Westlake, Donald E - Novel 43

by High Adventure (v1. 1)

  Translucent louvers in both windows were slightly open, letting in light and air without permitting a view of what lay outside.

  “Mistah St. Michael,” said the guard, with some odd combination of deference and jocularity, “this be Mistah Whit-man Lem-uel.” Shooing Lemuel into the office, the guard snicked the solid door shut with himself on the outside.

  Mr. St. Michael dropped the year and turned to brood upon Lemuel, who keenly felt his own griminess, his wrinkled clothing and unwashed body and unshaven face. St. Michael, for such a big man in such a hot climate, was absolutely dapper. A thousand sentences rushed through Lemuel’s mind—greetings, queries, demands, suppli- cations—but none seemed precisely suited to the situation, so he remained silent, not even trying to alter the look of desperation and bewilderment and fear he knew to be on his face.

  It was St. Michael at last who spoke, in a mellifluous radio announcer’s voice, saying, “Well, Mister Lemuel, I’ll say this for you. You don’t look a crook.”

  So it was, that was it, his worst fears realized, the Kirby Galway situation, that was it. The terrors that had kept him awake all night were justified; reputation ruined, a dank jail cell his portion forevermore. “Oh, no, sir,” Lemuel said, in that moment a broken man, “no, sir, I am not a crook.”

  “We have heard Americans say that before,” St. Michael told him.

  “It was Galway,” Lemuel said, all in a rush. “Kirby Galway, he lied to me, said all he wanted was my expert opinion, there wasn’t the slightest hint of impropriety until it was too late, I was already there, right there at the temple, the first time he made the suggestion, that’s the—”

  “At the temple?” St. Michael’s eyes gleamed; his interest had been captured. A super-detective, that’s what he must be, a manhunter thrilling to the chase.

  Well, Lemuel wanted no part of it. Let this manhunter chase Kirby Galway, and let Galway try to weasel out of it later, try to pin any of the blame on a respectable scholar like Whitman Lemuel, just let him try. “I don’t know what the girl told you,” he began, “but I was out there strictly—”

  “The girl? Valerie Greene?”

  “Is that her name? Whatever she said, I assure you—”

  “Wait, wait, Mister Lemuel,” St. Michael said, suddenly accorm modating, reassuring. “Sit down here. Begin at the beginning, please.”

  There was a small mahogany desk in the room, and a pair of armless wooden chairs. Lemuel and St. Michael sat across the desk from one another, and Lemuel told him everything, every single thing from his first meeting in New York with Kirby Galway and the girl—Valerie Greene, yes, both there, but they gave no indication they were together at that time—through the subsequent meeting with Galway alone in New York, Lemuel’s agreement to come to Belize to inspect Galway’s temple, his arrival, their traveling out together, the unexpected appearance of the girl, Galway’s astonishing behavior thereafter, and Lemuel’s decision to have nothing more to do with the whole dubious affair. He gave St. Michael this entire history, and almost everything he said was the absolute truth. Only in one small detail did he lie; in his version of events, Kirby Galway had approached him exclusively as an expert, had asked for an opinion as to the value and authenticity of the material he had found on his land, and had not suggested smuggling or the illegal sale of Mayan antiquities until they were already standing on the temple itself, until, in fact, just before the girl arrived.

  “So it’s there, in other words,” St. Michael said, when Lemuel was done. “The temple is there.”

  “Well, yes, of course.”

  St. Michael brooded some more. Did he believe Lemuel? If he didn’t, it was still possible that Lemuel was too unimportant to bother with further. Particularly if Lemuel volunteered to be, to do—what was the legal term for selling out your partners? Oh, yes—to give evidence for the prosecution, that was it. “I’ll be happy, if necessary,” Lemuel said, smiling a bit as man to man, “to give evidence for the prosecution, though of course, with my reputation at stake, I’d prefer to have as little to do with this sorry mess as—”

  “Tell me about,” St. Michael interrupted, as though he hadn’t heard Lemuel talking at all, “tell me about, mmmm—” He withdrew a flat white envelope from his inner jacket pocket and consulted something written on its back: “Witcher and Feldspan.”

