“Believe it or not,” said the Saint, “she came here to tell me something.”
“I notice you’re doing your listening with your mouth these days.”
Peter remarked. “You shouldn’t have washed off her lipstick—it suited you.”
Simon sprawled himself out in a chair and gazed at them affectionately.
“Do you two comedians want to listen?” he inquired. “Or would you rather go on rehearsing your new vaudeville act?”
He told them everything that had happened from the arrival of Haskins to the capture of Lafe Jennet. They didn’t find the affair of the note so wildly hilarious as he had done, being more practically concerned with the miraculous good fortune that had deflated it, but when he came to his parting conversation with Karen Leith, they sat up, and then pondered it silently for several seconds.
“Wouldn’t it be more likely,” Peter said at last, “that Karen’s visit was timed to find out whether the note business had worked?”
“But she covered me up for Haskins.”
“She covered up your visit to March,” Patricia corrected. “March wouldn’t want that brought in, anyway.”
“And then, if the note had misfired somehow, she was there to put the finger on him for Jennet.” Peter was developing his theory with growing conviction. “And when Jennet missed, she could report back that you were on your way out to this gambling barge—”
“And if you get out of that alive,” said Patricia, “she’ll have another chance on your date tonight—”
“And if he still accidentally happens to be alive in the morning,” Peter concluded, “there’s a fishing trip down to Wildcat Key on which anything can happen…It all hangs together, Chief. They’ve got about half a dozen covering bets, and your luck can’t hold for ever. They haven’t missed a loophole.” The Saint nodded.
“You may be absolutely right,” he said soberly. “But there’s still no way out of it for me. If we want to get anywhere, we can’t barricade ourselves in the house and refuse to budge. I’ve got to follow the only trail there is. Because any place where there’s a trap there may be a clue. You know that from boxing. You can’t lead without opening up. I’m going with my eyes open—but I’m going.”
They argued with him through lunch, but it would have been more useful to argue with the moon. The Saint knew that he was right in his own way, and that was the only way he had ever been able to handle an adventure. He had no use for conniving and tortuous stratagems: they were for the Ungodly. For him, there was nothing like the direct approach—with the eyes open. So long as he was prepared for pitfalls, they merely formed the rungs of a ladder, leading through step after step of additional discovery to the main objective. They might be treacherous, but there could be no adventure without risk.
When it was ultimately plain that his determination was immovable, Peter demanded the right to take the risk with him. But the Saint shook his head just as firmly.
“Somebody has to stay here with Pat,” he pointed out. “Certainly she can’t come. And I’d rather leave you, because you’re brighter than Hoppy. If there’s so much cunning at work, the whole scheme might be to get me out of the way for a raid on this place.”
It was impossible to argue with that, either.
And yet, as the Saint sped by the waters of Indian Creek and crossed it at 41st Street, he had few doubts that for the present he himself was the main centre of attraction to the Ungodly. Later it might be otherwise, but for the present he was satisfied that the Ungodly would regard his entourage as small fry to be mopped up at leisure after he had been disposed of.
The open sixteen-cylinder Cadillac which he had chosen from the selection in the well-stocked garage purred past the golf course and held a steady fifty to the Venetian Causeway. The islands of Rivo Alto, Di Lido, and San Marino, splashed with multi-hued homes of luxury, slid past them like a moving diorama. The Saint stole a glance at Lafe Jennet, who was packed like a blue sardine between himself and Hoppy on the front seat.
“When we hit Biscayne Boulevard, Sunshine,” he said, “which way do we turn?”
“For all of me,” Jennet said viciously, “you can run yourself into the bay—”
The last word expired in a painful involuntary exhalation caused by the pulverising entrance of Mr Uniatz’s elbow into the speaker’s ribs.
“De boss astcha a question,” said Mr Uniatz magisterially. “Or woujja like a crack on de nose?”
“Turn left, an’ go west on Flagler,” said Jennet, and shut his mouth more tightly than before.
