Cargo for the Styx (9 page)

I
SAID, “WELL, WELL
. You’re in coventry too.”

She said unhappily, “Vann put me down here to get you to talk. He didn’t think you would without persuasion.”

I said, “And when I do talk, you go up and report. Is that it?”

“That’s the way he sees it,” she said.

“And if I don’t talk?”

“Then he’ll know I was lying when I said I’d rejoined his side. He’ll think I’m deliberately not telling him just to protect you.”

I sat on a crate. “Were you lying?”

Her voice was a wail, “Martin!”

I said, “I believed you.”

She lowered her head and gnawed a moment at her lip. Then she raised her eyes to mine. She said, “Otho found me and dragged me here. I thought I could help more if I pretended to be with them.”

I said, “Telling Vann I was alive was a great help, all right.”

She said, “I heard that news on the radio in the catamaran. They found Clarence Curdy’s body. They know you’re alive. There’s an APB out for you.”

I said, “Sweet Lieutenant Nicolo. All right, so you figured Vann would hear that news in a little while anyway. That much I’ll buy. But why the scream that tipped Otho off to where I was?”

“I saw your shadow,” she said. “And I saw Otho looking at it. I screamed to distract him. But it didn’t work.”

I scratched my head. It didn’t stir any thoughts. I said, “In less than an hour, this boat goes to the bottom. I have the feeling that you and I are both going with it.” I paused. “Unless you convince Vann you’re on his side.”

She said, “What are you trying to say, Martin?”

I shook my head. “I’m trying to do my thinking out loud.” I scratched my head again. This time I felt something like movement inside. “Even if you get the information Vann wants, he hasn’t any reason to leave you alive. You’re too dangerous to him. The best you could do would be buy a little time.”

She sat on the mattress with her legs curled under her. She leaned forward and took my hand, drawing me down beside her. “I’m frightened.”

I said, “That makes two of us. But I have an angle. I have two angles. One of them might pay off.”

“You don’t sound very certain,” she said.

She was still holding my hand. I squeezed down on her fingers. “I’m not. But we can’t lose. We haven’t got anything left to lose.”

She shivered. I turned her face to mine and kissed her. It was meant to be a soothing kiss, the kind a guy gives a woman before he sets out to tackle wild game bare-handed. Somewhere the soothing part lost itself.

I pushed her away. “For God’s sake, there isn’t time now.”

“Can you think of a better way to die?” She didn’t sound frightened any more.

“I can think of better positions to be in when I die,” I said. “Now listen, Vann wants information from me. He knows he has to get rid of me. But at the same time he’s afraid to until he knows just how much of what I know I’ve passed along the line.”

She nodded. Her hands were on my leg. She moved them. I took her wrists and pushed her hands down into her lap. I said, “So you’re going to tell Vann what he wants to hear.”

“You can’t do that, Martin!”

I said doggedly, “Tell him what he wants to know. Then go to Jaspar and tell him the whole thing is a stall. Tell him Aggie and I figured a way out for him.”

“But he’ll tell Vann and …”

I said, “I’m guessing that Jaspar gets unhappier with every mile we make. Murder isn’t his dish. Tell him what happened to Prebble.”

“What if I can’t make either one of them believe me?”

I said, “You have to. Remember, make Jaspar see that the whole thing started with Prebble’s murder.”

“It did?”

I said, “No, but Prebble was with the Clift family quite a while. I’m banking on Jaspar’s not knowing Prebble’s been murdered and on his getting sore when he does find out.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

I said, “You will. Just concentrate on making Vann and Jaspar believe you.”

“I’d rather make you—believe me.”

I wondered just how she had punctuated that sentence. I didn’t take the time to ask. I said, “Tell Clift that I haven’t yet contacted Marine Mutual. I’ve been waiting for more concrete evidence. But I have contacted a private detective here in LaPlaya. His name is Lonergan, and I put him to work investigating Vann. But he hasn’t reported to me yet.”

