The Last One Left (15 page)

He opened a drawer in his desk, took out a folder, pencil, scratch pad. He turned to a tabulation in the folder, then did some rapid computation. “Certainly!” he said. “Assuming Angus Squires would take four hundred thousand for himself, and give two hundred thousand each to—the two I suspect would be most susceptible, accepting an offer of eight million seven would give Squires nearly a quarter of million of your dollars in profit, and give his friends fifty thousand net profit each. And by getting it all for a total of nine million five, your Mr. Kayd would be undercutting our rock bottom offer by a million dollars.”

“My informants told me Kayd had evidently been dealing quietly with Angus Squires for some time,” Sam said. “On the same day the cruiser was reported missing, Kayd was going to rendezvous with Squires at a fishing lodge Squires owns on Musket Cay in the Berry Islands. I’d guess Squires would want to make certain Kayd had the money, and perhaps take some of it along to bring here to Nassau to turn over to the men who’d agreed to sell their vote. I suppose that after the deal went through here, Squires would get the rest. He’d want some sort of safeguard. Dealing with Kayd can make anybody uneasy. My sister was a guest aboard that boat, Sir Willis. And there was over three quarters of a million dollars aboard. Four women and three men and money for a bribe. Bribe money has no past. It doesn’t appear on the records. And if nobody is left to report it missing …”

“But evidently someone
is
.”

“I got my information from two men who—go into things like this with cash the revenue people overlook. There were—certain reasons why they were willing to talk to me. But they won’t want to raise a fuss if it’s gone forever. They took a chance. The return was going to be high. They’ll moan a little, lick their wounds and keep their mouths shut. If somebody did go after the money, I can’t believe the information came from them, or from Kayd. I am curious about Squires. If he might be in so much financial trouble he would take—a bigger risk.”

“Who knows about all this, Boylston?”

“You and I, sir. Squires. The two men I questioned. And perhaps the two men on your Board who were going to go along with it.”

“And Rodgers?”

“I didn’t talk about it to him. My guess would be no. Kayd wouldn’t tell him anything he didn’t have to know.”

“If Kayd had mentioned it, I am quite confident Rodgers would have terminated representation and come immediately to me.”

“Sir Willis, do you think Angus Squires could have …”

“Done them all in? Highly unlikely, I would say. If he needed money badly, he would have gotten more out of the whole thing by going ahead as planned. And, as you know, we have no tax upon income here. I was a bit dubious of his coming in with us on this Ventures thing. Heard some rumors, you know. But no proof, of course. He’s one of the Canadian chaps who got in on that Freeport arrangement in the beginning. And, if you meant could he have mentioned it to anyone capable of violent acts, you must remember that Squires would not talk freely about anything so certain to damage him should it come out. As it has, of course.”

“How much could it damage him?”

“Badly. Both him and the others involved. You Americans have taken quite a fancy to the phrase ‘power structure.’ Ours here is small, but very strong. One generally knows who might be doing
what, and how well they are managing it. I shall merely trap the likely ones into revealing Squires’s plan and activities. It shouldn’t be at all difficult.” He smiled, made a small chopping gesture with a small hand and said, “Then we shall make quite certain everything they touch from now on shall turn out very badly indeed. Squires and friends accepted that risk. And lost. I am grateful to you for a most interesting talk.”

“Could I ask a favor, Sir Willis?”

“Of course!”

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I would like to know Squires’s movements last Friday, Saturday and Sunday—where he went and who might have been with him.”

“No trouble at all, my dear fellow. And I should like to know as well. Ring me here at—this same hour tomorrow and I shall have it for you. I have been wondering, and perhaps it is none of my affair, if the authorities might conduct a—a more productive investigation were they to be told of the money carried aboard?”

“If it’s possible, Sir Willis, I’d like that kept quiet. If—it was taken, and there was a lot of publicity about it, it might drop out of sight for a long time. And it seems to me it is getting a lot of publicity right now. I had a television team with a movie camera and lights trap me just outside the Harbour Club this morning. From a Miami station. They wanted a statement. It would seem to me that—a public mention of the money would compound the confusion. And anybody with any useful information might get lost in the crowd of crazies who would come forward. I’d like to go at this quietly. If, in the future, I think a lot of new attention would help, then I can bring it up. Sometimes—special information can be a good lever.”

