"I'll remember," I said. "Shall we flip for who gets the first shower?"
"Matt."
I looked at her. "What?"
"Take me seriously. Please."
"I've never taken you any other way, Borden," I said. "You can remember that, no matter what happens."
When I came out of the shower, she was still lying naked on the bed approximately where I'd left her, but my suitcase had been disturbed. I suppose I should have been happy. Things were working out very well, just the way Mac had planned them, if I was reading his mind correctly. The funny thing was, I didn't feel nearly as triumphant as I should have. I guess the trouble was that it didn't seem quite fair, two old experts at intrigue like Mac and me ganging up on a young beginner. Of course fairness was, as always, totally irrelevant.
I watched her get dressed in the blue sleeveless dress we'd bought her in Phoenix, Arizona, the one with the pleated skirt. It was rather intriguing to watch the amateur mind at work. Obviously, if I had any suspicions of her at all, after the last amorous interlude, her choice of costume would lull them now. I was supposed to figure that, if she was expecting a hectic night full of action, she'd have put on slacks, not the only pretty dress she owned here in Florida. Finished, she smiled her confident Mata Han smile and presented herself for inspection and approval.
"Nice," I said. "The admiral will like it, too."
"Are we going to see Uncle Hank?"
"After dinner," I said. He wants me to make arrangements with the guide; and there's some kind of a political meeting he wants me to listen in on, for some reason. I'm sure he won't mind your coming along." Actually, I wasn't a bit sure; but I didn't give a damn if he did mind. I didn't work for Congressman Priest. I glanced at my watch. "Well, maybe we'd better get started since we have to be back here before eight. He told me to come by boat and stay inconspicuous."
"Why do you call him 'admiral'?" she asked curiously. "He never made the stars, you know. He didn't want to."
I said, "He may be captain to the US Navy, but he's admiral to me."
It seemed odd, driving the station wagon without the weight of the boat and trailer dragging behind. We had dinner at the other end of the island, in a dark supper-club kind of place I'd spotted, driving by the night before. It turned out to be passable as to food but terrible as to service. I can see why a waitress might have trouble bringing a steak before it's ready, but why it should take her most of an hour to write out a check always baffles me. Well, somebody once told me it's a theory: they think the customer will feel rushed and insulted if the bill is presented with the coffee. All I can say is that any enterprising girl who wants to try insulting me like that is going to wind up in possession of a much larger tip than the haughty serving lady who makes me wait all night before she condescends to take my lousy money.
In this case, however, it worked out pretty well, saving me from having to think of other ways of stalling. It was ten minutes of eight, and the light was fading, when we reached the new development on the way back. I slowed down as we approached the stone posts of the Priest gateway, just beyond.
"Is there a place I can hide this hearse, not too far away, from which we can reach the kitchen door without climbing any barbed-wire fences?" I asked.
Martha glanced at me sharply. "I thought you said you were supposed to come by water."
"I did. So, being a suspicious secret-agent type, I'll come by land. Anyway, it's late and you're not really dressed for a boat ride."
"You can't possibly suspect Uncle Hank-"
"Who can't? I don't even trust me around the block..
My God, look at the limousines in the admiral's driveway! Even if I wasn't feeling shy, I wouldn't dare park my cheesy little six-thousand-dollar Chevy in there. Those aristocratic heaps would snub it and hurt its feelings."
"If you turn right just around the curve up ahead, there's an old lane leading down to the water."
I stopped the station wagon near the end of the lane, backed it in between two trees and went around to open the door for Martha. She led me down the lane, which ended abruptly at a concrete embankment. Beyond was the Waterway. I could see the Priest dock to the right, the little outboard boat with the funny name, and the big sportfisherman, through a chain-link fence. The outriggers and tuna tower made a tricky, lacy pattern against the darkening sky.
