rooms.
Back in the bedroom, Hazel padded naked to her handbag on the bureau and removed from it a wrapped- and-tied package that she handed to me. “It’s in fifties,” she said. “I was afraid anything smaller would be too bulky.”
I hefted the package on my palm. “Quite a stud fee,” I said. “Maybe I should get myself syndicated?”
“Why, you egotistical—!” She aimed a punch at me. I blocked it and slapped her firmly in her bare belly. She went “Whuff!!” and staggered to the bed and sat down.
I put the package into the top bureau drawer. “You should get back to the ranch in the morning and then get down to Key West as soon as you can,” I told her.
“See?” she pouted. “Already he wants to get rid of me.” I went to the phone and placed a six A.M. awakening call with the front desk. When I returned to Hazel, she was smiling. “Any impressions of life in California you’d like me to take to Florida with me?” she asked archly.
I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but I produced a few fresh impressions for Hazel to take along on her trip.
“See you in a week, horseman,” was the last thing I remembered hearing her say before sleep moved in relentlessly.
CHAPTER SIX
Twenty minutes before Erikson and Slater were due to arrive in the morning, I called downstairs to the bell captain’s desk and had a card table sent up to my room. When it came, I set it up in the center of the room so that it would be the first thing visible to anyone entering the room.
Then I went to the bureau drawer and took out the wrapped package of Hazel’s money. I stripped off twine and paper, fanned the thousand fifty-dollar bills out in a crisp semicircle, and placed the fan on the card table so that the corner of each bill could be seen individually.
When their knock came at the door I let them in, Slater eyed the display greedily, Erikson impassively. The blond man extracted a bill from the center of the fan, held it up to the light and examined it, crackled it sharply several times, then returned it to the pile. “Afraid of counterfeit?” I asked Erikson.
“That’s right,” he said. “Counterfeit would have been a complication we couldn’t use on this job.”
“Pretty pictures,” Slater said approvingly. He was still eyeing the bills. “Pretty, pretty pictures. Well, I guess that’s the last hurdle.” He glanced at Erikson who nodded in confirmation. “Where we meetin’ in Key West, Drake?”
“At a bar called The Castaways. It’s on Margaret Street, near the docks. It has rooms on the second floor we’ll take over so we can stay out of sight.”
“We should travel to Key West separately,” Erikson said. Nobody disagreed. “So I suggest that the money be split in half. I’ll buy the components of the shortwave radio and other electronic gear we’ll need. I’ll buy it in different places and assemble it in Key West. I’ll also put up the deposit on the fishing cruiser as soon as I get there and check it out.” He looked at me. “You can finance Slater’s expenses to Key West.”
“One correction,” I countered. “We’ll all check out the cruiser when the time comes, and I’ll put up the deposit. That way you won’t need to burden yourself with half the cash.” Erikson started to say something, but I pitched my voice above his. “I told you before I want to make sure it’s not only my money that gets to Cuba.” I separated forty fifty-dollar bills from one end of the semicircle on the table and stacked them together. “Can you spend more than two thousand on the radio?”
Erikson was holding his temper with difficulty. “I’ll need sophisticated calibration and testing equipment,” he said after a moment in which he had plainly considered saying something else.
I added twenty more bills to the stack, then handed it to him. “Will that get you to Key West with the gear?”
He nodded again, but his lips were a thin line. He wasn’t used to having his decisions questioned. “I still think—”
“See you at The Castaways,” I interrupted him. I separated ten more bills from the half moon and handed them to Slater. “You, too. Never mind planning on hitchhiking to save the cash.”
“Never crossed my mind,” he protested. He thumbed the bills before placing them carefully in his wallet. “Damn near forgot how that size denomination feels. Well, we all set?”
Erikson spoke before I could. “Don’t get carried away,” he said to Slater. His tone was dry. “Keep thinking of the bill-size denomination you’ll be feeling in Havana.”
“No problem,” Slater said. “See you both in Key West.” He cocked an eyebrow. “When?”
“No later than a week from today,” I said. I intended to be there sooner than that myself.
“A week it is.” Slater started for the door. “Confusion to the enemy, boys.”
“Keep your nose clean!” Erikson called after him. It was delivered in a quarterdeck type of voice.
The door closed behind Slater with no further word from him. “There’s a problem?” I asked Erikson, who wouldn’t be leaving the room until Slater had a five-minute start.
“He drinks. Not when I’m around, though.”
“Plan on being around,” I invited him. “That kind of situation we don’t need.”
There was a moment’s silence while Erikson debated his next words. I felt I knew what was coming. “Granted that you’re taking a financial risk none of the rest of us are, Drake,” he began smoothly; “you’ll get your share along with the rest of us. Distrust will get us nowhere. The project needs a leader whose decisions should be unquestioned.”
“And you should be the leader?”
“Yes.” It was said without hesitation.
“I don’t see it that way,” I replied. “Slater and the fishing boat captain may be under your thumb, but I do my own thinking. You can lead in the areas where you’re qualified, like communications. Otherwise, don’t crowd me.”
He didn’t like it, but he didn’t have a ready answer to it. Now that I’d made my point, I didn’t want him any madder than necessary. “How about a drink to the success of the expedition?” I proposed.
For a second I thought he was going to refuse. Then he must have decided that it would look too ungracious. “A small one,” he said.
I went to the bureau and removed a three-quarters-filled bottle of bourbon from a drawer. Bent over the drawer, I could feel the impression of my holstered revolver against my rib cage. I’d put the holster on before I spread the $50,000 on the card table. I took two glasses from the plastic tray on the bureau top, splashed booze liberally into them, then carried them into the bathroom to add tap water.
Above the sound of the running water I heard a knock at the corridor door. Slater’s come back to try to talk me out of a little more cash, I thought. Then I realized that Slater would have double-checked to make sure that Erikson had left. I turned off the water and listened.
In the same second I heard the sound of the door opening I had a mental image of fifty-dollar bills spread out on the card table. I put down the glasses and moved quickly to the partly closed bathroom door behind which I was concealed. I peered out through the crack near the hinged side. A pillow was lying carelessly atop the card table, concealing the money. Score one for Erikson, I thought. “Yes?” he was saying at the outer door. I couldn’t see who was standing in the corridor.
“I’m lookin’ for Earl Drake,” a western voice drawled. “I’m Deppity Sheriff Ed Calkins of White Pine County.”
I reached across my chest and drew the Smith & Wesson.
“I’m Drake,” Erikson said. He opened the door wider. “Come in.”
Before I could react either to Erikson’s claiming to be me or the invitation to come inside, a lanky individual in a tightfitting business suit and carrying a dun-colored Stetson in his left hand moved into the room. “What can I do for you, Sheriff Calkins?” Erikson continued.
“Answer a few questions,” the deputy said. He had weather-beaten features and a capable look.
“Questions?” Erikson’s tone changed. “Is this an official visit? Should you be informing me of my legal
