Melanie wondered why she was lying here speculating about how it would feel to make love to Hal “the Iceman” Smothers. She made it a rule to keep business and pleasure strictly separate, and since fate had been kind enough to throw her way a man she would very much like to investigate, she had to classify him as business.
Enter one prospective Pulitzer Prize nomination, or at least a sale to a magazine that paid in actual dollars. Exit one pair of sexy hips and a hard, knowing mouth.
The word investigate reverberated through her swollen brain. It rang a bell, or was that just another throb of pain?
Oh, Lord. Now she remembered what her plans were.
“What time is it?” demanded Melanie.
“Around two.”
“I have to go to a party tonight” With infinite gingerliness, she eased herself up into a sitting position.
Melanie was relieved to see that she was fully dressed in her black leggings, red-and-white-striped sweater and the short black jacket she’d picked up in Paris. Only her red beret and ebony boots had been removed, and must be around here somewhere.
“I do not think you are in any shape for a party.” Hal reached down and scooted her hips so she could sit more comfortably. “Please excuse the familiarity. A gentleman would not handle a lady in this manner under normal circumstances, but you are an injured person entrusted to my care.”
Melanie wasn’t sure which revelation startled her most: that the Iceman had taken her under his care, or that he considered himself a gentleman.
“Look, let’s put our cards on the table, shall we?” she said. As a casino owner, she figured, he should grasp the metaphor.
“You wish us to be frank,” said the Iceman, still wearing that melting look.
“Right. My name is Melanie Mulcahy and I’m…selfemployed. I’ve got work to do, and if I don’t, I won’t make any money, so take me home, okay?”
Melanie chose not to mention that her self-employment took the form of freelance muckraking. This was not a popular profession with men of his persuasion.
It was not a popular profession with her wallet, either. Maybe if she had the patience to attend city-council meetings and write human-interest stories about lost dogs, she could draw a steady paycheck. But Melanie loved the thrill of the chase more than anything except maybe a byline.
“I fear I cannot take you home at this time,” said the man. “However, you can rely upon me to compensate you for any lost income. I am Hal Smothers, the owner of the Ice Palace Hotel.”
“I know who you are, but I’ve got to—” She stopped, realizing that she had missed her plane to Los Angeles, anyway.
It had been her intention to catch a cab from the L.A. airport to the docks at San Pedro, where she would crash a farewell party aboard the small cruise vessel Jolly Roger. She believed that it was the next target in the series of jewel heists she was investigating, and which she believed were linked to Margarita Samovar.
After the party, Melanie planned to stow away, having been unable to afford a cruise ticket. But then, she doubted Rita would have sold her one, anyway. Rita had been hostile to Melanie for some time, having gotten wind of the way she was asking questions.
However, she could hardly explain this to Hal Smothers. He was a crook, and therefore more likely to sympathize with Rita than with Melanie. For all she knew, he might even be involved in the robberies and had deliberately taken her out of commission.
Come to think of it, that brunch invitation from the pawnshop owner could have been a setup. Someone had conveniently arranged for Melanie to visit Grampa’s Emporium and put her in the path of a small projectile disguised as a golf ball.
And then Hal Smothers, the deadliest hit man in the West, had laid hands on her. She felt a moment of sheer terror. It was thrilling.
Melanie had slogged through a rain forest once to confront a band of guerrillas, only to find them posing for pictures with the cast of “Baywatch.”
She had parachuted into a central Asian nation in the middle of a civil war, gotten stuck in a bog and been rescued by a computer repairman who was servicing the rebels’ fax machine.
The kind of adrenaline-stirring peril that had made a hero of Ernest Hemingway had won nothing but anonymity for Melanie Mulcahy. Not that she regretted a thing; she loved the excitement, and trusted that someday it would lead to fame.
Maybe, at last, she could have both. She was going to hook up with Hal “the Iceman” Smothers and use this vicious pirate for all he was worth. It was no more than he deserved.
