that he is supposed to be on the gunboat, yet has not been seen there. I do not like it either.”
Brother’s teeth made a grinding on the edge of the glass as he drank the gin. He pushed the glass away and lay back on the sand. “I wish he would show up here. I have waited five years for it.”
One of Brother’s hands came up and wandered around on his chest until it found a shirt button. He unfastened the button, brought out a flat automatic pistol. Brother laid the gun down on his chest over his heart. He put his hand over it. His hand covered the gun completely.
“I will use this.” His voice was low and almost sweet. “Is it all right with everyone if I do?”
Doctor Englaster leaned forward. “Is that gun registered here in the States?” Curiosity arched his eyebrows.
“No. No, it is not.” Brother was suddenly watching Harsh. “Mr. Harsh—there something wrong with your eyes, Mr. Harsh?”
“Huh?” Harsh took his eyes off the hand Brother had placed over the gun. He’d been thinking it was about the same size as the one the cop had carried—the one still burning a hole in Harsh’s jacket pocket. Even looked like a similar make. Apparently his run of luck hadn’t ended just yet. “What was that? Nah, there ain’t nothing wrong with my eyes.”
Brother’s hand lifted a few inches, poised motionless above the gun on his chest, then fell back like a tan bird settling on its egg. “Your ears then, perhaps? You heard something that upset you?”
Harsh shrugged. “You trying to pick a fight with me, pal? If it is all right with you, could we wait until after I eat? I fight better on a full stomach.”
“What did you stare at, Harsh?”
“That’s a pretty nice little gun. Is there a law against looking at it?”
“No. No law.”
“Okay.”
“Do you want to know where I got this gun, Harsh? It was once his gun—part of his collection. I have had it five years. When I took it, I told him why. I told him I was taking the gun to use later to kill him, and he thought it amusing. Do you suppose the bastard will be amused when I do exactly what I said I would do, shoot him with the gun I took for the purpose five years ago?”
Harsh shrugged. He had seen all he wanted to see of the gun. He leaned back. “Why don’t you knock it off, huh?”
Brother’s eyes fixed upward, staring ecstatically at the stars. “I hope blood comes out of him, I do want to see his blood. But with these small bullets, I do not know if there will be blood.”
“You’ve certainly got a problem there.” Doctor Englaster drank a glass of brandy in its entirety. “A good problem to discuss with our meal. Very appetizing.”
Miss Muirz took one of the rods off the grill, waved it around to cool the meat on it, then handed it to Harsh. Harsh took it, but he was not hungry. He pulled some meat off the rod and ate it, then ate the onion and pineapple.
Miss Muirz watched him. She seemed to have the best composure of any of them. It had a glassy quality. “How does it taste, Mr. Harsh?”
Harsh swallowed the meat in his mouth. “Okay. It does taste a little of the conversation, though.”
Brother put back his head and laughed weirdly. “Good. Very good, Mr. Harsh. Just like a dead body, eh? You have caught the spirit of our little group, Mr. Harsh.”
Doctor Englaster jammed the brandy bottle down in the sand beside him. “Stop it! That’s enough of that talk.”
Brother stood up and poured coffee in a cup. He tasted it. He poured the coffee out on the sand, and gave them a look of contempt. “Oh, you very normal people. I am going swimming.”
“Right after you eat?” Miss Muirz stared at him. “You will get a cramp.”
“I haven’t eaten, dear. Hadn’t you noticed? And I would certainly cramp if I ate anything you cooked.” Brother took off his clothes down to bathing trunks which he was wearing, folding each garment carefully and making a pile on the sand. In the pile between shirt and undershirt he placed the pistol. He walked across the beach into the surf and about thirty feet out took a graceful dive into a wave, beginning to swim lazily.
Doctor Englaster drank more brandy. “He is a little more nasty than usual tonight, isn’t he? I suppose he is beginning to feel all our waiting may not have been in vain, and perhaps that is good for his paranoia.”
They ate in silence.
From time to time Harsh glanced at the small pile Brother’s clothes made on the sand. “I wish he intended to use a bigger gun.” He reached out casually to lift the shirt and expose the small automatic. He inspected it a few moments. Then he took his handkerchief from his coat pocket and used it to keep his fingers from touching the little gun as he picked it up. “I sure wouldn’t want my prints on this thing.” Harsh turned the gun back and forth, looking at it. It really was quite similar, he thought, to what he’d seen of the cop’s in the back of the limousine. Not that he’d gotten that good a look in the heat of the moment, or a chance to give it a closer look since. “Twenty-five calibre, or twenty-two long rifle, one or the other. That shows how much I know about guns.” He knew Mr. Hassam and Miss Muirz were watching him with a motionless poised attention that had come over them when he picked up the gun. “Me, I would want it larger.” He put the gun back, picked up Brother’s shirt and dropped it over the gun, replacing everything the way he had found it, except for the fact that he had swapped the cop’s gun for that of Brother.
Harsh put his own handkerchief back in his pocket, Brother’s gun going with it. Mr. Hassam and Miss Muirz relaxed enough to resume chewing food. They had not noticed, he decided. He had gotten away with it. Mr. Hassam and Miss Muirz would have said something if they had noticed the switch of guns, he was sure.
Harsh removed his coat and spread it over the pile of unused firewood to make a backrest, careful not to let the gun in the pocket clank against the wood. “Grub made me drowsy.” He leaned back.
The two little automatics were remarkably alike. There had been no opportunity for a really close inspection to ascertain whether they were the same make, but they certainly looked similar enough to pass inspection at first glance.
And the important thing was, the one that could implicate him in a murder wasn’t in his pocket anymore. If it wound up implicating Brother instead, well, Harsh thought, like they say, couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
The beach fire, down to coals, threw no more light than candles. Harsh wondered if it was enough light for Brother to notice any difference in the guns when he returned. He hoped not. But he could not relax, thinking of the risk.
Presently Brother came swimming in strongly from the ocean and ran to the fire, scattering drops of water. He put on his clothes over his wet body, breathing with deep animal-like regularity while he did so. He tucked the gun inside his shirt without more than a glance. Then he sat down cross-legged by the fire and began to eat ravenously.
Harsh looked at Mr. Hassam. “You said something about a talk.”
“We have had it.” Mr. Hassam sounded tired. “I merely wished to be sure you had grown more comfortable than the last time we spoke about it with the fact that there was eventually to be a murder.”
“Was that all?”
“Yes.”
Harsh stood up and stretched. “Then I’ll see you folks in the morning. Okay?”
Mr. Hassam nodded. “I hope we have not said anything that will keep you from sleeping soundly.”
“Don’t worry about that. You knock off whoever you want to knock off, just so long as I get mine.”
The whereabouts of the two automobiles was important. Harsh settled that point on his way to the house. The underslung sports car and the older station wagon were under the carport at the side of the house. He took a quick look at the driving controls of the sports car. They did not look complicated, he thought, but then Vera Sue wasn’t the experienced driver he was. He began to worry about it.
The limousine was parked before the leaded glass marquee at the front door. He did not look inside, merely noted its position. As best he recalled, it was left there at night.
