A Touch of Danger

by James Jones

  “Does he live here?”

  Oh, no. Not him. Tsatsos too small for him. Lived in Athens. But he had a big villa on the mainland, there, somewhere behind Glauros, the town there.

  I squinted at it, the town, a mile or two away on the mainland shore.

  But he was never there, Dmitri said. He used his Agoraphobe sometimes, but he chartered it to pay for its maintenance. A very careful man with money, Mr. Kronitis.

  “That’s probably why he’s so rich,” I said.

  “You did not give a tip for the coffee,” Dmitri said.

  “No,” I said. “Because you charged me too much for it in the first place.”

  He shrugged, and wiped his hands. On that apron. He did not even get angry. I turned on my heel and got away from there.

  On the dock I stood a minute and looked at the Daisy Mae. Looking at it, I could forget the Dmitris of this world. I felt like a kid whose daddy has given him 50 cents to spend at the candy store any way he wanted. She lay there, floating and tugging at her mooring on the slightly moving, dirty harbor water, touched lightly by the soft air of early morning. I pulled her in, long-stepped on board her, unlocked her with the keys, and went about the ritual of getting her ready. Almost automatically I began to whistle. Working, I could not remember having had so much fun in a long time. And all alone. I washed down the deck, which didn’t really need it, and then swabbed it and then washed down the coach-roof and swabbed that. I checked out the toilet in its cubicle and cleaned it. I got the ice for the ice chest at the taverna, replenished the bar, stowed my shirt and shoes below, and checked out the motor. I unmoored her and pulled myself out hand over hand along the anchor line, freed the anchor, shipped it and washed it down. In the swiftly heating sun I left for town, threading out through the other craft.

  The run up to the Port, along the blinding, white-white, sun-laved face of the town, was delicious.

  In the Port I ran her in alongside a vegetable caique, and climbed up onto the stone, cobbled wharf of the shopping district, still infested with its hippie kids, and bought a paper and went up to the shaded terrace of cafes.

  No sooner had I ordered a Campari-soda and settled down with my paper than the blond-maned Adonis Steve and his short-haired sidekick Chuck with the thick glasses sauntered by, in embroidered Mongol vests and shorts and sandals.

  It was as if they had been looking for me. Apparently, they had been strolling up and down, waiting. As soon as they saw me, Steve came walking over, Chuck at his heels. Steve slipped into a seat at the table, and Chuck slipped into another. Without asking.

  “I want to talk to you,” Steve said.

  “You do?” I said. “Then why don’t you sit down? Better yet, why don’t you ask? Though I’m not sure I want to talk to you. I see your boy Cyclops here found himself a nice pigeon to beat up last night. Hello, Cyclops.”

  “Listen, mister,” Chuck started, and pushed his glasses up with his middle finger.

  “I see you take good care of those glasses,” I said. “Is that the only pair you’ve got? You’d be in trouble if somebody ever broke them for you, wouldn’t you?”

  “Mister,” Chuck said.

  “They look like they’re made from the bottoms of two Coca-Cola bottles,” I said.

  “Mister.”

  “Say one more word to me,” I said pleasantly, “one more word, Cyclops, and I’ll break them for you myself. I’d be pleased to.” I really meant it. I was boiling angry.

  “Shut up, Chuck,” Steve growled.

  “That’s better,” I said. “Then next, why don’t you two ill-mannered loutish children just bug out of here. Before you get me irritated and I wrap this iron table around your collective heads. I’m perfectly capable of it.”

  “I said I wanted to talk to you,” Steve said. He looked at me with his strange, sort of sightless, non-seeing eyes. “Cut the funnies. You were seen with Girgis last night.”

  “Your intelligence service reported that, did they?” I said.

  “I don’t know what your action is with him,” Steve said patiently. “But I want to warn you. Don’t go getting any ideas about tying up with him. Or about going into business with him, see? You will only do yourself harm. He’s very likely to be going out of business, very soon. He’s going to find himself in some trouble. None of the kids like him. He’s nasty to them. And he’s starting to overcharge them. He can’t last long without some boom being lowered.”

