Erikson's rocklike features were creased in the closest they ever came to a smile.
'Naturally.' There was going to be no talking my way out of this one.
'You were on the hijacked plane?'
'Yes.'
'You may not be accident-prone, but you sure as hell are incident-prone,' Erikson observed. 'What happened?'
I told him.
'And you said you got a good look at the one who got away,' Hazel reminded me when I finished.
I'd left that out deliberately because I could see complications ahead. Hazel kept on talking, explaining to Erikson about Tippy Larkin's money and how I happened to be on the gamblers' chartered flight. Erikson kept nodding, but his eyes were still on mine. 'You'd recognize the man?' he asked me when Hazel stopped.
'I might.'
'Good,' he said briskly. 'You'll have a chance to recognize him if we get a break in Tucson.'
'Now wait a minute. I'm not volunteering for your campaign. I'm not-'
'You'd like to get Hazel's money back, wouldn't you?' he interrupted me.
'Well, sure, but I don't need you hanging around my neck to get it back. If I can find out who hired that plane-'
'Do I need to remind you that you'll get a lot more information if I'm with you?' Erikson said it confidently as he rose to his feet. 'Let's get going. My bullet holes won't stand the long drive down there, so we'll go to the airport in Ely and charter a flight.'
I looked at Hazel.
'You bring him back here with you afterward,' she told me.
It seemed that I was a minority of one in regard to a chaperoned trip to the Colonial Airport in Tucson.
3
There were two reasons why I eventually agreed to fly to Tucson with Karl Erikson.
One was forthright: I wanted a shot at recovering Hazel's money. And my own. I wasn't about to overlook the possibility of a bit of interest, either.
The second reason was more subtle.
When I first visited Hazel at her ranch after I escaped from the prison hospital, I was on the run from the law as I had been all my adult life. It didn't make any difference to Hazel, who hadn't been brought up in a vacuum, but I didn't want to bring her any trouble. Then her stepfather, a nice old guy who wouldn't act his age, was killed on the ranch by a bunch of vicious kids who went further than they intended in trying to scare him.
I got into the tail end of the act, and I sickened the kids of the idea that they were running things in that part of the county. Afterward, though, I had to leave the ranch in a hurry because I couldn't afford to hang around and answer lawmen's questions about what had happened. Or about my background.
Erikson knew about the background when he recruited me for Cuba, but he needed me for what I could do for the operation. When he finally got back to Florida with the bundle that turned out to belong to the State Department and wasn't partly mine as I'd expected, in partial recompense Erikson gave me his word that no law- enforcement agency would bother me at the ranch.
I could have kicked myself that I hadn't inserted a stipulation that Karl Erikson couldn't bother me, either. Not that it would really have done any good. There weren't three other men in the world I'd rather have watching my back in a tight spot; but Erikson was a dedicated, hard-nosed government agent who let nothing and nobody stand in the way of getting his job done. I didn't want him twisting my arm in front of Hazel, threatening the removal of my umbrella. I didn't want her upset, but she'd let the cat out of the bag about me getting a good look at the escaped hijacker, and as far as Erikson was concerned, this made me essential to his trip to Tucson.
I'd much rather have gone alone. Erikson was an ex-Navy commander, a specialist in communications. He was also used to giving orders. I wasn't used to taking them. We'd hung up several limes on the Cuban caper-long before I had any idea who he really was-because of his insistence upon doing things his way. He was an odd mixture of practicality and chivalry. I had to keep pointing out to him in Cuba that we weren't in a chivalrous part of the world.
So we landed at the Tucson Municipal Airport and Erikson hired a car. He drove north, after asking directions, clear across town, out past the Rillito Racetrack. He had to ask directions twice more before we found the Colonial Airport tucked away a mile down a dirt road leading off U.S. Highway 80–89.
The field had a single, hard-packed, dirt landing strip, two slant-roofed sheds open to the elements on either end under which three small planes were staked down, and a rickety-looking administration building too small for a game of Ping-Pong. From under one of the sheds came the ringing sound of metal on metal as Erikson cut the engine and we sat there watching heat waves shimmering.
'No rush to welcome visitors,' I said. Erikson grunted. 'If the hijackers were members of an Arab fedayeen group, that could be why they were so rough on the Jewish plane crew,' I voiced a thought that had occurred to me previously.
'And if they weren't, they just might have wanted to give that impression,' Erikson said.
'You have a devious mind,' I complained. 'Who are we going to talk to here?'
'Anyone.'
He opened the car door and led the way across the sun-seared parking lot. The clang of metal on metal ceased, and a stocky figure in oil-stained work pants appeared from under one of the planes. His features were so dark I took a second look at him, but his was a young, frank, open face in contrast to the strong-featured mask of violence I had seen behind the machine gun.
'I hope you don't want to fly, gents, because we don't have a pilot,' the boy said as he walked toward us. I could see that he had Mexican blood in him. There was grease halfway up his powerful forearms.
'What about Frank Dalrymple?' Erikson asked.
'If you know Frank, brace yourself. He's dead.'
'That's what I'm here about.'
'Oh, you're one of those.' The boy removed a rag from a hip pocket and wiped off his hands, wrists, and forearms. 'Well, what about it?'
'That charter flight,' Erikson said. 'How did Dalrymple happen to take it on?'
'Five reasons.' The Mexican boy swept an arm at the desolation around us. 'Spelled M-O-N-E-Y. He needed it.'
'Badly enough to let a man carrying a machine gun aboard his plane?'
'Who says he did?' The boy said it angrily. 'Listen, Frank was no stupe. I wasn't here when they took off, but you can bet if there was a machine gun the guy didn't walk aboard with it on his shoulder. Who the hell are you, anyway?'
Erikson ignored the question. 'The man came here and arranged the charter?'
'No. He made the arrangement by phone a week before.'
'I'd like to hear about it,' Erikson said when the boy showed no sign of continuing.
'How come you're coming at me in relays today?' the boy asked. 'Don't you believe what I'm telling you?'
'Relays?' Erikson said, picking out the operative word. 'Someone else has been here talking to you about this?'
'As if you didn't know,' the boy said scornfully. 'Listen, if I knew anything that would help catch Frank's killer, you wouldn't have to ask me about it. I told your partners that. Frank gave me a job when no one else would.'
'Oh, you must mean Carmody and Stevens,' Erikson said. 'A skinny redhead and a heavy-set blond?'
The boy shook his head. 'Don't you people talk to each other? It was two dark-looking men, and one of them had no earlobe on his left ear.'
Erikson nodded. 'And the other one was taller and stood like this?' He went into a military brace with his gut sucked in and his shoulders braced.
