Operation Fireball

CHAPTER THREE

In Dago I had a room that was just a room. I stayed in it until I got over the worst of the awkwardness in dealing with the splint on my left hand. There’s nothing like a couple of broken bones, no matter how insignificant, to make a man aware of his mortality.

I didn’t really know why I was in San Diego. I usually sign on as a tree surgeon somewhere when I’m presenting a low silhouette to the law after a job. I can cut the mustard anywhere working with an ax and a crosscut saw. Generally I keep the job two or three months. This time it had lasted almost a year. It lasted, in fact, until the interval began to tell me something about myself. My nerves weren’t the same after the botched job that had me lying low. When a man gets older, he doesn’t rebound as well.

Everything about the last job had gone well except the getaway. Well, no, I couldn’t really say that. I’d had two partners on that bank job, and one had been killed because he couldn’t keep his mind off women. The other partner and I got away with the cash.

We each had a car, but the money was in his. Then I had to stand in pouring rain on a slick hillside curve and watch a quarter million burn up in the trunk of my partner’s car that hadn’t made the curve. He died of a broken neck. If I hadn’t already mailed $10,000 to the plastic surgeon who’d made me a new face, the job would have been a total loss. It wasn’t the type of operation that bred confidence for the future.

I hadn’t known much about either partner. I’d taken them on unwillingly only because I needed quick money after my departure without benefit of clergy from the south Florida prison hospital. Then the partnership job went wrong. It left me at a low ebb, mentally and financially. Hazel had struck a nerve when she asked how I was fixed.

So with two fiascos back to back, a short bankroll, a new face, and a new name, I’d come to San Diego. There’s a waterfront bar called Curly’s, which has operated as an underworld meeting place since shortly after the time of the forty-niners. Curly’s was a good place to reestablish contact, I felt.

Before the trip to Hazel’s I’d been dropping in almost every night. Not mixing but sitting at the bar and watching the room behind me in the backbar mirror. Looking for familiar faces and not finding any. I’ve been in the business for fifteen years. After that length of time prison cells and unmarked graves claim a lot of familiar faces.

When I was able to have the lengthy wooden splint on my left hand removed and replaced with a finger cast, I started hitting Curly’s again. It was better than getting cabin fever sitting in the room and staring at four walls.

The tavern had a bulletin board in one corner of the low-ceilinged, smoky room. It was always covered with thumbtacked messages, some cryptic, some not. My first night out after the episode at the ranch I stopped as usual to look the board over. There were the usual assortment of cars for sale, apartments for rent, and GWENDOLYN, PLEASE CALL BEAUREGARD personals. And there was a new message I read three times. Or had I missed seeing it before?

IMPORTANT! said a three-by-five card lettered in red ink. WILL CHARLIE GOSGER CALL AREA CODE 815, 479-2645. IMMEDIATELY. IMPORTANT!

That was all. There was no signature or initials. I moved along to the bar and ordered a Jim Beam on the rocks. About ten years before I had used the alias Charlie Gosger for a short time. I couldn’t even remember the details. Probably I’d used it for a specific job, then dropped it. Could someone from that period be trying to contact me now? It hardly seemed likely.

I went to the phone booth and checked out Area Code 815. It was in northeast Illinois, not too far from Chicago. It told me nothing. I couldn’t even remember in which part of the country I’d been Charlie Gosger.

I went back to the bar and thought it over. A telephone call would settle it. If I didn’t like what I heard, I could hang up. But why call at all? Did I want to meet anyone from my Charlie Gosger period?

There was even a reason for not calling. I’d escaped from the prison hospital with my facial bandages still on after the plastic surgery. No one knew what my face looked like. Nobody could connect the current Earl Drake by sight at least with any previous identity of mine. No one with whom I’d ever worked previously could recognize me now even if he sat down at the bar beside me. It was a factor worth protecting.

And yet—

I was marking time, and I hadn’t much more time to mark. I had a car, not new, and a little money. Neither was going to last long. I should have been planning what came next. Instead, I was sitting in Curly’s, sipping bourbon. I kept telling myself that I had to get going, but I didn’t do it.

