The Intimidators (5 page)

I went out and hired a cab to take me sightseeing. Surprisingly, the driver was a cheerful black character who didn’t seem to have heard that he was downtrodden by us lousy tourists. He rattled off the history of the city and the Islands as he drove me around through the left-handed, British-style traffic, showing me fine old forts that had never, it seemed, managed to keep the place from being captured by anybody who wanted to capture it—including pirates, Spaniards, and the infant navy of the young U.S.A.—and a great old empty hotel with once-magnificent gardens, now deserted and overgrown, dominated by a tremendous kapok tree. I hadn’t known the stuff grew on trees.

My guide said that, when new, the picturesque hostelry had served as a kind of headquarters for the blockade-runners during the U.S. Civil War; the prohibition rumrunners came later and had less classy hangouts. He sent me up a water tower for a good view of the city and harbor; and he had me walk down a flight of historical outdoors stairs—I forget their exact significance. By the time he brought me back to the British Colonial, I had a pretty clear picture in my mind of the city of Nassau. I paid him and added a tip carefully calculated to show my appreciation without insulting or patronizing him. He accepted the gift in the spirit in which I’d intended it. Okay, so you meet all kinds, in all countries.

Inside, I picked up a paper at the hotel newsstand and read it in the portion of the lobby reserved for drinking purposes, over a passable martini. I learned that the Islands were in the process of severing their political ties with Britain. Well, that was their business. I just hoped it wouldn’t interfere with mine.

Presently, a glance at my watch told me it was time for the next step in the proceedings. I located a phone booth and called a number I’d been given by Mac. The voice that answered had no distinct racial characteristics, but it was definitely feminine. I figured that, judging by what I’d seen of Nassau so far, the girl was probably black. She’d almost have to be to preserve the inconspicuous anonymity desirable in a local contact. Well, I’d probably never meet her, so I’d probably never know for sure, and it didn’t matter anyway. We went though a little mandatory funny-business involving signs and countersigns that somebody must have dreamed up after watching an old spy movie on late evening TV.

“Eric here,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “Consignment arriving on schedule, as far as we can determine. ETA eleven hundred tomorrow morning.”

“Any hint as to the identity of the consignee?”

“Not a whisper.”

“Are there any guests here at the hotel who’d make likely prospects? He must have picked the place for some reason.”

“He may have picked it simply because it’s centrally located—most of the other big hotels, the newer ones, are farther out. We haven’t spotted anybody interesting staying there. Of course, there’s a tremendous daily turnover. If any promising candidates show up at the last minute, we’ll try to let you know.”

She sounded as if she were part of a sizable local unit, which was a welcome change. I mean, we’re not the CIA or any of those other well-financed agencies with worldwide networks of operatives ready to spring into action by squads, platoons, or regiments, as required. In a foreign city we’re likely to find—if we’re lucky and the place is large enough—one shy individual on standby duty, experienced only in communications, useful chiefly for maintaining contact with Washington. Since this girl sounded as if she had the will and the manpower to tackle more onerous duties, I tried her out with an easy one.

“How about a car, or a car and driver, preferably the latter? Without a little practice, which I haven’t got time for, I hate to tackle this backwards traffic of yours.”

My unseen contact laughed. “Whether it’s backwards or forwards rather depends on the way you’re accustomed to facing, doesn’t it, Eric? Anyway, you already have a driver. Fred will be available whenever you need him. He says you’re a nice man and a generous tipper.”

I was a little disappointed at learning that my guide had not, after all, been a representative specimen of local manhood. “Tell him thanks for the tour,” I said. “About tomorrow, do I cover the airport in case our friend’s plans change abruptly, or do you?”

“Stay in your room. We’ll escort him to the hotel and see that he’s checked in; after that he’s all yours. Fred will let you know.”

I said, “Okay, I’ll wait for the word. Now, what are the chances of getting a reasonably safe connection with the top?”

“Can do.”

A minute or so later, Mac came on. “Yes, Eric?” he said from faraway Washington, D.C. At least that’s where I thought he was, which didn’t mean he had to be there.