Martha made her way along the embankment to the fence. She gathered her brief, pleated skirt around her thighs so it wouldn't snag, with one hand, and, holding on with the other, swung herself around the end of the fence, four feet above the water. She waited for me to follow, less gracefully. We stole along the Priest seawall to the dock, and took the path that led up to the house. A slight black man of indeterminate age, not young, not elderly, opened the screen door to admit us.
"Why, it's Jarrel!" Martha said. "You must be the guide we've been talking about. Matt, this is Jarrel White. He knows every local water moccasin and alligator by its first name, and I wouldn't be surprised if he'd poached a few in his time."
The black man grinned. "Now, Miss Marty, who'd waste time poaching water moccasins?"
"Where does Uncle Hank want us, Jarrel?"
"On the back porch, Miss Marty. That door over there. Well, you know. You can sit on the old sofa in the corner. There's a window open to the living room and you can hear all you want." He opened the door for us, and looked at me. "I'll be talking with you after all those folks are gone, Mr. Helm," he said softly.
"Sure."
The kitchen door closed noiselessly. Martha and I stood for a moment in the darkness, that seemed darker for the pattern of light thrown by an open window halfway down the porch, from which came the sound of men's voices. I heard Priest's quarterdeck tones greeting somebody and offering a drink.
"Doesn't sound as if they've got down to business yet," I whispered to the girl beside me. "Whatever the business of the evening may be. Doesn't your Uncle Hank believe in air-conditioning?"
"Oh, he's got it, but it's a pleasant spring evening, and he doesn't turn it on unless he has to. Deep down, I think he feels that if God had meant us to be cool in Florida, He wouldn't have made it hot in the first place." She hesitated, and touched my shoulder lightly. "Matt."
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry."
The needle went into my biceps. It was a healthy jab that must have rammed home the plunger of the hypodermic syringe she'd stolen from my suitcase, with the same motion. The trouble with carrying weapons of any kind is that somebody may get hold of them and use them against you, but this is also something you can turn to your advantage if you work it right.
I had plenty of performances on which to pattern my own: Hollingshead's and Sheriff Rullington's to mention only two. I'd even had the stuff used against me before, on an assignment not too long ago. I knew exactly how it was supposed to feel and how fast it was supposed to act. I gave a little start, reached instinctively for the instrument that had punctured my skin, now being withdrawn; but I never finished the movement. Instead, I let myself slump helplessly, hoping she'd catch me, which she did, easing me gently to the floor.
"I'm sorry," I heard her breathe. "I'm so sorry, darling, but I have to do it. You understand that I have to do it, don't you9.
For a neat ending, that should have been all, but she didn't leave. She stood beside my presumably unconscious body for interminable minutes. I realized she was listening to the laughter and chatter drifting through the open window, probably waiting for a clue to the purpose of the meeting, but like most meetings it was slow in starting. At last she made a small, irritated, breathy sound indicating that her time or her patience had run out. I heard the sound of her sandals receding, very soft and stealthy, along the porch. There was a faint, metallic rattling that after a moment I identified as the noise of a screen door hook being released. A door creaked, and she was gone.
I lay quite still. I didn't think she'd slip back to check on me, but there was no sense in taking chances. After several min
utes, there was a sputtering sound from the direction of the dock: a good-sized outboard motor starting up, and moving off along the Waterway…
xxv.
I'd been listening to the argument for over an hour, and the admiral was getting nowhere. They'd come with their minds made up and it looked as if they were going to leave the same way. I just wish they'd get on with it.
"It's all very well for you to talk like a brave Boy Scout, Hank." The voice had a hint of a Southern accent and belonged to a distinguished gent whose name I'd recognized when it was mentioned, who'd emerged as spokesman for the opposition. "The lady doesn't seem to have anything on you. Well, she has something on me. You don't stay in politics thirty years without cutting a few corners. Somehow she knows them all. It's different with you. Politically speaking, you're new and clean, if you'll pardon the description."
"You're wrong there, Senator." Priest's voice was crisp. "How do you think I learned what was going on? I have exactly the same problem as everyone else."
