Blow-Down, page 5
“And Fay.”
“How do you do?” Fay was pert and freckled. She had a nice smile but no great flair for personal adornment.
“And Della.”
An incipient giggle hovered on Della’s lips. She was plump and pretty in an impersonal, vacuous way.
“Whose little secretaries are you?” Lane asked.
“They’re community property,” volunteered Nita. Her flip repartee didn’t quite match her drawl.
“And this is Katherine.”
Lane thought Katherine had the build of a lady discus thrower. She was older than the other four and seemed conscious of the fact. The company had imported her as school teacher for the children of Puerto Musa division.
Lane didn’t remember the names of most of the men. There were half a dozen semi-articulate overseers from neighboring farms, two wisecracking clerks from the commissary, a young engineer just back from running a new telephone line through the jungle and who still wore his insect-proof curly red beard, and a radio operator from the company’s wireless station, an angular young man named Bob Neptune.
When the assembled masculinity had been rendered articulate by food and drink, Della tried to get dance music on the radio, but without success. There were speeches from Guatemala and Tegucigalpa, a play from Mexico, atrocious studio orchestras at Barranquilla and Medellin, and folk songs from Havana. The stations from the States were lost in a roar of static.
“Bob, you promised to fix our radio and you never did,” said Della.
“Nothing’s wrong with the set,” the radio operator replied. “It’s just interference.”
“Where does the interference come from, Neptune?” Walter Lane tried not to seem too interested.
“Different places,” said the radio man. “Never seems to come from the same direction. I don’t know what’s responsible, but then I never gave it much thought. It don’t bother any of the commercial wave lengths that we work.”
“I’ll play the piano if you want to dance,” said Katherine.
The tropics had not been kind to the felts of the small upright in the Hen House, and it had a tone not unlike a clavichord. Katherine played with more energy than sense of rhythm. Her foxtrots all sounded like Schubert’s Marche Militaire performed for the morning calisthenics of the 2-B grade.
Della came over and sat on the arm of Cecil Holliday’s chair. Her giggle had been loosened considerably by the last highball. She said, “Muriel said I should never ask you to play the piano, but I know you can play better than Katherine. We can’t dance to her music. Will you play, if I kiss you?”
Holliday turned red, then deathly pale. He got up, crossed the room, poured himself half a tumbler of whisky, drank it neat, then came back and sat down without a word. He kept his maimed right hand in his pocket.
The silence settled on the room like a wet blanket. Even Della’s giggle succumbed to the general embarrassment.
Muriel Monroe tried to relieve the strange tension. She said, “Nobody wants to dance, Della. Let’s all go swimming.”
“Not me,” drawled Nita. “It’s raining. I might get wet.”
“The rain’s stopped and there’s a moon. Don’t you swim, Walter?”
“Like a fish,” Lane said. “Like a Bismarck herring.”
They found a pair of trunks for Lane, and a few minutes later he was walking through the dim tracery of palm shadows on moonlight. A bath towel was draped over his left shoulder. Muriel Monroe, wrapped in a thin dressing-gown as a protection against sand flies, was walking very close to him. She carried a bag under her arm. Two other couples, Bob Neptune, and the engineer were some distance ahead. They had nearly reached the beach when Muriel stopped suddenly.
She put one hand on Lane’s bare shoulder, looked up at him with what he thought in the dark was a gently mocking expression, and began to laugh softly.
“You know, you’re really not such a sinister and crafty person,” she said.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Lane said. “Am I supposed to be sinister and crafty?”
“Some people think you are. But you’re really quite naïve and trusting.”
“Thanks. How do you know?”
“Well, you scarcely know any of those people at the Hen House tonight. And yet you went off and left your wallet and passport behind—at the mercy of anybody with light fingers.”
“How do you know I had a wallet and passport with me?”
“Because I retrieved them for you,” the girl said. “I’ve got them in my bag.”
“You’re a slick worker,” Lane said. “Did you find the information you were looking for?”
“I haven’t even glanced at them,” the girl replied.
“Why did you take them, then?”
“Because it seemed imprudent of you to leave them. After all there is something mysterious about you, Walt. And I can’t help thinking about poor Bill Bossert, and his passports.”
“What about Bossert?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been reading too many of these action-story magazines that all the boys down here dote on. But I somehow imagined that maybe you were an old friend of Bill Bossert’s, come down to investigate his death, maybe to avenge him if there was anything wrong—”
“Was there anything wrong?” Lane’s voice grew hard.
“I suppose not. I’m imagining things—”
“Then what do we do with my passport? Take it swimming with us?”
“No, but we can stop by the office. I can put it in Mr. Perry’s safe.”
“Can you get in all right?”
“I have my keys.”
“In the safe, I mean.”
“Oh. Yes, I know the combination.”
The moon made a luminous cross shining through the screened window of the Division Manager’s deserted office. Muriel knelt directly in front of the safe. Her long robe, billowing out over the floor, and her bathing cap took on unfamiliar outlines in the moonlit gloom. Lane had the incongruous thought that they gave the girl the silhouette of a medieval nun at prayer.
“Where’s the light switch?” he asked.
