Десмонд Бэгли - The Vivero Letter

‘That’s Gatt, all right.’

He grunted. ‘Taking his time. What the hell is he doing? Picking flowers?’

Gatt had bent down and was groping at something on the ground. I said, ‘He’ll be here in five minutes. I’m going out there to talk to him.’

‘That’s taking a risk.’

‘It has to be done — and I’d rather do it out there than back here. Can anyone use that rifle we’ve got?’

‘I’m not too bad,’ said Fowler.

‘Not too bad — hell!’ rumbled Rudetsky. ‘He was a marksman in Korea.’

‘That’s good enough for me,’ I said with an attempt at a grin. ‘Keep your sights on him, and if he looks like pulling a fast one on me, let him have it.’

Fowler picked up the rifle and examined the sights. ‘Don’t go too far away,’ he said. ‘And keep from between me and Gatt.’

I walked to the door of the hut ‘Everyone else keep out of sight,’ I said, and stepped outside, feeling like a condemned man on his way to the gallows. I walked towards Gatt across the cleared ground, feeling very vulnerable and uncomfortably aware that I was probably framed in someone’s rifle sights. Obeying Fowler’s instructions, I walked slowly so Gatt and I would meet a little more than two hundred yards from the hut, and I veered a little to give Fowler his open field of fire.

Gatt had lit a cigar and, as he approached, he raised his elegant Panama hat politely. ‘Ah, Mr. Wheale; lovely morning, isn’t it?’ I wasn’t in the mood for cat-and-mouse chitchat so I said nothing. He shrugged, and said, ‘Is Professor Fallon available?’

‘No,’ I said shortly.

He nodded understandingly. ‘Ah, well! You know what I’ve come for, of course.’ It wasn’t a question, but a flat statement.

‘You won’t get it,’ I said equally flatly.

‘Oh, I will,’ he said with certainty. ‘I will.’ He examined the ash on the end of his cigar. ‘I take it that you are doing the talking for Fallon. I’m surprised at that — I really am. I’d have thought he was man enough to do his own talking, but I guess he’s soft inside like most people. But let’s get down to it. You’ve pulled a lot of stuff out of that cenote . I want it. It’s as simple as that. If you let me have it without trouble, there’ll be no trouble from me.’

‘You won’t harm us in any way?’ I queried.

‘You just walk out of here,’ he assured me.

‘What guarantees do I have of that?’

He spread his hands and looked at me with honesty shining in his eyes. ‘My word on it.’

I laughed out loud. ‘Nothing doing, Gatt. I’m not that stupid.’

For the first time anger showed in him and there was a naked, feral gleam in his eyes. ‘Now, get this straight, Wheale. I’m coming in to take that loot, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do to stop me. You do it peaceably or not — it’s your choice.’

I caught a flicker of movement from the corner of my eye and turned my head. Some figures in white were emerging from the forest slowly; they were strung out in a straggling line and they carried rifles. I swung my head around to the other side and saw more armed men coming across from the forest.

Clearly the time had come to put some pressure on Gatt. I felt in my shirt pocket for cigarettes, lit one and casually tossed the matchbox up and down in my hand. ‘There’s a rifle sighted on you, Gatt,’ I said. ‘One wrong move and you’re a dead man.’

He smiled thinly. ‘You’re under a gun, too. I’m not a fool.’

I tossed the matchbox up and down, and kept it going. ‘I’ve arranged a signal,’ I said: ‘If I drop this matchbox, you get a bullet. Now, if those men out there move ten more yards, I drop this box.’

He looked at me with the faintest shadow of uncertainty. ‘You’re bluffing,’ he said. ‘You’d be a dead man, too.’

‘Try me’ I invited. ‘There’s a difference between you and me. I don’t particularly care whether I live or die, and I’m betting that you do. The stakes are high in this game, Gatt — and those men have only five more yards to go. You had my brother killed, remember! I’m willing to pay a lot for his life.’

Gatt looked at the matchbox with fascination as it went up into the air, and winced involuntarily as I fumbled the next catch. I was running a colossal bluff and to make it stick I had to impress him with an appearance of ruthlessness. I tossed the box again. ‘Three more yards and neither of us will have to worry any more about the treasure of Uaxuanoc.’

He broke! ‘All right; it’s a stand-off,’ he said hoarsely, and lifted both arms in the air and waved them. The line of men drifted to a halt and then turned to go back into the forest. As I watched them go I tossed the matchbox again, and Gatt said irritably, ‘For Christ’s sake, stop doing that!’

I grinned at him and caught the box, but still held it in my fingers. There was a slight film of sweat on his forehead although the heat of the day had not yet started. ‘I’d hate to play poker with you,’ he said at last.

‘That’s a game I haven’t tried.’

He gave a gusty sigh of exasperation. ‘Listen, Wheale: you don’t know the game you’re in. I’ve had tabs on Fallon right from the beginning. Christ, I laughed back there at your airstrip when you all played the innocent. You really thought you were fooling me, didn’t you? Hell, I knew everything you did and everything you thought — I didn’t give a damn what action you took. And I’ve had that fool Harris chasing all over Mexico. You see, it’s all come down to one thing, one sharp point — I’m here and I’m on top. Now, what about it?’

‘You must have had some help,’ I said.

‘Didn’t you know?’ he said in surprise, and began to laugh. ‘Jesus! I had that damned fool, Halstead. He came to me back in Mexico City and made a deal. A very eager guy, Halstead; he didn’t want to share this city with Fallon — so we made the deal. He could have the city and I’d pick up the gold and get rid of Fallon for him.’ The corners of his mouth downturned in savage contempt. ‘The guy was too chicken to do his own killing.’

So it had been Halstead just as Pat Harris suspected and when we found Uaxuanoc he had tipped off Gatt. No wonder Pat had been running round in circles when Gatt knew our every move. It made me sick to realize how ambition could so corrupt a man that he would throw in his lot with a man like Gatt. The funny part about it was that Halstead had meant to cheat Gatt all along; he had never expected anything of value to turn up for Gatt to get his hands on.

I said in a hard voice, ‘Where is Halstead now?’

‘Oh, the guy’s dead’ said Gatt casually. ‘When you chased him out my chicleros got a little trigger-happy and he caught one.’ He grinned. ‘Did I save you the trouble, Wheale?’

I ignored that. ‘You’re wasting your time here. You’re welcome to come and take your loot but you’ll get wet doing it.’

‘Not me,’ said Gatt. ‘You! Oh, I know what you’ve done with it. Halstead didn’t die right away and he told me where the stuff was — after a bit of persuasion. It took time or I’d have been here sooner before you put the stuff in the water. But it doesn’t matter, not really.’ His voice was calm and soft and infinitely menacing. ‘You can get it back, Wheale; you’re a diver, and so is that Halstead bitch. You’ll swim down and get it back for me.’

‘You don’t know much about deep diving. It’s not a five-minute job.’

He made a slashing motion with his hand. ‘But you’ll do it all the same.’

‘I don’t see how you can make me.’

‘Don’t you? You’ll learn.’ His smile was terrible. ‘Let’s say I get hold of Fallon and go to work on him, hey? You’ll watch what I do to him and then you’ll go down. I promise you.’ He dropped the stub of his cigar and tapped me on the chest. ‘You were right when you said there’s a difference between you and me. I’m a hard man, Wheale; and you just think you’re hard. You’ve been putting up a good imitation lately and you had me fooled, but you’re like all the rest of the common punks in the world — soft in the middle, like Fallon. When I start taking Fallon apart slowly — or the girl, maybe — or that big ox, Rudetsky — then you’ll dive. See what I mean?’