“Try it and we’ll see how good it is.”
“K has to be accessible by water, because they go there by boat and sometimes the weather holds them up for days. When the trades are blowing too hard, apparently, they can’t make it. Of course they may stop somewhere and switch to a car or a plane but I don’t think they do. And if the place is near the water, it probably isn’t on an island like this one, with a shore road clear around it. I mean, they wouldn’t want fishermen or picnickers stumbling on it by mistake, or seeing the boat coming or leaving. Do you know how the main islands go? There’s Kauai, farthest to the northwest, and Oahu, where we are. Then there are Molokai, Maui, and Hawaii, all strung out to the southeast beyond Diamond Head over there.” She started to lift her hand.
“Don’t point!” I said sharply.
“Sorry,” she said, abashed. “Anyway, Oahu itself is out because of roads, I think, and so are Maui and the Big Island, Hawaii. Well, there are some desolate places along the shoreline of Hawaii that might do, but it’s a long boat ride, too long to be really feasible, a couple hundred miles. Even if you wanted to risk it in the speedboats they use, they don’t have the cruising range, and I’ve never seen them take extra gas. Also, I’ve clocked them out and in, when I could do it safely. Sometimes they’re gone for several days, of course, but once in a while they’re back in six hours or less. You couldn’t get to Hawaii and back in that time, not in the fastest boat in the Islands. You’d have to be averaging over sixty knots in open water. The boats they have are lucky to do thirty-five wide open in a sheltered lagoon.”
My opinion of her was rising again; at least she’d got some facts and done some thinking about them. “Where do these speedboats hang out?” I asked.
“Right here in the Honolulu yacht basin. There are two of them, registered under different owners—one outboard and one inboard—but only one is there now, the outboard. The other’s been missing since two nights ago. They usually make the trip at night. I suppose it’s at K. Maybe it took the Chinese delegation over with whatever they brought.”
“But you don’t know what that is?”
“No.”
“Does Monk have some kind of house or headquarters around here?”
“Yes, he’s renting a big house in a fashionable district behind Diamond Head, under the name of Rath. It’s a pink house with a swimming pool—”
“Never mind that,” I said. “I’m not about to play detective around there unless the situation changes drastically. Let’s get back to K. Say you’re right, and we can eliminate Oahu, Maui, and Hawaii. What about the smaller islands? There are some, aren’t there?”
“Well, Lanai is just a big pineapple plantation. It’s low and flat and pretty well cultivated. I can’t see it as a hideout. Kahoolawe is used by the military for bombing practice. It’s in restricted waters and any private boat sticking its nose in there would be challenged at once. Niihau is privately owned and strangers would be very conspicuous. And that’s about it. Of course there are plenty of small, deserted islets along the coasts, but most of them are just volcanic rocks sticking out of the water, hard to land on and mostly visible from shore, so any unusual activity would attract attention.” She shook her head. “I think it’s on one of the main islands close by. There’s a stretch on the northwest coast of Kauai that’s pretty deserted. I suppose K could be there.”
“But you obviously don’t think it is,” I said. “Let’s hear your real theory.”
“I think it’s on Molokai,” she said. “That’s only some thirty miles southeast of here, within easy range of a fast boat in good weather, and it has all of the qualifications. I’d be willing to bet five to one on Molokai.”
“The leper colony?”
“Please, Mr. Helm! We call it Hansen’s disease these days.”
“And old fogies are senior citizens, and house trailers are mobile homes,” I said grimly. “Three cheers for the age of double-talk. But who’d park a hideout in the middle of a bunch of, er, victims of Hansen’s disease, with the flesh peeling off the bones? I mean, it’s a great cover, but what if you catch the bug?”
