Cargo for the Styx

Martin Zane

A simple man, homicide threatened him with bloody complications.

Irma Wilson

She seemed a fair and willing maiden, but was her bedroom an information bureau?

Aggamemnon Minos

He was a retired con man, but that wouldn’t stop him from having a little “hobby.”

Bonnie Minos

She was no babe in the woods—the jungle was her home.

Mr. Vann

Life was one big game to him—after he fixed the odds in his favor.

Mr. Otho

A specialist in brutality, he practiced his craft with deadly seriousness.

Martin Zane thought he was all finished with his routine report on the freighter
Temoc
for Marine Mutual, but the lush blonde suddenly changed his mind. He just couldn’t say no to her delicious smile, her shapely figure, or her tiny but deadly gun aimed at the middle of his clean white shirt.

Zane realized that a fraud was about to be pulled, but he didn’t know how. When he tried to discover what connection the golden Amazon had ‘with his investigation, he realized too late that he had walked into a hornets’ nest buzzing with con men and killers … .

I
SAID INTO
the mike, “End of report. Type this on the double, honey, and send it to Ted Winters, Marine Mutual, Los Angeles.”

I flipped the switch on the dictating machine. I was suddenly conscious of the dark pushing in on me. I’d worked later than I thought. The only light in the office came from the cone of my desk lamp.

I got up. I punched the desk lamp into darkness. Enough moonlight came through the east office window to guide me to the door. I was reaching for the knob when I saw the shadow. Moonlight was coming through the window at the end of the hallway, too. It stretched the shadow across the frosted glass of the doorway, across the black lettering that read: Martin Zane, Marine Insurance Investigations.

I snapped up the light switch by the door. The overheads glared down, revealing the drabness of the room. I ignored it. I’d been ignoring it for over a year.

The light blotted out the shadow. I listened for movement. There was none. There were only the sounds of the traffic running thinly six stories down. I started crabwise toward my desk, looking for something I could make do as a weapon.

There wasn’t much in the office, two chairs, a desk, the hatrack, the blown up picture of Kim Novak hung over the advertising on the wall calendar. On the desk were the onyx-based pen set and matching ash tray, a Christmas gift. The pen sputtered and the ash tray let cigarettes slide out and burn the desk top. I hoped I’d get a chance to throw one of them.

I chose the pen set. I held the onyx base in my left hand and the pen in my right, like a dart. The room was small. I had my hip against the desk, but I was still only five feet from the door.

I said, “All right, friend, come on in.”

The doorknob rattled. I said, “Push the door open wide. Let me see your hands first.”

The door swung back. My visitor was standing well to one side. Two hands reached out and framed themselves in the opening. They were empty. They were also colorful. The nails were long and painted a bright turquoise.

“All right.”

The body followed the hands. As much woman as I ever hoped to see framed herself in my doorway. She wore turquoise-colored leather sandals. In them she stood over six feet. She wore a candy-striped playsuit, turquoise and white. The skirt was buttoned only at the waist. Her matching shorts might have made a bikini for a sun-loving midget. Her blouse started under the armpits and stopped in the neighborhood of her breastbone. She gave it all the support it needed to stay up.

She said, “Go ahead and stare, buster. I’m used to it.” Her voice was husky, a blues singer’s voice.

I didn’t say anything. She came into the room toward the desk. When she moved, the long, clean lines of her body flowed with the grace of a race horse.

I rounded the desk and sat down. I set the pen set on the desk and said, “If you’re looking for a private detective, you’ve got the wrong man. I’m not for hire.”

She gave me a slow smile. Her mouth was very red and very ripe. Her eyes were somewhere between gray and blue; they smiled too. She wore her pale, silver blond hair drawn back into a short mane.

She sat in the client’s chair, dropping her large white bag to the floor. She crossed her legs.

She said, “I think you’ll work for me.”

“Sorry. I do all my work for insurance companies. On retainer. They keep me busy.”

She asked, “Are you always so savage at nine o’clock at night, Zane?”

I said, “I have a boat. I live on it. It has an easy chair with a good reading lamp. The bookcase has books and the refrigerator has beer. I want to put them all together and take off my shoes.”

She was laughing at me. She said. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

I reached for the cigarettes in my pocket. She shook her head. She picked up her bag and set it in her lap. She dug a hand into the bag. I took a cigarette for myself. I struck a match. I leaned toward her, holding out the match.

