The Killer Touch

One

Burt March sat on a coil of rope and watched the green-yellow islands of the Grenadines sail past. The schooner wallowed through a heavy sea, but there was no wind and the sails were furled. From below came the intermittent growl of the diesel engine; an occasional vile whiff of exhaust fumes reminded Burt of the city he’d left the day before.

He gazed around the open deck, crowded with islanders returning from St. Vincent after selling their vegetables, pigs and chickens. A rum bottled passed from one black hand to another; a Negro girl flashed him an over-the-shoulder look, then reached into her basket and tossed him a ripe mango. He caught it and smiled at her; she turned quickly to whisper to a girl who sat beside her. Their burst of tinkling laughter pleased him; he was glad to leave the grit and sticky July heat of Florida, to forget the pinch of a shoulder holster, and to be among people who didn’t know him as Dective Sergeant Burton March of the Crystal City Police Department. He hated the puffed, indignant faces of solid citizens, the uneasy look from those who had nothing to fear from him, and the pinched, scared faces of those who did. He hated the scared faces most, maybe because he knew others in the department who liked them scared.

A boy picked his way across the deck, collecting fares. Burt drew out his wallet and removed a British West Indian dollar. “I get off at Isle de Trois.”

“I think we don’t stop there, sir.”

Burt looked up. The boy was shirtless and barefoot, with trousers cut off at the knees. “Why not?”

“Too much sea. The water very swift there, no good bottom to hold anchor.”

“Well, can you get me in close? Joss could send out a boat to pick me up.”

The boy nodded. “I ask the captain.”

As the boy started away, Burt called, “How old are you?”

“Fourteen year.” The boy squinted at Burt for a moment, then shrugged and started up the gangway.

Burt sighed and pulled a paperback book from the pocket of his white canvas trousers. The same age. Funny. And the kid that got sick on the plane looked around fourteen, too. Burt remembered the smell of fear in the darkened store, the roar of the other’s gun and the ripping pain in his thigh, then his own reflexive shot at the muzzle flash. He saw again the beardless face, curiously feminine in death, and the ugly redness where Burt’s slug had torn through his throat...

Burt closed the book and returned it to his pocket. There would be time to read on the island, time to dive in the air-clear water, fish, and walk on the salt-white sand and put strength in his leg, or just to sit at the top of the island’s lone hill and think. What about? Well, think about reaching the age of twenty-eight and deciding you’ve picked the wrong career. That would keep him busy for his entire month of sick leave. He wondered if he should’ve sent Joss a wire... but then she’d told him once that nobody came during the summer. He’d probably have the whole square mile of the island to himself.

The boy returned and said the captain wanted to see him. Burt planted his bamboo cane and rose. He was slightly less than six feet tall, heavy-set in a hard-muscled way which made him look average. He used the cane no more than necessary to steady himself on the rolling deck.

The wheelhouse swarmed with girls in bright-colored dresses. It was a mark of status for a girl to ride with the skipper, and Captain O’Ryan was notoriously free with his favor. He was a blue-black Negro who walked softly, talked slowly, and had a barrel-chested build.

He grinned as Burt entered. “Mister March. I din’ recognize you when you board. Man, you pale, lose weight.” He gripped his jaw to indicate hollow cheeks.

Burt held up his cane. “Had a little accident, so they handed me an extra vacation.”

“So you rest with Miss Joss, eh? If she leave you be. Maybe I stop off one day when the sea calm down, bring some rum.” O’Ryan looked at the deck, dipping and swaying below, then raised his eyes to the southeastern horizon. “I think a hurricane trying to work up.” He looked sideways at Burt. “You never been in one of our hurricanes?”

“No.”

“Ah, man, they come rare and small, but hard, hard.” He grinned as though looking forward to it. “Well, we get you close and see if Miss Joss will pick you up. You give her something for me?”

“Sure,” said Burt, then frowned as O’Ryan drew a smart, olive-green leather purse from beneath the binnacle. “That doesn’t belong to Joss.”

