“Of course not,” Simon assured her heartily. “If you mean, for baiting such a beautiful trap to skin a pair of sidewinders like Manuel and Pablo, I wish a lot more people would take up the sport. However…” His brows drew together and his gaze slanted at her shrewdly. “I had my eye on them too, even if you saw them first.”
“And you should get a royalty for being my inspiration.” She put out her cigarette, escaping his steady scrutiny only for a moment, and looked at him again. “All right. Would you be satisfied if we split three ways?”
He didn’t move.
“You, me, and Sherman?” he said.
“Yes. After all, we’ve spent a lot of money, and done a lot of groundwork.”
Simon walked over to the window and looked out. It seemed to have stopped raining, but the streets below were shiny with water. He gazed over the nearer rooftops and the scattered lights to the hazy glow of illumination that hung over the city’s centre. He had seldom felt that life was so rich and bountiful.
There may well be among the varied devotees of these chronicles some favoured individual who has once experienced a certain feeling of elation upon learning that a hitherto undreamed-of uncle has gone to join the heavenly choir, leaving him a half-dozen assorted oil wells. Such a one might have a faint conception of the incandescent beatitude that was welling up in the Saint’s ecstatic soul. A very faint and protopathic conception. For the fundamentally dreary mechanics of inheriting a few mere fountains of liquid lucre cannot really be compared with the blissful largesse that the Saint saw Providence decanting on him from its upturned cornucopia. This had poetry; this fell into the kind of artistic pattern that made music in his heart.
He turned at last.
“Will you just mail me my share,” he asked, “or am I expected to help?”
“Is the deal okay?”
“You must remind me some day to warn you about being too generous, in this racket.”
She let out breath in an almost inaudible sigh, sinking a little deeper in the chair. It was the first proof she had given that she had been under tension before.
“You could help a lot.”
“Tell me.”
“Frankly,” she said, “the only thing I’ve been worried about is the payoff. First, they’ll want to be sure that we’ve really got the guns. That’s taken care of. They can take a motor-boat and go out a few miles from Veracruz or Tampico, and meet our boat. All right. Then we’ll come to the question of delivery. That cargo can’t be unloaded at a regular port. So I expect them to pick some quiet spot along the coast where it can be brought in at dead of night.”
“How do you manage to be so beautiful and have this kind of brain?” he asked admiringly.
“I’m only thinking it out the way you would.” There was nothing coy about her now: it was all business. “So we agree to do that. But we can’t count on them giving us the money and trusting that we’ll deliver. Most probably, they’ll want to pay off at the landing place, when the cargo starts coming ashore. We’d have to agree to that too. And then suppose they decided to double-cross us—to take the cargo and keep their money?”
“They’d be afraid of you tipping off the cops…But of course, if they were going that far, they could shut you up permanently.”
“And Sherman isn’t the fighting type. Even if he had a gun, he wouldn’t know how to use it.”
“How about your crew on the boat?”
“They’re only half in on the caper. We told them we were only trying to run in a batch of illegal slot machines, and hired them for a flat price. You can imagine what a cut they’d have wanted if we’d said anything about guns. They don’t think they’re taking much of a risk, and I’d hate to rely on them in a real jam.”
“But you’re paying them out of your share?”
“Call it part of the investment I mentioned. That’s why I couldn’t offer you better than a three-way split. When you work it out, you’ll really be getting closer to half of the net.”
He nodded.
“I’m afraid my lecture on the folly of being too generous isn’t going to do you much good when I get around to it, Doris.” The twist of his mouth was humorously speculative. “However, since you made the terms, I guess a little body-guarding isn’t too much help to ask in return for a cut like that.”
She stood up from the chair and moved towards him. She kept on coming towards him, slowly, until the tips of her breasts touched his chest.
“If that isn’t enough,” she said, “there might be a personal bonus…Sherman won’t be back for a long while yet. You’ve got time to think it over.”
5
Doris Inkler phoned him at nine o’clock, as he was stepping out of the shower, and asked him to join them in their suite for breakfast. A few minutes later he knocked on the door, and she opened it. She looked fresh and cool in a light cotton print, and her eyes were only warm and intimate for an instant, before she turned to introduce him to her husband.
“Doris has told me the deal,” Inkler said, shaking hands in the brisk business-like way which was so much a part of his act that it must have become a part of himself. “This caper is all her baby, so it’s okay with me. Glad to have you on our side.”
He looked a little tired and nervous.
“I didn’t get in till three this morning,” he explained. “These Mexicans don’t seem to care about bedtime. I guess they make up for it with their siestas. However, everything’s set.”
A waiter wheeled in a table set with three places.
“We ordered bacon and eggs for you,” Inkler said. “Hope that’s all right.”
“I’m starved,” Doris said. “While you were dining and wining with the brothers, you’d politely got rid of me.”
“I thought you’d get yourself something here,” Inkler said.
“I was too busy locating Mr Templar. And after that—too busy.”
She was pouring coffee as she said it, and she didn’t look at Simon.
“I’m sorry,” said the Saint. “I forgot all about that. I was too interested myself.”
The waiter was gone, and they ate.
