The Killer Touch

Seven

The afternoon sizzled by like a slow fuse. Rolf said something about fouled plugs and began dissecting the innards of his cruiser, managing to get romantically grease-stained in the process. Burt had the chilling thought that he was deliberately putting his boat out of action. Joss sat in a wicker armchair at the corner of the club, scanning the sea through her ancient tripod-telescope.

“O’Ryan should be here if he’s coming,” she told Burt.

“Does he come when it’s rough?”

“Never has, but he might.”

Bunny came out into the open without her dark glasses, wearing a halter and short-shorts which lacked a couple of inches of doing the job they were meant to do. She paced the beach like a caged tigress for a half-hour, went for a swim in the lagoon, then emerged to lie on her stomach in the sand. She unfastened her halter strap to leave her back bare. Burt could see two inches of milk-white flesh between the top of her shorts and the faint pinkness of her back. There was an engaging dimple on each side of her lower spine.

Burt wasn’t the only one who noticed: Ace sat on the steps of the club flicking bits of coral at the sand crabs who scuttled sideways across the sand. He wasn’t watching the crabs; he was watching Bunny through lowered bushy brows, like a fullback about to charge the line. Hoke had taken his place on the tower with the gun across his knees.

Joss left her telescope and walked behind the bar; she stood there glaring in Bunny’s direction and sneaking quick gulps of rum. Boris stood beside her, pretending not to notice.

Burt tasted the bile of frustration in his throat. What can you do? he wondered. We’re prisoners, but does Joss know it, or Boris and the boys? One of them might make a false step and trigger the violence. Well, he thought, you can’t hold them all in the palm of your hand. Best you can do is quarantine them.

He went to Joss and persuaded her that she was tired and sleepy, then he walked her up to her house and left her stretched out on the bed with her glass beside her. He took Coco and Godfrey to the south shore of the island and asked if they’d noticed anything odd about the three new arrivals.

“Big men,” said Godfrey.

“They don’t wish to fish,” said Coco.

“They’re gunmen,” said Burt. “Professional killers. You boys stay clear of them, hear?”

They nodded gravely.

“We may have to leave the island in a hurry. You boys go around and gather up all the dry wood you can find. Carry the little stuff up the hill in case we need a signal fire. The big stuff you can put right here. When the sea goes down, well build a raft.”

The two deployed up the slope, scanning the ground, and Burt went to find Jata. She lived in a black shingle structure not more than eight feet square, hidden beneath a dark, brooding manchineel tree. He knocked and announced himself. A bolt slid back, a chain rattled, and Jata’s glittering eye appeared at a crack in the door. “Sir, I don’t come out ’til bad men leave.”

“You’re on the stick, Jata. Where’s Maudie?”

“She sneakin’ round. You see her, tell her come home. I lock her in tonight.”

Burt searched the island and tried to look like a nature lover taking a casual walk. His leg ached miserably. Each time he emerged from beneath the trees, he was aware of Hoke watching him from the tower. The longer he walked the more uneasy he became. Mother hen March, he thought wryly; one of your chicks is missing.

He paused to look at cabin four. Could she be in there with Charlie? Surely not of her own free will, in which case she’d be making some noise. The cabin was silent behind the curtained windows. Burt thought of the moan, and of the missing fourth man of the party—

“Sir, you wish to go in?”

Burt whirled and glimpsed the white flash of Maudie’s T-shirt inside a clump of bamboo. He looked up and saw that the palm’ trees which lined the path screened the cabin from the watchtower. He stepped back and watched her crawl from the bamboo.

“You hide well for a big girl,” said Burt when she squatted beside him. “What have you been doing?”

“I watch the people pass in the path. You wish to enter one of the cabins? I watch for you.”

“No, I was just wondering why one man stays in the cabin all the time.”

“I know.”

“Why?”