I settled back slowly. I blew out the match. She didn’t have a cigarette. She had a gun. It was a .38 and it fit her hand well. She held it competently. It was possible she knew what to do with it.

I said, “Why?”

She said, “I didn’t come to make a pass, Zane. I came to hear the report you just dictated.”

I said, “No. It’s confidential. Besides, I spent a week on that case. I washed it up tonight. I’m tired of it. It gave me no trouble. I don’t want it to start giving me trouble now.”

The smile left her cheeks, her eyes. It stayed on her lips, but it no longer meant anything. The gun steadied.

I turned the machine on. I reversed the tape, switched to audio, and let it run. I heard my own voice.

“Set this one up for Theodore Winters, Vice President, Marine Mutual Insurance, Los Angeles. Title: Final report on freighter
Temoc
.”

The blond listened with no change of expression. She moved once, to take a cigarette from her bag. She smoked without interfering with the steadiness of her gun. I moved once too—to push the ash tray closer to her.

We sat and listened to my voice rehash the
Temoc
investigation. I said that Jaspar Clift was thirty years old. He was both master and owner of the boat. It was berthed in the Basin, Pier 7, here at LaPlaya, California. Clift was a competent skipper. He had spent twelve years on tuna boats sailing out of Los Angeles harbor. This past spring he’d had the
Temoc
converted from a tuna clipper to a coastal freighter. The boat was in excellent condition, the hull sound, the diesel motors new and of sufficient power to move the hundred feet of boat at a good speed.

Clift was also a pleasant, co-operative character who served good bourbon. I left that out of the report.

I passed on to the shipper who chartered Clift. Electronics Suppliers was a well established firm with a newly opened office in LaPlaya. They wanted express service on a shipment of parts to a factory in Central America. If they got good service, they expected to use Clift frequently.

I also left out of the report my impression of the manager of the newly opened office in LaPlaya. Name, Irma Wilson; age, young enough; characteristics, interesting.

I wound up with a statement that my final check had uncovered nothing that should make Marine Mutual reconsider their issuance of policies to Clift and to the shipper.

I snapped off the machine. “Do I run through it again?”

“You’re growling, Zane,” she said reprovingly. “Once was enough. How much insurance is being carried?”

I said, “That’s the business of Clift and the shipper.”

“Are we getting difficult?” she said.

I said, “The boat is insured for a hundred thousand. The cargo carries two hundred and fifty thousand on it.”

She lowered her eyes to stare at the tip of her cigarette. I refused to take that for an invitation to go for her gun. There was too much desk between us and too much blond on the other end of the gun.

“What kind of cargo is worth that much?”

“Lots of cargo is worth more,” I said. “This one happens to be made up of fragile and expensive electronic parts. An American company is setting up an automated plant in Central America. They were about ready to go into production when they found some essential parts hadn’t arrived. Some others weren’t functioning. They sent a hurry-up order.” I thought she might as well have the rest of it. I said, “That’s where Electronic Suppliers comes in. They make a nice profit by supplying factories with parts needed in a hurry. They usually ship by plane. But there’s too much weight for that in this cargo. So they got an express freighter. That’s Clift.”

I leaned back in my chair. “And that’s the whole truth, so help me, ma’am.” I made her the Boy Scout sign.

She said, “I like you better when you co-operate, Zane. Are you always so hard to get along with at first?”

I said, “Yes.”

She surprised me. She put her gun away. She said, “Now let’s talk business. Money.”

“I’m not for hire.”

She surprised me again. She stood up. “I suppose not,” she said. “Good night, then. And remember, you’re much cuter when you don’t growl.”

She was halfway to the door before I managed to say, “I like to know the names of people who wave guns at me.” She laughed and kept going. By the time I got around the desk and into the hall, she was nearly to the elevator. I stopped and listened to it clank its way down six floors.

I went back into the office and stuck my head out of the north window. She came out the lobby doors and climbed into a mean-looking Ferrari parked at the curb. I would have known it was hers anywhere. It was painted a bright turquoise.

She let the motor warm up a minute. She eased away from the curb, made a quick U-turn and jetted west for Harbor Way a block down.

I was about to pull my head back inside when I saw the black two-door. It came into the range of my vision from the left. It made a U-turn where she had. When she turned right at Harbor Way, it followed. It hung just the distance behind her an experienced tail would choose.