  “Who?”

  “Alan Witcher and— Here, see for yourself.”

  St. Michael tossed the envelope across the table. It landed face up, and Lemuel had time to see that it was addressed to one Innocent St. Michael at some Belizean government department, and that the printed return address was a bank in the Cayman Islands. But then St. Michaels reached out, turned it over, and tapped the pen notations on the back, saying, “That side.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Lemuel drew the envelope closer, to read what was written there: Alan Witchery Gerrold Feldspan, 8 Christopher Street, New York, NY 10014. “Who are these people?”

  “That’s what I am asking you, Mister Lemuel. Who are they, and why did they tape-record their conversation with Kirby Galway?”

  “But I have no idea, I’ve never heard—”

  St. Michael’s big palm boomed down onto the desktop with a crack of doom, so forceful that everything in the room jumped, including Lemuel, who very nearly went over backwards out of his chair. His large round face all thunderclouds, St. Michael roared, “Do not toy with me, Mister Lemuel, or it will go very badly with you, I assure you. You can spend a month in that little cell, if you think you’d like it, if you—”

  “No, please!” Lemuel leaned forward, gasping for breath, ribcage pressed against the rough edge of the desk. “I’m telling you the truth! I swear I am! I’ll tell you anything you want, anything you need to know!”

  “Tell me about Witcher and Feldspan, then, and stop wasting my time!”

  “But I don’t know them! Honest to God, oh, God help me, oh, what am I going to do, I should never have, it’s all Galway’s fault, he kept saying this and saying that, and that girl, I don’t know what she told you, she’s as bad as he is, they’re in it together, I know they—”

  “Oh, be quiet,” St. Michael said, all his fury gone as abruptly as it had arrived, like a summer storm. Shaking his head, he said, “You’re telling the truth now, all right. You don’t know any more than you just said.”

  “That’s right!”

  “So Kirby brings down those pansy boys. And then he brings down you. And he knows Valerie Greene, but he don’t like her so much. And when you see her, you get the wind up, you figure you gonna be arrested for what you planned, stealing our antiquities, you try to run—

  “I never, never had any—”

  St. Michael pointed a thick finger at Lemuel. “You come down here, at your expense, because Kirby’s got no money to throw away on strangers, your expense, just to play expert, that’s all it is. You tell that story, Mister Lemuel,” St. Michael said, and smiled a thin and dangerous smile. “You tell that story in a Belize court, Mister Lemuel.”

  “It’s the truth,” Lemuel said weakly. But the Belize court loomed in his mind, as foreign as Brobdignag, as implacable as the Inquisition.

  “Mister Lemuel,” St. Michael said, “I can arrange to have you released now, send you back to the hotel. You take a shower, calm down, check out like anybody else, get on the plane, go back to the States. You can do that, Mister Lemuel.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Lemuel said.

  “But, do you know,” St. Michael went on, “do you know what you cant do, Mister Lemuel?”

  “Wha—what?”

  “Get within two blocks of the American embassy,” St. Michael said. “That you can’t do. Don’t even think about turning your head in that direction.”

  “Oh, I won’t,” Lemuel said, in utter sincerity. “Believe me, Mister St. Michael, I’ve learned my lesson. You’ll never—” His voice broke; he started again: “You’ll never ever hear from me again.”

  30 BEFORE
THE STORM

  When the alarm went off, Kirby moaned, thrashed about in the confined space, smacked gummy lips, and reluctantly opened gummy eyes just long enough to find the damn wind-up alarm clock on Cynthia’s dashboard and push in the button to stop the awful noise. His sticky eyelids immediately squeezed shut again, but too late; he had seen the clock face, he knew it was 9:30 tomorrow morning, he knew he was awake.

  Hell and damn. The smell of marijuana all about him was hot and dry and pungent. Only a part of the plane was under the tree branches, and the metal fuselage had conducted heat forward from the sun-drenched tail section. He hated to sleep in the plane, anyway; there was never enough room for his long rangy body, and he always awoke stiff and sore, with aches that would take hours to fade. Still reluctant to accept consciousness, pawing in his door pocket for his sunglasses, he looked out and around at this little comer of the world.

