Operation Breakthrough (14 page)

I followed Hazel to the house, went upstairs and changed clothes, swapped my brown hairpiece for a red one, and performed a quick facial changeover from the tubes in my makeup kit, which resembled a woman’s small traveling case. I carried the kit downstairs. Hazel was in the kitchen. She had changed to a dress but was carrying only a large handbag. “I don’t like it nearly as well when you give yourself that semiprettyboy appearance,” she said disapprovingly when she looked me over.

“You know I’ve got to gild the lily a bit, or they wouldn’t let me into the same hotel room with a gorgeous thing like you,” I said.

She glanced at her watch. “We’ve missed the flight to Reno.”

“Even if we hadn’t, we wouldn’t go near that airport,” I said. “Our visitors might know who they’re looking for.”

“Then we’re — ”

“We’re driving to Salt Lake City and flying to Miami from there,” I interrupted her. “Let’s go.”

Outside I steered her to the Jeep. She raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. I wanted to get out of there. The one thing I didn’t want was to get pinned inside the ranch property by the two strangers reaching the gate before we did.

I breathed more freely when we cleared the gate. I knew the visitors weren’t going to do themselves any good lining themselves up at the end of my .38, but I had Hazel to think about now, too.

“The connections may not be as good in Salt Lake City,” Hazel objected when we reached the highway and I turned north.

“There’s no sweat as long as we’re leading this parade,” I answered. I could have added that I was also instinctively following a life pattern that was a relic of my life-on-the-run days: never backtrack. You know there’s trouble in that direction. You just don’t know for sure what kind.

We made only one stop on the way to Salt Lake City. Hazel went off to powder her nose when I pulled up at a truck terminal in Wendover, Utah. The girl in the trucking office glanced casually at the printed address on the crate I’d carried inside and said it might be ten days before they had a full load going east. I said that was perfectly all right. I’d selected Wendover as the shipping point for the crate because it’s just a few miles away from the Bonneville Salt Flats where the automotive speed records are broken. The local truckers are used to handling all kinds of freight.

I took my copy of the bill of lading and walked half a block to the Wendover post office. I purchased a stamped envelope, addressed it to Hazel at the ranch, marked the face of the envelope Hold at Post Office Box, stuffed the waybill into it, and dropped the envelope into the mail chute. The bill of lading would be at the Ely post office when I needed it. It was safer doing it that way than letting it go on to the ranch in case someone took an interest in the mail.

Hazel gave me an I-told-you-so look at the Salt Lake City airport when I learned that we had a choice of a five-hour layover or a trip to Miami via the Great Circle route. Well, almost. She brightened up, though, when I opted for the layover.

“With this kind of time on our hands the right kind of man would book us into the airport motel,” she suggested. “So a girl could manage a little mattress testing.”

We checked into the motel at the half-day rate, and Hazel took charge. We gave the mattress a brisk workout, showered, and then indulged in an unplanned nap which resulted in us dressing like firemen and running through the terminal to catch our flight.

Hazel slept again en route to Miami, but I didn’t. As a man who has never been positive that Wilbur Wright had the absolutely one-hundred-percent correct idea, I like to have long periods on the ground between flights. Hazel’s flight instructor at the Ely airport laughed when I confessed this to him. He said I’d get over it. Maybe, but it was one reason I’d gone for a chunk of extra cash to make Hazel’s plane a twin-engine unit. Single-engine planes in the mountains of eastern Nevada gave me a lump in the throat that wouldn’t go up or down.

A thought that had been pebble sized when it first occurred to me at the ranch had grown to boulder-size now that I’d had time for additional consideration. If the syndicate had traced me to the ranch, they must have obtained the information from Karl Erikson. But if that were true, how could he still be in a Nassau detention cell? And if he wasn’t still in custody, what was I doing planning to go back there?

There was a way to find out.

I got rid of Hazel at Miami International Airport with the usual excuse. I found a phone booth near the men’s room and removed from my wallet the cheaply printed card the bellman Roy had given me with Candy Kane’s phone number on it. I called the number, hoping that Candy wouldn’t answer the phone. I wouldn’t get any useful information from him, but I might from the statuesque Chinese girl, Chen Yi.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the operator’s voice cut in after an interval, “but your party does not answer.”

