The Killer Touch (3 page)

“Mist' March,” he said, holding the boat steady as Burt clambered down. “I din' expect you this time.”

There was no time for conversation; Burt took his bulky canvas suitcase from the cabin boy, settled into the forward thwart, and helped push off. When they reached the peace of the lagoon, Burt saw that Coco wore a blue straw hat. The boatman had two other hats, one painted red, the other white. He changed them according to his mood: white when he felt good, blue when he was sad, and red when he was angry.

“Why the blue hat?” asked Burt.

The boy spoke abruptly between strokes. “No guest. No fish. No tip.”

“The woman who's staying here doesn't fish?”

“Woman?” Coco's expression of disgust encompassed the entire sex. “I never take woman to fish. Too much play, too much talk.”

“She talks a lot, eh?”

“She? Man, I never see her. She remain in her cabin all day, walk the beach at night.”

Frowning, Burt opened the side pocket of his bag and took out two rolls of film. “Here's some new high-speed film. I guess you've still got that Brownie I gave you.”

“Yes.” Coco grinned. “Now I maybe change my hat, take you to catch big fish.”

Coco tied up at a rickety jetty of poles and wood planks. It was attached to an unfinished concrete jetty begun by Joss's fourth or fifth husband—who had also inaugurated a yacht basin, a hotel, and a new clubhouse, only to abandon the island and depart with a female guest from Barbados. He'd never come back, and Joss had never continued any of his projects.

Burt stepped off the jetty and looked around. Nothing ever changed here; it could have been five years ago. He saw a figure floating at the south end of the lagoon, where the palms arched down and dipped their fronds in the surf. It could have been a corpse, it floated so still, so bonelessly complaisant to each ripple of water. But Burt recognized the mistress of the island, Jocelyn Leeds.

“Joss!”

No response. After fourteen years on the island, Joss was capable of falling asleep in the water. Her boys had to watch that she didn't drift out to sea.

Burt started down the beach. He saw smoke trailing up from a cigarette between her lips. A glass rested on the gentle mound of her stomach:

“Hey!” he called. “Hey, Joss!”

“I'm full up,” she called without removing the cigarette. “You should've had O'Ryan wait.”

“Don't hand me that. Come and see what I brought you.”

“Now who in the world—!” She twisted to look, but a wave broke over her face. She spat out her soggy cigarette, rolled over, and started stroking toward shore. Burt opened his suitcase, took out the green beach coat he'd brought her, and walked down to the edge of the surf. Joss rose in thigh-deep water and waded ashore. Her homemade bathing costume (it was too individualistic to be called anything else, a loose-fitting playsuit made of a cotton print) wetly outlined a figure which had once been, obviously, arrestingly full. Now, though resigning itself here and there to the pull of gravity, her shape was still good enough to draw whistles at a distance. Once she'd shown Burt an old picture of herself in a net bra and panties, both of which concealed no more than the absolute legal minimum. She'd refused to say whether she'd been a runway queen, a nightclub stripper, or a freelance exhibitionist; she drew a curtain of phony coyness over her entire past and was even vague about the number of her husbands. Burt wasn't sure whether the Englishman from whom she'd inherited the island had been her third or fourth. Her hair was the color of bleached straw except at the back of her neck and behind her ears, where traces of gray were visible among the auburn. Burt placed her age at forty-five, but wouldn't have been surprised if she turned out to be five years on either side.

She walked out of the water, squinting in his direction. She was hopelessly nearsighted but scorned glasses, saying she'd seen too much already. Burt sidestepped and slid the beach coat around her shoulders. “Now you can greet your guests decently.”

“Burt March!” She gave him an impulsive hug which dampened his clothes for the second time. Then she backed off a step. “Burt, you look like hell!”

“Thanks,” said Burt dryly. “You haven't changed either.”

“But really. You're thin and pale, and carrying a cane …” Her mouth flew open. “You stopped a bullet!”

“Shhh. I'm supposed to be an insurance salesman.”

“Tell me, really. Did you shoot it out with a gang?”

“Crystal City's too small to support a gang. It was just a little jewelry store robbery—”

“And you went in after them?”