The room began to shake again, slowed, and then picked up speed in a way that made her head quake. They were, Melanie could see, definitely occupying a private railroad car. Now that her head was clearing, she remembered seeing Hal Smothers on TV, buying such a car at a charity auction.
“Excuse me,” she said. “How can we be riding in a railway car when there is no more passenger service to Las Vegas?”
“I prefer this classic mode of transportation,” replied the Iceman. “It is inconvenient not to have the traditional engine in the front and rails beneath us, but I have improvised.”
Melanie turned and brushed aside the brocade curtains. To her astonishment, she found herself staring across an interstate highway at rugged high-desert scenery.
“You put the railway car on a truck bed?” she hazarded.
“A large semi equipped for a wide load,” Hal responded cheerily.
“You travel this way often?”
“Once in a while,” said the Iceman. “When I wish to have privacy and when there is no airport close to my destination.” He owned a private jet, she recalled.
Where would he take her that did not offer an airport? “So tell me,” she said between gritted teeth. “Where are we going?”
“I have been giving this much thought,” said her companion. “Where can I take a lady with a lump on her head, who needs rest and pampering?”
“Where indeed?” said Melanie.
“I have decided,” said the Iceman, “on a little island that has been unrecommended to me but that provides pleasant accommodations along with privacy. It is called Paraiso de Los Falsarios.”
Crooks’ Paradise. That sounded just about perfect to Melanie.
2
HAL WAS HAPPILY surprised that Melanie Mulcahy had accepted his offer of a week’s vacation without screaming or trying to jump out of the railway car.
He would not want to distress a lady. And he was coming to the reluctant conclusion that Melanie fit into that category.
She gave no sign of being the shrill, backbiting annoyance described by Rita. He could not picture this pretty lady disrupting the Rescue the Whales charity cruise and offending its donors.
In fact, when Melanie stared at him through her slightly tilted eyes the color of cocktail olives without the pimientos, he felt a distinct melting sensation in those parts a man does not mention in polite company. He had also seen her looking at his shoulders in a nicely assessing manner.
However, Hal had yet to converse with this woman when she didn’t have a lump on her head. It was possible that perhaps the golf ball had scrambled her personality.
Furthermore, it would do Melanie a great disservice if Hal developed any interest in her of a personal nature. He had seen the dented condition of her car when he arranged to have it towed to his garage.
She might possess nonstop legs and an impish face, but what this attractive person lacked was money. Hal didn’t want to perform one of his classic removals on her—in the event of alimony.
He would make sure to arrange for separate bedrooms at the resort There was always plenty of room at Paraiso de Los Falsarios, so that should be no problem.
“Tell me about this place we’re going,” said Melanie from where she lay decorating the couch. “And why exactly you feel obliged to take me there.”
The why of the situation was not a matter Hal cared to reveal, so he chose an alternate explanation. “You were injured on the propert
y of one of my dearest friends, Grampa Orion,” he said. “I wish to spare him a possible lawsuit.”
“From what I’ve heard, he’s crusty and disagreeable,” she murmured. “You’re sure he’s a friend?”
Hal didn’t wish to be rude to this lovely person, but he could not let such slander go unchallenged. “Grampa has been a substitute father for me, as my own old man perished at a young age.”
“Somebody shot him?”
“He ate a particular type of Japanese fish that does not care to be eaten,” said Hal. “As he was in Grampa’s employ at the time, the Orion family engaged my mother’s secretarial skills. This provided us with a livelihood.”
Not being the sort of man to bare his emotions, Hal chose not to explain that Grampa and the elder members of his gang were like a quarrelsome but lovable bunch of uncles. He had fond memories of Thanksgiving dinners around Grampa’s table, listening to the men trade amiable insults about each others’ cooking.
Sammy “Cha Cha” Adams, money launderer and owner of the small cruise ship Jolly Roger, had personally taught ballroom dancing to the young Hal. And Grampa, at the request of Hal’s mother, Eloise, had broached the facts of life to the growing boy with the aid of a tattered hygiene pamphlet.
