Angel's Ransom Page 7

  ‘I’m going to fight him!’ As he came closer she backed away, toward the door. Fiercely, promisingly, she said, ‘We’re all going to fight him, except you! Bruno said you wouldn’t help, but I didn’t believe him! I do now! You -you coward!’

  ‘Tell Bruno I’ve given orders to keep away from the bar.’

  ‘I will not! I’ll help him break it open! I’ll write messages for him! I’ll throw the bottles into the sea!’

  ‘Don’t be the fool that Holtz said you were! This thing has been plotted like a military campaign! It’s not to be defeated by throwing bottles into the sea! He’ll kill you -’

  She was gone. He took a quick step to follow her, and was checked by the sight of the unmanned, idly-rocking wheel. Slowly, unwillingly, hating himself for his response to the command, he turned back to the charge that held him in bondage to the Angel.

  THREE

  Jules relieved the wheel at midnight, yawning like a man who has just been wakened.

  ‘Catch a sleep while you can, Captain,’ he said. ‘And if you want to get any oiling done before morning, now’s your chance. Just stay close to the engine-room.’

  ‘There are other things besides the motors that need attention,’ Blake said. ‘I’ve got to make an inspection of the ship.’ The sailor shook his head, unsmiling.

  ‘Not tonight you don’t. Holtz is on the prowl, and he isn’t anyone you’d want to step on in the dark by accident. Stay in the light, where he can see you.’

  The chill implication of the warning remained with Blake as he went down the ladder. He did not see Holtz on deck, but he had a strong consciousness of being under observation. The feeling was unpleasant, but the fact that he was being watched meant that the viper could not be stepped on. Furthermore, Holtz would not be watching him if there were trouble in the salon, so Freddy and Bruno had either not yet attempted to break into the bar or had managed it without attracting attention. But in the latter case Freddy would not fail to attract attention for long unless he were kept out of sight. He did not hold liquor well, or quietly.

  Blake went aft when he had finished with his duties in the engine-room. Freddy was still sober, desperately so. He paced the small length of the salon, unable to sit still. Valentina sat at the radio, exploring shortwave channels for news broadcasts. Bruno watched her with a sullen concentration of interest as obvious as her indifference to it, and Laura di Lucca in turn watched Bruno with an expression of naked jealousy that was painful to see. Marian was not there.

  Blake stopped in the doorway of the salon, where he could see the outside deck. Forward the only illumination was a faint green reflection from the starboard running light, aft a glow from the deckhouse windows. There were a number of vantage points from which Holtz might be eavesdropping, but Blake could not guard against all contingencies. What he had to say required saying whether he was overheard or not.

  He said bluntly, ‘I think it’s about time we had a meeting of the minds.’

  Freddy stopped his pacing. The others looked up, seeing Blake there for the first time.

  ‘There’s been talk of breaking into the bar,’ he went on. ‘If you haven’t already been told how I feel about the idea, I’m against it. I think we had all better agree right now that none of us will take any independent action without the approval of the others.’

  Freddy said, ‘Sam!’ in a voice of warning and disbelief. Bruno said contemptuously, ‘Don’t hesitate to advertise our plans, Captain.’

  ‘I’m trying to save your neck. And yours, Freddy. You’ve already gone against Holtz’s orders once. You know what he hands out for that.’

  ‘But he said I could have a drink! You heard him!’

  ‘He said you could have a drink when he got around to unlocking the bar. I say the same thing. I never had to make this point before, and I don’t like doing it now, but I’m in command of this ship. You only own it.’

  ‘You’re not getting very far with your command at the moment, are you?’ Bruno moved to face him. ‘Come off it, Captain. You have no authority. You’re in exactly the same position as the rest of us, except that you’re more timid than we are. If you don’t want to help us, leave us alone. Go prove you couldn’t have had anything to do with it when it happens.’

  Blake kept his temper with an effort. He said, ‘I’ll leave you alone when I’m certain you’re not going to do anything childish.’

