“BY GOD. THAT WAS some fight,” Kirk said, as I came up onto the patio.
There was a nice breeze blowing under the pine trees up there on the bluff. I sat down on a stone bench and let it blow me.
The dappled shade was pleasant. But my side was killing me. Kirk came over.
“I was all ready to shoot him,” he said. “If he whipped you.” He held up his big Smith & Wesson. He seemed to be all over his big scare. He handed me my two .38s. He didn’t seem to be mad at me over my little trick.
“Thanks.” I stuck the guns in my belt. “You mean before he killed me? Or after?” My side was really ruining me.
“Well, I couldn’t hardly shoot that close to you while he was killing you. I might have hit you.” He grinned.
Jane Duval followed him over, as if she did not want to get far away from him, and stood beside him not saying much. She was still shocked. She was back in her Mother Hubbard. It had not dawned on her yet that soon she would probably be in control of a good part of Sonny’s money.
It was pretty plain she had never entertained any ideas about Sonny being the killer.
I found it pretty hard to work up any sympathy for her, anyway.
I turned my head and looked at her bleakly, but she didn’t say anything to me. So I didn’t speak either. She kept looking at Kirk. She was depending on him now. I wanted to boot her in the ass.
“I would have killed him,” Kirk said, “if I could have. If you hadn’t got in the way.”
I didn’t say anything. I could have sat there on that bench and let that wind blow me just about forever.
“I’m getting too old for this business,” I said.
“You don’t look too good. How do you feel?”
I made myself get up. “How do you think I feel? I’m coming apart at the seams, that’s how I feel.”
I turned to Jane. “Go on inside the house and wait there,” I said with male chauvinist authority.
She went, without a word. But the look she left with me was not exactly loving.
“I want you to take her back to town,” I said. “I don’t want her on the boat with me and Sonny, trying to cut him loose, and then the two of them trying to kill me a second time.”
I couldn’t stand the thought of her on the boat with me.
He leered. “I’ll take care of her. She’s very docile. Right now. I know just what she needs. What are you going to do with him?”
“I’m turning him over to the local police chief, with a deposition. Then I’m calling Pekouris in Athens. I’m not at all sure Pekouris will be happy. It’s liable to upset his tourist trade.”
Kirk grinned. I looked at him. I wanted just one thing from him. That was to get as far away from him as possible before he stole something from me. I allowed myself to sit down again.
“By the way,” I said. “Your two crewmen from the Agoraphobe are still locked in the cellar. Don’t you think you should let them out?”
He shrugged. “To hell with them. I’ll let them out after.”
“I’ll be wanting depositions from you and the girl, too. So don’t be going off on any honeymoon with her yet. I want her in town this afternoon.”
“I guess I’ll have to sign one,” he said. “Under the circumstances.”
“I guess you will. When the police come around and ask for it.”
“I guess you’ll be leaving the island now,” Kirk said, in a sudden crafty way. “Hunh? And leave us in peace? I hope so, anyway. Now you’ve found your killer.”
Something about the way he said it made me furious. I’d done a lot of pretty low things. In my checkered career. But fronting for a heroin factory hadn’t been one of them, yet. I got a lot of my business because of people like Kirk. I spent about half my time picking up strayed dumb brats, and helping their dumb parents piece them together after they’d been shooting the H people like Kirk shipped into the Land of Promise. I would rather have not had the business.
But talking to Kirk wouldn’t do me anything. Kirk was only the capo. I wanted to talk to the big boy. That meant Mr. Leonid Kronitis. I still found it hard to believe old Kronitis could be the head of all this.
“You said something, before, about some powerful people protecting me,” I said.
“Did I say that? I don’t remember saying that,” Kirk said. “I must have been excited.”
“You must have been.” I got to my feet a second time. “Well, I guess that about does it.” I was bored and I was tired. This was like a hundred thousand other valueless conversations I had had with a hundred thousand other crooks and con-men. I gave him a dirty look, and asked him where I could find a doctor for my face and he told me there was one in Glauros, who had an X-ray machine and fluoroscope and a regular surgery.
I thanked him. I didn’t offer to shake hands. Kirk didn’t seem to mind that at all.
“That was one hell of a fight you put up down there,” he called after me as I went to the landing.
I just moved my head. I was concentrating on getting down those stairs again. I started down. It looked just as long as it had coming up.
From the Daisy Mae I looked back up at the bluff. Jane Duval had come back out of the villa, and was standing by Kirk on the edge of the patio. Kirk waved. I saw him urging Jane to wave, too. Finally, she did.
I figured I might as well wave back.
“Call Kronitis,” Kirk yelled down. “Before you do anything.” They turned away.
I figured they’d be back in bed before we rounded the point.