But whatever private action Hiro and Billy might have seen in the confines of the interrogation room, it didn’t translate into anything public, such as discovering a bound and gagged Danielle Payton tucked away in a rustic hideout. By noontime Payton was restless and fuming. “Jesus H. Christ!” he shouted, “there’s nothing but Keystone Kops in this country! What the hell am I doing here anyway? Bobby Lee! Bobby Lee Tanner!”
His campaign manager rushed into the living room, his face lined with worry. “Round up those television sons of bitches and get the plane cranked up,” said Payton implacably. “We’re leaving. And don’t forget to bill the networks for the travel costs.”
“But—”
“No buts. We’re running for the U.S. Senate, remember? We’ll put out the word I’ve gotta get back to find the money in case the ransom has to be paid. What the hell, does everyone around here think I carry five million U.S. around in my pockets, for chrissake? Now get your ass in gear.”
He turned to me. “Speaking of ransom reminds me, LaRoche. Frankly, I think you’ve done a crappy job so far, but maybe it’s not all your fault. In any case, you’re the only one around here with even half a brain in his head. I ought to fire your ass, but instead I’ll give you another chance. Save me paying that ransom, LaRoche, and I’ll give you a hundred thousand bucks.”
“One hundred thousand dollars?” I echoed. “To a guy with half a brain in his head?” I knew now that he’d finally accepted the fact that his wife had been genuinely kidnapped.
“Don’t waste my time, LaRoche. Yes or no?” His eyes bored into mine. I held them without any trouble. Kid stuff.
“You’re a prick, Payton,” I said judiciously, “but I guess you know that already. But your daughter isn’t, and your wife probably isn’t either. If I do it, it’ll be for them.”
“Bully for you,” he jeered. “You can do it for the Ayatollah Khomeini for all I care, but just do it.”
He stalked from the room, leaving me staring after him thoughtfully. A lusty weekend with Danielle Payton in Moorea wasn’t the only thing that Hiro had told me about yesterday afternoon high in the Mahina mountains. Danielle Payton, it seemed, had unburdened herself to the simple-minded Hiro in a way she hadn’t to her more sophisticated playmates. Charles Wentworth Payton, Hiro told me, was as queer as a crateful of coots, with a couple of three-dollar bills thrown in for good measure. His particular fondness was for togging himself up in frilly black lace and high heels, and cutting baroque capers with a bevy of transvestites such as the crowd that hung out at the Clarinet Club. That, in fact, had been the original attraction of Tahiti for Payton—he could let himself go here in a way he couldn’t in the States, at least in the days before the sexual revolution had made poor old trannies seem as racy and shocking as a 1935 Esquire pinup girl.
I remembered the old Quaker wheeze: Everyone is queer save thee and me, dear; and now I’m wondering about thee.
I sighed, and decided to soldier on.
* * * *
Saturday afternoons are slow days in Tahiti, even for kidnappers and policemen. I went by the Commissariat and learned nothing except that Billy and Hiro were still being interrogated and were showing painful signs of withdrawal from various unknown substances. I shook my head and moved on.
I was getting out of my car in the hospital parking lot when I heard a muted roar far above me. I looked up just in time to catch a glimpse of The Quest for Truth, and presumably Charles Wentworth Payton, climbing sharply through the sky and into the clouds.
I spent an hour with Mareta, most of it watching her do limbering-up exercises for her leg, and finally drove back to town. In spite of the bright afternoon sun I was as gloomy and depressed as I had ever been on a wet, foggy morning in San Francisco. I had nothing else to do, so on impulse I parked the Fiat and walked over to the Aventurier.
The warmth of the ex-paras’ greeting was clearly restrained, but I didn’t let their lack of cordiality bother me. “What’s the matter with you guys?” I asked brassily. “Instead of getting ready to throw me off the boat, you should be breaking out the Champagne for me. Who the hell do you think got you out of this mess?”
Jérôme squinted at me in wonder. “Who got us into it?”
“Your love life, as far as I can see. I didn’t go around leaving purses and lighters all over the place. You guys don’t know a good hotel where you can take a girl like a gentleman?”
