Such Men Are Dangerous

by Lawrence Block

  But the island surprised me. It turned unseen from a means to an end. There was no need to leave it, not now, not ever. At the present rate, my money would last forty years. So, it seemed, would I—I had never been in such extraordinarily fine physical shape in my life. My emotional condition was becoming comparably excellent. The bad dreams and the night sweats came further and further apart. Unwelcome thoughts bothered me less and less. I slept well, I ate hungrily, my digestion was sound. Doing Nothing evidently agreed with me. Clinton Mackey provided just the right amount of human contact; I looked forward to seeing him every sixth day, and after half an hour with him I was anxious to get back to my island again.

  How easy it was to follow the rules! Never write a letter to anyone. Make no phone calls. What could be simpler? Don’t talk to anyone. I only spoke at Clint’s store, and only about business and trivia. No women exc. whores if you have to. I thus far hadn’t had to. Two drinks every day before dinner, otherwise none. The hard part was remembering to take the drinks. Sometimes I forgot them. I never had more than two, and only drank them because it was part of my decalogue. Three meals every day. Invariably. Exercise regularly, swimming and calisthenics, keep in shape. Plenty sleep, sunshine. No problem there. Don’t go anywhere exc. movies. The nearest movie was on Key West, and I had no desire to see it. Or anything else. When in doubt, do nothing. Five words to live by—but I could have dropped all but the last two. Because I couldn’t remember the last time I had been in doubt.

  I worked up a good sweat rowing, so as I drew close to my island I put up the oars and uncapped a jug of bottled water and took a long drink. Before I got going again I had a good look at my island—when you row you see where you’ve been, not where you’re going. I reached for the oars, then stopped abruptly and looked over my shoulder again. There was something large and white at the far end of my island, the opposite end from the shack. This was unusual, as most driftwood and flotsam washed ashore at my end. I couldn’t make out what it was, and after a few minutes of rowing I stopped and had another look.

  It was a boat. And it hadn’t washed ashore at all. Someone had steered it there.

  Why?

  This was a threat, I thought. A very real threat. No one had ever come to my island before. No boat had so much as approached it, let alone landed there.

  Until now.

  Why?

  It could possibly be Gaines, I thought. Maybe the old wino hadn’t died, maybe he had gone away somewhere, and had now decided to return and take possession of the shack again. That would be a problem, but not an impossible one. I would have to kill Gaines, of course. Then I would either bury him somewhere on the island or put him back on his boat. Anything buried can be dug up. I would kill him by holding his head underwater, I decided, and then I would put him on his fucking white motorboat and take it a few miles out with my rowboat in tow. Then I would sink his boat with him on it and row back to the island.

  Nothing to it, if it was Gaines. But suppose it was someone else?

  I tried to imagine who it might be. Clint had guessed that the state owned the island, which seemed possible. If so, they might have sent some nuisance to make sure that I wasn’t running a whorehouse or a gambling casino there. Any official attention would be a pain, but I could probably get around it.

  If the state didn’t own it, the actual owner might be interested in finding out who lived in the shack. He might want to sell me the island, or rent it to me. That was all right. Or he might have decided to build on it, or to sell it to someone else. That was not all right. If it proved to be the case, I had a problem. I could kill this man, whoever he was, but it wouldn’t be as simple as killing an old wino. I would have to work it out very carefully.

  I resumed rowing. Other possibilities suggested themselves. Someone might have decided to be neighborly, and a few impolite words and phrases would put a stop to that. Or there might be rumors in circulation about the bearded religious fanatic with a store of buried pirate gold. That, I thought, was all I needed. Start killing the ones who showed up and the rumors would only grow. Behave oddly and the rumors would be reinforced. How, then, could I handle that sort of visitor?

  This was a threat. Worse, it was an unclear threat.

  I was in doubt.

  When in doubt—

  I breathed deeply, relieved. When in doubt, do nothing. That was the answer. I would do nothing until the doubt cleared, and perhaps the threat would turn out to be no threat at all, and if it was I would worry about it and handle it when the time came.

  Meanwhile, what? Stay out on the water? That wasn’t doing nothing, that was marking time, wasting time.

  I leaned on the oars and pulled toward shore.

  There was no one in the boat. I landed at that end of the island so that I could check the boat first off. I did, and it was empty. I beached the rowboat and began walking slowly across the sand. There were footprints leading from the boat along the perimeter of the island toward my shack. The man had evidently walked in the water so that his footprints would disappear, but here and there one remained.

  I think Defore was wrong. I think Robinson Crusoe must have torn his hair out when he saw that fucking footprint.

  I followed, slowly, carefully, silently. Whoever had come to my island had taken the trouble to try to conceal his footprints. Thus he wanted his presence to be a surprise. And thus he had undoubtedly watched for my appearance in the rowboat and would know I was already on the island. Even so, it seemed sensible to approach him as cautiously and silently as possible.

  I studied every tree, every clump of growth. I stopped once to pick up a rock the size of a hen’s egg. He might have a gun, or a knife. He might plan to kill me right off.

