Aaron Elkins: Twenty blue devils

Rudy pressed his lips together. Here it comes, John thought, even as he flung himself down. The squat orange barrel followed him. He was too late, too slow, he was going to take the shot in the face-

Nelson's arm jerked. His hand clamped on Rudy's wrist.

"Damn you, Nelson-” Rudy said testily.

And all hell broke loose. Smoke, flame, noise-banging, whizzing, spitting-and an incredible, hissing, crackling eruption of red-hot sparks, spurts, and streamers that went off in every direction at once.

John stayed low on the floor, on his stomach, while burning chunks of the flare went ricocheting around the room for what seemed an impossibly long time. At one point something fell onto the back of his head and he hurriedly thrust it away before he realized that it was only the flare's unopened parachute.

"Nelson!” he called when he dared to raise his head. The explosions seemed to be over, but bits of flare were still sizzling here and there, visible only as red glows in the billows of acrid smoke that now filled the room. “Are you okay? Where-” He broke off, coughing.

He was answered by a hacking cough off to his right, and he scrambled toward it on elbows and knees, swept out his arm, caught hold of the collar of Nelson's jacket, and dragged him with the same movement out into the fresh air of the gangway, where they sat with their backs against the wall of the bridge, choking and blinded by tears.

"You all right?” John said when he was able to.

Nelson still couldn't speak. He nodded.

"Rudy's still inside,” John said, pushing himself up and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He realized for the first time that his knuckles were singed. His cheek too. “I have to-"

"Help,” someone shouted wetly. “I don't-” There was a break for coughs and gurgles. “I don't swim very well."

John went to the rail. There was Rudy in the water fifteen feet below, sputtering and flopping around in a pathetic attempt at a dog paddle. Apparently he had fallen or jumped through one of the open windows when the flare went off.

"Oh, lordy,” John said, preparing to go over the side but not liking it. Hawaiian or not, he wasn't much of a swimmer either.

But before he could move, one of the Tahitians dove casually into the sea, rising directly under Rudy and hauling him up the ladder in a fireman's carry, then dumping him on the deck. Rudy lay flat on his face, panting and jelly-limbed, hanging on to the metal deck rivets with his fingertips as if he were afraid of rolling off.

"Keep him there,” John called. “Be right down. I'm with the FBI."

The crewman laughed. “Don't worry, this guy ain't going nowhere."

John sank briefly down beside Nelson again. “Nelson, you saved my life. I can't believe it."

Nelson, still hacking away into his handkerchief, shrugged.

"You could have been killed yourself,” John said. “He could easily have pumped that thing into you. I just want you to know that I-I mean, that was really brave of you; that took guts. Not many people-"

"Oh, shush.” Nelson waved him into silence with the handkerchief and finally got his coughing under control.

"I mean, really,” Nelson said peevishly. “You're my brother, aren't you?"

"…highs in the upper thirties, with more of the same- low clouds and drizzle, occasionally turning to sleet-continuing right on through the week. But cheer up, folks; by Friday chances look good for the occasional afternoon sun-break…"

"What's funny?” Julie asked.

"Nothing,” Gideon said, “I was just thinking it's nice to be home."

He reached contentedly across the seat to squeeze her knee and switch the car radio to KING-FM. The Pachelbel Canon in D Major came on, and they listened in cozy, heated comfort to the calm, stately, inexorable chord progressions as Julie swung the car around the forested curves of Highway 101. Downslope on their right, visible through the firs, was Sequim Bay, gray and rain-pelted. On their left, the foothills of the Olympics rose, disappearing into the mist about two hundred feet up. The windshield wipers, making their slow sweep every second or so, kept steady time with the music.

Gideon had arrived in Seattle two hours earlier. He and John had stayed in Tahiti for another day after Rudy's arrest, leaving depositions with Bertaud (they would both have to return for the trial) and having a last sad, hilarious dinner with Nick and what was left of the clan. Then, leaving John to spend another few days with his family, he had boarded the 12:15 A.M. flight to Los Angeles and caught an 8:50 A.M. hop to SeaTac, where Julie had been waiting for him. They decided to go the longer, more scenic way, and she had taken the wheel for the drive across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and on to the Olympic Peninsula and Port Angeles. For most of it he had been filling her in on the latest developments from the South Seas.

Rudy, he told her, had so far refused to make a statement on the advice of his avocat, but Gideon, John, and Bertaud had pieced together a first, rough set of events that seemed to fit the facts. They believed that the money-laundering operation had been Brian's-that is, Bozzuto's-idea; perhaps he'd had it in his mind from the very time he arrived. Bozzuto, after all, had the racketeering contacts and the firsthand experience with slippery bookkeeping. As if to confirm this, the tricky business with the prices had begun only a few months after he had come to the farm. Besides that, Nelson had now turned up some accounting and telephone records that seemed to show Brian's hand in several of the phony transactions. But Brian wouldn't have been able to do it alone. In the first place, coffee-bean purchases weren't made from the farm but from Whidbey Island, Rudy's turf. In the second, Klingo Bozzuto, even with a new face and a new name, wouldn't have been crazy about going anywhere near his old, betrayed gangland associates.

So Rudy was approached, and whether from resentment of Nick (so much more successful than his own father, so magnanimous, so open-handed), or from simple greed, or for some other reason, he cut himself in. For five years they used Paradise Coffee as a money-laundering conduit. And then something happened to sour the relationship. Bertaud believed that Rudy simply decided to cut Brian out and keep all the profit for himself, and the most satisfactory way to do that was to murder him. John believed that Brian, changed for the better by his relationships with Nick and Therese, and by parenthood, had finally seen the light and wanted to go straight, and that Rudy had killed him to keep him from putting an end to the arrangement, and perhaps even confessing to Nick. Gideon kept his opinion to himself, but he thought that Bertaud was closer to the mark.

Whatever the cause, they were fairly sure that it was Rudy who had killed him during that lonely camping trip to Raiatea. Proving it was going to be impossible, they agreed, but Bertaud had assured them that Tari's murder alone, what with Gideon's findings, would be enough to lock Rudy up for a long time to come. Gideon had set the final seal on things when he'd examined Tari's hut and determined what the murder weapon was: not the fireplace poker that he'd anticipated, but a gancho -a sturdy, five-foot pole with a crook in it that was used to pull the spindly top branches of the coffee trees down within easy reach. Tari had kept one leaning against a corner in the hut, and although Rudy had wiped it clean of hair, blood, and fingerprints, Gideon had been able to show that the shape of the heavy end of it perfectly matched the depressed fracture in Tari's skull.

Julie and Gideon had been quiet while the canon was being played, but when it was done she leaned forward to turn the volume down. “There are still some things that I don't understand."