Mystery Of The Sea Horse (14 page)

He cut down the alley between the three-story apartment and a peeling green grocery store. He stood watching the back entrance for several minutes, the rain pelting him.

Then he selected a key from a ring in his pants pocket and let himself into the building. The corridor was dim, the rug the same shade of brown as the water running in the gutters.

Helmann, as he called himself, had retained his calm smile. It was on his face as he climbed to the second floor.

In front of a door marked 2-C, he stopped. With his right hand in his pocket, he knocked on the door with his left.

"What is it?" asked a voice inside the apartment.

Helmann knocked again, a steady even rap.

"I said, what the hell is it?"

Helmann knocked once more, the bland smile still on his face.

The door was jerked open. "Who the hell are you?" asked the lean black young man standing there.

Helmann thrust his snubnose .32 revolver hard into the young man's stomach. "Gabe Rich, isn't it?"

Rich bent, stumbled back. "Who are you, man?" he gasped. "Listen, I'm clean. I'm not holding any . . ."

Helmann came in, closing the door quietly behind him with his foot. "Gabe, I don't care if you've got your mattress stuffed with pure heroin.

Slowly, Rich straightened. "What do you

want?"

Helmann's thumb rested on the hammer of the revolver. "You know a young lady named Laura Leverson."

"No, man. You must of—"

"Gabe, I am already seriously behind schedule," explained Helmann, smiling. "I am feeling somewhat angry and frustrated. Please, Gabe, please don't cause me any more delay by being coy. I know you are a friend and business associate of the young lady."

"Okay, so what if I am?"

"Yesterday, quite early in the morning, you picked up the young lady in a station wagon."

"Yeah, maybe I did." "Where did you take her?" Rich said, "Look man, what do you want Laura for?"

Helmann moved the barrel of the gun close to the young man's head. "Where did you take her?"

"Well, see, she had to move out in a hurry. She thought I ought to, too, but I like it around here and I didn't figure anybody could tie me in."

The barrel touched Rich's temple. "Where did you take her?"

"Mexico, man, Mexico."

"A large country," smiled Helmann. "Be more specific."

"I drove her just over the border to TJ."

TJ
?

"Tijuana, man," said Rich. "After that, I don't know where she got to." "Is that the truth, Gabe?" "Yeah, man. I swear. She was going to see a guy there in TJ about getting a lift to somewhere else."

"And you don't know where that was?" "No, man. All I know is what I told you." "Who was her contact in Tijuana?" Rich told him.

"Thank you, Gabe," said Helmann. "Need I point out how easily I found you this time? Don't warn Laura Leverson and cause me t;o come looking for you again."

"No, man, don't worry. I—" Helmann struck out with the revolver, knocking the young man to the floor. Smiling, he left him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Phantom was driving a compact blue American-made car now. They'd rented it on their arrival in Mexico an hour earlier. He wore dark glasses, a light-tan trench coat. "Glad I decided to bring the raincoat," he remarked.

Diana, arms folded, was watching the wipers tick back and forth across the windshield. "I guess we picked the wrong time of the year to pose as tourists," she said, laughing. "A woman at the airport told me we just missed the
tiempo seco."

"I don't mind missing the dry season," he said. "I'm hoping we picked the right time to find at least a few members of the Sea Horse gang."

"That matchbook you found at Laura Lever- son's," said the dark-haired girl. "It could have been left there by some previous tenant."

"Yes, except that Mocosa, which we are fast approaching, is only fifty miles north of Acapulco," replied the Phantom. "And Acapulco is where Danton's yacht was coming from when it was last positioned."

Diana listened to the hard rain clattering on the car roof for a moment. "That's a very illusive boat, the
Sea Horse
of Chris Danton's," she said. "I was promised a ride on it days ago and I've yet even to see it."

"He's probably got it hidden somewhere along the coast."

"That's a pretty big thing to hide."

"Danton's managed to do it, though."

The fields outside were giving way to low white houses and a few small stores. These were the outskirts of Mocosa, a town of some one hundred thousand people. At this end, there were mostly ragged boys and thin dogs roaming the rain- drenched streets.

"Not the tourist part of town," said Diana, shaking her head.

"When you come in the back door, you get a different perspective."

They drove further into Mocosa, climbing gradually away from the small bay and its wide dull brown beach. On a level street, halfway into the hills stood a scatter of neat white-and-red-tile bungalows. The Phantom and Diana checked in here, taking two adjoining bungalows, numbers eleven and twelve.

