The Revengers (29 page)

So we—to hell with we, I—had sent an untrained boy to do a man’s bodyguard job while I went off to swim in dark canals for reasons that were beginning to seem less and less compelling. Well, it’s hard to do a good job of kicking yourself while driving a car; and the undersized Japanese pickup had all the bad habits of any unloaded truck with no weight on the rear wheels. Pushing it hard, I had to handle it carefully so I wouldn’t lose it; even then, it took me longer than it should have to reach the hospital. Martha was waiting when I got there, sitting on an upholstered backless bench facing the information desk.

She got up as I approached and gave me a curious look, reminding me that I was no shining example of immaculate sartorial splendor; but what the hell, my clothes had dried and I’d brushed off most of the mud, and these informal days it’s the guy with the crease in his pants who looks conspicuous.

“Are you all right?” Martha asked.

I nodded. “How is he?”

“Not really critical, but he won’t let them do anything, give him anything, until he talks to you. He’s afraid they’ll put him out.”

“Where do we go?”

She said, “The doctor just went up. He said if you arrived, sit tight; he’ll be right back.”

“Sure.” I hesitated. “Do you know where Eleanor Brand is?”

“Elly?” Martha frowned, surprised. “No, I have no idea, why should I? I haven’t seen her since this afternoon.” Her lips tightened. “After the way she abused my girlish trust a while back, we’re not exactly friends, remember? Why do you ask?”

“Brent was supposed to be keeping an eye on her for us. We thought she might be in danger.”

“It couldn’t happen to a nicer person.” Martha threw a wry grin my way. “Don’t mind me; I’m just being bitchy. But Brent didn’t tell me that.” She sounded mildly resentful.

I grinned. “He probably wasn’t sure how much you were supposed to know, even if you were the boss’s daughter. What happened, anyway?”

She drew a long breath to prepare herself, and launched into the recital, “After seeing Daddy off, I went into one of the airport restaurants—well, kind of a bar, actually—and had a drink; then I remembered I hadn’t eaten anything since I left New Mexico this morning. You can’t eat that plastic stuff they hand you on airplanes nowadays. The bar girl said I could have dinner right there in the booth; but of course it took practically forever. They had to bring it all from the real restaurant next door, and they didn’t break their necks working at it. But I didn’t really mind. Daddy had given me a number to call so I could find out how . . . how your expedition had turned out before I went to bed; but I knew it was too early for that. So I had a slow brandy afterward; and suddenly there was your friend, Brent, at the bar. I waved and he came over, but I must say he didn’t seem very pleased to see me. Kind of preoccupied. Not very flattering; but he did say, when I asked, that he had a car and would be happy to give me a ride to my hotel and save me a taxi. Well, he could hardly say anything else. They jumped us in the airport parking lot.” She hesitated. “I. . . wasn’t much use, Matt. In fact, I was totally useless, just a damned helpless movie ingenue cowering back against the cars while her escort. ... It happened so fast!”

“How many?” I asked.

“Two. Young. Black. One came from nowhere and snatched my purse; and when I cried out and Brent grabbed him, the other jumped out from behind the cars and hit Brent on the head with something. Brent fell down and the one with my purse turned around and kicked him a couple of times. Then the big one reached down and hit him again with whatever it was and they ran off. .  .. After a moment, she went on, “The police found my bag almost right away, only a little distance off, with only the money missing. They think it was just an ordinary mugging, but it wasn’t, was it?”

“Probably not.”

“After seeing him safe in the ambulance, I drove his car to his place—he’d given me the keys—to wait for your call as I’d promised him. There was another man there, the backup man, Brent had called him; and he was very suspicious of me. He insisted on confirming my identity with Washington before he’d let me near the phone.”

“As he damned well should have,” I said. “Did Brent tell you what he was doing at the airport?”

“He said . . ." She frowned with the effort of remembering. “He said he’d been seeing somebody off and . . . and making arrangements to follow them. Elly?”

I shrugged. “It’s a guess. What the hell is that doctor doing?”

“Matt.”

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?” she asked.

I frowned. “Who, the doctor? How the hell would I. . . . Oh, Brent? Something flossy, Michael, I think. Michael Brent. Why?”

“He . . . seems like a very nice boy, too nice to be mixed up in Daddy’s dirty games. And yours.”

