There were no houselights on anywhere. I found myself trying to peer through the darkness into Saxan’s little cottage window. I tried to will her to wake up; to confront me. If I was to die, I wanted at least the satisfaction of looking into her eyes to let her know that her apparent hatred for men had had this final triumph; I had trusted her, and for that I would now die.
When we had first approached the island, Westy had compared us to Ulysses, and the island women to the sirens upon the rocks.
If we’d only known then how right he was. . . .
“If you men would be so kind as to lie on your stomachs while I tie up this boat? That’s right—nice and slow. Please don’t make me kill you now.”
She threw quick clove hitches around the pilings, then came up behind us as she forced us across the Indian mound in the silence of three a.m.
We went past the main house where Saxan’s office was located, then the woman made us lie on our stomachs again while she tapped at the door of one of the cottages. A light flickered on and the screen door swung open. I could turn my head just enough to see the tall woman who had challenged me at the karate demonstration. She stood yawning sleepily in the doorway. She wore only panties and a T-shirt.
“I’m afraid our friends have returned, dear,” said the old woman.
The amazon wasn’t yawning now. Her eyes sparkled with interest.
“I’ll guard them,” she said quickly. Her fingers flexed back and forth as she looked at me.
“That’s what I was hoping, dear. And Misty, will you please ask your friend to come along and help? I think we’d better separate these two—they’re rather big and brutal-looking.”
“I’ve taken bigger,” the tall woman said enigmatically.
“I know, Misty, dear. But let’s not take chances. And it will only be for another day.”
If not for the circumstances, the girl’s name would have made me laugh. Misty? It was like calling a killer doberman Spot.
They marched us into the darkness to a part of the island I had never been to before. There was a low squat brick bunker with a cement roof—probably a fresh vegetable cellar from earlier times. Twenty yards to the other side was a larger brick building. From inside I could hear the diesel whoofing of an engine. It was the generator room.
The amazon’s friend had come along. It was the stocky blond woman she had fought earlier in the day. Both had changed into jeans and long-sleeved shirts. They smelled heavily of bug spray.
“You brought more rope? Good. Let’s put the Irishman in with the generator. That’s right, tie his legs well—and check him once more for weapons. These detective types always keep an ace in the hole. And Misty—”
“I know, Ms. Abhner,” said the amazon. She came up close beside me, and I noticed absently that we were about the same height. “I’ll take good care of him. In the root cellar, right? He won’t get away.” Her teeth bared into a sickly smile. “But I almost hope he tries. . . .”
So I was in darkness.
The absolute darkness of an ancient brick cellar barely wide enough for me to stretch out in. It smelled of damp earth and sand.
Misty had shoved me in roughly, giving me a well-placed kick in the side after she had tied my legs. She had grunted with pleasure.
“Give me a reason,” she had hissed. “Just give me a reason, pig, and I’ll take you apart.”
“You seem upset about something, lady.”
“None of your wisecracks, pig! And don’t call me lady!”
“I guess it is a little inappropriate. . . .”
She kicked me again with a force that made the muscles in my thigh knot. “Just keep it up!” And she had gone out then, slamming the door behind.
So think, MacMorgan; think fast and well or you’re going to end up one very dead man. What the Abhner woman wants to do is pretty obvious: get you and the Irishman aboard Sniper, then blow it up. And it’s not going to be very long before they get the details worked out. So think, damn it. You’ve been in tougher spots than this and always gotten away. And you’re not going to let these maniac women succeed where the pirates inevitably failed. Right?
Maybe.
I tried to put myself in Abhner’s position. How would I get Sniper away without arousing the suspicions of Al Seely? Would they kill him, too? No, too many people knew and liked Al. That would bring down too much heat. It didn’t take me long to figure out what the boss lady would do. Keep an eye on Al’s shack the next day. And when he jumped in his little skiff to try for a few supper fish, she would have one of her goons snake Sniper while she left a note for Al; a note, ostensibly from us, that would thank him and explain why we decided to leave suddenly.
