Long Live the Dead (25 page)

Kimm explained patiently that Fern Macomber was on a boat somewhere; that he, Kimm, was doing his best to locate the boat and hoped to succeed. He talked for some time, hung up and was damp with perspiration. He went up to his room.

Paul Bibeault’s room was next door, and judging by the sounds that seeped through the wall, Bibeault was in it. Kimm sat.

It stood to reason that Bibeault had not journeyed all the way from New York merely to view the beauties of Key West. The man had come to attend to some business, probably to meet someone.

After the night aboard Gleeson’s boat, Kimm longed to stretch out, turn his face to the wall and snooze. He didn’t. He thought Bibeault would probably be going out; then there would be a job of tailing to do.

Bibeault went out. Kimm slipped from the room and followed him. The tall man went downstairs to the hotel dining-room, sat alone at a table for two and ordered lunch. He ordered turtle steak.

Kimm took a near-by table, ordered chicken, and pretended to read a folder he had picked up at the desk. The folder said that Captain James L. Pink, South Street, had boats and expert guides for hire, and would show you the world’s finest tarpon fishing. Kimm wished he had time for it. His gaze slid sideways to a young woman who was dining alone.

He wished he were ten years younger.

The girl was expensively and gorgeously dressed in Fifth Avenue clothes, but was not an American. Her hair-do was Spanish, her hair and eyes were black as polished ebony. She was small, slim. She should be on a moonlit balcony, Kimm thought, with some handsome bull-fighter strumming a guitar down below. She seemed unusually interested in Paul Bibeault.

Suddenly there were two men, not one, at Bibeault’s table. Kimm blinked. The newcomer was Miguel Reurto!

Kimm thought he was dreaming.

The two men talked, and it was obvious they had a lot of talking to do. Kimm caught none of it. Once, just once, the voice of Miguel Reurto, sharply argumentative, reached him with a few words, but a waiter chose that moment to begin clearing off a table.

After a while Bibeault rose, went out. His face was stormy.

Reurto had cognac and coffee after that, leisurely smoked a long black cigarette, then carefully napkinned his mouth and mustache, and stood up. He turned to leave the dining-room and caught for the first time the steady gaze of the girl at the other table. He stopped as if stabbed.

The girl rose. She was not smiling, Kimm noted. Her face was a mask, and the only barometer of her emotions was the hand that held her purse. The hand was trembling, its knuckles white and bloodless.

She stepped up to Reurto and spoke to him. He nodded. They went out together and Kimm followed.

They went into the lobby and sank onto a divan which, from Kimm’s viewpoint, was the worst in the place. He could not get near them without betraying his intentions. He sat and smoked and watched them. They talked.

Reurto did most of the talking. The girl’s face remained a mask.

After a while the girl stood up and walked to the stairs. She went up them. Reurto savagely crushed out a cigarette and strode away in another direction. Kimm elected not to follow him, strolled instead to the desk and said softly to the clerk, “The young lady. Does she come here often?”

The clerk had a good-natured boyish face and red hair. He grinned. “Never saw her before, sir.”

“Know her name?”

The clerk looked it up. “
Señorita
Carmen Molina. From Bogota.”

Kimm made a low whistling sound. He wondered if the
señorita
would talk to him … if he went quietly to her room and knocked on her door and told her who he was. He lit a cigarette and thought about it, and thought probably it might be a mistake to show his cards without first sizing up the situation.

There was nothing much he could do, he reasoned, until some of the seeds he had planted began to sprout. Still, this was no time for sleeping. He found a comfortable club chair near the stairs and sprawled into it, one eye shut, the other half open.

Dozing, he wondered about the dead girl in Kelver City. It didn’t seem very important.

T
he towhead from the plane basin walked into the hotel at eight-thirty that evening, stepped up to the desk and asked for Abel Kimm. The clerk sent him up to Kimm’s room and he knocked, got no answer, came down again. He looked around the lobby, peered into the dining-room. Finally he went back to the desk, scribbled a message. “See that Mr. Kimm gets this, will you?”

The clerk slid the message into Kimm’s box and the towhead walked away, scowling.

At that particular time, Kimm was busy.

He had hung around the hotel all afternoon waiting for something to happen. Nothing had. At eight o’clock, however,
Señorita
Carmen Molina of Bogota, Colombia, had appeared. On the barest of hunches, Kimm had tailed her from the hotel.