She sounded a bit patronizing, the very experienced, very grownup, widow-lady in the smart white suit, Mrs. Robert Devine, looking down condescendingly upon the children at their foolish play. Her disapproval of her parent’s activities and mine didn’t bother me, I was hardened to that; but I was tempted to point out to her that the boy she was referring to was a promising member of a respected law firm; and that she wasn’t so damned ancient herself. But the woman behind the information desk was trying to catch our attention.

“Dr. Levine just called,” she said. “You can go up now.”

The doctor was waiting for us when we got off the elevator, a rather small man with a white coat, a brown face, a big nose and intelligent, compassionate brown eyes. “I hope this is really important,” he said.

I asked, “What’s the damage, Doctor?”

“That’s what we want to determine, but the patient refuses to cooperate until . . . we do know that a couple of ribs are broken. There were two blows to the cranium, one fairly severe. We are concerned about the possibility of a fracture. . . . Make it as quick as you can, please. I wouldn’t allow it at all, but he did keep saying it was important, and a disturbed mental state can be as damaging as a little delay. So help him get it off his mind, whatever it is, but please don’t take any longer than absolutely necessary.”

I nodded, and went inside first, impolite, followed by Martha and Dr. Levine, polite. Brent was lying in the bed with his eyes closed. His freckles showed very clearly on his pale face. His head was bandaged; and under the hospital gown, his chest was obviously strapped up tightly. The doctors love doing that to you, and it doesn’t do a damned bit of good that I’ve ever discovered. The ribs will heal in their own good time, strapped or unstrapped; and all you can do is grit your teeth and wait for it to happen. When you can laugh and cough without hurting, you know you’re cured. But I guess the medical profession doesn’t feel it’s doing its duty if it isn’t doing something, even if it’s hot and uncomfortable and useless. Brent opened his eyes and licked his lips.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I loused it up.”

“Never mind that,” I said. “Where did Brand go?”

“Back to the Bahamas. She got a phone call. She went back to talk to somebody named Einar Kettleman who . . .”

“I know who Kettleman is. Where?”

“Same hospital in Nassau. He’d been picked up at sea by a fisherman and brought to one of the Out Islands first. . . ."

“Never mind, I can get all that elsewhere. How’d she get away from you?”

“She was mad at us, at you, for not letting her go with you. She told me to . . . go fly my kite. She said she was tired of having us ... us government creeps hanging around her. She said ... by this time obviously no real danger . . . Warren Peterson could do all the bodyguarding needed. I was to tell you . . . tell you goodbye and . . . chuck you, Farley. Sorry, but that’s what she said. They had tickets, she and Peterson. Commercial flight. I couldn’t get any. Great bodyguard, couldn’t get on the damned flight, all full up. Couldn’t reach Delman, off on a job somewhere. . . ."

“Delman?”

“Murray Delman, the charter pilot who. . ."

“Sure, go on.”

“Left word. He’ll be back and ready to go again oh-three-hundred. Flight all cleared. Called Fred, he’ll pick Brand up and watch over her after she lands in Nassau, until relieved. Best I could do. Sorry made such a mess of . . ."

“You did okay,” I said. “You did fine. Now just relax and let the doctor . . ."

“No! Don’t go!” There was a breathless urgency in his voice. “That’s not all. What I really wanted to tell you. . . . Should have reported this afternoon, but everybody so busy and I thought we’d have plenty of time later. Investigation. Down in the Keys, remember?”

“I remember, but can’t it wait?”

“Not wait. Now. Serena Lorca.”

“What?”

“The Lorca girl. Serena. They call her Rina. Lorca has a fishing boat, big job, twin Detroit diesels. All those hard Mafia types down here have big chrome-plated sportfishermen, good for secret meetings with the boys. And girls. And good for the ego. Sometimes they even catch some fish. But Lorca’s daughter likes sailboats better. A lot better. That’s what . . . what Captain Harriet Robinson discovered: Rina loves sailboats so much she’s bought four of them—five now—in the past two years. Five good-sized cruising sailboats, at least a quarter of a million bucks’ worth, even secondhand, the way she got them. Bought but not sold. No record of sale anywhere. Interesting?”

“Very interesting,” I said. “Give me Rina.”

