The Daisy Ducks (40 page)

"Oh no. I mean, Jusuelo turned bad, but not
totally rotten. He was true to Vilarde till the end. What happened
was, after they unloaded the Siva and went south to make the buy,
they flew back to Miami. From there they headed back this way, the
two of them driving a brand-new Caddy Eldo with a satchel full of
leftover cash. That, plus the cash they'd gotten from the first two
drops, was what Jusuelo carried away on the flatcar this morning, by
the way."

Kaunitz threw his digging stick away. He held it by
one end and flung it sidearm, and it made a whirring noise as it
sailed out over the valley.

"So anyway, somewhere in Georgia they stop for
supper and then go to a road joint for a couple of beers. I guess
they were celebrating pretty good. Maybe doing some coke too. Who
knows? Anyway, they were flying high and feeling no pain. They're on
top of the world. just when they're about to leave, a bunch of locals
come in and start in on them, giving them shit, like why don't they
go back to Mexico with the other bean bandits—shit like that, you
know. Well, you can imagine they weren't about to put up with it,
especially a hothead like Jusuelo. One thing led to another, and the
two Ducks were cleaning house on these guys when one of them pulls a
blade and sticks Ken a good one, right in the side."

"Oh Christ," grunted Roantis. "What a
goddamn waste."

"But see, according to what Jusuelo told Royce,
Ken had enough beer in him, and enough God-knows-what too, he didn't
feel it hardly. Jusuelo gets the blade from the other dude and sticks
him back. Guy passes out on the floor, bleedin' like a stuck pig. So
both Jusuelo and Vilarde know it's getting hot. They can't afford to
stick around and get pulled in. Both were good enough field medics to
stop the bleeding enough to make it back here and go to a clinic or
outpatient ward and get Ken sewed up. So they hightail it out of
there, Jusuelo driving. Ken says he's tired and he'll get in back and
rest. He falls asleep. When Jusuelo tried to wake him an hour later,
he was gone."

"Jesus," I said.

"So they brought him out here and buried him.
Doc, that was only a week and a half before you showed up here. And
let me tell you something: you don't know how close you came to
dying. Royce says when that plane crashed, Jusuelo went crazy to kill
you. He was going to do nothing until he'd hunted you down.

But Royce put the brakes on, saying your death would
only draw Roantis and the rest of us. As it was, they didn't know
Daisy was out here until they took her from your camper. But Royce
described you to Jusuelo, who recognized you at the hospital. After
he greased the pilot, he waited outside for you. Then what does he
see but you being taken away in a police cruiser! Hell, he thought
you were going to take the fall. They all thought that ended their
problems. I just say you were damn lucky the police collared you
there, Doc."

"And they took Daisy. Were they ever going to
kill her?"

"Bill says Jusuelo might have, but he wouldn't
let him. No, Bill thought keeping Daisy would make us back off and
strike a deal. It didn't work. And we got out here fast, slipped
under their wire before they even expected us. If we'd waited another
day, they'd have been waiting for us . . . and probably Jusuelo and
the rest of the money would have been long gone to Brazil. That's
where he and Ken had planned to go: to Rio, and live like kings for
the rest of their lives."

"How can we be sure Jusuelo is dead?" I
said a little uneasily.

"I think it's a safe bet," said Roantis,
taking me aside. "And now, Freddie, if you'll wait a sec for Doc
and me, there's something I gotta tell him."

Kaunitz peeled off and went down the rock trail to
the cave. Roantis sat on a boulder, and I leaned against a mountain
poplar with lichens and vines all over it. Warblers sang above our
heads in endless spontaneous riffs. A buzzard, with wide wings raised
in a shallow V, soared in the rising hot air of a thermal. A crow
cawed, and the river far below ran gray and white, making a soft
whisper like white noise. I should have been relaxed but I wasn't. I
did not like the way Roantis was looking at me. His knuckles were
caked reddish brown with dried blood. The Colt service pistol, silver
gray with the bluing gone, rode in the frayed canvas holster on his
hip. The warm wind blew through his thinning hair. He looked old, old
and ornery, like an outcast boar grizzly with bad teeth.

