Leslie Charteris - Señor Saint

A voice shouted back, unnautically, “Okey-doke.”

The Mexican captain shoved the clutches forward, and the Chris-Craft purred away.

In a few minutes they were alongside the ramshackle dock where the flashlights bobbed. There were at least a dozen men on it, and a slight aroma of fish and sweat and garlic; the silent shadowy figures gave an impression of roughness and toughness, but only an occasional glimpse of detail could be seen when a light moved. Manuel stepped ashore first, and the Saint followed him and gave his hand to Doris Inkler to help her. Her hand was cold, and kept hold of his even after she had joined him on the rickety timbers. Sherman Inkler stumbled on to the pier after them.

Enriquez seemed to sense the defensiveness of their grouping for he said reassuringly, “They are all friends of our friend Jalisco. Don’t worry. This village is one of ours.”

He guided them through the opening ranks and off the dock. It felt good to the Saint to stretch his legs again on solid ground. The dim square outlines of several parked trucks loomed around them, then another man alone, whose face was faintly spotlighted in the darkness by the glow of a cigar. It was Pablo.

The two brothers talked quickly and briefly in Spanish, and Manuel said mostly “Sí, sí,” and “Está bien.”

“This way,” Pablo said.

He led them a little distance from the trucks, to where one of the yellow Cadillacs was parked under a tree, with one of the burly chauffeurs beside it. He went around to the back and unlocked the boot. An automatic light went on as it opened, illuminating one medium-sized suitcase inside.

“That is for you,” Pablo said.

Inkler stepped slowly forward. He opened the suitcase gingerly, as if expecting it to be booby-trapped. Simon felt Doris tremble a little at his shoulder. Then they saw the neat bundles of green bills that filled the case.

“You may count it,” Manuel said.

Inkler took out one of the packages of currency and thumbed through it methodically. He compared it with the others for thickness. Doris joined him and began to count packages, rummaging to the very bottom of the case. Sherman pulled out occasional bills and examined them very closely under the light. Most of them were twenties and fifties.

Simon Templar watched from where he stood, and also let his eyes travel all around and turned his head casually to look behind him. His muscles and reflexes were poised on a hair trigger. But he could neither see nor hear any hint of a closing ambush. The husky chauffeur stood a little apart, like a statue. The Enriquez brothers talked together in low tones, and the only scraps of their conversation that the Saint could catch were concerned entirely with their arrangements for storing and distributing the ordnance that they thought they were buying.

“I’m satisfied,” Sherman Inkler said at last.

Manuel lighted a cigar.

“Good. Then you will give the signal to your boat?”

“Of course.”

Manuel led him back into the gloom, in the direction of the pier.

Doris Inkler closed and fastened the suitcase and pulled it out of the car boot. She unbalanced a little as the full weight came on her arm, and put it down on the ground.

“It’s heavy,” she said with a nervous laugh, and as the Saint stepped up to feel it, out of curiosity, she said, “Give me a cigarette.”

He gave her one, and Pablo lighted it.

“It is a lot of money,” Pablo said. “It will buy many pretty things, if you have an appreciative husband.”

“I’ll feel safer with it when it’s turned into traveller’s cheques,” said the Saint.

Pablo laughed.

They made forced and trivial conversation until Simon heard Manuel and Sherman returning.

Now, if there was to be any treachery on the part of the Enriquez brothers, it would have to show itself. The Saint’s weight was on the balls of his feet, his right hand ready to move like a striking snake, but still the movement that he was alert for did not come.

“I am afraid it will take several hours to unload everything,” Manuel said. “Would you like to go back on the boat and have some more drinks?”

Doris looked at her husband.

“Can’t we go back to the hotel? I’m tired, and famished — and I think some mosquitoes are eating me.”

“Pablo and I must stay here,” Manuel said. “And we need all our men. Even the chauffeur should be helping. However... Would you like to take the car? One of you can drive. It is an easy road to Veracruz. You cannot get lost.”

He gave directions.

“But what about you?” Inkler protested half-heartedly.

“We will come later, on one of the trucks. Do not wait up for us.”

Almost incredulously, they found themselves getting into the Cadillac. Sherman picked up the suitcase full of money and put it in the front seat, and got in beside it, behind the wheel. “Don’t want to let it out of my sight,” he said with an empty grin. Manuel and Pablo kissed the hand of Doris, and she got in the back seat. Simon shook hands with them and got in after her. In a mere matter of seconds they were on their way.

They must have driven more than a mile in unbelieving silence. It was as if they were afraid that even there the Enriquez brothers might overhear them, or that a careless word might shatter a fragile spell...

And then suddenly, uncontrollably, Doris electrified the stillness with a wild banshee shriek.

“We did it!” she screamed. “We’ve got the money, and we’re off. We did it!”

She leaned forward and grasped her husband’s shoulders and shook them.

“Better than I ever hoped for,” Sherman said shakily. “I thought at the very least we’d have a chauffeur to get rid of. But we’re on our own already. Now pull yourself together!”

Doris fell back, giggling hysterically.

The Saint’s right hand slid unobtrusively under his coat, fingered the butt of the holstered automatic that he had not had to touch. Then it moved to the pocket where he kept his cigarettes.

“So you didn’t really need me,” he said. “The Enriquez brothers were on the level, after their fashion. They may swindle the government and send peasants out to kill and be killed for them, but they pay their own bills. I guess there is honour among certain kinds of thieves.”

Doris stopped squirming and sat up with a final cathartic gasp.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I’m glad we ran into you. Terribly glad.”

And suddenly her lips were on his mouth, hot and hungry, and her body against him and her arms winding around him, groping... And then just as quickly she tore herself away, back to the far side of the seat, and he looked down and saw the gleam of his own gun in her hand, pointing at him.

“You didn’t have to use it,” she said, a little breathlessly. “But I will, if you try anything. Pull over, Sherm. I’ve got him covered.”

The Saint didn’t move. He gazed at her steadily, and rather sadly, while the car lost speed without any abruptness that might have spoiled her aim.

“A perfect stranger,” he said, “a person who didn’t know your sweet loyal soul, would think you were going to take a mean advantage of me — to toss me aside like an old squeezed-out toothpaste tube.”

“A perfect stranger would be right,” she said. “It was mighty nice to have you with us while there was a real chance that the Enriquez brothers might have been planning to pull a fast one. But now we’re out of that danger, you’re too expensive a partner. But you can still be useful. I figure that if we leave you for them or the cops to catch, when they find out who you are they won’t care so much about trying to find us.”

“That’s how I thought you had it figured.”