“And if whatever happened had nothing to do with the money?”

“I have to keep remembering it might have been that way. It’s hard to think clearly when—you’re emotionally involved.”

Sir Willis appeared to look more attentively at Sam Boylston.
“Forgive me, Boylston, but I’ve rarely been exposed to Americans who make that distinction. Makes doing business with them a bit of a bother at times. Judgments based on emotions are quite valid, of course, if one happens to know what he is doing and why.” There was, Sam felt, a considerable power in this pink and white doll-man, a knowledge of the flaws in others and himself, a readiness to take any kind of advantage so long as it did not offend his own image of himself as an ethical man.

This immaculate little old man was going to quietly dismantle all the works and dreams of Squires and friends, burn the rubble and sow their lands with salt. And some phases of this program would enrich Sir Willis in one way or another. In a sudden, expanded comprehension of self, Sam Boylston realized he had made exactly this same decision himself, had made it about big Tom Dorra and old Judge Billy Alwerd. Though their role had been peripheral, their actions had been illegal enough to give Sam his rationalization. There had been an icy little focus of satisfaction and anticipation in the back of his mind whenever he had thought of them since finding out about the money loaned to Bix Kayd. When he had time to devote to them, he would find out their every area of income and investment, and see to it that small things began to go wrong. A man in a boat who has to devote all his time to caulking the seams, bailing, working the pump, has no time for careful navigation, no time to look for the reefs. If Dorra and Alwerd were to respond with total speed and energy and calm intelligence to every challenge, he could do them no real harm. But those two were hunch players, drifting at half efficiency through a haze of myth, superstition and self-approval. Shrewder than most, perhaps, but capable of fatal mistakes in judgment if too many things started to go wrong at the same time. And, when they began foundering, he could reach into the chaos and pluck out a few useful things at sacrifice prices.

As his intent became more apparent to himself, Sam saw the similarity
between himself and this scrubbed old man with the eyes as cold as Burmese sapphire. And he felt a curious contempt for Sir Willis and for himself.

As Sam left, amid the expressions of mutual gratitude, Sir Willis said, “Perhaps one day we might talk about the special advantages of setting up business interests here in the Bahamas. I suspect, dear boy, we might find some unexpected mutual benefits—of the sort you chaps from your province of Texas seem able to appreciate.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” Sam said, but knew from a flicker in cool blue depths he had not quite carried it off. The original feeling of affinity had faded away.

He telephoned Sir Willis at the bank on Friday morning at ten. Sir Willis said, “Bear with me, Boylston, if I seem a bit—indirect. Our friend was expecting a radio message from your fellow countryman Saturday morning. It did not come. Saturday afternoon he went to his vacation spot from his home base by float plane, and was left off there, along with a young chap who is in the way of being a personal aide and secret’ry. On Sunday evening our friend used his marine radio there at his place to ask the float plane to come by Monday morning and take him off. He went back to his home base, leaving the secret’ry chap alone there, should anyone come visiting, I expect. By now he has returned also, but I do not know precisely when. As to the friends of our friend, I had a chat with the one I thought most likely last evening. It became rather an ugly conversation, but it was all confirmed. There were two of them, as I suspected, beside our friend. I can guarantee silence on the part of the one I talked with. Much better if our friend has no inkling that I know of the nasty bit of work he hoped to arrange. Is all this sufficient for you?”

“I’m grateful to you, Sir Willis.”

“May I offer my hope that things will turn out far better than—
you have reason to expect at the moment. Do let me know if I can be of any help. Matters which you might find difficult I could probably arrange quite easily. We are quite a small community, actually. And it would have been a great pity had anyone of your countryman’s special—talents acquired such substantial land interests here, particularly in such a manner. It would have been troublesome to oust him, as we most certainly would have, sooner or later.”

Sam Boylston’s room phone rang at ten o’clock Friday evening as he was pacing restlessly, uncertain as to what he should do next.

