‘Birdie’s you say?’
‘Uh-huh.’
It was a beautiful day, the temperature in the eighties and a cool breeze hustling through the trees from the beach.
‘We’ll walk.’
The island, a quaint bit of Americana worthy of a Rockwell painting, had changed little in twenty years. Its charm lured the big cruise ships from Miami and Charleston. They came once or twice a week, tied up at the pier and spent the night. The cruisers, as its passengers were called by locals, ambled down the fishing pier and checked out Tim’s gift store, pored over Nancy’s used books, stocked up on T-shirts and stuffed animals at the Island Hop, got the latest magazines and paperbacks at Doc Bryant’s drugstore, had a drink at Murphy’s Tavern or homemade ice cream at Clifton’s and then wandered off the Main Drag — the only drag, since the village was a single street a mere three blocks long — and did some sightseeing. In that short main stretch, the cruisers could eat home cooking at Birdie’s, hamburgers at the Big T, barbecue at the Rib Shack or seafood at Mallory’s before returning to their ship for the night. By the next morning they were gone.
As Sloan stood looking over the minuscule hamlet, his smile broadened. This is it? he thought. This is what he calls home.
He would be casual and cautious in asking questions. He walked down to the city pier, where the locals were crabbing and fishing or taking in the sun, watching the shrimp boats come and go and the big brown pelicans dive-bombing for lunch.
Roland Smith, who regarded himself as the unofficial mayor of the island, appeared at the pier each morning dressed in sports jacket and tie with a fresh flower in his lapel to do his rounds. He petted dogs, babbled over babies, flirted with all females over sixteen, and slowly worked his way up to a niche of a restaurant called the Bowrider to have breakfast and trade gossip with the locals. He was never without a smile and spent his days simply being pleasant. He had come to the island ten years ago on vacation with his wife, who had dropped dead on the beach of a heart attack. Smith, a window dresser for a New York department store, had sent a letter to his boss announcing his retirement and never left.
Sloan watched Roland stroll the pier and its nearby park, smiling and chatting. Sloan. knew a talker when he saw one. He wandered to the edge of the park and sat on a bench until Smith ambled by.
‘Morning,’ Smith said with a smile. ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’
‘Perfect,’ said Sloan, matching the smile.
‘I do love this island,’ Smith said, which was his standard greeting to tourists.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Sloan agreed.
‘You vacationing here?’ Smith asked innocently.
‘Well, kind of. Actually I’m looking for an old friend of mine. We were army buddies. But I lost his address and I can’t find him in the phone book.’
‘Maybe he moved,’ offered the putative mayor.
‘Perhaps you know him. Chris Hatcher? I just thought I’d surprise him.’
‘Maybe he doesn’t like surprises,’ Smith said pleasantly, his grin fading only slightly. he nodded, and strolled away.
Sloan wandered in and out of the shops, striking up conversations in his easy, smiling way, finally getting around to the big question. Nobody said, ‘I don’t know him’ or ‘I never heard of him’; they simply generalized the question into oblivion with answers like ‘Lots of folks on this old island’ or ‘Where did you say you were from?’
Typical small town, thought Sloan, everybody on the island was as closemouthed as they were pleasant. But Sloan was gifted with infinite patience. Hatcher was on this island somewhere. Somebody on. this island had to know Hatcher, it was just a matter of time before somebody owned up.
Sloan went into Birdie’s. It was a pleasant, unintrusive restaurant, which smelled of fresh vegetables and seafood, its fare listed on a large blackboard on the wall. He found a table next to a group of men who looked as if they belonged.
When he had first come to the island, Hatcher had chosen to become a recluse, avoiding people and living a solitary life on his boat. His only friend was Cirillo. But gradually he became close to these people. They were nonjudgmental, warm, and simply supportive of one another. Like Hatcher, they had escaped to the island, leaving behind bad memories or shattered careers or the abuses of Establishment phonies.