Their faces clouded over, and for a moment I wondered if they were about to mob me. But suddenly Yves-Louis, the white-haired one, began to laugh and in a moment Jean-Paul and Jérôme joined in, sheepishly at first and then uninhibitedly. Watching them break up eventually brought a sour smile to my own lips, and even a modest chuckle or two.
“You’re right,” shouted Jérôme, still guffawing, “Champagne it shall be! Champagne for our Chicago gangster! Champagne for the liberator!”
The rest of the afternoon passed in a pleasant blur of icy Champagne, tart and bubbly on my tongue, and the sounds of hearty male camaraderie. They’d just returned from a triumphal tour of the Hotel Taaone and were as thirsty as camels after their sojourn in the Commissariat cells. After we’d finished the sixth and last bottle to be found on board, we tripped lightly across the street to Acajou’s, where I summoned up the most ostentatious dinner that Payton’s $10,000 could command. Over the third bottle of Dom Perignon I dimly recalled my purpose in going by their boat, and tried to pump them with all my usual suaveness. By the time the fourth bottle was popped I’d forgotten whatever lies they’d told me about sleeping with Danielle Payton, or not, and asked them again.
“Yes,” said Jérôme ponderously. “No,” said Jean-Paul gravely. “Maybe,” said Yves-Louis owlishly.
We broke into drunken laughter and staggered back to their ship, where we lurched around the galley in search of brandy and suitable glasses. We decided to make do with burgundy glasses, and Yves-Louis slopped nearly as much fine old cognac into them as he did on the counter top. We raised the glasses to our lips. “To the liberator,” cried Jean-Paul.
We drank. I spluttered and choked. “Too warm,” I said, opening the freezer. “Gotta put in some ice cubes, like a real California conny…conna…connoisseur.”
“Ice?” said Jérôme incredulously, slamming the door shut on my fingers. “Never.” I pulled it open again in spite of his efforts. “Icesh, my friend, icesh,” I said, peering blearily into the freezer. But I was fresh out of luck: the ice trays were empty. There was concentrated orange juice, a bottle of vodka covered with frost, plastic bags of croissants and breakfast sausages, a bottle of aquavit embedded in a block of ice, and half a dozen little plastic bottles of Grand Marnier ice cream. It was a real drinking man’s freezer, but there was still no ice. I let Jérôme pull me away and lead me to a divan. “No ice,” I told them sadly, “no ice for my little drinkie.”
“Only Eskimos drink cognac with ice,” intoned Jean-Paul with enormous solemnity, and I nodded and let the liquid fire slide down my throat.
* * * *
I had managed to fumble off the light switch before dropping into unconsciousness, and my head had just settled into the pillow, when I heard the noise of the guesthouse door opening. A moment later I felt warm flesh and a nylon nightie against my naked body.
“Tamara?” I tried to mumble, but my lips were too thick. Arms circled my neck, and soft breasts molded themselves to my chest. A face nuzzled against my neck and warm breath blew in irregular gasps against my skin. My fingers found a cheek. It was wet. I pulled whoever it was closer to me and felt myself begin to fall endlessly into a swirling, spinning void of total blackness.
When I awoke in the morning she was gone.
CHAPTER 27
A Sunday-morning postal worker came across a thick manila envelope addressed to Charles W. Payton with a suspicious bump in it and called Tama and his team of experts, who in turn called Tamara Payton. I was definitely out of favor with Tahiti’s fattest policeman but she sent me int
o the post office anyway. Neither of us mentioned the peculiar drunken dream I’d had the night before of a beautiful houri flitting into my bed.
I discovered that having found one severed finger in an envelope doesn’t make the second one any easier to take. If anything, the disgust is greater. Through the mists of a mind-shattering hangover I tried to concentrate on the note that accompanied the grisly exhibit. This one was unstained by blood, but demanded the same thing: $5 million in cash. Final instructions, it said, would be received the following day. The police were not to be brought in or Mrs. Payton’s life was forfeit.
“They didn’t plan on us getting this until tomorrow morning,” mused Tama, “so that means they’ll be mailing the next note sometime tomorrow. So far they’ve all been dropped in one of the boxes or slots here at the main post office. We could have postal workers picking up the mail every couple of minutes and set up hidden teams to take photographs of everybody mailing anything. We might be able to spot someone mailing a letter to the Payton box.”