She was gone before he could stop her, then it was too late to call her back without warning the man inside. With frozen nerves he watched her climb the ladder outside the bathroom, her white cotton skirt riding high on her heavy brown thighs. Why had he assumed a sixteen-year-old girl would be clumsy? It was not true in Maudie’s case. She moved with the silent efficiency of a burglar, lifting the cover off the water barrel, plunging her hand inside, and drawing out a dripping metal case slightly larger than a cigar box. She replaced the wooden cover on the barrel, climbed down the ladder, and ran across the path. Burt drew her behind the bamboo and took the box. It was surprisingly heavy, with only a hair-line crease revealing where the lid joined the box proper. A combination lock held it shut. It seemed to be made of hard carbon steel; he’d have trouble getting it open even with a cutting torch.

“Who hid it?” he asked.

“Big man who shoot the frigate bird. I see him up on top and ask myself, what he hiding in the water? Later I go see.”

Burt shook the box, but it gave no sound. If it held money, it would take huge bills to total the fortune Rolf had mentioned. He doubted that they’d risk putting currency in water. No doubt it would be jewels, perhaps diamonds...

“See if you can put it back,” he told Maudie. “No, wait—”

He’d heard the screen door slam on the cabin. Through the screening bamboo he watched a man walk around the corner of the cabin, yawning and hitching his suspenders over the harness of a shoulder holster. The coarse brutal cast of his features duplicated those of Hoke, except that his head was topped by a coarse curly mop of brick-red hair. He stood at the foot of the ladder and looked up. Burt held his breath, then released it slowly as the man walked on around the corner. Burt waited for the sound of the screen door. When it didn’t come, he told Maudie to see what he was doing.

She left, moving with a silence possible only for one who had spent all her life on the island. She returned a moment later and whispered: “He stand in front smoking.”

Burt cursed silently under his breath.

“You wish to hide the box? I know a place they never find.”

Burt frowned. There’d be trouble when they found it missing, but maybe that’s what he needed. Make something happen, end the suspense, sow discord among the thieves. If one group thought that another group had stolen the loot, and if Burt could keep his own people out of the way...

“Let’s go,” he told Maudie.

She led him over the low ridge between the cistern and the fumaroles, moving with a speed he found difficult to match with his leg hurting and the box under one arm. Beyond the cistern, she dropped to her hands and knees and started down a green tunnel in the tall, thick grass just barely large enough to sneak through. “Goutis make these path,” she said over her shoulder. Burt crawled after the bobbing rump with the white skirt drawn tight over it. He was streaming sweat when they emerged on a steep rocky beach. A grove of stunted guava trees hid them from the man in the tower. Ahead of him Maudie moved along a low cliff, leaping from rock to rock with the agility of a mountain goat. Burt followed, planting his feet carefully on the slippery rocks. He saw her disappear through a crack in a cliff; he squeezed through behind her and found himself in a dark, narrow tunnel. Black water swished around his shoes; ahead, the tunnel disappeared into blackness.

“Now we mus’ get wet,” she said. She seized his hand, and in total innocence raised her dress to her waist and waded in. He felt the lukewarm water climb to his knees, then to his thighs. Her hand pulled him gently upward; his feet found holes in the rock and he climbed until her hand was withdrawn from his. Burt stood on level ground and sniffed musty air. A match flared, and a kerosene lamp sent probing yellow fingers against the gleaming walls of a tiny cave.

“I come here when Maman shout at me,” she said. “Only you know now, and me.”

Her eyes shone in the yellow light. Burt saw two garish, spangled dresses hanging from a jut of rock; below them lay a foam-rubber mattress and a thick woven blanket stenciled with the words: S.S. Carlotta, New York City. On a wooden box sat a ceramic ash tray labeled: The Mermaid, Charlotte Amalie, St. Croix. Beside the box were four pairs of women’s shoes, a spun-glass fishing rod, and an empty Haig-and-Haig pinch bottle. On top was a cigar box full of cheap bracelets and earrings, a half-dozen tubes of lipstick, a totally unnecessary home permanent outfit and, oddest of all, a squeeze-bottle of shaving cream. He felt like laughing; she was like a bower bird, lining her secret nest with glittering objects and understanding none of them.

“Now I understand why you learned to move so quietly,” he said.

Her eyes grew round. “You don’t tell Miss Joss? I take only what people leave about.”

Burt picked up a platinum wedding band and read the engraving: All my love, J.S. “I’ll bet there’s been some hell raised,” he said. “But I won’t tell.”

