Cargo for the Styx

by Louis Trimble

Behind me Aggie said, “It’s a little early for that drink, Zane, but join me for coffee?”

  He was dressed in pale gray slacks, a maroon silk robe and maroon leather slippers. A gray silk scarf was knotted at his throat. He looked every inch the retired gentleman. He was also carrying a grapefruit spoon. It looked better than the gun he’d carried last night.

  I said, “Do you have a telescope, Aggie?”

  “I have a spot on the roof where I keep one,” he said seriously. “Are you interested in astronomy, Zane?”

  I said, “It’s not one of my more exciting hobbies. I was thinking that with a good telescope, you could watch the Temoc from here.”

  “I could,” Aggie said. “But watching the boats makes me dizzy. In an astronomical telescope, everything is upside down.” He gave me one of his best smiles and started for the far end of the living room.

  I followed. We went out through French doors and onto a covered terrace. Behind the terrace was a swimming pool, the waters a soft turquoise color. I looked around for Bonnie. There was a table with the remains of breakfast for one on it. Since Aggie held the grapefruit spoon, I assumed he was the one.

  I said, “Mrs. Minos still keeps nightclub hours?”

  “Is that supposed to be a crack or does it mean something?”

  I said, “A polite way of commenting on her absence.”

  Aggie managed to keep his smile. He said, “My wife likes to sleep later than I do. Is that all right with you, Zane?”

  I said, “It would be if I hadn’t heard a rumble that a pair of hoods tried to pick her up this morning.” I paused. “The same pair that worked me over last night.”

  The Mexican girl came in with a hammered silver coffeepot and two cups. She set them down and padded out of sight. Aggie stood up. He walked silently after the girl. I lit a cigarette and admired the coffeepot.

  Aggie came back. He sat down and poured two cups of coffee.

  He said, “She’ll be down in a minute, Zane.”

  We sipped our coffee. I smoked. The minute became two. Then Bonnie Minos stepped through the French doors. She wore a bright smile, short shorts, a hint of a halter, and sandals. This morning her motif was blue-green. Her eyes had a heavy look as if she’d not quite waked up yet.

  “Good morning, Mr. Zane.” Then her eyes widened. “Oh, I’ll bet you spoiled everything.”

  Aggie and I got to our feet. Bonnie sat down. We sat down. Aggie said, “What is there for him to spoil?”

  She said brightly, “Then if you don’t know, maybe he didn’t spoil it after all.”

  Aggie said, “Zane tells me two hoodlums tried to snatch you this morning.”

  “So I heard,” I murmured.

  Bonnie turned gray-blue eyes from me to Aggie. Those eyes didn’t throw electricity my way but I could see they had their effect on Aggie. They made him a boy again.

  She said, “Where could you have heard that?”

  I said, “Just a rumble. Coffee shop gossip. Beautiful blond, sports car, a pair of hoods I happen to know are in town. I put everything together and came up with you, Mrs. Minos.”

  Aggie lit a cigarette. The lighted end held his attention for some time. He said slowly, “Bonnie isn’t the only blond with a sports car.”

  I said, “She’s the only one I could think of.”

  Aggie said, “You wouldn’t be trying to tie these hoods to me?”

  I said, “I thought about it.”

  “Don’t. I never had an organization when I was working. I haven’t got one now.”

  I said, “You didn’t sic a pair called Otho and Vann onto me?”

  Bonnie had borrowed Aggie’s coffee cup. She lifted it to her lips. If she was perturbed, she wasn’t shaking about it.

  Aggie said, “Otho—Vann?” He looked me over with his liquid eyes. “Is that where you got those lumps on the head?” He began to chuckle.

  I said, “Maybe you should give them a bonus for a job well done.”

  He kept on laughing. “They aren’t my boys, Zane.”

  I said, “They wanted to know what you and I talked about last night. They wanted to now what Mrs. Minos and I talked about.”

  “Did you tell them?”

  “What was there to tell them?” I demanded. “That you thought I was playing around with your wife and came to warn me off?”

  “Why, Aggie, how sweet!” Bonnie said.