  He was on my island. My island.

  I covered sixty yards before I knew where he was. Then I was able to see the string of footprints cutting across from the shore to the door of my shack.

  There were no footprints leading away from the shack.

  He was in my house.

  Obviously I had to kill him. Whoever he was, whatever had brought him here, I had to kill him. He was in my shack. He was on my island, in my shack. Sitting there, the filthy bastard, and waiting for me. In my house, the bastard.

  I moved inland so that I could approach the hut from the rear. There were no windows in the hut, but it was possible that he could see me coming through a crack in one of the boards. There were as many cracks as there were boards. I had an advantage, though. The sun was beating down on the back of the shack. It would be at my back and in his eyes. I dropped to the ground, moved forward on hands and knees. The less I showed of myself, the less chance there was that he would be able to see me.

  Once I got close I would be able to stop moving, and once I stopped moving he would never see me.

  And sooner or later he would show himself. He would know that I was on the island but he wouldn’t know where, and sooner or later he would decide to come out and have a look, and then I would have him. He might even wait until dark. Fine. My night vision was always good, and a diet rich in fish coupled with a life without artificial light had made it that much better. Let him wait until dark. Let him sit in the dark, alone and afraid, while I came down on him.

  On my island. In my shack—

  I stopped, my eyes on the hut, my ears concentrating on every sound. Birds made noise in a tree off to my left. I waited for a long moment, then scampered over to a clump of cover a few yards ahead.

  A voice roared, “Hey!”

  And, from the shack, something arced high in the air and looped lazily end over end toward me. It landed on the ground not ten yards in front of me and sent sand flying.

  A hand grenade.

  FOUR

  I RAN FORWARD, reached to scoop up the grenade. Even as my hand closed on it I was spinning around to the left, making a full arc and sending the familiar metal egg flying out over the water. I didn’t even wait for the explosion but ran ahead full speed toward the shack.
/>   Someone in a dark suit stepped out from the cover of the shack. “Beautiful,” he was shouting. “Perfect, Kavanagh.”

  There was a gun in his hand. If I stopped he would have a clean shot. If I kept going he might freeze, and if he froze I would have him wrapped up before he could kill me. There was no cover for me. All I could do was charge the gun.

  “Kavanagh!”

  I was fifteen yards from him when the bullet slapped the sand in front of me. I stopped in my tracks.

  “Easy, Paul. Easy. Don’t come any closer.”

  “You’re on my island.”

  “Take it easy, Paul.”

  “My island. My house.”

  “Relax.”

  “You threw a grenade at me.”

  “It was a dud, Paul.”

  “A grenade.”

  A smile. “Just a dud, Paul. A dummy, not a real grenade. Had to find out how you’d react. Like poetry in motion. A real grenade would have exploded in the water, Paul. And this one didn’t. There was no noise.”

  I thought. He was right; there had been no explosion.

  “You threw a grenade at me,” I said. Fifteen yards separated us. He had his gun aimed right at my chest. It looked like a .45, powerful enough so that even a hip or shoulder wound would carry me out of the play.

  “Paul—”

  “You know my name.”

  “Why, of course I do, Paul.”

  “Nobody around here knows my name.” I had stopped using my own name when I left Miami. No one on Mushroom Key could possibly have known it. Clint Mackey called me Gordon when he called me anything at all, but I had left it open as to whether that was my first or last name. “Nobody knows my name. You’re on my island, you threw a grenade at me. Who the hell are you?”

  “You know me, Paul.”

  I stared at him. Good clothes, light brown hair, tall, thin, eyes hidden behind horn-rimmed sunglasses.

  “I don’t know you.”

  “This help?” He took off the sunglasses, squinted at me, replaced them before I could rush him. “How do you stand the sun around here? But I guess you get used to it. And it seems to agree with you, Paul. I’ll bet you’ve never looked better. I preferred you without the beard, personally, but—”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “You did once. Calm yourself down, Paul. Take it easy.”

  “Who are you?”

  “We met once. We talked.”

  “Where?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “No.”

  “I’m really sorry about the grenade. It may have been unnecessary, but I had to know right away whether this back-to-nature routine had turned you hard or soft. You gave me the answer I wanted. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human being move so fast. You could have stared at the thing trying to figure out what it was and what to do with it, but instead you swung right into action. Beautiful to watch.”

  “You—”

  “Beginning to remember, Paul?”

  “Washington,” I said.

  “That’s the boy.”

  “Washington. Dattner. George Dattner.”

  I kept my eyes on his face but concentrated on the gun. “How did you find me, Dattner?”

  “You were never lost.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You were never out of sight, Paul. Not for very long, anyway. We had a man on you in New York. How did you enjoy Mrs. Jenss, by the way?”

  “Who?”

  “Sharon Jenss. Our man said she was damned attractive, and you certainly spent a lot of time with her. He said—”

  “What the hell is this all about?”

