HE FOUND ANGELA STANDING OVER the hole as he came out. She helped him up and said, “What happened?”
“Joaquim’s dead.”
“Gas?”
Small wispy vapors were rising from the hole into the morning light.
“Yes. Gas.”
He pulled the mask off his head, and she touched his face, which was bathed in sweat. She kissed him lightly and threw the mask back down the hole.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
They crawled over the main gates, past a sleeping guard, and moved down the mountainside to where their car was parked in a dark glade of trees. His hand throbbed; she helped him into the car and got in behind the wheel.
They started down the mountain.
“You’ve got to see a doctor,” she said.
“Yes.”
“We’ll go to the same one.”
“That poor fellow,” Ross said.
As she drove, her blonde hair tugged by the wind, she smiled at him and said, “Well, at least it’s over.”
“Yes, it is.”
“We can leave now.”
“I’d like that,” Ross said.
“Where would you like to go? I was thinking of Paris, myself.”
“I’ve just been to Paris,” he said. “How about Rome?”
“Too hot.”
“Then Capri.”
She smiled. “All right, Capri.”
He leaned over and kissed her cheek as she drove.
“I like you,” he said.
“You say that to all the girls,” she said, and smiled.
She drove on for a few minutes in silence, then said, “We can leave tomorrow, first thing.”
“Why not today?”
“Well, we have to go back.”
“What for?”
“The emerald, of course,” she said. “You don’t have it with you. By the way, where did you hide it?”
“I didn’t,” he said.
“Pete, come on, don’t kid—”
“Really, I didn’t.”
“Darling—”
“Angela, really, I didn’t hide it.” He was frowning as he watched her.
Abruptly, she pulled over to the side of the road. She reached back behind the seat and produced a gun.
“Peter.”
“Angela, for Christ’s sake.” He was tired; this was silly; his hand ached miserably.
“Peter. Tell me.”
He felt suddenly foolish again, innocent and foolish and unsuspecting. Her face was set and hard behind the barrel of the gun.
“Is that thing loaded?”
“Peter, don’t play games with me. I want that emerald.”
“I haven’t got it.”
“You must. You had it when you left the Court of Lions.”
Her features were twisted in a way he had not seen before. She was no longer beautiful to him; everything was wrong; everything was changed.
“Not anymore.”
She shook her head and waved the gun at him.
“Tell me,” he said. “Would you kill me?”
“If I had to.”
“And if I told you where the emerald was?”
Then I would go off with you to Capri, and we would be very happy together.”
“Uh-huh.”
She said, “Peter, I’m serious, I want that stone.”
He raised his bandaged hand and opened it up to her.
“All right,” he said. Take it.”
She looked at the hand and saw the greenish dust and the green splinters. It took her a moment to realize what it meant
“Joaquim,” Ross said softly, “was a very good shot”
As a last try, she said, “You’re lying.”
“No,” he said. “Now take me to a doctor and shut up.”
In front of the doctor’s home, in the early reddish light he got out of the car, shut the door, and looked down at her.
“Well,” he said, “it was fun.”
She smiled slightly. “In a way.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “In a way.”
Then she slammed the car in gear and roared off, down the quiet early-morning streets of Granada, and he had a last glimpse of her blonde hair and her shoulders set hard as she spun the wheel and disappeared around the corner, and out of sight.