“The Enriquez boys are calling for us at half past eleven,” Inkler said. “By that time they’ll have arranged for the cash. They’ll drive us to Veracruz. They’ve got a fishing boat there, and we’ll go out and look at the cargo. I sent a radio-telegram to our captain last night, telling him to meet us twenty miles out. I just hope it isn’t too rough.”
“How are you going to account for me?” Simon asked.
“That’s easy,” Doris said. “You’re Sherman’s partner, just arrived from the States. You were worried about him making no progress, and flew down unexpectedly to see whether you could help.”
“Your faith in me is almost embarrassing. How did you know I’d have the equipment to disguise myself, in case one of the brothers happened to remember seeing me at another table last night?”
“If you hadn’t, we could have lent it to you. But I couldn’t imagine the Saint being without it. I expect you have another name with you, too.”
“Tombs,” said the Saint. “Sebastian Tombs.”
He still had a sentimental attachment to the absurd alias that he had used so often, but he felt reasonably confident that the Enriquez brothers would not have heard of it.
“Have you got a gun?” Inkler asked.
Simon patted his left side, under the arm.
“I can take care of Manuel and Pablo, and maybe some of their friends, if they try any funny business,” he said. “But whether I can take care of the whole Mexican gendarmerie is another matter. Even if everything goes according to plan, it may not be long before they find out that your packing cases aren’t all full of artillery. Then they might have the cops looking for us on some phony charge—as well as Jalisco’s bully boys. I don’t think Mexico will be the ideal vacation spot for us after this. What were your plans for after you got the dough?”
Inkler looked at his wife, leaving
her to answer.
“I’ve found out that there’s a night plane from here to Havana that stops at Veracruz at two o’clock in the morning,” she said. “It should be just right for us. I’ll make the reservations while you’re getting disguised, if that suits you.”
The Saint seldom used an elaborate disguise, and in this case he did not have to conceal his identity from anyone who knew him but only from two men who might possibly have recalled him from having casually noticed him the night before. With plenty of grey combed into his dark hair, and the addition of a neat grey moustache and tinted glasses, he was sure that the Enriquez brothers would see nothing familiar about him. Even the Inklers, when he first met them again, looked at him blankly.
The Enriquez brothers arrived with un-Mexican punctuality. Simon was introduced to them, in the lobby, and they accepted Inkler’s explanation of his presence with no signs of suspicion.
Outside, they had two matching light yellow Cadillacs. Chauffeurs opened the doors simultaneously as they came out. Manuel Enriquez ushered them into one of the cars, and Simon, always considerate of his own comfort on a long trip, quietly slipped into the front seat. Manuel followed the Inklers into the back. Pablo waved to them and turned away.
“He goes in the other car,” Manuel explained. “He has the money.”
He said it with a smile, almost passing it off as a joke, so that the implication was inoffensive. But it left no doubt, if there had ever been any, that the Enriquez brothers were not babes in the woods. Nor, Simon believed, were their chauffeurs. The one beside him, whom he was able to study at more length, had the shoulders of a prize-fighter and a face that had not led a sheltered life.
On the other hand, these evidences of sensible caution did not necessarily mean that there was a double-cross in prospect, and the Saint saw no reason why he should not let himself at least enjoy the trip. Manuel was a good host in his way, even if he made Simon think of a hospitable alligator, pointing out the landmarks along the way and making agreeable small talk about Mexican customs and conditions, without any reference to politics. Nor was there any mention of the object of their journey—but, after all, there was no more at that moment to discuss.
They had lunch at Puebla, and then rolled on down the long serpentine road to the coast. After a while the Saint went to sleep.
It was early evening when they reached Veracruz, and drove through the hot noisy streets out to the comparative tranquillity of the Mocambo.
“We will stay here tonight,” Manuel said. “While they take in our bags we will get something to eat. It may be late before we can have dinner.”
After sandwiches and cold beer they got into Manuel’s car again. A short drive took them to the Club Nautico. As they got out, Simon observed that Pablo’s twin Cadillac was no longer behind them.
“If all is well, we shall meet him presently,” Manuel said.
He guided them to the dock where a shiny new Chris-Craft with fishing chairs and outriggers was tied up. The crew of two who helped them aboard were identical in type with the chauffeurs, and no less efficiently taciturn. The lines were cast off at once, and the big engines came to life, one after the other, with deep hollow roars. The boat idled out into the darkening harbour.
“Tell us where we are to go,” Manuel said.
“North-east,” Inkler said, “and twenty miles out.”
Enriquez translated to the captain at the wheel.
“Let us go inside and be comfortable,” he said. “I have whisky, gin, and tequila. In an hour we should be able to see your boat.”
The time did not pass too badly, although Simon would have preferred to stay on deck. It was noisy in the cabin, with the steady drone of the engines and the rush of water, so that a certain effort had to be made to talk and to listen. But fortunately for their comfort there was very little sea, and the speeding boat did not bounce much.
