THE HIT IN the left arm turned out to be just a shallow nick. It burned like hell the rest of the day, but did not infect. I gave myself some first aid at the plantation house before I drove in to Lihue to catch a boat to Honolulu.
I was in Honolulu by noon.
Part of my several-days mission was behind me. I knew that the toughest part could still lie ahead.
The easiest way to get to Niihau was out of Honolulu, and that was why I had returned there, despite the fact that Captain Bridges would have people out looking for me. At Niihau I expected to dispose of Squad C, and then return to Leper Island to finish off the Council. It sounded easy, saying it. But it was still one man against all of them. Not to mention, possibly, Skidmore.
In the city of muumuus and aloha shirts I had lunch in a sleazy little hole-in-the-wall on Pauahi Street, in Chinatown. I wanted to stay off the well-beaten track during my short stay there, and leave for Niihau within the hour. But it was not to be. I was just leaving the little cafe when a man walked up and put a hand on my shoulder.
“How’ve you been, Rainey?”
I turned and saw Sergeant Vail, Bridges’ right-hand man. His face was stony.
“Oh, Vail,” I said innocently. “It’s great to see you again. We ought to keep in touch more.”
“You dodged our tail, you sonofabitch,” Vail said quietly in the heat of the noonday sun. “Where have you been?”
I shrugged, trying to maintain the innocence. “You told me not to leave the islands. So I decided to have myself a little vacation. I’ve been having a ball.”
Vail pointed to a squad car down the block. “Get in that vehicle, Rainey. You’re going downtown again.”
I had little choice. I wanted to eventually leave Hawaii legally, and I couldn’t do so by roughing up one of Bridges’ men. I swore an obscenity in my head and accompanied Vail to the car.
The drive along dangerous Maunakea street was in complete silence. I watched the blocks slip past that few tourists ever see. Porno shops, massage and tattoo parlors, gypsy fortune tellers, bawdy nightclubs. They were all there. You saw street venders mostly, mixed in with sailors from many nations heading for the strip shows, and a lot of derelicts and street kids. It was pretty ugly, a different Honolulu.
When we got downtown, Vail took me directly to Bridges’ office. It looked the same as before: antiseptic, squeaky clean. Bridges sat frowning behind his uncluttered desk.
“You’re a real smart-ass, ain’t you, Rainey?”
Nice welcome back, I thought. I maintained the innocent look. “I don’t get it, Bridges. What’s all this about? You told me not to leave the islands. Here I am. What the hell do you want from me?”
I was talking big, but I knew I was in trouble. Bridges could lock me up and throw away the key for a long time. And that would end my little plan to show him what I thought of the HLA. Not to mention that Kenji just might succeed in killing a whole city.
“You know what I’m talking about, you bastard. You shook our tail. You haven’t been in your hotel room in days. Where have you been, Rainey?”
Vail had closed the door behind us with a kind of finality. I sighed. When all of this was over, I intended to tell Bridges that I had wiped out the Council for him, without saying anything explicit that would force him to arrest me for murder. But I couldn’t give him any hints at this point. He wouldn’t have believed me, anyway. I couldn’t even tell him about the reservoir. Bridges would throw me into a lock-up if he even suspected I knew anything about the Council’s plans to destroy Honolulu.
“I just told rabbit ears here,” I said, pointing to Vail by throwing a thumb over my shoulder. “I’ve been playing tourist. What the hell else have I got to do, with this island imprisonment you’ve laid on me? And how can you hold me responsible for that dumb cop losing me?”
Bridges sat there scowling. “I asked you where you’ve been,” he reminded me.
“On Hawaii. Bumming around there.”
“What hotel?”
I had to come up with some credibility fast. “No hotel, Captain. There was this girl in the Kahelelani Bar. We struck up what you might call a temporary friendship.”
“Where does this girl live?” he said.
I made a face. “Hell, Bridges, give me a break. I was drunk for all that time. On some side street not far from the bar. It would take me a week to find the place again.”
Bridges studied my face and didn’t believe me. “I think you spent the time with the Red Hots,” he said.
My pulse jumped. “What?” I said.
“You were asking about the HLA around campus, we got a line on you, Rainey. Don’t deny it.”
Things were looking bad. “Okay, you got a line on me. Sure I was asking around. I figured if you’re going to make up some connection between me and them, I ought to know something about them. I figure it’s up to me to convince you somehow I’ve got nothing to do with them.”