After she'd unpacked, Diana came over through the rain to knock on the red door of the Phantom's bungalow. When she was inside, the girl asked, "What do you figure on doing first?"

"I'm going to hit the All-American Cantina down on the Calle Pitanza," he said. "See what I can find out by watching and waiting."

"You want me to stay here?"

The Phantom nodded as he moved toward the doorway. "It's unlikely Laura will recognize me, since she shot at me from a distance," he said. "You she'll recognize if she happens to drop into the cantina. Besides, from what I've been able to find out, the All-American is not a place much frequented by the sort of bright-eyed homespun tourist you're pretending to be this trip."

The girl gave a resigned shrug. "Okay, Kit," she said. "Be careful."

He grinned at her and walked out into the rain.

The Calle Pitanza was a narrow, twisting street which zigzagged down toward a scrubby section of the beach. It was paved with lumpy cobblestones. A large shaggy yellow dog was investigating something in the gutter in front of the All-Ameri- can Cantina as the Phantom approached the place on foot.

The rain was hitting against the adobe front of the narrow cantina building. The red-white-and- blue lettering of the name painted on the wall above the doors was running, sending streaks of paint down toward the buckled sidewalk. The one window was filled with tiny pasted-up paper American flags.

Heavy iron grillwork, long rusted, guarded the door. A relatively new padlock held the grill gates securely together.

The Phantom stepped back, surveying the facade of the cantina. He could see no sign indicating when the All-American would open.

"No es abierto, senor,"
said a small wrinkled old man who was looking out of the doorway next door.

"When do they open?"

"Quien sabe?"
The old man backed into his little grocery store.

The Phantom stepped into the shop. "Will they be open tonight?" he asked in Spanish.

"It is possible," said the old man as he moved behind a wooden counter. "Who can say?"

"Are they no longer in business?"

There was a hundred-pound white sack of corn meal on the counter. Leaning one sharp brown elbow on it, the old man replied, "To the best of my knowledge, sir, that rogue Peter Torres is still operating his eyesore. However, the past few days,

his cantina has been, somewhat mysteriously, closed up tight."

"You don't know why?"

"Perhaps Torres has had another run-in with the law; perhaps he is somewhere recuperating from another of his frequent debauches. Who can tell?"

"Where can I find Torres?"

"Ah," said the old man, "where indeed? As I hear it, sir, he has not been seen at the pigsty he calls home on the Calle Ababa for two or three days."

"Ill ask there anyway."

Shrugging, the old man gave him the address.

From the second floor of the beachfront restaurant, there was a view of the water. It was still raining. "I understand," said Diana, "the sunsets in these parts are quite magnificent."

The Phantom grinned at the girl and the gray early evening sky behind her. "One more thing we're missing this time around."

"You couldn't find out anything about the All- American Cantina or the man who runs it?"

"A lot of dead ends so far," he answered. "The neighbors of this fellow Torres, who operates the place, say they haven't seen him for the past three days."

"What next?"

The Phantom said, "There's another man one of the neighbors mentioned, a sort of silent partner of Torres'. Somebody's supposed to find out where he is and contact me. I'm also going to ask some questions around the harbor tomorrow to see if I can get anything on the
Sea Horse.
If none of that pays off, then we'll go back to Santa Barbara."

"Well," said the girl, reaching across the table to place her hand on his, "at least we're having a vacation together. I've seen so little . . ." She had glanced toward the entrance and her voice trailed off. "Kit," she resumed in a lower tone, "that man coming in with the blonde."

A tan graying man of about fifty was entering the room with a very tall blonde young girl on his arm. He sensed Diana's glance, turned, and saw her. Very casually, he stopped, smiled, and said something Into the ear of his companion. They went back downstairs.

"He seems to have recognized you, too," said the Phantom. "Who is he?" ,

"He was a guest on San Obito Island," she said rapidly. "Claimed to be in television, or some kind of communications, but he must be one of Chris Danton's men."

"It's not likely they'll stay now." The Phantom pushed back from their table. "Wait here, Diana, and I'll see if I can find out where they're headed."

There was no sign of the gray-haired man in the crowded downstairs room.

The Phantom asked the headwaiter, "The gray- haired gentleman and the blonde, where did they go?"

The waiter smiled a perfunctory smile. "They apparently decided they did not wish to dine with us this evening. The rain sometimes makes people act In—"

"Did they have a reservation? Do you know his name?"

"No, senor. Although I believe . .

The Phantom pushed out into the street. The rain had changed to a misty drizzle. No one was visible on the sidewalk.

The window of the lone cab at the curb rolled