Troubled Waters td-133

by Warren Murphy

  If nothing else, the Sykes deal meant that he could close down for the day. He would have to, in any case, if he was going to arrange the details of the tour package he had sold. The yacht Christina was on call, he knew, together with her captain and a two-man crew, but there was shopping to be done-for food and liquor, any incidentals that a rich man and his wife would likely carry with them on a tour of the Caribbean.

  He pushed back in his chair, the casters rasping on the vinyl floor, and rose to hit the kill switch on the coffee urn that occupied one corner of the Trade Winds office. Morgan was a coffee addict, even in the tropic heat, without an air conditioner, and certain clients also favored it above the cold drinks he kept handy in his minifridge.

  He was about to flick the switch off when a voice behind him said, "I'll take some if you've got it made."

  The sound made Morgan jump, as unexpected as it was, but the surprise paled when he turned and recognized the man who stood before his desk. "Er...Mr. Remo Rubble, isn't it?"

  "That's very good."

  The travel agent glanced in the direction of his office door, wondering why the damn cowbell suspended on a leather strap had failed to warn him of a new arrival in the Trade Winds office.

  "Back so soon?" he said, cold perspiration forming on his face. "There's nothing wrong, I hope."

  The man he knew as Remo Rubble smiled and took a long step closer, smiling as he said, "Howard, I think we need to have a little chat."

  "Of course," the worried-looking travel agent said. "Sit down, by all means. Where's the missus, then? What brings you back to Puerta Plata?"

  "Just a hunch," said Remo, closing on the cluttered desk with easy strides.

  "A hunch?" Morgan repeated. "As regards to what, if I may be so bold?"

  "Your pirate buddies," Remo said. "I'm betting you can tell me where they spend their time when they're not looting pleasure craft."

  "Pirates?" There was a hitch in Morgan's voice, a subtle paling underneath his tan, but he recovered quickly for a man with no experience of rough interrogations. Or perhaps it was the ignorance of what was coming that allowed him to preserve the calm facade. "I'm sure I don't-"

  His first kick drove the desk back, scraping furrows in the vinyl, slamming into Morgan's thighs and pinning the travel agent with his hips against a waist-high counter, where his flailing arm upset the coffee urn.

  "God's truth!" Morgan wailed, shoving at the desk with both hands, getting nowhere. Remo had it pinned against him with one foot. The travel agent would need far more power than he had to budge the desk. For emphasis, Remo gave the desk another nudge, the hard edge digging into Morgan's groin and thighs. A wordless squawk of pain escaped his lips, as they were drawn back from tobacco-yellowed teeth.

  "Hold on a moment now! You've got this wrong, I tell you! I don't-"

  Remo stepped back from the desk, as if considering the papers strewed across its top. Morgan prepared to take advantage of the respite, breaking off the lie he was about to tell and shoving at the desk with both hands to release himself.

  Before he found the strength to move it, though, Remo bent forward and one hand slapped the desktop. The desk acted as if an ax crashed into it. A fissure opened in the wooden desktop, front to back, and Remo had resumed his easy stance before the shattered desk collapsed into a V-shaped ruin, pinning Morgan's feet and spilling papers all around his legs.

  "God rot it!" Morgan blurted out, and lost his balance, toppling forward, sprawled across the desk to lie at Remo's feet.

  Remo bent down to grab a handful of the travel agent's hair and hoist him upright, holding him so that his toes were barely grazing vinyl. Morgan was surprised by his new altitude, in evident discomfort from his thighs and groin, his feet, and now the pain that lanced his scalp.

  "You're obviously quite upset," said Morgan. "I assure you, even so-"

  "I'm running out of furniture to break," Remo warned. "If you plan on lying to me any more, you take your chances."

  "Surely you don't mean-"

  A twist of Remo's hand, and Morgan plummeted to strike the hard floor on his knees. The pain of impact was nothing to the burning of his scalp, however, where a fist-sized clump of hair had given way to raw, red flesh. The missing hair cascaded past his face, as Remo's fingers opened to release it.

  "Looks a little thin on top," said Remo. "You should try some Rogaine."

