The Saint in Miami (12 page)

“Why not?” The Greek’s candour seemed engagingly unfeigned. “He’s an entertainer-sings smutty songs at the piano. He plays here sometimes.”

“When?”

“Oh, not professionally. I mean he gambles. He works every night at a dive uptown called the Palmleaf Fan. You could have found him there. Why did you have to come and make trouble here?”

Simon decided that he couldn’t be any worse off if he played a line of equally calculated frankness.

I never heard of him until this morning, or you either,” he said. “Not until a friend of yours who calls himself Lafe Jennet took a shot at me and missed me by about three inches.”

“You’re wrong both ways, Mr Saint.” Gallipolis was still grinning, but mechanically. “Jennet isn’t a friend of mine; and he didn’t take a shot at you, or he’d have hit you. He could put a bullet up the rear end of a southbound flea.”

“I wouldn’t be any less excited,” said the Saint, “if he could pop a bedbug in the starboard eye. The point is that I hate being shot at, even in fun. So I told Lafe that I’d have to send him back to the chain-gang where he belongs, after playing a few other games with him, unless he told me where he got his humorous idea. He told me that someone he met out on this barge blackmailed him into it”

Gallipolis considered his machine-gun and said: “Meaning me?”

“No-this fellow Rogers. He said he didn’t know anything about him except that he often hung out around here. So I thought I’d drop out and see.”

“You could have come to the door and asked.”

“How did I know you weren’t in on it?”

The houseboat was silent except for the sounds of breaking furniture and a body bumping up and down on the floor.

“The bear came over the mountain,” said Gallipolis eventually, “to see what he could see. It’s a good story, anyhow. Where’s Jennet now?”

“He’s waiting in the woods with a friend of mine.”

“That’s a good story, too.”

“How do you think I found this boat if Jennet didn’t show me?” Simon asked patiently.

“You want to fetch him in?”

The question was almost casual; but Simon knew that it was a challenge, and might become more than that Gallipolis still had him guessing.

But he had to balance the situation entirely by his own system of accountancy. It had seemed like a good idea at first to leave Jennet behind, not knowing what might be waiting on the barge. But he had found out more about that since-at least, enough for the present. He was a prisoner under the nozzle of a sub-machine-gun, which was an irrevocable temporary fact, regardless of what anyone was thinking or whatever other scheming might be going on. He had no further use for Mr. Jennet. And he had told Hoppy to come after him if he hadn’t returned by nightfall; but Jennet would be a handicap to that, and in any event Hoppy could have been knocked off with ease, being no Indian fighter, before he had moved his own length into the open … It didn’t seem as if ceding the point could make anything much worse, and it might even make some things clearer.

“If you want him badly enough,” said the Saint; and he had covered all those points in such a lightning survey that his hesitation could barely have been timed with a stopwatch.

“I just want to know if all this is on the up-and-up,” said Gallipolis, and he might even have been telling the truth. “You’d better take your gun out first and slide it across the floor. If you want to try shooting it out, okay, but you’re making a mistake. A Tommy gun is better than an automatic, no matter how good you are.”

Simon obeyed, cautiously. The gun he was giving up meant nothing to him, being the one he had taken from March’s captain, and Gallipolis handled his weapon as if he had wielded it before.

The Greek leaned against the lengthwise end of the bar, and it slid creakingly sideways, disclosing a good-sized hole in the floor under it. He toed the Luger into the hole and said: “Stand up and turn around. I’ve been suspicious ever since my ma got raped in Athens. I want to see if you’ve got any more.”

Simon stood still with outstretched arms while Gallipolis explored him. The Greek’s touch was quick and thorough. He ended the frisking by patting Simon inside of each thigh.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “but I’ve got a bullet hole in my shoulder from a fellow I thought I’d disarmed. He was wearing a crotch gun, and when I turned around he pulled it on me by zipping open his fly.”

The Saint said: “Gosh, what fun!” and forebore to mention the knife strapped to his forearm.

“Come along,” said Gallipolis, backing into the passage, “But don’t get too close.”

He stopped outside the poker room and rapped on the door. Still keeping Simon covered, he said through the panels: “You fellows stay inside until I say it’s clear. We’re having visitors. If you want to work on Frank some more, keep him on the table. He makes a noise when he hits the floor.”