“No, a lady left it on my ship three days ago. She staying now with Joss.”

A twinkle in O’Ryan’s eye gave new significance to the expensive look of the purse and the seductive scent which rose from it. Burt suspected that if O’Ryan fulfilled his promise to stop on the island, it wouldn’t be to visit Burt.

“Pretty lady, huh?”

“Pretty, yes, but—” O’Ryan frowned. “Her eyes move about like butterflies, never still.” He shrugged and turned back to the wheel as the schooner approached a cluster of islands. “But you all that way, man, you live too fast up there.”

Back on deck, Burt sat on his coil of rope and dangled the purse thoughtfully between his knees. He felt an irritating urge to peer inside and learn something more about the girl. If he dropped it, perhaps it would spring open...

Put it away, March. You’re off-duty. Forget it.

He set it on the deck between his feet, then braced himself as the schooner heeled over abruptly. They were negotiating the swift frothy channel between two islands. Ten yards away a black jagged rock thrust up from the sea, bird droppings melting down its side like cake frosting. The schooner dipped, then soared sickeningly. It poised for a second, tilted, slid into the trough. There was a shuddering thump against the hull. A wall of white water plumed up and arched overhead. Burt put his head between his knees and felt the water drum against his back. Another swoop, a dip, and another shower, smaller than the first, the schooner righted itself and entered smooth water. Burt settled back and looked at the people sprawled on the streaming deck. A few of the girls were rising to their knees, throwing their dripping hair off their foreheads and, with a total lack of self-consciousness, raising their dresses and wringing out the water. Burt felt his feet squishing inside his white crepe-soled sneakers and decided that getting soaked was a part of inter-island travel, not at all unpleasant.

“Oh-oh, the purse. He looked down, felt a twinge of alarm, then saw it caught in a loop of rope, half-submerged in the runoff water. He picked it up and shook off the water. Better see if any got inside...

He paused with his hand on the catch, then shrugged.

The smell struck him again as he opened the purse; an exciting smell of perfume. Ladies’ soft leather wallet... Once started, he fell into an unconscious search pattern. The wallet’s plastic windows contained a social security card issued to Miss Tracy Dunn, and a Florida driver’s license for Mrs. Tracy Keener. Must have quit work after she got married, otherwise she’d have had her card changed. Age, twenty-eight. Well, well, she’s a Gemini too, and the same age. Address in North Miami. Evidence was stacking up. Her married status didn’t seem very important, since she’d come to the island alone. Where was Mr. Keener? Dead, divorced, separated, working... having a ball elsewhere. Weight one-oh-five, height five-four. A good build, provided the weight was arranged properly. Hair black, eyes brown. Folder of traveler’s checks, all fresh and new. Whee! Hundreds, tens of ’em. Poor little working girl struck it rich. Probably married the boss’s son, or the boss... Funny no pictures, probably meant she had no kids. Lipstick, bright red, a little garish for Burt’s taste. Well, nobody’s perfect, Can of talcum power, funny thing to carry in a purse. Or was it? He took it out and shook it, felt a soft rattle against his hand. Maybe the powder had gotten wet and lumpy...

The lid came off with a hard twist of his fingers. He shook out some powder and a capsule dropped into his palm. He felt a coldness at the back of his neck. He looked up quickly. The passengers were busy drying themselves. He cleaned off the capsule and saw the white powder inside. He didn’t bother taking it apart. What else comes in capsules which you have to hide inside a talcum powder can? There were fourteen in all. The girl had a heavy, heavy habit...

He put everything back in the can, replaced the lid, returned the can to the purse and closed it. She’d been nervous as a cat, and why not? Carrying a couple hundred bucks worth of heroin. But then, to walk off the boat and leave it...

