Rick Boyer - Billingsgate Shoal

"I took your picture in Wellfleet. I'm not the only one who knows you didn't die in Alaska. Assuming you get away tonight, you've still had it, pal. They've got your number."

"Who? Names!" screamed Laura. "Name some names, quick! "

I did. I named Ruggles, Brindelli, Hannon, O'Hearn, and two others. I mentioned the army chap who couldn't wait to get his hands on the people who stole the army's rifles.

It was then I realized I had blundered into something that could make me inadvertently reveal something about John. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him visibly shudder. I saw his heavy shoulders sag a bit, and knew he was almost as distraught as I was.

Jim Schilling sat on an old crate and rubbed his big jaw.

"He knows the whole thing, Laura. I want him out. Now."

"Won't do you any good. All of them know too."

"Then where the hell are they?" he screamed, and glared at me.

He had me there. I sure as hell wished I knew.

"Just tell me," I asked, "who are the guns for?"

"They're going to Ireland," said Laura.

"Then you are supplying the IRA-"

She smiled a smug grin and shook her well-groomed head back and forth.

"No. They're going to our people in the south, to give the Irish bastards a taste of their own medicine. The arms we send from here will be used to kill the IRA murderers and terrorists. If things get rough-as they will, I'm sure-then they'll be used against the populace of the south. If they can do it to us, we can do it to them."

She smiled serenely. It looked totally incongruous that this middle-aged, stylish woman should be holding a military rifle. But hold it she did, and with evident familiarity too.

"I remember now, you're English-"

"My, my, you certainly have dug around; haven't you, Doctor? Yes, I'm British. But my home was Ulster, not England; My family owned a factory in Belfast, until it was bombed out by the thugs from the south. When my father wouldn't give in to them, they killed him and burnt the factory to the ground. We were ruined. We came here to start all over again. I was so desperate for money I married a man I couldn't stand,-a tinkerer-genius who founded his own company. Living with him was pure hell. For years I looked for a way out."

She looked in Schilling's direction, then back at me. I looked at both of them quickly, then back at Laura. Then I shot a quick glance at John, who slumped scowling in the far doorway as if unsure what to do.

"Does he know about how you killed Walter?" I asked.

They were both silent for a few seconds. Then Schilling came back. I thought he was going to hit me again, but he didn't. Bless his cowardly heart.

"You may not know this," he said to me, "but changing the Windhover into Penelope was entirely Walter's idea. He made arrangements with Murdock's Boatyard and had the bogus papers drawn up in the name of Wallace Kinchloe-"

"Yeah, I know. And so do the police. I assume you two got wind of the scheme just at its completion and stepped in to take delivery of the boat from Danny Murdock, right? The fact that the boat owner's wife was one of the parties claiming the vessel no doubt convinced Murdock that Kincaid hadn't been betrayed."

"You've got it, almost exactly. Laura overheard a snatch of phone conversation between Walter and Murdock one afternoon as she went to his study to ask him about some bills. Before she knocked on his study door she heard his voice on the phone. The four words that stuck in her memory were: Why don't you tell Adams what they were, Laura?"

"Keep your mouth shut," she replied.

"So you intercepted your husband's plan to disappear just at the right time. His own game plan insured your success."

"That's true," said the big man, "but you must keep in mind what a thorough son of a bitch Walter Kincaid really was… and what ungodly hell he put us, and all his employees,. through."

I sensed I had one hole card left. I had to play it exactly right or I'd cash in my chips-involuntarily-and wind up as crab bait at the bottom of that big, dark hole.

"Laura, I'm going on a long shot here, but I'm assuming that Walter didn't exactly leave you sitting pretty. Did he leave you the house? Is that all?"

She looked at me for almost ten seconds, the hate in her eyes growing all the time.

"Not even that. Just the furniture. The company got the house. Can you believe it?"

"I can believe it, Laura. I can also believe your late husband was a pretty smart operator. Perhaps he sensed your hatred, your infidelity?"

"Infidelity!"

She brought the butt of the rifle around sharply into my jaw. Had it been solid wood it would have done real damage. As it was the nylon stock threw my head back and made the right side of my. jaw ache. It wasn't that bad. I knew I was in for much worse.

"Listen to me now," I said. "I happen to know that your crackpot husband struck it rich, big. He finally found that treasure trove he'd devoted his life to. I intercepted mail to an elite commodities trader that proves it. I know where the treasure is. You don't. I don't know how much you're expecting to make off these hauls, Schilling, but I can promise you it won't even touch what the late Walter Kincaid has laid up in his secret hidey-hole."

"Oh bullshit," said Schilling.

"No. He was headed for the Bahamas. You knew that of course, didn't you?"

"No. How did you find that out?" he asked.

"Kincaid had a post office box in Boston under the name Wallace Kinchloe-the same name he used for the Penelope's papers. I got access to the box through the police. He had bought a condominium on St. Thomas for three hundred thousand, and had also arranged for the deposit of a large quantity of gold bullion-tax-free-on the island of Grand Cayman. Kincaid was not only going to lose himself, he was going in style."

"And where's the gold now?"

I stayed quiet. Schilling looked over at John.

"Now Adams, see that fellow who escorted you in here? He's a former member of the Provisional Wing of the IRA. He betrayed them, and now has their death sentence on his head. He knows a good deal about interrogation, don't you, John?"

The stocky man with the blue watery eyes nodded quickly. His expression didn't change.

"He knows things like how to scrape your shinbone with a knife blade, and how to smash your knees and shoulders with a mechanic's hammer… don't you, John?"

I didn't like the sound of any of this. And I knew that once they had the information they needed I was done for. I looked at my watch again. It was ten to four. Pray to God DeGroot would awaken.

Laura Kincaid approached me. Her face and eyes showed absolutely no emotion.

"Where is it?" she asked. Her tone was polite, clipped.

"No," I said, and that was all.

Then I felt my entire lower half go red with searing pain. Laura Kincaid drew her canvas-clad foot back again to deliver another full kick to my crotch, but I had crossed my legs. I bit through my tongue in the pain, and half rolled over. I watched the spit and blood run out of my mouth through clenched teeth. I think I was whining or screaming with my mouth shut. The yellow concrete floor rolled back and forth. I felt another kick in the small of my back, and my head sank down onto my arms.

"Where is it, you shit! Where is it!"

I felt another kick, and another… and another… and another.

Things went dark and swirly for a while, then I heard Schilling's voice right above my ear.

"I really think she'll kick you to death, you know, if you don't tell us."

"Get away, you oaf. Let me handle it-"

"Laura, please-"

The last thing I remembered before passing out again was that Big Jim Schilling didn't call the shots. Tiny, pert, trim Laura Kincaid had him by the short hairs. I didn't blame Walter Kincaid for trying to lose himself one little bit. When I woke up they had propped me up against the crates. They commenced to get very nasty. What they did to me almost mined what little faith I have in the human race. I can't talk much about it, even now, because it makes me want to get a job in a munitions factory. John shot a grim and determined glance at me now and then, but did nothing more. It was only after I finally admitted that the gold-a fortune in bullion-lay sealed in the Rose's hull that they dragged me over to the edge of the pit. I was kneeling down in front of it. I couldn't see into. the empty blackness, but I heard the sloshing of water, the gurgle of slime and cold wet.