Dolls Are Deadly ms-37

by Brett Halliday

  “Uno momento, please, Senor Ed,” Sylvester called back. “My old friend, Mike, is here.”

  Se nor Ed was joined by another man carrying a highball. “So say hello to your friend and let’s get going,” he said proprietarily. He was younger than the first man and wore dark glasses and a lavishly colored Hawaiian sport shirt. He took a swallow of the highball. “Red snapper run on the tide, don’t they?”

  In the middle of one of the world’s best game-fish areas, these men were going out hand-lining for meat fish! It seemed slightly ridiculous.

  “Everything set, Vince?” a third voice called from within the awning-covered cockpit.

  “Everything but Sylvester,” the man in the Hawaiian shirt said dryly. “He’s reviving an old friendship.”

  “What the hell, Sylvester!” The third man poked his head into view, raising himself from one of the built-in benches along the rail. “Get the lead out! Cast off and let’s go!”

  Sylvester looked across at them, tugging at the shapeless skipper’s cap which rode jauntily on the side of his head. “Se nores,” he pleaded, “you have been so good to me. One thing more I ask. My friend, Mike, he is old, good friend. Can he go too?”

  “No, Sylvester,” the redhead said. “Another time. They’ve got you chartered.” He started to leave, but the little Cuban grasped his arm firmly.

  “Wait, Mike. Let them answer. They will want you, I know.”

  The three men on the boat exchanged questioning glances, then Ed, the man who had spoken first, said in his hearty voice, “Sure, Sylvester. The more the merrier.”

  “Gracias!” Sylvester’s round, perspiring face beamed. “You will not be sorry. Mike good fisherman… good drinker…”

  “Well, there’s plenty of liquor,” Ed shouted.

  Shayne still held back, reluctant to intrude on a private party, but Sylvester tugged at him, looking up into the lean, hard-jawed face with almost the pride of a mother. “Is all right, Mike. They want you. I want you. Everybody want you.” He lowered his voice. “They charter my boat for three weeks now-steady. They have such a good time on the Santa Clara. And wait till I show you what they done. My best friends-next to you, Mike.”

  When he had pulled Shayne to the boat and watched him step across, he stooped, loosened the rope from the mooring post and tossed it aboard. “Mike, meet Ed and Vince and Slim Collins.”

  Shayne shook hands all around. “This is mighty good of you.”

  “Any friend of Sylvester’s is a friend of ours,” Ed said expansively. His chunky face was burned and peeling, as were his shoulders. The Miami sun was no kinder to his blond skin than it was to Henny Henlein’s, Shayne noted, and wondered why thoughts of the frightened mobster should intrude just then. Ed’s head was burned too. He was bald except for a circle of grayish-black fuzz around the back of his head which gave the impression of a misplaced angel’s halo.

  Vince, the younger man in the loud Hawaiian shirt, put a highball glass into Shayne’s hand. He was swarthy-faced and thick-bodied, with hair as black as a Cuban’s and black restless eyes which never seemed to stop moving. Lifting his glass, he said, “Here’s bait in your box.” Shayne took a deep swallow, repressing a shudder as it went down. He looked over at the low, built-in table in the cockpit’s stern. On it was an ice bucket, a bottle of water and a bottle of rum, labeled Demerara.

  Slim, the third man, had stretched out again on the kapok cushions on the bench near the table, his glass on the floor beside him and his hat half over his eyes. Intercepting Shayne’s glance at the rum bottle, he grinned. “If you’re a drinking man, like Sylvester claims, then you know Demerara.”

  “I know it. It’s better than a hundred and fifty proof.”

  “Yeah. Gets you where you want to go fast. I can’t drink it ashore. Knocks me off my feet. But out here on the water it seems just right.”

  Slim’s complexion was swarthy too. He looked Sicilian or Italian, or maybe Portuguese. Sylvester had called him Collins, which didn’t seem to fit at all, but he came honestly by his first name anyhow. He was painfully tall and gangling, with a stooped posture which called attention to the fact that he was no longer young. He had dark eyes which he kept half-closed, and large, widely separated front teeth.

  “Sylvester,” he called lazily. “How’s your drink holding out?”

  “I’ll take him one,” Ed said.