“You contacted them to rejoin them, Rainey,” Bridges growled. “Just like I figured when I first set eyes on you.”
I wondered if he had any proof that I really had joined the Council. If he did, my goose was cooked. For good. “That’s a crock of shit, Captain,” I bluffed it out.
He sat there. “You’re a menace to this island state, Rainey. I think I’m going to have to lock you up till I can prove something against you.”
I had to play as tough as Bridges was. I went and leaned over his desk, putting a look of anger on my face. “Okay, Captain. So it isn’t good enough for you to imprison me on these islands. So it isn’t good enough for you that I’ve played your little game so far, being a nice boy. Lock me up behind real bars. But I presume I’ll be entitled to make one phone call, like every other prisoner you throw into your jail? You wouldn’t really deprive me of my constitutional rights now, would you, Bridges?”
Just mention the Constitution to some cops, and they choke up. Bridges didn’t choke, but he listened to me more carefully. “Sure you’ll get your call, Rainey. We’re not Mexicans out here, you know.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I’ve already talked to somebody over at the Honolulu Bulletin. He’s a damn good reporter, and he’s very interested in my civil rights.”
Silence descended into the room like black smoke. Bridges’ face slowly settled into very hard lines. Bridges was a violent man just under the surface, and I know he wanted to hit me. Very badly.
“So that’s the way you’re going to play it, huh? You’re going to threaten me with the press?”
I stood up straight. “You’re the one who’s forcing, Bridges. I’m trying to get along, remember? Everything I’ve told you is the truth. Go check it out.”
Bridges sat there some more. He finally got up and came around the desk, and now I was sure he was going to hit me. He leaned into my face.
“I’ve had it with you, Rainey. I’m not going to lock you up this minute. But I’m telling you. If I hear any more about your contacting the HLA or hiding out from my men, I’m going to throw your ass into a secret little lockup I keep available for cases just like you. There won’t be any phone call, and you’ll probably never see the light of day again. You hear what I’m saying?”
I nodded. “I hear you, Captain. But just when will I be able to leave Hawaii? I have some people to see, in California.”
“You’ll be cut loose when I’m convinced you had nothing to do with the hospital massacre, and that you’re not a part of the goddam Red Hots, Rainey,” he said.
“If you insist,” I said easily. “But now can I get back to my hotel? I need a shave and bath.”
He eyed my aloha shirt that I had traded in Chinatown for the khakis Kenji had given me and Skidmore. “Yeah. And why not get rid of that tourist shirt? You’re not fooling anybody with that aloha shit, you know.”
I gave him a hurt look. “Hell, Captain. I bought this just for you.”
Bridges looked past me to Vail. “Sergeant, stay with him this time.”
“Hey, I sleep alone. Unless there’s an opportunity with the opposite sex. Vail isn’t my type.”
“You can eat and sleep alone, all right,” Bridges said. “But Vail will be there nearby. Don’t forget it.”
I grunted. “That would be hard to do,” I said.
Vail drove me to the hotel, and to my dismay he came up to my room with me. I was in a real box suddenly. Just because I had come through Honolulu on my way to Niihau, I was now trapped in Bridges’ net again. I had to think fast. Kenji and time waited for no man.
“This is ridiculous, Vail,” I said as I shaved. “Bridges didn’t mean for you to lean on me like this. Go get yourself a drink at the bar.”
“I’m on duty,” Vail said, lounging on a chair in the bigger room just twenty feet away from me.
“Well, then go get me a paper,” I told him. “I want to read about the war in Central America.”
“I ain’t no messenger boy,” Vail said in his gravelly voice. “Anyway, I don’t trust you no farther than I can throw you. I’m sticking, so you might as well get used to it.”
Vail was going to be tough about it. I finished shaving and put the aloha shirt on again. Anticipating possible trouble in the city, I had left the Colt .45 hidden in some belongings on a boat I had hired to take me to Niihau that afternoon. Now I wished I had it. But of course if I had, Bridges would have booked me immediately and dumped me into the lock-up.
I had to get to that hired boat within an hour, or I would forfeit my deposit on the rental and the boat would go off without me. I could probably find another one, but time was important now. I had to get rid of Vail somehow, just as I had dumped Bridges’ boys before. But now I was riding a fast track.
