“What the hell you think you’re pulling on me, Kelly?”
Johnson’s harsh voice hit me like a wallop, I don’t like anybody standing over me, especially Johnson. I stood up fast, let the flash go off. I tried to make my voice sound hard as I asked, “What’s that slop supposed to mean, Johnson?”
We were facing each other, over the dead man. “That you must have shot-off your stupid mouth about us!” Johnson said, his odd twang heavy. “You tell me a guy with a scar on his face was in an accident with your boss and the next thing I know, the scar-face appears on this hillside! Hell of a coincidence, isn’t it, Kelly?”
“It sure is, but I don’t know who this guy is — was. If you hadn’t lost your nerve, hadn’t been so quick with that cheese sticker, we might have found out what’s back of this.”
“You saying you don’t know him, never told him about the treasure?”
“That’s right,” I said, my eyes on his hands.
“Maybe you and this creep were in on a deal to kill your boss?”
“You’re out of your humpty-dumpty mind!” I said, coldly.
Johnson shrugged thick shoulders. “Hard to believe, but I have to buy it. Besides, when we practically have the loot in our hands, there’s no sense arguing over a stranger, and a dead one at that. We’ll forget it.” Johnson said all this as if he’d merely flattened the man.
A fast wave of nausea raced through me and I had to fight against being sick. It wasn’t the sight of the dead man at my feet, I once saw a mechanic sucked into a jet engine and he was a far worse mess than this. But a man had been killed in cold blood and sure as God made green apples, I was an accessory to murder!
Johnson reached over to shake me, I ducked back, growled, “Watch your hands!”
He said, “Easy, Kelly. Let’s get him inside the cave, see who he is.” Johnson took his shoulders, I picked up his legs, the leather of the boots soft and well cared for. We put him beside the two skeletons and I held the flash while Johnson went through his pockets, peeled the helmet from the dead man’s head. There was a lot of wild, bushy, grey hair and scar-face suddenly became a fat old man, silly in his wide breeches, the thin knees, over-large boots. The open mouth added to the evil of his face, but the marble-hard eyes still seemed to be glaring at me. I turned away, looked down at the gaping skulls of the Italian soldiers. Something very vague about them tried to pierce the dull fog my brain was floating in. Something wrong….
Johnson, squatting beside the old man, held up an identity card. “Says he’s Andre Gabon, of Nice. Been to Nice, Kelly?”
“Yes.”
“So …!”
“And to almost every other large European city, too.”
“Nothing else much on him. Few keys, 10,000 lira, this hunk of paper which looks like a laundry ticket. And this.” Johnson bounced a small automatic about on his large hand. He stuffed the money and paper into his pocket, dropped the gun on a rock, picked up another rock and smashed the little automatic. Then he grinned up at me, his damn camera case swinging from his neck like a pendulum above the knife in the dead man, said, “Best that way, big money does small things to men. Like us accusing each other of the double X merely because a stranger walked in on us. Well, he seems to be a loner, but let’s get on with our work, faster, in case he had friends. Be light soon.”
As Johnson stood up I asked, “What — what are we going to do with … him?”
“Leave him in the cave, a do-it-yourself tomb. Untie the rope on the trunk outside, we haul another one out.”
I was glad to get moving. Perhaps because we knew how to do it now, the second chest came out with less tugging. I was still in a mental haze. Two thoughts kept pounding about in my numb head. There was the big thought: I’D KILLED A MAN! And a small but sharper thought: there was something phony about all this, something I didn’t understand. This second thought was riding topheavy on a tiny item tickling the back of my mind — the cave had changed, somehow. I didn’t know what had changed — but something was very wrong.
As we were resting on the second trunk, the cold night air a bracer, I asked, “Why did you knife him? He was alone, we could have jumped him easily, learned what he was doing here.”
“Safely? You saw the rod, he might have shot or wounded one of us. In the good crime movies, it’s always a little thing like a gun falling, the bullet bouncing off a wall, which trips up the….”
“Nuts, this isn’t a movie! We could have handled a little fat old man!”
“Kelly, we’re on top of a treasure which hasn’t been touched in nearly 20 years — suddenly a guy walks in on us. What else could we have done with him, but knock him off, sooner or later?”
“You don’t kill just because you have your mitts on millions,” I mumbled, confused.
Johnson chuckled. “Come on, Kelly, men are dying every second, don’t go soft on me. Damn right you don’t kill for millions — usually a man kills for peanuts in some punk stick-up, or over a dumb argument! During the war, I killed for glory, for two-bit medals. What’s eating you, want out?”
“No. But I didn’t plan on murder.”
