My Gal Sunday (15 page)

“You were on board the
Columbia
that night?” Marvin exclaimed.

“Yes. I had been in the employ of the family not quite two years. Mr. Henry Parker Britland the Third was kind enough to find me attentive to the small matters that make for gracious service and always took me on the yacht for special events like that weekend. The president was still just a boy, but I remember he was terribly distressed about the prime minister’s disappearance. Naturally. Indeed, he was quite ill for the next several days. He had tried in his enthusiastically youthful way to determine just what
had
happened, but his father ordered the subject closed.”

Sims’s reflective look vanished and he allowed himself a contained smile at the sight of Henry and Sunday descending to the launch. “I am so pleased that the stone crabs are close to perfection,” he told Klein. “The president will be delighted, I know.”

“I’m sure he will,” Marvin agreed. “But just one question, Sims. You say the subject of the prime minister’s disappearance was closed. But there must have been a big investigation?”

“There was indeed, especially in view of the fact that the prime minister’s body was never found. But what could anyone say? All possible security measures had been taken. As you will see, the largest suite is a half landing above the others and has a private deck. Mr. Britland had given it to the prime minister that weekend. The minister’s bodyguards were stationed at the foot of the staircase leading up to the suite. Naturally the yacht had been thoroughly searched before sailing, and everyone on board, from the crew to the personal staff, was above suspicion. The prime minister had four of his personal security guards with him as well.”

“And his wife was there?”

“Yes. They were newlyweds at the time, and he never traveled without her.”

“From what I understand, she became one tough cookie,” Klein observed.

“Quite. She succeeded Garcia del Rio in office. Mr. Henry Parker Britland the Third never expected her to hold onto the position, but she skillfully played on the love the common people had for her late husband and eventually became entrenched. She managed to deflect much of the opposition, saying that her husband’s enemies had driven him to his death. Now, of course, she is a virtual dictator.”

Marvin Klein looked thoughtful. “I met her seven years ago, when President Britland had a meeting of the Central American nations. She’d just turned fifty then and was still a beauty. President Britland referred to her as ‘Madame Castro.’ But he would always add that if her husband hadn’t died, her life would have been totally different.”

Sims sighed. “Which, of course, is one of the reasons President Britland has always blamed himself. I am sure he feels that if he had accompanied the prime minister on deck that night, he might somehow have been able to prevent his death.”

“I understand the prime minister had a recurring dream that he would be assassinated.”

“Very Lincolnesque, wasn’t it?” Sims commented. "And perhaps he anticipated his enemies by taking his own life, as the president believes. Who knows? Now, if you will excuse me, Mr. Klein, I must see to my duties. The launch bearing President and Mrs. Britland is nearing the dock.”

Congor Reuthers checked into the Boca Raton Hotel, looking for all the world like a seasoned golfer out for a holiday. His light blue linen jacket hung casually over impeccably cut white jeans. A golf bag with a sufficiently used appearance was propped against his Boyd two-suiter. As a finishing touch, he had a leather camera case slung over his shoulder, but in place of a camera, it held a state-of-the-art, ultrapowerful cellular phone.

The golf bag and the handsome clubs were real but in Reuthers’s hands were mere props for his pose as tourist. The clubs, in fact, had once been the property of a Costa Barria industrialist who had made the mistake of publicly criticizing Madame del Rio, and had been left behind with virtually all his other worldly possessions when he made his escape from the island.

Reuthers realized suddenly that the clerk was speaking to him. What was the fellow blathering about? he asked himself irritably. Something about golf.

“Yes, yes,” he said quickly. “I’m looking forward to a few innings of golf. Love the game, you know.”

Unaware of his gaffe, he turned imperiously and followed the bellman to the suite from which he intended to direct his mandated operation, the search of the
Columbia.

At four o’clock the phone rang.

The caller was Lenny Wallace, also known as Len Pagan, but whose real name was Lorenzo Esperanza, the mole Reuthers had managed to place on the crew of the
Columbia.

