A Touch of Danger

by James Jones

  I couldn’t figure it out. It didn’t seem there was enough money in his paltry little hashish smuggling to warrant any murder.

  Behind me the young barman, courageous enough now, in my wake, said from the patio steps, “One is not supposed to touch anything at the scene of a murder, is one?”

  I moved my head irritably. “That’s right. Come on, let’s go to the desk.”

  “Is he really dead?” he said. “With no head?”

  “He’s dead, all right,” I said.

  Beside him, in his green and gold uniform and his green and gold pillbox hat, the little bellboy began to cry.

  In the lobby I told the clerk to call the police. While we waited, I sat with my arm around the unstrung little bellboy trying to comfort him. “There, now, there, now. Dead people never hurt anybody. Did you ever hear of any dead people hurting anybody?” I wasn’t at all sure what I was telling him was the truth.

  Chapter 20

  I HATED A KILLING. A killing always complicated everything. Once a killing got into a case, it became a whole different ball game. Everything else was disturbed and disrupted, by a killing. The local beef trust got called in, and the heavy weaponry—the captains and inspectors—got requisitioned from upstairs. I did not presume it would be any different in Greece, and it wasn’t.

  The police arrived in their blue jeep, the fat chief and two of his young peasant constables. I had seen him at a distance around town. The chief went out to take a look at our body, and came back sweating and mopping his face. He was in over his depth already. He told us, in English, for my benefit I suppose, that he was going to call the Inspector, in Glauros. “God only hope he are there,” he said.

  When he came back from the phone, he said the Inspector was coming. Should be there in an hour.

  I had my “client” to think of. I might have stood her up but I wanted to get to her with the news before anyone else did, and tell her to keep her mouth shut. I stood up brazenly. “Well, I have a few things to do in town. I’ll be back here by then.”

  “You? You will not go anywhere.” The fat chief’s eyes seemed to come back slowly from wherever they were. His two double chins shook with outrage. “You were seen to take the dead man’s wallet out of the pocket, and then put him back.”

  I smiled a tough, mean smile at the young barman. To the chief I said, “I thought I knew who he was. I wanted to check.”

  “No one touches the scene of the crimes,” the chief said. “We shall search you.” Then he went into Greek.

  I put my hands in my pockets to turn them out. The chief immediately put his hand on his holstered gun and undid the flap. I simply grinned at him. I brought out what I had in my jacket. Then I started on my pants. “I can’t stand to be tickled. Especially by hick cops.”

  “I know who you are, Mr. Davies,” the chief said. “This don’t give you no special priv’lege.”

  One of the younger cops picked up my wallet, looked at my special license, then handed it significantly to the chief. The chief looked at it, and nodded, and put it back. There was absolutely no reason for them to go through this kid routine. I figured they did it because they were scared.

  “Now can I go to town?” I said.

  “You will stay here.”

  We settled down to wait.

  The Inspector, when he arrived, walked in swiftly and took over smoothly. He did not look like he was yanked away from any quiet dinner, with his wife and seven little Greek kids. He was dressed in a dark blue suit that might have been smartly tailored, before he put it on. It was much too heavy for the weather. He was a small man, but inside his smallness he was heavy and florid. He had at least the authority of an Army colonel about him. He also had the most brutal and rudest set of eyes, nose and lips I’d ever seen even on a cop. Absolutely power-oriented. After a quick look at the corpse, he closeted himself with the chief.

  I cooled my heels, and contented myself with staring down the slim sneaky barman. While the chief was with his boss, the barman was called in. When they both came back out, he asked for me.

  “Well, Mr. Davies. You seem to have upset my constabulary. By taking a peek at the victim’s wallet.” He wasn’t reproving. But he wasn’t on my side, either.

  I gave him a shrug. “I thought I recognized him. I was right.” I probably in all fairness should have warned him that I never did rate very high on obedience tests, even in the Army.

  “You knew the victim?” Simply by sitting in it, he had turned the hotel manager’s office into his own property.

