‘How’s Hater?’ Baird went on.
They both looked at the still body lying at the bottom of the boat. They were startled to see the dark eyes were open and watching them.
Baird shifted over to Hater and knelt at his side.
‘Take it easy,’ he said. ‘You’re okay now.’
Hater made a soft, moaning noise, but he kept still. Rico leaned forward to stare down at him. Could this frail, odd little man, with his beetling eyebrows, his thin, emaciated face and body, his wild, staring eyes, be Paul Hater, the internationally renowned jewel operator? It didn’t seem possible, until Rico remembered Hater had been inside for fifteen years: probably been working in this ghastly heat and swamp for most of that time. He shuddered at the thought, wondering what he himself would look like if he had been through what Hater had had to face.
Baird undid the gag and lifted Hater’s head.
‘Have a drink, pal,’ he said, and offered the whisky bot le.
‘Who are you?’ Hater asked in a hoarse whisper. ‘What do you want with me?’
‘We’re get ing you out of here,’ Baird said. ‘You’ve got friends on the outside rooting for you.’
Hater licked his lips. His eyes went from Baird’s hard, expressionless face to Rico.
‘I haven’t any friends,’ he said.
‘Sure, you have,’ Baird returned. ‘You take it easy. You’ve got nothing to worry about now.’
Hater closed his eyes.
‘I know what you’re after,’ he mut ered. ‘But you’re not going to get it. No one’s going to get it.’
‘Don’t get excited,’ Baird said. ‘We’l talk about who’s going to get what when we’re out of here.’
Hater started to say something, but the effort was too much for him. His face went slack, and he seemed to drift off once more into unconsciousness.
After watching him for a while, Baird returned to his blanket. He sat down and began to pull on his camouflage jacket and trousers. When he had finished dressing he told Rico to go to sleep.
‘We’l get going as soon as it’s dark. Get some rest. You’l have to do most of the paddling.’
Rico was still watching Hater.
‘Did you hear what he said? Suppose he doesn’t tel Kile where he’s cached the stuff? The cops must have tried to make him spill it. If they couldn’t do it, how does Kile think he’l get him to talk?’
Baird shrugged.
‘That’s not my headache. If Kile can’t make him talk, maybe I’l take charge of him.’ He stared at Rico for a long second. ‘I could make him spil it. A half a mil ion’s worth taking a lit le trouble for. I don’t say it’d be easy, but in the end he’d come clean.’
‘Why don’t you do it now?’ Rico asked anxiously. ‘Why hand him over to Kile at al ?’
‘Suppose we did know where the stuff was hidden? What good would it do us? We couldn’t get rid of it. Talk sense. Kile’s got an in with this Rajah guy; we haven’t.’
Rico lay down in the boat. His feet were close to Hater’s head.
‘If we don’t pul this off I’m ruined,’ he said miserably. ‘I don’t know what I shal do.’
‘Aw, shut up!’ Baird snapped. ‘Go to sleep. I don’t want to listen to your bel y-aching.’
Rico closed his eyes, but he knew he wasn’t going to sleep. He watched Baird through his eyelashes.
Baird stared thoughtfully at Hater while he nursed his aching wrist. His mind made plans.
IV
Around nine o’clock the light began to go quickly. For five hours the three men had lain in the boat, sweltering in the tropical heat, tormented by mosquitoes that buzzed above their heads in a thick cloud.
Only twice during the long wait for darkness had Hater moved. He seemed to hover on the edge of consciousness, but the slightest movement or effort to open his eyes drove him back again into a coma that made Rico nervous.
If Hater should die before he could be persuaded to talk! Rico kept thinking. This nightmare he was enduring would be for nothing. If he didn’t get that money his future would be something he dared not contemplate.
Rico had scarcely noticed the heat or the mosquitoes so engrossed was he in worrying about Hater.
Every now and then he would reach forward and touch Hater’s pulse to reassure himself that Hater was still alive. This bundle of skin and bones represented Rico’s future. There was nothing Rico wouldn’t have done for him if there had been anything to do. He kept urging Baird to get moving. Hater should see a doctor, he told Baird repeatedly. It was madness to let him lie in this awful heat without proper attention.
Baird wouldn’t listen. He lay in the stern of the boat, nursing his wrist. Rico was so busy fussing over Hater that he hadn’t noticed how red and angry looking Baird’s left arm had become. Long red streaks came from under the bandage and reached up as far as Baird’s elbow. Every so often Baird hung his arm over the side of the boat, keeping his burning forearm in the water.
He was worried about his arm. He knew it was infected, and he knew, too, he was growing feverish.
His head felt hot, and he experienced hot and cold chills up and down his spine. To be ill at a time like this! he thought savagely. To have to rely on a useless sonofabitch like Rico! If he told Rico how he was feeling, Rico would promptly lose his head. Would the darkness never come? He needed a doctor far more urgently than Hater did.