  “And who is going to do the lowering of this boom?” I said.

  “I’m going to see to it myself. So if you have any ideas about fading some of his action, forget it.” His sightless-seeming eyes stared at me.

  “Or I’ll get the same treatment,” I said.

  “That’s right.”

  “And what kind of treatment is that?”

  “Never mind. It won’t be pleasant. And it’ll be expensive.”

  I looked at him thoughtfully, or pretended to. “I’ll keep in mind what you said. I will keep it well in the forefront of my mind.”

  “You do that.” He made as if to get up. So did Chuck.

  “Tell me,” I said. “You said you had to have a Greek partner in that bar of yours.”

  “I didn’t say it. You did.”

  “Okay, I said it. Who is this partner? What’s his name?”

  “Uh, who wants to know?”

  “I want to know. Me. I’m curious.”

  “You wouldn’t know him, anyway. Name’s Kronitis. Doesn’t even live here.”

  “Oh, I know him. Leonid Kronitis. Has a big villa over back of Glauros,” I said. Steve looked surprised. “Owns ships. Owns that big sailing yacht Agoraphobe. Sure, I know Kronitis. Matter of fact, I was with him at a party last night.”

  For a moment doubt flashed on his face. Then he shook his head. “No you weren’t. You couldn’t have been. I was with him myself.”

  It looked like it was two liars each trying to outbluff the other, to me. “I see. Maybe it was two other people.”

  “You remember what I said.”

  “I’ll remember, son.” I gave him my No. 2 amused smile. The one without the contempt. “You know, I don’t see any difference between your generation and any other generation. There isn’t any, is there?”

  “Sure there is. For one thing, we don’t believe in violence,” Steve said flatly. He grinned at me.

  I laughed. “So long, Cyclops,” I said as they moved away.

  I sat and finished my Campari and thought about this new wrinkle for a while. Nothing much of any importance came to me. The shaded, half-crowded terrace of tables was pleasing. My Paris Herald and Rome Daily American had lost their flavor, but I was damned if I would let them ruin my Campari-soda. Were these dumb kids trying to muscle in on Girgis’s business? It looked like it. And if so, how did that—or how would that—affect my client Chantal and her problem? Now I was thinking of her as my client. And who was this Kronitis character who kept cropping up?

  Across the terrace I saw Georgina Taylor sitting alone, at a table full of empty cups and plates as if her hippie bird creatures had eaten fast and flown off in a flock. I watched her pay the not inconsiderable tab. By the checks they pay Ye shall know them. I paid my own and wandered over and asked her if she wanted a ride home on the Daisy Mae. She seemed delighted by the prospect.

  “I see you’re making friends with the young people,” she said brightly, as we walked down.

  “Well, yes,” I said judiciously. “I guess they’re not as bad as I first thought.”

  “I’m so glad,” Georgina said.

  On Sonny’s boat with her, after helping her aboard, I watched Steve and Chuck pile into a handsome speedboat and roar out of the Port going west away from the yacht harbor. The back was full of expensive water skiing gear. Their precipitate departure set all the boats in the Port to rocking and knocking against each other. Across the Port, as they pulled out, rocking in the wash created by the speedboat, was the Polaris, with Girgis at the helm, preparing t
o sound his klaxon. He grinned and waved at them.

  “Tell me, Georgina,” I said as I pulled us out beyond the jetty-breakwater and turned back east. “Who owns the Polaris?”

  “Mr. Leonid Kronitis,” Georgina said proudly.

  “I thought maybe,” I said, and devoted myself to uping the throttle.

  “Mr. Kronitis is our local philanthropist,” Georgina said, almost possessively. “As well as being a big source of help with capital to people starting out in business. Like Girgis.”

  “Is he.” I concentrated myself on enjoying the run back. After all, I was paying for the fuel. Or Tarkoff was.

  It gave me some time to muse about Kronitis. Was the local shipowner into everything on the island? Was it possible he might not know his two captains were engaged in a local but profitable hashish smuggling operation? And if so, what did I care? Was it any of my business? Only insofar as it affected my client. My damned client. Did my damned client know Kronitis? In any business way, that is? I was sure she knew him socially.

