The Big Bite (11 page)

Knowing that Gomez was watching him, Knox went to where Forrest stood beside the large console phonograph. The noise coming from it was loud and brassy but Forrest seemed unaware of any disturbance—he was watching Natasha dancing with surprising abandon with Kurath.

Knox located the others quickly—Nat was back on the divan, sipping a drink; Tiber and Meridee were at their usual occupation, which was to gaze into each other’s eyes for a time, then lean together and kiss, then have a drink and begin the round again; Adele was drifting about aimlessly, glancing now and then toward the veranda, or—Knox thought—beyond it to the quiet of the garden.

He said to Forrest, “What the hell was the idea of shooting at us the other night?”

Forrest looked politely blank.

Knox said, “Since when do you shoot our people on your own initiative? You were given no orders.”

With a credible imitation of an American movie gangster, Forrest said, “Don’t hand me that. I know who you are and who Curtis was. I’m in charge here and I’ll damned well shoot at whom I like.”

Knox was not surprised. “You might think you know who I am, friend, but when this is over, you’ll wish you hadn’t tried to think.”

Forrest laughed at him. Knox went on, his low tone undercutting the volume of the phonograph, “It is as we suspected. You have acceded to a bourgeois lust for a woman and for profits. They were wise in sending us here.”

So brief that it was almost missed, a flicker of expression touched Forrest’s arrogant features. Fear, Knox thought.

Forrest said, “Who is ‘us?’ You and Curtis?”

“No,” Knox said. “I was referring to Kurath.”

Forrest threw back his head and laughed. “Kurath! Kurath is about as close to what you claim for him as your friend LeGage is to what you claim for her. Sorry, Knox, this is one you can’t talk yourself out of.”

He smiled and lifted a half-filled glass from the phonograph top, reached out and touched Knox’s empty glass with it. “Let’s drink to the near future, shall we? It was all very well planned, and it worked out to perfection.”

Knox saw the mockery in his eyes and knew that the boner he had made was irretrievable.

Turning as if swinging away from Forrest in anger, he let his arm holding the glass come about quickly. The glass slipped and fell to the floor, shattering. For a moment Knox had the sickening feeling that the noise of the music was too much, that Meridee was so engrossed in Tiber she neither heard nor saw his signal. He walked away.

Meridee leaned close to Tiber and said something. He shook his head. She pouted. Tiber kissed the pout and nodded. Meridee jumped to her feet, clapping her hands. In a slightly off-balance stagger, she made her way to a sideboard, took her package of records from it and went to the phonograph.

Knox, trying to appear casual, changed his course and aimed for the kitchen. He reached the door just as Tiber weaved into the middle of the room and raised both hands after the manner of a master of ceremonies. Knox went into the kitchen.

Manuelita was there, still alone. Knox found some more bills and thrust them at her. “As soon as you turn out the lights, go to the mainland. Or send Chuco. A message must be taken to Silac, the waiter at the Viewhouse.”

“I know that one,” she said. “An Indio.”

“Tell him,” Knox rushed on, “that we are taken. Say that to him and give him my name. There will be more money.”

“Señor—”

“It is a matter of life and death,” Knox said. Turning, he hurried back to the living room.

The music had stilled. Forrest was by the phonograph but a pace away, leaving Meridee room to work there. Forrest was looking at Knox, a faint questioning on his face. Knox hoped that Manuelita would hurry and get out of that kitchen before Forrest caught on to Knox’s reasons for having gone there twice.

Tiber was still in the center of the room and, with the stilling of the music, succeeded in gaining everyone’s attention. “Ladies an’ gen’men,” he said slurringly. “I have ‘nouncement to make. Miss Simpson will—perform!”

Meridee said to Forrest, “When I signal, drop the needle, will you?” She walked quickly to the side wall where among the decorations was a pair of fine, basket-hiked Spanish rapiers. These she took down and carried to the center of the room.

“One moment,” she said. “Costume.” With a slightly alcholic smile, she hurried into the kitchen. Knox saw Forrest take two steps in that direction and then hesitate, glancing at Tiber. The implication was plain: Tiber would assume Forrest was after Meridee; that would end Forrest’s usefulness for the evening.

Meridee returned. Everyone was seated facing the center of the room. Even Gomez and Tonio had come in from the veranda. Adele settled herself beside Nat; Natasha and Kurath stood next to Tiber. All eyes were on the swords Meridee had crossed in the center of the floor.

