A second or two later he had been out of the car and running back a few feet to the huddled figure on the pavement By the time he had spoken to the patrolman who had appeared almost immediately he looked round to seek confirmation for his story and found the car standing empty, both front doors open.
He had never mentioned the girl then or later. For how could you explain a vanishing companion whose name you did not even know? Who would believe you had been out with her several times and still did not know where she could be found? Their original meeting, the progress of this odd friendship, the feeling of love that had begun to develop was very real, each detail explicit in his memory whenever his imagination and thoughts turned back to her. But the mystery remained. To speak of this aloud could only invite ridicule. Such happenings belonged to the province of soap opera or romantic fiction and knowing this, he had remained silent.
He was also lucky when all the evidence was in, but it did not convince King Hubbard. That after extensive questioning no legal charges had been filed by the authorities made no difference to Hubbard. The medical examiner’s findings at the autopsy were sufficient to exonerate Sanford but that made no difference either. If the law would not punish the man who had killed his brother, Hubbard would. And he had tried—twice in New York and again, two months later, in Miami. Three times and out …
A voice startled him out of his mental flashback and he saw that the food was in front of him. He realized that Anna was waiting and knew that she had spoken. He swallowed and had to clear his throat before he could answer.
“I’m sorry, Anna. I guess I was daydreaming.”
“You must have been a long way off, Mr. Sanford.”
“A long way.”
“That steak look like the way you want it? You want your coffee now?”
“Please. And bring the check when you come.”
He began to eat automatically then, feeling no hunger but needing something to combat the emptiness inside him. He did not glance up when the coffee came but signed the check as his mind moved backward to kindle again the fears and hopelessness that had been almost forgotten during the past months. He had talked to no one about his troubles because he understood that the truth would be unacceptable. The average mind—he did not believe it at first himself—was not equipped to cope with the relentless, reckless, and insane drive of King Hubbard’s overpowering desire for revenge.
He had finally fled from his nightmarish existence in New York—there was no other word for it—but in this, circumstances helped him make the decision, As a graduate architect, he had served his apprenticeship and had been employed by this New York firm for nearly a year. During that winter some work the firm had counted on had been canceled unexpectedly. Some temporary retrenchment was in order and since he was the youngest man on the staff he was asked to take an unpaid vacation. He was not being let out—they made this clear. They hked his work. They would not stand in his way if he had another offer but they hoped that in another month or two he would be back with them.
Such news had not bothered him, for by that time the fear and uncertainty had been undermining his native courage. Because he had never felt that way before, he did not know how to cope with the threat which, after two attempts on his life, he knew was both real and frightening. He had been scared before on one or two occasions, but these were brief and unrelated reactions which quickly passed. This other was completely outside his experience and yet he knew that there was no point in going to the police because he had no evidence of any kind.
Anonymous phone calls could not be traced and an accusation against a man of King Hubbard’s standing would be pointless. A subway accident, a careening pickup truck on a dark street—the truck discovered a few blocks round the corner and found to be stolen:—were insufficient to support any charges he might make. But the fear remained, festering as his helplessness increased, so that in the end his lay off, the winter weather, and a lingering cold supported his decision to take off for Florida.
It took two months for Hubbard’s men to find him, and by that time he had met a college friend, who had a friend with an old but stout thirty-eight-foot ketch which was then tied up at Ft. Lauderdale. The friend, whose name was Evans, had a little money from a trust fund and was currently at loose ends after a brief and unsuccessful marriage. Johnson, who owned the ketch, was a photographer, and they had already suggested that Sanford join them on their projected cruise through the Panama Canal and up to California ports.
Three shots from a car one night that missed Sanford only because his lingering fears had made his intuitive powers and reflexes unusually acute were sufficiently frightening to remove any lingering doubts about the cruise. He had gathered his gear, turned his checking account into traveler’s checks. Two days later the trio set sail, and for the first time in months Sanford felt safe and secure, the menace which only he could understand behind him at last.
They had navigated the Florida Keys without difficulty to swing wide of Cuba and south through the strait of Yucatán. Off Ambergris Cay they had scraped the keel and decided to come into Belize to check the hull and get supplies. They nearly made it in the fading light of a February afternoon with the sun well down and the breeze from the north. Sanford was below when they hit the reef of a mangrove cay six miles from the lights of Belize, and there they hung with three feet of water in the cabin until daylight.
They were in no danger, for the weather remained good and the sea calm, but by the time a fisherman had taken them off and deposited them in Belize, Evans and Johnson had had enough. There was no insurance on the ketch and its salvage was problematical. But Sanford liked boats. He also realized that British Honduras might be a good place to hide. And so when Johnson announced that he would like to continue his trip to California by more conventional means, Sanford became the owner of what was now the Cay Queen for seven hundred dollars cash.