  ‘Childish!’ Freddy’s face was haggard. ‘Do you know what it’s like to be dying on your feet? I’ve got to have a drink! I’ll shake to pieces if I don’t get something! I can’t think, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t sit still! Is that what you call childish?’

  ‘You’ll just have to sweat it out, unless you can talk Holtz out of the key.’

  Laura di Lucca said, ‘Do you seriously expect any one of us to ask that little monster a favor, Captain?’

  ‘I expect you to recognize the truth. He’s running things, whether we like it or not. Your husband could get worse than Freddy did for defying him. Even if what he is planning to do had a chance of success, and it hasn’t, he couldn’t hope to get away with it without being seen.’

  ‘I want to be seen,’ Bruno said. ‘Now that you’ve had your say, why don’t you go away? Nobody sent for you.’

  ‘Caro!' his wife protested. ‘You’re being rude! Besides, if what the captain says is true, I refuse to let you take the risk. You simply may not –’

  ‘Be quiet!’ Bruno snapped. ‘Are you leaving, Captain? Or shall I put you out?’

  Blake thought, I've got to keep my head.

  Punching Bruno’s face wouldn’t help. But there seemed to be very little else that would help. Freddy, grey and twitching, was hopeless, Laura di Lucca ineffectual to check her husband. Blake looked angrily at Valentina, not with hope.

  Quite unexpectedly she said, ‘I agree with you, Captain. It would be very foolish to do anything the little man wishes us not to do.’ She snapped the switch of the radio off, turning her attention and her honey-colored eyes to Bruno. ‘Perhaps you will listen to me. Do not take this risk.’

  Laura di Lucca stiffened perceptibly. Freddy groaned, ‘Valentina!’

  ‘Nor you, Freddy. It is too dangerous. I will bring you some medicine to make you feel better, and there will be no more talk of breaking locks.’

  She rose serenely from her chair, a queen dismissing her court, and disappeared down the companionway to the cabins below. No one spoke again.

  Afterwards Blake cooled his temper at the cruiser’s rail with the salt spray from the Angel’s bow-wave whipping up out of blackness to wet his face and hair. He was grateful for Valentina’s help, resentful that he had needed it, bitter that he had been so stupid as to give orders he could not enforce. The habit of giving orders was a hard one to break. Harder, he found, than learning to take them.

  He was aware that the door of the salon had opened briefly, then closed again. He did not look to see who had come out on deck until a trick of the sea breeze brought him the faint scent of a woman’s perfume. When he turned, Valentina stood beside him. There was enough illumination to show the unlit cigarette between her lips.

  ‘May I trouble you?’

  He managed to keep a match flaming in his cupped hands long enough to give her a light. She thanked him in her husky voice, then rested her forearms on the rail beside his own and smoked silently

  They stood that way for minutes without speaking. Her calm presence at his side, quietly smoking, not offering to talk but waiting for him to talk if he chose, cooled his temper as much as the salt spray cooled his face. In time he said, ‘I owe you thanks for your help back there.’

  ‘It was nothing.’ The cigarette coal glowed, and glowed again. ‘I could give you even more help, if you would like me to.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘The same way. With Bruno.’

  ‘Are you and he - friends?’

  ‘Not as you mean it. But I have known other Brunos, many of them. He can be
made to do what I wish him to do.’

  ‘His wife is already jealous of you.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘And what about Freddy?’

  ‘Freddy has only one interest, for the moment. As for the wife’ - Valentina dropped her cigarette into the hissing darkness below the rail - ‘marrying a gigolo does not make him any less a gigolo. She should have done with her illusions before now. Besides, I would be keeping her Bruno out of the trouble he will get into if he is not controlled. Shall I concentrate his interest on me to the exclusion of other things?’

  ‘It would help. It would also help if you could all pretend that this is the cruise you thought it was going to be when you came aboard.’ Blake had not forgotten the probability that Holtz was staying out of sight in order to eavesdrop. ‘Let Holtz see that we’re not going to give him any opposition. Keep Bruno under control, and there won’t be anything to worry about except passing the time until we get back to Monaco.’

