Leslie Charteris - Señor Saint

“If all is well, we shall meet him presently,” Manuel said.

He guided them to the dock where a shiny new Chris-Craft with fishing chairs and outriggers was tied up. The crew of two who helped them aboard were identical in type with the chauffeurs, and no less efficiently taciturn. The lines were cast off at once, and the big engines came to life, one after the other, with deep hollow roars. The boat idled out into the darkening harbour.

“Tell us where we are to go,” Manuel said.

“North-east,” Inkler said, “and twenty miles out.”

Enriquez translated to the captain at the wheel.

“Let us go inside and be comfortable,” he said. “I have whisky, gin, and tequila. In an hour we should be able to see your boat.”

The time did not pass too badly, although Simon would have preferred to stay on deck. It was noisy in the cabin, with the steady drone of the engines and the rush of water, so that a certain effort had to be made to talk and to listen. But fortunately for their comfort there was very little sea, and the speeding boat did not bounce much.

He was checking his watch for the exact end of the estimated hour when the engines reduced their volume of sound suddenly and the boat sagged down and surged heavily as its own wave overtook it. They all went out with unanimous accord into the after-cockpit, and Simon saw the lights and silhouette of a ship ahead of them. A moment later, Enriquez switched on a spotlight and sent its beam sweeping over the other vessel. It was a squat and very dilapidated little coastal freighter of scarcely three hundred tons which would certainly have looked like having a rough voyage to Iran, if anybody but the Saint had been critical of such details at that moment. An answering light blinked from her bridge, three times.

“That’s it,” Inkler said.

“What you call, on the nose?” Enriquez said with solid satisfaction.

As the Chris-Craft drew alongside, the freighter lowered a boarding ladder. Doris Inkler stood beside the Saint.

“We’ll wait for you here,” she said.

They watched Inkler and Enriquez clamber up over the side and disappear. Simon lighted two cigarettes and gave her one. She stayed close to him, watching the Mexican captain and mate as they made a rope fast to the ladder and hung fenders over the rubbing strake.

“This is the first place we could have trouble,” she said in a low voice. “If Manuel wants one of the wrong cases opened...”

“Don’t worry until it happens,” he said.

But he could feel her tenseness, and he was a little tense himself for what seemed like an interminable time, but by his watch was less than a half-hour, until at last Inkler and Enriquez came down the ladder again and joined them in the smaller boat’s cockpit. Then he could tell by the subtly different confidence of both men that there had been no trouble.

Manuel spoke briefly to the captain, who yelled at the mate, and the bow line was cast off. Water widened between the two hulls, and the Chris-Craft engines grumbled again. Manuel shepherded the Inklers and the Saint below.

He poured four drinks in four clean glasses, and raised one of them.

“To our good fortunes,” he said.

“Is everything all right?” Doris asked, holding on to her glass.

“Your husband is a good business man. He has the right things for the right customers.”

Only the most captious analyst might have thought she was a fraction slow with her response.

“Oh, Sherman!”

She flung her arms around Inkler’s neck and kissed him joyously. Then she turned to the Saint and did the same to him. Inkler watched this with a steady smile.

“Your boat is now following us to a little fishing village, where I have men waiting to unload the cargo,” Manuel said.

“Is it far?”

“We have to go slower, of course. But it will not be too long. About three hours. And we have plenty to drink.”

“Pablo Enriquez is waiting there with the money,” Inkler said to the Saint.

Simon remembered that he had the privileged role of a partner.

“Exactly when is it to be paid?” he inquired. “I hope Mr Enriquez won’t be offended, but business is business. He wanted to see what we had to offer before he committed himself, and quite rightly. Now I don’t think we should have to unload all that stuff until it’s paid for.”

Manuel grinned like a genial saurian.

“As soon as I tell Pablo it’s okay, he gives you the money. Five hundred thousand American dollars. In cash!”

There was nothing more to be said; but the rest of the voyage seemed to take far more than three times as long as the trip out. The Chris-Craft wallowed along sluggishly, rolling a little with the swell; they all realized that her speed had to be cut down to let the freighter keep up with her, but still their nerves chafed against the restraint, aching impatiently and impossibly for the throttles to open and the exhaust to belch in booming crescendo and the ship to lighten and lift up and skim with all the throbbing speed of which she was capable, lancing through the time between them and the climax ahead. That was how Simon felt, and he knew that two others felt exactly as he did and worse.

There was plenty to drink, as Manuel said, but they could not even take advantage of that to deaden the consciousness of crawling minutes. Sipping lightly and at a studiously sober pace himself, Simon noted that the Inklers were doing the same. Once Sherman emptied his glass rather hurriedly, and earned an unmistakable cold stare from his wife; after that he left the refill untouched for a long time. Only Enriquez was under no inhibition, but the alcohol seemed to have no effect on him, unless it was to confirm his hard-lipped good humour.

“Perhaps one day we do some more business, but in the open,” was the closest he came to referring to the lawless purpose of their association. “It is like Prohibition in your country, is it not? When the law changes, the bootleggers become importers. But until then, it is better you forget all about tonight.”

Watching him with ruthless detachment, the Saint was unable to detect any foreshadowing of a double-cross. And, after all, it was entirely possible that the Enriquez brothers would be prepared to pay for what they thought they were getting, and even consider it cheap at the price. At the infinite end of three hours, he was almost convinced that Manuel was prepared to complete his infamous bargain. Yet he could not relax.

At last, after three eternities, there was a change of volume in the purr of the engines, and the boat seemed to be rolling less, and muffled voices shouted on deck. Manuel put down his glass and went out quickly, and they followed.

The night air was still warm and humid, but it was refreshing after the stuffy cabin. The sky overhead was an awning of rich velvet sprinkled with unrealistically brilliant stars, and on both sides Simon saw the black profiles of land sharply cut out against it over the bow. At the end of the bay, he saw the scattered yellow window lights of a small village, and closer than that there were other lights down by the water, flashlights that moved and danced. Searching around for the ugly shape of the little freighter, he found it looming so close astern that it was momentarily alarming, until he realized that it was hardly moving. The Mexican captain was yelling up at it and waving his arms. Enriquez took over, translating, “Stop here! You can’t go any farther!”

The anchor came down from the freighter with a clanking of chain and a splash. Enriquez turned to Inkler.

“We can go in to the dock, but he is too big. My men will come out in smaller boats to unload.”

Inkler relayed the information, shouting upwards at the freighter’s bridge. He added, “Don’t let ’em have the stuff till I give the signal!”