The Killer Touch (8 page)

Joss shot Burt a brief glance, then said quickly, “Oh, no. Everybody sign.”

Rolf, still smiling, pushed the heavy book in front of the woman. “Here, Mrs. Rolf Keener. Sergeant March would like your autograph.”

Burt met the cold blue eyes and regretted his maneuver with the book. He'd revealed more than he could ever learn, and it gave him no surprise to look across the table and see the woman print in block capitals: MRS. ROLF KEENER.

The boys began playing a bouncy local mixture of calypso, cha-cha-cha, and Latin American rock-and-roll. They'd donned white shirts for the occasion, and Boris managed to look dignified even with a nose-flute in one flaring nostril. Coco sat on the floor with his legs hooked around a pair of bongo drums. His hands, pink-scarred by fish-bites, fluttered like black wings on the taut drum-skin. Godfrey's face hung vacuous over a guitar almost as large as himself.

Rolf pulled Joss up to dance on the wooden floor; he acted like someone playing a hilarious game—and winning it. Burt hesitated to trust his leg, but when Joss and Rolf began their third twist, he asked Mrs. Keener to dance.

“If I pop out of my dress,” she said, getting up, “will you look the other way?”

“We'll have to wait and see,” said Burt.

Burt found to his surprise that he enjoyed dancing with her. She moved with a boneless, sinuous grace which never brought her into contact with him, but nevertheless made him totally aware of her body. He glanced down at her muscular calves, saw that her feet were shod in flat-heeled, ballet-style slippers.

“Did you used to be a professional dancer?”

She dimpled in a way she must have practiced. “You say the nicest things.”

Burt thought: She's certainly no junkie. She's a healthy female animal with beautiful coordination, a gargantuan appetite, and none of the addict's sexual apathy. He could feel her physical warmth surrounding him like a blanket. On their third dance he spoke softly in her ear: “On the slope behind your cabin, there's a concrete water catchment with a tile-roofed cistern at the lower end. Have you seen it?”

“Yes.” She whirled away once and came back into his arms. “In an hour?”

So simple, he thought, like meeting her for coffee. “That's fine.”

She came against him for an instant as though sealing the bargain with a sample. Burt found himself looking over her head into the icy blue eyes of Rolf. There was no jealousy there, only a crinkle of mild amusement.

But then, he asked himself, why should Rolf be jealous? For he had just learned, with a certainty that dispelled all doubt, that the woman in his arms was not Tracy Keener.

The woman pleaded a headache fifteen minutes later and the pair left despite Joss's protest that parties didn't end this way in the islands. Joss decided to stay and finish the wine and Burt stayed with her.

“Joss, what's the best way to get to this island without the authorities knowing?”

“In the hold of a ship, I guess.”

Burt thought of Mrs. Keener's tight clothing, he'd returned to the theory that they'd belonged to a smaller woman. She couldn't have carried much luggage as a stowaway.

“Is there a quicker way?”

“Flying in at Grenada.”

“She'd go through immigration.”

“Not our immigration. We come under St. Vincent, the southern islands come under Grenada. People cross all the time and nobody knows unless they get in trouble.”

“Then Rolf could have picked her up in the launch from Grenada. Of course.”

“Who, Mrs. Keener?”

“She isn't Mrs. Keener.”

Joss's mouth dropped open. “You mean he sent his girl friend down here—”

“I mean that the woman who came on O'Ryan's schooner is not the woman we had dinner with tonight. There's been a switch, and it happened sometime between last night and the night before.”

She stared at him a moment, then shook her head. “I've had too much to drink, Burt. I can't figure it.”

“Okay. I searched the purse while I was on the schooner. Her driver's license said she was five-feet-four, and weighed a hundred and five pounds. Now this woman was nearer one-twenty, wouldn't you say?”

“At least, but women change their weight.”

“But not their height, Joss. While we were dancing I noticed that she was wearing low heels. The top of her head came to the tip of my nose. I'm six feet and a quarter inch tall. My nose is approximately five inches below the top of my head. That would put her height at about five-seven.”