  ‘Bruno is not the only one who needs controlling. There is also the little Américaine. What did you do to make her angry with you?’

  ‘She thinks I’m a coward.’

  ‘Is it important to you what she thinks?’

  ‘It’s important to me what she does. She’s another Bruno.’

  ‘With her, I can be of no help. You will have to control her yourself.’

  ‘That’s the trouble. I don’t know how.’

  ‘Are you so inexperienced with women, then, Captain?’

  There was frank speculation in her husky voice. He caught the scent of her perfume again, and was aware that she stood very close, waiting.

  He was not immune to Valentina’s charm. She was a desirable woman, and her invitation was an open one. He refused it only because he knew she was experimenting. The Brunos reacted a certain way, the Freddys reacted a certain way, the Captain Blakes could normally be expected to react a certain way. He understood Valentina, and he admired her confidence in her power as much as he did her beauty. But he did not like being classified with the Freddys and the Brunos.

  He said, ‘I’m afraid I am. Bruno would call me timid. Will you excuse me?’

  ‘Of course. Good night.’

  Her poise was undisturbed when he walked away. If anything, she seemed amused.

  His rule of making a final round of the ship before going to bed died hard, but the viper was still there, hidden in the dark. His uneasy feeling that he was being watched persisted even after he had turned in to get the sleep he badly needed. He awoke hours later with a start, sharply, and felt a thrill of irrational fear at the sight of Holtz’s small figure in the cabin doorway. A dim light in the passageway threw a reflection on the weapon he held.

  ‘Time to resume your command, Captain,’ he said. ‘Four o’clock. Jules is waiting for you.’

  Blake’s fright passed quickly. Visible, Holtz was only a small man with a gun. He no longer even seemed to be particularly concerned with keeping his distance. Although the Walther was as ready as ever in his hand, he remained almost casually in the doorway while Blake dressed, and followed him to the pilot-house without particular attention to the number of steps that separated them. Blake found himself considering the possibility of an attempt for the pistol, but put the thought rigidly away. Even Bruno would not be that foolhardy.

  Jules had charted the Angel’s position at midnight. The compass bearing had not changed, nor the tachometer readings, nor the weather. Blake was satisfied to project the cruiser’s course another four hours on the chart, then verify the new position with direction-finder fixes on Genoa and La Garoupe. The yacht was west and south of Ajaccio, in open sea.

  Jules had left the pilot-house upon being relieved. Holtz stayed on to watch while Blake made his calculations and posted the log. Blake knew that his conscientious clinging to routine appeared ridiculous to the gang leader, in the circumstances, but the Angel’s demands were the same whether she sailed under threat of arms or as Freddy’s whims directed. He said, ‘Is there any reason why I shouldn’t know where we’re bound?’

  ‘We’re not bound anywhere,’ Holtz answered readily. ‘We’re passing the time.’

  ‘We could pass time just as easily by shutting down and drifting. We’re out of the steamer lanes.’

  ‘That would give you too much leisure. You might get ideas. ’

  ‘These long-haul wheel tricks are supposed to keep me from having ideas?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Holtz was wholly serious. ‘I spent a great deal of time studying you as well as your employer, Captain. You would be surprised at the number of hours you were under observation in Monaco. If you do not know it, you are an over-conscientious drudge, bound by what you regard as your responsibilities to your command. You do not leave your ship to go ashore for an evening; your crew does. You, rather than your deckhands, make the rounds of the deck, test your own moorings, check your own lights. You are less the Angel’s master than you are its servant, and for that reason I am keeping you occupied in its service. If you were not so occupied you might, out of idleness, think of interfering with my plans. I should then have to kill you, and lose your usefulness in keeping your passengers from similar reckless ventures. Do you follow my reasoning?’

  ‘I go a step beyond it. You overheard what I said in the salon.’

  ‘Very acute.’ The gang leader nodded. ‘What did the Italian have in mind, after the bar was open?’

  Blake hesitated only briefly. The truth was less dangerous to Bruno than Holtz’s imaginings. He said, ‘He was going to put messages in bottles and throw them overboard.’