It’s odd how a man’s mind works. I found myself dwelling upon past jobs, how well they’d gone, and how satisfying it had been. Who was it who said that a man is over the hill when he thinks about what he’s accomplished in the past rather than what he plans to do in the future?

The hard-core realization that I was ducking the issue set me in motion. I changed a five-dollar bill into silver at the bar, then left Curly’s and went down the street to a pay phone. I didn’t trust Curly’s phones. I gave the operator the number. She asked me for $1.75 for the first three minutes. When the phone started ringing, I glanced at my watch. It was after midnight. Around Chicago it would be two A.M. I hadn’t realized it was that late.

The phone rang five times at the other end of the line. I was almost ready to hang up when the receiver was picked up and a gruff voice said hello.

“I’m calling from California,” I began. I realized that I hadn’t planned what I was going to say. “I saw your message to Charlie Gosger. If it’s your message.”

For a moment I heard only the line hum against a muted background of faint static. “Yeah?” the voice said at last. “Is this Charlie?”

“I don’t know if it is or not.” Now, that’s a fine thing to say, I thought. “I mean, I might have been once.” My feeling of irritation increased. The second remark made no more sense than the first.

But the heavy voice seemed to have no qualms about my uncertainty. “Where you callin’ from?”

I hesitated. “Down the street from Curly’s,” I said at last.

“I thought you’d make that circuit sooner or later.” There was a complacent note in the voice.

I had a sudden thought. “Was there more than one of the Charlie Gosger messages?”

“A dozen. Around the country in places like Curly’s. You still in business?”

“Wouldn’t that depend on the business you had in mind?”

“Okay, okay. You remember Slater?”

Slater? Slater. I opened my mouth and closed it again. Slater. Am image began to form. Big. Hard-nosed. Close-mouthed. Trigger-happy. Slater. Black hair. Bulldog features. Heavy voice. Yes. I remembered a Slater.

“You got it?” the voice inquired.

“If it’s the same man.”

“If you’re Charlie Gosger, you stood next to Slater in Massillon, Ohio, one mornin’ when he was directin’ traffic.”

I remembered Massillon, but that wasn’t enough. “Two cars left the square that morning,” I said. “Which way did they go?”

“One north an’ one south.”

“How many men in each car?”

“Three an’ three.” The line hummed for a moment. “Okay?”

“Okay. So far.”

“I’d like to meet with you, Charlie.”

I wasn’t ready to go that fast. “You’re Slater?”

“Right. I got a proposition for you. Biggest thing’s come along in years. Maybe ever.”

It wasn’t my method of operation. In the past I’d always drawn up the plan and put the proposition. But I had nothing going for me now. I stood there in the phone booth, trying to recall what I could of Slater’s characteristics from the Massillon job.

“You still there?” the telephone voice inquired.

“I’m here. I’m trying to make up my mind.”

“Charlie Gosger never had no trouble makin’ up his mind.”

It was true. So true that it jolted me. Was that what was the matter with me lately? One of the things? Charlie Gosger would study a situation, and if it looked right and felt right, he’d open the stops and bore in. Life had been marvelously uncomplicated in those days.

But the old days had nothing to do with my decision now. If I said yes and met this man Slater, I’d be giving away the anonymity of Earl Drake, which I’d literally gone through hell to establish. And depending upon Slater’s proposition, I could be giving it away for nothing.

But where was I headed now? Into penny ante stuff because my nerve was gone? That wasn’t right, either. It wasn’t my nerve. The affair at the ranch had proved that. It was just that I couldn’t seem to initiate a project any longer.

I took a breath and released it. “Where do you want to meet, Slater?”

“How about right in San Diego?” he came back promptly. “The Aztec Hotel. In the bar. I can be there at five tomorrow afternoon.”

It reminded me. “You won’t know me.”

“I won’t?”

“I have a new face.”

“ ‘Zat right? You been to Switzerland?”

“It was done here.”