He had been lucky in finding a skilled artisan who needed work, a soft-spoken Negro named Healey. Between them, and working in neck-deep water, they had managed to put a temporary patch on the hull. With an extra pump and some thirty-odd discarded inner tubes which, when patched and filled added additional buoyancy, they had managed to get the ketch to the harbor. The rest of Sanford’s small capital had gone into repairs and refitting, so that in the end he not only had a place to live rent-free, but a small charter business that gradually led to other things …
The arrival of Anna to clear off the table brought his thoughts back to the moment and he rose and thanked her. With the two letters in his pocket, he walked along the covered gallery to the stairs.
At the street entrance he took a moment to glance both ways. The immediate area was one of the older and less prepossessing sections of the city, the one and two-story buildings old and nondescript, the small shops mostly windowless but open-fronted by day when the heavy doors were thrown back. There was no one abroad now, not even a car at the moment, and recalling the printed threat, he changed his plans.
He had intended to sleep aboard the Cay Queen but this meant a walk of nearly a half mile, and so he decided to spend the night in the office he had established over the garage hardly more than a hundred and fifty yards away on the same side of the street. He stepped out and turned right, moving to the street side of the walk as he did so, and he had covered more than half the distance when it happened.
He knew then that it was the letter that gave him his chance. Because he believed the warning he walked with balance and poise, eyes constantly moving and every sense alert. He passed one shop and then another and now he saw the opening just ahead which marked a narrow alleyway. By keeping wide of it as he came abreast he had a six-foot margin of safety, and when the two figures darted from the darkness to move behind him he was ready.
He sidestepped the initial charge, hardly hearing the sound of their steps. He reached for the man nearest him, not knowing who he was but only that his face was dark. Spinning him off balance he stepped in without difficul
ty and swung his right from the heels.
He felt the shock of the blow all the way to his shoulder and saw the man go down. At the same time he watched the second figure swivel, and caught the upward flash of a knife blade. With the element of surprise in his favor he grabbed the wrist and pivoted, yanking hard now and taking advantage of the other’s momentum as he bent and used his hip as a fulcrum.
Bracing himself with feet spread, he straightened with the man on his back now and brought up his other hand to grab the wrist that held the knife. Somehow he felt an odd but joyful sense of satisfaction as the man went over his head and he heard the grunt of shock and surprise as the other hit the sidewalk on his back.
He felt the wrist relax and now he had the knife in his hand and he wheeled and looked for the second man, who had regained his feet and, apparently no longer liking the odds, was even then diving for the mouth of the alley.
Stanford took two quick steps in pursuit and then stopped as common sense told him that he did not know the alley or where it led, that it would be better to be sure of one man than take a chance and perhaps lose both. And now, as he spun about, he saw the man on the ground had come to his hands and knees. As he tried to straighten, Sanford hit him. He dropped the knife and reached as the fellow sagged, pulling him close and hooking his left again with all his strength.
He was not by nature a violent man but the strain that had come back to harass him after all this time now erupted in a savage and almost uncontrollable desire to hammer his unknown assailant into the ground. He could feel the dark-skinned man go limp but he would have struck again had he not seen from the corner of his eyes the approaching headlights of a car. As it began to angle toward him and lose speed he let go of the man and saw him sag to his hands and knees. He reached down and picked up the knife, breathing hard now, shaking a little as reaction set in, and overcoming finally the violence that had seized him.
A moment later he was aware that the car was a Land Rover of the police department. He saw the uniformed corporal step down as the driver remained at the wheel, and now a tall and familiar dark figure came loping along the sidewalk. By then he knew this was Police Constable Pierce, whose hourly rounds carried him past the Cay Queen six nights a week.
“Some trouble, sir?” the corporal asked.
“Yeah,” Sanford said gruffly to hide the unsteadiness in his voice. “Two of them came out of the alley here and tried to jump me. This one”—he gestured at the man who still knelt on the sidewalk—“had a knife.” He offered it and pulled the kneeling man to his feet. “Do you know him?”
The corporal and the constable moved to either side of the man and for the first time Sanford got a good look at him. He was not large, but strongly built, and the high-cheekboned, swarthy face spoke of some Indian ancestry. The battered felt hat had fallen to the sidewalk, uncovering a black and wiry-haired head, and he was poorly dressed in an old khaki shirt, baggy trousers, and rubbed-soled canvas shoes.
The corporal, jerking the man’s head up, said: “We know him, sir. He’s been in trouble before. Will you ride along to the station house with us?”
“Yes,” Sanford said. “I’d like to.”
“You’re not hurt, sir?” Pierce asked.
Sanford found that he could grin at the tall, black-faced constable’s concern. For he had known Pierce a long time and had frequent brief discussions with him as he made his rounds. He also had an arrangement, which would have been frowned on by the authorities, whereby he gave the constable five dollars a month for keeping a particular eye on the Cay Queen. Now in his blue-black, nighttime uniform with the red stripes down the trouser legs he was a monochrome of darkness.
“I’m okay,” Sanford said. “I was lucky.”
“You said there was another man?” the corporal asked.