  The Florida Everglades. East of Cape Romano, south of Fort Myers, the Everglades was a flat and soggy confusion of land, some of it still pristine uncleared swamp, some dry scrub covered with dwarf pines and dusty shrubs, some reclaimed into citrus groves, some dried to grazing land, supporting horses or cattle. Kirby was parked at the narrow end of a long paper-airplane-shaped pasture flanked by bog, hemmed in by gnarled trees. Horses used to graze here, unfenced except at the wide farther end, held in by the swampy footing on both sides, but the land had changed ownership a couple of years ago and now it lay deserted.

  Or almost deserted. Three young deer, adolescent males, grazed around Cynthia’s nose, looking up without much interest when Kirby began to move around inside the plane, but then bounding off into the swamp when he opened his door.

  A hot day already, and quite humid. The insect repellent he’d put on three and a half hours ago, when he’d landed here in darkness and set the alarm and tried to get caught up on some of his lost sleep, had faded by now, and he had a few nice fresh bites under his eyes and between his knuckles. Itchy, hungry, irritated, weary, aching all over, he clambered awkwardly out of the plane and down onto the faintly spongy ground, where he held one of Cynthia’s struts and did some not-so'very-deep knee bends to limber up.

  The bog on the right side of the field was stagnant, but on the left ran a narrow course of moving cool water, in which Kirby washed his face and hands, brushed his teeth with his finger, soaked his hair, and gargled. With water running down his neck and under his shirt, feeling slightly better, he walked back to the plane and ate the food he’d brought along: an apple and a healtlvfood carob candy bar. He was just finishing when he saw the car approach from the wide end of the pasture.

  The right car: a white Cadillac Seville with Dade County plates. Nevertheless, Kirby felt the same tension he always did at this point. He was dealing in stolen goods, and in things of great value; at least, that was the perception. People in such occupations sometimes were killed by their partners or their customers. Kirby had tried to be careful in his choice of clients, but one could never be absolutely certain. Not absolutely certain.

  There seemed to be one person alone in the car, which was the way it was supposed to be. The Cadillac approached, moving slowly on the soft uneven ground, and Kirby squinted as he looked through the windshield, at last recognizing the driver. His name was Mortmain, he was somewhere the wrong side of 70, and he was dapper and elegant, from his full head of carefully waved white hair over a broad-browed, deeply tanned face set off by humorous blue eyes, through the white ascot and navy blue blazer and white slacks and white shoes which were his habitual costume. He was “retired,” Kirby didn’t know from what, and he was the go-between for a customer of Kirby’s in Los Angeles, an artist/designer/interior decorator/antique dealer whose clients were mostly celebrities, people for whom smuggled Mayan statuary was not the only illegal material from Latin America to be of more than passing interest.

  Kirby walked around to the right side of the Cadillac as it came to a stop. Glancing first into the rear seatwell to be certain no one was hiding there—an automatic reflex by now—he slid into the air conditioned interior. “Morning, Mister Mortmain,” he said.

  “Good morning, Kirby.” Mortmain must have been quite a burly man in his prime, and was still pretty big, with a deep mellow voice and large-knuckled tanned hands on which the liver spots could almost have been youthful freckles. Reaching to his blazer’s inside pocket, bringing out a thick white envelope, he said, “Bobbi apologizes for the amount. He swears it was the best he could get. The recession and all that.”

  “Mm-hm,” Kirby said, taking the envelope. As usual it contained, in addition to his share of the sales, in cash, Xeroxed copies of Bobbi’s customers checks to Bobbi (their famous names and signatures discreetly blacked out), so Kirby would know he was getting a full count. Of course, there was no reason for Bobbi not to ask his customers to pay him in two checks; he could mention some vague tax reason, for instance. But that was all right; Kirby assumed his clients would cheat a little, it was part of the game.

  While Kirby opened the envelope, counted the cash and looked at the checks, Mortmain carefully backed and filled, turning the Cadillac around and backing it into Cynthia’s left armpit, where the car’s trunk would be nearest the pilot’s door.

