The Talisman

behind that place?’
    ‘Better than a pier, Jacky. Once you gets out beyond the breakwater, you’ll see big pilins – they built part of the hotel right out over the water. You’ll see a ladder down in them pilins. Get Richard there up the ladder and you be on the big deck out back. Big windows right there – the kind of windows that be doors, you know? Open up one of them window-doors and you be in the dinin room.’ He managed to smile. ‘Once you in the dinin room, I reckon you’ll be able to sniff out the Talisman. And don’t be afraid of her, sonny. She’s been waitin for you – she’ll come to your hand like a good hound.’
    ‘What’s to stop all these guys from coming in after me?’
    ‘Shoo, they can’t go in the black hotel.’ Disgust with Jack’s stupidity was printed in every line on Speedy’s face.
    ‘I know, I mean in the water. Why wouldn’t they come after me with a boat or something?’
    Now Speedy managed a painful but genuine smile. ‘I think you gonna see why, Travellin Jack. Ole Bloat and his boys gotta steer clear of the water, hee hee. Don’t worry about that now – just remember what I told you and get to gettin, hear?’
    ‘I’m already there,’ Jack said, and edged toward the rocks to peer around at the beach road and the hotel. He had managed to get across the road and to Speedy’s cover without being seen: surely he could drag Richard the few feet down to the water and get him on the raft. With any luck at all, he should be able to make it unseen all the way to the pilings – Gardener and the men with binoculars were concentrating on the town and the hillside.
    Jack peeked around the side of one of the tall columns. The limousines still stood before the hotel. Jack put his head out an inch or two farther to look across the street. A man in a black suit was just stepping through the door of the wreck of the Kingsland Motel – he was trying, Jack saw, to keep from looking at the black hotel.
    A whistle began to shrill, as high and insistent as a woman’s scream.
    ‘Move!’ Speedy whispered hoarsely.
    Jack jerked his head up and saw at the top of the grassy rise behind the crumbling houses a black-suited man blasting away at the whistle and pointing straight downhill at him. The man’s dark hair swayed around his shoulders – hair, black suit, and sunglasses, he looked like the Angel of Death.
    ‘FOUND HIM! FOUND HIM!’ Gardener bawled. ‘SHOOT HIM! A THOUSAND DOLLARS TO THE BROTHER WHO BRINGS ME HIS BALLS!’
    Jack recoiled back into the safety of the rocks. A half-second later a bullet spanged off the front of the middle pillar just before the sound of the shot reached them. So now I know , Jack thought as he grabbed Richard’s arm and pulled him toward the raft. First you get knocked down, then you hear the gun go off .
    ‘You gotta go now,’ Speedy said in a breathless rush of words. ‘In thirty seconds, there’s gonna be a lot more shootin. Stay behind the breakwater as long’s you can and then cut over. Get her, Jack.’
    Jack gave Speedy a frantic, driven look as a second bullet smacked into the sand before their little redoubt. Then he pushed Richard down in the front of the raft and saw with some satisfaction that Richard had enough presence of mind to grasp and hang on to the separate rubbery tufts of the mane. Speedy lifted his right hand in a gesture both wave and blessing. On his knees Jack gave the raft a shove which sent it almost to the edge of the water. He heard another trilling blast of the whistle. Then he scrambled to his feet. He was still running when the raft hit the water, and was wet to the waist when he pulled himself into it.
    Jack paddled steadily out to the breakwater. When he reached the end, he turned into unprotected open water and began paddling.
    4
    After that, Jack concentrated on his paddling, firmly putting out of his mind any considerations of what he would do if Morgan’s men had killed Speedy. He had to get under the pilings, and that was that. A bullet hit the water, causing a tiny eruption of droplets about six feet to his left. He heard another ricochet off the breakwater with a ping . Jack paddled forward with his whole strength.
    Some time, he knew not how long, went by. At last he rolled off the side of the raft and swam to the back, so that he could push it even faster by scissoring his legs. An almost imperceptible current swept him nearer his goal. At last the pilings began, high crusty columns of