I nodded painfully. “It’s worth a try,” I said thickly. “How about Hiro and Billy? You think their accomplices are waiting to pick up the ransom?”
Tama gave me a long, cool look and turned his elephant-sized back on me
* * * *
While Tamara called her father in New Mexico, I swallowed half a dozen aspirin and wrapped my head in a towel soaked in ice water. Tamara passed me the phone. “Better bring the money on down,” I said, speaking as much for the listeners on the tap as for Payton. “We’ll discuss the payoff when you get here.” The morning’s work completed, I made for the guesthouse, where I drew the curtains and fell into bed with a groan.
Sometime late in the afternoon I awoke with a 100-pound piece of cotton wool in my mouth but with my headache gone. Another shower, and I was ready to belatedly face the day. I found Tamara in the living room. She shook her head despondently. No news. I sat down and riffled a deck of cards. Tamara drew closer and I began to deal two hands of gin.
By the time daylight had faded my stomach was beginning to remember it hadn’t been called into service since the night before. “Put on your finery,” I cajoled Tamara, “and I’ll take you out to dinner. Sitting around in Mammoth Cave here is enough to give anyone a set of the glooms.”
“I’m not hungry,” she murmured, and threw down her hand. “Maybe…maybe you could stay sober tonight,” she said without looking up.
“Maybe,” I said irritably. “Don’t wait up for me.”
I fumed most of the way to the Belvédère. All I needed was a 22-year-old millionairess hopping in and out of my bed when what she was really looking for was a life-size teddy bear to hold her close and wipe away the tears. Under the circumstances, I couldn’t blame her. A nice kid, I told myself, but kids are for other kids to sleep with, not tired old ex-policemen. Now, on the other hand, a beautiful 32-year-old millionairess.…
Musing wistfully, I manoeuvred the Fiat around the last hairpin turn and up the last grade and into the parking lot of the Belvédère. At 2,200 feet the air was cool and fresh-smelling, with a hint of aito pine in it. As I ordered a Scotch and water I recalled with a start that I’d driven past the spot where I’d found Mareta kneeling bloody and naked nearly a month before without even thinking of her, I’d been so wrapped up in my other thoughts. Sorry, Mareta, I mumbled to myself, raising my glass in a toast, I’ll try to be more faithful.…
I’d promised to be good, so I had a meager half bottle of wine with the fondue bourguignonne and was feeling sober and virtuous when le patron offered a Drambuie on the rocks. Two Drambuies and an hour’s conversation at the bar later, I made my way through the darkness to my faithful Fiat. There was a quarter moon in the sky as I started down the hairpin road but within a few minutes it had ducked behind a cloud. The dim yellow beams of the headlights illuminated more trees and bushes than road, and I dropped down into second gear.
What’ll it be this time? I asked myself in high good humor. A naked hermaphrodite on the road? That’s about the only thing this case is missing so far.
A trainload of hermaphrodites would have preferable to what I actually got. I was halfway down the mountain and catching occasional glimpses of the lights of Papeete when I passed a large clearing cut into the hillside. From the corner of my eye I noticed vaguely what might have been a light-colored car mostly hidden by the night. Kids necking, I thought, and drove on.
A few moments later yellow light exploded in the interior of the car, a horn blared deafeningly behind me, and with a tremendous clang the Fiat rocked forward. The steering wheel was wrenched from my grasp and slammed painfully against my chest as I was jolted forward.
My heart leapt to my throat, and believe me, that isn’t just a saying.
The horn continued to blare.
There was another lurch, and I could feel the Fiat begin to slip sideways across the loose gravel. My hands fought for the wheel but it was a living thing. I grabbed it finally, but I knew it was already too late. I could see the side of the car begin to plow its way through the bushes that lined the road and were all that stood between me and a thousand feet to the valley below. There was a final bang from the car behind me and I knew then that I was going to die.
