13
FOR A MOMENT or two when they came back into the lighted living room the reaction from what had happened seemed to hold them silent. Gloria sank into the nearest chair as though she no longer had the strength to stand, and Dave, feeling the unsteadiness in his knees, hoped it did not show. He took a long slow breath and let it out carefully as he faced the stranger.
“I still don’t know what that was all about,” he said, not trying to hide his relief, “but I’m sure as hell glad you came. I think they meant business.”
“Yes, I think they did.… My name’s Sam Brennan.”
“Brennan?” said Dave and then, remembering: “Oh—you bought a boat from Mike in Trinidad. You gave him a note for seventeen hundred dollars.”
“That’s right. That’s one reason I’m here.”
“Then you didn’t know he was killed last night?”
“I heard someone talking about it but not until just a little while ago. What happened?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you,” Dave said. “What are you drinking?”
“Whisky if you have it.”
Dave brought the drink and gave Brennan a brief account of what he knew about the murder. He could tell now that he had been right about the weathered look on the man’s lean face. The hair was sandy and somewhat shaggy, and there was a stubble of reddish beard along the jaw. The light-colored eyes were set deeply in their wrinkled framework beneath the sun-bleached brows, and the hand that held the drink was big and work hardened.
Brennan nodded when Dave finished. “I came in this afternoon,” he said. “Rode up as a deck passenger on a Harrison Line freighter bound for England. It was all I could afford. I took a bus out just now hoping Mrs. Ludlow would be here.”
“You couldn’t have picked a better time,” Gloria said as she finished her drink. “I haven’t even been out here in months. But what did they want with Mike? What on earth were they going to do?”
“Did you see that small schooner anchored out there?”
“Yes,” Dave said.
“Well, they came up from Venezuela. I don’t know just how they knew about this bungalow but a lot of Venezuelans vacation over here and I guess it wouldn’t be hard to get the word and identify this place. If you haven’t been around those South American types they’re sometimes hard to understand, but they had this idea that they were going to take you aboard”—he looked at Dave—“and sail you down to Trinidad and through one of the Bocas and into the Gulf of Paria. Somewhere between Cedros Bay and the Venezuelan mainland they were going to dump you over, probably with some weights around your neck.”
“They were going to do this to Mike?” Dave asked in slow astonishment.
“That’s the way it looks.”
“But for God’s sake, why?” Gloria said.
“It’s kind of a long story,” Brennan said. “To make you understand it I have to start back aways. Did you know Mike was doing some smuggling?”
“I heard something about it,” Gloria said, “but I haven’t been in Trinidad in over a year. All I know is that Mike came back here about two months ago.”
Brennan started to reach into his coat pocket with his left hand and then he seemed to wince and let the arm move back beside him. He reached cross-handed with his right and took out a pack of cigarettes. Dave moved up to give him a light and Brennan thanked him.
“Do you know where Cedros Bay is?” He inhaled as Dave shook his head, and said: “It’s down close to the southwest corner of Trinidad. It’s not much of a bay but that’s what it’s called and you can get there with a car if you take the last couple of miles at low tide. From here to the Venezuelan mainland isn’t very far.… Do you know what a pirogue is?”
“I’ve seen pictures of them,” Dave said.
“Well, that’s what they use. It may seem kind of a funny craft for smuggling, but there’s a reason for it. You put a bracket on the stern and maybe a forty horsepower outboard and a pirogue can move pretty fast. Also it’s so low in the water that at night a patrol boat would practically have to run you down before you were spotted. Mike had two of these and a little shack that he rented just back from the beach. He’d been smuggling when he could for six or eight months when I bought him out.”
“Smuggling what?”
Brennan grinned. “It’s kind of a two-way operation. When you’re lucky it sometimes works out real good. Have you been in Venezuela lately, say in Caracas?”
“No.”
“Well, if there’s any more expensive place to live I’ve never heard of it. You go into a good hotel in Caracas and for a whisky and soda you pay almost as much as you pay for a bottle in Port of Spain. Same with everything. So from Trinidad to the mainland you take whatever’s available. Small radios, ballpoint pens, cigarettes, anything you can get your hands on. You get a good load of merchandise and you make a nice profit. Of course, the Venezuelan government don’t like it. They have a couple of patrol boats that snoop around now and then and try to stop you, but that’s the chance you take. That’s another good thing about a pirogue; it’s awful easy to unload in a hurry when you have to.”
He took some more of his drink and said: “Coming back you don’t always have passengers but there are some who want to get out of Venezuela from time to time and Mike was glad to oblige them. There are quite a few Chinese in Trinidad, so sometimes you can bring a couple more who are willing to pay. Also there are a lot of Venezuelans who don’t see eye to eye with the government. Sometimes a guy will want to get out pretty bad. Maybe he and some of his friends make the wrong kind of play and if they get caught it’s a long jolt in prison or maybe even standing up against the wall. This part, the Trinidad authorities don’t like. They don’t care much if you take merchandise out of the country but they don’t want you bringing any foreigners in. So when you go one way you watch for the Venezuelan patrol boats and coming back it’s the other way around.