  Aggie made a noise deep in his throat. It was my turn to laugh, but I kept it to myself. Aggie wanted to deny that he had come to me about seeing his wife. But if he did, he’d have to tell her the real reason why he visited me. I didn’t think he wanted to do that.

  Bonnie finished her husband’s coffee. She rose. “I think I’ll go tell Maria what to get me for breakfast. Now don’t ruin my surprise, Mr. Zane.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” I said.

  We watched her disappear into the house. Aggie said, “What surprise?”

  I said, “That was a silly question.” He grunted. “Aggie, I still want to know why your sudden interest in my investigation of the Temoc.”

  He said, “Clift is a friend. I want to see him make a go of this deal. It’s a great opportunity for him.”

  “Is that why you haven’t been visiting him—because he’s a friend?”

  “Can you think of a better reason for my staying away? Once I heard you were on the job, I kept clear.”

  “So the fact of your knowing Clift wouldn’t prejudice me against him?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. “And, Zane, forget me. I’m retired, believe that. And there’s no way for Clift to nick Marine Mutual. He can make more staying legitimate.”

  I’d covered this ground before. I got up. I said, “I might be able to forget the whole deal if it hadn’t been for those goons.”

  He was tired of me. He looked up and his eyes weren’t soft. He wasn’t smiling, either. He said, “Zane, if they’d been mine you’d have more than a few lumps on the skull. Believe me.”

  I believed him. For the moment I believed him. And that left me nowhere.

  I said, “I’ll let myself out, Aggie.”

  He didn’t answer. He was pouring himself a cup of coffee.

  CHAPTER X

  I WAS HALFWAY from the front door to my heap when Bonnie Minos popped into sight. She wig wagged me over to a clump of shrubbery that screened off the view from the house. She was wearing her best smile and the same two scraps of cloth as before.

  There was no smile in her voice. “Thanks for that story,” she said. “And for backing me up.”

  I said, “I came here thinking Aggie had set those goons on you. Then I wasn’t so sure. I had to figure something that would give you an out and give me some information.”

  I glanced toward the house. There was no sign of activity from that direction. I said, “Just how am I backing you up? What’s this surprise business?”

  “I’m buying Aggie a new sloop for our anniversary,” she said.

  I had to grin. “I told Aggie you’d come to consult me about buying a boat, so it fits.”

  “He asked me about that,” she said. “That’s where I got the idea to buy him a boat.” Her smile was as dazzling as the summer sunshine. “Now everything is fine.”

  I said, “Everything is just great—except that you owe me something for helping you keep your nose clean with Aggie.”

  The blue-gray eyes measured me judiciously. “I didn’t know I affected you that way, Zane.”

  I said, “Damn it, I want some answers, not a roll in the bushes.”

  She sighed. “Spurned again.”

  I said, “Listen, Mrs. Minos —”

  She put a finger to her lips. “I’ll talk to you later, Zane,” she whispered. “I think I hear Aggie coming.”

  I couldn’t hear a thing, but I whispered anyway. I said, “At my office. One o’clock.”

  Her nod said that would be fine. She disappeared into the bushes. I went on to the heap. I wasn’t happy. I was tempted to go to Ag
gie and have a showdown. But there was something refreshingly annoying about Bonnie Minos. I decided to give her one more chance.

  I rolled down the driveway to the street. I braked sharply as I caught a glimpse of the tail of a black car taking a curve ahead. It could have been the two-door. I would have been surprised if it wasn’t.

  I took my time going down the hill to Harbor Way. I was trying to tie Bonnie Minos into some kind of logical knot. But she kept slipping loose. Every time I stacked one of her actions against another, I came up with a contradiction.

  I came to the tunnel of live oak trees. I was in the middle of an S curve when the black two-door came squealing uphill. I yanked my wheel to the right as the two-door swung wide on the curve. I jammed on the brakes. The two-door stayed on my side. I heard the crunch of metal. I felt the jolt as fenders kissed. The heap leaped the curbing with a front wheel. I stopped.

  I shouldered open the door and stepped to the street. Otho climbed from beneath the wheel of the two-door. He was alone in it. He grinned at me.

