by Hugh B. Cave
“You Gleeson?” Kimm said.
The fellow rubbed his eyes, blew breath into his cupped hands and sniffed it and made a face. “The stuff they sell you for liquor in this man’s town!” He leaned far over and pulled a pair of mud-caked boots from under the bed, began to pull them on. “What d’you want? Who are you, anyway?”
“The name’s Kimm. I want transportation to an island.”
“Huh?”
Kimm repeated it. Gleeson scratched his head and looked around him, as though wondering what time—or perhaps what day of the week—it was. “What island?”
“A place called Angel’s Acre.”
Gleeson got unsteadily to his feet and went to the door. He looked out. “Hell of a night for it,” he said pleasantly enough. “Cost you money, mister.” He scowled at Kimm and, despite the red whorls, his eyes were shrewd. “Forty bucks. Thirty, anyway. That’s a hell of a stretch of water, full of shoals. You got a drink?”
Kimm had been tipped off by the clerk at the hotel. He produced a pint, quietly unscrewed the cap and passed it over. Without making an issue of it, Gleeson killed half the pint before needing a breath, then took another swig, rinsed his mouth out and spat. “Thirty bucks O. K.?”
Kimm gave him three tens. Gleeson pulled on a torn blue sweater, covered that with a heavy leather jacket that smelled of fish, and they went out together into the rain. Kimm marveling at the man’s ability to walk without staggering.
Gleeson’s boat was a commercial fisherman. You could smell her fifty yards away, and the smell got worse as you approached. It wormed its way into Kimm’s stomach and he desperately wanted a drink but knew better than to risk one.
You got used to the smell, though. After a while, with the cough of the engine in his ears and the keel rolling under him, with the few winking lights of Key West smothered by a veil of rain and only empty gurgling blackness around him, Kimm became acclimated. He sucked a cigarette, shielding it with his hand.
Gleeson sat with one arm looped over the tiller. He consulted no chart; the boat had no compass. Every now and then he raised his head, peered into the dark and gave the tiller a pull or a shove. This appeared to be an event in his life. After each such operation, he calmly tipped the pint to his lips and took a nip out of it.
Kimm said, “What kind of guy is this Miguel Reurto? You know?”
“I never met him.”
“This quite an island he has?”
“Small. Damned hard to get to. House on it, big house, couple of smaller buildings and a place for planes to land. Every now and then he throws a party, and, boy, they’re rip-snorters. You can hear ’em clear to Bimini.”
“He come to Key West often?”
Gleeson shrugged. “I wouldn’t know him if I saw him.”
Kimm sat in silence for a while. “Who’s on the island now?”
“Search me,” Gleeson said.
It began to rain harder. Kimm wished he were in a warm bed somewhere, with a hot-water bottle between his feet and some hot toddies in his stomach. He risked a nip at the bottle and regretted it instantaneously. He stood up to get rid of it and the boat lurched under him, with a grinding sound like crushed stone under a steam-roller. The boat shuddered, lost its headway. The sea turned it around and began to slap at it.
“Done it,” Gleeson said. “We’re a-ground.” He began to curse. He had a nice vocabulary.
Kimm stared at him for a while and sat down again. He said, “So what do we do now? Sit?”
Gleeson did a lot of things, all of which indicated that he had no love for the boat and cared little what happened to it. He did everything but tear its bottom out. Finally he gave up and turned his attention whole-heartedly to what was left of the pint.
“Maybe the tide will help us,” he said.
Kimm stooped and went into the cabin. He found a heavy, odorous blanket, lay down and pulled it over him. After a while he dozed off… . When daylight came he was chilled to the bone and his teeth were rattling.
He put aside the blanket and looked out. The sea was like an inland pond, mirror-still and shedding a thin gray mist. Gleeson was asleep and the boat was drifting. “Hey!” Kimm croaked.
Half an hour later he got his first view of Angel’s Acre.
It was a ghostly place at that hour, with crooked cocoanut palms leaning against the mist, the house a white blur struggling to take shape. Gleeson ran his boat against the pier and Kimm glumly noted that no other boat was tied there. He looked around, scowling, and saw no other craft anywhere.