“Remind me to get the name of the doctor. Couple pals of mine’d be interested. Now about tomorrow. I won’t be wearin’ a sign because I owe Uncle a little time, but you should know me. The Aztec bar at five, okay? An’ come thinkin’ big. You never heard nothin’ like this before.”

“I’ll be there,” I said, and hung up.

I didn’t go back to Curly’s.

I went back to my room and sat in its uncomfortable chair while I tried to figure out why I had jumped so quickly sight unseen at Slater’s unorthodox proposal for a meeting.

I gave it up finally and went to bed.

At four the next afternoon I scrawled the name of Earl Drake on an Aztec Hotel registration card and was assigned Room 304. I looked around the room after I got rid of the bellboy who had brought up my briefcase, my only piece of luggage. It was a pleasant-looking room. It seemed a shame to waste it on a meeting that might come to nothing.

No sooner thought than done. I went downstairs to the lobby pay phones. I gave the long distance operator Hazel’s number and waited while the call went through. “Hi,” I said when the familiar deep voice came on the line.

“Hi, yourself,” she returned in pleased surprise.

“Any excitement?”

“With you gone?” she asked demurely.

“What did you tell the man?”

“That I did it myself.”

“That you did it yourself?”

“Oh, he didn’t believe me.” She giggled. “If it had been done with a two-by-four or a baseball bat, he’d have believed it quick enough, but—”

“Can you fly down here?” I interrupted her.

Her voice quickened. “I certainly can.”

“Get yourself booked and call me back here and let me know what time you’ll arrive at the airport.” I gave her the number of the pay phone booth.

“I’ll call you right back,” she promised.

I sat in a lobby armchair while I waited for the call. I had left Hazel’s place thinking that if she kept her mouth shut, there would be no real follow-through on the episode with the sadistic kids. Second thought had showed me the hole in the doughnut. Hazel had had visitors before. Eventually, a copy of the sheriff’s report was going to reach someone who remembered a sharpshooting incident in south Florida. Someone who was going to put two and two together. Hazel was going to have more visitors, and I wanted to talk to her first.

Her call back to me came within ten minutes. “I can’t get there till after midnight,” she said. “One A.M. Is that too late?”

“That’s fine. Walk right through the terminal out to the cabstand.” I’d have to make sure she wasn’t being followed, although it was a little early for that. “You’ll see me.”

“Not driving a cab, I hope?”

“Are you demeaning honest labor, woman?”

She snickered. “What should I bring in the way of clothes?”

“The legal minimum.”

She snickered again. “You certainly do make it easy on a girl.”

“See you at one A.M.” I said, and hung up.

I went upstairs to the room. I opened the briefcase, which contained only two items — the.38 and a shoulder holster. I removed my jacket, strapped on the holster, and replaced the jacket. I practiced with the gun until it was drawing freely. Then I sat down and turned on the television set.

At 4:55 I took the elevator down to the lobby again and stood in the doorway of the men’s bar. Half a dozen scattered figures sat on the stools in the tranquility of the dim lighting. There were as many more at the tables.

Slater wasn’t hard to locate. He didn’t look like I remembered him, but he looked like Slater ought to look ten years later. Burly, square-jawed, dour-looking. Menacing. Definitely older-looking but still capable.

I backed away from the doorway to a battery of nearby house phones that permitted me to keep an eye on the end of the bar where Slater sat. I watched him for five minutes to make sure he wasn’t exchanging hand or eye signals with anyone else in the room. If he was, I couldn’t detect it. I picked up the phone.

“Ring the bar and have Mr. Slater paged, please,” I told the hotel operator when she came on the line.

The page call didn’t carry out to the lobby, where I was standing, but I saw Slater’s head come up when he heard it. He slid from his bar stool and walked out of my line of vision toward a phone indicated by the barman. “Yeah?” the same gruff voice as the previous night said in my ear.

“The bar is too public,” I said. “I’m upstairs in Room 529.”

“Suits me. I’ll be right there.”

