Cargo for the Styx (7 page)

I
WAS ON MY FACE
. I rolled onto my back and stared stupidly toward the galley. I could see very well. A hole the shape of a refrigerator door let light down through the roof of the cabin. Another hole let in more light through what had once been the starboard side of the galley.

I could smell the hiss of butane escaping from broken pipes. I got a whiff of ammonia. That was all I had left of my refrigerator—the stink of ammonia.

I scrambled aft and jumped to the dock. I was looking for Clarence. I didn’t really expect to find him. I didn’t want to find him. But I had to look.

There wasn’t much to see. The forepart of my main cabin was gone. A little debris littered the dock. A head of lettuce floated on the water. A few dying ripples against the dock pilings hinted that something heavy had dropped into the harbor and tossed up a few waves.

I walked up to the debris on the dock. I bent and touched a piece of painted wood. I recognized it as having come from the cabin roof. There was a single spot of blood over the paint.

I heard the siren in the distance. The fire department again, and in time Lieutenant Nicolo. I had the feeling that two explosions in one afternoon were going to be too much for Nicolo.

I ran up the dock to Clarence’s car. I didn’t think he’d mind if I borrowed it. I needed two minutes to jump the ignition. I backed the car around and gunned onto Harbor Way. I could see the red fire truck coming fast from the south. I aimed north, up to The Point.

I put Clarence’s sedan in Aggie’s garage. The Ferrari was still there; the Cadillac hadn’t yet returned. I didn’t bother with the front door this time. I was through being polite.

I found a path that led between the garage and the house. It took me to a side door that opened into the kitchen. I stepped from the kitchen to a flagstoned terrace. From there I could see the swimming pool. I could also see Bonnie Minos.

She was poised on the diving board. She made a clean dive.

I watched her swim toward me. She had a good stroke. She reached the edge and held to it with one hand while she wiped water from her eyes with the other. Her body shimmered just below the surface of the pool. She couldn’t have been more naked.

She saw me. She said, “The sleuth again. Have a swim with me, Zane.”

I said, “I’m looking for Aggie.”

“How disappointing.” She cocked her head and tried a little smile. “You’re scowling again, Zane.”

“I’m not in the mood for games,” I said. “I just came from watching my refrigerator blow itself through my cabin.”

“With all that good beer in it?”

I said, “And with a man going after that beer. He wasn’t much of a man, but he was alive. And he wanted to go to hell in his own way. He didn’t ask to be blown there.”

She stared up at me with her gray-blue eyes wide and steady.

She began to climb out. “Toss me that towel, please, Zane.”

I found the towel. It was as big as she. I handed it to her as she stepped off the last rung of the ladder. She wrapped herself in it and started for the French doors.

“Come on in, Zane.”

I went in. She padded across the living room, leaving wet footprints on the rug. She said, “Mix us a drink, will you? Swimming always makes me thirsty.”

She went out a side door. I found the bar and mixed a pair of drinks. I followed the footprints through the side door and down a short hallway. I stopped in the entrance to Bonnie’s bedroom. She was standing before a mirror, pulling off her bathing cap. The towel was crumpled around her feet.

Without turning, she said, “Have a good look, Zane. I like it.”

I moved into the room, past a canopied bed, into an odor of powder and perfumes and Bonnie Minos. I said, “I like it too. Does Aggie?”

She fluffed the sides of her hair. “He knows I’m an exhibitionist. I get some of my kicks that way. He doesn’t mind—as long as I get the rest of my kicks from him.”

I said, “And do you?”

She turned and took one of the glasses out of my hand. “There’s never been anybody else.” She sipped her drink. “You don’t have to believe that, but it’s true.”

I found a chair big enough for my weight. I sat down. I said, “I’ll believe it. Now let’s skip your sex life.”

She set the glass she was carrying down on the dresser. She opened a closet door and pulled out a dress. She pulled it on and smoothed it down over her hips. She didn’t bother with anything else, just the dress.

She said, “All right, so you watched a man being blown up. Why come crying to me about it?”

I said, “You’re trying to be hard. You aren’t. You’re scared simple.”

She pushed her feet into a pair of white sandals. “All right, I’m scared. Now what do we play?”

I poured my drink down myself. I put the empty glass on the floor. “We talk,” I said. “We talk about you and Aggie and a couple of goons named Vann and Otho. We talk about Jaspar Clift and the
Temoc
. And we talk about a poor, scared guy named Blimey.”

She said quickly, “What about Blimey?”

I said, “Where is he? The police couldn’t find any pieces, so they figure he’s still alive.”

