We straightened out over the ocean and flew along in a more or less easterly direction past Waikiki and Diamond Head, discovering that what had looked like a solid mountain from the ground was actually an extinct volcano with a definite, hollow crater. There were more boats out than there had been that morning, but the seas around Oahu were still by no means crowded.
“Matt?” Isobel’s voice indicated that, having punished me sufficiently, she was willing to stop being mad at me.
I turned from the window, reminding myself that I was still playing a role. My cover as an agent in disgrace killing time in the tropics hadn’t, as far as I knew, greatly impressed anybody who really mattered—I’d never been as sold on it as the man who’d thought of it—but I couldn’t just drop it without warning the opposition that I had something new and tricky in mind. And as a gentleman of enforced leisure, setting out to spend a couple of glorious Hawaiian days, and nights, in the company of an attractive woman, I wouldn’t normally be paying a great deal of attention to the view.
Isobel asked, “Did we… did we make it, Matt?”
I frowned. “Did we make what?”
“Well, you were trying to lose them, weren’t you? I mean, drugging that boy and dashing for the plane!”
I laughed. “Isobel, I’m afraid you’re an optimist. You don’t think that kid was the only one, do you? Pardon me for flattering myself a bit, but to keep watch on an old curly wolf like yours truly, you’d generally figure on using your shadows at least two deep, maybe three.”
“You mean there’s somebody else—”
“There’s a hook-nosed gent four seats to the rear, a dark man in a dark business suit with a briefcase. I spotted him at the hotel this morning, using binoculars industriously. Apparently he’s taken over the watch from our sleeping young friend. And you can bet there’ll be somebody waiting to back him up when we get to Kahului, in case we should manage to ditch him, too.”
“Then what in the world was the point of—” She checked herself, and held up her hand quickly. “All right, all right! Don’t bite. I withdraw the question. Just give the orders, Master, and they shall be obeyed. But may I ask where Kahului is, since I’ll presumably learn that much when we land, anyway?”
“It’s on the island of Maui,” I said. Isobel looked blank. I grinned. “You should have done some homework before coming out here. Maui is the second island down from Oahu, just beyond Molokai. In addition to Kahului, where the airport is, and various other communities, it’s got an old town on it called Lahaina. The whalers used to anchor in the roadstead and come ashore to get drunk and cohabit—I’m quoting the book—with the native girls, who were apparently both beautiful and willing. But the missionaries came along and spoiled everything. Now there are several luxury hotels just up the coast. You can still get all the liquor you want, I gather, but these days you have to bring your own girl.”
Isobel’s eyes narrowed slightly. “And I suppose we’ve got a reservation at one of these hotels?”
“That is more or less correct, ma’am,” I said. “I called around while you were packing and found a place that wasn’t full. But the word is reservations, plural. Two rooms. Just as chaste as can be, ma’am.”
She regarded me for a moment, and smiled slowly. “All right, Matt. Thank you. I didn’t mean to be stuffy, but I don’t believe it was part of the final agreement… Of course I did say I’d do anything. But I don’t like to be taken for granted, in that respect. I want to be asked.”
“I’ll ask,” I said. “Don’t worry, if it becomes indicated, I’ll surely ask. But regardless of how many beds actually get slept in by how many people, I’d like us to present a nice immoral image to the world. I hope you don’t mind.”
She shrugged. “Well, I’m not quite the society whore my husband likes to tell me I am, when he’s in a mood to enumerate his many afflictions. On the other hand, I’m hardly pure enough to qualify as a Vestal Virgin tending the sacred flame, or whatever they tended. So by all means, let’s tear my poor reputation to tatters, what’s left of it.”
On acquaintance, she showed a kind of humorous honesty that tended to overcome the first impression created by her arrogant mannerisms and snooty good looks. I was annoyed to find myself beginning to like her. It was about time, I told myself, that I learned to keep my affectionate nature under control. I was an agent on a mission, not a friendly puppy out for a romp. Still, a little precautionary briefing wouldn’t hurt me and might help her.
