"Doorsways in the Sand 08" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

We moved off along the route he had indicated, Jamie bringing up the rear. Winding through scrub, it took us farther down toward the beach. Finally, I got a closeup view of the sea, gray today and white-capped. Then the trail took us away again, and before very long I thought I had spotted our destination-low, peaked, set back on a modest hillside, missing a shutter and a half-a beach cottage that had seen better seas before I was born.
"The cottage?" Hal said.
"The cottage" from behind us.
We went on up to it. Jamie circled about us, rapped in a doubtless prearranged fashion and said, "It's okay. It's me. He's got it. He brought Cassidy along, too."
An "Okay" emerged from inside, and he opened the door and turned to us. He gestured with his head and we moved past him and on in.
I was not exactly taken by surprise to see Morton Zeemeister seated at the scarred kitchen table, a gun beside his coffee cup. Across the room beyond the kitchenette area, Mary was seated in what looked to be the most comfortable chair in the place. She was tied loosely, but one hand was free and there was a cup of coffee on the table beside her also. There were two windows in the dining area and two in the living room. In the rear wall there were two doors-a bedroom and a john or closet, I guessed. The overhead area had not been floored or ceiled, and there were only bare beams and lots of space, where someone had stashed fishing gear, nets, oars and assorted junk. There was an old sofa, a couple more rickety chairs and low tables and a pair of lamps in the living room. Also a dead fireplace and a faded rug. The kitchenette held a small stove, refrigerator, cupboards and a black cat who sat licking her paws at the far end of the table from Zeemeister.
He smiled as we entered, raising the gun only when Hal began a dash toward Mary.
"Come back here," he said. "She is all right."
"Are you?" Hal asked her.
"Yes," she said. "They didn't hurt me."
Mary is a small, somewhat flighty girl, blond and a trifle too sharp-featured for my tastes. I had feared she would be somewhat hysterical by then. But, outside of the expected signs of stress and fatigue, she seemed possessed of a stability that exceeded my expectations. Hal might have done better than I had thought. I was glad.
Hal returned from her side, moved toward the table. I glanced back when I heard the door shut, its latch clicking into place. Jamie leaned there, his back against the frame, watching us. He had opened his jacket, and I saw that there was a gun tucked in behind his belt.
"Let's have it," Zeemeister said.
Hal unwrapped it again and passed it to him.
Zeemeister pushed aside his gun and coffee cup. He placed the stone before him and stared at it. He turned it several times. The cat rose, stretched, jumped down from the table.
He leaned back in his chair then, still looking at the stone.
"You boys must have gone to a lot of trouble-" he began.
"As a mater of fact," Hal stated, "we-"
Zeemeister slammed the table with the palm of his hand. The crockery danced.
"It's a fake!" he said.
"It's the same one we've always had," I offered, but Hal had turned bright red. He is a lousy poker player, too.
"I don't see how you can say that!" Hal shouted. "I've brought you the damned thing! It's real! Let her go now!"
Jamie moved away from the door, coming up beside Hal. At that moment, Zeemeister turned his head and raised his eyes. He shook his head slightly, just once, and Jamie halted.
"I am not a fool," he said, "to be taken in by a copy. I know what it is that I want and I am capable of recognizing it. This-" he made a flipping motion with his right hand-"is not it. You know that as well as I do. It was a good try, because it is a good copy. But you have played your last trick. Where is the real one?"
"If that is not it.," Hal said, "then I do not know."
"What about you, Fred?"
"That is the one we have had all along," I said. "If it is a fake, then we never had the real one."
"All right."
He heaved himself to his feet.
"Get on over into the living room," he said, picking up his gun.
At this, Jamie drew his own and we moved to obey.
"I do not know how much you think you can get for it," Zeemeister said, "or how much you may have been offered. Or, for that matter, whether you have already sold it. Whatever the case, you are going to tell me where the stone is now and who else is involved. Above all, I want you to bear in mind that it is worth nothing to you if you are dead. Right now, it looks like that is what is going to happen."
"You are making a mistake," Hal said.
"No. You have made it, and now the innocent must suffer."
"What do you mean by that?" Hal asked.
"It should be obvious," he replied. Then: "Stand there," he directed, "and don't move. Jamie, shoot them if they do."
We halted where he had indicated, across the room from Mary. He continued, moving to stand at her right side. Jamie crossed over to her left and waited there, covering us.
"How about you, Fred?" Zeemeister asked. "Do you recall anything now that you didn't in Australia? Perhaps remember something you haven't even bothered mentioning to poor Hal here-something that could save his wife from . . . Well . . ."
He removed a pair of pliers from his pocket and placed them on the table beside her coffee cup. Hal turned and looked at me. They all waited for me to say something, do something. I glanced out the side window and wondered about doorways in the sand.

The apparition entered silently from the room behind them. It must have been Hal's face that gave them the first sign, because I know I kept mine under control. It did not really matter, though, because it spoke even as Zeemeister's head was turning.
"No!" it said, and "Freeze! Drop it, Jamie! One bloody move for your gun, Morton, and you'll look like a statue by that Henry Moore chap! Just stay still!"
It was Paul Byler in a dark coat, his face thinner and sporting a few new creases. His hand was steady, though, and it was a .45 that he was pointing. Zeemeister assumed an eloquent immobility. Jamie looked undecided, glanced at Zeemeister for some sign.
I almost sighed, feeling something tending in the direction of relief. In fair puzzles there should always be a way out. This looked like it for this game, if only-
Catastrophe!
A mass of lines, nets, buoys and disassembled fishing poles made a scratching, sliding noise overhead, then descended on Paul. His head jerked upward, his arm swayed-and in that moment Jamie decided against discarding his gun. He swung it toward Paul.
Reflexes I usually forget about when I am on the ground made a decision for which I take neither credit nor blame. Had the matter gotten beyond my spinal nerves, though, I do not believe I would have jumped a man with a gun.
But then everything was going to turn out all right, wasn't it? It always does in the various mass-entertainment media.
I sprang toward Jamie, my arms outstretched.
His hand slowed in an instant's indecision, then swung the gun back toward me and fired it, point-blank.