Gatt looked at the matchbox with fascination as it went up into the air, and winced involuntarily as I fumbled the next catch. I was running a colossal bluff and to make it stick I had to impress him with an appearance of ruthlessness. I tossed the box again. 'Three more yards and neither of us will have to worry any more about the treasure of Uaxuanoc.'
He broke! 'All right; it's a stand-off,' he said hoarsely, and lifted both arms in the air and waved them. The line of men drifted to a halt and then turned to go back into the forest. As I watched them go I tossed the matchbox again, and Gatt said irritably, 'For Christ's sake, stop doing that!'
I grinned at him and caught the box, but still held it in my fingers. There was a slight film of sweat on his forehead although the heat of the day had not yet started. 'I'd hate to play poker with you,' he said at last.
'That's a game I haven't tried.'
He gave a gusty sigh of exasperation. 'Listen, Wheale: you don't know the game you're in. I've had tabs on Fallon right from the beginning. Christ, I laughed back there at your airstrip when you all played the innocent. You really thought you were fooling me, didn't you? Hell, I knew everything you did and everything you thought -- I didn't give a damn what action you took. And I've had that fool Harris chasing all over Mexico. You see, it's all come down to one thing, one sharp point -- I'm here and I'm on top. Now, what about it?'
'You must have had some help,' I said.
'Didn't you know?' he said in surprise, and began to laugh. 'Jesus! I had that damned fool, Halstead. He came to me back in Mexico City and made a deal. A very eager guy, Halstead; he didn't want to share this city with Fallon -- so we made the deal. He could have the city and I'd pick up the gold and get rid of Fallon for him.' The corners of his mouth downturned in savage contempt. The guy was too chicken to do his own killing.'
So it had been Halstead, just as Pat Harris suspected, and when we found Uaxuanoc he had tipped off Gatt. No wonder Pat had been running round in circles when Gatt knew our every move. It made me sick to realize how ambition could so corrupt a man that he would throw in his lot with a man like Gatt. The funny part about it was that Halstead had meant to cheat Gatt all along; he had never expected anything of value to turn up for Gatt to get his hands on.
I said in a hard voice, 'Where is Halstead now?'
'Oh, the guy's dead,' said Gatt casually. 'When you chased him out my chicleros got a little trigger-happy and he caught one.' He grinned. 'Did I save you the trouble, Wheale?'
I ignored that. 'You're wasting your time here. You're welcome to come and take your loot, but you'll get wet doing it.'
'Not me,' said Gatt. 'You! Oh, I know what you've done with it. Halstead didn't die right away and he told me where the stuff was -- after a bit of persuasion. It took time or I'd have been here sooner before you put the stuff in the water. But it doesn't matter, not really.' His voice was calm and soft and infinitely menacing. 'You can get it back, Wheale; you're a diver, and so is that Halstead bitch. You'll swim down and get it back for me.'
'You don't know much about deep diving. It's not a five-minute job.'
He made a slashing motion with his hand. 'But you'll do it all the same.'
'I don't see how you can make me.'
'Don't you? You'll learn.' His smile was terrible. 'Let's say I get hold of Fallon and go to work on him, hey? You'll watch what I do to him and then you'll go down. I promise you.' He dropped the stub of his cigar and tapped me on the chest. 'You were right when you said there's a difference between you and me. I'm a hard man, Wheale; and you just think you're hard. You've been putting up a good imitation lately and you had me fooled, but you're like all the rest of the common punks in the world -- soft in the middle, like Fallon. When I start taking Fallon apart slowly -- or the girl, maybe -- or that big ox, Rudetsky -- then you'll dive. See what I mean?'
I saw. I saw that his man used cruelty as a tool. He had no human feeling himself but knew enough to manipulate the feelings of others. If I really had made an arrangement with Fowler I'd have dropped that matchbox there and then and taken my chance on being killed as long as he was eliminated. And I cursed my thoughtlessness in not bringing a pistol to shoot the bastard with.
I caught my breath and strove to speak evenly. 'In that case you must be careful not to kill me,' I said. 'You've heard of the goose and the golden eggs.'
His lips curled back from his teeth. 'You'll wish I had killed you,' he promised. 'You really will.' He turned and strode away and I went back to the hut -- fast.
I tumbled in the door and yelled, 'Shoot the bastard!' I was in a blind rage.
'No good,' said Fowler from the window. 'He docked for cover.'
'What gives?' asked Rudetsky.
'He's mad -- staring stone mad! We've balked him and he's done his nut. He can't get his loot so he is going to take it out in blood.' I thought of that other madman who had shouted crazily, 'Weltmacht oder Niedergang!' Like Hitler, Gatt had blown his top completely and was ready to ruin us and himself out of angry spite. He had gone beyond reason and saw the world through the redness of blood.
Rudetsky and Fowler looked at me in silence, then Rudetsky took a deep breath. 'Makes no difference, I guess. We knew he'd have to kill us, anyway.'
'Hell be whipping up an attack any minute,' I said. 'Get everyone back in the hut by the cenote.'
Rudetsky thrust a revolver into my hand. 'All you gotta do is pull the trigger.'
I took the gun although I didn't know if I could use it effectively and we left the hut at a dead run. We had only got halfway to the cenote when there was a rattle of rifle fire and bits of soil fountained up from the ground. 'Spread out!' yelled Rudetsky, and turned sharply to cannon into me. He bounced off and we both dived for cover behind a hut.
A few more shots popped off, and I said, 'Where the hell are they?'
Rudetsky's chest heaved. 'Somewhere out front.'
Gatt's men must have gone on to the attack as soon as Gatt had gone into cover, probably by pre-arranged signal. Shots were popping off from all around like something in a Western movie and it was difficult to tell precisely