Jill laughed. “It isn’t nearly as communicable as the old stories would make you think, Matt. Furthermore, contrary to the popular conception, Molokai is a fairly large and pleasant island inhabited mainly by ordinary, healthy people. The Kalaupapa colony occupies just a small, inaccessible peninsula below the sheer cliffs of the north coast. The rest is pineapple, sugar cane, and mountains. Quite high mountains. Five thousand feet or so. They take up the whole northeast corner of Molokai; actually most of the eastern half. There’s a road along the south shore, but it barely turns the end of the island. From there back to Kalaupapa on the north side—the windward side—are twenty-odd miles of empty shore on which nobody lives nowadays: some of the wildest coast you can imagine. Mountains rising right out of the sea. Deep gorges, high waterfalls, impenetrable jungles. And Molokai is the least developed of all the islands. It has no tourist accommodations to amount to anything; you wouldn’t have to worry about many sightseers or Sunday geologists poking around. I think Molokai is it. It’s got to be.”
She’d obviously considered the problem carefully, and she knew her Islands. In the absence of stronger information, I wasn’t apt to get any better guesses.
I said, “Okay, we’ll accept northeastern Molokai as a working hypothesis. Can you pinpoint it any closer? Is there anything else you want to tell me?” She shook her head to both questions. I said, “Then we’d better break this up. What are you going to say when you get ashore?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
I said, “Hell, you’ve got to give them something to chew on. We’ll have to hope they didn’t have the equipment to catch what we were saying to each other out here, but they couldn’t miss me paddling off and you calling me back. What did you say to bring me back?”
“Why… why, I hadn’t really thought about it.”
I said, “Hell, the answer’s obvious. You called to me and said you loved me. You said you were crazy about me. That’s what made me turn back.”
“What?” She looked aghast. “Really, Matt…!”
I grinned. “Don’t act as if it were unthinkable, doll. You’ll hurt my feelings. I came back to tell you I thought the gag was in pretty poor taste, and Monk ought to be able to figure out some better lines for you. Okay?”
She hesitated. “But… but it’s just ridiculous. After all, I only met you yesterday. I couldn’t possibly hope to make you believe that I… I mean, Monk would think I’d lost my mind, if I told him I’d tried something as foolish and fakey as that.”
“Sure,” I said. “That’s it. You have lost your mind and your heart. To me. Really. And you tried to make me believe it and I wouldn’t. That’s what we’ve been arguing about out here. And when you finally half-convinced me you weren’t faking, I called you a kooky kid and told you to run along and play with your marbles. Now grab my arm like you were pleading with me… Grab it!”
She reached out obediently and took my arm, pulling our surfboards closer. “But, Matt, if I claim I’m really in love with you and make them believe it, they won’t trust me to keep an eye on you!” she protested.
“Now you’re getting the idea. What’s the use of your being where you can tell me things if you’ve got nothing to tell me? And how are you going to learn anything hanging around me? Ask to be taken off this job. Say that you’re sorry, but you can’t trust yourself near my fascinating person, or words to that effect. Maybe they’ll put you on something really useful, something that will lead you to K.”
“But Monk will suspect—”
I shook my head. “If you act like a lovesick schoolgirl, he may reprimand you but he won’t suspect you. Hell, you’d never admit to being mad about me if you really wanted to be close to me so you could pass me information. I’ll try to cook up a further diversion of some kind to keep the heat off you. Meanwhile, you locate K. It’s a lot to hope that you can get
yourself sent there, but one never knows. If you do your lovesick act well enough, Monk may just banish you there to get you away from my influence. If he does, of course, you go.”
“But how can I let you know?”
“Don’t even try,” I said. “Just go. I’ll find you somehow. If I don’t, it’s up to you. You’ll have to stop the Monk all by yourself.” I looked at her for a moment, and spoke in a flat voice, “Or are you still holding me to that riskless agreement you made with somebody else? If so, doll, you just sneak aboard the next plane heading toward the Mainland. We’ll say you’ve fulfilled your crummy contract. I’ll take it from here alone.”
She was silent for a moment. When she looked up, her eyes were steady and grave. “All right,” she breathed. “All right, Matt. Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing to me, but all right! I’ll try to get sent to K. And if I get killed doing it, I… I’ll haunt you!”
