“We’ll leave these two on deck for you after we bolt the door from the outside.”
Ku shook his head slowly from side to side. “Not good enough. You’d spill on us, Mike, once you got off this barge. One way or the other, you’ll have to try to shoot your way out.”
I could feel Symmes’s Adam’s apple move against the broken neck of the bottle that I held pressed to his throat. I gave a small jerk to his left arm and he gave out a little cry, like a kitten’s whimper.
“Please,” he said, “please do what they say. I know they’ll kill me. I’ve already seen them kill too many people.”
“Shoot them,” Maas pleaded. Ku’s hand moved slightly in his jacket pocket.
“No more, Jimmy. I don’t have to aim, but you do.”
“Shut up, fat man,” Ku told Maas.
“Let’s go,” Padillo said to me, and started to back toward the stairs. He kept the gun pressed against Burchwood’s neck, his eyes on Ku. I watched Maas and gave Symmes’s arm a tug. We backed after Padillo and Burchwood.
The door next to the table banged open and a chunky, blond man jumped into the cabin. He held a shotgun in his hands and he was waving it around the room when Padillo shot him. I knocked Symmes to the floor and dived for the stairs. I could see Maas fumbling for his Luger. Padillo fired again, but nobody yelled. There was another shot and Padillo grunted once behind me but kept scrambling up the stairs. I was outside and Padillo stumbled through the doorway of the stairs. He fell and sprawled on the deck. I picked up his gun transferring the broken neck of the bottle to my left hand. I flattened myself against the cabin housing, and when Ku came through I chopped the wrist that held his pistol with my gun barrel. He yelled and dropped the gun, stumbled over Padillo, and sprawled into the darkness. Padillo got to his knees. His left arm hung limply by his side. He turned and looked at me. “Take care of Maas,” he said. He got painfully to his feet and Ku jumped him from the edge of the pool of light. I couldn’t get in a shot. Ku’s left hand, palm up, jabbed at the base of Padillo’s nose. Padillo blocked it with his right and kicked out with his left foot. The kick was low and caught Ku on the thigh. Ku jumped back into the darkness and Padillo dived after him. I started to move toward them, but I heard a clatter on the stairs. I flattened myself against the cabin housing. The noise on the stairs stopped. I could hear a thumping out in the darkness, and then I could make out two figures struggling tight together against the low railing that ran around the stern of the barge. There was a scream and they disappeared over the side. There was a splash, smaller than I expected. And then there was no noise at all. Nothing. I ran to the railing and the shotgun blasted behind me. The blast drilled a thousand or so burning needles into my left thigh. I stumbled and fell to the deck, twisted around, and saw Maas framed in the door of the stairway. I lifted the gun and took aim and pulled the trigger and it clicked.
Maas smiled and walked toward me carefully. I threw the gun at him and he dodged. It was no trouble. He held the shotgun casually, just aiming it enough to make sure it would blow off my head. I looked at the shotgun and then at Maas.
“So, Herr McCorkle, it is only you and I.”
“That’s a bad line, Maas, even for you,” I said, dragging myself up so my shoulders rested against the stern railing. My thigh was wet and warm and covered with liquid fire.
“You are hurt,” he said, and sounded as if he were really concerned.
“Just a nick—nothing really. No need to panic.”
“I assure you, Herr McCorkle, I am far from panicking. Everything has worked out even better than we had planned.”
“What happened to Symmes and Burchwood?”
“They are comfortably asleep for the moment. A slight, carefully placed blow. Perhaps they’ll have a headache, but no more.”
“The blond man with the shotgun?”
“The owner of the barge? Dead.”
“So now?”
“So now I simply make other arrangements for the transfer of Herr Symmes and Herr Burchwood in Amsterdam. Where Ku failed, I shall succeed, and I assume that I shall be adequately compensated.”
“You can pilot a barge?”
“Of course not. I will merely transfer them to an automobile and drive to Amsterdam. There will be no trouble at the border. I checked their excellent papers that you so thoughtfully provided.”
“That takes care of everyone but me,” I said.
“I’m afraid, Herr McCorckle, that this is the end of our association.”
“And we were becoming such friends.”
Maas smiled faintly. “Always the joke, even at such a time.”
“There’s one you haven’t heard yet.”
“So?”
“That’s a single-shot you’re aiming at me. I don’t think you reloaded.”
Maas pulled the trigger and the hammer made a comforting click. He swung the shotgun down at me, but I had already begun to move and its barrel clanged on the steel railing. My right foot caught him in the stomach. It was a hard, satisfying kick. He belched and stumbled forward and fell on the railing. The shotgun dropped into the water. I edged myself around and gave him another kick and he tumbled over the edge, but his arms caught the rail. I hit at him weakly with my right hand. He slipped some more and dangled above the water, clutching the railing with only his hands.
“Please, Herr McCorkle; I cannot swim. Pull me up. Good Jesus, pull me up!”
