I think you ought to come home. We have a lot to talk about, darling. I was a foolish girl when I broke our engagement and I've regretted it ever since. You see, I can be humble and shameless when I must be. I love you, Sam. Come back home.
Sam finished his coffee and flipped the cigarette out onto the beach. The night was going to be hot. He looked at the wild colors in the Caribbean sky as the sun began to dip under the horizon and then he saw movement on the opposite shore of the cove as someone got into a dinghy and began rowing across the water toward him.
It was Harry Lundy, Ashton's boatman. Sam walked down to the beach to meet him.
2
Lundy drove the little plywood boat across the water with hard, chopping strokes. Sam waited, watching the light fade from the sky. The wind died and the air felt hot and heavy, suddenly rank with the smell of mud and vegetation carried over the Straits from the Everglades.
Lundy was a bull of a man, in his forties, with a big frame overlarded with fat, his head set forward a little on massive shoulders. He wore a dirty yachting cap and a striped singlet and white duck trousers and he handled the dinghy with ease, grounding it a few feet from where Sam stood. Sam stepped back a little to avoid the wash of water that rode up on the sand.
The fat boatman got out wheezing and grinned. "Evening, Mr. Cortez. I see you put the binoculars away."
Sam was not perturbed. "I've seen enough for today."
"You ought to be more careful with 'em. The light catches on the lens and winks. Mr. Ashton was annoyed when I told him."
"Is that what you rowed over to tell me?"
"No, it ain't." Lundy's breath was rank with Scotch, but he was perfectly steady. He wheezed again. "We got a little trouble over at the house and since you're so interested in us, I figured you might be willing to help."
"What kind of trouble?" Sam asked.
"Well, maybe you better come along and find out."
"I've other things to do," Sam said. "Tell me now."
"It's young Bill's wife. She didn't come home last night."
"What's that to me?"
"Well, we located her, but there's nobody to get her back. She was at Johnny Capp's fishing camp down the line. She was there all night-they say with some guy from New York, a feller named Hennessey."
"And she's still there?"
"That's the word we got."
Sam felt a quick knot in his stomach, as if he had been suddenly slugged in the belly. Something tasted acid and bitter in the back of his mouth. He had an impulse to be sick, but he knew Lundy was watching him closely, gauging his reaction and he kept his face calm.
"What is all that to me?" Sam asked.
"Well, Bill is too drunk to get her, Mr. Cortez, and Ashton says she can stay there for all he cares. He's fed up with her, he says. Still and all, I figure if the boss won't let me go for her, maybe you'll do it, seeing you're a friend of both parties. Somebody ought to. It won't do no good if the newspapers get hold of it."
Sam was aware of a quick, intense hatred for the fat man and his first impulse was to refuse. He wanted no part of it. He felt his hands tremble and he knew that Lundy was getting a big bang out of it. Mona Somerset was the only part of his plan that had gone astray. He hadn't counted on her at all when he returned to Isla Honda. He still didn't know if what he felt toward her was love or not. Nor did he want to know. He recognized the danger in the situation that was being created, but he felt a helplessness toward doing anything about it.
"All right," he told Lundy. "I'll be right over." Sam turned away from him. There was something about Lundy that he couldn't quite put his finger on-an air of independence, perhaps, that didn't quite fit his position as an employee. Lundy's easy familiarity with Ashton and Bill made his position in the scheme of things at Isla Honda a little odd. Of course, Lundy had worked for John Ashton for a number of years, but that still didn't quite explain the lack of civility in the man that Sam had noticed.
He walked easily along the path that followed the shore of the cove. The path followed an irregular course beyond the sand beach, turning into a mangrove swamp for perhaps fifty feet and then coming out on a higher ridge of land that skirted the brush and pines to the rear of Isla Honda.