He clambered up on the pier and said, “Stick around. If I’m too long gone, we’ll up the ante.” Having trouble with his legs, he headed for the house. The mist licked at him.
It was as modern as tomorrow, that house, and when Kimm pushed the bell button, chimes inside played a melody that sounded like the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth. He recalled uneasily that those particular notes, in Beethoven, were supposed to represent Fate Knocking at the Portals. He didn’t feel like Fate. He had an idea Fate had outmaneuvered him and was now in Key West, putting Fern Macomber aboard the Milly Mae. This would raise the blood pressure of Julius Macomber considerably.
The door opened noiselessly and Kimm looked into an aged, cadaverous face that wore no expression. He said, “Mr. Reurto in?”
The eyes of the face widened. “Who are you, sir?”
“Abel Kimm. It’s important as hell that I—”
“I see, sir. Please come in, sir.”
The cadaver led Kimm down a broad white hall into a room that was all fireplace. You could have your modern furnishings, Kimm thought, scowling around. You could have your tipsy ceilings and pink walls, your inlaid floors and plate-glass windows. This room had them and it gave him the willies. He sat down.
The cadaver said,“It is my belief, sir, that Mr. Reurto is not at home. I shall attempt to find out.” He didn’t risk a smile; it might have caused his face to crumble and fall away in a mist of powder. He went away.
Kimm heard a man singing.
The sound came closer. It was not good singing. It came through the door and its maker stopped short, blinked at Kimm and said, “Well, well, well!”
P. K. Esterhood didn’t look like a money-money man at that moment, but he was one. One of the biggest and best. Right now his stock form was encased in a dressing-gown of robin’s-egg blue and his round, good-natured, pug-nosed face hid behind a mask of shaving cream. He had a blue-bordered towel over his arm and a safety razor in his hand. His sandy hair hung wetly.
He said, “Well!” again, and added, “Of all people, you!” “So you’re in this, too,” Kimm said. Esterhood dabbed at his face with the towel, hung the
towel on a lamp and sat down, showing his hairy legs. His smile was beautiful to behold, but he had smiled that way for years, while crushing all opposition. He had the build of a fullback, the face of a curious boy, the voice of a female soprano, and the heart of a steam-roller.
His presence on Angel’s Acre meant no good for Julius Macomber. He and Macomber had been storming each other’s money-bag fortresses for years.
“I take it,” Kimm said grimly, “you’re cutting a throat or two. You wouldn’t be here, else.”
“I like it here. The fishing is grand.”
“The fishing is grand in Lauderdale, and off Block Island. Maybe you can tell me what’s up, Esterhood.”
“But of course.”
“Reurto, for instance. And Macomber’s daughter.”
“They’re in love,” Esterhood beamed.
“With what?”
“Why, with each other, of course. Don’t tell me Julius is angry!”
“Julius,” Kimm said, lapping the end of a cigarette, “is having kittens. Striped kittens. No doubt that delights you.”
Esterhood chuckled. “Julius was having a little trouble with the government’s Foreign Trade Committee when I left. I had a talk with him, you know, and he was worried. And how he was worried! They had him on the carp
et for selling all kinds of contraband to a couple of firms in South America. He asked me to go to bat for him.”
“Like hell he did. When a hurricane threatens, you don’t barricade the door with a keg of dynamite.”
“Well,” Esterhood said, “no, you don’t. But Julius really was desperate. He didn’t have the slightest idea where these wild charges came from, but the government lads believed them, apparently, and it was up to Julius to prove them false. He said something about needing his daughter for a witness … but I suppose everything’s patched up now, eh?”
“You know better.”
“I do, at that.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Kimm said, “if you were the little man in the wood pile. Would you?”
“Nothing ever surprises me,” Esterhood beamed.
“One thing I like about you, you’re honest. You—”
The cadaver came into the room and Kimm was silent. The cadaver bowed, and said with all the emotion at his command, “It grieves me, sir, to say that Mr. Reurto is not at home. I have no idea when to expect him.”