“Keep ringing, operator,” I said. “There should be someone there.”

There was a click at the other end of the line finally and a faint “Hello.” It wasn’t Candy’s voice, and that had been my immediate concern. The voice was so low, though, that I thought I had a bad connection.

“Can you improve the connection, operator?” I asked.

“I can hear you,” the voice at the other end of the line said more clearly, and I recognized Chen Yi’s quiet manner of speaking.

“This is someone you met recently,” I began.

“I recall the voice,” she answered.

“Is Candy there? Can you speak freely?”

“He is not here.”

“Can you tell me if the man in whom I was interested is still at the same location?”

“I do not know.”

The Chinese girl’s voice was lifeless with none of its usual vitality. “Has anything happened?” I asked.

“There has been a — an incident.”

“An incident? What kind?”

“I do not wish to speak of it on the telephone.”

I didn’t like what I was thinking. “Listen, can I come and see you?”

“I do not advise it. Goodbye.”

There was the click of a broken connection. I sat there staring at the phone in my hand before I hung up. I left the booth and went and collected Hazel. “We’ll check into the airport motel here, too,” I told her. “Then you grab a cab into town and get yourself outfitted at Burdine’s. You know — touristy. Get me a jacket, a couple pairs of slacks, and three or four sportshirts. Make one outfit black. Plus underwear and socks.” She knew my sizes. “And luggage to carry it in. Bring everything back to the motel.”

“Why aren’t you coming with me?”

“I’m going crosstown to pick up a couple of forgeries we’ll need to get through customs in Nassau.”

She held out her handbag, and I helped myself from the thick wad of bills in it. We caught separate cabs after I registered us into the motel. I directed the cab driver to a back street address, a print shop. In half an hour I had suitably inscribed, suitably aged, phony birth certificates that identified me as Rufus Barton and Hazel as Ernestine McClanahan Barton.

Miami was sticky hot. I saw an illuminated temperature indicator on a bank that said ninety-two degrees as another cab took me back to the airport. The humidity must have been close to 80 percent. I stopped at the Eastern flight desk in the terminal and booked two seats on the 9:00
P.M
. to Nassau. In the motel room I stripped to my shorts and stretched out on the bed.

Hazel arrived two hours later. She came in laden with parcels, and that was only the beginning. The motel porter made two trips to deliver the boxes resulting from her shopping. Then he made still another trip to bring the new, empty suitcases. Hazel had a grand time displaying and modeling her purchases for herself before packing everything. She locked the suitcases and handed me the keys. “What time are we leaving?” she asked.

“Nine o’clock. I want to get there after dark.”

A tiny frown creased her smooth forehead. “You’re not expecting a welcoming committee?”

“I know I’ve changed my appearance, but I’d just as soon not have anyone looking at me in the daylight.”

She didn’t pursue it. We rested, had dinner at the airport, and read magazines until it was time for our flight. I couldn’t concentrate on my reading. The short flight to Nassau was uneventful. After we stepped from the plane and went through the perfunctory identification and customs check with our forged documents, I steered Hazel toward the Paradise Island Hotel bus.

If I had to be away from the hotel for extended periods, and at the moment I had no idea, Hazel could amuse herself at the casino. Hazel has been known to derive quite a bit of amusement from a roulette wheel. The desk clerk at the hotel eyed me up and down when I admitted to having no reservations. “You’re fortunate that this isn’t the December-April interval, sir,” he informed me loftily. I barely remembered to use the name Barton when signing the register.

In our room I took Hazel to the window and showed her the lights of the casino. “Does that mean you’re going sky-hooting off on your own now?” she inquired.

“I’ve got to find out what’s happened since I left here,” I explained. “Don’t break the bank at the first sitting. It’s not considered good form.” I thought of something. “Don’t go broke, either. We’d play hell getting an infusion of fresh cash here under your current pseudonym.” I kissed the tip of her nose and left the room.

I took a cab to Rawson Square. One of the oddities about Nassau at night is the absence of neon. What lighting exists is subdued, which didn’t make me unhappy as I walked to Eurydice Street. There was a light on behind the window lettered Chen Yi’s Massage Parlor as I approached it, but I tried the door leading upstairs to Candy’s apartment.