Slater came back to his drink, picked it up, and drained it. His back was toward me as he set his empty glass down slowly, then walked out into the lobby without a backward glance. He passed within six feet of me on his way to the elevators, but I remained where I was and kept my eyes on the bar stool Slater had just left.

In seconds a huge blond man with walking-beam shoulders moved to the stool and sat down. The barman started in his direction, but the Viking snapped his fingers as though he’d just remembered something. He left the stool and went toward the lobby.

Before he cleared the doorway, I was walking toward the same bar stool. I didn’t even need to sit down. Boldly traced in the moisture on the bar top were the figures 529. Slater had left a message.

I made it back into the lobby in time to see the Viking step aboard an elevator. The indicator of the one alongside it marked it as being at the fifth floor. I stationed myself in front of it. Sure enough, it started downward. I glanced around. There was no one standing near me in front of the bank of elevators. When the shining bronze doors opened, I was standing directly in front of Slater. His features were flushed and angry-looking.

He started to move around me. I put both hands against his chest and pushed. He went backward into the elevator cab, his face comical in its surprise. I stepped aboard and jabbed the control button, which closed the elevator doors behind us. In the same moment I crowded Slater so he could feel the outline of the holstered gun, then stepped away so he couldn’t reach me with his hard-looking hands. “You made a mistake in not coming alone,” I told him. “Let’s hear the story fast or only one of us is going to walk off this thing.”

His expression was dangerous-looking as he eyed me. Then he decided to smile. “You’re a cute bastard,” he said. His voice was calm. “You’re right about the face. I’d never have known you.”

“Never mind the chatter. Who’s your oversized blond friend?”

“Another cute bastard. The guy who’s goin’ to get us where we need to go on this caper.”

We couldn’t stay on the elevator forever. I punched the third-floor button. When the doors opened, I motioned to Slater to leave first. “Room 304,” I said. “To the right.”

He moved down the corridor ahead of me. He had a firm, easy stride. He stood back while I unlocked the door. One hand inside my jacket, I waved him inside. He entered warily, scanning the room for possible hiding places that might conceal an accomplice. He looked into the bathroom, then into the closet. Satisfied that we were alone, he spoke up again. This time his tone was businesslike. “You should have been able to tell by lookin’ at him that he’s no cop,” he said.

That much was true. In the quick glimpse I’d had of him, the big man seemed to have none of the usual police mannerisms difficult to describe but impossible to overlook. “Where does he fit into the proposition?”

“A full partner,” Slater said without hesitation.

“How many partners?”

“There’ll be five of us all together.”

“And how big is this walnut we’re supposed to cut up?”

“Let’s get Erikson up here an’ have him tell you.”

“Erikson?”

“The man you sidetracked.”

“Is he calling the shots on the project?”

Slater started to answer me and then stopped. “Up to a point,” he said at last. He listened to the sound of his own words and seemed to approve of them. “Up to a point,” he repeated, and grinned at me. He had strong-looking teeth.

“What’s this man Erikson contributing?”

“Background and knowhow. He’s an ex-Navy type who got in the grease with the brass. He specialized in communications then.”

The blond man had the look of an ex-Navy type, but so did a lot of other men who’d never been closer to an ocean than the Mojave Desert. “So evidently we need an ex-Navy type who specialized in communications. What else do we need?”

Slater ticked them off on blunt fingers. “We need a Spanish-speakin’ type a little rigid in the nostrils. We need a guy who can navigate a forty-footer by dead reckonin'. Erikson says he has men for both slots. We need a guy who’s a specialist with locks, explosives, alarm systems, an’ the art of gettin’ cash out of places it’s not considered possible to get it out. That’s you. An’ we need a guy who knows where the cash is.” Slater grinned again. “That’s me.”

At least it sounded as though some planning had gone into the project. “A Spanish-speaking type and a boat,” I said. “Is this the place to say I’m allergic to South American prisons?”

Slater’s stare was level. “If we miss on this one, you’ll never see a prison.”

“So? A blindfold and a last cigarette?”

“Correct.”

No lace panties on that pork chop. I thought it over for a moment. “I’d need to know more about this man Erikson,” I said.