With satisfaction, Reuthers called to mind the man’s baby face, complete with angelic smile, fuzz on the upper lip, freckles across the bridge of the nose, and big ears. Len resembled nothing so much as a young Mickey Rooney as he had looked in his long-ago movie role as Andy Hardy.

In truth, he was a cold-blooded killer.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Len drawled.

Reuthers bit his lip, reminding himself that this insolent hatchet man was a special favorite of Prime Minister Angelica del Rio. Then he reminded himself that she always could be counted upon to punish failure. “Why ever not?” he snapped.

“Because President Britland’s wife is nosy, always snooping around. And also she is asking a lot of questions about that night.”

Reuthers felt his palms begin to sweat. “Like what?”

“I pretended to be polishing something in the dining room when she and Britland were there. I overheard them talking about the dinner with del Rio; she was asking him where everyone sat.”

“He was only twelve years old at the time,” Reuthers protested. “What could he possibly remember that would make a difference to us now?”

“She said something like she’d never heard him, I mean her husband, talk so much about having been tired. She said something like, ‘You were
tired,
the prime minister was
tired,
your father was
tired.
What did you people have for dessert that night, Valium?’”

Reuthers closed his eyes, ignoring the splendid sight of the sun beginning its majestic descent. His worst nightmare had just come true. They were getting too close for comfort. “You’ve got to find those papers,” he ordered.

“Look, the place is swarming with Secret Service. I’ll get one chance and one chance only, so your information had better be fight. You’re sure you hid the papers in Stateroom A?”

“You insolent thug, of
course
I’m sure,” Reuthers snapped.

The memory of that night made him shiver. After he had gone through the prime minister’s jacket, he had realized that the envelope was gone.
I knew the boy was the last one to talk to him. I knew he must have slipped the envelope to him. I had to find his stateroom in the pitch dark. The kid was in Stateroom A. With my lousy sense of direction, I opened the wrong door. Suppose someone had been in Stateroom B.

Reuthers still got cold sweats remembering how he had tiptoed into the boy’s cabin, praying that the steward wouldn’t come back, find the corridor light out, and investigate. Then, armed with a pencil-beam flashlight, he had made his way to the desk and picked up del Rio’s envelope. By a stroke of luck he happened to glance at the open journal. Realizing what it contained as he read it, he tore the last entry from the binder.

But then he had heard the handle of the door turning and the boy began to stir. Quickly he had hidden in the closet. Feeling trapped, he had searched in the dark for any possible way out. Instead, he found a hole cut in the wall. Fearing that he might be discovered and searched, he had shoved the journal pages and del Rio’s envelope into the opening.

From inside the closet he had listened as someone came in, walked over to the bed, then turned and left. When he went to retrieve the papers, however, he couldn’t reach them. For nearly an hour he had struggled to get his hand down, feeling his fingers on the tip of the envelope and not able to grasp it. Then, on cue, Madame del Rio sounded the alarm.
I barely got out of the room before the kid woke up,
he remembered.
She shrieked like a banshee.
He learned that the next day safes were installed in all the staterooms. That was why the hole had been prepared in the closet wall.

“This is gonna be a tough one,” Len was saying. “ Britland’s Secret Service guys are smart. Eyes in the back of the head, that kind of thing. The top one already yelled at me for going into the dining room when the Britlands were there.”

“That is not my concern!” Reuthers snapped. “Let me put it this way. If you can retrieve those papers safely and get away, you’ll enjoy the grateful thanks of a powerful boss. If you mess this up, your aging mother and her eight sisters will be dispatched to the hereafter.”

Len’s voice became pleading. “I love my Mama and my aunties.”

“Then I would suggest you get those papers back, no matter
what
you have to do. Do you understand? That hole was in the wall because a safe was being installed the next day. The scheduled renovation may expose them. Break through the paneling at the rear of the closet of Stateroom A.
They’re in there!
I don’t care how you do it, just do it, and don’t make any mistakes.”