All the men at the adjoining table were Hatcher’s friends. One was an enormous Santa Claus of a man with white hair and a thick white beard wham the others called Bear. Then there was a slender, quiet man, his gray-white beard tickling his chest, who was reading a paperback novel as he ate, and another gentle-faced man who was jotting lines of poetry in a tattered notebook. Sloan listened to their choppy conversation, hoping for clues. He got none, although it was obvious they were islanders. The reader’s name was Bob Hill. He had been a thoroughbred horse trainer, a circus clown, a schoolteacher, and he now owned his own shrimp boat. The poet, whose name was Frank, worked as a night clerk in one of the mainland motels and spent his days on the beach, writing poetry. Bear was an architect. The fourth man at the table, trim and weathered, whom they called Judge, had fallen from the bench in disfavor, a victim of the bottle. He was now the maître d at the island’s premier hotel and had not had a drink in fourteen years.
‘Haven’t had food this good since I left home,’ Sloan said pleasantly.
‘That’s the truth,’ Bear answered. ‘And almost as cheap.’
They chatted amiably back and forth during the meal. Finally Sloan popped the question and was greeted with the same vague response.
‘Probably end up here eating sooner or later,’ said Bear. ‘Everybody does.’
Sloan was undaunted. Hatcher had no listing in the city directory or phone book. No auto registration. But since he lived on this island and he was ex-Navy and he loved the sea, it seemed reasonable that Hatcher had a boat. The process of elimination ultimately led Sloan to the marina.
By this time everybody in the village knew he was looking for Hatcher.
He tried to strike up a conversation with Cap Fendig, who operated the marina itself. Fendig’s roots were dug deep in the black soil of the island. His father and grandfather and great-grandfather were the harbor pilots who captained the big cargo vessels from the ocean through the sound to the state docks on the mainland.
‘Actually I’m looking for an old friend of mine, Chris Hatcher. We were in the Army together.’
‘That a fact.’
‘He’s big on sailing. Thought perhaps he might have a boat down here.’
‘Well, this would be the place t, keep a boat.’
Fendig moved up the pier.
‘Name’s Chris Hatcher,’ Sloan called after him.
‘Wasn’t born here. Lived here all my life, nobody by that name was born on this island.’
‘No, he would have moved here about a year and a half ago.’
‘Oh.’
End of discussion.
Sloan changed his tack. He approached a kid working the gas pumps.
‘What time’s Chris Hatcher due back?’ he asked pleasantly.
‘Never know,’ the kid answered.
Bingo.
‘Does he live on the boat?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ the kid answered and vanished into the small pumping station.
Sloan went back up to the marina, got a beer, and went back down to the pier and waited.
The sharp bleat of a boat’s horn snapped Hatcher back to reality.
‘Oh God,’ he groaned. He got up, arranging the bulge in his skimpy bathing suit as best he could and went topside; he peered cautiously over the bulkhead.
A shrimp boat called the Breeze-E was idling nearby, its engines muttering as it rocked gently in the calm sea. Its captain, a tall, leathery string-bean of a man with a neatly trimmed gray-white beard, was standing in the stern. He cupped his mouth with his hands and yelled, ‘This fella’s wandering all over the island asking after you. Been to Birdie’s, Po Stephens. Murphy’s. The marina.
Even tried to pry information out of old Roland.’
‘What’d he want?’ Hatcher yelled back in the harsh voice that was part growl, part whisper.
‘Said he was an old friend of yours from the Army.’
Hatcher shook his head. ‘What’s he look like?’
‘Big guy, built like a lobster pot, real broad in the shoulder. Looks to be in his late forties. Real friendly sort.’
‘Talks real soft and smiles all the tune. Little scar on his cheek?’ He drew an imaginary line from his eye to the corner of his mouth.
‘That’s him. Friend of yours?’
‘I wouldn’t say that. What’d you tell him?’
‘Not a damn thing.’
‘Thanks, Bob.’
‘Anytime. Fishing?’
‘Kinda.’
‘See ya.’
Bob Hill waved, returned to the bridge and shoved the throttles, veering out towards the open sea. Hatcher heard a sound behind him and, turning, saw Ginia looking at him over the rail.
‘What was that all about?’ she asked.
‘Bob Hill. Says somebody’s asking about me in town. You know how islanders are, they get a little overly protective sometimes.’
