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shirt. Then I stuck six inches of the padded lever between the two strands of
the blanket rope and began winding.
It was easy-at first. The blanket began to twist and knot like the rubber band
in a toy airplane. The timber brace made alarming creaking sounds. Each full
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wind took more effort. I had wrapped my lever in the blanket to try to keep it
from bending. But as I began to have to hold it right out at the end to get
enough leverage, it began to take on a curve. When I noticed that the pipe
brace was taking on a curve too, I began to worry about what might happen when
all that accumulated force was released. The sweat ran. I turned my lever. The
blanket was so taut I could imagine I could hear it humming. What is the
breaking strength of the average blanket?
Suddenly it was like being dropped in the middle of a threshing machine. The
pipe sprang out of the collars and banged me on the shoulder. The lever spun
free and hit me on the elbow and numbed my forearm and hand. The pipe spun and
rang against my skull and knocked me down and tried to twist my arm off by the
cuffed wrist. It was an ungodly din, and Freddy was going to come charging
down. I slipped the cuff off the end of the pipe. I clawed the shirt strips
off my lever and knelt by the hatchway with the raw, flattened chunk of bucket
held high, silently begging him to stick his head in, and wondering if he was
on the other side waiting for me to stick my head out.
So I went creeping cautiously out, holding the loose cuff in my right hand
with enough tension to keep the chain from clinking. I went up through the
other hatch forward and moved silently aft. I stopped every few steps to hold
my breath and cock my head and listen. At the mouth of the corridor I heard a
buzzing snore, deep and slow and regular. The door of the master stateroom was
ajar. The door to the head was closed, and I could hear a faint clinking of
chain.
Procedure: -Go to the lounge. Get the weapon from the desk. Go charging in and
blow one of his kneecaps off just to be on the safe side. Liberate the lady.
Head for Dinner Key and radio the police to meet us.
But again he was careful. He had shaken the place down. No 38. I checked the
pilothouse and the shark rifle was not in the spring clamps where it belonged.
Revised procedure:-Silently liberate the lady and get her the hell out of
there and into the Munequita and when we had drifted far enough, start her up
and leave in a big hurry.
Chain. So the quickest, easiest way would be with the great big nippers, a
brute set with handles a yard long. And they were right where I hoped they
would be, in behind the tool locker, wedged in place.
I enjoyed his snoring as I moved like a ghost past the door to the master
stateroom. I opened the door to the head slowly. She was sitting on the floor.
She snapped her head around and looked at me with a madwoman's face, eyes and
mouth wide and round, breath sucking to scream. But comprehension came just in
time and I eased in and closed the door just as silently as I had opened it.
She had found some greasy medication in the medicine locker and she had
greased her bare ankle and foot and had been trying to work the chain off of
it. She had gouged through the skin and her greasy ankle and the floor was
speckled with blood.
I slid one jaw of the nippers under the ankle chain and applied pressure. The
jaws bit through and the chain fell away, rattling on the deck. I put the
nippers down and helped her up. She clung to me. I whispered to her and told
her he was asleep and we were going to go aboard the Munequita and release her
tow line and drift away. She bobbed her head in violent agreement.
When we had crept to within two feet of the partly open door we had to pass, I
suddenly knew what was wrong. I couldn't hear him snoring. So I took her by
the arm to try to make it a fast run, but the door swung open and there he
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was. I shoved her along the corridor and in the same violent effort I tried to
jump him. But a big soft hot red hammer hit the meat of my left shoulder and
that much impact at that close range spun me and drove me back through the
open door of the guest stateroom. The spinning tangled my legs and I fell
heavily, remembering as I went down an old lesson painfully learned long ago.
When you are shot,.you are dead. Bang, you're dead! So be dead, because it
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