The Last One Left

by John D. MacDonald

  “Well—fire and explosion is one way. The Muñeca was diesel powered, but the smaller boat Mr. Kayd bought in Florida was gasoline. If it was tied alongside the big boat something like that could have happened. Then there are coral heads. The navigation charts of the Bahamas aren’t real accurate. A coral head can build up from the bottom maybe fifty feet down, and the top of it might be only a foot across and two feet under water, but they’re hard as granite. At cruising speed one could open up the bottom of a cruiser so that it would go down in seconds practically. If they went plowing into a whole area of coral heads, maybe it would open up both hulls.”

  “So that would bring it down to the question of just how competent that Captain Staniker might be, and how well he knows the waters and the special problems of the area.”

  “From what I’ve found out I guess he knew what he was doing, sir.”

  “I’m her brother, Jonathan. Would it be at all possible for you to call me Sam?”

  “I guess so. I guess I could—Sam.”

  “She wouldn’t have been over here if I hadn’t leaned on you two. I suppose you keep thinking about that.”

  The boy sat on the bed, looked down, frowning. “I guess you do too, sir. Sam. But what’s the good of saying if this and if that? There’s that saying, if your aunt had wheels she’d have been a tea cart. Leila and I, we talked about it a long time before we agreed to play it your way. She was a lot more indignant about it than I was. I made her see it from your point of view. You were motivated by love for her. When the motivation is okay, you can overlook lousy performance.”

  “Lousy performance?”

  Jonathan looked up at him, slightly surprised. “You want to deny people the privilege of making their own mistakes. It’s like you don’t want to give yourself or anybody else any leeway. Leila said you were pushing us around just for the sake of pushing us around. It could look that way, you know. I said you were concerned about her having a good and happy life. She put her finger right on the flaw in that one. She said there must be a thousand definitions of what constitutes a good and happy life, and so it was a thousand to one that what you wanted for her would relate to what she wants for herself. Certainly it was a lousy performance, because there was no need for us to prove anything to each other, and certainly not to you. You see, Sam, if Leila and I had any doubts or reservations, we’d have taken a leave of absence from each other to check it out. At nineteen and twenty-one we’re both a little tougher and more mature than the average. What we want to do with our lives is not sacrificial. For us it’s self-seeking, because that’s where the satisfaction is. And what could make our lives full might sound like nonsense to you.” He paused. “Just as your life sounds like nonsense to us, Sam. You do what you do very successfully. But there are people who are the best in the world at juggling flaming torches, or dancing on ice skates, or collecting old Roman coins. It doesn’t mean everybody should get the same charge out of it.”

  “So you went along with it because my motives were pure.”

  “Because if we didn’t, it would have been years before you and Leila would have re-established a good relationship. She said it didn’t matter. I said you are the only blood kin she had and it does matter.”

  “At this point it is an academic discussion, Jonathan.”

  “If—it’s as bad as it could be, I am going to try not to let myself hate you, Sam. Because what was true is still true, no matter what happened.”

  “Why didn’t the three of us have this kind of a talk seven weeks ago?”

  “We tried to. You weren’t listening.”

  Sam stared out at the boats, finally turned and said, “That is perfectly accurate. I wasn’t listening. And I might learn to regret that most of all. Now then. What did you find out that makes you think Staniker qualified?”

  “He came here with his wife ten years ago with enough money saved up to make a down payment on a big ketch that had been built here in the islands. He and his wife did a lot of the work themselves, fixing it up for charter. He got all the necessary papers and permissions. He was based at Yacht Haven, just down the road from here. They lived aboard. He operated it on charter for five years. They made a living, but they didn’t make much more than that, I guess. Five years ago they were out on charter and heading for Eleuthera and a waterspout took the sticks out of her and opened the seams and smashed the dinghy. The water that came in drowned the auxiliary so he couldn’t transmit. She drifted down to Cat Island and broke up on a reef there. He got everybody ashore, and he was cleared of any blame when they had the investigation. The ketch was a total loss and there wasn’t enough insurance money to start up again. He went back to Florida and got a job as a hired captain. I guess that when Mr. Kayd was looking for somebody to run the Muñeca over here and cruise the Bahamas, he’d be a pretty good choice.”

