Anita had lived in Seacomb many months. She was part of the Cuban community. She knew Pedro's friends. She knew Fuentes was always talking about his rich friend, Manuel Torres, who had a fishing vessel moored to the West Quay.
She had heard much about Manuel Torres. It was said he was a man of great influence. He was more than that. The Cuban community regarded him as the godfather of all the Cubans living in the city. When someone had a problem, he went to Manuel who helped him. He was known as 'The Man of Truth'. When he said he could solve a problem, it was solved. Naturally, he charged a few cents for his time, but that was accepted because his advice was always good. When he wasn't fishing, he ran a stall on the quay, selling tourist junk successfully.
While Fuentes and Pedro had drunk cheap wine, Anita, sitting with them, had listened to Fuentes boasting.
'Manuel is my friend,' he had declared to Pedro. 'If ever I got into trouble, I would go to him and he would help me.'
Manuel Torres, known as The Man of Truth! Anita thought. I will find Fuentes with him.
For more than an hour, she sat motionless, her mind busy. Pedro must be rescued! Pedro must never serve a long term in prison! This was an unbearable, impossible thought! She well knew the value of friendship. Neither Fuentes nor Manuel would raise a finger to help Pedro unless there was a big incentive.
At the end of that desperate hour of thinking, she finally arrived at a solution. She hesitated, wondering if such a plan could succeed, then she persuaded herself there was no other way to rescue Pedro, so her plan must succeed.
She would go to Manuel and Fuentes and tell them of this plan. She felt hopeful that once they grasped what enormous money they would gain, they would help to rescue her husband.
Now, she stood looking at Manuel's fishing vessel. She saw a shadow move behind the curtain of the lighted forward cabin. She looked around, found a pebble and threw it against the lighted window.
She waited, then the cabin door opened and the shadowy figure of a giant of a man came on deck.
'It's me . . . Anita Certes,' she called softly.
Mike Bannion paid off the taxi that had brought him from the Miami airport to the Seaview Hotel. He paused to look at the hotel entrance, and at the balconies ornamented by old-fashioned wrought iron. He decided this was a residential hotel for the retired with not too much money. Mentally shrugging, he walked up the few steps and into the lobby, decorated with dwarf palm trees in tarnished copper pots, and across to the modest reception desk.
A neatly dressed, elderly man gave him a smile of welcome. 'Mr. Vance is expecting me,' Mike said.
'Mr. Lucas?'
'That's me.' Mike's brother had told him to book in as Ted Lucas, and a reservation had been made for him in that name.
'A moment, please.' The elderly man used the telephone, muttered, listened, then hung up.
'Mr. Vance will see you, Mr. Lucas. First floor. Room 2. Your room is on the fourth floor. Number twelve. If you will leave your bag, I'll have it taken to your room.'
Mike took the elevator to the first floor. These days, he spared himself every unnecessary effort. He found climbing stairs now gave him a sharp pain in his side. Today was a bad day. It was probably due to the flight and humping his bag. He was confident that tomorrow, he wouldn't be as bad.
He knew he had this deadly thing gnawing away inside him. The pain came and went. There were days when he tried to assure himself he wasn't going to die in a few months, but on leaving the airport, when the sharp teeth of pain bit into him, he accepted the fact that he was kidding himself.
He knocked on the door of Room 2, and a querulous voice shouted for him to come in.
Opening the door, he entered a small sitting room, shabby but comfortable, a room in which the very old could relax while waiting to die.
Lu Brady sat in a wheelchair. Looking at him, Mike saw a small, thin man who was apparently nudging eighty years of age.
Brady's disguise was yet another of his masterpieces. The shock of white hair, the big white moustache, the pinched nostrils, the dry wrinkled skin had Maggie completely fooled. Brady had told her to come to the Seaview Hotel where there was a reservation for her in the name of Stella Jacques, and she was to ask for Mr. Vance. When Maggie had arrived the previous afternoon and had come to Room 2, she had stared at this old man in the wheelchair, then flustered, she had exclaimed, 'Oh, excuse me! I guess I've come to the wrong room,' and began to back out.
'Come on in, honey, and take your pants off,' Brady said in his normal voice.
Maggie was so shocked she didn't think this was at all funny. It took Brady quite a time to soothe her down and convince her this old cripple, patting her, was really the love of her life.