He tossed the ring back and turned to her. “Now listen, Maudie. I’m going to hide this box near here, but I won’t say where. If anybody asks you, you can say truthfully you don’t know anything about it. Okay? The men who lost it aren’t like the others who come here, they’ll kill you to get it. Understand?”

She nodded, her eyes wide.

“Okay, now go home. If there’s trouble, shooting, you can come back here. Otherwise don’t come near the place. Go.”

After she’d gone, Burt gouged a loose stone from the wall of the cave, wedged the box inside, then jammed the rock back in place. It was sunset when he stepped onto the pebble beach. Nature seemed to be making a gesture of defiance after a bleak, gray day. The clouds on the horizon opened like a parting curtain and revealed the sun floating like a huge golden pumpkin on the sea. Streamers of rose-purple light arched overhead and draped the entire island in a glowing net. Burt had a brief stirring insight: all human activities were like the rustling of mice in a magnificent mansion; a man’s hunger for diamonds was only a futile effort to capture and hold a fragment of the sun. He felt a brief urge to jump in the sea and swim away, leaving all these people to their own sick objectives.

The urge returned as he reached the path and saw Godfrey running toward him on his bandy legs. He felt a creeping fatigue; he knew he was about to be entangled in a net of other people’s problems.

“Sir, you remember the guitar strings you give me?”

“Yes. Why’d you stop gathering wood?”

“Everybody wanting to eat, sir. Boris ask Coco and me to help.”

Burt felt anger pinch his nostrils; how did you convince these people that there was danger?

“Well, what about your guitar strings?”

“I hang them behind the bar, now they are gone.”

“Did you tell Joss?”

He nodded. “She say tell you. She sick in bed.”

Lord, now I’ve become the island’s labor counselor. “I’ll try to find them later. Now get Coco and get back to gathering wood. Stay away from the club, you hear?”

The boy nodded and shuffled away.

Burt stopped by and looked in on Joss; she was propped up in bed, looking as though she felt every one of her years. She said she’d just been down to the club and wasn’t going back. “It’s the weather, Burt, my nerves are shot. That woman’s down there throwing it around, and there’s nothing but hard looks going back and forth. I’ve had enough nightclub experience to know there’s trouble coming. Well, let them tear up the joint, let them kill each other off with those guns they carry. I couldn’t care less.”

At the club, Burt found Rolf and Bunny seated at one table. Nearby sat Ace Smith and the red-haired man, both looking totally ludicrous in neckties, starched white shirts, and business suits.

“Get your boat running?” asked Burt as he passed Rolf’s table.

Rolf nodded curtly and looked down at his right hand. It lay on the table top, clenching and unclenching.

Ace called out with false joviality. “Hey, bird lover. Have a drink with us?”

“No, thanks,” said Burt, stopping beside the table. “You two are a little overdressed for a tropical island.”

“Habit,” said Ace. “We’re used to eating with chicks.”

Yeah, thought Burt, noting that the suits were heavily padded and thick in the chest. They’d left their big guns in the cabin, but they wouldn’t go out unarmed. Those suits undoubtedly concealed the small artillery.

Burt chose a table nearest the bar and sat down to assess the scene. Boris was carrying drinks, his massive dignity unimpaired by the red-headed man’s playful belligerence. He kept shouting for drinks, making the kind of noise a man makes when he’s afraid of silence. Ace drank quietly, his small dark eyes roving somewhere in the area between Bunny’s collarbone and the bodice of her peasant blouse. Rolf seemed preoccupied, unaware that Bunny was meeting Ace’s eyes from time to time, and that little electric messages were crackling between them.

The explosion came with the serving of dinner. The red-haired man demanded food; Boris came out and set a plate of canned beef and crackers in front of him.

“What the hell is this, horse meat?”

“No, sir. Bully beef, sir.”

“Take it back and get me a steak.”

“I’m sorry. There is nothing else.”

“Don’t tell me we’re paying ten bucks a day for this!”

Boris stood like a soldier at attention, his black face frozen in stoicism.