"Such as?"
"I haven't asked you to dump your garbage in public, have I, Senator? But very well, if it will make a difference… It involves this damned real estate development next door. All I knew when I sold to them was that I needed campaign money and had some land, and the company needed land and had some money. I'd just retired from the Navy, I was busy running for office, and I didn't take time to investigate as closely as I might have. Now it turns out that a few political palms were greased here and there; there's even a possibility that my name was used without my permission. If they fire that at me, come election time, I'll have a choice between looking stupid, which I was, or crooked, which I wasn't. So we're all in the same boat; she's got something on all of us. But if we refuse to yield to extortion…"
The senator said dryly, "Then there'll just be a lot of new faces in Washington next year."
"But one of them won't be a harpy named Love, damn it! Not if we all stick together and work to see that she doesn't succeed in blackmailing her way into the highest office in the nation."
"I still say you talk like a Boy Scout, Hank. Maybe you think that's worth your political career. I don't think it's worth mine."
Another voice broke in: "How the devil does she do it, anyway? She's dug up dirt so old I'd even forgotten it myself. She must have an intelligence system that puts the CIA to shame, not that that's so hard to do…
It took him another half-hour to get rid of them. I glanced at my watch, but stayed on the porch sofa where I was. At last, the door to the kitchen opened and the admiral emerged with a glass in each hand.
"I figured you could use a drink about now, son," he said, passing one over.
"Thank you, sir."
"You heard?"
"Yes, sir."
"She must have an intelligence system that puts the CIA to shame!" he mimicked savagely. "Hell, if she hasn't got the CIA, it's about the only intelligence, security, and investigating agency in the country she hasn't got. At least she's got access to their files-and it looks as if just about all of them have been spending less time and money defending the country from danger than snooping into the private affairs of a lot of private, and public, citizens. All the damned woman has to do is call up her tame chief of national security, or whatever he calls himself, Leonard, and tell him to get her something quick on Senator Snodgrass or Congressman Cartwheel-"
"Or Congressman Priest," I said.
He grimaced. "That's right. I was a damned fool, a preoccupied damned fool; and all she had to do was turn Leonard and his computers loose on me and there it was, all neatly stored in one of his agencies' memory banks or whatever you call them! And if you want to know some thing ironical, son, I voted for the damned reorganization bill that put him into power. I thought it was time for a little efficiency. Efficiency!" He shrugged grimly. "Of course I should have checked with Arthur, but it seemed like an innocuous and straightforward proposal, just a little streamlining of a lot of overlapping undercover empires wasting the taxpayers' money by doing the same thing twice…
When he stopped, I asked, "What does Mrs. Love want you to do?"
"Support her nomination at the convention next week, naturally. After she's got that-and the way she's going, she'll get it, all right-she'll undoubtedly think of other little political chores for us to do, if she isn't stopped and stopped soon." He drew a long breath, remembered something, and looked around. "Jarrel said you brought Marty along to listen. I don't know as that was such a good idea, considering that there are some doubts as to the young lady's reliability."
"No, sir," I said.
"What?"
"There are no doubts," I said. "Not any longer."
He regarded me sharply. "What do you mean?"
"You can rest easy, sir. She didn't stay long enough to hear anything interesting," I said. "I think she wanted to, but apparently she was running short of time, so she just stuck me with my own hypodermic, stole your little boat, and disappeared."
His first concern, not surprisingly, was for his boat rather than my health. He looked quickly towards the dock. "She took the Whaler?" Then he frowned quickly. "If she was going to steal a boat, why didn't she take yours? It's bigger and faster."
I said, "You don't see it down there, do you, sir? I didn't bring it. I didn't figure I wanted to lose it, after hauling it clear across the country, so I came by car."
He started to speak angrily. Then he checked himself and drew another long breath. "Arthur said you were clever. And conscienceless."
"I had a good teacher in both subjects, sir."