She said worriedly, “Martin, you can’t do that. Vann will find this Lonergan and kill him.”

I said, “He’ll be a little late. Lonergan died three months ago. But he’s still listed in the phone book. So if Vann makes a quick check, he’ll find the name.”

“I don’t see what good this is going to do us,” she said.

I said, “It could do a lot of good—when you add that I also told Lonergan to contact Lieutenant Nicolo of the local police if anything happened to me.”

She said, “Oh.” She was silent a moment. “Now what do we do, Martin?”

I said, “We wait for them to come and get you.”

“I hate to just wait,” she said.

I said, “Have a cigarette.”

She glared at me. “I’ll get even with you for that.”

I said fervently, “I hope you get the chance.”

I gave her a cigarette. We smoked in silence. After a few puffs, we both stubbed out the cigarettes. The air was too close down in that hold, there was too little ventilation and too much dust. After that, we just sat.

I could feel the diesels pick up speed. I wondered how far out of the harbor we were going before Vann had Otho pull the cork. I wondered just what good all this was going to do Vann. I wondered a lot of things. I was still wondering them when the hatch cover came off and a stir of air poured down on us.

Vann said from above, “Irma.”

She gave my hand a brief squeeze and got to her feet. I watched her go slowly up the ladder. The hatch cover dropped into place again.

The diesels lifted their hammering again. We were making more speed, so much that I knew we must be in open water, beyond the clutter of harbor traffic. I got up and began to prowl. About now, Vann should be listening to Irma. Would he buy what she had to sell him?

Would she sell him what I had given her? Or had I let her take me in a second time? Right now was she telling Vann I was trying to stall, that actually I didn’t know very much and hadn’t passed on any information?

I thought, I need a weapon. Just in case.

Weapons are hard to come by in holds of ships carrying only great wooden crates for cargo. Crates full of fragile parts.

How fragile?

I moved to a stack of crates that reached almost to the roof above me. I maneuvered the ladder away from the hatch and leaned its top against the top of the pile of crates. I hooked a rung of the ladder around one corner of the uppermost crate. I gave the ladder a jerk.

I had to move fast. The crate came off the pile and straight down. The ladder and Zane rolled to one side. The crate landed where he’d been. Dust rose. The sound of the crash was like a small explosion in the tight space. The sight of split wood was a beautiful one. Zane said, “Eureka!” I agreed with him.

I lost two fingernails and skin off my knuckles but I finally had the top off the crate. I looked down at layers of packing. I lifted them out. Beneath the packing were a lot of waxed-paper wrapped, oddly-shaped packages. I lifted out one that was long and narrow. It was heavy. I took off the wrapping. I looked at what I’d uncovered. Now I knew how Vann was going to make something out of this deal. And I knew that Irma had suckered me again.

I’
D HAD NO CHOICE
but to trust Irma. Knowing that didn’t make me feel any better. I stared down at the hunk of metal I held in my hand. I wasn’t looking at any electronic part. I was looking at a piece of scrap metal.

I pawed through the rest of the packages in the crate. I came up with six hunks of metal, seven medium-sized rocks, and a lot of paper. One by one I dropped the rocks and metal back into the crate. I stuffed the paper on top. I kept out only the first piece I’d removed. It was an eight-inch piece of three-quarter inch rod. It was rusted and battered but that wouldn’t stop it from cracking a skull.

I put the lid back on the crate. I manhandled all traces of what I’d done back into a dark corner. Then I returned to the mattress.

The plan was so simple I had to admire it. Insurance wasn’t going to worry Vann on this deal. He could send Aggie to the bottom along with me, and he wouldn’t lose a dime. The only person on this boat he really needed alive was Irma.

As I saw it, the insurance was legitimate all the way around. Vann would sink the boat and Marine Mutual would pay off. That way Electronics Suppliers wouldn’t have any squawk. They’d take the insurance money and replace the cargo they lost and go on about their business.

