SIX

Dawn came up unpleasantly, with a bleak drizzle which soaked Burt to the skin and rendered Maudie’s T-shirt as transparent as onionskin. He sent the girl home and climbed down the hill through dripping grass. Coco sat on the steps of the beach club looking morosely at the rain dripping off the thatched roof.

“Nobody up yet?” asked Burt.

“No, sir.” Coco rested his chin in his hands and gazed at Rolf’s launch rocking in the rain-peppered lagoon. “My mind tells me he take me fishing today.”

“Your mind gives you a bum steer,” said Burt. “But I’ll give you five bucks to go up to the piton and watch where he goes.”

“Yes, sir!”

The pink soles of Coco’s bare feet sent up spurts of wet sand as he ran down the beach. Burt went to his cabin and took a shower, then put on dry clothes and lay down on his bed fully dressed. The damp weather had brought throbbing pain to his leg; he seemed to be able to sleep only a half-hour when a spurt of pain would awaken him, and he would lie with cold sweat soaking his clothes while he tried to arrange his leg in a more comfortable position. He was doing this for the fifth or the tenth time when a shot blasted just outside his cabin. Burt was off his bed and on the floor when the second report came. He ran out onto the porch with Rolf’s .38 in his hand and looked up to see a graceful frigate bird falter in flight, then begin a slow downward glide which ended in a splash far out to sea.

Burt lowered his eyes and saw the two men on the narrow beach just below his cabin. One carried a gun over his shoulder, holding it by the barrel in defiance of all gun safety rules. The other had broken open a double-barreled shotgun and was feeding in new shells. Burt shoved the .38 in his hip pocket and strode down to the beach. He’d forgotten the twinge in his leg; his ears burned with unreasoning rage.

“Hey!” he shouted.

The man who held the gun by the barrel turned to frown at Burt. He was a stocky, dark man who looked immensely powerful, with heavy, black-furred arms and a pelt of black hair poking through the neck of his crackling new sport shirt. The other man, also dressed in new sport shirt and trousers, was bigger but more loosely built. He raised his shotgun and scanned the sky, ignoring Burt.

“Why the hell did you shoot a frigate bird?” asked Burt.

The hairy man flashed a broad unconvincing smile and held out his hand. “I’m Ace Smith. Real-estate operator. This is one of my associates, Hoke Farnum.”

Burt didn’t take his hand. He’d always had a low opinion of men who killed for pleasure. These two didn’t even seem to be having fun. “I asked you why you shot the frigate bird.”

Ace Smith shrugged and waved at the other man. “Hoke thought it was a pigeon. We came here to shoot pigeons.”

Burt glanced at Hoke. He had a thick fleshy head topped with coarse black hair. His face appeared the color and texture of pie dough with the features pressed in place by blunt fingers. The man didn’t smile; he didn’t look as though he knew how. He looked at Burt from eyes that could have been dried prunes floating in skimmed milk for all the emotion they showed, then turned away and drew a bead on a pelican bobbing in the swell just beyond the surf line. Burt leaped forward and knocked down the gun barrel. “Fool! Don’t you know a pelican when you see one?”

The big man backed away with surprised annoyance. He gave Burt a puzzled look, then turned to Ace. “Who is this guy, the local game warden?”

“Bird lover,” said the other. “Shoot what you want. They don’t enforce game laws here.”

For an instant the scene froze, with Burt facing the two armed men. Hoke’s gun was a twelve-gauge shotgun; Ace carried an over-under model, twenty-gauge shotgun below, thirty-caliber rifle above.

Burt felt his skin draw tight; he hadn’t smelled gunpowder since that night in the jewelry store.

He forced himself to relax; no use getting somebody killed over a frigate bird.

“You’re the Smith who reserved two cabins?” he asked.

“Uh-yeah.” Ace’s smile was gone; like a rubber mask the face had snapped back into a taut, watchful pattern. There was violence in his eyes, but it was different from Rolf’s, nearer to the surface, more defensive and, probably, with a quicker boiling point.

“How’d you two great white hunters get on the island?”

“Charter boat,” said Ace.

As Burt turned to scan the shoreline, Ace said, “He left hours ago.”

Burt looked up and saw the pale disc of the sun shining through the haze directly overhead. It was past noon.…

He left the two men and walked to the club. The cruiser was gone, as he’d expected. Godfrey, who was raking debris off the beach in front of the club, said the man and the woman had left right after breakfast. Boris was polishing the bar with an oiled cloth. To the left of the club, Joss lay in a hammock strung between two palm trees cuddling a rum punch on her stomach. Her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly open.

The tranquil scene gave Burt a queasy feeling, as though they were all sitting on the edge of a volcano, and he was the only one who could hear the rumble of the approaching eruption.

He walked up to her hammock and rocked it gently. She jumped, and liquid sloshed out of her glass and dampened the mound of her stomach.

“Brut, what—?”

“Why’d you let those new men in?”

“Boris put them up,” she said, taking a sip from her glass. “I was asleep when they came in from Grenada.”

“Asleep or passed out?”