I said, “This vengeful
Tejano
to whom you’ve indentured me. How many people do I kill for him, assuming I can locate suitable targets.”

“As many as necessary,” Mac said calmly. “I do not believe in coincidence. We were already under orders to shift some manpower to the Bahamas when Mr. Haseltine descended on me.... It is really remarkable how much a man can learn by waving hundred-dollar bills around, isn’t it, Eric?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir,” I said. “I’ve never been properly equipped by my government for using that particular information-gathering technique.”

“I was struck by his interest in the area to which we’d just been assigned,” Mac said. “It seemed advisable to listen to what he had to say. I decided that, if the yacht with the idiotic name had actually been sunk or captured by a human agency, as our Texas friend seems to believe, it was unlikely that the incident was totally unrelated to the impending visit to the Islands of a Russian homicide artist. At least the coincidence of two apparently well-planned acts of violence being scheduled within a few weeks in the same small geographical region seemed to deserve investigation. I therefore referred the gentleman to you.”

“Thanks a lot, sir,” I said. “Did you get the impression that Mr. Haseltine wasn’t being entirely frank with us?”

“I would say that he knows or suspects something about the disappearance of the yacht and its crew that he’s reluctant to tell us.”

“Considering that he’s gone to considerable trouble and expense to get our help, that’s kind of stupid, wouldn’t you say, sir?”

“Unless he thinks there’s something illegal going on involving his fiancée and her family. Drug-smuggling, or perhaps an insurance swindle of some kind. But that’s mere guesswork. Of course, there could also be something illegal going on involving Mr. Haseltine himself that he doesn’t care to confess to government employees like us. But in either case, why did he come to us in the first place?” There was a little pause, and Mac went on more briskly: “Regardless of Mr. Haseltine’s hidden motives, I think you should operate, at least initially, on the assumption that your two assignments may well be connected in some way.”

“It would be nice to know how,” I said.

“Yes, it would,” he agreed. “When you find out, please inform me at once. Did you have any other questions?”

“No, sir,” I said. “I think that covers it for now.”

“Give my regards to Pavel Minsk,” he said, and hung up.

When the time came, it was dead easy, if you’ll pardon the pun. There was, of course, a lengthy wait first, well past the estimated eleven o’clock arrival hour, but I’d been prepared for that. After all, even if the plane was on schedule, it was a twenty-minute drive from the airport; and I could count on the scrupulously undiscriminating hotel processing department not to speed up its sluggish operations for anybody, not even Pavel Minsk, alias Paul Minsky, alias Pavlo Menshesky, alias the Mink. When Fred called, it was close to one-thirty in the afternoon.

“He sent his bag up to his room—number three three four—and stayed down here to eat. You can pick him up in the dining room.”

“What name is he using?” I asked.

“Menshek. Paul Menshek.”

“Passport?”

“United States.”

“The sneaky bastard,” I said. “Clothes?”

“Palm Beach suit, white wash-and-wear shirt, flowered silk necktie, white straw hat with a flowered band. Like a country lad all dressed up for a dashing tropical vacation, don’t you know? He’s not very big, is he? I must say, he doesn’t look very dangerous, really.”

I said, “Never mind his looks. Stay away from, him. That’s one hundred and thirty pounds of death on the hoof, friend, and don’t you kid yourself otherwise.”

“And only you can handle him, Mr. Helm?” The black man’s voice, over the phone, sounded faintly ironical.

I said, “That’s what we’re here to find out, isn’t it? You stick to driving your taxi and let me worry about the Mink. If anything goes wrong, keep clear, understand?”

“Yassuh, Massah.”

I said, “Okay, you big, brave, lion-eating Masai warrior, if I goof, go right ahead and try to take him. What do I care if you get dead? In the dining room, you say?”

“Yes, and you’d better get down there.” Fred seemed unperturbed by my reference to his hypothetical ancestry, even though I’d probably got it wrong. “When I left to phone, he was starting to tap his foot impatiently and look at his watch.”

“There’s something about the local atmosphere that affects a lot of people that way,” I said, and hung up.