Finally, he got her down to business. He had told her the following morning the man who was to play such an important part in the hotel robbery would be arriving.
'I want you to stay in the bedroom, Maggie,' Brady said. 'Keep the door half open and listen. I want you to make sure you can work with this man, as I am going to make sure. Haddon tells me he is okay, but he's an amateur. He has no record, and I distrust amateurs. If he lets us down, loses his nerve, we are both in real trouble. Listen to his voice, and to what he says, then come in and take a long look at him. If you are nervous of him, run your fingers through your hair. If you feel sure you can work with him, then say so.'
Maggie, looking pop-eyed, nodded.
'This is a big deal, isn't it, Lu? I'm a bit worried. I wouldn't want to go to jail, but if you say it's going to be okay, then it's okay with me.'
'You won't go to jail, baby, nor will I.'
Maggie began stroking Brady's hand.
'You know something, honey? I've never been screwed by a man of eighty. Shall we try?'
Brady laughed. 'No. It's taken me three hours to fix this disguise. I'm not having you chewing me to bits. Go, cool off.'
Standing in the doorway, Mike regarded this old man in the wheelchair. He was as fooled as Maggie had been and he thought, 'God! Is this decrepit old creep the man I have to work with?'
While Mike was staring, Brady was also staring with cold, searching eyes, then he began to relax. This was quite a man, he thought. Not only tough, but he oozed discipline. Haddon had said he was an army sergeant. This wasn't a man who would lose his nerve. The sunken eyes bothered Brady, but the firm mouth and the strong jaw line balanced out the eyes.
'I'm Mike Bannion,' the man said. 'Mr. Vance?'
'Come in and sit down,' Brady said.
He waited until Bannion had closed the door and had sat in a chair near where Brady's wheelchair was positioned.
'So you're Mike Bannion,' Brady said in his old man's voice. 'Tell me about yourself.'
Mike looked directly at Brady. There was something phony about this old man. This he felt instinctively.
'I'm here to do a job,' he said. 'You don't want to know about me as I don't want to know about you. What's the job?'
Brady liked this. This big soldier obviously meant business, he told himself, but he decided to probe further.
'I've been told you are a good shot. How good a shot are you?'
'Suppose we stop this crap?' Mike said. 'Tell whoever it is in the other room to come on out. Let's get down to business.'
Maggie came from the bedroom, paused to regard Mike, then clasped her hands.
'What a gorgeous hunk of man!' she exclaimed.
Brady laughed, seeing Mike was staring at Maggie.
'Let's all have a drink,' he said, and getting from his wheelchair, he walked to the bottles lined up on the table.
'This is Maggie. She's working with us. What'll you have, Mike?'
Stunned by the sudden activity of an old cripple and by the sight of Maggie, looking her sexiest, Mike just gaped. Then pulling himself together, he got to his feet.
'Scotch?' Brady asked.
'What the hell is all this?' Mike demanded.
'Have a Scotch, Mike,' Brady said, pouring a big shot. 'Maggie, you had better lay off. I know Scotch ruins your concentration. Give Mike his drink while I make mine.'
Maggie took the glass and crossed to Mike.
'Here you are, big man,' she said.
He took the glass, thinking he had never seen such a sexy looking woman. His mind was in a slight daze, then seeing Brady was waving him to a chair, he sat down.
'Okay, Mike, sorry to have conned you, but I wanted to be sure you were the right man for the job,' Brady said as he sat in his wheelchair. 'I'm satisfied.'
He looked at Maggie. 'How about you?'
Maggie sighed. 'Oh yes. He's all gorgeous muscle!'
Brady laughed. 'You'll have to get used to Maggie. It took me time to get used to her myself.'
By now, Mike had recovered from the shock of seeing this aged man behave like a thirty year old and from Maggie's impact.
'Mr. Vance,' he said in his curt military voice, 'I asked what this job is.'
Maggie moaned softly. 'Isn't that a wonderful voice?' she said, fluttering her eyelashes.
'Maggie, will you shut up?' Brady snapped, then turning to Mike, he went on, 'Here's what we are going to do. I'm acting as a cripple, Maggie is my nurse, you are my chauffeur.' He paused, then asked, 'You've got the uniform?'
'I've got it.'
'Fine. Here's the dope.' For the next twenty minutes, Brady explained the details of the steal.
