The Saint in Miami s-22

by Leslie Charteris

  "You nasty rough beast!" squeaked Vivian, and snatched the wig back from him and fled towards the floor.

  Like lightning, before Simon could move, Mr Uniatz let go with the carafe of water. It crossed the room like a damp comet, caromed off the clarinet player, boomed off a drum, and came to a cataclysmic end among the cymbals. Then Simon had Hoppy's wrist and was holding him down with a grip of iron.

  "Cut it out," he gritted, "or I'll break your arm."

  "We oughta take dis jernt apart, boss," said Mr Uniatz redly.

  "You damn fool!" snarled the Saint. "They were just wait­ing for us to start something."

  And then he realised that the room was rocking with laughter. Everyone seemed to be laughing. March's table was in an uproar, with March himself leading it. Even Captain Friede's tight mouth was flattened broadly across his teeth. The clarinetist was helped out by a grinning waiter, appar­ently being a person of no consequence. The chortling or­chestra leader waved his baton, and a new dance number blared out. Giggling couples were filtering on to the floor. The head waiter appeared at the booth and smiled only a little more restrainedly.

  "Your first time here?" he said, more as a statement than a question.

  "My friend isn't drunk," said the Saint "But he's a little hasty."

  The head waiter nodded tolerantly.

  "Well, there was no harm done. Shall I bring you some more water?"

  "Thank you."

  The Saint felt incredibly and incredulously foolish. And yet it had seemed so obvious. Start something, bring on the boun­cers, and anything could happen in the resultant brawl.

  But the opportunity had been ignored. It had been taken as a good joke.

  He lighted another cigarette and tried to say unconcern­edly to Karen: "It's a good thing they've got a sense of hu­mour here."

  "Something happens here almost every night," she said casually. "But nobody gets excited."

  Not that, then . . . And yet she also seemed expectant, in a way that he could not pin down on to any outward sign. There was no nervousness in the handling of her cigarette or the leisured sipping of her liqueur. Perhaps it was because of that very tranquillity that he felt on edge, as if he sensed that she was playing a part to which he was not admitted.

  Then where was it coming from? A shot from somewhere during a blackout? Too conventional-and too risky. He still couldn't get out of his head the conviction that March Friede must still be bothered by the protective letter that he had spoken about. And they were here now, much too prominently present to have any expectation of being named as suspects. A poison in the Scotch, or the new carafe of water? Impossible, for the same reason. Then what? Could he have been altogether wrong in every single calculation, and could he be a helpless particle in a ferment that he knew nothing about and for whose chemical combinations he was utterly unprepared?

  Hobgoblin centipedes inched up his back into the roots of his hair . . .

  And then the dance had ended, and the exquisite MC was skipping up to the microphone again, as the floor cleared and a miniature piano was trundled in.

  "Now, ladies and gentlemen, we bring you another of those unique entertainments which have made the Palmleaf Fan famous: that great and goofy singer, the maestro of murky music, lewd lyrics, and dirty ditties-the one and only Jesse Rogers!"

  The was a concerted blast from saxophones, trombones, clarinets, and cornucopias; and the man Simon Templar had been looking for walked on.

  Hoppy Uniatz, still crushed beneath his recent humiliation, swilled whisky around his glass and put it down. He leaned across the table.

  "Boss," he divulged in a despondent whisper that reached every corner of the room, "I gotta go."

  "Shut up," snapped the Saint. "You can go afterwards. This is the guy we came out here to see."

  Mr Uniatz reviewed the performer with sour disillusion.

  "It don't mean a t'ing in dis jernt, boss. I betcha he's just a wren wit' pants on."

  Simon could appreciate the justification for Hoppy's preju­dice, but he also realised that Jesse Rogers was definitely not the right subject for it.

  Rogers was a normal type if there ever was one, even though it was not a type which entirely harmonised with the atmosphere of the Palmleaf Fan. He had more of an air of filling in there while paying his way through college. He had a round and rather juvenile face made studious by rimless glasses, and his shoulders and complexion both looked as if they were indebted to a much more healthy background.