The sound of music came from behind the white stone wall surrounding the house, the quick pizzicato of a Bach quartet, somehow alien in this tropical setting. The house was mostly invisible until he came out on the beach, sheltering as it did behind graceful palms and carefully tended lawns and gardens. Nothing had been spared by Charley to turn the place into a residence of superb quality. The house was built as a colonial Spanish revival, with a heavily arched arcade running along the front of it and a vine-grown, red-tiled roof under the grazing ends of the palms. The thickly buttressed arcade connected with the three-car garage and a music studio. Sam's feet crunched as he crossed the coral driveway and he paused to light a cigarette, hoping it would help end the squeamishness that twisted in his stomach. His hands were still shaking.
George, the houseboy, was coming along the path across the lawn, carrying a bottle of rye by the neck in his big, freckled hands. George was from Tennessee, as Sam remembered from his first and last visit since his return. He was a gangling, freckle-faced man with a long nose and sly eyes. He grinned when he saw Sam and halted on the path.
"Hi," he said. "Finally come to pay another visit?"
"I'm looking for Bill," Sam said. "I understand he wants to see me."
"He won't be much company, Mr. Cortez. He's drunk."
Sam indicated the bottle. "Is that for him?"
"The second since lunch."
"Where is he?"
"In the apartment over the garage. He's in pretty bad shape, though. Maybe you ought not to see him right now. The boss-his uncle, I mean-might not like it."
A new voice cut in. "I certainly would not. Good evening, Sam. I'm glad you've come over. I think it's about time."
Sam turned and looked at John Ashton. There was something about his brother's former business associate that made him think of a twisted, handsome satyr. In his early forties, he had the face of a faun and the misshapen body of a goat. There was a strange strength in the strong, handsome face, with its mane of thick gray hair. Intelligence made John Ashton's pale eyes glow with an inner light of their own, but it was a sardonic, cruel intelligence that had stamped itself on his thin mouth and predatory nose. His body, twisted by illness in his youth, was hunched forward in a smoking jacket despite the heat and he leaned heavily on a solidly knobbed cane that he habitually carried. There was nothing about him that three years had changed, Sam thought. He had never learned exactly what Ashton's relationship had been with Charley, except that Ashton had acted as his brother's manager in certain business interests scattered throughout the Antilles. A brilliant man and a dangerous one, Sam thought-a man who certainly had not returned to this scene of tragedy without a strong motive.
"Run along, George," Ashton said. "Give Bill whatever he asks for."
"Yes, sir."
George turned away with a wink at Sam and Sam looked after him, his eyes hard. Ashton was smiling. "I do hope, Sam, that this visit is in the nature of a truce meeting. There certainly is no sense in our continuing at swords' points. You have set yourself up across the cove there with a certain irritation value, it is true, but there really is no reason why you couldn't live here as my guest."
Sam's smile was grim. "That would be too much of a reversal of the old days. No, thanks. I only came over because I understand Bill is having some difficulty about his wife."
Ashton's lean features changed subtly. "Why should that concern you?"
"Bill and I are old friends. I'll help him, if I can. And Lundy came after me," Sam said. "Do you mind?"
"I see." There was a pallor of anger on Ashton's thin lips. "Mona is no good, Sam. She's poison for any man. Bill made a serious mistake when he married her."
"Why not let Bill decide about that?"
"I'm simply sugge
sting that you stay away from her, Sam. She is not your concern. If Bill cannot control his wife, that's his business. If you wish to come here and discuss Charles, I'm happy to oblige-though why you persist in thinking I know more about his death than I've told the police is beyond my understanding. However, I will thank you not to interfere in the personal affairs of my family."
The air was suddenly very hot, very quiet. Ashton's crooked body leaned heavily on his massive cane. The palms made long, gracefully curved shadows on the lawn. The music from the house had ended.
