Girl Watcher's Funeral (21 page)

“Only he told Tim instead,” I said. I gave her the rundown on the sellout of Max Lazar's line. “Dreyfus must have threatened to tell Nikos about Schwartzkopf. Gallivan had to play ball with him, and he had to take care of Nikos because either way his goose was cooked. Then, when Rosey faced him with it, he had to take care of her. You'd be next on the list, except he has a yen for you. Apparently your Captain Pappas decided there was a rich gravy in it for him if he played along with Tim.”

“But he hasn't forced me to stay here!” Jan said.

“Have you tried to go?”

“No, because I thought—”

“Well, let's try,” I said.

A light flickered a few yards away in the darkness—a cigarette lighter. I saw the handsome face of Captain Pappas.

“Don't try,” he said. The flame disappeared, and all I could see was the red end of his cigarette.

“George! You've double-crossed Nikos!” Jan said.

“Mr. Karados is dead,” Pappas said in his deep, accented voice.

“So your bread is buttered on Gallivan's side of the street,” I said.

“One must be practical,” Pappas said, the red end of his cigarette bobbing up and down as he spoke.

“It isn't going to work,” I said, trying to sound calm and collected. “They've got enough on Gallivan now, I think, to close in. There won't be any payoff, Captain. He won't inherit anything from Karados now.”

Pappas chuckled. “There's been plenty siphoned off through the years,” he said, “safely salted away in Swiss bank accounts. Once we are outside the territorial waters of the United States, we go to where no one cares. And we live. You'd better plan to get used to it, Miss Morse. Tim has a liking for you.”

“And where do I fit into this future?” I asked.

“I regret to say your future will come to an end somewhere at sea, Mr. Haskell. You should have been advised not to meddle in other people's business.”

“They know I'm here on the yacht,” I said.

“It won't matter what they know, once we're twelve miles out,” Pappas said. “Listen.”

I could hear the hum of diesel engines, and a faint vibration under my feet.

“We're weighing anchor now,” Pappas said.

“Going without Gallivan?”

“We pick him up down the harbor. They'd look for him here when he turns up missing. The details are all perfectly arranged. I'm sorry for you both, but I have to think of myself.”

The little red circle started to move away, and then turned back. “I have a man watching from the top deck with a machine gun. If you have any heroic notions about going over the side, just know that you'll be chopped to pieces.”

He was a huge man, but his tread on the deck was catlike in its silence. I looked at the shoreline. We were moving slowly down the river. No one but night owls would see us going, and all they would see would be the ship's lights. We would attract no attention. There was no way to stand at the rail and wave at someone for help. The moon had already dipped down below the Palisades, and the river was as dark as the inside of your hat. The intermittent city lights seemed like weak little blobs in the distance.

Jan clung to me, her body shaking. “It can't be real!” she whispered.

It was clear enough that the ship-to-shore phone had simply been switched off at this end. Gallivan already knew that I was aboard. He must also know that there was no point in his wasting time trying to talk Lazar into changing his mind. The time had come for him to put an escape plan into action. He would have slipped out of the hotel and headed for some predetermined escape point at the foot of Manhattan Island where he must have a boat waiting to bring him out to the
Merina.
While Chambrun and Hardy scurried around the corridors of the Beaumont looking for him, Gallivan would come aboard and the yacht's powerful engines would take us out to sea before any sort of help could take shape.

“Isn't there anything we can do, Mark?” Jan asked.

I think I've already indicated that I'm not a man of action. I've never climbed mountains, so to speak. I was too young for the Korean War and too old for Vietnam. I've never confronted anyone in my life with a weapon. Heroics are not and never have been my pattern. I'm a nice, polite young man approaching middle age who knows how to make a good dry martini and has a reasonable equipment in the way of small talk and a seven handicap at golf. Greek pirates—and that's what Pappas and his men really were—were a long way from being people I knew how to handle. But I had nothing to lose by trying something. Twelve miles out and I was going overboard with an anchor tied to my feet.

But what?

The
Merina
was sliding, swiftly now, down past the West Side Piers. I began to have a succession of crazy ideas. If I could set the ship on fire, it would attract attention. If I could somehow get to the engine room and literally throw a monkey wrench in the works, it could stop our reaching the pickup point for Gallivan.

“Where is the ship-to-shore phone?” I asked Jan. “It sounds crazy, but the most sensible thing would be to put in a call for help.”

“There are phones in most of the master staterooms,” Jan said. “But the main control center is in the wireless cabin, which is next to the wheelhouse on the top deck. The wireless operator would be there now.”

“I understand there are all kinds of weapons on board. Do you know where they're kept?”

“There's a sort of game room forward,” Jan said. “There's a ping-pong table and other things. And there's a series of locked cupboards. Nikos opened them once to show a guest. There were all kinds of guns, underwater gear, fishing knives.”

“How do I get there?”

“Through the first companionway on the starboard side and then as far forward along the inside corridor as you can go.”

“Now listen,” I said. “It's the wildest kind of a chance, but so help me, it's the only one I can think of. You go down to your cabin and sit by the phone. I'll try to get myself some kind of weapon and go up to the wireless cabin. There I'll try to force the wireless operator to open the phone line. You call Chambrun for help.”

“Mark, Pappas isn't careless. You'll never get away with it.”

“You got a better idea?”