‘I think that’s nice,’ she said, jumping over the rail from the Jacob’s ladder, grabbing a towel off a chair and wrapping it around her like a sarong. ‘It’s nice to know your friends care that much about you.’
‘Uh-huh. Let’s see that tang.’
She reached back over the railing, retrieved the tube and handed it to him. He held it up close, studying the fish.
‘Big guy,’ he said.
‘Just look at that tail. Do we keep him?’
‘Absolutely.’
He took the tube below to the main salon, where the six other fish they had caught that morning were still circling and exploring the hundred-gallon aquarium. He stood over the tank, turned a knob opening the valve in the tube, and the yellow fish swam out and immediately began staking out his territory amid the coral and sea grass in the floor of the tank.
‘Beautiful,’ she said from behind him. Her arms slithered around his waist. ‘Swimming makes me horny,’ she said, close to his ear.
Without turning he reached behind him and moved his hands under the towel and up the insides of her thighs. She leaned back a trifle, giving his hands more room to move, and slid her hands under the band of his skimpy swimsuit, feeling him rise to her touch. She slipped his trunks over his hips and let them drop to the floor, freeing him.
‘And everything makes you horny,’ she said.
He turned and pulled the towel loose and, sliding his hands gently down her back and over the soft mounds of her cheeks, drew her to him.
‘You got a cold rear end,’ he growled in her ear.
‘But a warm heart.’
She stood on her toes, spreading her legs a little more, and stepped into him, her thick hair surrounding him, and wrapped her lips around one of his nipples and began sucking.
‘Been a while,’ his peculiar whisper-voice answered.
‘Right,’ she chuckled. ‘At least two hours.’
She leaned over and whispered in his ear, ‘Put it on automatic pilot,’ then took his hand and drew him back toward the master stateroom.
OLD TIMES
She was a real beauty, sleek and uncommonly low in the water that looked more like a racing craft than a yacht, with her squat cockpit, the long, trim bow jutting fifty feet in front of the windscreen, the four 750 hp fuel-injected engines rumbling in the stern. The long, slender profile concealed a large main salon, a master bedroom with a king-size bed, ample quarters for two other guests and a galley fit for a cordon bleu chef.
Sloan saw only the exterior, but he could not suppress a soft whistle as the boat sliced silently through the water toward him.
The hardest emotions to control, 126 had once warned Hatcher, would be love and hate. Hatcher had loved Harry Sloan as he would have loved his own brother and hated him as he would his deadliest enemy. Now, as he approached the dock and saw Sloan for the first time in seven years, he was overwhelmed with mixed emotions.
The bond between mentor and student is as hard to break as the one between father and son; 126 had told him that, and it was true.
He wanted to get even with Sloan for betraying him, and yet part of him was glad to see the son of a bitch. Rage began to grow in him as the boat neared the dock. Rage at Sloan. Rage at himself for not hating the man more than he did. The hardest thing to forgive was not the three years in Los Boxes — it was that Sloan had betrayed him.
What the hell was he doing here?
He turned to Ginia.
‘See the big guy standing by the slip house?’ he said.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘He’s the guy who’s looking for me.’
‘Friend or foe?’ she asked breezily.
‘Jump off as soon as we tie up, okay? We’ve got some talking to do.’
‘The old screw-and-run trick, huh?’
‘Yeah.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’ll call you later. Catch the bowline for me.’
‘Sure. Dinner?’
‘Maybe.’
She leaned over and kissed him. hard on the mouth. ‘Remember that, just in case you feel like playing soldier- boy with your pal.’
‘He’s no pal.’
Sloan watched Hatcher ease the big boat into its slip, watched Ginia jump on the dock and hook up the front line, then turn and blow him a kiss, watched her walk up the pier toward the setting sun, which silhouetted her long legs through a thin white cotton skirt. Sloan ambled down the pier and stood below the bridge, looking up at him.
‘Been a while, Hatch,’ Sloan sail around his perpetual smile.
He looks great, Sloan thought. Tanned, filled out, got a lot more hair than I do. Hell, he’s better-looking than he ever was.
Hatcher glared back at him and said nothing.