They shifted to Meridee as she came from the kitchen. She was, Knox had to admit, quite a sight. In place of her low-cut evening gown, she wore her own version of Scottish kilts. The costume consisted of a plaid blouse cut with surprising restraint, a kilt somewhat shorter than regulation and with the lace of black lingerie peeking from the bottom, and a pair of gilded high-heeled shoes.

“Music!”

Forrest shrugged and placed the needle on the record. The plaintive, keening wail of bagpipes broke into the expectant silence. Meridee began to dance, weaving a figure in and out of the swords, hands clasped on top of her head and then at her hips, dancing in those precarious heels as though they were flat ballet shoes.

She was good, Knox thought. Drunk or not, she missed not a single beat, made no missteps. But he was admiring her with only half his mind. The other half was wondering if Manuelita had heard the music and, if so, had managed to work up enough nerve to try to earn her money.

The music picked up in tempo, rose in volume. Knox glanced about. Everyone seemed frozen, staring at Meridee’s truly superb dancing. Everyone, Knox saw, but Forrest. He was slowly, unobtrusively working his way along the wall toward the kitchen door.

Forrest disappeared into the kitchen. Knox stood and felt the sweat running from him.

Tiber let out a yell that threatened to shake the walls. Knox took his eyes off the kitchen doorway. The reason for Tiber’s exuberance was clear. Meridee had begun to peel.

Two quick tugs and the blouse fluttered away, leaving her with a filmy black brassiere to hide her full-blown figure. Knox saw that Nat was blushing furiously. Adele appeared a little startled but not in the least shocked. Gomez and Tonio both had their lips parted slightly as they followed Meridee’s whirling movements. Natasha had both hands clasped about Kurath’s arm, rocking back and forth to the tempo of the music. The man himself seemed simply bemused.

The skirt whirled away, to land at the edge of the dance floor. Now there was nothing but the brassiere and matching panties—and the gilded high heels. The music on the record picked up again, the skirling coming faster than Knox believed possible. Meridee kept time, her arms making flicking motions.

The brassiere came free, clung momentarily to the tips of her fingers and then floated toward Tiber. He took a lumbering step toward it, trying to see it and at the same time not lose sight of Meridee.

He tripped and fell, shaking the floor. She did not lose a beat.

The lights went out.

Knox made a run in the direction of the divan where Nat and Adele were sitting. From somewhere in the room there was a scream; it sounded like Meridee. Knox kept going. There was a good deal of swearing now.

He stumbled and fell into a lap. “Ouch!” It was Nat.

Knox said, “Nat? Adele?” Both answered, and he said hurriedly, “Make for the dock. Get aboard. There may be some guns. Get them—and use them on anyone who comes close and doesn’t signal.”

“Signal how?”

Knox brayed softly. “Like a burro. Get going.”

He heard Nat scampering away. A hand touched his arm and he smelled the subtle perfume Adele wore. “Paul?”

“You, too,” he whispered. “They’re onto us. Forrest was the one who shot at us, so you aren’t safe, either. Get moving.”

Lips brushed his cheek and then her heels clicked away. A flashlight flared into brightness. In the dim backglow, Knox saw Forrest. The light swept about, pinning briefly Gomez and Tonio, unmoving, waiting. It went on, touched Natasha, still clinging to Kurath’s arm, flickered over the phonograph where Knox had a glimpse of Meridee crouched behind the machine. The light came to rest on Tiber. He was struggling up from the floor, the brassiere in one hand. He was thoroughly drunk.

“Tiber, where the devil are the spare fuses? Get down to the powerhouse. Can’t you hear the motor’s been shut off!”

Tiber swayed to his feet. Knox sidled toward the veranda doorway behind Gomez and Tonio. A bit of the light touched them. Gomez turned his head and saw Knox.

Knox stopped, bent toward him, and whispered, “Watch Forrest and Natasha. If Kurath can’t handle them, they may try to take the gold and go tonight—we were expecting this …”

Forrest had come up to Tiber and was speaking quietly but viciously to him. Knox moved again, but he did not turn into the doorway and seek escape. He remembered the brief look he had had at Meridee, the stricken, frightened expression on her face. He continued along the wall toward the phonograph.