“Serena Lorca, daughter, twenty-two, five-four, one-thirty-five, short dark hair, brown eyes. . . .. Supposed to be good sailor but lost a boat offshore couple-three years ago, cruising with a friend.
Tumbleweed
, thirty-footer, sloop rig, built by . . .. built by. . . forget. That one daddy bought new for her. Oh, it was Parsons’ Boatyard, Lauderdale, remember now.”

I said, “Never mind. Eleanor told me about that accident.”

“No, listen!” Brent’s voice was insistent. “Storm, dismasted. Girlfriend knocked overboard by falling spar, couldn’t save. Mast, lying in water alongside, smashed through hull like battering ram in heavy seas before she could cut it free, working alone. Picked up in life raft after five days adrift, bad condition, hospital, psychiatric treatment. Phony.”

“What?”

Brent licked his lips. “It’s a phony, Matt. ‘The fallen mast smashed through the hull like a battering ram in the heavy seas.’ That’s what she told reporters. Only she got it word for word out of an old magazine article. I remembered reading the story. I dug out the magazine; I keep them. It’s at my place, along with a list of the boats she’s bought. Story’s about a guy who lost his boat and wife in a storm off Cape Mendocino, California. Serena cribbed practically every detail right out of the article. And I back-checked the weather records at the time, no storm. Squall, maybe; there could have been a local squall, they come and go. But it didn’t blow hard enough or long enough to raise any heavy seas the whole time she was out there. Think about it.”

“Good work,” I said. The doctor was getting fidgety off to my right. “Give me the girlfriend who was lost.”

“Ann Bergerson. Eighteen at the time of her death, couple of years younger than Serena. Data incomplete; but tall, slim, blond, and beautiful is what it says so far.” 

“Where’s Serena now?”

“Sorry, don’t know. Working on it when . . . she took off two days ago in her latest sailboat,
Jamboree
, forty-foot exracer, built sixty-nine, masthead sloop converted to slightly cut-down cutter rig. I wanted to check with you before getting official help to locate her. Daddy’s fifty-foot sport-fisherman’s gone, too; it always goes when the sailboats go. Why? You guess, my head is tired.
Ser-Jan
. Ugh, hate those stuck-together cutie-pie names! Serena and Janine. Lorca named that gold-plated fishing machine after his daughter and wife, very touching, like a sentimental shark, . ."

Dr. Levine was moving forward now. I said quickly, “That’s a hell of a fine job of research, amigo. Anything else?”

“No, I guess.... Yes, one thing. Gun you gave Brand.” “Peterson’s gun, actually.”

“Yes, but couldn’t take on commercial flight, through scanners, asked me to hold. Car, glove compartment. She

said to tell you____”

“I know,” I said, “Chuck you, Farley.”

“Now you really must leave,” the doctor said, and we left.

Downstairs I stopped at a pay phone in the lobby and called the Miami contact number again, Brent’s number, this time getting a male voice I didn’t recognize. We went through the standard identification routines and he connected me with Nassau, after some delay.

“Fred was ready for them at the airport,” said the pleasant female voice with whom I was familiar. “No report since.”

“He’s been advised that the subject has turned uncooperative?” I asked.

“Yes. And she knows him, which makes it more difficult, but he’s traded cabs with another driver and will try to stay out of sight.” There was a sound that might have been a throaty chuckle. “Of course, one black boy do look much like another in the dark, Massa Eric.”

It was the first time, on this assignment at least, that she’d said anything human and unofficial, or indicative of her race. I hadn’t given it much thought. I’d been more concerned about the distinct impression I’d gotten, from her cool and businesslike telephone manner, that in the undeclared feud between Fred and me she’d picked a side, and it wasn’t mine. But apparently a slight thaw had set in.

“What about one black girl?” I asked.

“No comment. I’se a respectable married woman, sah.” The phony-darky accent vanished. “Instructions?”

“I’ll be there before daylight to take over, but I’ll have to know where. When he checks in, tell him to keep checking in as often as possible.”

“Noted. Anything else?”

“Yes. Tell him to keep his head down. They laid for Brent and he’s in the hospital here, condition uncertain. The party’s getting rough. Extreme caution.”

“I . . . will pass it along as soon as I can. Extreme caution.”

The little worried hesitation made the picture very clear. I thought it would be nice if I had at my disposal a great worldwide organization manned by nothing but tough professionals, preferably unmarried and unattached, instead of willing but untrained half-time heroes like Brent and Fred. But it was no time for handing out greasy, insincere reassurances to the worried dependents.