Микки Спиллейн - The Delta Factor

Juan parked the car next to a battered Ford and a new Volkswagen, waved me out and we both walked up the stone path to the gate. Behind it, a pair of armed guards flashed lights in our faces, responded to his order and one moved away to trip a lever that sent the metal gate sliding upward to admit us before it clanged down again.

I was finally inside the Rose Castle.

Carter and Rice had done their research well. I matched the details of the place with those in my memory, making note of late renovations and the possible reasons for their uses. Luckily, Fucilla had a strange sense of pride and insisted on giving me a guided tour of the section previously used as housing accommodations for the officers before leading me to the large mahogany-paneled office to meet his superiors.

Captain Ramero and Lieutenant Valente were all too glad to shake hands with someone who was going to increase their personal fortunes. Each made a thorough inspection of the packet Juan handed them, asked him if I understood their language, and when he assured them I was very much just another American gangster with no such possibility, discussed how much they were going to be able to cut the stuff without losing its effectiveness and what the payoff was to be.

Both of them accepted Fucilla’s deal and even understood why I insisted on seeing the prospective customers. Captain Ramero looked at his watch and told Fucilla, “I suggest you get through with it, then. Always when these damnable emergencies arise Señor Sabin makes a personal inspection of the place and, although he takes the money, he wouldn’t approve of us having him do what he demands.”

“It will not take long,” Fucilla assured him.

The captain turned to me, an oily smile on his face. “Tell me, señor, when are you prepared to make your first delivery?”

I studied his face briefly, spotted the attention both the lieutenant and Fucilla were giving me and said, “Oh, a week, two weeks. I’m kind of on a honeymoon.”

There was a brief exchange of glances between them and I knew I had guessed it right. Their present supply was critically short.

I said, “But if you need it I can get it to you fast. In that case it had better be damn fast, because if this hurricane clobbers us there’s no telling what will happen.”

“Your supply… it is in a safe place?”

“Not against a hurricane.”

“Then perhaps it would be better if it were delivered here.”

I shook my head. “I want payment on delivery, Captain.”

“That can be arranged.”

“Good.”

“It is done. How much can you supply and at what price?”

“Two kilos and you’re getting a break. Twenty grand for the lot.” I saw the surprised expression on his face that disappeared almost before it was born and added, “Sure it’s cheap. You’ll have enough to last you the lifetime of your customers here and plenty to peddle someplace else. If you want it cold, it’s hijacked junk and the guys who carried it are dead. Nobody is left to talk and nobody knows where it went to. The only thing I want is clean, spendable U.S. dollars out of the deal and twenty thousand untaxed dollars will do me nicely.”

The captain’s smile had an even oilier slick now. His half-bow was almost gracious. And if he thought I wasn’t reading his mind he was crazy. Once he got his hands on those two kilos I was just another dead American gangster, possibly lost in the hurricane, and the twenty grand he’d have to raise to show me would stick right in his pocket along with all that lovely profit from the sale of the stuff. I had hung out a juicy chunk of bait and it was gulped down without a thought.

“An excellent arrangement,” he said. “When can we expect it?”

“I’ll have to get back to the city…”

He waved it off as inconsequential. “Señor Fucilla’s car is at your disposal. I suggest we complete our transaction immediately.”

“What about the cash?”

“It will be available upon your return.”

“You got guards outside…” I started.

“They will be instructed to let you pass.”

“Okay, sounds good. If it works out maybe we can do business again.”

His friendly laugh was as humorless as a dry bone. “Of course, señor. It is a pleasure to be engaged in a profitable trade.” But what he really meant was that he took me for a one-shot hood who came up lucky on a job and who didn’t have a chance in the world of making it on a second try. The walls of the Rose Castle were nice and high and the waters at their base were populated with enough scavenger sharks to dispose of a body quickly and efficiently.

The captain looked at Fucilla. “Now, our friend would like to see our… guests.”

Fucilla returned his bow. “With pleasure. This way, señor.”

The lights of Nuevo Cádiz threw a dull glow against the low-hanging clouds above it. I turned the Volvo off the coquina road to the narrow macadam highway that led toward it, passing the ancient vehicles rattling toward the safety of the city. The night air was more humid now, sweeping in with cough-like gusts.

Someplace out over the ocean the swirling force of the storm was gathering its forces together, getting ready to pounce. Right now it was sitting back like a gourmet surveying the delicacies he was going to eat, savoring the aroma and enjoying the excitement of the impending meal.

I ran over the layout of the Rose Castle in my mind again, positioning the guards, their attitudes, remembering the corridors and stairways dimly lit by an inadequate generating system that led to the new maximum-security section.

Whoever had contracted for the renovations had found the ancient granite walls too heavy to break through, so the aluminum conduit carrying the power lines had been laid along steel spikes driven into the masonry between the blocks.

Juan Fucilla had not noticed me tracing its course until we came to the intersection where the overhead line ran into a junction box at the top of a vertical pipe that ran through the floor. He had been too busy giving me details of the Rose Castle’s historical background, proudly pointing out features of its impregnability and talking of its reknowned prisoners in the past and the abortive attempts to rescue them.

I had played the interested tourist to the hilt and asked him what lay below the level we were on and he had smiled pompously because I was his co-conspirator and said, “Ah, señor, that is something reserved for official eyes only. It is part of the past we have brought back to life more than once. Our ancestors were very ingenious people who knew how to deal with their enemies.”

“Oh?” I made like I didn’t understand and he smiled again.

“The more naive refer to it as the dungeon… the torture chamber. We prefer to call it the interrogation section. It is very effective. Even the sight of it has eliminated the necessity of lengthy discussions with our, ah, guests.”

“Smart, buddy,” I told him. “Any chance of seeing it?” Fucilla chuckled as if he were enjoying a joke. “Well… since you are here on business that has, let’s say, official sanction, why not?” His eyes half closed, but he kept smiling. “It might even be a good idea, a reminder that our relationship should always be, say… honest?”

I grinned at his veiled threat and waved to him to lead the way.

The opening had been designed to resist a hasty search for it. Fucilla passed it deliberately to prove the point, paused and escorted me back a few yards and pointed to the space between two massive beams supporting the overhead. He reached up, partially withdrew two of the huge bolts studding the beam and pushed against the granite wall. Somewhere a counterbalance creaked on its pulleys and the slab swung in ponderously.