'Your job is to put the guards out of action if they show up. You will use a dart gun,' Brady concluded and signalled to Maggie who went into the bedroom and returned with the gun.
'There must be no mistake,' Brady went on as Mike examined the gun. 'It isn't lethal. No one dies. The trick is to get the dart into the necks of the guards. That's your job, then you help me to unload the boxes from the safe and for this you get paid fifty thousand dollars.'
Mike nodded. 'Right. You asked me if I was a good shot,' he said. 'That's a fair enough question when it involves fifty thousand dollars.'
He looked around the room. 'That picture on the wall.' He pointed to a copy of an impressionist in faded colors. It hung some twenty feet from where he was sitting. 'The boy on the left: his right eye . . . get it?'
Both Brady and Maggie turned to stare at the painting. For the first time, they were aware that it was on the wall.
Mike lifted the gun. His movement was swift and confident. There was a plopping sound as he squeezed the trigger.
'Take a look,' he said.
Brady left his wheelchair, crossed the room and peered at the painting. In the right eye of the boy was the drugged dart.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The time was 11.40. The waiters of the Spanish Bay Hotel were circulating around the big swimming pool with trays of various cocktails responding to the flicking fingers of the rich who lay in the sun chairs. The waiters were followed by well trained boys carrying trays of delicious canapes. Wilbur Warrenton had had his morning swim. By his side, his wife, Maria, in a bikini, was reading a novel.
Swimming in the morning was not for her. Her make up and hair style were so elaborate, she swam only in the evening when she could spend an hour or more restoring the ravages of water before a late dinner.
Wilbur had finished his second dry martini. He was feeling relaxed. So far, his honeymoon had been a success. The hotel was everything it claimed to be. The service was impeccable and the cuisine was as good as any of the three star Paris restaurants. The one small cloud on the otherwise sunny horizon was Maria's increasing complaints. Utterly spoilt, she was the kind of woman who always found some fault, whatever luxury was provided.
Her present complaint was there were too many old people residing at the hotel. Wilbur pointed out that the Spanish Bay was the most expensive real estate in the world. Only the most wealthy could afford to stay there.
'We're lucky my father is paying for us, Maria,' he said, 'otherwise we wouldn't be here.'
Maria had sniffed. 'It's like living in a graveyard.'
'We can always move. Would you like that? We could go to the Rivage where there are young people.'
'The Rivage? Are you crazy? It's a slum!'
Wilbur, glancing at his watch, stood up. 'I'm just going to call Dad.'
Maria frowned. 'Oh, God! Not again? Do you have to telephone him every day?'
'He likes a chat,' Wilbur said. 'I won't be long.' He strode away while Maria shrugged and returned to her novel.
Wilbur also liked a brief talk with his father, and he knew the old man looked forward to telling his son the daily business happenings. Wilbur knew his father was lonely, and was longing for him to return to Dallas and to provide him with grandchildren. Uneasily, Wilbur had told Maria that his father had bought a deluxe house for them, fully furnished, with staff, two cars, swimming pool and a small park. In fact, everything money could buy.
'Who wants to live in a hole like Dallas?' she had demanded crossly. 'After our honeymoon, I want to go to Paris and Venice.'
'I'll be working in Dallas, Maria,' Wilbur said, patiently. 'You'll like it. I've seen the house. It's really wonderful! We'll go to Paris later.'
She had given him her stubborn stare and had said nothing.
Taking the elevator to his penthouse suite, Wilbur entered the living room and put a call through to Dallas. In a few minutes, he was talking to his father.
'Hi, son!' Silas Warrenton's bass voice boomed over the line. 'How's it going?'
'Fine, Dad, and you?'
'Plenty of business. Dow Jones is up for a change. I've just sold a parcel of stock, got me a nice profit. I'm lunching with a couple of Arabs, big shots in their neck of the woods, but peanuts to me. They are trying to promote a deal. If I get it on my terms, could be worth real money.'
'Good for you, Dad.'
'Well, this old codger keeps the pot boiling.' A pause, then, 'How's your wife?' Silas seldom called Maria by her name.
'Fine, Dad.'
'Got her pregnant yet?'
Wilbur forced a laugh. 'Give us time, Dad. Maria wants to see a bit of the world before embarking on a family.'