Десмонд Бэгли - The Golden Keel

‘Equal shares,’ I said firmly. ‘A three-way split after all expenses have been paid.’

‘And Walker comes with us on the job. Is that right?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

Coertze moved in his chair. ‘Man, it’s like this,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if you’ve got a foolproof way of getting the gold out or if you haven’t. I thought I had it licked a couple of times. But let’s assume your way is going to work. Why should we take Walker?’

He held up his hand. ‘I’m not suggesting we do him down or anything like that — although he’d think nothing of cheating us. Give him his share after it’s all over, but for God’s sake keep him out of Italy. He’ll make a balls-up for sure.’

I thought of Harrison and Parker and the two Italians. ‘You don’t seem to like him.’

Coertze absently fingered a scar on his forehead. ‘He’s unreliable,’ he said. ‘He almost got me killed a couple of times during the war.’

I said, ‘No, we take Walker. I don’t know for certain if three of us can pull it off, and with two it would be impossible. Unless you want to let someone else in?’

He smiled humourlessly. ‘That’s not on — not with you coming in. But Walker had better keep his big mouth shut from now on.’

‘Perhaps it would be better if he stopped drinking,’ I suggested.

‘That’s right,’ Coertze agreed. ‘Keep him off the pots. A few beers are all right, but keep him off the hard-tack. That’ll be your job; I don’t want to have anything to do with the rat.’

He blew smoke into the air, and said, ‘Now let’s hear your proposition. If it’s good, I’ll come in with you. If I don’t think it’ll work, I won’t touch it. In that case, you and Walker can do what you damn’ well like, but if you go for that gold you’ll have me to reckon with. I’m a bad bastard when I’m crossed.’

‘So am I,’ I said.

We grinned at each other. I liked this man, in a way. I wouldn’t trust him any more than I’d trust Walker, but I had the feeling that while Walker would stick a knife in your back, Coertze would at least shoot you down from the front.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s have it.’

‘I’m not going to tell you — not here in this room,’ I saw his expression and hurried on. ‘It isn’t that I don’t trust you, it’s simply that you wouldn’t believe it. You have to see it — and you have to see it in Cape Town.’

He looked at me for a long moment, then said, ‘All right, if that’s the way you want it, I’ll play along.’ He paused to think. ‘I’ve got a good job here, and I’m not going to give it up on your say-so. There’s a long week-end coming up — that gives me three days off. I’ll fly down to Cape Town to see what you have to show me. If it’s good, the job can go hang; if it isn’t, then I’ve still got the job.’

‘I’ll pay for your fare,’ I said.

‘I can afford it,’ he grunted.

‘If it doesn’t pan out, I’ll pay for your fare,’ I insisted. ‘I wouldn’t want you to be out of pocket.’

He looked up and grinned. ‘We’ll get along,’ he said. ‘Where’s that bottle?’

As I was pouring another couple of drinks, he said, ‘You said you were going to Italy with Walker. What stopped you?’

I took the clipping from my pocket and passed it to him. He read it and laughed. ‘That must have scared Walker. I was there at the time,’ he said unexpectedly.

‘In Italy?’

He sipped the Scotch and nodded. ‘Yes; I saved my army back-pay and my gratuity and went back in ’48. As soon as I got there all hell started popping about this trial. I read about it in the papers and you never heard such a lot of bull in your life. Still, I thought I’d better lie low, so I had a lekker holiday with the Count.’

‘With the Count?’ I said in surprise.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I stay with the Count every time I go to Italy. I’ve been there four times now.’

I said, ‘How did you reckon to dispose of the gold once you got it out of Italy?’

‘I’ve got all that planned,’ he said confidently. ‘They’re always wanting gold in India and you get a good price. You’d be surprised at the amount of gold smuggled out of this country in small packets that ends up in India.’

He was right — India is the gold sink of the world — but I said casually, ‘My idea is to go the other way — to Tangier. It’s an open port with an open gold market. You should be able to sell four tons of gold there quite easily — and it’s legal, too. No trouble with the police.’

He looked at me with respect. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t know much about this international finance.’

‘There’s a snag,’ I said. ‘Tangier is closing up shop next year; it’s being taken over by Morocco. Then it won’t be a free port any more and the gold market will close.’

‘When next year?’

‘April 19,’ I said. ‘Nine months from now. I think we’ll just about have enough time.’

He smiled. ‘I never thought about selling the gold legally; I didn’t think you could. I thought the governments had got all that tied up. Maybe I should have met you sooner.’

‘It wouldn’t have done you any good,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t the brains then that I have now.’

He laughed and we proceeded to kill the bottle.

Coertze came down to Cape Town two weeks later. I met him at the airport and drove him directly to the yard, where Walker was waiting.

Walker seemed to shrink into himself when I told him that Coertze was visiting us. In spite of his braggart boasts, I could see he didn’t relish close contact. If half of what he had said about Coertze was true, then he had every reason to be afraid.

Come to think of it — so had I!

It must have been the first time that Coertze had been in a boatyard and he looked about him with keen interest and asked a lot of questions, nearly all of them sensible. At last, he said, ‘Well, what about it?’

I took them down to the middle slip where Jimmy Murphy’s Estralita was waiting to be drawn up for an overhaul. ‘That’s a sailing yacht,’ I said. ‘A 15-tonner. What would you say her draft it — I mean, how deep is she in the water?’

Coertze looked her over and then looked up at the tall mast. ‘She’ll need to be deep to counterbalance that lot,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know how much. I don’t know anything about boats.’

Considering he didn’t know anything about boats, it was a very sensible answer.

‘Her draft is six feet in normal trim,’ I said. ‘She’s drawing less now because a lot of gear has been taken out of her.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘I’d have thought it would be more than that,’ he said. ‘What happens when the wind blows hard on the sails? Won’t she tip over?’

This was going well and Coertze was on the ball. I said, ‘I have a boat like this just being built, another 15-tonner. Come and have a look at her.’

I led the way up to the shed where Sanford was being built and Coertze followed, apparently content that I was leading up to a point. Walker tagged on behind.

I had pressed to get Sanford completed and she was ready for launching as soon as the glass-fibre sheathing was applied and the interior finished.

Coertze looked up at her. ‘They look bloody big out of the water,’ he commented.

I smiled. That was the usual lay reaction. ‘Come aboard,’ I said.

He was impressed by the spaciousness he found below and commented favourably on the way things were arranged. ‘Did you design all this?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘You could live in here, all right,’ he said, inspecting the galley.