She let herself drop to the edge of her canopied bed. “What are you talking about? Pieces of what?”

I said, “Pieces of Blimey. Where in hell have you been all afternoon?”

She wasn’t trying to hide her fear now. It showed in the whiteness at the corners of her mouth and nostrils. It showed in the way she stared at me.

She whispered, “I really was a little drunk this afternoon. I went to sleep.”

I said, “Then you slept through an explosion.” I told her what had happened to Blimey’s Shack. I told her about his phone call that was supposed to take me to the Shack in time to get a free launching into orbit. All the time I talked, she just stared at me.

She said finally, “And because Blimey’s my friend, you thought I put him up to making that call.”

I said, “That was the idea.”

She said simply, “No.” She stood up. “What else do you think about me—and Aggie?”

I said, “Before Clarence got a free ride on my refrigerator door, he talked. He talked about Vann and about Jaspar.” I told her about Vann and Jaspar. I didn’t mention Irma. I didn’t want to believe that part of Clarence’s story. Not after last night.

I said, “So Vann wants to use the
Temoc
to collect his eighty thousand off Jaspar. But Vann is a gambler, not a con artist. I don’t think he’d know how to beat out an insurance company.”

Bonnie said, “So you’ve elected Aggie as a kind of advisor to this Vann? He’s supposed to tell Vann how to take Marine Mutual for a hundred thousand dollars?”

I said, “That’s how I see it.”

She said, “And I helped Aggie by trying to find out what you’d learned about the set-up.”

“You’re doing fine,” I said.

She said, “Did you ever know Aggie to use muscle, Zane? To kill anyone?”

“There’s always a first time for everything,” I said.

She sat down heavily. “I guess that’s the way it’s supposed to look. Aggie is the goat. Aggie killed poor little Prebble and tried to kill you. With his reputation, he’s a natural.”

I said, “Can you make it look any different?”

She said, “I can try. Why do you think I came to see you last night, for kicks?”

“To help Aggie,” I reminded her.

“You’re damn right, to help him,” she said. “But not the way you have it figured out. Remember, Aggie came to you to find out what I was up to. And that was on the level.”

She stood up abruptly. “Let’s have another drink, Zane.”

I didn’t want another drink, but I went with her into the living room. I watched her make herself a stiff one. I said, “Where’s Aggie?”

“I wish I knew,” she said. She took a chair and perched on the edge. “I thought I could handle this by myself. I was wrong, wasn’t I? All I’ve done is mess things up.”

I said, “You lost me back aways.”

She held her full glass in both hands. She said. “I told you that Aggie suddenly stopped seeing Jaspar. At the same time, he started acting a little screwy. Nervous, upset. That isn’t like Aggie. He always has control of himself. I tried to get him to tell me what the trouble was. He got sore. For the first time since we were married, he really got mad at me.”

I began to see which way this was going. I said, “So you thought you’d find out what was eating him.”

She gulped half her drink. She made a face and put the glass down. “To hell with that stuff,” she said. “I haven’t got time for it.”

I just waited. She said, “Aggie wouldn’t go see Jaspar, but I kept on.” She made a face as if she’d bitten into something sour. “I even let Jaspar think I had a yen for him.” She gave me a crooked grin. “Jaspar has one good quality. He’s a gentleman. Did you ever try using your body to pry something out of a gentleman? No, you wouldn’t.”

I agreed that I wouldn’t. She said, “I’ll make it short, Zane. I didn’t get very much information. But I did get enough to start me wondering and to let me make a few guesses.”

I said, “You’re going to tell me that you guessed Clift was up to something with the
Temoc
and that he was going to make Aggie the patsy. And that Aggie got wind of the same thing. And when he did, he dropped Clift and went off to sulk by himself.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

I said, “Aggie’s wrong with it. He isn’t the kind of guy to fold his hands over his belly and watch someone build a frame around him.”

“No, he isn’t,” she admitted. “That’s why I’m scared.”

I said, “You think Aggie decided to take the affair in his own hands, to stop Clift? You’re afraid that Aggie might panic and go off the deep end?”

She nodded. “I came to you last night to find out if you had connected Aggie and Clift. I also had some idea that I could get you started investigating. I thought if I could do that, Aggie might stop trying to help himself and let you do the work.”

I said, “All Aggie thinks when he sees me is that I’m after his hide.”

She said, “I realized that later. That’s why I kept tagging you around. I was trying to figure out some way of making you realize that Aggie wasn’t behind the set-up.”

I said, “Is that why you helped move Prebble’s body—so I’d think you were on my side? And if you were on my side, Aggie couldn’t be guilty?”