Isle de Trois jutted abruptly from the sea to the south, humped up to a five-hundred foot prominence, then sloped gently to the north. As the schooner neared, Burt could make out the three black crags which gave the island its name. The upper slope was clothed in cedar, frangipani and shoulder-high citronella grass. At the water’s edge a line of palm trees overhung the thatched roof of the beach club. In front of the club curved a silver-white beach strewn with conch shells and bleached coral. A gentle swell disturbed the lagoon and caressed the beach.

Burt had first seen the island from the deck of a cruise ship five years ago. He had recognized a scene he’d dreamed of years before, while his breath froze on the fringe of a parka, his finger stuck to an icy trigger and his eyes squinted across a frozen Korean landscape. He’d spent his last five vacations on the island, and while Caribbean prices had ballooned, Burt still paid the same as he had on his first visit: thirty dollars a week.

The schooner stopped fifty yards outside the semicircle of black rocks which enclosed the lagoon like the jaws of a giant beartrap. Burt stood at the rail listening to the grinding complaint of the engines as they fought the current which hissed and gurgled around the ship. A black figure clad in shorts moved languidly across the beach, dragged a tiny blue rowboat into the water, and started rowing across the lagoon. Burt recognized Joss’s boatman, Coco. He was a skilled fisherman who knew every submerged rock within five miles of the island. Muscles corded in his powerful arms as he left the lagoon and entered the current. Five minutes later the boat thumped against the hull.

“Mist’ March,” he said, holding the boat steady as Burt clambered down. “I din’ expect you this time.”

There was no time for conversation; Burt took his bulky canvas suitcase from the cabin boy, settled into the forward thwart, and helped push off. When they reached the peace of the lagoon, Burt saw that Coco wore a blue straw hat. The boatman had two other hats, one painted red, the other white. He changed them according to his mood: white when he felt good, blue when he was sad, and red when he was angry.

“Why the blue hat?” asked Burt.

The boy spoke abruptly between strokes. “No guest. No fish. No tip.”

“The woman who’s staying here doesn’t fish?”

“Woman?” Coco’s expression of disgust encompassed the entire sex. “I never take woman to fish. Too much play, too much talk.”

“She talks a lot, eh?”

“She? Man, I never see her. She remain in her cabin all day, walk the beach at night.”

Frowning, Burt opened the side pocket of his bag and took out two rolls of film. “Here’s some new high-speed film. I guess you’ve still got that Brownie I gave you.”

“Yes.” Coco grinned. “Now I maybe change my hat, take you to catch big fish.”

Coco tied up at a rickety jetty of poles and wood planks. It was attached to an unfinished concrete jetty begun by Joss’s fourth or fifth husband — who had also inaugurated a yacht basin, a hotel, and a new clubhouse, only to abandon the island and depart with a female guest from Barbados. He’d never come back, and Joss had never continued any of his projects.

Burt stepped off the jetty and looked around. Nothing ever changed here; it could have been five years ago. He saw a figure floating at the south end of the lagoon, where the palms arched down and dipped their fronds in the surf. It could have been a corpse, it floated so still, so bonelessly complaisant to each ripple of water. But Burt recognized the mistress of the island, Jocelyn Leeds.

“Joss!”

No response. After fourteen years on the island, Joss was capable of falling asleep in the water. Her boys had to watch that she didn’t drift out to sea.

Burt started down the beach. He saw smoke trailing up from a cigarette between her lips. A glass rested on the gentle mound of her stomach:

“Hey!” he called. “Hey, Joss!”

“I’m full up,” she called without removing the cigarette. “You should’ve had O’Ryan wait.”

“Don’t hand me that. Come and see what I brought you.”