‘Permission to come aboard, Captain?’ Sloan asked with a laugh. When Hatcher didn’t answer, Sloan clambered on board anyway.
Pushy as ever, Hatcher thought.
Sloan held his hand out toward Hatcher, who ignored it. Instead Hatcher turned abruptly and went below. Sloan stood for a moment, made a fist and New nervously into it, then decided to follow him.
He was surprised at how large the main cabin was and how elegant. The walls were paneled with bronze mirrors and teak, the designer furniture was gray and plush, an Oriental rug covered the floor. A pedestal table large enough to seat eight divided the main cabin from the forward staterooms. Sloan could not suppress another low whistle, which Hatcher ignored as he went to the bar, poured himself a glass of red wine and sat down. He didn’t offer Sloan anything, and the burly man finally sat down facing him.
‘You look great, Chris. Never better,’ he said.
What balls, Hatcher thought, although he still said nothing.
‘You’ve got a lot of funny friends,’ Sloan said. ‘None of them’ll admit they know you.’ He chuckled. Hatcher just stared at him.
‘It’s good to see you again,’ Sloan said, trying to sound sincere.
No answer. Just get on with it, Hatcher said to himself, His face clouded up, but he still didn’t speak. Sloan sighed and watched Hatcher take a sip of ‘wine. His mouth was getting dry. Hell, thought Sloan, I may as well get straight to it.
‘Here I went to all that trouble to spring you down in Madrango and you don’t even show up in Washington to thank me.’
Be grateful I didn’t kill you, Hatcher thought, but he still didn’t speak.
Sloan made a fist and held it in front of his lips, blowing gently into it. Smiling, he said slowly, ‘I’ve got to admit I was a little nervous coming down here. I figured there was as good a chance as not you’d try to put me away. And I can understand that, Hatch, I really can. But, you know, why throw all this away just to get even, right?’
Hatcher said nothing. But the yellow flecks in his green eyes danced like charged ions.
‘You know the boys in intelligence still talk about you,’ Sloan rambled on. ‘I told them you were the best in the business, I mean any job, laddie, any job. Nobody believed me until you vanished at that refueling stop in Miami. Nothing but the clothes on your back. No money, no ID, nothing, and you’re gone. I gotta give it to you, that was beautifully done. Three years in that place, you didn’t lose your edge.’
Hatcher said nothing.
Sloan stood up and wandered around the cabin, looking at things, checking them out, still speaking in that smooth, oily voice of his.
‘Took me sixteen months to get a line on you. I didn’t have the outfit out shaking the bushes or anything like that, y’know, just keeping my eyes and ears open.’
You talk too much, Hatcher thought. You always talked too much.
Hatcher took another sip of wine, staring over the rim of the glass at Sloan.
‘You’ve really stirred them up,’ Sloan chattered on. ‘Know what Interpol calls you? The Bird. Shit, the best flier in the business, I always knew that. Of course, I never said anything to anybody. None of my business. Anyway, I gotta hand it to you, you’re a real trend setter.’
Hatcher didn’t bite. He kept staring at Sloan. Sloan put his briefcase in his lap, unlocked it and flipped it open. From where Hatcher was sitting lie could not see inside the case, but he knew exactly how it was laid out. File folders, all neatly labeled and stacked. A comprehensive airline schedule. Sloan’s little black book, the bible that kept him in business. And in the top of the case in special pockets, two handguns, a .357 Python and a 9 mm. H&K.
Speed loaders and magazines in pockets between the two pieces.
Sloan would never change. If it worked for him, it stayed in. Sloan took out a newspaper clipping.
‘Listen to this, this was in The Times last Sunday. “The international art theft market is second only to narcotics in the world market.” According to this piece, Hatch, art thefts have doubled since 1981. There were four hundred ninety-three cases last year alone. Four thousand one hundred fifty pieces of art got lifted.’
Still no comment.
‘The Paris job was what put me on to you,’ Sloan said, his smile broadening as though he was proud of it. ‘Then when you hit that gallery in Chicago and Stenhauser was the fixer in that one, too, I put it together. The New York trick put the icing on the cake.’
Thai Horse Page 7