If it had been—as he was quite certain Sir Willis would term it—foul play, it had to depend on word of the money leaking out. The leak could have come from careless talk in Texas, in Nassau, in Freeport, possibly even in Miami. With a promise of a share of that much money, some very savage talent could be recruited along the lower coast of Florida. Small cruisers came over at will, and several men masquerading as sports fishermen could monitor the calls from the Muñeca and trace her and intercept her at the proper time and place.

But the timing of it seemed almost too close. The Muñeca had left Nassau Friday morning. Kayd had planned to meet Squires on Saturday. But he had not made his routine radio contact on Saturday morning.

Kayd’s shrewdness had to be taken into account. He would make certain that information about the fortune aboard didn’t leak out. He would certainly keep it from his family. And he would not take aboard any hired captain who had not been checked out very carefully.

What if the Muñeca had arrived at Musket Cay earlier, say by Friday evening? They were headed that way. The cruiser could make it comfortably. Just because Squires had arrived Saturday afternoon, it did not mean he had not arranged for a little reception party to arrive there, possibly by private boat, a day or more earlier. Or perhaps somebody in Squires’s confidence had arranged it without
Squires’s knowledge. It seemed to fit the timing. Perhaps the logical course was to go to Freeport first, then back to Musket Cay.

His mind would travel in logical patterns and rhythms, but at intervals he could not anticipate, he would suddenly realize that every conjecture was based on the assumption all aboard had been slain and the bodies stowed aboard to sink with the boats into the great black depths of the Tongue of the Ocean. Logically it was an acceptable assumption. Emotionally he could not believe such a thing could have happened to Leila. She was too vibrant, too spirited, too totally alive to be wasted so mercilessly, so prematurely. In those moments remorse and grief and rage combined into an emotion as strong as a physical illness, darkening his vision, clogging his throat, giving him ripples of nausea which made cold sweat on his body and made his legs feel too weak to support him.

He was recovering from one of those moments when the phone rang and he heard Jonathan’s excited and unsteady voice say, “Sam? Are you there, Sam? They’re bringing Staniker in.”

“In where? Who is?”

“Some people on a boat. They found him somewhere, on some island, and they’ve asked for an ambulance to meet them.”

He reached the Prince George Wharf area in time. He found Jonathan in the crowd. A cruiser was angling in, spotlight trained on the dock area. A man was trotting, waving them along to a place inside the main wharves where the dock levels were suitable for small boats. The big cruise ships with their festival lights dwarfed the Chris-Craft. The ambulance was waiting. The cruiser edged in. Lines were heaved to the men on the dock. As the cruiser was moored, there was a silent lightning of flash bulbs and strobe lights, and the doctor and the ambulance attendants stepped aboard, carrying the stretcher.

BY FIRST LIGHT
on Sunday, in the sea mist, on the incoming tide, Corpo was wading the flats east of his island, hunting scallops, humming tunelessly, speaking greetings to each one as he shoved it into the gunnysack fastened to his belt. He had guessed it would be time for them to be in, and knew he had to get out there before the tide deepened it too much.

And it pleased him to have the silence and privacy of the mist and the dead calm. They couldn’t see him from the mainland shore, from all their candy-colored houses. No doll-wives shading their empty little eyes to stare out at old Corpo as if he was a bug who’d moved too close.

“Not a damned house back then,” he said, as if speaking to someone a dozen feet away. “Who was here first? I ask you that, man to man. Who was here first? Sergeant Corpo, that’s who.”

Sooner or later they’d work themselves up and get up some kind of damned petition. Like before. Potentially dangerous. Squatting
on public lands. Health hazard. Known to be violent. Get one of their bloody writs, send the sheriff boat around, make a lot of trouble for nothing. Hell, the nearest part of the island to the mainland shore was a good half mile, and with a private channel five feet deep between the island and the shore anyhow.

Would mean losing the beard again, and all the itching when it was growing back in. Sit there in court in a white shirt with all the candy people staring at him, wishing they could snap their fingers and he’d disappear. The Lieutenant would have to handle it again, like the other times. It was hard to follow what he said, and some of it didn’t seem the way Corpo remembered it, but it was good to listen to.