Angel's Ransom (14 page)

Marian and Freddy were together in the galley. Marian had managed to get a coffee percolator functioning, and
Freddy was drinking black coffee in quantity. From the
signs - Marian
’s
white face and tight lips, Freddy
’s
black
scowl - he had had something further to say about her part
in the kidnapping. But the subject had been exhausted
before Blake got there, and it was not reopened after his
arrival. Marian handed him a cup of coffee without a word.

Freddy looked like death; baggy-eyed, twitchy and grey. His broken finger pained him, and it was obvious that he had
not taken his clothes off during the night.

Blake said, ‘Did you sleep at all?’

‘How do you sleep when you can’t sit still? Even when you take the cure, they let you taper off. This way is slow death.’

‘I’m sorry about the bar business. It had to be done. Sweat it out for another two days and you can stay drunk for a
week afterwards.’

‘
Sure
.’ Freddy looked into his coffee cup.
‘s
ure. If he lets us go.’

‘He’ll have got everything out of you he can hope for. There
’s
no reason why he shouldn’t let us go.’

‘
S
ure,’ Freddy said again. ‘There
’s
no reason why he shouldn’t leave the bar open, either. He just likes it closed.’

The cup made a sharp rattling noise against his teeth when he lifted it to drink. He took his injured hand out of its
sling to hold the cup clumsily with both hands.

Blake said, ‘Where is he now?’

‘In the salon, the last time I looked. He
’s
taken it over.’

‘Any chance of your getting to use the radio when he isn’t around?’

‘For what?’

Blake touched the button that controlled the galley ventilation. When the soft roar of the blowers came on to
muffle their conversation - he had not forgotten the eaves-dropping of the night before - he said, ‘I’d like to know if
there is anything on the air about us. Jules wrecked the
radiophone.’

‘I don’t see what good it will do us to know even if there is.’ Freddy took another jittery mouthful of coffee.
‘
S
am,
listen. Forget about the radio. We’ve got to talk about
something
that
’s
more important.’

‘What?’

‘Well, I
–’

Freddy looked sideways at Marian. She said, ‘Do you want me to leave?’

‘What I want you to do is jump overboard,’ he answered viciously. ‘I don’t expect that you will. I -
I
was just wondering - Sam - if we could wreck the motors, say
–’

‘
S
top wondering. We want to get back to Monaco alive. The
Angel
is the only thing that will take us there. It will all
be over in two days, Freddy.’

‘But you don’t know - oh, God, I can’t think!’ Freddy put a shaking hand to his forehead. ‘I’m going nuts. If I don’t
get a drink of some kind, I’ll jump overboard myself. I can’t
stand it!’

It was impossible not to be sorry for him. His suffering was too real. Blake said reluctantly, ‘All right. There
’s
a bottle of
bay rum in my cabin. It may make you sick, but it
’s
drinkable.’

Freddy put the cup down with a crash. ‘Where in your cabin?’

‘With my shaving gear. Keep out of Holtz
’s
way after
ward.’

‘I will. Thanks, Sam. Thanks! I - thanks.’

He was gone.

Marian said, ‘Aren’t you afraid that Holtz will punish you for insubordination, Captain?’

Blake had opened the shut-off valve of the stove. He made an excuse of testing each burner so he could choose his
words before he answered.

‘You’re still having trouble facing realities, aren’t you? I don’t mind that you think I’m a coward. What is dangerous
is that you don’t seem to understand how important it is
that we all be cowardly. We’re excess baggage as far as Holtz
is concerned. We’ve got to cringe, show him we’re helpless
against him, so he can lord it over us and enjoy the fact of
our existence. The minute he thinks we’re a danger to him,
we’re finished. It
’s
as simple as that.’

‘You were dangerous to him when you tried to wreck us. You survived without cringing.’

‘He needed me, for one thing, or thought he did. He doesn’t now. He hasn’t needed anyone else for a minute,
except you and Freddy, and he stopped needing you the
minute you brought him aboard. I don’t think you realize
even now how close you came to being shot, when you were
going to scream for help back there in the
harbor
.’

She did not answer. The stubborn opposition in her face remained.

He said, ‘Bruno
’s
scheme is as ridiculous as it is dangerous. He doesn’t know enough to be afraid of Holtz. I do. You’d
better try to learn.’

‘I’d rather spend my time thinking
o
f a way to beat him.’ The sheer mulishness of her attitude, his frustrating
inability to make an impression by reasoning with her,
angered him suddenly beyond control. In the small confines
of the galley she was within his arm
’s
reach. He took her by
the shoulders and shook her like a doll, until her teeth clicked
and her hair fell into her eyes and her weight was more in
his hands than on her own feet.

‘You’re not accepting challenges just for yourself now,’ he said bitterly. ‘Get it through your head! We’re all in this
together! If you want to die, do what Freddy told you to do.
Jump overboard! But don’t try to take the rest of us with
you!’