“I thought you’d think so,” Slater said comfortably. He started to raise his right arm, then paused. “I’m gonna take somethin’ out of my jacket pocket, okay?”

“Carefully,” I answered him.

In slow motion he removed a flat, foil-wrapped disc a little larger than a hockey puck. He removed the foil and showed me a reel of tape. “Call the desk an’ ask them if they have a tape recorder,” he said.

I picked up the phone. “Do you have a tape recorder I can borrow for a few minutes?” I asked the front desk clerk.

“We have a tape recorder you can rent for as long as you like,” he reproved me gently.

The marts of commerce. “That’s fine. Send it up to 304.”

“Let me call Erikson before he gets to thinkin’ I’ve run out on him,” Slater suggested. “He’s bound to get nervous when he bounces off the door of that phony room you gave us.”

He moved to the phone when I made no objection. “Our man blocked you out of the play, Karl,” he said after he had asked the operator to have Karl Erikson paged in the bar. “Give me ten minutes to tell him the proposition an’ we’ll pipe you aboard.” He listened for a moment and his mouth drew down at the corners. “You know any way you’re not gonna give me the ten minutes?” he asked softly, and hung up the phone. “Likes to think he’s in charge sixty seconds every minute,” he said to me.

There was a knock at the door. I went to it as Slater stepped into the bathroom, out of sight. I took the portable tape recorder from the bellboy and signed the receipt for it. Slater came out of the bathroom, took the recorder from me, placed it on the desk, and threaded the tape onto it with fingers that looked clumsy but weren’t. “Okay, here’s your sales pitch,” he announced, and flipped a switch.

For a second there was nothing. Then there was a scratchy sound followed by an authoritative voice. “Watch yourself inside there, Slater. Don’t forget I want to see the palms of your hands after you shake hands.” There was the squeak of a hinge, a shuffle of feet, and a solid-sounding reverberant clang of metal on metal. I could visualize a barred door closing. It’s a sound never forgotten. I’d listened to it for five years when I was a kid. I’d made up my mind then I was never going to listen to it again.

The feet shuffled again, and then there were a few seconds’ silence. “ ‘Bout time you showed up again, man,” Slater’s voice said. It was followed by a whisper, the prison whisper that pierces the ears at three feet and is inaudible at ten. “Did the screw sit you down here, Erikson? Don’t answer out loud.” There was no reply. “Beef about the light an’ let’s move,” the whisper continued.

“I can’t see here,” another voice complained in a normal tone. “Can we move to another table?” There was a renewed shuffling of feet followed by the sound of heavy bodies sinking into chairs. “You realize that all these table locations could be bugged, of course,” the same voice said softly. It had a hollow sound, as though the walls were farther removed. Where was the microphone, I wondered?

“Naaaah. They’d have to hire too many more guards just to listen in.”

“You didn’t move me the last time,” Erikson said.

“The story is that nothin’s bugged till after the third visit.”

“So we qualify.” Erikson’s tone was thoughtful.

“That’s why I figured we should move.” A note of urgency entered Slater’s voice. “What’s the word?”

“Your story holds together. The money was actually sent down there just before everything blew up. Although it was never publicized, I found out that the guarded money truck was waylaid. There’s still only your word that you were part of the hijack gang.” There was a brief pause. I could picture the two men sitting there eyeing each other. “How many men do you claim were with you?”

“Not how many men I claim were with me,” Slater’s voice rasped irritably. “We were there, damn it. Four of us. Big Al Lusky, Pancho Valdez, Digger McAllister, an’ me. Digger an’ I were the only ones who made it off the island, an’ Digger bought the farm a year later in a bar in Tangier.”

“Making you the sole survivor of the hijack.”

“How many times I gotta tell you that?”

“How many men were guarding the shipment?”

“Five,” Slater’s voice replied. “A guard with the driver, an’ three more in back with the cash. Al an’ Pancho got careless after we stopped the truck an’ the sacks were passed down. They caught it from a machine gun in the truck’s front seat. Digger lost his cool an’ lobbed a grenade into the truck. I know there were five of ‘em in the truck, although nobody stopped to count the pieces afterward.”