“Now who in the world—!” She twisted to look, but a wave broke over her face. She spat out her soggy cigarette, rolled over, and started stroking toward shore. Burt opened his suitcase, took out the green beach coat he’d brought her, and walked down to the edge of the surf. Joss rose in thigh-deep water and waded ashore. Her homemade bathing costume (it was too individualistic to be called anything else, a loose-fitting playsuit made of a cotton print) wetly outlined a figure which had once been, obviously, arrestingly full. Now, though resigning itself here and there to the pull of gravity, her shape was still good enough to draw whistles at a distance. Once she’d shown Burt an old picture of herself in a net bra and panties, both of which concealed no more than the absolute legal minimum. She’d refused to say whether she’d been a runway queen, a nightclub stripper, or a freelance exhibitionist; she drew a curtain of phony coyness over her entire past and was even vague about the number of her husbands. Burt wasn’t sure whether the Englishman from whom she’d inherited the island had been her third or fourth. Her hair was the color of bleached straw except at the back of her neck and behind her ears, where traces of gray were visible among the auburn. Burt placed her age at forty-five, but wouldn’t have been surprised if she turned out to be five years on either side.

She walked out of the water, squinting in his direction. She was hopelessly nearsighted but scorned glasses, saying she’d seen too much already. Burt sidestepped and slid the beach coat around her shoulders. “Now you can greet your guests decently.”

“Burt March!” She gave him an impulsive hug which dampened his clothes for the second time. Then she backed off a step. “Burt, you look like hell!”

“Thanks,” said Burt dryly. “You haven’t changed either.”

“But really. You’re thin and pale, and carrying a cane...” Her mouth flew open. “You stopped a bullet!”

“Shhh. I’m supposed to be an insurance salesman.”

“Tell me, really. Did you shoot it out with a gang?”

“Crystal City’s too small to support a gang. It was just a little jewelry store robbery—”

“And you went in after them?”

“Look—” He sighed. There’d be no business transacted until Joss had the entire story. “Joss, there was only one. A kid tried to heist a ring for his sweetheart. He stole his old man’s gun and broke a window. He must’ve panicked when I came in, I don’t know. He didn’t live to talk about it. He was fourteen.”

“Oh—” Her eyes clouded with sympathy. “Poor Burt. Let’s go up to the club and get you a drink.”

She slid her arm around his waist, half-helping him through the loose sand. Burt drew no personal conclusion from this intimacy; Joss had a way of making guests feel that she’d been wistfully scanning the sea for their arrival. He suspected it was only half a pose.

When they reached his luggage, she swooped down and held up the purse. “Burt March! You’ve changed sides!”

“If you weren’t like a grandmother to me, I’d whop you. That belongs to your guest, Mrs. Keener. She left it on the schooner.”

“Oh?” Her expression froze into neutrality. “I’ll have Boris take it to her.”

“I’d rather take it myself.”

Joss frowned, then gave a shrug of indifference which somehow failed to come off. As they stepped beneath the thatched roof of the club, she gave him a sidelong look. “Whatever happened to Caroline, the girl you brought down here last year? She told me she was trying to get you to propose.”

“I almost did.” Burt sat down at a rough, hand-hewn table. He kept his eyes carefully on a grackle which was strutting along the railing. “We broke it off a couple of weeks ago. She wouldn’t have wanted to marry a cop.”

“Now Burt, she told me—” She stopped abruptly. “Oh, I get it now. Okay, we’ll forget it. Boris! Two rum punches.”

Boris, whose real name was Howard Charles William, was one of the few men Burt knew who could wear a wispy goatee, a purple beret, stride on black bare feet across the plank floor of an open, thatched clubhouse, then bow from the waist with all the massive dignity of a headwaiter at the Waldorf. Burt offered him the bright Hawaiian shirt he’d brought; Boris thanked him gravely and strode behind the bar to mix the drinks.

An Isle de Trois rum punch bore no resemblance to the effete cocktails served in Barbados and Jamaica. It was a potent jolt of black rum, nutmeg, brown sugar and lime. Water had to be requested, and ice was unknown on the island. Burt forced himself to sip the heavy mixture slowly; he was anxious to get to Mrs. Keener, but irritated at his own impatience.

“What’s this about being full up, Joss?”

“Oh...” She waved her hand vaguely. “I just meant the cabins are all rented.”

