Shayne stopped off at his apartment on the Miami River and changed to polo shirt and sneakers. The sun was hot, but there was a breeze coming in from the ocean that would be even cooler on the water. As he drove across the Causeway to the Beach, he wound down the windows in the car and let the wind blow through his red hair. Fishing was going to be good today.
As always, once he had crossed from Miami proper, he felt the spirit of holiday around him. The Spanish moss waved with carnival gaiety and the meticulously tended flowers around the winter houses made brilliant spots of color in the sun. Shayne followed a line of royal palms and whistled a soundless tune as he turned his car south on the Beach. Drawing into a parking space at the head of a wharf, he cut the engine. His pulse quickened pleasurably as he sighted the Santa Clara still at her berth and Sylvester out on deck in the act of casting off. He had arrived at exactly the right time.
As the redhead moved swiftly down the wharf in his long-legged stride, Sylvester sighted him. Dropping the rope he held, the rotund little Cuban waved wildly and, taking off from the boat’s gunnel landed precariously on the edge of the wharf, caught his balance and scurried excitedly to meet Shayne.
Suddenly, however, his face took on a woeful look, as if he had just remembered something. “Mike, I am so sorry. I know I tell you to come any time. Any time you would be welcome, but today-”
“That’s all right, Sylvester. Is the Santa Clara chartered?”
The little party-boat skipper nodded sadly.
Shayne dropped his big hand to Sylvester’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I should have called. Another time, amigo.”
“But come to the boat a minute,” Sylvester pleaded. “Meet my friends-”
“Not now. You go ahead. Catch the tide.”
“Sylvester!” a hearty voice shouted from the deck. “What’s holding us up?”
A man, clad only in white trousers and a white fisherman’s hat, had appeared from within the cabin. He held a highball glass in one hand and a thick cigar in the other. Though his body ran to fat there was the suggestion of muscle underneath.
“Uno momento, please, Senor Ed,” Sylvester called back. “My old friend, Mike, is here.”
Se nor Ed was joined by another man carrying a highball. “So say hello to your friend and let’s get going,” he said proprietarily. He was younger than the first man and wore dark glasses and a lavishly colored Hawaiian sport shirt. He took a swallow of the highball. “Red snapper run on the tide, don’t they?”
In the middle of one of the world’s best game-fish areas, these men were going out hand-lining for meat fish! It seemed slightly ridiculous.
“Everything set, Vince?” a third voice called from within the awning-covered cockpit.
“Everything but Sylvester,” the man in the Hawaiian shirt said dryly. “He’s reviving an old friendship.”
“What the hell, Sylvester!” The third man poked his head into view, raising himself from one of the built-in benches along the rail. “Get the lead out! Cast off and let’s go!”
Sylvester looked across at them, tugging at the shapeless skipper’s cap which rode jauntily on the side of his head. “Se nores,” he pleaded, “you have been so good to me. One thing more I ask. My friend, Mike, he is old, good friend. Can he go too?”
“No, Sylvester,” the redhead said. “Another time. They’ve got you chartered.” He started to leave, but the little Cuban grasped his arm firmly.
“Wait, Mike. Let them answer. They will want you, I know.”
The three men on the boat exchanged questioning glances, then Ed, the man who had spoken first, said in his hearty voice, “Sure, Sylvester. The more the merrier.”
“Gracias!” Sylvester’s round, perspiring face beamed. “You will not be sorry. Mike good fisherman… good drinker…”
“Well, there’s plenty of liquor,” Ed shouted.
Shayne still held back, reluctant to intrude on a private party, but Sylvester tugged at him, looking up into the lean, hard-jawed face with almost the pride of a mother. “Is all right, Mike. They want you. I want you. Everybody want you.” He lowered his voice. “They charter my boat for three weeks now-steady. They have such a good time on the Santa Clara. And wait till I show you what they done. My best friends-next to you, Mike.”
