we're gonna run what's left of her down the anchor chain for the sharks. How's he going to feel about that?"

"He has anticipated such a heinous action. He says, if this threat should be carried out, he will fade away into the night, Quick Tony, and he will take his own revenge in his own way, and at his own time. This is his message, it is all, it is final. If you desire a fight, then you know the conditions."

"Awright, just a second," Lavagni replied.

He called Fini over and said, "He's right, it's a Mexican stand off."

"Yeah but if you let the broad go, then you lose our only ace."

"It's not an ace anymore, that's just the point," Lavagni said. "It's a damn joker now. It's my fault, I messed up. I should be known, Bolan won't come storming up here if he thinks the broad might get caught in his own fire."

"Do you know the guy that well, Tony?"

"I could write a book about the guy," Lavagni replied. "Also I never did figure the guy to lust walk in and give hisself up. He's not that damn stupid."

"Well I guess we got only one play to make," Fini decided.

"That's the way I read it, Joe. We let the kid go and we take our chances on the 50-50 line. Either he'll come on in then or he won't I think he will. It's like him. I think hell make a play for the boat. He likes that wild razzle-dazzle stuff, and I guess he's getting tired of playing it cute. I'm betting the guy is ready for a showdown."

Fini sighed. "You're the boss," he said. "For the record, I'm with you. Personally, I don't like the way this uniformed dodo is acting up, this town constable. I'm afraid he knows something we don't. He might have a whole damn force hurrying down from San Juan or someplace, or maybe a vigilante group to back 'im up. Personally, Tony, I'm ready to either shit or get off the pot"

"Okay, go get the broad," Lavagni growled.

He turned back to the wharf and showed them his eyes and the top of his head and nothing else. "I'm calling your senor's bluff," he announced. "And you tell 'im he better have plenty of that thunder and lightnin' to spare, because I'm gonna shove it right up his ass."

"Be assured, it is no bluff," the kid replied.

And then Fini was there with the broad and shoving her toward the gangway. She saw the kid and let out a muffled little cry and he met her halfway and helped her to the wharf.

Another broad came running down from the market area — a real looker. She was barefooted and wore a grimy looking blouse and a short skirt, and Lavagni thought she looked vaguely familiar, but he could not place her in his immediate memory.

The two broads hugged each other, and they were crying and carrying on. The toonerville cop had walked on to the end of the dock and was just standing there with his arms folded across his chest and watching the tearful reunion in front of the cruiser.

The prick would probably take all the credit. He'd probably become a local legend, the big bad marshal without a gun who faced the fearful gangsters and took back the senorita from their clutches, a regular Wyatt Earp of Puerto Rico. Lavagni was thinking that the fuckin' comedian had better get the hell clear — that is, unless Bolan turned out to be a total damn four-flusher.

And then Tony had another inspiration. He flourished his revolver and leaned over the railing and sighted down on Juan Escadrillo. "Hey you, kid!" he snarled. "The girl goes but you stay."

"Senor?"

"Yeah, you, with the big mouth. You hired the fuckin' goddam boat, didn't you? Awright now, you go sit on the goddam thing!" He waggled the revolver menacingly. "Go on, get aboard the scow. And well see if your great senor can make it over there to join you."

The girl cried, "Juan, no!"

The other broad had some brains, though. She dragged the girl away, talking to her a mile a minute in Spanish, and the boy just stood there, and watched until they were well down the wharf, then he flashed a smile toward the cruiser and called up, "With pleasure I go to await my senor ."

Lavagni felt like plugging the wise-ass, but he let him cross over and jump aboard the salvage rig. Then Quick Tony threw back his head and shouted, "Okay Bolan! Let's hear some of that famous thunder of yours!"

The hick constable in the admiral's uniform was moving toward the protection of the salvage boat.

Not that way, dummy, Tony thought, you'd do a lot better in another direction. When Bolan comes, hell come shooting and snorting. What the hell did this guy think he was, for crissakes, a goddam referee or something?

Come on, Bolan. Come on, baby, and let me taste your ass. Any way you want to show it. Try a line plunge in a car, that would be cute.

Come down the top of the warehouses — or try moving from boat to boat, like at Monte Carlo — only this time, baby, it's just you and me, Tony Lavagni and his quivering fate that's been playing hidey-seek all his life.

You, Bolan, you are Tony Lavagni's fate, his destiny. I owe you every fucking thing that I am right now, and I owe you everything that I'm going to become, a Capo you dumb shit, that's what you've made me. Well come on, come on. What the hell are you waiting for?

"Let's hear some thunder, Bolan!" he screamed.

From the corner of his eye he saw the big hick down on the wharf lighting a cigarette, and Tony thought what a hell of a thing to be doing at a time like this — was it some kind of signal? Then the guy was putting the pack of cigarettes back inside his coat, and his hand came out moving fast — oh hell much too damn fast — and something long and bulky was flying toward the cruiser.

For one awful and timeless instant that thing hung there in the cargo light of the warehouse, suspended in Tony's vision and in the air above the cruiser, and in that final micro-second of understanding, Quick Tony recognized that thing for what it was. It was a bundle of dynamite sticks, tied together with a cluster of blasting caps.

And then time moved on, and the thunder descended, and the last impression to find registration in Lavagni's horrified eyes was that big dumb hick comic constable sprinting gracefully across the end of the wharf, a big black blaster filling one hand and spitting destruction into the roof of the warehouse.