He paid the mechanic and they got in.
“I’m crazy about you, Mr. Shayne!” she said. “I thought you’d make me argue. My aunt and uncle act as though I’m still about twelve years old.”
“I’d say you were a bit older than twelve.”
“You noticed,” she said, pleased.
He found a parking place on one of the terraces two blocks inland, and they walked to the pier. The
Adele hesitated before starting up the gangway. “I guess it’s all right, isn’t it?”
“As long as we’re still not aboard when they sail.”
Most of the passengers had arrived by plane, and so had a few friends to see them off. But the cruise personnel were working hard, trying to make the departure an event. A gay middle-aged lady in a paper hat threw a streamer at Shayne as he emerged on deck, and asked him to dance. He smiled and evaded her. A steward offered them a tray loaded with glasses of domestic champagne. Adele asked him a question in Spanish.
“No speak Spanish,” he said, and she shifted to English.
“We want to say good-bye to Raphael Rivera, have you seen him?”
“Don’t ask me. I just signed on. Take a glass of champagne-it’s complimentary.”
They each picked a glass off his tray and drank it before continuing into the main salon, where the bridge tables were set up and waiting. Adele stopped a passing crew-member and repeated her question. This man thought he’d seen Raphael having coffee in the galley, one deck down.
They found the passenger dining room and went through a set of swinging doors into the galley. It was a busy place. Adele spoke to a small tattooed man slicing cucumbers. There was a rapid exchange of Spanish while Shayne started a cigarette. She was frowning when she turned back.
“Damn it, they must think you’re a cop or something. I’ll be less conspicuous by myself. Wait in the dining room and I’ll waylay somebody. I can’t say I’m Raphael’s girl friend with you hulking in the background. Stop looking at me like that-nothing’s going to happen. Go on, we don’t have much time.”
“All right, but be careful.”
“I honestly
Shayne stepped back into the dining room. Once there he moved quickly. He left by another exit, went up a flight of stairs and along a corridor. At the next stairway he went back down and found a door marked NO ADMITTANCE-CREW.
The corridor on the other side of this door was uncarpeted. The walls needed paint. If he had calculated correctly, the galley was somewhere to his right. He turned left.
A spindly youth in an undershirt and a chef’s cap came toward him.
“Did you see a girl in a white blouse a minute ago?” Shayne said.
“Yeah! What’s happening? I thought those cats were coming on a little heavy. Who is she, one of the new waitresses?”
“Which way did they go?”
“Right down-”
He stopped, and his eyebrows drew together. After an instant’s pause he said, “Excuse me. You’re some kind of fuzz, aren’t you? My daddy gave me a piece of advice when I shipped out. He told me to stay out of other people’s messes.”
“When you see your daddy again,” Shayne said, “tell him he gave you some bad advice.” He picked the boy up under the armpits and held him against a wall. “Do you want to reconsider?”
“Down the hall, down the hall,” the boy said. “They went in a cabin.”
“Which cabin?”
The boy gestured. “Further down on this side. Let me go, will you? They were spies, pantry-boys. You may not realize it, but that hurts.”
Shayne lowered him and he scuttled away. Shayne moved on warily. He passed the crew’s dining room, which was empty. Hearing a low thump behind him, he came back. A woman’s voice said something in Spanish. It was cut off.
Shayne checked his watch. He still had twenty minutes. He put out his cigarette.
Returning to a cross corridor, he picked a five-gallon fire extinguisher off the wall. A fire-ax was set in a recessed case with a glass cover, from which a little metal hammer dangled. Ignoring the hammer, Shayne smashed the glass with the extinguisher. A door opened and the youth in the chef’s hat looked out.
“Now’s the time to do what your daddy told you,” Shayne said. “Shut the door.”
The face retreated. Shayne took the ax and the extinguisher back to the cabin in which he had heard the girl’s voice. Setting the extinguisher on the deck, he raised the ax and chopped hard at the door above the handle. The wood splintered and the door swung open.
He picked up the extinguisher and waited.
He heard a choked sob. The door had jammed. He saw part of a narrow bunk and a washbasin. Time was moving at the same speed on both sides of the door, but Shayne had more experience at this kind of thing. After a long silent moment the door was pulled back violently and a man jumped at him.
He was short and dark, with tattooed forearms. Shayne had seen him last slicing cucumbers. Shayne tilted the extinguisher, and foam gushed out of the nozzle. The other staggered back, clawing at his eyes. Shayne stepped forward and kicked the door. This time it stayed open. Adele, against the opposite bulkhead, was twisting in the hands of a large Negro. Shayne advanced, holding the foam steady, and then clubbed his adversary with the extinguisher. He dropped away.
The Negro tried to get something out of his pocket, and Adele was able to pull out of his hands. Turning, she brought her knee up into his groin and dodged past Shayne and out of the cabin as Shayne swung the jet of foam, catching the Negro squarely and knocking him backward.
There was a sparkle of light from a knife-blade. Shayne lunged, swinging the extinguisher. The knife clattered against metal. Shayne changed the arc of his blow and hit the Negro’s wrist so hard he probably broke it.
The nozzle was whipping around, out of control. The other man had fallen across the bunk, and he now had a gun in his hand. Shayne threw the extinguisher with both hands.
There was movement behind him. but before he could whirl to deal with the new threat, his head seemed to explode, and the cabin walls closed in on him.
CHAPTER 5
The altercation still wasn’t over. Far in the distance, Shayne heard a gong. Perhaps it was time for visitors to say their final good-byes and go ashore. He considered, and decided to stay where he was. If he moved his head, he was afraid it would divide into two halves, like a cut melon. He had thought at first that he had been hit with the ax, but probably his assailant had simply used the handle.
The gong sounded again. He had fallen on the hose, and he could feel it struggling beneath him.
Somebody in the cabin was giving orders in Spanish. Shayne remained inert, and allowed himself to be flopped over. He was breathing heavily. He heard the sound of cloth being torn. Opening his eyes slightly, he saw the cucumber-slicer ripping up a sheet he had pulled from the bunk. That was to tie him up, Shayne supposed, so he couldn’t reach the gangway before the ship sailed.
He sent a message to one of his feet and felt it respond. The gong banged again. As the man with the torn sheet stooped over his ankles, Shayne flexed one knee slightly and kicked out hard. It made contact, but didn’t do much damage. The man sat down again.
Shayne looked around for the Negro. In pain, he lay beneath the washbasin, one arm useless. He was hitching himself slowly toward Shayne. They were all three in a bad way. Shayne rolled and came up on one elbow. The extinguisher hose whipped around and shot a last burst of foam at the Negro before expiring.
Shayne saw the gun on the carpet. It was an equal distance from them all. Shaking his head, the Negro tried to crawl. Shayne reached out. It was a dream movement, slow-motion in its most exaggerated form.
Then a voice spoke from the doorway. “You cats are going to get this whole ship in trouble. You know that, don’t you?”
The youth in the chef’s hat, whose daddy had warned him against getting involved, stepped into the cabin
