Robert L. Fish
Always Kill a Stranger
This book is affectionately dedicated
to my sister-in-law
MRS. EVA COHEN
and also, in fond memory, of my late
brother-in-law
A. MARK COHEN
One
The sea, which had been so deceptively peaceful and calm when the freighter Santa Eugenia had discharged a portion of its cargo in Salvador de Bahia and headed south along the Brazilian coast, was now beginning to perceptibly roughen. Whitecaps flecked the growing waves beneath a dismal morning sky rapidly filling with threatening black clouds; a sudden chill touched the rising wind. The increased movement brought protesting creaks from the rusty plates of the ship, which nosed deeper into the murky green depths, as if searching for the cause of this abrupt unfriendliness. In the small galley below, dishes slid haphazardly and pots clattered; dim bulbs in the forecastle angled perilously on their twisted flex, swaying erratically, throwing monstrously distorted shadows across the stacked bunks.
On the small open bridge that jutted from the wheelhouse, Captain Enrique Juvenal, master of the Santa Eugenia, studied the latest radio reports of the storm into which the ship was heading, and shook his head. Captain Juvenal was worried. A cautious man by nature, he knew his beloved Santa Eugenia was neither the newest nor the sturdiest of freighters, and he also knew his cargo was in severe imbalance as a result of their off-loading in Salvador de Bahia. And even more he knew that the sudden tropical storms that could sweep this area, while rare, were certainly no less treacherous for that.
He leaned over the flaking rail of the bridge and stared down at his young first mate, balancing himself expertly on the pitching deck below, busily directing the shifting of the meager deck-cargo in an effort to put some semblance of security into their tenuous position. Captain Juvenal scratched his heavily bearded face and sucked fiercely on his thin black cigar; smoke billowed about him, to be instantly snatched away by the increasing gale. A respectful touch on his shoulder drew his attention; it was the radioman handing him another slip. He nodded dismissal even as he scanned the paper, frowned blackly at the message it contained, and then bent over the rail, his white teeth gleaming about the cigar.
“Miguel!”
The first mate looked up, gave one final suggestion over his shoulder to his men to prevent them from disappearing for coffee while he was gone, and trotted up the narrow companionway. He paused a moment at the top to study the darkening horizon, and then touched his cap.
“Sir?”
“How’s the work going?”
The mate raised his shoulders. “Slow.” His tone seemed to indicate that in his opinion it was also largely useless. He met the captain’s eye squarely. “It isn’t the deck-cargo that’s the problem, sir; it’s those large generators in the hold. The ones for Buenos Aires. And we can’t move those at sea with our equipment.”
“I know.” The captain puffed on his cigar, thinking. His eyes dropped to the slip of paper in his hand and then came up again. “How much of the cargo goes off in Rio? And how much in Santos?”
The mate stared at him a moment, and then smiled in sudden understanding. He dragged a thick batch of papers from his hip pocket, wet a finger, and began leafing through them. The news was good; when he looked up it was with satisfaction. “Not a great deal for either place, sir. Nothing that couldn’t be shipped back from Montevideo, or even dropped off on our return, as far as that goes.”
“And how about the passengers?”
“That’s no problem. Three getting off in Montevideo, and the other one in Buenos Aires.”
“I see.” Captain Juvenal squinted thoughtfully at the end of his cigar, carefully considering the various alternatives. His eyes came up to the horizon; he frowned at it a moment and then made up his mind. The slip of paper was jammed firmly into one pocket of his sea jacket, as indicating his arrival at a decision. He nodded. “All right. We’ll miss both Rio and Santos. And also the worst part of the storm. I’ll make up a cable advising the company and also the Rio agents. You post a notice below.”
“Right, sir,” said the mate in a satisfied tone.
“And then get back to shifting that deck-cargo,” the captain added dryly. “We don’t intend to go to Africa to miss this storm. We’ll still feel enough of it.”
“Yes, sir!” said the mate with a nice combination of alacrity and agreement, and trotted happily back down the companionway.
To the four passengers the Santa Eugenia carried, the change in plans made little difference; when one took a freighter one calculated the maximum travel time in any event, and none of them had plans which would be seriously inconvenienced by the changed schedule. Nor, in general, did the posted notice make any great difference to the crew. Salvador de Bahia was only two days behind them, and their pockets were empty and their vices temporarily assuaged. And, in any event, missing a storm in a ship whose cargo was out of balance was certainly no cause for any rational sailor to complain.
To one member of the crew, however, the announcement came with a shock that was sickening. As steward for the four passengers and the ship’s few officers, Nacio Madeira Mendes was alone in the small dining salon when the first mate came in whistling cheerfully, thumbtacked the notice to the bit of plywood that served as bulletin board, studied his handiwork a moment and found it exceeding good, and then went back out on deck. Nacio came forward with natural curiosity to read the fatal words, interrupting his clearing of the breakfast dishes to do so. It took a few seconds for the full extent of the calamity to strike him, but when it did, the blood drained from his thin face, leaving him white and rigid with shock.
Nacio Madeira Mendes had joined the Santa Eugenia in Lisbon for the sole purpose of reaching his native Rio de Janeiro with the minimum of trouble. His forged passport would almost certainly have caused investigation had he traveled as a passenger by either ocean liner or airplane, since at best it was a poor job. However, it was all that Nacio had been prepared to pay for, and certainly in his opinion ample for the purposes of a dining room steward, since cabin help were always in demand and under such conditions shipping agents paid small attention to papers. And at Rio, Nacio had anticipated no difficulty at all. The crew would be given their normal shore leave, and by simply not returning to the ship he would have been free in his native land with small chance of ever being located. The false passport would have been destroyed, or possibly even sold for a profit — for the name on it was nothing likes Mendes, and the picture might easily have been of almost anyone between the ages of twelve and sixty. His jaw clenched painfully. It had all been so simple up until that moment!
Nacio Madeira Mendes was a medium-sized man, with a sharp but small beak of a nose, and a widow’s peak that divided his broad forehead the slightest bit off-center. The effect was to give his lean face a rather attractive appearance, heightened somewhat by the smoothness of skin that belied his forty-two years of age. Only the coldness of his eyes, to those few who ever bothered to note them, indicated that not only was the small tense man not as young as he appeared, but that his years had not been spent in careless abandon.
As he stood swaying to the restless, creaking movement of the ship, bitter anger diffused him, flushing his face; anger at the captain for making his decision, at the storm for influencing the captain, but mostly at himself for being such an idiot. He should have jumped ship in Bahia, safely on Brazilian soil, and managed to reach Rio de Janeiro by pau de arara, or even by omnibus, neither of which was normally scrutinized by the police. But he had been so stupidly sure of arriving with the Santa Eugenia that he had wasted his time there in a ridiculous bar with a couple of even more ridiculous girls and had then staggered back like a docile imbecile to what was now going to be a prison-ship carrying him past his destination. Good God!