"Well," he said, and lighted a Camel.

"Well what?"

"Well Freddie's ruined my day. Now I'm going to
ruin yours."

I bristled. "What the hell are you talking
about?"

"What I'm talking about is what I said to you
earlier. You're one of us, Doc. You may not have realized it yet, but
now you're going to."

"I don't know what you're trying to say. I
helped you out is all."

"Wait. Wait Doc," he said, holding up his
hand like a traffic cop. "Hear me out. You think you're a
doctor. You've got the sheepskin, too. But you're not."

"Bullshit. But if it makes you happy to think
that, go ahead."

"I've thought it for some time. That's why I
singled you out to help me. It worked. Now it turns out I'm not the
only one who feels this way. You've spent time with us now. Each one
of us. You were at Freddie's ranch. He's the best shot I've seen. He
says you're one of the better ones he's seen."

"Well, good for him. You know I shoot
recreationally. Recreationally, Liatis. At targets."

He dragged on the cigarette and nodded slowly.

"Then Summers tells me you did quite a number on
him in the bush last night."

"I was scared. I got lucky. I thought he was
going to kill me."

Another drag, another nod. I hated him.

"Finally there's Daisy. She told you her story.
Her father, René Cournot, was my best friend in the Legion. Her
mother was from Vietnamese nobility. After their deaths, I raised
her. Still, I was gone a lot, considering my line of work, and she
grew up a street kid in Saigon, Paris, and Okinawa. She can take care
of herself. You cannot know just how good she is, and how deadly.
During the war in Nam, she was a Roadrunner for us. The Roadrunners
were indigenous personnel—native Vietnamese—who disguised
themselves as VC at night and mingled with them. It was a hairy job.
Daisy was great at it."

"Uh-huh. I've had the feeling that old Daisy's
been around the block a few times."

"Yeah. You know, Daisy works for the U.S.
Government now. That's what sprung Summers so fast when they tagged
him at the airport. But anyway, she's good. And here's my li'l girl,
who turned tricks with VC commanders before knifing them, who's won
every empty-hand combat award there is—even on Okinawa. And who
puts her down but good old Doc Adams. What do you say about that?"

"Nothing. She put me down. She could've killed
me. I got in a freak kidney shot is all."

Another drag, another nod.

"And then you set her free while the rest of us
bozos are fucking around outside the cave."

I slid my back down the raggedy tree trunk and let my
butt hit the ground. I rubbed my hand through my hair, suddenly
feeling very tired.

"What do you want from me?"

"I want you to admit, Doc, maybe only to
yourself, that you don't really fit in your li'l world of suburbia.
That's why you're trying to leave it all the time. You're one of us,
Doc, whether you like it or not."

"Go fuck yourself."

He laughed at me, the Mongol eyes crinkling up at the
corners. He held up his knuckles.

"See? That's what we used on those kids when we
got up in the cave. Not the guns. Know why? 'Cause one look and I
knew we dint need 'em. Those kids were playing at it. They all had
those Airborne T-shirts on. Bullshit. Fakes. Couple good punches and
they folded up like day lilies. Not you, Doc. You're the real thing.
In another time and place, with the proper training, you could've
been one of the best."

Well, I'd heard enough. I got up and stalked off down
the trail. Why Roantis was trying to get at me like this was a
mystery. I think he was just pissed off that I'd managed to set his
girl free. Through a lucky break I'd stolen his show, and he was
getting even. I also knew that he had to ask himself some pretty
tough questions about his relationship with Ken Vilarde. Real tough
questions. And the answers? They'd be even tougher. No matter how
much he wanted to put his bad feelings off on me, he'd have to face
them sooner or later.