At Eloise’s funeral when Hal was nineteen, Cha Cha, Grampa, “Drop Dead” Cimarosa and the Swamp Fox had served as pallbearers. On rainy days, he still got an ache in his shoulder where they had each clapped him by way of consolation.
“And you’re so grateful that you decided to sweep me away to parts unknown?” It might have been a note of seduction that he heard in the lady’s voice. That, or skepticism.
“I acted on the inspiration of the moment,” Hal improvised. “Also, Paraiso de Los Falsarios is very picturesque. I am given to understand that you are a writer of sorts. Perhaps you will be moved by the surroundings to compose a poem.”
“I’ll very likely be moved to compose something,” Melanie agreed in that melodious purr. “Now, what about this island? I’ve never heard of it”
Naturally not, Hal mused. “It has, in recent years, come into the possession of an associate of Grampa’s, Drop Dead Cimarosa, who has long aspired to own an atoll in the Caribbean. Preferably one with banks on it.”
“I can understand that. But…well, excuse me, but I always check my facts.” His guest scooped her purse from the carpet and sat up straighter on the sofa.
Hal wished he dared reach out and help shift her hips again. He had enjoyed doing that earlier, but the lady was, sad to say, looking stronger and healthier by the minute.
“This is peculiar,” said Melanie. “The Caribbean lies to the southeast, and we are headed northwest.” She held up a small round instrument.
Hal could not believe it. Most women carried a compact, but this one had brought a compass. “Do you get lost frequently?”
“All the time,” she admitted ruefully. “In some of the strangest places. Now tell me how we can reach a Caribbean island by going northwest from Las Vegas?”
“That is the question Drop Dead asked after he won it in a poker game,” said Hal. “It seems his opponent had exaggerated. The island is small, rocky and north of San Francisco.”
“How far north?” asked Melanie. “Is it in the United States?”
“It would be, if anyone knew it was there,” he admitted. “Drop Dead built a resort, but he has been careful not to advertise it. Word of mouth only. And it has a very…select clientele.”
“You mean it’s an unlisted island? A law unto itself?” Melanie pursed her lips, which already had a bee-stung fullness. Hal wondered whether she wrote romance novels and, if so, whether she might considering using him for research purposes.
On the other hand, he could only imagine how furious Drop Dead and the rest of Grampa’s crime family would be if their offshore hideaway were to be glamorized in some novel. “It is a mostly legitimate resort and has no need of law enforcement,” he said.
“When do we get there?” asked Melanie.
Hal glanced at his watch. They were hurtling along at about eighty miles an hour. “A few hours,” he said.
“Then I think I’ll take a nap.” Giving him a sweet smile, Melanie snuggled down among the pillows and closed her eyes. Her long legs, clad only in thick black tights, pressed lightly against his hip.
Her vicinity was rapidly rendering his body uninhabitable. Grumpily, he moved to a chair, but this only gave him a better view of her long, coltish body and small, lively breasts.
Ashamed of his ungentlemanly ogling, Hal relocated to the corner desk and set up his notebook computer. He was working on a new spreadsheet-based video game, Tax Invaders from the Planet Zog, that made accounting fun. It should net him yet another fortune.
THEY ARRIVED at the island near twilight As the sun sank below the horizon, it streaked the western sky with all the colors of a punk rocker’s hair.
Melanie stood on the prow of the ferryboat, staring at a puzzling sight Overhead, the heavens glowed picturesquely. But straight ahead, mist swathed what appeared to be a barren clutch of rocks.
Never before, in all her travels, had she encountered such a surrealistic vision. Above, a pink and violet sky. Below, a black lump in the ocean, surrounded by fog.
“There’s nothing there. Or at least, nothing I can see.” She shivered inside her jacket, which offered little protection against the icy breeze. Fortunately, the cold air also took the sting out of her lump.
“That is the beauty of it.” Hal Smothers stopped behind Melanie, his feverish heat enveloping her like a blanket. What fool had named him the Iceman?