“And the money has never been recovered?”

“Nobody could find it.”

“But you can find it?”

“You’re damn right I can.” Slater’s tone was positive.

“You waited long enough to say anything about it.”

“Listen, at first I was gonna sweat out this jolt here an’ go back myself. Then after the trouble I had in Statesville”—there was a pause—“well, I’m not goin’ anywhere for a while.”

“Not for forty years.” Erikson’s tone was dry. “Not without outside help. It makes me wonder why with this on your mind you didn’t stay out of trouble until you were eligible for parole.”

“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man!” Slater’s voice hardened. “You don’t act in these places. You react. I didn’t want trouble, but I was pushed. The warden moved me over here to Joliet after I killed that joker in case his friends came lookin’ for me. By that time the friends knew better.”

“You’d never have made it back there for the cash by yourself, anyway.”

“I wasn’t goin’ by myself. I had a man in mind for the job. A good man. As far as I’m concerned, he’s still in.”

“Who’s the man?”

“His name wouldn’t mean nothin’ to you. All you need to know right now is that he’s got ability we’ll need at that end of the line, an’ for a bonus he can shoot the left teat off a female mosquito at a hundred yards.”

“I’d need to know considerably more about him than that.” Erikson’s tone was icy.

“He’ll tell you himself when I introduce you.” Slater’s voice was just as cold. ”If we ever put this thing together. Did you talk financing to your people?”

“We don’t have a deal yet. As you just pointed out. But if and when we do, there’ll be no cash thrown around. We’ll get you out of here, and we’ll take care of some of the arrangements, but there’s no intention of sending good money after bad.”

“You chintzy, chicken-livered nickel-nursers!” Slater’s voice complained bitterly. “All right, then. All the more reason you got to take my man. This job’s gonna take cash, an’ he’ll produce it.”

“Speaking of cash, how much did you say was in the hijack?” The question was slipped in smoothly.

“Who adds up bills when they’re runnin'?” Slater’s tone was suspicious. “Pancho Valdez said the take would be two million U.S., an’ he was high enough up in the treasury department there to know.”

“More than twice that was sent down there.”

There was a soft whistle. ”Four million?”

“Plus two hundred thousand.”

“Maybe Pancho was figurin’ on givin’ us a fast count,” Slater suggested. “All I know is that whatever was there is still there.”

“Did you open a sack after the hijack?”

“Sure we did.”

“What did you find?”

“Bundles of thousand-dollar bills wrapped in green bands.”

“You didn’t take even a few samples?”

“Where were we gonna spend it? It was supposed to be a temporary cache, but a week later the whole face of nature changed down there, an’ all I wanted was out. Then while I was plannin’ on how I was goin’ back I got grabbed on the phony deal that landed me in Statesville.”

“Let me ask you why—”

Slater’s voice overrode Erikson’s. “What’s all the futzin’ around about? You know I was in on the heist. You know how much cash was sent down there. You know it’s never been found or the bills would’ve been traced. Are you gonna go for this thing or aren’t you?”

“You’re sure nobody saw you hide the cash?”

“Nobody left alive.” Slater said it sullenly. “Don’t bug me, man. I’m tired of sittin’ in this stinkin’ hole. I wanna know what you’re gonna do. Just kind of keep it in mind you’re not the only fish in the ocean.”

“Just the only fish that can spring the locks on this place for you.” There was a short silence. “In that climate paper money could have rotted away in the length of time you’ve been tucked away here. I’d hate to sweat the action and find pulp.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m not.”

“Why should you worry when you’re trading your share for life on the outside?” For the first time there was an edge in Erikson’s voice.

“That’s right,” Slater agreed. His tone was unexpectedly jovial. “But don’t worry about it. The cash is okay.” His voice changed. “You don’t sound like you did the last time you were here. Don’t tell me the wheels turned you down on the project an’ you’re thinkin’ of makin’ the play yourself?”

“What makes you say that?”