  “If he was such a good choice, why would he be available? Why wasn’t he already employed?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I guess it would be easy enough to find out in Miami.”

  “Why didn’t he make a better success of the charter business right here?”

  “The people I talked to at Yacht Haven, the ones who were there when Captain Staniker was, they gave me the idea he was a good sailor but not a very good businessman. I got the impression that it was his wife, Mary Jane, who sort of held the whole thing together.”

  Sam and Jonathan went down and had lunch in the coffee shop. After lunch Sam drove into town, dropping Jonathan off on the way. He had dealt on a prior visit with a Mr. Lowry Malcolm with the law firm of Callender and Higgs on Bay Street. He took a chance on catching Malcolm in, and after a ten minute wait was taken back to Malcolm’s small office. Lowry Malcolm had gotten out the file on the previous business matter.

  “This is something else entirely,” Sam said. “I’d like your help in tracking down some information. One of the law firms here represents Mr. Bixby Kayd either under his own name or the name of Sunshine Management, Incorporated, a United States corporation.”

  Lowry Malcolm was a languid, remote-acting man, thin, pale and balding. He raised his eyebrows. “Ah, the poor chap who’s been lost at sea?”

  “My nineteen-year-old sister, Leila, was aboard.”

  “Oh, I say! That is hard lines. Terribly sorry to hear it. Saw the names in the paper, of course, but didn’t make the connection. I do hope the vessel will turn up safe and sound.”

  “Thanks. Will it be a lot of trouble to find out exactly who would be representing Mr. Kayd?”

  “Shouldn’t be. Shall we give it a try?”

  On the fourth call he found that the firm was Kelly and Dawson, only a block away. Before calling there, Malcolm said, “When I get the chap on the wire, what should I say?”

  “Tell him that I want to speak to him on a matter of great urgency, as soon as possible. Tell him I am an attorney from Texas and you have had dealings with me and can vouch for my reputation and integrity—and you will appreciate all the cooperation he can give me.”

  After he had made the call, Malcolm said, “That firm is the Bahamian headquarters for Sunshine Management. Thought I’d seen that bloody name on a plaque on someone’s building. The chap you want is Kemp Rodgers. Know him well. All my life, actually.”

  “Would you call him an honest man?”

  Malcolm’s jaw sagged. “What an odd thing to say!”

  “Sorry I haven’t got time to work up to it gradually, but it is important that I know.”

  “Kemp is a dear fellow. He is absolutely straight. Never fear. Actually he might have done far better at the law had he not considered it—a necessary nuisance to provide him funds for unspeakably savage little motor cars. He lives for Race Week when he can risk his neck in all that snarling, sliding nonsense. But I must say, if one can endure the racing part of it, it does provide one a rather remarkable choice of lively ladies. He will see you as soon as you can get over there, Boylston. He’s shifting his appointments to make space. If you need more help
…”

  “I’ll be back. And thanks.”

  Kemp Rodgers was a trim man with a large, guardsman moustache, bright blue eyes, oversized hands, and two shelves of race trophies.

  His first impression was that Sam Boylston was connected in some way with Sunshine Management. When he learned there was no connection, he was reluctant to give out any information.

  Sam Boylston called upon that special and directed force he used rarely, in fact could not use except when a great deal was at stake. He could not fake it. He would feel a curious stillness within himself, and he would have a sense of something coiling and gathering. His voice always became softer, with the feeling that he heard it from a distance, and observed the scene from a distance. It was a force he seemed to be able to aim with his eyes, and he had watched varied and strange effects it had upon people.

  Usually they seemed startled, and then alarmed. As if some familiar and unremarkable object, such as a paperweight, had suddenly grown a viper’s head, impressive fangs, and had begun waddling across the desktop toward them with every evidence of malignant determination.