I
PULLED
my head back in the office. I said, “Well, well,” to the picture of Kim Novak on the wall.

She didn’t answer, but I didn’t need any answer. I had one. The lady hadn’t expected me to work for her. She had known a lot about me, enough to be sure I couldn’t take her job. Score one for Zane.

Did I want to try for two, go for double or nothing? I wanted to try. The lady didn’t care whether I went to work for her or not. She wanted me to know that my check into the
Temoc
hadn’t gone far enough. She wanted me to wonder why she was interested in my report on the boat. Because if I wondered that, I would also wonder what the trouble might be. She would also probably know that Zane prided himself on a reputation for thoroughness. He might be tired of the
Temoc
investigation, but he wasn’t going to file it away. Not now.

Score two for Zane. I’d gone for double and won.

Now all I had to do was go collect my winnings.

I left the office. The elevator took me to the lobby. My legs took me to my car in the parking lot. I warmed up the motor until the bearings stopped hammering. I drove carefully onto First Avenue and turned west toward Harbor Way and the waterfront.

The blond had turned right. She would be heading for home on The Point. People who drove Ferraris lived on The Point, a tall, slanting rock that thrust itself into the harbor. I drove a ten year old heap. I lived almost at the foot of The Point.

I turned left. A half mile along was The Basin. In certain seasons it was filled with commercial fishboats. Now they were all out working. The
Temoc
was almost alone. A pair of ocean-going tugs slept at Pier 8. Jaspar Clift’s boat had no other company.

I parked outside the rough board fence that separated the docks from the street. It was dark down here, with a single street lamp almost a block away. I walked through a gate in the fence. The bright moonlight made the Temoc easy to see. I stopped as I had stopped each time I approached it.

I admired the hundred feet of sleek, black hull, the fresh white of the clean-lined superstructure. I recalled the solid power of the twin diesels.

A light burned in the
Temoc’s
galley. Otherwise the ship and the dock were dark. I almost walked into a pile of crated freight stacked near the bow. I struck a match and examined it. I saw wooden boxes labelled ELECTRONICS SUPPLIERS, FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE, THIS SIDE UP. Other boxes had the labels of food packagers on them.

The forward hatch was open. An idle boom hung above it. I had already seen the after hatch take in cargo. If Clift was to sail tomorrow night as he planned, this load on the dock should be about the last.

I walked around the boxes. I stopped at the foot of the ladder running to the deck. I cupped my hands around my mouth and called in the direction of the lighted galley.

The galley door slid open and a head popped out. A voice with the squeak of a frightened mouse yelled, “Who is it?”

“Zane down here. Is the skipper aboard?”

“Ain’t nobody aboard but me.”

I placed the voice. It belonged to one Albert Prebble, the galley slave. “Any coffee on up there?”

Prebble was proud of his coffee. I was proud of myself for pretending to like it. But anything for a client.

“Coffee’s on,” he admitted.

I went aboard and into the galley. He had a cup of coffee on a small table. He poured a cup for me. He was a wisp of a man, almost invisible inside an over-sized turtle-neck sweater.

He said, “I don’t know when the captain’ll be back, sir. He’s celebrating his last night ashore.”

I made it casual. “I was just passing.” Prebble was walking his cup to the stove for a refill on coffee. I said, “Say, have you seen a big blond woman driving a turquoise Ferrari around here?”

The galley deck was clean and smooth. But Prebble found something to stumble over. He lost the cup. It broke neatly in half. He bent and began to pick up the pieces. In profile his long, thin nose appeared to be twitching. He got up and dumped the broken china in a slop can. He got another cup and poured himself some coffee. His hand shook.

I thought that he needed more than just coffee. I said, “A slug of bourbon would go good in this right now. It gets chilly down here by the water after dark.”

“Don’t it,” he said. He licked his lips. “Maybe he wouldn’t mind, seeing it’s you,” he told me. His eyes were hopeful.

I said, “He wouldn’t mind, Prebble. He always offers me a drink when I come.”

“Sure, that’s right. I remember.” He disappeared forward, into Clift’s cabin. He came back with a half-filled bottle of bourbon. He set it on the table. “You pour.”