“But... I thought Mrs. Keener was the only guest.”

“Her husband’s due in a few days. He reserved cabin one, and she’s in number two.”

“Separate cabins? Why?”

“Maybe it’s that kind of marriage, or maybe one of them snores. He didn’t say in his letter, and I haven’t been able to get ten words out of her.”

Burt frowned to himself; he wanted more information, but was reluctant to tell Joss what he already knew. “Okay, that still leaves cabins three and four.”

Joss sighed and spread her hands. “A week ago I got a letter from a man named Smith. He enclosed a money order. Wanted two cabins for himself and three associates—”

“Associates? A man named Smith?”

She looked at him. “I know what you’re thinking and you can stop worrying. If they’re gay, they don’t stay. But I couldn’t tell that from a letter, could I? And there are people named Smith.” She looked down at her hands. “Hell, I know it sounds fishy. But I needed the money, Burt. It’s been a long summer.”

“You want me to leave?”

She looked up quickly. “No! Lord no, stay in number one until Keener gets here. After that... well, there’s my house...”

“I wouldn’t put you out.”

“I wasn’t thinking of—” She stopped suddenly and stood up. “Go on, deliver your purse and then we’ll have another drink. Lobster okay for supper?”

“Great,” he said. He watched her walk behind the bar, through the door which led to the kitchen. Joss seemed unusually nervous, and uncharacteristically hostile to her female guest.

Godfrey, the mulatto youth who served as dishwasher, beachboy and bellhop, was waiting beside Burt’s leg. The boy was painfully bandy-legged, and as Burt followed him along the sandy path, he could see at least a foot of clearance between the knobby knees. They passed cabins four and three, in that order, and beyond them Burt could see the rollers marching in like ranks of plumed soldiers, then crashing down on the sand. It was a good day for body surfing.

Ahead, Godfrey walked beneath tall, somber manchineel trees, setting his bare feet carefully down among the sharp-husked fruits. Both the sap and the fruit were poisonous, and Joss had been advised to cut down the trees. But she had a theory that any change in nature is bound to be bad. Having seen the manicured, geometric ugliness which man had produced in his own state, Burt was inclined to agree.

Ah, here was cabin two. Now he could dispose of this purse, which was turning into a millstone around his neck.

“Godfrey.” His voice was lost in the booming surf. He called louder. The boy stopped and turned. “Take the bag on to the cabin. I’m stopping here — wait, here’s something.” He drew out a flat packet and tossed it through the air. “Strings for your guitar. See you later.”

He waited until Godfrey had gone behind the ancient gnarled banyan which separated cabins one and two, then knocked on the door. The silence stretched into a full minute before a low husky voice came from the other side.

“Who is it?”

“Burt March. I just came in on the schooner.”

There was another long pause. “Really? I hope you had a pleasant voyage.”

Burt frowned. There was no interest in the voice, not even idle curiosity. “Are you Tracy Keener?”

“I... what if I am?”

Her voice had taken on a tense belligerence, almost as puzzling as her lack of interest.

“Did you leave something on the ship?”

“Oh.” Was that a sigh of relief? Had she expected something worse?

The door opened slowly to a width of four inches. Burt glimpsed a huge, floppy beach hat which hung down to her eyebrows. A pair of oversized sunglasses covered her face to the cheekbones, and from there to the collar of her robe was a pale leprous expanse of skin which glistened wetly. Some kind of lotion...

“Oh, my purse.” Her white hand snaked out, clutched the purse, and pulled it inside. As the door was closing, she spoke with the stilted formality of a child suddenly remembering its manners: “Thank you. I’ve been terribly worried.”

And that was all. The door clicked shut, and Burt felt like kicking it in. What kind of reward was that? Hell, for all he’d seen of her she could have been a Martian. Maybe she didn’t know about the heroin; maybe the stuff had been a plant.

He walked quietly around the cabin and leaned against the screen door of the veranda. If she were a hypo, she’d be fixing now.

