Donald Westlake - High Adventure

They were, of course, already in Belize, and it took Valerie a minute to realize the girl meant Belize City. (In just the same way, people in Mexico say they’re going to Mexico, not Mexico City, and people in New York State say they’re going to New York, not New York City.)

Innocent grinned at Valerie. “Susie liked the conch after the sex.” Squeezing her leg, he said, “Didn’t you, baby?”

Susie giggled. Innocent winked at Valerie. “But she liked the sex better.”

Susie gave Valerie an arch look, woman to woman. “These men,” she said. “They all think they’re the best, right?” Imitating a little boy, pressing one fingertip to her cheek, she said, “Wasn’t I great, honey? Ain’t I the best you ever had, honey? Don’t I beat all the other fellas, honey?” Then she became a schoolmarmish sort of woman, humoring the little boy: “Oh, you were wonderful, dear. Such a great big thing.” As Innocent guffawed, she held up her hands, palms facing each other, like a fisherman describing an extremely small fish.

Valerie had to laugh. She also had to eat conch. The question was, did she have to go to bed with Innocent St.Michael?

Not have to, that wasn’t the word. It wasn’t as though sex would be his kind of bribe, the gift to the Third Worlder to gain cooperation. That wouldn’t be Innocent’s way. Valerie wasn’t too awfully wise in the ways of the world, but she did understand that Innocent was merely permitting the subject of sex to float in the air all around them, giving her the opportunity to decide whether or not to go to bed with him, and suggesting without too much blatancy the reasons why she should.

Generally speaking, Valerie was confused about sex. The gropings and kissings and sweaty fumblings of her early teenage years had seemed somehow off the mark, irrelevant to the hunger that certainly did exist. The idea that these nervous jackrabbit boys might have the solution to the problem, might be able to guide her into understanding and contentment, was absurd on the face of it. And when, at 16, she had finally “done it” on the floor of a living room where she was babysitting, the boy had been so nervous, so overly eager, so inexperienced and gawky, that in some ways it had been worse than learning to dance.

Her experiences since then had been infrequent, but varied. Most of the time, she hardly thought about sex, and on those occasions when it did become a part of the agenda she mostly just tried to retain some dignity. She did learn something nearly every time, but many of the lessons were depressing. She now knew there were self-confident and capable young men in the world, who could stop thinking about themselves long enough to think about the girls they were with, but there were dam few of them. On the other hand, older men could sometimes be just as jumpy and inept as any callow youth. It was impossible, doggone it, to tell what a man was going to be like in bed just by looking at him.

Or was it? Here was Innocent St. Michael, deliberately and smoothly filling her head with thoughts of sex, then actually bringing out a previous girlfriend to give him a reference; which she had done, too, even though in a backhanded way. He would not be the first dark-skinned person she’d gone to bed with — if the previously unthinkable were actually to occur — but he would probably be the oldest. And maybe the heaviest; would that matter much?

He has me considering the idea, Valerie thought, astonished at herself. And he knows it, too; look at him there, smirking and winking across the table, smacking Susie’s behind, telling the girl, “You just want to keep me for yourself, that’s all.”

“Keep you?” Susie slithered out of his grasp; moving away toward the kitchen, she said, “I caught you once, and threw you back.” He can be kidded about sex, Valerie thought as she drank more wine, because he’s so very sure of himself.

Innocent beamed at her. “You like the conch, Valerie?”

She giggled, like one of his women.

“This stela,” Witcher said, while the skinny black man looked out the hotel room window, “could be very valuable. Depending on the condition of the rest of it.”

Directly below the window was the hotel’s swimming pool, in which no one was swimming. Just out of sight to the pool’s left were the large ocean-facing windows of the dining room. From where he stood, the skinny black man could not quite see the dining-room windows, but he knew who was there.

“There’s a bunch of them here,” Kirby said casually, while the two cassette tapes turned, steady and unromantic. “Let’s go on.” The voices stopped, to be replaced by the panting and rustling sounds of hill-climbing.

The skinny black man glanced over at the dresser top, where the linked cassette players squatly sat, each with its own red eye. Then he looked down again, vaguely regretting that he couldn’t quite see into the dining room where at this moment Kirby, Witcher, and Feldspan were having lunch and continuing their discussion. Were Witcher and Feldspan taping this meeting, too? Would he be sent back to copy another conversation?

If so, he would hear Kirby say, “The deal is, then, I’ll get the stuff out of the country, whatever we find inside the temple. You guys sell it through your contacts, and we split fifty-fifty.”

“You’ll have to trust us,” Witcher pointed out. “Though I suppose you know the general value of such things.”

“Fairly well,” Kirby said, shrugging the problem away. “Besides, we have to trust one another, don’t we? You have to trust me not to give you fakes.”

Feldspan looked surprised, but Witcher merely amused, saying, “For Heaven’s sake, why would you? There’s a whole temple of real things there, probably enough to make us all rich; why jeopardize the relationship?”

“Exactly,” Kirby said. “And you fellas have the same motive to give me a straight count.”

“Of course.”

Feldspan said, “The only problem, really, is getting the material out of the country.”

“I have my methods,” Kirby said, and stopped, because the waitress was bringing them their main courses. Silence reigned at the table until she was done, the three men looking out the window at the empty swimming pool and, beyond it, the open sea. Out there, a black freighter stood at anchor; some nosy British Coast Guard people had grabbed it a few weeks ago, north of here, finding it full of marijuana. They’d impounded it (like Manny Cruz’s step-in van), and now it was waiting to be auctioned by the Belize government.

Upstairs, the cassette on the dresser said, in Kirby’s voice, “None of us can ever say a word about this temple. Not here, and not in New York, and not anywhere.”

The waitress left at last, and Witcher said, “Americans have been caught, you know, trying to get out of Belize with carvings or whatnot. Caught and jailed.”

“That’s why,” Kirby said, “in this operation, you’re dealing with the right man.”

Feldspan said, almost timidly, “I don’t suppose you could tell us your smuggling method.”

“Why not?” Kirby grinned. “Truthfully, I’m proud of it. You see, there isn’t just one smuggling business out of Belize, there’s two. There’s Mayan antiques, that’s one, and the other one is marijuana.”

Feldspan smiled reminiscently, and Witcher said, “You’re involved in both, aren’t you?”

“I’ve combined them both,” Kirby told him. “The government comes down hard on the artifact smuggling, as you know. In fact, they’ll probably search your luggage on the way out, since your passports say you’re antique dealers.”

“Oh, dear,” said Feldspan. He and Witcher exchanged a troubled glance.