  His repertoire, however, certainly did not. His first song ran a gamut of transparent double entendre and monothematic suggestion that would have brought blushes to the cheeks of the blowsiest barmaid, ana was accordingly received with tumultuous applause. It was plain that he was a popular performer. As the ovation subsided, there were sporadic shouts of "Octavius!" Rogers smiled with cherubic salaciousness, and said: "By request-Octavius, the Octogenarian Octopus."

  The difficulties, vices, and devices of Octavius were un­folded in the same strain. They were biologically improbable, but full of ingenious concepts; and they went on for a long time.

  A waiter came by the table, picked up the Peter Dawson bottle, and tilted it over the glasses. It was an unproductive service, for Mr. Uniatz had not taken his revised standards of alcoholic quality seriously enough to leave anything unpoured. The waiter leaned over with respectful discretion and said: "Shall I bring another bottle, sir?"

  "I suppose you'd better," said the Saint, with the fatalism of long experience. "Or do you make special rates by the case?"

  The waiter smiled politely and went away. The song went on, with the diversions of Octavius becoming more recherche in every stanza. Currently, they seemed to be concerned with some whimsical prank involving bathing girls in Bali. Karen said curiously: "What are you making of him?"

  "He knows his onions, for what they're worth," said the Saint judicially. "I've been trying to estimate what else he's worth. At first I thought something was haywire again, but now I'm not nearly sure."

  "Does he look tough to you?"

  "He does-now. He's tougher than Jennet. It's a funny twist, but you're always surprised when a villain you've built up in your imagination doesn't turn out to look like a profes­sional wrestler, and yet some of these baby-faced guys are more dangerous than any plug-ugly knows how to be."

  He felt no incongruity in discussing Rogers so dispassion­ately with her. The mere fact that she should be sitting there with him at that time achieved a culmination of unreality be­side which all minor paradoxes were insignificant. And yet even that apical absurdity had become so much a part of the fantastic picture that he no longer questioned it.

  The saga of Octavius ended at last, and Rogers was shaking his head, smiling, in answer to the disappointed yells for more as the piano was whisked away. The MC tripped on again like a pixie and said: "Jesse Rogers will be back before long, ladies and gentlemen, with some more of those sizzling songs. We can't give you the whole show at once. Let's dance again, and then we'll have another treat for you." The orches­tra took its cue, and the ball kept rolling. It could never be disputed that the Palmleaf Fan worked tirelessly in its dubi­ous cause.

  Simon still looked between the gathering dancers, and saw that Rogers had been stopped on his way out through the curtained doorway by a waiter. Something about the back of the waiter's close-cropped head seemed oddly familiar . . . Simon was trying to identify the familiarity when Rogers looked directly at him across the room. In that instant the Saint grasped the fleeting shadow of recognition.

  It was the waiter who had just taken his order for another bottle of Scotch.

  Nothing to make any difference. The waiter had other duties. But Rogers had looked straight across the room. And in the circumstances . . .

  Karen Leith's face was a lovely mask. She might not have seen anything.

  "So you've seen him," she said. "Now what are you going to do?"

  "I was just wondering?" Simon replied slowly. "W
e might wait till he comes on again and shoot him from here. But the management might resent that. Besides, I want to know where he gets his orders from . . . Do you think you're get­ting enough inside information to please Randy?"

  He was deliberately trying to hurt her again, to strike some spark that would end his groping. But instead of hatred, her eyes brightened with something else that he would much rather not have seen.

  "Dear idiot," she said: and she was smiling. "Don't ever stop being hard. Don't ever let anyone fool you-not even me."

  He had to smile back at her. Had to.

  "No nonsense?" he said emptily.

  "Not for anything."

  "Boss," began Mr Uniatz, diffidently.

  The Saint sat back. And he started to laugh. It was a quiet and necessary laughter. It brought the earth back again.

  "I remember," he said. "You wanted to go."

