Эллери Куин - The Killer Touch

“No, sir.” Coco rested his chin in his hands and gazed at Rolf’s launch rocking in the rain-peppered lagoon. “My mind tells me he take me fishing today.”

“Your mind gives you a bum steer,” said Burt. “But I’ll give you five bucks to go up to the piton and watch where he goes.”

“Yes, sir! ”

The pink soles of Coco’s bare feet sent up spurts of wet sand as he ran down the beach. Burt went to his cabin and took a shower, then put on dry clothes and lay down on his bed fully dressed. The damp weather had brought throbbing pain to his leg; he seemed to be able to sleep only a half-hour when a spurt of pain would awaken him, and he would lie with cold sweat soaking his clothes while he tried to arrange his leg in a more comfortable position. He was doing this for the fifth or the tenth time when a shot blasted just outside his cabin. Burt was off his bed and on the floor when the second report came. He ran out onto the porch with Rolf’s .38 in his hand and looked up to see a graceful frigate bird falter in flight, then begin a slow downward glide which ended in a splash far out to sea.

Burt lowered his eyes and saw the two men on the narrow beach just below his cabin. One carried a gun over his shoulder, holding it by the barrel in defiance of all gun safety rules. The other had broken open a double-barreled shotgun and was feeding in new shells. Burt shoved the .38 in his hip pocket and strode down to the beach. He’d forgotten the twinge in his leg; his ears burned with unreasoning rage.

“Hey!” he shouted.

The man who held the gun by the barrel turned to frown at Burt. He was a stocky, dark man who looked immensely powerful, with heavy, black-furred arms and a pelt of black hair poking through the neck of his crackling new sport shirt. The other man, also dressed in new sport shirt and trousers, was bigger but more loosely built. He raised his shotgun and scanned the sky, ignoring Burt.

“Why the hell did you shoot a frigate bird?” asked Burt.

The hairy man flashed a broad unconvincing smile and held out his hand. “I’m Ace Smith. Real-estate operator. This is one of my associates, Hoke Farnum.”

Burt didn’t take his hand. He’d always had a low opinion of men who killed for pleasure. These two didn’t even seem to be having fun. “I asked you why you shot the frigate bird.”

Ace Smith shrugged and waved at the other man. “Hoke thought it was a pigeon. We came here to shoot pigeons.”

Burt glanced at Hoke. He had a thick fleshy head topped with coarse black hair. His face appeared the color and texture of pie dough with the features pressed in place by blunt fingers. The man didn’t smile; he didn’t look as though he knew how. He looked at Burt from eyes that could have been dried prunes floating in skimmed milk for all the emotion they showed, then turned away and drew a bead on a pelican bobbing in the swell just beyond the surf line. Burt leaped forward and knocked down the gun barrel. “Fool! Don’t you know a pelican when you see one?”

The big man backed away with surprised annoyance. He gave Burt a puzzled look, then turned to Ace. “Who is this guy, the local game warden?”

“Bird lover,” said the other. “Shoot what you want. They don’t enforce game laws here.”

For an instant the scene froze, with Burt facing the two armed men. Hoke’s gun was a twelve-gauge shotgun; Ace carried an over-under model, twenty-gauge shotgun below, thirty-caliber rifle above.

Burt felt his skin draw tight; he hadn’t smelled gunpowder since that night in the jewelry store.

He forced himself to relax; no use getting somebody killed over a frigate bird.

“You’re the Smith who reserved two cabins?” he asked.

“Uh-yeah.” Ace’s smile was gone; like a rubber mask the face had snapped back into a taut, watchful pattern. There was violence in his eyes, but it was different from Rolf’s, nearer to the surface, more defensive and, probably, with a quicker boiling point.

“How’d you two great white hunters get on the island?”

“Charter boat,” said Ace.

As Burt turned to scan the shoreline, Ace said, “He left hours ago.”

Burt looked up and saw the pale disc of the sun shining through the haze directly overhead. It was past noon...

He left the two men and walked to the club. The cruiser was gone, as he’d expected. Godfrey, who was raking debris off the beach in front of the club, said the man and the woman had left right after breakfast. Boris was polishing the bar with an oiled cloth. To the left of the club, Joss lay in a hammock strung between two palm trees cuddling a rum punch on her stomach. Her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly open.

The tranquil scene gave Burt a queasy feeling, as though they were all sitting on the edge of a volcano, and he was the only one who could hear the rumble of the approaching eruption.

He walked up to her hammock and rocked it gently. She jumped, and liquid sloshed out of her glass and dampened the mound of her stomach.

“Brut, what—?”

“Why’d you let those new men in?”

“Boris put them up,” she said, taking a sip from her glass. “I was asleep when they came in from Grenada.”

“Asleep or passed out?”

“Well... rum makes me sleepy.”

“Sure, when you drink a quart of it.” He reached out and took the glass from her hand.

“Now Burt, listen—”

“You listen, Joss. I need help. I can’t depend on you when you’re juiced out of your mind.” He set the glass on the sand beside her hammock. “Now, how many gorillas are there?”

She looked wistfully at the glass, then sighed. “Well, there were supposed to be four, but Boris said there were only three. That Mr. Smith is in cabin three, the other two are in cabin four—” She stopped abruptly. “What do you mean, gorillas?”

“I mean gorillas, gunmen, torpedoes, hoods. I’ve seen enough of them in lineups to know the type.”

She turned pale. “But why... on this island—?”

“Tell me, did their reservations come in before or after Rolf’s?”

“Neither. O’Ryan drops the mail off once a week. Both letters were in the same batch.”

“So many visitors during hurricane season could hardly be an accident. Two and two adds up to four. Four against one.”

“Four? You’re not including Rolf?”

“Why not? They came in from Grenada, the same as the phony Mrs. Keener.”

“Ah, that one.” Joss’s eyes narrowed. “She kept her date last night?”

Burt nodded.

“And you... did you enjoy yourself?”

Burt touched a finger to the faint scratches on his cheek. “I could have, if I’d wanted to perform for an audience.” Briefly he related what had happened, including Rolf’s hints of danger and a vast fortune at stake. Joss’s reaction was surprising, but typical. She swung her legs to the ground and spoke with prim indignation:

“I’m going to the police and have the woman thrown out. That kind of promiscuity is just not allowed on my island.”

Burt shook his head slowly. “We’ve been over this ground before, Joss. How would you go?”

“Rolf—”

“You’d never get there.”

“Burt, don’t be silly. Rolf wouldn’t... I mean, he could be involved in a shady deal, like you say, but he wouldn’t hurt a woman.”

Burt smiled. “I envy you, Joss. Your feminine intuition would be such a help in detective work.”

“Oh, it’s more definite than that. We talked about the stars last night. He’s a Leo, a perfect Leo. He’s not bound by a lot of stifling rules, he’s a leader...”

Burt stared as she talked, amazed that the accident of a man’s birthday could outweigh all contrary evidence. True, it helped that Rolf was handsome, likable and intelligent, and that Joss was slightly sex-starved.