“One suggestion,” I said. “Or maybe you could call it a warning. I don’t know how this will break. But you might just possibly wind up in an awkward spot with people asking questions. I don’t expect it, but it could happen. If it does, I think you’ll be best off if you just give them your straight sister-in-law act, without frills.”
She asked calmly, “And what do I say about you, Matt? If I’m asked?”
“As far as I’m concerned,” I said, “you can tell them anything you want. Anything you know.”
She laughed. “That’s very generous of you. Since you’ve been very careful to see that I know hardly anything.”
“You may be grateful for that,” I said. “The less you know—the less you appear to know—the easier time you’re likely to have. I suggest, as a guideline, the following story: you came to Hawaii to find the other heir to the Marner millions—well, million. Your husband doesn’t know you’re here. He wouldn’t approve, of course, but you were desperate, you saw grim poverty ahead for you and Kenneth, and you hoped you could persuade your unknown brother-in-law to share the inherited wealth. It developed that you could, by falling in with certain lewd suggestions. Well, what your husband doesn’t know won’t hurt him, and for a quarter of a million, to paraphrase your own words, you’d spend a weekend with the devil in the hottest corner of hell. That’s your story. Stick to it and don’t elaborate on it at all.”
She nodded. “It should be easy enough to remember.”
“Don’t kid yourself. Nothing’s easy, when you’re being interrogated. Just keep in mind that you simply don’t know there’s anything mysterious going on. You don’t know that I’m anything but a rather crude and common character who married your husband’s impossible sister, now fortunately dead, whose taste in men was always deplorable. You have no idea that I brought you to Maui for any purpose but to collect what you’d promised me, in a somewhat more intimate atmosphere than that of Honolulu. You’re even a little insulted at the notion that I might have had an ulterior motive. Okay?”
“In other words, I play very dumb,” she said. She hesitated. “Are they… apt to beat me?”
“To a bloody pulp,” I said cheerfully. “That should at least keep you from being bored, Duchess. You were complaining of boredom, remember?”
She made a face at me. “It seems like a long time ago. Matt?”
“Yes.”
“There’s one question I have to ask. If I continue to go along with this, if I do what you tell me—”
“You want to know about the payoff? I don’t know what it would take to make it legal, but if you want to write something, I’ll be glad to sign it.”
A little anger showed in her eyes. “That isn’t what I was going to ask, Matt. I don’t think about money all the time. I’m a pretty good judge of men—I’ve only made one bad mistake in my life—and I’m fairly sure that if you can, you’ll pay off. I’ll gamble on that, without any papers that probably wouldn’t mean anything legally, anyway.”
I said, “Thanks. Then what’s bugging you?”
“I want to know, if I do everything you ask, will I be a traitor to my country? I mean, I still have no proof of who you are.”
I looked at her for a moment, but her expression told me nothing. I said, “Make up your mind, Isobel. Either you’re a good judge of men or you aren’t.”
She shook her head. “It isn’t that easy, where politics is concerned. I mean, a man may be quite dependable in every other respect, but he’ll still do dreadfu
l things if he gets it into his head that he’s saving the world or something.”
I said, “It’s still a stupid damn question and I’m ashamed of you for asking it.”
“Why is it stupid?” she demanded. “I think it’s fairly important, myself. I’m not the greatest patriot in the world, but just the same—”
“Important, sure,” I interrupted, “but look whom you’re asking! You’re not going to get an answer from me: not an answer you can trust. So all you’re really doing is asking me to give your conscience a tranquillizer, so you can save yourself the trouble of looking at me and deciding for yourself whether I’m an immaculate Patrick Henry or a dirty Benedict Arnold. Well, to hell with that, Duchess. It’s your conscience. Don’t ask me to talk to it. You tell it what it wants to hear.”
She said sharply, “You’re not being much help!”