There were no preparations to be. made. I’d already made them, such as they were. I had a gun and a knife that I probably couldn’t use, the way my orders read. I had two hands and a brain of sorts. They’d have to do. In addition, I had, for camouflage, a camera all done up in one of those drop-front leather union suits without which no self-respecting tourist would expose his precious instrument to the elements. As I said, it was dead easy. I was just stepping out of the elevator when my subject came by, striding angrily along the corridor in the manner of a man who’s marched out of an eating place unfed, at the end of his patience, and wants everyone to know exactly how he feels about the terrible service.

Apparently I owed somebody in the dining room a sizable debt for throwing the Mink off his stride, so to speak. He’d had a long flight, he was tired, he had things on his mind—matters of life and death, particularly death—and now his concentration had been shattered by an incompetent jerk, male or female, who couldn’t even perform the simple task of transporting a few pounds of food and dishes from a kitchen to a table in a reasonable length of time. It’s the sort of unnecessary and meaningless annoyance that catches even the most nerveless agent off guard sometimes, causing him to function at less than maximum efficiency.

Pavel Minsk didn’t even look my way as he marched by. I’d been a little afraid that he might recognize me, even though we’d never met. My picture, like his, figured in a fair number of dossiers in a fair number of countries, including his. Now that first big hurdle was behind me. If he saw me around the hotel again, and remembered me, it would most likely be as a fellow guest he’d glimpsed getting out of the elevator, not as a face in a Moscow file.

As Fred had said, he was all dolled up for the glamorous tropics. You could tell right away that he was supposed to be Mr. Smalltown America. When a U.S. hayseed dresses for an occasion, he almost invariably buys his glad rags one size too large. His European peasant counterpart buys them one size too small; he thinks fashion should hurt, and he can’t feel really natty unless his collar is choking him and his suit coat can’t be buttoned except by a major effort.

But the Mink was a Yankee yokel today; and his shirt collar was loose around his skinny throat; and the pants of his ice cream suit were too long and wide for his skinny legs. He looked selfconscious and a little comical; and that was exactly the way he wanted to look, I knew. Nobody could possibly suspect this scrawny little bumpkin in his cheap vacation finery of being a very competent and deadly professional assassin. Even his hat was a little too big when he clapped it on his head, pausing near the desk to glance at his wrist watch. Then he turned and headed for the door.

I worried briefly about the possibility of a trap. Suppose he had as good information as I did. There was no reason to think he didn’t. Suppose there had been a leak somewhere; there often is. Suppose he really knew quite well who I was, and was leading me out of the hotel to....

To hell with it. If it was a trap, I’d have to deal with it when it started to close. I couldn’t let him disappear into the wilds of Nassau. It seemed unlikely that he was heading right out to do the job he’d come here for, so soon after his arrival, but he obviously had some appointment in town more important than lunch, and I had to make at least an effort to learn what it was. After all, I was supposed to be doing the intelligence-creeps’ work here as well as my own.

The little man didn’t take a cab. He just paused outside to put on a big pair of sunglasses against the glare, and strode right off up the crowded street. I followed at a discreet distance. He walked at a good pace past the inviting windows full of cheap liquor and expensive souvenirs. He was looking for street names. They’re hard to find, in Nassau, but he finally located one that suited him, and swung to the right, away from the harbor. I kept on walking straight ahead. As I crossed the street up which he had turned, I saw out of the comer of my eye that he was standing on the sidewalk up there studying a street map he’d pulled out of his pocket. That is, he might have been studying the map. He might also have been waiting to see who came after him.

I didn’t turn my head, of course, or break my stride. I just continued on out of his sight. The coincidence of two guests of the same hotel leaving by the same door and heading up Bay Street simultaneously wasn’t really earth-shaking—anybody departing from the British Colonial on foot would naturally be heading for the nearby concentration of shops on the town’s main thoroughfare. But there had better be no more coincidences. He couldn’t be allowed to see me behind him again....

“Taxi, Mister?”

I looked around. There was the familiar cab—a three-year-old blue Plymouth—with my eager Masai warrior at the helm. Okay. If that was the way he wanted it, okay. I jumped in, and the car pulled away.