“You mean it’s always like this?” she asked.
“Perpetually in a fog,” he agreed.
“And somebody built a resort on it?”
“It was a sublime act of wishful thinking,” he admitted. “At least we should not be troubled by excessive company.”
Melanie saw right through him. A top-flight criminal like Hal wouldn’t isolate himself for a week in the middle of nowhere with a woman he believed to be a poet. Not even to prevent a lawsuit against his friend Grampa.
The charity cruise that Melanie had missed should be heading past here tomorrow or the day after. Hal could be in cahoots with Rita, planning to stash the jewels once she swiped them from the wealthy patrons.
There had been three previous heists. One had taken place on a charity skiing tour of Switzerland, one during a mystery weekend in Quebec and the third at a costume ball in Juarez, Mexico.
The common denominator was that Margarita Samovar had organized all three events. This intriguing fact had come to Melanie’s attention because she made it her job to peruse the Internet for tidbits about unusual crimes.
So far, neither the mainstream press nor the police had seen the similarities among these far-flung robberies. Now Hal might provide another piece of the puzzle. If he was laundering booty through his hotel-casino, that would help explain his extravagant income.
Perhaps, foolishly, he had brought Melanie along to provide some sort of alibi. Well, she would testify all right, but not in the way he intended.
The ferry pulled alongside a wharf. There were no other ships around, not even a sailboat, just a rectangular dock jutting out a few dozen feet atop wooden pilings. Once you arrived at the island, Melanie realized, there was no easy way to remove yourself.
“How often does the ferry run?” she asked as they got off. They were the only passengers.
“Whenever someone radios the ferryman,” said the Iceman.
Melanie got the clear impression that he was not about to loan her a shortwave in case of emergency. Oh, well. She would figure out how to leave when the time came.
Having reached the base of the pier, they stood facing a wall of fog. Nothing penetrated it; not a building, not even a phone booth. There was certainly no hotel van waiting to meet them.
Hal hefted his suitcase and stared glumly at the fog. “This is what comes of not having a reservation.”
Melanie was glad she didn’t have any luggage. “How far is it?”
“It does not matter, because you are in no fit condition to walk.” Hal regarded her ruefully. “Your lump has outgrown the ball that inspired it.”
Melanie decided not to reach up there and feel for herself. She had a notion it might hurt.
“Well, if I can’t walk, how are we going to get there?” she asked. “Is it far?”
Hal didn’t answer. Instead, his eyes got narrow and pouchy as he peered into the mist For the first time since she’d awakened in the train car, he really looked like a criminal.
What if the resort didn’t exist? Melanie felt a rush of fear.
Rita had been suspicious of her for over a week now. Assuming she and the Iceman were in cahoots, he might have brought Melanie here to make the long swim to China. If that was his modus operandi, no wonder his victims had never been found.
On the other hand, if Hal Smothers was known for anything besides his efficiency as a killer, it was his soft spot for women. Melanie decided the situation left her no choice.
“Put your bag down,” she said.
He clunked it to the ground. “Do you feel faint?”
“Very faint.” She sagged against him. Close up, the man smelled nice. He was wearing the usual gangsterissue cologne, spicy with a hint of musk.
Two strong arms seized her elbows and maintained her at approximately a seventy-five-degree angle, according to Melanie’s calculations. Her cheek was resting against Hal’s neck, but her pelvis was in Outer Siberia.
“Could you hold me a little closer?” she whispered. “I’m cold.” But not as cold as she would be if he pitched her off this pile of rocks, she thought as she eyed the distance to the retreating ferryboat.
Carl Lewis might be able to jump across the rapidly expanding stretch of water. Melanie would prefer to take her chances with Hal.
“I apologize for my lack of foresight.” The gangster gave up trying to keep her at arm’s length and gathered her against him. He felt hard, all the way up. “It is an unfortunate fact that even cellular phones do not work on this island.”
Kidnapped / I Got You Babe Page 2