“Well, I’m going for a late lunch,” I said.
“You had lunch. In Chinatown,” he reminded me.
“Oh, that. No, I just had a beer and hard-boiled egg. That was my breakfast, Sergeant. Now I need a steak. And I prefer to eat alone.”
“So, you can eat alone,” he grinned. “But I’ll be a couple of tables away. Watching.”
Oh, Christ, I thought. “I can see you’re going to be a pain in the ass, Vail.”
“I hope so,” he told me.
We went down to the lobby of the Hotel Nani together. The desk clerk had covered me when I asked for the key to my room, and saw the cop with me. He was well aware I had checked out, but I wanted Vail to think I had kept the room. Now I decided to make use of the clerk’s friendliness again. I stopped at the desk, adjacent to the small dining room where Vail thought I was headed. Vail was right beside me.
“I meant to ask,” I said to the smallish oriental behind the desk. “Have I had any calls while I was away?”
He glanced at Vail. “No, Mr. Rainey. None at all.”
I nodded. “Before I go in to eat, I wonder if I could check out the discrepancy on the bill we talked about when I left. I hope to be paying it one of these days soon.”
The clerk hesitated, then picked up on it. “Oh, the discrepancy. Of course you may.”
“I’ll just go into the office with you a minute, and take a look at that charge for meals,” I said. “I’ll be right here, Vail,” I added. “Just through that doorway.”
Vail hesitated, seeing that he could see through the open doorway. “Yeah. Okay,” he said.
I went around behind the counter, while Vail leaned on it. The clerk and I went together through the doorway. I stood where Vail could see me.
“I’ll just get your bill,” the clerk said, winking at me so Vail could see me.
I nodded. The clerk went and got a piece of paper at a desk, and I looked around the room. There was a door at the back of it, just out of Vail’s view.
“I believe this is the charge you’re concerned about,” the clerk said, showing me somebody else’s bill. I nodded, slipping a wad of money into his hand in payment for his trouble. “Ah, yes. Here’s what I was talking about.” I moved just slightly out of Vail’s view, as if placing the bill on the desk to look at.
In that moment, I pointed to the rear door to the room, and the clerk nodded. I said in a low whisper, “Keep talking.”
The clerk did, as if I were right beside him. I hurried to the rear door, opened it slightly, and slipped through the opening.
I was in a store room at the rear of the building. It was dark, but I did not bother to find a light. I stumbled to the rear of it and found another door with a bar across it. I slid the bar, and opened the door a crack into daylight. Another step through, and I was in an alleyway.
At the end of the alley sat a taxi. I jumped into it and told the driver to take me to the docks. Vail, I figured, was still leaning on the counter, listening to the clerk talk to himself. The clerk would finally quit the act, and then come and tell the law that I had suddenly left the room through its rear door, feigning innocence. Vail would rant at him, but could prove nothing against him.
I was at dockside in ten minutes, and the boat was still there. Pressing more cash into his hand, I told the boatman to leave immediately. He complied. In just minutes we were out of the harbor and on our way to Niihau.
I had slipped out of Bridges’ net once again. Now I had to make good on my plan, or Bridges would see that I never left his special lock-up.
Niihau is located only a short boat ride from Honolulu, in the Kaulakahi Channel. Because the place is pure Hawaiian, nobody goes there unless invited. That was why the boatman asked me who I was visiting. I told him I had friends on the far side of the island, and I was going to surprise them. He didn’t believe me, but the money I had given him stopped the questions.
I intended to catch Skidmore and his squad there in their remote training camp, but it didn’t work out that way. The boat driver put me ashore at the place where I knew Skidmore had arrived ahead of me just yesterday (it seemed like a week ago) and joined up with Squad C. I don’t know why, but I had the driver wait at the abandoned wood dock on the rocky coast while I walked inland to the site where the camp was supposed to be located. It was a good thing, because there was nobody there.
The place was just a shack in a sparse woods, surrounded by acres of grazing land with sheep dotted on it. The shack was deserted, with only a few beer cans and other debris inside to tell me that anybody had been there. I had had a story all ready for Skidmore, about Kenji recalling both of us to Leper Island because of some emergency. But I didn’t have to use that now. Kenji had beaten me to it, I realized. The massacre had been discovered already, and the news must have been spreading at that very moment, by radio. Kenji had recalled Skidmore and his squad, figuring they would be safer at headquarters now.