“Exactly what were your plans? To ease me out? You’re the one hooked up with this guy…. See, there we go again, fighting between ourselves. Forget him, he was old, might have had a heart attack if we jumped him. When we fill up the cave entrance, he’ll never be found. Let’s get cracking on the last trunk.”
The third chest seemed heavier than the other two. Opening a can of thick, syrupy peaches, we used the juice as ‘grease’ for the rope. Dawn was streaking the sky a dull grey when we finally pulled the last trunk outside.
Sitting next to our loot, we ate sandwiches, drank bottles of warm mineral water. The valley below was quiet and peaceful, the rising sun flicking the fields with gold.
After we filled the cave as best we could with loose dirt and rocks, humming softly to himself, Johnson took out some folded netting, flung it over the cave entrance. We tossed bushes on top of the netting and I had to admit it was a good job of disguise. I told him, “Be difficult to spot this from below, or from the air.”
“You learn many things in war, like…. Air! Kelly, you hit on our answer!”
I gave him a blank look.
“Man, see the field directly below us — the wheat is only a foot high, the field smooth!”
“So what?”
“Kelly, wake up, you’re a pilot! The field is about 1200 feet long, plenty of space for you to put your Cessna Twin down and take off! As you said, it will be rugged and maybe take days for us to lug the trunks back to the Fiat. But with more rope, cans of grease, it’ll be a snap to lower the trunks to the field below! Listen, you drive the car back to Pisa — should make it before noon. Get some sleep and at 6 P.M. land your Cessna in the wheat field. Take us the rest of the night to get the trunks down, aboard the plane, but by 8 or 9 A.M. we’re in France, wealthy men!”
I came awake so fast my head seemed to orbit! How dumb can one guy get? Taking it from the top, I’d been had all the way!
I was sure I could handle Johnson. We were the same weight but his muscles were made for lifting, not punching, plus I was half his age. Also, I can take a guy out with my right. But belting Johnson now meant giving up the loot — I sure couldn’t get the chests out alone. I could flatten him, tie his hands and turn him over to the Italian cops … but I’d end in the can myself, or maybe dead, if they had the death penalty for killing over here. The very least I could expect, if I managed to skip jail, would be messy headlines, end of my soft job, any chance of the airline berth. Nor was I ready to give up the loot. An opportunity like this would never come again to….
“What’s wrong, Kelly, don’t you buy my idea?”
I had to check on him again — maybe my weary noggin had heard wrong before. I said, “I’m thinking about it. At this high altitude — and with a heavy load — I’d need at least 1500 feet for take-off.”
I wasn’t wrong. Johnson said, “What heavy load? You have a five seater, meaning at least a 1000 pound pay-load. Including our own weight, we’ll be under that. Forget the high altitude, it will be night time and cold, you won’t need so long a run. Anyway, I said the field was 1200 feet — might be 1500 — maybe even 2000. And it’s been ploughed, when they planted the wheat, so all large rocks are gone. Even if you should crack-up the landing gear, we can still carry the loot to the road, buy a car. Or are you afraid of leaving me here with the chests?”
“Maybe I am.”
Johnson threw his bald head back and chuckled — the laugh annoying me so much I had to rub my hands together to keep from slugging him. I knew damn well he was laughing at me. He said, “See what money does, Kelly? Up to the second we found the stuff we trusted each other, without question! Now — frankly I’m worried about you, you can blow the whistle on me, try for a reward from Rome.”
“Will part of the reward be the firing squad, the hot seat, when they see the old man’s corpse in the cave!”
The smug chuckle again — Johnson was having a high old time, a great inside joke. “Yes, you would have some explaining to do. All of which means we can trust each other because we have to! Great Gordon Gin, I can’t move the trunks alone, and if I had anybody else in on the deal, any other way of taking the stuff out of Italy, I wouldn’t have cut you in. So we trust the other because we have no other choice. Right?”
I nodded, almost smiling. He was a cute bastard, laying on the homey touch with ‘Great Gordon Gin.’ It was surprising he didn’t continue with his baseball buff act, recite more of the record book. He was damn right about one fact — he was a thorough type — a thorough louse!
He asked, “You agree with my plan, Kelly?”
I nodded.
“Good. Are you sure you can find this field from the air? Remember, you’ll have to fly in at dusk, so as not to attract attention. Let me draw a map for you on the side of this cracker box.”
Johnson was an all-around; shielding the flash with his left hand, he drew a hell of a fine detailed map of the area. I wondered how often he had practiced drawing it. He told me, “When you circle the field, I’ll flash this light four times and the moment you land, turn off your lights, wait at the plane for me. Okay?”
I pocketed the map. Still acting the innocent, I asked, “What if you have company during the day, Jimmy?”