  “I’ve met him. He seemed like a personable young man. He seemed to flash a lot of money around.”

  The Inspector nodded. He constructed a brutal smile with his loose lips.

  “A lot more than he could make just running the Polaris,” I said.

  He nodded again, with the same curled-lip little smile.

  “I’ve heard more. More that I don’t actually know.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Well, it’s rumored he was smuggling a lot of hash onto the island. Which he sold here. To all these hippies up on the hill.”

  The sneery smile again. He was being nice to me. But he wasn’t sure whether he liked me or not. “That is my information, also. Though I am not sure all the hashish went to the ‘ippies. Anything else?”

  “Well, it seems the local authorities are unusually lax about it.” I thought I’d give him a little needle. It was hard to tell how thick that skin was.

  It didn’t faze him. “Mr. Davies. I cannot control the hashish traffic in my own area on the mainland. They are an island here. It would take fifty men, each with his own boat.”

  “Sure,” I said. I figured I was safe enough to say it.

  “How much better to have knowledge of how much comes in and who brings it.”

  “Yes.”

  “There was no problem until the ’ippies came. Now each year there are more.” He shrugged a set of heavy shoulders. He looked like he ate well, the Inspector. “The word gets around. It is all because of the government housing construction up above, where they can live.”

  “But nothing has been done about that. Right?”

  “I would not attempt to discuss a complex matter like that with you. However,”—the loose-faced smile—“let me say that no matter how badly dressed and unwashed, no matter how squalidly they like to live, the ’ippies can spend an enormous amount of money in a place.”

  I smiled back. “Sure. They are not many of them poor. Right? At least, not the American ones.”

  The Inspector nodded. “Don’t try to get nasty with me. They like to play at being poor, yes.” His loose-lipped smile could be more ominous than a tight-lipped one. “But murder is another thing, Mr. Davies. We’ve had a few knifings, a few broken heads, a few that went crazy. Not the same thing. I will get a murderer, in my district. That I can assure you.”

  “Will it be that easy?”

  The Inspector shrugged. “I suppose you have not also heard who sells the hashish for this man Girgis?”

  I pretended to consider this. Why would he ask me, a three-day stranger, that? I lied. “Nope. I haven’t. I thought he sold it himself.”

  He smiled and fiddled with the hotel manager’s pencil, which had become his pencil. “Do you know the Countess von Anders?”

  “Yes. She’s the lady who’s been taking care of me on the island. You don’t mean to imply she could be mixed up in this tawdry mess?”

  The Inspector looked up, his heavy eyebrows raised. “Certainly not. I have known the Countess for years, Mr. Davies.”

  “Then why the leading question?”

  “No leading question, Mr. Davies. I simply wondered if you had met her. Merely being social. She is a friend of Mr. Tarkoff. You did some work for Mr. Tarkoff in Athens. Mr. Tarkoff sent you here.”

  “Well, she met me, really,” I said, indifferently. He kept up with things, the Inspector. He did homework. “Fred Tarkoff wrote her about me, and gave me a letter of intro t
o her.”

  “Yes. Mr. Tarkoff. The rich American. I have had the pleasure of meeting him a couple of times. Tsatsos has several rich Americans. We like them.” It was impossible to tell which way he was playing it. Did he know about the hashish group, and intend to attack them? Or was he being paid off, and was protecting them? He pushed the hotel manager’s swivel chair back as if that was his, too. “This is not an interrogation, Mr. Davies. Okay. That will be all. You can go.”

  “And you don’t want me to leave the island,” I grinned. “Right?”

  “It’s immaterial. I won’t need you any more.” Not the greatest sense of humor in the world.

  The two of us walked outside to the lobby. The three constabulary were not there, and the hotel employees were standing in the big glass doorway watching whatever was going on outside.

  We walked to the door. Outside on the driveway was parked a sun-faded blue Volkswagen bus, its back door open. Beside it stood a tiny old Greek man, so fragile looking he seemed transparent. The two young constables and the chief were holding a stretcher, and arguing.