“Henry, when you told your father about the missing papers, what did he
do?
” Sunday asked as she sipped champagne in the glassed-in salon of the
Columbia.
A semicircular room at the back of the ship, the salon seated about ten people comfortably, and as Henry had explained, it was a location preferred by many dignitaries for conversation, reading, or simply observing the horizon.

“I’m afraid that with the calamity of the prime minister’s disappearance, Father was not too impressed by my tale of missing papers. The prime minister had a habit of doodling on dinner menus or printed speeches, and I know Father thought that possibly he had passed something of the sort to me as a joke.”

“What about your journal entry?”

“He told me to rewrite it when I felt better. I had awakened with a headache, some sort of bug, I assume, and of course all hell was breaking loose. Helicopters were swarming around looking for any sign of the body. Boats, Navy divers, you name it.”

“Do you believe that del Rio gave you some sort of doodle in that envelope?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Was a search made for your missing papers?”

“In fairness to Father, yes, there was. At his instructions, Sims personally went through my stateroom to be sure I hadn’t been mistaken about leaving the envelope with the journal on the desk. But he found nothing.”

“And of course since you’d written in a loose-leaf binder, it wasn’t as though you could show pages had been
ripped
from your journal.”

“Exactly.” He paused and looked at his wife, his affection for her obvious in his eyes. He smiled, then said, “Incidentally, if your constituents could see you now, they’d never vote for you. You look about twelve years old.”

Sunday was wearing a long, wraparound flowered skirt, a sleeveless white tee shirt, and sandals. She raised an eyebrow. “At this moment I may not look like a member of Congress,” she said with dignity, “but for your information all these questions are not caused by idle, childish curiosity, or even, darling, because I know how troubled you are about that night. I feel exactly the same as you do about Madame del Rio. I’d like to see Costa Barria have a crack at a fair, nonoppressive government. But it would take a lot to get the people so riled up that they would take action against her, and unless something dramatic happens, she’s going to breeze through that election. It’s as good as fixed.”

“Yes, she is.”

“And it maddens me to think that one of Garcia del Rio’s group may have stolen his suicide note, if that’s what it was, from your room while you slept. There’s no way of knowing, but it
could
have made a difference.”

“It maddens me even more to think that I might have saved the prime minister’s life if I had strolled the deck with him. That’s really why I bought the
Columbia.
Except for that incident it has such a great and distinguished history. I want to remove the taint somehow.”

Sims quietly entered the room carrying a tray of cheese puffs. He offered it to Sunday. As she accepted one, she said to him, “Sims, you were on this yacht before?”

“Yes, madam.”

“How does it look to you?”

Sims’s forehead crinkled. “Very well kept indeed, madam, but if I may observe, it is rather shocking that absolutely nothing has changed. By that I mean the wall coverings, the bedding, the upholstery, the draperies. During the thirty-two years the
Columbia
was in the possession of Mr. Hodgins Weatherby, he clearly treated it rather as a shrine.”

Henry chuckled. “I can explain that: Weatherby was no sailor. In fact, the sight of a lapping wave was torture to him. He paid a fortune to dredge the harbor so he could walk aboard from the dock, and other than maintenance people, no one was allowed aboard except him and his psychic. He’d always sit here” — Henry patted the arm of the chair in which he was seated, then pointed to the one where Sunday was perched — “and the psychic, there.

“I didn’t tell you, darling, but you’re in Sir Winston Churchill’s seat. From what Father told me, when FDR borrowed the yacht from my father to take Churchill for a sail, he made a beeline for that seat. Through the psychic, old Weatherby claimed to have held conversations with the prime minister, as well as with FDR, de Gaulle, and Eisenhower, to name but a few. I understand, however, that he wouldn’t exchange a word with Stalin.”