  Out of the stillness he said in a careful voice, “I do not need to be reminded of the ethics of my profession, Rodgers. I know what privileged information is. My sister was aboard that cruiser. I am not going to beg, and I am not going to be very patient. Have you seen Bixby Kayd recently? Did he have anything to say about buying the land holdings of Ventures, Limited? Was a large sum recently transferred to the local bank account of Sunshine Management?”

  The blue eyes tried to look fierce. They became vague. The moustache twitched. The large hands began washing each other. “Really, I couldn’t—ah—it was thirty-one hundred thousand odd pounds. Told Kayd there was no reason to think Venture would settle for that little. He roared with laughter, gave me a great bloody bash on the shoulder and talked about positive thinking. We fixed up a limited power of attorney.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “His offer was, in your money, eight million seven. He said Sir Willis Willard—he’s the Chairman of the Board of Ventures—would be calling a special meeting to consider the offer. I would be advised to attend and make the offer official, and hand over the cheque if they approved. Not bloody likely, I told him.”

  “I’d like to talk to Sir Willis.”

  “He’s a very busy chap and …”

  “I’m sure you can arrange it.”

  “But I don’t see what the connection could be between …”

  “If you don’t mind. It can be at his convenience.”

  With visible reluctance, Rodgers reached for his desk phone. He arranged an appointment for Sam Boylston with Sir Willis Willard for the following morning, Thursday morning, at ten o’clock in Sir Willis’s offices in the Imperial Bank of Commerce on Parliament Street.

  Rodgers said, “Sir Willis is a lovely old boy. He’s done so very well with almost everything he’s touched, this Ventures mess is a thorn in his side. I gather he’s trying to liquidate it in such a way none of his associates in it will get too badly hurt.”

  “As far as you know, no special meeting was called.”

  “I expect if it were to be called to vote on the Sunshine Management offer, I’d have been notified.”

  · · ·

  Sir Willis’s offices were spacious, paneled in pale wood, decorated with cheerful accents of primary colors. The girl ushered Sam in and pulled the door shut as she left. Sir Willis was a wispy man, white hair, pink skin, bright blue eyes. He seemed no larger than a child behind the absolutely empty expanse of pale desk. And he looked like a child who had been mercilessly scrubbed, carefully dressed, and sent off to a party with many warnings about how to behave.

  “Whichever chair might suit you, Mr. Boylston. The straight one or the soft one. You heard Rodgers’s half of our conversation, I believe. This is all something to do with Kayd, poor chap, and Sunshine Management, but you are not associated with either.”

  Taking the straight chair, Sam had his first chance to look directly at those old blue eyes. There was nothing childish about them. They had seen a great deal, understood most of what they saw, and had stored away only what seemed of any possible future use.

  “I may startle you with what I have to say, Sir Willis.”

  “I vaguely recall hearing something which startled me in nineteen fifty-eight, or possibly fifty-nine. As I recall, I rather enjoyed the experience.”

  “I have no proof. So I am not making—accusations. I’m going to ask for your advice.”

  “I’m most generous with it, Boylston. Generous to a fault. But, of course, the supply is unlimited. Old men have vast stores of it.”

  “Did Angus Squires request a special meeting of the Board of Ventures, Limited, to consider another cash offer from Sunshine Management?”

  Without hesitation, Sir Willis said, “He did indeed. Last Wednesday. One week ago yesterday. And suggested tomorrow. Friday seems to be the traditional day for Board meetings for some reason which defies logical analysis.”

  “There will be such a meeting, sir?”

  “My young ladies out there are indignant. They properly notified the other nine members of the Board. Then Squires phoned again on Tuesday, day before yesterday, shortly before noon, and withdrew his request. You understand that any Board member can ask for a special meeting. And so my young ladies had to telephone the other nine chaps and cancel. At least they did not have to inform young Rodgers. They had not gotten around to notifying him.”

  “Do you know what Sunshine Management was offering?”

  “I believe Squires’s expression was ‘interesting enough to merit consideration.’ ”

  “Eight million seven hundred thousand.”