He shrugged. “As the man says, you don’t gamble you can’t win. Unless your old buddy in there — I mean the stranger — was part of a gang, which I doubt or he wouldn’t have come alone, there’s little chance of anybody passing this way. Perhaps a farmer or a hunter — I’ll handle that. That’s what I mean — if you don’t see the four flashes of my light, fly on. I’ll contact you in Viareggio.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh, or spit in his sly puss — he’d be waiting for me, waiting to kill me!
Johnson stretched. “Sun will be out hot soon. We’ve put in a good night’s work.”
“Yeah, it’s been quite a night.”
“I’m going to get some shut-eye. You do the same when you reach Pisa.”
I nodded, knew I had to get out of there at once — one more bit of patronizing advice and I’d slug the bastard. “Help me get the Fiat back on the road.”
“Of course, Kelly. For the love of mike, don’t talk to anybody. Anybody!”
I smiled in the early morning cold light at that ‘love of mike,’ even felt myself unwinding — a bit. I could picture Johnson rehearsing his role, the correct ‘American expressions,’ getting everything down to a ‘T.’ Being so damn cocky he didn’t realize the dumb mistake he’d made. As the bastard had said, always some simple thing trips the most careful plans.
Walking through the woods we reached the Fiat, found scar-face’s motorcycle alongside it: he’d been the same one who had passed us on the road. We buried it under brush and leaves, then I backed the station wagon out, with Johnson walking ahead, guiding me. I had to fight the desire to run him over — call it an accident. Kent Kelly, boy adventurer! I’d sure walked into something right up to my dumb ears!
When we reached the road Johnson went over the map again, reminded me to buy plenty rope and grease — even gave me a story to tell any curious storekeeper — I needed rope because my yacht was stuck on a sandbar off some beach.
I started the car, watched Johnson disappear into the woods, via the rear view mirror. I felt a sharp relief at leaving him, then so depressed I thought I’d be sick. Now there was no evading a decision: to return or to pack the deal in. If I returned I had to figure out a way of taking Jimmy Johnson — even the name was carefully thought out — before he took me. I could return to Pisa, straighten up about the station wagon, fly up to Paris and see Valerie, pick up Mr. Moore next Tuesday — forget the entire business; leave Johnson sitting on the hillside with his loot.
But it wasn’t that simple — if I didn’t show tonight he’d come looking for me, watch Moore, perhaps try to get me through Moores’ Italian in-laws. Even if he didn’t go after them, it would still mean I was passing up millions…. I kept telling myself it wasn’t a question of being money-crazy nor greedy, but being practical. I should have insisted we open one of the trunks, actually see the loot. While I was gone the clever bastard might fill them with rocks, bury the loot elsewhere? No, that would truly be a rock move — he’d been waiting patiently all these years for a chance to take the loot, and then I’d come along, Kelly the All-American dumb-ox with muscles for brains!
Passing a small lake I parked the Fiat and took a bare-ass swim to wash up, the chilly, early morning water a good shock. I brushed my clothes as best I could and in Milan stopped to buy a sport shirt and a cup of coffee.
Tooling along the autostrada toward Pisa I felt better, able to think clearly. One thing was for sure: I was involved in this mess, so there wasn’t any point in running, or passing up the loot. If I ran, baldy might blame me for knifing the old man — the desk clerk at the Marchony, the auto rental people in Pisa — they had all seen us together.
Not running then presented a couple of problems: how to keep myself alive, what the hell to do with Johnson, and the loot. The last wasn’t much of an immediate problem — it might take time to learn how to dispose of gold bars, jewels, painting, or whatever form the booty came in — but I’d have plenty of time once I flew it out of Italy. I could even rebury it again in France or England, take it slow.
What to do with Johnson was a real sharp burr under my pants and linked with keeping myself among the living. I knew now what had hit me wrong back in the cave — both knives from the skeletons were missing, meaning Johnson was keeping one to stick in my back. He was good at it — that had been a hell of an expert throw with the knife going right on target — scar-face’s ticker. So I knew how I’d get it, but at least I had a small edge going for me — Johnson didn’t know I was wise to him, everything had seemingly gone the way he wanted. The bastard even had me block up the cave again — before I might have taken off the old man’s sweater, looked for tattoo markings in his armpit. But I hadn’t known the score, then.
Johnson wouldn’t go for me until we loaded the trunks on the Cessna, which would be a two-man job. What he had in his twisted mind was to wait until we were airborne — it would be a tricky take-off — then kill me and take my plane. I’d give odds he wouldn’t fly to Paris, either!
All of which boiled things down for me: I had to take care of baldy immediately after we loaded the plane. That fixed the time, but ‘take care’ how? There was a very simple way — kill the bastard! Be easy enough to dump his body out over the Alps. Only person who would miss Johnson was scar-face. The gang that went through the act of jumping me in Viareggio, they could only have a hazy — if any — idea of what Johnson had in mind for me. Killing was the cleanest, the only way out for me.