That was bad. When I showed up there alive, I would be the prime suspect in the killings. Now I had to have a really good story, and I had to make some very ugly people believe it.
I took the boat to Leper Island, paying the driver a lot more money to keep him quiet. He seemed impressed with the deal, and left me at the abandoned docks a happy man.
It was late in the day now. I looked around the dock area, wondering if Kenji was waiting for me. But she wasn’t. It occurred to me that they thought I was one of the massacre victims.
I had no way to get inland to the ghost town but walk. I was lucky that the sun was low in the sky. I walked and walked and then I walked some more. I knew I was walking into a lion’s den, but I didn’t have any choice.
I arrived at the ghost town. The first guy to spot me when I came up was Huhu, who was sitting on the porch of the store building with an automatic rifle on his lap. He rose slowly when he saw me, as if witnessing an apparition.
“Jesus Christ!” he said. “You!”
I put on a somber look. “Yeah, me,” I said. “Where’s Kenji?”
He saw the Colt sticking out of my aloha shirt. He acted as if he didn’t know what to do. “Inside,” he said.
He watched me warily as I moved past him and on inside.
They were all there. Kenji, Heydrich, Skidmore, Kanaka, and five people I had never seen before.
They were Squad C, and they were all rough-looking men.
Kenji had been seated at the long table with them, discussing in low tones. When they all turned and saw me and Huhu at the doorway, Kenji and Skidmore rose slowly from their chairs.
“I’ll be a sonofabitch!” Skidmore said. “Jim by-God Rainey?”
Kenji’s face registered the same surprise, then settled into very hard lines. “We thought you were dead,” she said pointedly.
“Then you’ve heard?” I said.
“Yes, we heard. A second massacre, all of our people wiped out. Except you.” Her voice was hard and deadly.
I looked around. Of the five men Skidmore had brought back from Niihau with him, three looked to be purebred Hawaiians, big and ugly. The other two were half-caste Eurasians, dark-looking men who would have looked right at home in some squalid bar in Hotel Street in Chinatown. I moved up closer to Kenji, and held her hard look.
“Night Stick sent me into Lihue for supplies. I was gone most of the morning, expecting to resume training in the afternoon. When I got back, I found them out on the firing range. They had said they were going to do some practicing with the rifles. It was a goddam bloody mess. It looked like they shot each other up. I think it must have started with the girl. She was a trouble-maker. Both Night Stick and the kid David were screwing her.”
There was a brief silence as they all absorbed that version of what happened. Then Huhu, who had come in behind me and now stood at the doorway with sun backlighting him, spoke up. “He’s a goddam liar,” he said in a low voice.
Heydrich rose now, too. “How convenient for you that you just happened to be at Lihue when this unexpected massacre took place,” he said with his Nazi smile.
Kenji was still giving me the icepick look. It would have turned most men white under it. “We lose an entire squad in Honolulu, and then you arrive here, Rainey. Coincidence, we supposed. Now you just happen to be the only survivor of a second massacre that has reduced the Council’s force by half. Nobody but you to come and tell us exactly what happened there. Another incredible coincidence.” She paused, glared at me. “You killed ten of my people, didn’t you, Rainey?”
I had known this would be dangerous, but I had had little choice if I wanted to dispose of this gang of thugs before they got me into big trouble with Bridges. The next time Bridges got hold of me, he wouldn’t let go.
I put a disgusted look on my face. “For Christ’s sake, Kenji. I figured these dummies would want to throw all this onto me. But you seemed a cut above that. I counted on you using your head. Do you really think I would have come back here if I’d shot up your Kauai group? Do you believe that I alone could have attacked and destroyed five of your armed people?”
Skidmore caught my eye. He knew damned well what I was capable of. But he kept his mouth shut.
“Your whole damned squad of amateurs resented and mistrusted me,” I added. “They wouldn’t even let me handle their weaponry. I had to read Night Stick the Riot Act, damn it.” I hesitated for a moment, watching all those dark faces. “Night Stick and Betsy sneaked away from David one night for a quick screw, and David saw what happened. He didn’t say anything, but you could see the hatred in his face. I think he must have challenged Night Stick out there on the firing range. I could tell from the position of the bodies that David had shot Night Stick. Several times, with his Beretta. Then somebody put one shot into David’s head, probably because of his attack on Night Stick. I don’t know what happened from that point on. I figure the rest of them took sides and cut each other up with lead.” I eyed the group soberly. “You can check this out. The police records will show that Night Stick was killed with David’s Beretta, and that David was killed with Jorge’s Browning automatic.”
