THE GETAWAY

There were three men in the launch: a gu

Doc studied him. He put a restraining hand on Carol's arm. Wait! Perhaps the three would draw closer together.

"What's the big hurry, Pete?" The lieutenant spoke in an amiable drawl; a friend addressing a friend. "Weren't trying to run away from me, were you?"

"R-run?" the captain laughed shakily. "Who runs? Who is in a hurry?"

"Didn't bait up tonight, did you? Why not?"

"Why? Because I did so this afternoon. Also I iced, fueled, provisioned, keesed my wife…"

"Okay, okay," the lieutenant chuckled. "Got any coffee in the galley? Jack, bring us our bucket back there."

The gu

"Now!" said Doc.

He got the two of them, almost cutting them in half at the waist with one double blast. They doubled over, toppled down into the dark water between the two boats. Carol's shot got the steersman in the face and chest. He was still alive when two of the fisherman's crew tossed him over the side, and blinded, faceless, he managed to struggle to the surface. Mercifully one of the men crushed his skull with an axe. Then they chopped a hole in the bottom of the launch, and leaped back aboard their own craft.

The diesels roared frantically. The boat lunged at the waves, lunged through them like a terrified thing. Ru

As for Carol and Doc…

They lay in one another's arms; replete, reunited at last. And Doc held her very close, stroked her head protectively. For she was his wife, much dearer to him then the average wife to the average husband. And if circumstances compelled him to think of her as an opponent-and he was not sure that they did, just yet-it was with no less love and a very great deal of regret.

She shivered against him, made muffled sounds against his chest. He emitted a few husbandly theretheres, murmured that everything was all right now. Then, realizing that she was laughing, he gave her a tender kiss. "Now, what's so fu

"Y-you! I–I-don't be angry, Doc, but…"

"Of course I won't be. Now what did I do that amused you?"

"N-nothing! It was-well, just you!" She snickered delightly. "You never really pla

"And?"

"Well, you know. Now you can't. Not after that deal tonight."

"Correction," Doc said. "Now we can't."

14

The tiny area where El Rey is uncrowned king appears on no maps and, for very practical reasons, it has no official existence. This has led to the rumor that the place actually does not exist, that it is only an illusory haven conjured up in the minds of the wicked. And since no one with a good reputation for truth and veracity has ever returned from it

Well, you see?

But it is there, all right.

Lying in a small coastal group of mountains, it suffers from sudden and drastic changes in climate. It is almost impossible to dress for it, the barely adequate clothes of one hour become a sweltering burden the next. And somehow, doubtless as an outgrowth of these climatic phenomena, one is always a little thirsty. Still, many tropical and semitropical climates have these same disadvantages, and worse. And there is this to be said for El Rey's kingdom: it is healthy. Disease is almost unknown. Even such man-created maladies as malnutrition and starvation are minus much of their normal potency, and a man may be almost consumed by them before he succumbs to them.

It is an excellent place in many ways. Healthy. Possessed of a climate to suit every taste. Protected by the largest per capita police force in the world. Yet there is constant grumbling among its expatriate guests. One of the commonest causes of complaint, strangely, is that all accommodations-everything one must buy-are strictly first class.

Not that they are exorbitantly priced, understand. On the contrary. A four-bathroom villa, which might cost several thousand a month in some French Riviera resort, will rent for no more than a few hundred. But you can get nothing for less than that. You must pay that few hundred. It is the same with food and drink, nothing but the very best; with clothes, cosmetics, tobacco, and a hundred other things. All quite reasonably priced for what they are, but still worrisomely expensive to people who have just so much money and can get no more.

El Rey manifests great concern over these complaints, but there is a sardonic twinkle in his ageless old eyes. Naturally, he provides only the best for his guests. Isn't it what they always wanted elsewhere? Didn't they insist on having it, regardless of cost? Well, then! He goes on to point out that less exquisite accommodations and material goods would encourage an undesirable type of immigrant; persons his present guests would not care to be identified with. For if they did, they obviously would not be what they were nor be where they were.

Watching their assets trickle, nay, pour away on every side, people scheme and struggle feverishly to economize. They cut down on food, they do without drink, they wear their clothes threadbare. And the result is that they are just as much out of pocket as if they had bought what they did without.

Which brings us to the subject of El Rey's bank, another cause for bitter complaint.

The bank makes no loans, of course. Who would it make them to? So the only available source of revenue is interest, paid by the depositor rather than to him. On balances of one hundred thousand dollars or more, the rate is six percent; but on lesser sums it rises sharply, reaching a murderous twenty-five percent on amounts of fifty thousand and under. Briefly, it is almost imperative that a patron keep his account at or above the one hundred thousand figure. But he may not do this by a program of skimping and doing without. When one's monthly withdrawals fall under an arbitrary total-the approximate amount which it should cost him to live at the prevailing first-class scale-he becomes subject to certain "inactive account" charges. And these, added to his withdrawals, invariably equal that total.

This is just about as it has to be, of course. El Rey must maintain an elaborately stocked commissary; and he can only do so on a fixed-patronage basis. Such is the rule in almost every first-class resort. A certain tariff is collected from every guest, and whether he uses what he pays for is strictly up to him.

To strike another analogy: no one is compelled to deposit his money in El Rey's bank. But the resort management, specifically the police, will assume no responsibility if it is stolen-as it is very likely to be. There is good reason to believe that the police themselves do the stealing from nondepositors. But there is no way of proving it, and certainly nothing to be done about it.

So the complaints go on. El Rey is unfair. You can't win against him. ("You would argue fairness with me, senor? But why should you expect to win?") He listens courteously to all grievances, but you get no satisfaction from him. He tosses your words back at you, answers questions with questions, retorts with biting and ironic parables. Tell him that such and such a thing is bad, and suggest a goodly substitute, and he will quote you the ancient proverb about the king with two sons named Either and Neither. "An inquiry was made as to their character, senor. Were they good or bad boys, or which was the good and which the bad. And the king's reply? 'Either is neither and Neither is either.'"