Part 18 (1/2)

Sloane glanced at Toby, who had been partially hidden in shadow. The fire suddenly flared, and the gunman could see the K'ung's bandaged head. Toby's good eye, glowing red and yellow in the firelight, stared balefully back at Sloane, who shuddered.

”Where are you going?” Sloane asked, still transfixed by Toby's unrelenting gaze.

”That's not your concern.”

Sloane hefted the bag in his hand. ”Dropping off a rented car doesn't seem like much to do for the fortune you're offering me,” he said carefully.

”I knew you were bright. There's morea”and this is the exciting part. I don't want anyone to see the car, but I do want you to be seen. You find someone you know on watch, go up to him. Tell him you're all worked up and can't sleep. Say you want to hang around because you don't want to miss anything if it happens. Say whatever you please, but be sure you make it sound convincing.”

The man shook his head. ”That's going to be tough to pull off.”

”Ah, but think of all the money you're going to get for a single performance,” Veil said evenly. ”After you've set that business up, you bring me the keys and the rental slip. You wander off maybe a half mile up the cemetery, then you start yelling and shooting. You've seen us. You keep it up until you've got everyone running to you. That will give us time to get to the car.”

”What am I supposed to say when they see you're not there?”

”Use your imagination,” Veil said coldly. ”That's what you're getting paid for. Just tell them we ran up the cemetery.”

Sloane thought about it for a few moments, then nodded. His hands were shaking. ”I'll do it. How will I get the rest of the heroin?”

”I'll be carrying it with me when we leave. I'll leave the bags behind the wall at the precise place where you jumped over. When I'm certain you've done your job, I drop the bags. That's it. After we're gone, you can pick up the heroin anytime you like.”

”How do I know there are two other bags?” Sloane asked suspiciously.

Veil took two steps to his left, reached down into the darkness, held up the bags.

”How do I know you'll leave them like you say?”

”You don't, but that bag you're holding in your hand should buy us a little good faith. You were happy with the one; I didn't even have to tell you about the other two. We have no use for the heroin, so there's no reason why we shouldn't leave ita”a.s.suming you do your job. On the other hand, we have to trust you completely, and you might well decide that a bag in the hand is worth two behind the wall. Ours is the greater risk.”

”All right,” Sloane said sullenly.

”Remember this, Sloan: If you try crossing us, I'll make sure you never keep the bag you've got. You'll be killed. The point is that we have to trust each other if all of us are going to get what we want. It's a straight deal. You set it up so that we can get away, and you become an instant millionaire; try to screw us, and there's no way you can get away with it.”

”I said I'd do it.”

Veil glanced at his watch. ”I'll see you back here in a couple of hours.”

”I don't know if I can find a car-rental place open at this time of night.”

”If you can't, it will be the most expensive car you never rented.”

”You have to give me back my gun. I need it in case someone decides to check.”

Veil took out his own gun and covered Sloane while he handed over the other man's revolver. Sloane slipped it back into his shoulder holster.

”Where's Nagle keeping himself?”

”I don't know,” the gunman replied. ”I've talked to him a couple of times on the phone, but I haven't seen him. One of the other guys said he thought he saw him cruising around in a car, but he couldn't be sure. h.e.l.l, we're all working with no money up front.”

”Then you're lucky I found you, aren't you?”

”I'll be back as soon as I can.”

”Just keep thinking of those other two bags of heroin, Sloane.”

The gunman carefully placed the bag of heroin in the pocket of his jacket, then slipped out of the crypt. Reyna followed him, replacing the lock on the gate and again straightening out the gra.s.s as she retreated.

Veil heard Reyna's low whistle from the far end of the field of tombstones. It meant that Sloane was on his way back. Alone.

Veil was standing just inside a dense stand of fir trees, fifty yards west of the mausoleum. Toby, the Nal-toon wrapped in his arms, lay unconscious at Veil's feet.

Sloane came into view in the moonlight, walking quickly along the line of trees, heading toward the mausoleum. Reyna suddenly appeared from the shadows, stuck the gun Veil had given her into Sloane's ribs, then grabbed his arm and pulled him into the trees. A minute later they both emerged from the darkness of the fir stand.

”Here are the keys,” Sloane said nervously as he handed Veil a plastic key ring and a yellow rental slip. The night was cool, but the man's face glistened with sweat. ”It's a new white Pontiac, and it's parked at the curb right where you told me.”

”You look jumpy,” Veil said evenly. ”Relax. Remember that the show's only half over. You have to go up the cemetery and make a lot of noise.”

Sloane blinked slowly, and his lips drew back to reveal broken, yellow teeth. ”I need to have another bag before I do that.”

”No. That wasn't the agreement. With two bags you might feel that you're far enough ahead of the game to walk away. Do your job and you'll get the bags. They'll be where I said they'd be.”

”You got them with you?”

”They're in a safe place. When I hear you start shooting and yelling, I'll get them and take them to the wall.”

”You'll get them now, Kendry!” Carl Nagle's voice, strangely hollow and tortured, washed over them like acid from the deep well of night.

”Holy Mother of G.o.d,” Sloane croaked as he clawed frantically for the gun in his shoulder holster.

The explosive chatter of the submachine gun was deafening as the individual rounds blended into one jagged torrent of sound that reverberated off the ma.s.sive tombstones and echoed in the darkness. Sloane's body was blown backward against a tree and momentarily pinned there by bullets; it jerked like a broken puppet, spouting blood from a dozen different places.

Then the firing stopped, leaving only faint echoes as a counterpoint to the rasping sound of Sloane's pulped corpse sliding down the tree trunk to the ground.

Carl Nagle walked unsteadily out from the trees, and suddenly the air was filled with the putrid, gagging odor of rotting flesh. As the huge man moved into the moonlight, Veil and Reyna could see that he held the Uzi braced in the crook of his left arm. There was thick, caked spittle on his cracked lips, and his eyes gleamed like lumps of banked coals in the puffed, waxy flesh of his face.

Nagle's right arm had ballooned out of the sling that supported it; it jutted grotesquely from his body, like a deformed, rotting gourd that had somehow taken root in his shoulder. Suppurating, swollen to almost twice its normal size, the flesh of the arm was a flaking, blackish green. Streaks of crimson radiated from the bicep to the hand, and up through the neck.

”Gas gangrene,” Reyna murmured in horror.

Nagle's eyes had turned mud-black with fever and madness. He chuckled insanely as he leaned back, aimed the muzzle of the gun just over their heads, and fired off a burst into the trees. Leaves and broken branches rained down on Reyna and Veil, who had taken the woman in his arms and was trying to s.h.i.+eld her with his body.

”The Lord is my shepherd,” Reyna prayed. ”I shall not want . . .”

Reyna flowed out of Veil's arms, crumpling to the ground. There were confused shouts all around them as men tried to determine from which direction the shooting had come. Pistol shots cracked as men stumbled in the darkness, firing at shadows and each other. Sirens wailed.

”. . . He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He restoreth my soul . . .”

”Listen to me, Nagle,” Veil said carefully, his eyes fixed on the ribbed, black muzzle of the submachine gun pointed at his chest. ”The cops are going to be here any minute.”