by Basil Copper
“Take it easy with him,” I said.
Otto nodded. “Sure pal,” he said in a gentle voice. He laid the gun barrel almost reflectively alongside the little Chinaman’s head. He gave a choking grunt and went limp as it stroked him to sleep. I got up then and went and sat in the armchair. Otto gave a long sigh and looked around the saloon like he didn’t know where to start. I picked up the meat cleaver and put it down on a table. Otto started dragging Charley Fong out. His heels left a long groove in the carpet.
I sat down in the armchair again. “Excitable staff you got,” I told Mandrake. He had taken his hand away from the top of the tank. The water was black now but I could still see the corpse of the cat jumping as the fish attacked it. Bone shone white in the revolving mass. Mandrake wiped his hand on a large handkerchief he took from an inner pocket. He examined it absently but found no sign of damage.
“I suppose I ought to thank you,” he said.
“For what?” I said. “Protecting my own interests?”
He smiled thinly. “You were, then, mainly motivated by the remaining 4,000 dollars?”
“I was thinking of the little fellow, too,” I said. “I didn’t want to see him get hurt. After all, it was his cat.”
“I must say you passed my test admirably,” he said, going over to the cocktail cabinet. He handed me a glass. Diane Morris sat down on the arm of a chair. Her face looked white and she bit on a handkerchief. Mandrake handed her a glass of bourbon. She drank it like it was soda water and some of the colour came back into her face.
Mandrake turned back to face me again. “It was, you might say, a clash of loyalties solved by compromise.”
I shrugged. “It was only a cat,” I said. “Nothing to get het up about either way.”
“Your reaction was just what mine would have been in similar circumstances,” he said. “We were in no danger. I always carry extra insurance.”
He put his hand into the back of the tank vent and came up with an efficient-looking revolver. It had the safety catch off. He lifted his glass.
“To men of action,” he said.
I lifted my glass and we drank.
2
“Thanks for the entertainment,” I said. “I really ought to be going. I’ll try and get something moving tonight and come out and see you tomorrow afternoon.”
Mandrake, Diane Morris and I stood under the awning on The Gay Lady’s stem deck. Otto lounged at the rail watching us while three useful-looking sailors in blue jerseys broke open crates they brought up from a hatchway. I saw steel oxygen cylinders, aqua-lung equipment, even a big, heavy rubber diving suit with a brass helmet.
“Fond of swimming?” I asked.
Mandrake made an eloquent movement of his shoulders. “I like to come prepared for everything,” he said. “Grosvenor may have thrown something into the water. So…Scarpini’s a pretty good diver. He handles all that side for me.”
I looked at Diane Morris. She seemed to have recovered her spirits but there was still a curious colour round her eyes. “Incidentally,” I said to Mandrake, “who locked me in the deep-freeze compartment? Just for the record.”
He turned blandly to Diane Morris. “Why don’t you run Mr. Faraday ashore, my dear? You’re both going to the Catamaran and Mr. Faraday will want to pick up his car. I can get Otto to go across with the dinghy later and bring the boat back. You look as if the trip would do you good.”
“Thanks for the information,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”
I went down the gangway into the boat with Diane Morris following. Mandrake didn’t move. He stood by the rail looking down with inscrutable eyes. I watched him till The Gay Lady dwindled in the distance.
3
Diane Morris set the boat out across the choppy water of the harbour with the skill of an expert. She sat in the stern handling the tiller like Long John Silver and evaded my eyes.
“I expect you think badly of me,” she said after a bit.
“Does it matter what I think?” I said. “This is a pretty tough racket you’re in, that’s for sure.”
She looked at me with anger smouldering on her face. “If it weren’t for Mandrake I shouldn’t be mixed up in this.”
“I thought he was your boyfriend,” I said.
She laughed. It was an ugly sound, chopped off by the noise of the motor. “He’s a beast,” she said. “I hate him. You saw what he did to that cat.”
“Then why work for him?” I said.
She shrugged. “Necessity. He picked up some of my brother’s gambling checks back in Chicago. I’m paying off the debt.”
I was silent for a moment.
“I see. So you’re not really a hundred per cent for their side?”
“All I want is out,” she said angrily. “They’re like a pack of wolves aboard there, with Mandrake sitting in the middle enjoying it all. He’s a sadist; and he won’t stop coming after me. He’s got some crazy idea I should marry him.”
I said nothing. We were running into the jetty before she spoke again.
“You look a square guy,” she said. “Perhaps we could help one another.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“You don’t,” she said. But she said it in a special way and I could see no double-talk in her eyes. I decided to buy, but at the same time to give nothing away.
“Who put the finger on Grosvenor?” I said.
“His name’s Melissa,” she replied.
I let that go.
“Otto and Scarpini, of course,” she said.
“The same guys that shut me in the ice-box,” I said.
She nodded. That brought me to something else.
“You think Charley Fong will be all right?” I asked. “I rather liked the little guy. He’s got guts and I gather he’s not too keen on Mandrake either.”
She smiled then and shook her head. “I don’t think he’s in any danger. Like Mandrake said, it was his cat.”