"Nothing," Ashton added suddenly, "can basically change the facts about Charles's death as you already know them. I think you know why I've come back, however. If you could control this unreasonable resentment and suspicion you harbor toward me, we might get along much better. After all, we both seek the same thing." Ashton turned clumsily as George appeared from behind the garage, returning to the house. The houseboy no longer carried the bottle. "But now is hardly the time to discuss it." Ashton suddenly seemed to have changed his mind. "If you insist on meddling in Bill's marital difficulties, go ahead. I refuse to lend a hand in the matter. The girl is beyond help as I see it. But perhaps when you come back, we might have a drink together. And a little talk. It may prove interesting."
"All right," Sam said. "A drink and talk."
He turned away and walked in the direction that George had come from. Mona Somerset's car was parked in front of the triple doors on the coral turn-around bordered by poinsettia shrubs. The car was a Cadillac convertible, a chrome yellow with a dark top. The hot sun, slanting in, made the leather seats feel blistering when Sam leaned in. On the seat was an alligator purse, open, with keys and compact spilled carelessly on the carpeted floor. He smelled Mona's perfume and his hands shook again. He couldn't do it, he decided. He didn't want to see her the way she would be. The drinking was bad enough, but the other part of it, the way she used men-he couldn't think about it and he couldn't understand how he had ever gotten mixed up with her. It was something that had never entered his plans when he decided to come back, but now that it had happened, no matter how hard he fought against it, there was no denying this thing that was between them.
He turned as Bill Somerset came down the steps from the apartment over the garage. The outside stairway was broad, painted white, with a heavy wooden railing and Bill came down carefully, his hands sliding along the rail.
"Sam? Just a minute."
His voice was high and unnatural. Ashton's nephew was as unlike his uncle as he could be. Whereas Ashton was small and delicate with an oppressive intellectualism, Bill was big and athletic. His face would have been handsome in a rugged way if it were not for the dissipation that had seamed and discolored it. There was nothing wrong with Bill, Sam thought, that the right woman and a vacation from his uncle wouldn't cure. But Mona was not the right woman for him and Ashton would never let anyone out from under his delicate but all-spreading wing.
"Sam?"
Bill was thoroughly and completely drunk. He used both hands on the rail until he was firmly on solid ground again and then he grinned briefly, rubbing his short red hair with clumsy knuckles as if proud of his accomplishment.
"You going to take Mona's car?"
"Yes," Sam said.
"You're going after her?"
Sam hesitated. "Yes."
"Who told you about it, Sam?"
"Lundy. But I think your uncle suggested it."
Bill laughed. It was a short and bitter sound. His face twisted strangely. He made a vague gesture with his hand and leaned heavily on the car door. "How do you like that? They all knew, but they didn't tell me they knew where she was." Bill Somerset waggled a forefinger. "Listen to me, Sam. We're old buddies, you and me. You're a good guy. But you don't belong here. Neither do I, but I got a different problem than yours. I'm workin' on yours, too, did you know that? I think I'm goin' to have something for you, too."
"What are you talking about?"
Bill looked blank. "Wish I knew. Wish I knew a lot of things, Sam. Listen, this house is different from the way you remember it when Charley was here. Any place where that uncle of mine holds court has got to be different." Bill clung to the car for support. His eyes were very intense, scarcely drunk at all suddenly. "You ought to quit. You ought to go away from Isla Honda. This place is no good for you. And my wife is no good for you either."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Yes, you do. But I don't blame you a bit. You can't help it. Nobody can. Not with Mona." Bill straightened up with an effort. "Listen, where is she? Where did they find her?"
Sam looked at him. His words were blunt. "She's at Johnny Capp's fishing camp on Pelican Key."
"Was she there all night?"
"I guess so."
"Drunk?"
"I wouldn't know."
"But not alone," Bill said. "I'll bet she wasn't alone."
"I don't know," Sam said.
"Did Lundy tell you not to tell me about her?"
Sam said: "Look, Lundy doesn't matter. Do you want to come with me? Maybe it would be a good thing if you did."
"And suppose she's got a man with her?"
"Suppose she has?"
The big redheaded man pushed away from the car with both hands. He swayed a little and looked at Sam with hooded eyes. His mouth worked loosely. The hot evening sunlight emphasized the craggy, broken lines of his face.