It opened, and I slipped inside, then used the side door entrance to the massage parlor, bypassing its tiny waiting room. Female voices came from one of the curtained cubicles. I hesitated. I didn’t want to bother Chen Yi while she was at work, but I didn’t feel I had a lot of time to waste.

While I was debating how I was going to get her attention, the curtain parted, and Chen Yi herself emerged. The tall Chinese girl was wearing a short-sleeved, short-skirted white uniform that gave her the hygienic appearance of a nurse.

She stopped short at the sight of me. “No one is permitted back here without an attendant,” she said coldly.

I had expected her to recognize me. I had forgotten my changed appearance. When she advanced toward me to emphasize her statement, I backed away rapidly, knowing that physically she was a match for me in any department. “It’s me,” I said.

By that time she had me backed into the reception area. Her expression changed. “You’re not — ”

I unbuttoned my jacket, then undid the top two buttons on my shirt. I plucked my undershirt far enough away from my body so Chen Yi could see my chest. She stared at the patchwork of scars she had seen before where skin had been removed to rebuild my face, then took my chin in her right hand, and studied my made-up face carefully. “I still wouldn’t believe it if it were not for the voice,” she said softly.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Quietly,” she said in an undertone and beckoned me to follow her. She led me to the last massage booth as I tiptoed after her. She drew the curtain and turned on a small table radio that rested on a cabinet top crowded with towels, creams, liniments, and body oils. The sound of calypso music filled the booth.

The Chinese girl pointed in the direction of the occupied booth. “Hermione,” she said softly. “I blame her for what happened.” Her smile was savage. “I spend my time planning things for Hermione.”

“What happened? Where’s Candy?”

“Hospitalized. From a syndicate beating.”

I could hear my own indrawn breath. “Bad?”

“At first the doctor feared for the sight of one eye, but there has been an improvement.”

“But Candy didn’t know I’d been into syndicate affairs!” I protested. “Neither did I until he came back from downtown that morning with the word the safe deposit boxes had been syndicate property.”

“He was beaten because he had made no effort to find out where you had hidden the material taken from the safe deposit boxes before you left Nassau. They expected him to be more curious in their behalf.”

“I guess that makes me the villain,” I said awkwardly.

She shook her dark head. “He doesn’t blame you. He considers it another poor hand in a run of bad cards.” She hesitated for a second. “There is something I should tell you. When I spoke to him yesterday, Candy said that of the two of you he was the lucky one because they’d left him alive.”

There wasn’t anything I could say to that. Somehow the might of the syndicate had seemed an intangible thing until I thought of the rocklike, seemingly indestructible Candy hospitalized. For one of the few times in my life I felt a cold thrill along my spine.

“Why are you here?” Chen Yi’s voice brought me back to the present.

“You know why I’m here.”

“Stubborn,” she said. “Foolishly stubborn. Yet — ”

“What?”

“I wish I could help.” She said it with every evidence of sincerity. “I would do anything to frustrate them.” She continued on without a break. “I learned this afternoon that your friend was still at Cartwright Street.”

So the trip hadn’t been for nothing. I pointed toward the ceiling. “D’you want to help badly enough to let me stay in Candy’s apartment?”

Her eyes widened, and for an instant her expression became almost gleeful. “How clever! The one place they would never think of looking. I’ve been there only briefly since Candy — since Candy — ” She didn’t finish it.

“Then you’ll let me?”

She nodded. “I will move back in. Under the circumstances I believe Candy would want you to and would think it a fine joke.” Her dark eyes became shadowed again. “Although I won’t tell him about it now.”

“I’m not alone,” I said.

I don’t know how she knew, but her understanding smile had a Mona Lisa aspect to it. “She will be most welcome,” the Chinese girl said. “Bring her before dawn. And be careful on the streets. Your appearance is changed, but they have not given up. You will — ”

“Hey, Chen Yi!” a feminine voice I recognized as Hermione’s called from the end booth. “How about getting this gunk off me and getting me ready for my date with Arnold?”