Gavin Lyall - Shooting Script

J.B. said: 'Just you wait a minute, Coronel.'She was looking white and angry.

'You're in the Repúblicahere,' Ned snapped. 'If you want to try your hand at prosecuting, you can start on me: for blowing size eleven holes in your clientsunless they start moving right now.'

I tossed the guard's gun over the bar into a sink full of crushed ice, and we all went to see the General.

I'd expected Aride out to the air base or at least downtown to the Hall of Justice. Instead, we just pushed through a small crowd of tourists and hotel staff who'd come to see – from a distance – what the shot had been about, turned left in the hotel lobby and ended up in the casino room.

This was one thing they did better here than in San Juan. It was a tall, arched, elegant room decorated in the style of Louis the Fifteenth or Onassis the First or somebody. Anyway, long scarlet drapes, white paint, gold mouldings, and chandeliers like crystal clouds, glowing gently – only gently. At tropical high noon, the place had the soft, seductive atmosphere of midnight. You could feel the money in your pocket fighting to be out and into the action.

The room looked pretty full for lunchtime, until I remembered it was Saturday. A white dinner jacket hurried up to us, staring horrified at Ned – perhaps more at his old flying suit than the gun in his hand. Then he recognised him.

'General Bosco,' Nedsaid flatly.

The white jacket nodded a smooth dark head towards the craps tables. We filed across.

Either the General didn't like rolling dice with the mob, or the mob had more sense than to roll dice with a man who's fifty per cent of a dictator. Despite the crowd, he had a whole craps table to himself, an aide-de-camp in a gold-braided uniform, a croupier, and a couple of characters keeping the crowd at a distance with watchful plain-clothes expressions that were far more obvious than the bulges under their jackets.

The General had his back to us, rolling the dice across the table. But the aide caught my eye and smiled hungrily, and I knew him: Capitán Miranda.

Ned marched up and said: 'General – about that crash. I've got Carr, the pilot of the Dove.'

Boscoturned slowly and looked at him.

Perhaps he looked like half a dictator, but I really wouldn'tknow; my personal experience of dictators is slight, although not as slight as I'd like. To me he was a tallish, well-built character in his fifties, putting on a bit of a stomach, with a full but not too fleshy face, a hooked beak of a nose, neat greying hair and moustache, heavy eyebrows over slow dark eyes. He was wearing a snappy dark-blue uniform with five gold stars on the cuffs, gold wings, and three rows of medal ribbons – which was restrained of him since he'd probably awarded most of them to himself.

He said in careful, almost perfect, English: 'I must congratulate you, Coronel. But – perhaps this would be better dealt with at the Hall of Justice?'

Ned jerked his head. 'It's his passengers. They're witnesses.'

Boscoswung his eyes slowly across us. He sized and priced me in a glance. The second glance got him Whitmore – and he knew him. Luiz took a moment longer, but he got the general idea. J.B. he ignored.

After a moment, he nodded and said thoughtfully: 'Ah-h-h. Yes. Perhaps you did the best thing, Coronel. 'He took a long thin cigar from a breast pocket, and Miranda did a Billy-the-Kid draw with a silver lighter. Boscobreathed smoke, leaned his backside against the table, and said: 'Perhaps you would remind me of the full incident, Coronel.'

Ned said: 'It started with a radio call from Ramirez saying he'd spotted Carr's Dove and was going up closer to get a look at it. After that, nothing – until we got the word a few minutes later that a Vampire had crashed a couple of miles north of the field. I checked with Bartolomeo and found Carr had landed safely. I found him here. Him and Whitmore started a bit of a punch-up with the guards.'

Boscolooked at the gun in Ned's hand, then at Whitmore. Whitmore smiled his thin, confident smile. 'Two of your air cops tried to shove me around, General. I'm not complaining. They may be – when they get off the floor.'

The General smiled a little sadly. 'Nobody likes military policemen, Señor, not anywhere. But unfortunately they are necessary.' He looked back at Ned. 'And what were Ramirez' orders this morning?'

'Just a training flight. But we knew Carr's Dove was on its way, so he'd been asked to report it if he saw it.'

I asked: 'Any orders to bounce me?'

Ned took a deep breath. 'No. I'd told him to stay away from you.'

For all his eagerness to haul me into the scales of justice, Ned wasn't putting any gilding on the frame. In fact, it was hardly a frame at all.

So far.

The General turned to me. 'And you, Señor…?'

I shrugged. 'Your boy made a pass at me. When he came in again I went into a spiral – to keep from under his guns. He stalled out of his turn and went in.'

I could feel Ned's eyes on me. The General asked Whitmore: 'And do you confirm this, Señor?'

'It all happened pretty quick,' Whitmore drawled, 'but that's how I recall it. I was up front with Carr.'

General Boscosucked thoughtfully on his cigar, breamed smoke over our heads, and came to a decision. 'I think, Señores, we had all better have a drink.'

Still staring at me, Ned said slowly and clearly: 'You killed that boy, Carr. Deliberate.'

There were a few confused moments of a waiter asking What Drinks and J.B. asking What The Hell. When the smoke cleared the waiter had vanished and J.B. was smouldering silently with Luiz' hand clampedfirmly onher shoulder. The General was keeping Ned quiet with a steady dark stare.

Then he waved his cigar at the table. 'Perhaps, while we wait, Señor Whitmore would care to…?'

Whitmore frowned, then shrugged, stepped up, and took the dice from the croupier. 'We playing the house or just between ourselves?'

The cigar weaved a delicatechandelle.'The house so kindly permits me to play just as among friends, so…' And he smiled sadly.

The house would so kindly permit him to rip off the roof, shoot down the chandeliers, and borrow the manager's wife, too. The house couldn't stop him. He was General Bosco.

Whitmore tossed some money on the table. 'So fade me.'

The General nodded to Miranda, who said: 'General Boscocovers the bet.'

Boscoturned back to Ned. 'Now, Coronel, you were saying…?'

Ned said flatly: 'Carr killed Ramirez. He started out to kill him, and he did.'

I said: 'I didn't start it, Ned.'

Whitmore spat on his hand and sent the dice across the table with an experienced flip.

The croupier chanted:'Cinquo. A point of five to make.'

The General smiled again. 'No win, no loss – yet. Please continue, Coronel.'

Ned was speaking to me now. 'I grant you didn't start it, Keith. But oncehe started it, you killed him. You dragged him down and stalled him. I don't know how – maybe with that old flaps trick. But I know you did it, and you know yourself.'

J.B. said icily: 'In an unarmed plane full of passengers? He killed your brave jet pilot?'

Whitmore rolled again. The croupier chanted:'Ocho. Eight. Still the point of five to make.'

Ned glanced quickly at the table, then shook his head. 'Guns ain't all of it, sweetheart. For some they ain't always enough when they got 'em, and some others don't always need 'em. What really matters is if you're a killer. Keith is.'

I said: 'He was still flying a fighter, Ned.' I stretched my hand. 'Give me your gun and I'll point it at you and you can guess if I'm going to shoot. Then tell me how it feels.'

'He wasn't going to shoot! '

I felt the cold anger rising inside. 'Wasn't he, Ned? Then I must have missed your postcard: Dear Keith, you're going to get beaten up by a boy in a Vamp but don't worry because he'll be disobeying orders and he probably won't disobey them as far as to shoot. So sorry I missed it, Ned, and put you to all this trouble. So sorry.'