“Hell, it’s nothing I can help you with, and you know it. Suppose I were to tell you that the fate of the U.S. depends on our efforts, and that if we’re successful you’ll be a national heroine and get your face on a postage stamp. That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it? But if I say it, will you believe it? If you do, you’re better at fooling yourself than I think you are.”
There was a little silence; then she laughed. “You’re either a very honest man or a very clever one.”
“Can’t I be both?” I asked plaintively. Neither of us said anything for a while, and the subject kind of died by default. At last I pointed out the window. “Look, there’s Molokai already.”
“That’s the leper colony, isn’t it?”
I said, mechanically, “You’re not supposed to call it leprosy these days. It’s Hansen’s disease. That makes it much more respectable.”
We watched the island approach. Down below, I saw a white powerboat smashing through the trade-wind chop at a pretty good clip, judging by the wake. It could be a speedboat belonging to a man called Monk, I reflected, although he was supposed to pick night for the run as a rule. It could have aboard a girl called Jill, and if this had been a TV show she’d have been equipped with a convenient electronic gadget that would have allowed me to track her in my midget sub, if I’d had a midget sub.
Unfortunately, we were dealing with a smart and experienced man, not a TV villain. Asking Jill to plant a tracking device on the Monk would have been equivalent to asking her to commit suicide. He would have thought of all such logical possibilities, and he’d be ready for them all, somehow. I wasn’t going to beat the Monk with gadgets. With his experience with explosives and detonators, he was a much better gadget man than I was.
The only way I’d trip him up would be by doing something quite untechnical and illogical. I still hadn’t figured out just what.
14
We got a view of the flat western end of Molokai with its geometrical red-earth pineapple fields, but the mountainous eastern end was pretty well covered by the clouds that tend to collect over higher elevations in the Islands. On Oahu, I’d already discovered, you can stand in Waikiki in bright sunshine, and watch it raining like hell up on the Pali. High up among the mountains of Kauai there’s supposed to be a rain-soaked region that’s the wettest spot on earth. Molokai was apparently no exception to this weather rule.
The visibility, angle, and distance were poor for the particular stretch of windward coast in which I was interested. Well, I could hardly expect Hawaiian Airlines to fly reconnaissance for me, although it would have been convenient. I did, however, get a chance to observe that, as the maps had indicated, the next stretch of water wasn’t nearly as wide as the first one we’d crossed.
Then we were coming up on the island of Maui with a small mountain range at one end and a tremendous, cloud-capped volcanic peak at the other: Haleakala, the House of the Sun. I’d seen ten-thousand-foot mountains before, plenty of them, but mainly in the western U.S., where they rise out of country that’s a mile high to start with. This one came straight up out of the sea.
The backup man was waiting for us at the Kahului Airport. My hawk-faced shadow with the briefcase was off the plane before us, but he stopped inside the terminal to light a cigarette, timing it so that his match flared just as Isobel and I walked past. I scanned the room surreptitiously, and spotted the man for whom we’d been pointed out. He was lounging casually by the windows.
This was another one we had no record of—another of Monk’s unlisted reserves—a big, golden-brown, good-looking Hawaiian character with a red-flowered sport shirt hanging outside white duck pants and bare brown feet stuck into leather sandals. Although well into his thirties, he had the friendly, boyish look that’s characteristic of the race, but I didn’t put too much faith in it. History says that while they were generally just about the sweetest people on earth, they could turn very mean upon occasion, as Captain Cook discovered. They killed him on a beach a couple of islands away from this one when he tried to get tough with them. Then, because he’d been considered a god of sorts, they cleaned the flesh off his bones and passed them around for good luck.
I spoke to Isobel as we walked through the building. “Remember that I called ahead from Honolulu. That means the opposition has had plenty of time to make any preparations they like in our rooms and in the car we’re picking up here at the airport. So don’t say anything in either place you don’t want anybody to overhear.”