How else could she do it?
So that left us . . . how long? Eight, maybe ten hours? Not very long. No, I had to think of something, and think of something now, before first light.
And I knew that the Irishman was doing the same thing only a few yards away.
Finally, I hit upon it. Not a great idea, but the best I could come up with. I called to the amazon through the thick door. “Hey, Misty! Come in here for a—”
“Shut up, you.”
“It’s about your friend—the one you were rolling in the bushes with yesterday.”
The door suddenly creaked open. She had to bend to poke her head in. She was a looming silhouette backdropped by the moonlit island. “Just what in the hell are you talking about, buster?”
“Hey, don’t play coy with me. She told me all about it. We had some fun together last night, and . . .”
She bought it for the briefest of instants.
“Mary Sue? You and Mary Sue . . . ?” And then: “Don’t give me that bullshit, buster. But how did you know that we . . . ?”
“Don’t believe me, then,” I said offhandedly. I was banking on the knowledge that this woman had left her cottage with the stocky blonde, and not the pretty Mary Sue that Westy and I had seen her with. Apparently they didn’t share their living quarters, so there was no way the amazon could have known where her friend Mary Sue was the night before. “It’s just that we had a pretty good time together last night, and . . . well, since I’m not exactly busy at the moment, I thought you might let her know I’m here.” And then I added perversely: “She says you’re pretty much the second string, anyway, so . . .”
Jealousy is a particularly vile weapon. It taints both the user and the victim. The words were sour coming out, but I had to use them—and use them convincingly.
And it worked.
I felt the rage within her as she pushed her way into the cellar. She kicked me in the side once, twice; again and again, calling me the liar that I was. When her anger had momentarily subsided, I said, “Pretty brave of you, lady, kicking a man bound hand and foot.”
“You pig—”
“You thought the reason I didn’t spar with you this afternoon was because I was scared? Well, I was—scared I’d hurt you.”
That did it. She couldn’t get my ropes off fast enough. But, with my hands still tied, she seemed to catch hold of her senses. She stopped suddenly, thought for a moment, then headed back out the door.
“So you are a coward?”
She whirled. “It’s just that I don’t want to take any chances, pretty boy. Don’t worry. I’ll be right back. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
I heard her talking animatedly to someone outside—Westy’s guard, no doubt. I hadn’t counted on that. Would she have a weapon? Probably. It didn’t matter. One of them, two of them, it made no difference. It was our only chance.
The stocky blonde held the stainless-steel .38 as the amazon got my hands untied and shoved me roughly through the doorway. She stood in the shadows, weapon poised and ready. The amazon faced me then, a deadly glimmer in her eye, and I noticed that she reached back and took something out of her pocket. Hands up like a two-armed Buddha, she began to twirl something. And then I knew what: nunchakus, those particularly brutal oriental killing devices of wire and
wood. They are both clubs and garrotes, and inevitably deadly in the hands of an expert.
And this woman was an expert.
“Kill him,” the stocky blonde said thickly. There was an oddly sensual quality to her voice. “Knock his head off, Misty.”
And that’s just about exactly what Misty had in mind.
She began stalking me around the little clearing beside the brick root cellar. The nunchakus blazed with perfect symmetry in the moonlight.
“Why are you running, pretty boy? I thought you wanted to fight!”
I kept backing away, palms turned outward as if fending her off. I wanted her to think that I was afraid; wanted her to revel in her self-confidence, because that would give me the time I needed.
“You ready to admit that you’re nothing but a dirty lying pig?”
“Believe what you want to believe,” I said. “It’s not going to change what happened between Mary Sue and me.”
“Bastard!”
I was still moving backward, knowing exactly the positioning I needed. I had to take care of the stocky blonde with the .38 before I did anything else.
“Get ’em, Misty—don’t let him keep runnin’ from you like that!”
“I’ll get him, don’t worry. It’s kind of nice to see pretty boy scared. You are scared, aren’t you, pretty boy. . . .”
