Touch of Danger

by James Jones

  Outside on the terrace it was beautiful. We could see over most of the town below, and the harbor with its yachts. The moon was there. Far down, the light from the little lighthouse winked regularly like a pulse. The four hairy Greek maidens had cleaned up the terrace and there was nobody out there but us.

  “I thought only the Greek men did those dances?” I said.

  “In the old days. Not any more.”

  “Woman’s lib, hunh?”

  She laughed. “Greek women’s.”

  We sat on the parapet and she began asking me questions about myself.

  “You’re certainly a peculiar man.”

  They were interested questions. She was fitting herself to me the way only an expert woman can, when she seriously sets her mind to a man. It was easy enough to see through it, but all your meat and your glandular system responded to it just the same anyway.

  I was reluctant to talk about myself. All this stuff was part of what I had been trying to keep out of the front of my head since Athens. Slowly, I let a few facts about me emerge. I told her how I had come home to Denver from the Second Great War itchy. I told her how I had studied law in Denver on the GI Bill, and then gone into practice. How I was attracted to private investigations work more and more, instead of to pure law, because it was more exciting. How I drifted from Denver to Chicago to pick up more business, and picked up a wife and one daughter. How I moved on to New York, and picked up a second daughter. I didn’t tell her about my partner, and his death in Chicago. I didn’t tell her about my wife and the divorce. I didn’t tell her about Freddy Tarkoff and my latest job for him.

  “And twenty years later, here I am. Not much of a story.” I swallowed from my drink. “About the same as any middle-aged man. Who outgrows both his wildness and his optimism. And finds himself in a profession almost by accident. Finds out that his youthful dreams can’t stand the mass of weight life loads on them. In general, human beings seem able to afford almost any luxury except ideals. I guess next to children, ideals are about the most expensive luxury there is.” My smile felt tough enough.

  “You make me feel my age,” von Anders said. “I try to forget it. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “Whatever your age is, you don’t look it.” I paused like a pro actor. “At least, not in this moonlight.”

  I thought she might grin. She simply shook her head and looked at me. After a moment she said, “I know what you’re going to say to me. You’re going to say I lied to you this afternoon.”

  “It looks that way. Doesn’t it.”

  She spoke stubbornly. “I told you the truth.”

  “Not if you told me you were being blackmailed for buying hashish. These people all have it in the house.”

  “Does that mean you won’t go on with my investigation for me?”

  “I never take clients who aren’t honest with me.”

  “You’re cruel.”

  “And you’re pretty. Very pretty. But whatever you’re afraid of, it’s not what you told me.”

  “Me? Pretty?” She looked down at herself with mock dismay. “I’m only an old married woman, divorced, living on a substantial alimony I mean to hang onto.”

  “But very pretty.”

  From inside somebody called to us. The horsecabs had arrived. We went in and trooped out with the others. Somehow, by some ploy I was unable to divine, Chantal managed to get us a horsecab to ourselves. I was already thinking of her to myself as Chantal, now. It never took long, did it?

  In the cab, when we had jerked and swayed and tottered away and the horse had worked himself into a gait, she slipped her hand into mine. I let it lie there.

  She said, “You’ve been married. Are you still?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Divorced?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  I didn’t know whether to answer that at all, or not. “Incompatibility,” I said shortly.

  “Sexual or social?”

  But before I could react, she raised her hand and said, “Don’t answer that.” The hand found its way against my cheek as if by accident; for a second. “That was an unfair question.”

  “I’d just as soon not talk about it,” I said.

  “Was it recent?” She answered herself, “It was recent. Freddy Tarkoff told me.” A pause. “That’s how I knew. So you see? I lied to you another time.” Another pause. “You’re really quite a fellow.” She leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the cheek.

  I didn’t respond. She was hitting a lot closer to home than I felt comfortable with, whether Freddy Tarkoff had talked to her about me or not. The horsecab was just arriving at the lights of the “dancing taverna.”

  It was all very moving, all very romantic, and it was all too easy. As we got out of the cab I said, “Did Freddy tell you anything else?”

