R. MacAvoy - Tea with the Black Dragon

A smaller shape sprinted up the road to join him. In the distance, dogs began to bark.

“All right, folks. Get out here, now!” snarled the big blond. Threve, standing beside Rasmussen, hissed, “What the hell happened, Floyd? You got Liz in there?”

“No. Just me,” answered Long, climbing wearily to his feet. He ignored Rasmussen to consider Threve.

Threve glared in turn at Long over the gleaming barrel of an automatic.

The prisoner spoke. “We haven’t been introduced. My name is Mayland Long. I know that your name is Threve. And I’m told that you are a murderous thug.” His words were easy, urbane, almost cordial. “I’ve come to make sure it is true.”

Threve inched closer to Rasmussen. “This is—is this the weird guy?”

Rasmussen nodded. “Where’s Liz?” he snapped.

“Far away,” Long answered placidly. He lifted his head to the breeze. The moonlight shone on his glossy black hair.

Rasmussen’s teeth ground together. “Then she’s dead,” he stated. “I didn’t slow down under fifty the entire trip.”

“Why the hell didn’t you lock the goddamn trunk?” roared Threve, stung by the prisoners attitude and furious at Rasmussen as well. The chorus of barking rose with his voice.

Rasmussen divided his attention; he trusted neither man.

“I don’t think she was injured,” said Long. “She landed in a bush.”

“Shit! You said you had her, Floyd! How the hell did you let her get away?”

Floyd Rasmussen did not answer. He locked eyes with Long, who smiled grimly. “Why her and not you?” Rasmussen asked.

Mr. Long turned his face to the water. “I came to see Mrs. Macnamara. ’Til I find her, my business with you isn’t done.”

“It is, because you are,” growled Rasmussen, shifting his grip on the black pistol. His eyes were doubtful. “Hell of a price to pay.”

Long smiled. “You don’t even know what I’m buying.”

The dogs were silent suddenly; perhaps their master had come out to hush them. Only a chorus of crickets sounded at the edge of hearing, like the blood pounding in Rasmussen’s ears. The pistol didn’t waver, but he stared warily at Long, afraid that his prisoner had plans that he, Rasmussen, did not understand.

Threve answered for Rasmussen. “Wings and a halo, that’s all. Plug him, Floyd, and let’s get out of here. If that bitch gets to the police…”

Rasmussen hesitated, gazing into pale brown eyes under the light of a gold moon.

Douglas Threve was a less complicated man and so less vulnerable to doubt. He cursed and raised his own weapon slightly. Without warning Long struck him in the chest and knocked the small man over the gravel path. Threve’s pretty automatic went sailing into the brush of the hill. Long rolled onto his back and grabbed Threve by the throat.

The small man’s shout of surprise and rage was cut off cleanly. His hands clawed vainly at Long’s face. Threve’s heels kicked against the gravel.

As soon as Long moved, Rasmussen was free of his paralysis. He leaped for the struggling pair and swung the butt of the pistol at Long’s head. The first blow caught his victim on the right shoulder.

Long dropped Threve, and he turned upon Rasmussen a glare of enduring, patient hate. The blond raised his pistol again, and Long’s hand rose toward this other enemy in what seemed to be as much a gesture of malediction as an attempt at defense. His fingers were spread wide, and in the moonlight his hand looked like the talon of some gigantic raptor. Rasmussen remembered the odd grip of Long’s hand on his own and he shuddered, not knowing what it was that he fought. But the pistol in his hand was falling, and it caught Long above the temple.

“See?” hissed the blond at his partner, who lay dazed at the edge of the path, gulping air. “Who’s a fool? I told you about this guy.”

“Shoot him now,” gagged Threve. “Shoot him or I will.”

“With what?” Rasmussen stuffed his pistol in a jacket pocket. “We don’t need more noise.” He straddled Long and tore open the front of his shirt. The hunter examined Long’s bandages. “So that’s where I got him. He was crawling toward me in the dark, like a big lizard. I wonder if he did this himself. I don’t see how.”

Rasmussen brooded. “I don’t like that. He can’t have gone to the police, or they’d never have let him go in a condition like this. But it means he had help, somewhere.”

From his other pocket Rasmussen pulled a short skinning knife and a roll of adhesive tape. He cut away Fred Frisch’s handiwork and bound Long’s two hands together, winding tape from the wrist halfway up to the elbow.

“Shoot him already,” insisted Threve, trying to stand.

“No shooting. I could cut his throat here and now, if I wanted. In fact he may be dead already. Ought to be. But I tell you Doug, this guy’s like a snake. No matter what you do to it, it’ll wriggle till nightfall.”

Threve sneered. “It’s already nightfall. It’s almost dawn,” he answered sourly. “What are we gonna do about it?”

Rasmussen smacked his hands on his thighs and stood.

“We’re going to do what we planned. Dump them both off the Farallons, tied to concrete blocks. Live or dead, this guy can play with the lobsters.”

“Help me carry him,” grunted Rasmussen, bending to lift. “No. Never mind,” he reconsidered, feeling the lightness of the burden. “You get ready to sail.” He started toward the water, plodding awkwardly, the limp form of his prisoner over one shoulder. Clouds of dust rose like smoke with every shuffling footstep.

“I lose my gun and you start giving orders, huh?” rasped Threve. He touched his bruised neck gingerly.

Rasmussen sighed. “You want to tote him?”

Threve spat onto the dry road. “I had to carry the mother.”

“You wouldn’t have, if you hadn’t beat her to death. Or strangled her.” His steps echoed on wood.

Threve swallowed his rage, stalking ahead along the pier.

The Caroline was a beautiful ship, even with all sails tightly furled. She was five tons of teak, trimmed in brass, and though she was primarily a sailing ship, she had the power to drive fifteen knots in calm seas.

The night was failing when Long opened his eyes. The first cries of gulls broke through the deep cough of the engine. His head hurt and his vision was blurry.

He regarded his arms, wound in a tube of white tape. Any attempt to pull them apart sent intolerable pain shooting up his left arm and shoulder. He tried to pull his feet under him and found they were also bound— tied with wire to a large concrete block.

Next to him lay a bundle in a green oilcloth tarp. It was also tied to the block. After a moments confusion he knew what that bundle had to be. He sat up and looked closer at it, forced finally to believe. Thoughts resounded through the hollows of his skull. He listened to them without interest.

So he was like other men in this way too. He believed what he wanted to believe: what he felt he had to believe. Until, of course, time slammed him into the meaningless truth. Martha was dead and he was going to die. Even without these men and their absurd, murderous thievery, he would die soon, for he was old and his search was over.

He’d found what he sought. Truth. He had no questions any more. It was not what he wanted, said a small voice within him, but it was what he’d chased so long.

The little man by the cave in Honan must have been mad, to appear so happy. Knowledge, of the truth led only to despair.

He extended his hands and raucous, lancing pain mixed into the cries of the gulls. He pulled the oilcloth gently away from Martha, Macnamara’s face.

That face was lacerated and bruised purple, and about the nose and mouth were marks like sunburn. Her long hair, grizzled brown and white, lay tangled over her forehead. He brushed the hair away.