  He poured Demerara in a glass without measuring, added a dollop of water and a single ice cube. It was a drink to stagger a horse, but when he handed it to Sylvester at the wheel, the little man grinned and lapped it all down. Ed took the empty glass, refilled it from the bottle and returned to Sylvester. “Not so fast on this one, fella. Get us out of the harbor first.”

  Sylvester laughed. “Don’ worry, my frien’. Dead drunk I could navigate. With the engine you gave me, in a good boat like the Santa Clara, a baby could run her.” He swallowed half the glassful and when Ed moved back to the stern, beckoned to Shayne.

  Thoughtfully, the redhead moved over to the wheelhouse.

  “Mike, you know what?” Sylvester whispered. “They have such a good time on the Santa Clara, they buy her a new engine! A gift to me. They even dirty it up so I wouldn’t have to pay more property tax. Is new, expensive engine-Gray Marine-but looks old. Fools the tax collector.” He laughed again, in childish delight.

  “Give it to me slow,” Shayne said. “You never saw these men until a few weeks ago, but they dug into their pockets and bought you a new engine-just because they like you?”

  “Tha’s what I been trying to tell you, Mike.”

  “Was the old engine bad?”

  “Not bad, not good.” Sylvester shrugged. “But this one the best. Slim even work on it to supercharge it some. He is expert mechanic. Now this engine lift the Santa Clara like a flying fish out of the water. After a while maybe I show you, if they let me. They don’t like for me to let it out. What for a fast engine if you don’t go fast, Mike?”

  “That’s a good question.” Shayne massaged his left earlobe gently. “Is this Slim a mechanic at home?” Where would a mechanic get the money to come to Florida on an extended vacation and, further, engage in such altruism?

  “Is hobby mechanic,” Sylvester said. “Do-it-yourself man, he says. To make money he is a contractor. Very rich. They are all rich. To them to buy a new engine the expense is nothing. Still”-his round face sobered-“how many rich men would do such a nothing? I am most lucky.”

  “Looks that way.” Shayne rubbed his lean jaw thoughtfully.

  With its V-bottomed hull and narrower-than-ordinary stern, Sylvester’s boat had been faster than it needed to be for fishing, before. He had never outgrown a boyish passion for speed, and had been willing to sacrifice a little pay-load for it. But now it had the new engine that could “lift the Santa Clara out of the water” bought for him by strangers who liked him and had dirtied it up “to fool the tax collector.” But they didn’t want him to speed with it. Why? Why, even, had they bought it for him?

  Shayne walked back to join the men in the canopied cockpit.

  “Help yourself, Mike.” Ed waved cordially toward the bottle. “Drink and be merry. Today’s a holiday.”

  “Any special one?” Shayne poured a generous glass, but set it down untouched.

  “Since we three got together we declare a holiday every day,” Slim said lazily.

  “You didn’t know each other before you came to Miami?”

  “No. Damnedest thing. Never met till about a month ago. In a bar on Flagler the first day I arrived. But the minute we met, we clicked. We’d all come down to live it up and fish, and we were lucky enough to find Sylvester… Hey, Sylvester! How’s your drink coming?”

  “She’s all gone.”

  “Can’t have that.” Ed walked over with the bottle and poured straight rum over the melting ice in Sylvester’s glass.

  Shayne said pleasantly, “Quite a coincidence, your hitting it off so well. From your accents, I’d say you’re f
rom different parts of the country.”

  “Couldn’t be differenter,” Slim said. “I’m from Philly and Ed’s from Detroit. In the insurance business there. Vince here’s from Arizona. Got him a motel chain. Down here we all got beach cabanas. Vince claims some of his in Arizona can match them at a fourth the price but, what the hell-money’s to spend, or what good is it?”

  Shayne took a cautious swallow of the rum. “You’re all down here alone?”

  “All but Ed. He brought his wife.”

  Ed had come back from tending to Sylvester’s drink and was refilling his own. “I’m practically alone,” he said cheerfully. “When she isn’t playing canasta, she’s shopping.”