“I knew Mike,” he said, “and I knew about this racket, so I told him once if he wanted to pull out I might buy the business. About eight or nine weeks ago he looked me up. We made a deal for three thousand dollars for the boats and the motors and the lease on the shack. I gave him thirteen hundred and a note for the balance. At the time he seemed pretty jittery, which was unusual for Mike; he was in a hurry to sell and I wondered why. I kept after him until he told me the story.
“A few days before, he’d been bringing back these two Venezuelans when a patrol boat spotted him. He explained what might happen to his passengers, but they wanted to get out of Venezuela so bad they were willing to take the chance. They were off Cedros Bay when it happened and for a while he thought he could make shore and then he saw he couldn’t. If they got grabbed they were all in trouble, but if the passengers could make it on their own there would be no sweat. Now Mike never minded lying a bit if it was to his advantage, but according to him these two said they could swim and went over the side. When the patrol boat nabbed him he was in the clear and he didn’t see his passengers after that.”
He grunted softly. “I still don’t know the truth about the matter but Mike wanted to sell and I bought. I’ve been banging around this part of the world for quite a while,” he said. “I’ve got a third-mate’s ticket and I worked a while on one of those shallow-draft ore carriers that bring bauxite from Surinam to Trinidad. I shipped out now and again when I had to and did a little of this and that, and I thought I might make myself a real nice stake if I was lucky and I was, for a while.
“About a month ago a body was washed ashore not too far from Cedros Point. It turned out to be one of Mike’s passengers. I didn’t know about it at the time. I didn’t know anything until about three weeks ago these same two characters woke me up about two in the morning. They both had guns and I could tell they were ready to use them. They didn’t know Mike but they knew he was tall and sort of blond and while I’m not exactly blond—neither are you for that matter—I’m not brunette and I am tall. I had one hell of a time convin
cing them that I was Sam Brennan. Luckily I had some papers to back up my story and then I got theirs.
“The passenger that got washed up on the beach was their uncle. They said he couldn’t swim. He had no life jacket and they insisted that Mike must have thrown the uncle overboard. They wanted revenge. It was a debt of honor. Nothing would do but that they take Mike out in the Gulf, dump him over, and make sure he didn’t come up. That’s why they went to all this trouble of chartering a schooner and coming up here to get him. They didn’t expect to find you,” he added, glancing at Gloria. “But I don’t think they would have hurt you. They probably would have put you ashore someplace before they took care of Mike.”
“But”—she shook her head—“it all sounds so crazy.”
“Sure it’s crazy,” Brennan said. “A lot of those South Americans are when they get a bug in their head.”
“You came here looking for Mike?” Dave asked.
“Yeah,” Brennan said, “because I had a little trouble a week ago. I had to dump a load of merchandise and I took a slug in the arm before I got away.” He touched the upper part of his left arm gingerly. “It’s okay now. It’s just a little stiff. But I was out of business for a while and it came at a time when I was short of cash. I got thinking about Mike. I thought maybe if I could get up here and warn him about those two characters he might have something I could do for him to pick up a few bucks, or he might knock off a couple hundred from that note. Now”—he tipped one hand sideways—“I don’t know.”
Dave had been thinking while he listened to the story, and the germ of an idea which at first had seemed too wild to contemplate blossomed into something that now seemed somewhat more reasonable. The fact that Sam Brennan had engaged in some extra-legal activities was, in itself, an advantage. He admitted he was hard up and might, therefore, be open to a suggestion. Beyond this was the feeling that once Brennan had been committed to your side, he would remain there; that should the going get tough, he would be a handy man to have around.
“Did you ever do any breaking and entering, Sam?” he asked.
Brennan’s glance steadied and the bleached brows lifted slightly as he gave the question a moment of thought. “I may have,” he said finally. “In an amateurish sort of way. You got something in mind?”
Dave took out the business card Eric Sankar had given him that noon and let Brennan inspect it.
“Do you know him?”
“I know of him,” Brennan said. “From what I’ve heard you probably wouldn’t want to trust him with the family jewels.”
“You know where that address is? … Do you think you’d have much trouble getting into his office?”
“I think it could be done.”
“If you could get down there tonight—” Dave broke off and glanced at his watch. When he saw that it was after eight o’clock and realized it was too late for the New York flight he swore softly. Gloria asked what the matter was and he told her; then said: “Do you think there will be any other flights for Trinidad tonight?”
“Not a regular flight,” she said, frowning. “But there’s quite a lot of traffic in and out of here from time to time. KLM comes in here quite often and Air France and LAV. Why don’t you call the airport and see?”
Dave stood up and started for the telephone and then stopped. “Will you call them, Gloria, please? I want to talk to Sam.”
He took his wallet out as he sat down again next to Brennan. Fortunately he had brought quite a lot of cash with him and he took out four fifty-dollar bills.
“If you can get down there tonight, when could you get out tomorrow?”
“Well—there’s a noon flight that will put me in here about one o’clock.” Brennan had been watching the bills as he spoke and now he moistened his lips. “I won’t need all of that,” he added, indicating the money. “One of those is more than enough to get me down there and back.”