“Good girl,” I said. “Now paddle like hell, like a woman scorned, and go stumbling up the beach with big salty tears running down your face. Drown the phone when you report, incoherently.” I disengaged her hand from my arm, and swung her around, and shoved her away from me roughly, for the benefit of the watchers on shore. “Good luck, Jill,” I said.
9
When I reached the beach a few minutes behind her, I saw that the sleepy-eyed girls in bikinis were thinking I must be a terrible fellow to send the poor kid off in tears. The boys with the dog tags, on the other hand, were thinking—and saying rather loudly—that I must be a dope from Dopesville to let a chick like that get away from me.
I saw that Jill had left her board on a rack by the sea wall, and I hauled mine over there. I paused briefly to look down at the gaudy red-and-white board, wondering if I’d ever see the owner again alive. She’d have to come up with some very convincing histrionics to fool the Monk. I hoped she was up to them.
Maybe I should have left her in the happy anonymity she’d desired, taking a minimum of risks and doing a minimum of good. But I couldn’t help remembering a girl called Claire, who had made no deals with Washington, but had simply gone out and died when the situation called for it…
A thin, dark, hook-nosed man, who’d been sitting at one of the terrace tables watching the view, got up and moved off casually as I approached. He was wearing dark trousers and one of those short-sleeved white summer dress shirts that, worn with a coat and tie, look very respectable indeed. Without the coat, as he was wearing his, they make the most dignified businessman look like an aging Peter Pan. He had a pair of binoculars hanging around his neck. By the size, they probably weren’t as strong as ten-power, more likely seven or eight; I didn’t think he could have done much lipreading through them. He wasn’t anybody whose dossier I’d seen. Apparently the Monk had some reserves he hadn’t let Washington know about.
As I crossed the terrace and passed the cocktail pavilion, shuttered at this hour, I met the hotel hostess who’d been working so hard to get us all acquainted the night before. She was a graceful woman of about thirty, quite good-looking in the brown-skinned, black-haired way of the Islands, although the almond shape of her eyes hinted that her ancestry was probably at least as much Oriental as Polynesian. Well, that’s Hawaii.
“Good morning, Mr. Helm,” she said. “I see you still like your early-morning swim. I hope you’re enjoying your stay with us.”
“Very much,” I said. “Er, I wonder if you could help me out. I didn’t quite catch the name of the lady you introduced me to last night, and I’m having lunch with her today, and, well, it’s kind of embarrassing to have to ask…”
“Yes, of course. Do you mean Miss Darnley?” She smiled. “I saw the two of you leaving the party together.”
“No, the first one. The older one, in the black dress.”
“Ah, Mr. Helm, do be careful,” the hostess said playfully. “You’ll have us thinking you’re quite a lady-killer. That was Mrs. McLain, Mrs. Isobel McLain, from your hometown, Washington, D.C. As a matter of fact, she asked to meet you. She said a mutual acquaintance had told her to look you up when she got to Honolulu.”
I grinned. “I know, that’s why I didn’t want to have to ask her what her name was. You know how these mutual-acquaintance deals go. She assumed I knew all about her, and of course I couldn’t say I didn’t. McLain, eh? Thank you very much.”
“Not at all, Mr. Helm.”
I watched her move away. She was wearing a long, straight, blue-flowered garment, slit to the knee. The intermittent display of leg was quite effective. I was getting this muu-muu business sorted out now. There was the shapeless, Yankee Mother-Hubbard style originally imposed on the natives in the name of modesty; and then there was the slim oriental cheongsam style, which was a different proposition entirely. It had not been invented to keep susceptible missionaries from being aroused beyond endurance by the naked charms of uninhibited young native girls. On the contrary, it had been designed to make Chinese women attractive to Chinese men. It worked pretty well on other races, too, I decided, watching the hostess walk gracefully out of sight.