He was checking his watch for the exact end of the estimated hour when the engines reduced their volume of sound suddenly and the boat sagged down and surged heavily as its own wave overtook it. They all went out with unanimous accord into the after-cockpit, and Simon saw the lights and silhouette of a ship ahead of them. A moment later, Enriquez switched on a spotlight and sent its beam sweeping over the other vessel. It was a squat and very dilapidated little coastal freighter of scarcely three hundred tons which would certainly have looked like having a rough voyage to Iran, if anybody but the Saint had been critical of such details at that moment. An answering light blinked from her bridge, three times.
“That’s it,” Inkler said.
“What you call, on the nose?” Enriquez said with solid satisfaction.
As the Chris-Craft drew alongside, the freighter lowered a boarding ladder. Doris Inkler stood beside the Saint.
“We’ll wait for you here,” she said.
They watched Inkler and Enriquez clamber up over the side and disappear. Simon lighted two cigarettes and gave her one. She stayed close to him, watching the Mexican captain and mate as they made a rope fast to the ladder and hung fenders over the rubbing strake.
“This is the first place we could have trouble,” she said in a low voice. “If Manuel wants one of the wrong cases opened…”
“Don’t worry until it happens,” he said.
But he could feel her tenseness, and he was a little tense himself for what seemed like an interminable time, but by his watch was less than a half-hour, until at last Inkler and Enriquez came down the ladder again and joined them in the smaller boat’s cockpit. Then he could tell by the subtly different confidence of both men that there had been no trouble.
Manuel spoke briefly to the captain, who yelled at the mate, and the bow line was cast off. Water widened between the two hulls, and the Chris-Craft engines grumbled again. Manuel shepherded the Inklers and the Saint below.
He poured four drinks in four clean glasses, and raised one of them.
“To our good fortunes,” he said.
“Is everything all right?” Doris asked, holding on to her glass.
“Your husband is a good business man. He has the right things for the right customers.”
Only the most captious analyst might have thought she was a fraction slow with her response.
“Oh, Sherman!”
She flung her arms around Inkler’s neck and kissed him joyously. Then she turned to the Saint and did the same to him. Inkler watched this with a steady smile.
“Your boat is now following us to a little fishing village, where I have men waiting to unload the cargo,” Manuel said.
“Is it far?”
“We have to go slower, of course. But it will not be too long. About three hours. And we have plenty to drink.”
“Pablo Enriquez is waiting there with the money,” Inkler said to the Saint.
Simon remembered that he had the privileged role of a partner.
“Exactly when is it to be paid?” he inquired. “I hope Mr Enriquez won’t be offended, but business is business. He wanted to see what we had to offer before he committed himself, and quite rightly. Now I don’t think we should have to unload all that stuff until it’s paid for.”
Manuel grinned like a genial saurian.
“As soon as I tell Pablo it’s okay, he gives you the money. Five hundred thousand American dollars. In cash!”
There was nothing more to be said; but the rest of the voyage seemed to take far more than three times as long as the trip out. The Chris-Craft wallowed along sluggishly, rolling a little with the swell; they all realized that her speed had to be cut down to let the freighter keep up with her, but still their nerves chafed against the restraint, aching impatiently and impossibly for the throttles to open and the exhaust to belch in booming crescendo and the ship to lighten and lift up and skim with all the throbbing speed of which she was capable, lancing through the time between them and the climax ahead. That was how Simon felt, and he knew that two others felt exactly as he did and worse.
There was plenty
to drink, as Manuel said, but they could not even take advantage of that to deaden the consciousness of crawling minutes. Sipping lightly and at a studiously sober pace himself, Simon noted that the Inklers were doing the same. Once Sherman emptied his glass rather hurriedly, and earned an unmistakable cold stare from his wife; after that he left the refill untouched for a long time. Only Enriquez was under no inhibition, but the alcohol seemed to have no effect on him, unless it was to confirm his hard-lipped good humour.
“Perhaps one day we do some more business, but in the open,” was the closest he came to referring to the lawless purpose of their association. “It is like Prohibition in your country, is it not? When the law changes, the bootleggers become importers. But until then, it is better you forget all about tonight.”
Watching him with ruthless detachment, the Saint was unable to detect any foreshadowing of a double-cross. And, after all, it was entirely possible that the Enriquez brothers would be prepared to pay for what they thought they were getting, and even consider it cheap at the price. At the infinite end of three hours, he was almost convinced that Manuel was prepared to complete his infamous bargain. Yet he could not relax.
At last, after three eternities, there was a change of volume in the purr of the engines, and the boat seemed to be rolling less, and muffled voices shouted on deck. Manuel put down his glass and went out quickly, and they followed.
The night air was still warm and humid, but it was refreshing after the stuffy cabin. The sky overhead was an awning of rich velvet sprinkled with unrealistically brilliant stars, and on both sides Simon saw the black profiles of land sharply cut out against it over the bow. At the end of the bay, he saw the scattered yellow window lights of a small village, and closer than that there were other lights down by the water, flashlights that moved and danced. Searching around for the ugly shape of the little freighter, he found it looming so close astern that it was momentarily alarming, until he realized that it was hardly moving. The Mexican captain was yelling up at it and waving his arms. Enriquez took over, translating, “Stop here! You can’t go any farther!”
Señor Saint (The Saint Series) Page 6