“I don’t need the light,” Muriel said. “Besides, you’re not supposed to watch me dial the combination.”
“Are you the only one who knows it besides Perry?”
“Mr. Alcott knows it, too.”
“What would happen if you were all three engulfed in a tidal wave?”
“There’s a sealed copy of the combination in Mr. Alcott’s safe,” the girl said. “Turn your back, Walter.”
“I won’t look, don’t worry. I’ll wait for you outside.”
Muriel put the wallet in the safe and was a little surprised to see that Lane had actually gone. She went out to look for him, but he wasn’t in front of the office building. She called, “Walter!” She called him twice more before he appeared out of the shadows.
“Where were you?” she asked.
“Inside.”
“I thought you were going to wait outside.”
“I was detained. I saw something through the side window that interested me. I was watching a man trying to climb through the hedge. He seemed to be having a little trouble with his legs. It took him three tries.”
“A drunk!” said Muriel. “The port’s full of them tonight.”
“This particular drunk had a familiar air about him.”
“What of it?” said Muriel. “Let’s swim.”
The shark-proofed part of the beach was not very large. A line of tall palings ran fifty yards into the water, doubling back to make three sides of a square. Half a dozen swimmers were splashing in the enclosure. The beads of spray turned to pearls in the faint moonlight. Lane could see the lights of the S.S. Bonaca beyond the close-set stakes of the shark fence.
Muriel swam very well, Lane observed, as he dived in after the girl. He told her so, after he had come up sputtering, a few yards behind her.
“Bet you can’t catch me,” she challenged.
“Bet I can.”
And he did—after a breathless, overhand chase. He cornered her against the shark fence, a little too easily, he thought, although they were both blowing hard when he scooped her up in his arms. She was a lovely armful, he mused. The moonlight shone on her wet cheeks, and there were stars in her eyes as she looked up at him—expectantly, he thought. She lowered her eyes—modestly?—then raised them again. Unless his early education had been entirely false, she wanted to be kissed. He was about to comply, when she said suddenly:
“Walt, what’s that on your chest?”
“Oh, that,” Lane said. “Well, I was born in the West. And you know how it is out there where men are men and the spaces are open wide. They brand all us colts.”
“What’s your brand, Walt?”
“Lazy Bar F-L-Y.”
Muriel laughed. “That was Bill Bossert’s ranch, too, wasn’t it, Walt?” she said.
“Was it?”
“He had the same brand as you.”
Lane dropped her. She went under without taking her hands from his shoulders. Bright threads of phosphorescence bubbled up to follow the curves of her body as she submerged, clothing her with exciting outlines of shimmering beads. She came up again slowly, without swallowing water, without losing the vein of her conversation. She said:
“You did know Bill Bossert, didn’t you, Walt?”
“What difference could that possibly make to you?”
“Well, you know how people are down here. They think you’ve been sent down from the north—to snoop.”
“To snoop? By whom?”
“By the company.”
“No,” said Lane pensively. “I’m not a stool pigeon. But you are.”
“Smile when you say that, pardner.”
“Smile? I’m laughing. Are you that much in love with Perry?”
“What’s that got to do with the price of nine-hand stems, Walt?”
“Well—” Lane turned over on his back, gave a flip with his feet that started him toward shore. “You’re an attractive girl. You could have your pick of the entire unmarried personnel down here, and probably half the married personnel, if you set your heart on it. You’re loyal to your employer—that’s natural. But you don’t have to turn stool pigeon to keep your job—even if what they say about you is true.”
“What do they say about me, Walt?”
“That you wear the managerial pants. That you run the division. Let’s go in, Muriel.” He started swimming for shore.
“But, Walt—why—?” She was swimming beside him.
“A sudden thought,” Lane said. “Last time you started cross-examining me, somebody took a shot at me. I don’t enjoy being a target.”
Muriel got out after him, followed him down the beach. He let her catch up, walked in silence beside her as she returned to the office building. On the steps she said, “I’ll get your wallet. You wait out here, Walt.”
“I’m coming with you,” Lane said.
“Why, Walt?”
“I might want to kiss you—just on the nape of the neck—as you stoop to open your—your boss’s safe.”
“Suppose I didn’t want you to kiss me?”
“Suppose,” Lane said.
“Aren’t you just a little brash?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Perry expected me to want to kiss you, didn’t he?”
The girl did not reply at once. In the darkness of the doorway Lane had the preposterous idea that she had been hurt by his remarks. He revised his supposition when she handed him her towel.
“Wipe your feet,” she said. “Don’t track water into the office.”
The moonlight was still coming in the window, and the girl, as she bent over the safe in Perry’s office, seemed to be sheathed in mother of pearl. Her dressing-gown, absorbing the moisture of her bathing-suit, clung to her, revealing to Lane the exact spot for his arms should he stoop to carry out his threat—made against his better judgment—to kiss the nape of her neck. In fact, he even considered a few supplementary ideas. He took a step forward. Suddenly the girl stood upright.
“Walt, did I find the safe open when we were here before?”
“How should I know?” Lane said: “You chased me out.”
“You didn’t come back, after I left, after I went outside to find you?”
“Of course not.”