A phalanx of skyscrapers swept by, towering reminders of the perverted Florida boom. A magic city with no more than four or five million acres to spread out in had had to drive its fingers of commerce into the sky.
At Flagler Street they had to slow down. A traffic policeman, picturesque in pith helmet, white belt, and sky-blue uniform, gazed at them without special interest while he held them up. But Hoppy Uniatz put one hand in his coat pocket and crowded the pocket inconspicuously into Jennet’s waist, and Jennet crouched down and made no movement. The policeman released their line, and they drove on.
They had to crawl for some blocks—first through the better shops, whose windows reproachfully displayed their most stylish variety of clothing to a throng of sidewalk strollers whose ambition appeared to be to wear as few clothes as the Law would let them; then further westward past barkers, photo shops, fortune tellers, and curio vendors with despondent-looking families of tame Seminole Indians squatting in their doors. A newsboy with his papers and racing forms hopped on the running-board, and Simon noticed a card of cheap sunglasses pinned to his shirt. He bought a pair, and stuck them on Jennet’s nose.
“We don’t want some bright cop to recognise that sour puss of yours while you’re with us,” he said.
Eventually the traffic thinned out, and Simon opened the big car up again. They whispered past the Kennel Club and golf course, and Jennet spoke again as they came in sight of the Tamiami Canal.
“You turn left here. Go right on to Eighth Street. Then you turn off again just before you hit the Tamiami Trail. You’ll have to leave the car there, whether you like it or not. There ain’t no way but walkin’ to reach that barge.”
The relics of abandoned subdivisions grew less frequent. Flatwoods crept close to the highway. Thrust back by the hand of man, curbed but impossible to tame, the wilderness of Florida inched inexorably back and waited with primeval patience to reclaim its own.
Jennet said, “You’d better slow down. T’ain’t far, now.”
They had gone several blocks without passing another car when he indicated a dim trail leading to the right. Simon pulled the wheel over and nursed the big car skilfully over the rutted track carpeted with brownish pine needles. When the track petered out he eased the Cadillac into a thicket of pines which formed a natural screen against the outside world, and stopped the engine. He climbed out, and Hoppy Uniatz yanked Jennet out on the other side.
“I never said Rogers would be here now,” Jennet growled sulkily. “What happens after this ain’t nuth’n to do with me.”
“I’ll take a chance on it,” said the Saint. “All you have to do is to lead me on.”
He was ready for the chance by then, ready with every trained and seasoned sense of muscle and nerve and eye. This was the first point at which ambushes might begin, and even though all his movements seemed easy and careless he was overlooking no possibilities. Under lazily drooping lids, his hawk-sharp blue eyes never for an instant ceased their restless scanning of the terrain. This was the kind of hunting at which he was most adept, in which he had mastered all the tricks of both woodsman and wild animal before he learned simple algebraic equations. And something that lay dormant in his blood through all city excitements awoke here to unfathomable exhilaration…
The flatwoods ended suddenly, cut off in a sharp edge by encroaching grass and palmettos. Still in the shelter of the trees, he redoubled his caution and halted Hoppy and
Jennet with a word.
He stared out over a far-flung panorama of flatness baked to a crusty brown by years of relentless sun. A covey of quail zoomed up out of the bushes ahead with a loud whirr of wings, and were specks along the edge of the trees before the startled Hoppy could reach for his gun.
A narrow footpath wound away through the palmettos. The Saint’s eyes traced its crooked course to where the unpainted square bulk of a two-storied houseboat broke the emptiness of the barren plain. Boards covered the windows on the side towards him, but a flash of reflected light from the upper deck showed that at least one window remained unboarded at the stern. The palmettos hid any sign of water, giving an illusion that the houseboat rested on land.
Lafe Jennet said, “Come on.”
The Saint’s arm barred his way.
“Will Gallipolis be there now?”
“He’s always there. Most time durin’ the afternoon he runs a game.”
Simon tramped out his cigarette, conscious of the revealing smoke.
“Keep him here,” he instructed Hoppy. “Don’t come any closer unless I call for you, or you hear too many guns going off. Keep well hidden. And if I don’t get back by dark, give him the works, will you?”