Of course, that was quite beside the point. What really mattered was that Jill had apparently not been lying when she suggested that Isobel McLain had known about me before we met. Now it appeared that the woman had even arranged the meeting, in spite of the cool and remote attitude she’d exhibited at the time.
Going toward my room, I rubbed my head hard with my towel, frowning, but it didn’t help my cerebral processes in the least. I still couldn’t see how this piece fitted into the puzzle itself. It wasn’t really surprising, I reflected, since I didn’t yet have a very clear view of the puzzle itself…
I smelled cigarette smoke in the hall outside my room. It was drifting out through the slat door. I decided that anybody who intended to murder me wouldn’t set fire to a lot of tobacco to warn me, opened the door, and stopped, looking at the man inside. Then I sighed, stepped in, and closed the door behind me.
“Well, it’s about time you made a personal appearance,” I said. “I was getting a bit fed up with secondhand reports and mysterious telephone calls.”
The Monk rose from the armchair in which he’d been sitting and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. I remembered that he had always smoked like a sooty chimney. Apparently it hadn’t killed him yet, which was a pity.
“I don’t know how you do it,” he said admiringly. “I just don’t know how you do it, Eric. There must be something about you invisible to the male eye that just bowls them over, old and young.”
I said, “Oh, you mean that crazy kid you sicced on me. Has she been phoning in her woes already?”
Monk shook his head enviously. “I just don’t know how you do it,” he repeated. “Kick them out of bed, give them some corny song-and-dance about a broken heart, and damned if they don’t come crawling back asking you to wipe your feet on them. Do you know you’ve practically ruined a potentially good agent for me?”
I said, “You’ve got it backwards, haven’t you? I didn’t ruin her; that’s just what she’s griping about.” I laughed shortly. “You mean the little screwball actually meant all that love-guff she was handing me out there in the surf? Hell, if I’d known that, I’d have played Romeo to her Juliet just to spite you. I thought she was feeding me a line, and a pretty corny one at that.”
“I know. She told me. Well, I should have known better than to use a female on you, particularly a young and impressionable one. She won’t bother you again.”
“That just leaves the older one,” I said. “I guess she’ll be harder to impress, but I’ll give it a whirl.”
He was frowning. “The older… oh, you mean the McLain?”
I grinned. “Monk, this is Eric, old pal, old pal. Don’t pull that blank-faced act on me. Hell, I know the routine as well as you do. You put a tail on me I’m supposed to spot. Then you have a pretty girl make a play for me. When I see through her, too, I get to feeling real smart; I think I’ve got you all figured out. I accept
agent number three as a genuine lady tourist, particularly when she acts as if she doesn’t give a damn about me. And most particularly after your boys work her over a bit on some feeble excuse and give her a nice little careful nick in the scalp that bleeds very convincingly. Obviously no attractive woman would allow herself to be messily wounded just to prove she’s got nothing to do with you. Obviously. It’s only been done a couple of hundred times that I know about.”
Monk shrugged. “Think what you please. As a matter of fact, I know nothing about the woman, but if you want to think she’s mine, go right ahead.”
“Sure,” I said, wondering if he could possibly be telling the truth. “Sure.”
Monk said in a different tone, “Well, it’s been a long time, Eric. Remember the Hofbaden job?”
“I remember,” I said.
We stood there facing each other. He had me at a slight disadvantage: he had shoes on. My beach sandals were useless for offense or defense, and bare toes are very vulnerable. In addition to the shoes, he was wearing the usual Hawaiian costume of light pants and a bright, short-sleeved sport shirt. I couldn’t spot any weapons, but there undoubtedly were some.
I’d forgotten how massive his shoulders were, and I’d forgotten just how oddly his rather squat, powerful body went with his long, sensitive face, crisp dark hair, and brilliant blue eyes. There was nothing wrong with him physically, I knew, but he gave an impression of deformity nevertheless. He seemed to have been made of parts intended for several different men.
“You’re in good shape, Eric,” he said softly. “Got a nice tan.”
The Betrayers Page 7