He could hear her shifting position. There was the heavy breathing of fright. He crouched and said, “Knox here. Quiet! Get your dress out of the kitchen and run for the dock. When you get there, bray like a donkey.”

He heard her heels click, and he rose, catching her arm. “Leave the shoes!”

“My costume—”

“I’ll buy you a dozen. Move!”

This time when she went there was only the soft patter of bare feet on the parqueted floor. There was a good deal of noise now and Forrest’s light was leaving Tiber, making the rounds of the room. There was no time to make for the veranda. Knox took out after Meridee.

He saw the splash of light about him as he struck the kitchen door with his shoulder. Someone shouted. A gun went off, sending splinters flying from the door edge as it swung back behind him. There was a sharp order, given in Spanish. Then feet pounded heavily toward the kitchen.

Ahead of Knox, Meridee was trying to run and wriggle into her dress at the same time. As he reached her, she jerked it down, pulled up the skirt and bolted.

He said, “It’s Knox,” and stayed at her heels. They were in a vegetable garden now, stumbling from a graveled path into vegetables and finally through a hedge and onto a wider pathway.

Behind them the flashlight swept in a long arc. The gun went off again, but there was no sign of the bullet.

Knox had her hand now and they kept running, taking first one path, then switching as another joined the first. Knox tried to bear toward the dock, but after five minutes he realized that he was lost. Around them, in the thick woods that seemed to press in on all sides, voices called to one another, seeking identity.

He recognized Tiber’s tones, less drunken now. Once he heard Natasha’s voice. Twice Forrest gave his name. Once there was a shot, but again no bullet came near them.

Then Knox heard it—the putt-putt of an outboard. Manuelita, he thought. Manuelita going for the mainland. It was a hope and he clung to it.

Meridee was limping badly, the gravel punishing her bare feet cruelly. He stopped to scoop her into his arms and ran on. Now he had direction from the noise of the outboard and in a moment he broke out of the trees and onto the wooden surface of the dock. The cruiser was there, dark, silent.

Knox forgot his own warning. A bullet nicked wood splinters at his feet, coming on the heels of a sharp report from a rifle.

He brayed.

Nat said, “Come aboard.”

He dropped Meridee onto the deck.

“Start the motor,” he said vaguely. “I’ll take the wheel …”

“Adele isn’t aboard yet,” Nat said.

Knox swore. “Start the motor anyway. Then go forward to cast off. Meridee—”

“I’ll go forward,” she said. “I’m all right now.” She limped off, the first piece of rising late moon outlining her faintly.

Nat said, “You took a long time. I already have the motor ready to go.” She started aft. “In case you’re interested, there are no keys. I had to short the ignition across.”

He grinned feebly out of his weariness. “It’s a good thing you made it first,” he said. “Who else would know the technique of stealing a boat?”

Someone was coming, crashing through underbrush. Knox picked up the rifle Nat had left and watched the end of the dock. A figure came into sight, gasping out something. Knox lowered the rifle.

It was Adele. She staggered aboard, one shoe missing, her dress half-torn from her, hair disheveled. She tripped and fell and lay on the deck sobbing.

Knox called, “Hurry up!”

The motor coughed, died, coughed and roared up. Meridee called, “All clear up here.” Knox left Adele and went into the wheelhouse. He snapped on the binnacle light, put the gear into reverse and started away from the dock.

“Unless they swim, we’ve got ‘em,” he said.

He swung the cruiser about, shifted into forward, opened the throttle. The powerful motor took hold and they headed into the streak of moonlight toward the mainland.

Behind him, Adele said, “I’m sorry. I got lost.”

Knox said, “We’re okay now.”

Nat called, “Boat coming up!”

Knox looked but made out nothing more than its shape in the dim light. It was stern to the mainland and coming fast. Either it had swept around from the lee of the island or it was coming direct from the town.

“Coast Guard,” he said hopefully. “Or Silac. Manuelita made it!”

The boat swung sharply and came near them broadside. Knox said, “Get the gun!”

He could make out the chiseled features of Forrest. Then a harsh searchlight pinned them squarely and he could see no more. Forrest called:

“Set adrift and get aft—in the open—or we’ll drop a grenade on you. Fast!”

Knox did not question it. There was too much authority in the voice. Taking Nat’s hand, he led her after the others into the open.