“Well … rum makes me sleepy.”

“Sure, when you drink a quart of it.” He reached out and took the glass from her hand.

“Now Burt, listen—”

“You listen, Joss. I need help. I can’t depend on you when you’re juiced out of your mind.” He set the glass on the sand beside her hammock. “Now, how many gorillas are there?”

She looked wistfully at the glass, then sighed. “Well, there were supposed to be four, but Boris said there were only three. That Mr. Smith is in cabin three, the other two are in cabin four—” She stopped abruptly. “What do you mean, gorillas?”

“I mean gorillas, gunmen, torpedoes, hoods. I’ve seen enough of them in lineups to know the type.”

She turned pale. “But why … on this island—?”

“Tell me, did their reservations come in before or after Rolf’s?”

“Neither. O’Ryan drops the mail off once a week. Both letters were in the same batch.”

“So many visitors during hurricane season could hardly be an accident. Two and two adds up to four. Four against one.”

“Four? You’re not including Rolf?”

“Why not? They came in from Grenada, the same as the phony Mrs. Keener.”

“Ah, that one.” Joss’s eyes narrowed. “She kept her date last night?”

Burt nodded.

“And you … did you enjoy yourself?”

Burt touched a finger to the faint scratches on his cheek. “I could have, if I’d wanted to perform for an audience.” Briefly he related what had happened, including Rolf’s hints of danger and a vast fortune at stake. Joss’s reaction was surprising, but typical. She swung her legs to the ground and spoke with prim indignation:

“I’m going to the police and have the woman thrown out. That kind of promiscuity is just not allowed on my island.”

Burt shook his head slowly. “We’ve been over this ground before, Joss. How would you go?”

“Rolf—”

“You’d never get there.”

“Burt, don’t be silly. Rolf wouldn’t … I mean, he could be involved in a shady deal, like you say, but he wouldn’t hurt a woman.”

Burt smiled. “I envy you, Joss. Your feminine intuition would be such a help in detective work.”

“Oh, it’s more definite than that. We talked about the stars last night. He’s a Leo, a perfect Leo. He’s not bound by a lot of stifling rules, he’s a leader …”

Burt stared as she talked, amazed that the accident of a man’s birthday could outweigh all contrary evidence. True, it helped that Rolf was handsome, likable and intelligent, and that Joss was slightly sex-starved.

He decided not to argue with her. It wouldn’t hurt to let her think Rolf was harmless, as long as the man didn’t start using her for his own purposes. In any case, Burt wasn’t eager to shatter Rolf’s good-guy pose; he had a feeling that could only unleash a chain reaction of violence.

“Okay,” he said finally. “I could be wrong about Rolf. But not about these other guys. Stay clear of them.”

“I’ll do better than that. I’ll ask them to leave.”

Burt sighed. “Here we are again. How will they go? Their launch left.”

“Why, Rolf will take them off when he gets back.”

Burt smiled slowly. “Go ahead and ask him. I’ll be curious to see how he gets out of it.”

Burt found Boris in the kitchen scratching his wispy goatee and grumbling about the food supply. The mountain of stores which Joss had hinted at consisted of three cases of Argentine canned beef and twenty-four tins of ship’s biscuits. That would have been fine, Boris explained, if they’d had their usual fare of birds and seafood, but there could be no fishing without a boat, the surf was too high to get lobsters and sea snails from the reef, and the gunshots had driven all the pigeons to the highest crags.

“Maybe tonight I hold a manicou,” said Boris. “But for now …”

Burt sat down to a breakfast of bully beef and biscuits. The biscuits rattled against his teeth, as hard and tasteless as C-ration crackers. The beef was stringy, blood-red, and so salty he used a quart of water to wash it down. He pushed back his plate and saw Boris watching him with an expression of deep sympathy.

“You were here when those new men came in?” Burt asked.

Boris shook his head. “I was up on the hill making charcoal, when I hear the boat. I do not move, for I think the blond man returning early. When I come down, the men are in their cabins. They do not let me in to open windows, show them how the bath works. I think they do not wish to give me a tip?”

The last sentence ended on a rising, querulous inflection. Burt didn’t think the men were concerned about tipping; a passion for secrecy was exactly what he’d have expected after seeing the pair on the beach. It was sheer luck that they’d got on to the island without being seen. The puzzle was that only three men had arrived to occupy reservations made for four. What had happened to the fourth man?

“Godfrey didn’t see them?” asked Burt.

“No, sir. I send him up to the rocks to look for bird’s eggs.”

“How about Coco—? Oh, hell!”

He jumped to his feet and left the club. The new arrivals had driven Coco completely from his mind.

Burt found Coco lying on his back with his white hat shading his face. Burt jerked it off:

“Did you see a launch leave three men on the island?”

Coco blinked and sat up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “No, sir.”

Burt threw the hat back with disgust. “That nap just cost you five bucks, Coco.”

“But, sir! I watch where the other go, as you told me.” He scrambled to his knees and pointed to the south. “I follow them with my eyes until they pass out of sight around that island, called Ram Island.”

“Could they have stopped there?”