  “No,” Kirby said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Mister Mortmain, but no.” This time, Bobbi had gone too far.

  Mortmain looked mildly surprised, politely concerned. “Something wrong?”

  “This is way too little,” Kirby said. “There’s another man I was talking to, he says he can get me a lot better prices.”

  “People always make promises, Kirby,” Mortmain said.

  “Maybe. Or maybe the recession didn’t hit as hard in Chicago.” “Is that where your friend is?”

  “I can’t give you this shipment,” Kirby said.

  Now Mortmain was surprised. “You’ll fly it back with you?”

  “No. I’ll leave it’with friends in Florida, and call the other guy.” Mortmain sighed. “Well,” he said, “that’s up to you, of course. I know Bobbi will be very disappointed.”

  Kirby didn’t know the precise relationship between Mortmain and Bobbi, whether Mortmain were merely a messenger, or somehow a partner, or possibly even the brains of the operation. It was hard to negotiate with somebody who might not even be present. Nevertheless, Kirby said, “Bobbi won’t be as disappointed as I am right now. I’ll tell you what I think, I think Bobbi’s getting second checks from people. I thought he was honest, but now I don’t know.”

  Was Mortmain amused? Kirby’s occasional displays of naivete and stupidity were believed precisely because no one could imagine him deliberately painting himself in such colors. Mortmain nodded in perhaps exaggerated solemnity, considering what Kirby had said, and then said, “Kirby, I don’t think Bobbi would do a thing like that but, to be honest, I couldn’t swear to it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kirby said, and reached for the door handle. The air conditioning in here was very nice.

  “Wait a minute,” Mortmain said. “I can’t let it end like this. Could you wait for me to go phone Bobbi?”

  “I can’t,” Kirby said. “1 still have to deliver that other stuff.” “Of course.” Mortmain considered. “I’m going out on a limb here,” he said. “I can’t really speak for Bobbi, but I think I must. He’s done very well from your relationship.”

  “He sure has,” Kirby said, sounding bitter.

  “Well, so have you,” Mortmain pointed out. Gesturing at the envelope in Kirby’s hand, he said, “How much more do you think you should have had?”

  “A thousand dollars would just begin to cover it.”

  “Split the difference with me,” Mortmain said. “Don’t end the relationship now. I promise you I’ll talk with Bobbi, and I’ll tell him I guaranteed you another five hundred dollars from the last shipment. And I’ll tell him about your friend in Chicago, and say he’d better find some more generous customers from now on.”

  Kirby would accept this offer,
of course, there being no friend in Florida with whom to stash the goods, and the $500 being a bonus he hadn’t expected, but he let Mortmain watch him brood about it for a while. Mortmain could see his furrowed brow, could see him gradually overcoming his sense of grievance and deciding to take the offer. “All right,” he said at last.

  “I’ll talk to Bobbi this afternoon,” Mortmain promised.

  “Fine.” Kirby gave him a frank look: “I’ll tell you the truth, Mister Mortmain, I wish it was you I was dealing with.”

  Mortmain gave a modest laugh, and Kirby got out of the car.

  Prong said the Cadillac’s trunk, opening itself as Kirby came around; Mortmain had pushed the button in the glove compartment. Kirby unloaded all the parcels, stowing them carefully in the clean empty trunk of the Cadillac, aware of Mortmain’s eyes on him in the rearview mirror. Finished, he slammed the lid and waved to Mortmain through the rear window. Mortmain waved back and the Cadillac rolled slowly away.

  From here on, it got easier. Cynthia being almost out of fuel, she was much lighter now, and lifted easily from the pasture. Nine miles and seven minutes later, he was circling over another field, where the two slat-sided farm trucks and the half-dozen men were waiting.

  This part of the job was all cut-and-dried, the negotiations having been completed long ago, nobody here but low-level peons. While Cynthia was unloaded and her fuel tank refilled from jerry cans brought out on one of the trucks, Kirby lay in the shade of his baby’s wing, and thought about life. It was complicated, he decided, but amusing. All in all, not bad.