The Intimidators (21 page)

I said to Haseltine: “I took a course in stealing cars once, in the line of duty. I hope boat ignition-switches work the same way. If anybody gets nosy, tell them you’re Cap’n Hattie’s best friend, or deck them, whichever seems more promising.”

Stepping down into the boat, I got the cover off the console, revealing an impressive amount of instrumentation. As I’d feared, the keys were missing. I studied the situation briefly. A teak hatch in the console let me get my head under the dashboard. The wiring wasn’t complicated. Even an incompetent thief like me could figure it out. I extricated myself briefly, lowered the big motors by means of the machinery provided, and set the manual chokes rather than try to figure out the remote-control switches on the console, thanking the luck that had let me get fairly well acquainted with a motor very similar to these not long ago.

Some tools and wire from Harriet’s handy toolbox, and a little concentration, soon had the ignition switches bypassed. A length of wire from one of the batteries in the stern was put into action; and in a moment the two big motors were rumbling and spitting, shaking the fiber-glass hull.

“Cast off,” I said to Haseltine. “Fast. Here comes trouble.”

He dropped the docklines into the boat and jumped down after them. I threw the motors in gear, as the dockmaster came running toward us, shouting something. The boat began to move. I waved at the running man in a friendly fashion, and fed more gas to the big outboards. Then we were heading out the slot between the breakwaters; and the dockmaster had stopped running and stood looking after us irresolutely. I gave him another brotherly wave.

“Get back there and set those chokes in running position before the mills flood out on us, will you?” I said to Haseltine. He disappeared behind me; and the ragged sound of the motors became smooth and even. I said, “Okay, that’s fine. Now let’s see what our girl friend’s got here. Hang on, I’m firing stage one.”

In spite of the warning, Haseltine, returning to the console, almost got left behind as I eased the throttles forward. He had to grab the back of the starboard seat to catch himself, fighting the thrust as the big boat lifted onto plane and started to go. I waited until he was safe in the chair, and shoved the levers clear to the stops. If there were any tricks to running Harriet’s souped-up escape vessel at full throttle, I’d better learn them here in sheltered water, rather than waiting until we were out in the open Atlantic. The resulting noise was impressive, and the blast of air was fierce, but there seemed to be no serious control problems.

“Jesus!” Haseltine yelled over the racket “What the hell kind of a Q-ship is this, anyway?”

“Fifty knots, the lady said. I guess she wasn’t lying.” I put my mouth close to his ear without taking my attention off the water ahead. “Oh, I forgot to ask. Is it against your tribal principles to be shot at, you quarter-ass Kiowa?”

He grinned, his big teeth white in his brown face. “Go to hell,” he shouted, “you dumb Svenska squarehead. Watch the tide under the bridge now—”

We’d come roaring around the end of Key Vaca, named, I’d been told, after the sea cow or manatee. The long bridge of the Overseas Highway to Key West was ahead. I aimed the bow at one of the arches. Some workmen painting a railing stopped to stare at the three-thousand-pound projectile hurtling toward them. There was a clap of sound as the exhausts bounced back at us from the arch, and a funny little shimmy as the tidal currents tried to throw us off course and failed. Then we were out of the Gulf of Mexico. The broad Atlantic was ahead, and the spidery framework of Sombrero Light, with which I’d become acquainted on a previous visit to the area in more pleasant company, now dead, but that was nothing to think about now....

The big twin outboards ate up the five miles to the lighthouse in spectacular fashion. Beyond, the water soon turned from light to dark blue. It’s never really smooth out in the Gulf Stream; and at this speed, it was like driving a car with four flat tires down a street full of potholes. We were both standing, to take the shocks with our legs. Haseltine, clinging to the windshield railing with one hand, poked me with the other and jerked his thumb upwards.

I glanced up to see a helicopter hanging over us. When they saw me looking, they pulled ahead, slightly off to starboard. I swung that way, and read the course off the compass: 193°, a little west of south. The lighthouse was rapidly getting smaller astern. There was nothing ahead at first, just the blue, sunlit waters of the Stream. After about half an hour, however, I became aware of a recurrent little flash of spray dead ahead, like a breaking wave in the distance, only the waves weren’t breaking today.