“Look—” He sighed. There'd be no business transacted until Joss had the entire story. “Joss, there was only one. A kid tried to heist a ring for his sweetheart. He stole his old man's gun and broke a window. He must've panicked when I came in, I don't know. He didn't live to talk about it. He was fourteen.”

“Oh—” Her eyes clouded with sympathy. “Poor Burt. Let's go up to the club and get you a drink.”

She slid her arm around his waist, half-helping him through the loose sand. Burt drew no personal conclusion from this intimacy; Joss had a way of making guests feel that she'd been wistfully scanning the sea for their arrival. He suspected it was only half a pose.

When they reached his luggage, she swooped down and held up the purse. “Burt March! You've changed sides!”

“If you weren't like a grandmother to me, I'd whop you. That belongs to your guest, Mrs. Keener. She left it on the schooner.”

“Oh?” Her expression froze into neutrality. “I'll have Boris take it to her.”

“I'd rather take it myself.”

Joss frowned, then gave a shrug of indifference which somehow failed to come off. As they stepped beneath the thatched roof of the club, she gave him a sidelong look. “Whatever happened to Caroline, the girl you brought down here last year? She told me she was trying to get you to propose.”

“I almost did.” Burt sat down at a rough, hand-hewn table. He kept his eyes carefully on a grackle which was strutting along the railing. “We broke it off a couple of weeks ago. She wouldn't have wanted to marry a cop.”

“Now Burt, she told me—” She stopped abruptly. “Oh, I get it now. Okay, we'll forget it. Boris! Two rum punches.”

Boris, whose real name was Howard Charles William, was one of the few men Burt knew who could wear a wispy goatee, a purple beret, stride on black bare feet across the plank floor of an open, thatched clubhouse, then bow from the waist with all the massive dignity of a headwaiter at the Waldorf. Burt offered him the bright Hawaiian shirt he'd brought; Boris thanked him gravely and strode behind the bar to mix the drinks.

An Isle de Trois rum punch bore no resemblance to the effete cocktails served in Barbados and Jamaica. It was a potent jolt of black rum, nutmeg, brown sugar and lime. Water had to be requested, and ice was unknown on the island. Burt forced himself to sip the heavy mixture slowly; he was anxious to get to Mrs. Keener, but irritated at his own impatience.

“What's this about being full up, Joss?”

“Oh …” She waved her hand vaguely. “I just meant the cabins are all rented.”

“But … I thought Mrs. Keener was the only guest.”

“Her husband's due in a few days. He reserved cabin one, and she's in number two.”

“Separate cabins? Why?”

“Maybe it's that kind of marriage, or maybe one of them snores. He didn't say in his letter, and I haven't been able to get ten words out of her.”

Burt frowned to himself; he wanted more information, but was reluctant to tell Joss what he already knew. “Okay, that still leaves cabins three and four.”

Joss sighed and spread her hands. “A week ago I got a letter from a man named Smith. He enclosed a money order. Wanted two cabins for himself and three associates—”

“
Associates?
A man named Smith?”

She looked at him. “I know what you're thinking and you can stop worrying. If they're gay, they don't stay. But I couldn't tell that from a letter, could I? And there
are
people named Smith.” She looked down at her hands. “Hell, I know it sounds fishy. But I needed the money, Burt. It's been a long summer.”

“You want me to leave?”

She looked up quickly. “No! Lord no, stay in number one until Keener gets here. After that … well, there's my house …”

“I wouldn't put you out.”

“I wasn't thinking of—” She stopped suddenly and stood up. “Go on, deliver your purse and then we'll have another drink. Lobster okay for supper?”

“Great,” he said. He watched her walk behind the bar, through the door which led to the kitchen. Joss seemed unusually nervous, and uncharacteristically hostile to her female guest.

Godfrey, the mulatto youth who served as dishwasher, beachboy and bellhop, was waiting beside Burt's leg. The boy was painfully bandy-legged, and as Burt followed him along the sandy path, he could see at least a foot of clearance between the knobby knees. They passed cabins four and three, in that order, and beyond them Burt could see the rollers marching in like ranks of plumed soldiers, then crashing down on the sand. It was a good day for body surfing.

