The Last Place God Made - Jack Higgins [63]
'I'll do the Manaus mail run in the morning as usual,' I said. 'You can manage without me after that. I'll leave the Bristol there.'
I started to turn away. He grabbed me by the arm and jerked me round to face him again. 'Oh, no you don't. We've got a contract.'
'I know; signed, sealed, delivered. You can wipe your backside on it as far as I'm concerned.'
I think it was only then that he realised just how much trouble he was in. He said hoarsely, 'But I've got to keep two planes in the air, kid, you know that. If I don't, those bastards in Belem invoke the penalty clause. I'll lose that bonus. Everything. I'm in hock up to my ears. They could even take the Hayley.'
'Marvellous,' I said. 'I hope that means they keep you here for ever. I hope you never get out of this stinking hole.'
He hit me then, a good, solid punch that caught me high on the cheek, sending me back against the bar, glasses crashing to the floor.
I have never been much of a fighting man. The idea of getting into the ring to have your face reduced to pulp by a more skilful boxer than yourself just to show you're a man has always struck me as a poor kind of sport, but the life I had been living for the past two years had taught me a thing or two.
I lashed out with my left foot, catching him under the knee. He cried out and doubled over so I gave him my knee in the face for good measure.
He went back over a cane table with a crash. Both women cried out, there was a considerable amount of confused shouting which meant nothing to me for I had blood in my eye now with a vengeance.
I jumped on him as he started to get up and found him in better shape than he deserved, but then, I had forgotten that colossal strength of his. I got a fist under the ribs that almost took my breath away, another in the face and then my hands fastened around his throat.
We turned over and over, tearing at each other like a couple of mad dogs and then there was a deafening explosion that had us rolling apart in an instant.
Mannie stood over us clutching the shotgun, his face very pale. 'Enough is enough,' he said. 'No more of this stupidity.'
In the silence, I was aware of Avila and his friends outside on the terrace peering in, of the anguish on Sister Maria Teresa's face, of Joanna Martin, watchful and somehow wary, glancing first at Hannah and then at me.
We got to our feet together. 'All right, have it your way, Mannie, but I'm still clearing out in the morning.'
'We've got a contract.' It was a cry of agony and Hannah swayed, clutching at the table, blood streaming from his nose which, as I discovered later, I had broken with my knee.
I jerked my thumb at the shotgun. 'I've got one of those too, Sam, remember? Try and stop me leaving in the morning and I'm just liable to use it.'
When I turned and walked out, nobody got in my way.
*
It was growing dark as I ploughed my way back through the hangar. I lit the lamp and poured another whisky. I put my head on my hands and closed my eyes and fireworks sparked off in the darkness. My legs ached, my face ached. I wanted nothing so much as sleep.
I sat up and found Joanna Martin standing at the edge of the hangar looking at me. We stared at each other in silence for quite some time. Finally I said, 'Did he send you?'
'If you do this to him he's finished,' she replied.
'I'd say he's just about earned it.'
Anger flared up in her suddenly. 'Who in the hell do you think you are, Lord God Almighty? Haven't you ever made a mistake? The guy was desperate. He's sorry for what he's done. He'll make it up to you.'
I said, 'What are you supposed to do next? Take me back to bed?'
She turned and walked out. I sat there staring into the darkness, listening to the rain and Mannie moved out of the shadows.
'You too?' I said. 'What are you going to do? Tell me some cosy Hassidic story about some saintly old rabbi who always turned the other cheek and smiled gratefully when they spat on him?'
I don't know whether he'd come with the intention of appealing to me to think again. If he had, then that