I had acted oblivious to the blonde, knowing that any glance in her direction would back her up, make her cautious. In her growing anxiety, she had moved out of the shadows. Close enough for me to make my move.
Still facing the amazon woman, I made one more cautious revolution around the circle. When I knew that the blonde was only a few feet directly behind me, I made a fake lunge toward Misty, then twisted low and knocked the revolver from the blonde’s grasp with the cutting edge of my right hand. I had my weight behind it, guessing distance and angle, and when I hit her arm there was the dry-twig kerWHACK of the carpus bones bursting in her right wrist.
“Damn . . .”
It brought Misty in on a charge, nunchakus cutting the air above my head. It was no time to play her karate games. I truthfully didn’t care if she was better than I, or if I was better than she. I just wanted to get the hell off that island.
I dove low in an effective crack-back block, and felt the weight of her come down on top of me. Oh, she was strong—for a woman; stronger, in fact, than most men. But I had sixty pounds on her and considerably more bulk. I slid from beneath her, rolled, and then pinned her, back to the ground. The blonde still sat on the ground, holding her wrist and moaning.
“Hold still, damn it.”
“I’ll kill you!” She spit furiously at my face.
“Misty, I don’t want to hurt you. Now just cooperate and I won’t have to.”
I got her up off the ground and located the revolver. The blonde was crying like a homesick kid. I felt sorry for both of them.
“Your time will come, pretty boy!”
“I know, Misty. It comes for us all.”
I forced them into the root cellar. The amazon clawed and scratched. She took a sizable chunk of my left hand with her. And I was just about to slam and lock the door behind them when I thought of something. I had hurt the tall one enough. I had no desire to burden her with anything more.
“Misty—about your friend, Mary Sue . . . ? I was lying.”
I got a screeching hiss in return. “You bastard!”
I trotted over to the squat generator building and kicked away the makeshift crossbar. The Irishman sat comfortably on the dirt floor in an angle of moonlight. He looked up when I came in.
“What took ye so long, Yank?” he asked nonchalantly.
“Ran into some heavy traffic.”
He got up and brushed off his pants. “Wouldn’t expect that on an island sech as this, now would ye?”
“Westy, do you know how to hot-wire a car engine?”
He looked almost offended. “An’ what good Irish lad doesn’t? The Protestants are very fussy about leavin’ their keys in their automobiles.”
“Good. Get down to the Shamrock. It’s got the basic Ford two-bolt starter. Be careful no one sees you. I’ll be down by the time you have it going.”
“Have ta stop an’ see a friend, I suppose.”
“Not a friend,” I said.
I turned to go, but the Irishman stopped me. “Dusky, lad, I found somethin’ very interestin’ in that wee building. Got so bored waitin’ on ye that I did a bit a rummagin’ around—lookin’ for a weapon, ye might say. But all I found was this—inside one of them oil drums, it was.”
He held something up in the light. I took it, squinting to see what it was.
“American dollars, Yank,” O’Davis said. “Stacks of ’em. An’ all soakin’ wet with salt water. . . .”
14
I slipped quietly through the shadows.
The green numerals of my Rolex said there wasn’t much time until dawn: four-thirty a.m.
Mahogany Key still slept, bathed in June moonlight. Something rattled in the bushes, and I came to an abrupt halt, my breath coming soft and low, my heart pumping audibly within my chest.
A raccoon came loping into the moonlight. Its back was hunched up, as if it ran on tiptoes. It stopped when it saw me, more indifferent than frightened.
“So, how’s the hunting, partner?”
The coon’s yellow eyes studied me intently.
“Well, if it’s any consolation, I haven’t had the best of luck either.”
The coon gave me another long look, then rambled back off into the shadows.
I had kept the short-barreled Model 60. The walnut grip tucked into my khaki pants was abrasive against my belly flesh.
The big wooden building where Saxan kept her office loomed before me. There were no lights within, but the windows were silver glazed in the reflection of the moon.
I mounted the porch, wood creaking beneath my weight. As I expected, the door was locked. But the windows were open, covered only by screens. Quietly, I slipped out one of the frames and stepped through.
