Микки Спиллейн - The Delta Factor

Taking care of the guard was a simple matter of walking past him, cutting down the west wing into the adjoining hall and knocking on the door of an empty room while he watched curiously. After standing there five minutes I shrugged, and went back to where I came from, walked to the elevator and stepped in when the door opened. They’d pick me up again downstairs, but as long as they had me in sight, that was all that mattered.

The atmosphere in the casino had changed. Those who couldn’t leave had a resigned attitude and were more concerned with having a good time to forget their troubles than they were with gambling. The same crowd still played the tables, coolly indifferent to the horde of natives who watched them with amazement, gaping at the money changing hands in amounts bigger than they had ever seen in their lives.

From my spot at the bar I cased the room carefully, picked out some of Russo Sabin’s men and the lean form of Major Turez. If Whitey Tass was around he had concealed himself pretty well. It could well have been that he was locked in a room somewhere, not worried about locating Joey Jolley because nobody was leaving the place, figuring to run him down in the turmoil of the storm. It was a safe bet that he would have registered with a phony passport under another name, and with all the disorder at the desk the clerk couldn’t verify a description of him.

I didn’t see Angelo until he was beside me paging a Mr. Roberts at the bar. Between calls he hissed, “The boat has left, señor. There was nothing else for him to do.”

“It’s okay, kid. Thanks.” I said it without moving my lips or looking at him. He kept calling for Mr. Roberts and on the way back past me again I said, “The girl?”

“She made the flight. Be alert, señor. Director Sabin is in the hotel. He knows she is gone.” That was all he had time for. He kept up his paging into the casino area until he was buried in the crowd.

I finished my drink slowly, waved off the refill and walked toward the crap tables. The cashier changed two hundred dollars into chips for me and I played them off a few at a time, picking my way to the end of the room. The guards had me spotted and let me pass as long as I was in sight, but before I reached the last table I saw the major wave to them, pull four out of the ranks to hurry over to the desk.

That left only one standing by the door leading to the service bar and when I sank the stiffened tips of my fingers deep into his gut he never knew what hit him. I had him through the doors and on the floor without anyone seeing us leave and when I brought the butt end of the.45 down across his skull it was going to be a long day before he woke up again.

I dragged him behind the bar, shoved him into the storage space there and slammed the sliding doors shut. When it was done I got up and walked through the kitchen and out into the alley behind the hotel. The dozen cooks and helpers who saw me go were too busy to bother me and didn’t think I was any of their business anyway.

You could smell the storm now. It had a fresh, salty tang, coming in on a steady wind whose intensity had increased steadily. It still wasn’t strong enough to blow more than loose papers around, but a hurricane was a compact thing that always arrived unexpectedly no matter how much warning it gave. It would come in with the sudden, devastating fury of an explosion, create its destruction and pass on with blue skies and sunny days to bury the dead on.

The alley led out to the far end of the parking lot in back of the parapet that encircled it. I took it at a trot, pushed my way through the matted tropical vegetation that decorated its extremity and hugged the space between the parked cars and the wall, running toward the Volvo.

I almost didn’t make it in time.

They were just a formless blur in the darkness at first, seeming to sway gently and merge with the wind-driven shadows from the banana trees and palms behind them. Then I saw the ivory glow of Kim’s legs as she lay sprawled on the ground face down, her skirt whipped up to her hips.

I ran then, half tripping over unseen obstacles in the way, seeing the white ovals of two faces whose bodies were locked in a deadly struggle, and the.45 jumped into my hand. I let out a strangled yell when I saw the terror in Joey’s eyes as he was losing the fight to keep Whitey Tass’s hand from bringing his gun into line with his head. One car had jumped the short curbing into the grassy lane and I had to scramble over the hood before I reached them and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to make it. Whitey’s teeth were bared in a grimace of pure pleasure as he brought the gun around and there wasn’t one thing I could do about it except watch.

But somebody else was watching too. I heard the sharp crack of a small-caliber weapon, saw the tiny flash of flame from the top of the parapet fifty feet away and the tableau froze into position even as I brought the.45 up and blasted two shots at the source of the gunfire. Then Whitey Tass seemed to melt slowly and collapse in a heap at Joey’s feet.

He was too terror-ridden to talk when I reached him. I turned Kim over, saw the bruise on her forehead and the flutter of her eyes, picked her up in my arms and nudged Joey into the Volvo, tossing Kim in beside him. Somebody had started yelling at the front of the hotel and in another minute the place was going to be swarming with police.

Whitey I didn’t have to worry about anymore. That single shot had taken him right through his ear and he died so quickly only one drop of blood marked the bullet entry. I grabbed the gun out of his hand, climbed behind the wheel of the Volvo and spun it out of the parking slot, shifted into forward even as I saw the crowd in the rear-view mirror running toward us. I cut down the ramp, turned east when I hit the street and gave the Volvo all it would take. As I made the first corner I thought I saw other cars taking up the chase, but I couldn’t be sure.

Luckily, traffic coming into the city had all but ceased. A few stragglers still drifted along the shoulders of the road, the headlights of the car warning them of our approach. I wasn’t familiar with this section of the city at all, but in the distance I could see the revolving beacon of the airfield sweeping the sky at intermittent intervals, and headed in that direction, hoping I wasn’t going to trap myself in any dead-end streets.

Beside me, Kim stirred, groaned softly and lifted her hand to her head. Joey’s breath was coming in gasps and when I said, “What the hell happened?” he could hardly speak for a minute.

“I… don’t know. It… was Whitey Tass.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Is he…?”

“Dead,” I finished.

Joe choked on a sob of relief. Kim came out of it then, sizing up our position quickly. She pushed herself upright, her teeth clamped against the pain. I didn’t have to ask her anything. Her words came out clipped but concise.

“I didn’t think anybody saw us. At least the guards didn’t. We… reached the parking lot. Some people were there… getting out of a car… so we hid ourselves in the bushes. My fault… because I wasn’t watching… all areas. Concerned about… those people. He came up from behind and when I… went for my gun he hit me with his.”

Joey had composed himself enough to sound rational again. “He was going to kill me, Morgan. If he hadn’t swung on her he would have. I just grabbed his arm, that’s all. He was too strong. He laughed at me. He was almost ready to shoot me and he was laughing about it.”

Kim said, “Did you kill him, Morgan?”

“No.”

I saw her frown, her hand coming away from her face. “Then who…”

“The shot came from the top of the parapet. Somebody else followed you out too.”