The Saint in Miami (The Saint Series)

by Leslie Charteris

  The Greek strode off down the hallway of the houseboat, past the darkened poker room, and turned into a state-room on the left. He lighted a match and touched the wick of an oil lamp. A locker disgorged high leather boots, heavy woollen socks, khaki pants and shirt. Gallipolis tossed them on a bunk.

  “They look like hell, but I had ’em washed. Suppose you try ’em on. They’ll be more comfortable where you’re going, anyhow.”

  The Saint changed, while Gallipolis went back to the bar. The fit was not at all bad. Perhaps the boots were a trifle large, but that was better than having them too small. Simon strapped on his shoulder holster again, and found a shabby hunting coat to put on over the gun.

  There was a newspaper among the other litter on the bunk, and Simon picked it up and found that it was dated that evening. He had to turn to the second page to find a follow-up story on the tanker sinking. The reason for that was plain enough, for nothing new had developed. He realised that there was no reason why anything ever should, and he began to wonder if by a fortunate fluke the explosion had been just a little too sudden for the Ungodly, and he was tempted to be glad that he had never said anything about the submarine. The plot should have called for at least one survivor to spike the theory that the disaster was due to spontaneous combustion, which seemed to be the accepted explanation pending the verdict of a Commission of Inquiry. After his own capture of the planted lifebelt, the loss with all hands must have been one of those unforeseen accidents to which the best conspiracies were subject.

  The only additional information was that the tanker was sailing under the American flag, but had loaded with oil at Tampico and cleared for Lisbon—it was presumed that she had been working up the coast for the shortest possible dash across the ocean. It was a minor point, but it helped to round out the picture and dispose of another lurking obscurity. There had to be at least a good superficial reason for a British submarine to have done the sinking, and beyond Lisbon was Spain, at the back of France, with Franco responding to the strings pulled in Rome, where Mussolini’s wagon careered behind the maniac star of Berlin. It could all be plausible…And the Saint wondered whether it was right that he should ruthlessly call it good fortune that no man had come out alive from that latest sacrifice to the ravening ambition of the hysterical megalomaniac who was putting out the lights of Europe as a screaming guttersnipe would break windows…

  He went back to the bar room and found Gallipolis regarding Hoppy with a despairing frown.

  “That cricket outfit is going to wow the Indians,” he told Simon apprehensively. “But I gave you the only things I’ve got that’d come near fitting him. Maybe he can swap it for a blanket. Anyhow it’ll help keep the rattlesnakes away.”

  “We’re goin’ out huntin’, ain’t we?” argued Mr Uniatz. “I buy dese sport clothes in Times Square, so dey can’t be nut’n wrong wit’ dem.”

  Gallipolis gave it up and pushed back the bar.

  “When I’m walking wide-eyed into trouble, I like my chopper,” he explained. He took the Tommy gun out of the floor cavity, picked up a can of cartridges, and weighted down another pocket with a heavy automatic. A powerful flashlight followed. Simon was keyed for treachery like a taut violin string, but there was no sign of it. Gallipolis turned down the lamp until it flickered out, shone the flashlight against the door, and said, “Come on.”

  They followed the path across the palmetto land, with the Greek leading the way. There were small fleecy clouds playing tag with the moon, but the stars gave a steady glimmer of illumination that relieved the fluctuating dark. A frog barked in the canal, and the night was full of the gabble and screech of insects.

  Simon stopped for a moment to examine Mr Uniatz’s Lincoln again under the flashlight.

  “This is what you came in, I suppose,” he said.

  “Dat’s it, boss,” assented Mr Uniatz unblushingly. “I borrow it from de clip jernt, on account of I t’ink I am goin’ back.”

  “We’d better move it out—it’s probably on the air by now. I’ll stop about a mile up the road, and you can park it and get in with us.”

  He started the Cadillac and let it go, and braked again after they had been on the highway about eighty seconds and the last of Miami had fallen behind. While the lights of the following car went out, and he waited for Hoppy to join them, he took another look at the Greek.