“That’s the way I thought,” she admitted. “And then I had the idea that if we could keep Prebble’s death from the police, there wouldn’t be a public investigation of the
Temoc
.”

“That was just what you should have wanted.”

She said, “With Aggie’s reputation? The police would have grabbed him and stopped looking. You know that, Zane.”

I knew it. I’d felt the same way. I wasn’t sure that I still didn’t feel that way. I said, “Did you put Prebble’s body in Blimey’s place?”

She nodded. “I hid him behind the sacks of potatoes in the storeroom. I thought I’d sneak up there tonight in my catamaran and take him away.” She looked miserable. “It wasn’t very bright, was it?”

I said, “It could have been worse. At least, it will take the police a while to figure out he was murdered before he was blown up.”

She shivered. “It was supposed to be your body the police found, wasn’t it?”

I said, “That’s right. And when our little playmates missed on the first try, they took a second crack at me.”

I had a thought. I sat and nursed it for a moment. I said, “This time they might think they made the grade.”

Bonnie said, “You don’t look very dead to me.”

I said, “How are they going to know? Right now, Clarence is at the bottom of the harbor—what there is left of him. The police will find him in time, but for now all there is for evidence is a little blood. That could be what’s left of me as far as Vann is concerned.”

Bonnie said, “So you’ve got a substitute corpse. Where does it get you?”

I said, “It gets me one step closer to figuring what the hell this is all about. I could make another step, a big one, if I could get my hands on Aggie.”

She said earnestly, “I wish you could, Zane. I’m afraid he’s trying to clean this mess up himself. And Aggie has an awful temper.”

I thought, Poor, innocent Aggie, out striving to keep his name clean. I said, “You’re overlooking one item. If Aggie isn’t part of this deal, he has nothing to worry about. He’s got the best defense in the world—that he doesn’t stand to profit from the
Temoc
.”

“But that’s just the trouble,” she wailed. “If anything does happen to the boat, Aggie gets the whole hundred thousand in insurance.”

I said, “Say that again.”

She said, “Jaspar borrowed the money on the
Temoc
from Aggie. Later, he borrowed some more to convert the boat to a freighter. The deal was quiet, but Aggie has a paper saying that he owns the damned boat.”

I
SAID SLOWLY
to Bonnie, “You mean that Aggie owns the
Temoc?
”

She said, “Until Jaspar pays back what he owes, yes.”

I said, “Don’t you see where that puts Aggie? Hell, Vann and Clift are the ones with the defense now. They don’t stand to make a profit off of a fraud. Not unless they’re working with Aggie—or for him.”

“That’s the way you see it, isn’t it?” she demanded.

I said, “That’s the way the police will see it too.”

She wailed, “Can’t you do something?” She got up and walked to me. She dropped to her knees and put her hands on my leg. She stared up at me. I felt embarrassed. Her feeling for Aggie was naked on her face, in her eyes.

She whispered, “Please, Zane. Believe me, Aggie isn’t in on any deals. He isn’t. He isn’t. You have to believe me!”

I said, “I’d like to believe you. But how can I? If Aggie owns the
Temoc
, then he’s the only one who can profit if something happens to her.”

She said, “There’s some other gimmick. There must be. Aggie has a lot of money. He doesn’t need any more. He’s been happy with me. Why would he risk going to jail for something he doesn’t need?”

I could have told her about reformed bunco artists. They were like mainliners. The cure lasted only so long as there wasn’t something good dangling in front of them. Show the reformed mainliner a needle and he was off again. Show the reformed con man a mark and he couldn’t sit still.

I could have told her, but I didn’t.

She was digging her fingers into my leg. She said, “I’ll pay you for your time, Zane. I have a little money.” Her voice dropped. “I know it’s corny, but if you want anything else, you can have that too.”

She touched her tongue to her lips. “Right now. Right here.” She moved her hands.

I took her wrists and held her hands away. I got up and pulled her to her feet. She was either a terrific actress or she loved Aggie Minos so much she was sick with it.

I said, “I never make love on an empty stomach. Get back in your chair. Go clear across the room.”

With the deftness of a quick-change artist, she slid back into her normal character. She laughed softly. “You aren’t a statue after all.” She moved obediently back to her chair. “I mean it, Zane. Name your fee.”

I said, “I told you, I can’t believe in Aggie’s innocence like you do. But he isn’t the whole answer. It isn’t so simple. If it was, Vann wouldn’t have to be here. Prebble wouldn’t have had to be killed. There wouldn’t have been two attempts to murder me. So for now, I’ll go along. I’ll say I believe Aggie isn’t in it, that he’s being made a patsy. We’ll operate from that premise.”

