Nick Carter: The Black Death

Lyda Bonaventure sat quietly in the stern as I rowed us out. She didn’t say much until I rounded the bow of the black schooner. Just ahead the Sea Witch tugged gently at her fore and aft moorings:”

“Her real name is Toussaint ,” she said. “But of course we couldn’t call her that. It would be a dead giveaway, you see.”

She was calmer now, having cast the die and decided to trust me, and for the first time I noted the soft cultured tones, the absence of drawl, the almost too perfect diction that indicated that English might not be her first language. At this stage I knew little about her, but I did know that she was Haitian mulatto, descended from one of the old and elite families that Papa Doc Duvalier kicked out when he came to power. She would have been a kid then, I reckoned, because she couldn’t be over 25 now. Old enough to hate. Old enough to know what a double or triple cross was. I was going to have to watch her. And work with her. Those were my orders.

We came alongside the big cruiser, and she went swarming up a ladder, showing a lot of textured pantihose. I noted, absently, that she had a very interesting behind. I hitched the dinghy to the ladder and went up after her.

There was a jangle of keys as she went about unlocking things. “Let’s not waste any time,” she said. “Not a minute. Let’s move her, Nick. Do you know any place we can take her that will be safe? For tonight at least?”

She sounded scared again and I decided to play along. Maybe she did know what she was talking about. In any case I knew I wasn’t going to get anyplace, or get her to do any real talking, until the pressure was off and she was at ease. Then, if I could get a few drinks into her, I might start making some sense out of this mess.

“All right,” I said. “We’ll move her. Just give me a few minutes to survey her, huh? You don’t just come aboard a strange craft and take off the next minute.”

We went through the deckhouse and into the owner’s stateroom. She pulled curtains over the portlights and flicked on soft indirect lighting, then turned to give me a luminous brown stare. “You said you knew how to handle a boat, Nick.” Accusatory.

“I do. I’ve been around boats, off and on, most of my life. I still need to look her over before I take her out. You just let me handle it my way, huh? And let’s get one thing straight — I’m captain and you’re crew. I give orders and you obey. Got it?”

She frowned at me, then smiled and said, “Got it, Captain. The truth is that I don’t know anything about boats, and so I have to depend on you.”

“I was wondering about that,” I told her. “If you knew.anything about boats.”

She moved gracefully across the wall-to-wall carpeting to a tiny bar. “I don’t I just admitted it. I was — I was planning on having someone else to run her for me.”

I took off my jacket and my hat and tossed them into a chair. There was a blue yachting cap on a table, atop a pile of charts. The cap was soft topped, easily shaped, and bore two crossed golden anchors. I put it on, and it fitted me perfectly. A playboy’s cap, not a working garment, but it would do. I rolled up my sleeves. I had already had chicken blood on the London suit, and I figured that a little marine paint and engine grease couldn’t hurt any.

Lyda was making clinking sounds at the bar. She stopped and looked at the Luger in the belt holster and at the stiletto in the chamois sheath on my right arm. She opened her mouth and licked her lips with a pink tongue.

“I suppose I have been a fool,” she told me. “Not to trust you, I mean. You did kill two of them tonight! You — you wouldn’t have done that unless you are on my side — unless you are who you say you are.”

I had shown her my credentials. I seldom carry credentials that a layman would recognize, but tonight I had. Bennett had introduced me as Nick Carter. Hawk wanted it that way. This was no undercover job — he was not even sure there was a job — and I was to play it straight all the way. At least until matters developed and the picture was clarified.

Matters were developing, all right, but so far there wasn’t much clarification.

Lyda had mixed martinis. She poured two now and wriggled a finger at me. “With the captain’s permission, sir, can we have one drink before we go to work? Do you know something, Mr. Carter? You look like a pirate in that cap.”

I went to the bar and picked up the cold glass. I sipped. She made a good martini.

“One drink,” I told her. “Then you change into something else and we go to work. And you might keep in mind what — you just said — I am a pirate when I have to be. I hope I don’t have to make you walk the plank, Lyda. For both our sakes.”

She raised her glass to me. There was a hint of mockery in the gesture. Yellow flecks stirred and moved in the brown eyes as she smiled. “Yes, sir!”

She leaned forward suddenly and kissed me lightly on the mouth. I had been waiting for the chance and now I reached swiftly under her mini-skirt, my fingers just brushing her inner thigh, and snatched the little pistol from a garter holster she wore high and near her crotch. I had spotted it when she climbed the ladder.

I cradled the toy in my palm. It was a .25 Beretta with ivory butt plates. I grinned at her. “Now that you have decided to trust me, Lyda, you won’t be needing this. You let me worry about the guns, eh?”

She regarded me calmly over the rim of her glass, but her mouth tautened and the yellow sparks swirled in her eyes.

“Of course, Nick. You’re the captain, darling.”

The captain darling said: “Okay. Now finish that drink and get changed to something you can work in. I’m going to look around. I’ll be back in ten minutes and we’ll move this hulk.”

I went back to look at the engines. Twin V8 diesels, Cummins, and I figured around 380 horsepower. She should cruise at about 22 knots, with a top of 25 or so.

I went on checking, using a flashlight I found on a tackle box near the engines. It had to be a fast job, but I knew what I was looking for and I was pretty thorough. She had a beam of 16 feet as against an overall length of 57 feet. Oak frames under bronze-fastened mahogany. Honduras mahogany and varnished teak trim in the superstructure. She carried 620 gallons of fuel and 150 gallons of water. You can go a long way on that much oil and water.

The deckhouse was full of crates, long and flat, and I wondered what kind of guns they were. I didn’t have time to find out now and I really wasn’t all that interested. Later I might be — if those guns were to be used in an invasion of Haiti. That was just one of the pleasant little jobs Hawk had given me — to stop an invasion of Haiti if, and when, it appeared imminent. The old man hadn’t given me any suggestions as to how I might do this. Just do it. Those were the orders.

I pulled the dinghy around and put it in tow. I had decided to slip the anchors instead of fooling with them, being so short handed, so now I slipped the stern line and let her swing around as she wanted to. I went back to the engines and started them and they began to purr softly in neutral. I found the switches and put on her running lights. She had dual controls, but I decided to take her upstream from the fly-bridge. I could con her better from there and I was still just a trifle nervous; a strange boat is like a strange woman— until you get acquainted anything can happen — and the Hudson traffic and channels are nothing to fool around with.

Lyda Bonaventure came up behind me as I was studying the glowing instrument panel. She had changed to slacks and a thick cable-stitched sweater that muffled her large, soft breasts. She kissed my ear and I remembered the way she had touched me at the voodoo church, and it took some concentration on my part, even though I knew she was playing games and had figured I was a sucker for the sex play, to tell her to go and slip the bow anchor. She did know enough to do that.