Brett Halliday - I Come to Kill You

He entered by the open door. The gray Cadillac was still parked under the gun room. He laid the flashlight, burning, on the roof of the car and stepped up on the front bumper.

Now he began working carefully. Opening his waterproof case, he took out the fist-sized lump of explosive material, folded the end of a wire into the plastic, and pressed it against the ceiling, waiting several seconds until it adhered.

He backed out of the garage, paying out wire. The headlights of several of the parked cars had been turned on. Shadows crossed and recrossed. Reaching the dock, Shayne had to use the flashlight again to tie in the small detonator.

He stripped down to his shorts and put the camera, his money and wallet and pistol in the watertight case. One of the men from the house was running toward the garage and had nearly reached it. Shayne yelled, and the man stopped.

Shayne pressed the detonator handle and dived off the dock.

He felt the force of the explosion underwater. He went deep and took a dozen hard strokes before surfacing. Bits of debris were pattering into the water around him.

He saw two pleasure boats lying dead in the water to the east, Sarah’s head and bare arm ahead of him, Liz O’Donnell’s Wanderer, without lights, beyond.

He glanced toward the shore briefly, and then set out to overtake Sarah with a powerful rolling crawl. Coming up behind her, he seized Carl’s free hand. Carl, on oxygen, floated just beneath the surface, kicking feebly.

A second explosion blew more flaming bits in the air. The building was burning fiercely.

Then Shayne saw Liz’s hand reaching down from the boat. He passed Carl’s hand up to her, and the black-clad figure broke water. Shayne found the rope ladder and climbed aboard. He helped Liz pull Carl into the boat, then Sarah.

“Let’s go. We’re in rifle range.”

Liz ran to the wheel. The starter coughed, and the motor took hold.

On the island, men were running around seemingly at random. A car’s headlights moved toward the causeway. Burns’s two boats were heading for shore. Shots were being fired. Both boats missed the floating mines, and grounded. The fire in the garage flared higher briefly as a gas tank exploded.

Overhead, Shayne heard the flailing of helicopters. The helicopters came in from two directions, lights blazing, and hovered above the lawn with Will Gentry’s voice booming out over a bullhorn, telling everybody on both sides to stand where they were and drop all weapons. Burns, Valenti, and one other made it back to a boat. They were moving away from shore in a long, sweeping curve under full power when the boat exploded beneath them. On the second try, it had hit one of the mines.

All three were killed.

The only other casualty, surprisingly, was Dino Occhiogrosso, who was hit between the eyes by a chance bullet as he trotted toward his car. The official theory was that this was an accident, but certain Mafia experts believed that in the confusion one of his enemies had finally managed to pay off an old score.

Liz, expecting to pick Shayne out of the water, had brought a towel and a robe. Sarah removed her wet clothes, dried herself, and put on the robe. Shayne, meanwhile, was freeing Carl.

He came out gasping. “What was that explosion?” He stopped and looked at the island. The flames had reached the ammunition. There was a steady crackle of small-arms fire, the occasional heavier bang of a grenade. The helicopters were swooping down, dropping flares.

Stunned, Carl looked at Shayne. “You, Mike?”

“Other people helped.”

“Is — my father dead?”

“I don’t think so. I thought of putting off the cops for ten or fifteen minutes, so more people could get shot, but I don’t seem to be that bloodthirsty anymore.”

“No, you’re not bloodthirsty,” Carl said. “Of course not. If the old man was dead, you wouldn’t have anything to pressure me with.”

Shayne called to Liz, at the wheel, to cut across the channel between islands. She made the turn without answering, and the stiff way she was holding her shoulders showed she was mad. Shayne went up into the wheelhouse with her and asked for a cigarette. She had brought a fresh pack, as well as a pint of cognac.

He drank first. As he lit the cigarette, Liz said, “She’s cute.”

Shayne agreed. After a moment Liz’s shoulders relaxed. “All right, I’m a bitch. But I thought I was only going to pull one person out of the water. I didn’t know you’d have a skinny blonde in a wet dress and no bra.”

He laughed. “Under the Bay Bridge, Liz. Then swing in and take us as close as you can to Mercy Hospital. You know what has to happen now. I have to answer questions. Then more cops show up, and they ask me the same questions, and I answer them again. That goes on for twelve hours. If you’re free for breakfast…”

“I happen to be free for breakfast.”

He returned to the cockpit deck, where he took off his shorts and pulled on the wet-suit, without the oxygen tanks or the mask. Carl chattered nervously for a time, until Shayne told him to shut up; he had things to think about.

“Such as who gets first whack at Carl De Blasio,” Carl said. “I know.”

They came in and splashed ashore.

“That’s your girl, I suppose,” Sarah remarked coolly as the boat backed off to head north up the bay.

“What?” Shayne said absently.

“You heard me.”

“I’ll tell you about it. Not tomorrow, because tomorrow I’m going to catch up on my sleep. The next day.”

They entered the hospital. At the sight of Shayne in the shiny wet-suit, a woman in the main downstairs waiting room rose like a partridge.

“Mike Shayne!”

He stopped, and she hurried up. It was Jo Meister. “Hugh’s upstairs with Tim Rourke. He brought me so I could back him up if Tim didn’t believe him.”

“How is Tim?”

“Sitting up, but he’s pretty hostile. On the subject of Michael Shayne, especially.”

The lady volunteer at the desk didn’t want to let them pass, as it was long after visiting hours, and Shayne had to threaten the night supervisor. He took Mrs. Meister with them.

Rourke was propped up against pillows. His jaw was wired and clamped, and much of his face was hidden behind bandages. But his eyes were showing, and they looked at his old friend with cold enmity.

Shayne said, “You don’t look as bad as I expected. I must be losing some of my steam.”

The expression around Rourke’s eyes didn’t change. He flexed his fingers.

MacDougall said, “I tried to explain what you’ve been up to, Mike, but I don’t think I made much of an impression.”

Shayne grinned at the injured reporter. “I brought you a couple of visitors. Sarah Percival, who used to sleep with Sherman Meister and has been sleeping with me for the last two days. Mrs. Meister. Carl De Blasio, of the notorious Mafia De Blasios. I thought you might like to ask them some questions.”

Rourke lifted his head ironically and made a swallowing noise.

“Baby,” Shayne said to Sarah, “go down to the nurse’s station and borrow her portable. Tim has a fast pair of index fingers.”

After she went out, Shayne explained to Rourke, “You know about Carl. His old man has been hoping he’d take an interest in the business. That’s natural. But nobody grows up speaking Italian anymore. The old Mafia personalities are dwindling away. I don’t think there’s a boss in the country who’s younger than sixty-five. Carl doesn’t object to making money. He explained it to me. He wants to bring the organization into the modern world, and start making modern amounts of money. But the Don’s too old to change.”

Carl interrupted. “Aren’t you going to give me the warning?”