Эллери Куин - The Killer Touch

Maudie’s hands shook him awake. “Sir, will you look?”

He raised his hands and saw the equipment lined up for his inspection. Tanks, carrying frame, fins, mask, belt of weights, knife—

“You forgot the regulator.”

“What is that?” Her naked body was wet and glistening like an otter’s pelt.

“A round thing on a black hose. Goes in your mouth.”

“I get it,” she said, and left.

This time he did not wake up when she returned. He dreamed that he was swimming and encountering a black-backed porpoise in the water. He was wrestling the porpoise, trying to push it beneath him, when he woke up and looked down into the wide white eyes of Maudie. She lay passive in his arms, using none of her boasted strength.

He rolled onto his back. “Sleep on the other side of the cave, Maudie. I’ve got a long swim tomorrow.”

He rowed across the silent, oily sea. Behind him lay the main cluster of the Tobago Cays, four islands so close together that men could converse from one to the other and hardly raise their voices. He had searched all four without finding any sign of her; only some immense turtle shells where fishermen had long ago stopped for a feast. Now he rowed toward one lonely island a mile or so from the others. The fisherman in Mayero had called it Petit Tabac; it looked odd with a single palm tree growing from the low bush-covered mound in the center. He decided to land on the sand spit which curved out at the western end. Gray rocks bit through the surf around it, but the sea was calm enough to land without danger. He was thankful for the calm sea, with reservations, for it was a heavy, threatening quietness. And so hot. He took one hand off the oars and touched the soft blisters on his nose.

The man on Mayero had said: “Hurricane comin’.”

And Burt had said: “I’ve been hearing that since I came to the islands. When will it come?”

“Today,” said the man, and in that matter-of-fact way the islanders talk of death, had added: “You will die on the sea.”

Now Burt could see the black cloud like a low obsidian cliff on-the eastern horizon. He would have been thankful for rain — just a little. The sun was a white-hot rivet tacked to a blue-steel sheet of sky. Sweat made his palms slick on the oars and complicated the task of working the boat in through the rocks. He reached the line of low breakers and leaped out, seized the prow of the boat and dragged it up the steeply sloping beach. Damn, they made these things heavy. Not more than six feet long, and it must weigh a hundred pounds. It took all his strength to drag it ten feet above the surf-line. He reached beneath the thwart and took out an oilskin bag containing a tin of biscuits and two cans of bully beef. He tied it to his belt beside the plastic-handled fish-knife, then climbed up the slithering sand to the top of the mound.

The entire island was less than a quarter-mile long. It formed a narrow crescent which began where he stood and dwindled to a line of rocks on the eastern end. There the pelicans sat hunched over, like moviegoers waiting in the rain. He saw two structures of black rock, shaped like Navajo hogans. It was the only shelter on the island; she would be there if anywhere.

He jumped and slapped his ankle, saw the blood trickle down from the bite of a sandfly. He started down the beach. A gust of wind tore the breath from his lungs, stung his face with sand, and then was gone. He looked to the east and was appalled to see how the cloud had grown while he was beaching his boat. Now it covered the lower quarter of the eastern sky, black as approaching night. It was laced with red and yellow veinings of lightning, like mace on nutmeg. He felt a chill of foreboding and looked at his boat lying vulnerable on the sand. He ran back, uncoiled the heavy line and tied it to a jutting boulder. Then he ran back down the beach, his canvas sneakers slapping against the hard-packed sand.

She sat with her back against one of the stone shelters, her head sunk on her chest, her eyes fixed on her hands lying palm up across her thighs. Burt stared in frozen shock, his triumph at finding her wiped out by the appalling sight of her condition. The tangled mass of her hair was bleached a pale orange on top, hiding her face except for the peeling tip of her sun-blistered nose. Her long-sleeved denim shirt was open at the neck; the skin beneath it was welted by mosquito bites. Her long flannel slacks, once white, were now a stained, spotted gray. Her legs were stretched out before her, widespread, with the cuffs pulled up to her calves. Above her dirty white socks, her ankles were raw and bleeding from the bites of sandflies.

“Tracy Keener,” he said.

She didn’t look up. Beside her he saw the biscuit tie which he decided must contain her supplies. On the sand lay an open untouched can of beef, its contents dried and green and covered with flies. On a plastic bag lay a needle, its tip stained the color of rust. He knew why she didn’t answer; she had just hit herself, and was now taking that first wild soaring ride which addicts call the flash. He knelt and raised her head.

“Tracy. I’ve come to take you off the island.”

She gave him a glazed, unfocused look. “In a minute, baby. You’re new, aren’t you? Did Rolf come?”

So... she thought he was Rolf’s man. He decided not to tell her he was taking her away from Rolf; the tie between an addict and the supplier was umbilical.

“Your husband couldn’t make it. Come on. Let’s go.”

“In... in a minute.”

“We can’t wait. Look.”

He held her chin and turned her face toward the east. The cloud was growing visible, sending blunt stubby fingers into the sky above them. Even the birds had grown strangely quiet.

“Pretty,” she said. “What is it?”

“That’s a storm. A bad one.” He spoke as though explaining to a child. “We’ve got to get off before it hits. This island isn’t more than twenty feet high. We’re going to one of the higher islands. Understand?”

“Uh-huh.” She smiled dreamily. “I like your voice.”

“Oh, hell!” He seized her wrist and pulled her to her feet. Her legs were like wet spaghetti; she crumpled to the sand like an empty pair of overalls. He lifted her in his arms and carried her up the beach. She draped her arm around his neck and hummed as they went along, keeping time to his footsteps in loose sand. Her lightness surprised him; the skin slid over her ribs, and he felt the hard ridge of her spine beneath his aims.

“Haven’t you been eating?” he asked.

“I bet Rolf told you to ask that. Eat, Tracy. I can’t have everybody knowing my wife’s a hypo. Eating is like putting a tongue depressor in my mouth.” She giggled softly and laid her head on his shoulder. “I get everything I need through the skin — Oh!” She stiffened. “Put me down.”

“We’re halfway there.”

“But I forgot my outfit! I can’t leave it!”

Her back arched and her thin body twisted in his arms. Rather than hurt her, he loosened his grip and let her fall on the sand. She was halfway running when she touched ground; she was off like a rabbit, leaving him with the sleeve which had ripped from the shoulder seam. She ran with surprising speed against the wind, into the clouds which roiled up before her like black smoke from a refinery fire. Her shirt flapped straight but from beneath her armpits; each rib and each joint of her spine showed starkly white, as though the skin and flesh had been stripped away to leave her skeleton bare. His pursuit was slowed by his greater bulk; he sank deeply into the sand, and the rising blasts of wind stopped him like a brick wall, only to dissolve and leave him staggering forward until he hit another blast.