  I didn’t waste words. I needed my breath for my work. I pulled Clarence’s sap out of my pocket. Otho kept on grinning. He made no move. He stood flat-footed, waiting for me. I lifted the sap. I was going to feint with it and push my left into the middle of his grin.

  Vann wasn’t in sight, so I forgot to think about him. I was too eager to get at Otho. I started remembering Vann when I heard the scuff of a shoe sole on pavement. The sound came from behind me. I twisted my head. Vann was riding my back. I tried to duck aside. His hand chopped down. The hard edge caught me at the base of the neck. I went down slowly.

  Vann said in his flat voice, “Get him in the back of his car, Otho. You know where to take him.”

  Otho lifted me. My hundred and ninety didn’t even make him grunt. He held me with one hand and opened the rear door of the heap with the other. He shoved me face down on the floor.

  The motor of the heap ground into life. I bounced around as Otho took the remaining curves down to Harbor Way.

  The car jolted over gravel and stopped. Another car pulled alongside. Vann called out, “No one around. Get him aboard. I’ll go bury this clunker of his. Stay with him until I get back here.”

  Otho grunted something I took to mean ‘yes.’ He opened the rear door of the heap and lifted me out. He put me on my feet. I swayed off the perpendicular.

  He said, “Start walking, Zane. There ain’t nobody around, so don’t waste my time.”

  The watery feeling in my joints was beginning to go away. I started walking. I went down on my own dock and aboard my own boat.

  Otho steered me forward. He grabbed my collar and heaved me onto my bunk. Irma had made it up. I could smell the fragrance of her faintly. I hoped Otho couldn’t smell it.

  Otho wanted to tie me up. I didn’t feel like arguing with him. He was pretty good with knots. When he finished with me, I was roped with my wrists together and my ankles together. He ran the remainder of the rope to the bunk stanchions. The only way I could move was up. When I did that, ropes sawed at my skin and tension tried to pull my joints from their sockets. I lay still.

  I heard Vann come in. He said, “He should keep for a while. All right, finish him up.”

  Otho finished me up. He wrapped one of my own neck scarves over my eyes and shoved the handkerchief out of my pocket into my mouth. He tied the handkerchief so that I could breathe around it but couldn’t push it out.

  Vann said, “Fine.” I was glad he liked it. I thought about showing him just how glad I was someday.

  Vann said, “All right, let’s roll. Without his jalopy parked outside, no one will think he’s here. He’ll keep until we want him again.”

  “I had an idea,” Otho said. He sounded proud of himself.

  “Save it and let’s get moving,” Vann said.

  “This is a real good idea,” Otho insisted. He was bound to give his idea to Vann. “It gets dark, see. Then we come in a speedboat and take him away. Then nobody catches us.”

  “Where do we get the speedboat?” Vann said.

  “I’ll borrow one,” Otho said.

  Vann said, “I’ll think about it. Right now, let’s get busy and take care of that dizzy dame.”

  They clumped away. I lay and thought about how Zane had walked right into this. At the moment, I didn’t have much respect for him. He deserved everything he’d got.

  But that didn’t make him like it.

  I tried thinking of something else. I thought about the “dizzy dame” Vann was on his way to take care of. Bonnie? She fit the description. Irma? Maybe from Vann’s point of view, she was dizzy. I used different adjectives when I thought of her.

  It didn’t matter which one Vann had in mind. I didn’t want him taking care of either of them. I didn’t like the way he took care of people.

  I lunged at the ropes, arching my body. I flopped back on the bunk. I’d achieved quite a bit—rope burns and a bent spine. I lay panting and sweating.

  I tried yelling. All that came out around the gag was a gurgle. The sound reminded me of a bottle being emptied.

  I began to get thirsty. I stopped thinking about bottles. I tried playing a game with myself. I thought of a question. Then I thought of an answer. I didn’t score points for just any old answer. I had all the time I needed to come up with a good one.

  Question: “Why did Vann want me kept in cold storage until later—when he ‘wanted me again’?”

  Answer: “Vann didn’t know how much I’d learned. He didn’t know how much I’d passed on to Marine Mutual. Before he could get rid of me, he had to find out just how much I knew and how much of what I knew I’d passed on.”