“The way you’re flingin’ around expense money.” Slater’s voice dripped sarcasm.

“Let’s just say that everything is being left to me to decide.” Again there was a brief silence. “And I’ve decided. We’ll set it up for five men.”

“What the hell! Four can handle it.”

“No. We’ll use five. You and your pro with the cash. Me and a man I’ll choose. Plus a boat operator to get us out.”

“Have it your way. When do you spring me?”

“It will take a while to set it up. In the meantime, give me a lead and I’ll contact this buddy of yours for you.”

“Quickest way I know to run him underground,” Slater countered. “I’ll have a pal put out a flag for him. Sometimes he don’t surface for a good long time. Say, hadn’t you better open up that briefcase an’ make out like you’re doin’ a little lawyerin'?”

“Good idea.”

There was the sound of a clasp snapping open and then the rustle-rattle of paper. A period of silence followed before Erikson’s voice was heard again. “That’s it for now, Slater,” he said. “You’ll hear from us.”

There was a commingled shuffling of feet followed by the sound of retreating footsteps. “Let’s see those hands, Slater!” a guard’s voice barked. There was the slam of metal as a barred gate opened and closed. I pictured the detention room and Slater waiting between two locked doors for the guard to let him back into the cell block.

Then the sound died out.

Slater leaned forward and switched off the tape recorder.

“Where was the microphone?” I asked him.

“It was a minimike under my shirt collar.”

“You didn’t trust Erikson?”

“Did I have to give myself any the worst of it? Some of our talks were more complicated. I wanted to listen to him again before I decided he was the one.”

“He seems to think he was the only one.”

“That’s Erikson.”

“How could you get even a miniature recorder inside?”

“A few dollars spread around’ll get you most anything.”

“What about this Erikson? Who are these people both of you refer to? The syndicate?”

“The people who put me on the street.”

Evidently that was all I was going to hear on that subject. “Why is he ex-Navy?”

“Because he likes money. An’ when we split the take from this job, he can buy his own navy.”

The bravado was typical of Slater. I remembered. “You might as well get him up here,” I said. I didn’t see how it could do any harm to listen.

Slater went to the phone and had the bar paged again. “Room 304, Karl.” He chuckled. “Straight goods this time.”

“Introduce me as Earl Drake,” I said when he hung up.

Slater nodded. Neither of us said anything until there was a knock at the door. Slater opened it. “Karl-with-a-K Erikson, Earl Drake”—Slater made the introduction as the Viking entered the room.

Erikson and I shook hands. His hand was twice the size of mine. He had pale blue eyes, and they were itemizing me right down to the corns on my feet. Then the icy-looking blue eyes swung to Slater. “Have you told him?”

“No details.”

The eyes returned to me. “Are you aboard?”

So there it was. “If I have no reservations about where the Spanish is going to be spoken.”

“Cuba.”

“Cuba? There’s a big money touch in Cuba?”

“Big,” Slater affirmed. “Havana.”

Erikson began to speak in the manner of a man who has given a lot of thought to his subject. “Six weeks before Castro made his breakout from the Sierra Maestras, a section of the U.S. State Department sent cash to Batista. The money disappeared in the backlash of the revolutionary overthrow. With Castro in the saddle, the U.S. had no hope of recovery even if the State Department or the CIA could find out where it went. In fact, State officially disclaimed that any cash had ever been sent to Batista. Nobody wanted to be pinned with the donkey’s tail of backing a loser. Eventually the money was written off.”

Erikson jerked a thumb at Slater. “At the time, he was working in one of Meyer Lansky’s casinos in Havana. A man in Batista’s cabinet came to a Lansky underling with word of the conveniently available cash. It was hijacked while being transferred in an armored car.”

“You’re talking about what — eight or ten years ago?” I asked Erikson. “That’s a long time. Why should the cash still be there?”

“Because nobody could find it,” Slater answered for him. “If anything happens to me, the bundle will be there till the end of the world.”