He was prowling now along a dusky street near the extreme end of town. The street lights were dim blurs in gathering darkness; old-world houses with mahogany spindles and iron lace frowned over him. A hot, humid smell of subtropic vegetation hung in the listless air.

Just ahead, the beautiful visitor from South America strolled along with no apparent destination, and in no particular hurry.

Kimm wished he were back in bed. But all at once he stopped short and caught a breath.

There had been nothing human in sight a second ago—except, of course, the girl from Bogota. Now, between him and her, two crouching shapes had materialized, moving with silent, predatory swiftness toward the girl. They could have come from any of a dozen dark doorways or back yards. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that the girl had whirled, was facing them, and was screaming.

Kimm darted forward, one hand fumbling with a harness under his left arm.

The girl’s scream ended abruptly, smothered under a heavy paw that covered her mouth. She struggled. Kimm was mildly surprised that a creature of such delicate beauty could so suddenly be transformed into a clawing wildcat. He had an idea, as he ploughed into the mess, that he really wasn’t needed, that Carmen Molina could hold her own, if necessary, in a cage full of gorillas.

Nevertheless, Kimm grabbed a handful of soiled shirt, yanked one of the girl’s assailants back and clubbed him Breathing hard, his nose whistling like a peanut roaster, he laid about him with the gun from his shoulder harness. He was a little man but he could be tough at times. Exceeding tough. And this was a time for it.

The clubbed thug stumbled against a black iron fence, hung there a moment, and sagged. The other released the girl and aimed a fist at Kimm’s head. Kimm ducked.

In the dim light a knife glittered. Kimm went under it, it swept down, slicing his outthrust arm, and he rolled under it, rose with his shoulder jammed against the man’s armpit. He thrust a foot forward for leverage, caught the man’s knife-arm and heaved. It gave him a lot of satisfaction to feel a human hulk, twice his own weight, go hurtling over his shoulder.

The fellow landed on all fours, in a cat-crouch. He picked himself up and ran. Kimm scowled after him, retrieved his gun and the knife, and turned his attention to the girl.

She was on the ground, straightening her skirt. She caught his proffered arm and pulled herself up, swayed a little. Kimm put an arm around her and eased her against the iron fence. With her hair mussed, a smudge across her mouth, her clothes twisted, she was even lovelier, he thought, than before. He stared rudely and said, “That was nice work.”

She stared back at him, frowning.

“Have you any idea,” Kimm asked, “what these thugs wanted?”

She shook her head.

“Well,” Kimm said, “perhaps we can find out.”

He stepped away from her and looked down at the fallen thug. Out cold, the fellow lay on his back with one leg drawn under him, his head cocked at a queer angle. Kimm scowled and said softly, “Oh-oh. It’s you.”

It was one of Captain Joe Bayha’s men from the
Milly Mae.
More precisely, it was the one with whom Kimm had held a conversation on the pier.

Kimm tugged him to his feet, propped him against the fence. The girl came closer. The thug opened his eyes and blinked into Kimm’s face.

“What’s the big idea, buddy?” Kimm said.

The man licked his lips and stared. Kimm cocked a fist and showed it to him. “What the big idea?”

The fellow mumbled something in Spanish.

“Now in English!” Kimm snapped. “We’ve met before.”

The man said in muddy English, “We was supposed to grab the lady here and take her to Munson’s Key. That’s all I know.”

“Whose orders?”

“I don’t know.”

Kimm studied the man and saw a stubborn, thin-lipped mouth, hard eyes. He saw a creased, swarthy face which, from the looks of it, had been pounded more than once by hostile fists. He didn’t think a mere barrage of words would break down the man’s defenses.

Shrewdly he said, “Would you remember for fifty bucks?”

The fellow smiled crookedly. “I would if I could, mister.”

“Where’s the
Milly Mae
?”

The man shrugged. “Joe Bayha took her out this morning, early. I dunno where.”

Kimm sighed. “Who was your pal here tonight?”

“Dutchy Schmidt. He works for Bayha. He give me ten bucks to help him with this job. It’s a cinch if I could earn fifty more from you, just for information, I’d earn it.”

“What’s your name?” Kimm snapped.

The fellow clamped his mouth shut and looked away.