  Shayne sat down, relaxed with his long legs sprawled out, and watched the shore recede. Already the beach was only a thin line, and the palms behind it a hedgelike, hazy green. A small yacht passed with two men and two women sitting at an umbrella-covered table sipping drinks. Ed and Slim shouted across the water and waved. The men on the yacht stared impassively, but the women-young, lithe and blond-looked interestedly at the boatload of men and waved back.

  They were getting into the Gulf Stream now with little whirlpools showing everywhere and yellow gulfweed floating in patches. There were bursts of flying-fish in the air, with boilings in the water as a bigger fish pursued them.

  “You want to try for a barracuda, Mike?” Sylvester called. “I’ll put the mullet strips on for you.”

  “I’ll take the wheel, Sylvester,” Vince offered.

  Vince set down his drink and walked over. Shayne looked back. Through the screen which covered the wheelhouse window he could see Vince in his flamboyant shirt bent over the compass and some charts, his hand resting with easy familiarity on the wheel. For a motel mogul from landlocked Arizona, this man seemed inordinately good on a boat. He seemed inordinately sober too, despite all the high-voltage rum being passed around.

  In contrast to his steadiness, Sylvester lurched from the cabin, weaving unsteadily and grinning foolishly. He made his way precariously to the bait box aft, took out the prepared mullet strips, baited three hooks and gave them to Shayne. The redhead let them troll back in the boat’s wake.

  “Use the fishing chair if you want,” Ed drawled. “We’re too lazy to do any fishing that takes energy. Better strap yourself in against the big ones.”

  Shayne shook his head. “With light six-thread I’m not looking for anything big enough to pull me overboard.”

  “We aren’t looking for anything, period. After a while, if we anchor, we might put out some hand lines-and hope the fish won’t latch onto ’em.” He laughed. “Mostly we just like to get out here and drink on the water.”

  This was about as screwy a fishing party as Shayne had ever chummed up with.

  “Is like a club, Mike,” Sylvester explained. “All nice and happy. They get along with everybody.”

  As though to prove the statement, Slim raised himself on his elbow from the kapok cushions and waved genially at a police boat that was passing. The men on the boat waved back, the one at the wheel tooting twice in recognition of Sylvester’s boat. Sylvester had run a charter boat off Miami for many years and the happy little Cuban was a favorite of everybody’s.

  Shayne’s bait was trolling nicely, bouncing on the swell. The water was silver-blue and the breeze just cool enough to compensate for the hot sun. It was a good day. The redhead leaned back, listening to the cheerful banter between Sylvester and the three men. The rum was disappearing steadily; the humor and the laughter gaining weight and volume. A carefree holiday seemed to be the only thing on anybody’s mind.

  Shayne felt a tug on his line that communicated through his hands clear up into his shoulders. His star-drag reel whirred as a fish ran out the line, and he experienced the sharp, familiar feel of satisfaction the weight of a fighting fish always gave him. No one except Sylvester seemed much interested as he played the fish and reeled it in. It was an eight-pound barracuda, evil-looking, its long jaws lined with razor-sharp teeth.

  “I’ve caught ’em eight feet long,” Sylvester bragged. “Those big ones can eat a man’s leg off.” He moved drunkenly, taking the fish from the hook and packing it in ice, a necessary precaution, since the flesh of a barracuda spoils more rapidly than most other tropical fish.

  “Got a feeling you’re going to do all the fishing that’s done today, Mike,” Slim said. “We started drinking too early, I guess. Fishing just seems like too much work.” He started singing in a hoarse and off-key voice.

  Shayne put his troll bait out again. They were well out to sea with the smooth flow of the Gulf Stream around them, and Miami an unreal wonderland vanishing in the afternoon haze. The others were quieter now. Had the calm of the open ocean finally penetrated their overstimulated senses, or had the abandoned holiday mood been put on partly for Shayne’s benefit, to make him feel at ease because Sylvester had practically forced them into allowing him to join their party?

  The redhead played another barracuda and lost him, then landed a good-sized grouper. When Sylvester came over to take it off the hook he rose, saying casually, “I’ve had enough for a while.”

  He sauntered along the deck, went down three steps and entered the cabin, where he walked over and lifted the hatch on the engine housing. The new engine looked powerful. As Sylvester had said, it had been dirtied and smeared with oil. It took close inspection to tell that it was new. The redhead looked down at it for a long time, his gray eyes thoughtful.