He moved off like a shadow through the trees to a point where the flatwoods bellied out closest to the barge. The rest of it was not going to be so easy, for even that shortened stretch was at least a quarter of a mile without any obvious cover. Evidently Mr Gallipolis had chosen his location with a prevision of unannounced attack that would have done credit to a potential general. A single marksman could have picked off a dozen men between the trees and the boat, even though the invading forces took it at a run; while suitable preparations for any less vigorous visitor could be made on board long before he came within hailing distance.
Simon stopped again at the point of the wood, and slapped a mosquito on his neck. A squirrel chatted rowdily in a nearby tree, protesting against the Saint’s intrusion. The sudden noise made the patterned landscape of glaring light and eccentric shadow seem unconscionably still.
He leaned against a tree and let a rapid newsreel of the events of the day run through his mind, trying to pick out of it some guiding inkling of March’s campaign, but it was not a profitable delay. He could always appreciate the finer points of an adversary’s inventiveness, but the introduction of Lafe Jennet and Gallipolis and the thus far legendary Jesse Rogers formed a kaleidoscope that was hard to fit in to any preconceived pattern. The only apparently comprehensive theory was the one which Peter Quentin had propounded, and yet even that still had one vital flaw. It did not take into account the protective letter with which March must credit him with having covered his exposed flank. He couldn’t believe that the Ungodly would have him killed without first having dealt with that contingency. And yet there was very little sense left in any supposition which could make his projected call on Mr Gallipolis seem foolproof.
The Saint shrugged defeatedly. After all, there was still only one positive way to find out.
He tested the freeness of his gun in his shoulder holster, dropped to the ground, and began to crawl.
4
The palmetto bushes made a barrier that jabbed stinging points through his light clothing. Saw-edged grass rasped smartingly against his face and neck. His shirt was soaked with perspiration before he had gone fifty yards, and he was cursing artistically under his breath by the time the sandy ground pitched sharply up, barring his way with the dredged-out bank of the canal.
The bank was bare of vegetation. He lay flat and wriggled his way to the top of the ten-foot rise of sand and clay. Working one eye warily over the summit, he took stock again of the houseboat twenty paces away. The boarded windows stared blankly back at him. Except for a pair of grey socks dangling limply from a line on the top deck near the bow, the ancient craft might have been abandoned for years.
A foot from his head, something moved, and the dampness of his shirt turned cold.
It was something that had been so still, blending so well into the baked desolation of its background, that without the movement he might have missed it entirely. The movement brought it to life in mosaic coils of deadly beauty, while he lay rigid and felt his muscles tautening like shrinking leather. Black unwinking eyes stared impersonally into his, making the skin of his face creep as if cobwebs had touched it. Then the coils straightened fluidly out, and a five-foot cottonmouth moccasin slithered gracefully away.
The Saint used his forearm to wipe clammy dew from his brow. There might not actually be any sniper waiting on the barge for him to show himself, but the dangers of his present method of approach had been unmistakably demonstrated.
In any case, the decision to abandon them was now virtually taken out of his hands. Between the point he had reached, and the sluggish water where the barge floated, there was literally no cover at all. The space had to be crossed and the only way was to do it quickly.
He raised himself up on to his toes and fingertips, and took off over the top like a sprinter. Bent low to the ground, he shot across those few perilous yards with the sure-footed soundlessness of a fiddler crab scooting for its hole, and boarded the stern with no more uproar than a fragment of rising mist.
There was no shot.
He stood with his back to the bulkhead and got his breath, listening to a clink of chips and a mumble of voices that were audible through a torn screen door. But it seemed that the sounds came from some distance away amidships, and he opened the door and sidled through into dimness. As his eyes adjusted themselves to the gloom, he saw an oil stove, racked-up dishes, a sink, and a stained table. Across from him was another door, and beyond that he found a narrow hall. The voices came from an open door which made a rectangle of light in the dark passage. A game seemed to be unconcernedly in progress, and there were no other symptoms at all of an alarm. Unless the stage had been very carefully set for him, his entrance seemed to have been achieved without a hitch.
