Leslie Charteris - The Saint in Miami

Gallipolis rested the machine gun on the counter and nodded Simon to a chair. He studied the Saint with his ever-present grin.

"Well, you're on board. So what? You don't look like a heist man. What are you, a Sam?" He answered his own question with a shake of his curly head. "No, you don't look like the law. Give, friend, give. Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I'm Simon Templar." The Saint locked hands around his knee.

Curtains veiled the Greek's swimming eyes.

"So? The Saint? I heard you were in the southlands."

"Who told you?"

Gallipolis shrugged.

"News leaks out fast to a boat like this. I thought you were big time — the biggest of the lot. What the hell's the idea of picking on me?"

Muffled noises came from the poker room, followed by curses and a groan. The Saint said: "I'm afraid your customers really are feeding that pack of cards to Frank. I wonder if he's got a good digestion."

"He had it coming," said Gallipolis, still grinning. "But you didn't come out here just for that. What else have I got that you want?"

The Saint found a smoke, thumbed his lighter, and inhaled pensively.

"I'm looking for a guy named Jesse Rogers."

The Greek's face remained pleasantly receptive, with just a faint upward movement of his strongly marked black brows. Simon could picture his expression staying exactly the same right up until his forefinger squeezed a trigger.

"So?"

"Do you know him?"

"Sure."

It was a spine-tickling sensation, having to take all the initiative while growing more firmly convinced that Gallipolis would give no illuminating facial reaction until something fatal was said, and then fatal would be the only word for it

"Do you want to tell me anything about him?"

"Why not?" The Greek's candour seemed engagingly unfeigned. "He's an entertainer — sings smutty songs at the piano. He plays here sometimes."

"When?"

"Oh, not professionally. I mean he gambles. He works every night at a dive uptown called the Palmleaf Fan. You could have found him there. Why did you have to come and make trouble here?"

Simon decided that he couldn't be any worse off if he played a line of equally calculated frankness.

I never heard of him until this morning, or you either," he said. "Not until a friend of yours who calls himself Lafe Jennet took a shot at me and missed me by about three inches."

"You're wrong both ways, Mr Saint." Gallipolis was still grinning, but mechanically. "Jennet isn't a friend of mine; and he didn't take a shot at you, or he'd have hit you. He could put a bullet up the rear end of a southbound flea."

"I wouldn't be any less excited," said the Saint, "if he could pop a bedbug in the starboard eye. The point is that I hate being shot at, even in fun. So I told Lafe that I'd have to send him back to the chain-gang where he belongs, after playing a few other games with him, unless he told me where he got his humorous idea. He told me that someone he met out on this barge blackmailed him into it"

Gallipolis considered his machine-gun and said: "Meaning me?"

"No — this fellow Rogers. He said he didn't know anything about him except that he often hung out around here. So I thought I'd drop out and see."

"You could have come to the door and asked."

"How did I know you weren't in on it?"

The houseboat was silent except for the sounds of breaking furniture and a body bumping up and down on the floor.

"The bear came over the mountain," said Gallipolis eventually, "to see what he could see. It's a good story, anyhow. Where's Jennet now?"

"He's waiting in the woods with a friend of mine."

"That's a good story, too."

"How do you think I found this boat if Jennet didn't show me?" Simon asked patiently.

"You want to fetch him in?"

The question was almost casual; but Simon knew that it was a challenge, and might become more than that Gallipolis still had him guessing.

But he had to balance the situation entirely by his own system of accountancy. It had seemed like a good idea at first to leave Jennet behind, not knowing what might be waiting on the barge. But he had found out more about that since — at least, enough for the present. He was a prisoner under the nozzle of a sub-machine-gun, which was an irrevocable temporary fact, regardless of what anyone was thinking or whatever other scheming might be going on. He had no further use for Mr. Jennet. And he had told Hoppy to come after him if he hadn't returned by nightfall; but Jennet would be a handicap to that, and in any event Hoppy could have been knocked off with ease, being no Indian fighter, before he had moved his own length into the open… It didn't seem as if ceding the point could make anything much worse, and it might even make some things clearer.

"If you want him badly enough," said the Saint; and he had covered all those points in such a lightning survey that his hesitation could barely have been timed with a stopwatch.

"I just want to know if all this is on the up-and-up," said Gallipolis, and he might even have been telling the truth. "You'd better take your gun out first and slide it across the floor. If you want to try shooting it out, okay, but you're making a mistake. A Tommy gun is better than an automatic, no matter how good you are."

Simon obeyed, cautiously. The gun he was giving up meant nothing to him, being the one he had taken from March's captain, and Gallipolis handled his weapon as if he had wielded it before.

The Greek leaned against the lengthwise end of the bar, and it slid creakingly sideways, disclosing a good-sized hole in the floor under it. He toed the Luger into the hole and said: "Stand up and turn around. I've been suspicious ever since my ma got raped in Athens. I want to see if you've got any more."

Simon stood still with outstretched arms while Gallipolis explored him. The Greek's touch was quick and thorough. He ended the frisking by patting Simon inside of each thigh.

"Don't get me wrong," he said, "but I've got a bullet hole in my shoulder from a fellow I thought I'd disarmed. He was wearing a crotch gun, and when I turned around he pulled it on me by zipping open his fly."

The Saint said: "Gosh, what fun!" and forebore to mention the knife strapped to his forearm.

"Come along," said Gallipolis, backing into the passage, "But don't get too close."

He stopped outside the poker room and rapped on the door. Still keeping Simon covered, he said through the panels: "You fellows stay inside until I say it's clear. We're having visitors. If you want to work on Frank some more, keep him on the table. He makes a noise when he hits the floor."

He motioned Simon in the opposite direction.

At the other end of the hallway, facing the kitchen entrance, another door gave into a sort of reception room which covered the forward end of the barge. They had to zigzag around a counter which practically bisected it and at the same time provided an effective barrier against any too rapid entry or exit. On the other side of the counter was another screen door.

"You go out and call 'em," said Gallipolis. "I can watch you from here."

Simon stepped out on to the short cramped foredeck and semaphored with his arms. After a while he saw Mr Uniatz step out of cover, herding Lafe Jennet ahead of him.

I just wouldn't shoot too quickly, comrade," Simon said, in a tone of moderate counsel. "Some other friends of mine know where I am, and if I don't get home they might pay you a call and ask questions."

"Some of your fairy tales seem to be true," Gallipolis acknowledged impersonally. "Well see what happens. I never shoot till I have to." He was watching the approaching duo at an edgewise angle through the door. "If this big baboon belongs to you, tell him to put his gun away before he comes in."