“Thanks,” she said.

I said, “As for my fee …”

She said, “Do you want me to fix you something to eat first?”

I said, “If you have to stare at me, look above my belt. And no, I don’t want you to fix me something to eat. For my fee, I want co-operation.”

She said, “I have a gun, and I know how to use it.”

I said, “Don’t sound so hopeful. I don’t want anybody shot. I want you to make a telephone call.”

She walked to the phone and looked expectantly at me. I said, “Call Clift. Sound worried. Ask him if he heard the rumor that I’ve been killed. Make it sound as if you thought the boat had blown up accidentally. Boats do that sort of thing.”

She lifted the phone from the cradle and dialed. She listened to the rings, frowning. The frown went away. She said, “Jaspar? This is Bonnie. Did you hear about the horrible accident to Mr. Zane?”

She listened a moment. She spoke again. She listened. The conversation went on for some time. Finally she said, “By the way, is Aggie around?” Pause. Then, “I just thought he might be saying ‘bon voyage,’ “ More listening. She said good-by and hung up. She turned to me.

“He hasn’t seen Aggie. He sounded a little huffy about it, too.”

I said, “What else did he say?”

“You’re dead,” she told me. “They’re going to drag for your body in the morning. Jaspar didn’t sound happy about your death.”

“He probably thinks it was murder,” I said. “He may have arranged it, for all I know.”

“Not Jaspar,” she said. “He’s a nice guy and a gentleman, but he isn’t very sharp. If he killed you, it would be because he got drunk or crazy mad. And he’d use his fists.”

I said, “That doesn’t matter right now. My being dead does matter. It gives us a break. We need all the breaks we can get. So let’s go make ourselves another one.”

“I’m all yours,” she said.

I said, “When you say that, stop looking at me.”

She said, “You’re awfully hard on my ego, Zane.”

I said, “Let’s go. You follow me in the Ferrari.”

“Go where?”

“To your catamaran,” I said. “I want a ride.”

We started out. In the garage, she said, “You want me to get you aboard the
Temoc
, don’t you? Without anyone seeing you.”

“That’s the general idea.”

She said, “The catamaran isn’t exactly quiet.”

“I want Jaspar to hear you coming,” I said. “I want you to make a lot of noise so he won’t hear me when I go aboard.”

It had turned dark outside except for the light from the rising moon. There was no moonlight in the garage. I could barely see Bonnie’s white face. I couldn’t see her mouth at all. But I could feel it. She clamped it down hard over mine. She brought her firm body against me.

She stepped back. “I’m just saying thanks, Zane.”

I climbed beneath the wheel of the sedan and started the motor. She got the Ferrari going. I backed out and turned around and led the way slowly down the drive to the street. I turned left and started back for Harbor Way. The Ferrari made gutty sounds as it stayed a quarter of a block behind.

I was ready to make the turn that would take me down the hill when I saw the lights of a third car. They hung as far behind Bonnie as she was back of me. I went slowly down around the first curve and pulled tight to the curb. When Bonnie showed up, I stuck out my hand and waved her alongside.

I said, “We’re being tailed. You keep going. Lose the other car if you can. I’ll meet you at the dock.”

“I can lose him,” she said. She gunned the Ferrari. The taillights whipped around the curve below just as headlights splayed from above.

I ducked down in the sedan. I heard the coming car slow. I thought for a moment it would stop. Then it picked up speed and went on. I lifted my head. I was expecting to see a black two-door. I saw the tail end of my own heap disappear around the curve.

I started the sedan and moved as fast as the curves would let me. Once I almost rolled the sedan. After that, I slowed down. I reached Harbor Way and stopped. Light evening traffic was flowing. I couldn’t spot either the Ferrari or the heap.

I drove on to the public dock where Bonnie had her catamaran moored. I parked the sedan in a dark slot between a big car and a truck. I walked to the front of the truck and stood in its shadow. From here I could look along the dock. I could see the catamaran bobbing at its moorage.

There was no other boat near the catamaran. I remembered Aggie saying he kept a little sloop. I saw one yawl and a good many express cruisers. But no sloop.

I wondered if Aggie had taken himself a cruise. I wondered where he’d gone on that cruise.

Headlights from a car turning into the parking space lit me like a Christmas display. I decided to stop wondering and get out of here. I was dead. I couldn’t be seen standing around.

I took my corpse and hurried it down the dock to the catamaran. I put it aboard, snug and warm in the cabin. I waited.