  "Jesus 'aitch!" the travel agent swore. "If you'd but let me speak a moment without smashing furniture or ripping out me hair, there may be something I can tell you."

  "I've been counting on it," Remo said.

  "You mentioned pirates, now," the travel agent muttered, struggling painfully to gain his feet. "Historically, this area-"

  Remo grabbed the man by an earlobe. Howard Morgan never would have thought the most sensitive part of his body was his earlobe, so he got a real education in the next few seconds. The pain was excruciating, and it flooded his body from ear to toes.

  He was mute with agony, although his mouth opened and closed, tears streamed down his face and his eyeballs rolled up into his head. He began to stutter finally, then a long low howl began to build up as the pain, impossibly, got worse.

  Then, as if the heavens had opened up, the pain was gone.

  But Mr. Remo Rubble still held on to the earlobe. Morgan's education continued.

  "That was pain. This is no pain," Remo said, then tightened his fingers on the earlobe to an almost imperceptible degree. "You choose."

  "No pain! Please, no pain!"

  "If I want history," Remo said, "I'll stop by the library. The pirates I'm concerned with are alive and well right now, and one of them's your good friend Pablo Altamira."

  "Pablo?" Morgan feigned amazement, lowering the red hand from his face. "He had the best of references. I would have trusted that boy with my life."

  "Changed your mind, I see," Remo noted with a nod.

  The first time he had given Morgan a full five seconds of the pain thing. But he was annoyed by this whole situation. Annoyed by people who dressed and talked like pirates. Annoyed by tiger sharks. Annoyed by Master Chiun the Moody. Annoyed by Stacy Armitage, because she was making him worry about her.

  He gave Morgan ten seconds, and Morgan was blubbering and jerking involuntarily.

  He gave Morgan ten more seconds, and Morgan was virtually unconscious from the pain.

  "I guess at this moment," Remo said when he stopped, "I'm annoyed by you most of all." Morgan was different now. Not just different temporarily, but altered mentally. He had snapped and broken, and he was never going to get put together again. But he wasn't insane. Remo had stopped just in time.

  "Talk," Remo said.

  Morgan looked at Remo and did not see death. Death would have been preferable to the mind-expanding suffering he had just endured. He tried to speak and ended up baaing like a sheep.

  Remo pinched him on the neck, and Morgan's bodily weakness seemed to recede.

  "At your service," Morgan mewed.

  "You book tours," said Remo, hoping to save time if he began the tale for Morgan. "Some of them include crewmen like Pablo-or Enrique. You remember him, don't you? He shipped out with Richard and Kelly Armitage, about a month ago. The man's dead, Morgan, but the woman made it out. You hear me? She can testify to your part in the scheme. How do they punish an accessory to piracy and murder here in the Dominican Republic?" Morgan wasn't afraid of the law. Nothing the Dominican jail could dish out would be as bad as the Earlobe Pinch of Remo Rubble.

  "So, tell me about Captain Teach."

  The travel agent's face went blank. "God's truth," he said, "I've never heard of him. I do all my communicatin' with a local jobber, and he sets up the contacts. He's an odd bird, too, I'll tell you that, and no mistake."

  "His name?"

  "Calls himself Ethan Humphrey. Old man, he is, got pirates on the brain. He runs an outfit here in town. The Cutlass Foundation, it's called. Some sort of research outfit, as he claims, but I'm not b
uyin' it."

  "How often do you speak with him?" asked Remo.

  "Maybe two or three times in a month," Morgan replies. "It all depends on prospects, see? Humphrey wants folks with money. Women, too, if it's convenient, but he don't want kids along if I can help it. Some of those want crewmen, like you did, sir. Others, I just point 'em where they want to go and get sufficient information for old Humphrey's playmates to identify 'em after, see?"

  "It's clear," said Remo. "What about the crewmen you hire out?"

  "They come around the day I need 'em," Morgan said, "with Humphrey's password. Never seen the same one twice."

  "And you don't know the pirates? You can't tell me where they go to count their loot?"

  "My honor, sir."

  "In that case," Remo said, smiling, "I don't believe I need you anymore."

  Morgan's face twitched. "No more earlobe, I beg of you, kind sir!"