When he had pulled Shayne to the boat and watched him step across, he stooped, loosened the rope from the mooring post and tossed it aboard. “Mike, meet Ed and Vince and Slim Collins.”
Shayne shook hands all around. “This is mighty good of you.”
“Any friend of Sylvester’s is a friend of ours,” Ed said expansively. His chunky face was burned and peeling, as were his shoulders. The Miami sun was no kinder to his blond skin than it was to Henny Henlein’s, Shayne noted, and wondered why thoughts of the frightened mobster should intrude just then. Ed’s head was burned too. He was bald except for a circle of grayish-black fuzz around the back of his head which gave the impression of a misplaced angel’s halo.
Vince, the younger man in the loud Hawaiian shirt, put a highball glass into Shayne’s hand. He was swarthy- faced and thick-bodied, with hair as black as a Cuban’s and black restless eyes which never seemed to stop moving. Lifting his glass, he said, “Here’s bait in your box.” Shayne took a deep swallow, repressing a shudder as it went down. He looked over at the low, built-in table in the cockpit’s stern. On it was an ice bucket, a bottle of water and a bottle of rum, labeled Demerara.
Slim, the third man, had stretched out again on the kapok cushions on the bench near the table, his glass on the floor beside him and his hat half over his eyes. Intercepting Shayne’s glance at the rum bottle, he grinned. “If you’re a drinking man, like Sylvester claims, then you know Demerara.”
“I know it. It’s better than a hundred and fifty proof.”
“Yeah. Gets you where you want to go fast. I can’t drink it ashore. Knocks me off my feet. But out here on the water it seems just right.”
Slim’s complexion was swarthy too. He looked Sicilian or Italian, or maybe Portuguese. Sylvester had called him Collins, which didn’t seem to fit at all, but he came honestly by his first name anyhow. He was painfully tall and gangling, with a stooped posture which called attention to the fact that he was no longer young. He had dark eyes which he kept half-closed, and large, widely separated front teeth.
“Sylvester,” he called lazily. “How’s your drink holding out?”
“I’ll take him one,” Ed said.
He poured Demerara in a glass without measuring, added a dollop of water and a single ice cube. It was a drink to stagger a horse, but when he handed it to Sylvester at the wheel, the little man grinned and lapped it all down. Ed took the empty glass, refilled it from the bottle and returned to Sylvester. “Not so fast on this one, fella. Get us out of the harbor first.”
Sylvester laughed. “Don’ worry, my frien’. Dead drunk I could navigate. With the engine you gave me, in a good boat like the Santa Clara, a baby could run her.” He swallowed half the glassful and when Ed moved back to the stern, beckoned to Shayne.
Thoughtfully, the redhead moved over to the wheelhouse.
“Mike, you know what?” Sylvester whispered. “They have such a good time on the Santa Clara, they buy her a new engine! A gift to me. They even dirty it up so I wouldn’t have to pay more property tax. Is new, expensive engine-Gray Marine-but looks old. Fools the tax collector.” He laughed again, in childish delight.
“Give it to me slow,” Shayne said. “You never saw these men until a few weeks ago, but they dug into their pockets and bought you a new engine-just because they like you?”
“Tha’s what I been trying to tell you, Mike.”
“Was the old engine bad?”
“Not bad, not good.” Sylvester shrugged. “But this one the best. Slim even work on it to supercharge it some. He is expert mechanic. Now this engine lift the Santa Clara like a flying fish out of the water. After a while maybe I show you, if they let me. They don’t like for me to let it out. What for a fast engine if you don’t go fast, Mike?”
“That’s a good question.” Shayne massaged his left earlobe gently. “Is this Slim a mechanic at home?” Where would a mechanic get the money to come to Florida on an extended vacation and, further, engage in such altruism?
“Is hobby mechanic,” Sylvester said. “Do-it-yourself man, he says. To make money he is a contractor. Very rich. They are all rich. To them to buy a new engine the expense is nothing. Still”-his round face sobered-“how many