Gradually, the fleeing boat became clearly visible. After a while, I could even make out the wildly blowing long dark hair of the steersman. When we were within half a mile, I pulled back on the throttles until we were just holding our own; this cut the decibels from behind to where communication was possible after a fashion.

I said, “We need that man alive. Never mind the details, but he figures in a deal I think you’ll approve. You take the wheel. Give me a little time to get ready; then pull on past and cut across his bow. Give yourself room enough so you can swing clear around and put her alongside just as he hits our wake. If he’s got a gun, as he probably does, that ought to throw his aim off, we hope. Come along the starboard side where he’s sitting. When I yell, sheer off and give her the gun. Now take over....”

I slid from behind the wheel as he took it and, bracing myself in the boat, studied the tools available, but I’d already made my plan, such as it was. Boarding Morgan’s boat to take him barehanded might be dramatic, but it was kind of silly. I’d already charged a gun once in the course of this operation; twice would be straining my luck. I got the big flying gaff from the rack to port.

Freshwater fishermen use a net, as a rule, to bring their fish aboard; and for some reason, salmon fishermen seem to pride themselves on also netting their trophies unmarred, even in salt water; but just about every other ocean angler after fish of any size employs a gaff: a big, sharp, metal hook with a long handle. The difference between a fixed gaff and a flying gaff is that on the latter, the gaff hook has an eye and a sturdy rope, and the handle can be removed, in the heat of action, after the hook goes home. This is for truly big fish, the kind you don’t just casually lift aboard, but hoist over the side with a block and tackle.

Harriet’s flying gaff was a wicked-looking implement with a handle almost eight feet long. It was equipped with a stout new line, which I coiled after making the end fast to a cleat near the boat’s transom.

“Company,” Haseltine’s voice said, sounding quite calm about it. “Dead ahead. Coming fast. I’d judge their intentions are hostile.”

I looked up. Still a couple of miles off was a big white sportfisherman heading straight for us. Even at the distance, I could see that she was throwing a bow wave like a destroyer. I laid the gaff carefully on the floor—excuse me, cockpit sole—and steadied myself against the console.

“Okay, let’s take him before they get here,” I said.

The oversized outboards aft began to scream once more. Haseltine, for a man with Plains Indian blood in his veins, was a surprisingly good helmsman, better than I was in spite of my seagoing Viking ancestry. So much for heredity. I clung to the windshield handrail and watched him ease up on the smaller craft skillfully. Morgan had, oí course, spotted us by now; he kept looking back, long hair blowing, and hammering at his single throttle in a futile, angry, frustrated sort of way. We passed about fifty yards to his port, and he produced the expected pistol and took a couple of wild shots at us, which we could afford to ignore at that range, the way both boats were bouncing.

Well ahead, Haseltine swung the wheel hard right, cutting across the smaller boat’s bow and coming clear around to the same course once more. His timing was beautiful. Jockeying wheel and throttles nicely, he laid us right alongside just as both boats smacked hard into the big wake we’d laid across Morgan’s path.

The big man was just rising to take aim when we hit; I could see his tough, craggy face intent behind the pistol, contrasting oddly with the long, girlish hair. Then his boat lurched, throwing him off balance. Well, he’d already had the two shots I’d promised Renee Schneider I’d allow him. I swung the eight-foot gaff between the boats and socked it into his shoulder. I twisted and jerked to get the handle free.

“Now!” I yelled.

Haseltine swung the wheel and hit the throttles. The boats separated. The rope came tight; the big steel meat hook took the strain; and Morgan screamed as he was yanked bodily out of his craft into the sea.

I was asleep, dreaming of an open boat far offshore, with no land in sight, being pursued by a much larger sportfishing vessel that was not, I knew, controlled by sportsmen or engaged in fishing. One of the three men on board the smaller boat was unconscious, soaking wet and, unlikely though it might seem, bleeding profusely from a steel hook in the shoulder. In my dream I was kneeling beside him trying to remove the gaff and plug the hole, at least temporarily. The man at the boat’s helm was whistling an off-key tune, glancing back every now and then at the vessel astern.

“Let me know when I can open her up,” this one said.