  Remo shook his head. "No more earlobe. I promise."

  ETHAN HUMPHREY'S POWERBOAT had been christened the Mulligan Stew when he purchased it in 1990, and he had never taken time to change the name. It was inconsequential to him, like the color of the paint inside the master cabin. Humphrey cared no more about the vessel's name-or style, for that matter-than he did about the daily weather in Honduras, say, or the cost of bootleg videotapes in Beijing. What mattered was the fact that the Mulligan Stew was seaworthy, capable of taking Humphrey where he had to go, among the islands that were home.

  The boat had cost him thirty-seven thousand dollars-more than Humphrey had paid for his small bachelor's home, back in Gainesville, when he went to work at U of F. It had wiped out three-quarters of his savings, but it was worth every dime for the freedom it gave him, the means of pursuing his lifelong desire.

  Not that Humphrey could pursue that dream alone, of course. He was too old for that, by far. No pirate he, with years of sea raiding behind him, muscles toned from trimming sails, swabbing decks and hand-to-hand combat. He had missed his chance, spent years in school as both student and teacher, before he ever dreamed that the buccaneers he idealized still existed in a modern world of jet planes, nuclear power and the information superhighway. It had come as a complete surprise, the single greatest shock and thrill of Humphrey's life.

  He was sailing this day, off to pay a little visit, as it were, but he wasn't sailing by himself. He knew the way by now-Kidd trusted him with that much, after all that he had done for the seagoing brotherhood-but Humphrey's strength and health were not what they had been in younger days. Whenever he went off to visit his new friends, Kidd needed warning in advance, and he would send along a man or two for crew and company.

  This morning, waiting for him on the dock, were two of Kidd's men whom Humphrey recognized, although they hadn't previously pulled the escort duty. One was Pascoe, a stocky, balding sea dog in his late thirties, who shaved his scalp in defiance of the bare patch on top. He wore a tattoo of a grinning skull and crossbones on his chest, now covered by a denim work shirt with the sleeves cut off to show his burly, sunburned arms. The other was a skeletal rogue with greasy, shoulder-length hair, who called himself Finch. The long scar down his left cheek crinkled when he spoke and when he smiled-the latter event occasioned only by sporadic references to acts of bloodletting.

  "You're late," Finch said, as Humphrey came along the pier. The duffel bag he carried as his only luggage was slung across one shoulder.

  "No, I'm not." Humphrey didn't consult his wristwatch, knowing he was right on time. Finch always tried to pick an argument with anyone available, and it was best to put him in his place or simply ignore him. At the moment, Humphrey hoped he had done both.

  "Let's get on with this," Pascoe said. "We're burning daylight."

  Humphrey recognized the line but couldn't place it. Was it from a John Wayne movie? Never mind. He climbed the gangway, taking his time about it, dispensing with any further pleasantries. The men Kidd sent to chaperon him on these little jaunts weren't chosen for their winning personalities, nor were they meant to keep him entertained. Kidd never said as much, but Humphrey knew that even after all they'd been through, there was still suspicion in the pirate's mind, a fear that Humphrey would betray him somehow, change his mind about their mutual arrangement and lead the authorities to Kidd's lair. In that event, Humphrey knew, his payoff would be a swift death and a tumble overboard to feed the sharks, as befit any traitor.

  But that would never happen, Humphrey knew. He had no intention of betraying Kidd or the others. It had never crossed his mind, in fact. Why should it, when the whole arrangement had been his idea to start with? He had dreamed about this moment all his life, without imagining that it could ever really come to pass. It was a fantasy from childhood, carried over into the adult domain with no good reason to suspect that he would ever have a chance to live it out.

  How many men his age-or any age, for that matter-were ever privileged to truly realize their dreams? It was a first in his experience, and nothing in his life, he knew, would ever be the same again. He had already passed the point of no return, and there could be no turning back.

  Not that he wanted to turn back.

  Again, the possibility had never even crossed his mind.

  "How long have you been waiting?" Humphrey asked, addressing the question to no one in particular.

  "Feels like all damn day," Finch said.

  "I make it forty minutes," Pascoe said.

  "So, we're ahead of schedule then," Humphrey declared. "Just as well, because there are a few things I forgot."