I moaned and dove desperately across the seat, trying to brace myself against something, anything, to claw my way through the seats.…
The last thing I saw before the car went over was the yellow headlights full in my eyes. The car began to topple.…
For a moment it hovered, and then it fell. It banged and rattled and shook and threw me around like a doll in the hands of a child having a temper tantrum. I could feel the car tilting, tilting…and flipping over. I hung to the back of the seat for my life.…
There was a deafening crash and my head smashed into something hard but somehow yielding and I could feel myself caught in the grip of a whirlpool, a tiny figure spinning faster and faster and deeper and deeper. I raised a hand despairingly and cried out and—
When I came to I was lying heavily on my shoulders with my feet above me and one of my arms throbbing painfully. It was still dark, but the moon had reappeared and a wan light was enough to show me that I was inside a demolished car rather than some diabolic torture chamber in hell.
I wriggled myself into a hunched-up ball with my legs beneath me and then managed to sit up gingerly. Slowly I took stock of my situation. The Fiat was obviously lying on its side, and I was now sitting on the inside of the passenger door. The windshield, I could see, was starred and cracked, but unbroken. Above my head I could feel cool air blowing in through the driver’s window.
With infinite precaution I managed to get myself to my feet and my head through the window. After a while I began to make out where I was. It was not a heartening discovery.
I was somewhere on a dark mountainside in a mangled tin can of a car that had been saved from crashing a thousand feet below only by a cluster of aito pine trees that grew out at improbable angles from an otherwise treeless slope. I couldn’t see how far down the blackness reached but I didn’t really want to. Some distance above me, exactly where I didn’t know, was the road I’d been hurtled from so rudely. It looked as if the mountainside was covered with bushes and shrubs and clumps of thick grass and even an occasional rock, all of them just right for a moonlit climb.
I held my head in my hands and moaned. “What next, Lord,” I said aloud, “what next?”
I was lucky. Around midnight a late trencherman driving down from the Belvédère found me slumped in the road, hardly more active than Mareta had been that long-ago night. “It’s getting to be a routine,” I mumbled, to his bewilderment.
“But…but…you’re bleeding,” he stammered, accusingly.
“Am I ?” I said dully. “Then I guess you’d better take me to the hospital, hadn’t you?”
* * * *
The next morning Mareta limped into my hospital room and sat beside the bed. I gave her a weak grin. She eyed me warily. I was pr
obably as battered and unsavory-looking as she’d been the first time I’d visited her. And this time there was no Susan West to play Florence Nightingale.… I shrugged feebly and went back to sleep.
Commissaire Tama arrived at noontime, followed by Tamara Payton. She and Mareta examined each other suspiciously, like two cats being introduced to each other. Tamara’s face was pale and strained. “It’s all my fault,” she whispered miserably. “Just after you left somebody telephoned for you, and…and I told him you’d gone up to the Belvédère.”
I raised my eyebrows at Tama. “It’s on the tape,” he said. “A man speaking English, broken English with a Tahitian accent, Miss Payton says.”
“Like whoever’s writing these ransom notes?” I asked.
Tama nodded. “He asked for you personally, asked when you’d be back, and hung up.”
“I suppose Hiro and Billy are still in jail?” Tama nodded. “And the Wests are really dead?” He grimaced. “And the paratroopers were having dinner last night with the archbishop or someone like that?” He shrugged irritably. “Well, what about that car that pushed me over?”
“We’re looking for it,” he said curtly. “Do you know how easy it is to steal a car in Tahiti? I think there are maybe two people on the whole island who have ever taken the keys out.”
“Well screw it all, Tama, this is beginning to annoy me. First they’re shooting at me, and then they’re bashing me around with cars and off cliffs. The next thing, it’ll be hydrogen bombs, and I don’t think I can dodge one of those. So if you ladies would turn your backs, Tama can hand me my clothes, and I’ll see what can be done about removing this menace to society.”
The Tahitian snorted, and handed me a lady’s mirror instead. I looked into it.
With caked blood on my face, half my thick brown hair shaved off, and great clumps of surgical thread sticking out of my skull, I was not exactly a prepossessing sight.
“Jesus Christ!” I muttered, startled half out of my wits. I blinked, but the apparition was still there. “And a couple of aspirin,” I said.
Trouble in Tahiti Page 17