“I just don’t want the bastard to bleed to death,” I said, in my dream.

“That’s what I like about you, Helm,” he said, “your tender, humanitarian impulses.”

“How are they doing back there?”

“Not to worry,
amigo
. That thing’s fifty feet long. Nobody’s going to drive a hull that big much over twenty-five knots, not with any normal civilian powerplants, they aren’t. We can play with her all day; but your chopper friends are getting nervous up ahead. I think they want to take the package off our hands, but we’ll need a little time and space to make the transfer.”

I said, “Okay, I’ve got him patched up, more or less, jilt loose your Texas wolf....”

As Haseltine shoved the throttles forward, in my dream, there was a loud hammering sound like, maybe, an overstrained powerplant tearing itself apart. Then the dream faded. I sat up groggily in my bed in my now fairly familiar resort cabin, remembering that nothing had happened to the motors. The pursuing boat had turned away when it became obvious that we could outrun it easily. There had been a tricky helicopter bit like in the movies, with a sling lowered from a winch, and Morgan, still unconscious—I’d had to rap him over the head with the billy club Harriet kept handy for subduing big fish—had disappeared skyward, to be repaired and maintained somewhere in breathing condition, we hoped, until needed. The loud knock on the cabin door came again.

“Mr. Helm?”

I found my snubnosed revolver and dropped it into my pants pocket. With my hand on it, I crossed the room and opened the door. A small, tanned boy in ragged shorts and sneakers stood there, holding out an envelope.

“Helm, Cabin Twenty-six?” he said. “For you?”

I took the envelope and gave him a quarter and closed the door. It was a cheap, small envelope, probably saturated with contact poison and crammed full of tarantulas eager to insert their lethal weapons in human flesh. I opened it anyway. Inside was a small visiting card. On the front was a name:
Paul Martin Manderfield.
On the back, neatly written in ink, were two words:
Salty Dog.

I frowned at the card, thoughtfully. I’d expected some kind of summons or invitation, of course—that was the whole point of the exercise—but I’d kind of assumed it would be delivered by Harriet. This was better, I decided. We were getting the children and amateurs off the street. Pros were dealing with pros now; and the other party to the negotiations, whoever he might be, was making this clear to me. Good for him.

I looked at my watch. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. I was glad I’d taken the opportunity to lie down on the bed and grab a little sleep after cleaning and refueling the boat and making up some suitable lies for the dockmaster. There might be a busy night ahead. Haseltine should have his chartered express cruiser here soon, if he hadn’t put her on the mud or ripped her open on a coral head; and he probably hadn’t. Although I still objected to the guy in principle, I had to admit that he seemed to be a pretty competent seaman, which was what counted here. I could always find some congenial landlubber to pal around with afterwards.

My pretty girl friend was at the desk in the office when I came in. “Yes, Mr. Helm?” she said.

“Is there by any chance a place around here called Salty Dog?” I asked.

“Why, yes,” she said. “About five miles east, at the other end of the island. The Salty Dog Lodge, Bar, and Restaurant.”

“Any good?”

“Well,” she said judiciously, “they won’t poison you, but you can get better food and liquor right here, or maybe I’m prejudiced.”

I said, “With a name like that, I’d better go take a look at the joint, just the same. Salty Dog, for God’s sake.”

Back in the rental car, I examined the visiting card again. Unlike the inexpensive envelope in which it had come, it was very high class, engraved yet. The name, Manderfield, meant nothing to me. I suppose I could have used the telephone to find out if it meant something to somebody else, but I was getting a bit tired of the elaborate organizational stuff. Helicopters, for God’s sake; and when the chips were really down, you still had to do the job with a simple steel hook and a length of rope while the fancy goddamn whirlybird fluttered around the sky like a helpless sparrow....

The Salty Dog Lodge had its main facilities right on the busy highway. Parking nearby, I got a glimpse of rows of cabins behind the headquarters building, running down to a small marina installation on the water. The restaurant was dark after the bright sunshine outside. The bar was in the far left corner. I could just make out a lone male customer talking to the barman. I moved that way, parked myself on a stool, and waited for somebody to notice me. After a while, the bartender moved my way.