"I couldn't stand it," he whispered. "I couldn't take the chance. They'd laugh at me. Like my Uncle John."
"Slug 'em if they do," Sam suggested. "It would be good for you."
"No. No, you go along."
Sam shrugged. He told himself that he could do nothing about it if Bill chose to wreck his life; yet he had made it his business in a way, because of how he himself felt about Mona, who was Bill's wife. He told himself never to forget that she was married to this man. He wanted to forget it, but he couldn't. He felt an anger toward Bill that suddenly surged up almost beyond control and he slid behind the wheel and thumbed the starter button. Bill moved back a step, grinning.
"Give her my love," he said.
Sam nodded. "I'll do that"
3
Sam told himself he was acting like an adolescent kid and there was no reason for him to be like this. He had had women before, but none of them had been like Mona Somerset. If he had known what to expect, he would never have taken that first step toward her when he returned to Isla Honda.
There had been nothing overt, at first. It was just in the way she had looked at him, that first time when she had swam across the cove to sit on his beach and talk to him about Bill and the old days. After that she had stayed close to the house, on the beach or on the boat, wearing that white swim suit of hers, joining him occasionally for a swim in the late evening through the soft, tropical water. Nothing had happened openly between them and as he turned into the sand road to Johnny Capp's fishing camp, he told himself it was all in his own mind and if she in the least suspected how he felt about her, she would only be amused and get a laugh out of it.
The women he had known before, except for Ellen, had been relatively uncomplicated, leaving his inner self untouched and untroubled when he left them. Mona Somerset was something else again. When Mona Somerset got slapped by a gigolo in a Miami Beach gambling club, it made national headlines; when Mona Somerset was picked up in Havana or Bermuda at a cockfight or with a political figure after a five-day disappearance, it bordered on an international incident. There was something deep inside her, a hard core that he could not reach or understand, as if everything she had done as a glamorous debutante before marrying Bill and everything that followed that marriage had left her untouched and untroubled, still self-contained and poised.
Johnny Capp's place was a collection of cabins on the beach, with a coral mole and several fishing cruisers with outriggers tied to the sagging pier. There was a central house, with a bar and a few straggling coconut and palmettos. The heat seemed even more intense here than
at Isla Honda.
There were two or three other cars at the smaller cabins and from the back of the bar came a clatter of dishes and the spicy smell of Conch cooking mingled with the aroma of fish and tidal beach growth. Not the most pretentious place on the keys, Sam thought, and he slid out of the car, taking Mona's alligator handbag with him. There was a tight knot in his stomach as he went up the wooden steps to the porch.
Johnny Capp came out grinning with several other men behind him. Capp was a small, nervous Irishman who drank too much and catered more to poker games and cockfighting than to daily fishing runs out in the Gulf and he attracted clientele who appreciated the sort of services he rendered. The camp had often been raided by the sheriff, but it always came back again, open for the same business.
"Hey," Capp said. "It's Sam Cortez."
One of the men behind him laughed. "Come for your neighbor's lady, Sam?"
Sam said quietly: "Where is she?"
"Still out cold, I reckon."
Capp said: "But Hennessey's gone."
Sam felt a flush of heat under the taut muscles of his face. He didn't know if they were laughing at him or Mona Somerset, nor did he know which he resented most. He saw that one of the men behind Capp's slight figure was Deputy Sheriff Hank Frye-a small, puffy man with an air of self-importance and bitter, disillusioned eyes. Frye brushed his way forward, his little round belly like a watermelon under the sagging belt of his khaki slacks.
"Come on, Sam. I'll take you to her. Did Bill send you?"
"Yes. Thanks."
"Don't thank me. You'll enjoy this enough."
Sam said: "I'll bet you've all enjoyed it."
"She's quite a gal. But that don't mean any of the boys around here touched her. She was with this Hennessey fellow."
"Drinking?"
"And how."
Dark Destiny Page 2