“He left early this morning,” Esterhood said, “in the cruiser.”
“With Fern?”
“I wasn’t up.”
Kimm looked at the cadaver and said, “Is Miss Fern Macomber here?”
“No, sir.”
Kimm thought it over and stood up.
He decided the cadaver was telling the truth. He thought probably Reurto and Macomber’s star witness were already aboard the Milly Mae, bound for a destination unknown. P. K. Esterhood was probably behind the move, or a part of it, but there was nothing whatever to be gained by tossing accusations at the man. Nor was there any point in a further sojourn on Angel’s Acre.
“O. K.,” Kimm said. “I’m the worm under the eight ball.” Deep in thought, he paraded out. He made for the pier.
Gleeson, the Great Unwashed, blinked at him with red-veined eyes and said, “Where to now?”
“Back.”
“Good,” Gleeson said. “It’s after breakfast time and there ain’t a drop on board.”
The Milly Mae was gone. Kimm disconsolately gazed at the vacant pier to which she’d been made fast, then walked over to Sadie’s and put away a paltry breakfast of ham, eggs, hot cakes and coffee. His appetite would return, he told himself, if he could dope out some way of getting Fern Macomber off the Milly Mae and transporting her to New York. Because, obviously, this whole business was a gigantic frame calculated to wreck the empire of Fern’s father, with more than one jackal ready and waiting to profit thereby. And Julius Macomber, when you got to know him, wasn’t such a bad sort at all. He didn’t deserve such a fate.
Kimm pondered all the angles. About ten o’clock he knocked again on the door of Gleeson’s waterfront shack. “Got a proposition for you,” he bluntly told the fisherman.
Gleeson, his breakfast finished and the empty bottle parked on the soap box, grinned pleasantly without disturbing himself. He was at ease on the bed.
“This morning,” Kimm said, seeking a place to sit, “the Milly Mae, with Captain Bayha, left Key West, destination unknown. Think we could catch up with her?”
“How?”
“I’m asking you.”
“That boat,” Gleeson grunted, “has been clear to the Azores. How in hell would I know where to look for her?”
“I don’t believe she’ll head for the Azores this time. If we could cruise around …”
The Great Unwashed spat derisively. “Hell, what you need is a plane, mister. But if you want to hire my boat, O. K.” He stood up, reached for his boots. Kimm waved him down again.
“Wait a minute. That’s an idea.”
“What is?”
“A plane,” Kimm said. “Maybe I won’t need you after all.” He rose gingerly from the soap box and opened the door.
“You get a plane,” Gleeson said, “and I’ll pilot it for you. Versatile, that’s me.” He grinned. “I raised plenty hell with a flying coffin in the war. The last war. And I can even play an accordion.”
Kimm hired a battered cab with a Cuban driver to take him along the waterfront, past sponge fishermen and turtle-crawls, to the plane basin. He liked Key West, wished he were in a better mood to appreciate its unique attractions. A big silver ship dipped out of the sky and glided overhead, settled down on the water as the cab stopped. Kimm gave it only a glance.
He gave it more than a glance a few moments later. Out on a pier, he was dickering with the tow-headed owner of a small red seaplane when the silver ship’s passengers came ashore in a launch. Kimm stared at the tall, stoop-shouldered man climbing the ladder. Abruptly he turned his back. The fellow strode past without a glance.
With a grunt of apology to the towhead, Kimm about-faced and gave pursuit.
He kept his distance, though. When the tall man approached the cab, Kimm hung back. The cab rattled off with its passenger. Kimm found another.
Half an hour later, with the second cabby’s assistance, he located the first cabby and asked pertinent questions. The tall man had gone to the Colonial. Kimm went there and registered.
Mr. Paul Bibeault, the book told him, had taken room
217. Kimm took 219. His luggage, he explained, would be along later. He found a phone booth, called New York, and got Julius Macomber.
“Things,” Kimm said, “are happening. You know Bibeault is down here?”
“Down where?”