  "I was just t'inkin', boss, it don't have to make much dif­ference. I can be quick."

  For Heaven's sake, don't go into all the details," said the Saint hastily. "Take all the time you want. We know all about the calls of Nature. We can wait."

  "Chees, boss," said Mr Uniatz, with almost childishly ador­ing gratitude. "Tanks!"

  He got up from the table and paddled hurriedly away.

  Karen made a slightly strangled sound, and quickly picked up her glass. The Saint looked at her and chuckled.

  "I should have warned you about him," he murmured. "He doesn't mean any harm. He's just uninhibited."

  "I - I was b-beginning to discover that" Her lips trembled. "If he ever has any puppies, will you send me one?"

  "I'll remember," said the Saint; but his voice faded as he said it The waiter was back again, transferring a fresh bottle and clean glasses from a tray to the table.

  Simon studied him again through lazily trailing wisps of smoke, and became doubly sure of his identification. The lines of the tightly trimmed fair hair, as the man leaned over the table, were quite distinctive. He had a square unexpressive face on which the skin seemed to be stretched so snugly over the bony structure that there was hardly any play left for movement. He said, leaning over: "Are you Mr Templar, sir?"

  Like a wind-ruffled pool on to which oil has been floated, everything in the Saint settled into an immeasurable inward stillness; yet there was no change in him that any eye could have seen.

  "That's right," he said calmly.

  "Mr Rogers would very much like to see you, sir, as soon as it's convenient" The enunciation was stiff and without per­sonality, a formal reproduction which conveyed nothing but the bare words it was phrased in. "I can show you to his dressing-room whenever you're ready."

  The Saint drew his cigarette to a long even glow. And in that time his mind raced over everything, without stirring one fibre of that deep physical repose.

  So this was it ... It seemed simple enough, now, so sim­ple that he had to deride the energy he had squandered on all his preliminary alertness. Rogers had seen him, recognised him, and beaten him to the draw. He didn't remember ever having seen Rogers before, but that was no reason to think that Rogers didn't know him-he had to be more than a name to at least some of the units in the chain of conspiracy. Lafe Jennet might be back on the road at Olustee by that time, but there were plenty of other ways for Jesse Rogers to have learned that the cat was out and the Saint was on his trail. So Rogers-or the men behind Rogers-had merely taken the dilemma by the horns . . .

  "Of course," said the Saint easily. "I'll be right along."

  The waiter bowed disinterestedly, and moved a little way off. And the Saint found Karen's eyes fixed on him.

  "Will you excuse me?" he said.

  "We could have another dance first. And then Hoppy'll be back to keep me company."

  It seemed as if that was all she could think of to say, to delay him, without making a confession or a betrayal that they both knew was impossible. He smiled.

  "Why not now?" he said quietly. "Hoppy'll be back, but I wouldn't have taken him anyway. Rogers and I have a little personal business. I came here to see him, so I might as well do it. I don't know what's in his mind, but I'll find out. And if he knows that I work that way, and he's ready for it-I'll find that out too."

  She didn't speak or move for a moment.

  Then her hand touched his hand, lightly; and the touch was a kiss, or an embrace, or more than that, or nothing.

  "Good luck, Saint."

  "I've always been much too lucky," he said, and turned away at once, and_went after the waiter.

  He wanted it to be that way, to go into swift movement and the exalting leap of danger that left no time for profitless introspection and static gentleness; he was tired of thinking. There was no bravado in it. He wanted whatever they had waiting-wanted it with an insolent and desperate desire.

  "Lead on, Adolphus," he said, and the waiter's eyes barely flickered.

  "Yes, sir. This way."

  They went around the perimeter of the room, past the front of the orchestra, and through the curtained doorway that served the floor show artistes for an entrance. A passage turned to the left, parallelling the wall for a couple of yards, and then turned straight back at right angles.

  Simon stopped at the corner of the L and adjusted a shoe­lace that was perfectly well tied. March and Friede had both been dancing when he crossed the floor, but if it was part of their plan to follow him closely into the back of the building he could do no harm by confusing the timetable. He spent rather a long time over the shoelace, long enough for them to have blundered into him, but no one followed.