  "Such as?" Pascoe sounded suspicious now.

  "Provisions," Humphrey said. In fact, he had forgotten nothing, but he liked to play games with his escorts, sometimes. Even when he yearned to be on Ile de Mort-an interesting name; he gave Kidd credit for the choice-it helped for him to have some measure of control.

  "Goddamn it!" The disgust was evident in Finch's voice. "Go get the damn things, then."

  "It would save time if you could do it," Humphrey said. "You know, since I have things to do on board, before we leave."

  "Well, shit! You go," Pascoe said to his younger, long-haired shipmate.

  "Why should I-?"

  "It would be quicker," Humphrey interrupted them, "if you split up the list. Is that all right?" Pascoe was visibly suspicious now, while Finch was merely angry over the delay.

  "You got some kinda list?" he asked, the corners of his mouth turned downward in a scowl.

  "Won't take a minute," Humphrey said.

  "No funny business while we're gone," the bald rogue cautioned him.

  "I wouldn't think of it," Humphrey said honestly.

  "All right, let's have it, then."

  Humphrey chose wine and cheese, because the shops lay off in opposite directions from the waterfront and would compel his escorts to divide their forces. One more little goad, to keep things interesting, while he got busy stowing items on the boat and made ready to sail.

  It was perfect. Humphrey almost felt like a fullfledged pirate captain himself, manipulating rogues who would have cut his throat in any other circumstances. Granted, it was Kidd's authority that stayed their hands, not any strength of Humphrey's, but illusions were like that, devoid of objective reality. And they still made him smile.

  "Don't dawdle now," he told the grumbling buccaneers as they went down the gangway to the pier. "We're burning daylight, yes?"

  IT TOOK REMO FAR Too long to cover the ground-make that water-between Fort-de-France and Puerta Plata, on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. On arrival, he had made his first stop at a public phone booth, where he found a home listing for Ethan Humphrey, complete with number and a street address.

  There was no listing for a Cutlass Foundation in Puerta Plata, but the name alone gave Remo a fair idea of what it would entail. An outward cover for his fascination with the pirates of another century, for starters-and beyond that, what? Was Humphrey working on a book, perhaps, that would establish him as the ultimate expert in h
is chosen, highly specialized field? Or was something more practical involved, perhaps the distribution of loot taken from the private craft his friends were raiding throughout the range of the Lesser Antilles?

  No matter.

  Remo took the phone-book page with the home address listing for Ethan Humphrey, showed it to a cabdriver and soon found himself paying a call on the former professor at his home. The dwelling was a smallish bungalow, a quarter-mile inland, located in a residential district that would pass for middle class by local standards. There were roses and bougainvillea in the yard, behind a low, white-painted wooden fence. No lawn to speak of on the tiny lot, but Remo was more interested in the house. It had smallish windows, trimmed with lacy curtains, and a green door that contrasted nicely with the whitewashed stucco walls. The roof was Spanish tile and well maintained. It could have been an advertisement from Travel a getaway for the man who had everything and needed a place to hide from it on certain special occasions.

  Remo had himself dropped off a half block away and didn't approach too closely. His hearing reached out to the little house and noted the sounds of quick movement. Somebody in a hurry, assembling some belongings. Remo forced himself to wait, and minutes later he saw Ethan Humphrey emerge. Humphrey had a green duffel bag in one hand, and he paused long enough to lock the door behind him before he moved to the gate and through it, turned left on the sidewalk and proceeded toward the harbor. Remo fell in step behind him. Humphrey never heard him, never sensed his presence.

  Ten minutes later, as they drew closer to the docks, houses gave way to stores. Humphrey knew where he meant to go, and he let nothing slow him, distract him from his course. The jaunty stride, the smile he had been wearing when he left the bungalow, suggested that some kind of pleasure lay in store for him. Remo wondered what it was. His patience was running thin. All he needed was a moment of the pirate lover's time, in which to squeeze him like a toothpaste tube and see what came out.

  Humphrey walked down to the marina and moved along one of the piers, out to a smallish cabin cruiser that was clearly years beyond its prime. Remo read the name someone had painted on the transom in italic script.