She throttled back the engine and we nosed gently into the jetty. I tied up the painter while she switched off and we went up the steps. I could see the shambling figure of the Ancient Mariner making with tottering excitement towards us. I grabbed Diane’s arm, turned her smartly about and led her back to the blue sedan. We got in; the heat off the cushions was stifling. I wound down the windows while she started up. She reversed back along the jetty and round the right-angle, made a three-point turn and then gunned along past the Police Office. The Ancient opened his mouth and made like he had something to tell me, then clammed up as if he had thought better of it. He turned on his heel and walked away down towards the boat hire quay.
“Drive round town for a bit,” I told Diane Morris. “We haven’t finished yet.”
She went on to the edge of town and took a smoothly tarmacked road that went round in a curve along the bay; the white sand had the pinkish tinge caused by thousands of crushed conch shells.
“What do you know about Mandrake?” I asked her.
“It’s not his real name,” she said. She named his name. It meant nothing to me.
“He’s a Chicago big shot,” she said. “In all the rackets there, from gambling, slot machines and cat-houses to the numbers racket. He also has a legit meat-packing business that acts as a front for the rest.”
“He would,” I said. I lit two cigarettes from my pack, took one out of my mouth and gave it to her. She dragged on it gratefully.
“Where does this character Lloyd come in?” I asked.
“That’s another legit angle,” she said. “He’s in insurance. Prints his own money. One of the Chicago Lloyds. Everything above board there. Mandrake is in with everybody. Lloyd just lends him the boat whenever he asks for it. It covers up a lot of things.”
“It figures,” I said. “You still haven’t told me much about yourself.”
She stopped the car and we sat looking out across the wide curve of the bay to the palms on the opposite shore. There were only about five people
on the whole sweep of the cape and about two more in the water. A half dozen cars were parked on the concrete esplanade farther down. It was pretty crowded for this part of the world.
“Not much to tell,” she said after a long silence. “Night club hostess most of the time. No better than I ought to be.”
She leaned forward suddenly and kissed me full on the lips. I didn’t do much to resist. The kiss lasted for about half an hour and when I finally opened my eyes I figured it must be around sunset. I was surprised to find it was still light.
“What was that for?” I said.
She laughed and adjusted her complexion in the car mirror. “Bonus,” she said.
“On top of the 5,000,” I said. “I must be dreaming. You underestimate yourself. You’re much better than anyone has a right to be.”
She laughed again and started the motor.
“By the way,” I said as we drove back to pick up my car, “though it might be said we’re working together, no more sleep-walking from now on. I did come on holiday with my secretary and she’s rather jealous.”
“Lucky her,” she said with a grin. “But I reserve the right to break the amnesty if the occasion presents itself.”
I let that go. She dropped me off at the jetty, waved and gunned off. Mandrake had given me back my keys so I went on over to the Caddy. I didn’t go near the Police Office. I just got in the big car, finished my cigarette and then sneaked on out of town.
4
Stella was lying on her tummy sunning herself on the marble patio by the big swim-pool at the Catamaran. She was still wearing the white-two-piece and she made Cleopatra look like a two-bit deodorant advertisement. It seemed like a hundred years since I had last seen her. I smacked her hard where it would do most good.
“Mike!” She went up in the air. One or two people round the edge of the pool turned and looked curiously at us. I saw the fat guy with the Frankfurter sausage fingers staring. I thought he looked jealous.
“How did you know it was me?” I asked.
Stella looked at me over the top of her dark glasses. “Nobody else has got that loathsomely familiar touch,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said. “You’re in a flattering mood this afternoon.”
She took off the glasses and smiled. She looked great when she smiled. In fact I had to turn back to the waters of the pool to stop myself from being dazzled.
Then her face was warm against mine and white teeth nipped my ear. “You’re just a big softie, really,” she said and went off the edge of the pool in a shallow dive. I didn’t have time to work that one out before the spray came drenching down over me. She grinned, thrashed around the pool a couple of times and came on out. Globules of water shone like crystals on the very fine down which covered the brown firmness of her thighs. I was always uncomfortably aware of her in a manner very different to that of girls like Diane Morris.
I got up suddenly and she smiled again. She put her arm in mine and we took a turn around the pool. In between gazing in her eyes and the occasional arm squeeze, I filled her in on Mandrake and the yacht and the day’s developments. She didn’t say much. For all you could have told we were just a couple of honeymooners. We had the old fat guy fooled anyway; he still gave me sour looks mingled with envy every time we passed him.
“So?” said Stella as we stopped by her canework chair again.
“So I’d like you to keep an eye on Diane Morris and act as a liaison between me and Clay,” I said.
She nodded. “Will do.”
“Look,” I said. “I’m really sorry about the holiday. I’ll make it up to you. And anyways, the way things are going, we may have it wrapped up in another twenty-four hours.”
“Forget it,” she said. “Only thing worries me is the Morris girl. I don’t like the idea of you working together.”
“That’s exactly what she said,” I told her.
She looked nonplussed. I laid my hand on her shoulder.