“You want something for your time, don’t you?”
“Well—sure.” Brennan grinned. “Whatever you think is fair.”
Dave gave him two of the bills. He said one was for his fare and the other for his time. If he came back with anything he could have the other hundred.
“Also,” he said, “maybe I could find a way to knock something off that note of yours.”
“Fair enough,” Brennan said. “Now what is it you want?”
Dave told him something about Eric Sankar. He said he had been working for two people in Barbados and he wanted to know if Sankar had done any previous work for them. He gave Brennan a list of names and watched the man write them down.
“If Sankar has been working for any of these he should have carbons of the reports he made for them. That’s all I’m interested in.”
Brennan nodded. He said it shouldn’t be too hard. He said he knew the building where Sankar had his office.
“All right,” Dave said. “And this makes a heel out of me, but I want to be honest with you now. If you get caught—”
Brennan grinned again, and it was a very engaging grin. “I know,” he said. “You’ll deny you ever saw me.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“A guy who is broke has to take chances,” Brennan said in easy agreement. “And anyway, I don’t figure to get caught.”
Gloria, who had been busy at the telephone, started back toward them and the look in her gray eyes told Dave the news was good.
“You’re in luck,” she said. “The BWIA flight is late. It’s just leaving Antigua. You should have time if you get started now.”
“Good,” Dave said and then, as a new thought came to him, he stopped. “What about you?”
“What do you mean, what about me?”
“We were going to have dinner—”
“Forget the dinner,” Gloria said. “This is much more important. I can get something at home and I could use the sleep. I didn’t get much last night.… No, I mean it,” she added when he started to protest. “You take Mr. Brennan with you and then follow me. I’ll take you as far as Hastings and from there on you just stay on the coastal highway until you see the airport sign.”
She collected her bathing suit and towel and stuffed them into the beach bag. By the time Dave had his jacket she had turned off the lights and closed the front door. When she started her car Dave stepped up to the lowered window and told her not to drive too fast and she said she wouldn’t.
14
FROM THE OUTSIDE, the Club Morgan had not changed much since Dave had been there before. The entrance was the same, so was the small attractive bar that overlooked the rows of tables and the dance floor on the lower level. A partition had been knocked out behind the orchestra stage so that the open patio beyond could be seen from where he stood, but the feeling of spacious attractiveness the Morgans had built into the place was still there, and he noticed again the wide and vertical tank with its tropical fish that had been recessed into one of the coral walls.
He had heard that the club had been sold, but as soon as Sam Brennan’s plane had taken off for Trinidad he became aware of his hunger and it was natural that his thoughts should turn here because he remembered that the steaks were always good and the French fried onions were brown and crisp and crumbly. Now, as a tall, bespectacled man in a dinner jacket came up to him he said he’d like dinner if a steak was available.
“Also,” he said, “I’d like very much to see Frank Morgan if I could. Does he ever stop in here?”
“Constantly,” the man said and grinned. “I’ve got his problems now and I guess he’s glad; but if you know Frank you know that if there’s a good night club around he’s going to spend some time in it. He lives only a short distance from here. I can give him a ring if you like.”
“Would you?” Dave said. “I’ll be here a while if he can spare a few minutes. Tell him Dave Payne would like to buy him and his wife a drink. If he doesn’t remember me tell him I was down visiting John Allison four or five years ago.”
He chose a table on the left that wa
s separated from the dance floor by a waist-high wall. There were not too many diners now, but the five-piece orchestra was tuning up and he had an idea there would be more customers later. He ordered a drink after he had told the waiter how he wanted his steak and he was working on a brandy and coffee a half hour later when he saw the broad, muscular figure of Frank Morgan moving toward him. He seemed not to have changed much as they shook hands. The thick gray hair was the same; so was the set of the heavy shoulders and the quick staccato way of speaking.
“I heard you’d sold the club,” Dave said when he had ordered a drink for Morgan. “How do you feel about it now? Do you miss it?”
“Miss it? Hah! It’s the smartest thing I ever did. Now if I come over here and stay up until four in the morning it’s because I want to. It’s one thing in the States when you have a reliable manager. Then you can take a night off when you feel like it. Here Helen and I had to keep tabs on the kitchen, the bar, the cash register, the waiters, and the customers. I don’t know how we did it all those years.” He laughed. “Now when I watch somebody else worry about it I get to laughing inside because I’m so glad to be out of it.”
“How is Helen?”
“Okay except that right now she’s got a cold or a virus or some damn bug. She said to say hello and give her a rain check.… Say, how about Mike Ludlow? A hell of a thing, hunh? I hear you found him. Must have given you a jolt.… What do the police say?”
Dave gave Morgan a sketchy outline of what had happened. He said one of the reasons he had come for dinner was in the hope that he might get a chance to talk to him.
“John Allison said if anyone would know about what was going on, on the island, you would,” he added.
“I don’t know how much I know,” Morgan said, “but in this business you hear a lot of things and—”
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