Эллери Куин - The Killer Touch

“Let her walk out of here first,” said Burt. “When she’s out from under the gun, I’ll show you.”

Rolf’s teeth showed like fangs in the lamplight. “You picked a poor time for an ultimatum, Burt. The diamonds are here?” His eyes flicked around the cave. “Sure. This is that girl’s rathole. Over there, both of you.” He shoved Tracy over beside Burt and had them both squat down with their hands clasped above their heads. Then he rummaged swiftly through Maudie’s trove of treasures. Finding nothing, he started checking each crevice in the cave wall. The gun never left Tracy’s heart; Burt was watching it.

“We made a deal, Rolf. I thought you always fulfilled your contracts, even with Nazis.”

“Technically,” said Rolf, “you have taken me to the diamonds, though I don’t have them yet. And technically I am fulfilling my contract. I haven’t killed Tracy — yet.”

Burt’s heart sank. “Why should you kill her?”

“Because I can.”

“Then it’s as good as done, isn’t it?”

Rolf frowned, tugging at the rock Burt had jammed against the box. “You sound as though you have a point to make.”

“I mean,” said Burt, “you’d be getting a sitting duck. There’d be no problem in killing her, a little touch on the trigger and the machine stops. Click. She’s dead, and there’s no more kick than shutting off a radio.”

“Maybe to you—”

“To you, too. Man, I know this score. Half the kick is anticipation, the other half is danger. Getting the other guy before he gets you. You think you’re unique in this world? Rolf Keener, the incomparable killer? You and a hundred thousand Nazis, you and Caligula, you and probably a billion others since the beginning of time. You go around shutting other people off because you see yourselves in them, and you hate what you see.”

“You see yourself in me?”

“Sure.”

“You hate me?”

“I understand you. That cancels out the rest of it.”

Rolf’s lip curled. “You want to take me in and be a character witness for me?”

“I want you to take the diamonds and go.”

“Suppose I were caught—”

“I’d do all I could to see you fry.”

Rolf laughed. “That’s better, Burt. I thought you were about to come on with violin music. Ah!” He pulled out the strongbox. Burt rocked forward on his feet, and Rolf’s gun boomed like thunder in the cave. A rock fragment gouged Burt’s cheek.

“Sit tight, Burt. We haven’t finished our talk.”

Rolf spun the combination, opened the strongbox, and glanced at the glittering fortune nestled in velvet. With his left hand he began stuffing the diamonds in his pocket. When one pocket was full, he shifted the gun and began filling the other. To make room, he took out Burt’s gun and dropped it behind him. To Burt he said: “You seemed about to suggest another deal. What was it?”

“A hand-to-hand fight. Winner take all.”

Rolf laughed. “You always suggest that when you’re at my mercy. I’m already the winner.” He finished emptying the strongbox and stood up. “Let’s put it up to Tracy. Tracy, you want to stay and die with him, or you want to live with me?”

Tracy gasped. “You mean, Burt—”

“He lives — if you come with me.”

She looked at Burt, and he read the anguish in her eyes. “Decide for yourself,” he said.

“I did that a week ago. I’d rather die than live with him.”

“Then that’s your answer.”

“Look here, Tracy, before you decide.” Rolf squatted on his heels and opened his palm. Inside it was a small white capsule.

She gasped. “No!”

“You could sniff it right here. Right now.”

“I don’t... want it.”

Rolf moved his hand, and the capsule landed at her feet. She stared down at it, trembling, the sweat beading her brow. Rolf spoke softly:

“You just imagine you’ve kicked the habit. You really haven’t. You’ll go back to it sooner or later. Why go through a lot of pain—?”

Burt saw his chance and lunged between Rolf and Tracy. The gun boomed, and the bullet ripped through his upper arm like a lance of fire. Burt drove his knee into Rolf’s face and knocked him backward. He leaped on Rolf and ground his knee into the other’s throat. He seized the wrist of Rolf’s gun-hand in both of his, hammering the knuckles against the rock until the fingers gave up the gun. Burt seized it just as Rolf arched his back and threw him off. Burt rose to see Rolf lunge out of the cave. Burt ran out behind him and saw him wading through the black water.

“Stop!” he shouted.

“Shoot me,” yelled Rolf.

Burt fired, and his bullet struck sparks from the rock beside Rolf’s head. Rolf left the crevice and turned right. Burt followed and saw that Rolf had walked out on a blind ledge, fifteen feet above the rocky beach. He stood with his back to the wall, his face smeared with blood.

“All right, Rolf,” said Burt. “Come on back.”

Rolf threw back his head and laughed. “You’ll have to shoot me.”

“The state handles executions.”

“They don’t have the right! A bunch of moronic electricians, what have they done? They didn’t beat me. You did. So shoot!”

Burt started edging toward him.

“Your gun isn’t much good, is it?” Rolf laughed and leaped headfirst off the ledge. Burt thought he’d decided to dash out his brains on the rocks, but the lean body knifed the water three feet beyond the rocks and came up swimming. Burt saw the power cruiser riding at anchor a hundred yards out. He felt a curdling anger in his stomach; Rolf had been sure he wouldn’t shoot. Now Rolf was getting away; the old diesel could never catch him.

Burt dived out over the rocks, thankful that the beach was narrower here; he struck the water, arched his back, and came up swimming with all his strength. He saw that he was slowly closing the gap. Thirty feet, twenty...

A twinge in his arm reminded him of the wound. Losing blood... He heard Tracy’s distant scream. He glanced over his shoulder to see a huge dorsal fin knifing through the water. Tiger shark, he thought in panic, must have been nosing around the rocks. He saw the fin turn sideways as the monster twisted for the bite. Burt surfaced, dived, and clawed for depth. He glimpsed a bulking shadow above him, then a huge body like a stucco wall slammed against him and sent him spinning down into the depths. He rose slowly, watching for the monster’s second pass. It didn’t come, and Burt saw why. Rolf was sinking down through the sunbeams that speared the air-clear water, turning slowly over and over. It was an oddly foreshortened Rolf, ending at his hips. Each stump gave forth a blue fountain which turned to red and drifted away like tenuous pink veils. The impossibly huge bulk of the shark returned, and the scene dissolved into churning red froth. Burt turned and stroked rapidly back to shore.

Tracy was waiting on the rocky beach. “Rolf—?”

“He’s dead.”

She lowered her head and looked at the capsule in her palm. “I’ve been holding this, fighting with myself...”

“Yes?” said Burt. “Who won?”

“There are no winners,” she said. She tossed the capsule into a pool of water trapped by the rocks. Together they watched the ripples spread out and disappear.