The gimmick was they really hadn’t lost any cargo. None that would be sitting on the bottom of the ocean. Because all that was going down with the
Temoc
would be crates of scrap iron and rocks. The real cargo, the original cargo, was stashed away somewhere. And when the time was ripe, Vann would peddle it. There were plenty of small factories willing to pay under wholesale for valuable parts. There was an even bigger market, a fat plum of a market behind the Iron Curtain, if Vann wanted to smuggle.

Above me the hatch cover came off again. Otho’s face appeared. “Push up that ladder, Zane.”

“Go to hell,” I said.

“Okay.” He sounded cheerful. “I’ll just run the exhaust hose in here a while. I got lots of time.”

Asphyxiation didn’t appeal to me at the moment. I ran the ladder up. He lumbered down it. He had a knapsack on his back. He lowered it to the deck and grinned at me.

“I said, “Dynamite?”

“That’s right.”

I said, “You’re going to have to sink this boat in deep water, Otho. If it can be salvaged, Vann’s little scheme will blow higher than Blimey’s Shack did.”

He looked interested. “You got this all figured out, Zane?”

I said, “As I see it, Irma received a legitimate shipment of electronic parts. Somewhere between the railhead and the dock, the cargo was swapped for a lot of useless junk. After you sink the
Temoc
, the cargo gets sold. Irma knows her business. She can find a spot that will pay a nice price for the stuff.”

“You’re pretty good, Zane.” He sounded admiring. “How’d you figure it out?”

I stood up. The metal bar was dangling down from my hand, in shadow against my leg. I moved toward Otho. I said, “I found this.”

I showed him the rod. I brought it up fast and hard. I aimed it right for his face so he couldn’t miss seeing it.

Otho was quick. His arm came up. The rod bounced off hard muscle and bone. I heard the bone snap. Otho screamed. All the time he was screaming, he was busy bringing his left around. He clipped me on his favorite spot, my ear.

I bounced back against a pile of crates. The rod slid out of my hand and rolled noisily into the darkness. Otho came at me, his arm dangling at his side. His lips were pulled over his teeth with pain. He came slowly, not making the mistake of trying to rush me.

I twisted my head, looking for the rod. I thought I saw the end of it five feet to my left. I jumped and bent down. My hand closed over shadow, over nothingness. I turned and straightened up. Otho’s swinging foot took me in the shoulder. I went down between two rows of crates.

I worked my way to my feet. Otho waited for me. The pain was squeezing up his eyes, but it wasn’t slowing him down. He knew just what to do—wait until the dusty darkness and lack of air forced me out.

I went backwards. I crammed myself as far back in the narrow tunnel between the crates as I could wedge myself. My head hurt and my shoulder hurt. And now my lungs began to hurt. I needed more air than I could get back here.

I reached upward. If I could crawl higher, I could get more air. I found a hand hold where the crates were stacked unevenly. The loading job had been a quick and sloppy one. After all, the cargo wasn’t supposed to travel very far—except straight down.

I was gulping for air and sweating like a blast furnace operator when I wriggled up on a stack of crates ten deep. I lay panting and trying to hear what Otho was doing.

I heard easily enough. He had left his position in front of the crates. He was doing something that made noise like the scrabblings of a rat. He was getting his dynamite into the right spot.

I slid forward, across one pile of crates onto another. I wanted to see where that dynamite was being put. I wanted to know just how far I’d be from the explosion when it came.

I slid again. Crates wobbled under my movements. I made one more slide, carefully this time. I pushed myself to the edge of the pile and looked down. I looked down right at Otho as he lovingly placed his dynamite against the bulkhead. I saw the timing mechanism laid out on the deck, waiting for Otho to set it.

I slid back one pile. I put my hands on the edges of the crate just ahead of me. Slowly I began to push it. I could feel the pile give a little. I pushed harder. The pile began to rock. The pile under me began to rock too.

I found purchase for my feet. I thrust backwards with my legs and forward with my hands. I felt the crate slip away from my fingers. I heard it going down. I heard Otho’s short, sharp scream. It came just before the sound of the crate smashing his body reached me.