Another silence. Kanaka remained unresponsive. I think he wanted to believe me. One of the big Hawaiians from Squad C, though, wasn’t as generous. He pulled one of the issue Berettas from a hip holster and showed it to Kenji. “Hell, why take the chance he’s lying. Give me the word, I’ll finish it right now.”
Heydrich liked that suggestion. The grin returned to his hard face. He turned to see Kenji’s reaction to it.
But before Kenji could voice her reaction, Skid butted in. “I don’t want to take sides, Kenji. But Rainey tells a pretty convincing story. If it checks out that Night Stick was killed with David’s Beretta, like Rainey says, I think he’s clear. I’d have to have that settled before I’d want to go along with any action against him.”
“Go along!” Heydrich sputtered. “Who the hell says you have to go along? You could be in on this with him, by God!”
Skid gave Heydrich a blistering look. “I’m telling you. You check this out. If we ever needed an experienced gun, it’s right now. You take the wrong action now, you lose both of us.”
Heydrich grinned. “That is fine with me. We never needed you, either of you. But of course, we could not allow you to just walk out of here, Skidmore.”
“I say kill them both,” the big Hawaiian with the gun said.
Huhu had left the room. He now returned carrying a Ghetto Blaster with short wave and the whole works. He wore a sour look. “I just heard the last of the news report on it,” he said.
All eyes turned on him.
“The police say Night Stick was shot five times,” he went on. “With a Beretta pistol.”
The whole mood of the room changed. I had hoped that if I could prove just one part of my story, they might swallow the whole thing. I think Kenji did, in that silent moment. The Hawaiian with the gun made a grunting sound in his throat, and Heydrich sat back down, obviously disappointed with this news. Kenji turned at last to me.
“Well, Rainey. It seems we owe you an apology.”
I shrugged. “Not at all. I would have reacted the same way.”
Skidmore was watching my face, to try to find the truth in it. I tried to ignore that searching look.
“Let’s drop all the other shit now,” Kanaka said, “and get on with real business.”
“I agree,” one of the Eurasians from Squad C said.
Kenji nodded, and came over to me. “I’m glad you weren’t caught in the craziness, Rainey. Skidmore is right. We need you now more than ever.”
Heydrich’s face was taut and hard, at the table.
“Those of us left are going to need each other,” I agreed.
Kenji turned to the table. “Nothing has changed. We’re a much smaller and more compact group now, but maybe the best of us are left. We’re going through with our mission. We’ll meet after the evening meal, and talk strategy. In the meantime, I’ll have Rainey brief me on the details of the incident at Kauai, as much as he knows.”
That broke their meeting up. Kenji took me into another room and I went through the whole thing again, making up things about Betsy and Night Stick, giving details of the aftermath of the shoot-out that would match the police report as closely as possible.
“You’re one lucky guy, Jim Rainey,” Kenji told me when it was over. “Can you bring luck to us in this important mission we’re getting ready to go on?”
I smiled for her. I was wearing a long-sleeved tunic that covered the light bandage on my upper arm, and I hoped nobody got to look at that shallow wound in the coming days. If it was seen, it would be pretty clear I was lying.
“We won’t need luck,” I said. “If we plan well. We don’t need a big group, Kenji. In Namibia once I took a commando-type force of five men and destroyed a garrison and ammo dump in twenty-three minutes of intense firefighting. We lost only two of our people.”
Kenji returned my smile. “I’m glad we still have you, Rainey. I really am.” She went and locked the door of the small room, and began unbuttoning her blouse. “Let’s celebrate your safe return.”
I watched her undress for a moment, then joined her. When Kenji demanded a command performance, you did not refuse. We joined on a nearby cot and made love for the second time, despite an earlier resolution on my part to avoid further personal involvement with her. She was sober this time, and not as wild. But the violence was there, just below the surface, the enjoyment of hurting and being hurt.