Five minutes later he heard her sandals scrape on the concrete. “Oh! You... what do you want now?”

He turned and saw that she still wore her all-concealing costume. The robe ended at mid-thigh and he saw that her legs were heavier than he’d expected from her description. They were thick and muscled, like those of a dancer.

He realized he had no real plan of action, no desire to do more than have a good look at her. “If you’ll come to the club, I’ll buy you a drink.”

“No.”

“You don’t drink?”

“I—” She made an impatient gesture with her hand. “Look, you brought me my purse. Okay, what do you want, a reward? I’ll have to get some change—”

Her voice was rising. It could have been anger, but Burt heard an undercurrent of alarm. “I don’t want a reward,” he said softly. “I just thought since we’re the only guests, we should get acquainted.”

“Oh, well... later. I’ve got a terrible sunburn and I don’t feel like—”

“Are you sick?”

She faced him a moment, her chin thrust out in what was unmistakably anger. Then she whirled and went inside, slamming the door behind her.

Jata was scrubbing out the patio when Burt reached his cabin. She was a tall, thin, blue-black woman from Petit Martinique who lived in a world of death, blood and black magic. She wore a skin bag around her neck which might have contained obeah charms, but which really held tobacco. She took the two packs of Granger pipe mixture he gave her and said morosely she hoped he would enjoy his stay.

“Las’ night, moon he come up all bloody. Trouble comin’, sieur, truly.”

Burt smiled. “Where’s Maudie? I brought her something.”

“Look behind you, sieur. She follow as always.”

Burt turned as Jata’s daughter came through the screen door. The girl he’d first seen as a gangly, tongue-tied eleven-year-old with round violet eyes and a braid like the tail of a rat, had now acquired a brazenly buxom brown body which rolled and bounced beneath a threadbare T-shirt. In past years she’d shadowed him around the island so closely that her mother had sometimes locked her in their shack.

“Remember what you asked me to bring you?” Burt asked. “You showed me the picture in the magazine.”

Maudie nodded, her round violet eyes fixed on his.

Burt opened his bag and took out the brassiere he’d brought from the States. He frowned as Maudie held it speculatively to her bosom; he’d made the purchase from last year’s measurements, forgetting that Maudie was a growing girl.

After the women left, Burt changed to swim trunks and walked onto the windward side of the island. Slimy gray rock crabs skittered away from his feet. Wet rock trembled beneath him as a wave crashed against the ten-foot cliff. Geysers of spray erupted from holes in the rock and drenched him. He heard the hissing moan as the retreating waves sucked air into underground caverns. At night the fumaroles sounded like approaching trains, men groaning in agony or women shrieking; you soon lost the habit of trusting your ears.

He walked back to the beach and dove into the surf. He swam past the breakers, rolled over and floated on his back. Gannets dive-bombed the water around him; pelicans swooped along the rollers, dragging their feet only inches above the water. Burt felt a curious mixture of dread and euphoria; such peace was too delicious to last.

He left the water, showered, shaved, walked to the club and downed three rum punches while waiting for Joss to wake up from her afternoon nap and start her customary evening drinking. The sun sank into a rosy haze, and darkness came down like a purple curtain. Godfrey set a table for two and suspended a Coleman lantern from a beam. Joss appeared at last, and Burt saw why she’d been delayed. She’d put on a dress, something she usually wore only for trips to St. Vincent or further. Rarer still, she wore a necklace and earrings, and a scent of violets had replaced her usual aura of saltwater, fish and rum.

They ate langouste tail by candlelight and washed it down with French wine. Joss talked with sparkling gaiety, and for a time Burt was in love with her. The white light of the Coleman lantern glowed on her bare shoulders and descended into the valley of her bosom; the surf thumped and rumbled; the breeze carried the smell of the sea into the club. Burt felt primitive and extremely male. It occurred to him that Joss had been without a husband for nearly a year, and that he himself was now free of ties. The pounding sea ringed the island and made it a private world.