I saw the other crates in the forward pile begin to topple. A sudden chop in the sea gave them momentum. The whole pile began to slide. The pile under me slid with them.

The crates went, a dozen of them toppling at once. I went, too. I tried kicking myself outward. I curled myself like a gymnast. I could feel the rush of air. It was filled with dust and noise. I saw the deck coming at me. I twisted myself and caught a corner of the mattress with my bad shoulder. My breath went. I reached for it and lost it.

I wanted to move and couldn’t. I lay and listened to feet coming down the ladder, pausing, and then crossing the deck toward me. I felt hands under my arms. I gasped for air. The hands squeezed me. The air came. I sucked it in greedily. Dust and all, it tasted like fine wine.

The hands let go of me. I got to my feet. I looked at Jaspar Clift. I said, “Oh, great!”

He said, “What the hell happened down here?”

I pointed proudly toward the bulkhead. A pair of feet and part of a leg showed. I said, “Otho.”

Clift wiped his hands on his trouser legs. He said, “That makes up a little for Prebble.”

The close, dusty air began to have a new taste to it—the taste of freedom. I said, “You wouldn’t be interested in helping an insurance company, would you, Clift?”

He didn’t answer me. He said, “That bastard Vann has it all set up. In thirty minutes we’ll be over the deep. Then it goes.”

I said, “It would have gone. Only Otho isn’t going to play with firecrackers any more tonight.”

Clift said, “He already wired the forward hold.” He wiped sweat from his upper lip. “There’ll be two thousand feet of water under us in thirty minutes, Zane.”

I said, “Vann picked a good spot. Nobody’ll bother to try to salvage anything at that depth.”

He just looked at me. I said, “For God’s sake, let’s get into that hold and pull the dynamite out of there.”

He said, “Vann’s on the bridge. You can’t get within twenty feet of the forward hatch. He’s got an arsenal with him.”

I said, “With two of us, we should be able to do something,”

He said, “I’d like to.” And then he went to pieces like a wet paper bag. I stared down at him. I saw the blood seeping out from under his body.

I went to my knees. I said, “What the hell happened?”

Clift’s face was dirty white. He said, “Vann overheard Irma telling me about Prebble. I went for him and he shot me.” He licked his lips. “Leg.”

I moved him a little. He’d taken the bullet high on the outside of the thigh. I didn’t know how he’d stayed on his feet long enough to come down here and try to help me.

Something he’d said hit me. “Irma told you about Prebble?”

His head bobbed. “She told him what you said to tell him.” His voice was a long way off. “He bought it—until he heard her talking to me.”

The air was suddenly very fresh, very sweet. I said, “Chum, you’re going up that ladder. Don’t ask me how, but you’re going.”

He said, “Okay.”

I helped him to his feet. I got a shoulder under his arm. It took almost everything I had left to get him to the foot of the ladder. He grabbed a rung with both hands and held on. He shook his head.

I said, “Twenty-five minutes left before Otho’s toy goes to work. Start climbing.”

He got a leg on a rung. He pulled with his hands and thrust with the leg. He went up a rung. I watched his hands. They were slow. They came away from one rung as if they had molasses on them. They fumbled for the next rung up, touched it, slipped off, found it again and held on.

I could smell the fresher air. It grew stronger and stronger. I could see Clift’s head reach that air. His body was even with the edge of the hatch. One more push. One more grunt. His foot slipped.

I caught his heel with my shoulder. I felt my grip going. I kicked with my feet against the rung where they rested. I heard Clift gasp. I levered him with my torso. He went up and out of sight. I crawled after him. He was sprawled on the deck. I rolled alongside and lay sucking in the salt-sweet air.

I said, “Clift?”

He didn’t answer. I lifted myself and looked down at him. He was breathing but he wasn’t doing much else. I turned him onto his back. I got out my handkerchief and wadded it against his wound. I ripped a piece off his shirt and bound the wadding as tight as I could.

I got up. I estimated that we had twenty minutes to go.