“But why? To change wives—”

“Divorce is a lot less trouble. It's bigger than that, and I've got a feeling there's a lot of money involved, knowing Rolf.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Get more information—maybe. I've got a date with her out by the cistern.”

Joss looked alarmed. “Burt, it's probably a trap.”

“I know. I don't aim to throw myself at her feet without looking around. Rolf has a gun, you know.”

“Burt, don't risk it. Look, let me talk to Rolf, I'll tell him I'm sick, get him to take me to St. Vincent, go to the police—”

“And tell them what?”

“Why … that there's a woman here—”

“And our proof?”

“My word—”

“Have you told anybody about seeing your husband on the beach wearing hip boots?”

“What does that—?” She closed her mouth, reddening. “Oh, I see what you mean. They'd think I was raving. Okay, you go.”

“Suppose Rolf does have a big deal on; he'd see that I never got to St. Vincent.”

Joss laughed nervously. “Oh, hell, this thing has sobered me up quicker than a gallon of black coffee. Who do you suppose the woman is?”

“It's not important, is it? I'm wondering what happened to the real Mrs. Keener.”

FIVE

Burt squatted inside a clump of grass and peered at the woman who stood beside the cistern. Strange that she'd wear her white beach coat to a secret tryst; she stood out like neon beneath the thick crescent of the moon. The water catchment was a gray triangle on the slope above her. He could hear rats chittering in the grass around him; the booming surf had become an unchanging part of life, audible only when he made an effort to hear it. Beyond the cistern he saw the fumaroles geysering up like pale gleaming wraiths in the moonlight.

A match flared and went out. A cigarette glowed in the pale oval of her face, brightened and dimmed several times in rapid succession. Lover's getting impatient, he thought, but I'll bet she doesn't leave.…

A cloud obscured the moon and darkened the island. A darker shadow joined the white shape of the woman. When the moon came out again, the larger shadow broke away and disappeared around the corner of the cistern. Burt gripped the two-foot length of steel pipe and crept out of the grass. He angled to the right, down the slope and back up again on the side of the cistern opposite the woman. He peered around the corner and saw Rolf squatting with his back to the stone wall. Rolf was an old night fighter; Burt knew he could never sneak close enough for a solid blow. He picked up a stone and, holding his arm away from his body so there would be no swish of cloth, threw it over Rolf's head. It thumped on the ground ten feet ahead of the man; Rolf rose to his feet. Burt leaped forward and swung the pipe against his head with a delicate, calculated force. Rolf fell against the cistern and started a limp-legged slide to the ground; Burt caught him beneath the arms and lowered him gently. He withdrew a .38 snub-nosed revolver from Rolf's shoulder holster and shoved it in his hip pocket. Rolf's pulse and breathing were both surprisingly normal; Burt decided he'd have less than a quarter hour with the woman.

He retraced his steps around the cistern to where she waited. Like a passenger whose bus has just arrived, she pushed herself away from the wall and threw her cigarette to the ground. As she came toward him, Burt saw that her long legs were bare beneath the beach coat.

“I was beginning to get cold,” she said, locking her hands behind his head and looking up with a teasing smile. “I wondered if you'd have the guts to come.”

Burt spread his hands across her back and felt the muscle-taut flesh beneath it. She was not as calm as she appeared.

“Where'd you leave Rolf?” he asked.

“In the cabin, reading. He thinks I'm taking a walk.” She rocked against him, an undulating warmth pressing him from chest to knee. “We don't have much time. Will you kiss me?”

“No biting?”

“Maybe that comes later.”

He felt the surprising coolness of her lips and the curiously facile, impersonal probing of her tongue. He tasted wine and braised pigeon, and decided that this girl knew all the right moves at the right time, but that skill could never take the place of natural passion.

Then suddenly all her weight hung from his neck. She fell backward onto the ground, pulling him off-balance so that he had to put out both hands to avoid crushing her with his weight. The sandy soil scraped his elbows as he tried to break her grip around his neck, and Burt discovered that somewhere in midfall she had managed to unfasten the robe. He made three more discoveries in rapid succession: She wore nothing beneath the robe, she had a wiry masculine strength, and whatever her ulterior purpose in arranging the meeting, the seduction was in deadly earnest.