I was conscious of her warm breath, of her lips against my cheek. “Oh, God, Mark, I'm sorry I got you into this,” she said. Then she took my hand. “This way,” she said.

We walked together to the companionway and down about three steps into the interior of the ship.

“My cabin's at the rear,” she said. “Number two. The game room is straight forward. Good luck, Mark.”

I knew I was going to need it, and I had the fateful feeling it wasn't going to be forthcoming. I walked quickly to the end of the passage and opened the door in front of me. The game room was relatively large, and I instantly saw the row of paneled lockers facing me. I hadn't taken a step toward them when a door at the far end opened and a white-coated steward appeared. He gave me a toothpaste smile.

“Can I get you something, sir?”

“No, thank you,” I said.

“A drink, perhaps, sir?”

“No, thank you.”

He nodded, and then, God help me, he went over to the little service bar in the corner and sat down on a stool. So much for my chances of getting myself a weapon. I turned and walked back down the passage and up the companionway to the deck again. Off to the left I could see the outline of some familiar Wall Street skyscrapers. We were getting to the foot of the island, the city. I heard a distant bell and became aware of the ship slowing down. It had to be now or never. I climbed the iron stairway to the top deck. Forward I caught a glimpse of the giant figure of Pappas, standing in the glassed-in wheelhouse. I was face to face with the door of the wireless cabin. I turned the doorknob and went in.

A dark young man in a blue uniform was sitting by the wireless equipment. Just to the right of him I saw the ship-to-shore phone, with a series of switchboard connections. He, too, had a toothpaste smile. He lifted up his right hand and in it was a very serviceable-looking gun.

“Sorry, you can't come in here, sir,” he said, and he meant it. He flipped a switch with his left hand and Pappas's voice came over the intercom system.

“Yes, Aristo?”

“Your male guest is visiting me, Captain.”

“Thank you, Aristo.”

I was thinking what my chances would be of rushing the wireless man, gun or no gun, when the door opened behind me and Pappas and a seaman came in.

“This is off limits, Mr. Haskell,” Pappas said. “Anyhow, you're just in time to welcome the owner on board. This way, please.”

So much for the All-American boy's heroics.

We went out onto the top deck. The seaman went down the iron ladder to the main deck and Pappas signaled me to follow him. He came down behind me.

I realized the yacht's engines were silent, and we were drifting, slowly, downstream. Coming from the shore, headed straight for us, was a little power boat. A man sat in the rear at the controls, and I saw the raincoated and hatted figure of Gallivan in the bow. I turned away, feeling sick at my stomach. Everything was working perfectly for them.

The little boat came alongside and I heard the seaman shout something to the pilot of the small boat. Someone was throwing out a line.

“Come on, Tim, shake a leg!” Pappas shouted over the side.

I turned back to watch. The hat and raincoat appeared above the rail and the seaman helped Gallivan onto the deck.

Only it wasn't Gallivan.

“Good evening, Captain Pappas,” Pierre Chambrun said. He looked at what must have been my pea-green face and smiled. “‘Miss Otis regrets—'” he said.

Pappas looked as if he'd been turned to stone.

“Just bearing down on you from overhead, Captain, is a police helicopter,” Chambrun said. “Coming up the harbor from Staten Island is a Coast Guard cutter. Knowing your preparedness to fight off a boarding party, it seemed my coming in advance of the authorities was the best way to avoid bloodshed on both sides. Gallivan has had it. We convinced him he was in enough trouble without bringing harm to Miss Morse and Mr. Haskell. The girl is all right, Mark?”

I nodded. My voice had disappeared somewhere.

“Bernard Dreyfus was suddenly a very frightened man,” Chambrun said. His smile was grim. “He remembered me from the black days of the Resistance. When I threatened to cut out his heart, he believed me. We managed to nab Gallivan just as he was leaving the hotel by way of the kitchens. Once the harpoon was in him, the floodgates of confession opened wide. You know about his dealings with former Nazis, Mark?”

Again I nodded.

“I suppose Miss Morse would tell you,” Chambrun said. He turned to the Captain. “So far as I know, Pappas, you've not yet harmed anyone. Just taken orders. If you choose to be a cooperative witness against Gallivan, it's just possible we might forget a kidnapping charge against you.”

Pappas looked wilted. “Where do you want me to take you, sir?”

“Back to your Seventy-Third Street mooring,” Chambrun said. He put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “What was it Gallivan said to you, Mark? ‘Sooner or later, no matter how decent his intentions, man is corrupted by his private sickness—drink, drugs, sexual deviation.' He left out his own private sickness in that catalogue—a lust for power. He had been a good friend to Nikos, a sound financial adviser. But his lust for power did him in. Schwartzkopf took him to the mountaintop and showed him the whole world. He knew how Nikos would react, and so—” Chambrun shrugged. “I think you should find your Miss Morse and tell her she can put away her track shoes. Gallivan's chasing days are over.”

I turned to go.

“Oh, an unrelated fact, Mark,” Chambrun said. “There was a cable for you. It seems your girl Shelda couldn't wait another ten days to tell you how she feels. She arrives at Kennedy in the morning.” He chuckled. “The world is full of choices, friend. Yours seem rather delectable to a middle-aged hotel manager.”

He turned to the rail to watch the Coast Guard cutter coming up the North River.

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copyright © 1969 by Judson Philips

cover design by Julianna Lee

978-1-4532-7705-8

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