  Queston: “How do you know Vann is concerned with the Temoc? Your answer makes no sense unless he is.”

  Answer: “Nothing anyone has done lately makes any sense unless the Temoc is involved.”

  Question: “Why was Prebble killed?”

  Answer: “Because he had something to show me, something that was connected with the Temoc.”

  Question: “Who killed Prebble?”

  Answer: “That was a damn fool thing to ask. If I knew, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”

  I threw myself out of the game for asking silly questions. I went back to being thirsty. I was thirsty for quite a while. Then I fell asleep.

  I woke up to a bell ringing. It was the telephone on the shelf above my head. It was the most frustrating noise I ever heard. It kept ringing and frustrating me. Finally I went a little off the beam.

  I lunged upwards. Only this time I was throwing my head and not my body. I felt the underside of the shelf crack the top of my skull. The telephone ring skipped a beat. I heard the receiver lift out of the cradle and fall back in.

  I lunged again, harder. The shelf flattened the top of my head a half inch out of round. But the ringing stopped. It stopped because the telephone was lying on my chest. The receiver was out of the cradle and a good six inches from my face.

  I gurgled. I gurgled until my throat ached and until the dryness in my mouth got too much for me. I heard a voice. It said, “Hello? Hello, Zane?”

  The blood was pounding in my ears. I couldn’t recognize the voice. I could only make out the words.

  I gave a last gurgle. I closed my eyes. I’d had it.

  CHAPTER XI

  HAVE YOU ever been temporarily blind? It’s a sensation like nothing else you could ever experience. I’d rather face Jack the Ripper on Friday the thirteenth and with my hands tied. I told myself I didn’t mind getting killed, but I wanted to see it happen.

  Lying on that bunk with the scarf over my eyes, I couldn’t see anything, not even a faint hint of light. But I could hear.

  I could hear the soft, almost hesitant footsteps that moved along the dock, that made the boat rock gently as weight came down into the cockpit. I could hear the strange clicking sound that followed. It took me a moment to place that sound. I realized that Vann had padlocked the hatch leading into the lounge. That way,
any casual passerby looking for a free drink would think I was ashore and not bother to come aboard. Now, someone was picking the padlock.

  The same someone who had called me on the telephone? Probably not. No one had come yapping, “Zane!” and bent on rescue. The person picking that lock was being carefully quiet.

  So far it wasn’t too bad. Then I heard the lock click back. The slow, cautious footsteps moved into the lounge. They came forward with that same agonizing slowness. I thought I was dehydrated, but I could feel the sweat popping out all over me.

  I’d heard that a person who can’t see can tell a lot by sounds. I couldn’t tell a damn thing—except that someone was pussyfooting in my direction. The footsteps could have belonged to a male or a female. Or, for all I knew, to a bear.

  I heard the steps climb into the wheelhouse. They crossed it. They started down into my cabin. They stopped. They began to retreat. They retreated all the way to the lounge. I listened to the sibilant sound of drawers sliding out and back in again. I heard the rustle of papers. My personal possessions were getting a thorough going over.

  I was still sane enough to guess why.

  The footsteps moved forward again. They stopped in the galley. The refrigerator door clicked open. I heard the clink of glass on glass. My throat began to feel like a dustbowl farm. Someone was raiding my ice-cold beer.

  Another sound. The rattle of my cutlery drawer. The footsteps came my way again. Into the wheelhouse, across it, down to stop by my bunk.

  I couldn’t even get a sound around the gag that filled my mouth.

  I felt the knife blade. It was cold against my wrists. The sensation of that chilled steel against my skin nearly knocked me out. It took a long, agonizing minute for me to realize that I was feeling the side of the blade, not its edge.

  My ropes were being hacked loose. In another minute I would be free. I could get the blindfold off my eyes. I could begin to live again.

  The ropes around my wrists came loose. I sat up. I reached behind my head to untie the blindfold. I had no fingers, only numb stumps of frozen flesh. A hand not belonging to me moved up behind my head and jerked the knot loose. The blindfold fell away. The dim light in the cabin beat against my eyes painfully. I enjoyed every bit of that pain.