The room still smelled of old wood and of the musky perfume that Saxan used. It filled me with an odd sense of loss.
“Some people you feel as if you had always known. . . .”
And sometimes you’re dead wrong.
There was a kerosene lamp on one of the tables. I found matches and lighted it. There was an almost military sterility about Saxan’s metal desk. I tested the drawers, knowing they would be locked, then got down on my stomach and found the screwbolt on the bottom of the file cabinet. I had to lift the desk to remove the rod that held the drawers shut.
I didn’t want to leave Mahogany Key empty-handed.
I wanted something to take with me, some evidence more concrete than the soggy stacks of twenties the Irishman had found.
Holding the kerosene lamp, I went through the files. I removed the folders on Barbara and Misty. But there were none on Saxan or Ms. Abhner. I stuffed the two folders down my shirt and continued my search.
The bogus account ledger was easy enough to find. It was in the top drawer: a green hardback book with a steel brace for a spine. In neatly inked entries were kept incoming and outgoing monies; the amount of donations and an equal amount of government matching funds. It was the one she would show to government inspectors. Not the one I was looking for.
The other—the real one—had to be somewhere. I stood thinking, hands on hips. Whatever she was, Saxan was a scientist first; a person driven to keep precise records. And she would keep that record book handy. But where?
And that’s when it hit me: “I’m afraid the only thing I’ve had published was my master’s thesis. And it wasn’t exactly a best seller. . . .”
It was worth a try.
Carrying the lamp, I went to the broad bookshelf by the window. It took me a while to find it, but I did: a flat, thin volume lying down behind some other books.
Benefits of Mobility in Calliactis tricolor (the Tricolor Anemone). By Saxa
n Benton.
A perfect subject for someone like Saxan. The sea anemone is wildly beautiful to the eye, but it retracts and disappears at the first touch.
And it can sting.
I opened the book. The figures I was looking for were neatly kept on a sheath of blank pages. The women of Mahogany Key had been taking in a lot of money lately.
One hell of a lot of money.
In the last eleven months, Saxan had made five very large entries. She had figured percentages, salaries, and expenses. The last large entry she had made was June 22—the day after the Blind Luck had gone up in flames.
“Find what you’re looking for, Dusky?”
In one swift motion, I pulled the .38 out of my belt, whirled, and landed belly first on the bare wooden floor, revolver aimed at the voice.
“Go ahead and shoot, Dusky. That’s what Sam Spade would do, isn’t it? Okay, you’ve cracked the case. Now it’s time to shoot the bad guy. Do I look like a bad guy, Dusky?” A weary smile crossed her face. “Well, maybe that’s because I am.”
It was Saxan.
She stood in the doorway, her face illuminated by the moon.
For the first time, she wore her hair down. It lay over her shoulders, long and silken, the auburn softness turned to rust-blond by the light.
She wore a long transulcent robe, oddly oriental.
And very obviously, she wore nothing underneath.
I got slowly to my feet, still holding the .38. It felt ridiculous to keep a gun pinned on a woman I had wanted to take as a lover only a few hours earlier.
But I’ve felt ridiculous before, so I kept the revolver at hip level. Ready.
“You’re up late. Or is it that you just got up early?” I said.
She closed the door quietly behind her, and came close enough for me to smell the perfume she wore. “Are you trying to account for my whereabouts at the time of the crime? Or is it that you’re really interested, Dusky?”
“You can cut out the detective stuff, Saxan. I’m not in the mood.”
She came a step closer, an arm’s length away. In the corona of lamplight, I could see her face clearly: perfect nose and skin, the flawless contours made even more captivating by the strange off-center eyes. It was a different Saxan Benton who stood before me now. She was no longer the aristocrat with a vulnerable core. Awash with her guises, her own uncertainty, it seemed as if she had abandoned them all, and now stood exposed to her own eyes. And it didn’t seem as if she liked what she saw.
The Deadlier Sex Page 14