She swayed dizzily against him, her eyes closed. His anger faded as quickly as it had come. Her shoulders were soft under
his gripping fingers, fragile, and she did not struggle against
what must have been a painful grip. Ashamed, he held her
until he was sure she had her balance, then left the galley.
He was grateful that he had not descended to the ultimate
cruelty of reminding her that it was through her fault they
were there. Adding the burden of his blame to Freddy
’s
could do no good, and would certainly not make her any
less determined to thwart Holtz.

A few minutes more than his allotted half hour had passed before he returned to the pilot-house. When he took the
wheel, Jules pointed out the tardiness, and warned against a
repetition of it.

‘I’m not going to slug you for it this time,’ he said. ‘We’re all getting along fine, so far. Let
’s
keep it that way,
eh? Nobody hurt, nobody mad, nobody with any bright
ideas. Right?’

Blake agreed wearily. Nobody hurt, nobody mad, nobody with bright ideas. He wished it were true.

Minutes after the sailor had left him again alone, Freddy appeared on the foredeck. He wore a jaunty yachting cap,
carried a suspicious bulge in his arm sling, and dragged a
deck-chair after him. His relaxed, almost cheerful, manner
showed that he had already been at the bay rum bottle. For
Blake
’s
benefit, he pantomimed that he was obeying orders
to stay out of Holtz
’s
way by putting the length of the cruiser
between them. He set up the chair on the open deck,
plumped himself down in it, took a long drink from the
bottle that was in his sling, then made an exaggerated face of
revulsion and tipped the yachting cap over his eyes for the
delayed nap he was about to enjoy. He was asleep in
seconds.

An hour later Bruno, in swimming trunks, came out on the foredeck to shake him awake and ask a question. Freddy
returned to consciousness only long enough to mumble a
reply, then felt
protectingly
for his bottle before he drifted
off again. Bruno stood looking at the pilot-house, his hand
shading his eyes, for some moments. Afterwards he went
away, to return with an armload of pneumatic mattresses
which he inflated and spread around the foredeck.

From the preparations, it looked to Blake as if the
Angel
’s
passenger list intended to abandon the after part of the
yacht entirely to Holtz and Jules. His guess was confirmed
when Bruno was joined by Valentina and Laura di Lucca.

Valentina had taken simple and effective steps to live up
to her promise to concentrate Bruno
’s
interest on herself. Under a robe which she discarded in the hot sun beating
down on the foredeck, she wore a minimal bikini that did
nothing to disguise the lush ripeness of her figure. Her skin
was a warm golden brown, smoothly and evenly tanned,
and her beauty a harsh if unintentional cruelty to Laura
di
Lucca, who was graceless in a too-frivolous playsuit. Bruno
’s
well-muscled gladiator
’s
torso made his wife
’s
lack of
physical charm even more marked.

Holtz
’s
voice behind Blake said, ‘He will be less resistant to her charms than you were, Captain.’

He stood in the open doorway of the pilot-house, his lip curled in pleasure at having taken Blake by surprise. For the
first time he carried the Walther in his belt instead of in his
hand, and while he was again careful to keep his distance
there was a confidence in his manner not wholly dependent
on force of arms.

‘A convincing example of the misuse of wealth,’ he went on. ‘The gigolo has sold himself to a woman for whom he has
nothing but the contempt she invites, and the girl offers her
golden body for sale to a flabby alcoholic. I am doing the
world a
favor
to relieve your employer of a portion of the
money he deserves so
little
. Do you not agree?’

‘No.’

Holtz
’s
laugh was a jeer.

‘You contradict me more readily than I like. It is
fortunate
for you that you cannot be heard at a distance. Grasse is calling the
Angel
every two hours. I picked the call up on
the radio in the salon.’

‘Jules wrecked the radiophone. You don’t have to worry.’

‘I am not in the least worried.’ The jeer had become a scowl. ‘Do not irritate me with your assurances. I expect the
port authorities to be curious about your abandonment of
your crew, but I know they will not for a moment seriously
challenge the privileges of six million dollars. Farr
’s
widely
known reluctance to have his actions questioned entered into
my calculations as much as your own servile obedience to
regulations. His disrespect for authority will account for the
small irregularities of our departure from Monaco.’

‘How much thought have you given to irregularities of arrival?’

‘What gives you the privilege of asking the question?’

‘Because I want this business to end the way you do,
without trouble, and I don’t see how you are going to get
away with it. You can’t just sail into Monaco
harbor
and
go ashore the way you came aboard. You know a fuss will
be raised as soon as you leave the yacht.’

‘You disappoint me.’ Holtz shook his head in mock regret. ‘For a moment I thought you were ready to join with
me. I shall give you an explanation of how I intend to leave
the
Angel
without difficulty when you have accepted the
offer I made you earlier. In the meantime, observe how the
power of wealth is losing ground to the animal urges of the
gigolo. His wife is about to burst with jealousy.’

On the foredeck, Bruno was carrying on a bold wooing of Valentina
’s
attentions. She had permitted him to bring an
air mattress near to the one on which she basked, and they
lay side by side in the sun like young and beautiful lovers,
their heads intimately together. Freddy slept on, his mouth
open, his injured ha
nd awkwardly protecting the bottle
in
his sling.