“No anchorage on that side. Only on this side.”

“What’s behind it?”

“Oh, many, many islands …” He named a dozen before Burt stopped him.

“The Tobago Cays. Isn’t that a group of very small islands off to themselves?”

“Yes, sir. Petit Rameau, Petit Bateau, Jamesby, Baradal and Petit Tabac.” Coco was obviously enjoying the chance to display his knowledge.

“Anybody live there?”

“No, sir. Sometimes boats come from Barbados, people stay there on holiday, swim, fish. Sometimes fishermen stop to dry fish for market, eat turtle. But they must bring food and water—”

“They don’t visit during this season, do they?”

“No, sir. When the sea high, current rush through very swif’. Many rocks.”

Burt thought about it: If Rolf wanted to keep his wife out of sight, he’d have to find a place where nobody would be likely to stumble onto her. She wouldn’t know enough to stay out of sight when she was all hyped-up on junk, and that way he’d be damn sure she couldn’t take off and try to score on her own—

Coco’s shout interrupted his thoughts. He looked down to see the cruiser coming from the east. Now what the hell? Burt wondered. That clever devil has circled around and come back a different way, and now I’m not sure of anything. He felt frustration pinch his nostrils as he watched the cruiser approach, trailing a long wake and cleaving the water with two high bow waves. She was a powerful craft; she could probably outrun anything but a U.S. coast-guard cutter.

He watched Rolf ease up to the edge of the lagoon. The entrance was tricker than ever, but conversely less dangerous. The swells were higher, but if you were a good enough boatman to catch the top of a swell, your chances of getting snagged were that much smaller. Burt found himself holding his breath as the launch disappeared in white water; then letting it out as the boat reappeared gleaming wet, in the lagoon. He had to admire Rolf’s dexterity with the wheel, and he wondered where he’d learned it.

Burt stayed on the tower and watched Joss meet Rolf at the jetty. While the two talked, Bunny disappeared in the direction of the cabins, walking as though she were very, very tired. The two pigeon hunters had paused in front of the beach club to watch the landing, now, perhaps in response to Rolf’s call, they joined Rolf and Joss at the jetty. Burt climbed down from the tower and descended the hill. He reached the beach just as Joss slapped her hands against her hips and left the beach. Rolf gave Burt a mock, half-smiling salute as he approached.

“New fellows for the club, Burt. I offered them a lift to Bequia but they’re afraid of the sea.”

Ace hunched his shoulders and glared at Burt. “Like I told her, I’ll leave. But after that last trip out here, I ain’t ready to go again so soon.”

“I’ve gone through rougher water than this,” said Rolf, looking like a dashing cinema adventurer with his hair wet and drops of water clinging to his mustache. “In the Strait of Gibraltar, with gunboats chasing me.”

“Well, I didn’t. When the sea calms down I’ll take your offer, if she’s still got her mind made up …”

And Burt had a strange feeling that both men were playing parts for his benefit …

… When, from the nearest cabin, came what sounded like a ragged moan. Burt started forward, but Ace was standing in front of him with the gun in the crook of his arm. “Hold it, that’s only Charlie. He has nightmares.” His smile returned, too broad to be real, and he spoke over his shoulder. “Hoke, go turn Charlie over on his stomach.”

Burt felt rage boiling inside him, but forced himself to speak in a quiet voice. “Smith, you act like a damn fool with that gun.”

The hairy man raised his brows. “Yeah? You know a lot about guns, bird lover?”

“I know if you don’t take it out of my stomach, I’ll feed it to you.”

Ace eyed Burt curiously. “What did you say your name was?”

“Burt March.”

“March. Whaddaya do?”

“I sell insurance. And I’ll give you five seconds to move that gun. One, two, three—”

“Smith!” Rolf’s voice cracked. “You’re not the only one who’s armed. Do what he says.”

Ace looked surprised, then shrugged and smiled at Burt. “Insurance salesman, huh? The island’s full of tough nuts.” He slung the gun to his shoulder. “I came here to shoot pigeons, and that’s what I’ll do, as long as people leave me alone.”

He turned and walked up the hill, ostentatiously scanning the sky. Burt turned to Rolf. “I’d thank you, but I think you had your own reasons. You had to let him know I had a gun, didn’t you?”

“I figured it would save his life. Or yours.” Rolf smiled. “Why so disappointed? Did you want to kill him?”

“I wouldn’t have killed him. He was standing too close; it wouldn’t have been hard to disarm him.”

“Yes, and when he came at you with his bare hands? He looks strong as a gorilla.”

“I can defend myself.”

Rolf shook his head slowly. “I’m glad I didn’t decide to be a cop. You’ve tied your hands, haven’t you? You have to let the other man make the first move.”

He turned and started away, but Burt called after him. “Rolf, are those the men you think will kill you?”

Rolf paused and waved up at the peak. “Take a look. You think he’s hunting pigeons?”

Burt followed his gaze and watched Ace settle himself on the lookout rock with the gun across his knees. He was looking down, his hard face impassive. Burt was reminded of the guard on a prison farm.