  “It’s about you, Paul.” He smiled. I thought back to our meeting in my room at the Doulton. Dattner seemed different, somehow. Or maybe it was just that I had grown different eyes. “Then you went to Miami, and then a few other places, and then we sort of lost track of you. I knew you were somewhere in the Keys. I didn’t know where, but all I had to do was scout around. No matter how careful a man is, he always seems to leave a trail. You used a lot of different names, didn’t you, Paul? And did you really throw Mr. Gregg overboard?”

  “Who?”

  “The real estate man.”

  “Oh.”

  “You wouldn’t believe the things he said about you. But after I talked with him I knew where you were. So this afternoon I rented a boat and came out here.”

  “From Mushroom Key?”

  “No. Little Table Key. Over that way.”

  Little Table Key was no farther away from my island than Mushroom Key, but it was almost twice as large. I had been there once and had liked it less than Clint’s.

  “You haven’t been to Mushroom Key?”

  “No.”

  I thought for a moment. “Get back in your boat,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Get in your boat and get the hell out.”

  “Paul, Paul.” He shook his head sadly. “Don’t you even want to know why I’m here?”

  “No.”

  “Not interested at all?”

  “No. You’re on my island, you threw a grenade at me. I just want you to go away.”

  “The Noble Savage,” he said. “We need you, Paul.”

  “We?”

  “The Agency.”

  I looked at him. “You’re crazy.”

  “No. And neither are you, although you sound it right about now. The Agency has a job for you.”

  “The Agency already sent me away.”

  “Things have changed.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “And you’ve changed, too, Paul. In plenty of ways.”

  I didn’t say anything. I took a tentative step toward him, but the gun came up and stopped me. He told me not to come any closer.

  “You won’t shoot.”

  “One more step and you’ll find out the hard way.”

  “You wouldn’t come all the way out here just to shoot me. You want me for something. You don’t want to kill me.”

  “I don’t want to get killed by you, either. I’ll shoot you in the leg, Paul.”

  I stayed where I was. “Talk,” I said.

  “You’re ready to listen? You’re calm enough?”

  “I’m ready.”

  He drew a breath. “You had me worried for a minute there,” he said. “What I’ve got to say is simple enough. We kept a watch on you because we thought you might come in handy sooner or later. You were going through a bad time emotionally, and we couldn’t risk hiring you because the odds were very long against your coming out of it in a form we could use. But men with your qualifications aren’t easy to find. So even though we couldn’t make any use of you just then, it didn’t hurt to tie a string on you.”

  He paused for no apparent reason. I decided he wanted some sort of assurance that I was listening, so I nodded.

  “Then this job came up. When I give you the details you’ll see why it’s just right for you. Pull it off and there’ll be a job open for you.”

  “I don’t want a job.”

  “You might change your mind. But think of it as an open contract, no strings on either side. You’ll be paid for your work on this one, and our rates for freelancers are more generous than you might think. There’s a lot of money in it for you.”

  “I don’t need money.”

  “Everybody needs money.”

  “I don’t.”

  “And everybody needs something to do.”

  “Nothing is plenty.”

  He grinned. “I read your list,” he said. “I like it.”

  He read my list. He found me, he came to my island, he went into my house, he read my list.

  I turned to look across the island. I couldn’t see his boat from where I was standing. All I had to do was get him to realize that there was nothing that would make me leave my island. Then he would get back in his boat and head back to Little Table Key and Key West and Washington and never bother me again.

  He said, “We ne
ed you, Paul.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. How many men work for you? Use one of them.”

  “We can’t use a regular employee.”

  “Why not?”

  “There are reasons, believe me. I’ll get to them later.”

  “You’ve got hundreds of men under deep cover. Use one of them.”

  “Can’t be done.” Smile. “You’re the one we need, Paul.”

  “You had your chance once. The computer said I was no good—”

  “Then you weren’t. You are now.”

  “No.”

  “You really came alive when that pineapple landed at your feet, didn’t you? As though you’d been waiting all winter for something to happen. You finally got a chance to use yourself.”

  “I’m happy here. I like it here.”

  “Oh, I’ll grant that it seems to agree with you. That’s a hell of a tan you’ve got. You can come back here, Paul. Just do what we want and you can take your fee and spend the rest of your life here.”

  “I can spend it here anyway. Without doing jobs for you.”

  “Not jobs. Just this one job. And don’t be so sure you can.”

  I looked at him.

  “A man named Fenstermacher owns this island. He doesn’t even know you’re here. Someone could tell him.”

  I felt muscles tightening in my arms and legs. I made them loosen up again.

  “He might make a nuisance of himself, Paul.”

  “I could work it out.”

  “Suppose the State Board of Health decided to examine your shack. You’d be surprised how many friends the Agency has and how many people like to do us favors. If you don’t turn this trick for us, I’ve got a hunch you won’t be as comfortable here as you have been.” His voice softened. “Of course, it works both ways. Cooperation is a two-way street. Play straight with us and you’ll never have to worry about Mr. Fenstermacher or the State of Florida. We could smooth things out. Your fee for your work would probably cover the cost of buying the island outright, as far as that goes. And it never hurts to have important friends, Paul. You know that.”