“I think he’s after the same thing we are.”
“Which is?”
“Better you not know, Rube. You’ve stuck your neck out far enough already.”
“Sam, come on—”
“Just leave it, Rube. Please.”
Haywood paused, then sighed. “Okay, you’re the boss. But listen: You’ve been lucky so far, but your luck could run out in a big hurry.”
“I know.”
“Will you at least let me help you? I know a guy down there you should see. You got a pen?” Sam grabbed a pad from the end table and took down the name and address Rube recited. “I trust him. Go see him.”
“Will do.”
“And for God’s sake, take care of yourselves, you hear me?”
“I hear you. We’ve been through some tough scrapes together, Remi and I. We’ll handle this one.”
“How exactly?”
“Easy. We’re going stay one step ahead of them.”
Three hours later Sam pulled the Beetle off the coast road into a small gravel parking lot and eased to a stop beside a rusted Quonset hut topped by a windsock and bearing a faded hand-painted sign: AIR SAMPSON. Fifty yards to the right was another Quonset hut, this one larger, and through the sliding double doors they could see the nose of an airplane. On the other side of the hangar was a landing strip composed of crushed seashells.
“This is it?” Remi asked, eyes narrowed.
Sam checked the map. “Yep, this is it. Selma swears it’s the best charter place on the island.”
“If she says so.”
“Are you really going to bring that thing?” she asked, nodding to the towel-draped object lying on the floor between Sam’s feet.
After hanging up with Rube, Sam had gone to the villa and recounted the conversation to Remi, who listened carefully and asked no questions.
“I don’t want to see you get hurt,” she said finally, taking his hands in hers.
“And I don’t want to see you get hurt. It’d be the end of my world.”
“Then let’s not get hurt. Like you said, we’ll just stay one step ahead of them. And if things get too rough—”
“We’ll call in the good guys and go home.”
“Sure we will,” she replied.
Before coming to the airstrip, after leaving the hotel they’d first followed Rube’s address to a shoe-repair shop in downtown Nassau, where they found that the owner and Rube’s c
ontact, Guido, was expecting them.
“Rubin wasn’t sure you would come,” Guido said in slightly Italian-accented English. “He said you were both very stubborn.”
“Did he now?”
“Yes, oh, yes.”
Guido walked to the front door, flipped over the Out to Lunch sign, then led them into the back room and down a set of stone steps into the basement, which was lit by a single hanging lightbulb. Lying on a bench amid shoes in various states of disrepair was a snub-nosed .38-caliber revolver.