  “I don’t want you to misunderstand anything, comrade,” he murmured, “but there’s one other side to that grand I promised you. If I can buy you, I expect anybody else can. But you ought to remember one thing before you go into the auction market. Hoppy and I are both a little quick on the trigger sometimes. If we thought you were going to try to be clever and turn that perforator of yours the wrong way, your mother might have to do her job all over again.”

  Gallipolis gave him the full brilliance of his limpid black eyes.

  “I never met a big shot like you before, mister,” he said curiously. “Does anybody know just what your angle is?”

  “Believe it or not, I’ve done most of my killings for the sake of peace,” said the Saint cryptically.

  The Cadillac swept on again until the speedometer touched seventy, eighty, eighty-five, and crept towards ninety. Bugs battered shatteringly against the windshield and disintegrated in elongated smears. Simon’s face was a mask of cold graven bronze with azure eyes. Then the world about them disappeared entirely, and they were roaring through mist westward on the Tamiami Trail.

  3

  A single light showed like a puffball through the fog and rocketed up to meet them.

  “This is Ochopee,” said the Greek, and touched Simon’s arm.

  The Cadillac slowed down. The light turned out to be a single bulb over a pump in front of a darkened filling station. It was the only sign of life in the shrouded town.

  “Boss,” said Mr Uniatz from the back seat, in a voice of glum foreboding, “dey pulled in de sidewalks. If dey’s a bar open now it’s because somebody forgot to lock up.”

  Gallipolis said, “Charlie Halwuk lives on a dredge about half a mile on the other side of town.”

  “What sort of dredge?” Simon asked.

  “There’s a lot of ’em around here. They used ’em to build the road, and then left ’em. Now they’re nothing but skeletons with most of the planking gone. Keep straight ahead.”

  Simon drove on. Above the whisper of the engine the night emphasised its silence with the clatter of crickets and a throaty chorus of bullfrogs. It sounded like a thunderclap when the Greek said, “Turn here.” Simon pulled over, and saw the headlights glisten on two lines of milky water.

  “There’s sand underneath it,” said Gallipolis. “Go on.”

  They followed the ruts for a tenth of a mile or more, and then Simon stopped again. A great float boat, with grinning ribs at the stern topped with a crazy superstructure, showed starkly in the double glare of the headlights. The Saint switched on the spotlight and played it from side to side.

  Gallipolis called “Charlie!” musically, and said, “Blow your horn.”

  The howl of the klaxon rasped through the cheeping stillness, and when Simon took his hand from the button the bullfrogs had stopped their oratorio. Close behind them on the left, the air was suddenly beaten to tatters with a deafening whirr like the wings of a thousand invisible angels. White shapes floated upwards, loomed briefly in the headlight beams, and were gone.

  “Birds,” said Gallipolis mechanically. “We frightened them away.”

  In the back, Mr Uniatz said pessimistically: “I bet de jernt has been padlocked.”

  The Greek reached down beside him, turned around, and magnanimously presented Hoppy with a fresh quart of shine.

  “I’m charging this stuff to you at a buck a bottle,” he told Simon. “It’s a good thing I brought some along.”

  Simon sat still. A man had come slowly erect on the deck of the abandoned barge and was standing like a wood carving in the blaze of the spotlight. Over dirty white ducks,
a long-sleeved jacket glowed with the colours of the rainbow. A red neckerchief was knotted about the man’s throat. The face of well-seasoned ancient mahogany was topped with long straight black lustreless hair.

  It was the sight of the face that kept Simon so still. A black moustache covered wide, thick lips. The slightly Negroid nose was straight and aquiline. Wrinkles made deep by the sorrows of a thousand years branched upwards from a firm strong chin. Large flat eyes lay close to his head.

  The Indian stared straight into the spotlight, and his paunched eyes burned unblinkingly like the eyes of some jungle animal looking unmoved into the noonday sun. He moved as smoothly as rippling water, and with less sound. One second Simon was watching him on the dredge; in the next, he was beside the car.

  Gallipolis said, “We were looking for you, Charlie. If you want to make twenty-five bucks, this gentleman with me has a job to do.”

  “Got drink?” asked Charlie Halwuk, and stretched out his wrinkled hand.