  I pulled in at the dock at Dmitri’s taverna and let Georgina off and had another cup of bad coffee and waited for Chantal. This time Dmitrios charged me the same price he charged the locals. I suppose he would have gone on overcharging me 20 cents a cup forever if I did not complain. He was incredible.

  Chantal was stunning when she finally appeared. She hopped down out of the horsecab in big glasses, a cute sun hat cocked on her head, a long Indian cotton print knotted around her waist over her swimsuit like a skirt open to the hip, and a blue fisherman’s shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The driver handed her down a basket crammed with other clothes, towels, and lotion bottles. “You look stunning,” I said. “But you look like you came prepared to stay a week. Aren’t you afraid people will talk about us two going off all alone for that long?”

  She smiled happily. “Not really. I think they all know that I’m your official vacation guide.”

  Her sudden defection of last night had left me a little wary. I took the basket. Only a little of the flab of age showed on her slender thighs. There was only a very little of that pecky, flaky look on her forearms that aging skin gets. Her upper arms were firm. You wouldn’t have noticed any of it five yards away. “What have you got in here, for God’s sake?” I said. I added, “I thought we’d go to a taverna around the island.” But up close you noticed it.

  She was on board and seated, and all spread out and arranged in the sun, before she noticed there was no boatman.

  “Where is Sonny?”

  “He had to go to Athens. I’m running the boat today.”

  Doubtful looks. “Well, do you know how?”

  “No. But I pick up things fast.” I paused. “Are you scared?”

  “I don’t know. I never know what to expect from you.”

  “Keep them guessing,” I said.

  I fired up the engine with a flourish. After she saw me thread out through the other craft and all their lines, she smiled. “I might have known.”

  I took us out and around the lighthouse point, the other way from the Port. The sea was sparkling, the sun was bright, the water plashed against the bows. High above us through the incandescent air were the green fields of the hillsides and the stands of pine and the white spots of the ancient chapels. Plash was a good word, I thought.

  “Have you decided to tell me any more about your secret life?” I said.

  Her face fell and clouded over. “I’ve told you it all.”

  “I had a talk with Girgis last night,” I said. I was watching her from the ends of my eyes. The helpless look of contained panic from last night came over her face.

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him I told you to stop paying him. I told him to stop asking you for it. He laughed, and said to tell you he was stopping asking.”

  There was no look of relief on Chantal’s face.

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, “he told me three different times to tell you he was stopping.”

  She didn’t answer that either.

  “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “Well, I am.” But she didn’t look it. Then, in a lower voice, “Do you think he really will?”

  “If he doesn’t, you tell me.”

  “I don’t trust him. I know him, you see. It’s going to take a lot more than that.”

  “I can’t do any more until you tell me more,” I said in a carefully flattened voice.

  “Oh, let’s not talk about it!” she said explosively, and threw her head back in the sunshine. “It’s such a lovely day out!”

  It was indeed. The sun bathed everything. The island rose on our right, brown fields down below, then green fields higher up, then the emerald green of forests higher still, and the vast blue seascape sky backdropping all of it. The blinding whitewash of the little chapels dotted fields and woods alike. On the beach the low shape of Georgio’s “dancing taverna” of last night was visible off our quarter.

  “You’re not the most helpful non-paying client I’ve ever had,” I said. “Hey!” I said. “What’s that?” I had seen something. “See it?” I pointed out something, an object, floating in the water far off. It did not seem to be under way and moving. After a minute, I eased the bow over toward it.

  Chapter 13

  AS WE DREW NEARER, the floating object became an orange float with a little spar sticking up. As we got closer still, a figure rose to the surface in a black mask, black foam rubber helmet and wet suit, rolled and lay face down, breathing through a snorkel. Then it rolled up and dived again, the flippered feet rising above the water and sinking silently.