  I looked at the Inspector, and the Inspector’s power-structured eyebrows quivered. “The local hearse,” he said. “And the local mortician.”

  One of the young constables was protesting about something in Greek. The fat chief overrode him. They all disappeared behind the clump of tropical grass. In a couple of minutes they reappeared with the body on the stretcher, a blanket over the body. The body was in rigor mortis and did not lend itself to stretcher bearing. The knee of the drawn-up leg stuck up like a small mountain. One arm stuck out from under the blanket stiffly. It was obvious they had had some trouble with it and all three were sweating. They heaved it up into the bus and the tiny transparent mortician shut the door. The young constable who had done all the arguing went over and leaned against a tree and began to vomit.

  “You can see they are not used to murders on the island,” the Inspector said behind me.

  I nodded. “Have you got all the fingerprints and stuff, already?”

  “All that we will need around Tsatsos,” the Inspector said.

  I nodded again. I gave him a grim handshake meant to show I understood his problems, and went to the line of horsecabs. My “client” Chantal was still the first thing on my mind. I had to call the driver away from the row of spectators.

  In the Port I paid off the cab, and walked up to Chantal’s.

  It was full night now, maybe 10 or 10:30.

  I did not expect her to be home, and she wasn’t.

  Chapter 21

  I TOLD THE MAID I would wait.

  In the low stone thick-walled living room I looked again at the portrait of the young Chantal. I thought it said a lot about her life, hanging there with its light that was never turned off. It dominated the medieval room. Not that she had centered everything around it. She hadn’t. She had hung it off by itself, and then directed everything away from it. So that it dominated by indirection. Very shrewd.

  On an antique table I picked up an expensive illustrated picture-book history of the von Anders family, in German. Obscure publisher. 300 numbered copies. Obviously, a paid-for book. I settled down with it. Might as well learn something about my client, if I could. The illustrations went all the way back to medieval engravings. Castles. Ancestors in armor. Later, photographs. War of 1870. War of 1918. War of 1940. Periods in-between. Near the end there was a big family portrait, in which I recognized Chantal, and a guy I assumed was her husband, amongst brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews. And the stern old patriarchal couple.

  Quite a family. I still found it difficult to appreciate Germans. I mixed myself a drink, and went back to the book. I dozed a little. Finally, I heard a door slam outside, some whispering. Chantal came in.

  “What a pleasant surprise,” she said, much too sweetly. “So you did decide to visit me after all.”

  I deliberately didn’t get up. I slid the book on the table.

  “I see you’ve been reading up on Gunther’s family history. It’s quite an array of Germans, isn’t it?” she added, bitterly, “German nobility. I think there’s even one of me in there.”

  “I saw it.”

  “I didn’t know you read German.”

  “I don’t.”

  Since I didn’t get up, she made herself a drink and sat. I said nothing. I studied her openly. I had to admit she was charming, as she blew a strand of hair back out of her eyes and looked at me.

  “To what do I owe this great good fortune? Did the other one stand you up? Or did you feel you had to leave her side through pity and come and see me. At least, I am getting to know your preferences. You like them very young, and very long-legged. You like skindiving dope pushers.”

  “Pots calling kettles,” I said. “Just take it easy. I’m here on business. Serious business, for you.” I paused. “Do you know that Girgis has been killed? Murdered?”

  Chantal’s face grew pinched. “You’re not serious?”

  I nodded. “I found him. Well, me and a couple of hotel kids. In the bushes at the Xenia. And the only way we could tell it was Girgis was by his wallet, because there wasn’t any head on the body.”

  “Oh, but that’s horrible,” she whispered after a moment. She wasn’t acting this time.