  He straightened up at last and went on.

  The passage was about eighty feet long, ending in a door which from the iron bars over its pebble glass panel he guessed to be an exit from the building. The wall on the left gave out warmth for a few yards as he passed it, and a muted rattle and dink of metal and china that came through it sug­gested a kitchen. Aside from that blank space, there were plain doors on both sides. A pretty blackhaired girl in a gaudy print brassiere and sarong came out of one door, passed them with hardly a glance, and went on to wait for her announcement. Further down, on the other side, a twit­tering of high-pitched male voices came through another door. It opened, and something in a strapless sequin gown and a silver wig came out, leered at them, said "Wooo!", and vanished through the door opposite like a leprechaun.

  The waiter stopped just beyond that point, and Simon came up alongside him.

  "The last door, sir, on the left"

  "Thank you."

  The Saint passed him and strolled on. The steadiness of his movement was a triumph of cold nerve over instinct, but he felt as if there was a bullseye stencilled between his shoulder-blades. His ears strained for the click of a cocked gun or the premonitory swish of a blackjack, or even a breath too close behind . . , Then he was at the last door, and as he turned towards it he was able to glance sideways down the length of corridor through which he had come. The waiter had turned his back and was walking slowly away. There was no one else visible.

  Simon laughed, silently and without humour. Perhaps he really was getting old and jumpy, letting his imagination blind his judgment.

  And yet there was nothing fanciful about the bullet that had been sent him by the man he was going to see.

  He paused for a moment at the door. Without intention, but simply from force of habit, he knew that his feet had made no sound through the approach. But during that pause he could hear nothing within the room-not the least rustle of human speech or movement. There were only the distant undertones which had become unnoticeable through acceptance-the waiter's retreating steps, the chitter from other dressing-rooms, the dissonances of the kitchen, and the distant drift of music. But in spite of that, or because of it, he lowered the hand which he had raised to knock.

  Instead, his fingers closed on the door knob. He took one long breath; and then in one feline ripple of co-ordination he threw the door open and slid diagonally into the room.

&n
bsp; Two men with round stolid faces like Tweedledum and Tweedledee stood in one comer with their hands held high. Jesse Rogers reclined on a shabby divan with his hands behind his head, a lighted cigarette drooping from one corner of his mouth. There was no weapon anywhere near him to account for the attitudes of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The single reason for that was a cumbersome .45 Colt which swung around in the hand of a fourth member of the congregation whose lanky legs stretched forward from a chair tilted back against the dressing table.

  Sheriff Newt Haskins spat accurately at the feet of one of his captives, squinted his keen grey eyes at the Saint, and said: "Well, ain't this nice? Come right in, son. We were sort of expectin' you."

  Simon Templar carefully closed the door.

  There was rather a lot to assimilate all at once, and he wanted time. The entire tableau gave him the impression of some sort of a mad tea-party from Alice in Wonderland. Of course, he had already seen the March Hare, he reflected hysterically. And now there was Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Doubtless Sheriff Haskins would turn out to be the Mad Hatter. Jesse Rogers, from his position, looked like a promising candidate for the Dormouse. Presently they would all start singing and dancing, with Toots and Vivian doing a hot rumba in the middle.

  That was the way it felt at first. The Saint could have taken a whole army of hoodlums in his stride, and turned up his nose at a forest of machine-guns, by comparison with the cataclysmic shock of what he actually saw. It left him wonder­ing, for perhaps the first time in his life, whether he had any right to be patronising about the pedestrian intellectual reflexes of Hoppy Uniatz . . .

  "Hullo, Sheriff," he drawled. "You do get around, don't you?"

  The sheer electronic energy that it cost him to maintain that air-conditioned nonchalance would have twisted the needle of any recording instrument known to science off its bearings; but he achieved it. And with a simultaneous equal effort he was forcing himself to try and wring a coherent interpretation out of the scene.