Michael Shayne spent the next day like any other tourist. He left a call with Miss Trivers to be awakened early. After breakfast, he phoned for a cab. One of Miss Trivers’ other guests came up to him as he was waiting on the Lodge steps.
This was a tall, sad-faced Englishman named Cecil Powys. He wore a battered tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. Heavy-rimmed glasses gave him a somewhat owlish look. “I say,” he said hesitantly, taking his pipe out of his mouth, “Miss Trivers tells me you plan to go bone-fishing on the flats. Would you mind frightfully if I come along?”
“Glad to have you,” Shayne said.
“The price of a charter’s too steep for me to manage single-handed,” the Englishman said. “Divided in two, it becomes possible. Divided in three or four would be even better. I’ll get my impedimenta. Back in a sec.”
“They provide the tackle,” Shayne said.
“I’m not going out to fish. My forte is spear-fishing, actually. Underwater, you know? I’ll explain.”
He was back in a moment with what looked to Shayne like a battery-powered tape recorder.
“The whole thing’s a trifle ridiculous, when you come right down to it,” he said. “I’m reading for a doctor’s degree at Oxford in anthropology. Beastly subject, really. I’m writing my dissertation on Folk Beliefs of the Caribbean. It’s not going too well.” He put the pipe in his mouth and struck a match. “I thought I’d drift around the islands and let the natives tell me stories. But I’m having the devil’s own time getting them to talk. I’m after fishing material at the moment, but it’s like pulling teeth. Perhaps they’ll open up more when we’re out on the water.”
The taxi arrived. It proved to be a little British Hillman. Powys slid in with the ease of long experience. Shayne jack-knifed his long legs awkwardly into the back seat and told the driver to take them to the charter-boat dock at the Yacht Haven.
They divided the charter with two other Americans, a man and wife from Chicago. The native captain quickly showed that he knew his business. He took his boat to the far side of an offshore island, cut his motor and let the current move them quietly forward. He tested the wind, peered into the water, and finally said, “Here is good place.”
Shayne had his first strike within a minute after his bait hit the water. By the end of the afternoon, when they swung around and headed back toward the Yacht Haven, he had a string of eight handsome bonefish, the largest weighing over ten pounds. The Chicago couple had done nearly as well. Powys had spent the day chatting with the captain and his barefooted deck hand, sometimes switching on the recorder to get a story or anecdote in the island dialect. Shayne persuaded him to take a rod just before they turned back, and he caught the biggest fish of the day.
There was a photographer on the dock with a sixty-second Polaroid Land camera. Shayne borrowed the Englishman’s fish and posed for a picture. The photographer made a series of passes over his camera, and took out a large watch with a sweep second-hand. Ten seconds or so passed, and a native policeman strolled out on the dock, dressed in a brilliant blue and red uniform, white helmet and white gloves.
Then Shayne remembered. Half an hour earlier he had heard a big commercial plane pass over. It must have been the Miami plane, bringing the Wanted flier with his picture on it. The fliers probably wouldn’t be posted this soon, but nevertheless Shayne pulled his beat-up fishing cap forward over his eyes and was busy tightening his shoelaces as the cop went past. The Chicagoans converged on the splendid uniform and begged the cop to pose between them. Pulling down his tunic self-consciously, he agreed, and they formed up on either side and waited for the photographer. Shayne straightened, his back to the cop, and started for the end of the dock.
“Your picture, sah!” the photographer called. “Five seconds more.”
“That’s right,” Shayne muttered.
He had to turn, but the Americans had maneuvered the cop around so the boat would be in the background. The photographer gave Shayne the picture and a stamped envelope to put it in. Shayne glanced at it; it showed a tall, broad-shouldered American, his eyes shaded by the long peak of his cap, holding up a handsome twelve-pound bonefish and grinning broadly with pleasure. He was slightly sunburned, the picture of health, and clearly didn’t have a care in the world. This had been perfectly true sixty seconds ago, before Shayne had remembered the other picture of himself, which Jack Malloy had dug out of a newspaper morgue.
He hastily scrawled Lucy’s address on the envelope and dropped it in a mail box across from the cab and carriage stand.
When he presented the string of fish to Miss Trivers for the Lodge kitchen, some of his pleasure returned. The fact was, after a day on the water he felt better than he had in months. He showered, put on clean clothes and had a peaceful drink on the terrace. Shayne had the strong feeling that this would be his last peaceful moment for some time, and he made the most of it.
Miss Trivers’ native chef stuffed the bonefish and served it in a fiery sauce. After dinner Shayne took a pot of coffee back to his own terrace and drank coffee royals while the sun went down in a wild blaze of color. He waited till the first star was out before he called a carriage.