"You seem to be in reasonable shape for a man who's had a hypodermic needle poked into his hide."
"There was plain water in the hypo," I said. "I emptied the vial yesterday-there wasn't much left-and put in half a cc, enough for one dose, from the tap. One clear, colorless liquid looks pretty much like another."
He said rather grimly, "You had it all figured out, did you, Helm?"
"Pretty, close, I hope. She's a fairly predictable girl in some respects," I said. "She had three problems. The first was obtaining a certain vital piece of information. Well, we fed her that this morning, according to instructions. Your timing was very good, sir, and she couldn't possibly have missed overhearing our little discussion over the chart, although of course she had to go through the motions of pretending that she still had no idea where her daddy was hiding and it was mean and suspicious of me not to tell her. Her second problem was how to slip away from me so she could convey this information to her new friends."
"You're certain she's in touch with Leonard?"
"Yes, sir," I said. "She called a certain number in Washington a few days ago. Obviously, she made some kind of deal with Herbie, and obviously he told her to stick with me and play it cagey until she'd learned exactly where the hideout was located down here. Having got the information this morning, she then had to keep me happy and unsuspicious until she could put me out of action long enough to give herself a good running start. I was sticking too close for her just to walk out the door; I'd have been on the trail too soon."
"How did you know she'd use the drug on you, instead of something more drastic and permanent?"
I shrugged. "I've just been through a crash course in Martha Borden, sir. I ought to be able to guess her reactions by this time. She could have tried to steal my gun or borrow one from Leonard, of course, but she doesn't believe in shooting people, and guns are pretty noisy, anyway. She could have got the billy I've been using in the boat to keep big fish from flopping all over the cockpit, but knocking a man on the head would be, I figured, another act of violence against her principles. She'd seen me use the drug kit twice. She'd seen me put it away in a secret compartment in my suitcase. There really wasn't much doubt about what weapon she'd pick if 1 made it easy for her. Her final problem was transportation. I gave her a choice between my car and your boat. She picked the boat. That means her rendezvous with Leonard is close to the water or on it; perhaps another bo
at. Unless she sinks the Whaler-"
"She'd have to fill it with rocks. They're practically unsinkable."
"Then by this time-she's been gone a couple of hours already-it's probably drifting or anchored or pulled up on shore somewhere not too far away. You shouldn't have too much trouble finding it."
"And Marty? Does your crystal ball tell you where she is, Helm?"
He wasn't liking me much; he wasn't calling me "son" any more. I said, "I'd guess she's with Leonard and his undercover army-well, navy-on the way to Cutlass Key, sir."
"Not in the dark. She knows these waters pretty well, but not well enough to run them at night."
"If you're sure of that, sir, we've got more time than I figured. I was worried that they were getting too much of a start on us."
"Well, she's been in there, but not recently, and it's not an easy area to navigate from memory. In daylight, she should be able to make it if she takes her time and kind of feels her way, but at night she'll run them aground for sure, or get them good and lost in that labyrinth of islands. I think she's smart enough to know it." Priest hesitated. "Do you really believe she'll take them there, son?"
I was back in favor again. "Yes, sir," I said.
"I can't believe she'd betray her own father!"
I said, "You don't understand idealism as practiced currently, sir. Personal loyalties and relationships simply don't count, when you're saving humanity as a whole from evil men like Mac and me and from the callous and ruthless philosophy of violence we represent."
"What about Leonard's callous and ruthless philosophy?"
"That's the big flaw in their idealistic reasoning," I said grimly. "They invariably seem to figure that if one side is bad, the other must be good. Well, we'll have to see if we can't demonstrate to Miss Borden that we're all equally dreadful in this horrible world." I drew a long breath. "Where's Jarrel White, and what kind of equipment have you got for me?"
Priest said, "There's a rifle, some cartridges, and an aerosol can of insect repellant. I can lend you a flashlight if you need it."
The Intriguers mh-14 Page 17