27

The wind, the seas, had calmed down. The Weeder too. He clung to the buoy of hope Snow had thrown him from her world. The cliché-where there’s life there’s hope-had it backwards. Where there was hope there was life.

As soon as Mildred was able to open her eyes her spirits picked up and she began flirting with Huxstep. “I have an almost uncontrollable weakness for tattoos,” she confessed, pushing her breast into his wrist as she rolled back his right sleeve. She ran her fingers over the faded blue pennant tattooed on his biceps, tracing the words Give me liberty or give me death. “It must have hurt when they did that,” she said with respect.

Huxstep grunted. “Suffering pain is not something I remember.” He looked over at the Weeder, sitting on the deck with his right wrist handcuffed to the cement block. “Inflicting pain is another story.”

Mildred arched invisible eyebrows. “Let me see what you have on that other arm of yours,” she said huskily.

On the shelf above Huxstep’s head the radiotelephone speaker emitted a burst of static. The Admiral’s voice, more nasal than usual, could be heard over the static. “… you there? For God’s sake, answer.”

Huxstep flicked a switch onto broadcast and growled into the handphone. “Where else would I be?”

The Weeder, matching from the deck, braced himself for the verdict.

“… make the nearest landfall and put him ashore.”

Huxstep’s eyes narrowed imperceptibly in disappointment. He repeated the order to be sure he had gotten it right. “You want for me to make the nearest landfall and put him ashore?”

“Affirmative. I repeat. Affirmative.”

Mildred grabbed the phone out of Huxstep’s hand. “I want to speak to Mr. Wanamaker,” she shouted.

The Admiral’s voice crackled over the circuit. “I’m acting for Wanamaker. Today was the Ides of March. The ball game is terminated. In this business there are no extra innings. Put Huxstep back on.”

Huxstep took the phone. “I’m here.”

The Admiral pleaded, “If you love me, for God’s sake turn him loose.”

Huxstep winced at the word “love,” tried to swallow the emotion that welled up, failed. He muttered “Wilco” into the phone, clicked the toggle switch to Receive. The loudspeaker fell silent.

Mildred, her face contorted, her eyes reduced to slits, produced a minuscule handgun from under her skirt. “If you won’t do what has to be done, I will,” she whispered.

Huxstep appeared to hesitate. “The Admiral seemed pretty sure of himself.”

“The Admiral’s not running this show,” Mildred argued. “Mr. Wanamaker is. And I’m the one who’s Mr. Wanamaker’s man Friday, not you. You’re the jackass-of-all trades, like you said. For all we know someone may have been holding a gun to the Admiral’s head when he talked to you. For all we know it wasn’t even him but someone imitating him.”

“That’s a possibility,” Huxstep agreed. He seemed confused. Mildred hammered home her points. “It doesn’t make any sense to release him. He knows too much. Even if they’ve called off Stuff tingle he knows it existed. He knows about Mr. Wanamaker and Subgroup Charlie. He knows you tried to kill him in the parking lot. He knows we tried to kill him in the library, in that abandoned building. You’re crazy if you think he’s going to let bygones be bygones after all this spilled milk.”

Huxstep regarded the Weeder and nodded. “You got to be right. The Admiral must have been off his feed this morning.” He removed his Smith & Wesson. 357 Magnum from a drawer and carefully fitted the silencer onto the barrel.

Mildred’s eyes ignited with desire. Her chest heaved as she whispered, “Only wound him, Huxstep. That way we can see his eyes when we throw him overboard.”

Huxstep looked at her with new interest. “I don’t think I gave you enough credit. You’re bursting with ideas.”

“I’ve got others,” Mildred noted suggestively.

“I guess you have,” Huxstep said.

In his mind’s eye the Weeder could hear the beat of the kettledrum quicken. A moment more, he told himself, and it would all be over. He shut his eyes and struggled to keep his limbs from trembling, his heart from sinking under the weight of pure fear. His head began spinning, as if he had reached a height without adequate oxygen. The last thing he heard before he blacked out was the hiss of Huxstep’s Magnum spitting out the bullet that punched a hole the size of a fist in anything it hit.