  “My word! That would have been a waste of time. I see no reason why we should go lower than ten million five. Kayd knows that was our firm figure.”

  “He was confident your Board would accept it.”

  “Rather a fool then, what?”

  “I don’t think anyone could safely call Bixby Kayd a fool. I did some legal work for him a few years ago. When I finished it up, I refused to do any more work for him. He was a little too tricky for my taste. He believed your Board would accept the offer.”

  “But what could give him that impression?”

  “I believe, sir, he had a certain amount of faith in the eight hundred thousand dollars he was carrying in cash aboard the Muñeca. It was to be a little private gift, as I understand it, for Mr. Squires and some of the others on your Board.”

  Sir Willis Willard placed his little hands palm down against the top of his desk. He stared at the far wall of the room, high above Sam’s head.

  “I congratulate you, Boylston. You have indeed startled me. Very cunning indeed. And quite merciless, of course. Aside from myself, three other men are quite well situated, and they are willing—as I would be under other circumstances—to take their losses, recoup a sizeable portion of their investment and put it to work elsewhere. I have voted against them because the other seven, including Squires, are not in a position to absorb such a percentage loss of investment capital. And so, to swing it, Squires would need only to corrupt two other men. It would give him six votes in favor. And it would mean a very serious loss to the other four men I have been trying to protect. Excuse me a moment, please.”

  He opened a drawer in his desk, took out a folder, pencil, scratch pad. He turned to a tabulation in the folder, then did some rapid computation. “Certainly!” he said. “Assuming Angus Squires would take four hundred thousand for himself, and give two hundred thousand each to—the two I suspect would be most susceptible, accepting an offer of eight million seven would give Squires nearly a quarter of million of your dollars in profit, and give his friends fifty thousand net profit each. And by getting it all for a total of nine million five, your Mr. Kayd would be undercutting our rock bottom offer by a million dollars.”

  “My informants told me Kayd had evidently been dealing quietly with A
ngus Squires for some time,” Sam said. “On the same day the cruiser was reported missing, Kayd was going to rendezvous with Squires at a fishing lodge Squires owns on Musket Cay in the Berry Islands. I’d guess Squires would want to make certain Kayd had the money, and perhaps take some of it along to bring here to Nassau to turn over to the men who’d agreed to sell their vote. I suppose that after the deal went through here, Squires would get the rest. He’d want some sort of safeguard. Dealing with Kayd can make anybody uneasy. My sister was a guest aboard that boat, Sir Willis. And there was over three quarters of a million dollars aboard. Four women and three men and money for a bribe. Bribe money has no past. It doesn’t appear on the records. And if nobody is left to report it missing …”

  “But evidently someone is.”

  “I got my information from two men who—go into things like this with cash the revenue people overlook. There were—certain reasons why they were willing to talk to me. But they won’t want to raise a fuss if it’s gone forever. They took a chance. The return was going to be high. They’ll moan a little, lick their wounds and keep their mouths shut. If somebody did go after the money, I can’t believe the information came from them, or from Kayd. I am curious about Squires. If he might be in so much financial trouble he would take—a bigger risk.”

  “Who knows about all this, Boylston?”

  “You and I, sir. Squires. The two men I questioned. And perhaps the two men on your Board who were going to go along with it.”

  “And Rodgers?”

  “I didn’t talk about it to him. My guess would be no. Kayd wouldn’t tell him anything he didn’t have to know.”

  “If Kayd had mentioned it, I am quite confident Rodgers would have terminated representation and come immediately to me.”

  “Sir Willis, do you think Angus Squires could have …”

  “Done them all in? Highly unlikely, I would say. If he needed money badly, he would have gotten more out of the whole thing by going ahead as planned. And, as you know, we have no tax upon income here. I was a bit dubious of his coming in with us on this Ventures thing. Heard some rumors, you know. But no proof, of course. He’s one of the Canadian chaps who got in on that Freeport arrangement in the beginning. And, if you meant could he have mentioned it to anyone capable of violent acts, you must remember that Squires would not talk freely about anything so certain to damage him should it come out. As it has, of course.”