He jerked free and sat back on his haunches. “Cool it a minute. What's all the rush?”

She put her hands behind her head and began laughing softly.

“Did him want to chat? Did him want to be a big strong man and just overwhelm poor little me?”

Her mock babytalk curdled his stomach. “I think I get it. Rolf was supposed to catch me in the act and shoot me, right?”

She raised her head and frowned at him. “Huh?”

Burt rose to his feet. “Get up. I'll show you something.”

“Oh, now wait—”

Burt seized her arm and jerked her up. “Come on.”

Rolf was stirring when they rounded the corner. The woman tore free and ran toward him. “Rolf, what happened?” She knelt beside him an instant, then whirled and leaped at Burt, her teeth bared, her white robe flying out like the wings of a silver moth on both sides of her nude body. Her nails raked his cheek once, then again, while Burt wrestled with an untimely question: Where does a gentleman seize a naked woman he doesn't want to hurt? He felt he was being smothered in satin-firm flesh, she seemed to have a dozen arms, breasts, stomachs all heavy with an exciting smell of sweat and perfume. Her teeth were seeking a purchase somewhere in the region of his jugular vein when he found her shoulders and pushed with all his strength. She sprawled backward on the ground, but she was game; she bounced up and was about to charge again when Rolf's voice cracked like a pistol shot:

“Drop it, Bunny!”

She stopped as though on a short leash, her robe hanging open. Rolf sat up, drew his legs under him, and spoke in a tired voice:

“Wrap up the package, baby. It didn't sell.”

She drew her robe together and tied it slowly, like a child putting away a doll which she'd been forbidden to play with until Christmas. Burt watched the pair, feeling like a stranger at a family dinner.

“It wasn't my fault,” she said with petulance.

“Mine. Totally mine.” Rolf touched the back of his head. “Sergeant March used an old trick. I was expecting something more original.” He pressed his hand to the bulge of his jacket, sighed, and looked up at Burt. “Did you borrow my gun, old man?”

“I'll keep it for a while.”

Rolf smiled. “With my compliments. I don't like guns. That one shoots slightly to the left, anyway.” He fumbled beneath his jacket and drew out a cigarette. “Will you ask your question here, Sergeant, or—” he paused to ignite the cigarette “—shall we go to my cabin and have a drink?”

“This is fine.” Burt pulled out the gun and squatted with his back against the wall. To the woman he said, “Get over beside him.”

She obeyed, leaning against Rolf and delving into his jacket for a cigarette. She lit it from Rolf's and giggled softly. “Maybe he handles a gun better than he does a woman.”

“Keep quiet,” said Rolf absently. “Permit me to observe, March, that any restriction of an individual's freedom of movement is technically kidnapping. Since you're off-duty and outside the United States, you have no authority whatever.”

“Let's all go together and complain to the authorities.”

Rolf chuckled. “You win. First question.”

“Where's your wife?”

“Sitting beside me.”

“You called her Bunny.”

“A term of endearment, just between us.”

Burt decided it felt good to have the intellectual jump on Rolf. He smiled. “The island seems to have agreed with her. She's grown three-and-a-half inches since she arrived.”

Rolf stiffened and looked sharply at the woman.

“Rolf, I didn't—”

“No, I understand it now.” He turned back to Burt. “I assumed you'd be too chivalrous to search the purse. I was wrong.” He pressed a shaky hand to the back of his neck. “Do me, Bunny. I've got a headache.” She rose to her knees behind him and began kneading his neck. Rolf looked at Burt. “She's Bunny DeVore, specialty dancer, late of Miami Beach. She starts her dance in a cowboy suit and winds up wearing only a gun. Clever act, particularly when she demonstrates the symbolism of the gun—”

“You didn't bring her here to dance,” said Burt.

“No, she goes with me on all my trips to South America. Sort of a traveling secretary, except that she can't type and can't take shorthand.” He chuckled. “Pity you struck so soon, March; you'd have learned what makes her so valuable in my business.”

“I know,” said Burt, “But I can't say I dig the professional touch.”

“Oh, you lousy fink—”