Thick as Thieves (7 page)

"Amigo!" Chavo called in a loud voice.

"Do you want us to die?" Frank whispered to Chavo with some exasperation.

The scarred man called out something in Spanish, and the bead curtain swirled aside. A slender man stood there, and as he neared, Frank could see he had a carefully trimmed beard and mustache, and wore a white suit. There was a red handkerchief in the pocket.

At the sight of Chavo, he raised his arms and spread them wide, with a big smile. "Chavo!

Amigo!" he shouted. Throughout the bar the frowns relaxed and men went back to their drinking. The slender man put an arm around Chavo and hugged him like a long-lost relative.

"Who is this?" Frank said.

Chavo looked at Frank as if he had forgotten he was there. "Where are my manners? Frank, this is Benito. Benito, Frank."

The man called Benito extended a hand and said, "Put 'er there, fellow American."

Frank blinked in surprise and shook his hand. "You're American?"

"Sure am," Benito said, winking at him. "Name's Benny. A Coney Island boy."

"We have no time for this," Chavo said. "Benito, we must get to the waterfront at Las Playas de Tijuana."

"See, Chavo and me, we pulled quite a few jobs together in the old days," Benito continued. "As a matter of fact, I seem to remember you owing me some money, Chavo."

"Not now, Benito — "

Benito snapped his fingers, and five men at the bar stood up. Four brought their knives, and the fifth smashed a bottle to a jagged edge against the bar. Slowly they moved toward Chavo.

"Now," Benito said, "about my money ..."

Frank jumped Benito and got behind him, wrapping an arm around the slender man's neck. "Put them down," he said to the men with the weapons. He tightened his grip on Benito. "Put them down or I'll break his neck."

Hastily Benito spoke a phrase in Spanish, and the men, their eyes dark and suspicious, turned away and returned to the bar. Chavo laughed.

"Very good, Frank," he said. "As I was saying, Benito, we need transportation."

"Give him all the money in your wallet, Chavo," Frank said.

Chavo blinked as if he didn't understand the words. Then he laughed again. "Good joke, Frank."

But Frank wasn't smiling. "Shut up, Chavo. I've just about had it with you. Now, give him all your money, or whatever you owe him, or we won't get anywhere tonight."

Chavo stared at Frank for almost a minute. Finally he sighed and took from his wallet five one-hundred-dollar bills. "We'll forget the interest?" he said to Benito with a wink.

"Sounds good to me," Benito said, and Frank released his grip on him. "What kind of transportation were you looking for?"

Ten minutes later Frank was sitting in a sidecar on a motorcycle that Chavo steered down the Las Playas road. The motorcycle was a leftover from the Second World War, but Frank found the sidecar quite comfortable. Chavo hadn't spoken to him since they left the bar. Now the scarred undercover man said, "Never do that to me again."

Frank lolled back in the sidecar, his eyes closed and his arms wrapped around himself to keep out the cool night air. "I'd like to know why everyone down here thinks you're a criminal. Sure you were telling me straight about being a Federale?"

Coldly, Chavo replied, "I built a good cover. The local police and the border guards have no need to know what I really am. Why would I lie to you?"

"I don't know," Frank said. "Maybe you're planning to rip off the Director and keep all the loot for yourself. Maybe you're setting me up to help you."

Moodily Chavo said, "Believe what you will," and didn't speak the rest of the trip.

Las Playas de Tijuana was a seaside community, less built-up and also less congested than Tijuana. It had a tranquility that masked what was happening on the fishing barge moored in the harbor. The motorcycle roared up to the gangplank, and Frank and Chavo got off.

"Who's the kid?" Brady asked Chavo as they walked out to the barge on the plank.

Brady sat at the ship end of the gangplank and greeted them with a pistol on his lap.

"Replacement," Chavo replied. "We lost some men on the navy raid. The Director had me sign this one up."

"I don't like it when plans get changed at the last minute," Brady replied as the barge got under way. "By the way, someone's waiting for you in the hold."

"I'll go down in a minute." Chavo and Frank caught their breath and watched the shore lights wink out as the barge moved away from land.