  The sun was numbing now; eye-stunning, the way I had seen it yesterday. The sea was as flat as a glass plate. We had been out about a half hour, and it must have been nearly noon. No breath of air stirred anywhere across the glassy surface. Hardly a ripple moved it. No living thing moved anywhere within eye range. We were all by ourselves and an enormous stillness had descended over everything. Only our motor disturbed it, drumming against it without breaking its tough skin. The sun seemed actually to burn the sea’s surface, making the surface water more sluggish than the water a few inches down. The diver surfaced, rested, then dived again.

  It was kind of awesome. Even though I knew how easy it was to do alone like this. We were far out to sea, no boats were visible anywhere, the shore well over half a mile away. And here was this figure all alone.

  “That’s Marie,” Chantal said.

  “Marie? A girl?” I said.

  “Yes. It’s that American girl. One of the hippies.” Her nose sounded a little out of joint.

  “I think I’ll stop,” I said. I suppose there was a half-admiring look on my face. Chantal looked as if there was. “I’ve done quite a bit of this,” I explained.

  I jockeyed us closer to the float.

  The figure rose from the depths again, visible now coming up, with a dreamlike slowness. Its head broke the surface and looked at us, non-human and expressionless in the mask; an alien Martian, with the face mask-covered and the snorkel mouthpiece distorting and hiding the mouth. Then a brown hand came up and removed the snorkel and pushed up the mask and a strikingly attractive girl’s face appeared, smiling.

  “Get him?” I called.

  The girl shook her head, and began to haul in the spear of her gun at the end of its line.

  “Come on aboard,” I called. “Can we take you anywhere?”

  “No thanks,” the girl said. “But I’ll come aboard.” She placed her speargun crosswise on the doughnut float. Three good-sized grouper lay in the rubber sack in its center. I was scrambling to put the swimming ladder over.

  The girl came up it, awkwardly walking backward in the flippers, an apparition in black: wide shoulders, long waist, swelling hips, long lovely legs. In the wet suit jacket was a flattened double swell of her breasts. She sat on the railing and stripped off the mask and helmet and the apparition became a real girl, with long straight sun-streaked hair, hippie style to b
elow the shoulders.

  “Hello, Chantal,” she said.

  “Hello, Marie.”

  “Do you want anything?” I said.

  “I’d like some water, please,” she said. “It gets dry down there. Have you got any sandwiches?”

  “I happen to have some sandwiches,” I said. “I had a sack made up at the taverna.” I got the sack, and a bottle of water, and gave them to her. “I thought we might need them,” I said to Chantal. She just looked at me.

  I was being apologetic. I did not know if it was coming from within me myself, or if Chantal was imposing it on me. But it was making me half sore. What the hell? I loved diving. I could certainly admire a young girl who had nerve enough to be out here alone miles from everywhere spear-fishing with nothing but a diver’s float.

  Suddenly I had to laugh. All those years of marriage had trained me. And I hadn’t even slept with the lady yet.

  “Do you want one, too?” I grinned.

  “No!”

  The girl sat on the boat’s rail and munched her sandwich, unaware of byplay. “This’ll save me swimming in after-while,” she smiled. She had a strange, sad, still, acquiescent quality about her.

  “I used to do a lot of that,” I said. “Stay in the water all day.”

  “Where?” the girl said.

  “In the Caribbean. But I rarely went out all day alone.”

  “There are more sharks there. I hear. I’ve never done it anywhere but here. Why did you stop?” It seemed as if she was not really with us, but back there somewhere in the water, in her mind.

  “I’m a private detective. I was on a case in Jamaica. My work took me elsewhere. I still do it sometimes. Vacations. But it’s not the same.” I paused. “It’s like any sport. You have to do it all the time.”

  “I guess.” She began putting back on her rubber helmet.

  “Didn’t I see you at Georgina Taylor’s yesterday, with that gang?” I said.

  “Yes. I was there. You didn’t notice me. Well, thanks for the meal.” She wasn’t wanting to talk much. The mask went back on, then the snorkel. She was the sexy Martian again. Casually, she dropped the seven feet over the side, holding mask to face with both hands.