Her eyes were bright. “You mean they could even have bugged the car? How quaint! That’s the right word, isn’t it, bugged?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Bugged. Now if you really prefer to be chaste this evening, I think you’d better have a headache. We’ll stop in town to get you some aspirin for it. It’s probably a result of that blow on the head last night. It’s making you feel pretty bad, and you’re sorry but you’d like to go to bed early, alone.”
“But…” She glanced at me sharply, a little disconcerted. Obviously she hadn’t expected me to be quite so considerate of her virtue. “Oh. I see. You have something you want to do tonight. Alone.”
“Check.”
She moved her shoulders. “Yes, Master. To hear is to obey… That beach-boy type over by the windows. Could he be the man you said might be waiting for us here?”
“He could, but we’re not supposed to know it. At least I don’t think we are. And you’re not supposed to be clever and observant, Mrs. Marner. You’re just a stupid, self-centered, society bitch and don’t you forget it. Bright people get hurt.”
She laughed. “All right, Matt. I’m warned again.” Her momentary resentment had faded. She took my arm, walking close to me. When she spoke again, her voice was mischievous: “It’s really too bad you’re going to be so busy. I just happened to bring along a very pretty nightie—quite by accident, of course.”
I grinned. “I’ve seen your damn nighties, doll. I’m the guy who cleans up your room nights, remember? For your own sake, just stick to the script, please. I want to keep you out of this as much as possible. So don’t louse things up by getting irresistible at the wrong time.”
Her fingers pressed lightly on my arm. “Well, at least it’s reassuring to know that you think I can.”
The car they gave us was a reasonably new Ford sedan, equipped with every gadget to make life miserable for an old sports car hand like me. The power steering would throw you into the ditch before you knew you’d turned the wheel; the power brakes would hurl you through the windshield before you knew you’d found the pedal; and the automatic transmission would run you through a stoplight before you even thought of touching the accelerator. Detroit makes the most comfortable and reliable cars in the world, for the price, but they’re designed for people who want the car to do the driving. After a stint in Europe, I was accustomed to docile, obedient little vehicles humbly ready to serve me, not great arrogant mechanical monsters with minds of their own.
The hook-nosed man had apparently turned me over to his relief. I saw him go to a parked car and ride off without a backward glance, but the golden boy was right behind us in a ba
ttered old jeep as we drove into town—well, let’s call it driving. I found that the only way to beat the hydraulic gremlins at their own game was to keep one foot ready on the instant brake to cancel the mistakes of the instant gears. This made our progress a bit jerky, but it saved a lot of wear and tear on telephone poles and pedestrians.
“Are you doing that for fun, or are you just learning to drive?” Isobel asked as we took off impulsively after buying aspirin. She patted her hair into place and tightened her seat belt. “When you get tired of it, I’ll be glad to take over.”
“I hope you’re not going to turn out to be one of these competent damn females,” I said. “I like the helpless type much better. Anyway, I’ve handled everything from a gull-wing Mercedes to an Army six-by-six; I’m going to lick this Supermarket Special if it takes all night.”
“Well, you’re not doing my headache one bit of good.”
“So take an aspirin, doll,” I said. “That’s what we bought them for.”
Having established, if anyone was listening electronically, that the course of true love wasn’t running quite smoothly, we drove south across the narrow waist of the island and up along the curving leeward shore under a clear blue sky. Behind us loomed the giant mass of Haleakala, still wreathed in clouds from about five thousand feet up. I gather you can see the top occasionally, but you have to get up early in the morning to do it.
The coast highway was a two-lane blacktop road flanked by feathery trees, identified in the guide book by the local name of kiawe. They looked to me just like plain old Texas mesquites that had got plenty of vitamins. I didn’t stop in the historic little coastal village of Lahaina that I’d described to Isobel, but I did drive through slowly enough to make sure that, as I’d expected, there was a long dock holding pleasure and fishing boats of every description. At least one of them ought to be for hire, I reflected, and Molokai was just around the corner, nautically speaking.
The Betrayers Page 10