I thought that Prebble had a lot of character, waiting for a reason to help himself to the liquor. I poured. I made the dollops heavy. Prebble had the cup to his mouth almost before I got the last drop in. He mouthed the liquor the way a drought-ridden lush will.

I said, “A Ferrari costs a lot of bucks. The blond that owns this one looks like she’d cost even more.”

Prebble had his cup almost empty. “I try not to even think about dames like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like that Mrs. Minos.” He squinted at me. “That’s who we’re talking about, ain’t we?” His eyes got wide as if an idea had just seeped into his head.

He whispered, “Ain’t we?” His skin was the color of rancid bacon drippings.

I said, “That’s the name she gave me. So I guess we’re talking about the same woman. I just wondered if you knew her very well.”

Telling that lie gave me a virtuous feeling; it so obviously relieved Prebble. His complexion returned to its normal gray tint.

I got up, leaving half my coffee. “I think I’ll hit the sack. Tell Clift I just dropped in to say that my report’s on its way to Marine Mutual. I won’t be bothering him any more.”

Prebble nodded. “I’ll tell him.” His mind was on something besides giving Clift my message. “About that blond, Mr. Zane—I only saw her a couple times. But she seemed like a real nice lady.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “She’s more woman than I could handle. If it’s up to me, she’ll stay a real nice lady.”

I went back to my heap. I said aloud. “Mrs. Minos? Mrs. Aggie Minos?”

The only answer I got was the hammering of my rod bearings.

I drove the heap back onto Harbor Way. I turned north. I’d cruised a block when a mammoth Fleetwood slid up behind me. I moved to the right to let him pass. He stayed where he was. I reached the truncated dock where I keep my boat moored. I signalled for a left and swung across Harbor Way. I rattled over gravel and nosed into my parking spot at the foot of the dock. The Cadillac oozed alongside me.

I turned off my motor and lights. The driver of the Fleetwood turned off his motor and lights. I got out of the heap. He got out of his monster. He came around the front of his car. He stopped at the end of the dock. He stood there, waiting, smiling at me.

My approach was cautious until I came close enough for the moonlight to let me see who he was. It was my turn to stop. I didn’t give him back his smile.

He said, “Good evening, Zane. Long time no see.”

He had his hands in his pockets. The right pocket seemed very full. He had small hands. I said, “A long time, Aggie.”

He had the most persuasive voice I ever heard. It was as soft as a muted organ. He said, “Do you remember what you said the last time we met?”

I said, “I remember.”

He quoted me: “Drop around for a drink, Aggie—when you get out. If you ever get out.”

I discovered that I was holding my breath. I let it out gently. I said, “I overlooked a detail. You never went in.”

“But you pushed me so close to jail that I felt it wiser to retire. At first that was almost like being in jail. Did you know that, Zane?”

I said, “I never tried either one of them.”

His smile twitched at the corners. I was glad he found me a funny fellow. I wasn’t glad that he kept his right hand in his coat pocket. He said, “But after a while, I got used to the quiet life. I thought I’d drop around for that drink and to thank you.”

I didn’t believe him. I’d never yet believed anything he told me. This was Aggamemnon Minos, with a specialty I could never appreciate. He made a living, an amount usually called a fortune, by systematically defrauding insurance companies. He was the slickest I’d ever met. And I met quite a welter of fraud artists in my days with Marine Mutual.

Aggie Minos was different from the others. He was a true artist at his work. He polished every detail, set up a defense against every contingency. He was never tagged. For eight years we played our game of chess. Then I thought I had him heading for ten at San Quentin.

But Aggie moved a pawn I hadn’t counted. The pawn took the ten. Aggie took his profits. He also took a fair amount of cash from Marine Mutual on threat of bringing suit for false arrest, defamation of character, and other assorted items that later escaped me.

Instead of going to San Quentin, Aggie went to Mexico. And Martin Zane went to LaPlaya, no longer an associate of Marine Mutual. Aggie Minos lived handsomely in his retirement. Martin Zane lived badly until Marine Mutual forgave him enough to retain him for their local cases.

I said, “Come aboard.”

He handed me the old, soft smile that came from the big, liquid, dark eyes. He hadn’t changed a great deal. There was the same smooth olive skin, the same curling hair touched with gray, the same fashion-plate clothing. He carried forty-five years as elegantly as he had thirty-five, at our first meeting.

He hadn’t changed at all. I said, “You first, Aggie.”