“Key West. And P. K. Esterhood is whiling away his time on Reurto’s island. I don’t like it, Macomber. Unless something big were in the air, those two vultures would be in New York, sipping weak tea and letting underlings do their footwork. What’s up?”
Macomber had a trick of hissing through his teeth while thinking over the phone. He hissed now and the hiss was ugly.
“Damn it, Kimm! If only I could get my teeth into this! But I’m stuck here. If I made a move to leave New York, I’d be jumped on.”
“What about Bibeault and Esterhood?”
“Those two,” Macomber growled, “stand to make a fortune if I’m cleaned out. Vultures, just as you called them. The difference is, Esterhood cuts throats with a smile, Bibeault does it furtively, in the dark. If that’s any difference. Damn it, where’s my daughter?”
Kimm hesitated before answering that one. If he told what appeared to be the truth—that Fern and Reurto had carried out their threat to elope and were now honeymooning aboard the Milly Mae—Julius might go off the deep end, defy the gods, and make a desperate attempt to reach Key West. That would do no good and might cause a distinct upheaval.
“I can’t find your daughter,” Kimm said.
“You’ve got to find her! Man, think of what I’m up against! They’re accusing me of secret dealings with a foreign government, of selling contraband, of half a dozen other things! Their whole case rests on some letters they’ve got, letters supposedly written by my daughter! If she isn’t here to deny those letters, I’m sunk! You hear me, I’m sunk!” He paused to gulp a breath. “Where is my daughter? Where is she, Kimm?”
Kimm explained patiently that Fern Macomber was on a boat somewhere; that he, Kimm, was doing his best to locate the boat and hoped to succeed. He talked for some time, hung up and was damp with perspiration. He went up to his room.
Paul Bibeault’s room was next door, and judging by the sounds that seeped through the wall, Bibeault was in it. Kimm sat.
It stood to reason that Bibeault had not journeyed all the way from New York merely to view the beauties of Key West. The man had come to attend to some business, probably to meet someone.
After the night aboard Gleeson’s boat, Kimm longed to stretch out, turn his face to the wall and snooze. He didn’t. He thought Bibeault would probably be going out; then there would be a job of tailing to do.
Bibeault went out. Kimm slipped from the room and followed him. The tall man went downstairs to the hotel dining-room, sat alone at a table for two and ordered lunch. He ordered turtle steak.
He wished he were ten years younger.
The girl was expensively and gorgeously dressed in Fifth Avenue clothes, but was not an American. Her hair-do was Spanish, her hair and eyes were black as polished ebony. She was small, slim. She should be on a moonlit balcony, Kimm thought, with some handsome bull-fighter strumming a guitar down below. She seemed unusually interested in Paul Bibeault.
Suddenly there were two men, not one, at Bibeault’s table. Kimm blinked. The newcomer was Miguel Reurto!
Kimm thought he was dreaming.
The two men talked, and it was obvious they had a lot of talking to do. Kimm caught none of it. Once, just once, the voice of Miguel Reurto, sharply argumentative, reached him with a few words, but a waiter chose that moment to begin clearing off a table.
After a while Bibeault rose, went out. His face was stormy.
Reurto had cognac and coffee after that, leisurely smoked a long black cigarette, then carefully napkinned his mouth and mustache, and stood up. He turned to leave the dining-room and caught for the first time the steady gaze of the girl at the other table. He stopped as if stabbed.
The girl rose. She was not smiling, Kimm noted. Her face was a mask, and the only barometer of her emotions was the hand that held her purse. The hand was trembling, its knuckles white and bloodless.
She stepped up to Reurto and spoke to him. He nodded. They went out together and Kimm followed.
They went into the lobby and sank onto a divan which, from Kimm’s viewpoint, was the worst in the place. He could not get near them without betraying his intentions. He sat and smoked and watched them. They talked.
Reurto did most of the talking. The girl’s face remained a mask.
After a while the girl stood up and walked to the stairs. She went up them. Reurto savagely crushed out a cigarette and strode away in another direction. Kimm elected not to follow him, strolled instead to the desk and said softly to the clerk, “The young lady. Does she come here often?”