“I wish I could remember,” the girl said. “I have the strangest feeling that I—That’s the way it is with these things you do so often that they become automatic. I wonder if I did leave the safe open?”
“Somebody steal my wallet and passport?”
“No, they’re right where I left them. But—”
“Then everything’s under control,” Lane said. “Let’s—”
“Walt!”
“Now what?”
“I told you to wipe your feet.”
“I did wipe my feet.”
“You didn’t. You’re making wet footprints. Even in the moonlight I can see where you’ve tracked up the whole place.”
“So I have,” Lane said. “That’s funny. I was sure—Muriel! Turn on the light!”
“But why—?”
“The light! Where’s the switch?”
Muriel’s finger found the button. Lane blinked at the sudden flood of brightness, then stared down at the wet footprints he had been accused of making. They were his footprints, all right, but they were a vivid, somewhat sticky red! He felt his stomach turning over slowly. He looked at Muriel. Her face had gone the color of wet chalk, but she was making a game if obvious effort to laugh it off.
“Walter,” she asked slowly—much too slowly—“you wouldn’t say that was blood, now would you, Walt?”
“Now that you mention it,” said Lane, “I believe I would. Is there a back way out of this place, Miss Monroe?”
“Yes,” said Muriel, “but what—?”
“Put out the light!” Lane commanded.
“But, Walt, why—?”
“The light!” Lane took three red steps toward the switch. “I prefer not to be found here right now. And there’s someone coming. I hear voices outside.”
He snapped the switch. He could feel the girl brush against him in the abrupt darkness. The cool dampness of his bathing-suit suddenly was warm where her small, firm body touched him. He could count the desperate rhythm of her heart beating close to him. He put his arm around her.
Chapter Six
A Case of Acute Assassination
It was a scant hundred yards from the steps of the Musa Club to the fruit company offices, and Dave Perry started out as if he intended covering the distance in ten seconds flat. Alcott was at his heels, but Ed Bannister, Doc Janvier, and the Comandante followed at a more leisurely pace. They were nearly there when Bannister said:
“What’s the hurry, Dave? He’s still inside. He just put the light out.”
Perry bounded up the steps, flung open the door, and called, “Mr. Stilton!”
There was no answer. From somewhere in the darkness came the faint click of a latch.
“He’s here all right,” Alcott said. “Or somebody’s here. I just heard a door closing.”
“Mr. Stilton!”
Light flooded the outer office. Bannister, standing with his hand on the switch, said, “I don’t see anybody.”
Perry headed for his private office with long strides. He left the door open after him. A few seconds later he called, “Dr. Janvier! Quick!”
Mr. Gerald Stilton was sitting on the floor behind Perry’s desk, his torso leaning back against the wall at an angle of forty-five degrees. There was an expression of faint, humorous surprise on his aristocratic features, as though he were smiling to himself at having slipped from the chair into this undignified position. His pleated silk shirt was a bright red, and what appeared to be a black top seemed to be spinning a little to the left of his second platinum stud, in grotesque defiance of the laws of gravity. Of course it was not actually spinning and it was not a top. It was the pear-shaped wooden handle of either a screwdriver or a small chisel which had been driven into Mr. Stilton just under the breastbone.
Dr. Janvier scarcely touched the body before he straightened up. He glanced briefly at the four faces in the doorway before he turned to Perry.
“We can carry him to the hospital if you like,” he said. “But I fear it is useless.”
“Dead, doctor?”
“Quite. Apparently the left ventricle has been pierced. Fifteen minutes ago I might have tried cardiac surgery—a stitch or two in the pericardium, adrenalin, artificial respiration. Of course, if the neuromuscular bundle is cut—”
“How long has he been dead, doctor?”
“Half an hour at the most. Fibrinization of the blood is not far advanced.”
“Do your damnedest anyhow, doctor. And do it quick. Bannister, you and Alcott carry him to the hospital. Can you manage it, the two of you?”
“We’ll make it,” Alcott said, slipping his arm around Stilton’s shoulders. “Grab his feet, Ed.”
Dave Perry did not see them go out. He did not see the Comandante, either, leaning against the door jamb, watching him curiously, very dapper in his white uniform, an unlighted cigarette between his lips, a riding-crop tucked under his arm. For a long moment Perry seemed to be staring into another world. Suddenly a tremor ran through his body, like the first chill of malaria. The muscles of his face twitched. He ran his hands through his bushy hair.
“No!” he exclaimed to nobody in particular. “They can’t do it!”
“Can’t do what, Mr. Perry?” The Comandante struck a match.
Perry roused from his trance, startled to find the Comandante squinting at him through the smoke of a cigarette.
“Hello, Coronel,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were still here.”
“What can’t they do, Mr. Perry?” the Comandante persisted.
“They can’t—why, they can’t get away with a thing like this.”
“Who can’t, Mr. Perry?”
“Did you see the handle of that screwdriver, Coronel? Made in Germany.”
“Yes, I saw it,” said the Comandante. His English had a slight twang of New Yorkese in it, suggesting that he had made extensive extra-curricular contacts during his student years at Columbia University. He came over and sat down next to Perry. “Will this change your plans any, Mr. Perry?”
