James Chase - There’s a Hippie on the Highway

Beigler handed his notebook to Solo.

‘Initial each page and sign the last page, Solo,’ he said. We’re going as fast as we can.’

Without even bothering to read what Beigler had written, Solo did as he was told.

Lepski made a sign to one of the patrolmen who quietly drew his Billy and balanced it in his hand.

‘You can relax, Solo,’ Lepski said. ‘Harry Mitchell’s come back to life.’ He took the second Telex from his wallet and handed it to Solo.

Solo read it, crumpled it in his great fist and glared with vicious fury at Lepski who grinned.

‘You hit me, Solo, so I hit you. Never hit a cop; it’s bad medicine.’

With a roar of rage, Solo launched himself at Lepski but the club, wielded with scientific precision smashed down on his skull and he spread out on the floor of the cabin.

‘Passenger? I don’t know what you mean,’ Nina said and backed away.

‘I had an idea either Solo or Cortez was in the locked cabin,’ Harry returned.

‘No one was in the cabin! We’re wasting time! Let’s get these boxes on deck!’

Harry regarded her, then shrugged. He carried the boxes, one by one, out of the cabin and laid them in a row on the deck. Nina came up with the four life-jackets. In a few moments they had strapped the jackets around the boxes. Then Harry found a length of rope and roped the boxes together.

He helped Nina adjust her aqualung, then adjusted his own. He shoved the boxes overboard. They landed with a splash in the water, the jackets giving them enough buoyancy to float.

He looked at Nina who nodded and they both dived off the boat. Harry picked up the floating rope and began towing the four boxes towards the mouth of the tunnel.

Nina swam beside him. They reached and entered the tunnel. The strong current swept them forward. Nina caught hold of one of the boxes and hung on as she was buffeted and bustled through the darkness.

The first indication that warned Fernando Cortez that the operation had been completed was the sight of the four wooden boxes in life jackets as they floated out of the mouth of the tunnel.

He was lying behind a rock on the platform where Harry had left his bag. He held the .22 target rifle in his fat, sweating hands, the butt dug hard into his shoulder. He levelled the rifle sight on the boxes, his finger taking in the slack of the trigger and he waited.

He, Solo and Nina had agreed that as soon as Harry appeared from the tunnel, Cortez was to kill him. Harry would have served his purpose, and a rifle bullet was all that was necessary to put period to his usefulness. The plan was for Nina to swim the boxes to where Cortez was hiding, return to the boat and bring it around the island to the lagoon. Cortez would load the boxes onto the boat and they would return to the mainland. Cortez would receive his share, give Solo the value of his boat and sail for Yucatan: a long trip, but in Solo’s boat and at this tune of year, a safe one.

Always suspicious of a double-cross, Solo had been uneasy about the plan. Suppose, he argued to Nina when Cortez had gone, Cortez took it into his head not to return to the mainland?

Suppose he killed her as well as Harry and grabbed all the money? Nina had argued him out of this thinking. Cortez, she had told Solo, was in love with her. When Solo’s face turned dark with rage, she had assured him that if Cortez was the last man left alive she wouldn’t dream of marrying him. ‘Marry that fat, stupid pig?’ she had said and had laughed scornfully, but the fact that he was so madly in love with her assured her safety. She had, she told Solo, already hinted to Cortez that once the share out had been made, she would go with him to Yucatan, and Cortez was hopeful. Again she had laughed. ‘I’ll leave you to handle him, Papa, when he learns I won’t be going.’ So good was her acting that Solo was convinced. Her acting had been good because she was speaking half-truths. She was in love with Cortez, and they were planning to go on from Sheldon to Yucatan with the money. There was something about the fat, brutal Mexican that stirred Nina’s blood. The thought of escaping from Solo’s supervision, living with Cortez in Mexico City and spending three hundred thousand dollars was heady wine to Nina. What she didn’t know was that Cortez already had a fat, ugly wife and three fat, ugly children living in Taxco. Cortez had no intention of marrying Nina. He planned to live with her until the money began to run out and then he would quietly drop out of sight.

As he squinted along the barrel of the rifle, Cortez’s eyebrows came together in a worried frown.

He could see the four boxes floating just below him, but where was Mitchell? Then he remembered that Mitchell was wearing an aqualung. Cortez told himself Mitchell would come to the surface any moment now, and when he saw a head bob up out of the water some yards from the boxes, he quickly shifted his aim and squeezed the trigger. In the split second before the rifle fired, he realised it was Nina’s head he was aiming at and not Harry’s. He saw Nina half spring from the water and throw up her arms. He saw blood appearing on the mask covering her face, then he watched her drop limply on her back and remain floating, blood making a dark circle around her.

Cortez remained motionless for a long minute, then he cursed loudly and vilely. Feverishly, he scanned the surface of the lagoon, looking for Harry, but couldn’t see him. He looked down at the floating boxes far out of his reach. He would have to get back to the boat and bring it round to the lagoon, he told himself. But where was that damned Mitchell?

He got to his feet.

‘Hold it! Drop that gun!’

He looked over his shoulder, his lips coming off his teeth in a savage snarl.

Standing above him was Lepski, and slightly behind was Beigler. Both detectives had guns in their hands. Like a trapped animal, Cortez swung his rifle around, firing at the same time. Lepski’s bullet took him between his eyes and he reeled back and splashed into the sea.

‘That’s two to be fished out,’ Lepski said in disgust. ‘Now where’s Mitchell?’

Watching all this from the far side of the lagoon, concealed in the heavy shadows, Harry decided it was time to go. He gently submerged and swam invisibly out of the lagoon and headed back to Solo’s boat.

Beigler told the four patrolmen to strip off and bring the two bodies and the boxes to the rock side where they could be dragged out.

While the patrolmen were undressing, Lepski continued to survey the surface of the lagoon.

‘Do you think he’s still in the grotto, Sarg?’ he asked.

‘Who is still in the grotto?’ Beigler asked.

Lepski stared at him.

‘Mitchell for God’s sake!’

‘How would I know?’ Beigler said indifferently. ‘Instead of jumping around like you want a pee, suppose you get into the water and do some work.’

Lepski reacted as if he had touched with a hot iron.

‘Who... me? Get in there! Mitchell may be getting away!’

‘You heard me!’ Beigler snarled. ‘Get in there!’

Thirty minutes later, and only with great difficulty, they got the bodies of Nina and Cortez onto the rock platform. Finally, they began to get the boxes up.

As Lepski was cursing and struggling with one of the boxes, he heard the sound of a boat engine starting up.

‘That’s Solo’s boat, Sarg,’ he bawled, and leaving the box, he swam to the side and heaved himself up onto the platform.

‘Mitchell’s getting away!’

‘Does that bother you?’ Beigler asked. ‘I don’t remember telling you to break off operations.’

‘But he’s getting away?’ Lepski cried excitedly.

Beigler regarded him.

‘Is he? We don’t know he was ever here. We have only Solo’s word for it and he’s a known liar. We don’t even know for sure that Mitchell wasn’t killed in action.’