Finally they left Brady and climbed down the ladder into the ship's hold. Frank followed after Chavo and noticed that as soon as he had passed, Brady flashed a signal to Chrome Lasker, who was standing in the control tower. The barge lurched forward and began chugging out of the harbor. Brady followed Frank into the hold.

As Frank's feet hit the floor, a pair of hands grabbed him, yanking him off his feet. Everest had hold of him, and then red-haired Brady reached the floor and helped. The two of them pinned Frank against a wall.

Catching his breath, Frank saw that Chavo was similarly held. There were several crates in the hold, and two of them were pushed together at the center of the room to form a makeshift table.

At the table was Jolly.

Jolly sat next to a radio that was glowing softly and ran the blade of a knife through a candle flame. "Welcome," came the Director's voice from the radio. "Chavo, you are a disappointment to me. I trusted you. "My friends inside the government have informed me that you are a Federale. Tell me what you've told them about my plans.

"No," Chavo said.

"We could torture you," the voice from the radio continued. "But you might not crack. Instead, let's torture your young friend. Perhaps you'll talk to spare him pain."

"Only one way to find out," Jolly suggested. He stood up, holding out a red-hot blade. Brady tore Frank's shirt open.

As Frank struggled uselessly, Jolly moved the blade closer and closer to his chest.

How LONG had he paddled? Joe wondered. It seemed to him that he had been floating for hours. He could no longer tell time. His watch had been smashed in the wreck, and overhead the timeless moon just hung there, not moving. He was far from land now, and the ocean, dark and unchanging, spread out in all directions.

With nothing else to do, Joe thought back to the collision. He remembered grabbing Charity as the impact hurled him from the boat. The next thing he knew, he was struggling against the cold, churning waters of San Diego Bay. With a burst of energy he had sputtered to the surface, gasping for air.

Pulling himself onto a large piece of floating fiberglass, he looked for Charity. But she was nowhere to be seen.

In the distance Joe spotted the cabin cruiser, speeding southwest across the Pacific. Even with the mist on the ocean, the moon was bright enough to show Joe the men on the cruiser's deck, laughing and pointing back at the wreckage. But before he could wonder if the men had spotted him, something else caught his eye. It was dragging behind the cruiser, hanging off one of the ropes that had once towed a rubber raft. It was flat and shiny, like a piece of glass, and in its center was a dark woman-shaped mass.

Charity!

After his strength had finally returned, he flattened himself on the fiberglass and started to paddle with his hands and feet, like a surfer swimming out to meet a wave. He was going to Puerto de Oro, the Port of Gold, no matter how long it took.

He had a brother to avenge.

Joe didn't know where he was. All around him was nothing but empty ocean. He felt sure that somewhere ahead must be the island of Puerto de Oro, but there were no lights, no sounds, only the silent darkness of the ocean on a moonlit night.

Then small waves beat against the fiberglass, moving against the waves of the ocean. Joe looked around.

A boat was moving toward him, pushing the water before it. A fishing barge.

"Hey!" Joe yelled as the barge neared. Forgetting how tired he was, he paddled toward the boat. "Hey!"

His voice was lost under the sound of the engine. The barge plunged on with no sign of stopping. He waved, trying to get the attention of the two men who had wandered onto the deck. No one noticed him.

He pressed on, pushed back by a wake that grew stronger the nearer he got to the barge. The boat was so close he could smell the stench of fish that it gave off. There was no longer anyone on the deck, but he kept moving.

Water splashed into his face, almost knocking him off the fiberglass hunk, and he flailed to get a grip on it. His hands caught it, and he pulled himself back up.

The barge was right in front of him, moving in a straight line for him.

On the side of the barge, sticking out at right angles to it, was a series of iron bars leading down to the propeller that drove the boat. They were there so fishermen could climb down to the propeller for repairs, Joe realized. But he had another use for them. As another wave rushed at him, he leapt off the fiberglass and dived over the wave, splashing into the water behind it. For a second he was in still water, and he swam as hard as he could for the barge.

Another wave hit him, and he rolled to his side to slice through it with his body. He was almost to the barge. He reached out, fingers grasping for the lowest rung on the ladder of iron bars. They struck air, and he fell back.