  “No. Nothing. And Freddy doesn’t know anything about me ever buying any hashish.”

  “I’ve had lots of people tell me I’m quite a guy. Almost always they had some ulterior motive.”

  She flushed. “You are a bastard!” She turned and ran away from me toward the door. But at the door she stopped and waited for me. So that when I came up we could be seen walking in together. Fine.

  We passed through a tiny restaurant with a zinc bar and about four tables, all closed up now, and came out into a huge barn-like patio which was entirely roofed over with a corrugated plastic roof. A massive jukebox sat against the back wall, and a badly poured concrete floor stretched away. There were a lot of cheap chrome-and-formica tables. A lot of them were occupied. It was tacky and cheap but that didn’t bother our mob.

  Many people from the party were there ahead of us, and were laughing and calling out to each other as they were being seated at one big long table that was being made up for them out of empty singles. They were treated with extreme deference by the owner and his waiters. Like local gentry come down among the commons. And they were all very aware of their higher status. So was Chantal. Subtly, in front of my eyes, von Anders changed her coloration like a lizard and became a “Countess.”

  I had already spotted Girgis at a table with a pretty American girl. Girgis grinned and nodded at me. But Chantal’s eyes passed right over him as if he wasn’t there. At the table we ordered a drink which it seemed to take an hour to get.

  The whole foray was a bad idea as far as I was concerned. I was embarrassed by the airs put on by our big table. Everyone at it treated the rest of the place like peons. Especially the Danish Count, who treated the waiters—and the owner—with indulgent contempt, as if they were his personal serfs. The waiters seemed to like it but I wanted to slug him.

  The only thing interesting was the Greek dancing. But few were good at it. Girgis, though, stood out as a beautiful dancer, and as a sort of natural leader. He was a cock of the walk, here. He wasn’t showing off for the gentry or Chantal. He was simply enjoying himself. But even watching him palled in that place, with that bunch of aristocrats.

  “I’m going outside a while. Breathe some air,” I said to von Anders. She looked at me. A kind of contained panic came on her face. “Do you want to come?” I added.

  “Oh, I—” She looked at the other women near her. “I shouldn’t really. But—all right.”

  Outside, she took my arm. “I was terrified you were going to leave me there.” She paused. “They are going to think we are starting an affair.”

  “Let them. Maybe it’s a good idea,” I said.

  “That’s easy for you to say. But I have to live here.”

  Nevertheless, she held on close. I felt the weight of her one breast lying on my arm. She must have felt it. Out here, there was another, open patio, and below it a few steps down to a beach, and beyond the beach the sea. I walked us down to it.

  At the edge of the sand I let go of her and stepped back and looked around.

  “I didn’t expect to find the sea here,” I said. “I thought we were going inland.”

  “Everyone
thinks that,” she said. “No, we really only crossed a neck of land from the yacht harbor. That’s all.”

  Then, without any more words at all, she had slipped into my arms and I was kissing her deeply on the mouth without having expected to. I was surprised. It was as if the two innocuous comments about the sea had meant something else. Tentatively I put my tongue in her mouth and she received it hotly, moistly; so hotly, so moistly, and with such an eagerness that it brought a sexual metaphor image into my mind. After, she put her ear against my chest. “I can hear your heart,” she said like some damn adolescent kid. Then, “I’m afraid. He’s got me scared.”

  “I don’t think it’s him you’re afraid of,” I said.

  “Oh, but it is.”

  I let go of her, and without either of us suggesting it we walked back inside.

  In the huge covered space the others were getting ready to leave. “I’ll take you home,” I said.

  “Oh, no. No, no. I have a ride home. With the Sandersons. Thanks just the same. But they live just above me.” And she walked over to them. “Good night,” she said brightly. “Thanks for coming.”

  I was not about to let the others see my surprise. So I nodded. “Don’t forget our lunch date tomorrow.”

  “Yes. All right. Call me.” She took the male Sanderson’s other arm.

