Green Ice by Gerald A Browne

be it.
    It was only a quarter mile to the beach. He was ten minutes early. If this wasn’t Solitude Beach, it looked it. Not a sign of anyone, or of anyone’s ever having been there. Both ways, up and down the beach about two hundred yards, were rock formations, like craggy ramparts. Pelicans on them.
    Wiley lighted a cigarette as he walked to the water’s edge. The tide was ebbing. He took a deep drag and, before exhaling half of it, took another. Five minutes went by. Ten. He would wait until eight-fifteen, no later. If he was on the wrong beach, perhaps that was how it was meant to be.
    He was still there at eight-twenty.
    A man came out of the foliage and stood just beyond the growth line, about fifty feet away. He observed Wiley for a long moment before starting toward him. A chunkily built man, overweight but powerful. He wasn’t dressed for there, had on a fresh white flannel suit, collarless white shirt. Pointy-toed white shoes. As he came nearer, Wiley realized from his features and the bluish-brown cast of his skin that he was an East Indian. What hair he had was black and dry, tufted left and right and around, making a bushy horseshoe shape on his skull. He carried a white Panama-type straw hat in his right hand.
    “Mr. Prentiss?”
    Tell him who you really are, smartass, Wiley thought, but responded with an indefinite nod.
    “We wondered where you were.”
    The same voice, same man as on the phone. He had a small gold bead, like a drop of dew, on the flare of his left nostril. Wiley told him, “I’ve been waiting.”
    “In the wrong place.”
    “These beaches all look alike.”
    “No matter.” He smiled, but not with his eyes. “This is equally suitable.”
    Another man appeared on the shoulder of the beach. It was Prentiss.
    At that same moment the Indian revealed the gun he’d been holding hidden under his hat—a thirty-two automatic.
    This was the first time Wiley had ever been up against a gun. He feinted a move left, stepped in and let go a right with all he had. It caught the Indian just in front of his left ear. Heavyweight that he was, he didn’t go down, but it did knock him off balance enough to give Wiley a chance to run.
    A run for his life down the beach, darting from side to side to make himself a more difficult target. Two shots. Missed, but so close he heard them sing by. He kept running full out until no more shots. He glanced back. The Indian hadn’t pursued, was standing there with his gun lowered because Wiley was now out of range.
    Wiley would go for cover.
    But another man in white stepped out of the foliage at that point of the beach, raised his gun and fired. The bullet tore into Wiley’s right side a couple of inches above the hipbone. It was like someone with red-hot teeth had taken a bite of his flesh. He didn’t know how badly he was wounded. He’d run until he dropped.
    A third man in white was farther down the beach at the water’s edge. Wiley was cut off. He stopped. They were coming, converging on him. He had only one way to go. Into the sea. A struggling run with the bottom sand, soft and giving, the water of varying depth, handicapping his legs as it flowed in and out. He stumbled in the trench just offshore where the sea fought itself. He fell face down.
    Shots, bullets spliffed the water around him.
    Not yet deep enough for him to swim. Hands and knees on the bottom, he tried to crawl but got nowhere because of the undertow, had to stand and expose himself to their fire. The water was alternately his enemy and ally, fought him, helped him. Wading was as fast as he could go. Surely a bullet would stop him. Keep going, keep going. Enough depth now. He dove forward, churned his arms and kicked, swam till he was certain he was more than far enough from shore.
    Treading water, he looked back.
    They were standing in a group on the beach, well above the surf line, as though to avoid getting their shoes wet. The four of them were looking out at him. Prentiss, in his