He motioned Simon in the opposite direction.

At the other end of the hallway, facing the kitchen entrance, another door gave into a sort of reception room which covered the forward end of the barge. They had to zigzag around a counter which practically bisected it and at the same time provided an effective barrier against any too rapid entry or exit. On the other side of the counter was another screen door.

“You go out and call ‘em,” said Gallipolis. “I can watch you from here.”

Simon stepped out on to the short cramped foredeck and semaphored with his arms. After a while he saw Mr Uniatz step out of cover, herding Lafe Jennet ahead of him.

I just wouldn’t shoot too quickly, comrade,” Simon said, in a tone of moderate counsel. “Some other friends of mine know where I am, and if I don’t get home they might pay you a call and ask questions.”

“Some of your fairy tales seem to be true,” Gallipolis acknowledged impersonally. “Well see what happens. I never shoot till I have to.” He was watching the approaching duo at an edgewise angle through the door. “If this big baboon belongs to you, tell him to put his gun away before he comes in.”

“I’ll tell him,” said the Saint, “but you’d better play down the ukulele. Hoppy is kind of sensitive about some things. If you wave that chopper in his face the wrong way, he might try to shoot it out regardless. You’d do much better to be sociable. Welcome him with liquor, and he’ll drink out of your hand.”

He spoke idly, but his nonchalance was mostly simulated. Behind it, he was trying to make sense out of an absurd idea that had been gathering strength in his subconscious.

The barge was authentic-a cheap hangout where cheap gamblers could lose their money breaking a grandmotherly law. But with that there went an enforced deduction that the Greek also might be authentic. And if Gallipolis was genuine, and Jennet was likewise, within their limitations, then there was nothing left but the absurd idea that they were only carefully placed stepping-stones to something else. And an idea like that did a superlative job of making everything meaningless and chaotic … It made it difficult even for such an actor as the Saint to throw off all artificiality as he watched Hoppy and Lafe Jennet reach the bank of the canal.

“Hi, boss.” Mr Uniatz used the back of one hand to clear trickling sweat from his eyes. Patches of damp under the arms of his blazer testified further to his discomfort “What makes out?”

“Come on in,” said the Saint encouragingly. “They’ve got a bar.”

“A bar!” Mr Uniatz’s face grew slowly radiant from within, as he appeared to gradually comprehend the all-foreseeing beneficence of a Providence which had not neglected to mitigate the horrors of even such a Godforsaken spot as that with Elysian springs of distilled consolation. Gathering new strength from the thought, he speeded the hesitant Mr Jennet up the rickety gangplank with his knees. “Gwan, youse,” said Mr Uniatz. “Whaddaya waitin’ for?”

“Put your gun away,” said the Saint “You won’t need it.”

“But-“

“Put it away,” said the Saint.

Gallipolis spoke softly and said: “You come in now.”

Simon complied, and cleared the doorway. Jennet came in next, boosted by Mr Uniatz’s ready knee. Mr Uniatz followed, and saw the Thompson gun. His hand started to move, and nothing but the Saint’s steady nerves and ancient familiarity with Mr Uniatz’s reflexes could have stopped the movement short of disaster. But the Saint said, exactly at the critical moment, in a voice of level confidence: “Don’t be scared, Hoppy. It’s just a house custom.”

In spite of which he felt hollow in the pit of his stomach for an instant, until Hoppy’s arm relaxed. All the theories in the world would have little bearing on the subject if Gallipolis had cause to get nervous.

“Okay, boss.” Mr Uniatz had been in houses with unusual customs before. “Where is dis bar?”

“Through there,” said Gallipolis.

They all went through. Gallipolis came last, heeling the door shut behind him. He crossed to behind the bar and laid the weight of his gun on the counter. He reached behind him, without averting his eyes, and hitched over a bottle. With a repetition of the same movement he brought over four glasses, wearing them on his fingers like outsized thimbles, and plunked them on the bar beside the bottle.

“Help yourselves,” he said, “and let’s hear more about this.”

It was the merest chance that Simon happened to be standing in a position which gave him a direct sight through the shutter peephole on to a lone black shape that was stalking across the waste outside. It was an additional accident of eyesight and observation which identified the figure to him with instant certainty, even at that distance, and even though the identification left him windmilling on the brink of the ultimate chaos whose possibility he had barely divined three minutes ago.

