Hamilton, Donald - Matt Helm 14 Read Online Free Page B

Helm."
                "Sure," I said. "I'll
be there until tomorrow morning some time-well, if they insist on my staying
on, I suppose I'll have to."
                "I do not think that will be
necessary."
                "In that case," I said,
"I'll pay my bill and pick up my boat tomorrow. Is there any chance of
getting somebody to wash it down for me after I get it on the trailer?"
                "Certainly, senor. The price is
six dollars. You had better come early while the tide is high so you have
plenty of water at the launching ramp. .. . Excuse me."
                She turned to take a call on the
electronic gizmo behind her, speaking Spanish too rapid and colloquial for me
to follow. She put down the microphone and sighed, turning back to me.
                "That was the captain of the
boat I sent out. He says it is very dark out there, and he has found nothing. I
told him to come back in." She moved her shoulders. "If they will
insist on taking such little boats out in such bad weather. . . . They cannot
be made to understand that this is a big and dangerous body of water, senor.
They see it so calm and smooth in the morning and will not believe how it can
get rough by evening."
                "Sure."
                I went back down to the dock to get
the tackle I'd left in the boat, although I'd had no trouble with pilferage,
and neither had anybody else with whom I'd talked. Gear that would have
vanished in an hour from a US parking lot had stayed safely on board week after
week, but it seemed unfair to strain some poor Mexican's honesty with a couple
of expensive rods and a pair of good binoculars.
                After lifting the stuff onto the
dock, ready to carry ashore, I checked the lines and rearranged the canvas
bumpers so she wouldn't chafe. Then I went over to the aluminum skiff docked
astern, still full of water, just the way I'd brought it in but not quite the
way I'd found it.
                I'd taken the precaution, once I'd
got it into relatively calm water, to check it over. There had been a soggy box
of 7 mm Remington Magnum rifle cartridges, partly used, tucked under a seat.
Lashed to one of the braces I'd found a long, soft, black plastic fishing rod
case that was arranged a little differently inside from what you'd expect. I'd
slipped the cartridge box into the case, for weight, zipped up the case, and
dropped it overboard in exactly one hundred and ten feet of water-assuming that
the electronic depth-finder on my fancy little borrowed ship was properly
calibrated.
                Now I frowned down at the
registration number on the bow of the skiff, a California number of course, amid debated whether or
not to risk a visit to Mr. Joel Patterson's camper across the road, but I
couldn't think of anything I might find that would be worth the attention and
suspicion I might attract. I found myself wondering how long he'd lasted out
there, and dismissed the thought.
                Then I deliberately brought it back
out and examined it, because if you're going to do it you'd damn well better be
able to look it in the eye. I have no respect for these remote-control killers
who can happily push a bomb release in a high-flying airplane as long as they
don't have to see the blasted bodies hundreds of feet below; but who can't bear
to pull the trigger of a .45 auto and produce one bloody corpse at ten yards.
                There was a chance that he'd made it
ashore or would still make it. I'd known men who could have, but I didn't think
he was one of that select group of amphibious humans. His specific gravity had
been too great, for one thing: he'd had too much bone and too little fat for
adequate flotation. I've got the same problem myself. He'd looked like a lean,
tanned, swimming-pool hero to me, good only for impressing the bikini babes
with a couple of smoking-fast laps between