She sat with me at supper, much to Heydrich’s dismay. When the meal was finished, she made a big announcement. We would hit the reservoir day after tomorrow, at dawn. With the force we had left at that moment. No further recruitment would occur. Skidmore and I suggested tactical methods of attack, and Kenji listened. She adopted our suggestions almost completely.
Later in the evening, I turned in early and Skid joined me in the upstairs room where we had slept before. Later, a couple of the Squad C men would share the sleeping quarters with us, but for the moment we were quite alone. Skidmore looked around the room for electronic bugs, and did not find any. He came and sat down beside me on a cot, his brush cut looking more gray than I remembered, the lines in his square face seeming deep and harsh.
“You did it, didn’t you?” he said.
I looked at him without expression.
“You killed them all. I don’t know how you managed it, but you knocked them all off, you crazy sonofabitch.”
“I got some help from David,” I said. “There really was a rivalry over Betsy between him and Night Stick. I just fanned the flames.”
Skid shook his head. “Shit,” he said. “I’ll bet you blew the others away, too. The group in town.”
“Guilty,” I said.
Skidmore studied my face. “What the hell for, Rainey? Have you gone nuts and joined the police here?”
I told him about Bridges. “The sonofabitch thinks I’m in all of this, anyway. I might as well be hung for a wolf as a sheep. If I stop this craziness somehow, and there are no more Red Hots, the threat to Bridges’ world will be gone and he’ll have to let me go on about my life. I’ll let him know, of course, without signing any written confession, that I rid the world of these creeps for him. I think he might just be grateful.”
“You think you can take this whole group out, before they go to Heiau Reservoir and turn their poison loose on Honolulu, their pretty little virus that turns a man’s face blue as it works on his insides like acid?”
“I figure on doing it during their attack on the reservoir,” I told him. “I was hoping I’d get some help from you, Skid.”
He gave me a sour look. “Hey. It’s these people that are paying my wages, for God’s sake.”
“Skid. You’ve never gotten in on anything quite like this. I know you’re no do-gooder, neither am I. But this is no honest war, Skid. This is sneaking up on an unsuspecting city of innocent people and poisoning them to death, just to make a so-called statement.”
“They expect to take over these islands, Rainey. They told me I’d be head of security in their new government. The whole goddam head of security.”
“Wise up, Skid. They’ll use you until they no longer need you. Then you’ll end up with a bullet in your brain. Heydrich will see to that.”
“I’m not afraid of that German moron. I’ll see to him.”
“It’s not just Heydrich,” I said. “You can’t trust any of them. Anyway. Do you want power at this cost? You weren’t part of the kid’s hospital thing, but you’ll share responsibility for this. You want that to live with? We have to draw a line somewhere, don’t we?”
He sat there. “If I stay with them, there are ramifications, Rainey. You and me are on the opposite sides of something big.”
“I know that,” I said. The implications were obvious. I would be obligated to kill Skidmore along with the rest of them. Or he would have to kill me. Better yet, all he had to do was tell Kenji what he knew. If I allowed him to do so.
“I guess I could shoot you in a real war,” he finally said to me. “I mean that would be your skills against mine. You would be gunning for me honestly, and me you. But this ain’t like that, you’re right. Hell, I don’t want to be on the other side in this, Rainey. I guess you’ve forced me to choose you as a partner.”
I smiled slightly. “Sorry, partner. I didn’t mean to cheat you out of something you’ve always wanted.”
“Hell,” he said. “You’re right, it wouldn’t have worked, anyway. I guess I got a little desperate in my old age. I’m glad you came along to see me right. Where do we go from here?”
I was glad to finally have an ally, and a valuable one. “I’ve got to do some thinking about it, after I hear more details of Kenji’s attack plan. You and I will talk again tomorrow. But listen to me, Skid. We’re taking no prisoners, making no arrests. I’m obliterating the Council as an entity. They all go. All nine of them.”
He nodded. “Just let me have Heydrich,” he said.
“You can also have my earnings from the group,” I said. “If we locate Kenji’s petty cash location here, you can have whatever is in it, too. You won’t have to go unpaid.”
“Christ, we’ll split fifty-fifty, Rainey. It will be worth ten big ones just to see Heydrich’s face when I blow that bastard away.”
I shrugged. “Whatever you say,” I told him. It was worth it to me to give up all monetary profit, just to have Skid with me.
The trouble was, though, it wasn’t to turn out that way.
By the time the sun rose the following morning, Skidmore was dead.