If I can't go this way, Joe decided, there's only one thing I can do.

Taking a big gulp of air, he forced himself up as high as he could go, until he was straight up in the water. Then he plunged down, dropping like a stone into the inky depths of the ocean. There, he knew, there were no waves. It was his only chance to get near the barge.

Joe's mouth filled with water, but he forced himself not to breathe or swallow. The barge blotted out a lot of the moonlight, and he couldn't see what he was doing very well, but he managed to stay under the side of the barge, feeling along the edge with his hands.

But then something grabbed his legs and quickly pulled him toward the back of the barge. There the moonlight glistened, and he could see the flash of the propeller blade as it whirled. Joe realized suddenly he was caught in the undertow. It was steadily pulling him straight into the propeller.

Panicked, he swam, but the undertow had him. It came to him in a flash that he wanted to be back by the propeller. Joe stopped struggling and let the undertow pull him back.

As his feet inched closer and closer to the whirling blade, he reached around the side of the barge. His fingers finally locked around an iron bar.

Slowly Joe pulled himself free of the undertow. His head broke the surface of the water, and he took a deep, cool breath of air. As it hit his throat, he choked and coughed up sea-water, but the next breath brought clear, sweet air.

Joe climbed the bars and rolled into the barge, landing in a pile of nets that had been stored there. He lay there laughing quietly to himself and staring up at the stars.

"I made it," he announced triumphantly.

Finally he sat up and looked around. The deck was empty. He recognized the kind of boat he was on. It wasn't the type of fishing craft that gets taken out by sportsmen for a long weekend. Professional fishermen who used barges like these usually went out early in the morning and were back at sundown.

What, he wondered, was this barge doing out in the middle of the night with no crew?

Just then, from below, he heard the muffled sound of a radio. It sounded like a man's voice coming from it, but Joe couldn't be sure. He wanted no one to know he was on board until he could check it out.

Crouching, he peered into the captain's tower. It was more of a little room set on top of the deck than a tower. A man stood there, steering the boat, and slowly Joe crept around the edge of the deck for a better look at him.

"Oh, no," Joe gasped as he saw the man's face.

Chrome Lasker stood behind the wheel in the captain's tower.

Joe scrambled out of sight. He had to think. If Lasker was steering the boat, then the boat was being used by the Director, probably on its way to Puerto de Oro.

Anyone else who was on the boat must be in the hold, Joe concluded. If he could capture the boat, he could bring the Director's schemes to a halt.

He crawled on his stomach across the deck, moving toward the hole cut into the deck that led down to the hold. Now he could hear more voices, and these not from a radio. But he couldn't make out what they were saying. He raised himself into a low crouch, checking to see that Lasker hadn't spotted him. Then he reached out for the hold cover.

Joe slammed it shut as muffled cries erupted from below. He grabbed a nearby fishing rod that had been carelessly abandoned on the deck and jammed the handle into the latch, locking the latch in place. No matter how hard they pounded, he knew pounding wouldn't get them out.

Joe sprang to his feet and raced for the door of the captain's tower. He sprinted up the two stairs and hurled himself against the door, hoping to take Lasker by surprise.

But the door was unlatched, and Joe tumbled in, his feet slipping out from under him. Before he could get up, Lasker had pressed a heel against Joe's Adam's apple, pinning him down. The bald-headed villain had drawn and was aiming a gun right between Joe's eyes.

"Well, well. The Kid," Lasker said in surprise. "Good to see you again."

He gave Joe a lopsided smirk. "Too bad you had to come this far to die."

"WAIT," said the voice from the radio.

Jolly lowered the knife, frowning as he glanced at the radio.

When he finally answered the voice, he meekly said, "Yes, sir?"

But Frank saw contempt in Jolly's eyes as he looked at the radio and his fellow crooks. Scanning the room, Frank saw the contempt on every face there. It occurred to him that, given half a chance, each of them would turn on the others and walk off with all the loot. He filed the insight away, in the hope that he would have a chance to use it.

The radio came alive again. "Let's give Chavo one last chance to come clean, now that he understands the gravity of the situation."