Very deliberately he uncorked the bottle and poured himself out a glass.

“Before we do that,” he said, “maybe you’d better put the thunder iron away.”

“For why?” The Greek’s voice had a delicate edge of invitation.

“Because, literally, we’re all in the same boat,” Simon remarked conversationally. “You’ve taken away my gun, but Hoppy still has a concealed arsenal. And you can’t even conceal yours. It might make it awkward to explain things to the Sheriff-and I just happened to see him ambling over this way.”

2

Gallipolis turned back from a quick stare through the peephole, and Simon had an uneasy feeling that the crisis would have no amusing features at all if the Greek failed to grasp his cue.

Gallipolis said, in a low and rapid monotone: “What sort of a plant is this? There’s more men hidden in the trees. I saw them move. I’ve a notion to drill you, you dirty stool!”

Oddly, his surprise seemed as sincere as his anger. But there was no time to puzzle out nuances like that. The Saint said: “Drilling me won’t get you anywhere. And if you don’t know how Haskins got here, I don’t either.”

“Talk fast,” said Gallipolis, “and don’t lie. The Sheriff never spotted this barge. Who tipped him off?”

“On my word of honour,” said the Saint steadily, “I wish I knew.”

Over the bar, Gallipolis gazed at him with relentless penetration. The slender fingers of his right hand twined with deceptive laxness about the pistol grip of his weapon. The liquid eyes roved through impenetrable fancies, as though he were working out lyrics for a ballad entitled “Death Comes to the Houseboat”, or something else equally delightful. But when he grinned again, he looked exactly the same as he had before.

“Look, master mind,” he said. “The Sheriff is your problem. You brought Jennet here. Nobody can prove I ever saw him before. If this is a plant, it stinks. If it isn’t, you find a way out of it”

“We can both find a way out of it, if you’ll give me a chance. But get rid of the typewriter, or you’re in deeper than anyone.”

Gallipolis digested the thought, and seemed to make his choice.

“This is a hell of a way to make a living,” he remarked, and gave a tired sigh. The hole in the floor under the bar was still exposed. He deposited the sub-machine-gun tenderly in it, and slid the bar back, and said: “I may be a sucker, but I just wish I knew when you were levelling. There’s something screwy going on, but I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I,” said the Saint, and his manner was almost friendly.

Gallipolis looked hopeful.

“If you want to scram now, you’ve still got time.”

“I think I’ll stay.”

“I was afraid so,” said Gallipolis sadly. It was at that moment that another sound made itself heard.

It was a raucous and rasping sound, a primitive ululation that seemed to bear little relation to any vocal effort that might have been wrung from the diaphragm of an articulate human being. An experienced African hunter might have associated it with some of the more hideous rumblings of the wild, such as the howl of an enraged rhinoceros, or the baffled bellow of a water-buffalo which has arrived at it’s favourite wallow only to find it parched and dry. This doughty hunter would have been pardonably deceived. The sound did have a human origin, if Mr Uniatz can be broadly classified as human. It was his rendition of a groan.

Simon turned and looked at him.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Mr Uniatz stood gazing at a bottle without making any attempt to assimilate its contents, gripped in a kind of horripilant torpor like a rabbit fascinated by a snake.

“What’s the matter?” Simon demanded with real alarm.

Mr Uniatz tried to speak, only to find himself impeded by the bulk of a painfully dust-caked tongue. Mutely he pointed with a trembling finger, which indicated the contents of the bottle better than words. In a shaft of afternoon sunlight through the gun port, the liquid gleamed with the translucent clarity of a draught from the backyard pump-refreshing, innocuous, unsullied, colourless, and clear. A shudder of abhorrence jarred his gargantuan frame. To one who in his opulent days had quaffed the finest and most potent liquors on the market, such an offering was an affront. To one who in less prosperous times had uncomplainingly got by with snacks of rubbing alcohol, lemon extract, Jamaica ginger, or bay rum, this disgusting fluid promised to titillate his palate about as much as a feather would tickle an armadillo.

“It’s a bottle of dat stinkin’ Florida water, boss,” Hoppy got out miserably. “I smelled dat stuff before. Dis ain’t no bar -it’s a wash-room.”