He was wearing a white Palm Beach jacket. He put all his paper money, a few hundred pounds, in a clip in his side pocket and left his wallet, with his private detective’s license, locked inside his suitcase. When he heard a horse’s hoofs on the gravel he went out. On the way down the path, he picked a brilliant crimson flower for his buttonhole. That was all he could do by way of disguise.
Getting into the decrepit carriage, he told the driver to take him to town. The driver clucked to his horse, and it clopped off at a leisurely pace. Shayne settled back, an unlighted cigarette in his mouth, and reviewed the situation.
He had talked with detectives and undercover government agents who as part of their jobs had allowed themselves to be recruited by criminal gangs. Shayne had played a similar part once or twice himself, and he was always surprised at how easy it was to get the confidence of a criminal, who logically ought to be more suspicious than an ordinary law-abiding citizen. All that was usually necessary was to drink in the right bars and look touchy and unsociable. But this took time, and time was something Shayne didn’t have. The Wanted circular had been an off-the-cuff idea, produced under pressure while the pilot of the Miami-St. Albans plane was straining to take off. There were many things wrong with it; it could easily backfire. On the other hand, it could just as easily work. If the police were looking for him, Luis Alvarez, proprietor of the nightclub known as The Pirate’s Rendezvous, would have no reason to think that he was anything else than the circulars said he was-a criminal wanted by the American police.
Shayne leaned forward. “I thought I might take in a nightclub. Someplace with a good band and a floorshow.”
The driver listed three or four before he came to The Pirate’s Rendezvous.
“Somebody was telling me about that last one,” Shayne said. “It sounds o.k.”
The driver grunted. Fifteen minutes later he pulled his horse to a stop in front of a huge sign that showed a peg-legged pirate with a patch over one eye and a parrot on his shoulder. A goombay orchestra was playing inside. The sign was brightly lighted, and there were other similar signs further along the block, but the narrow, cobbled street was empty. Two native policemen were stationed at the corner.
“Looks kind of dead,” Shayne said.
“Big crowd later,” the driver assured him. “If you don’t like, take you to Dirty Ed’s-very colorful, very pretty girls.”
He gestured with his whip toward one of the other nightclubs. At that moment the two policemen started to saunter toward them, and the redhead said hastily, “No, I’ll try this one.”
He crossed the wide walk while the cops were still half a block away. Inside, a head waiter greeted him cordially, and asked if he wanted a table. Shayne shook his head, turning toward the bar. The bartender was wearing a pirate costume, and there was a lurid mural with a pirate motif above the mirror on the back-bar; but with these exceptions the place resembled a hundred others Shayne had been in around the Caribbean. There were even some like it in Miami. In the dining room beyond, a few of the tables were occupied and one couple was dancing valiantly on the handkerchief-sized dance floor. The little orchestra played mechanically.
“Is that all the cognac you’ve got?” he asked the pirate, nodding at an inferior brand against the back-bar.
“Not much call for cognac,” the bartender said. He was squat and solidly built, with a powerful chest and shoulders. He had a long, drooping mustache, a several-day-old beard, a bandanna knotted around his head and a gold hoop in one ear. He spoke English with a New York accent. He went on, “But the boss may have a bottle down cellar. Do you want me to-”
“No, the hell with it,” Shayne said. “Give me a triple rum. Ice water chaser.”
When the bartender set the two glasses in front of him Shayne said, “You’re not doing much business.”
“Still early,” the bartender told him. “We had a little trouble in the neighborhood, and not many walk in off the street. But we’re still getting the guided parties from the hotels and the cruises.”
“I think I know what you mean,” Shayne said. “A gay, uninhibited tour of the exotic native night spots. Price includes two drinks.”
“Also includes tips,” the bartender said sourly.
Shayne grinned. “Doesn’t that get-up make you feel a little silly?”
The bartender gave Shayne a hard look and put both hands palm down on the bar, one on either side of Shayne’s drink. “What do you think you’re trying to be, Jack? Funny?”
“Hell, no,” Shayne said. “Just wondering. Let me buy you a drink.”
After a moment the man relaxed. “I’m getting hard to get along with. Either I put a rag on my head or I don’t work here. The rest of it I don’t mind, except this goddamn earring. Toward the end of an evening I have to take plenty of cracks.”
“Anyway,” Shayne said, “they didn’t make you cut off one leg.”
The bartender wasn’t amused. He poured himself a double jigger of rum, saluted Shayne with it, and knocked it back.
