bra was rhumbaing, her inky hair flying, her teeth, eyes and earrings flashing. A young, dark man sat on the rail watching her and shouting encouragement in Spanish. As the music increased in tempo, her movements grew more abandoned. Then, abruptly, the record player stopped. Inertia kept her moving for a moment in the new silence, then she too stopped, looking up startled at the nearness of the Santa Clara.
Two older men who had fish lines out, looked around.
“You folks fishin’ or funnin’?” Ed shouted.
“A little of both,” the taller man said.
“Is there any difference?” his companion asked.
Although the men did not look alike, they both had full, loosely-put-together faces and their eyes, despite the bantering words, held a certain flint. They wore light, broad-brimmed Panama straws and spoke with a slight accent.
“Why don’t you join us, senores?”
The girl leaned on the rail smiling, her coal-black eyes with dilated pupils resting with frank feminine appraisal on Shayne. “Si, why don’t you?” Her low, throbbing voice had a strong Spanish accent.
“I don’t rhumba,” Shayne said.
“You don’t have to.” Her dewy eyes framed in black lashes almost reached across to him. Her breasts swelled above the red bra. Unexpectedly, she pursed her full lips into kiss-shape and leaned toward Shayne. After a moment she withdrew, humming almost silently, and moved in a slow nautch-like dance, her hips swaying provocatively, the muscles in her diaphragm moving sinuously in the bare space between the skimpy bra and the short shorts.
“I’d sure like to come aboard,” Ed said regretfully, “but I promised the old lady I’d be home tonight-with fish. And I haven’t done any fishing, except in Demerara.”
“What kind of fish, pop?” the dark young man asked brashly. “Maybe in Cuban waters we catch some different kinds which she never taste.”
“Don’t matter which kind,” Ed said.
“All right. You want fresh bonito? Very good baked in oven with onions and peppers around him.” The young man had the same black, untamed eyes and heavy accent as the girl.
“I don’t think she ever had bonito.” Ed turned to Shayne. “What you going to do with your fish, Mike?”
“I don’t want them,” the redhead said.
“O.K., amigo,” Ed called. “We’ll swap you a barracuda or a grouper.”
“No need to swap. We give you the bonito.”
“No,” Sylvester insisted. “Swap is fair.”
“I would love the barracuda,” the girl said.
“Good. The barracuda then.” The young man grinned. “It is more favored in our country than in yours.”
“Your mother can cook it for us, Jose,” the girl said. “She has most good recipe for barracuda.”
Sylvester laughed thickly and clapped Shayne on the shoulder. “Tha’s what I like about these boys. Every time we go out we make new friends.” He lurched toward the Cuban boat and Shayne grasped his arm to keep him from falling.
The boats were close, rising gently on the swell. The young man extended his hand and grasped Sylvester’s. They braced themselves and pulled, and slowly the boats drew together.
“Hey,” Sylvester yelled, “now I can’t let go to get the fish.”
The girl laughed, looked at Shayne and languidly stretched her arm toward him. The redhead took her slim, brown hand in his own big one.
“You can let go now,” she said softly to Sylvester.
Shayne felt her fingers tightening and loosening in his grasp, and the warmth flowing from her flesh.
“It is a marriage,” she said, “of the moment.”
Shayne smiled. It was a good moment.
Sylvester returned with the barracuda and handed it across, then took the bonito. It was a plump fish, a good ten pounds. Ed bore it away to put it on ice. The taller of the Cuban men leaned close and dropped a handful of cigars aboard the Santa Clara. “Good Vuelta leaf Havana. You like.”
“Is time to part,” the girl said sadly.
“Uno momento,” the young man called. “Our ice all melt. You have enough to spare for our drinks till we get back to Cuba?”
“Si.” Sylvester weaved to the table, grabbed the ice bucket and lifted it across into the hands of the young man. “Keep it. The bucket too.”
“Gracias, senores.”
Certainly there had been nothing but good will and friendly feeling expressed on all sides here. Still, something about Sylvester’s gift of the ice cubes troubled the redhead. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was there-a nagging little inconsistency.
The girl squeezed Shayne’s hand convulsively and then released it, letting her fingers trail lingeringly across his palm as the boats drifted apart. When the chasm between them was a boat’s width she blew him a kiss.
The engine of La Ballena started and, with it, the music blared forth again. The girl moved her nude shoulders and wheeled her bare knees in the nautch-like circle that carried her hips along in a seductive rhythm. As the space between the boats widened, she swirled toward the center of the deck and started again on the mad, compulsive rhumba. The music grew fainter with distance but the dance grew wilder, her movements more unrestrained. Suddenly, the young man leaped toward her and took her in his arms. They kissed in the hot, bright sunlight, her body still moving sensually against him. The tempo of the music quickened. Still holding the kiss, he moved her backward to the companion-way which led below.
On the Santa Clara all but Vince, who was at the wheel, had been watching. Sylvester sighed heavily. “It took him a long time. Even I-fus-trated-whatever you call it-and at my old age, would have done it sooner. And you, Michael Shayne-” he poked an unsteady finger at the rangy redhead-“would have done it on the first note.”
“Michael Shayne?” Ed repeated quickly. He looked at Shayne, as did Slim and Vince, from the wheelhouse. “You mean,” Ed said with no unsteadiness in his voice, “you’re Michael Shayne, the private detective?”
“The same,” Sylvester said proudly. “My friend, he is famous everywhere.”
“Well, I’m damned!” Ed smoothed his angel’s halo of graying hair. “Miami’s best-known detective on our boat. Wait’ll I tell the folks back home.”
“Better keep it under your hat,” Slim advised. “They’ll think your wife put him on your tail.”
“My friend, Mike, he does not tail.” Sylvester straightened with drunken dignity. “My friend, Mike, he heads the big cases.” He roared loudly at the pun.
“Like murder and such?” Ed asked, adding recklessly, “We’ve drunk to everything else today. Let’s have a drink to murder!”
It was as if the words were prophetic. Vince had the radio tuned in to a station in Miami. The local news was on. Shayne had been hearing the droning voice only as background sound, then suddenly the newscaster’s words jumped acutely into his consciousness.
“… the body of Henry ‘Henny’ Henlein, behind a pile of dirt at the site of the excavation on Washington. Henlein has a long criminal record, has been arrested many times, but never convicted on a major charge. A certain mystery surrounds the slaying. Death came apparently as a result of a gunshot through the heart, but around the neck of the body there was a piece of rope-a noose tied in a hangman’s knot. It has not yet been determined…”
Vince cut the radio off and there was only the muted roaring of the new engine as it thrust the Santa Clara through the empty expanse of water toward the Beach.
3
Shayne stood very still in the silence after Vince snapped off the newscast, three vertical lines deepening in his forehead.
He lit a cigarette and walked to the rail, tossing the match overboard into the water. So, after all, Henlein’s fear had been justified. He had been murdered precisely as he had been afraid he would be-and within hours after