I threw on my rucksack in a foul mood. I was not
going to tote the rifle back, either. To hell with it. If the rest of
them had to have it, fine. But let them carry it. I stamped around
and fumed, getting my stuff together. Why waste time? I wanted to get
out of there and back to Mary.

"What's eating you?" asked Summers.

"It's time to split, that's what. Let's walk on
out of here."

"Freddie says he can't go: they have to book
him. After that he's got to post bond to get out."

"How much will bond be?"

"Maybe five grand. Think we can come up with it,
Doc?" He grinned.

"Yeah. Maybe if we dig around hard enough."

I felt a hand on my waist. Daisy. We turned to see
Roantis come down the hill to his pack and take something out of it.
A pint of booze. Damn. And he'd been clean for a couple of
months. He didn't say a thing, just turned right
around and headed back up the hill.

"Oh-oh," said Summers. "Think I see a
drunk comin' on. He goin' back up to Ken's grave. Bad news."

The chopper came back an hour later to get Kaunitz.
Hunnicutt told me they doubted they'd keep him more than a few hours,
so we could walk back to the camper again, drive into town to the
station, and by that time he'd probably be ready to join us.

That is, if we could get Roantis down off that rock.

We packed all our gear and let them take it in the
chopper. When it blasted off the gravel bed and soared out over the
river, Daisy and I went up there. Roantis was on his knees in front
of the gravestone, hunched over with his head bowed. The tip of his
forehead was touching it, his hands clinging to the top of it on each
side of his lowered face. He looked like a Moslem praying. The bottle
was almost dead. I put my hand on his shoulder and he stood up,
reeking. He looked wonderful sad. Daisy hugged him for a long time
while I stood by.

Then the three of us went down off the rock together.
 

29

MARY SHOOK her long black curls around and swept them
back over her shoulders. She set her drink on the rock sill of the
terrace and looked out over the golf course at the distant mountains.
Knockout. Total, absolute knockout. And pissed at yours truly.

As they say in the Dewar's ads, "The good things
in life stay that way."

We were sitting on the Sunset Terrace of Asheville's
most stately hotel, the Grove Park Inn. It was warm, even for the
Carolinas. Below us in the twilight, golfers bounced over fields of
green in little carts; tennis players laughed and swore on the clay
courts, casting long shadows in the golden light. In the distance
were the purplish mountains, with red and gold behind them as the sun
went down. A cool breeze fanned us. It wafted up from the valley,
smelling of flowering shrubs. Not bad, except my left arm, right
below the shoulder, still hurt.

Mary sipped her gin and tonic the way she always sips
a mixed drink, a drop at a time. She looked at the players below,
folded her hands in her lap, and looked me in the eye. She wasn't
smiling.

"Tell me about it," she said.

"Well, we got up to the hideout in early
afternoon. Then —"

"You know what I mean. Afterward. After the
whole thing was over and you started to drive back here in the
camper. And didn't make it."

"Oh that. Well, when we went to spring Fred
Kaunitz, Tommy slipped into the booze store. So on the road home, we
sat around the little table in back while Daisy drove. We hoisted a
few. I guess we were overtired and hadn't eaten much. That didn't
help."

"When did you realize they'd passed the
Asheville exits?"

"When it was too late. Daisy was in on it, you
know."

She drummed her lingers on the table. Gee, I wished
Joe were with us. He had gallantly begged off, saying we needed to be
together. He was eating his room service dinner four stories above
us. I admired his noble gesture, but his presence at that moment
would have lent a mollifying influence. I thought I could put my
finger on the problem and decided to try a frontal attack.

"Mary, are you worried about Daisy? Do you think
I slept with her?"

"Did you?"

"Nah. Not even remotely close. Anyway, we got to
Fayetteville even before I knew it, seems like."

"And the others knew?"

"Yeah. See, they all planned it, hon. Behind my
back."

"Well, it was a dirty trick. And when I see
Roantis next I'm going to —"