Ahead, Godfrey walked beneath tall, somber manchineel trees, setting his bare feet carefully down among the sharp-husked fruits. Both the sap and the fruit were poisonous, and Joss had been advised to cut down the trees. But she had a theory that any change in nature is bound to be bad. Having seen the manicured, geometric ugliness which man had produced in his own state, Burt was inclined to agree.

Ah, here was cabin two. Now he could dispose of this purse, which was turning into a millstone around his neck.

“Godfrey.” His voice was lost in the booming surf. He called louder. The boy stopped and turned. “Take the bag on to the cabin. I'm stopping here—wait, here's something.” He drew out a flat packet and tossed it through the air. “Strings for your guitar. See you later.”

He waited until Godfrey had gone behind the ancient gnarled banyan which separated cabins one and two, then knocked on the door. The silence stretched into a full minute before a low husky voice came from the other side.

“Who is it?”

“Burt March. I just came in on the schooner.”

There was another long pause. “Really? I hope you had a pleasant voyage.”

Burt frowned. There was no interest in the voice, not even idle curiosity. “Are you Tracy Keener?”

“I—what if I am?”

Her voice had taken on a tense belligerence, almost as puzzling as her lack of interest.

“Did you leave something on the ship?”

“Oh.” Was that a sigh of relief? Had she expected something worse?

The door opened slowly to a width of four inches. Burt glimpsed a huge, floppy beach hat which hung down to her eyebrows. A pair of oversized sunglasses covered her face to the cheekbones, and from there to the collar of her robe was a pale leprous expanse of skin which glistened wetly. Some kind of lotion …

“Oh, my purse.” Her white hand snaked out, clutched the purse, and pulled it inside. As the door was closing, she spoke with the stilted formality of a child suddenly remembering its manners: “Thank you. I've been terribly worried.”

And that was all. The door clicked shut, and Burt felt like kicking it in. What kind of reward was that? Hell, for all he'd seen of her she could have been a Martian. Maybe she didn't know about the heroin; maybe the stuff had been a plant.

He walked quietly around the cabin and leaned against the screen door of the veranda. If she were a hypo, she'd be fixing now.

Five minutes later he heard her sandals scrape on the concrete. “Oh! You … what do you want now?”

He turned and saw that she still wore her all-concealing costume. The robe ended at mid-thigh and he saw that her legs were heavier than he'd expected from her description. They were thick and muscled, like those of a dancer.

He realized he had no real plan of action, no desire to do more than have a good look at her. “If you'll come to the club, I'll buy you a drink.”

“No.”

“You don't drink?”

“I—” She made an impatient gesture with her hand. “Look, you brought me my purse. Okay, what do you want, a reward? I'll have to get some change—”

Her voice was rising. It could have been anger, but Burt heard an undercurrent of alarm. “I don't want a reward,” he said softly. “I just thought since we're the only guests, we should get acquainted.”

“Oh, well … later. I've got a terrible sunburn and I don't feel like—”

“Are you sick?”

She faced him a moment, her chin thrust out in what was unmistakably anger. Then she whirled and went inside, slamming the door behind her.

Jata was scrubbing out the patio when Burt reached his cabin. She was a tall, thin, blue-black woman from Petit Martinique who lived in a world of death, blood and black magic. She wore a skin bag around her neck which might have contained obeah charms, but which really held tobacco. She took the two packs of Granger pipe mixture he gave her and said morosely she hoped he would enjoy his stay.

“Las' night, moon he come up all bloody. Trouble comin',
sieur
, truly.”

Burt smiled. “Where's Maudie? I brought her something.”

“Look behind you,
sieur
. She follow as always.”

Burt turned as Jata's daughter came through the screen door. The girl he'd first seen as a gangly, tongue-tied eleven-year-old with round violet eyes and a braid like the tail of a rat, had now acquired a brazenly buxom brown body which rolled and bounced beneath a threadbare T-shirt. In past years she'd shadowed him around the island so closely that her mother had sometimes locked her in their shack.

“Remember what you asked me to bring you?” Burt asked. “You showed me the picture in the magazine.”