The trouble with that was — I didn’t think I could do it. I wanted adventure, action, excitement, but neither plain murder, or to be the partner of a super-killer!
If I didn’t kill Johnson, then what? I could throw a gun on him, force him to open the chest, then I’d fly off with my share. But aside from the fact I didn’t want the slob to get a penny of the blood-money, and that’s what it would be for him, if I left Johnson alive he’d spend the rest of his life, and his share of the loot, tracking me down. I couldn’t enjoy the money if I had to keep looking over my shoulder every second.
I could tie him up, turn him over to the authorities in France. But again, that meant world headlines, and I might end up a hero — or on the wrong end of the stick. Despite the song and dance he’d slipped me about our legal right to the loot once it was out of Italy, I wasn’t sure I could keep it. Headlines would mean big tax bites, complications — there were still too damn many Johnsons in high places the world over. I had to take the millions quietly, or not at all.
My mind kept kicking it around until my head was splitting and then I started to sweat, for no matter how I added, it always came out to one answer — kill him!
By the time I reached Pisa, returned the Fiat, I was sick from thinking how I’d murder him. More than anything else at the moment, I longed to talk it through with somebody — anybody. Valerie would merely scream at the idea, turn hysterical. But Marisa, she would understand my dilemma … and for a wild second I considered taking the bus to Viareggio. But I realized that was dumb thinking; murder calls for a lone hand.
Taking a taxi to the Pisa airport, I had the Cessna Twin rolled out of the hanger, the sweet, jet-swept lines with the wing-tip tanks giving me the usual charge. Stepping up on the wingwalk, I sat in the cabin, went through a routine check. There was a 12 inch prop clearance, so aside from chopping off some wheat tips, I’d be okay. I debated filling the reserve fuel tanks — every ounce of weight I could shed would make the take-off easier.
Staring at the instrument panel, sitting in my usual seat, calmed my nerves. Fuel and take-off weren’t any real problems — nothing about flying worried me. What I had to do was cut the sloppy thinking, work out a plan. Exactly how would I kill Johnson? I probably could purchase a gun in Pisa, although I didn’t even know if you needed a permit. A gun? Where would I pack it? Be simple enough to keep it in my flight jacket, but loading the trunks would be sweaty work, look suspicious if I kept my jacket on. I could hide it someplace in the cockpit, but Johnson would certainly case the plane for a gun. Wearing only slacks and a shirt, the bulge of a rod would be a snap to spot. Once he suspected I was wise to him, then that would throw the edge his way: he’d knock me off at once. Hell, he could always open the chests, load the plane by the handful — if he had to! But knowing Johnson’s methodical mind, he’d rather do a neat job, load the trunks aboard — if he didn’t think I was on to him.
Wouldn’t be hard to carry an automatic inside my flight boots, but that meant a small caliber job, perhaps several shots, and Johnson was too fast with a knife for any miss on my part. True, I could pack a blade myself, it would lie flat in my pocket, but I’d never used one for anything more than peeling an orange, and this wasn’t the time for amateur night.
My head was coming apart. Taking my tool box I walked out on the wing, jumped to the ground. Removing the cowling of one of the 260 h.p. engines, I picked up a wrench to check the…. There was my simple answer! Be natural to have a wrench in the cockpit. The moment the last trunk was aboard I’d split his bald head with this wrench.
That was it! Staring at the wrench in my hand I nearly threw up. But there wasn’t any other way — bust his skull, dump the corpse over the Alps.
I guess I’d known that was the only answer from the moment Johnson made his slip.
I finished checking the engines, working like a robot, refusing to even think about the job ahead. I bought grease at the airport, explained about needing a lot of rope to secure some oil barrels I expected to take on soon. With the coils of rope and grease in the cockpit, the plane fueled, I was ready to take off … for murder. I could even grin at the melodramatic sound of the words as I said them half aloud.
My nerves were steady but it was only 3:15 P.M. — I had a couple of hours to waste. I went to the bar and ordered a whiskey neat, and couldn’t finish it. Booze never did a thing for me. I had a sandwich and a couple cups of java, my nerves on fire. The hours seemed a lifetime…. I couldn’t even kill time when it meant I was about to kill a man.
I went back to the plane, stretched out on the back seat.
Be simple enough to remove the seats…. I had been up over 48 hours, was bushed and exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep.
I lay there, stewing, trying to convince myself I wanted the loot enough to murder. All the time I was sick with the thought that whether I wanted the loot or not, murder was still the only answer…. I’d boxed myself into a hell of a spot.