Shayne ordered another drink. A party of American vacationers came in, and things began to pick up. The orchestra played another number, with better spirit, enticing two couples out on the floor. Then the drummer, a strapping native in a straw hat and a red shirt, beat out an intricate rhythm, and a dancer ran out from behind the orchestra, wearing a ruffled dress split to the waist, with a brief ruffled top.
When the performance was over, Shayne found that a girl had slid onto the next stool but one. She was dark and slender, with short tumbled hair, and was wearing a revealing white evening gown. She lit a long cigarette.
“I will have a glass of light rum, Al,” she said to the bartender, in an accent Shayne couldn’t place.
“Why not have it with me?” he suggested.
She breathed out a mouthful of smoke, and only then looked at Shayne coolly. “That is nice of you, but I am afraid I must say no.”
“I won’t bite you,” Shayne said. “What’s that nice pronunciation? Are you French?”
He took out his money-clip, squinting to keep the smoke out of his eyes, and when both the girl and the bartender had seen how much money he was carrying, he flipped a pound note onto the bar. Al picked it up and looked at her. She moved her shoulders in a slight shrug.
“Very well, if you wish. Yes, I am French. An unhappy Parisienne, at present far from the boulevards. You are American, Mr.-?”
“Michael Shayne. Sure. What brings you to St. Albans?”
“Ah, that is a long story. Not a very interesting one, I am afraid. I am an artist, you see. No,” she said, as Shayne looked at her questioningly, “not an artist with paint and brush. A dancer. I started off with a group to perform in the South American capitals and later, perhaps, if all went well, in your own country. A supper room in the exciting hotels in New York? Hollywood? Television? Such are the dreams of foolish people. Thank you, Al.”
She took the glass of rum and lifted it, without drinking. “And of course, being entertainers from the sinful city of Paris, we are expected to perform-” she made a brief gesture-“in costumes too small to be seen by the naked eye. Very well. One is realistic. Then the pig of a manager took it into his head to vanish with the leading dancer, and what is worse, the money we are owed for three weeks. Engagements cancelled. Voila-we are marooned on this island. The owner here wishes some different entertainment than the other places, so I have a job. For how long I do not know.”
She smiled. “You are not listening. I know, it is a tragedy only to me.”
“Sure I’m listening,” Shayne said. “Let’s take our drinks to a table. Hit me again, Al.”
He moved his glass toward the bartender, who filled it. Shayne picked up the three glasses, including the girl’s. She hesitated, then repeated her slight shrug and followed him to a corner table in the other room. As she sat down she said, “But there is one thing I should make clear.”
“I’m ahead of you,” Shayne said, interrupting. “Just because a girl comes from Paris and works in nightclubs, I don’t think that necessarily makes her a tramp. Was that what you were worrying about?”
She smiled. “A little. But you have not seen me work. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred-”
“Maybe I’m the hundredth,” Shayne said. “Relax.”
“You seem to be quite a-nice person, Mr. Michael Shayne.” She looked at him over her glass. “You make me feel a little better, I think. I have been sad and discouraged.”
Shayne waited a moment. “Don’t throw me any bouquets. Any other time I’d be one of those ninety-nine other guys. In fact, in that dress you almost make me forget that I’ve got my own troubles.”
“Troubles,” she said, smiling. “What kind of troubles can you have?”
“Never mind, I wouldn’t want to spoil your evening,” Shayne said. He reached for a cigarette and said casually, “But I’m as anxious to get off this island as you are.”
“Impossible.” Then she looked at him intently. “Do you happen to be serious?”
Shayne struck a match. “Is there a guy around here they call the Camel?”
Another group of Americans had arrived, noisier than the first. They were being taken to tables. Four couples were dancing, filling the little dance floor almost to capacity. A door had opened beyond the orchestra’s raised platform, and a man had come out. He was of middle height, balding, with pouches beneath his eyes. He wore a dark double-breasted suit, and as Shayne mentioned his nickname he half-turned, and Shayne saw the small hump on his back. Having made the identification, he was willing to let it drop, but the girl said softly, “Yes, Alvarez. The owner. He has a boat. But such a service, you know, is expensive.”
Shayne grinned. “You don’t mean he’d take advantage of somebody in a jam?”
She repeated her elegant little shrug. “But naturally, who would not? Still, there is this. I know only what is said about him, but it is said that when he gives a promise he will keep it, within reason. Shall I tell him your problem?”
“No, I’d better introduce myself,” Shayne said.
He signalled a passing waiter.
“None more for me,” the girl said. “But I have a sudden idea. I would like to dance with you.”
“Another triple and more ice water,” Shayne told the waiter, and said to the girl: “I can’t dance to this music.”
“Certainly you can,” she said. “It is very simple, I will show you.”
Springing to her feet, her eyes alight, she seized his hand.