“Okay,” Wilson said with a drunk’s sudden change of direction. The first thing he did upon entering the pleasantly furnished room was to turn off the air conditioning. “Too cold,” he said. I sat and sweltered for twenty minutes while Wilson drank rum and talked to Hazel during the intervals when she wasn’t running downstairs to take care of the bar customers. Wilson crossed me off his list as soon as he found out I didn’t know anything about boats. Hazel, though, he liked. “Me’n you’s gonna get real friendly,” he said to her. “I’m gonna screw you till your belly button turns red, white, an’ purple.”
Hazel smiled. Wilson stood up and went into the bathroom. For all the rum, he was still walking in a straight line. “If you’re waiting for him to pass out, forget it,” Hazel said to me. “I’ve seen his type before. He can go for three days and stay as sharp physically as a razorback hog.”
“Don’t underestimate the slob,” I warned her. “I’ve seen his type, too. They’re like rattlesnakes. If you cut them in two, the end with the head gets stronger. You sure you’re all right?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Then, I’ll leave. I’ll be back in the morning to stay.” Wilson came out of the bathroom. “Good night, everyone.”
He accompanied me to the door, the most genial of hosts, but he remained in the room while Hazel and I went downstairs. I pointed to the absence of a door at the front entrance. “Are you trying to air-condition all of the keys?”
“It’s the custom of the country,” she replied. “Like New Orleans. No doors. We put a grill up for closing.”
“Is Erikson staying here tonight?”
“He said he had something to do but that he would be back tomorrow.”
“Right. See you then. Keep an eye and a half on friend Chico.”
“If he flashes that knife again, I have a powder for his rum,” she said. “But I won’t need it. He’ll concentrate now on waiting for me to beg him to take me to bed.”
She gave me her big smile, and I went out the doorway.
During the walk back to the La Concha Motor Inn, I came to two decisions.
The first was to try to find out what Karl Erikson’s business was in Key West that kept him away from The Castaways that night.
The second was not to appear in the handsome Chico’s presence again without having my.38 available.
CHAPTER SEVEN
By ten o’clock the next morning I was installed in a room at The Castaways. Hazel sat on the bed and watched me unpack. “What comes next?” she wanted to know.
“I’m not sure. When we all get here—” I stopped as footsteps sounded on the stairway leading up from the first floor. I looked at Hazel. “Our friend Chico?”
“I doubt it. He should still be sleeping it off.”
I eased myself to the door, cracked it, and looked out. Karl Erikson’s blond head appeared above the level of the landing. As all of him came into view I could see that he was loaded down with packages. I opened the door wider, crossed the corridor, and threw open the door of the room across from mine.
Erikson nodded to me as he went inside and dropped his brown-paper-wrapped packages on the bed. They were tied with heavy twine, and the bed bounced from the weight suddenly deposited upon it. The blond man had walked upstairs with the load as easily as if he were carrying a loaf of bread.
I went back to Hazel’s and my room, and Erikson followed a moment later. “Where’s Slater?” I asked him.
“He’ll be along tomorrow.” Erikson and Hazel exchanged good mornings. I wondered why he didn’t say something to me about Hazel’s presence at The Castaways. “I think we can get going—”
We both turned at a sound from the doorway. Chico Wilson was standing there in a pair of white underwear shorts that contrasted sharply with the deep tan of his torso and legs. He yawned, stretching his arms akimbo. He had the smooth skin of a girl, but I could see the hard ripple of muscle beneath. “Hi, Karl,” he said. His eyes were clear. There was no outward indication of the load of booze he’d taken on the day before. “Hi”—he snapped his fingers while looking in my direction—“Whatever-your-name-is.”
“Earl,” I said.
“Earl,” he repeated. He grinned at Hazel on the bed. “Hi, doll.”
“You’ve met, then?” Erikson said to me.
“We’ve met.” I said it with no particular inflection, but I could see Erikson studying me. He didn’t pursue the subject, but I could visualize him putting it away in a file-now-and-come-back-to-later compartment of his orderly mind.
“Can we take a cruise on the boat, Chico?” Erikson asked.
“Anytime,” Wilson affirmed. He grinned at Hazel again. “You’re invited, doll.”
I waited for Erikson to object. When he didn’t, I thought I knew why. A woman aboard the fishing cruiser would give a touristy appearance to the expedition.
“We’ll meet at the boat in an hour,” Erikson ruled. “Separately.” Whether he realized it or not, his tone had all the flavor of an order from the quarterdeck. “Chico, stop off at this address”—Erikson handed him a slip of paper —“and take what they have for you aboard. There’ll be another load later to be brought here.”
Wilson was again smiling at Hazel. “It’ll be a pleasure to welcome you aboard the
“Not exactly my idea of an undercover man,” I said to Erikson. “He draws the eye like a drum major.”
“He comes well recommended,” Erikson replied. “And so does his cruiser. See you in an hour.”
“I wish I understood that man,” I said as the door closed behind him.
“What’s to understand?” Hazel asked. “I’d say that the body-beautiful Chico is a much more complicated animal.”
“No. I’ve met a hundred Chicos. I’m not sure I’ve ever met an Erikson.”
“Well, how does he come through to you?”
I hesitated. “I’m not sure. He doesn’t seem to
“Well”—she snuggled closer to me—“he said we had an hour.”
“He might not even have been doing anything wrong himself. When the Navy decides to blitz an offending admiral, they usually burn down all the surrounding scenery so they won’t have any skeletons in the closet in the future.”
“An hour,” Hazel said pointedly. She wriggled still closer.
“It would be a shame to waste it,” I agreed.
There followed a mutual laying-on of hands. When it developed that we were wearing too many clothes for that form of exercise, we got rid of the clothes. The room’s air conditioning felt moist upon my bare flesh.
“Move your knee out of the way,” I said to Hazel.
“Out of the way of what?” she murmured.
“Out of the way of the machinery. That’s it. There.”
“Mmmmmmmmmmm!”
“Over the waves, baby. Over the waves.”
Within the given hour we stood on the dock looking down at the 38-foot length of the