  Simon said over his shoulder: “It won’t hurt you to share your bottle, Hoppy.”

  Mr Uniatz surrendered it grudgingly. Charlie Halwuk took it and tilted it up.

  The Greek said confidentially: “It’s strictly a Federal offence, but we’ll all have to drink with him. A Seminole has an idea that any party starting out to do anything just ain’t worth a damn if they’re dry.”

  “Okay,” said the Saint, and wondered if he had at last stumbled upon the dark secret of Hoppy’s ancestry.

  Charlie gave the bottle to Gallipolis and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The Greek took two swallows and passed it on. Simon touched it perfunctorily to his lips, and slid it back into Hoppy’s clutching paw. Mr Uniatz emptied it, tossed it out of the window, and breathed with deep satisfaction. Simon expected smoke to come out of his mouth, and was disappointed.

  Charlie Halwuk had also watched the demolition with respect. He pointed a finger at Hoppy’s blazer.

  “Plenty good drinker, big boy,” he stated admiringly. “Plenty pretty clothes. Him damn good man.”

  “Chees,” said Mr Uniatz unbelievingly. “Dat’s me!”

  Gallipolis pointed to Simon.

  “This is the Saint, Charlie. He’s a good man, too. They say he’s one of the world’s greatest hunters with a gun.”

  The Indian’s round wrinkled eyes shifted impassively to take in their new target.

  “You know Lostman’s River?” Gallipolis went on.

  Charlie nodded.

  “The Saint wants to go down there where all that digging went on last summer.”

  “Take boat?” asked Charlie Halwuk.

  “No,” said Gallipolis. “He wants to go through the Everglades, and start tonight.”

  The Seminole stared unmovingly.

  “Take canoe?” he asked.

  Gallipolis nodded.

  “Plenty miles. Plenty tough,” said Charlie Halwuk. “No can do.”

  “I’ll make it fifty dollars if you can take us there,” Simon put in.

  “Plenty rain,” said Charlie. “Plenty bad. You great hunter. Rain too much for you.”

  “Damn the rain!” Simon leaned across Gallipolis. In the light from the dashboard his blue eyes glinted with tiny flecks of steel, but his voice was quiet and persuasive. “You’re a great hunter and a great guide, Charlie Halwuk. I’ve heard about you from many people. They all say there’s nothing you can’t do. Now, I have to get to this place on Lostman’s River, and get there right away. If you won’t take me I’ll have to try it by myself. But I’m going to get there somehow. I’ll give you a hundred dollars.”

  “Plenty big talk,” said Charlie Halwuk. “You get marsh buggy, maybe me go too.”

  Gallipolis slapped a hand down on his thigh.

  “By God, he’s got it!”

  “What the devil is a marsh buggy?” Simon asked.

  “They use it prospecting for oil around this part of the country,” the Greek explained. “It’s a combination boat and automobile that’ll run over any sort of ground and float across streams and rivers. It’s a hell of a looking thing with wheels ten feet high and cleated tyres that only carry four pounds of air.”

  It sounded like a fearsome vehicle, but its advantages sounded considerable. Simon felt a microscopic flicker of excitement as he wondered if their prospects were brightening.

  “Where can we get one of these amphibious machines?” he asked, and the Greek lifted his shoulders to shrug them and then stopped them in the middle of the movement.

  “There’s a prospecting company at Ochopee that owns four, but you’ll probably be the first guy who ever tried to rent one by the day.”

  “Could you drive it?”

  “Hell, no. I’m not so keen on riding in one either, but for the price you’re paying I’ll try anything.”

  “I’ll get you a marsh buggy, Charlie,” said the Saint, and opened the back door. “Get in. We’re starting right away.”

  “Wait,” said the Indian. “Get gun.”

  Simon watched him climb up the side of the dredge, admiring his fluid agility. The Seminole might claim to be a hundred and two, but his limbs worked with the suppleness of a twenty-year-old acrobat. He was back again in a moment with a light double-barrelled shotgun.

  “I t’ought dey used bows’n arrers,” said Mr Uniatz, open-mouthed.

  “That’s only when they’re acting in movies,” Simon explained to him. “This one hasn’t been to Hollywood, so he still uses a gun.”