And once again there was only one way to find out. He sauntered noiselessly down the hall and walked into the open room.
Five men sat around a baize-covered table. A tired-looking man in a green eyeshade sat with his back to a window dealing stud. An even more tired-looking cigarette drooped from his lower lip. As he called the bets in a tired monotone, the cigarette wobbled up and down. The five men raised their heads from the cards as the Saint came in. One of them looked horsey; the other three were in shirtsleeves and seemed about as menacing as bookkeepers on a holiday.
The dealer flipped up five cards and said, “King bets.” He lowered his eyeshade again and continued in his breath-saving tone: “Five dollar limit stud. The house kitty’s fifty cents out of each pot over five dollars. It’s an open game. Don’t stand around watching. If you want to play, take a chair.”
He shoved one out beside him with some pedal jugglery while he dealt the second round, and Simon sat down because the chair faced the door.
The dealer pushed chips in front of him.
“The yellow are five, the blues one, the reds a half, and the whites a quarter. Fifty bucks, and you pay now.”
Simon peeled money off his roll, and looked over the room while the hand was finished. There was nothing much to it. A double gasoline lantern hung over the table. The light from the window, which was on the water side of the barge and open, cut a square shaft of light through a fog of cigarette and cigar smoke. The walls had two or three petty drawings tacked up on them.
The dealer ladled chips towards a winner, gathered up cards, and shuffled them with the speed of a boy’s stick rattling along a picket fence. He dealt once around face down, and a second round face up. The Saint was high with a queen.
“Queen bets.” The cigarette moved up and down.
The Saint squeezed his hole card up, peeped at it, and flattened it down. He had a pair, back to back, and he didn’t like to start that well in a game.
“A buck,” he said, and tossed a blue chip in.
&n
bsp; The dealer stayed on a ten. Two of the bookkeepers dropped out, but the horsey man with a nine and the other bookkeeper with a seven spot stayed in. More cards fluttered from the dealer’s agile hand, and finished up by leaving him a second ten.
“Pair of tens bets,” he droned, and pushed out a yellow chip with a finger stained with nicotine to match it.
The horsey man said, “Nuts!” and rid himself of his cards. The surviving bookkeeper with a seven and a jack showing spent five dollars. Simon figured him for a pair of jacks, and looked down at his own visible queen which had gotten married to a king.
“Let’s make it expensive,” he said, and flipped two yellows in.
The dealer stayed, but the bookkeeper folded up with a sigh. Simon got another king. The dealer gave himself an ace of spades. He removed the stub of his cigarette and said, “You bet, friend.”
“The works,” said Simon with an angelic smile, and used both hands to shove in his entire pile.
“Don’t clown, brother.” The dealer ran his thumb along the edge of the pack and snapped it with a flourish. “I told you there’s a five buck limit on this game.”
Simon’s eyebrows rose in an arch of sanctimonious perplexity.
“What game?”
“Don’t be funny,” the dealer advised. “The game you’re in now.”
“Oh,” said the Saint in a voice of silk and honey. “I wasn’t betting on the game. I just want all the money back for my chips.”
“See here,” said the dealer dangerously, “what sort of a place do you think this is?”
The invisible coldness of angry men waiting for an explanation slid down like an avalanching glacier and crystallised the atmosphere of the room, but the Saint was utterly at ease. He leaned back in his chair and favoured the dealer with his most benevolent and carefree smile.
“I think,” he said, “that it’s the sort of place where ugly little runts like you give suckers a nice game with a marked deck.” He sat up again, and suddenly, without warning, he snatched the pack out of the dealer’s hand and smeared it in front of the other players. “Look for yourselves, boys. It’s all done in the veins of the leaf in the left-hand corner. Nothing to notice if you aren’t looking for it, but as plain as a billboard when you know the code. It’s nice work, but it gives the house too much of an edge for my money.”
The Saint in Miami (The Saint Series) Page 9