Kimm said wearily, “All right, all right,” and gave the man a shove that sent him sprawling. He turned then and took the girl’s arm, walked her away. She limped a little, but she had straightened her clothing, wiped her face with a postage-stamp of lace handkerchief, and looked trim again.

Kimm walked her back to the hotel. Crossing the lobby, he was stopped by a word from the clerk, who waved an envelope at him. He took the envelope in passing and shoved it into his pocket. When they reached the girl’s room, she took out a key and opened the door.

Kimm went in with her. She seemed surprised.

He sat down, lit a cigarette and stared at her. He said, “Your father is a Colombian merchant, Miss Molina.”

She widened her dark, lustrous eyes at him. “How do you know that?”

“My name’s Kimm. Abel Kimm. I work for Julius Macomber.”

Carmen Molina sat down. After a moment of silence, she too lit a cigarette, waving Kimm back as he politely leaned forward to hold a match for it. “Well?” she said then.

“It’s all rather complicated,” Kimm said. “In New York, Julius Macomber is under investigation by a government committee which has accused him of selling contraband, secretly monkeying with prices,
et cetera.
Basis of their claim is a hatful of letters supposedly written by Macomber’s daughter, who’s done a lot of traveling in S. A.

“Fern—that’s her name—wouldn’t come to New York when Julius sent for her. She said the whole thing was ridiculous. Julius applied pressure, threatened her. No go. She tried to bargain with him. Told him she was madly in love with one Miguel Reurto, whom you seem to know, and if he’d give his consent to the marriage, she’d show up in New York in time to deny the letters.

“This burned the old boy up. He informed her she could be dragged back as a witness, bodily, if he pulled strings. She melted under this barrage and promised to fly her own plane home.

“Well, she didn’t fly it. She stayed on Reurto’s island. I got here in time to prevent her elopement with Reurto on the
Milly Mae
, a schooner owned by Captain Bayha, but I muffed it. I got to the island and found one of Macomber’s bitterest rivals camping there. Got back to Key West and ran into another one. And now Reurto is back—if he ever went away—and you’re here, and a couple of Bayha’s thugs make a pass at you.

“What, may I ask,” Kimm concluded, getting his breath after the harangue, “is the answer?”

The girl said quietly, “I don’t know.”

“But you’re here.”

“My father and Julius Macomber are good friends. They have done business together for years.”

Kimm said, scowling, “Reurto works for your father.”

“He is my father’s right-hand man.”

“You came here to see him?”

She hesitated. Kimm wished the business at hand were less pressing. He would have enjoyed sending down for a pot of tea, moving a little closer to the girl and turning the talk into more friendly channels.

“I can’t answer that,” she said. “I’m sorry, too, after what you’ve done for me.”

Kimm fumbled for another cigarette and pulled out of his pocket the envelope handed him by the clerk. He scowled at it, excused himself and opened it. He inhaled slowly and stood up.

“I hope,” he said, “we’ll meet again.”

Carmen Molina said nothing.

Kimm opened the door, turned. “Joe Bayha’s thugs may try it again,” he warned her. “I’d be careful.”

Kimm closed the door and went out.

I
t was a dark night. A stiff breeze off the Gulf brought sea-smells and gull cries; you could peer into the dark, and see dim pin-points of light on ships riding at anchor. Or, with Abel Kimm’s vivid imagination, you could see the predatory ghosts of ancient pirate craft, smugglers; you could hear in the gull cries the screams of seamen on old-time traders snared by the treacherous Florida reef.

Kimm prowled along the waterfront to the shack of Glee-son, the Great Unwashed, and thumped on the door. There was no answer. He pushed the door open, struck a match and found Gleeson asleep on the bed, cocooned in a nest of blankets that reeked of fish. He shook him awake.

“You told me,” Kimm said, “you were a pilot in the war. That a fact?” “I told you I could play an accordian, too,” Gleeson said, grinning. “You want to hear me?”

“I want you to fly me to the Dry Tortugas.”

“Tonight?”

“Now,” Kimm said.

Gleeson swung himself off the bed and, as usual, reached for his boots. Tugging them on, he said, “You got a plane?” “I can get one.” “I wouldn’t do this for everyone,” Gleeson grinned. “But

you’re all right, Kimm. I’m getting to like you.” They went out together, and, on the way to the plane basin, Kimm did some explaining.