  At a chorus of shouting outside, he closed the hatch, turned away from the engine and went up on deck. They were all on the port side, craning to look ahead at another boat coming into view. Sylvester held a pair of binoculars on her.

  “She’s a Cuban!” he yelled.

  Vince, still at the wheel, headed toward the approaching boat. At the change in direction, Sylvester came alive, set down the binoculars and picked up his drink in an unsteady hand, liquor slopping over the sides.

  “Not that way,” he shouted. “Fish no good that way. I take you to better place.”

  “Let him alone, Silvy,” Ed said. “Vince is a frustrated mariner at heart. Just wants to take us for a ride. And who knows, might be some senoritas on the boat if she’s Cuban.” He laughed boisterously. “I’d rather fish for senoritas than fish for fish.”

  “What is that-fustrated?” Sylvester asked.

  “Frustrated. Means wants to do something, but don’t get a chance.”

  “Ho!” The little Cuban laughed loudly, pounding one thick, hairy hand on his leg. “I know wha tha’s like. When I walk on Collins Avenue and see the girls. All the girls I can’t have… Lettim alone then.”

  Vince brought the Santa Clara in close, deftly heeling to port beside a thirty-foot power boat named La Ballena.

  “The Whale!” Sylvester yelled. “Cuban whale!”

  The ocean top in the Stream was flat as a table.

  From La Ballena came wild Cuban music. On deck, a girl clad in short red shorts and the suggestion of a red bra was rhumbaing, her inky hair flying, her teeth, eyes and earrings flashing. A young, dark man sat on the rail watching her and shouting encouragement in Spanish. As the music increased in tempo, her movements grew more abandoned. Then, abruptly, the record player stopped. Inertia kept her moving for a moment in the new silence, then she too stopped, looking up startled at the nearness of the Santa Clara.

  Two older men who had fish lines out, looked around.

  “You folks fishin’ or funnin’?” Ed shouted.

  “A little of both,” the taller man said.

  “Is there any difference?” his companion asked.

  Although the men did not look alike, they both had full, loosely-put-together faces and their eyes, despite the bantering words, held a certain flint. They wore light, broad-brimmed Panama straws and spoke with a slight accent.

  “Why don’t you join us, senores?”

  The girl leaned on the rail smiling, her coal-black eyes with dilated pupils resting
with frank feminine appraisal on Shayne. “Si, why don’t you?” Her low, throbbing voice had a strong Spanish accent.

  “I don’t rhumba,” Shayne said.

  “You don’t have to.” Her dewy eyes framed in black lashes almost reached across to him. Her breasts swelled above the red bra. Unexpectedly, she pursed her full lips into kiss-shape and leaned toward Shayne. After a moment she withdrew, humming almost silently, and moved in a slow nautch-like dance, her hips swaying provocatively, the muscles in her diaphragm moving sinuously in the bare space between the skimpy bra and the short shorts.

  “I’d sure like to come aboard,” Ed said regretfully, “but I promised the old lady I’d be home tonight-with fish. And I haven’t done any fishing, except in Demerara.”

  “What kind of fish, pop?” the dark young man asked brashly. “Maybe in Cuban waters we catch some different kinds which she never taste.”

  “Don’t matter which kind,” Ed said.

  “All right. You want fresh bonito? Very good baked in oven with onions and peppers around him.” The young man had the same black, untamed eyes and heavy accent as the girl.

  “I don’t think she ever had bonito.” Ed turned to Shayne. “What you going to do with your fish, Mike?”

  “I don’t want them,” the redhead said.

  “O.K., amigo,” Ed called. “We’ll swap you a barracuda or a grouper.”

  “No need to swap. We give you the bonito.”

  “No,” Sylvester insisted. “Swap is fair.”

  “I would love the barracuda,” the girl said.

  “Good. The barracuda then.” The young man grinned. “It is more favored in our country than in yours.”

  “Your mother can cook it for us, Jose,” the girl said. “She has most good recipe for barracuda.”

  Sylvester laughed thickly and clapped Shayne on the shoulder. “Tha’s what I like about these boys. Every time we go out we make new friends.” He lurched toward the Cuban boat and Shayne grasped his arm to keep him from falling.