He looked up as Godfrey shuffled out of the night carrying an empty tray. “Mrs. Keener’s?”

Joss answered with a trace of sarcasm, “Your lady friend is too delicate to eat in the presence of others.”

Burt smiled. “You’d rather she joined us?”

“Hell, I don’t care.” She waved her hand impatiently. “No, that’s wrong. I’d just as soon leave her alone. Her husband’s letter mentioned a nervous breakdown, said his wife needed rest and quiet and no disturbance.” She frowned. “He said he’d been here before, but I can’t remember.” She leaned forward confidentially. “I’ll tell you a secret, Burt. I don’t remember people. A week after they leave they get lost in a sea of faces. People think it’s my poor eyesight when I don’t recognize them again. I let ’em think it. One of the tricks of the trade.”

Joss started on rum, and soon her cheeks were flushed and her voice low and husky. Burt drank with her, more than he should, in an attempt to recapture his earlier romantic glow. But it only saddened him. Finally, Joss put her warm hand on his knee.

“Burt, there’s something you learn on an island, to accept your own nature. Don’t worry about the boy you shot.”

Burt felt himself tense. “What’s that got to do with my nature?”

“You’re a cop, you did your job—”

“Maybe that’s the problem.”

“Burt, if you weren’t a cop you’d be on the other side: You’ve got a violent nature. It shows in your eyes, like smoke behind a window. You’re a rough, hard man—”

“A killer, the newspapers said.”

She pushed away her glass. “Oh, hell, I goofed. I wanted to cheer you up, but I got you mad.”

“I’m not mad.”

“Don’t kid me, Burt. You talk soft and you move slow, but it shows. Your body changes. You turn into sharp edges and brutal bone. I had a boy friend once—” She stopped and drew a deep breath. She got up suddenly, and stood swaying, her eyes bright. She spoke in a husky voice: “I’m stoned, Burt. Take me up to bed.”

He helped her up the crumbling stone steps behind the beach club and into her one-room cabin. She sat heavily on the bed. “Don’t light the lamp, Burt.”

“No.”

He walked silently to the door. Behind him came the faint rustle and snap of clothing.

“Come here, Burt, and help me with this damn hook.”

“No, Joss,” he said, opening the door. “I don’t think we will.”

He was groping his way down the steps when he heard her voice behind him. “Burt, where are you going?”

“Good night, Joss.”

The door slammed, hard, and Burt smiled to himself. Joss would have only a vague recollection tomorrow, just enough to look at him uneasily and wonder exactly what she’d said and done. Maybe she’d eliminate him as a candidate for husband number seven or eight, whichever it was.

His head felt light. Not so straight yourself, March. Better take a walk, sober up, avoid tomorrow’s hangover. He left the path and walked between cabins three and four to the beach. He walked on the sand and let the spray blow in his face. The surf thundered; the fumaroles moaned. He decided to put on his trunks and take a swim. As he passed cabin two, he saw the yellow glow of lamplight in the window. Strange woman, up late and alone...

There was a warning as he opened his cabin door — perhaps a pressure in the air, a smell, or a mental message. Someone else was in the room. He whirled, wasting a precious second in reaching for his absent shoulder holster. Something struck his right shoulder so hard it numbed his arm and sent pain shooting to his fingertips. Burt had no idea who his attacker might be; he didn’t even think about it. Here was hostility, and questions would have to wait. He swung his fist at a shadowy bulk and struck a glancing blow somewhere high on the face. There was a sound strangely like a laugh. Could it be? Burt saw the pale blob of a face, and a vivid whiteness where the mouth should be. Lord, he was smiling, white teeth flashing. Burt swung again, discovered too late that he’d put his weight on his bad leg. Fool... too much booze. He missed, staggered forward, and clutched at the other man. The man moved back, quick as a cat, and Burt realized he was going to fall. He didn’t feel himself hit the floor; something struck the back of his neck and all the light went out of his mind.