  The others were trooping out. I was nonplused by the suddenness of her leaving me. I sat down for a few minutes, almost ordered another drink, then didn’t.

  Out on the concrete floor the poor people went on dancing Greek dances.

  Chapter 11

  I MUST HAVE SAT there five or six minutes. I was still a little punchy from von Anders’ retreat. It was amazing how the atmosphere of the place changed when the richies left. Constraint disappeared. Everybody relaxed. Apparently I didn’t count.

  I could not think of a place in the U.S. where the coming of a party of rich gentry to a low dive could cause a comparable reaction. But maybe I was just being chauvinistic. I was sure as hell feeling chauvinistic.

  I was still sitting when a young man who looked like one of the kids from the Construction slipped in and spoke to Girgis. Girgis got up and followed him out. It pulled my mind back to pertinent things. I had thought of talking to him.

  Girgis had left his American girl behind. That meant he meant to come back. I gave them a couple of minutes to transact their business, then got up and followed them.

  Girgis was standing in moonlight about halfway down the walk to the row of waiting horsecabs. The boy was walking off up the road, starting what was a two-mile hike back to town with no horsecab stations in between. Well, good for him. He was young and healthy. I took myself a good deep breath and let it out slowly, then moved up on Girgis’s right side. A right-hander turning to his right has to have a pretty good left hook to catch you flat. And Girgis didn’t look like any fist fighter.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  He turned slowly. Without fear. But I had a sudden, etched impression of an only half-domesticated animal who was all poised, all balanced on the toes of his hoofs or paws ready for flight or combat as soon as his computer nervous system fed him the right combination of necessary sensory information. A half-tamed deer, perhaps. Like the ones we used to have at my dad’s Wind River Range camp.

  “Oh. Mister Davies. Hello. I did not know who you were this morning. Allow me to excuse myself.” He made a deprecatory gesture, putting himself down for his failure at information-gathering. “Are you looking for some hashish?”

  “No. I’m not,” I said. “But if I ever do, I’ll come to you. Okay?” I let a beat pass. “How long were you in America?”

  “Two years. Almost.” He grinned. There was a likable quality about him. “You could tell, hunh? By my accent?”

  I nodded. “Tell me, do you make more money from selling hash, or from blackmailing women?”

  He stared at me and his jaw came out. Casually, he shifted his weight, onto his right leg, and put his right hand in his hip pocket.

  “I wouldn’t,” I said.

  Just as casually, he put his other hand in his other hip pocket. The move shifted his weight back onto both feet. He grinned. But there was nothing placating in his grin, and no scare. He was furious. “Chantal has been talking to you, has she? She’s a nice lady, but you do not want to believe everything she tells you. She has the big imagination.”

  “I told her to quit paying you,” I said. “So quit asking her. If you don’t, I’ll hear about it.”

  He laughed, harshly. “You pretty tough. Okay, I quit asking. You tell Chantal.” He snorted again. “There’s a lots going on around here you don’t know.”

  “May be. If there is, I’ll find it out.”

  “You tell Chantal I quit asking, hunh?”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  “You be sure and tell her, hunh?”

  ”And if I want any hash, I’ll call you. Don’t you call me,” I said.

  Grinning, Girgis nodded his appreciation of my little insult. But his eyes were cold and thinking as he turned away, his hands still in his two hip pockets. I could see the bulge of the sap under his fingers in the right one.

  I rather liked him. He was taller than me, and a whole hell of a lot younger, but I thought I could take him. I was ready to try anyway, if he had pulled the sap. I was ready to get in close and tie him up so he couldn’t hit with it, and I thought I could still take him. I turned away myself, down toward the row of horsecabs, letting out another good deep breath. I could feel energy sparkling at my fingertips and wrists and the insides of my elbows, pulsing to get out. I still liked it. I swung up into the first cab.

  I was still confused about von Anders. About Chantal. I still couldn’t believe Girgis was blackmailing her about anything as petty and commonplace as buying hashish from him. On the other hand Girgis hadn’t said he wasn’t blackmailing her, when I put it to him. He had been pretty insistent that I tell her he was “quitting asking”; he had repeated it three times. Why?