“You hear me? Is this what we get for ten bucks?” The man was shouting, his face as red as his hair.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, take it!” He threw the plate at Boris, who moved just enough to allow the plate to sail past and land harmlessly on the sand outside. The blob of bully beef, however, struck him on the right side of the face. He stood for an instant without moving while the greasy red meat slid down his cheek and became trapped in his goatee. Then he turned and strode behind the bar. Burt heard the sound of sliding metal; he peered over the bar to see Boris draw out a curved, three-foot cutlass. Burt felt the hair prickle on the back of his neck.

“That’s no good, Boris. He’s got a gun.”

Boris looked at Burt, his smeared face wrinkled up as though he were about to cry.

“I kill him, sir. Got to kill him.”

“Wait a minute.”

As Butt walked toward the redhead’s table, he warned himself to keep cool. But he’d been under pressure too long. The anger boiling inside him had to find an escape. He stood beside the redhead’s chair and spoke with tense contempt.

“On your feet, carrot-head. The bartender’s waiting for your apology.”

The man looked up in surprise. “The hell he is. Well, the day you see Charlie Tate apologize to a goddamn spade, you can—”

Burts actions went suddenly out of his control. His foot kicked out and struck the leg of the other’s chair. The big man sprawled backward, his mouth wide with surprise. He landed flat on his back and started clawing at his lapel. It seemed to happen in slow motion; Burt was rocking forward on his feet, preparing to launch a kick at the other’s wrist, when he heard a faint swish of air beside his head. The fallen man’s features convulsed suddenly, then flowed loose like a bowl of mush. His coat fell back and Burt saw a spreading wetness on the starched white shirt. In the center of the stain, like a pin stuck in the heart of a red, red rose, was a knife buried to the hilt.

Burt turned and saw Rolf zipping up his jacket.

“I should’ve searched you for a knife,” said Burt.

“I told you I didn’t like guns.” Rolf’s eyes held a reptilian glitter; his lips were pulled back from his white teeth. Bunny was staring down at the man, breathing so hard that her bosom swelled above her blouse like a pair of inflated balloons. Ace sat in his chair with his eyes narrowed to slits. No expression crossed the mask of his face, but Burt felt it would take very little to make him draw his gun. Boris leaned over the bar in a hypnotic stare. A particle of dried beef flaked off his cheek and fell to the floor. For the second time that day Burt felt he was involved in a play; soon the curtain would close, the redhead would rise and go off-stage, and they would all gather in the dressing room for a drink.

“Hell.” He turned to Rolf. “You didn’t have to kill him.”

“I know. I could have let him shoot you.”

“He wouldn’t have killed me. I was about to—”

“Kill him yourself?” asked Rolf with a smile.

“Don’t kick a dead horse,” said Burt. “We’ve been through that.” He turned to Ace, who seemed to have slumped lower in his chair. “You plan to do anything about this?”

Ace gave a shrug which had no effect on his face. He mumbled, “Charlie was hot-tempered. He shouldn’t have gone for his gun. He lost the toss and I guess he paid for it.” He gazed up at Rolf with a vague appeal in his eyes. Burt thought of a gorilla caught in a trap. “But life goes on, don’t it? What happens now?”

Rolf turned to Burt. “What happens, Burt?”

Here it was, on his back again.

“I’ll take the body to St. Vincent, turn it over to the authorities. I’ll need your boat.” He glared at Rolf, challenging him to bring his game into the open. “You’ll have to give them a statement.”

Rolf nodded. “I know the rules, Sergeant.”

“Sergeant!” Ace blinked at Rolf. “You called him. Sergeant.”

“He’s a detective in a jerkwater Florida town,” said Rolf. “No jurisdiction here, of course. But somebody has to take over in an emergency.” Rolf gazed out over the lagoon, where the Coleman lantern sent its white light across black water and picked out the plunging spray on the rocks. “We can’t go until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow early,” said Burt, still puzzled by Rolf’s cooperation. “I’ll also take Joss and the boys, and Jata and Maudie.”

Rolf raised his brows. “Evacuating the island, Burt? Declaring martial law?”

“Just getting them out of the line of fire, Rolf. Any objections?”

“No, it’s a good idea. See you in the morning.”