  “And good, too,” added Gallipolis, as Charlie climbed into the car.

  They sped back to Ochopee. Gallipolis guided the Saint to a tremendous corrugated-iron garage that looked more like an aeroplane hangar about a hundred yards down a rutty turning off the main street. A small frame house adjoined the garage. Gallipolis gestured at it with his thumb.

  “The manager lives in there. Maybe you can do business with him, but he’s a crusty guy.”

  The Saint got out and banged on the bungalow door. Somewhere back of the house a dog barked viciously. Simon knocked again.

  From a window opening on to the porch a man’s voice said heatedly, “Get the hell away from here, you damn drunk, or I’ll run you off at the end of a gun.”

  “Are you the manager of the prospecting company?” Simon inquired placatingly.

  “Yeah,” snarled the voice. “And we do our business in the daytime.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the Saint, with the most engaging courtesy he could command. “I know this is the hell of an hour to wake you up, but my business won’t wait. I want to rent one of your marsh buggies and get it right now.”

  “Don’t be funny,” came the grinding reply. “This isn’t a garage running ‘See the Everglades’ tours. We don’t rent marsh buggies. Now run away and play.”

  Muscles began to tighten in the Saint’s jaw.

  “Listen,” he said with an effort of self-control. “I’ll leave you a brand-new Cadillac as security. I don’t know what your machine is worth, but if it’ll do what I’ve been told it will I’ll pay you a hundred dollars a day for it, cash in advance.” The man inside laughed raucously.

  “I told you we weren’t in the rental business, and a hundred bucks a day is peanuts to the owner of this shebang.”

  “Where is he?” Simon persisted. “Maybe he’ll listen to reason.”

  “Maybe he will,” agreed the man sarcastically. “Why don’t you go and talk to him? You can find him at Miami on his yacht, the March Hare. Now get the hell out of here and let me sleep before I put some bird-shot into you!”

  4

  Simon started to walk back a little shakenly towards the car. But the shock lasted for exactly three steps. And then it began to be transmuted into something totally different, something so exquisite and precious that the blood in his veins seemed to turn into liquid music.

  “I told you he was a bastard,” said Gallipolis philosophically. “What do we do now?”

  Simon slid in behind the wheel. His
eyes were sparkling.

  “We take a March buggy anyhow.” He turned to Hoppy. “You get out and stay here by the porch. I’m going to move on down and start a little work on the garage door. I don’t know how many men there are in that bungalow, but I don’t expect there are more than two. They’ll come out in a hurry when they hear me breaking the lock. You take care of them.”

  “Do I give ’em de woiks?” asked Mr Uniatz hopefully.

  “No,” said the Saint. “No shooting. We don’t want to wake up the rest of the town. Don’t be any rougher than you have to.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  Mr Uniatz vanished into the shadowy mist, and Simon started the car and turned it through an arc that ended close to the garage with the headlights flooding the corrugated-iron door. Simon got out and examined the fastenings.

  And the rich beauty of the situation continued to percolate through his system with the spreading recalescence of a flagon of mulled ale. He had no belief that this oil prospecting outfit had any connection with March’s more nefarious activities—otherwise the manager would certainly have been a much smoother customer—but the coincidence of its ownership lent a riper zest to what had to be done anyway. Even with everything else that was on his mind, the Saint’s irrepressible sense of humour savoured the situation with an epicurean and unhallowed glee. To set out on that desperate sortie in a marsh buggy that belonged to Randolph March had a poetic perfection about it that no connoisseur of the sublimely ridiculous could resist…

  Nor did there seem to be any great obstacle in the way. The door was secured with a padlock that could have moored a battleship, but the hasp and staple through which it had to function, as in most cases of that kind, were not of the same stuff. Simon went back to the Cadillac and found the jack handle. He slipped one end of it under the lock and levered skilfully. With a mild crash, one half of the rig tore completely out of its attachments.

  In the bungalow, an apoplectic voice yowled, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  A light came on, and the irate manager burst from his dwelling, pounded across the porch, and charged valiantly towards the depredator who was destroying his garage.