  I was beginning to become intrigued in a purely professional way. What was going on on this wacky ancient island? I tried to let the regular clopping of the horse’s feet put my mind into a rhythmic pattern of thinking. But it didn’t work. Nothing came, I couldn’t figure any of it out. I didn’t have enough facts at my disposal yet.

  Back at the house, when the drowsy cabman and his drowsy horse let me off, everything was wrapped up. Sonny’s caique was dark, Georgina was probably fast asleep, Dmitrios’s taverna across the vacant lot was all closed down. Then I noticed one thing. The big sailing yacht out in the harbor was all lit up, and men were scrambling around on it as if making it ready for sea.

  It seemed a curious time to be making a yacht ready for sea. I went inside without turning on any lights, felt for the whisky bottle and a glass, and went upstairs and down the hall in the dark to my bedroom. I got an old pair of binoculars Con Taylor had left on the bedside table and studied the yacht. They were indeed making it ready to sail. I counted five or six crewmen. The crewmen all wore blue turtlenecks with the ship’s name, Agoraphobe, in white across the chest. The captain was distinguishable from them by the white shirt he wore, and a rakish white captain’s cap. He was a big man with a big behind almost as wide as his wide shoulders, and he kept the men humping. As I watched, he told them all off on some job or other, then ran down the hanging ladder and took the ship’s launch to shore.

  The sound of the launch’s motor carried up to me in the quiet night. Somewhere within the ship a pump or generator throbbed steadily. I put down the glasses and picked up my drink. I had time for a couple. Twenty minutes later he was back and I heard the launch motor. I put down my drink and picked up the glasses. When he mounted the ladder, he was carrying a carpetbag type satchel which looked suspiciously like it might contain money. Whatever it contained, it was something he was being very careful with, and would not allow anybody else to handle. He took it below himself to stow it.

  I watched a while
longer and then put up the glasses and went to bed. Once again my internal systems told me I had drunk too much during the course of the day and the evening. In the night I half woke and thought I heard a ship’s motor throbbing, and getting fainter. When I woke in broad daylight, the Agoraphobe was gone. Otherwise, it was an ordinary, lovely morning. A number of speedboats were out beyond the harbor, hauling water skiers. I noted that Sonny Duval’s speedboat was gone, and his big caique all locked up.

  Chapter 12

  WHATEVER ELSE HAPPENED on this wacky island, it was an intense pleasure to have my morning coffee on the shaded porch above the harbor in the bright morning sun.

  On my way down to Sonny’s boat I stopped at the taverna and had a coffee there, at a table out over the water. I wanted to talk to the old man.

  There was nobody else there that early. When I’d paid, with the keys of the Daisy Mae tinkling deliciously in my pocket, I asked old Dmitrios about the big yacht.

  The old man had just openly and outrageously cheated me and overcharged me 20 cents for a bad cup of instant coffee in lukewarm water. He peered at me with the peasant’s squint of eternal greed in his eyes, wiping and wiping his hands on his apron. He had the limitless patience of ignorant acquisitiveness. I just waited. When he couldn’t find a way to milk a quarter or a dollar out of me on this, he finally shrugged. It had gone away, he said.

  “I see that. But to where?”

  He shrugged again. I could virtually read his slow-witted mind: Did I have some special reason for wanting to know? How could that be made to pay? I understood all about his deprived childhood. He made me mad, anyway.

  To Athens maybe, he told me finally. It sometimes went to Athens. To pick up a charter party of French or English to cruise in the islands. The captain was an American. Name of Kirk. Jim Kirk. He had been the captain for almost two years now. The Agoraphobe. A beautiful ship. The owner had a sense of humor, naming it thus.

  “Who is the owner?” I asked.

  He shrugged. And wiped his hands. A Mr. Kronitis. Mr. Leonid Kronitis. A Greek. A very rich Greek. Owned ships. Not like Onassis, or Niarchos. But still very big. Dmitrios sailed on one of his ships once. To California and Hawaii. Very big.