  Holtz laughed his fox-bark laugh.

  ‘The gigolo mind at work. Anything to impress the ladies, however ineffectual. I doubt that the blonde Polonaise would have been as impressed by his resourcefulness as he would have liked, but one can never be certain of feminine reactions. You behaved churlishly to her when she joined you on deck last night.’

  ‘So you saw that, too.’

  ‘I make it my business to know what is going on, naturally. I did not realize that your loyalties to your employer were strong enough to enable you to resist those ripely tantalizing lips.’

  Blake had snapped off the light when he finished with the log, but enough grey early-morning brightness came into the pilot-house for him to see that Holtz had taken over the steering chair he himself had not chosen to use. Holtz’s manner, possibly because he was convinced that Blake had come to accept his authority, was one of half-mocking, half-patronizing friendliness. The gun was still in view, but as a reminder only.

  Blake said, ‘My loyalties to Freddy, as you think of them, don’t exist. He pays me a salary for the over-conscientious drudgery you just described. That’s all he buys.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it shows that you are without burdensome moral scruples. You owe him more than mere conscientious drudgery for the salary he pays you. You are robbing him just as effectively as I am, only with less effort, at your leisure. And who knows? His generosity to the ladies, at least, is well known. Perhaps in some drunken moment he may extend his openhandedness to his faithful yacht captain. In such close contact with six million dollars, is it too much to hope that some of it might rub off on you?’

  ‘Thanks for the character analysis.’

  ‘I have a motive. I want you to see that you and I do not have greatly different goals. How would you like to work for me?’

  The morning light had strengthened, showing the brooding, intent look on Holtz’s face as he waited for the reply. It cautioned Blake to consider the possible consequence of a wrong answer. The enormous ego that made the little man so sure of his insight into other minds and other motives would not let him accept the fact that the answer required no time for thought.

  He said cautiously, ‘I am working for you. That gun makes it a fact.’

  ‘I mean voluntarily. By coming over to my side. As for the gun-’

  Holtz slid down
off the high steering seat. He grinned the wolf’s grin as he backed toward the door, the Walther raised now and pointing.

  ‘It is still a necessary persuader. I do not expect that we can come to terms in a moment. But we can come to terms, Captain. Think over what I have offered you.’

  He left Blake with the certain conviction that what he had been offered was an opportunity to help extort further money from Freddy. In Holtz’s world a logical alternative to working for the Angel’s owner was working against him, and that could only mean a squeeze for additional booty. It was still true that he could not hold Freddy captive indefinitely, or send Roche to the United States for ransom as easily as he had sent him to Geneva. But Blake’s help, his established position in Freddy’s confidence, might very well be just what Holtz needed, or thought he needed, to take another slice of the six million. And after such a beginning it would be very hard to convince him that that help did not have its price. The wrong answer had trapped the Angel’s captain as Holtz had trapped the Angel.

  The train of thought made Blake regret the finality of his assurance to Freddy that a hundred thousand dollars would buy him out of trouble. For the first time since his attempt to wreck the yacht, he began to question the wisdom of submitting without resistance to Holtz’s authority.

  The sun had risen over a clear and empty sea. The Angel fled southward without so much as a smudge of smoke on the horizon to keep her company. As he had told Holtz, the cruiser was out of regular shipping lanes, undoubtedly the reason Jules had set their course in that direction. It seemed like an unnecessary precaution. Even if they were to sight another ship, he had no control over searchlight or signaling apparatus, a radiophone that did not function, no rockets, no flares –

  His thoughts went back a step. The radiophone did function. Jules had only taken the handset, preventing any possibility of two-way communication but without crippling the speaker. The Angel could receive messages even if she could not send them.

  It was a small advantage, almost more of a frustration than a hope. In all probability some inquiry would be made in Monaco about a yacht that inexplicably abandoned its crew. Questions might even be beamed at the Angel over Radio Grasse, which handled all the ship-to-shore traffic in that part of the Mediterranean. There was no way he could put the information to practical use, yet it suddenly seemed vitally important to Blake that he should know if such an inquiry were being made.