“Forget her,” I advised Stella. “You’ve never had any competition and you know it.”
“It must be the balmy air and the sunshine,” said Stella drily. “Another week of this and you’ll be getting positively sentimental.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I won’t let it happen again.”
We went on into the hotel.
5
I went on up to my room, had a shower and lay on the bed for a few minutes. It was now around six. I pulled the phone over towards me and called Clay. He was still at the office. He sounded worried.
“Sorry about the date,” I said. “I got invited out to take tea on the yacht instead.”
“We saw something of that,” he said. “Ian spotted you with the binoculars. He wanted us to go out and rescue you at one time.”
“Good job it never came to that,” I said. I filled him in on the whole set-up.
“Very nice,” he said. “We’re still a long way from proof but it fills in a few useful gaps in our knowledge.”
“Anything your end?” I asked.
“Nothing on the positive side,” he said grimly. “We got the coloured boy from the Cucumber Cay freeze plant.”
“Good work,” I said.
“Unfortunately not,” said Colonel Clay stiffly. “His body was washed up about five miles along the coast this morning. Doc Griffith says there are no marks of violence. Death by drowning.”
“Convenient,” I said.
“What’s your next move?” said the Colonel.
“If you agree I’d like to have a crack at the yacht tonight,” I said. “What I’ll be looking for is evidence to link Mandrake and his chums with Melissa. There must be some Mafia records aboard; names or details of money transactions.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the phone. I could almost hear the wheels going around in Clay’s head.
“Do you think this is wise?” he said at last. “We can give you very little official coverage on such an operation.”
“I’m not asking for that,” I said. “And wisdom has never been my strong point. You asked me to string along on this job and now it’s become a personal thing between me and Mandrake. After all he is from the States and I’ve had a long experience in dealing with his kind. What you could do is keep a look-out with night-glasses and if you see the boat on fire or something on that scale, come on out.”
He chuckled. “All right, we’ll play. But what if the yacht up-anchors? We lifted the shipping restrictions this afternoon.”
I thought hard. “I’ll fix it so you’ll know where we’re going,” I said. “Could you get Phillips to do me a duplicate of the map-tracing Melissa left? Only with the bearings a bit scrambled—just enough to land him up about ten miles from the target.”
I could almost hear Colonel Clay smiling on his end of the phone.
“Excellent, Michael,” he said at last. “I’ll get Ian on to that right away. How shall we get it to you?”
“I’ll be going out about ten tonight,” I said. “It’ll be no good until after dark. I’ll ask Stella to pick it up at your house tonight around nine. The map will give me a good bargaining card with Mandrake if I’m caught. I must look as if I’m earning my thousand dollars.”
“I’m glad you got something out of this business,” he said.
“I’ll get Ian to make that a true reference so we can keep tabs on The Gay Lady. Anything else you want us to do?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “So long as you’re standing by tonight.”
He gave me his home address. I took it down and we said good night. I went out on to the balcony. The pool was almost empty now. One or two couples were still swimming out in the sea but the majority of the guests looked like they were resting up for dinner. I didn’t see Diane Morris.
I went back to the phone and dialled Stella’s room. I told her what I’d arranged with Clay and she said she’d be at his house dead on nine so she could be back at the Catamaran by nine-thirty. This would give me ample time for what I wanted to do
. I asked her to get the Caddy’s tank filled with gas just in case I needed to give it a lot of use that night. I told her I would leave the keys at the hotel desk. Then I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. After a little while I dozed.
6
It was almost dark. I lay in the comfortable dusk of the hotel room and feathered smoke through my nostrils. I looked at the dial of my wrist-watch. The hands stood at a minute or two after nine-thirty. The time wasn’t all that critical, as I had all night, but if I left it too late the people on the yacht might turn in which would make it difficult. I would like to arrive on board some time between eleven and midnight when the odds were that they would be drinking in the saloon or ashore.
Trouble was I didn’t know how long it would take me to make it out to the yacht with the gear I’d have with me and then I had to find a suitable jumping-off point and stash the car. I stubbed out my cigarette in the ash-tray by the bed and listened to the breeze and the sound of the surf. Five more minutes passed and then I heard the hum of a car coming up the road outside the hotel; the light of the headlamps sliced across the balcony. The motor stopped and the door slammed; high heels beat a tattoo across the patio. I got up then, shut the balcony door and switched on the light. I put on the jacket of my lightweight suit and adjusted my tie in the mirror. I was just doing up a waterproof bundle when there came a tap on the door. It was Stella.
“All set?” she asked.
I nodded. “How’s things with Colonel Clay?”
She smiled. “As gallant as ever.”
She handed me a slip of paper. As far as I could see Phillips had done a good job on the tracing. I crumpled it a few times to make it look like Melissa had carried it in his pocket for a while.
“Colonel Clay sent this too,” said Stella. She handed me an envelope. Inside it was a set of bearings.
“That’s the real position,” she went on. “The Colonel thought you might care to memorise it in case things got really difficult. Then if the yacht isn’t at the fake position they’ll know where to go. Colonel Clay called it the final bargaining counter.”