  “Horrible or not,” I said. I sighed silently, and blew out my lips. I got up and busied myself making myself a drink to give her a little time. “So,” I said, my back to her, “I’m here as your representative. To tell you to keep your mouth shut. About Girgis and everything you might know about Girgis.” I sat back down. “I thought it important enough to come right away. I feel a certain moral responsibility for you. Since you ‘hired’ me.”

  She didn’t seem as though she was sure she had heard me. Her face was white, and she had her hands to her cheeks and was staring off across the corner of the floor. I looked at her closely. They will sometimes suddenly get sick all over themselves over a shock like that, sensitive protected ladies like her. I got up and poured her a shot of brandy. “Here.”

  She took it and looked at it and then drank half of it. “I’m, uh—I’m all shocked. It’s hard to believe. I don’t know what to say. I can’t understand it. Why would somebody want to do that to him?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t care. Drink the rest of that. It’s not any of it my affair. Except to protect you and help you keep out of it as much as they will let you. Of course, they may not even bother you.”

  “But cutting off his head? Why do a horrible thing like that?”

  “I admit the head part’s pretty gruesome. I haven’t the slightest idea about why,” I said.

  She drained off the rest of the snifter of brandy. “What’s going to happen?”

  “I haven’t any opinion about that, either. I thought you might be able to tell me more about that than I can.”

  Chantal swung around in her chair to look at me, and set the glass down. “Well, surely you don’t think I did it?”

  “No. Not unless you’re a lot stronger than you look. There was almost no blood near the body. That means somebody had to carry Girgis quite a way. And he isn’t small. Even without his head.” I grinned bleakly at her.

  “You’re horrible. You have no sensitivity at all.”

  “It’s all been knocked out of me over the years.” I peered at her over my glass. “Now, are you going to do what I tell you?”

  “Well, naturally, I’ll do what you tell me.”

  “Good.” I put aside my glass and got up. “First, don’t talk to the police or any of your friends. The other thing is that I want to know everything that took place between you and Girgis. And that means everything.”

  Chantal leaped to her feet. “I’ve told you a hundred times.” But she stopped when I seized her by the elbows, and squeezed her just a little.

  “I said I meant everything. And I’m perfectly capable of shaking it out of you, if I have to.” I moved her gently back and forth. “So start. I think you’ve bee
n working for him, in some capacity. So does Inspector Pekouris, I would bet.”

  Chantal’s head drooped and she looked at the floor. But now she was acting again, I suspected. “Well, it’s true. I have been. I was his ‘contact,’ his ‘carrier,’ for my friends on the island who wanted hash.” Her face brightened. “You’d be surprised. There’s a lot of them.” Then she drooped again. “And—And I had an affair with him.”

  “What else?” I said.

  “That’s all.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I didn’t want to tell you that last part. You can appreciate that. I’m not too proud of it. I’m not too proud of either, for that matter.”

  “I think there’s more,” I said grimly. But I let her go. She sank onto the couch.

  “There isn’t.”

  I shook my head slowly. “It doesn’t make sense that way. Not any way I can figure.”

  “He was blackmailing me with it! How do you think I would feel to have people know I had an affair with that upstart fisherman? That I was actually peddling hashish for him, and taking money for it?”

  “Let’s start with that part. How did that happen?” I said.

  “It was simple enough. I winter in Paris every year. I leave here in November, and I come back in March.”

  “That’s expensive,” I said. “That takes money. If you can’t afford to pay me fifteen hundred dollars, and you need money from Girgis, how can you afford to winter in Paris every year?”

  She just sort of looked at me and went on. I didn’t think it was a good idea to stop her.

  “I smoked hashish in Paris. Everybody does. And I liked it, so I thought I’d try and buy some here. I asked Girgis one time, when I was renting his boat for a party, and we were discussing the arrangements. He said he’d sell me some. People smoked it at my place, and asked me if I could get them some. It just sort of happened. I never went around with it soliciting. They always came and asked me. When Girgis realized it, he was pleased. It opened up a new market for him. He said if I would handle it for him, talk about it, promote it sort of, he would give me 40 percent.”