“He convinced me,” Erikson said. “Or I wouldn’t be here. He also said that you would advance the stake to finance the recovery.” I didn’t say anything. “We’d assemble in Key West,” Erikson continued. “I’ll get us onto the naval base there and from the base to Guantanamo with forged orders. We’ll break out from Gitmo through the U.S. and Cuban fortifications into the interior and from there make our way to Havana. One member of our group knows a place for us to stay in Havana that he claims is safe. He also has a fast fishing cruiser and a first mate who will make the run from the Keys to the vicinity for our pickup when we have the cash.”

It didn’t sound enthralling. “We fight our way from Guantanamo to Havana through the Cuban army?”

“It should be more subtle than that.” Erikson leaned forward and helped himself to one of Slater’s cigarettes. He tapped it several times on the back of his wrist. His way of talking with his entire attitude indicated a man who had confidence in himself. “Although nobody ever said this project would be a Methodist tea. Slater vouched for you, and I’ll vouch for our fourth man. Slater will—”

“I know you think your pick is prob’ly hell on wheels,” Slater broke in, “but Drake an’ I could find us a fourth man who’d be for real.”

“No,” Erikson said. “My man already has a suitable boat, for one thing. And I’m not about to line myself up one against three on a proposition like this.”

“I still think—” Slater tried again.

“No.” Erikson cut him off with finality.

I found Erikson’s one-against-three remark interesting. I’d been thinking of myself as one against three if I took on the project. Now here was Erikson putting Slater on my side. If Slater stayed lined up permanently on any side, he’d changed from the Slater I knew.

Erikson’s hard blue eyes were upon me again. “About financing the project,” he said. “We’ll need a headquarters in Key West. A deposit on the boat. Arms. Quite a lot of arms and ammunition. Naval uniforms and gear to enable us to play the part while we’re getting to Guantanamo. Cuban uniforms to get us to Havana. A first-class shortwave receiving station in Key West and a first-class backpack transceiver to take with us. Around fifty thousand dollars in working capital, in other words. Do you have the money?”

I didn’t have $5,000. “He always has the money,” Slater answered for me before I could find out what kind of liar I was.

There were still some things I wanted settled. “We’ll be setting up the shortwave receiving station in the Key West headquarters, I take it?” I asked Erikson.

“Not necessarily. It could go in the boat.”

I was beginning to get the shape of an idea. “I’d rather see it on dry land.”

“That would mean another operator if it wasn’t the cruiser’s first mate who was monitoring the channel.”

“I’ll supply the operator.”

“No,” Erikson said. He said no in the manner of a man who has had a lot of practice saying it. “We don’t need—”

“He’s sayin’ he wants someone watchin’ his back while we’re still on the mainland,” Slater interrupted. “Right?” he said to me.

“Right.” I fixed Erikson with as hard a stare as I could manage. “I’d like to make certain that it’s not just my money that gets to Cuba.” Erikson hesitated. “Take it or leave it.”

“I might leave it,” he warned. “I see no reason—” He broke off and started over again. “Let’s sleep on it.” His voice overrode Slater’s when Slater tried to speak. “We’ll meet here again day after tomorrow.”

Slater muttered something under his breath, but I had no objection. I figured that Erikson had his own reason for the adjournment, probably a desire to check me out, if possible. I had no qualms on that score. Mr. Erikson would run into a brick wall. “Day after tomorrow it is,” I said.

“Same time,” Erikson said shortly. He made Slater leave the room first and followed five minutes later himself.

The ex-Navy man evidently didn’t want Slater and me to put our heads together again.

Among the members of the proposed group I’d met so far, the element of trust seemed to be in short supply.

I thought the whole thing over while I went downstairs to dinner.

I didn’t have the cash, and with two fast-knitting but still-broken fingers on my left hand, I had little enthusiasm for making a solo play to get it.

I didn’t have the money, but Hazel did.

I knew that she could run a boat and that she could navigate.

She could learn to operate a shortwave receiver.

With the touchy kind of project this one was apt to turn into, I’d need all the insurance I could get.

If she took any interest at all, Hazel could supply several different kinds of insurance.