“Yes, but I didn’t get a good look at him. Maybe our friend here can tell you who he is.”
“Possibly,” the corporal said, “but I doubt it. This man Corvado has been in prison before but he does not talk much … I will sit in the rear with him and you can sit beside the driver, please.”
3
Belize was never a rich city nor, in recent years, a particularly attractive one. Wracked and nearly devastated by two hurricanes which happened to come thirty years apart, it now presented a mélange of antiquity and newness. The effects of the last hurricane in 1961 were still apparent in many places, and because of the plans to establish a new capital on higher ground to the west the two police establishments had a neglected, battered, and somewhat jerry-built quality.
Police Headquarters, nearly hidden from the street by a high stone wall, was built around an inner quadrangle consisting of one and two-story buildings which housed the transport, the Commissioner’s office and clerical staff, and the C.I.D. The area headquarters for the city and surrounding country was located in another ancient building a half block away and it was here that Sanford went to report the attempted assault to the sergeant in charge, a beefy Negro with a lot of gray in his hair.
He listened gravely to the story Sanford and the corporal told, making a note from time to time on the pad in front of him. He had the prisoner searched and he was perhaps more surprised than Sanford to find that in a colony which had its own currency Corvado was carrying one hundred dollars in new twenty-dollar United States bills.
Corvado stood in front of the desk, head bowed and swart face impassive. He said very little in response to the sergeant’s questions, and when he did reply the words had a Spanish connotation that Sanford could not understand. After a few minutes of this the sergeant offered some information of his own, his accents careful and precise.
“Corvado has been convicted three times in the last six or seven years.”
“For what?” Sanford asked.
“Once for robbery, once for housebreaking, and once for nearly killing a man in a quarrel over a knife. There was some question about provocation that time so he managed to get off with a three-year sentence.”
“What does he say about the hundred dollars?”
“He says he found it.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere around the waterfront. He doesn’t remember where.”
“Do you believe him?”
“With a man like Corvado”—the sergeant shrugged his heavy shoulders and offered a wry smile—“you believe nothing until it has been proved.”
“You don’t think this was just another ordinary stickup attempt, do you?”
“Isn’t it possible?” the sergeant asked politely.
“Possible but not likely. They didn’t tell me to stop, or stand still, or put up my hands. They didn’t make a sound; they just jumped me.”
“You do not know Corvado?”
“Never saw him before.”
“You did not recognize his companion?”
“No.”
“Then why, without some motive or provocation, should he attempt to use the knife on you?”
Why indeed? Sanford thought and knew that for now there could be no answer. Tomorrow, when he had time, he would have a talk with Superintendent Kirby, who was in charge of the C.I.D. To someone like Kirby he could tell the whole story from beginning to end and it came to him now that it was time that he got it off his chest, time that someone else who could think objectively should know the truth. But for the moment there was no point in continuing the present discussion and he accepted the fact.
“I’ll have a talk with Superintendent Kirby tomorrow,” he said. “And I suppose you’ll want a formal statement.”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Good enough. Can you have someone drive me to the ketch in one of your police cars?”
“Certainly,” the sergeant said and spoke immediately to the corporal who had been standing silently to one side.
The narrow roadway which led from the street bordering the hotel to the seawall where the Cay Queen was berthed was fenced in on both sides. On the left was a large house, still bear
ing signs of hurricane damage, that was used as a home for the aged and indigent; on the right were some sheds and a yard-like area scattered with rusting and discarded machinery. There was no place to turn around but the driver of the Land Rover waited with headlights on until Sanford unlocked the door leading from the cockpit to the main cabin.
He started backing up as Sanford waved and slid back the hatch that opened up the companionway. He snapped on the overhead light, closed and refastened the hatch and the door from the inside. The sliding door to the smaller forward cabins stood open as it always did unless there was a party aboard because it was an aid to ventilation, and he examined the interior before he stripped to his shorts. He washed and brushed his teeth, not lingering and anxious to get the light off. He flopped down on the berth nearest the river as darkness blotted out the interior, but sleep was a long time in coming.
There was no clear-cut pattern or progression to his thoughts. When he could not stop them he considered the man, Corvado, and his hundred dollars in new American currency, and the only conclusion he could accept was that someone here in British Honduras must have hired him and instigated the attack. Admitting this but knowing also that it would be pointless to guess who was behind the attempt, he thought for a time about the girl he had liked so well and known only as Laura.
He remembered, too, the first telephone call from King Hubbard after the accident that killed his brother when it became clear that no charges would be filed against Sanford.
He knew by then whom he had killed. He knew the victim’s name was Arthur Hubbard, and bits and pieces of information that had come to him gave the man a minor reputation as a rich lush and nightclub brawler.
He could not remember the exact wording of the anonymous call that had come to him a few days later. There were no preliminaries once he had identified himself. A statement had been made, very clearly and with a certain emphasis, but before he could react the line went dead.
With Intent to Kill Page 2